Digital Commons Network^™

The Female Monster: The Pre-Catholic Manifestation As A Response To Modern Anxiety In Selected Stories By Nick Joaquin, Tyra Delos Reyes, Xavier Selman

Kritika Kultura

Scholarship on the writings of Nick Joaquin have mostly concerned themselves with either their postcolonial resonances or the gender politics abound in the text. Tropical Gothic (1972) is widely read as an ambiguous approach toward feminism because of the depiction of the female as monstrous which has been argued to problematize its feminist possibilities, whether this depiction empowers or suppresses women in the texts. Examining the criticism of Marie Arong, Philip Holden, and Epifanio San Juan Jr., this paper asserts how existing notions of gender are able to produce a more nuanced reading of Nick Joaquin’s selected stories, specifically “Summer …

Geopolitical Displacements And Populisms, Regenia Gagnier

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

Star-Studded Stingers: Fluorescent Sensilla On The Scorpion Aculeus (Arachnida: Scorpiones), Graeme Lowe

Euscorpius

The aculeus of the scorpion telson was studied by UV fluorescence microscopy. Numerous brightly fluorescent punctae were observed on the non-fluorescent distal aculeus, including the tip region. The punctae were identified as aculear sensilla coeloconica (ASC), and were connected to fluorescent canals running through the cuticle. ASC were present in both sexes, and in adults and immatures as early as the second juvenile instar, but were absent from the first instar. The distal aculeus was found to be encased in a thick, non-fluorescent dark exocuticle (DX), covering an underlying thin, fluorescent hyaline exocuticle (HX). Fluorescent ASC were recorded from 183 …

This Will Not Be Generative, Sehrish Naudhani

Intersections: Critical Issues in Education

This Will Not Be Generative by Dixa Ramírez-D’Oleo critiques Western feminist narratives, revealing how concepts like generativity and symbiosis often disguise violence against Black and Indigenous communities. Through analysis of works by feminists such as Donna Haraway and references to films like Get Out and Midsommar, Ramírez-D’Oleo argues that Black and Indigenous lives are cyclically exploited to uphold white supremacy. Rather than depicting these communities as mere victims, she emphasizes their resilience and acts of resistance. This review underscores Ramírez-D’Oleo's call to rethink the narratives shaping our understanding of race, ecology, and feminism, making it a critical read for …

Improv Comedy And The Impact On College Student Social Skills, Colin Stewart

MAGIS: Student Development Journal

In the educational climate today, transitioning to college life can be a turbulent time for students. It is essential that student affairs practitioners develop and create innovative services and programs that prepare students to be successful during their time at a university. This exploratory qualitative study investigates the degree to which the participation in college improv comedy impacts social skills and the implications participation may have for students transitioning to university life.

Integrating Basic Counseling Skills Into Student Affairs Practice, Eli Heller

MAGIS: Student Development Journal

In response to the increasing number of college students who report symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other mental health difficulties during their undergraduate studies, this article provides a framework for student affairs practitioners to support and cater to the needs of today’s college student populations through individual counseling responses. This article provides an overview of the commonality of mental health struggles among today’s college students, including those who arrive with psychological needs, and those who develop such needs while pursuing degrees. With a focus on academic advising, this article makes the case for the necessity of equipping today’s student affairs …

The Moderating Effect Of Life History Strategies On The Relationship Between Dark Triad Traits And Delayed Gratification, Jisook Park, Whitney Whitaker, Sydney Hicks

Academic Leadership Journal in Student Research

Dark Triad (DT) traits are often used to account for individuals’ impulsivity and inability to delay gratification, postponing an immediate reward to receive a greater outcome at a later time. Life-history theory (LHT) provides additional theoretical framework to understand our choices related to delayed gratification. LHT posits individuals develop life-history strategies (LHS) shaped by their environmental cues. Individuals using slow LHS are believed to invest more in maturation in life whereas those with fast LHS prefer immediate rewards. Despite insights shared from past studies on DT and delayed gratification, inconsistencies in findings remain. The goal of the current study is …

Guest Editor's Introduction, Joel David

Kritika Kultura

Although vital to the existence of the Philippine movie industry, stardom has rarely garnered scholarly attention apart from the auteurist (film-artist) or biographical modes. Part of the reason is external, in the sense that media-studies approaches to star-text discourses emerged relatively recently, and may still be in the process of further refinement. However, a crucial internal reason is that the primary Philippine example, Nora Aunor, inadvertently affirms the earlier, now-conventional approach by virtue of her singular dominance as both top star and top multimedia performer. This study will track relevant trends in star studies vis-à-vis Philippine scholarly output, and will …

