Artificial Intelligence’s facial recognition programs are inherently racially biased. The programs are not necessarily created with the intent to disproportionately impact marginalized communities, but through their data mining process of learning, they can become biased as the data they use may train them to think in a biased manner. Biased data is difficult to spot as the programming field is homogeneous and this issue reflects underlying societal biases. Facial recognition programs do not identify minorities at the same rate as their Caucasian counterparts leading to false positives in identifications and an increase of run-ins with the law. AI does not have the ability to role-reverse judge as a human does and therefore its use should be limited until a more equitable program is developed and thoroughly tested.

The field of behavioral economics explores the ways in which individuals make choices under uncertainty, in part, by examining the role that risk attitudes play in a person’s efforts to maximize their own utility. This thesis aims to contribute to the body of economic literature regarding risk attitudes by first evaluating the traditional economic method for discerning risk coefficients by examining whether students provide reasonable answers to lottery questions. Second, the answers of reasonable respondents are subject to our economic model using the CRRA utility function in which Python code is used to make predictions of the risk coefficients of respondents via a two-step regression procedure. Lastly, the degree to which the economic model provides a good fit for the lottery answers given by reasonable respondents is discerned. The most notable findings of the study are as follows. College students had extreme difficulty in understanding lottery questions of this sort, with Medical and Life Science majors struggling significantly more than both Business and Engineering majors. Additionally, gender was correlated with estimated risk coefficients, with females being more risk-loving relative to males. Lastly, in regards to the model’s goodness of fit when evaluating potential losses, the expected utility model involving choice under uncertainty was consistent with the behavior of progressives and moderates but inconsistent with the behavior of conservatives.

2D fetal echocardiography (ECHO) can be used for monitoring heart development in utero. This study’s purpose is to empirically model normal fetal heart growth and function changes during development by ECHO and compare these to fetuses diagnosed with and without cardiomyopathy with diabetic mothers. There are existing mathematical models describing fetal heart development but they warrant revalidation and adjustment. 377 normal fetuses with healthy mothers, 98 normal fetuses with diabetic mothers, and 37 fetuses with cardiomyopathy and diabetic mothers had their cardiac structural dimensions, cardiothoracic ratio, valve flow velocities, and heart rates measured by fetal ECHO in a retrospective chart review. Cardiac features were fitted to linear functions, with respect to gestational age, femur length, head circumference, and biparietal diameter and z-scores were created to model normal fetal growth for all parameters. These z-scores were used to assess what metrics had no difference in means between the normal fetuses of both healthy and diabetic mothers but differed from those diagnosed with cardiomyopathy. It was found that functional metrics like mitral and tricuspid E wave and pulmonary velocity could be important predictors for cardiomyopathy when fitted by gestational age, femur length, head circumference, and biparietal diameter. Additionally, aortic and tricuspid annulus diameters when fitted to estimated gestational age showed potential to be predictors for fetal cardiomyopathy. While the metrics overlapped over their full range, combining them together may have the potential for predicting cardiomyopathy in utero. Future directions of this study will explore creating a classifier model that can predict cardiomyopathy using the metrics assessed in this study.

In this experiment, a haptic glove with vibratory motors on the fingertips was tested against the standard HTC Vive controller to see if the additional vibrations provided by the glove increased immersion in common gaming scenarios where haptic feedback is provided. Specifically, two scenarios were developed: an explosion scene containing a small and large explosion and a box interaction scene that allowed the participants to touch the box virtually with their hand. At the start of this project, it was hypothesized that the haptic glove would have a significant positive impact in at least one of these scenarios. Nine participants took place in the study and immersion was measured through a post-experiment questionnaire. Statistical analysis on the results showed that the haptic glove did have a significant impact on immersion in the box interaction scene, but not in the explosion scene. In the end, I conclude that since this haptic glove does not significantly increase immersion across all scenarios when compared to the standard Vive controller, it should not be used at a replacement in its current state.

