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Labor Mobilization in the Japanese Empire during the Asia-Pacific War
Get PDFLabor Mobilization in the Japanese Empire during the Asia-Pacific War. Volume 36, Issue 2 of the New England Journal of Public Policy
Third Symposium Discussion
Get PDFThird Symposium Discussion. Volume 36, Issue 2 of the New England Journal of Public Policy
Conflicted Resources: Revising the Concept of Conflict Resources through the Case of Central Africa
No full textConflict resources, understood here as illicitly traded natural resources that contribute to conflict and violence, remain a concerning global security challenge, particularly in the Great Lakes region of central Africa. This project traces how illicit natural resource trade contributes to violence and conflict in DRC, Rwanda, and Uganda from a holistic perspective, considering various types of resources and actors, and how their interactions collectively contribute to violence in the region. The goal is to better understand not only how illicit natural resource trade contributes to violence, but also to highlight prevailing misconceptions that inform ineffective interventions and prolong insecurity experienced by civilians. The data for this project came from a review of United Nations Group of Experts reports on conflict in the region from 2001-2022, supplemented by observation and semi-structured interviews on the ground in Kampala, Uganda from 2018-2019. This project found that common approaches to conflict resources, such as focusing on particular products, types of actors, or relationships to violence, fall short of capturing the extent and reality of illicit natural resource trade. Actors who trade in illicit resources do not appear to specialize in specific products, but rather maintain a portfolio of illicit resource options to exploit depending on opportunities and circumstances. Actors who exploit illicit resources also span a wide range of identities and affiliations, including the commonly examined “rebel groups” as well as various types and ranks of state actors. This project also found that the range of violence experienced by civilians exceeds the narrow funding aspect that conflict resource literature tends to focus on. These findings demonstrate a need to re-examine how we define and approach conflict resources, and to expand our understanding of relationships between products, actors, and violence to better encompass all aspects of illicit natural resource trade. Narrow definitions that fail to capture reality experienced by people living alongside these trade networks will continue to inform ineffective interventions until they are corrected
The Bridge to Recovery: The Dispute Over Access to Housing & Substance Use Treatment Services on Boston Harbor\u27s Long Island
No full textThe City of Boston’s Long Island was once used as a location that supported housing and substance use treatment services for over 400 individuals. In 2014, the bridge that provided access to Long Island was condemned due to faulty infrastructure and safety concerns. The abrupt closure of the bridge resulted in the displacement of social service agencies and the individuals utilizing those services. The unintended consequence of closing the bridge forced those displaced from Long Island to seek out services near Boston’s South End at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melena Cass Boulevard known as ‘Mass & Cass’. Following the closure of the bridge, Mass and Cass, an area well-known for social services, experienced exacerbated challenges related to the increased visibility of substance use and homelessness. As a result, Boston political leaders, service providers and South End residents have long advocated for the bridge to be rebuilt and for services on Long Island to be restored. Efforts to rebuild the bridge have been consistently contested by the City of Quincy because access to the bridge ran through Quincy’s Squantum neighborhood. I used interviews with stakeholders from Boston and Quincy and participant observation in both cities to uncover the broader conditions of the sociopolitical dispute around access to Long Island
The Impact of U.S. Migration on the Health of Older Adults in Mexico
Get PDFMigration has long term implications for the lives of migrants as well as their family members. The U.S. is the main destination for Mexican migrants. As well, Mexicans have an increasing representation in terms of the relative size of the population in the U.S. As a result, the causes and consequences of Mexico-U.S. migration is an active area of research for social scientists. Prior research on the association between migration and health suggests that migration is an important factor contributing to the health disparities observed among Mexican migrants. However, most research exploring the impact of migration on health focuses on Mexicans in the U.S. and excludes two important groups of Mexicans whose health may have also been impacted by migration: older Mexican return-migrants (those who ever worked or lived in the U.S. and now are aging in Mexico) and older Mexicans left behind (those who are in Mexico and have