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AN EXAMINATION OF THE NOTION OF FUNDAMENTALITY WITH A DEVELOPED APPLICATION TO PHENOMENOLOGY
No full textenterIn this paper I examine various notions and contexts of fundamentality. This exploration
of fundamentality is intended to map out some of its more unfamiliar notions and observe how
our understanding of what is fundamental shifts in different contexts. In the first chapter, the
contexts I examine fundamentality in include the metaphysical context and conceptual context,
from which I map out the different notions of fundamentality that appear in each context. In the
second chapter, these contexts and notions are explored through the works of various
philosophers beginning with analytical philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Theodore
Sider, and ending with non-analytic philosophers, particularly the French philosophers Henri
Bergson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The third chapter utilizes the understanding of how the
notions and contexts of fundamentality shift throughout different philosophical works to apply it
to Merleau-ponty’s phenomenological worldview, mainly working off the philosophy from his
book Phenomenology Of Perception. This chapter concludes with mapping out a novel notion
of fundamentality that allows us to understand and posit what is fundamental within the context
of phenomenology that Merleau-Ponty presents, granting a novel understanding to how
fundamentality works with his worldview.ente
Urban planning and IPCC-like city assessments integration for climate-resilient cities
No full textThis article was originally published in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science ScienceOnlineFirst . The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083251330940.
© The Author(s) 2025, Article Reuse Guidelines (https://sagepub.com/journals-permissions). Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/The rapidly intensifying effects of climate change on urban settlements demand that cities move to the forefront of resilience planning. Climate extremes, from heatwaves to flooding, are increasingly testing the adaptability limits of urban systems and the vulnerability of their populations. Recognizing the unique position of cities, the IPCC’s seventh assessment cycle has prioritized urban areas in its upcoming Special Report on Climate Change and Cities. The IPCC report underscores the potential of cities to act as agents of climate adaptation and provides a framework for cities to build climate-resilient systems. Cities are positioned to pioneer practical, integrative solutions that blend climate sciences with urban planning, establishing frameworks that align economic growth, health equity, environmental sustainability, social justice, and effective governance. This opinion piece explores how cities, by positioning themselves as hubs for innovation, policy reform, and community collaboration, can transform climate vulnerabilities into opportunities for community resilience and sustainability, especially by becoming more-than-human cities, setting examples on the global stage.This material is partially based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under 2232533, 2324744, 2401860, and 2430700, NASA under 80NSSC22KM0052, as well as Texas A&M University Harold Adams Interdisciplinary Professorship Research Fund. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and the funders have no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, or preparation of this article
Conceptualizing and analyzing rural poverty in Kenya: interrogating Kenyan experience using development theories, environmental justice concepts, and a case study of the shrinking Mau Forest Complex
No full textShah, KalimByrne, John M.Poverty reduction worldwide has become one of the most pressing challenges of our time, particularly in Sub-Saharan African countries (Hasell et al., 2022). However, we must understand that poverty is not a lack of money but rather a lack of economic options that the poor require to escape poverty (Bailey et al., 2019). As a result, poverty manifests itself in numerous forms and at various levels of society, thereby endangering the very foundations of society, including changes in planetary and ecological systems (Richardson et al., 2023). It is a multidimensional phenomenon whose causes are complex to calibrate and challenging to tackle (Kabubo-Mariara, 2023). However, adequate evidence suggests that considerable attention has been devoted to rural poverty, although there is a need to consolidate and integrate the findings into a multidimensional approach to effectively reduce poverty and its impact on the rural poor (Rodney, 2022). Furthermore, it is essential to recognize that poverty in Africa, like apartheid and slavery, is artificially programmed and can be reprogrammed and solved with enough political goodwill and care for the environment. ☐ This dissertation examines the relationship between rural poverty in Kenya and the embedded