Out of Office Reply

Poetry by Tyler Wagner. Runner up in the 2018 Manuscripts Poetry Contest

“While the imagination strains / after deer”: William Carlos Williams’s Interrogations of the American Transcendental Imagination and the Proto-Suburban Scene

Oftentimes the American suburbs are considered through the lens of architecture, economics, fiction, and visual media. And, typically, the conversation centers on their cultural zenith in the 1950s. One literary form is neglected in this conversation: poetry. This omission is peculiar, as a fascination with the vastness of the continent’s landscape—and its significance—pervades the history of the American verse. For Ralph Waldo Emerson, the apparently endless expanses of space and rejuvenative qualities of the American landscape provide the poet’s ideal inspiration, and Walt Whitman, in perhaps the most important collection of poetry of the nineteenth century, Leaves of Grass, is very much concerned with rendering the American experience through the landscape. As America approached modernity, suburbanization subsumed the American Romantic attitude toward the landscape and the evacuated rural spaces outside of urban cores to produce a new space for the bourgeois upper class. This relocation of the emergent bourgeois upper class to the outskirts of the city created a new hybridized space for Modernist poets to consider. William Carlos Williams’s poetry stands out from that of his Modernist counterparts in that it is able to identify and dismantle the illusion of proto-suburban spaces. That is to say, Williams notices that both the American proto-suburbs and the pastoral ideal rely upon ignoring the material reality of the rural and suburban poor. Through an analysis of Williams’s poetry, the history of the pastoral form, the history of the American suburbs, and contemporary literary criticism, this essay will consider how Williams responded to the subsumption of the American countryside

Competing impure public goods and the sustainability of the theater arts

The general purpose of this paper is to extend the literature regarding public good provision when consumers may contribute via consumption of an impure public good and/or by donating directly to the public good. Standard models pose consumer utility as a function of one impure public good and one or more private goods. Our model features two competing impure public goods and two private goods: one that is a conventional substitute good and one that is a numeraire. We build most directly upon Kotchen's (2005) model of “green†consumption of impure public goods. We propose national and local live theater arts as an example of competing impure public goods. Our model shows that if local and national live theater are substitutes, and the national live theater (such as the Met) is strengthened via technological change (for instance, via simulcasts into local venues), the overall sustainability of the live theater arts may be diminished.donation, impure public goods, simulcast, sustainability, theater arts

Engineering a regulatory framework for synthetic self-amplifying RNA circuits

Self-amplifying RNA replicons are an attractive alternative to traditional nucleic acid therapeutics, providing high, sustained expression from a low dose, without the risk of genomic integration. Replicons are derived from a viral genome, but utilize viral self-amplification to produce heterologous genes instead of the structural proteins necessary to form virions. Despite a variety of therapeutic applications, ranging from vaccination to genetic reprogramming, regulating expression from replicons remains relatively unexplored, as the field continues to rely solely on constitutive expression. However, we will demonstrate that dose cannot be used to control constitutive expression levels from a replicon. Without any means of regulation, the inability to adjust expression is a major safety concern that must be addressed before this platform can be used for more clinically-driven specifications. In this dissertation, we have employed synthetic biology to expand the potential of replicon-based platforms to include sequence-level and small molecule mediated control of expression levels. Synthetic biology aims to create and characterize libraries of highly predictable and modular genetic parts that can be combined to produce genetic circuits. To this end, we generated a collection of parts that can modulate replicon subgenomic transcription, explored existing and novel replicon-based expression platforms, and designed small molecule responsive replicon circuits. We established sequence elements that can be used to predictably control constitutive expression levels of up to three genes driven from a single self-amplifying RNA strand. We verified that this regulatory framework was functional for multiple replicon-based platforms, including multi-SGP replicons, DNA-launched replicons, and a novel self-cleaving, amplifying RNA platform. Finally, we coupled these genetic parts with small molecule responsive elements to form RNA-only circuits delivered on a single replicon that could control expression of multiple proteins based on external inputs. By introducing regulatory genetic circuits to self-amplifying RNA, we demonstrate control over the strength, timing, and location of expression, enhancing the utility of RNA for gene delivery and establishing a framework for the next generation of RNA-based therapeutics.2018-07-09T00:00:00

Relationship Between Static Mobility of the First Ray and First Ray, Midfoot, and Hindfoot Motion During Gait

The relationship between a static measure of dorsal first ray mobility and dynamic motion of the first ray, midfoot, and hindfoot during the stance phase of walking was investigated in healthy, asymptomatic subjects who represented the spectrum of static flexibility. Static first ray mobility of 15 subjects was measured by a load cell device and ranged from stiff (3.1 mm) to lax (8.0 mm). Using three-dimensional motion analysis, mean first ray dorsiflexion/eversion and mid-/hindfoot eversion peak motion, time-to-peak, and eversion excursion were evaluated. Subjects with greater static dorsal mobility of the first ray demonstrated significantly greater time-topeak hindfoot eversion and eversion excursion (p \u3c .01), and midfoot peak eversion and eversion excursion (p \u3c .01). No significant association was found between static first ray mobility and first ray motion during gait. This research provides evidence that the dynamic response of the foot may modulate the consequences of first ray mobility and that compensory strategies are most effective when static measures of dorsal mobility are most extreme

