Bioculture Journal
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Low-income workers’ perceptions of wages, food acquisition, and well-being
No full textThesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2019Background: Seattle’s Minimum Wage Ordinance went into effect in 2015 with a schedule to increase the minimum wage to $15/hour. Previous studies have demonstrated an association between increased economic resources and improvements in food security and health. Higher wages could theoretically be used to purchase food, but could also result in losses to public assistance. Purpose: The aims of this analysis are to describe how low-wage workers perceive household resources in relation to food acquisition, and to explore how workers in low-wage jobs connect food and diet to perceptions of health and wellbeing. Methods: We analyzed three in-depth qualitative interviews and one phone survey from the Seattle Minimum Wage Study with 55 workers in low-wage jobs who were living in households with children, conducted between 2015-2017 (n=190 observations). We coded and analyzed interviews using Campbell’s food acquisition framework and best practices for qualitative research. Results: Participants relied on a combination of wages, government assistance, and private assistance from community or family resources to maintain an adequate food supply. Strategies tended to focus more on maintaining food quality than food quantity. Restricted resources also limited food-related leisure activities, which many participants considered important to quality of life. Conclusions: Although many low-wage workers would like to use additional income to purchase higher quality foods or increase food-related leisure activities, they often perceive tradeoffs that limit income-based adjustments to food spending patterns. Future studies should be specifically designed to examine food choices in response to changes in income
Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and the Pursuit of Economic Opportunity in the Age of the Migration Decline
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2019It is frequently assumed that today’s population is more mobile than ever, exhibiting little attachment to the origin places of their youth. Indeed, scholars and commentators espouse this supposed rootlessness as one of the fundamental distinctions between recent generations of young adults and previous generations. However, these assumptions belie the reality that internal migration rates have been declining steadily and quite steeply since 1980. Rather than an increasing tendency towards rootlessness, something seems to be keeping individuals in place. While scholars have recently investigated a number of potential explanations for this decline, no study has been able to fully explain the decline and much about it remains a mystery. In particular, we have very little knowledge about the potential implications of this decline for individuals. It is unclear whether contemporary generations of migrants and/or non-migrants are faring worse economically than their predecessors, which could suggest that the migration decline is associated with harmful economic changes, or whether the migration decline is suggestive of harmless or even beneficial changes that may make migration increasingly unnecessary. We have even less knowledge of how the potential implications of the internal migration decline are structured by race, ethnicity, and gender. In this dissertation I compare two cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to investigate these gaps in our understanding. In Chapter 2, I utilize 25 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979 (NLSY79) to explore whether race, ethnicity, and gender intersect to shape the economic returns associated with internal migration, as well as racial and ethnic disparities in these relationships across gender. I find that internal migration is associated with larger economic benefits for white relative to black and Hispanic men and, as a result, larger racial and ethnic disparities in economic outcomes for men. For women, in contrast, internal migration is associated with larger wage benefits for white women, but larger work hour benefits for black and Hispanic women that cumulatively correspond to slightly narrower racial and ethnic disparities in economic outcomes. These findings illustrate the importance of employing an intersectional lens for internal migration research and point to the possibility that internal migration reinforces the privileged position of white men. In Chapter 3, I link both the NLSY79 and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1997 (NLSY97) and examine whether the returns to migration and the economic wellbeing of young adult migrants and non-migrants have changed across these two cohorts, the former cohort having been young adults early in the migration decline and the latter cohort having been young adults late in the decline. While the economic returns to migration have not changed across these cohorts and the economic wellbeing of migrants has remained largely unchanged, the economic outcomes of non-migrants have deteriorated over time. As such, non-migrants may increasingly be left behind geographically and economically, potentially hindering their abilities to migrate should they wish to. In Chapter 4, I integrate the insights garnered in Chapters 2 and 3 to explore whether changes in the returns to migration and in the economic wellbeing of migrants and non-migrants vary across race, ethnicity, and gender. The findings from this chapter complicate the findings from Chapter 3, illustrating that it is largely white men and women that have experienced changes in their economic wellbeing, while black men and, especially, black women exhibit declines in their returns to migration. Hispanic women and men, in contrast, have experienced little change in their economic outcomes across cohorts. Chapter 5 concludes by pointing to the importance of taking an intersectional perspective when studying the internal migration decline and internal migration more broadly. Chapter 5 also highlights the potential role of internal migration in shaping disparities in outcomes, particularly between blacks and whites. The findings from this dissertation offer a number of important contributions to the internal migration and racial/ethnic stratification literature. In particular, they demonstrate that our understanding of internal migration and the internal migration decline are incomplete without considering the unique contexts in which individuals find themselves, including their racial/ethnic and gender backgrounds, as well as the time periods in which they live and work. I also illustrate that black women and men are experiencing declines in their average probabilities of migrating, as well as declines in their returns to migration. These findings suggest potentially fruitful areas for future research, such as investigating whether the migration decline has been exacerbated by experiences that are particularly prevalent among the black community. Migration’s historically important role in improving blacks’ economic outcomes suggests that it is important to understand why migration may be less beneficial for blacks now than in the past and whether these changes threaten to further exacerbate inequality in an already unequal society
Japanese Encephalitis: Evaluation of Vaccine Impact in Uttar Pradesh, India
No full textThesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2018Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus is the leading cause of vaccine-preventable encephalitis and a significant cause of disability in Asia and the western Pacific. JE is endemic in many parts of India and the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) contributed approximately 75% of the cases in India over the last three decades. Since 2006, UP has used the live attenuated SA-14-14-2 vaccine (CD-JEV, Chengdu Institute of Biological Products) to prevent JE. To measure the impact of vaccine introduction in UP, the number of confirmed JE cases in 1- to 15-year-old children and vaccination coverage were analyzed by year for 40 districts in UP. Vaccine-induced protection against JE seems to have come primarily from campaign coverage, with the only distinct downward trend in disease occurring in the initial 7 high-risk districts where a second high-coverage catch-up campaign targeting children aged 1- 15 years occurred 4 years after the first campaign in 2006 (p-value <0.005). There was 25% reduction in JE cases for every 10% increase in vaccine coverage in these districts. However, there was no statistically significant impact of vaccine on the number of JE cases in a combined analysis for all districts over the study time period. Limited routine immunization coverage, especially in areas where the susceptible populations were large, was one potential reason behind inefficient vaccine impact. There is a need for catch-up campaigns in districts with poor routine immunization coverage as well as for robust routine immunization programs to sustain protection in each year’s new birth cohort
The space between: How an English Department supports a school’s diversity mission.
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018University of Washington Abstract The space between: How an English department supports a school’s diversity mission. Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Geneva Gay Curriculum and Instruction The purpose of this study was to examine how an academic department at Cardinal Academy, an independent school, supported the diversity mission of the school through instruction. The study looked at multiple types of diversity, including learning styles, socio-economic status, gender(s), and family structures. Surveys, interviews, and observations with three teachers in the English Department determined the ways in which their instruction supported the diversity mission of the school by using a conceptual framework rooted in culturally responsive pedagogy. The study also examined factors in effective teaching generally and literacy instruction specifically, in order to develop a more comprehensive profile of teaching to and through diversity. Results from the surveys, interviews, and observations revealed four major categories: responsive environments; student centered and teacher access; relationships; and impacts of world views. Within these four themes, three strategies of instruction that were key to supporting and implementing a diversity mission were apparent. Teachers who provided multiple opportunities to create relationships that were meaningful were able to create bonds that helped facilitate instruction. These teachers provided a space in which students seemed comfortable and appeared to feel ownership. Another strategy that supported the diversity mission of Cardinal Academy was teachers allowing students to be experts in learning. This provided students with a variety of opportunities to share their varied perspectives, experiences, and interpretations of course materials. Adjusted instruction was the final strategy that supported the diversity mission because it allowed teachers to work with students emotionally, socially, culturally, and academically. These three strategies can be powerful tools in supporting diversity missions of independent schools. They expand classroom instruction and the efforts of schools to actualize their missions
The Power and Promise of Direct Measurements of Metabolites in Marine Systems
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018Organic molecules play a myriad of roles in the surface ocean. They are the building blocks of proteins, the alphabet of genetic information, and the language in which microorganisms communicate. The small biomolecules that are the readout of cellular activity, or metabolites, or are of particular interest. Some metabolites like compatible solutes fuel the microbial loop, while others like vitamins act as micronutrients to algae. In this dissertation, I aim to use liquid-chromatography mass-spectrometry (LC-MS) to observe pools of metabolites to answer long-standing questions in microbial ecology and organic matter cycling in the surface ocean, specifically tackling gaps in our knowledge regarding cobalamin (vitamin B12) and microbial metabolomics. In Chapters 2 and 3, I develop and utilize LC-MS techniques to directly measure cobalamin in dissolved and particulate organic matter. These chapters reveal an underappreciated chemical diversity of cobalamin and cobalamin-like compounds in marine systems, revealing that cyanobacteria produce a cobalamin-like compound, pseudocobalamin. I tie this chemical diversity to the biochemistry, ecology, and evolution of marine cobalamin producers in Chapter 3. In Chapters 4 and 5, I use an analytical technique to perform targeted and untargeted metabolomics. These techniques aim to identify and quantify the entire metabolome of an organism (as in Chapter 4) or community (as in Chapter 5). In a controlled laboratory setting, I harness metabolomics to understand how two species of diatoms experience cobalamin limitation; this work is presented in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5, I explore the whole community metabolome across a natural oceanographic gradient in temperature, salinity, and nutrients in the North Pacific Ocean. Here I offer some of the first observations of several metabolites in natural marine systems and hypothesize on their roles in microbial processing of organic matter
Identification of Physicians and EHR User Types
No full textThesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2018In recent years, the adoption and meaningful use of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have undergone several promotions by governmental acts and incentive programs, with the promise of plenty of benefits. One of the most important objectives of EHR implementation was to make clinical providers to work more efficiently. However, previous studies have shown widespread dissatisfaction and low work efficiency among physicians due to rapid change of technologies and increasing requirements of EHR use. Based on a well-established model of EHR capabilities and physician EHR user, this study applied two strategies to identify different EHR user types among a large population of physicians from EpicCare Ambulatory Provider Efficiency Profile (PEP) dataset. The trends of physician work efficiency among three EHR user types identified – basic users, strivers, and arrivers – were consistent with our hypothesis that basic users have the highest work efficiency; strivers have relatively low efficiency; and arrivers have medium work efficiency but probably gain other benefits from EHR use. This identification work of physicians and EHR user types is useful for future work focusing on facilitating healthcare providers to move forward to more efficient EHR user stages and deliver better care for patients
Abelian Varieties with Small Isogeny Class and Applications to Cryptography
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018An elliptic curve over a finite field \FF_q is called isolated if it admits few efficiently computable \FF_q-isogenies from to a non-isomorphic curve. We present a variation on the CM method that constructs isolated curves. Assuming the Bateman-Horn conjecture, we show that there is negligible probability that a curve of cryptographic size constructed via this method is vulnerable to any known attack on the ECDLP. A special case of isolated curves is when the \FF_q-isogeny class contains only one \FF_q-isomorphism class. We call an elliptic curve, or abelian variety, super-isolated if it has this property. We give a simple characterization of super-isolated elliptic curves, and several examples of cryptographic size. We prove that there are only super-isolated surfaces suitable for cryptographic use. Finally, we show that for any , there are only finitely many super-isolated ordinary simple abelian varities of genus . Essentially, we have an existence result in the practical range for genus , and a non-existence result for the impractical genera
Precarious Whiteness: Reimagining the Seattle Sephardic Origin Story
No full text“Precarious Whiteness: Reimagining the Seattle Sephardic Origin Story” seeks to investigate narrative formation around Sephardic Jewish identity from the early twentieth century to the present. While Sephardim are commonly positioned as American and white in academic and non-academic texts, I demonstrate that these classifications do not account for the multifaceted Ottoman, Spanish, and Jewish nature of Sephardic identity, nor acknowledge Sephardic reluctance to become permanently part of the United States. I subsequently disassociate Sephardic Jews from the white-washing pioneer narrative of the American West to recognize the non-Western and non-white elements of Sephardic identity. Finally, I recount the many instances in which non-Jews and already-established, Ashkenazic Jews operated according to a black-white dichotomy to discriminate against Sephardic Jews to ensure their own societal privilege
Anatomical and Functional Organization of the Visual Cortex, and the Effect of Visual Deprivation in Animal Models
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018Despite the fact that the visual system has been the most well-studied of all sensory systems, many questions remain in regard to its structure and function in both human and animal models. While a basic blueprint of the visual system exists across all animal species that sets in place the basic structure prior to the onset of visual experience, it has been well established that this system becomes fine-tuned through experience early in life. Using a variety of techniques and animal models, this dissertation addresses some questions regarding the functional organization and the effect of visual deprivation on the visual cortex of several animal models. Rodents offer several advantages for studying various aspects of the development, organization and plasticity of the visual system. An important model for studies of visual cortex plasticity is the system of ocular dominance columns (ODC, aggregates of cells with the same eye preference), which have been extensively studied in many carnivores and primates, but have been thought not to exist in rodents. Our lab recently reported the existence of ODCs in pigmented, Long Evans rats (Laing et al. 2015), but previous reports in albino rats (Diao et al., 1983) point to differences in the binocularity of certain regions of primary visual cortex (V1) and in the role that callosal connections may have in these differences. To explain these strain differences, we hypothesized that albino rats, unlike Long Evans rats, do not have ODCs, and that callosal connections in V1 of albino rats are not patchy, as they are in Long Evans rats. In the first chapter of this dissertation, we present anatomical and electrophysiological experiments supporting our prediction that input from both eyes intermix in the binocular region of V1 in albino rats, without segregating into ODCs, and that callosal connections in albino rats are homogeneously distributed in V1. In the second chapter, we explore the effect of loss of vision during early development on the surface area of V1. Using histological methods as well as MRI techniques, we examined how the reduction in mature brain surface area varies with age when blindness occurs in rats, ferrets and humans. To compare data across species, we translated the post-conception ages of each species to a common neurodevelopmental event-time scale. We predicted that the critical period for the effect of blindness on the area of V1 ends at a common developmental event-time across species. Our results support our prediction, and also show that the critical period for the effect of blindness on V1 surface area ends well before the visual cortex reaches its normal, mature size. Much of the research on the organization and function of visual cortex is presently carried out in mice. While a present advantage of mice is the possibility of using genetic tools, a disadvantage is the small size of their brain and visual cortex. In the third chapter, we use multiple anatomical tracers to explore the number, arrangement and internal topographic organization of extrastriate visual areas in the rabbit, whose brain is about 60 times larger than the mouse brain. Our results show that the visual cortical plan in rabbits closely resembles the plan in mice and rats, suggesting that the rodent plan may be more general, encompassing Lagomorphs and possibly other orders. Our study also underscores the usefulness of the rabbit as an alternative model to rats and mice for projects benefiting from a larger brain
Living With Loss In the Anthropocene
No full textMaster of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (MAIS)Heatedly contested at various points in its development, climate change discourse is at once a political and social issue, an environmental and ecological issue, and a physical and mental health issue. Less attention has been paid to the latter. During her work with the terminally ill, Kübler-Ross (2005) outlined 5 stages of grief: anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. That outline is now seen as analogous to the feelings that we may have towards issues of climate change, e.g., the real and perceived loss of ecosystem services, as well as uncertainty in regard to the future of humanity. With that in mind, I created The Anthropocene Adventurer magazine. Conceptualized as a visual and emotional response to climate change, The Anthropocene Adventurer magazine was developed to stimulate climate change communication. The Anthropocene Adventurer magazine grapples with the question, "What does one do when climate change hits home?