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Defining the role of MYC in KRAS-mutant pancreatic cancer
Get PDFWe recently established the ERK-dependent transcriptome and phosphoproteome in KRAS-mutant pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Of 1,718 ERK-dependent genes, 143 encode transcription factors. Of 2,123 ERK-dependent phosphoproteins, 98 are transcription factors. Despite this complexity, we observed here that genetic suppression of the MYC transcription factor alone phenocopied KRAS suppression in signaling, growth, and metabolic processes. To explore why, we determined the gene transcription changes caused by acute suppression of MYC function and identified 1,685 MYC-dependent (UP) and 1,325 MYC-inhibited (DN) genes. Dependency Map and pathway analyses suggest that MYC UP genes comprise the bulk of the MYC-regulated genes that are essential for PDAC growth, and that MYC DN genes may comprise a compensatory response to oncogenic stress mediated in part by RHO GTPase signaling. We found that 36% of ERK-dependent genes are MYC-dependent in PDAC cells, supporting the dominant role of MYC in driving ERK-regulated gene expression. Finally, proteomic profiling revealed that MYC regulates a complex kinome comprised of protein kinases that likely contribute to MYC-driven cancer growth and can be targeted therapeutically. Together, these data provide a comprehensive molecular portrait of MYC-dependent signaling, with therapeutically exploitable mechanisms for treating PDAC.Doctor of Philosoph
Mainstreaming: Using Natural Language Processing to Assess Linguistic Patterns in Think Tanks and Extremist News Sites
Get PDFThis paper investigates a worrying trend: while Russian disinformation was once relegated to fringe outlets like RT and bot farms, current networks now leverage American and Canadian think tanks and pundits to spread narratives that undermine trust in American democracy and global leadership. By using domestic actors, disinformation becomes harder to identify in U.S. media. Using NLTK, I examine the linguistic features of disinformation organizations. I find that the Center for the National Interest—a think tank with alleged Russian ties—shares nearly indistinguishable policy language and linguistic features with mainstream think tanks. Similarly, GlobalResearch, a leading Canadian-Russian disinformation site, exhibits linguistic similarities to InfoWars. These findings reflect key trends: a convergence of sources reusing content and a flattening of the news hierarchy, where previously “reputable” outlets no longer stand clearly apart from fringe voices.Master of Art
Breaking the Cycle of Invisibility: Pilot Study of Barriers and Facilitators for People Living with Disabilities to Access HIV Prevention Services
Get PDFJuliana Soares Linn: Breaking the Cycle of Invisibility: Pilot Study of Barriers and Facilitators for People Living with Disabilities to Access HIV Prevention Services(Under the direction of Sandra B. Greene)Despite the advancements in HIV prevention and treatment, people living with disabilities (PLWD) remain an underserved population within the HIV response. With an estimated 1.2 million individuals living with HIV/AIDS in the United States and new infections affecting marginalized communities, the U.S. government has introduced initiatives such as Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America to curb transmission rates. However, the experiences of PLWD have been overlooked, leading to gaps in data collection, policy development, and healthcare provision. The invisibility of PLWD within HIV prevention strategies has resulted in limited funding, inadequate inclusion in public health campaigns, and a lack of disability-informed approaches to HIV care. This study sought to investigate these gaps by investigating the barriers and facilitators that shape PLWD’s access to HIV prevention services, drawing on key informant interviews and survey data from both PLWD and healthcare providers. Findings from this study highlight a critical lack of HIV prevention integration into routine healthcare for PLWD. 83.9% of respondents reported that their healthcare provider did not discuss HIV prevention methods during their most recent medical visit, while 59% had never received HIV prevention information. 83.9% had never been offered an HIV test during a medical visit, and 54.8% had never been offered an HIV test at any time in their lives. A key factor contributing to this gap is the widespread assumption among healthcare providers that PLWD are at low risk for HIV, leading to missed opportunities for prevention, testing, and early intervention. The study’s findings underscore the urgent need for systemic reforms to improve HIV prevention access for PLWD. These include integrating HIV prevention into routine healthcare for PLWD, expanding provider education to challenge biases and enhance disability-inclusive training. Without focused efforts to address these gaps, PLWD will remain disproportionately vulnerable to HIV infection due to systemic neglect and exclusion.Doctor of Public Healt
No Child Left Behind? The Role of Race, Partisanship, and Descriptive Representation in North Carolina Title IA Funding Distribution
Get PDFThe prevailing explanations for disparities in public expenditures emphasize racial and partisan biases enacted by elected officials, mitigated in part by descriptive representation. However, most research focuses on federal officials, leaving questions about how appointed bureaucrats—who face less direct accountability—may act on their own biases. In my work, I construct a novel dataset to examine how the racial and partisan identities of North Carolina State Board of Education members shaped the treatment of local school districts during the Title IA funding process from 2014 to 2019. Contrary to prior findings, a greater presence of nonwhite and Democratic board members increased the number of Application Attempts required to receive funding. However, more Democratic representation was also associated with greater parity in the amount of funding awarded (Recipient Ratio). These findings, in conjunction with district-level poverty data, challenge assumptions about descriptive representation and highlight how race, partisanship, and accountability influence bureaucratic decision-making.Master of Art
