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Adaptive Design Strategies For A Dual-Shaft Pvc Shredder, Gavin Balderas Jun 2026

Adaptive Design Strategies For A Dual-Shaft Pvc Shredder, Gavin Balderas

University Honors Theses

This capstone project involved the design and development of a mid-size plastic shredder, created to process strong, ductile PVC sheets up to ½" thick. This application falls between the capabilities of consumer grade plastic shredders and heavy-duty industrial machines. Over 400 million tons of plastic produced annually and less than 10% of it is recycled; there is an ever-growing need for plastic recycling accessibility and infrastructure. This project aimed to create a compact dual-shaft shredder that can shred thick PVC sheets while being powered by a 120V outlet. Research into blade geometry and orientations aided an iterative design process driven …

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Chondrites From Northwestern Nevada: The Jungo Dense Collection Area, Nico Morrelli Jun 2026

Chondrites From Northwestern Nevada: The Jungo Dense Collection Area, Nico Morrelli

University Honors Theses

Dense collection areas are regions where meteorites are more frequently found, and can help researchers study the meteorite flux to Earth. The Jungo dry lake bed is a dense collection area (DCA) in Humboldt County, Nevada and is currently the recovery location of eleven officially classified meteorites. Five of these samples were classified as part of this work. All five are ordinary chondrites, two of which are likely paired with previously classified Jungo samples. Jungo 021 is likely paired with Jungo 005, and Jungo 017 is likely part of the previously established pairing group of Jungo 002, 003, and 004. …

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Effects Of Fine Sediment On The Productivity Of Stream Ecosystems In The Pacific Northwest, Veena I. Davis Jun 2026

Effects Of Fine Sediment On The Productivity Of Stream Ecosystems In The Pacific Northwest, Veena I. Davis

University Honors Theses

Salmon are important to the culture, ecosystem and economy of the Pacific Northwest. However, populations have declined significantly since European colonization. Salmon require specific conditions for each life stage and are highly sensitive to environmental stressors. Excess fine sediment is a leading form of pollution as it degrades salmon spawning habitat and the benthos upon which their main food source, stream insects, live. To evaluate the effect of sediment pollution on food availability for salmon smolt, we conducted an experiment  estimating the amount of stream insect biomass and calories lost due to sediment pollution. We counted insects on substrate samples …

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Mycelial Modeling: Teaching Biology Students Statistical Modeling With Mushrooms, Colette Wolf Jun 2026

Mycelial Modeling: Teaching Biology Students Statistical Modeling With Mushrooms, Colette Wolf

University Honors Theses

This paper summarizes and describes the development of a set of learning materials that were created to educate students and professionals from other fields in statistical modeling techniques. These materials are primarily aimed at biology students, but are still intended to be useful for anyone who is interested in incorporating decision trees and random forest models into their personal research in the future. By directing the reader towards the JMP software, these materials navigate around the statistical knowledge base and coding implementation practices that otherwise would serve as a barrier to learning statistical modeling techniques, and instead focus on the …

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Recurrence And Reflection: Psychological Insights From Repetitive Dreams, Annika Cale Jun 2026

Recurrence And Reflection: Psychological Insights From Repetitive Dreams, Annika Cale

University Honors Theses

The most widely reported but least appreciated aspects of human experience are recurring dreams, or those dreams that happen repeatedly with similar themes, imagery, or emotional tone in each episode of the dream. This literature review was based on five relevant psychological sources to explore what common dreams tell about what is going on in the inner psyche of the person having the dream. The synthesis of the empirical literature on recurring dream frequency has been associated with weakened psychological well-being. Longitudinal studies were conducted to show the relationship between recurring dreaming and associated decrease in well-being. These theories are …

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Effects Of Changing Fire Regimes On Black Huckleberry Habitat Suitability, Emily Labarge Jun 2026

Effects Of Changing Fire Regimes On Black Huckleberry Habitat Suitability, Emily Labarge

