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Exploring the Effects of Neighborhood-Level Traffic-Related Air Pollution and Mortgage Lending on Metabolic Syndrome in Latino Individuals
Get PDFIn the US, racial and ethnic residential segregation and mortgage discrimination have influenced neighborhoods, yet contemporary mortgage lending patterns and environmental disparities in Latino populations remain understudied. The rising prevalence of metabolic syndrome in Latino individuals underscores the need to explore neighborhood risk factors. This dissertation examined the spatial and temporal patterns of traffic-related air pollutants (TRAPs) and Latino/Non-Latino White disparity in mortgage lending in Sacramento, California (Aim 1), and the independent and joint effects of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and Latino/Non-Latino White disparity in mortgage lending on metabolic syndrome and its components among participants in the Niños Lifestyle and Diabetes Study (NLDS), a cohort of Mexican-Americans from Sacramento (Aim 2). For both aims, we derived Latino/Non-Latino White disparity in mortgage lending, a measure of mortgage denial for census tracts based on Latino ethnicity (compared to non-Latino White individuals). Annual census tract level estimates of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and carbon monoxide (CO) represented TRAP exposures. In Aim 1, we assessed spatial autocorrelation and clustering of Latino/Non-Latino White Disparity in mortgage lending and TRAPs. We observed that Latino/Non-Latino White disparity in mortgage lending and TRAPs were spatially clustered in Sacramento individually, and that NO2 and CO were spatially autocorrelated with our mortgage lending measure when assessing joint clustering. In Aim 2, we fit logistic regression models, adjusted for covariates of interest, to assess the independent models of NO2 and Latino/Non-Latino White disparity in mortgage lending on metabolic syndrome and its components for NLDS participants, as well as to assess modification of NO2 by mortgage lending category using stratified models. We observed that increased NO2 exposure was associated with higher odds of high blood glucose while residing in a census tract with lower odds of mortgage loan denial for a Latino applicant was associated with lower odds of hypertension. We observed evidence of suggested modification of the association of NO2 with glucose and waist circumference in stratified models. Our findings suggest complex relations between mortgage lending patterns and traffic-related exposures, indicating a need for further research on the neighborhood environment in a Latino population and with metabolic syndrome.Doctor of Philosoph
MECHANISTIC AND KINETIC EVALUATION OF COBALT HYDRIDE FORMATION FOR IMPROVED CATALYSIS
Get PDFThe environmental, health, and economic impacts of the increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 has urged society to transition to renewable energy technologies. However, many renewable resources, like solar and wind, are intermittent by nature, and we cannot power our world using these resources when the sun is not shining or when the wind is not blowing. One way to overcome this intermittency is to discover ways to store energy from renewable sources for off-peak hours. A promising approach involves converting renewable feedstocks (CO2, water) into energy-rich fuels (hydrogen, formate, carbon monoxide, methanol, ethanol, etc.), simultaneously sequestering one of our largest pollutants and recycling it into a sustainable fuel. While carbon sequestration and utilization show incredible promise, transforming CO2 into higher-value products is an uphill reaction that requires energy-intensive proton coupled electron transfer (PCET) reactions. Catalysts can lower the energetic barriers involved in these reactions, and in some cases, direct reactivity through pathways with low energy intermediates. This work aims to understand the reaction mechanisms and kinetics of elementary reaction steps common to energy-relevant catalytic cycles and to translate that information to design criteria for improved catalysts. The first chapter explores the factors that impact the proton transfer kinetics of reactions involving transition metal hydride complexes, which are key intermediates in CO2 reduction and H2 evolution. Chapter 2 highlights how acid-base functionality in the catalyst’s ligand backbone helps circumvent high energy barriers associated with metal-based proton transfer to generate metal hydride complexes, which has great implications on catalyst efficiency and selectivity. This work inspired the structure-reactivity work in Chapter 3, which correlates the changes to the acid-base functionality in the ligand scaffold to changes in metal hydride formation pathways and the associated kinetics. These understandings provide a blueprint for improved catalyst design. Finally, Chapter 4 employs a strategy to combine the benefits of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis through surface immobilization of a molecular catalyst onto a metallic electrode. Quantification of the rate constant for a PCET reaction involving a surface-bound species is demonstrated for the first time, which is a critical advance for realizing integrated catalyst systems.Doctor of Philosoph
Race & Space in 19th century German-American Literature
Get PDFThis dissertation discusses German-language literature in the United States during the period of heightened migration from Central Europe and the flourishing of the German-language press, roughly 1830 to 1890. German immigrants had to navigate increased xenophobia and a highly racialized American society. The spaces of the primeval forest, the prairie, and the city each represent a different frontier for the European settler and have different associations within the contemporary canon of German literature. By comparing and contrasting these spaces in German-American works with continental German texts, I seek to trace how the spaces differ with the added context of slavery and indigenous genocide in the Americas. I argue that freedom in America is inextricably linked to violence against others, which is conditioned by both race and space. Works discussed include the Romantic poetry of Niklaus Lenau, the novels and short prose of Friedrich Gerstäcker, Charles Sealsfield’s Die Prärie am Jacinto (a section of Das Kajütenbuch, oder Nationale Charakteristen), Ludwig von Reizenstein’s Die Geheimnisse von New Orleans, and TALVJ’s Die Auswanderer. Many of these works have been ignored in both German and American Studies, as they do not fit in neatly to either national literary tradition. However, they are a product of the transatlantic culture of the 19th century which reflexively shaped both nations and their understanding of freedom.Doctor of Philosoph
Preserving the Meaningful: Distant Planets, Friendships, and Pencil Erasers
Get PDFG.A. Cohen (2012) tells us that "everyone who is sane" has a conservative disposition: a disposition to preserve valuable things even if they can be replaced by something of equal or greater value. The problem is that conservatism seems irrational. Rationality, it seems, tells us to prefer more value to less value. So, why preserve something with less value when you could instead replace it with something of greater value? In this thesis, I offer a novel account of conservatism: we have reasons to preserve things when they are irreplaceable in virtue of playing a role in making our lives meaningful. I argue that not only does this account make the correct predictions about paradigmatic cases unlike other existing accounts, but it also provides a sufficiently general explanation for why we have conservative reasons.Master of Art
Parenting Decisions and Child Skill Development
Get PDFI develop and estimate a dynamic model of child cognitive and non-cognitive skill developmentin a Markov Perfect Equilibrium framework, where both parents and children play an active role inthe child skill development process. Children choose how much of their time to allocate towardstudying, while their parents make time allocation decisions, and decide whether to adopt anauthoritarian, authoritative, or permissive parenting style. Each parenting style influences child skilldevelopment through two channels, they augment child study time decisions, and have a separatedirect impact on cognitive and non-cognitive skills. I use the estimated model parameters to showthat an authoritative parenting style is best at increasing child cognitive and non-cognitive skills,while a permissive parenting style is typically the worst.Doctor of Philosoph
CERCIDAS OF MEGALOPOLIS AND HIS INFLUENCE UPON THE POETRY OF HORACE
Get PDFCercidas of Megalopolis is among the most complex and original poets of the Hellenistic period and his Meliambs are a remarkable witness to the largely lost traditions of Hellenistic lyric and invective poetry. Despite the early twentieth-century discovery of the fragments of his Meliambs, numerous questions remain about his background, literary program, and influence. This thesis reexamines the contexts of Cercidas and argues for the influence of his poetry in the later Hellenistic period and especially in the poetry of Horace. I argue that questions of Cercidas’ background and influence are not definitive and that his identity is less secure than conventionally thought. I argue instead that Cercidas’ poetry itself is the safest avenue for answering questions about his background. In examining the reception of Cercidas’ poetry, I argue that his influence over Horace is significant and far larger than scholars previously assumed. My intertextual engagement revolves primarily around the first three fragments of Cercidas’ Meliambs and Horace’s Satires and Epodes.Master of Art
DEPATHOLOGIZING QUEERNESS: NARRATIVE THERAPY AS COALITIONAL HEALING IN CONTEMPORARY QUEER LIFE WRITING
Get PDFThis dissertation analyzes three primary texts of contemporary queer life writing to argue that they model and enrich foundational elements of narrative therapy as a psychotherapeutic framework. The three facets of narrative therapy explored in detail are contextualization of relational politics, reauthoring identity, and externalizing experience to wider community. Intersections of literature and psychology often rely on a more classically Freudian model of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytical models typically focus on such Freudian concepts as the unconscious mind, early childhood experiences, transference and the Oedipal complex. This project, however, offers an alternative mode of considering the relationship between narrative, experiential knowledge, and healing that relies on a more integrative psychotherapeutic model. This dissertation fills a gap in current scholarship by focusing on the generative intersection between depathologizing therapeutic frameworks such as narrative therapy and the literature of queer and trans life writers who expand notions of healing, trauma, sexuality and coalitional repair. While scholars in the fields of psychotherapy and literature alike have studied the relationships between authorship, story-telling and integrating traumatic experiences, explicit connections between these fields with regards to frameworks outside of psychoanalysis have fallen short, especially for queer and trans communities. In this project, I demonstrate the ways in which narrative therapy is a uniquely expansive mode of healing for queer and trans communities since it relies on a foundation of deindividuation and locates traumatic experiences against a backdrop of socio-political identity narratives. I evaluate the primary texts in the context of the author’s experiences with pathologization, trauma, repair, queerness, race and relational politics. This dissertation contributes to an emerging body of scholarship on the works on identity formation, healing and relationality in contemporary queer life writing, specifically focusing on Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House (2019), Akwaeke Emezi’s Dear Senthuran (2021) and Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals (1980). By drawing on scholarship and clinical knowledge from the fields of psychotherapy, literary trauma studies, and gender + sexuality studies to bolster the theoretical foundation of my primary close readings, I hope to create new interdisciplinary avenues for coalitional healing in queer and trans communities.Doctor of Philosoph
Cultura infantil transnacional: orígenes del anime hispanojaponés
Get PDFThis dissertation examines the significant role of animated productions created between Spain and Japan in developing transnational anime, a key element in contemporary Spanish popular culture. These Spanish-Japanese anime provide a social narrative that helps understand changes in popular culture during Spain’s transition to democracy (1975–1982). This project contributes to discussions in Iberian cultural studies, cultural capitalism, material culture of the democratic transition, and the history of television in Spain. It fills a gap in the recent history of Spanish children’s and youth culture, highlighting the innovative aspects of these hybrid productions that resonated with young audiences.The first chapter traces the origins of this phenomenon to José María Sánchez-Silva (1911–2002), a notable figure known for his work Marcelino, pan y vino (1953). Sánchez-Silva’s privileged position during a time of repression allowed him to achieve canonical status in children’s literature, but his work holds artistic and anthropological significance. His novella Adiós, Josefina (1962) depicts a transforming Spain, transitioning from post-Civil War scarcity to embracing a globalized consumer society. This book played a crucial role in initiating the collaboration between Spain and Japan through anime, leading to the creation of the first Spanish-Japanese animated production, Kujira no Hosefīna (1979).Chapter two examines Kujira no Hosefīna as a representation of changing perceptions of children’s culture in the 1970s. This pioneering project in animation and transnational culture blends Spanish and Japanese elements, resulting in a hybrid product that reflects both cultures. Through archival work, I prove that despite its innovation and alignment with youth interests, Kujira no Hosefīna never aired in Spain due to a combination of misfortune and political changes in public television.Chapter three focuses on the collaborations between the Spanish production company BRB Internacional and the Japanese studio Nippon Animation. These companies created series scripted in Spain but fully animated and produced in Japan. This collaboration yielded four series, but I emphasize Ruy, el pequeño Cid (1980). This anime imagines the childhood of Spain’s national hero Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, contrasting with Kujira no Hosefīna in its depiction of childhood and social models, as well as its reception.Doctor of Philosoph
Inhibition of 4-Phosphopanthetheinyl Transferase in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Advances in Stereo- and Regioselective Synthesis of Azepanes
Get PDFThis dissertation focuses on two topics within heterocyclic chemistry: (1) the discovery and library development of thioquinazolinone inhibitors of 4-phosphopantetheinyl transferase in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and (2) the highly selective preparation of complex azepanes from 4,4ʹ-, 3,3ʹ-, or 2,2ʹ-disubstituted cyclohexanones.A high-throughput screen revealed thioquinazolinone inhibitors of phosphopantetheinyl transferase. Structural additions and modifications to the thioquinazoline scaffold resulted in compounds that were as potent against wild-type Mycobacterium tuberculosis as previously reported phosphopantetheinyl transferase inhibitors. We report the confirmation of their mechanism of action through mutant studies and their narrow spectrum antibiotic activity. Off-target and pharmacokinetic data were improved with this molecular scaffold relative to previous small molecules operating through the same mechanism of action. Metabolic studies revealed that Mycobacterium tuberculosis irreversibly deactivates thioquinazolinones by at least one methylation event depending on compound structure.The systematic exploration of the ring expansion of all-carbon quaternary carbon-bearing cyclohexanones to complex saturated azepanes is also reported below. In this method, under Lewis acidic conditions enantiopure hydroxyalkyl azides react with quaternary carbon-bearing cyclohexanones to selectively yield an iminium ether intermediate that is mildly reduced with NaBH4 into its corresponding aminoalcohol in one pot. We report the two step, one pot transformation of (1) 4,4ʹ-disubstituted cyclohexanones to diastereoselectively yield C4-quaternary azepanes in up to 93% yield and >95:5 dr; (2) enantiopure 3,3ʹ-disubstituted cyclohexanones to regioselectively yield either C3- or C4-quaternary azepanes (based on the configurational matching of starting material and hydroxyalkyl azide) in up to 75% and >95:5 rr; (3) racemic 3,3ʹ-disubstituted cyclohexanones to diastereo- and regioselectively yield both C3- or C4-quaternary azepanes in a parallel kinetic resolution in up to 71% yield and >95:5 dr; and (4) 2,2ʹ-disubstituted cyclohexanones in a highly diastereo-, enantio-, and regioselective kinetic resolution that provides recovered starting material with 35% recovery and >99:1 er and enantiopure C3-quaternary azepane in up to 46% yield and >95:5 rr and dr.Doctor of Philosoph
Experiences of Roman Conquest in Morgantina and Segesta and the Implication of Macella: A Roman or Local Contribution?
Get PDFA macellum, a Roman market structure, is a building type that scholars have used to promote theories such as Romanization, which led to a proposal that a conquered city’s status of municipium or colonia under Roman rule determined if a community could build a macellum. This thesis will argue that this center-periphery perspective did not apply to the Sicilian early 2nd century BCE macellum at Morgantina and the early 1st century CE macellum at Segesta. This work proposes that the most effective method to understand why a community had a macellum is to analyze the local circumstances preceding the addition of this building in each city. By applying a local perspective, the macella at Morgantina at Segesta become more complex beyond their city’s status within the Roman Empire. As a result, local factors shaped the decision for a community to build a macellum, rather than the Roman state.Master of Art