migrant children in the U.S.). The purpose of this dissertation is to expand the literature on the intersection of migration and health by using a life course approach to assess the impact of U.S. migration on older adults in Mexico, whether they previously migrated to the U.S. and are currently aging in Mexico or were left behind by a migrant family member who is currently living in the U.S. From a life course perspective, the health status of today’s older adults is the result of exposure to environmental, socioeconomic, and behavioral factors over their life span, including their experiences with migration. Yet, a life course approach has been generally excluded from the research literature exploring the association between migration and health. This dissertation includes three studies based on information from the Mexican Health and Aging Study. Each study focuses on specific aspects of the linkage between migration and health among older adults in Mexico. Study 1 compares self-rated health trajectories of older non-migrants and return-migrants in Mexico over a 9-year period and explores the association between early- and late-life socioeconomic status and self-rated health trajectories. Findings from Study 1 suggest that there is no difference in 9-year self-rated health trajectories for older Mexican non-migrants and return-migrants. However, poor socioeconomic conditions in early and late life are positively associated with poorer health over time for older adults in Mexico regardless of their migration status. Study 2 considers social determinants of older Mexican return-migrants’ physical and mental health before, during, and after migration. Findings suggest that pre-, during, and post-migration factors are associated with return-migrants’ physical and mental health. However, the way migration characteristics are associated with older Mexican return-migrants’ chronic conditions, functional limitations, and depressive symptoms does not show a consistent pattern, suggesting more research in this area is required. Study 3 analyzes the association between having adult children in the U.S. and risk of depression among older adults left behind in Mexico, with an emphasis on gender differences in this association. Additionally, this study assesses the moderation effect of financial support provided by children in the U.S. Findings from Study 3 suggest that older Mexican women are more than twice as likely as older Mexican men to be depressed. The association between receiving remittances from migrant children and older Mexicans’ risk for depression was not statistically significant. Yet, gender differences in such association are as expected: receiving remittances from migrant children slightly reduces the risk for depression among older Mexican women left behind but exacerbates depression risk for older Mexican men left behind. In sum, this dissertation expands on the migration and health literature by focusing on two understudied groups of Mexicans: older Mexican return-migrants and older Mexicans left behind by migrant children. As well, this dissertation fills a gap in the migration and health literature by incorporating a life course approach to assess the impact of U.S. migration on the health of older Mexicans. Altogether, findings from this dissertation suggest that migration may have important implications for the physical and mental health of older adults in Mexico, whether they previously migrated into the U.S. or experienced the migration of their children. Moreover, this dissertation demonstrates that social determinants of health as well as changes in socioeconomic conditions at different points in life impact the association between migration and health for older adults in Mexico
Frequency Distribution of Graphemic-phonemic Correspondences of Vowels in English Children\u27s Literature
Get PDFPhonics instruction is widely regarded as the most efficacious method for teaching children to read English. In order to acquire reading, young-learners must connect orthography to phonology. An obstacle to English reading acquisition is the language’s opaque orthography. Its grapheme to phoneme correspondence is not 1:1. Instead, a range of multi-letter strings, or graphotactics, correspond to various phonemic sequences. This network of graphophonemic correspondences renders English reading acquisition an arduous undertaking for young-learners. Phonics curricula like Letters and Sounds (Department for Education and Skills, 2007) in the U.K. and UFLI Foundations (Lane et. al., 2022) in the U.S. aid young-learners in learning these graphophonemic correspondences by drawing their attention to the regular connections between graphotactics and phonemic sequences. These curricula afford a scope and sequence for teaching children these correspondences, but the metric for prioritizing these correspondences is unclear. Aside from a few shared correspondences near the beginning of both curricula, these pedagogic trajectories are quite different. Assumedly, phonics instruction aims to empower a young-learner with expedient access to authentic English text. In turn, knowing the frequency distribution of graphophonemics in