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Christ Destroyed: The Eucharist and Theories of Destruction in Historical and Contemporary Sacramental Theology
No full textThesis advisor: John F. BaldovinThesis advisor: Catherine M. MooneyAn incorporation of a notion of "destruction" into our understanding and theologies of the Eucharist can help us to appreciate more robustly not only late medieval and early modern discussions of Eucharistic sacrifice, but also our late and post-modern experiences of God's absence. This thesis recovers theories of the Eucharist that propose an inherent aspect of destruction as part of the Sacrament. Such theories emerged in the writings of Robert Bellarmine, Juan de Lugo, Francisco Suárez, and others and continued to be influential on Eucharistic thought through the time of Pius XII. I trace these theories and their reception from the sixteenth century to a revival of them in nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly in the works of Maurice de la Taille (1872-1933) and Anscar Vonier (1875-1938) as well as in Pius XII's Mediator Dei (1947). I then consider them and their implications for contemporary discussions of Eucharist, notably by Louis-Marie Chauvet and followers of René Girard. A recovery of a notion of destruction might help contemporary Christians to reach both a greater understanding of the Eucharistic presence as well as a greater appreciation of God's apparent or perceived absence.Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry.Discipline: Sacred Theology
The Articulation of Grace and Freedom as the Locus of Human Flourishing: A Rahnerian Understanding of God's Love for Humanity
No full textThesis advisor: Felix PalazziThesis advisor: Dominic DoyleThesis (STL) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry.Discipline: Sacred Theology
Sex differences in habituation to novel food and novel context: Examination of recruitment of central and basolateral complex nuclei of the amygdala
No full textThesis advisor: Gorica PetrovichNovel foods and novel environments both impact consumption, but their interaction is poorly understood, especially how this interaction varies across habituation and by sex. Prior studies found that placement in a novel context suppressed consumption of a novel food across habituation in a two-choice paradigm with familiar food, and there were neural correlates in the amygdala of consumption under novelty during the first exposure. The current study extended these findings using a paradigm with only a novel food. We placed adult male and female rats in a novel or familiar environment and measured their consumption of a novel, palatable food across four habituation sessions and a final test session. We collected brain tissue after the test session to measure Fos induction with immunohistochemistry during the final exposure to novelty. Fos induction was measured in the central nucleus of the amygdala and the nuclei of the basolateral complex. We found that placement in a novel context suppressed consumption of a novel food at every time point. During the test, Fos induction was elevated in groups tested in the novel context in the medial part of the central nucleus and all nuclei of the basolateral complex except the anterior part of the basolateral nucleus despite the test being the fifth exposure to the novel stimuli. Parts of the central nucleus and nuclei of the basolateral complex showed sex-specific elevations in Fos induction in females regardless of the testing context. Correlations of Fos induction across regions showed that novel context tested groups had similarly elevated Fos induction throughout the central nucleus and basolateral complex, unlike their familiar context tested counterparts. Females had more correlations of Fos induction than males regardless of testing context. These results demonstrated that habituation to eating a novel food is prolonged in a novel environment compared to a familiar environment. Notably, Fos induction remained high in the novel context groups after multiple exposures to novelty. These behavioral and neural findings demonstrate that unfamiliar environments remain salient throughout the process of habituation.Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Psychology and Neuroscience
Descartes and the Metaphysics of Causality in the Material World:
No full textThesis advisor: Jean-Luc SolèreThe debate about the causal status of Cartesian matter has been steadily brewing for the last few decades. In particular, there has been renewed interest in the question of whether Cartesian bodies can cause changes in motion in other bodies. Pitted against each other are two camps. The first consists of broadly causalist interpreters, who ascribe some sort of causal or active power to bodies; the second consists of occasionalistic interpreters (of body-body interaction), who maintain that bodies are devoid of all causal or active properties. There has been a notable pendulum swing in the last two decades, with the majority of recent publications favoring the causalist view. I aim to rebut these causalist interpreters and offer a new defense of occasionalism about body-body interaction. Along the way, I will break new ground in sorting out the details of Descartes’ views.The components of my dissertation can be viewed in two main groups. Chapters 1 through 4 will mount four independent arguments against the causalist view. Each of these chapters investigates Cartesian bodies at a different level of metaphysical analysis: in turn, I assess bodies in terms of their principal attribute or essence, in terms of their modes, in terms of physical forces, and in terms of God’s concurrent action. At each level of analysis I will argue on textual and philosophical grounds that Descartes does not ascribe active or causal powers to bodies. In chapter 5 and in the appendix, I will change gears and outline the details of my own occasionalist interpretation. In particular, I explain the basis and manner of God’s action on bodies. Here follows a detailed overview