Digital Commons Network^™

Creating Dynamic Spaces: Exploring Student-Empowered Self-Expression Through Art, Meghan E. Charest

Honors Theses

Research suggests that students living in rural areas may be more likely to face adversity and stress due to intersecting challenges present in their communities including poverty, substance abuse, addiction, poor health, reduced economic opportunity, and geographic isolation. I conducted an engaged scholarship project in partnership with students and staff at JES to explore ways that open-ended art activities that provide students with self-directed creative spaces can cultivate a student-centered environment built around strong relationships. This type of environment can mitigate the negative impacts of adverse childhood experiences potentially affecting rural Maine students and improve a culture of emotional wellness …

Where Virtue Goes: Stories, Radhika Vu Thanh Vy

Honors Theses

This story is a parallel narrative featuring the life in a fictional remote village in Vietnam some time during the 1800s, as well as the present-day life of a Vietnamese immigrant family in the US. The first narrative explores the efforts of a feminist duo, a matchmaker and a midwife, to help a young pregnant woman get out of an unhappy marriage. In doing so, the duo attempt to unravel traditional gender roles and oppressive social customs, and reweave the village social fabric. The other narrative explores a present-day marriage, one that is as much a disintegrating relationship as one …

Effects Of Energy Resolution And Bin Size On The Measurements Of Nuclear Neutron Distributions Using Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering, Hongyong Zhang

Honors Theses

Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering is a process that involves the neutral-current scattering of a neutrino with an entire nucleus, which probes more bulk properties of the nucleus. Using the Taylor expansion of the form factors and calculation of effective moments that sums over isotopes, we successfully simulate the events for coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering for detectors using Ar and Ge and demonstrate that coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering can determine both the second moment and the fourth moment. Running the Monte Carlo simulation using a detector filled with 10 tonnes of natural germanium, a neutrino flux of 3*10^7 neutrinos per second …

Ending The Spanish Exception: Explaining The Rise Of Vox, Ethan J. Vanderwilden

Honors Theses

The “Spanish Exception” refers to Spain’s lack, until recently, of a populist right-wing party. Vox became the first party to the right of the conservative PP to win seats in a regional election in 2018 and in general elections in April and November of 2019. Vox is currently the third largest political party in the Spanish parliament, bringing an end to Spanish exceptionalism. This thesis addresses the rise of Vox through a conceptual framework of political opportunity structure. The framework allows for multiple explanations to account for Vox’s sudden breakthrough. I argue that opportunities present in 2018 and 2019 at …

Measuring Differential Forest Growth In The Sheepscot River Headwaters With Bitemporal Lidar, Soren Denlinger

Honors Theses

In recent years, lidar has proven itself as a forestry tool capable of accurate, large- scale inventories. Lidar has even shown utility in multitemporal analysis and growth assessment, given high-resolution or small-scale point clouds. However, lidar’s efficacy as a multitemporal tool with relatively low-resolution, large-scale datasets is comparatively unknown. In this study, I compared forest in Midcoast Maine bitemporally, with publicly available datasets from the years 2007 and 2012. Specifically, I compared differences in growth characteristics of riparian, wetland, and upland forests. Although the 2007 dataset (created for geomorphological research) and the 2012 dataset (statewide, general-purpose) possess varying point densities …

Quantum Defect Measurements For High Angular Momentum Rydberg States Of Potassium, Abraham Hill

Honors Theses

We report measurements of the quantum defect for the f-, g-, and h-states of potassium with principal quantum number n between 26 and 29. Ground state potassium atoms in a magneto-optical trap are excited from the 4s state to the 5p state, then from the 5p state to the nd_j state using lasers at 405nm and 980nm, respectively. We then measure the millimeter wave frequencies of the nd_j to nl transitions. We extract the quantum defects from these frequency measurements in conjunction with the known d-state quantum defects. Experimental challenges with …

Massachusetts Chapter 70 Education Equity Funding In Policy And Practice, Julia E. Kostro

Honors Theses

School funding policies aim to equalize school quality between districts of varying income levels, however, vast inequalities persist in our education system. This thesis examines how and why education funding policy, despite its high potential to create meaningful reform, continues to be a weak lever to promote equitable change in the education system in Massachusetts. After considering the rationales from previous scholars used to explain this phenomenon, interviews were conducted with three key stakeholder groups (policymakers, state advocates, and local leaders such as principals and superintendents), in order to produce a cross-sectional analysis of why education funding policy tends to …

Québécois, Malgré Nous : Naissance Et Évolution D’Une Identité Québécoise Dans Trois Romans De Réjean Ducharme, Serrat David

Honors Theses

This honors thesis focuses on moments in Réjean Ducharme’s L’Avalée des avalés, L’Hiver de force et Va savoir that are indicative of historical and social questions in Quebec. These novels span a 30 year period of critical developments for Quebec. This analysis, consequently, examines the relationship between Ducharme’s universe and the world in which he lived. It argues that Ducharme’s texts indirectly respond to social questions and discourses, and moreover, that they elaborate a new vision for Quebec and its people.