structures of colonial administration (Piketty, 2014). Policies and programs that lead to continued economic growth and environmental degradation can weaken and destroy livelihoods, ultimately leading to increased poverty (Mohajan, 2013). Economic growth models promoted in the developing world by classical development theorists often lead to a degraded environment, which is the foundation and backbone of rural livelihoods (Chemelil et al., 2024). As a result, there is an increase in environmental injustices, income disparity, and poverty worldwide (Fosu, 2023). The historical trend of rural poverty in the country shall underpin this study, focusing on three eras of poverty development in Kenya: pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial. Facts continue to show that poverty in Kenya originates from European countries' imperial invasion and partition of Africa (Devine, 2021). The attack disrupted and destroyed African social, economic, and political systems and, in its place, introduced alien systems that persist in indiscriminately exploiting African resources even to this very day (Wiener, 2015). The Industrial Revolution and the indiscriminate extraction of natural resources, particularly fossil fuels, have led to environmental degradation and climate change, resulting in food insecurity across rural and marginalized communities (Bruckner et al., 2022). The introduction of money and the emergence of a money market economy have accelerated environmental degradation and the exploitation of African resources, as well as skewed global trade relationships in favor of the developed world, ultimately leading to climate change and a decline in livelihoods (Lal, 2000). ☐ Poverty development has been particularly significant and dehumanizing across Sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the developing world (Musa et al., 2022). Kenyan rural communities and urban slum dwellers have struggled to meet their daily basic needs. Ironically, this happens on a continent endowed with abundant natural resources, including minerals and fertile lands (Desai & Levitt, 2020). As the saying goes, African poverty exists not because the continent cannot feed its poor, but rather because the continent cannot meet the consumption demands of the decadent West (Andrade & Sotomayor, 2018). Studies and evidence suggest that gross bureaucratic malaise, particularly in governance, politics, and resource allocation, is a significant contributor to poverty in Kenya (Smith, 2013). Colonial legacies and institutions inherited during independence have been misused for political patronage and neo-patrimonialism, resulting in corruption, tribalism, and other causes of social disequilibrium (Kunjufu, 2014). ☐ It would be unwise to ask Kenyans at this juncture to rebuild their damaged pre-colonial social and economic systems, which had guaranteed equal rights of access to shared resources, thereby thwarting the development of poverty and squalor among individuals and communities. This study suggests that the Kenyan government deemphasizes economic growth as the panacea toward poverty reduction (Wambu et al., 2018). This dissertation argues that, rather than emphasizing economic growth as a strategy to combat rural poverty, a ‘carbon-positive’ sustainable development model should be adopted to address environmental degradation, climate change, and food insecurity (Bruckner et al., 2022). For sixty years since independence, the classical economic growth strategy has not improved the quality of life for the poor in the country or elsewhere in the developing world (Petrucciani, 2022). Instead, capitalism and its economic growth strategies continue to destroy the environment, cause climate change, and threaten lives and livelihoods (Bruckner et al., 2022). It makes sense to start emphasizing non-monetary measures of welfare, such as reduced mortality rates, clean drinking water, accessible sanitation systems, low fertility rates, access to education and technology, and stewardship of a sustainable environment away from the monetary measures that are trickier and more demanding (Arndt et al., 2016). This study shows that improvement of livelihoods, especially in the agricultural sector and informal enterprises, the provision of quality healthcare and education, protection of the natural environment, and the accessibility to policy-making processes are among the core factors that, once fully reformed and utilized, would be able to reduce incidences of poverty among households (Kapur, 2018). There is a need to enhance participatory democracy and sustainable systems and governance institutions to prevent the wasteful use of public resources and empower the citizenry to shape their social, economic, and political destiny (Sy, 2018). Until then, poverty in Kenya would continue to be an everyday trauma. ☐ The issue of how society relates to the environment is of profound importance to environmental justice and the eradication of rural poverty (Byrne et al., 2002). Environmental management, or the lack thereof, plays