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CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ACT, CARBON CAPTURE AND SEQUESTRATION, AND THE IMPACT ON KERN COUNTY ECONOMICS
Get PDFKern County is one of the top oil producing counties in the United States. It also resides in a state with ambitious carbon reduction goals, aiming to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. This planned phaseout of the oil and gas sector will align with carbon neutrality goals but will harm Kern County’s economy. The sector provides 12% of the county’s tax revenue, which impacts Kern’s communities. The sector directly provides 1% of jobs within the county. Though it is a small percentage, it accounts for 2% of all wages in the county. The strength of those jobs in terms of upward mobility and living wage exceeds the county’s private employment averages by 41%. These quality jobs and tax revenue are apt to be lost at an accelerated pace.
One area to potentially safeguard the rapid transition of the oil and gas sector in through Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS). CCS allows for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), from large industrial or energy sources to be captured and stored underground with the potential for future use. Kern County is an ideal space for CCS deployment due to its geological formation, local oil and gas infrastructure, and associated historic data. Industrial and energy systems that are currently in place can be retrofitted to capture carbon at rates that would increase California’s ability to meet its goals, ideally before the loss of all oil and gas jobs, allowing for a just transition. However, implementation of CCS requires an extensive permitting process which can be time-consuming, slowing CCS system progress.
One of the most time-consuming activities for permits to proceed on CCS systems is the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The CEQA EIR provides information on a project’s significant environmental impacts and allows for agency and public engagement on their concerns. The CEQA EIR within its own statutes anticipates that the completion of the process can take 515 days. When applied to CCS systems, this increases to 728 days. It can be further applied to proposed projects within the county. Even with long lead times, it is estimated that the seven projects proposed by oil and gas companies can slow oil and gas phaseout by 2032 and cover the oil and gas sector’s GHG emissions by 2037. This concludes that if the CEQA EIR process for CEQA projects can be completed at 2 years per project, the oil and gas phaseout can slow, allowing for jobs and tax revenue from the sector to remain within the county
Understanding the complexity of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells
No full textLight influences behavior in ways beyond visual perception of surroundings. This is achieved via intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) that integrate and relay light information to over 40 regions in the mammalian brain. The varied targets and effects of ipRGCs are consistent with data demonstrating that they are morphologically and physiologically diverse. However, significant questions remain unanswered. What are the molecular markers that define subpopulations of ipRGCs? Do distinct subpopulations of ipRGCs contribute to different behaviors or coordinate their signaling to achieve the appropriate response?
I analyzed single-cell RNA sequencing datasets, to identify novel molecular hallmarks of ipRGC diversity, and validated my results by in-situ hybridization and immunohistochemical staining. I found that ipRGCs differentially express neuropeptides, and genes associated with melanopsin signaling. I also discovered several candidate biomarkers that distinguish subsets of morphologically distinct ipRGC subtypes. I extended my studies to M4 ipRGCs where I performed intersectional viral tracing and identified previously unknown central targets such as the accessory optic system. Using chemogenetic strategies, I further investigated M4 contribution to behavior. I discovered that M4 ipRGCs are the sole ipRGC subtype to confer enhanced contrast sensitivity in-vivo and do not play a role in pupil constriction.
Additionally, I explored the effect of irregular light exposure on the transcriptome in a mood regulatory brain region using bulk RNA sequencing and Real-Time-quantitative-PCR. I found that the phasic expression of genes associated with neurotransmission and rhythmicity were severely disrupted under irregular light. Chronic activation of the perihabenula recapitulated the effects of irregular light and I showed it specifically altered GABA and glutamatergic signaling within the nucleus.
Finally, I investigated the impact of Teneurin3, a cell adhesion molecule with a role in axon guidance, on circadian photoentrainment. I found that loss of Tenm3 significantly increased the sensitivity of the suprachiasmatic nucleus to light and ultimately led to accelerated entrainment after phase advances.