Le présent mémoire porte sur des instances révélatrices de questions historiques et sociales au Québec dans L’Avalée des …

Projecting Regions Of North Atlantic Right Whale, Eubalaena Glacialis, Habitat Suitability In The Gulf Of Maine In 2050, Camille Ross

Honors Theses

North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) are endangered. Understanding the role environmental conditions play in habitat suitability is key to determining the regions in need of protection for conservation of the species, particularly as climate change shifts suitable habitat. This thesis uses three species distribution modeling algorithms, together with historical data on whale abundance(1993 to 2009) and environmental covariates to build monthly ensemble models of past E. glacialis habitat suitability in the Gulf of Maine. Then, the models are projected onto the year 2050 for a range of climate scenarios. Specifically, the distribution of the species was modeled …

Development And Validation Of Gene Delivery Methods For ​Crassostrea Virginica, Adrienne N. Tracy

Honors Theses

The Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) is an important part of the East Coastal USA economy because aquaculture creates jobs. Sadly, the oysters are under constant threat due to increasing pollution, red tides, and diseases. Bivalves, and oysters in particular, are also becoming potential model organisms in medical research. With the sequencing of the oyster genome, scientists are focusing on deciphering the function of the predicted genes. However, the limited number of molecular and cellular tools available makes functional annotation of the genome challenging. A consistent, replicable gene delivery system needs to be developed to assess gene function and understand the …

Give Me A Choice: Perceptions Of Freedom And The Anti-Vax Movement In Maine, Louisa Goldman

Honors Theses

While vaccination has proven to be an incredibly effective method of disease prevention, the growing ‘anti-vax’ movement threatens the population-level benefits conferred by widespread immunization. Recent findings indicate that anti-vax beliefs are not, as had been previously assumed, necessarily the result of scientific illiteracy but rather, are likely produced by intertwining social and situational contexts. With these considerations in mind, the goal of this study was to identify potential motivations underlying anti-vax behavior by performing a deep examination of anti-vax rhetoric, coupled with demographic and situational analyses. I focused specifically on the anti-vax community in Maine, with a special interest …

How Race, Socioeconomic Status, And Gender Shape Feelings Of Competition Within The Pre-Med Department At A Small Liberal Arts College, Amanda B. Deming

Honors Theses

This study aims to understand how students of color navigate feelings of competition in the pre-medical (“pre-med”) track at a small liberal arts college. I argue that there are differences in navigational strategies by race, socioeconomic status (SES), and gender. Respondents in my sample (9 women and 6 men) were interviewed for 30 to 60 minutes about their relationships with fellow pre-med students, mentors, alumni, advisors, and professors. The primary findings of this project were that students who are more competitive dominate the culture among pre-med students; less competitive individuals persist through the pre-med track by forming study groups with …

Executive Function Deficit As A Precursor To Memory Impairments In Hapoe4 Transgenic Rats, Kaitlin Mcmanus

Honors Theses

The hApoE4 allele is one of the strongest genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). It underlies amyloid-bdeposits and neurofibrillary tangles, the two hallmarks associated with AD pathology, and is subsequently associated with AD symptomology. Despite its importance, no rat animal studies to date use hApoE4 knock-ins. In addition to this deficit in the field of AD literature, the vast majority of AD studies focus on memory, even though executive function deficits may precede memory impairments in AD, and may be a predictor of AD development. Thus, the present study addressed these gaps in AD research by investigating the behavioral …

Transformation As Desistance Inside: Temporality And Identity Reconstruction Among Men With Life Sentences, Richard Stover

Honors Theses

This thesis is an investigation of destistance strategies among men sentenced to life in prison in a medium security prison in Pennsylvania. Desistance here is defined as the process leading to the cessation of formally deviant behavior. Drawing from life narrative interviews conducted among 22 men, I argue that desistance is intrinsically tied to how inmates conceptualize themselves within the institutional context of the prison and can be expanded to include people who are still incarcerated. I build off of Peggy Giordano and colleagues symbolic interactionist perspective on desistance and expand it to chart how men with life sentences order …

Universities And Carbon Neutrality: Motivation To Act And How To Create A Domino Effect, Jason Schwartz

Honors Theses

This research seeks to understand why universities, or other small actors, have pledged carbon neutrality, if these reasons are valid, and if there is room to expand upon existing efforts. In answering these questions, I will investigate whether aggressive climate change mitigation passes a cost-benefit analysis, the nature of individual obligations, and how positive duties can spur social action. Finally, I recommend ways universities can create larger change, through trending social norms.

