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AN ANALYSIS OF THE WINDOW REHABILITATION PROCESS TOWARDS ENERGY EFFICIENCY AT THE BAUHAUS DESSAU
Get PDFConsidered a monument of early Modernism and one of the pioneering examples of modern academic architecture, the Bauhaus Dessau is a World Heritage Site that experienced three main phases of renovations: in 1976, between 1996-2006 and 2009-2012. This thesis examines the alterations of the building’s windows as part of these renovations in order to explore challenges related to sustainable retrofits in modern architecture. Specific emphasis is given on windows based on their critical role in energy performance as well as their extensive use throughout the building, making them character-defining elements for the Bauhaus. Preservation strategies are identified and analyzed from the perspectives of historic preservation and sustainability, following an overview of Modernism’s relationship to sustainable preservation and an introduction of the history of the site as well as its climate conditions. Changes of window elements in three major building parts, the Studio Wing, the Workshop Wing and the North Wing, are discussed to demonstrate the challenges of achieving improved energy efficiency with the least possible compromise from character-defining elements. Through the analysis of historic documentation, existing literature and energy management plans in addition to interviews with multiple stakeholders, this study explores the preservation decisions that were critical in the renovations of the windows. The results of the study illustrate that, although challenges common in preserving modern architecture were creatively overcome at the Bauhaus Dessau, there is still a need to consider future climate change scenarios
Healing the Hearts of Healers: A Framework to Cultivate Flourishing and Combat Burnout in Healthcare
Get PDFBurnout is a leading issue in the United States healthcare system today, afflicting approximately 50% of physicians. It is characterized by emotional depletion and loss of energy, a sense of depersonalization, and a reduced sense of individual accomplishment, resulting in withdrawal from occupation. While often regarded as a personal issue, it is clear that burnout arises from organizational factors and therefore, warrants organizational solutions. However, just as well-being is more than just the absence of ill-being, physician flourishing requires more than just treatment of burnout. The HEAL (Hope, Engagement, Action, Lead) model, the subject matter of this paper, is a framework for instituting positive psychology practices to transform medical culture to address burnout and promote well-being for individuals and the healthcare system. This paper introduces the four pillars of HEALing, including specific interventions that may improve organizational cultures and aid in healing the system and the individual clinicians operating within it. Now more than ever in the era of COVID-19, solutions are needed to address this growing problem. Operating through the lens of positive psychology practices, informed by the unique culture of medical practice, healing our healers may be possible
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS, AIR QUALITY, AND ASTHMA PREVALENCE TO ASSESS ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN PHILADELPHIA
Get PDFApproximately twenty-five million individuals in the United States suffer from asthma, a chronic lung disease that makes it difficult to breathe. Environmental factors, such as air quality, contribute to asthma prevalence. Unfortunately, socioeconomic status is also a key risk factor for asthma, where people of color or of low-income have the highest prevalence of asthma. In the City of Philadelphia, policy-driven segregation helped create underserved and underrepresented communities, where this public health issue is highly prevalent. This study examines the relationship between community demographics, socioeconomic status, air quality, and asthma prevalence from an environmental justice perspective in the City of Philadelphia. Geospatial and correlation analyses were used to determine relationships between community demographics, median household income, yearly average concentration of PM 2.5, and asthma prevalence. Parts of North Philadelphia and West Philadelphia have a relatively high number of non-Hispanic Black residents, relatively low annual median household income, relatively high PM2.5 concentration, and relatively high asthma prevalence. Recommendations for improving air quality and public health include reducing PM2.5 sources, planting more vegetation to reduce PM2.5 levels, promotion of equitable health services, reduction of systemic racism, and implementation of policy-driven reform to promote equity leading to social and environmental justice
Peloton as a Positive Intervention: Using Values, Character Strengths, Language, and Agency to Promote Sustained Engagment
