Giraudoux at the Gates

An in-depth look at the original production of Jean Giraudoux\u27s play Tiger at the Gates, how it had become such a famous performance, and how some of the intents of the playwright were not easily translated from French to English

Female Leadership and Power: How Language Impacts Women’s Representation

Increased support for more egalitarian attitudes and greater women’s representation in public life has led to substantial increases in female attainments of suffrage, education, and leadership positions. Around the world, there has been an increasing importance and broad acceptance of promoting gender equality and advancing opportunity for women. As such, women are running and being elected to leadership positions at unprecedented rates globally. However, women still face a significant amount of progress to achieve full representation with men in leadership positions.  While large strides have been made in achieving equal political representation throughout the world, there is still a significant gap in achieving gender equality. This suggests there is an additional feature that influences women’s representation, aside from structural and institutional factors, that enables the gender gap to persist. Culture is another factor contributing to lacking female representation, and this essay will primarily connect how culture constrains female power and agency. Through a full analysis of a country’s structural, institutional and cultural factors, one can get a deeper understanding of the specific barriers and mechanisms that restrict equal gender representation in a society. By exploring culture as a factor of women’s representation, this thesis will establish language as an important cultural factor influencing women’s representation.Plan II Honors Progra

Propagation Methods for Growing Spartina alterniflora for Salt Marsh Restoration

Salt marsh ecosystems can be found along the east coast of the United States, but are now disappearing due to human development and sea level rise. Salt marshes provide countless ecosystem services including shoreline protection from storms and flooding, nutrient removal, habitat for fish, birds and other wildlife, and provide some of the most beautiful areas for hunting, fishing and recreational activities. In order to protect salt marshes and restore the large portion of them that have been damaged, it is important to focus on the vegetation that help salt marshes function. Spartina alterniflora, smooth cordgrass, is a critical component of the salt marsh vegetation community. S. alterniflora is a dominant species that helps to stabilize the ecosystem, retain a seedbank of other species, uptake nutrients, and provide important habitat for wildlife. In order to grow S. alterniflora for restoration purposes, the species must be grown from seed to provide genetic diversity and high survival rates when planted. However, low germination rates have limited the use of this species for restoration using seeds. While working with the program, Rhody Native, I tested different methods to achieve high germination rates for S. alterniflora including comparing soil mixes, seed colors, and root development stages. This process is essential to find a propagation method that will work effectively to obtain high germination rates for this essential species to then use for restoration in local salt marshes

Achieving abstraction: Generating far analogies promotes relational reasoning in children.

Analogical reasoning is essential for transfer by supporting recognition of relational similarity. However, not all analogies are created equal. The source and target can be similar (near), or quite different (far). Previous research suggests that close comparisons facilitate children's relational abstraction. On the other hand, evidence from adults indicates that the process of solving far analogies may be a more effective scaffold for transfer of a relational strategy. We explore whether engaging with far analogies similarly induces such a strategy in preschoolers. Children were provided with the opportunity to solve either a near or far spatial analogy using a pair of puzzle boxes that varied in perceptual similarity (Experiment 1), or to participate in a control task (Experiment 2). All groups were then presented with an ambiguous spatial reasoning task featuring both object and relational matches. We were interested in the relationship between near and far conditions and two effects: (a) children's tendency to spontaneously draw an analogy when solving the initial puzzle, and (b) their tendency to privilege relational matches over object matches in a subsequent, ambiguous task. Although children were more likely to spontaneously draw an analogy in the near condition, those who attempted the far analogy were more likely to privilege a relational match on the subsequent task. We argue that the process of solving a far analogy-regardless of a learner's spontaneous success in identifying the relation-contextualizes an otherwise ambiguous learning problem, making it easier for children to access and apply relational hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Recor

Australians underestimate social compliance with coronavirus restrictions: Findings from a national survey

Objective: We assessed differences between Australians’ perceptions of their own compliance with coronavirus restrictions and their perceptions of community compliance. Methods: We surveyed a national quota sample of 1,691 Australians in August and September 2020. Participants reported their level of compliance with coronavirus restrictions and estimated compliance from others in their state/territory. Results: Overwhelmingly, most people reported complying with restrictions. They believed their fellow community members were much less compliant. Age and other demographics were only weakly associated with self-reported compliance and perceptions of others’ compliance. Conclusions: The results are consistent with prevalent cognitive biases, including the tendency to believe one is better-than-average, and to more easily recall instances of deviances from social norms. Implications for public health: We recommend public health messaging avoids amplifying instances of social transgressions of coronavirus restrictions. Instead, the widespread nature of social compliance with restrictions across the country should be emphasised

Development of Superconducting Detectors for Millimeter-Wave Astronomy and Cosmology

Superconducting detectors have revolutionized the field of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) and submillimeter-wave astrophysics and cosmology over the past twenty years. These detectors work at very low temperatures, typically well below 1 K, and exploit phenomena in superconductivity, such as the superconducting phase transition, to enable photon-noise-limited performance. Large arrays of superconducting detectors are being more frequently used as the detector of choice for current and future (sub)mm-wave instruments on ground-based telescopes. For example, by using arrays numbering nearly 105 detectors total, the upcoming ground-based experiment Simons Observatory (SO) will measure the very faint temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Despite the prevalence of these detectors, challenges remain in operating large arrays of these detectors and optimizing their performance under dynamic loading conditions as seen when observing on-sky from ground-based observatories. My dissertation addresses the development and characterization of superconducting detectors, transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers and microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs), at the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST) to study the mm-wave Universe. In this work, we discuss the optical characterization of TES bolometer pixels, consisting of four detectors, one for each passband and polarization, for the highest frequency passbands of SO. We describe our new MKID tuning method to optimize operation of MKID arrays, consisting of hundreds of resonators on the same feedline, for TolTEC, a mm-wave imaging polarimeter at the Large Millimeter Telescope. We also investigate the system noise of the TolTEC 1.1 mm array and comment on future steps towards improving its current readout configuration and noise.</p

Analysis of the Effect of Construction and Fit on Performance of Women’s Chinos

Samantha Castro is an undergraduate student in the School of Human Ecology at Louisiana Tech University. Abbey Haire is an undergraduate student in the School of Human Ecology at Louisiana Tech University. Laci Walker is an undergraduate student in the School of Human Ecology at Louisiana Tech University. Kathleen Heiden is an Associate Professor in the School of Human Ecology at Louisiana Tech University