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Constructing Journalism Practice Between the Global and the Local: Lessons From the Rwandan Journalism Field
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018This dissertation shows how the journalism field in Rwanda is constructed, including how journalists learn their social role, how they decide what news they will publish, and what factors enable some journalists to produce news that does not fit the established norms. Using a network ethnographic approach, this study examined participant observation and interview data collected from fieldsites chosen based on a social network analysis of the Rwandan journalism field's Twitter presence. This dissertation brings new data to bear on a perennial question, highlighting the complexities of journalism practice and perception in a little-studied context. I answer the question, "In a field suspended between global demands communicated by field leaders and education and local pressures of governance and social context, what does it mean to be a journalist?" in three parts. The Rwandan journalism field is shaped by a series of institutions that structure action, sometimes reinforcing and perpetuating through social obligation and habit behavior that the journalist does not find ideal. While global influence is apparent in education and in field standards set in the Rwandan journalists' code of ethics and in the behavior encouraged by professional organizations, local factors specific to the Rwandan context intervene to shape how journalists view their social position and to encourage routines that result in a context-dependent journalism field whose practitioners are persistently aware of the divide between what they practice and what they are taught. To resist those pressures, journalists must be able to consistently meet field standards in their news production methods and content and they must work for an organization with economic capital outside of the Rwandan media field. Journalists who resist also share a different conception of loyalty and patriotism as rooted in information sharing rather than positive image promotion. The findings have application in journalism studies scholarship because they extend theories of how journalists navigate local and global pressures to construct fields of practice. In addition, they suggest a new perspective on autonomy and power. In Rwanda, journalists generally have some autonomy to take a powerful social position, but instead they take a relatively weak social position in part because of a shared understanding of their social role as villains. This research provides insight on the specific case of journalism in Rwanda and also on how the journalism field might be constructed in similar contexts around the world
Efficient GPU Parallelization of the Agent-Based Models Using MASS CUDA Library
No full textThesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2018Agent-based models (ABMs) simulate the actions and interactions of autonomous agents and their effects on the system as a whole. Many disciplines benefit from using ABMs, such as biological systems modeling or traffic simulations. However, ABMs need computational scalability for practical simulation and thus consume a lot of time. Multi-Agent Spatial Simulation (MASS) CUDA is a library, which allows using CUDA-enabled GPUs to perform multi-agent and spatial simulations efficiently while maintaining user-friendly and easily extensible API, which does not require the knowledge of CUDA on the user part. This thesis describes the optimization techniques for the spatial simulation, which allowed us to achieve up to 3.9 times speed-up compared to the sequential CPU execution of the same applications. We also propose solutions to challenges of implementing the support for dynamic agents as part of MASS CUDA library, including agent instantiation and mapping to the places, agent migration, agent replication and agent termination
Wave dynamics in origami-based mechanical metamaterials
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018Origami has recently received significant interest from the scientific and engineering communities as a method for designing building blocks of engineered structures to enhance their mechanical properties. However, the primary focus has been placed on their kinematic applications by leveraging the compactness and auxeticity of planar origami platforms. In this thesis, we study two different types of volumetric origami structures, Tachi-Miura Polyhedron (TMP) and Triangulated Cylindrical Origami (TCO), hierarchically from a single unit cell level to an assembly of multi-origami cells. We strategically assemble these origami cells into mechanical metamaterials and demonstrate their unique static/dynamic mechanical responses. In particular, these origami structures exhibit tailorable stiffness and strain softening/hardening behaviors, which leads to rich wave dynamics in origami-based architectures such as tunable frequency bands and new types of nonlinear wave propagations. One of the novel waveforms investigated in this thesis is the rarefaction solitary wave arising from strain-softening nature of origami unit cell. This unique wave dynamic mechanism is analyzed in numerical, analytical, and experimental approaches. By leveraging their tailorable folding mechanisms, the origami-based mechanical metamaterials can be used for designing new types of engineering devices and structures, not only for deployable space and disaster relief applications, but also for vibration filtering, impact mitigation, and energy harvesting
