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Processing Effect on Anti-nutritional Factors and Phytochemicals of Horse gram (Macrotyloma uniflorun) Flour.
No full textThis poster shows Processing effect on Anti-nutritional factors and Phytochemicals of horse gram flour
Investigating the Adoption and Impact of Nutrition Incentive and Farm to School Programs
No full textAbstract: The local food movement represents a small but rapidly growing shift in the demand for local U.S. agricultural products. Advocates suggest, though evidence is sparse, that local food systems can have positive effects on local economies, the community, and the environment. These potential benefits may not be universally experienced, as access and affordability can be an issue for some consumers. Therefore, this dissertation focused on two local food programs that provide economic opportunities for farmers and facilitate more equitable access to local products for consumers - farmers' market nutrition incentive (FMNI) and farm to school (FTS) programs. The Diffusion of Innovations (DI) theory framed the quantitative and qualitative methods used to accomplish the following aims: 1) to describe produce farmer decisions to engage in FMNI and FTS and perceived barriers and impacts of participation; 2) to describe school stakeholder decisions to engage in FTS and factors that contributed to program expansion; and 3) to assess whether food literacy would be a useful measure of FTS program impact among children. For Aim 1, 155 Mid-Atlantic fruit and vegetable farmers were surveyed regarding their perceived motivations for and barriers to engaging in FMNI and FTS programs. Farmers believed that the programs provide advantageous social impact and economic opportunities. Major barriers included product pricing, customer engagement, the contracting/bidding process, and other logistics. Three-quarters of farmers ranked potential social/community impacts as most important to them. For Aim 2, FTS program adoption and expansion were explored via key informant interviews (n=24) in eight diverse Massachusetts schools. Initial engagement was motivated by program compatibility and perceived advantages for academic achievement, increased school meal participation and improved child health/nutrition. Active integration of FTS into the classroom, efforts to decrease program complexity, and strong community and parental support aided program expansion. Leadership and sustainability plans, creative partnerships for garden maintenance, and participation in the Community Eligibility Provision are promising strategies to help diffuse FTS programs throughout the U.S. For Aim 3, food literacy among schoolchildren in FTS program schools was explored as a potential positive FTS outcome. The novel Tool for Food Literacy Assessment in Children (TFLAC) was utilized among diverse schoolchildren (n=591), with a mean FL score of 33.95±5.0 (max=40). Modest differences by domain were observed, with more nuanced variability present with individual questions. Evidence that the TFLAC is useful and can be feasibly administered provides a novel avenue of comprehensive assessment of the impact of FTS programs. The results from this applied research have a practical application for practitioners seeking to improve FMNI and FTS programs. Overall, these findings suggest that farmers and school stakeholders have similar motivations for engagement and perceptions of the social/community impacts that could result from FMNI and FTS programs. By addressing FMNI barriers of price and program administration and FTS barriers of funding, time, and the bidding/contracting process, both producers and consumers may be able to readily participate. Future evaluations should better align outcome measures with the FMNI and FTS goals reported by stakeholders. Additionally, more longitudinal assessments of community and school-based outcomes are needed, including food literacy. Such evidence would inform policy and research decisions and guide FMNI and FTS diffusion within the context of the U.S. local food movement.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2018.Submitted to the Dept. of Agriculture, Food and Environment.Advisor: Jennifer Sacheck.Committee: Sean Cash, Jeanne Goldberg, and Timothy Griffin.Keywords: Nutrition, Agriculture education, and Public health
A robust Pax7EGFP mouse that enables the visualization of dynamic behaviors of muscle stem cells.
No full textBackground: Pax7 is a transcription factor involved in the specification and maintenance of muscle stem cells (MuSCs). Upon injury, MuSCs leave their quiescent state, downregulate Pax7 and differentiate, contributing to skeletal muscle regeneration. In the majority of regeneration studies, MuSCs are isolated by fluorescence-activated sorting (FACS), based on cell surface markers. It is known that MuSCs are a heterogeneous population and only a small percentage of isolated cells are true stem cells that are able to self-renew. A strong Pax7 reporter line would be valuable to study the in vivo behavior of Pax7-expressing stem cells.Keywords: Skeletal muscle, Pax7, EGFP, Muscle stem cell, Satellite cell, Muscle development, Muscle regeneration, Fluorescence-activated cell sorting.Springer Open
Chile’s Education System: Crafting Policy for the Modern Era.