of each chapter. The first chapter focuses on extension as a principal attribute. I argue that Descartes neither does nor could ascribe causal properties to extension considered as a principle attribute. This is supported on two bases. First, I argue that the textual evidence does not favor a causalist reading of matter, but favors an occasionalist reading. For one thing, Descartes never ascribes secondary causality to matter itself; for another, Descartes appears to distinguish the causal status of bodies as “external causes” from the notion of secondary causality. This latter point will be shown to track the later distinction between occasional causes and secondary causes. Second, I argue that it would be impossible on metaphysical grounds for Descartes to claim that extension is causal. This is shown by first establishing the conditions for secondary causality in Descartes’ physics: a secondary cause determines changes in motion in a functional way (i.e. there is a necessary connection between specific pre-collision and specific post-collision states). Then I argue that none of the propria or properties of matter jointly satisfy this condition. The second chapter focuses on the modifications of matter. This is to block any suggestion that Descartes could attribute modes to matter which add properties not already contained in matter considered as a substance. I first establish the more general metaphysical thesis that no mode can add properties to a substance which are not already contained in that substance’s principal attribute. I infer secondly that Descartes therefore could not consistently attribute causal modes to matter, given that matter’s principal attribute is itself not causal. Third, I then have to explain in general how the properties of modes are contained in their substances. I argue that Descartes is committed to the thesis that the properties of modes are contained eminently in their substances. The third chapter focuses on a central concept of Cartesian physics: force. The results of collisions are determined by the forces of the colliding bodies. So if it turns out that force is a per se feature of Cartesian bodies, then scholars would have good reason for thinking that bodies are causal. I will argue that force is not a per se feature of bodies, but is rather a per aliud feature directly grounded in God’s causal action. In order to defend this thesis, I make a negative and then a positive argument. The negative argument takes aim at current scholarship. Over the past two decades there have been four distinct interpretive camps which all converge on the same interpretive thesis—namely, that force is indeed a per se property of bodies. I argue against each camp individually and then generally. My general argument is a significant and especially novel contribution to the literature, in that I show that the per se reading of force is inconsistent with Descartes’ formulations of the laws of nature. As for my positive argument, I present a new interpretation of Cartesian force which entails that force is ascribed to bodies per aliud by God’s direct, law-governed action. I argue that forces in particular, and physical tendencies in general, are best understood as (non-real) relations. A tendency for Descartes is the conditional relation between a mode’s instantiation in one instant and its continued instantiation in the next. I argue that this conditional relation is established by God’s direct action, in conformity with the laws of nature. Force is the comparative measure of tendencies which is used by God to determine which modes to preserve or instantiate after collisions. The fourth chapter considers a loose end, namely Descartes’ appeal to the scholastic notion of concursus. For the scholastics, the theory of concurrentism brought together the disciplines of theology, metaphysics, and physics by maintaining that natural creaturely operations depended upon direct and cooperative divine operation. Importantly, Descartes uses the terminology of concursus when explaining material change, which has led some scholars to argue that Descartes is committed to scholastic concurrentism. If this is true, then Descartes would be committed to the view that for every material change there would be a divine efficient cause and a creaturely efficient cause. But if there is a creaturely efficient cause, this by definition entails that bodies are efficient causes. My fourth chapter blocks this causalist reading on two grounds. First, I show that textually Descartes does not use “concursus” consistently with scholastic usage. Rather, as is the case with many technical terms which he appropriates, he subtly changes the meaning of this term. He uses “concursus” as a synonym for divine conservation or preservation. Second, I show that Descartes could not have been a concurrentist in the scholastic sense (which would be necessary for the causalist argument to go through). One thesis of concurrentism is the claim that the primary cause actualizes the secondary cause. But given Descartes’ ontology, he lacks the distinctions requisite for bodies to be capable of actualization. To be specific, he lacks any distinctions remotely analogous to a distinction between potency and act. The fifth and final chapter explains how God causes motion and changes in motion. This will involve clarifying the role of the laws of nature in explaining change. I will argue that the laws are general formulae describing how God causes motion in bodies. God’s action is thus the truth-maker of the laws. I will furthermore argue that God does not cause changes in motion because he wills the laws, but rather that the laws obtain because of the way that his nature leads him to redistribute the motion which he chose to create. I will also sort out some of the technical details of God’s decision to produce motion. The appendix makes a minor point about the nature of causality in body-body interactions. Based on conclusions from chapters 1 and 2, it is necessary to explain what sort of causality is involved in material changes. I argue that it is misleading to describe change on the model of efficient causality. Instead, it is best described in terms of “modal causality.” I will explain what upshots this has for understanding the radical departure of Descartes’ natural philosophy from scholasticism.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Philosophy
