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Essays on Criminal Health Law and Policy
No full textHow does criminal law enforcement affect health? This dissertation addresses this question via three studies that use mixed empirical methods. Using descriptive quantitative methods, Chapter 1 studies the consequences of the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act—a law that criminalizes controlled substance tele-prescribing without a preliminary in-person medical evaluation—for the practice of telemedicine in general and opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment in particular. Using causal inference methods, Chapter 2 studies the influence of the take-home methadone policy—a policy implemented at the beginning of the COVID-19 public health emergency to increase OUD treatment access—on treatment initiations and opioid overdoses among people released from incarceration in Massachusetts. Using qualitative fieldwork methods, Chapter 3 examines how alternative emergency response programs—initiatives created after the George Floyd protests to reduce police involvement in health emergencies—inform theories of preventive justice.Health Polic
Studies of neutrinos in high definition with LArTPC
No full textNeutrinos, among the most elusive particles in the Standard Model, hold the potential to illuminate fundamental questions in particle physics and cosmology, including the mechanism of neutrino mass generation and the search for physics beyond the Standard Model. The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is poised to address these challenges through a comprehensive program of precision neutrino oscillation measurements, nucleon decay searches, and astrophysical neutrino detection, leveraging a high-intensity neutrino beam and massive Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs) across a 1300 km baseline.
This dissertation presents contributions to two critical aspects of DUNE's detector development and physics potential. First, it details the performance and deployment of the Digital Wire Analyzer (DWA), an advanced quality assurance tool designed to ensure the mechanical and electrical integrity of Anode Plane Assemblies (APAs) in the DUNE Far Detector. The DWA enables precise, automated verification of wire tension, continuity, and isolation, safeguarding the fidelity of charge readout in large-scale LArTPCs. Validation studies demonstrate that the DWA achieves high accuracy and reliability across thousands of channels, with tension measurements consistent with traditional methods but delivered at significantly greater speed and scalability. Its successful integration into production workflows has established the DWA as a cornerstone technology for ensuring APA quality throughout DUNE's construction.
Second, this work explores the development and application of Q-Pix, a novel pixel-based readout technology offering true three-dimensional, self-triggering capabilities for next-generation LArTPCs. Through hardware characterization and simulation studies, the potential of Q-Pix to enhance low-energy neutrino detection is evaluated, with a focus on supernova and solar neutrino signals. The results demonstrate significant improvements in event reconstruction, background rejection, and energy threshold reduction compared to traditional wire-based systems, highlighting Q-Pix as a transformative approach for future DUNE modules and beyond.
Together, these efforts advance the precision and scope of neutrino detection, contributing to the realization of ``high-definition" neutrino physics with liquid argon detectors.Physic
Absolution
No full textMy thesis project was inspired by the story of Curtis Flowers – an innocent man tried six times in Missouri for the same murder. Mr. Flowers sat on death row for more than twenty-three years before his conviction was finally overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019. Currently there are more than 2,300 people sitting on death row in the United States – historically more that 4% of all people executed in the United States are later exonerated.
Typically on death row we might expect to find a priest helping a convicted murderer find forgiveness in the closing hours of his life. But what if it was the priest who actually needs forgiveness?
In my play Absolution, Michael Ryan sits on death row in East Texas after being convicted of the murder of his abusive father. On the day of his scheduled execution, he is visited by his older brother Brennan. Brennan is a priest who has counseled inmates on the same death row unit for several years.
In this play we put the whole idea of forgiveness under the microscope – what it means to forgive and how this concept intersects with religion and reality. We come to find out that a sister committed a ‘mortal sin’ by taking her own life and as such she never had a chance to ask for forgiveness – so what does that mean for her soul? The prison guard, a devout Christian, has no place in his heart for forgiveness while at the same time sees his job as carrying out the Lord’s work. Michael has made peace with his fate even after accepting the truth that he is sitting on death row in the place of the true killer, seeing it as a sacrifice for his brother. His sole concern is for his brother to find his own forgiveness.
The Bible says that a greater love has no man than this - that a man lay down his life for his...brother. This adage is put to the test in my play Absolution
Contribution of dietary fructose to the prevalence of dementia in India
No full textIncreased longevity in modern times is associated with higher levels of dementia.
This study aims to examine the relationship between increases in dietary fructose and the
prevalence of dementia in the aging Indian population. Per capita sugar consumption
estimates were used to augment data from a longitudinal study of aging in India. A novel
use of machine learning models predicts cases of obesity, diabetes, and dementia with a
very high level of discriminative ability and accuracy and suggests strong connections
between increased consumption of dietary sugars and prevalence rates. Growing evidence
suggests that dementia could be related to maladaptation of an evolutionary survival
pathway related to fructose consumption. Challenged with periods of starvation, humans
evolved a survival mechanism utilizing fructose as a survival switch that causes them to
experience higher levels of hunger and thirst; increased foraging behavior, fat synthesis
and accumulation, and insulin resistance; elevated blood pressure; and local
inflammation. While beneficial during periods of starvation, significant increases in
fructose in the modern diet appear to trigger the same survival switch, leading to harmful
processes. These considerations suggest an inquiry into changes in dietary patterns in
communities such as India, where aging populations and prevalence of dementia are
increasing. Further explorations of the relationships between fructose consumption and
dementia could provide insights into modifiable behaviors and targeted interventions to
encourage optimal aging in India and in the world at large.Extension Studie
In the Nodule Provinces: A History of the Ocean that Minerals Promised
No full textThis dissertation is a history of aspirations to mine the deepest seabeds of the world’s oceans for manganese (polymetallic) nodules. Nodules are mineral concretions that, since the late 19th century but especially since the 1950s, have been framed as a novel resource frontier for valuable metals. While nodules have been recognized as an economic resource for more than a century, they have never been commercially extracted. Conceptions of nodules as an abundant, potentially limitless, resource frontier were propagated among new transnational communities of ocean scientists and ocean politicians in the mid-20th century. This fundamentally altered relationships between ocean territory, resources, and governance. To tell a history of the ocean that nodules promised, the dissertation takes nodules as they entered the hands of different but overlapping groups — late-19th century naturalists, and 20th century physical oceanographers and biogeochemists, economic geologists, resource economists, ocean politicians, and so-called pioneer investors. I show that we inherit an ocean whose governance is overdetermined by mid-century resource desires.History of Scienc