"The Makings Of Dynamite", Alyza Taguilaso

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

Shattering Silence: Tracing Speciesism In Philippine Children’S Literature, Chryssa Celestino

Kritika Kultura

What does it mean to write the animal? In Philippine children’s literature where the population of the nonhuman animal is difficult to ignore, writing (about) them is supposed to aspire familiarization: an action that guides the child reader toward concepts of animality. The nonhuman animal has also been recognized as therapeutic narrative elements, aids in identity construction, and effective fictional teachers of species relationships. The inclusion and, more accurately, the functions of the nonhuman animal in the text, however, are symptomatic of speciesism: the belief in human superiority, and the redundant establishment of their supremacy. Influenced by the insights of …

Queer Aswang Transmedia: Folklore As Camp, Bliss Cua Lim

Kritika Kultura

In recent years, the aswang—a supernatural creature of Philippine folklore that is often associated with female monstrosity and patriarchal misogyny—is being flamboyantly queered across a range of media. The aswang is a centuries-old transmedial, transgeneric figure whose monstrosity has been interpellated by gender-essentialist agendas while nonetheless epitomizing disruptive gender instabilities. In the handful of texts that comprise queer aswang transmedia—a 2011 Filipino novel (Ricky Lee’s Si Amapola sa 65 na Kabanata [Amapola in 65 Chapters]), mainstream film (Mga Bata ng Lagim [Children of Terror], dir. Mar S. Torres, 1964), and amateur digital video (Amabilis 2, Napoleon Lustre, 2011)—the aswang, an …

The Zobel Nexus, Patrick D. Flores

Kritika Kultura

Fernando Zobel is an important figure in Philippine art history. His influence is wide and deep, from art making to formation of taste and to the production of discourse on iconography and identity. This essay focuses on his role in generating critical texts on the history of art in the Philippines, initiating a much-needed discussion on the categories of form, the cultural context of style, and the criteria for evaluating the value of objects. As a collector and connoisseur, Zobel endeavored to significantly set the terms with which the history of colonial and modern art would be written. Such an …

Manuel Blanco’S El Indio And The History Of A Rumor, Resil B. Mojares

Kritika Kultura

The paper explores the social meanings that can be elicited from tracking the history of a rumor. It takes as its example the nineteenth-century apocryphal story of an Augustinian friar who labored for years on a treatise on the character of the Philippine native (indio) only to leave behind, upon his death, a book of blank pages. Tracing the origins and passage of the rumor and unpacking the various interpretations of the story, the paper demonstrates what can be gained from the study of rumors in Philippine history.

Performing Elusive Homecomings: Mobility, Embodiment, And Diasporic Filipino Youth, Martin F. Manalansan Iv

Kritika Kultura

The Filipino global diaspora has precipitated the circulation of embodied modes of identification and belonging. This paper focuses on the experiences of Filipino young people who were born and/or raised abroad, and who have returned to the Philippines to seek fame and economic mobility in the entertainment industry. These migrant hopefuls, unlike older counterparts, enact the material tensions and semantic contradictions that form part of popular discourse around life abroad. As such, institutional media practices and mass audience perceptions mirror such conditions and create shifting systems of valuation around such things as skin color, accent, and bodily comportment. To respond …

Beyond The Color Line: Intersectional Considerations In Chuah Guat Eng’S Fiction, Wai Chew Sim

Kritika Kultura

This essay argues that the work of Malaysian-Chinese author Chuah Guat Eng gives pause to the culturalism that dominates literary analysis. Articulated primarily through identity politics (the politics of recognition), culturalism’s self- understanding keeps at a distance other forms of social justice commitments including class struggle. However, Chuah spotlights their intersectionality in Malaysia and enjoins us to combine the two – to see the native population’s demand for economic parity and rural development as coterminous in some respects with the demands for recognition made by settler communities. In particular, Chuah’s Echoes of Silence (1994) points to the commensurability between socialist …

Phantom In Paradise: A Philippine Presence In Hollywood Cinema, Joel David

Kritika Kultura

The Philippines’ experience with its last foreign occupant, the US, resulted in an entire clutch of problematic “special relations” that, coupled with the country’s responses to the challenges of self-government, ultimately led to a global dispersal of the population, effectively turning the Philippines into the major Asian nation arguably most reliant on its citizens’ overseas remittances. This paper takes the position that diasporic Filipinos, for a variety of reasons starting with the effectiveness of maintaining unintrusive presences in alien cultures (including the acceptance of menial positions), have possibly developed and have enabled others to perceive them as silent and discreet …