Get PDFIn a world full of options of exercise platforms and modalities for individuals to choose from, what entices people to stick with a particular program? The exercise platform itself? The language the instructors use to motivate participants? Or is it the ability of a participant to choose from a menu of activities that keeps them engaged? To shed light on this topic, we analyzed physical activity as a positive intervention, using Peloton as an exemplar. Our capstone is divided into three parts. In Part I, we introduce positive psychology and the concept of positive interventions as a pathway to well-being and explain how Peloton is a positive intervention. In Part II, we examine the constructs of values, virtues, character strengths, agency, and their relationship to sustained engagement on the path to wellness. Pulling from the work of Lavy and Benish-Wiseman, we explore how character strengths are a pathway from values to positive social outcomes such as sustained engagement with an exercise platform. In Part III, we bring the concepts of Part I and Part II together and make three key observations: (1) Physical activity, with Peloton as an exemplar, is an undervalued yet effective positive intervention that deserves more research and application (2) Language portraying someone’s values and strengths is a powerful tool in facilitating positive alignment in relationships (3) Empowering someone, a Peloton rider for example, with agency to determine how, when and with whom they align is an important part of voluntary sustained engagement
Quality of Life in Patients with Oral Potentially Malignant Disorders: Oral Lichen Planus and Oral Epithelial Dysplasia
Get PDFBackground
Oral potential malignant disorders (OPMDs) are lesions and conditions that increase the risk for malignant transformation. OPMDs have an impact on patients’ health status and Quality of life (QoL). The aim of our study is to evaluate and compare QoL in patients with oral lichen planus and oral epithelial dysplasia as a setting of clinical leukoplakia.
Methods
This is a cross-sectional study with a sample size of 100 patients divided into, 53 subjects with Oral Lichen Planus (53.0%), 39 patients with oral epithelial dysplasia as a setting of solitary leukoplakia (39.0%), and 8 subjects with oral lichen planus with oral epithelial dysplasia (8.0%). Patients who fit the criteria were asked to fill out three different questionnaires. 26-item Chronic Oral Mucosal Disease Questionnaire (COMDQ-26), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and the Oral potentially malignant disorders QoL questionnaire (OPMDsQoL).
Results
Both the COMD-26 and OPMDQoL questionnaire scores were significantly different across the three disease groups. Relative to patients aged \u3e65, the 40-64 age group added 6.8 points to the COMD-26 survey score (P \u3c 0.05). Relative to oral epithelial dysplasia, oral lichen planus added 15.7 points to the COMD-26 survey score (P \u3c 0.001). Relative to oral epithelial dysplasia, oral lichen plus added 8.9 points to the OPMDQoL survey score (P = 0.003).
Conclusion
Within the limitation of our study OLP shows significant poorer QoL in compared to OED as a setting of clinical OL. Younger individuals affected with OLP, and OED showed significant impact in QoL in compared to older individuals
Characterizing The Outer Solar System With The Dark Energy Survey
Get PDFThis thesis presents a search for trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) using data from the Dark Energy Survey. This population of minor bodies orbiting past Neptune is a relic of the formation history of the Solar System, with the current observed orbital distribution of these planetesimals bearing signatures of large-scale changes in the positions of the giant planets.
The Dark Energy Survey (DES) covered of the sourthern sky in the optical/NIR filter sets between 2013-2019, and the absence of repeated observations in a span of few hours, as typically employed by TNO surveys, makes the search process challenging. To accomplish this, I present new techniques to identify moving objects in catalogs coming from single-epoch images, techniques for linking orbits in a temporally sparse catalog, and a “sub-threshold significance” test, where the object is demanded to be detectable in a stack of the exposures in which the orbit indicates an object should be present, but was not individually detected. The search of the first four years of DES, corresponding to exposures and 22 million transients, yielded 316 validates TNOs, with 50\% completeness estimated at for objects at distances 30 \lesssim d \lesssim 2000 \, \au. The search over the full six years ( exposures, 108 million transients) benefits from not only the two additional years of data, but from an optimized detection pipeline capable of finding fainter sources in the same images. This complete search yieleded 769, with 50\% completeness at . I also present software for simulation of DES discoveries given a hypothetical TNO population, enabling statistical comparisons of hypothesis to the observed DES data.
