Honors Projects
Showing 251 - 260 of 298 Items
Looking Ahead With the World in Their Hands: The Postsecondary Aspirations of East Island Youth
Date: 2016-05-01
Creator: Abby E Roy
Access: Open access
Blockholders and Their Effect on Project Value: An Empirical Approach of Understanding Ownership Concentration and Firm Value Using an Event Study Framework
Date: 2017-05-01
Creator: Xuanming Guo
Access: Open access
- This study uses an event study framework to find the relationship between ownership concentration and project value. I find that project value first increases with ownership concentration when block size, the percentage ownership of the largest blockholder, is smaller than 10%, then declines with ownership concentration when block size gets larger, and finally rises again when block size exceeds 30%. However, my research only suggests an ambiguous relationship between ownership concentration and firm value. Additionally, ownership concentration seems to affect both the timing of market responses and the market’s interpretation of large investment projects.
*dhéĝhōm,*héshr, and *wek (earth, blood, and speech): an archaeological, genetic, and linguistic exploration of Indo-European origins
Date: 2017-05-01
Creator: Lara Bluhm
Access: Open access
- This project investigates strategies for learning about prehistoric languages that have left no written records. It focuses upon the origins and expansion of the Indo-European language family (the world’s largest by total speaking population, today including most of the languages between Iceland and India) and its associated speakers, who likely emerged during the Neolithic from someplace in eastern Europe or western Asia. There are two primary hypotheses regarding the origins of these languages and the so-called Indo-Europeans themselves. In one, it is argued that they arose via the expansion of agriculture out of Anatolia and into Europe, c. 5000 BC. The other, and leading, hypothesis suggests instead that the languages spread through migrations of highly mobile pastoralists outward from the Black Sea steppes at the end of the Neolithic, c. 3000 BC. This project will explore the developing interface between archaeology, genetics, and linguistics in prehistoric resarch. There are three main chapters: (1) some background and historical context about Indo-European studies; (2) an examination of methodological interaction among archaeology, linguistics, and genetics; and (3) a survey of various archaeological, genetic, and linguistic data as they pertain to the Indo-Europeans and the above two hypotheses of their origins.
Investigating the Effects of Student Debt on Career Outcomes: An Empirical Approach
Date: 2019-05-01
Creator: Gideon Moore
Access: Open access
- High student debt has been hypothesized to affect career choice, causing students to desire stable, high paying jobs. To test this hypothesis, I rely on plausibly exogenous variation in debt due to a federal policy shift. In the summer of 2007, the Higher Education Reconciliation Act (or HERA) expanded the cap for federally subsidized student loans. I examine how variation in debt affects career choice and eventual salary of students using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Child and Young Adult Cohort of students who were of college age during the implementation of the policy. I find that student debt has no impact on salary two years after graduation; however, it does seem to shift students’ career choices, leading some to avoid careers in public service industries such as teaching and social work.
Crazy American
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Emma Quan Dewey
Access: Open access
- Crazy American is an evening-length dance solo choreographed and performed by Bowdoin's first Dance honors student, Emma Quan Dewey. This dance is an embodied exploration of her mother's family migration history from South China to the Philippines to the US, and how it places her and her family within structures of US imperialism, racial hierarchies, and Chineseness itself. Based on ethnographic, historical, theoretical, and embodied research, Crazy American examines the intimate ways these structures play out at the level of the body, and seeks to imagine new possibilities for moving through systems and stories of power.
Modeling Oyster Growth Dynamics in FLUPSY Systems to Develop a Decision Support Tool for Seed Management
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Gretchen Clauss
Access: Open access
- As the Gulf of Maine warms and lobsters move north to colder waters, Maine’s working water front has begun to diversify. There is a thriving new ecosystem of aquaculturists looking to keep Maine’s waterfront traditions alive in a lasting, sustainable way. One of the most popular aquaculture industries is oyster farming. With an increasing number of oyster farms developing in Midcoast Maine each year, we seek to develop a decision support tool to aid farmers in seed management. Oyster farmers can choose weather or not to use an upweller on their farm, and our goal is to provide guidance on this choice, as well as on upweller management. We begin by culminating and synthesizing data from previous literature and oyster farmers. We then use this data to first build a basic analytical model of a cohort of oysters based on an exponential growth model. We expand this model to include biological differences among oysters as well as management practices. Finally, we walk through a case study, illustrating how our tool could be used to make seed management decisions on an individual farm scale.
