Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2010

Analyzes 2010 survey results on Greater Boston's housing market conditions, including trends in production, rents, and home prices, with a focus on foreclosures, affordability, differential impact of the recession by type of housing, and student housing

The Transformative Possibilities of 'Noticing' in Community Gardening and my Life

The growing gap between rich and poor and the degradation of the planet are among the systemically generated outcomes increasingly associated with contemporary capitalism. This association is made by scholarly, professional and technical experts and spiritual leaders from across the political spectrum. Among them are Joseph Stiglitz, Vandana Shiva, Bill McKibben and Pope Francis. The negative social impact associated with the privileging of capitalist interests manifest in a globalising corporate logic during the 1990s, was critically documented by Jane Kelsey (1999). In the ongoing pursuit of the neo-liberal agenda globally, Kelsey (2013) argues that significant decisions are often made behind closed doors with little chance of democratic influence, particularly by those who may come to suffer from their ramifications. Popular uprisings, such as the Occupy Wall Street Movement, attest to the widespread concern of many. Activist scholar, Slavoj Žižek (2012) urges the embedding of the occupiers’ concerns beyond the visible spectacle of the movement. He urges wider commitment to the transformation of the issues of their concern in the very fabric of daily life. My work presented in this thesis is one attempt to contribute to this call. Through my investigation into the apparent impact of corporate capitalism, I have come to notice ever more acutely, as encouraged by Seo and Creed (2002), the value contradictions within the institutional logics that support capitalism and the logics of other significant institutions that I allow influence on my life. My research drew me towards concurrence with the views of critical organisational theorists such as Deetz (1992) and Dyer, Humphries, Fitzgibbons and Hurd (2014). These theorists provide the proposition that the contemporary form of globalisation is orchestrated through the normalised workings and values of global corporations that spread a competitive ordering, selectively atomise individuals and pit one against the other. I call this the ‘dominant order(ing) of daily lives’ that draws the privileged and the oppressed into a way of being that sustains privilege and oppression while espousing values of justice. My research contributes to the body of knowledge concerned with how a sense of responsibility and transformative agency may be developed amongst privileged peoples. It is in the projects of community gardening and my life that I have chosen to ‘notice’ the prevalence of a mechanistic, functionalist world view that infuses the moral limitations of dominant order. I have been attentive to noticing how this order influences the [un]ethical decisions of daily life. I suggest that increasing the awareness of the privileged to the working of dominant order and to the interconnectedness of life is important to our ability to ‘notice’ institutional contradictions and thus the possibilities of our transformation. My attention to ‘noticing’ has heightened my discomfort with the current institutional arrangements and prompted me to reflect, talk with others, try new things and seek a more attentive way of being. My research endorses the suggestion made by Dyer et al. (2014) that conscientising the privileged to the workings of dominant order, and the ways we are implicated in the maintenance of this ordering, is important work for educators to pursue. Through my research I have identified ideas that may mitigate against concerning assumptions amongst the privileged that ‘community gardening’ and the projects of local food are ‘naturally virtuous’ including: listening to the stories of the oppressed, knowing who we are in the context of these stories, holding our own discomfort and questioning how we may be responsible. As an outcome of my research, I posit that the reprioritisation and valuing of interconnection and ‘concern for others’ in the day to day lives of the privileged may be achieved through the development of relational identities, storytelling that highlights interconnection and spiritual ritual. Community gardening can draw the privileged into being with the oppressed; enabling an understanding of shared and common humanity that I suggest is motivating of reflection and the construction of new social interactions. My investigations drew me more deeply into the insights and commitments of people of an indigenous, Earth-centred, life-affirming spiritual tradition who are among those who articulate an interconnected worldview and ways of being human. My research highlights that when commitment is given to a relationship with people of these traditions, those who are largely (but never wholly) colonised to the dominant order may ‘notice’ and rediscover the possibilities of interconnected ways of seeing and being human. Listening to the holders of life-affirming traditions can enable ‘noticing’ of, and resistance to, the dominating ideas of capitalist projections that are mechanistic and competitive in form. In the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, my research suggests that bicultural relationship may be developed by Pākehā through listening to Te Ao Māori authority and engaging in practical actions that support related Māori aspirations. This relationship may interrupt the potential dominance of Pākehā ways of being. My first person action research has involved reflection, ‘noticing’, conversation and action in dynamic interplay. I have recorded this dynamic interplay and discerned together with others, through ongoing co-inquiry relationship and dialogue, the transformative possibilities of ‘noticing’ the ways that we, as people who would like to be considered ‘just’, are human. I have woven a narrative, presented in this report that is compelling to me, to my co-inquirers and to others. I have assessed the value of my inquiry by the way it stirs thinking, reflection and transformative action in those who engage with it. ‘Noticing’ dominant order and the unconscious stream of oppressive action in the day to day life of the privileged is difficult and challenging work. This work may generate conflict and discomfort for the researcher and the people connected with and through the research. I posit that such discomfort is important to reflection and to developing a form of sensitivity that draws ethical attention to the systemic causes of such degradation that sustains the privilege of many. The potential challenging of privilege that ‘noticing’ promotes requires a relational dynamic that is open, non-competitive, non-oppositional and potentially inconclusive. Including this Socratic dynamic in research methods, and in ‘noticing’, is important for researchers whose ability to shed light on the challenging terrain of social change requires relationships of openness and dialogue. When grounded in a critique of dominant order, ‘noticing’ disturbs otherwise inoculated, rationalised and normalised privileges. Just as the disturbance of soil is necessary for the settling of a new seed, so too is the disturbance of our minds necessary for our awakening and the growth of our ‘noticing’ and an interconnected worldview. ‘Noticing’ enables the privileged to identify ways of being human that reprioritise the diminished valuing of interdependency