The Crowbar Sabotaged The Machine: Effects Of Verb Intentionality And Syntactic Structure On Fixation Times During Reading, Michael Pittman

Honors Theses

Research conducted by linguists has indicated that inanimate entities are incompatible with verbs that connote intentionality because inanimate entities lack the facilities to complete intentional actions. However, there are currently no studies that have analyzed this inappropriate relationship in real-time. To address this gap, the current eye-tracking experiment investigated the infelicitous nature of this relationship, as well as how it may be modulated by different syntactic structures. The experiment implemented a 2 x 2 within-subjects design, in which the independent variables were verb type (neutral versus intentional) and syntactic structure (main clause versus relative clause), and the dependent variables were …

The Power Of Language: An Analysis Of Language Use And Attitudes In Moroccan Universities, Mikaela K. Thomas

Honors Theses

This study examines the connections between language use and attitudes in Moroccan universities. Morocco is a North African country that is historically multilingual, with communities speaking Moroccan Arabic (Darija), indigenous Amazigh, French, and English, in addition to the Standard Arabic used in government and by the Muslim community. The French Protectorate from 1912 to 1956 ushered in colonial language policies and imposed the French education system that enforced linguistic hierarchies. While the subsequent Arabization period attempted to reestablish the importance of Standard Arabic in Morocco, the policies failed to promote true multilingualism by ignoring the Amazigh and Darija languages. Today, …

Ethics, Privacy And Data Collection: A Complex Intersection, Matthew S. Brown

Honors Theses

The technology around us enables incredible abilities such as high-resolution video calls and the ability to stay connected with everyone we care about through social media. This technology also comes with a hidden cost in the form of data collection.

This work explores what privacy means and how users understand what data social media companies collect and monetize. This thesis also proposes a more ethical business model that addresses privacy concerns from an individual perspective.

Why Do I Have To Know This? Engineering In A Globalized Society, Caleb Cunningham

Honors Theses

Through a pilot comparative study, this thesis examines the problem-solving of chemical engineering students and chemical engineering faculty. Specifically, the thesis examines the extent to which individuals include global factors (cultural, social, environmental, and economic) into their engineering solutions as specified by ABET. Several hypotheses were investigated in this pilot study: (i) having a study abroad experience would increase the likelihood that participants included the global factors of interest, (ii) the type (PUI, Research Intensive, Unique) of institution students attended would impact how individuals approached the problem, (iii) students with similar career aspirations would approach the problems similarly, (iv) having …

On The Question Of Thinking: A Study Of Heidegger's Later Philosophy, Shishir Budha

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the writings of the 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger to understand what “thinking” is and how thinking needs to be undertaken. I examine Heidegger’s commitments to phenomenology in his early writings, his revaluation of the meaning of truth in traditional Western metaphysics, his criticism of calculative thinking and scientific rationality, his diagnosis of the human alienation and homelessness, and his evocation of the redemptive power of art and poetry through which we can find our place in the world. By questioning through all these themes, I attempt to trace Heidegger’s path towards a deeper and more original …

Crystalline Architecture And Stratigraphy Of Coral Skeletal Density Banding: A Geobiological Record Of Changing Coral Reef Ecology, Kyle Fouke

Honors Theses

Coral skeletal density banding (CSDB), composed of alternating high density band (HDB) and low density band (LDB) layers that comprise the CaCO₃ (aragonite) skeleton of scleractinian corals, are used as chronometers for global paleoclimatic reconstructions of sea surface temperature (SST). Scleractinian coral skeletons have been intensively studied for centuries with detail analysis of the macro- and microscale skeletal structure to establish taxonomic and evolutionary relationships of coral species, mechanisms of biomineralization, and seafloor physical, chemical and biological alteration (diagenesis) of the skeleton. This study is the first to determine the crystalline architecture of HDBs and CSDB stratigraphic …

Can We All Just Get Along?: Affective Polarization And Its Impact On College Campuses, Sam Rosenblatt

Honors Theses

American politics have become increasingly polarized, but not just in how sharply we disagree on issues. There has also been a rise in affective polarization, or how positively we view members of our own party and how negatively we view those of the opposite party. This behavior manifests on college campuses, where some students struggle to discuss politics with those who disagree with them while others refuse to engage in such conversations at all. While affective polarization is not a new phenomenon, it appears especially pronounced on college campuses following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. My thesis seeks to understand …

Analyzing The Georgian Opinion Of The Soviet Annexation Of Georgia, Indigo Clingerman

Honors Theses

In this thesis, I have examined the Sovietization of Georgia in the 1920s and analyzed how Georgians perceived Sovietization. Specifically, this thesis explores different opinions on Sovietization through the lens of Georgian nationalists, Georgian cultural literary icons, and the average Georgian. Further, this thesis addresses the interplay of time and Georgian nationalism in understanding Sovietization. The thesis examines how different groups of Georgians related their understanding of Georgian identity to the Soviet understanding of Georgian culture and demonstrates how the disconnect between Soviet and Georgian identity manifests as disapproval of Sovietization and the Soviet Union as a whole as time …