Human organ-specific vascular heterogeneity and the endothelial role in fetal liver hematopoiesis
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018For a long time, the endothelium was considered to be a homogenous passive surface that existed primarily to support blood flow. In recent decades, however, both the heterogeneity of the endothelium and its importance in supporting organ-specific function have been increasingly recognized. Endothelial cells from different vascular beds have been shown to differ markedly, both across the arterial, venous, and lymphatic systems of the large vasculature, as well as between the microvascular beds of different organs. Endothelial cells themselves are now known to communicate with surrounding parenchymal tissue, and thereby to play an important role in non-vascular organ development and function. In vivo studies have provided extensive knowledge of organ-specific vascular heterogeneity; however, these studies have predominantly been performed in murine models and may not be directly applicable to human biology or the development of human therapeutics. To date, very few works have studied organ-specific endothelial functions and their underlying molecular mechanisms. The following dissertation reports on the properties of endothelial cells isolated from four major human organs—the heart, lung, liver, and kidneys—in individual fetal tissues at three months’ gestation, at structural, gene expression, and cellular functional levels. After characterizing differences across organ vascular beds, this research next explores liver endothelial specific contributions to fetal liver hematopoiesis. We replicated the human fetal vascular niche in vitro and investigated the role of WNT5A in supporting hematopoiesis. Overall, these studies provide a "library" of information about the different characteristics of organ-specific endothelial cells, and report on the creation of organotypic endothelial cell lines with in vitro stability. These findings, and the cell lines described, can be directly applied to future mechanistic studies within the fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine
MONSTRO: Artworks Inspired by the Disabled Experience
No full textThesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2018My ability (or, inability) to come to terms with the disabled experience-- forms the core of my artistic practice. I create semi-autobiographical sculptures that serve as allegory for the effects, symptoms, or experiences caused by my impairment. Through my work I scrutinize how my disability defines, limits, empowers, or differentiates me from my abled counterparts. Fueled by a rejection of society’s current perception of impairment as a negative or inferior variation of human existence, my work instead illustrates how living with a disability is inherently non-binary -- that the disabled experience is at once both positive and negative, biological and social, personal and political. I make artwork about my disability because I believe that those living with a disability are no better, nor any worse than their able-bodied counterparts--that the word disability only means different
An Exploration of Factors that Affect Earth's Climate in Time
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018This Earth’s climate is strongly influenced by both external and internal forcings. Several examples are the Earth’s rotation rate, variations in the Earth’s orbit, and the land-sea geometry. My PhD work specifically studies the impact of these three factors on the Earth’s climate system. We explore the question “what determines the meridional energy transport (MHT)?” by performing a series of rotation-rate experiments with an aquaplanet GCM coupled to a slab ocean. The change of MHT with rotation rate (Ω) falls into two regimes: in a “slow-rotating” regime ( Ω < 1/2 modern rotation), MHT decreases with increasing Ω; in a “fast-rotating” regime (Ω ≥ 1/2 modern rotation), MHT is nearly invariant. The two-regime feature of MHT is primarily related to the reduction in tropical clouds and increase in tropical temperature that are associated with the narrowing and weakening of the Hadley Cell with increasing Ω. In the slow-rotating regime, the Hadley Cell contracts and weakens as Ω is increased; the resulting warming causes a local increase in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) which consequently decreases MHT. In the fast-rotating regime, the Hadley Cell continues to contract as Ω is increased, resulting in a decrease in tropical and subtropical clouds which increases the local absorbed shortwave radiation (ASR) by an amount that almost exactly compensates the local increases in OLR. In the fast-rotating regime, the model heat transport is approximately diffusive, with an effective eddy diffusivity that is consistent with eddy mixing-length theory. The effective eddy diffusivity decreases with increasing Ω. However, this decrease is nearly offset by a strong increase in the meridional gradient of moist static energy and hence results in a near-constancy of MHT. Our results extend previous work on the MHT by highlighting that the spatial patterns of clouds and the factors that influence them are leading controls on MHT. In Chapter 2, we examined two factors that contribute to the early Eocene climate of