Bachelor of Arts

thesisStockham: The Father of Digital Audio Recording is a mid-length documentary film that celebrates the life and achievements of former University of Utah professor Thomas Greenway Stockham, Jr. Despite Dr. Stockham's many accomplishments, his story remains relatively unknown outside of the audio engineering world, even at the University of Utah and in Salt Lake City, where much of his pioneering work was done. Various articles exist which document Stockham's achievements, but they do not capture his personality, his exceptional teaching abilities, or his perseverance to change the way we listen to music in the face of controversy. This film seeks to fill these gaps and to bring well-deserved attention to Dr. Stockham's story. Using Michel Chion's concept of "audio-vision" as a theoretical basis, I set out to create a film that would interest and engage audio aficionados as well as the general public. I researched my subject as thoroughly as possible by searching online, poring through library archives, and pre-interviewing Stockham's family, friends, and coworkers. I sought and successfully raised limited funds for travel, crew, equipment, and other expenses. I then traveled to Moab, Lake Powell, and Seattle to conduct roughly a dozen video interviews with many of the people I had pre-interviewed. I collected and digitized a wealth of archival photos, videos, and audio examples of Stockham's sound experiments. Finally, I edited together a rough cut of the film. A final cut was not achieved, however, I was offered a summer internship with KUED and a partnership with the Utah Film Center that will provide the time and resources necessary to polish the film for wider distribution. It is my hope that Stockham: The Father of Digital Audio iii Recording will be distributed in the film festival circuit or on public television, but ultimately, the film will be made publically available online for use as an educational and historical resource. It will help to preserve and disseminate a heretofore untold story of great relevance to the history of modern audio recording, Salt Lake City, and the University of Utah

The Nagoya Protocol and the Legal Structure of Global Biogenomic Research

International research collaborations have been the engines of some of the most important advances in human health and nutrition over the last century. The Green Revolution, built on networks of scientists and resources drawn from the world\u27s wealthiest and poorest countries, averted critical food shortages that faced the growing world population in the 1950s and 1960s. The most promising vaccine candidates for devastating infectious diseases like Ebola and HIV have resulted from partnerships of financial resources, governments, and scientists from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Thailand. Orchestrated technology transfer and research capacity building in low- and middle-income countries have delivered advances in the ability of low-resource countries to manufacture medicines and vaccines. Scientists have worked together across borders as threats posed by infectious disease, malnutrition, and environmental degradation necessitate partnerships that match the technology and resources in wealthy countries with the knowledge and biodiversity abundant in many poorer ones

The Nagoya Protocol and the Legal Structure of Global Biogenomic Research

As life sciences technologies have advanced, so too has the potential for these international collaborations to lead to breakthrough medicines, enhance food security, and protect ecological systems. The linchpin of this progress is the development of high throughput genetic sequencing technologies. Researchers are now able to generate and compare large stretches of DNA - 1 million bases or more - from different sources quickly and inexpensively. Such comparisons can yield massive amounts of information about the role of inheritance in susceptibility to infection and illness as well as responses to environmental influences. In addition, the ability to sequence genomes more quickly and inexpensively creates enormous potential for new diagnostics and therapies. This is true not only for sequencing the human genome, but also for sequencing the genomes of simple and complex organisms that comprise the entire human environment. This Article will first provide examples of where international collaborations have led to advances in medical and agricultural benefits for populations in both rich and poor countries. It will then describe how new life sciences research collaborations, primarily using genetic sequencing technology, may detect potential human pathogens, characterize microbial life, and catalogue the unique genetic information in all wildlife species. It will situate these biogenomic projects in the context of the international access and benefit sharing law, derived from several sources, but most importantly the 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Finally, this Article will analyze four of these new international collaborations to demonstrate that the common tensions that arise between generating scientific and other benefits through exploiting new research possibilities, and meeting the food and medical needs of the world\u27s population today are often reconcilable. Part I of this Article outlines the law and ethics of life sciences research partnerships as they unfolded over the course of the twentieth century. Part II analyzes how advances in genetic sequencing technology may accelerate the pace and impact of new life sciences research collaborations. Part II also examines the development of international law over the course of those technological advances, and how the law now requires or shapes partnerships to benefit all participants and to be mindful of constituencies who may or may not benefit. Part III examines four major collaborations, using these case studies to show how the international law of biodiversity is shaping their objectives and channeling their benefits and also addressing persistent ethical questions about the use and distribution of scarce resources. Part IV sets out the conclusions

Historical infinitesimalists and modern historiography of infinitesimals

In the history of infinitesimal calculus, we trace innovation from Leibniz to Cauchy and reaction from Berkeley to Mansion and beyond. We explore 19th century infinitesimal lores, including the approaches of Simeon-Denis Poisson, Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis, and Jean-Nicolas Noel. We examine contrasting historiographic approaches to such lores, in the work of Laugwitz, Schubring, Spalt, and others, and address a recent critique by Archibald et al. We argue that the element of contingency in this history is more prominent than many modern historians seem willing to acknowledge.Comment: 60 page