Ofws In Foreign Cinema: An Introduction, Joel David

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

Reconstituting Histories Of Filipino Families With Chinese Ancestry: Methodology, Sources, And Relevance, Richard T. Chu

Kritika Kultura

Conducting one’s family history can enrich not only one’s own sense of self but also a nation’s history, especially in a country like the Philippines where oligarchic families have historically had an impact on the nation’s society, economy, and society. Many of these families are Tsinoy (Chinese-Filipino). Only few, however, have undertaken to reconstitute their histories. This essay discusses the various methods, sources, resources, and various frameworks (e.g., transnational, gendered) that one can use in the reconstitution of Tsinoy family histories. It also explains the significance that such family histories have in reframing and broadening our understanding of Philippine history.

Region And Microhistory: Writing The Chinese Diaspora In The Philippines, Richard T. Chu, Caroline S. Hau

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

A Filter-Based Model Of Visual Recognition, Olivia Rose Bockler

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Visual recognition, a key perceptual process, enables primates to identify faces, food, tools, and potential threats in their environment. Cortical neurons along the ventral visual stream—spanning from early visual cortex (V1) through inferotemporal cortex (IT), with long-range projections to ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC)—are essential for visual recognition. Traditional models propose that neuronal representations increase in complexity in each stage of this pathway, culminating in object-specific representations in higher-order cortex. However, this hypothesis remains debated, particularly as artificial visual models have countered that individual neurons along this pathway may function more as filters contributing to distributed representations of objects. Thus, this …

The Role Of Mir-34a In Pathological Neovascularization As Seen In Age-Related Macular Degeneration, Jason Colasanti

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of irreversible vision loss among the elderly, affecting nearly 200 million people worldwide. AMD impacts the macula, which is the small, central area of the retina responsible for high-acuity vision. The exudative (wet) form of late-stage AMD is the most severe, accounting for ninety percent of the legally blind patients with AMD. Wet AMD is characterized by the abnormal growth of blood vessels and fluid leakage beneath the retina known as choroidal neovascularization (CNV), directly resulting in vision loss. While anti-VEGFa targeted therapies have been the gold standard for ameliorating wet AMD …

Technology Development Of High-Resolution Single-Cell Lineage Tracing For Cell Reprogramming Systems, Sadie Vanhorn

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A critical element of cell identity is the cell that created the observed cell. This parent cell dictates many aspects of its identity, whether measured by function, phenotype, or specific assays. The cell’s lineage impacts the ability of the cell to differentiate into final cell types in development or successfully reprogram in direct cell reprogramming. Here, we evolve molecular barcoding techniques to increase the resolution of lineage recording at single-cell resolution. Using single-cell RNA-sequencing as the readout for this measurement, polyadenylated reporter gene transcripts with engineered 3’ untranslated regions were designed to initially label and then record lineage information. While …

Multi-Omic Analysis Of Phototrophic Extracellular Electron Uptake In Novel Rhodovulum Spp. Isolated From A Marine Estuary, Emily J. Davenport

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Microbial metabolisms are incredibly versatile and dynamic, allowing adaptive strategies for growth in even the most limiting environments. For an ever-increasing number of microbes, this includes utilizing soluble or insoluble inorganic mineral species as electron donors, driving geochemical cycles and microbial metabolisms. This metabolic function of transporting electrons derived from the extracellular environment across cell membranes is called extracellular electron uptake (EEU). Within (photo)autotrophs, (p)EEU also sustains CO2 fixation to cell biomass, implicating a potentially fundamental role of microbial carbon cycling in aquatic and soil ecosystems. A model metabolic scheme of pEEU occurring in natural environments is photoferrotrophy, which pairs …

Achieving Inter- And Transdisciplinarity In Ecohealth: Insights From A Rodent-Borne Disease Project In A Polycrisis Era, Isabelle Arpin, Clémence Massart, Vincent Bourret, Guillaume Castel, Valeria Carolina Colombo, Jana Eccard, Jasmin Firozpoor, Maciej Grzybek, Heikki A. Henttonen, Herwig Leirs, Andrew Mcmanus, Ben Roche, Tarja Sironen, Vincent Sluydts, Peter Stuart, Annetta Zintl, Nathalie Charbonnel

Publications

Introduction: Inter- and transdisciplinary research (ITDR) is increasingly promoted to address “wicked problems”, particularly in health sectors adopting approaches like Ecohealth. Our Ecohealth-inspired project on rodent-borne diseases, initiated just before the COVID-19 pandemic, provided an opportunity to evaluate ITDR implementation.

