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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LOL MY THESIS: An Exploration of the Written and Oral Linguistic Effects of Text Messaging

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

This project explores a new register of language called 'textese,' which has developed as a result of text messaging via cell phones. I research how and why textese is being used, to understand how text messages are linguistically affecting the...

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Shifting music culture in the age of streaming

Publication Date
2017-January-01
Document Type
Department or Program
Document Type
Access Level
Abstract

This thesis investigates why music streaming services are so popular, beyond their affordability, and the ways in which streaming is shifting music culture. Certain aspects of listening culture which we tend to understand as originating from streaming services, specifically the...

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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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