No full textThis study outlines potential avenues for policy reforms in Chile’s higher education system under the Piñera Administration. Data is drawn from international organizations like the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to compare Chile’s quality assurance model and financial assistance resources to those found throughout the developed world. While the country’s academic system has a history of being prohibitively expensive and unable to provide students with the skills necessary to smoothly enter into the job market, recent policy changes have shown that the government is on track to successfully address these problems. Therefore, I will show that the objective for future policy implementations should be to continue this positive trajectory during the Piñera Administration. I plan to demonstrate that the key to achieving this goal is by putting forth policy that can appeal to President Piñera’s conservative ideology while still promoting greater government influence in the academic field
Evaluating Decentralization Reform and Its Links to Economic Development and Improved Public Service Provision
No full textAbstract: During the last three decades, decentralization reform has been a leading trend in policy-making reform. The recurrent argument is that decentralization is linked to increased economic development and improved public service provision. This dissertation attempts to evaluate the validity of this assumption. To do so, it uses a three-paper approach to evaluates the outcomes of decentralization reform from different perspectives and on different dimensions. The first paper uses a geographic regression discontinuity design to estimate that on average a higher level of decentralization at a border implies an average decrease in annual GDP growth. These findings evidence a negative relationship between decentralization and annual GDP growth which are both statistically and economically significant at the one percent level. These results invite a rethinking of decentralization's effects and its implementation process. The second paper focuses on the impact of decentralization reform on Colombia's agricultural extension services. The paper argues that decentralization reform introduced significant changes in the sector. Borrowing from Evans, Hirschman and Snyder, it proposes a framework to explain why the institutional reform led to heterogeneous effects on different products and types of farmers within the sector. Integrating these changes into traditional narratives leads to a better understanding of the last twenty-five years of decline of the Colombian agricultural sector. The third paper is an impact evaluation of a public bicycle sharing system. Public transport systems, like bicycle sharing schemes, are typically under the control of local authorities —due to decentralization designs. Hence, this impact evaluation assesses if a private actor can provide a quasi-public good in the absence of action by the local authority. This paper presents an impact evaluation with a difference-in-difference quasi-experimental design that allows identification and estimation of the treatment effect of a bicycling encouraging intervention. Furthermore, in an attempt to evaluate the effect that a bicycle sharing intervention can have on workers' productivity or well-being, this paper presents an instrumental variable design informing future research on the effect of active commuting by bicycle. Approaching decentralization from these very different perspectives allows a better understanding of the intricacies of decentralization and the way these processes contribute to economic development or better public service provision.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2018.Submitted to the Dept. of Economics and International Business.Advisor: Katrina Burgess.Committee: Jenny Aker, and Steven Block.Keywords: International relations, Economics, and Public policy
Cavitation control and imaging for focused ultrasound brain therapy
No full textAbstract: Cavitation-mediated focused ultrasound (FUS) is currently the only method of reversible blood-brain barrier disruption (BBBD) for targeted drug delivery without incision or radiation. A significant challenge for its clinical translation is a lack of reliable and precise real-time treatment control and imaging methods, especially in brain applications where B-mode ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging are unable to visualize microbubble sources transcranially and tissue temperature change in deep brain targets. This thesis develops several acoustic methods to improve the low-frequency FUS focusing, the feedback control of cavitation behavior and drug delivery thereof, and the localization ability of passive cavitation imaging (PCI). Firstly, to maximize the clinical relevance of small animal investigations, a dual-aperture FUS system was designed for low-frequency (274.3kHz) cavitation-mediated FUS therapy via temporal modulation of the wave interference pattern. In addition, a closed-loop, real-time control paradigm is shown capable of sustaining stable microbubble oscillations at a preset level while minimizing transient and violent microbubble collapsing that may result in vascular damage. After optimizing key ultrasound parameters and microbubble administration protocols, this cavitation controller was investigated to realize on-demand drug delivery with modulated BBBD. Tested at clinically relevant frequency in healthy and tumor-bearing rats, our approach enables targeted delivery of predefined drug concentrations within a therapeutically effective range in both normal tissue and glioma, while maintaining a safe exposure level. Finally, to refine the localization ability of traditional PCI, adaptive beamforming methods with diagonal loading were applied to the imaging algorithm. A white noise gain constraint was used to adaptively control the loading level so that the sensitivity of minimum variance distortionless response beamformer can be adjusted in a spatially selective manner, which result in significant improvement in image resolution and contrast.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2018.Submitted to the Dept. of Electrical Engineering.Advisors: Eric Miller, and Nathan McDannold.Committee: Brian Tracey, and Paul Barbone.Keywords: Electrical engineering, Acoustics, and Biomedical engineering