Methods: We employed a recently developed semi-quantitative evaluation method to measure our project’s success in achieving ITDR and analyzed factors influencing this achievement.

Results: The project showed strengths in system description, team task allocation, and data sharing, but had lower scores in engaging societal actors throughout the project cycle.

Discussion: We identified the underexplored influence of problem wickedness as a …

Discrimination, Depression, And Somatization: The Impact Of Spirituality And Covid-19, Katherine Aloisi

ETD Collection

The current study aims to fill gaps in the literature examining relationships between psychological symptoms (depressive, somatic), spirituality, ethnic discrimination, and stress related to the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. It is hypothesized that stress caused by COVID-19 is associated with greater perceived discrimination, depressive symptoms, and somatic symptoms. It is also hypothesized that individuals experiencing heightened COVID-19 stress, and perceived discrimination would report increased depressive and somatic symptoms. Greater spiritual well-being is similarly hypothesized to decrease COVID-19 stress, depressive s, and somatic symptoms. Data was collected via self-report measures, including the COVID Stress Scale (CSS; Taylor et al., 2020), …

The Significance And Impact Of Traditional Naming Practices In The Meru Community Of Tanzania, Wariaeli Ismaeli Pallangyo, Eliakimu Sane

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

In Africa, names are not assigned arbitrarily. They are deliberately chosen to reflect communities’ social, economic and political understandings. The Meru people, residing in northeastern Tanzania, near Mount Meru, identify themselves through ethnic names that embody their cultural practices. This article examines the significance of Meru traditional names, variations and their enduring value in increasing globalisation and cultural homogenisation, drawing on data from the Meru community. Employing a case study design, qualitative data were collected through focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews with 49 participants recruited using snowball sampling. Thematic analysis, facilitated by Microsoft Excel, was utilised for data transcription …

Detection And Monitoring Of Stress Using Wearables: A Systematic Review, Anuja Pinge, Vinaya Gad, Dheryta Jaisinghani, Surjya Ghosh, Sougata Sen

Faculty Publications

Over the last few years, wearable devices have witnessed immense changes in terms of sensing capabilities. Wearable devices, with their ever-increasing number of sensors, have been instrumental in monitoring human activities, health-related indicators, and overall wellness. One health-related area that has rapidly adopted wearable devices is the mental health monitoring and well-being area, which covers problems such as psychological distress. The continuous monitoring capability of wearable devices allows the detection and monitoring of stress, thus enabling early detection of mental health problems. In this paper, we present a systematic review of the different types of sensors and wearable devices used …

Examining The Internet Hunting Styles Of Violent Sexual Predators Who Rape And Murder Their Victims, Rebecca Meyers

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The proposed study sought to explore the impact of the internet on the hunting styles of sexual predators who sexually assault and kill their victims. A sample of 32 cases, divided equally among offenders who used the internet to target adult females and those who did not use the internet, was used for the study. The findings showed that various internet-based platforms were used for targeting, including dating apps such as Grindr, Match.com, Meetme.com, Tinder, Craigslist, Sex chat rooms, Kik Messenger, and BDSM sites. Three themes emerged about the impact of the internet on the hunting styles of sexual predators …

Quality And Sensory Characteristics Of Selected Freeze-Dried Foods After 50 Years Storage, Prithiviraj Jegannathan

Theses and Dissertations

Freeze-drying is a dehydration process that uses low temperature and pressure to remove moisture from food. With an annual market value of over $35 billion in 2023, freeze-dried foods are widely used in various situations requiring long-term storage such as military rations, emergency food supplies, and space exploration. Freeze-dried foods are becoming more popular for their quality, light weight, easy storage at room temperature, and quick rehydration. Moreover, many freeze-dried food manufacturers claim that their freeze-dried food products can last for 25 years or more. However, there are currently no published studies supporting such claims. Chemical, physical, and sensory properties …

Social Media Intelligence: Responding To Crime And Violence In The Digital World, Chloe Lynn Sitton

Theses

The integration of social media into everyday life has transformed how crime is committed, communicated, and investigated. This capstone project examines the emerging field of social media intelligence and its growing influence on modern policing, surveillance, and the community. Drawing from sociological theory, law enforcement practice, legal analysis, and community-based research, this project offers a far-reaching interdisciplinary view of how social media is shaping crime and justice in the United States.