Music And Communal Division During The French Wars Of Religion, Cameron G. Wade

Honors Theses

This Senior Honors Thesis explores the social and cultural impact of confessional musical composition and performance on the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598). Because Huguenots and Catholics identified with and were widely identifiable by their respective musical styles, cultural divisions between each confession were emphasized by differences in music. This capacity of sacred and confessionally-influenced secular music to highlight and reinforce societal divides is evidenced by the interconfessional violence that accompanied the public performance of sacred music in cities as well as the pressures imposed on composers to create music which clearly aligned with their respective confessions. As the wars …

The Theology Of John Donne's Body Politic, Carolyn P. Marino

Honors Theses

This thesis investigates John Donne’s body/soul dialectic, and discusses how this relationship extends towards both the individuated and communal body. The first chapter grounds Donne’s “Songs and Sonnets” in theology through his facilitation of the Platonic Ladder and the Great Chain of Being. It also gestures towards a shift in Donne’s poetry from subjectivity to intersubjectivity. Finally, it discusses Donne’s commissioned elegies, interrogating Renaissance ideas about the gendered soul, and expounding upon the impact of one person’s death on the communal body. The second chapter historically contextualizes ideas of martyrdom, suicide, and Donne’s term “self-homicide.” It discusses the content of …

A License To Kill: The Institutional Failure Of The Legal System To Hold Police Accountable, Eliana R. Fleischer

Honors Theses

In recent years, police shootings of unarmed African American men have become nationally visible. With few exceptions, the police officers involved in those shootings have escaped any criminal penalties. This paper addresses why so few police officers are convicted after shooting unarmed African Americans. Using an interdisciplinary approach, it addresses three aspects of the criminal justice system: prosecutorial power, Supreme Court case law, and jury bias. This paper argues that the legal system is structured to protect police officers from liability, making it unable to deliver justice after on-duty police shootings of unarmed African American men.

Gratitude, Resilience And Post-Traumatic Growth Among Kidney Transplant Recipients, Lillie Credle

Honors Theses

Chronic health conditions, such as end-stage renal disease (ESRD), can produce detrimental physical, psychological, and emotional effects (Schulz & Kroencke, 2015). While transplantation helps to alleviate the physical symptoms, other psychosocial problems can remain. The present study sought to investigate whether organ transplant recipients utilize certain strength-based attributes—gratitude, resilience, and post-traumatic growth—when coping with life post-transplant. This mixed-methods study recruited eight (N=8) kidney transplant recipients, who took part in semi-structured interviews followed by a survey. Though quantitative data was limited due to COVID-19 interruptions, the qualitative data revealed evidence of gratitude, resilience, and post-traumatic growth being used by the participants …

Learning To Check Yourself: Improving Civic Engagement Through Duties, Better Voting Practices, And Combatting Group Loyalty, Katherine Brumund

Honors Theses

This project examines civic engagement. It is divided into three chapters: apathy, voting, and group loyalties. I derive two duties, a duty to care and a duty to reason well, that serve as a framework for community engagement aimed at facilitating moral progress. In the second section the main topic is voting. I argue for strategies to vote well. The third section of this project then focuses on group loyalties. This project uses two duties to frame how to engage with others, proposes a better way to participate civically, and ways to avoid pitfalls associated with group membership.

How To Be A Good Believer: A Multifaceted Defense Of Christian Belief, Cameron Bonsell

Honors Theses

In this paper I will argue that holding Christian beliefs is consistent with intellectual virtues. I must first clarify that holding Christian beliefs does not consist only in the affirmation of certain propositions like “God exists”. This is not to say that affirming certain doctrine is not essential to Christian belief, but this is only part of what it encompasses. When I refer to Christianity and Christian beliefs in this paper, I mean affirming basic religious propositions like “Jesus was the son of God”, but I also take certain practices to be part of Christian belief. For example, spiritual disciplines …

The Effect Of President Trump’S Company-Specific Tweets On Company’S Stocks, Justin Kleczka

Honors Theses

Implementing event-study analysis, I find that President Trump’s tweets about publicly traded companies cause daily abnormal returns of 0.25% in a company’s stock in the same direction as the sentiment of the tweet: positive tweets increase abnormal returns by 0.25% on the day’s end, while negative tweets will cause -0.25% abnormal returns.

Additionally, I find that President Trump’s company-specific tweets increase the daily abnormal trading volume and volatility of a company’s stock by 19%, regardless of tweet sentiment. For abnormal returns and abnormal trading volume, the effects of President Trump’s tweets do not last multiple days after a tweet. However, …