The Effect of Mindfulness on the Use of Situation Selection
No full textAbstract: People choose situations based on emotional potential of those situations, but there is considerable variability in this pattern across people and studies. Mindfulness may be one of the factors explaining this variability, since evidence suggests it may promote people's choice of negative situations. We conducted two studies for which the goal was to assess whether mindfulness impacts the use of situation selection strategies, both in everyday life and in a laboratory setting. In Study 1, we assessed the relationship between self-reported trait-mindfulness and the use of situation selection in everyday life, as measured on three consecutive days for 140 participants who completed the study online on Turk Prime. In Study 2, we examined the impact of a brief in-lab focused breathing (analogue of mindfulness) induction on people's choice of emotional situations on a subsequent picture task in a sample of 132 Tufts university students and community members. Hypothesis, design, and analysis plan for both studies were preregistered on the Open Science Framework (OSF) platform, where materials and data are also available. Study 1 results revealed that higher trait-mindfulness relates to decreased likelihood of avoiding negative situations and an increased likelihood of approaching positive situations; Study 2 did not find a significant effect of a brief mindfulness induction on situation selection, likely because the manipulation failed to induce mindfulness. Overall, this work is important not only to better understand the processes of mindfulness and situation selection, but also because these two processes are closely linked to our mental and physical well-being.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2018.Submitted to the Dept. of Psychology.Advisor: Heather Urry.Committee: Lisa Shin, Elizabeth Race, and Sarah Hayes-Skelton.Keyword: Experimental psychology
A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis of Emergency Department Migraine Treatment
No full textAbstract: Headaches are a common presenting complaint to the emergency department (ED), and migraine headaches are a common subtype, often refractory to many home treatments. Despite the high prevalence of this disorder, enormous practice pattern variation exists in the treatment of migraines in the ED, drawing from a wide array of medication classes. Despite the large array of interventions, many have not been studied directly with first line agents or placebo. Further, practice pattern often deviates from professional society recommendations and it is possible this is due to lack of knowledge regarding the effectiveness of interventions. In order to describe the comparative effectiveness of these interventions, we undertook a systematic review and network meta-analysis. We searched randomized controlled trials comparing non-oral interventions in adult ED patients with migraines; of 2,392 articles, 40 studies met pre-determined inclusion criteria for our final analysis. Where possible, we performed meta-analysis for pain reduction 60 minutes after treatment. We employed a network meta-analysis to estimate comparative effects that have not been investigated head to head in randomized controlled trials. Secondarily, we attempted to examine the rates of adverse effects and recurrence of headaches. Neuroleptics resulted in the largest reduction in mean pain scores across all comparators with a mean 43.6 (95% CI 54.9, 32.3, I2=0%) point reduction on a 100-point scale compared with placebo. Combinations of medications were not superior to individual medications. Adverse events and headache recurrence were unable to be pooled due to incomplete reporting and small numbers, but no observable trends were noted regarding akathisia/restlessness and drowsiness between interventions. We found that neuroleptics and antiemetics resulted in the most consistent pain reduction in the first 60 minutes of ED treatment for acute migraine. Since combination medications were not more effective than single interventions or placebo, empiric administration of combination medications cannot be recommended for efficacy. We were not able to analyze the possibility that the addition of antihistamines reduces adverse effects due to the small number of outcomes and the small number of studies reporting akathisia and restlessness. This research paves the way for future guidelines for ED care to focus on ED specific populations by demonstrating the performance of migraine treatments in this settingThesis (M.S.)--Tufts University, 2018.Submitted to the Dept. of Clinical & Translational Science.Advisor: Raveendhara Bannuru.Committee: Raveendhara Bannuru, Timothy Mader, and Norma Terrin.Keyword: Medicine
Engaging the City.
No full text2018 M.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Field Project. Client: The City of Boston, Housing Innovation Lab
Linking Agriculture, Nutrition, and WASH: Exposure and Knowledge Among Health Workers and FCHVs in Nepal.
No full textThis presentation was from 6th Annual scientific Symposium in Nepal