The prevention and diagnosis of central venous catheter-related infection

The potential source of CVC colonisation was assessed. Isolates of coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) recovered from the skin and CVC components of 3 cardiothoracic surgery patients were characterised by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). The genetic heterogeneity of CoNS isolated from the skin was demonstrated and specific genotypes implicated in catheter colonisation. In addition, phenotypic and genotypic typing techniques were assessed for their ability to characterise strains of CoNS recovered from 33 patients who developed catheter-related bloodstream infection (CR-BSI) on a bone marrow transplant (BMT) unit and Siaphylococcus aureus recovered from 6 cardiothoracic surgery patients with surgical site infection (SSI) following median sternotomy. This epidemiological investigation revealed that common strains of CoNS and 51 aureus where not associated with infection in patients with CR-BSI or sternal SSI during the study period. Furthermore, there was no correlation between phenotypic and genotypic characterisation results. The variable expression of phenotypic traits within strains of staphylococci was evident whilst PFGE and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) were highly discriminatory for the molecular characterisation of S. aureus and CoNS. This was highlighted in 8 stem cell transplant (SCT) patients whereby it was demonstrated that routine identification and characterisation of CoNS by phenotypic techniques may not be adequate for the diagnosis of CR-BSI by current guidelines. The potential of the lipid S ELISA to facilitate the diagnosis of CR-BSI in 38 haematology/SCT patients and sternal SSI in 57 cardiothoracic surgery patients was also assessed. The ELISA proved to be a sensitive test for the rapid serodiagnosis of infection due to staphylococci in immunocompetent patients. The acridine orange leucocyte cytospin test (AOLC) was also evaluated for the rapid diagnosis of CR-BSI in 16 haematology/SCT patients with Hickman CVC in situ. Although the sensitivity of the test was low, it may provide a useful adjunct to conventional methods for the in situ sampling of catheters to predict and diagnose CR-BSI, preventing the unnecessary removal of CVC

Anesthesiologist-led COVID-19 Airway Training Skills Session to teach novel team approach and workflow

What’s the Problem? Intubation is an aerosol-generating procedure that poses a significant infectious risk to the operator in the COVID-19 era, where the volume of intubations was expected to increase dramatically. Following national anesthesia societal and organizational recommendations regarding best practices to decrease risk of viral transmission, a new 3-person airway team approach was developed. Additions to the preexisting airway management workflow included an aerosol-containing intubation shield, a new breathing circuit configuration incorporating HEPA filtration, and the use of unfamiliar PPE, all of which required mastery of a complex sequence of events surrounding the patient encounter. This high-stakes workflow was a substantial departure from standard practice and a broad educational effort was required. A departmental simulation was developed to this end

The Transformative Power of the 2030 U.N. Sustainable Development Goals

West Central Initiative, a mostly rural community foundation and regional development organization in Minnesota, integrated the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals into its strategic plan in 2019. This article explores how aligning the U.N. goals with the foundation’s “nested strategy” of local, regional, and global goals has aligned and energized the disparate functions of the organization. This article describes the strategic planning process that led to adoption of the goals, articulates how they have helped evolve the interplay of economic development and philanthropy, and identifies lessons learned from the first two years of working with the goals. Focusing on the strong and undeniable connections between the local and the global has crystalized West Central Initiative’s higher purpose. The new, transformative vision for the foundation centers diversity, equity, and inclusion as essential building blocks of both successful regional development and place-based philanthropy. Any region — anywhere — with a successful regional economy that also is supported by effective community philanthropy would look like the Sustainable Development Goals, realized

The 300km/s stellar stream near Segue 1: Insights From high-resolution spectroscopy of its brightest star