The Covid-19 pandemic has made a significant impact on both the stock market and the<br/>global economy. The resulting volatility in stock prices has provided an opportunity to examine<br/>the Efficient Market Hypothesis. This study aims to gain insights into the efficiency of markets<br/>based on stock price performance in the Covid era. Specifically, it investigates the market’s<br/>ability to anticipate significant events during the Covid-19 timeline beginning November 1, 2019<br/><br/>and ending March 31, 2021. To examine the efficiency of markets, our team created a Stay-at-<br/>Home Portfolio, experiencing economic tailwinds from the Covid lockdowns, and a Pandemic<br/><br/>Loser Portfolio, experiencing economic headwinds from the Covid lockdowns. Cumulative<br/>returns of each portfolio are benchmarked to the cumulative returns of the S&P 500. The results<br/>showed that the Efficient Market Hypothesis is likely to be valid, although a definitive<br/>conclusion cannot be made based on the scope of the analysis. There are recommendations for<br/>further research surrounding key events that may be able to draw a more direct conclusion.

The application of Toni Morrison’s Beloved as a lens through which one can analyze intergenerational trauma on an individual and communal level results in a blueprint towards a remedial process. The characters and their experiences in her novel are representative of a myriad of ways in which trauma is manifested. I have broken down the concept of intergenerational trauma into the idea that it can be seen as the state where one is both simultaneously “falling” and “fallen” at the same time. Used here, the term “falling” refers to the consistent, individual trauma that one is experiencing. On the other hand, the term “fallen” refers to the trauma that a community as a whole has experienced and internalized. This framework that I establish based off of Beloved is a launching point for the conversation surrounding the topic of remedial actions in relation to intergenerational trauma that resulted from slavery. Using it as a basis of knowledge allows one to truly gather the weight of the situation regarding trauma postbellum. Considering the current climate surrounding any meaningful dialogue, knowledge is one of the most important aspects. Along with the concepts of “falling”/”fallen,” I also coined the term productive memory, which refers to the act of confrontation as well as the remembering of intergenerational trauma. The use of productive memory is imperative in addressing the prior ideas presented regarding intergenerational trauma and the possible pathways to move forward.

Covid-19 is unlike any coronavirus we have seen before, characterized mostly by the ease with which it spreads. This analysis utilizes an SEIR model built to accommodate various populations to understand how different testing and infection rates may affect hospitalization and death. This analysis finds that infection rates have a significant impact on Covid-19 impact regardless of the population whereas the impact that testing rates have in this simulation is not as pronounced. Thus, policy-makers should focus on decreasing infection rates through targeted lockdowns and vaccine rollout to contain the virus, and decrease its spread.

Late Victorian fiction presents scenes of near-death experience that places characters within the literature in a state of precarity. The precarious existence manifests itself as a perpetual near-death experience that makes visible the necropolitical power dynamic and the “death-in-life” condition. Key moments in H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau and Bram Stoker’s Dracula provide evidence for the precarity under which people live in late Victorian literature. Both novels uniquely feature a process of becoming-object, Moreau’s humanization process and Dracula’s vampirization process, that places the victims in a state of precarity and death-in-life. Previous scholars have examined these processes as a means of establishing precarity and as a near-death experience, yet none have contextualized these scenes of precarity within Achille Mbembe’s theory of necropolitics. In an extended reading of both novels, this essay shows how Victorians function as administrators of necropolitics, victimizing non-Victorians to processes of becoming-object, and pushing these victim-objects to the brink of death, where they continue to live in a state of death-in-life. This essay focuses on these two novels because of their genre differences and their geographical differences, which further demonstrates the Victorian attentiveness towards scenes of precarity involving the marginalized and the “Oriental.” Despite scenes of precarity involving select Victorians, both novels inevitably reinforce the necropolitical Victorian hegemony. In the face of over a century of British colonialism, the threat of the colonized breaking the necropolitical hegemony of the Victorian empire is hyper-present in both late Victorian science fiction and gothic fiction, suggesting this anxiety of having precarity established over their own lives by the former oppressed was shared by the majority of the Victorian Empire.

The criminal justice system in the United States has recently come under intense scrutiny. To understand and critique the system it is important to understand the broader history and processes within the system. Looking specifically at the practice of juvenile detention, we see how the system developed parallel to the cruel practices applied to adults as punishment. Juvenile detention centers were modeled on adult prisons, both reflecting nineteenth-century ideas of redemptive suffering. The consistently coercive and oppressive features of the juvenile justice system also become apparent, when looking at the system through a historic lens. In contemporary juvenile detention centers, remnants of religious influence remain in the form of prison ministry programs. Throughout an examination of the historic and modern influence of evangelical Protestantism in prisons, the vulnerability of the individuals in these programs become apparent, as do the inequities within the system.