2022-2023 Senior Honors Theses

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10657/13940

This collection contains theses produced by Class of 2023 Honors students

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 40

Constraints, Resourcefulness, and Resilience in the Immigrant Latinx Community: Alternative Health Promotion Strategies for Type 2 Diabetes Self-Management
(2022-11) Acuña-Mena, Ashlíta
This preliminary investigation explores how socioeconomically vulnerable Latinx immigrants self-manage their Type 2 diabetes symptoms in a large urban city in the Southwest United States. Currently, the existing health disparities literature relating to this topic highlights how marginalized Latinx individuals fall short of Western biomedical standards for optimal diabetes self-management (Ortega, Rodriguez, and Vargas Bustamante 2015). This work emphasizes diabetes treatment centered on receiving care from a licensed medical professional. Largely absent in existing scholarship is a more holistic evaluation capturing how Latinx persons facing multiple dimensions of social constraints may draw upon their rich heritage, indigenous roots, and traditional remedies to supplement a Western biomedical regimen (Gomez-Beloz and Chavez 2001). For this pilot study, I conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with six diabetic Latinas to discuss the culturally-informed, alternative health promotion strategies they engage in to circumvent constraints to modern healthcare. Utilizing intersectionality as the overarching theoretical framework (Collins 2000) in addition to tenants of grounded theory, this preliminary study aims to provide a more nuanced outlook on immigrant Latinx health behaviors as they relate to diabetes care.
New Cause To Remember: A Reexamination Of Generational Attitudes And Collective Memory Within The Cuban Community
(2022-12) Pomeroy, Joshua
The most important work, the precursor to all generational studies is Mannheim's "The problem of generations". The work puts forward not a biological explanation to age cohorts having certain outlooks on life, but rather that it is lived experiences and life events at a certain period in one's life that shapes a person's outlook for their life. These critical years are given more attention in Amy Corning and Howard Schuman's work in both "Generational Memory and the Critical Period" and "Generations and Collective Memory". Both works aimed to test Mannheim's original proposal through a series of surveys of several countries on events. On average, the participants found that the "critical period" for generational defining events rated events within the said critical period as more important than events outside the "critical period", on average. This essay reanalyzes the “critical period” and generational attitudes based on this thesis research’s findings from an in-depth interview in Miami. The data suggest and from in-field observation that firstly the “critical period” is more flexible and less set in stone than previously thought. This reevaluation comes from ethnographic data that suggests sufficiently noteworthy events can greatly alter one’s perception of events normally within the “critical period”. In this case study, the historical event in question is the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro’s administration. Also covered in this essay are collective experiences that can be the foundation of communities despite physical barriers to come together (Anderson 1983). The case study for this section is the cultural tourism of Cuban Americans and significant landmarks such as the Freedom Tower.
Exploring the Relationship Between Parental Mental Health and Parental Perceptions of Infant Vulnerability
(2022-12) Sampige, Ritu
A mismatch in vulnerability perception occurs when parents’ perceptions of their children’s medical vulnerability level differ from children’s objective medical risk status, and such mismatch negatively affects children’s health. The goal of this thesis is to determine how parental perceptions of infant vulnerability compare with objective infant vulnerability status and to identify the role of parental mental health in this relationship. This thesis fills the current gap in vulnerability-related research by elucidating parental perceptions of infant vulnerability across a broad range of infant health (NICU and well-baby nursery infants). Deidentified longitudinal data from the BabySeq Project was utilized for this study. Conducted between May 14, 2015 and May 21, 2019, the BabySeq Project was a randomized controlled trial that aimed to determine the psychosocial impact of newborn genomic sequencing results on families (519 parents of 325 infants). Data collected at 3 months and 10 months after disclosure of sequencing results were the focus of this present study. The data set included information regarding parental anxiety (GAD-7), depression (PHQ-9), perceptions of children’s vulnerability (CVS), and reported medical history of infants. From the data set, two novel variables were developed, including the objective vulnerability score to identify infants’ medical risk status and the Match/Mismatch score to determine parents’ risk for misperceiving their infants’ vulnerability. Parental mental health scores were significant predictors of Match/Mismatch scores and perceived vulnerability, and vice versa, within each timepoint at 3 and 10 months post-disclosure. When controlling for demographic variables, Match/Mismatch scores at 3 months, but not parental mental health at 3 months, longitudinally predicted Match/Mismatch scores at the 10-month timepoint. Additionally, parental mental health at 3 months, but not Match/Mismatch scores at 3 months, longitudinally predicted future parental mental health at the 10-month timepoint. There is a need for health care professionals to identify parents who are at risk for mismatch in infant vulnerability perception. By recognizing such at-risk parents, physicians can subsequently provide resources that will assist parents in better understanding their infant’s objective health status, and physicians can allocate resources to help alleviate parents’ potential mental health severity.