tropical South America: a narrower Atlantic ocean and enhanced CO_2. For this study, We used two atmospheric general circulation models (ECHAM 4.6 and CAM5) coupled to a slab ocean. Experiments show that, to first order, narrowing the Atlantic decreases the precipitation of tropical South America, whereas increasing atmospheric CO_2 tends to increase the precipitation. The early Eocene climate in our model is a near-linear contribution of change in atmospheric CO_2 concentration and change in Atlantic geometry, with a dominant contribution from the latter, resulting in a drier-than-today tropical South America during the early Eocene. Using water budget analysis, we find that the precipitation reduction induced by narrowing the Atlantic is mainly due to the reduction of water vapor flux entering South America across the northeast and east boundaries which, in turn, is due to a reduction in the amount of water evaporated from the ocean as air travels from Africa to the South American continent. It is not due to changes in atmospheric circulation. In fact, there is no dramatic atmospheric circulation change around South America even though the Atlantic Ocean is shrunk to less than half its modern width. Our study provides a step towards a dynamical understanding of how the Eocene climate of South America differs from today’s. Summertime insolation was more intense in the Northern Hemisphere during the mid-Holocene, resulting in enhanced monsoonal precipitation. In Chapter 3, we examine the changes in the annual mean tropical precipitation, as well as changes in atmospheric circulation and upper ocean circulation in the mid-Holocene compared to the pre-industrial climate, as simulated by 12 coupled climate models from PMIP3. In addition to the pre-dominant zonally-asymmetric changes in tropical precipitation, there is a small northward shift in the location of intense zonal mean precipitation (mean ITCZ) in the mid-Holocene in the majority (9 out of 12) of the coupled climate models. In contrast, the shift is southward in simulations using an atmospheric model coupled to a slab ocean. The northward mean ITCZ shift in the coupled simulations is due to enhanced northward ocean heat transport across the equator (OHT(EQ)) which demands a compensating southward atmospheric energy transport across the equator, accomplished by shifting the Hadley cell and hence move the zonal mean ITCZ northward. The increased northward OHT(EQ) is primarily accomplished by changes in the gyre circulation in the upper-ocean in the tropical Pacific acting on the zonally asymmetric climatological temperature distribution. The gyre intensification results from the intensification of the monsoonal winds in the Northern Hemisphere and the weakening of the winds in the Southern Hemisphere, both of which are forced directly by the insolation changes
The Real Option Value of Life And Innovation
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018Background: Recent developments in healthcare value assessments have expanded the definition of value for medical technologies. The option value of a life-extending treatment is the opportunity of benefiting from future innovations during the extended life. This concept is particularly important in disease areas where the main goal of treatment is life extension and the rate of innovation is rapid. The objective of this dissertation is two-fold: (1) to examine real-world evidence on option value being considered in treatment decision-making, and (2) to develop a modeling approach for incorporating the real option value of life-extending treatments into cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). Methods: In the first study, an interrupted time series analysis was conducted using a large administrative claims database to test whether the utilization of existing treatments changed after the disclosures of the then-investigational drug ipilimumab’s phase II and phase III results among metastatic melanoma patients from 2008 to 2011. A multinomial logistic regression was used to analyze the temporal probability of receiving antineoplastic systemic therapy, surgical resection of metastasis, or both, relative to no treatment, in the first three months following the first metastasis diagnosis. In the second study, I estimated the cost-effectiveness of ipilimumab in two scenarios: a conventional scenario, with a model constructed using the standard methods that rely on efficacy data directly from the phase III trial of ipilimumab, and an option value scenario, that incorporates future hypothetical improvements in mortality for metastatic melanoma due to innovations. I developed two approaches to incorporating option value. The first approach projects mortality improvements based on historical trends from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program registry. The second, alternative approach identifies drugs being studied in clinical trials at the time of ipilimumab’s approval on clinicaltrials.gov and estimates their likelihood and timing of approval, and potential efficacy and cost. I accounted for increases in overall cancer treatment cost and unrelated medical cost in the option value scenario. Results: In the first study, 1,846 metastatic melanoma patients were included. After adjusting for clinical and sociodemographic variables, as well as the underlying time trend, the disclosure of ipilimumab’s phase II result was associated with a nearly twofold immediate increase in