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Association of neighborhood greenness with self-perceived stress, depression and anxiety symptoms in older U.S adults.
No full textBackground: Neighborhood environment, such as green vegetation, has been shown to play a role in coping with stress and mental ill health. Yet, epidemiological evidence of the association between greenness and mental health is inconsistent.Keywords: Green space, Perceived stress, Anxiety, Depression, Mediation, Effect modification.Springer Open
The effect of inlet and outlet boundary conditions in image-based CFD modeling of aortic flow.
No full textBackground: Computational modeling of cardiovascular flow is a growing and useful field, but such simulations usually require the researcher to guess the flow's inlet and outlet conditions since they are difficult and expensive to measure. It is critical to determine the amount of uncertainty introduced by these assumptions in order to evaluate the degree to which cardiovascular flow simulations are accurate. Our work begins to address this question by examining the sensitivity of flow to several different assumed velocity inlet and outlet conditions in a patient-specific aorta model.Keywords: Inlet boundary conditions, Womersley, Windkessel, Outlet boundary conditions.Springer Open
Making Islam White: Race, Religion, Nation and the Construction of an American Islam.
No full textThis thesis explores the ways in which Muslims in the United States have contended with harsh public scrutiny and Islamophobia. Specifically, this work explores the project of Zaytuna College, arguing that Zaytuna's mission of crafting an American interpretation of Islam is not race-neutral but rather serves to "whiten" the religion. The founders of Zaytuna subordinate Islamic customs to American ones in an attempt to demonstrate compatibility with American norms, thus conceding the argument that white cultural ways of being are preferable and superior to the culture and practices of immigrants and minorities. In doing so, the practice is a form of cultural racism and white-washing
Mobilizing Union Membership: A Case Study of the Gap Between Membership in Unions and Identification with the Labor Movement.
No full textThis undergraduate honors thesis is a case study of personal care attendants who are members of the healthcare union SEIU 1199 in Boston. Six homecare workers and one organizer were interviewed using grounded research methodology to build theory about the gap between membership in a union and participation in a labor movement. Through listening to workers speak about their jobs and relationship with the union, the researcher found that PCAs have outstandingly positive feedback of the union’s performance, but that they are not taking ownership of it. While unions are tasked with many contradictory yet interdependent goals, including building membership and bargaining contracts, this paper highlights the importance of mobilizing that membership into a broad, community driven, sustainable, and offensive working class movement. We set a high standard in our definition of success: a union’s ability to engender its membership with a strong understanding of the union’s long-term goals; participation in a range of union activities; a higher level of political efficacy and civic engagement than when they joined the union; drawing connections between their experiences under capitalism and other related struggles, and solidarity with these causes; participating in community or political activity without the prompting of the union; and having and voicing opinions about union activity. Despite positive reviews from their membership and an organizational director with a strong vision and strategy, 1199 has been unable to overcome the pervasive external factors of capitalism and the site-specific external factors of an atomized industry due to insufficient organizational relationships with more than one union organizer, other PCAs, and workplace leaders; failure to select and train delegates as leaders and delegate actual power; insufficient politically educational contacts with membership; limited democratic participation by membership; and lack of urgency among members
Growth of points on hyperelliptic curves.
No full textLet C be an algebraic curve over a number field K. Given an extension of K, we say that C gains a point over this extension if it is generated by adjoining the coordinates of some point on C to K. In a recent paper, Mazur and Rubin posed the following question: to what extent does the set of number fields over which a curve gains a point determine the identity of the curve? Motivated by this question, we study the set of fields over which C gains a point, in the case that C is a hyperelliptic curve over the rationals with genus at least 2. For curves with odd degree and sufficiently large n, we give an unconditional lower bound on the number of degree n number fields up to a given discriminant for which C gains a point. We present progress toward a similar bound for hyperelliptic curves of even degree, and contrast these to a conditional result of Granville in the quadratic field case
Epidemiology of Traumatic Esophageal Injury: An Analysis of the National Trauma Data Bank