Z-Ring Formation as a Biomarker in Bacterial Persisters
(2023-04-22) Wagner, Iva J.
Bacterial infections that persist despite antimicrobial treatment are a growing concern in the medical field. While much research is focused on antibiotic resistance, bacterial persistence is also a significant contributor to the problem. Persister cells are a subpopulation of bacteria that can temporarily survive antibiotics, and they can resuscitate after treatment is stopped, leading to chronic infections. To properly research resuscitation in these persistent cells, we must first identify which cells to study. One way to do this is by using biomarkers, such as the formation of Z-rings during the growth-inhibited state, which can help determine which persister cells are capable of resuscitation. In this study, E. coli pUA66-ftsZ-gfp cultures were subjected to antibiotics including Gentamicin, Streptomycin, Ampicillin, and Fosfomycin antibiotics. Following treatment, the cells were starved in PBS for two days to allow for Z-ring formation. The next step involved transferring the bacteria onto a microscope slide coated with Luria Bertani (LB) agar, which provides the necessary nutrients for resuscitation. Images of both phase contrast and green fluorescence protein (GFP) fluorescence were taken hourly to monitor growth and Z-ring formation. This approach successfully demonstrated that Z-rings are a reliable biomarker for identifying whether cells are recovering from persistence and returning to normal function.
A Historical Review of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: Developmental Advancements Then and Now
(2023-04-23) Wade, Joshua
A review of the history of regenerative medicine focusing on the use of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from their initial inception in bone marrow transplantation for blood disorders and diseases to their expanded uses today through advancements in technology. Commonly treated malignant and non-malignant bone marrow transplant conditions include but are not limited to leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and aplastic anemia. Bone marrow transplants are performed by autologous or allogeneic transplantation with multipotent HSCs. The first unrelated allogeneic transplant was performed by Dr. Edward Donnall Thomas in 1957. The initial approaches using stem cells as a form of treatment resulted in great difficulty and failure with few exceptions. However, discoveries such as the major histocompatibility complex within humans known as the human leukocyte antigen (HLA), allowed researchers to identify genetic matches between donors and recipients resulting in an increased rate of successful procedures. Since then, advancements in the field have introduced new techniques that improve the efficacy of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and expanded use to more populations. Such advancements include improved conditioning regimens, matched unrelated donors, umbilical cord HSCs, and more potent immunosuppressants and antimicrobial drugs. For patients that experience tissue damage due to conditioning regimens or cancer malignancy, HSCs use a “homing” mechanism to mobilize to the affected area and release chemical factors that promote tissue recovery. Patients that undergo transplantation are put at risk of several conditions including graft-versus-host disease and opportunistic infections, however, complication-prevention regimens have been put in place to decrease the mortality rate. This literature review serves to roughly gauge how this field of medicine has developed since the 1950s and where future implications lie. Said implications include emerging ways to treat graft-versus-host disease, improved HLA typing matches, and HSC uses in transplantable organs like the liver.