Evaluation and Characterization of Novel PDE11 Inhibitors
No full textThesis advisor: Charles HoffmanThe second messenger cyclic 3’-5’ adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) signaling pathway plays an important physiological role in many organisms. Cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (PDEs) regulate signal transduction by catalyzing the hydrolysis of cAMP and cGMP allowing for the downregulation of cyclic nucleotide levels. Human PDEs are encoded by 21 genes grouped into 11 families. The biological role of the most recently discovered PDE family (PDE11) remains poorly understood partly due to the lack of selective inhibitors. Mutations in the PDE11A gene have been linked to a wide range of diseases, such as Cushing Syndrome, which is a result of inactivating mutations expressed in adrenocortical tumors. Meanwhile, PDE11 levels are seen to increase in the ventral hippocampus as a function of aging, and is associated with a loss of social memory. Thus, the development of a selective PDE11 inhibitor could provide a potential therapeutic benefit to patients receiving long-term corticosteroid treatment by stimulating cortisol production by the adrenal gland, as well as to aging adults to maintain social memory. To address these needs, candidate PDE11 inhibitors related to a compound discovered by the Hoffman lab in a high throughput screen for PDE11 inhibitors are being synthesized by the Rotella laboratory. I have been evaluating these compounds using two fission yeast-based growth assays in complement with in vitro enzyme assays carried out by Dr. Jeremy Eberhard.
Here I describe my role in the project, leading to the identification of a compound, SMQ2-57, which is a selective inhibitor of the PDE11 enzyme whose potency has been confirmed through both yeast-based assays and in vitro enzyme assays. In addition, I have taken both a forward and reverse genetic approach to identify PDE11A4 mutant alleles that confer resistance to inhibitor compounds as such knowledge could guide a rational drug design approach to produce more effective PDE11 inhibitors. Based on our results, SMQ2-57 could serve as a useful tool in understanding the biological role of PDE11. Meanwhile, data from my study of compound resistant mutant PDE11 alleles should allow for the characterization of the physical interaction between PDE11 and its inhibitors in an effort to guide a medicinal chemistry program to develop a more potent and drug-like PDE11 inhibitor.Thesis (BS) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Scholar of the College.Discipline: Biology
Chemical Proteomic Methods to Investigate Cysteine Post-Translational Modifications:
No full textThesis advisor: Eranthie WeerapanaThesis advisor: Jia NiuFunctional cysteine residues within proteins often serve as active sites for nucleophilic or redox catalysis, ligands for metal binding, structural disulfides, and are susceptible to modifications. Post-translational modifications on functional cysteine residues play various roles in regulating proteins, altering activity, localization, or cellular signaling. Such modifications arise endogenously in response to reactive oxygen species or reactive nitrogen species, respectively termed protein oxidation or protein S-nitrosation. These modifications play a role in numerous biological processes, and have implications in neurodegenerative disorders and cancers. Using chemical proteomic methods developed in our lab, specifically isotopic Tandem Orthogonal Proteolysis - Activity Based Protein Profiling (isoTOP-ABPP), we identify functional cysteines within a proteome and characterize proteins that undergo redox post-translational modifications on cysteines. I have particularly focused on S-nitrosation mediated by the novel transnitrosation donor S-nitroso-coenzyme A (CoA-SNO), as well as the functional characterization of nitrosation on specific target proteins involved in various metabolic processes: phosphofructokinase (PFKP), ATP citrate synthase (ACLY), and ornithine aminotransferase (OAT). In addition, I have studied the redox regulation of the human ribonuclease inhibitor protein (RI) to elucidate the mechanism of protein oxidation and inactivation. Lastly, I have used chemical proteomic tools to interrogate reactive cysteines in the apicomplexan parasite, Toxoplasma Gondii, for prioritization of targets for drug discovery.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Chemistry
Essays on Health Insurance and Industrial Organization:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Michael GrubbThis dissertation addresses questions in the health insurance and industrial organization fields. In the first chapter, I investigate how gender-based pricing bans affect health insurance markets offering long-term contracts. In thesecond chapter, I examine lapsing, and its implications, in a health insurance market offering long-term contracts. In the third chapter, I study the long-term implications of product unavailability in the beer market. Chapter 1: In theory, guaranteed renewable (GR) insurance contracts can efficiently insure against reclassification risk without causing adverse selection on pre-existing conditions. In practice, however, adverse selection can still arise on other dimensions. In 2020, in response to protests demanding gender equality, Chile banned gender-based pricing in its private health insurance market. I investigate how this policy impacts Chile’s health care system, which consists of a low-quality public option and a private market characterized by the use of GR contracts. I find that, if the ban is implemented, prices in the private market would increase as low-cost men switch to the public option and high-cost women enter. Overall, the regulation causes a shift of surplus from men to women. The ban is regressive, as high-income groups benefit more than low-income groups, creating a trade-off between gender-based equity and income-based equity. Subsidies that induce low-cost enrollees to remain in the private market are the most effective mitigation strategy to contain higher premiums. Finally, relative to non-GR contracts, the number of individuals choosing the private market is lower under guaranteed renewability. Chapter 2: Guaranteed renewable (GR) insurance contracts have the potential to efficiently protect individuals against reclassification risk without the negative side effects of price regulation, such as adverse selection. For these contracts to work properly, consumers must pay front-loaded premiums when healthy and stick with their contracts for many years in order to subsidize their future high-risk selves. This paper studies lapsing in the Chilean private health insurance markets, a system characterized by the offering of GR contracts. I find that most policyholders lapse their insurance plans just a few years after signing their contracts. I show that policies and lapse patterns predicted by standard theoretical models of long-term contracts are the opposite of those observed empirically. Finally, premiums increasing over time, and consumers lapsing their contracts because of those price changes, are a key determinant of insurers’ profits. Chapter 3: The marketing literature has investigated the processes potentially leading to brand building and the benefits these brands may enjoy over time. One of those possible benefits is resilience in the face of a reputational challenge or a crisis. This chapter focuses on the long-term implications of product unavailability. We leverage a quasi-natural experiment that exogenously removed the top leading beer brands from retail stores for several weeks. We test whether these prolonged stockouts can erode market shares beyond the current or subsequent purchase occasions and study the potential mechanisms at play. Using panel data of consumer purchases before and after the product shortage, we observe that the top brands only partially recovered their pre-stockout market shares, especially among their most frequent buyers. We identify a sizable portion of consumers who tried small brands for the first time during the stockout period and remained to buy those products persistently. To control for prices, state dependence, and product availability, we estimate a choice model with heterogeneous preferences and find that exposure to stockouts has long-run effects on purchase behavior. We interpret our estimates as evidence that consumers facing a restricted choice set may learn or become aware of competing products with long-lasting consequences on preferences.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics
Bearing One Another's Burdens: Synodal Trauma-Aware Relational Pastoral Caregiving Ministry for Families in the Local Church
No full textThesis advisor: Jane E. ReganIn the contemporary United States, trauma is a significant disruptive force in the lives of families. By its nature, however, traumatic suffering isolates and marginalizes its victims, with the result that the pastoral caregiving needs of suffering people can go unrecognized and unmet. This dissertation proposes that caring for families who struggle to cope in contexts of traumatic suffering and chronic distress is a vital work of mission for the Catholic church in the twenty-first century. It further proposes that this work can best be enacted in the local church setting when configured as a synodal, trauma-aware, relational, caregiving community of practice (a STAR caregiving CoP) ministry. The ministerial model offered here is designed to enable parishes and dioceses to develop compassionate, competent ministerial initiatives that can meet the particular needs of families in their communities. Grounded in the theoretical discourses of theological anthropology, ecclesiology, situated learning theory, the ethic of care, and traumatology, the model also reflects insights drawn from the author’s qualitative doctoral research study of two pastoral caregiving ministries that serve men and women struggling with the personal traumas that erupt in family life. The STAR caregiving CoP model offers the local church a flexible, robust framework to employ in the construction and evaluation of familial pastoral caregiving ministries.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry
"The Trouble with White Fragility: Towards a Class Analysis of Resistance to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Work by Administrators”
No full textThesis advisor: Shawn McGuffeyThesis advisor: Zine MagubaneIn this dissertation, I show how the racial conflict theory promoted in the book White Fragility isn’t the only useful perspective to explain negative responses to the training and other activities by DEI administrators. Specifically, I argue a class analysis can illuminate the antagonistic relationship between DEI administrators and other stakeholders. Since DEI professionals are an extension of the management class, which is responsible for regulating the behavior of students and employees on behalf of employers in educational institutions, it is predictable that some students and employees will respond with silence, anger, and disengagement. If it is true that these negative responses cannot be reduced to White Fragility, then DEI professionals need to appeal to the interests of their audience and clearly show how their activities can actually be beneficial for students and employees despite the fact that they are extension of management. This dissertation includes three of my articles on administrators in higher education that helped me to develop the aforementioned argument. The first article argues that we should expect race-conscious student services administrators to experience role conflict when students complain about the ways that the