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How Do Chinese Investments in the Belt and Road Initiative Influence Participating Countries’ Voting Alignment with China in the United Nations?
No full textM.P.P.This thesis investigates the influence of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on voting alignment of participating countries in the United Nations General Assembly. Using empirical data from 2014 to 2018, the study integrates analyses of Chinese loans, investment flows, and UN voting records to explore the extent to which BRI investments affect international diplomatic behaviors. Key findings indicate that financial incentives from China are correlated with increased alignment in UN voting, suggesting enhanced Chinese economic cooperation significantly sway political alignments. The study highlights the complexities of international relations shaped by economic diplomacy, emphasizing the need for policy coherence and inclusive decision-making in multilateral engagements. Future research should expand the dataset timeline and incorporate broader political variables to further elucidate the dynamics of BRI’s geopolitical influence
Humans as the Loop: Testing Responsibility Judgments of Brain-Computer Interfaces
No full textIf a prosthetic arm which predicts movement data on the basis of an individual’s neural data
executes an action which harms someone, is the person whose neural data is being interpreted
responsible? Artificial intelligence’s advanced predictive and information-processing capabilities
have upended product and system design across many fields. Advancements in mathematics and
computing use large amounts of data as a foundation to make classifications and draw conclusions.
When these conclusions are implemented in technologies and cause real-world consequences, who
will citizens hold responsible? Though much important research focuses on so-called ‘responsibility
gaps’ as they pertain to autonomous cars, one under-studied case is that of brain-computer
interfaces (BCI). Sometimes known only in the scientific community as their techniques (EEG,
fMRI), BCIs draw on inferences which rely on machine learning classification of data signals
originating in certain brain regions. Their information is translated into real-world action, which can
be designed for a plurality of uses by developers. In the emerging reality where use of a device can
allow someone to commit an action that’s parsed and carried out through a ML-enabled BCI device,
it’s unclear whether the individual will be held responsible for the consequences of actions
Pioneering the Development and Expansion of Riboglow-FLIM for Improved Visualization of RNA
No full textPh.D.Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) has emerged as a powerful tool offering sensitivity to molecular environments and multiplexing capabilities. Building upon this foundation, I have built upon the RNA tagging and visualization platform Riboglow, by integrating FLIM for RNA detection in live cells, thus establishing the Riboglow-FLIM platform. This approach enhances cellular contrast and enables multiplexing capabilities for visualizing RNAs in live cells. Through systematic evaluation, I have demonstrated distinct lifetime differences among Riboglow-FLIM probes, which are influenced not only by the presence of specific RNA tag but also by cellular contexts. Expanding the utility of Riboglow-FLIM, I have successfully applied it in complex cellular imaging scenarios, live zebrafish embryos, thus addressing the scarcity of live RNA visualization methods for multicellular organisms. Furthermore, to tackle challenges in studying alternative splicing dynamics, I have introduced Split-Riboglow, a split RNA reporter system offering specificity and real-time monitoring of splicing. Leveraging insights from the original Riboglow RNA A tag, Split-Riboglow enables the discrimination of normal and alternative splicing events in living cells, providing valuable insights into RNA splicing regulation dynamics. In conclusion, this work highlights the potential of Riboglow-FLIM for studying RNA dynamics with implications for advancing biological research and therapeutic development
Globalization and Climate Change: Transportation Emissions and the Role of Aviation
No full textM.P.P.This study tests the relationship between globalization and climate change for 161 countries around the world from 1990-2022, with a focus on greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, a sector that is critical to globalization. Using a fixed effects model employing the KOF globalization index and transportation greenhouse gas emissions data to measure globalization and climate change, respectively, the analysis finds that globalization and climate change are positively and significantly associated. These results are robust to alternative measurement of the primary dependent variable, annual transportation greenhouse gas emissions, and indicate that policymakers should explore decarbonization policies to address the globalization-climate change nexus. Compared to other modes of transportation, aviation plays a unique role in globalization as a major player in both international passenger and freight transportation, two key elements of globalization. It is also an important driver of climate change: if aviation were a country, it would be world’s sixth largest emitter. Passenger air travel and use of air cargo are both expected to increase as globalization continues, meaning policymakers should closely consider aviation decarbonization policies to help prevent the worst effects of climate change
The Contribution of Cellular Senescence in Epileptogenesis
No full textPh.D.Current therapies for the epilepsies only treat the symptoms, but do not prevent disease progression, thus, identifying strategies to disrupt epileptogenesis (the process in which epilepsy develops) is vital. Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), is the most common drug resistant epilepsy in adults, often resulting from an initial epileptogenic brain insult that damage temporal lobe structures and eventually leads to chronic epilepsy and cognitive impairments. Throughout epileptogenesis, there is a latent period of reorganization to the progression of chronic epilepsy, with neuronal death, DNA damage, oxidative stress, inflammation, gliosis, and network alterations, resulting in the generation of spontaneous, chronic seizures. These cellular responses are also common hallmarks of cellular senescence, a conserved cellular program which halts proliferation of damaged cells. Senescent cell (SC) accumulation actively drives naturally occurring age-related deterioration by secreting pro-inflammatory cytokines known as the senescence associated secretory phenotype (SASP) and contributes to neurodegeneration. Clearing SCs has restored function in several age-associated and neurodegenerative disease models. It is unknown whether SC accumulation contributes to epileptogenesis and associated cognitive impairments in TLE. To address this question, a mouse model of acquired TLE (SE, induced by chemo convulsant, pilocarpine) was utilized to characterize the senescence phenotype throughout epileptogenesis, and SCs were ablated to assess functional outcomes of seizure burden and cognitive impairments. SCs accumulated 2 weeks after SE, and were predominantly expressed by microglia. SC accumulation was evident in resected hippocampi from patients with TLE. Globally ablating microglia during epileptogenesis did not rescue seizure burden or associated cognitive impairments in TLE, however global removal of SCs during epileptogenesis reduced seizure burden and rescued spatial memory deficits. These findings indicate that SC ablation after an epileptogenic insult is a promising potential anti-epileptogenic therapy
Being Effective or Not? A Study on the Association Between China’s COVID-19 Lockdown Policy and City-Level Gross Regional Product Growth Rate
No full textM.P.P.The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the globe from 2020 to 2022. Among a wide range of negative economic growth in the three years, China has survived with a positive GDP growth rate, incurring a closer look at how China managed to deal with the disease. This study focuses on the potential association between the unique lockdown policy implemented by local governments and the city-level annual Gross Regional Product (GRP) growth rate. The research narrows the gap in the current literature review by innovatively combining the three parts of COVID-19 disease, lockdown policy, and cities’ economic resilience to construct an integrated conceptual framework.By using panel data from 289 Chinese prefecture-level cities in the years 2020 and 2021, this study uses both OLS and state and time fixed effects regression to analyze the correlation between the key independent variable lockdown policy, and the city-level GRP growth rate. Cities that enacted the lockdown policy are on average 6.17% lower in their annual GRP growth rate than cities that did not implement the policy during the pandemic, holding all other variables constant. The statistically significant results turn out to be persuasive and help the government to distinguish the actual effect of the lockdown policy that could be taken into consideration in case of a future resurgence of the disease. The analysis also extends to future potential topics related to the lockdown policy that are conducive to the nation’s development and social well-being
Shared Syntax or Separate: Cross-linguistic Structural Priming with Non-canonical Sentences on Chinese-English Bilinguals
No full textM.S.This study explores the shared syntactic representations for non-canonical structures by investigating whether there is cross-linguistic syntactic priming for cleft structures and whether the strength of priming is affected by language proficiency. Late Chinese (L1)-English (L2) bilingual speakers participated in a picture description task where they heard an active structure with canonical SVO word order or a non-canonical cleft sentence in one language and then described a picture in the other language. In a description verification task, participants underwent the same priming process and then verified whether the description in the other language matched the picture. Results from picture description tasks suggest potential bidirectional cross-linguistic structural priming, supporting a shared abstract representation of cleft structures. Priming from L1 to L2 was stronger than from L2 to L1, indicating an asymmetric representation. In the description verification task, L1-to-L2 priming effects were evident, while the reverse direction did not show significant priming, further highlighting asymmetric priming effects. The strength of priming is not sensitive to language proficiency, and the results are interpreted in terms of the development of shared representations for non-canonical syntactic structures
Investigating Mechanisms of Microbial Translocation in SIV Infection of Rhesus Macaques
No full textPh.D.Microbial translocation is a significant contributor to chronic immune activation in people living with HIV and is associated with increased mortality and morbidity in individuals treated for long periods with antiretrovirals. Although translocation is due in part to a disintegration of the intestinal epithelial barrier, there is a bias towards the translocation of Pseudomonadota. The use of therapeutics to treat microbial translocation has yielded mixed effects, in part, because the species and mechanisms contributing to translocation in HIV remain incompletely characterized. To characterize translocators, we cultured translocating bacterial species from chronically SIV-infected rhesus macaques. We hypothesized that intestinal epithelial microvesicle cargo differs after HIV/SIV infection and contributes to the biased translocation of these species. We measured miRNA and antimicrobial peptide content of isolated gastrointestinal luminal microvesicles before and after progressive SIV infection in rhesus macaques and observed dose-dependent growth sensitivity of commensal Ligilactobacillus salivarius upon co-culture with these isolated microvesicles. Proteomic profiling of isolated translocating bacteria identified cytosine-specific methyltransferases as a common feature and therefore a potential driver of translocation. Treatment of translocating bacteria with the cytosine methyltransferase inhibitor decitabine significantly impaired growth for several species in vitro. In rhesus macaques, treatment with decitabine led to transient decreases in translocator taxa in the gut microbiome. Together, these data provide mechanistic insights into bacterial translocation in lentiviral infection and may lead to the development of novel therapeutics for treating chronic HIV infection, microbial translocation, and immune activation