We present a chemical abundance analysis of 300S-1, the brightest likely member star of the 300 km/s stream near the faint satellite galaxy Segue 1. From a high-resolution Magellan/MIKE spectrum we determine a metallicity of [Fe/H] = -1.46 +- 0.05 +- 0.23 (random and systematic uncertainties) for star 300S-1, and find an abundance pattern similar to typical halo stars at this metallicity. Comparing our stellar parameters to theoretical isochrones, we estimate a distance of 18 +- 7 kpc. Both the metallicity and distance estimates are in good agreement with what can be inferred from comparing the SDSS photometric data of the stream stars to globular cluster sequences. While several other structures overlap with the stream in this part of the sky, the combination of kinematic, chemical and distance information makes it unlikely that these stars are associated with either the Segue 1 galaxy, the Sagittarius stream or the Orphan stream. Streams with halo-like abundance signatures, such as the 300 km/s stream, present another observational piece for understanding the accretion history of the Galactic halo.Comment: 13 pages, emulateapj, accepted for publication in Ap

Mutations in the TΨC Loop of E. coli tRNA(Lys,3 )Have Varied Effects on In Trans Complementation of HIV-1 Replication

BACKGROUND: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) exclusively selects and utilizes tRNA(Lys,3 )as the primer for initiation of reverse transcription. Several elements within the TΨC stem loop of tRNA(Lys,3 )are postulated to be important for selection and use in reverse transcription. The post-transcriptional modification at nucleotide 58 could play a role during plus-strand synthesis to stop reverse transcriptase from re-copying the tRNA primer. Nucleotides 53 and 54 within the TΨC stem loop of the tRNA have been shown to be important to form the complex between tRNA and the HIV-1 viral genome during initiation of reverse transcription. RESULTS: To further delineate the features of the TΨC stem loop of tRNA(Lys,3 )in reverse transcription, we have developed a complementation system in which E. coli tRNA(Lys,3 )is provided in trans to an HIV-1 genome in which the PBS is complementary to this tRNA. Successful selection and use of E. coli tRNA(Lys,3 )results in the production of infectious virus. We have used this single round infectious system to ascertain the effects that different mutants in the TΨC stem loop of tRNA(Lys,3 )have on complementation. Mutants were designed within the TΨC loop (nucleotide 58) and within the stem and loop of the TΨC loop (nucleotides 53 and 54). Analysis of the expression of E. coli tRNA(Lys,3 )mutants revealed differences in the capacity for aminoacylation, which is an indication of intracellular stability of the tRNA. Alteration of nucleotide 58 from A to U (A58U), T54G and TG5453CC all resulted in tRNA(Lys,3 )that was aminoacylated when expressed in cells, while a T54C mutation resulted in a tRNA(Lys,3 )that was not aminoacylated. Both the A58U and T54G mutated tRNA(Lys,3 )complemented HIV-1 replication similar to wild type E. coli tRNA(Lys,3). In contrast, the TG5453CC tRNA(Lys,3 )mutant did not complement replication. CONCLUSION: The results demonstrate that post-transcriptional modification of nucleotide 58 in tRNA(Lys,3 )is not essential for HIV-1 reverse transcription. In contrast, nucleotides 53 and 54 of tRNA(Lys,3 )are important for aminoacylation and selection and use of the tRNA(Lys,3 )in reverse transcription

Analysis of structural stability of human prosecretory mitogenic lacritin by circular dichroism

Purpose: Lacritin is a human tear glycoprotein that has high thermal stability. When cleaved, lacritin has antimicrobial activity resulting from the C-terminus amphipathic alpha helical region. The alpha helices contain three salt bridges; ionic bonds between neighboring oppositely charged amino acids. The purpose of this research was to investigate the hypothesis that the salt bridges within the alpha helices contribute to the high thermal stability. Methods: To determine the role of salt bridges in the thermal stability of lacritin, point mutants were prepared for each salt bridge by site directed mutagenesis that replaced the oppositely charged amino acids with serine. The point mutants were expressed in E. coli and purified. Western blot analysis confirmed the identity of lacritin proteins. Circular dichroism (CD) was used to study conformational changes in the secondary structure of these mutants compared to unaltered lacritin along with two controls, bovine serum albumin (BSA) and lysozyme. Data collected was analyzed with the alpha helix formula to determine the percent alpha helix structure at ten degree increments from 25-85⁰C, using poly-l-lysine as the standard. Results: The mutated proteins reacted with lacritin specific antibodies in Western blot analysis. Under thermal denaturation conditions, the control proteins both had a significant decrease in alpha helical structure while alpha helical structure of normal lacritin increased slightly. At 25⁰C, the mutants had 12-25% less alpha helix than unaltered lacritin. Increasing the temperature did not have a significant impact on alpha helix structure. Conclusions: The salt bridges play a role in formation of the alpha helices but not in overall thermal stability of lacritin

Initiatives in Anesthesia Workspace Hygiene During COVID-19: The Gray Airway Basin and the Epic Hand Hygiene Event

What’s the Problem? The COVID-19 Pandemic has highlighted the need for anesthesia providers to decrease workspace contamination, particularly during and after airway management. Delineation of “clean” and “dirty” spaces in the anesthesia workplace has been historically challenging, but the heightened awareness of microbial contamination presents a new opportunity to effect behavioral change among staff