a significant role in mitigating or exacerbating the problem. Continuous extraction of natural resources cannot continue unabated, as it destroys the ozone layer, leading to climate change and erratic hydrological systems (Sultana et al., 2023). Overall, economic growth and anthropogenic activities are unsustainable in the Earth’s limited ecosystem, which must be kept healthy and balanced for the sake of survivability, biodiversity, and livelihoods (Daly, 1990). Most Kenyan people live in rural areas and depend on a healthy environment to earn a living (Becker, 2019). Rainfall is a great resource whose reliability and consistency are crucial to unlocking wealth creation and poverty eradication (Arora, 2019). Kenya possesses immense carbon sink potential in its forests and grasslands, which the government can leverage to support rural communities in combating poverty (Kairo et al., 2021). There is a need to initiate climate-positive development strategies that not only conserve the country’s natural carbon sink resources but also adapt appropriate technologies to minimize the increase in carbon emissions into the atmosphere (Fankhauser et al., 2022). The country must shift to a new development paradigm with appropriate policies and programs that support the conservation of Kenya’s natural carbon store and equally ensure that emissions are significantly reduced to sustain a climate-positive development (http://illuminem.com/). ☐ Deforestation significantly impacts the environment and the livelihoods of rural Kenyan communities (Goodstein, 2011). Deforestation of water towers has recently accelerated, resulting in a decline in forest cover throughout the country. Kenya currently has five notable water towers with Indigenous forests, of which the Mau Forest Complex (MFC) is the largest (Chaudhry, 2019). The importance of these water towers in supporting livelihoods, mainly farming and other human economic activities, cannot be overemphasized. In the short run, the destruction of water towers and other forests in the country will increase economic growth but perpetually continue to create poverty and destroy livelihoods among the rural Kenyan people (AFP, 2022). It is necessary to address this issue correctly and urgently if the problem of rural poverty and its far-reaching implications are to be handled or even addressed. Economic growth and industrial expansion lead to imbalances in the planetary system, resulting in environmental degradation, climate change, and reduced food production. This is a recipe for food shortages, diminished biodiversity, and widespread poverty (Bruckner et al., 2022). ☐ The figure below shows the overall poverty rates in the country as indicated by the counties. These rates are based on a 2022 survey, which identified the percentage of adults in the counties whose average total consumption equivalent per day was less than one dollar in rural areas and less than two dollars in urban areas. Figure 1. Overall Poverty Rate in Kenya by County ; Source: KNBS (2024). Nairobi, Kenya. ☐ The headcount poverty index indicates that Turkana County has the highest poverty level (82.7%), whereas Nairobi County has the lowest headcount poverty index (16.5%). Arid and semi-arid counties, such as Turkana, Mandera, and Wajir, have higher poverty index levels than Nairobi and other agriculturally rich counties. Agriculturally affluent counties, endowed with good soil and reliable rainfall, such as Kirinyaga, Kiambu, Nyeri, Meru, and Narok, have continued to excel in combating poverty, thereby mitigating rural poverty conditions. The gains made in reducing poverty in rural areas have sometimes regressed due to prolonged drought conditions that affect agricultural production and food security. Therefore, adopting proper policies and pro-poor programs that incorporate climate-smart agriculture is essential to increase productivity, save livelihoods, and mitigate vulnerability to climate change, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas (Wambua, 2019). ☐ The 2022 household survey indicates that the poverty rate in the country increased to 39.8 percent, compared to previous years when there was a downward trend. The prolonged droughts and the COVID-19 global pandemic affected farmers and businesses, reducing household incomes (Siringi, 2021). The poverty situation in the country worsened due to uncertainties regarding the 2022 national elections, where communities were pessimistic following previous election-related instability that led to the destruction of property and livelihoods. The data, therefore, provides valuable information on what policies need to be crafted to tackle poverty in the country. The key among them is the use of climate-smart strategies to mitigate the impact of severe drought conditions, as well as the implementation of participatory democracy, where peaceful and fair elections are guaranteed to every citizen and community (Korir et al., 2020). Research has shown that there is an increase in poverty rates in the country in every election cycle, resulting from political intimidation and inter-ethnic conflicts (Berdal & Sherman, 2023).University of Delaware, School of Public Policy and AdministrationPh.D.University of Delaware, Energy and Environmental Policy Progra