executive-level administrators contribute to the reproduction of racial inequality. I contend that role conflict arises because student-centered administrators have to navigate the contradictory expectation of being an advocate for students with grievances about the institution while helping the executive-level administrators improve the reputation and revenue-stream for the university. Therefore, students cannot always expect student-centered administrators to effectively highlight and address their grievances. The second article argues that students who complain about inequity on campus should expect student-centered administrators to respond with self-help coaching. I use the term self-help coaching to capture the process when administrators teach complainants how to highlight and remedy organizational problems themselves. The third article focuses on the ways that student equity administrators (i.e. specialists who work in offices focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, and multicultural affairs) frame their work as beneficial for students. Specifically, I describe three types of frames: expert accountability, affirmation, and advocacy. In the conclusion, I show how DEI professionals can use this information to appeal to the interests of students and employees who recognize their antagonistic relationship with management.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Sociology
Essays in the Economics of Crime:
No full textThesis advisor: Arthur LewbelThis dissertation consists of three related chapters. A unifying feature throughout all is a focus on the issues in the economics of crime, specifically in how different factors affect different types of index crimes. The first chapter, a collaboration with Abby Hong, examines the role of the stand-your-ground law in driving first-degree and second-degree murder rates. The second chapter, a collaboration with Benjamin Ferri, examines how the two ends of the income distribution impact emotional gain crime and financial gain crime. Both chapters one and two examine how different variables affect crime, and both have a theoretical part and an empirical part. The third chapter looks into measurement issues in crime. Specifically, it considers the impact of a change in data collection methods on the Uniform Crime Report (UCR).
The first chapter, “Self-defense Regulations and Crime: Evidence from the Stand Your Ground Law,” provides a theoretical model of crime escalation when governments relax self-defense regulations. We then test the model with an empirical analysis of the “stand-your-ground” (SYG) laws’ impact on planned and unplanned murders. The game theoretical model shows that relaxing self-defense regulations can increase the arming of crime victims. It also increases the arming of offenders in crimes that lead to unplanned murders. If planned murder offenders are over-confident, then their level of arms increases as well. We then use a difference-in-differences (DiD) model to test these implications. We find that consistent with the model, SYG laws in the US increase the planned murder rate by 7.6% and the unplanned murder rate by 10.4%, on average. Also, the effect size increases over time, highlighting the persistence of the impact. The paper illustrates how interactions between victims and offenders result in unintended consequences of self-defense regulations. It also encourages policymakers to take into account criminal behavior when making policy decisions.
The second chapter, “The Distinct Roles of Poverty and Higher Earnings in Motivating Crime,” develops a new model that articulates how Poverty (the lower tail of the earnings distribution) and Earnings (the upper tail) enter into equilibrium crime rates. In our model, individuals in Poverty have less to lose in the context of criminal punishment, so are less averse to committing crimes in general. The presence of high Earnings (therefore things worth stealing) heightens the expected gain to offenders per crime - but specifically in terms of financial gain, not emotional gain. We estimate our model on a comprehensive panel of U.S. Commuting Zones (1980-2016), deploying novel Shift-Share instruments to correct for reverse causality (of crime on the earnings distribution). Corroborating our hypothesis, we find that high Earnings plays a much larger role in driving crimes that yield financial gain to the offender (various forms of theft) than it does for crimes of emotional gain; while Poverty is a driving force equally across both types of crime. In each case, not accounting for reverse causality would underestimate both effects, often by more than double.
The third and final chapter, “Crime Reporting Standards and Reported Crime,” This paper explores data discrepancies in the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) before and after the adoption and conversion of the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The FBI starts publishing the UCR in 1930 to understand crime trends in the United States. The UCR is published under the Summary Reporting System (SRS) until the 1990s, when the NIBRS is developed to collect more detailed data. The NIBRS is then converted to “synthetic SRS” and concatenated to historical SRS data when it enters the UCR. It uses a staggered event study design based on the year in which the agency switches from the SRS to the NIBRS. I find two factors that contribute to a large and statistically significant increase in reported crime for agencies that adopt the NIBRS compared with agencies that have not: the data conversion process and a change in reporting practices. When I convert the NIBRS to synthetic SRS based on published criteria, I observe a smaller and statistically insignificant increase in assault cases. However, this alternative conversion process does not improve the difference-in-differences (DiD) effects for total crime, murder, robbery, burglary, and theft, highlighting the fact that data from the NIBRS is more complete and more timely.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics