Vassar College Digital Library

Vassar Scholarship

Vassar Scholarship, the institutional repository formerly known as Digital Window, reflects the research and scholarly output of the Vassar College community.  It provides access to a variety of collections, including senior theses and projects across a wide range of disciplines.

Automatic control: the vertebral column of dogfish sharks behaves as a continuously variable transmission with smoothly shifting functions

Publication Date
2016-July-07
Document Type
Document Type
Abstract

During swimming in dogfish sharks, Squalus acanthias, both the intervertebral joints and the vertebral centra undergo significant strain. To investigate this system, unique among vertebrates, we cyclically bent isolated segments of 10 vertebrae and nine joints….

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Built for speed: strain in the cartilaginous vertebral columns of sharks

Publication Date
2014-February-01
Document Type
Document Type
Abstract

In most bony fishes vertebral column strain during locomotion is almost exclusively in the intervertebral joints, and when these joints move there is the potential to store and release strain energy. Since cartilaginous fishes have poorly mineralized vertebral centra, we...

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How The Interface of Music Production Software Influences Behavior

Publication Date
2023-April-21
Department or Program
Document Type
Access Level
Abstract

My thesis examines how musical tools (particularly digital ones, such as Digital Audio Workspaces (DAWs), Virtual Studio Technology (VSTs), virtual instruments, and plug-ins) affect music production (the producers themselves and the sounds produced) through the tools’ variances in user interface...

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Testing biological hypotheses with embodied robots: adaptations, accidents, and by-products in the evolution of vertebrates

Publication Date
2014-November-12
Document Type
Document Type
Abstract

Evolutionary robotics allows biologists to test hypotheses about extinct animals. In our case, we modeled some of the first vertebrates, jawless fishes, in order to study the evolution of the trait after which vertebrates are named: vertebrae. …

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The Politics of Mobility: Study Abroad in an Era of Climate Change

Publication Date
2020-January-01
Document Type
Authors
Document Type
Abstract

This paper explores the fundamental tension between mobility and the environmental consequences of the transportation that allows for that movement, zeroing in on the paradox of studying abroad in order to learn about climate or environmental sciences. With this, I...

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Words: Interacting With Propaganda

Publication Date
2014-January-01
Document Type
Authors
Department or Program
Document Type
Abstract

<em>Words </em>is a game based at its core on the idea that American citizens should have access to a form of media that gives them the power to interact with, and alter, political propaganda. Defined as information that is "especially...

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