Impacts of eelgrass (Zostera marina) on pore-water sulfide concentrations in intertidal sediments of Casco Bay, Maine
Date: 2016-05-01
Creator: Sabine Y Berzins
Access: Open access
- Eelgrass (Zostera marina) is a perennial seagrass that provides many vital ecosystem services including stabilizing sediments, maintaining water clarity, and providing complex habitat in the intertidal and shallow subtidal coastline. Historically, Maine supported dense eelgrass beds in shallow waters surrounding islands and along the coastal mainland. However, in 2012, high population densities of European green crabs (Carcinus maenas), which physically disturb and remove eelgrass as they forage, were correlated with widespread eelgrass declines. Over 55% of the area of eelgrass in Casco Bay was lost, mainly between 2012 and 2014. Eelgrass typically grows in low-oxygen sediments that produce a chemically reducing environment. Sulfate-reducing bacteria in these reduced sediments produce hydrogen sulfide, a toxin that can intrude into eelgrass tissues and impair the plants’ ability to photosynthesize. When eelgrass is not present, sulfide can build up in the pore-water. When eelgrass is present, it can oxygenate the sediments through its roots, thereby preventing the intrusion and buildup of toxic hydrogen sulfide. However, if the substrate is de-vegetated, oxygen levels drop as sedimentary organic matter is decomposed, and the accumulation of sulfides to harmful concentrations in the pore-water may make recolonization of eelgrass difficult or perhaps impossible even in the absence of green crabs. In an effort to monitor characteristics of Casco Bay eelgrass beds and determine spatially where eelgrass may be more likely to recover, four Casco Bay sites with varying degrees of vegetation loss were sampled in 2015 for pore-water sulfide concentration, sediment carbon and nitrogen content, and sediment grain size analysis. Measurements of sulfide concentrations showed correlations with the timing of eelgrass loss, such that vegetated sites had low pore-water sulfide concentrations and sites that had been de-vegetated for longer periods of time had high sulfide concentrations. Carbon and nitrogen content in the sediment was higher at de-vegetated sites, likely due to a higher percentage of finer sediments at those locations. Coarser sediments were more highly vegetated than finer sediments, perhaps displaying a preference of green crabs to forage in finer sediments. Catastrophic loss of eelgrass in Casco Bay has likely led to differences in sulfide levels, carbon and nitrogen content in the sediment, and grain size distribution, depending on degree of vegetation. Eelgrass restoration in Casco Bay will likely be limited by high pore-water sulfide concentrations.
Searle’s Mind: Brains, Subjects, and Systems
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Saul Cuevas-Landeros
Access: Open access
- Throughout this project, I ‘step into the Chinese Room’ presented by philosopher John R. Searle and develop the areas where the Chinese Room Argument succeeds. I have aimed to pick out where Searle has succeeded with the Chinese Room Argument and introduce how it fits in with his school of biological naturalism, as it seems that he already had some conception of it when presenting the Argument. From here, I introduce some of the primary arguments against the Chinese Room Argument because they do not fit with Searle’s overarching theme of biological naturalism. Particularly, Searle’s conception of systems and system features is something he endorses for the biological but immediately labels as silly for the Chinese Room. Following the exposition of systems and system features, I expand on how there is a disconnect between Searle’s use of system features and his view of the Chinese Room Argument. What is so special about Searle’s conception of systems and the systems present in the Chinese Room Argument? Searle should claim that the Chinese Room is simply not the kind of thing that can think. Ultimately, Searle’s philosophy of mind leaves us with either a muddled philosophy or an invalid argument in the Chinese Room, but with much to learn and not forget to consider in the philosophy of mind, such as the important role of subjectivity in our conscious life.
Surfing the Kali Yuga: Tracking the Alt-Right on Twitter
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Jaida Hodge-Adams
Access: Open access
- The alt-right is a hyper-extreme, decentralized network of far-right pundits and their doggish supporters that exists almost entirely online. Consumed by conspiracy and identity, the myths of bigoted ideologies like racism, antisemitism, and transphobia are taken for granted, and their ideology calls for violent ends by violent means. In the physical world, members of the alt-right often keep their rhetoric to themselves; Online, however, they find solace in a vast, international network of websites and forums that together form one giant echo chamber into which they can dump their darkest thoughts. Though any individual member of the alt-right may operate uniquely within the context of their home country, together they form a collective, international voice whose strongest claims often transcend borders and resist state-level analysis. Unspeakable acts of violence like mass shootings, senseless killings, and acts of terrorism are unpredictable but become significantly more likely when the rhetorical atmosphere breeds hostility. By demonizing minority groups and spreading ideologies of hate, the alt-right makes these acts of violence more likely. On massive platforms like Twitter, the alt-right’s rhetoric can seep into mainstream conversations; their framing of concepts like race, gender, sexuality, and national identity are forced into relevance. Their rhetoric is euphemistic, but their message is clear, and their hate poses a real threat to people’s lives. This honors project explores the ideological and geographic features of the alt-right and their international implications, concluding that the alt-right is a globally interconnected group of actors whose conspiracies motivate lone-wolf terrorists worldwide.
Do Voters Reward Incumbents for Service Provision? Electoral Accountability in South African Elections
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Rory Mayne Devlin
Access: Open access
- Democratic theory suggests that voters reward or punish incumbent political parties in elections by evaluating parties’ ability to provide services. But do voters reward incumbent parties for service provision in practice? This project explores the relationship between municipal-level service provision and voting in the South African context. I test whether the local provision of services, such as electricity, piped water, internet, trash collection, and flush toilets, impact the performance of South Africa’s two major political parties, the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) in municipal and national elections between 2009 and 2021. I observe this relationship in ANC- and DA-controlled municipalities using municipal-level data on public service provision, election results, and nighttime brightness levels. The municipal-level results show that DA-controlled municipalities with higher levels of service provision in 2016 offered more support for the DA in the 2021 and 2019 elections. However, ANC-controlled municipalities with higher levels of 2016 service provision did not support the ANC at higher rates. Additionally, ANC-controlled municipalities that improved service provision between 2011 and 2016 supported the ANC at higher rates in the 2021 and 2019 elections than they did in previous elections. DA vote share did not increase in DA-controlled municipalities where services improved over time.