University Honors Theses

Black huckleberries are a significant cultural, ecological, and economic species in the Pacific Northwest. Historically, black huckleberries were tended with cultural fire by Indigenous peoples, and now also hold importance as a resource in the non-timber forest product economy. Research has begun on the impacts of climate change on suitable black huckleberry habitat and on changing fire regimes, but not in relation to each other. To address this gap, I examined the area of overlap between suitable black huckleberry habitat and fire burn probability into mid-century climate projections. I determined the current ownership entities with management jurisdiction in areas with …

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Assessing Spatial Distribution Of Plausible Earthquake-Triggered Landslides Relative To Ca. 1000 Ybp Earthquake On The Gales Creek Fault, Jacqueline Rheingans Jun 2026

Assessing Spatial Distribution Of Plausible Earthquake-Triggered Landslides Relative To Ca. 1000 Ybp Earthquake On The Gales Creek Fault, Jacqueline Rheingans

University Honors Theses

Modern coseismic landslides cluster near the surface trace of the fault that ruptured, suggesting that clustering of paleolandslides may record information about paleoearthquakes. This study documents the pattern of prehistoric landslides near the Gales Creek Fault (GCF), northwest Oregon, to assess whether it reflects an independently known paleoearthquake. The GCF is located northwest of Portland through the Cascadia fore-arc basin where landslides are often triggered by intense rainfall during the wet season or potentially by seismic shaking on the megathrust or on crustal faults. In order to understand how a seismic event on the GCF will impact landslide distribution I …

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An Exploration Of The Experiences Of Black Women College Leaders: Reflections On Support, Amplifiers, Barriers, And Success As Leaders In Higher Education, Katherine L. Acevedo Jun 2026

An Exploration Of The Experiences Of Black Women College Leaders: Reflections On Support, Amplifiers, Barriers, And Success As Leaders In Higher Education, Katherine L. Acevedo

Student Theses

Black women have had to deal with the “double jeopardy” of race and gender in higher education for centuries (Khosroshahi, 2021). This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of Black women serving in senior-level leadership roles within institutions of higher education (IHEs) in New York State. Utilizing aspects of phenomenological methodology informed by Black Feminist Thought (BFT) (Collins, 1989, 2000, 2022), this study amplifies the voices of Black women senior-level leaders, centering their narratives to understand how race and gender shape their professional journeys, challenges, and strategies for success. Ten participants, all self-identified Black women with at least 3 years …

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The Neuroprotective Effect Of Cdc42 Inhibition In The G93a Mutant Hsod1 Mouse Model Of Als, Andrea Koly Jun 2026

The Neuroprotective Effect Of Cdc42 Inhibition In The G93a Mutant Hsod1 Mouse Model Of Als, Andrea Koly

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease characterized by the selective loss of upper and lower motor neurons, leading to muscle weakness, neuromuscular junction (NMJ) degeneration, paralysis, and eventual death due to respiratory failure. Despite extensive research, effective disease-modifying therapies remain limited, underscoring the need to identify novel molecular targets involved in ALS pathogenesis. Dysregulation of Rho family GTPases has been implicated in neurodegeneration, with Rac and Rho exerting opposing effects on neuronal survival; however, the role of the closely related GTPase Cdc42 remains poorly understood in ALS. In this study, the therapeutic potential of inhibiting …

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Semantic Directing: A Human-Ai Workflow For Interative Virtual Cinematography, Lejie Liu Jun 2026

Semantic Directing: A Human-Ai Workflow For Interative Virtual Cinematography, Lejie Liu

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This thesis presents AI Director, a Unity-based prototype for semantic directing in virtual cinematography. The system enables creators to describe cinematic intent in natural language, receive editable shot-strategy plans generated by a large language model, and refine specific shots through text and visual references. By separating semantic planning from deterministic camera execution, the workflow keeps user authorship centered on shot intent while making the resulting camera plans inspectable, editable, and executable in real time. This work explores semantic directing as a human-AI workflow for iterative cinematic authoring in dynamic 3D scenes.