No full textAbstract: Introduction: Traumatic injury of the esophagus (TIE) is rare, and the existing literature is limited. The aim of this descriptive study was to comprehensively describe the clinical characteristics and outcomes of TIE among trauma patients using the National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB). Methods: Patients with TIE from 2010-2015 were identified in the NTDB by the Abbreviated Injury Scale. The prevalence of TIE among trauma patients was estimated. The demographic and clinical characteristics and hospital outcomes, including hospital length of stay, complications, and mortality, of these patients were further analyzed according to injury mechanism, injury severity score (ISS), and sex. Results: 1,411 adult patients with TIE were identified. The prevalence of TIE among all trauma patients was 37 patients per 100,000 (95% CI: 35, 39). The prevalence of TIE was 257 cases per 100,000 (95% CI: 250, 270) among patients with penetrating trauma and 16 cases per 100,000 (95% CI: 15, 18) among patients with blunt trauma. Patients with ISS ≥ 25 were 34 times more likely to have TIE than those with ISS 0-9, and TIE was almost 3 times more likely in males as compared to females. Among cases of TIE, 523 (37%) were blunt and 888 (63%) were penetrating. Compared to those with blunt TIE, patients with penetrating TIE were significantly younger (34 vs 46 years), more likely to be male (85% vs 74%), and were more severely injured (ISS ≥ 25: 48% vs 40%) (all p < 0.001). Patients with blunt TIE were more likely to have associated spine injuries as compared to those with penetrating TIE (43% vs 27%, p < 0.001). Overall in-hospital mortality in patients with TIE was 19%, and patients with TIE had significantly higher mortality than those without after adjusting for age, sex, and ISS (OR = 1.4, 95% CI: 1.1, 1.7). There was no statistically significant difference in mortality between blunt and penetrating TIE in both crude analysis (20% vs 18%) and multivariable adjusted analyses. Conclusion: TIE is associated with more severe injuries, male sex, and penetrating trauma. Mortality is markedly elevated in trauma patients with TIE but is not associated with mechanism of injury.Thesis (M.S.)--Tufts University, 2018.Submitted to the Dept. of Clinical & Translational Science.Advisor: Jessica Paulus.Committee: Janis Breeze, and Nikolay Bugaev.Keyword: Surgery
Exploring factors that are driving Electric Vehicle Demand in Massachusetts from built environment and socio-economics perspective
No full textAbstract: Electric Vehicles (EV) are not a new concept, they have been in the minds of people since the days of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Recent developments in EV technology have put them in the center stage once again. Developing the infrastructure to aid the adoption of EVs is widely viewed as crucial for transportation policy and planning. Within this framework, I ask: where is the demand for EVs and where the infrastructure can be improved to create demand? One goal of my research is to identify clusters of areas where EV ownership is higher and correlate that to a set of variables. This thesis involves a spatial analysis to determine if the demand for EVs are clustering and whether this clustering can be predicted by a set of variables from built environment and socio-economics. My hypothesis is that there should be a higher demand for EVs in denser urban areas. I found variables such as walkability, commute times, population density to be statistically significant contributors to EV demand, however their effect on increasing sales is somewhat questionable.Thesis (M.S.)--Tufts University, 2018.Submitted to the Dept. of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning.Advisors: Justin Hollander, and Sumeeta Srinivasan.Keywords: Alternative energy, Transportation, and Environmental studies
Cholinergic signaling modulates astrocytic D-serine release
No full textAbstract: Cholinergic signaling controls brain states, modulates circuit function, and is a primary therapeutic strategy for a number of diseases including schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease. Recent work from our lab has demonstrated in mouse hippocampal slices that wakefulness-dependent acetylcholine (ACh) release acts on alpha 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (α7nAChRs) expressed by astrocytes to control the availability of the obligatory NMDA receptor (NMDAR) co-agonist, D-serine. However, cholinergic dependent changes in hippocampal D-serine levels have not been measured in vivo. To do this, I established both high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and microdialysis techniques. Using these two techniques, I found that the level of D-serine detected correlates with the wakefulness state of the mouse, that the α7nAChRs on astrocytes are necessary for maintaining normal hippocampal D-serine levels, social interaction, learning, and memory behaviors in male mice. Ongoing experiments expand our mechanistic understanding of cholinergic signaling by comparing the astrocyte α7nAChR conditional knock-out (cKO) mice to neuronal α7nAChR cKO mice.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2018.Submitted to the Dept. of Neuroscience.Advisor: Phil Haydon.Committee: Thomas Biederer, and Rob Jackson.Keyword: Neurosciences
Evaluation of non-response to the In-Center Hemodialysis Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (ICH CAHPS) survey.
No full textBackground: The In-Center Hemodialysis Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (ICH CAHPS) Survey is the first patient reported outcome measure included in the U.S. Medicare End Stage Renal Disease Quality Incentive Program. Administered twice yearly, it assesses in-center dialysis experience and survey responses are tied to dialysis facility payments. Low response rates, currently approximately 35%, raise concern for possible underrepresentation of patient groups.Keywords: Hemodialysis, CAHPS, ICH CAHPS, Patient reported outcome, Patient satisfaction, Patient experience, Survey.Springer Open
Effect of 24-month physical activity on cognitive frailty and the role of inflammation: the LIFE randomized clinical trial.
No full textBackground: Whether physical activity can reduce cognitive frailty—a relatively new "compound" phenotype proposed in 2013—and whether the effect of physical activity differs based on levels of inflammation are unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of physical activity on cognitive frailty and whether baseline interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels modified this effect.Keywords: Physical activity, Cognitive frailty, Interleukin-6, Older persons.Springer Open