Master of Arts

thesisThe San Francisco art and architecture collective Ant Farm built Cadillac Ranch in 1974 outside of Amarillo, Texas, to showcase "the rise and fall of the Cadillac tailfin." The ten vintage Cadillacs buried nose‐first in a row along the old Route 66, with their tailfins jutting up obliquely, is often read as a monument to the golden era of the American automobile. Yet despite (and because of) its continued popularity, the work has rarely been taken seriously as art. This thesis proposes a revaluation of Ant Farm's iconic project, and represents an attempt to position Cadillac Ranch as an important sculptural installation that speaks to many of the key concerns of the American avant‐garde of the 1960s and 1970s. My title references the Jewish Museum's 1966 exhibition "Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculpture," which sparked the rapid legitimization of minimalist sculpture in the postwar American art world. Reading Cadillac Ranch against this seminal artistic tradition, I argue that the project can be read as a monumental epitaph to the exhausted aesthetic models and sociopolitical narratives of the late‐modern period. Cadillac Ranch memorializes modernism by rehearsing its formal techniques, but as a hybridized, participatory project, it also enacts modernism's end

Investigating the Use of Pair Programming for Teaching Data Structures and Algorithms

Incoming university students who have not previously studied computer programming often find it a challenging subject, leading to high failure rates (Williams & Upchurch, 2001). As a result, enrolment in computer science courses is declining (Carver et al., 2007), with the participation of female students being particularly affected (Werner, Hanks & McDowell, 2004). Research has suggested that the lack of a formalized structure for collaborative learning may be one of the factors responsible for students’ negative impressions of computer science (Werner et al., 2004). In this study we investigated whether the use of pair programming in labs would facilitate peer learning and enhance students’ confidence in their programming ability. The hypothesis motivating this intervention was that the more experienced programmers would transmit some of their knowledge to the weaker students and that the class as a whole would benefit from having the support of a partner to identify problem solving strategies and to resolve coding bugs. Results showed that the intervention was generally well received, although the weaker programmers were more positive about it than the stronger ones. Students that reported learning from pair programming were less likely to enjoy programming (r = -.496), less likely to enjoy labs (r = -.502), more likely to struggle with understanding lab material (r = .561) and more likely to report a lack of confidence in programming (r = -.415). Although there was no significant increase in final exam grades for male students, there was a significant 9.7% increase for female students. The most frequently reported positive feature of pair programming was that it allowed students to meet more people in the class

Enhancing Collaborative Learning Using Pair Programming: Who Benefits?

Incoming university students who have not previously studied computer programming often find it a challenging subject, leading to high failure rates. Research has suggested that the lack of a formalised structure for collaborative learning may be one of the factors responsible for students’ negative impressions of computer science. In this study we investigated whether the use of pair programming in practical laboratories would facilitate peer learning and enhance students’ confidence in their programming ability. Results showed that this intervention was generally well received, although the weaker programmers (as measured by prior exam grades) perceived it to be of more benefit than the stronger ones. Students who reported a lower initial level of enjoyment and confidence in programming were more likely to report learning from the paired intervention, though this did not necessarily lead to enhanced performance. The most frequently reported positive feature of pair programming was that it allowed students to meet more people in the class. Although there was no significant increase in final exam grades for male students, there was a significant increase for female students, suggesting this teaching strategy may have asymmetrical gender benefits

In vivo dose measurement using TLDs and MOSFET dosimeters for cardiac radiosurgery.

In vivo measurements were made of the dose delivered to animal models in an effort to develop a method for treating cardiac arrhythmia using radiation. This treatment would replace RF energy (currently used to create cardiac scar) with ionizing radiation. In the current study, the pulmonary vein ostia of animal models were irradiated with 6 MV X-rays in order to produce a scar that would block aberrant signals characteristic of atrial fibrillation. The CyberKnife radiosurgery system was used to deliver planned treatments of 20-35 Gy in a single fraction to four animals. The Synchrony system was used to track respiratory motion of the heart, while the contractile motion of the heart was untracked. The dose was measured on the epicardial surface near the right pulmonary vein and on the esophagus using surgically implanted TLD dosimeters, or in the coronary sinus using a MOSFET dosimeter placed using a catheter. The doses measured on the epicardium with TLDs averaged 5% less than predicted for those locations, while doses measured in the coronary sinus with the MOSFET sensor nearest the target averaged 6% less than the predicted dose. The measurements on the esophagus averaged 25% less than predicted. These results provide an indication of the accuracy with which the treatment planning methods accounted for the motion of the target, with its respiratory and cardiac components. This is the first report on the accuracy of CyberKnife dose delivery to cardiac targets

Abort scenario feasibility for the manned Mars mission

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1991.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 117).by Kevin Patrick Maguire.M.S

Diatom Diversity and Community Structure Along a Thermal Gradient in the Maple River of Northern Michigan

Articlehttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96973/1/UMURF-Issue04_2007-AMaguire.pd

Hippocampal corticotropin-releasing hormone neurons support recognition memory and modulate hippocampal excitability

Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) signaling in the hippocampus has been established to be important for mediating the effects of stress on learning and memory. Given our laboratory’s recent characterization of a subset of hippocampal CRH neurons as a novel class of GABAergic interneurons, we hypothesized that these local GABAergic hippocampal CRH neurons may influence hippocampal function. Here we applied an array of molecular tools to selectively label and manipulate hippocampal CRH neurons in mice, in order to assess this interneuron population’s impact on hippocampus-dependent behaviors and hippocampal network excitability. Genetically-targeted ablation of hippocampal CRH neurons in vivo impaired object recognition memory and substantially enhanced the severity of kainic acid-induced seizures. Conversely, selective activation of CRH neurons in vitro suppressed the excitability of the mossy fiber-CA3 pathway. Additional experiments are needed to reconcile the functions of GABA and CRH signaling of hippocampal CRH neurons on hippocampal function. However, our results indicate that this interneuron population plays an important role in maintaining adaptive network excitability, and provide a specific circuit-level mechanism for this role

Synthesis of cyclic alpha-diazo-beta-keto sulfoxides in batch and continuous flow

Diazo transfer to beta–keto sulfoxides to form stable isolable alpha-diazo-beta-keto sulfoxides has been achieved for the first time. Both monocyclic and benzofused ketone derived beta-keto sulfoxides were successfully explored as substrates for diazo transfer. Use of continuous flow leads to isolation of the desired compounds in enhanced yields relative to standard batch conditions, with short reaction times, increased safety profile and potential to scale up

endo-11-(Dibenzyl­amino)­tetra­cyclo­[5.4.0.03,10.05,9]undecane-8-one

The structure of the title compound, C25H27NO, is a mono-ketone penta­cyclo­undecane (PCU) mol­ecule bearing a tertiary amine group. One of the methyl­ene groups in the PCU is disordered over two orientations with site-occupancy factors of 0.621 (7) and 0.379 (7)