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Policy Solutions In The Ev Battery Supply Chain Addressing Unethical Social And Environmental Practices, Mateo Mazariego-Halpern Jun 2026

Policy Solutions In The Ev Battery Supply Chain Addressing Unethical Social And Environmental Practices, Mateo Mazariego-Halpern

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

California should adopt a phased supply chain accountability framework for electric vehicles sold in the state, combining the immediate implementation of a voluntary Fair Trade Decal program with the mandatory adoption of COFFEE (Corporate Operations Free From Environmental Evil) Standards based on CAFÉ standards, by 2035. This thesis identifies a critical gap in U.S. EV policy: current federal legislation regulates where batteries are sourced but not how cleanly or ethically they are produced. The consequences of this regulatory gap are severe, with emissions simply shifting further down the supply chain rather than being eliminated, child labor and indigenous displacement going …

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Mothers’ Childhood Maltreatment And Developmentally Appropriate Attributions Of 12-Month-Old Infants, Katelyn M. Lamberton Jun 2026

Mothers’ Childhood Maltreatment And Developmentally Appropriate Attributions Of 12-Month-Old Infants, Katelyn M. Lamberton

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

This study examined associations between developmentally appropriate attributions (DAAs), an understudied construct, with maternal history of childhood maltreatment and maternal reflective functioning (RF) with their 12-month-old infants. The study examined if 1) DAAs at 12 months were concurrently associated with parental RF at 12 months for construct validity, and 2) higher levels of maternal childhood maltreatment were associated with lower DAAs for predictive validity. Participants were 156 mothers (40.0% White, 25.5% Latinx, 14.9% Black, 5.5% Asian, 2.1% Native-American, 12.0% biracial/multiracial) and their 12- to 15-month infants. Childhood maltreatment and RF were assessed by parental self-report at three-months and 12-months postpartum …

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The Contentious Politics Of Abortion: Understanding The Black Protests And Women’S Strikes In Poland, Taubie Sanders Jun 2026

The Contentious Politics Of Abortion: Understanding The Black Protests And Women’S Strikes In Poland, Taubie Sanders

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

In 1993, the Polish Parliament, the Sejm, passed a law called ‘The Abortion Compromise’ permitting abortion only in cases when there is a serious threat to the life or health of the woman, pregnancy is the result of a crime, or prenatal tests show the fetus to be severely or incurably damaged. The current abortion laws in Poland are the most restrictive in all of Europe. Poland’s abortion laws have undergone much contestation in recent years. In 2016, the Black Protests erupted across the country in opposition to a proposed total ban on abortion. In 2020, the Women’s Strikes commenced …

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The Role Of Urban Forests In Mitigating Flooding Effects: A Case Study In Savannah, Georgia, Gillian Bush Jun 2026

The Role Of Urban Forests In Mitigating Flooding Effects: A Case Study In Savannah, Georgia, Gillian Bush

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Flooding in coastal communities is shaped by the interaction between natural systems and urban development. Chatham County, a low-elevation region in the Savannah, Georgia metropolitan area along the eastern coast of the United States, is prone to coastal storms and frequently affected by flooding. It serves as a useful case study to better understand the factors behind flooding and the areas that are most at risk. This study uses GIS-based analysis to examine the overlap between flood risk, urban forest cover, and impervious surfaces. The results indicate elevated vulnerability along major transportation corridors and barrier islands, where high-risk flood zones …

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Digital Bodily Autonomy: Consent Issues, Labor Displacement, And Legal Understandings Of Ai Generated Deepfake Pornography, Mariah Barrett Jun 2026

Digital Bodily Autonomy: Consent Issues, Labor Displacement, And Legal Understandings Of Ai Generated Deepfake Pornography, Mariah Barrett