The utilization of CRISPR-Cas9 to establish novel ?X?2 knockout cell lines in mice
(2023-04-24) Lim, Daniel
The ?X?2 integrin functions as an important mediator of the complement system, and undergoes inactive to active state by switching its conformation from bent closed to extended open, contingent on binding of different ligands. This extended open conformation has higher affinity for cognate ligands including iC3B, an important molecule of the complement cascade. Thus, the extended open conformation leads to an inflammatory response, and the bent closed conformation suppresses inflammation. Despite the importance of this integrin in mediating the inflammatory response of the human immune system, there have not been studies of the ?X?2 integrin locked in alternate conformational states in a mouse model due to the lack of cell lines. My project has been to create Cas9-plasmid to knock out ?X and ?2 genes from any mouse cell line. By designing specific oligonucleotides that Cas9 can utilize to make double stranded cuts in the genes for ?X and ?2, novel cell lines can be created from wild-type DC2.4 and RAW264.7 mouse cells through transfection. These novel cell lines can then be used for future research, such as how the ?X?2 integrin in an alternate state can affect the pathophysiology of diseases such as cancer, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
"We Have to Survive": An Ethnographic Field Study Of Tourism And The Bedouins In Wadi Rum, Jordan
(2023-04-25) Haddad, Tatiana
This study examines the existing tourism industry in Wadi Rum, Jordan, through a critical lens as informed by the critiques and voiced needs of the indigenous Zalabia and Zawaideh Bedouin. The major components of this project consist of an examination of cultural shifts undergone by the Bedouin in response to commercial tourism in Wadi Rum, an analysis of environmental degradation related to tourism in Wadi Rum and the way it affects the traditional Bedouin lifestyle, the oppression of Bedouin voices and lack of positive regulation by the local governing body, the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority. Project material was largely gathered through in-depth interviews with members of both Bedouin tribes over a series of several weekends. Interviews were conducted with camp owners, operators, guides, traditional shepherds, and government employees, with the intention of uplifting Bedouin critique of tourism development in Wadi Rum and suggestions for environmentally and culturally friendly tourism methods. Through these interviews, the study found that there exists a system of consistently supported suggestions for counteracting overdevelopment in Wadi Rum, as well as a burgeoning awareness of the need for sustainable Bedouin-owned and operated 'traditional' Bedouin tourism. The aim of this study is to promote awareness, support, and implementation of Bedouin-sourced modes of ecotourism in Wadi Rum.
Field Notes From Carbon Doomsday: Poems
(2023-04-28) Williamson, Rosalind Jane
I've been obsessed with climate change for as long as I can remember. The first inklings of this project probably started smoldering back in high school; I once wrote a whole chapbook on the theme over the course of twenty-four hours, though the craft of that particular project was rudimentary at best. This project, though, has larger stakes for me, which is perhaps why I had such a hard time synthesizing my experience of writing it. I know intellectually that no single document can cure the world's ills, but that doesn't mean I didn't want to try. [...]
Latency as the Desaturator of Cities: Metropolitan Acupuncture
(2023-05-01) Xavier, Bruno Belo Teles
This is an investigation on cities, our cities, and their ever-growing battle with densification. As cities become increasingly densified, their density begins to encroach onto the human space, preventing its inhabitants from building relationships with the spaces they inhabit. This paper seeks to explore marginal and unconventional ways to design urban spaces in order to both prevent and remediate saturated urban conditions from taking root, utilizing the spaces of the city which seem unsuitable for the use of the public. This is a provocation to instigate the search for new ways in which people can continue to express their human condition in spaces that tend to keep increasing in density.
About Time: Redressing the Runway
(2023-05-01) Asuncion, Triciajane
The fashion industry remains one of the most profitable and significant markets of the global economy. The eminence of the industry often overshadows its own negative impacts that play a role in the social and environmental well-being of the ecosystem. The terms, “back of house” and “front of house” are used in this investigation to indicate the fashion production process the everyday consumer does not see, and the point of sale retail environment that the consumer experiences, respectively. “Back of house” operations such as the exploitation of natural resources and workers, and the production of contamination and pollution, are asked by the extravaganza and glamour of the “front of house.” The selected “front of house” design precedent for exploration and deconstruction is the fashion runway, which displays an idealized image of commodity. Created for the intention of desire and spectacle, runway shows encourage consumption and even overconsumption, employing allure to conceal the ugly reality of the industry. The architectural design in this thesis incorporates semi-transparent fabric as a front-of-house set design element to tell a narrative on the back-of-house of the fashion industry. As a way to communicate flow, movement, excess, contamination, and suffocation of the industry, the fabric set design transforms with a modeled choreography throughout the duration of the show. The choreography is designed after the movement of workers in the supply chain in order to convey the toll that labor takes on the body. The runway is sited in the fashion capital of Milan, Italy, due to its prestige and history of manufacturing and craftsmanship. The runway show is divided into three acts: (1) Construction, (2) Consumption, and (3) Deconstruction. Within the three acts, the circulatory relationship between the audience and the models changes, as a way to change the perspective of the audience to reveal their influence within the fashion cycle. Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project and Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle offer philosophical sources in the development of the thesis objective and design. Benjamin's work investigates architecture in its development to host the uprising of modern consumption in nineteenth-century Paris, more specifically, the arch as a symbol and fetishization of commodified goods and experiences (3). He specifies the series of arches as a designed “dreamworld” that cloaks the realities of capitalism (13). Benjamin’s proposal of “dialectical images” suggests that by collaging the past and present into a single moment, its contradictions become apparent (462). Within the runway design, the back of house acts as the “past,” while the front of house acts as the “present,” coming together to uncover the beauty and ugly of the fashion industry. Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle expands upon Benjamin's criticism on consumer culture, where Dubord proposes that everything that was once living has now become mere age reproduction (2). “Spectacle” as defined by Debord is “the autonomous movement of the non-living,” which influences and arbitrates relationships and perceptions amongst humans (2). Furthermore, Debord cites the method of “détournement” as a way to subvert existing mass media images to generate new criticism (8). The use of depicting Milan’s monumental arches in the form of catenary arches within the runway design is a form of détournement to critique the fashion industry. Semi-transparent fabric is used as a metaphorical material to create a transformational runway design that subverts and uncovers the spectacle of runway shows. Generally used as a construction element in fashion, the fabric becomes redefined in the runway show to expose the underbelly of the problematic industry. This is done through the formation of catenary arches with the fabric, juxtaposing the existing traditional architecture of arches in the Brera courtyard. The purpose of transforming the once solid architectural feature of the arches into a new materiality that is light and flexible is to metaphorically see through the façade of the industry and into the production process that the everyday consumer does not understand in the garments they purchase from retailers. Through draping, stiching, and layering, the fabric is manipulated in a number of ways throughout the runway show, which is transformed with and by a choreography that mirrors the bodily labor of workers. The transformation of fabric explores the material’s spatial and temporal possibilities on the runway, creating moments of tension, movement, and contradiction. Such moments are to convey the negative impacts of the industry on people and the planet, being labor exploitation and environmental degradation. In presenting issues in a theatrical format, the hope is to start a conversation to propose alternative solutions for a more sustainable and ethical practice. The research methodology adapts the architecture design process to produce schematic variations of fabric as a narrative piece in the runway design. Sketches, models, diagrams, and architectural drawings are tested and developed to inquire various design strategies and concepts. The final result is a runway design that incorporates fabric as a set element to redress the essence of the runway, fashioning a critique on the spectacle that challenges and informs the audience about controversies associated with the fashion industry. Benjamin, W. (1999). The Arcades Project. (H. Eiland & K. McLaughlin, Trans.). Harvard University Press. Original work published 1982) Debord, G. (1995). The Society of the Spectacle. (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Zone Books. (Original work published 1967)
The Void in Art: Dorothy Hood's Contributions to Modern Art
(2023-05-01) Satterwhite, Erin C.
Dorothy Hood (August 27, 1919 - October 28, 2000), was a pivotal artist in the American and Mexican Modern art movements. Her work serves as one of, if not the first, bridges between Texan and Mexican modern art. Her vast oeuvre includes drawings and prints, Surrealist-style collages, and expansive paintings. There has been little scholarship on Hood's innovative artistic practice and how it married the figurative, mystical aspects of Mexican Surrealism and the vast expanse and color exploration of New York school painting, while also introducing fresh ideas on what she described as “the void” and internal landscapes as depicted through abstracted forms. This thesis addresses the unique challenge for Hood in her career, caused by her fluidity between physical places and art movements. She was neither bound by geographical location (moving multiple times in her life - from Texas, to New York, to Mexico, then back to Texas) nor artistic style (interested in Surrealism, folk art, large-scale abstract paintings that are formally reminiscent of the New York school). It was this fluidity that inevitably hindered her from achieving the status of other artists who were more firmly, and consistently, situated with a particular movement or location. Hood possessed a unique vision of painting's potential as a portal to the inner psyche, the “void”, and the spiritual power of art. Her influence and contributions positions Hood as one of the greatest Texan artists in modern art history.
Behind The Wall: Re-Defining The Monastic Enclosure
(2023-05-01) Martinez-Gallardo, Luis
How to design a monastery for a contemporary order of monks that, due to inefficient enclosures based on outdated models, fail to remain faithful to the fundamental ideal of living a truly cloistered life.
A Future of Building The Old Way: A case study of bio-based materials substituting for general construction materials
(2023-05-01) Wilcox, Blake
Studying The Implementations of Bio-Based Materials And Bio-fabrications To Reduce Residential C&D Landfill Waste. In today's era of architecture, we have made monumental strides in changing our built environment. The developments in technology from the industrial revolution spawned the ability for the mass production and assembly of materials that have been standardized for the ease of construction. For this reason, developers have been able to use these general materials to expand out to new destinations and develop more settlements. Though growth is a good thing for humanity, it also demands the need for more consumption of the materials used for construction. The downfall is that these general materials we are using now are not all sustainable and do create waste at the end of their life cycle. Therein lies the problem that will continue to grow if nothing is changed. [...]
