Honors Theses - All

A Divided Culture

Brian Barrows Goodell — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:27 PDT

Opposing Ideologies and Unintended Consequences: A History of Federalism, Coal, and Poverty in West Virginia

Elizabeth Crane Williams — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:26 PDT

When Roots Intertwine: The Language and Politics of Raw Foodism

Samantha Caroline Januszeski — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:26 PDT

Elderly and Independent: The Crown Heights Apartments and Affordable Senior Housing in New York City

Emma Blake Pattiz — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:25 PDT

Two Essays in Macroeconomics

Rosa Catharine Hayes — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:24 PDT

Chapter 1 revisits the statistical relationship between the yield spread and the future economic growth rate in OECD countries. I confirm that the yield spread is a strong predictor of future economic growth in many countries, but show there is enormous heterogeneity in its predictive ability across countries. I observe that periods of generally declining volatility are associated with diminished forecasting capability. Chapter 2 analyzes how sovereign yield spreads of EMU member countries responded to different crisis resolution policies in the context of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. My analysis suggests that accommodating crisis responses policies which invite regulatory forbearance and delay the resolution of underlying banking system problems increase governments' borrowing costs, though markets seem to react more favorably to the same policy actions if they are undertaken by more credible (i.e. less-indebted) governments.

Policy and Planning for Water Infrastructure Projects in the People's Republic of China

Katherine Rebecca James — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:24 PDT

The Effect of Female Ownership and Management on Firm Performance: Evidence from Latin America

Romaine Anthony Campbell — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:23 PDT

Achieving Development Through Tourism: The Case for Ethiopia

Heran Tsedeke Abate — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:22 PDT

The relationship between maximization, indecisiveness, and information search in decision situations with and without opportunity costs

Emma Lorraine Weizenbaum — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:22 PDT

An Improved Algorithm for Demarcating Bacterial Species

Diego Calderon — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:21 PDT

For scientists to understand microbial ecosystems, identifying the fundamental unit of bacterial species is imperative. Past attempts involved characterizing metabolic capabilities, or percentage of genome sequence similarity; however these approaches have proven ineffective. The Cohan lab developed a program called Ecotype Simulation (ES) that attempts to demarcate bacterial species based on the Stable Ecotype model of speciation. Previously, our lab has demonstrated the superior accuracy of ES, compared to other demarcators (AdaptML, BAPS, GMYC), with field experiments and sequence simulations. However, ES lacks the efficiency of the other programs. Recently we have made several improvements to the algorithm behind ES that increase its efficiency by orders of magnitude. With these improvements I aim to demonstrate the high accuracy of our second version of Ecotype Simulation (ES2) compared to ES for smaller inputs and then show ES2's superiority for larger size inputs.

Towards Understanding Global Imbalances: Are Chinese Households "Special"?

Alexander Louis Persky-Stern — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:19 PDT

Rotational Spectroscopy with ab initio Calculations of 2H, 3H-Perfluoropentane, its Isotopologues and the Argon-36 Cyclopentanone van der Waals Complex

Chinh H. Duong — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:18 PDT

This thesis discusses microwave radiation and its interaction with matter. In particular, it will reveal the role of rotational spectroscopy in modern chemistry through two prototypical experiments and their results. The first project will recount searches for an elusive van der Waals complex (argon-36 cyclopentanone) and the second study will explore the unique structure of fluorinated carbon chains (2H, 3H-perfluoropentane). The life and toys of a rotational spectroscopist will also be unveiled.

A Journey to the Past with "Oracle Bone Script Paintings" and "Characters Paintings"

Aiai Chen — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:18 PDT

Parallelization of Ecotype Simulation

Lingyuan Ke — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:17 PDT

The main goal of this project is to design and implement a new high performance version of the Ecotype Simulation 2 (ES2) algorithm for demarcating bacterial ecotype that is suitable for use on multi-core and distributed computing platforms such as clusters. In this thesis we parallelize ES2 using OpenMP and test the resulting program on the Wesleyan Cluster. The test results (on simulated data) show the potential for a significant increase in the size of the data sets parallel ES2 can process in comparison to the current sequential implementation.

The Circular Cut: Problematizing the Longevity of Civilization's Most Aggressively Defended Amputation

Shemuel Toviah Garber — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:15 PDT

"Porque soy voz de la calle" Navigating the Global and the Local in Dominican Hip Hop

Hannah Elizabeth Sears — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:14 PDT

British Borobudur Buddha: Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, Orientalist Antiquarianism, and a Material Historiography of Java (1811-1816)

Aria Danaparamita — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:14 PDT

This paper traces a fragmented Buddha head sculpture's travels from Borobudur, Java, Indonesia to the British Museum during East India Company rule in Java (1811-1816) through the life of its collector, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. Through an approach informed by historical, archaeological, and anthropological inquiries, I examine how objects can serve as tools for imperial historiography, namely the silencing of subaltern narratives and the legitimization for colonial rule and imperial expansion. Using the Borobudur as a case study, I analyze: 1) British Orientalism in Java, 2) field antiquarianism in colonial contexts, and 3) the role of collections and collectors in representing subaltern identities, placing Java into a Western cartography and evolutionary paradigm of civilizations as collected territory and people of the imaginary construct of the British Empire.

Everything Revolves Around Oil and Natural Gas: Russia's Economic and Political Centers of Gravity

Ivan Zdravkov Stoitzev — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:13 PDT

Transforming the Cultural Landscape: The Representational Metamorphosis of the American Wetland

Codi Rose Leitner — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:12 PDT

Wetlands are diverse ecosystems that link human and external environs through the worlds most valuable and prevalent resource: water. The American wetland has gone through a series of transformations since the colonization of the United States, both socially, and physically. For much of U.S. history, wetlands were perceived as trackless wastes, environmental nuisances teeming with miasma, and hindering human progress. In response, they were transformed and destroyed for centuries. However, in the mid-nineteenth century, there was a revolution in scientific thought, and wetlands became the focus of conservation. This thesis works to examine the underpinnings of this transformation of wetlands as a cultural landscape. It argues that advancements in scientific imaging technology prompted the change in the cultural perception of wetland ecosystems, arguing that representation impacts culture in the same way that culture influences representation.

Seizures make a splash in the neural stem cell pool: Investigations of aberrant neurogenesis following pilocarpine induced epilepsy in mice

Nicholas Isaiah Woods — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:26:12 PDT