What Climate Denialism Can Teach Us About The Trustworthiness of Science

What Climate Denialism Can Teach Us About The Trustworthiness of Science Jenna Lange (Pomona College)Comments by Jules Obbard (Puget Sound)Chair: Aidan Bicknel

Racializing Service (Learning): A Critical Content Analysis of Service Learning Syllabi

This study examines service learning pedagogy and its use of racialized terms to frame service. Through a critical content analysis using 270 syllabi from 193 four-year U.S. institutions with the Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, this study explores how the language used in service learning syllabi perpetuates and sustains racialized hierarchies in community engagement experiences

Does Faceted Ice Growth Follow a Characteristic Pattern

Under certain heat conditions, ice crystals can form differently from the snowflakes that generally grow. Instead of attaching on the boundaries of a plane of ice, under these conditions, new water molecules will permeate a quasi-liquid layer above the ice that causes them to attach closer to the center of the plane and build up from there. These ice formations are close to cylindrical with patterns of roughness on the sides and top at the micrometer scale. The growth can be modeled with a system of partial differential equations that is similar to a reaction diffusion system. This project tries to fit the roughness on the ice to a Turing Pattern, a common phenomenon in reaction diffusion systems. This was done first by finding existing Turing Pattern models and altering them to fit the ice model. Then the pattern was assumed and parameters were tested for how they influence the frequency of roughness

Is Upright Exploratory Play Influenced by Partial Body Weight Support in Infants with Down Syndrome?

Is Upright Exploratory Play Influenced by Partial Body Weight Support in Infants with Down Syndrome? Sofia Hardin, SPT; Christa Lum, SPT Mentor: Julia Looper, PT, PhD Background: Children with Down syndrome (DS) typically present with delayed gross motor skills, which may negatively impact their development in other realms, such as cognition and language. The partial body-weight supported system (PBWSS) is a possible early intervention for infants with DS in physical therapy settings and in the community to facilitate motor development through exploratory play. Purpose: To explore the effects of a PBWSS on upright play positions during exploratory play among infants with DS. Upright play positions include kneeling, squatting, standing, cruising, supported stepping, and walking. Methods: (N=3). Researchers used a 9x9ft play environment that included the PBWSS and toys. Infants under the age of three attended nine one-hour sessions over the course of three weeks. Infants moved freely within the space and interacted with researchers and present family members. Researchers behavior-coded the first 30 minutes of play for the first and last session with the PBWSS for each infant. Gross motor behaviors were coded for specific motions during the first 2 seconds of every 6 second interval for the duration of the 30 minute play time, totaling to 300 observations. Results: Observations of upright play increased in the last session compared to the first for all three infants, increasing from 33% to 40.67% for infant 1, 15.67% to 49.67% for infant 2 and 39.33% to 47.67% for infant 3. Conclusion: The PBWSS seemed to influence upright play positions during exploratory play for infants with DS and is worth further exploration

Megalithic Art in the Boyne Valley Passage Tombs

The purpose of this study is to quantify the locations of megalithic art within the main passage tombs at Knowth and Newgrange, in the Boyne Valley of Ireland, with the aim of better understanding meanings associated with the art as well as their social contexts. Of particular interest to this study was the identification and analysis of the location of “endogenously-derived arts” as a way to take into account the often overlooked role that altered states of consciousness (ASC) play in rituals throughout prehistory and history. Furthermore, this study places megalithic art at the forefront of its analysis in the context of the tomb’s function as a whole, rather than only analyzing the art or including it as a small piece of evidence. The resulting study identified the kerbstone as the main location for megalithic art, especially endogenous arts. This, in turn, provides evidence against the somewhat dominant belief that huge megalithic tombs were the result of a centralization of power as the Neolithic era progressed. Instead, this research supports the idea that the tombs’ role was primarily communal rather than serving the interests of a specific elite

The Panamanian Puzzle Successful Democratization and Foreign-Imposed Regime Change

Panama represents one of the only modern success stories of foreign-imposed regime change (FIRC) following Operation Just Cause, a military intervention led by the United States to remove Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. Literature on foreign military interventions as a whole traditionally suggests that FIRC is not effective long-term in countries trying to democratize. Panama’s democratization therefore represents a puzzle in why it has succeeded where so many others failed. This puzzle is compounded by the fact that Panama’s transition has not received much attention from political scientists despite Latin America generally being of interest to FIRC scholars. This paper posits that Panama succeeded due to its broader regional context, prior experience with democracy, long-term relationship with the U.S., transitionary stability provided by regime-era holdovers, and the impending transfer of the Panama Canal. Political scientists and foreign policy advisors should reevaluate Panama’s success story and apply the lessons learned from it in future understandings of foreign intervention and global regime change

Is There a Relationship Between Lived Discrimination and Chronic Pain? - A Pilot Study

Background: The complexity of the human experience of pain involves myriad biological, psychological, and social factors, each contributing uniquely to the overall experience. Recent literature illustrates the impact of social determinants on health outcomes, including an association between chronic pain and lived-discrimination. Heart rate variability (HRV) is used as a measure of systemic health, with diminished HRV often accompanying chronic pain. Purpose: The primary aim of this study is to provide a pilot feasibility protocol to investigate the relationship between lived discrimination and HRV across the spectrum of pain duration. Methods: HRV data was collected from 39 participants while seated and taking an iPad survey that encompassed sociodemographic information, pain experience, and the Everyday Discrimination Scale (EDS). HRV data analysis was performed on 37 participants. Pearson’s correlation was used to compare total EDS score to HRV. Results: Due to the positive skew of EDS and HRV scores, the natural logs of EDS, high-frequency power (HFP), and low-frequency power (LFP) were utilized. Total log EDS (lnEDS) was not correlated with either lnHFP (r = -.08, p = .637) or lnLFP (r = .08, p = .658). Conclusions: This protocol demonstrates a feasible structure for further exploration of the relationship between lived discrimination and HRV. While nonsignificant in this small sample, the relationship between discrimination and HFP is opposite of LFP, suggesting different relationships between these variables. Future research should investigate the differences in these relationships in a larger sample between groups of those experiencing no pain, acute pain, and chronic pain

Gender, Self-Identity, and Vocal Music Education: Student Experiences at the University of Puget Sound in the 1990s

Vocalists are the only music students whose instruments are their bodies. As a result, “finding a voice” is an incredibly sensitive process shaped by systems of education. Based on twelve semi-structured interviews with University of Puget Sound choir and voice alumni from the 1990s, this research examines the effects of collegiate music education on the musical identity negotiation of undergraduate vocalists, specifically concerning the effects of gender conceptions embedded in classical music cultures. Interview analysis revealed the salience of gender in mediating choral belonging, the importance of body image in shaping singer identities, the impact of masculine music theory education on vocalists, and the effects of gendered musical hierarchies. Educational discourses in the Puget Sound School of Music in the 1990s reinforced female sexualization, gender binarism, and heteronormativity, valuing masculine-coded traits and activities over those coded as feminine and devaluing the embodied musicianship of vocalists, especially those who did not fit into hierarchical gender expectations

Political Bias in Large Language Models

Recent research has found that large language models consistently capture and replicate undesirable societal biases relating to race, religion, and gender. However, political bias is not well explored. This study investigates the political bias present in the state-of-the-art large language model GPT-3. To investigate political bias, I apply Natural Language Processing techniques to develop a political sentiment analysis model. Using this model, I analyze the ideological bias present in political essays written by GPT-3, finding that GPT-3 has a moderate left-leaning bias and tends to replicate the ideological bias of prompt text