Transient Refuge: Bellfort Avenue Community Closet
(2023-05-01) Biscardi, Gina
Picture this: the hotel room at the very end of the hall, with the constant rotation of visitors. A truck stop outside of town, alongside a major highway. Think of the local massage spa, with dark windows, tucked away in one of the many strip malls of the city. These spaces, although harmless to some, are where the hidden push and pull factors of human trafficking thrive. It is spatial conditions such as these where vulnerabilities meet exploitation, invading our public spaces and causing an estimated 40.3 million people to be victimized by human trafficking worldwide2. Every situation of trafficking looks different and therefore requires diverse approaches in terms of identification and healing. Transient Refuge poses an adaptive strategy of both physically and metaphorically filling in the gaps of society. By occupying vacant strip mall spaces and redesigning the experience, what was once an unsafe space can be transformed to operate as a Community Closet open to the public, victims, and survivors of human trafficking. This allows victims and survivors to have access to essential needs such as clothing, intentional spaces designed under the Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) model, and connection to the surrounding community and services.
CO2 Open Metal Site Selectivity in MIL-100 (Cr): A Computational Study
(2023-05-02) Fleming, Kevin
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous organometallic compounds that are of high interest due to their capability to trap industrial greenhouse gases, such as CO2, that contribute to anthropogenic global warming. A promising MOF that has gained the attention of the research community in recent years is the CO2 adsorbent MIL-100 (Cr). This compound consists of two primary structural components: a set of Cr3-?3-oxo clusters referred to as secondary building units (SBU) and organic linkers derived from trimesic acid. Thermally activated SBUs possess coordinatively unsaturated sites Cr sites -- or open metal sites (OMS) -- that can have oxidation states of +2 or +3. Previous experimental work indicated that CO2 molecules bind more strongly to Cr2+ OMS than to Cr3+ OMS at low adsorptive pressures. In this thesis project, two central questions were addressed. Firstly, can the experimentally observed OMS selectivity be verified through density functional theory (DFT) simulations? Secondly, what electronic processes are responsible for OMS selectivity? DFT computations of the binding energy, enthalpy, and Gibbs free energy of CO2 adsorption onto Cr2+ and Cr3+ OMS verify that CO2 exhibits a significantly greater affinity for the +2 OMS. In addition, a comparison of the adsorption charge transfer and optimized binding geometries reveal that this selectivity arises from the energetically favorable chemisorption of CO2 onto +2 OMS – relative to the weaker physisorption of the greenhouse gas onto +3 OMS. The novel methodology utilized for this study -- which addresses the issue of charge delocalization in DFT simulations -- can be implemented in computational investigations of CO2 OMS selectivity for other promising MOFs being considered for carbon capture applications.
The Broken Canvas
(2023-05-02) Edson, Aaron
In a world where art is mystical, where creative forces are supernatural, anything might be imagined and made real. A statue might be brought to life, or a painting be walked into. In the city Aurum, art bleeds from every surface. The very are painted, the buildings sculpted. A gold spire houses the world's best artists – so long as they've been invited. But in this city of color and invention, change is inevitable. Something is on the brink. A scientist finds himself in an ethical dilemma, while an inspector is caught in a conspiracy. Meanwhile, a paint-maker finds himself at ends with the law. In a story that intertwines these characters, one thing is clear: the world may only change for so long behind closed doors.
Walk It Like You Talk It: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Magic of Meaning Theory in Major Corporations LGBTQ+ Pride Advertisements
(2023-05-02) Foret, Caitlyn
Millennial advertising audiences are more pro-LGBTQ+ and care more deeply about queer issues than prior generations. Corporate brands have responded to this demographic shift by implementing LGBTQ+ issues into their marketing strategy thus boosting cultural influence and increasing profits. Through utilizing corporate social responsibility and the magic of meaning theory, corporations that produce pride advertisements such as Target, Nike, and CVS have gained popularity and increased profit when they produce pride campaigns with consistent communication and implementation of CSR. This thesis analyzes the implementation and communication of LGBTQ+-related affairs of several corporations that produce pride advertisements, including their donations to politicians and pro-LGBTQ+ or anti-LGBTQ+ causes, physical or monetary contributions to LGBTQ+ activism, and the authenticity of their social media, corporate communication, and advertising campaigns. This research concludes with an analysis of how corporations should approach CSR related to social causes like LGBTQ+ activism as a result of the findings in the case studies of three corporations.