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

In the United States, nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes are becoming an increasingly prevalent problem as AI deepfake creation software improves and becomes widely available. Despite this, patchwork legislation across the country is inconsistent and conflicting regarding this issue. In this paper, I explore the background of pornography and obscenity laws and demonstrate how these frameworks are not properly constructed to apply to the digital sphere. Then, I address major themes within deepfake literature such as consent issues, bodily autonomy, labor displacement, and verifiable identity as a commodity through the case study of OnlyFans. I explore current and proposed legislation within the …

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Collaboration In Conservation: Examining Environmental Policy Perspectives Among Ranchers In Rural America, Adeline Braun Jun 2026

Collaboration In Conservation: Examining Environmental Policy Perspectives Among Ranchers In Rural America, Adeline Braun

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Rural Americans play an essential role in environmental protection policy in the United States due to their political influence and their management of large amounts of land. This study examines what factors affect rural support for and opposition to environmental management policies in order to gain a deeper understanding of when and why rural Americans support and oppose certain environment-related policies. Data collected from interviews with seven current and former ranchers in Wyoming along with information gathered from three relevant environmental organizations is analyzed through the lenses of economics, partisan politics, rural identity, and policy framing. The findings of this …

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Explaining Variation In Medical Aid In Dying Policy Across U.S. States, Abigail Hopper Jun 2026

Explaining Variation In Medical Aid In Dying Policy Across U.S. States, Abigail Hopper

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

This paper asks why Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) policy in the United States does not follow a simple partisan pattern between states. Existing scholarship on morality policy emphasizes ideological conflict and partisan alignment, but this framework cannot fully explain why states with similar political compositions have adopted different MAiD policy outcomes, indicating that some key mechanisms shaping the variation have been overlooked. To address this, this paper combines a national dataset of MAiD policies across all fifty states with a comparative case study of Montana, Colorado, and West Virginia, focusing on differences in institutional venues, framing strategies, and coalition …

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“Three In A Jeep”: Exploring The Conditions For Successful Peacekeeping Through United Nations Special Political Missions, Audrey Duff Jun 2026

“Three In A Jeep”: Exploring The Conditions For Successful Peacekeeping Through United Nations Special Political Missions, Audrey Duff

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

This thesis examines a specific type of United Nations peacekeeping operation, referred to as Special Political Missions (SPMs) and their progress in transitions from war to peace. While traditional peacekeeping has made advances in separating conflict and human rights development, SPMs provide concentrated specialization in areas, including electoral support, government mediation, and disarmament. Through a structured focus comparison of three unique SPM case studies, this research explores what key dimensions are involved in successful Special Political Missions. By comparing the United Nations Mission in Nepal, United Nations Mission in Colombia, and United Nations Observer Mission in Bougainville, this thesis intends …

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La Poésie De Guerre - La Poésie Française Dans Les Deux Guerres Mondiales, Veronica Mayrose Jun 2026

La Poésie De Guerre - La Poésie Française Dans Les Deux Guerres Mondiales, Veronica Mayrose

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Cette thèse explore six poèmes de la Première Guerre mondiale et la Seconde Guerre mondiale, avec une concentration sur comment ces poèmes utilisent des thèmes similaires à exprimer desidées differentes. Cette thèse explore aussi comment le contexte historique influence la naturedes poèmes, particulièrement concernant les tranchées de la PMG et l'Occupation de la Francede la SGM.

