Honors Projects

Showing 1 - 10 of 564 Items

Miniature of I Am Bearing Myself  in the Mouth of the Sun
I Am Bearing Myself in the Mouth of the Sun
This record is embargoed.
    • Embargo End Date: 2029-05-16

    Date: 2024-01-01

    Creator: Dylan Austin Richmond

    Access: Embargoed




      Mechanisms underlying variable responses to isoforms of the neuropeptide C-type allatostatin (AST-C) in the cardiac neuromuscular system of the American lobster, Homarus americanus

      Date: 2019-01-01

      Creator: Evalyn Mackenzie

      Access: Open access

      Central Pattern Generators (CPGs) are neural networks that produce steady, rhythmic patterned outputs that activate particular muscles and consequently create recurrent rhythmic movements. The cardiac ganglion (CG) of the American lobster (Homarus americanus) is a useful model system for the study of CPGs. Neuropeptides modulate cardiac contractions driven by the CG in H. americanus and accordingly elicit a range of effects. Post-translational modifications such as amidation can impact function of a peptide neuromodulator. C-type allatostatins (AST-Cs) are a group of neuropeptides that modulate the cardiac neuromuscular system of H. americanus. The objective of this study was to determine what structural aspects of the peptides were responsible for the similarity in responses elicited by AST-C I and AST-C III and the difference in responses evoked by AST-C II in comparison. AST-C I and AST-C III are not C-terminally amidated, whereas AST-C II is C-terminally amidated. We first hypothesized that amidated AST-C peptides would evoke similar responses to one another in contraction amplitude and frequency. Our second hypothesis was that exchanging the amino acids alanine and tyrosine at a specific location in AST-C II and AST-C III would affect the conformation of the peptide, and consequently impact peptide binding and elicit different effects. In contrast to our predictions, we did not see similar responses evoked by all amidated or all non-amidated peptides among lobsters. In support of our second hypothesis, there was a significant difference in percent change in contraction amplitude elicited among AST-C II Y, AST-C II and AST-C III.


      Leadership from Within: Founders, advocates, and organizational networks operating in Maine's immigrant community

      Date: 2019-05-01

      Creator: Samuel Robert Kenney

      Access: Open access

      Much of the discourse surrounding African immigration to Maine has centered on the provision of public services that facilitate community development and integration. This project investigates different types of leadership strategies employed by African individuals in Maine that advance community objectives. When African immigrant leaders are empowered to affect public policy, they re-frame traditional conceptions of aid-dependency and vulnerability commonly applied to African immigrants in media and popular culture. Through leadership in nonprofit and civic spheres, African immigrant community leaders translate grassroots connectivity with informal networks into meaningful influence in the realm of public policy. This project focuses on the evolution of community leadership in Maine’s Somali community, the network of immigrant-serving organizations that provide specialized public services across the state, and the capacity of one organization in particular, the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition (MIRC) to ensure accurate representation of policy initiatives to civic officials for individuals unable to participate in the electoral process. This project evaluates the political utility of ‘lived experience’ as a component of diversity in the realm of public policy.


      Miniature of The effects of manipulated afterload pressure on heartbeat frequency, active force, and cardiac output of the American lobster, Homarus americanus
      The effects of manipulated afterload pressure on heartbeat frequency, active force, and cardiac output of the American lobster, Homarus americanus
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          Date: 2019-05-01

          Creator: Gina Fickera

          Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community




            Miniature of Assessing parameters influencing interhomolog proximity of paired homologous chromosomes in <i>Drosophila</i>
            Assessing parameters influencing interhomolog proximity of paired homologous chromosomes in Drosophila
            This record is embargoed.
              • Embargo End Date: 2026-05-20

              Date: 2021-01-01

              Creator: Molly Margaret Moore

              Access: Embargoed



                “The Spirit of Turbulence”: East Indian Political Imaginaries in Early 20th Century British Guiana

                Date: 2020-01-01

                Creator: Faria A Nasruddin

                Access: Open access

                After the abolition of slavery, the Colonial Office instituted an indentured labor scheme that lasted from 1838 to 1917, in which they brought East Indians to the plantation colonies as laborers under five year contracts. Due to the planter class’ desire for permanent sources of labor in British Guiana, the Colonial Government incentivized East Indians to permanently settle. East Indians thus dominated the British Guiana’s agricultural landscape and became the single largest ethnicity in the Colony by 1920. This thesis explores the early negotiations of the meaning of diaspora and diasporic citizenship for East Indians in British Guiana. They comprised a diverse conglomerate of different socio-economic positions: agricultural estate laborers, village residents, and middle-class business professionals. Each socioeconomic group had a different lived experience in the colony and different outlook on what it meant to be a creole-born East Indian. This thesis traces the multiple and contingent ideas of citizenship and nationality that were circulating at the time. Against a backdrop of changing imperial politics that promoted modernity and the discourse of the nation, East Indian visions centered around how to construct permanence, and negotiate belonging. By drawing on colonial documentation–local reports, commission transcripts, personal correspondence–and documentation produced by East Indians–memorandums, speeches, and books–this thesis ultimately argues that East Indians came to view culture as integral to their self-worth and definitions of place within the imperial system. Culture thus became the primary lens to negotiate the various meaning of citizenship and place in the imperial-national moment.


                Miniature of Strange Progress: Politics of Sexual Violence in Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings from 1991 to 2018
                Strange Progress: Politics of Sexual Violence in Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings from 1991 to 2018
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                    Date: 2020-01-01

                    Creator: Rebecca Berman

                    Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                      Miniature of The impact of temperature on the sea star oscillatory gait
                      The impact of temperature on the sea star oscillatory gait
                      This record is embargoed.
                        • Embargo End Date: 2025-05-14

                        Date: 2020-01-01

                        Creator: Emma Victoria Bertke

                        Access: Embargoed