The Future of Work: An Overview of Knowledge, Skill, Ability, and Other Characteristic Demands and Workplace Profiles in the Current and Future Workforce
(2023-05-04) Musemeche, Nicolas
The occupational demands of the workforce are seldom static over time. As technology, culture, and the economy evolve, the areas of competence expected from the typical worker can be expected to evolve as well. However, few studies have attempted to ensure the public has an up-to-date understanding of these demands. This study addresses this concern by consolidating the available occupation and employment data to determine the most in-demand categories of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other person characteristics (KSAOs). Further, the present study has identified several workplace profiles based on how attributes cluster together. Key findings of the present study suggest that the competencies relating to communication and customer and personal service, as well as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are among the highest demanded KSAOs in the current and future workforce. In sum, the findings of this study provide vital career guidance information which could benefit individuals, career counselors, policy makers, and institutions alike.
YouTube Kids: Understanding Gender and Emotion through Modern Media.
(2023-05-04) Lyles, Lauren
Through emotion socialization, children learn what emotions are, how to express them, and how to respond to them from the models they observe (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Gottman et al., 1996). Modeling of emotional displays is often gendered: American stereotypes of masculinity and femininity include emotional display rules, which are reflected in media (Oliver & Green, 2001). Masculine characters display more anger, while feminine characters showed more positive emotions, fear, and sadness (Oliver & Green, 2001). YouTube Kids is more interactive than traditional media, providing a more responsive media context of emotion socialization that has not been previously studied, and I endeavored to explore how these videos function as contexts of emotion socialization during middle childhood. We coded gender and emotion content to determine whether gendered patterns of emotion were present. I created two ghost users, to span the middle childhood range (6- to 12-years-old) and analyzed the top twenty recommended videos. Teams of independent researchers coded at the character and video levels. Each video received a gender global rating, as either completely feminine; mainly feminine with some masculinity; equally feminine and masculine; no gender-typed content; mainly masculine with some femininity; or completely masculine. Gender presentation of each character was coded as only feminine; both masculine and feminine; neither feminine nor masculine; or only masculine. Each video also received a global rating for emotion, for both positive and negative emotionality on a three-point Likert scale (0-2). Emotion coding for each character also used a three-point Likert scale (0-2) to indicate the extent of prototypical emotions such as pride, love, excitement, happiness, positive surprise, negative surprise, shame/guilt, anger, fear, and sadness/distress. Paired t-tests revealed there were significantly more positive emotions than negative emotions displayed within these videos (t (301) = 20.49, p < .001). There was a non-significant trend for video gender rating to interact with the within-subjects factor of positive vs negative emotionality, F (2, 17) = 3.14, Wilks' lambda = 0.73, p = .069. Though this finding must be interpreted with caution, this trend suggests that the disparity between positive emotionality and negative emotionality differed according to the video’s gender rating. When emotion and gender are observed at the character level, there was a significant difference in positive and negative emotions displayed by characters according to their gender presentation (F (3, 298) = 4.46, Wilks' lambda = 0.96, p = .004) with feminine characters displaying more positive emotions than their masculine and non-gendered stereotypes. Tentative findings suggest emotionality is gendered in YouTube Kids videos, but replication research is required to clarify these findings. Media has potential to be an avenue to reduce gender boundaries on emotions by promoting equal representations of people and their sentiments. However, current findings suggest videos on YouTube Kids may perpetuate gender-stereotyped emotionality.
Blurring the Borderlands: Strategies to Creating Spaces of Extraterritoriality on the U.S. - Mexico Border
(2023-05-05) Medina, Andrew
The U.S. - Mexico border has been a topic of contentious debate and political intervention. The flow of people, culture, language and knowledge has been obstructed by the installation of physical barriers and harmful reforms. This project look to mend these broken ties by crafting spaces of extraterritoriality and autonomous zones in the border region. Cy re-ttoling existing infrastructure and terraforming of the landscape, the project critiques the strategies set in place at the border that is anti-people.

Browse

Browsing 2022-2023 Senior Honors Theses by Issue Date