3948 research outputs found
Sort by
How to Rectify Structural Injustice: Power, Raised Consciousness, Norm Disruption
Get PDFThesis advisor: Micah LottHow do we rectify structural injustice? Iris Marion Young presents a Social Connection Model that states those who participate in social processes that produce injustice have a forward-looking responsibility to redress the resulting injustice. Within some philosophical discourse, however, there is a general consensus that SCM is not action-guiding and is overly demanding. To supplement Young’s ideas, I explore Robin Zheng’s Role-Ideal Model; Zheng fills some necessary gaps left by Young. My aim in this paper is to use Young's SCM and Zheng's RIM in tandem to create a more action-guiding and ameliorative project for structural injustice. I offer a structurally sensitive account of responsibility for disempowerment that avoids passively repeating domination. I establish a prefatory set of tasks that can be applied to all roles. These tasks are an expansion of the terms mentioned in Zheng Role-Ideal:“raised consciousness” and “boundary pushing.”Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Departmental Honors.Discipline: Philosophy
Social Innovation and Civil Society Organizations: Exploring the Effects of Pro-Activeness, Risk-Taking, and Transformational Leadership
Get PDFThesis advisor: Thann TranThesis advisor: Margaret LombeThis study aimed to examine the influence of organizational pro-activeness, organizational risk-taking, and transformational leadership behaviors on social innovation outcomes. The specific aims, within this goal, of this study include the following: 1: Explore the influence of organizational pro-activeness on social innovation outputs - a. product/service, b. process/administrative- within CSOs. 2: Explore the influence of organizational risk-taking on social innovation outputs - a. product/service, b. process/administrative - within the CSOs. 3: Explore the influence of transformational leadership behaviors within CSOs on social innovation outputs - a. product/service, b. process/administrative – within the CSOs.
Entrepreneurial Orientation Theory & Transformational Leadership Theory oriented this study and the hypothesis to test. This research is an exploratory-descriptive study using cross-sectional data collected from directors of CSOs in Mexico with a 37-item online survey cross-culturally adapted to the local context. Multiple statistical procedures were used to test the hypothesis, including bivariate robust correlation analysis and multiple and linear robust regression analysis. The sample size of the study is 139 directors of non-profit organizations from 25 different states of Mexico. Data was collected using convenience sampling.This study is relevant for multiple reasons, the primary being the following: 1) The results of this study may help CSOs identify what areas of organizations may need restructuring, improvement, or addition to generating innovations that could enhance program and service effectiveness and sustainability. 2) by providing knowledge about how to enhance the capacity of CSOs and involve their clients or beneficiaries (populations and groups in vulnerable or exclusion conditions) in innovation processes. 3) This study may contribute to the identification of critical components in the design of policies and programs aimed at strengthening CSOs innovation capacities and how to measure their results. 4) Finally, this study's results provide evidence on key variables to understand factors that enhance or limit organizational social innovation. In the context of the proposed study, to our knowledge, there is no readily available data from an extensive number of organizations to inform how CSOs are generating social innovation and with what intensity. Also, with the global socio-economic panorama in the last two years, innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking, and the social performance of non-profit organizations have become subject to growing interest.
This study has three main findings: Organizational proactiveness and risk-taking are significant predictors of social innovation outputs in non-profit organizations. On the other hand, transformational leadership was not a significant predictor of social innovation outputs.
The primary contributions of this study are the generation of a baseline of the current situation regarding social innovation outputs generation among non-profit CSOs in Mexico. The study also contributes evidence on how social innovation can be promoted with organizational practices. It also contributes to the scholarly debate around leadership styles and their relationship to social innovation generation and CSOs better performance.
This study explores social innovation in the non-profit field from an international context, specifically in Mexico, for a field mainly concentrated in the U.S. and West Europe. The study also informs some implications for practitioners, policy decisions, and scholarship regarding the need to assess how the notion of risk-taking and proactiveness permeated the CSOs and the non-profit sector.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work.Discipline: Social Work
Gene Regulation with O-GlcNAc Glycosylation by dCas9-OGT/OGA Fusion Proteins:
No full textThesis advisor: Jia NiuO-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) is a post-translational modification plays important roles in cellular network/diseases such as autophagy, transcriptional activity, protein stability, phosphorylation modification competition, cancers, neurodegenerative disorders, etc. However, there are still lots of unknown roles of it in gene regulation especially while there is existence of more than 1000 transcription factors and many other coactivators/repressors which might have influence in expression level with or without O-GlcNAc modification. In this project, we use CRISPR technology with catalytically inactive Cas9 from Streptococcus pyogenes fused with the only writer and eraser of O-GlcNAc to selectively target to the DNA sequence of interest by guide RNA to see what the result of additional modification or cleavage of O-GlcNAc on proximal proteins in gene regulation is.