such text is important if not essential information for curriculum design. Unfortunately, while previous research measures the frequency distribution of graphotactics (Venezky, 1999), or phoneme distribution in speech (Mines et al., 1978), or conditional probabilities of graphemic-phonemic correspondences (Berndt et al., 1987), it appears that no corpus linguistics analysis has identified the frequency distribution of graphemic-phonemic correspondences in English children\u27s literature, the text children are learning to read. Given that the English vowel phonemic sequences are most subject to sound change, and thus offering more adversity in phonics instruction than consonants, this corpus linguistics study examined the graphophonemic frequency distribution of American English vowel sounds in a the new Corpus of English Children\u27s Literature (COECL) coded for Graphophonemic Analysis (COECL-GPA). COECL includes 7,310,441 words, from 178 complete texts of Newbery winners/nominees and critically acclaimed English children\u27s literature published between 1900-2010. COECL-GPA identifies 8,442,993 vowel appearances with 131 graphotactics, 85 phonemic sequences, and 272 graphemic-phonemic correspondences. This analysis identified the frequency distribution of each of these categories and the proportional frequency breakdowns of each graphotactic and phonemic sequence into its constituent correspondences. Results revealed that vowel graphophonemes have more compressed distribution than the traditional 80-20 Pareto Principle and a steeper slope than a Zipfean Distribution, but their distribution is compatible with Zipf\u27s Law of Abbreviation. Additionally, in a contrastive analysis of these findings with the pedagogic trajectories of Letters and Sounds (Department for Education and Skills, 2007) and UFLI Foundations (Lane et. al., 2022), it appears that neither curriculum\u27s sequence of vowel lessons respects the frequency distribution of vowel graphophonemics in authentic children\u27s literature. This is likely because, presently, no software can sufficiently account for all the sublexical features that modulate English graphophonemics, meaning that such corpus linguistic analysis must be conducted manually, which can be time prohibitive. Fortunately, these findings afford a more expedient route to modifying phonics and reading instruction, for the vowel graphotactics can be retuned to the phonetics of any English variety, which would be of great service to bilingual young-learners in the Peripheral Anglophone
Tracked and Controlled: Examining the Criminalization of Asylum Seekers from Guatemala in Alternative to Detention
Get PDFOver the past several decades, U.S. asylum and immigration policies have been increasingly racialized and criminalized (Zepeda-Millán 2017; Ngai 2017). Asylum seekers are now framed as security threats or frauds making baseless claims (FitzGerald 2019), leading to punitive approaches that replace humanitarian ideals with mechanisms to control “undesirable” populations (Agier 2011). This punitive shift is exemplified through the Alternative to Detention (ATD) program, the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP). After being released from detention, migrants may find themselves subjected to further surveillance in ATD programs like ISAP, which enforce stringent compliance protocols, including curfews, ankle monitors, frequent check-ins with ICE, and home visits. While positioned as humane and non-punitive “alternatives” to detention, ISAP exerts significant control over participants\u27 daily lives, impacting their autonomy and socio-emotional wellbeing. This qualitative study examines the experiences of Guatemalan asylum seekers enrolled in ISAP. Guided by a theoretical framework of crimmigration, governmentality, and neoliberalism, this study examines how ISAP’s surveillance measures and compliance protocols affect participants’ daily lives. The primary research questions guiding this study are: (1) How do asylum seekers from Guatemala experience ISAP? (2) In what ways does compliance impact their everyday lives? and (3) How are these experiences gendered? Conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, this research draws on 26 in-depth interviews and extensive participant observations conducted over two years with Guatemalan asylum seekers residing in the Greater Boston area. Findings reveal that, for asylum seekers in ISAP, compliance measures impose physical constraints and profound psychological burdens that deepen their marginalization and sense of criminalization. ISAP’s surveillance protocols create a climate of constant vigilance, where participants feel they must monitor their every move to avoid potential punishment for any perceived misstep. For women balancing caregiving duties, the demands of compliance are especially challenging; competing responsibilities increase their risk of being labeled noncompliant, reinforcing gendered vulnerabilities within the program. Additionally, findings show the myriad ways ISAP’s restrictions deepen economic precarity: limited access to stable employment forces many into exploitative, informal work, where they face