the probability of receiving surgical resection of metastasis relative to no treatment, which was significant at 5% level. No significant effect was observed in the time trend. No significant effects were found for the announcement of phase III result. In the second study, in the option value scenario, using the SEER approach, the incremental QALY gained and the incremental cost increased by 6.3% and 3.8%, respectively, while the ICER decreased by 2.4%, compared to the conventional scenario. Using the clinicaltrials.gov approach, the incremental QALY gained and the incremental cost increased by 7.5% and 7.1%, respectively, while the ICER decreased by 0.4%, compared to the conventional scenario. Conclusion: This dissertation research provided the first empirical evidence of the impact of real option value in cancer treatment decision-making. It was also the first to incorporate option value in an ex ante CEA and estimated its potential impact on the cost-effectiveness of a treatment. Findings from this dissertation underscored the importance of accounting for option value when assessing the value of medical technologies
Program Evaluation of Academic Detailing on Naloxone Prescriptions Prescribed in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018Background The rising incident of opioid overdose mortality has become a national epidemic in the U.S., especially among veterans whose mortality risk is twice that of the general population. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) implemented the Opioid Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution (OEND) Program to provide education and training to providers and patients on opioid overdose prevention, recognition, response, and proper use of naloxone to reverse opioid-related overdose events. Penetration into the provider section required a partnership with the VA Pharmacy Benefits Management National Academic Detailing Service that delivers educational outreach to providers to align their naloxone prescribing to veterans at risk of an opioid overdose with evidence-based practice. This study focused on the impact of academic detailing on naloxone prescribing by evaluating the impact of the intervention as well as providers’ perception of the program and naloxone use to reverse opioid overdose events. In Aim 1, I evaluated the implementation strength of academic detailing at the VA from October 2014 to December 2017. This was complemented by Aim 2, which explored the providers’ perception of academic detailing and captured facilitators and barriers to naloxone prescribing. Methods In Aim 1, a repeated measures, retrospective cohort design with a fixed effects negative binomial model was used to evaluate the impact of implementation strength (proportion of providers exposed to exposed to academic detailing) on total number of naloxone prescriptions prescribed for each VA station from October 2014 to December 2017. Setting was in the VA system, which consists of 130 stations comprised of VA Medical Centers and their surrounding clinics. I evaluated a closed cohort of primary care providers who wrote a prescription for an opioid. In Aim 2, a mixed methods design was used to explore providers’ perception of academic detailing and naloxone prescribing using a survey and identify barriers and facilitators using semi-structured phone interviews. Online survey was developed based on a conceptual framework using existing theories (Theory of Planned Behavior, Social Marketing Theory, and the Framework for effective implementation), tested for face validity, and deployed to providers using who recently received an OEND-specific academic detailing visit within 2 to 4 weeks across the VA. Semi-structured phone interviews were conducted with providers who finished the survey and agreed to continue their participation. Results In Aim 1, there was a total of 5,452 providers who wrote for an opioid prescription. Increasing the proportion of providers exposed to academic detailing at each VA station from 0% to 100% was associated with a of 5.51 times higher incidence (95% CI: 1.86, 16.27) in the monthly number of naloxone prescriptions prescribed. Alternatively, this was a 9.13 increase in the monthly number of naloxone prescriptions. In Aim 2, 137 (12.2%) providers completed the survey. The average domain score for responders was highest for Satisfaction (6.28) followed by Attitude (6.02), Knowledge (5.96), Social norms (5.64), and Perceived barriers (4.86). Knowledge, Social norms, and Satisfaction domains were similar across the different provider types. However, pain specialists had a higher Attitude score (+0.56, P=0.011) and Perceived barriers score (+0.82, P=0.009) than primary care providers. A total of 11 responders participated in phone interviews. Participants identified limited time, poor data integration, social stigma, and lack of homeless support as barriers to prescribing naloxone. A patient list generated by academic detailers was identified as a facilitator to prescribing naloxone. Conclusions By combining the findings from these different approaches, I was able to develop a deeper understanding of academic detailing’s effectiveness to increase naloxone prescriptions prescribed as its phenomena for augmenting providers’ naloxone prescribing behavior
UW School of Music presents a Faculty Recital: Carole Terrry, organ April 27, 2018
No full textConcert ProgramConcert Program for UW School of Music presents a Faculty Recital: Carole Terry, Organ April 27, 201
Reducing intrusive memories of real-world stimuli via memory reconsolidation
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018After a distressing event, intrusive memories often persist and, for some, become pathological and debilitating (e.g., Brewin et al., 2010). Methods that enhance extinction learning may translate to improved exposure-based interventions that target intrusive memories. One possible opportunity for enhancing extinction is through memory reconsolidation (Nader, Schafe, & LeDoux, 2000; Monfils, Cowsanage, Klann, & LeDoux, 2009; Schiller et al., 2010). A retrieved memory reactivated by conditioned stimulus (CS) presentation is thought to enter a labile state as proteins are synthesized, and the effects of new learning that occurs within the reconsolidation window (about 10 min to 6 hrs post-retrieval) is more robust (e.g., Nader et al., 2000). To date, memory reconsolidation reseach in humans has been limited by fear learning paradigms that lack ecological validity (e.g., Elsey & Kindt, 2017), and parameters of boundary conditions (e.g., memory strength, retrieval cue specificity, prediction error) remain unclear (e.g., Treanor, Brown, Rissman, & Craske, 2017). In a two-study sequence, both behavioral and biological mechanisms underlying memory reconsolidation were examined, first in a non-clinical sample, and then in a sample of trauma-exposed individuals with and without current trauma-related intrusive memories. We used the film fear learning paradigm in order to elicit and then reduce film-related intrusive memories. Neutral and negative cues were used to explore differences in cue valence, given that previously, a negative CS retrieval cue elicited higher distress and more intrusive memories than non-retrieval conditions (Marks & Zoellner, 2014). Timing of cues were varied to examine any enhanced effects of extinction within the reconsolidation window. In Study 1, participants (N = 173) were randomized to one of four CS cueing conditions: Pre Neutral CS, Pre Negative CS, or Pre Scrambled cue, presented 10 min prior to extinction, or Delayed Neutral CS presented 10 min after extinction. Intrusive memories were assessed 24 hr and 72 hr after acquisition. There were no differences in intrusive memory frequency or distress 72 hr after acquisition between participants in the Pre Neutral and Pre Negative cue conditions, nor were there differences between the Pre Neutral and Pre Delayed conditions. Larger increases in sAA during acquisition, b = .23, and larger increases in cortisol and sAA together, b = .25, during acquisition predicted higher intrusive memory frequency 72 hr after acquisition. Larger cortisol increase, b = .28, and sAA increase, b = .25, during extinction also predicted intrusive memories 72 hr after acquisition, and a larger increase in sAA, b = .27, also predicted higher intrusive memory distress 72 hr after acquisition. Negative affect after acquisition predicted intrusive memory frequency and distress 72 hr after acquisition, b = .35 and b = .44 respectively. Boundary conditions of reconsolidation as they relate to more ecologically valid stimuli and intrusive memories remain elusive. Study 2 sought to extend this work to a clinical sample, characterized by persistent intrusive memories, and to better understand the specific type of new learning during extinction that may be required to initiate reconsolidation. Importantly, intrusive memories are a transdiagnostic construct present in a range of psychopathology (e.g., Brewin et al., 2010). Participants (N = 14) in the PTSD/MDD (n = 11) and control (n = 3) groups were randomized to one of three extinction conditions: an image extinction condition, where a brief 20 sec film segment that preceded the analogue trauma during acquisition is presented repeatedly in the absence of the analogue trauma, and a film extinction condition, where the acquisition segment is shown repeatedly, and an assessment only control condition, where participants do not engage in any kind of extinction procedure. All data from this study is preliminary. Patterns of intrusive memories 72 hr after acquisition suggest that, though intrusive memory frequency did not decrease d = 0.08, related distress did decrease, d = 0.85. Participants in the PTSD/MDD group reported more intrusive memories than the control group both 24 hr (d = 1.12) and 72 hr (d = 0.54) after acquisition. Intrusive memory frequency decreased in the assessment only (d = 0.89) but not in the extinction conditions 72 hr after acquisition (d = 0.07), but patterns of distress reduction from 24 to 72 hr post-acquisition appeared similar across conditions. Parameters of reconsolidation boundary conditions when more complex, ecologically valid stimuli and outcome measures are used remain unclear; neither cue valence nor timing of retrieval cue affected intrusive memories after extinction. Glucocorticoid and noradrenergic system activity predicted intrusive memories, illustrating the importance of these two systems in strengthening emotional memory. As efforts to push reconsolidation toward clinical settings continue, preliminary findings from Study 2 highlight the importance of capturing distressing and persistent intrusive memories and determining whether these intrusive memories are amenable to enhanced extinction, as these are the kinds of intrusive re-experiencing representative of psychopathology that are often missed in experimental paradigms