Overall, my findings emphasize the diverse impacts of light and significantly expand upon the complexity of ipRGCs. They provide insight and genetic access to novel ipRGC subtypes and pave the way to further explore individual ipRGC contributions to behavior
CABINET OF CURIOSITIES ESSAYS AND ARTICLES ON TOPICS OF INTEREST
Get PDFI have always found my attention easily captured and my interests ever-changing. This collection of essays and articles displays my ever-shifting focus and natural curiosity. I invite you to dive into my curiosities with me
MYC plus class IIa HDAC inhibition potentiates mitochondrial dysfunction in non-small cell lung cancer
No full textLung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality, and 80-85% of all lung cancer cases are non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Since many patients with advanced NSCLC do not benefit from the current standard of care, novel combination therapies are in urgent clinical need. MYC dysregulation is broadly implicated in NSCLC, suggesting MYC as a promising therapeutic target. Recently, two novel MYC inhibiting agents, MYCi975 and Omomyc, have been developed. To identify potential combination partners potentiating these MYC inhibitors, we analyzed transcriptome datasets from MYCi975 and Omomyc studies. These data revealed augmented expression of HDAC5 and HDAC9, which are both class IIa histone deacetylases (HDACs), upon MYC inhibition. Notably, class IIa HDACs are known to be involved in cancer proliferation and prognosis, implying potential therapeutic benefits from the combination of MYC and class IIa HDAC inhibitors. To test the applicability of MYCi plus class IIa HDACi, we evaluated treatment efficacy across 18 NSCLC cell lines, 10 of which exhibited a substantial reduction of viability upon combination treatment. Querying of alterations in cancer driver genes associated with drug response revealed that EGFR mutant cell lines exhibited therapeutic resistance, while STK11 or RAS mutant ones were responsive. Transcriptome analysis comparing the responders versus non-responders revealed that responders basally express higher MYC Targets, Oxidative Phosphorylation, and Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) pathways. To define combination treatment-facilitated effects, we performed RNA-seq on NSCLC cell lines, which identified repression of MYC, cell cycle, and mitochondria-related pathways upon combination treatment. Flow cytometry-based approaches confirmed G1/S arrest and mitochondrial ROS elevation in combination drug-treated cells. In accordance with the role of MYC as a critical cell cycle regulator, combination treatment reduced MYC protein levels in responsive cell lines, but not in non-responders. Importantly, both MYC overexpression and antioxidant N-acetylcysteine treatment partially rescued the cytotoxic effects upon combination treatment, suggesting both MYC depletion and ROS elevation as drivers of treatment efficacy. Finally, we confirmed that the combination treatment significantly reduces tumor burden in patient-derived xenograft (PDX) and syngeneic models. Together, we define a new drug paradigm combining MYCi and class IIa HDACi to potentiate anti-tumor efficacy in NSCLC
Pitching Your Creative Idea: Advancing Artistic Agency and the Creative Project
Get PDFIn an evolving arts industry, emerging artists must be equipped to enter the industry with adaptable skills for flexible arts careers. The Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University seeks to address this in part through a project-based grant writing course, Pitching Your Creative Idea. Grounded in a constructivist approach and utilizing the Universal Design for Learning framework, the course takes a blended learning approach to create a relevant, engaging, and autonomous educational experience for students as part of a core professional skills curriculum at Peabody. Building on the success of the course, demonstrated through evaluations and student outcomes, there are further opportunities for iteration, including expansion of the course content into an open educational resource
Exploring HIV disease indicators at MDR-TB treatment initiation in South Africa
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BACKGROUND: Understanding relationships between HIV and multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is crucial for ensuring successful MDR-TB outcomes.METHODS: We used a cross-sectional analysis to evaluate sociodemographic and clinical characteristics as correlates of antiretroviral
therapy (ART) use, having an HIV viral load (VL) result, and HIV viral suppression in a cross-sectional sample of people with HIV (PWH) and MDR-TB enrolled in a cluster-randomized trial of nurse case management to improve MDR-TB outcomes.RESULTS: Among 1,479 PWH, the mean age was
37.1 years; 809 (54.7%) were male, and 881 (59.6%) were taking ART. Housing location, employment status, and CD4 count differed significantly between those taking vs. those not taking ART. Among the 881 taking ART, 681 (77.3%) had available HIV VL results. Housing location,
CD4 count, and prior history of TB differed significantly between those with and without a VL result. Among the 681 with a VL result, 418 (61.4%) were virally suppressed. Age, education level, CD4 count, TB history, housing location, and ART type differed significantly between those
with and without viral suppression.CONCLUSION: PWH presenting for MDR-TB treatment with a history of TB, taking a protease inhibitor, or living in a township may risk poor MDR-TB outcomes.
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Black Legal Life before Brown
Get PDFThis dissertation explores the everyday legal knowledge and practices of black Baltimoreans in the early to mid-twentieth century and the role black attorneys played in shaping working people’s experiences of the Jim Crow regime. By focusing on the documents lawyers and their clients produced, “Black Legal Life before Brown” reconstructs the economic calculations, legal literacies, and social dynamics preceding the direct action campaigns and court challenges which have come to define the Civil Rights Movement. With Baltimore as its primary site of analysis, the project demonstrates how African Americans secured their rights to the city, whether through property ownership or the legal defense of their rights as tenants, workers, entrepreneurs, or consumers. As critical intermediaries, lawyers straddled the political fault lines of Jim Crow Era Baltimore. They set key terms for how elite and non-elite African Americans moved through the city, how they encountered predatory legal structures, and how they attempted to make black citizenship in Baltimore more than paper thin. By revisiting the legal lives of twentieth-century black Americans before the storied 1960s, this dissertation situates one of the most enduring heroes of that story—the black civil rights lawyer—in a more three dimensional and grounded social context. In revealing the sedimented practices of black legal life, it explains how attorneys managed the day-to-day lives of black people in the Jim Crow world and how, in turn, those ordinary people interacted with, and indeed shaped, law and society
TOWARDS NETWORKS WITH EFFICIENCY, EXPLAINABILITY AND ROBUSTNESS
Get PDFOver the past decades, the field of Computer Vision has experienced remarkable success, largely attributed to the evolution of various underlying network architectures. However, the real-world deployment of these visual recognition systems has surfaced several challenges. Key among them is achieving operational efficiency, particularly in terms of computational cost. Additionally, there is a pressing need to move beyond black-box models towards systems that are explainable and capable of error rectification. Moreover, ensuring robustness against unforeseen scenarios and malicious attacks is crucial.
This dissertation focuses on addressing these critical aspects of network architecture. The first part delves into enhancing the efficiency of Convolutional Neural Networks, focusing on refining architectural building blocks and designing structures that leverage data characteristics. The second section examines network robustness, particularly through the strategic use of adversarial examples to enhance network performance and resilience. The final part demonstrates the integration of superpixel representation with transformers, synergistically combining efficiency, explainability, and robustness
Feature-Preserving Neural Surface Reconstruction Using the Dirichlet Energy of the Gauss Map
No full textGeometry acquisition from the real world is a fundamental but unsolved problem in computer graphics. With the evolution of sensors and new demands from modern applications, classical solutions are confronted with new challenges such as increased data volume and the necessity for real-time processing. Many of the new applications attempt to recover geometry from an RGB video instead of geometric data. Often, these are incorporated within real-time systems, where the efficiency of both time and memory are of crucial importance. Learning-based solutions are one type of approach that has received increasing attention.
However, neural networks tend to provide either over-smoothed results or they hallucinate geometry when there is not sufficient information. In this thesis, we analyze the low quality reconstructions and provide solutions for addressing this issue from two perspectives: gradient-domain processing of the implicit function and incorporation of total curvature as a weight.
In considering the surface as an implicit function, we express the loss function of the neural network in the gradient-domain. The advantage of using a loss term formulated in terms of gradients is two-fold. First, our method only requires self-supervised learning, removing the need for human labelers. Second, when learning the parameters of the network, the loss function gives more importance to the preservation of high-frequency details.
In considering the surface as a manifold, we filter an input point cloud (collected by the sensor, or sampled from a surface mesh) with respect to total curvature in a pre-processing step, using feature-preserving simplification to keep more points at highly curved regions. We introduce a new tool to estimate discrete total curvature for both point clouds and triangle meshes. Unlike existing approaches for discrete curvature estimation, our method bypasses the complex task of estimating the shape operator.
Our approach for total curvature estimation only requires the estimation of normals and a way to compute the Dirichlet energy – both well-studied tasks in geometry processing. Our approach demonstrates enhanced precision in estimating total curvature compared to classical geometry processing algorithms still in use today, as exemplified by those implemented in widely recognized libraries. Three applications making use of the estimated total curvature are demonstrated: mesh decimation, point cloud simplification, and feature-weighted surface reconstruction.
Numerous experiments are conducted to validate our framework. These include training from scratch and testing on the ScanNet benchmark; as well as applying the trained model to data collected with an iPhone. Both quantitative and qualitative results reveal the competitiveness of our approach with state-of-the-art methods.
In summary, this thesis presents two contributions. The first provides a new tool for computing total curvature. The second is a framework that improves the quality of surfaces reconstructed from a sequence of RGB images
Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy, Trust, And Inequities in Sarlahi District, Nepal
Get PDFBackground: Despite the availability of vaccines, the COVID-19 pandemic has fostered mistrust in public health systems globally, with escalating anti-vaccine sentiments. However, research on vaccine acceptance and health system readiness has predominantly focused on high-income settings, neglecting low-middle-income countries like Nepal. In Nepal, vaccine acceptance studies have mostly taken the form of rapid online surveys or been conducted in better-educated and urban groups, which are not representative of the rural population. This study aimed to measure COVID-19 vaccination coverage and identify drivers of vaccine hesitancy and mistrust among the general populace, healthcare workers, and pregnant women in Sarlahi District of Nepal, located in the low-lying Terai region.
Methods: Three quantitative surveys targeted at adult family members, healthcare professionals (including healthcare providers and Female Community Health Volunteers), and pregnant women were conducted in 4-6 municipalities. Socio-economic data, vaccination status, and concerns regarding COVID-19 vaccination were collected alongside perspectives on maternal COVID-19 vaccination recommendations and safety.
Results: There was high primary-series vaccination coverage and retention of vaccine cards, but low booster uptake. The population showed acceptance to mix vaccine brands if available and accessible. Approximately one-fourth expressed hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccination, citing concerns about its effectiveness and safety. Despite hesitancy, most individuals considered the vaccine safe and effective and trusted COVID-19 information from healthcare workers, approving of the government's pandemic response. However, reservations regarding maternal COVID-19 vaccinations were prevalent across all study groups, with inconsistent recommendations from healthcare providers and Female Community Health Volunteers.
Conclusion: The study underscores the importance of addressing the immunity gap caused by low booster uptake and inadequate coverage among vulnerable groups like pregnant and lactating women. It calls for evidence-based communication strategies, particularly through frontline government healthcare workers, to enhance vaccine confidence and bridge these gaps. This approach becomes crucial as the pandemic transitions from its emergency phase, especially considering the virus's rapid evolution