heightened risks of coercion and abuse. Findings also reveal how the COVID-19 pandemic intensified economic hardship, increased housing insecurity, and excluded asylum seekers from federal relief programs, further pushing them into precarity. Together, these findings demonstrate how ISAP functions as a mechanism of social control within a neoliberal framework, reinforcing the economic precarity and social exclusion of asylum seekers. This reflects broader trends in immigration policy, where ostensibly administrative measures produce punishing effects that reinforce the precarity and marginalization of all migrants, including asylum seekers. These findings underscore the need for policymakers to critically evaluate the “humane” nature of ATD programs like ISAP, which impose considerable emotional and psychological burdens on participants, particularly women. This tension between the purported humane nature of ATD and the harsh realities of surveillance raises critical questions about the true impact of these programs. By integrating the voices and experiences of asylum seekers into the development of humane immigration policies, stakeholders can work towards more equitable and supportive frameworks that prioritize the dignity and rights of all migrants
The Application of High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry for the Analysis of Biopolymers, Metabolites, and Biologically Relevant Small Molecules
Get PDFHigh-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS), as its name suggests, possesses high resolving power that enables the separation of ions with very close mass values. This is particularly beneficial for analyzing complex samples where numerous compounds may have similar masses, as it helps prevent signal overlaps and ensures an accurate spectral analysis. The current work explores the diverse applications of high-resolution mass spectrometry in oligonucleotide research, organic synthesis and medicinal chemistry. Oligonucleotide research: Chapters 2-5 present the research results from studies that employed ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) to understand the pharmacokinetics of RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics. The investigations, which used REVERSIR, givosiran, and 2’-deoxy-2’-fluoro nucleotides as examples, showcased the application of HRMS in studying the ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion) properties of oligonucleotides in silencing RNA. The REVERSIR study involved a single-stranded GalNAc-siRNA-mediated oligonucleotide and was carried out using samples from rat and monkey plasma, liver, and kidney. A novel single-stranded deaminated metabolite from REVERSIR was identified in monkey liver, characterized by the deamination of the terminal 2′-O-methyladenosine nucleotide to 2′-O-methylinosine, and its structure was confirmed with HRMS. Quantification methods for both the parent compound and the identified metabolites were developed and validated for various concentration ranges in rat and monkey plasma, liver, and kidney, showing high intra- and inter-day accuracy and precision. Givosiran, an RNAi therapeutic, was characterized using HRMS to elucidate its distribution and metabolism in nonclinical studies, providing essential insights into the drug\u27s behavior within biological systems. The key findings include comprehensive analyses of the drug\u27s metabolic pathways and its distribution in different tissues, which contribute to a better understanding of its efficacy and safety profile. A non-naturally occurring 2′-deoxy-2′-fluoro-modified nucleotide unit is present in GalNAc-siRNA conjugates. HRMS was used to identify, confirm, and qualify modified nucleotides within siRNA therapeutics. The in vitro study assesses the integration of these modifications into RNA strands, their metabolites, and metabolic stability. The results indicated that the modified nucleotides are neither inhibitors nor preferred substrates for human polymerases, and no obligation or non-obligate chain termination was observed. Therefore, they can be safely applied in the design of metabolically stabilized therapeutic GalNAc–siRNAs with favorable potency and prolonged duration of activity, allowing for low dose and infrequent dosing. Organic synthesis and medicinal chemistry: HRMS has emerged as a pivotal tool in organic synthesis for characterizing complex molecular structures and reaction intermediates, ensuring the purity and specificity of the synthesized compounds. Chapter 6 describes the HRMS applications in the development of new β-carboline derivatives targeting the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease. HRMS was used to analyze and confirm the interaction of these compounds with Aβ by observing inhibitor-Aβ complex formation thereby gaining insights into the mode of action of the compounds and affirming their potential in therapeutic applications
Closing Remarks
Get PDFClosing Remarks. Volume 36, Issue 2 of the New England Journal of Public Policy
Impact of Late-Onset PTSD on the Community of Okinawa
Get PDFImpact of Late-Onset PTSD on the Community of Okinawa. Volume 36, Issue 2 of the New England Journal of Public Policy