Mimetic Desire and the Mirror of the Self in Honglou Meng 紅樓夢
Get PDFIn Honglou Meng, Cao Xueqin presents us with a two-sided mirror (Fengyue Baojian) with the object of desire in the front and a skull in the back. This thesis contextualizes Cao Xueqin’s mirror as the development and refinement of Ming-Qing mirror imagery in works such as Jin Ping Mei and Mudan Ting. Through a close reading of primary texts, the study analyzes the novel’s mirror imagery through the lens of René Girard’s mimetic theory by reading the mirror of Honglou Meng as a metaphor for mimetic desire, seeking to open a new dialogue between theory and text. Ultimately, this thesis argues (to borrow a phrase from Mark Ferrara) that the mirror of Honglou Meng serves as a “soteriological instrument” for what I call in this thesis novelistic conversion, which parallels Buddhist notions of enlightenment: i.e. the recognition of the illusion of desire and the rejection of the desiring self.Master of Art
Navigating Inclusion Beyond the Binary: A Content Analysis of Transgender and Non-Binary Athlete Participation Policies
Get PDFIn recent years, the inclusion of transgender and non-binary athletes in sport, specifically trans women, has become a politically charged and highly contested issue, often sparking debate based on ideology that overshadows scientific literature. In 2022, the NCAA changed its longstanding transgender athlete participation policy, deciding to let each sport’s national governing body (NGB) set the eligibility guidelines and requirements for transgender and non-binary athletes (NCAA, 2022). Recent literature (Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, 2022a; Hamilton et al., 2024) challenges the common assumption that transgender women competing in the female category hold a physical advantage over their cisgender peers. In line with this evolving perspective, the International Olympic Committee (2021) has emphasized that no athlete should be excluded from sport based on a “perceived unfair competitive advantage due to their sex variations, physical appearance, and/or transgender status” (p. 4). Building on these developments, the purpose of this study is to conduct a content analysis of current sport participation policies to quantitatively assess the eligibility requirements imposed on transgender and non-binary athletes. This approach aims to address the disconnect between academic literature and the criteria that govern trans inclusion in sport and reveals that many policies continue to impose restrictive eligibility requirements. This study calls for the development of evidence-based, inclusive policies that align with current scientific understanding to bridge the gap between research and regulation.Master of Art
Household water insecurity and young child feeding practices across the nutrition transition: Findings from Ecuador and the Philippines
Get PDFHousehold water insecurity – the inability to reliably access safe and sufficient water for domestic needs – is a critical determinant of child health. Yet, few studies have explored how water insecurity may influence infant and young child feeding practices across settings at different stages of the nutrition transition. This dissertation addresses this knowledge gap through a mixed-methods approach, examining how household water conditions are associated with dietary decision-making and child feeding practices in two distinct settings: contemporary San Cristóbal Island, Ecuador, characterized by rising obesity rates and widespread access to ultra-processed foods, and Metropolitan Cebu, Philippines in the 1980s, where child undernutrition was prevalent. In semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, adults on San Cristóbal Island described how concerns about water safety and intermittent supplies led some to substitute preferred foods with ultra-processed alternatives or to consume fewer meals cooked at home. Complementary quantitative analyses, drawing on representative data of Ecuadorian children aged 0–23 months, found that poor household drinking water quality and greater food insecurity were associated with shorter exclusive breastfeeding duration and reduced commercial milk formula use.Comparative analyses between two cohort studies further revealed how household water conditions are associated with young children feeding practices and meal preparation strategies. In Cebu, infants in households with unimproved water sources were exclusively breastfed for longer but had lower dietary diversity. Additionally, children in urban areas with unimproved water sources consumed fewer legumes – a proxy for water-intensive foods. Similarly, on San Cristóbal Island, children whose caregivers reported water safety concerns had lower dietary diversity and reduced legume consumption compared to those without such concerns. This research demonstrates that household water insecurity may influence child nutritional well-being through pathways beyond infectious disease. Integrating qualitative insights with rigorous quantitative data provided a nuanced understanding of these associations. Additional research using longitudinal, mixed-method designs is needed to further explore how household water conditions, caregivers' perceptions of water safety, and water insecurity experiences shape dietary practices. Ultimately, these findings underscore the importance of integrated, multi-sectoral approaches addressing both water and food insecurity to advance progress toward global child nutrition targets.Doctor of Philosoph
Red Barns and Green Deception: Does Agrarian Imagery Evoke Executional Greenwashing?