SAE-Baja 4WD Redesign

In collaboration with the Baja SAE club, this senior design team is tasked with designing and fabricating a Baja vehicle with the goal of competing with competitive success in a 2021-22 Baja SAE Collegiate Design Series competition. The project will include all aspects of the vehicle, including but not limited to: roll cage, suspension, steering/control, and drivetrain. Also, a goal of the project is to design the vehicle with the future AWD/4WD Baja requirement in mind, while making every effort to meet that goal for this upcoming Baja competition. The team will also manage the ONU Baja SAE Club which includes but is not limited to creating a competition checklist to ensure reliable operation during competition, coordinating the work assignments for club members not on the senior design team, preparing all required documentation/presentations to SAE, and ensuring the team’s vehicle adheres to all rules outlined in the official Baja SAE Rules

Teleporters, tunnels & time : Understanding warp devices in videogames

Catchment land uses, particularly agriculture and urban uses, have long been recognized as major drivers of nutrient concentrations in surface waters. However, few simple models have been developed that relate the amount of catchment land use to downstream freshwater nutrients. Nor are existing models applicable to large numbers of freshwaters across broad spatial extents such as regions or continents. This research aims to increase model performance by exploring three factors that affect the relationship between land use and downstream nutrients in freshwater: the spatial extent for measuring land use, hydrologic connectivity, and the regional differences in both the amount of nutrients and effects of land use on them. We quantified the effects of these three factors that relate land use to lake total phosphorus (TP) and total nitrogen (TN) in 346 north temperate lakes in 7 regions in Michigan, USA. We used a linear mixed modeling framework to examine the importance of spatial extent, lake hydrologic class, and region on models with individual lake nutrients as the response variable, and individual land use types as the predictor variables. Our modeling approach was chosen to avoid problems of multi-collinearity among predictor variables and a lack of independence of lakes within regions, both of which are common problems in broad-scale analyses of freshwaters. We found that all three factors influence land use-lake nutrient relationships. The strongest evidence was for the effect of lake hydrologic connectivity, followed by region, and finally, the spatial extent of land use measurements. Incorporating these three factors into relatively simple models of land use effects on lake nutrients should help to improve predictions and understanding of land use-lake nutrient interactions at broad scales

Survival and Selection of Migrating Salmon from Capture-Recapture Models with Individual Traits

Capture–recapture studies are powerful tools for studying animal population dynamics, providing information on population abundance, survival rates, population growth rates, and selection for phenotypic traits. In these studies, the probability of observing a tagged individual reflects both the probability of the individual surviving to the time of recapture and the probability of recapturing an animal, given that it is alive. If both of these probabilities are related to the same phenotypic trait, it can be difficult to distinguish effects on survival probabilities from effects on recapture probabilities. However, when animals are individually tagged and have multiple opportunities for recapture, we can properly partition observed trait-related variability into survival and recapture components. We present an overview of capture–recapture models that incorporate individual variability and develop methods to incorporate results from these models into estimates of population survival and selection for phenotypic traits. We conducted a series of simulations to understand the performance of these estimators and to assess the consequences of ignoring individual variability when it exists. In addition, we analyzed a large data set of .153 000 juvenile chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and steelhead (O. mykiss) of known length that were PIT-tagged during their seaward migration. Both our simulations and the case study indicated that the ability to precisely estimate selection for phenotypic traits was greatly compromised when differential recapture probabilities were ignored. Estimates of population survival, however, were far more robust. In the chinook salmon and steelhead study, we consistently found that smaller fish had a greater probability of recapture. We also uncovered length-related survival relationships in over half of the release group/river segment combinations that we observed, but we found both positive and negative relationships between length and survival probability. These results have important implications for the management of salmonid populations

Snake River Stewardship Program

The Snake River Stewardship Program (SRSP) is a comprehensive program designed to address elevated water temperatures downstream from the Hells Canyon Complex. If these are not addressed, Idaho Power’s license to operate the Hells Canyon Complex could be jeopardized. A healthy Snake River also benefits irrigators, recreationists, fishery managers, and wildlife. The Snake River is also essential habitat for fish, birds, and other wildlife, and Idaho Power is committed to making this as good as possible. There are three major components of the SRSP: instream restoration actions, restoring riparian vegetation, and implementing irrigation best management practices. Our group has performed a feasibility study of Idaho Power‘s options to support the second component of the SRSP. This includes three different options: 1. Idaho Power builds and runs nursery. 2. Idaho Power builds nursery and hires contractors to run it. 3. Idaho Power purchases all trees and shrubs from third party nurseries. Our first step was learning about native plant species and nursery operations. We toured Lucky Peak Nursery and met with the nursery manager and contacted several nurseries to determine plant costs, output capabilities, and which ones were potential candidates for contracting labor. We also contacted companies such as Gothic Arch Greenhouses, Stuewe & Sons, and Bouldin & Lawson to determine the price of constructing a greenhouse and the associated furniture and its costs. After the completion of our research, we determined option one, Idaho Power builds and runs their own nursery to be the most feasible. Over the course of the program, it is cost competitive and offers the most benefits. Our data and recommendation will help Idaho Power determine which option will ultimately work best for them. This will help ensure the success of the Snake River Stewardship Program and keep the Snake River healthy for all of us