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Synthesis, Characterization, and Transformations of α-Borylcarbonyl Compounds Containing 1,2-Azaborine:
Full text linkThesis advisor: Shih-Yuan LiuThesis advisor: Marc SnapperOrganoboron compounds are widely used in organic synthesis and medicinal chemistry. It has been shown that organoboron compounds can undergo a vast quantity of transformations, especially stereospecific reactions. Boron enolates and their reactivity are less explored in the field of organic chemistry. In enolates, boron can be bound to oxygen or carbon. The boron-carbon enolates are of interest for having the potential to engage in stereospecific organoboron chemistry via the stereospecific carbon connected to the boron atom. Two methods of synthesizing boron-carbon enolates are through quaternized and unquaternized boron centers. While quaternized boron-carbon enolates are more studied, unquaternized boron-enolates represent a gap in the field. To date only four unquaternized boron-carbon enolates have been isolated and characterized with only one of the compounds engaging in organoboron chemistry. Herein I report the synthesis, isolation, and characterization of a boron-carbon enolate containing 1,2-azaborine as the organoboron analog.Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2024.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Chemistry
Governor Gina Raimondo's Education Policy Legacy: Universal Pre-K in Rhode Island
Full text linkThesis advisor: ROWELL S. MELNICKThis issue was brought to light when the Honorable Gina M. Raimondo left the governorship behind and assumed office on March 3, 2021, to serve as the 40th U.S. Secretary of Commerce. Many asked, what would become of the initiatives she championed during her tenure? Rhode Island Universal Pre-Kindergarten (RI-UPK) was one of her signature policy goals and this research confirms the reasons behind the push, the progress made, and the challenges ahead. This thesis further highlights how the governorship plays a central role in effecting and steering education policy. Rhode Island’s state funded Pre-K has been steadily adding more seats and even before Raimondo, it has maintained the highest quality benchmarks for over a decade according to the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER). Therefore, the smallest state in the nation demonstrates a bright spot in Early Childhood Education (ECE) within an otherwise regionally underperforming public school system. This is a dichotomy that beckons in-depth analysis and further explanation. I argue that RI UPK is a model for the rest of the country to follow based on its selection as the sole test site leading up to the 2020 Census. According to US Census data collectors, Rhode Island is a microcosm of the entire country, reflective of future demographic trends. Hence, a policy implementation strategy that proves either successful or unsuccessful offers valuable insights that are widely applicable across numerous states. This thesis also explains and clarifies some contradictions in the larger debate over UPK implementation as well as chronically examining its evolution in RI. After conducting an empirical comparison and evaluation of case studies, state reports, and scholarly articles, I assert that RI UPK has the potential to serve as a national model. Analyzing a segment of Madam Secretary Raimondo’s education legacy reveals that Rhode Island not only excels as a leader in providing consistent Early Childhood Education but also possesses unique characteristics that position it at the forefront of the nationwide Universal Pre-K (UPK) discussion.Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2024.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Political Science
Essays in Microeconomic Theory:
Full text linkThesis advisor: Mehmet EkmekciThis dissertation consists of two independent essays. In the first essay, Coordination in Complex Environments, I introduce a framework to study coordination in highly uncertain environments. Coordination is an important aspect of innovative contexts, where: the more innovative a course of action, the more uncertain its outcome. To explore the interplay of coordination and informational complexity, I embed a beauty-contest game into a complex environment. I uncover a new conformity phenomenon. The new effect may push towards exploration of unknown alternatives, or constitute a status quo bias, depending on the network structure of the connections among players. In the second essay, The Extensive Margin of Bayesian Persuasion, I study the persuasion of a receiver who accesses information only if she exerts attention effort. The sender uses the information to incentivize the receiver to pay attention. I show that persuasion mechanisms are equivalent to signals. In a model of media capture, the sender finds it optimal to censor high states.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2024.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics
Consumer Preferences and Policy Implications for Renewable Energy Adoption:
No full textThesis advisor: Richard SweeneyIn the first chapter of this dissertation, I study the relative advantages of investment (upfront) and output (production-based) subsidies for rooftop solar Photovoltaic (PV) adoption. While investment subsidies can be cost-effective due to adopters’ inter-temporal discounting (impatience), output subsidies are better targeted to site quality. Using data from the California Solar Initiative, I estimate a dynamic discrete choice model of solar adoption, then simulate counterfactual subsidy policies to find an optimal balance of investment and output subsidy rates. The model estimates adopters’ discounting factor and distribution of tastes, and hinges critically on the observed distribution of site quality as data. Considerable variation in personal taste (taste to be green) implies that the output subsidy can play a helpful role in incentivizing otherwise hesitant property owners with high production potential, while not overpaying eager adopters with lower potential. The intertemporal discount factor, reflecting consumers’ impatience, is a critical element in many models of consumer demand behavior. However, the discount factor must usually be calibrated (assumed) rather than estimated, and if calibrated incorrectly, may yield serious miscalculations in empirical results and policy implications. Therefore, in the second chapter of this dissertation, I estimate distinct values of the discount factor for commercial and residential adopters of solar. In showing that commercial adopters are only about one third as impatient as residential adopters, this paper offers useful context for researchers seeking to make informed calibrations of the discount factor in related settings. In the setting of rooftop PV solar adoption, the difference in discount factors implies that the most cost-effective combination of investment and output subsidies involves relatively higher output subsidy rates for commercial properties, and relatively higher investment subsidy rates for residential properties.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2024.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics
High School Guidance Counselors' Perspectives on Supporting Grieving Students
No full textThesis advisor: Zine MagubaneThesis advisor: Nora GrossThe career of a high guidance counselor can range from topics of teenage drama, college decisions, and the annual class selection meeting; however, what are they to do when gun violence is currently the number 1 cause of death for children 1-19 (Everytown, 2022). Legally, students are expected to spend 49% or 180 days of the year within the walls of a school for at least 6 hours, in turn, the institution of schools has become a place for making friends, connections, and experiences, whether they be good or bad (Pew, 2023). When gun violence plagues the walls of a school, support generally falls to counselors to help students navigate their emotions and grief. However, schools and counselors do not necessarily have the resources or training to provide that support. Particularly in under-resourced urban neighborhoods, counselors may already be spread too thin in their responsibilities, worsening the effects of gun violence and unresolved grief. Further, some counselors cannot understand their students' lived experiences because the differences in their racial, financial, and geographical upbringing promote a culture of misunderstanding and inability to solve root issues with cultural competency (Englert-Copeland, 2019). In this study, we aim to examine how schools and counselors support students impacted by gun violence, focusing on two major metropolitan areas on the East Coast: Boston and Philadelphia. The problem the project is addressing is the way schools situate themselves in helping students’ grief, given the increase in adolescent gun violence throughout the United States. Philadelphia has seen a particular increase in gun violence over the past decade (Philadelphia Police Department, 2022). Per the Philadelphia Office of the Controller, they found that 10.9% of all gun deaths within the city were people under 19 years of age for the 2023 year to date (2023). Everytown Research found that in “Massachusetts, the rate of gun deaths increased 16% from 2010 to 2019, compared to a 17% increase nationwide; gun homicides increased 26%, compared to a 13% increase and 26% increase nationwide, respectively” (Everytown, 2021). On the other hand, the city of Boston has seen a decrease in the gun violence rate over the past few years (Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 2022) While Boston does have one of the lowest gun violence rates in the world, students there experience grief over losing loved ones from neighborhood gun violence. The state noted that gun violence deaths are the 3rd-leading cause of death among children and teens in Massachusetts (2021). Through the research, we hope to identify best practices and strategies for schools and counselors to better support students impacted by gun violence and reduce the negative effects of unresolved grief. By examining the experiences of students in these two urban areas, we believe that we can contribute to the broader conversation about how to address this critical issue in schools and communities across the country.Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2024.Submitted to: Boston College. Morrissey School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Sociology.Discipline: Departmental Honors
Quantifying How United States Clean Energy Expansion Policies Interact with European Union Investment: An Event Study Using Green Bond Spreads
No full textThesis advisor: Michael GrubbWith the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) raising concern of clean energy capital flight from the European Union, investigating the effects of US clean energy expansion policy on international investment shifts is a pertinent issue. This paper uses event studies to analyze debt capital market dynamics through green bond spreads, using conventional corporate and government bonds as separate benchmarks. It finds that the simultaneous extension of ITC and PTC policies in 2015, 2020, and 2021 did not consistently produce a significant effect on green bond markets in the US and EU. This implies that the implementation of clean energy policy in the US has an insignificant impact on green debt capital markets in the US and EU, although impacts on other investment channels cannot be ruled out. A further analysis on green investment sensitivity to interest rates indicated a significant negative sensitivity for green US firms only, although this was inconsistent across measures.Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2024.Submitted to: Boston College. Morrissey School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics.Discipline: Departmental Honors
Overworked or Underloved?: Exploring the relationship between overtime work and marital stability for high-income occupations
No full textThesis advisor: Joanna VenatorThis thesis explores an aspect of the work-family conflict by researching the impact of overtime work on divorce rates for high-income occupations. The work-family conflict refers to the conflict that exists within a relationship when work impedes on key, familial responsibilities. Overtime work is an example of this phenomenon, as increased time at the office can act as a catalyst for tension at home. I define overtime work by studying the usual hours worked in a week for individuals, and I specifically study various high-earning occupations to see how additional overtime work affects divorce rates. By analyzing ACS data from 2012-2019, I find that increased overtime hours tend to negatively impact divorce rates. Further, I find that this impact exists primarily in positions that work numerous overtime hours per week, whereas the effect is marginal for those who work limited overtime hours.Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2024.Submitted to: Boston College. Morrissey School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics.Discipline: Departmental Honors
How We Learn: The Importance of Semantics to Learning in a Known World
No full textThesis advisor: Lucas CoffmanThis thesis explores the importance of semantic (specific-containing) information in learning as the amount of easily recognizable information increases. This study emulates the advertising industry, applying relevance to its findings. Through a randomized experiment, I find significant evidence that the increased frequency of new brands harms the memory of easily identifiable brands. I also find evidence that suggests that semantically presented new brands are more often remembered than episodically (story-based) presented new brands. Additionally, I observed directional but insignificant results suggesting that the effectiveness of semantic vs. episodic information on the identification of new brands is greatest as the frequency of easily identifiable brands increases and the quantity of semantically presented brands decreases. Despite the benefit that presenting information semantically has on remembering new brands, my findings suggest that people do not retain the specifics within semantically presented impressions.Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2024.Submitted to: Boston College. Morrissey School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics.Discipline: Departmental Honors
Growing Up Globally: Form and Genre in the Anglophone Bildungsroman
No full textThesis advisor: Robert LehmanThe scholarship surrounding the anglophone Bildungsroman has been to this point largely divided by national and periodized boundaries. This approach to the coming-of-age novel highlights tightly-knit clusters of texts that share geospatial contexts but precludes the possibility that texts from outside these demarcated groupings share essential features that might transcend the borders of nations and literary periods. In the supposed age of literary cosmopolitanism, it is perhaps time for a new approach to the Bildungsroman. I contest that, by approaching various Bildungsromane on the level of their form and structure, new constellations of texts emerge that bring forth new questions and challenges to the conventional narrative of the rise and fall of the Bildungsroman throughout the long history of the novel globally. Each of the texts I discuss fuses a common literary form–the oral tale, the Gothic, literary naturalism, the national allegory–with the coming-of-age novel which inflects and informs its familiar plot, creating cross-cultural and cross-temporal patterns as practitioners of the genre take it up in vastly different circumstances and contexts. Each manifestation of these hybrid Bildungsromane represents new fields on which the experimental potentialities for individual subjectivity and agency in modernity might ensue, from the early 1840s to the turn of the twenty-first century. In texts which incorporate the chronotope of the oral tale, I argue that authors use the genre to create space for individual agency in a globalizing world. In the inclusion of the Gothic, I suggest, the Bildungsroman resituates the human on the periphery of the text, thrumming with increasingly animate places and things that crowd the individual subject out of her own development. I then question the entropy spirals present in literary naturalism as they temper and trouble the linear development plot, and offer insights into texts that use this fused form to preclude Bildung and texts that use the forces of naturalism to create subterranean structural narratives that reassert its latent potential. I then take the national allegory, a genre with a complex relationship to the Bildungsroman, and argue that the individual subject comes to hold an almost mythic position which comes to be either dissolved or monstrously reasserted in dark reflections of late colonial and postcolonial national imaginations. Finally, I argue that through fantastical realism, a utopian formal play emerges in the narration of the Bildungsroman that creates the narrative space for unique representations of multilayered, open-ended identities at the end of the text.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2024.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: English
Exploring the RNA-Binding Profiles of Ribosomal Protein S15 Through In Vitro Selection:
No full textThesis advisor: Welkin JohnsonThesis advisor: Michelle MeyerCis-regulatory RNA elements are structured regions of an mRNA that regulate the transcription, translational efficiency, or stability of the mRNA. These cis-regulatory RNAs are widely used across all domains of life to modulate gene expression in response to various stimuli. In bacteria, examples of these cis-regulatory RNAs include small RNAs, structured 50-500 nucleotide non-coding RNA that bind to mRNA or protein to alter expression, and riboswitches, which consist of a ligand-binding aptamer domain whose complex tertiary structure selectively responds to specific ligands to regulate downstream gene expression on the transcriptional or translational level. Ribosomal protein expression in bacteria is often controlled using an autogenous cis-regulatory mechanism, in which select ribosomal proteins (r-proteins) bind RNA structures in the 5’-untranslated of their own mRNA to regulate the expression of r-protein operons. Some of these structures, such as the RNA leaders regulating r-proteins L1, L20, and S2, have striking homology and often mimicry between the recognition motifs within their primary binding partner, ribosomal RNA (rRNA), and their secondary binding partner, the structured mRNA leader. Ribosomal protein S15 is a notable exception to this trend, as the five regulatory RNA leaders identified across various bacterial species that respond to S15 are structurally distinct, narrowly distributed to their respective phyla, and often bear little obvious homology to the rRNA. Additionally, inter-species interaction studies have shown that the S15 homologs from these species have specific recognition profiles fori
the mRNA regulators, and not all interactions are reciprocal. How RNA regulators arise and are maintained in bacterial genomes is not well understood, and thus we sought to use ribosomal protein S15 as a model to study how differences in the RNA-binding profiles of the various S15 homologs may have driven the diversity of the mRNA regulators we see today. To explore these RNA-binding profiles, I utilized an in vitro selection approach to enrich for aptamers (structured RNAs that bind a specific ligand) that bind the S15 homologs from Escherichia coli (EcS15), Geobacillus kaustophilus (GkS15), and Thermus thermophilus (TtS15) from a partially patterned RNA sequence pool. Following multiple attempts to enrich for aptamers to EcS15, I find that aptamers to this homolog are infrequent in this RNA sequence pool. I successfully enriched for Gk- and TtS15 aptamers from this sequence pool and using high-throughput sequencing and clustering analysis go on to show that these homologs have highly overlapping RNA-binding profiles, though the aptamers enriched by TtS15 exhibit slightly more sequence diversity than those enriched by GkS15. I confirm that three unique aptamers from the final RNA pools bind both homologs in vitro, and a single nucleotide change that differentiates two of these aptamers causes a decrease in affinity for TtS15 but not GkS15. This mutation causes a change in the predicted folding of these two aptamers, and greatly reduces its frequency in the population enriched by TtS15. Taken together, the work presented in this thesis shows overlapping but not identical RNA-binding profiles for the Gk- and TtS15 homologs to aptamers enriched from a partially patterned RNA library and represents the first comparative study of two homologous RNA-binding proteins using in vitro selection against an RNA library.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2024.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Biology