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Differential Roles Of Moesin And Vasp In Β-Catenin-Associated Networks During Zebrafish Heart Regeneration, Allen Rutman Jun 2026

Differential Roles Of Moesin And Vasp In Β-Catenin-Associated Networks During Zebrafish Heart Regeneration, Allen Rutman

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

With cardiovascular disease remaining as the leading cause of mortality worldwide, it is largely due to the limited regenerative capacity of the human heart. However, zebrafish (Danio rerio) can fully regenerate cardiac tissue following injury, providing a valuable model for studying the mechanisms of heart repair. To investigate these mechanisms, we used proteomics methods in the past. Proximity labeling is a technique that identifies proteins based on their physical proximity to a protein of interest. It can be applied in organisms and in living cells (Roux et al., 2012; Cho et al., 2020). We used proximity labeling to characterize protein …

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Welsh, British, And Argentine: Identities Of Convenience In The Welsh Colonies Of Patagonia, Benjamin Welch Jun 2026

Welsh, British, And Argentine: Identities Of Convenience In The Welsh Colonies Of Patagonia, Benjamin Welch

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

In this thesis, I examine the Welsh colonies in Patagonia (in Welsh, Y Wladfa) and how the Welsh negotiated their complex identity. Founded in 1865 as a nationalist project intended to preserve Welsh language, culture, and religion, the colony faced extreme hardships and was forced to ask for help. Drawing on British, Welsh and Argentine sources, I argue that Welsh colonists adopted a pragmatic approach to identity, emphasizing their Welshness, Britishness, or Argentinity as needed. While this flexibility was necessary for the colony to survive, it undermined the original goal of a Welsh homeland free of outside influence. Ultimately, the …

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Gendered Justice: The Role Of Women’S Civil Society Organizations In Shaping Chile’S Truth Commissions, Frankie Stroud Jun 2026

Gendered Justice: The Role Of Women’S Civil Society Organizations In Shaping Chile’S Truth Commissions, Frankie Stroud

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Scholarly literature has increasingly recognized that the inclusion of women and gender in formal transitional justice processes is essential for addressing the gendered nature of mass atrocities. This thesis seeks to contribute to the existing literature on how and why some transitional justice processes have come to address women and gender by specifically studying Chile’s Rettig Commission and Valech Commission. Several hypotheses have emerged from the literature for why the Valech Commission addressed gender to a greater extent, including that women’s civil society organizations, diffusion of international norms, and shifting domestic politics each played a role. Grounded in an anti-reductionist …

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Industrial Democracy: Unionization, Power, And Control In Rockefeller’S Southern Colorado, Ava Welty Jun 2026

Industrial Democracy: Unionization, Power, And Control In Rockefeller’S Southern Colorado, Ava Welty

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

By 1914, democracy was clearly connected to America’s political ethos, and Wilson and Frank Walsh only amplified the term. Against this backdrop, labor and CF&I sought to define their movement as aligned with the national project of industrial democracy, despite having divergent understandings of the term. CF&I and Rockefeller built upon decades of social betterment, in addition to new ideas of company unionism to create their definition of industrial democracy, while workers returned to union recognition as a tool of power to construct their definition of industrial democracy. This paper argues that conflicting definitions of industrial democracy after the Ludlow …

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The Disproportionate Impact Of Legal Deserts: A Policy Proposal To Address The Legal Needs Of Rural Nevadans, Madelyn Wold Jun 2026

The Disproportionate Impact Of Legal Deserts: A Policy Proposal To Address The Legal Needs Of Rural Nevadans, Madelyn Wold

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Despite the large number of attorneys in the United States, the disproportionate concentration of attorneys in urban areas leaves rural residents to navigate the complex legal system on their own. This uneven distribution creates ‘legal deserts’, or areas where residents lack access to attorneys. The Southwestern United States has especially dire legal deserts, and Nevada is no exception. While defendants in criminal matters are guaranteed legal representation, parties in civil legal issues are not granted the same right to representation. Civil legal issues largely impact vulnerable populations and can have profound impacts on individuals’ family, economic circumstances, and physical wellbeing. …

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Sediment: A Magical Realist Road Novel, Nicolas Victor Rago Jun 2026

Sediment: A Magical Realist Road Novel, Nicolas Victor Rago

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This magical realist novel follows G and Louie, two strangers, as they road trip west to east across the continental United States. As they travel, they drift through time, exploring historical and personal pasts through surreal atmospheric prose.

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Rapid-Prototyping Nanofabrication: Lcd-Based Projection Lithography And Physical Vapor Deposition, Sabeel Saleem Mohammmed Jun 2026

Rapid-Prototyping Nanofabrication: Lcd-Based Projection Lithography And Physical Vapor Deposition, Sabeel Saleem Mohammmed

University Honors Theses

The semiconductor industry's continued growth, driven in large part by demand for artificial intelligence hardware, has highlighted the need for greater workforce development in regions adjacent to major fabrication centers like Oregon's Silicon Forest. This capstone project lays the groundwork for a small scale and student led semiconductor fabrication lab at Portland State University by demonstrating two of the core steps in chip manufacturing: photolithography and thin film deposition. Rather than relying on conventional fixed reticles, this work explores a unique, low cost approach to patterning that uses an ultraviolet-compatible liquid crystal display (LCD) as a programmable reticle, allowing arbitrary …

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The Dynamics Of Beta Mean Reversion, Dimitry Afanasenko Jun 2026

The Dynamics Of Beta Mean Reversion, Dimitry Afanasenko

Finance: Undergraduate Distinction Theses

This thesis examines whether firm-specific characteristics help explain cross-sectional variation in the speed of beta mean reversion among large-cap U.S. equities. Using WRDS market-model betas based on trailing weekly returns, the study constructs non-overlapping annual June beta observations for a stable sample of 190 firms that remained continuous constituents of the S&P 500 from 2000 through 2024. The analysis proceeds in three stages. First, pooled and fixed-effects panel regressions test whether beta mean reversion exists in the sample overall. Second, a firm-specific persistence parameter, gamma, is estimated from rolling ten-year windows of annual betas in order to measure differences in …

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Bias, Structure, And Inference In Applied Network Analysis, Anna Vasenina Jun 2026

Bias, Structure, And Inference In Applied Network Analysis, Anna Vasenina

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

This dissertation develops mathematical and statistical methods for extracting reliable information from network data across biological applications, with an emphasis on understanding what observed network structure can and cannot resolve. The first study leverages protein–protein interaction network topology in the c-di-GMP signaling system of Pseudomonas fluorescens, showing that node centrality measures accurately classify protein domain types and that physical interaction structure contributes statistically significant predictive power for biofilm formation phenotypes across nearly 200 environments, while gene expression does not. The second study examines sampling bias in lemur-plant trophic interaction networks in Madagascar, demonstrating that differential detection of diurnal versus …

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Fluorescence Cryotomography For Preclinical Validation: Applications In Gene Therapy And Fluorescence-Guided Surgery, Caleb Y. J. Kwon Jun 2026

Fluorescence Cryotomography For Preclinical Validation: Applications In Gene Therapy And Fluorescence-Guided Surgery, Caleb Y. J. Kwon

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Fluorescence imaging has become a powerful tool in biomedical research and clinical practice, offering molecular specificity and high sensitivity for visualizing biological processes in real time, However, the successful translation of novel fluorescent probes or medicines from preclinical development to clinical applications requires rigorous validation of their biodistribution and target specificity. Traditional methods for assessing performance, such as bulk excised organ analysis or two-dimensional histology, provide limited information as they cannot capture the complete, organism-wide distribution of these probes or medicines. This thesis aims to improve this analysis pipeline through the application and optimization of fluorescence cryotomography for quantitative, high-resolution …

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Daniels Distinction Portfolio By Adrian Minde Hunshammer, Adrian Minde Hunshammer Jun 2026

Daniels Distinction Portfolio By Adrian Minde Hunshammer, Adrian Minde Hunshammer

Finance: Undergraduate Distinction Portfolios

A Daniels Distinction Portfolio of experiential education by Adrian Hunshammer.

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