Provider Perspectives on LGBTQ+ Youth Homelessness in Delaware
No full textThis article was originally published in Delaware Journal of Public Health . The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.32481/djph.2025.07.07
Copyright (c) 2025 Delaware Academy of Medicine / Delaware Public Health Association. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Objective: This article details the results of focus groups with providers who work with LGBTQ+ youth experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness in Delaware. Methods: Researchers interviewed 16 service providers in four focus groups held between May 24, 2023 and June 5, 2023. Providers included housing support specialists, social workers, community health workers, school counselors, mental health care providers, and other community-servicebased practitioners. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted via Zoom, and the authors utilized inductive coding to identify emerging themes. Results: Throughout Delaware, there are limited housing and public health supports in place for LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness. Even when services are available, LGBTQ+ young people may have difficulty accessing them due to age restrictions, shelter segregation by sex or gender, or safety concerns. Providers working with this population face challenges including limited funding and staff, and a lack of specialized training. Changes at the local and state level—including increased funding, enhanced access to specialized training, and greater inclusivity on administrative forms—are important first steps to ensuring providers can adequately provide services to LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness. Conclusions: LGBTQ+ youth are more likely to experience homelessness than their cisgender and heterosexual peers and yet face greater barriers to housing services throughout Delaware. The unique needs of this population necessitate specialized services and programs to ensure all young people have access to basic needs such as housing. Policy Implications: The provider perspectives in this paper offer a firsthand account of the challenges of serving this population and opportunities for improvement in policy creation and program administration
Sodium intake and biological sex influence urinary endothelin-1 in salt-resistantadults: a pilot study
No full textThis article was originally published in American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpregu.00119.2025
0363-6119/25 Copyright © 2025 The Authors. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Published by the American Physiological Society.Hypertension is more prevalent in males than age-matched premenopausal females. Average sodium intake in the United States ishigher than recommended and is a risk factor for developing hypertension. Sex differences in renal sodium homeostasis may underliesex differences in hypertension prevalence. For example, renal endothelin-1 (ET-1) plays a key role in the maintenance of blood pres-sure and sodium homeostasis. Previous rodent studies demonstrate that females excrete higher urinary ET-1 compared with males,and increasing dietary sodium promotes urinary ET-1 excretion only in male rats. However, the impact of sex on sodium and renal ET-1 signaling in humans is unclear. Therefore, we aimed to determine whether the renal ET-1 system responds differently to salt loadingin male and female human research participants. To test our hypothesis, normotensive salt-resistant male and female participantswere administered a low (1 g/day), recommended (2.3 g/day), and high (7 g/day) sodium diet for 10 days each in random order. The24-h urine samples were collected and assessed for sodium and ET-1. Following increased dietary sodium, both males and femalesincreased urinary sodium excretion (diet: P < 0.001). Following increased dietary sodium, participants exhibited an increased urinaryET-1 excretion (diet: P ¼ 0.038). Interestingly, post hoc testing revealed that only females displayed an increase in ET-1 excretion (rec-ommended vs. high sodium, P ¼ 0.009). Overall, the current human study provides novel insights into potential sex-specific modula-tion of ET-1 and renal responses to dietary sodium. Further investigations are warranted to understand the underlying molecularmechanisms driving sex-related differences in renal ET-1 signaling and sodium handling.This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health(NIH) Grants T32DK007569 (to V.L.N.); F31HL170563 (to N.T.R.),K01HL160772 (to J.C.W.); K01HL164978 and U54AG062319 (to M.C.B.); K01HL147998 and R21AG087524 (to A.T.R.); R00DK119413and R01HL171122 (to E.Y.G.); R01HL128388 (to William B. Farquhar)and P20GM113125 (to David G. Edwards); and American Heart Association Grant 23CDA1037938 (to J.C.W.
Hidden labor and legacies: Colored Conventions, Black women and educational activists
No full textErnest, JohnIn spite of their absence from archives and records, Black women educators enacted and taught the principles of what I term, Sacred Black citizenship through institutions ranging from the Invisible Church, the formal Black church, early Black benevolent societies and the Colored Conventions Movement. Sacred Black citizenship was explicitly taught, modeled, and practiced in homes, Sunday school benches and classrooms for well over a century. Black teachers taught and molded Black citizens long before American laws and jurisprudence conceived of the possibility of Black American citizenship and are responsible for creating and articulating a Black rhetoric I call, Sacred Black Testimony. In fact, it was these thousands of Black students who would go on—within a hundred years of enslavement and in spite of the crushing force of laws, dominant white religion, culture, and habit—to demand and realize civil rights in the twentieth century. These righteous demands forced a national reckoning with the contradictions between the ideas and ethics of American life and law with the deeply racist, unfair brutish realities. Educational activists developed the premises of American public education which came to inform and shape national educational activism leading eventually to the formation of the Department of Education in 1979. This dissertation traces the lives and labors of Black women through nineteenth century records and archives of their activism ending with an analysis of Delaware as a case study of Black women’s educational activism nationally. I contend that it is through the careful examination of nineteenth century Black women educational activists who created a praxis of their faith that we can trace and understand the promises and challenges of American public education as they taught Sacred Black citizenship to their students and encouraged them to claim their rights and privileges as full citizens.University of Delaware, Department of EnglishPh.D
The impact of Charcot-Marie-Tooth 4B3 disease mutation in SBF1 on the regulation of MTMR2 during autophagy
No full textButchbach, Matthew E. R.Charcot Marie Tooth (CMT) disease is characterized as a group of hereditary peripheral neuropathies that can manifest as either demyelinating disorders or axonopathies. CMT4B3 is a mixed demyelinating and axonal polyneuropathy with high variability in disease progression and motor phenotype. CMT4B3 is characterized by mutations in the Set Binding Factor 1 (SBF1) gene which encodes Myotubularin Related Protein 5 (MTMR5), a catalytically inactive pseudophosphatase. SBF1 directly interacts with MTMR2, a phosphoinositide phosphatase, in the cytosol and upregulates its catalytic activity. MTMR2 dephosphorylates phosphoinositides which regulate the vesicular trafficking during Schwann cell and axonal formation. The phosphoinositide targets for MTMR2 are involved in autophagosome formation and lysosomal degradation. Loss of this regulation results in disrupted motor neuron axon formation as well as uncontrolled organization of myelin around motor neuron axons. Previous studies indicate when SBF1 functionality is diminished autophagy is increased. The hypothesis is that muta-tions in SBF1 impact the regulation of phosphatase activity of MTMR2 and downstream effects of this result in loss of function in motor neurons in CMT patients. ☐ Patient-derived fibroblast cells can be converted to motor neurons to model diseases bypassing the use of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) through a process known as direct reprogramming. Cell lines isolated from a CMT4B3 patient, with a compound heterozygous mutation from each parent, and their parents were used to characterize the disease of this specific patient as well as in the spinal cord tissue of Sbf1 knockout (Sbf1-/-) mice. ☐ Transcript and protein levels for SBF1, SBF2, MTMR2, and autophagy factors were measured using quantitative RT-PCR and immunoblotting. Transcript and protein levels for SBF1 are reduced in knockout mouse spinal cord and unchanged in patient fibroblast samples. Autophagy protein levels are relatively unchanged in mouse spinal cord tissue, however, there appear to be sex differences between male and female mice. A direct reprogramming protocol for converting patient fibroblast cells to motor neurons was designed and optimized and future research can be used to measure and validate autophagy in these cells.University of Delaware, Department of Biological SciencesM.S
Misspecification Strikes: ASTRAL can Mislead in the Presence of Hybridization, even for Nonanomalous Scenarios
No full textThis article was originally published in Molecular Biology and Evolution Published by Oxford University Press.. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf049.
© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.ASTRAL is a powerful and widely used tool for species tree inference, known for its computational speed and robustness under incomplete lineage sorting. The method has often been used as an initial step in species network inference to provide a backbone tree structure upon which hybridization events are later added to such a tree via other methods. However, we show empirically and theoretically, that this methodology can yield flawed results. Specifically, we demonstrate that under the network multispecies coalescent model—including nonanomalous scenarios—ASTRAL can produce a tree that does not correspond to any topology displayed by the true underlying network. This finding highlights the need for caution when using ASTRAL-based inferences in suspected hybridization cases.H.B. was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) grant DMS-2331660, and V.D. by a startup fund from the University of Delaware, a University of Delaware Research Foundation’s Strategic Initiatives Grant, and NSF grant DMS-1951474. This research was conceived and performed while the authors were in residence at ICERM in Rhode Island, which is supported by NSF grant DMS-1929284
