Holocaust Denial on Campus: The Case of Pacifica Forum (1994-2010)

Pacifica Forum began as a Eugene, Oregon pacifist group in 1994 but quickly devolved into a hotbed for Holocaust denial and other antisemitic conspiracy theories until its dissolution in the early 2010s. The Forum met on the University of Oregon campus during the final six years of its existence, sparking community debate on the limits of free speech on college campuses, especially after Pacifica Forum hosted Holocaust deniers Mark Weber and David Irving in 2007 and 2008. In 2010, the University of Oregon relocated Pacifica Forum to an off-campus but university-owned building in downtown Eugene. While this relocation eventually led to the Forum’s dissolution, it came several years after significant protest from Eugene residents, particularly the Jewish community. This thesis uses twenty-four boxes of previously unanalyzed archival material to argue that the tardiness of the university’s response was due to two interdependent phenomena. First, the relocation was a response to student and faculty protest, which came significantly later than the first Jewish protests of Pacifica Forum. Second, as Pacifica Forum became more identifiably right-wing in its latter years, Eugene residents considered the group less of a misguided amalgamation of neighbors and more of an extra-societal clan that did not share the community’s ethos and was, thus, worthy of censorship

Cover Art: “Where Else Is There”

“Fight the Power” by Public Enemy is a song that was created in collaboration with the movie “Do the Right Thing,” directed by Spike Lee, to narrate the social injustices of the African American community. Following the prompt of my Advanced Digital Drawing class to listen to “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy to create a drawing, I was inspired to focus on the social injustices of gentrification in my illustration. This artwork is a visual representation of how marginalized communities continuously face injustices by disruption and separation from their communities and culture through acts of greed. Activists continuously work to research such serious topics to demonstrate the significant need for equality among BIPOC communities

Teaching with Artistry and Awareness: Elevating Technique and Wellbeing in Dance Pedagogical Approaches

48 pagesThis study aims to identify which teaching methods create a balance between technique and wellbeing within dance technique classes as well as how these methods create this balance. This research aims to bridge the gap between old teaching styles and new emerging teaching styles. In current literature this hasn’t been addressed, but rather which teaching styles are typically used in technique-focused classes versus wellbeing-focused classes. Through the use of two surveys, one for students and one for professors, this study is able to identify certain teaching methods that help create this balance. With the guidance of 50 responses from students and 5 responses from professors, the main themes that help promote this balance are positivity and encouragement, acknowledgement, and student autonomy. Each of these themes provides examples and the reasoning for these methods creating a balance between technique and wellbeing that can be implemented immediately in dance technique classes

Exploring Relationships among Chopstick Use in Preschool Years and Writing and Math Development in Elementary Years

This study investigates the relationship between preschool chopstick use and early elementary academic achievement in writing and math. Building upon prior research linking chopstick usage to enhanced fine motor skills and brain activity, the study examined whether early exposure to chopsticks relates with improved academic performance. A statistically significant positive relationship was found between chopstick use and writing achievement, but not in math. While factors such as gender, age, and maternal education may have influenced the results, this study provides preliminary evidence suggesting that early chopstick training could positively impact writing skills in young children

Does Urban Air Mobility Advance City Goals?

20 pagesUAM is promoted as a service that could address a wide-range of city goals from reducing traffic congestion and emissions to improving access to destinations. At the forecast scale, however, trips will remain both too few and too expensive to meet broad city goals. While UAM may offer an exciting and futuristic technological vision, it can also distract attention and resources from proven policies and investments that could realize concrete improvements. For cities planning to pursue scaled UAM services, they should consider scenario planning and implement flexible regulations and plans that can be adapted and updated as understanding of UAM services’ costs, risks, and benefits evolve

Leveraging Rehabilitation and Implantable Strain Sensors to Improve Bone Healing After Traumatic Femur Fractures

The primary objective of this thesis was to quantify patient-specific loading and rehabilitation parameters to elucidate how specific rehabilitation conditions impact bone healing after traumatic bone injuries. Our overall hypothesis was that parameters of mechanical loading and exercise will impact bone healing. To test this hypothesis, we utilized three rehabilitation platforms that enabled investigation of distinct rehabilitation parameters. These platforms including (1) a rodent running wheel with engineered resistance brakes or on/off brakes to enable running of different intensities or durations, respectively, (2) a treadwheel with an adapted on/off brake as a scalable platform, and (3) altered treadmill with speeds conducive to rodent needs. These platforms allowed for the investigate of distinct rehabilitation platforms and their relationship to bone healing. We also used implantable wireless strain sensors that enabled real-time non-invasive monitoring of mechanical cues as a function of time, rehabilitation conditions, and healing status. In collaboration with University of Utah, we used these sensors and in vivo microCT scans to develop subject-specific finite element models to quantify niche mechanical cues during different rehabilitation conditions. We discovered that higher intensity rehabilitation, relative to rehabilitation of lower intensity, increased early-stage strain magnitudes and significantly improved bone healing, with explant femurs matching intact strength. Beyond loading magnitude, we also discovered the importance of both long term and short term on bone healing. Nonlinear multivariate analyses revealed that rehabilitation must balance activity and rest to improve bone healing, where rehabilitation with longer running distance and shorter daily rest periods resulted in 100% union after 3 mm bone injuries. These results further found that the necessary balance of rehabilitation and rest depends on subject-specific factors such as injury size since the same rehabilitation conditions resulted in only 20% union after a 2 mm bone injury but 100% nonunion after a 3 mm bone injury. Using previous studies to inform a rehabilitation regimen predicted to improve bone healing, we also found the importance of short-term rest between exercise loading bouts. Rehabilitation that involved steady-state running for 12 minutes significantly hindered bridging and bone formation compared to rehabilitation that involved intermittent rest periods between one minute running bouts. Systemic myeloid-derived cell types, previously predicted to impair bone healing, were also downregulated for rehabilitation with short-term rest periods. These results highlight rehabilitation with data-informed levels of intensity, activity, and both short and long term rest as a therapeutic to modulate early mechanical loading and the immune response to enhance bone repair.This work facilitated a deeper understanding of how specific rehabilitation parameters regulate mechanical cues and bone repair and validated an implantable sensor platform to further investigate mechanobiology. This thesis aids in the development of subject-specific rehabilitation with the novel insight into the importance of rest on bone healing. Our results challenge the fields focus on optimizing the loading magnitude to improve bone repair. In addition, this thesis provides foundational support for the commercialization of implantable sensor technologies to track implant mechanics as a noninvasive feedback of healing status and to inform personalized clinical decisions. This dissertation includes content from several published articles including Nash* et al. (2022) Connective Tissue Research; Nash* et al. (2022) Physiology in Health and Disease, Springer; Williams and Harrer et al. (2024) NPJ Regenerative Medicine; and Williams et al. (submitted 2024) Science Advances. *Publication under maiden name: Kylie Nas

Disruption of Ribosome Biogenesis and Induction of Nucleolar Stress by Platinum(II)-based Chemotherapeutics

Platinum(II) metal complexes—cisplatin, carboplatin, and oxaliplatin—represent a major class of antineoplastics agents used in a majority of cancer treatment regimens throughout the world. Despite their ubiquitous use, the precise mechanisms and targets responsible for cancer cell death are not fully understood. Overcoming these deficiencies will be necessary to address the limitation associated with current Pt-based chemotherapeutics in the clinical setting. Current literature has revealed, unlike cisplatin and carboplatin, oxaliplatin primarily kills cells through disruption of ribosome biogenesis. Ribosome biogenesis is intimately connected to the nucleolus, a phase-separated nuclear condensate, which also functions as a central hub for sensing and coordinating cellular stress response through nucleolar stress response.This work provides insight on the relationship between Pt(II) compounds and disruptions in ribosome biogenesis, and the impact on nucleolar structure. Chapter I summarizes the significance and current understanding of Pt-based chemotherapeutics in the context of ribosome biogenesis and the nucleolus. Chapter II identifies structural and chemical properties of Pt(II) compounds necessary for nucleolar stress induction through a novel immunofluorescence imaging approach for quantifying nucleolar stress. Chapter III applies this framework to a subset of monofunctional Pt(II) compounds which are also shown to induce nucleolar stress. Chapter IV examines spatiotemporal differences in nucleolar stress induced by Pt(II) compounds identified in previous studies—ruling out connections with intracellular accumulation and DNA binding. Chapter V discusses current progress on elucidating the molecular mechanisms for inhibition of rRNA synthesis by oxaliplatin by adapting a ChIP-based sequencing techniques to map the occupancy of RNA Polymerase I machinery along rDNA. Chapter VI provides a comprehensive review on the coordination metal ions with nucleic acids, highlighting recent examples of NMR and x-ray crystallography structures from the literature. This dissertation includes published and unpublished co-authored material

Souveraineté narrative contre les structures coloniales d’enfermement : Autrices et artistes de Cuba, d’Haïti et des nations autochtones au Québec en conversation

Ma dissertation conceptualise la résistance à l’enferment dans les productions littéraires et cinématographiques de dix autrices cubaines, haïtiennes et autochtones du XXème et du XXIème siècles. Je trace l’histoire de ce que je nomme l’idéologie occidentale de l’enfermement, un enfermement géographique, mais aussi politique, identitaire et économique, mis en place par les gouvernements occidentaux sur les espaces et communautés colonisées. Ces structures sont particulièrement saillantes dans des espaces à la souveraineté contestée, comme les Nations autochtones au Québec, Cuba et Haïti. Je propose une lecture des politiques d’enfermements à la fois des individus et des communautés développées dans le continent européen et qui ont été adaptées sur Abya Yala, tels que les pensionnats ou encore les institutions de travail forcé. Ces espaces carcéraux ont joué un rôle central dans les déplacements forcés et le travail non- ou sous-rémunéré, et ont tenté de vider l’espace de ses occupant·es pour faciliter l’extractivisme des ressources naturelles (chapitre 1). An Antane Kapesh (Innu), Marie Vieux-Chauvet (Haïti) et Daisy Rubiera Castillo (Cuba) combattent les enfermements coloniaux qui se matérialisent par les stéréotypes de genre, de race et de classe. Leur critique est à la fois historique et politique, déconstruisant les identités imposées de l’extérieur pour reconstruire l’histoire coloniale depuis leur point de vue de femme racisée (chapitre 2). La poésie de Soleida Ríos (Cuba) et Joséphine Bacon (Innu) rend lisibles des formes d’habitation du territoire profondément ancrées dans leur héritage afro-cubain et innu respectif. Leur recherche poétique de la liberté s’oppose à l’idéologie occidentale de l’enfermement par la revendication de déplacements tant physiques que spirituels (chapitre 3). Le roman permet à Emmelie Prophète (Haïti) et Dazra Novak (Cuba) d’explorer des pratiques alternatives d’habiter la ville, l’espace domestique et le corps féminin non-hétéronormatif, et ce en contexte de crise du logement (chapitre 4). Caroline Monnet (Anishinaabe et française) et Gessica Généus (Haïti), dans leurs films de fiction, construisent des dialogues intergénérationnels qui proposent de renverser les structures coloniales, notamment économiques et politiques, dont elles rejettent la légitimité historique, dans le but de reconstruire leur communauté grâce à une praxis décoloniale (chapitre 5). En ouvrant des dialogues entre ces dix autrices et artistes, ma thèse contribue à déconstruire l’idéologie de l’enfermement en proposant une archive multi-genre qui transcende les frontières générationnelles, linguistiques, raciales et nationales issues de la colonisation européenne et affirme en lieu et place une souveraineté narrative

THE HAVES AND THE HAVE NOTS: AN ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL STRATEGIES IN EUROPEAN SOCCER

113 pagesIn the contemporary landscape of European soccer, clubs must grapple with competition not only on the field but also in business, vying for fans, players, and ultimately money. Because of disparities in revenues and spending ability between clubs, they must develop strategies to overcome their challenges. This thesis analyzes the ways that seven clubs try to do this: Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Brighton and Hove Albion, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, and RB Leipzig. Each offers a unique perspective on financial strategy in sport. Each club’s chapter consists of a historical analysis of the club, an understanding of its goals, and a look at how it has handled the financial side of the sport with an emphasis on transfer strategy. The research will conclude that the most important aspect of financial strategy in soccer is first and foremost to have a concise plan that is understood throughout the club, with an aligned understanding of the goals that it targets and the processes that will be used to implement it. Within this, there are a range of strategies that clubs can and have implemented successfully to advance their objectives in maximizing wins, profit, or both. These findings give an informative snapshot of the current climate of financial strategy in the sport, and an analysis of how it has changed and will continue to do so into the future

The Recital

20 pagesThis Terminal Creative Project thesis surveys and responds to the practice of contemporary painting and its conceptual contents and possibilities of inquiry and scrutiny. In this text I will categorize production methods and strategies while investigating painting’s role as an immediate record of the body, its function as a stand-in or body double, and how gestural marks generate an inaccessible language which incites an analysis of painting’s play with hidden bonuses, idiosyncrasies of articulation, and unresolved, yet unrelenting production and inquiry