Get PDFWhen consumers lack prior knowledge of a product, advertisers can skillfully deploy cultural associations to fill the gap. One of the most pervasive stories told by food advertisers is the myth of our food coming from a wholesome, pastoral rural America. The resulting consumption habits can perpetuate agribusiness practices and their substantial environmental impacts within the food industry status quo. To scrutinize the sustainable influence of the agrarian myth, a survey was conducted of 411 undergraduate college students’ reactions to food marketing imagery. Students were stratified by expert status according to the Elaboration Likelihood Model and rurality of their background. The results of the survey imply the applicability of agrarian imagery to the framework of the executional greenwashing effect, with statistically marginal variance between student subcategories. Despite the necessity of additional research, this research suggests the executional greenwashing effect extends to encompass implicit in addition to explicit nature imagery.Bachelor of Art
Coordination Differences in Various Landing Styles of Verbally Cued Individuals
Get PDFOveruse knee injury, defined as being repetitively stressed microtraumas that gradually worsen over time, is common among athletes. Altered movement patterns often arise following overuse knee injuries due to compensatory mechanisms. When these movement alterations persist (beyond the protective period immediately following injury), long term impacts, such as the inability to return to sport or risk of re-injury increase. Jump-landing tasks are common in sports and have been frequently used in clinical settings to screen for altered movement patterns associated with injury risk. The aims of this study were to (1) evaluate changes in traditional linear biomechanical variables, specifically peak hip and knee flexion angles, and (2) compare intra- and inter-limb coordination patterns across different landing styles using a nonlinear approach, cross-recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA). Using a marker-less motion capture system, known as OpenCap, we recorded the kinematics of each jump. The findings of this research study highlight that distinct risky landing patterns produce unique biomechanical patterns and underscore the utility of nonlinear analyses like CRQA for capturing coordination dynamics relevant to injury risk.Bachelor of Art
“Identifying What Is”: The Historical Reality Behind Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun
Get PDFInspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun, this is a historical analysis of the reality that influenced Lorraine Hansberry in mid-20th-century Chicago and who may be the historical parallels to Hansberry’s character Walter Lee Younger. The intention is to discover the lives of Black men in this period and how their experiences are reflected in Hansberry’s story. Given that many aspects of the play draw on Hansberry’s life experience and that of those around her, this study explores the world that Hansberry lived in and the historical figures that influenced her life and experience. The findings of this research will support an answer to the question of how the economic pressures and experiences of Black men in 1950s Chicago shaped Hansberry’s creative depiction of their lives. Themes of housing discrimination, racial discrimination, economic survival, and more are explored through archival research that reveals a deeper understanding of the context for the play and the realities that it portrays. Analysis of multiple sources (i.e., newspapers, oral histories, personal essays, and the contents of the play) provides insight into the lives of the people that Hansberry was writing about. Ultimately, Hansberry adapted her own experiences in a very politically active family to portray a specific version of life in 1950s Chicago that meaningfully represents the themes of the time, but omits some of the harsh realities of life in a racial and economic hierarchy. Bachelor of Art