A cost and time efficient way for guide RNA construction is developed in the project with one-piece PCR and Gibson assembly for 2 different backbones of guide RNA: 11 guide RNA for each. Other different cloning methods have also been used for the future work. For the future work, second reporter will be introduced to normalize the luciferase signal. In addition, new metabolic O-GlcNAc reporter and Y289L GalT/ UDP-GalNAz could be used to find out proteins which might be modify by dCas9-OGT/OGA with click reaction. Furthermore, split OGA/Turbo ID system could also be used to reduce the background and find out proteins/modification sites which might be important to the gene regulation for DNA-protein or protein-protein interaction.Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Chemistry
Catalytic Enantioselective Synthesis of Secondary Organoboronates and Progress Towards the Total Synthesis of Sarcodictyins:
Get PDFThesis advisor: James P. MorkenThis dissertation will present three main projects focusing on the transition metal-catalyzed enantioselective synthesis of secondary organoboronic esters and progress towards the total synthesis of sarcodictyins. In the first project, a palladium-catalyzed enantioselective conjunctive cross-coupling reaction with propargylic electrophiles will be described. The tetra-substituted allenes are isolated with good yield and enantioselectivity and the beneficial effects of alcohol additives are investigated. The second project describes the enantioselective synthesis of ɑ-boryl zinc reagents by a nickel-catalyzed carbozincation reaction. The in situ generated ɑ-boryl zinc intermediate can be trapped by copper-mediated allylations, palladium-catalyzed Negishi cross-couplings, and cerium-mediated halogenation reactions to construct various chiral organoboranes. The synthetic utility of this methodology is showcased by the synthesis of natural products, including bruguierol A, (-)-aphanorphine, and (-)-enterolactone. The mechanism is studied with the assistance of EPR and deuterium-labeling experiments and a catalytic cycle through a Ni(I) intermediate is proposed. The third project depicts a synthetic route to essential precursors in the progress of the total synthesis of sarcodictyins. Various attempts to construct the ten-membered ring core of sarcodictyin have been made, including Sonogashira reaction, Dieckmann condensation, and lithium—halogen exchange process.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Chemistry
Associations between reproductive coercion, intimate partner violence, and adverse birth outcomes among postpartum women:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Corrine Y. JurgensBackground: Reproductive coercion (RC) is a form of intimate partner violence (IPV) involving a partner’s control of a woman’s reproductive health decisions regarding pregnancy and childbearing. RC is associated with numerous negative health consequences; however, the impact on a pregnancy and developing fetus and association with adverse birth outcomes is not known.Design: Secondary analysis of Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) data, 2012 – 2015, from five states.
Purpose: To examine whether RC before pregnancy is associated with an increased likelihood of experiencing preterm birth (< 37 weeks gestational age), neonatal intensive care (NICU) after birth, and infant death.
Method: Data on women ages 17 years and older who gave birth to a live infant (N = 18,728) were analyzed. Logistic regression procedures were used to determine the odds of preterm birth, infant death, and need for NICU care among women experiencing RC while controlling for known risk factors (age, race, ethnicity, education, marital status, depression, drinking, and smoking). The moderation effect of IPV on the relationship of RC and birth outcomes was tested by including an interaction term (product of RC and IPV) in the model.
Results: No significant association between RC and preterm birth, need for NICU care, or infant death was detected. Additionally, exposure to IPV did not have a moderating effect on either the direction or magnitude of the relationship between RC and birth outcomes.
Conclusions: Despite these findings, RC remains a significant concern for nurses caring for pregnant women and women of reproductive age. This study highlights a current gap in knowledge about the ways RC can affect a pregnancy and birth outcomes. Replication studies using more robust measures of RC and data collection approaches that can most accurately identify RC experiences are needed to increase understanding.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Connell School of Nursing.Discipline: Nursing
Geomorphic Effects and Habitat Impacts of Large Wood at Restoration Sites in New England:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Noah P. SnyderThesis advisor: Mathias J. CollinsLarge wood (used interchangeably with the term “instream wood”), which refers to trees, logs and other wood within a channel, is beneficial to river ecosystems and is being used more frequently as a component of river restoration projects. The process of large wood becoming stable within a river channel, inducing floodplain formation, and eventually providing large wood back to the system is known as the ‘floodplain large-wood cycle’ hypothesis (Collins et al., 2012). In a stream restoration context, this process can be viewed as an indicator of a self-sustaining cycle. The ‘floodplain large-wood cycle’ hypothesis was formulated in the Pacific Northwest. To investigate this process in other regions, I used the Merrimack Village Dam (MVD) study site in southern New Hampshire. The study site provided a location where instream wood was recruited to the river from an adjacent terrace as a consequence of erosion associated with a dam removal. Assessment of wood in this scenario was used to evaluate the ‘floodplain large-wood cycle’ (Collins et al., 2012), and to compare MVD to “passive” large wood restoration and deliberate, and potentially engineered, large wood restoration sites throughout New England.
To assess multiple sites, I identified metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of large wood to promote ecological and geomorphic complexity within channels. The metrics were quantified at the MVD site and several other sites in New England with natural or placed large wood. I also collected additional data at the MVD site using methods implemented during previous studies, including cross section surveys and repeat photographs (Collins et al., 2017; Pearson et al., 2011).
The study assessed habitat and geomorphic effects of large wood within river systems in the northeastern U.S. and provided information to evaluate the use of large wood during river restoration. Overall, only 33%, 33%, and 20% of surveyed sites are consistent with hypotheses formulated regarding significant differences in depth variability, velocity variability, and median velocity between test and reference reaches, respectively. With evidence for and against each hypothesis at both passive and active sites, large wood structures did not cause the geomorphic and hydraulic changes I expected to see. The availability of sand in a channel and the stream slope influencing sediment transport seem to be important factors in determining whether or not large wood has the ability to impact the geomorphic and hydraulic characteristics of a channel. At the MVD site, where sand is available, up to 0.90 m of sediment deposition is seen on top of the surface eroded by a March 2010 flood, surrounding recruited trees. Evaluation of historical aerial imagery further indicates that evidence of the ‘floodplain large-wood cycle’ hypothesis is present at the MVD06 cross section on the Souhegan River in New Hampshire.Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Earth and Environmental Sciences
Examining the Conflict-Related Predictors and Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Attacks Against Humanitarian Assistance: An Algorithmic Modeling Approach
No full textThesis advisor: Christopher P. Salas-WrightAround the world, attacks against humanitarian aid workers pose a pervasive and intransigent threat to health and human rights, but evidence about the complex factors that predict perpetrators' behavior as well as attack outcomes remains quite limited. While previous studies have addressed several aspects of local and global trends of attacks against humanitarian assistance, more evidence is also needed to understand the dynamics of recurrent incidents, small-scale attacks, as well as patterns of events across time and space; and how the observed trends are driven by conflict-related and contextual factors. In this dissertation, we investigate the predictors and spatiotemporal dynamics of attacks against humanitarian assistance from 1997 to 2022 using publicly-available datasets from the Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD, Humanitarian Outcomes, 2022) and the Armed Conflict Dataset version 22.0 (ACD; Glaeditsch et al., 2002; Davies et al., 2022).Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work.Discipline: Social Work
On Responsibility for Others' Harm: Wonder, Regret, and Accountability
No full textThesis advisor: Richard KearneyI propose and analyze moral emotions that are fittingly experienced when one is socially, institutionally, or structurally affiliated with a perpetrator without causally contributing to their harm. The project explores the nature, scope, and urgency of our reactive attitudes and concomitant responsibilities that arise on account of harms caused by social and political relations. Drawing from resources in phenomenology, social epistemology, moral psychology, and feminist ethics, I argue that affective experiences can direct attention towards the moral salience of our relations and open the way for taking accountability for others’ harm.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Philosophy
Chemoproteomic Methods to Evaluate Cysteine Oxidation in the Mitochondria:
No full textThesis advisor: Eranthie WeerapanaReactive oxygen species (ROS) modulate protein function through cysteine oxidation. Identifying protein targets of ROS can provide insight into uncharacterized ROS-regulated pathways especially within ROS generating organelles such as the mitochondria. There are several known examples of mitochondrial cysteine targets that alter protein and pathway activity resulting in pathological effects. Several chemoproteomic workflows, including ABPP and OxICAT, can be used to identify sites of cysteine oxidation. However, determining ROS targets localized within subcellular regions and ROS hotspots remains challenging with existing workflows. Here, we present combined cysteine- monitoring chemoproteomic platforms (isoTOP-ABPP and OxICAT) with mitochondrial enrichment (organelle isolation and proximity labeling) to monitor cysteine oxidation events within the mitochondria. First, we profile redox- sensitive cysteines under exogenous and endogenous peroxide in isolated mitochondria using isoTOP-ABPP and OxICAT. Next, we introduce PL-OxICAT which combines enzymatic proximity labeling (PL) (TurboID/APEX) and OxICAT to monitor localized cysteine oxidation events within subcellular compartments such as the mitochondrial matrix and intermembrane space as well as ROS hotspots. Together, these platforms further hone our ability to monitor cysteine oxidation events within specific subcellular locations and ROS hotspots and provide a deeper understanding of the protein targets of endogenous and exogenous ROS.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Chemistry
Cultivating Prophetic Ambivalence among Young Adult Catholic Women: A Call to Critique, Conserve and Transform
No full textThesis advisor: Theresa O'KeefeThe landscape of religious belonging is rapidly changing in the United States. This dissertation contributes to conversations concerned with how to engage young adults in faith development in the rise of religious disaffiliation. This dissertation specifically engages the lived reality that while many young women struggle with belonging in the Catholic Church, they are negotiating ways to participate and resist from within the community of the faithful. An experience of ambivalence often manifests from the dialectical nature of this negotiation. Drawing from the work of religious scholar Mary Bednarowski, I argue that ambivalence, cultivated as a virtue, can serve as a prophetic posture from which to participate in transforming the Church. I suggest a narrative pedagogical approach of critique, conserve, and transform to encourage prophetic participation. The articulation of ambivalent belonging towards institutional religion can serve as an access point for belonging and faith development for young adult women. This work is rooted in an ecclesiology that articulates the ambivalent nature of the pilgrim Church, grounded in the vision of Vatican II, that is open to how the Spirit is working through all the faithful, revealing God’s hope-filled mission in the world.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry