Tea Service: Queering Time and Creating Community

This thesis explores the concept of queer temporality and the importance of community in a person’s quality of life. Contrast between traditional English tea service and unconventional, queered tea service is used in dualistic metaphor to explore the contrast of community with people who seek to uphold cisheteronormativity and with people who disrupt it. Further, tea can be seen in various contexts as a site of social resistance. Queer temporality can be defined as the nonlinear and unconventional uses of time which are experienced in opposition to cisheteronormative temporalities. The importance of community amongst queer individuals is emphasized through shared experiences of concealment. This metaphor is dualistic because it connects tea as a temporal event to both cisheteronormative and queer temporality and it connects the social environment of a tea service to both cisheteronormative and queer environments. As an example, I recount how my own experiences of having tea with family and friends reflect this metaphor as they lead to my exploration of these concepts. Tea with my family is representative of a cisheteronormative environment, where my queer identity is concealed; it reflects ideals of traditional English tea and cisheteronormative societal conventions. Tea with my friends is representative of a queer environment where my queer identity is not only accepted but celebrated and shared; it reflects found family and queer community. I also show my process in making several sculptural teacups to be used in a queer tea party of my own

Determining development status of United States counties based on comparative and spatial analyses of multivariate criteria using geographic information systems

Many world organizations rank countries according to varying development criteria, but rarely are those scales transposed onto smaller geographic regions of a single countryin order to more fully understand that country’s development. This global analysis does not take into account regions that are statistical outliers within a country. The United States ranked 8th in 2015 according to the United Nations’ Human Development Index, but empirical evidence shows, through qualitative and quantitative data, that there are regions within the U.S. that would not classify as having “very high human development.” This study used multivariate quantitative data (health statistics, education levels, and income) to replicate development indices like that of United Nations (UN) for counties in the United States. Development thresholds were based on standards of highly reputable and widely recognized organizations such as the UN, World Bank, and CIA World Fact Book. The data werethen graphically displayed as maps using ESRI’s ArcGIS software to show the spatial distribution of development across the United States if counties were held to the same standards of international development like those of United Nations or World Bank. The results showed that low development was prevalent in areas with entrenched poverty like the Mississippi River Delta and the Appalachian Region. In total, there are 66 counties that fall into fourth class, or the “low development” category, for all three development criteria. Having applied international development indices to U.S. counties, it is the author’s hope that issues of poverty, development, and human well-being will be approached from a greater global perspective and more domestic aid will be given

MODELING ATMOSPHERE-MOUNTAIN INTERACTIONS: IMPLICATIONS FOR STABLE ISOTOPE-BASED PALEOALTIMETRY

The measure of surface uplift can provide an important constraint on the behavior of continental lithosphere and the underlying upper mantle. Isotope-based paleoaltimetry aims to quantitatively estimate the magnitude and timing of surface uplift from records of the isotopic composition of precipitation in order to provide constraints on the tectonic processes driving mountain building. As the surface of a topographic barrier increases in height, along the windward side, δ-values of precipitation should get progressively more negative, and on the leeside, δ-values of precipitation should also get progressively more negative based on the presence and development of a topographically-induced rain shadow. If modern precipitation and the isotopic composition of that precipitation are indeed related to the elevation of the mountain range, a record of paleo-δ-values should, in principle, contain a record of the paleoelevation. A deeper understanding of the processes that control the windward and leeside isotopic composition of precipitation will improve interpretations of isotope-based paleoaltimetry records and has the potential to improve the reliability of the technique for constraining the topographic and tectonic evolution of mountain ranges. In this study I focus on the underlying assumptions within isotope-based paleoaltimetry interpretations from windward and leeside studies, for both empirical and theoretical approaches. The research presented here focuses on: (1) the role of atmospheric flow deflection on leeside isotope-based paleoaltimetry records and the subsequent interpretations of those records in the southern Sierra Nevada and the Southern Alps (Chapter 2 and Chapter 4), (2) whether simple models of upslope flow are sufficient for understanding mountain-atmosphere interactions (Chapter 3), and (3) the limitations and opportunities provided by theoretical approaches based on Rayleigh distillation (Chapter 3). Through the comparison of leeside isotope-based paleoaltimetry in the southern Sierra Nevada and the Southern Alps, I conclude that leeside isotope-based paleoaltimetry is best applied in relatively low-lying mountain ranges with simple uplift histories, and where atmospheric flow patterns are primarily two-dimensional (Chapter 2 and Chapter 4). From simulations of windward lapse rates for orographically enhanced precipitation, I find that lapse rates generally steepen with increasing elevation and lapse rates from Rayleigh distillation models are almost always steeper than the simulated lapse rates due to the high precipitation efficiency (Chapter 3). The difference in lapse rates between Rayleigh distillation models and the simulations of orographic precipitation suggests that Rayleigh distillation models may be best used for determining the minimum elevation of a mountain range and the maximum amount of uplift

(Un)Rest in peace : the agents of human remains repatriation and the lives of living migrants : a study of agency, process and effect in repatriating bodies from South Africa and the U.S.A.

Migration, as a field of study and a phenomenon greatly impacting society, primarily concerns itself with the living. When migrants die outside their native territory or nation, the economic, social, physical and spiritual concerns that normally influence the management of death may be expanded to add an imperative that precedes even burial or other funeral arrangements: the decision of whether to return a body to its place of origin. This process can be simple and straightforward, but it can also be culturally complicated and illuminate issues and realities far beyond the breadth of the repatriation process alone. This study enters the discussion at the juncture of death and decision-making about repatriation, and does so by assessing two distinct systems of human remains repatriation and their involved agents, applying their lessons to a wider discussion of agency, repatriation and the situation of living migrants. The first system follows the repatriation of Native American bodies from museums in the United States, and the second follows the repatriation of African foreign nationals repatriating bodies from Johannesburg, South Africa. These disparate cases introduce differing concepts of who a migrant is and what migration involves, but they also provide a lens through which to consider whether more universal themes in agency, process and migrant experience can be found, linking the dead to the living through the process of repatriation

What is the status of the Lee’s Lane Landfill Superfund Site?

The Lee’s Lane Landfill is located in western Louisville, KY along the Ohio River (Fig. 1) [1]. The site was used as a quarry in the 1940s before being repurposed as a landfill from 1948 to 1975 (Fig. 2). At least 212,400 tons of municipal and industrial waste were disposed of in the landfill during this period. In 1980, the Kentucky Department of Hazardous Materials and Waste Management discovered approximately 400 drums of hazardous waste within the landfill; these drums were removed by the landfill owners in the fall of 1981, but the remaining drums of non-hazardous material, as well as any empty drums, were buried in place on the landfill. The buried and capped landfill waste covers an area of 112 acres. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) placed the Lee’s Lane Landfill site on the National Priorities List (NPL) in 1983. Cleanup efforts concluded in 1988 and monitoring of the site has continued since. This white paper summarizes reports published from 2013 through 2018 documenting Lee’s Lane Landfill site conditions and the effectiveness of the cap and other remedies put in place to protect human health. The condition of the site must be reviewed every five years by the EPA, and those results are made available to the public in what is referred to as a Five-Year Review (FYR). The Lee’s Lane Landfill FYR relies on information provided to the EPA by the Kentucky State Department of Environmental Protection (KDEP), information collected by the Lee’s Lane Landfill Group, monitoring data and conclusions from the Louisville and Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District’s (MSD) Conceptual Site Model (CSM) report, [2] and other interim communications. Using the information in these reports as well as relevant current and historical research documents, we identify questions that remain unanswered and need to be addressed in order to confirm that the contaminants present on the site do not pose a risk to public health and to determine whether the site is ready for re-use. We conclude by proposing several next steps to fill the identified gaps in information and confirm the conclusions in the reports

Desperate planktotrophs : decreased settlement selectivity with age in competent eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica larvae

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2018. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here under a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license granted to WHOI. It is made available for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Marine Ecology Progress Series 599 (2018): 93-106, doi:10.3354/meps12653.For larvae of benthic marine invertebrate species, settlement from planktonic to benthic life is a critical transition. The “desperate larva” concept describes the tendency of larvae to accept suboptimal settlement habitats as they age. We quantified swimming behavior in planktotrophic larvae of the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, to determine whether settlement behaviors, such as swimming downward and remaining on the bottom, increased with age and whether these ontogenetic changes were more apparent in larvae exposed to suboptimal conditions than to preferred conditions (settlement cue absent or present, respectively). In two experiments, the proportion of competent larvae remaining near the bottom of experimental flasks (indicating settlement) increased with larval age, but only in larvae that were not exposed to the settlement cue. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that larvae encountering suboptimal habitat become “desperate” (i.e. more likely to settle) as they age. Exploratory behaviors, such as upward swimming, meandering, or helices, were expected to decrease with age, especially in the absence of the settlement cue, but this pattern was detected in only one of the five swimming metrics tested (helices in downward swimming larvae). Surprisingly, pre-competent larvae exhibited settlement behavior when exposed to the cue, raising the question of whether a response at this stage would have positive or negative consequences. Acceptance of suboptimal settlement habitats by aging larvae may increase the resilience of a species by allowing populations to persist in variable environmental conditions.Funding was provided by NSF grant OCE-0850419, NOAA Sea Grant NA14OAR4170074, grants from WHOI Coastal Ocean Institute, discretionary WHOI funds, a WHOI Ocean Life Fellowship to LSM, a WHOI Summer Student Fellowship to EH, and a WHOI Postdoctoral Scholarship to KSM

Isolating the hydrodynamic triggers of the dive response in eastern oyster larvae

© The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Limnology and Oceanography 60 (2015): 1332–1343, doi:10.1002/lno.10098.Understanding the behavior of larval invertebrates during planktonic and settlement phases remains an open and intriguing problem in larval ecology. Larvae modify their vertical swimming behavior in response to water column cues to feed, avoid predators, and search for settlement sites. The larval eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) can descend in the water column via active downward swimming, sinking, or “diving,” which is a flick and retraction of the ciliated velum to propel a transient downward acceleration. Diving may play an important role in active settlement, as diving larvae move rapidly downward in the water column and may regulate their proximity to suitable settlement sites. Alternatively, it may function as a predator-avoidance escape mechanism. We examined potential hydrodynamic triggers to this behavior by observing larval oysters in a grid-stirred turbulence tank. Larval swimming was recorded for two turbulence intensities and flow properties around each larva were measured using particle image velocimetry. The statistics of flow properties likely to be sensed by larvae (fluid acceleration, deformation, vorticity, and angular acceleration) were compared between diving and non-diving larvae. Our analyses showed that diving larvae experienced high average flow accelerations in short time intervals (approximately 1–2 s) prior to dive onset, while accelerations experienced by non-diving larvae were significantly lower. Further, the probability that larvae dove increased with the fluid acceleration they experienced. These results indicate that oyster larvae actively respond to hydrodynamic signals in the local flow field, which has ecological implications for settlement and predator avoidance.This work was supported by NSF grant OCE-0850419, NOAA Sea Grant NA14OAR4170074, grants from the WHOI Coastal Ocean Institute, discretionary WHOI funds, a WHOI Ocean Life Fellowship to LM, and a Grove City College Swezey Fellowship to EA

Ontogenetic changes in larval swimming and orientation of pre-competent sea urchin Arbacia punctulata in turbulence

© The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Journal of Experimental Biology 219 (2016): 1303-1310, doi:10.1242/jeb.129502.Many marine organisms have complex life histories, having sessile adults and relying on the planktonic larvae for dispersal. Larvae swim and disperse in a complex fluid environment and the effect of ambient flow on larval behavior could in turn impact their survival and transport. However, to date, most studies on larvae–flow interactions have focused on competent larvae near settlement. We examined the importance of flow on early larval stages by studying how local flow and ontogeny influence swimming behavior in pre-competent larval sea urchins, Arbacia punctulata. We exposed larval urchins to grid-stirred turbulence and recorded their behavior at two stages (4- and 6-armed plutei) in three turbulence regimes. Using particle image velocimetry to quantify and subtract local flow, we tested the hypothesis that larvae respond to turbulence by increasing swimming speed, and that the increase varies with ontogeny. Swimming speed increased with turbulence for both 4- and 6-armed larvae, but their responses differed in terms of vertical swimming velocity. 4-Armed larvae swam most strongly upward in the unforced flow regime, while 6-armed larvae swam most strongly upward in weakly forced flow. Increased turbulence intensity also decreased the relative time that larvae spent in their typical upright orientation. 6-Armed larvae were tilted more frequently in turbulence compared with 4-armed larvae. This observation suggests that as larvae increase in size and add pairs of arms, they are more likely to be passively re-oriented by moving water, rather than being stabilized (by mechanisms associated with increased mass), potentially leading to differential transport. The positive relationship between swimming speed and larval orientation angle suggests that there was also an active response to tilting in turbulence. Our results highlight the importance of turbulence to planktonic larvae, not just during settlement but also in earlier stages through morphology–flow interactions.This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [OCE-0850419] and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Sea Grant [NA14OAR4170074]. K.Y.K.C. was supported by the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), with funding provided by the Coastal Ocean Institute, the Croucher Foundation and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. K.Y.K.C. is currently funded by the Croucher Foundation. Additional funding was provided to L.S.M. through the WHOI Ocean Life Fellowship and discretionary WHOI funds, and to E.J.A. through the faculty sabbatical program at Grove City College