I also present a test of azimuthal isotropy for the population of ``extreme\u27\u27 TNOs (a \u3e 150\au, q \u3e 30\au) for evidence of gravitational perturbations from an unseen super-Earth in a distant orbit. By rotating the orbits of the detected eTNOs, I construct a synthetic population that reproduces the observed eTNOs in the orbital parameters , , and absolute magnitude , and that is uniform in . I show that the DES eTNOs are consistent with azimuthal isotropy, and thus do not require the existence of a distant ``Planet 9\u27\u27
Mechanistic Studies Of Membrane Remodeling Induced By Membrane Asymmetry
No full textBilayer lipid membranes are fundamental to the function of eukaryotic cells. A discernible characteristic of eukaryotic plasma membranes is the presence of asymmetry between the leaflets of the bilayer membrane. The generation and maintenance of this asymmetry is achieved by a specialized set of transmembrane proteins that consume metabolic energy. Membrane asymmetry affects a multitude of bilayer properties and critical cellular processes, several of which involve membrane remodeling. In this dissertation, I mechanistically study membrane remodeling induced by membrane asymmetry through in vitro experimental studies with biomimetic lipid bilayers. First, we investigated the mechanical consequences of a signaling lipid, PI(4,5)P2, in giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs). By using a fluorescent marker, we found that PI(4,5)P2 lipids desorb from GUVs over time. An increase in the number of internally tubulated vesicles within minutes after dilution suggested that the desorption was asymmetric and generated membrane curvature. By means of a saturated chain homolog of PI (4,5)P2, we showed that the fast desorption of PI(4,5)P2 is facilitated by presence of an arachidonic lipid tail and is possibly due to its oxidation. Through pulling force measurements of membrane tethers, we quantified the effect of asymmetric desorption on the spontaneous membrane curvature. We found that the spontaneous curvature could be modulated by externally increasing the concentration of PI(4,5)P2 micelles. Therefore, PI(4,5)P2 could affect the formation of highly curved structures that may serve as initiators for signaling events in biological membranes. Second, to understand the generation of biological number asymmetry in vitro, we purified a bacterial ABC transporter, MsbA. This is a transmembrane protein found in the inner membrane of Gram-negative bacteria and is shown to unidirectionally translocate lipids. We sought to generate lipid number asymmetry in a bilayer by reconstituting this protein in a synthetic membrane system and observing curvature generation from its lipid translocation activity. We found that the purified and labeled MsbA preserved its secondary structure and functionality. Next, we functionally reconstituted MsbA in liposomes and subsequently into optically resolvable GUVs that allow control over membrane composition, tension, and curvature. Finally, we generated asymmetric membranes by means of two different lipid chelators — bovine serum albumin, and methyl-β-cyclodextrin. We showed that leaflet specific lipid extraction by these chelators led to increased internal tubulation. Furthermore, we quantified the extent of generated spontaneous curvature by means of tether pulling experiments
Essays On Peer Effects And Network Econometrics
Get PDFThis dissertation proposes new estimators of program treatment effects in the presence of spillovers, a situation where one person\u27s treatment can affect another\u27s outcome.The first chapter focuses on a setting where treatment decisions depend on observables and there are spillovers from friends in a social network known to the researcher. I show that primitive conditions on the treatment, a dyadic model of network formation, and a flexible random coefficient model on the outcome, can motivate high-level unconfoundedness and rank conditions to identify average treatment effects and spillovers effects. I show that a novel finite-dimensional statistic (the network propensity score) can summarize the relevant observables under key conditions. I propose feasible estimators of the average effects that are consistent and asymptotically normal in settings with multiple networks. Finally, I study the effects of an intervention on political participation in Uganda where I find evidence of spillovers on non-participants. I also evaluate an information intervention about microfinance adoption in India where I find large treatment effects but limited spillovers effects. The second chapter (coauthored with Francis J. DiTraglia, Camilo García-Jimeno and Rossa O\u27Keeffe-O\u27Donovan) shows how to use a randomized saturation experimental design to identify and estimate causal effects in the presence of spillovers and one-sided non-compliance--subjects can only be offered treatment, not compelled to take it up. We consider the case in which spillovers occur only within known groups, and take-up decisions do not depend on peers\u27 offers. In this setting we point identify local average treatment effects, both direct and indirect, in a flexible random coefficients model. We go on to propose a feasible estimator that is consistent and asymptotically normal as the number and size of groups increases. We apply our estimator to data from a large-scale job placement services experiment, and find negative indirect treatment effects on the likelihood of employment for those willing to take up the program. These negative spillovers are offset by positive direct treatment effects from own take-up
Elucidation Of Cancer Therapy Resistance Mechanisms Due To Altered Endoplasmic Reticulum-Mitochondria Tethering
Get PDFMany neuroblastoma patients die from progression of multidrug resistant disease, the etiology of which remains poorly understood. Mitochondria (mito) integrate diverse stress and survival signals to determine whether a cell lives or dies. Importantly, apoptotic sensitivity is modulated at mitochondria by interactions with endoplasmic reticulum (ER) at specialized contact sites essential for calcium (Ca2+) and lipid transfer between the organelles. ER-mitochondria contact sites (ERMCs) are enriched for protein complexes, including MFN2 and PACS2, that bridge the organelles. Here, I define a novel mechanism for chemotherapy resistance caused by reductions in ERMC tethers and provide functional validation for this relationship. I studied neuroblastomas from diagnosis (DX, largely chemosensitive) and relapse (REL, chemoresistant) obtained from the same patients. Functional mitochondrial profiling showed that REL neuroblastoma mitochondria are markedly reduced in apoptotic responses to stress and this correlates with chemoresistance across drug classes. These differences are highly reproducible and were not caused by changes in mitochondria biomass or mtDNA content. Instead, REL cells show reduced ERMC numbers and/or increased gap-distance compared with patient-matched DX cells. The impact of reduced ERMC connectivity was confirmed using multiple orthogonal methods. MFN2 or PACS2 silencing in DX cells attenuated mitochondrial responses, phenocopied resistance and reduced ERMC tethering. As a consequence, ERMC Ca2+ transfer was decreased in REL cells. On the other hand, enhancing ERMC connectivity using synthetic linkers restored Ca2+ transfer. ERMCs serve as physiologic regulators of apoptosis, and I show in patient-matched tumor models that these contacts are markedly reduced in therapy resistant cells. Some resistant cells had reduced numbers of ERMC tethers (and reduced Ca2+ transfer), while other resistant cells had preserved numbers of tethers (and preserved Ca2+ transfer), but an abnormally increased gap distance. The outcomes of this work reveal the contributions of a “socially distanced ER-mito phenotype” to cancer therapy resistance, a novel model for the development of clinical tools to measure ERMC interactions, and the identification of therapeutic opportunities to revert resistance
Entitled Imaginings: Tristan Tzara, Dada, And The Idea Of Africa
No full text“Entitled Imaginings: Tristan Tzara, Dada, and the Idea of Africa” analyzes the dada founder and poet Tristan Tzara’s practice as a performer, historian, and critic alongside his role as a collector and curator of African art. Acting like the dadaists’ own mana figa, this dissertation points clearly and directly at the disparities between the events - reconstructed from a variety of sources ranging from personal correspondence to newspaper articles - and the dominant scholarly accounts of those events, in order to demonstrate how the ideologies of white supremacy animated the process of delimiting the contours of modernist art. Further, “Entitled Imaginings” sheds light on Tzara’s frequently overlooked place among his contemporaries along the color line, differentiated by his understanding of analogical relationships between the form and subject matter of contemporaneous African and European cultural forms. Ultimately, this dissertation moves the historiography of so-called “primitivism” beyond the generalizations associated with the 1984 Museum of Modern Art exhibition of the same title – rehearsed as recently as 2016 in the Museum Reitberg’s Dada Africa – to demonstrate how specific African artworks, ethnographic texts, and ideological constructs profoundly informed the development of dada artistic practices