Essays on Subjective Well-Being: Applications in International Migration, Poverty Alleviation Programs, and Inequality of Opportunity

This dissertation examines questions pertaining to international migration, participation in poverty alleviation programs, and inequality of opportunity using a subjective well-being approach. The theoretical objective of this dissertation is two-fold - (i) to examine subjective well-being as a factor that induces individuals to make critical decisions and (ii) to examine whether seeking agency or a better life affects subjective well-being. Chapter 1 examines the effect of life satisfaction on intention to migrate abroad using survey data on 18 Latin American countries. Three key findings emerge that support life satisfaction as a significant driver of intention to migrate abroad. First, the findings suggest that reporting high life satisfaction is negatively associated with intention to migrate abroad controlling for education and other background factors. Second, I find a consistently negative and significant effect of the interaction between high life satisfaction and education suggesting that more educated individuals reporting high life satisfaction are less likely to consider migrating abroad as compared to more educated individuals reporting low life satisfaction. And third, even after controlling for relative deprivation the negative effect of the high life satisfaction and education interaction term on intention to migrate abroad remains statistically significant suggesting that international migration decisions of those with higher education are not solely driven by economic motives. In addition, I find that those who are highly educated (college and higher) are more likely to consider migrating abroad, controlling for life satisfaction and relative deprivation, mainly due to weak economic outlook of and low wages in the home country. Chapter 2 uses non-experimental regression models and quasi-experimental propensity score matching models to examine the effect of being a recipient of livelihood protecting in-kind social transfers and livelihood promoting microfinance on subjective and objective economic well-being. I find that being a microfinance recipient has significant positive effect on subjective economic well-being of the very poor households. This implies that being a recipient of livelihood promoting poverty alleviation programs makes poor households "feel less poor". Further, being a microfinance recipient also has a significant positive effect on the consumption or objective economic well-being of the very poor households. Disaggregating the positive effect on consumption reveals that being a microfinance recipient significantly increases human capital development expenditures, particularly education and health. In contrast, there is a significant negative effect on the subjective economic well-being of recipients of livelihood protecting social transfers, but the effect does not hold for households that are very poor. Therefore, there is seemingly a stigma associated with receiving social transfers. Contrary to expectation, being a social transfers recipient has a negative effect on consumption, which is possibly due to a substitution effect. Chapter 3 uses the Human Opportunity Index (HOI) to measure the degree of inequality of opportunity for rural-urban migrant children as compared to urban and rural children in China. I find that migrant children face significantly more inequality of opportunity in basic opportunities as compared to their urban and rural counterparts. Specifically, they experience high levels of inequality of opportunity in education and in basic services such as water and sanitation. With respect to completing primary education on time, only about half of all opportunities needed to ensure universal access are both available and allocated equitably for migrant children as compared to urban and rural children. Similarly, for water and sanitation, opportunities available and equitably distributed are significantly less for migrant children as compared to urban and rural children. Further, within the sub-group of migrants, recent migrants, that is, those who have been residing in the urban area for less than three years are worse-off when compared to migrants who have lived in the city for longer periods of time. Testing the association between migrant childrens' HOI and the subjective well-being of their households suggests that an increase in the HOI is positively and significantly associated with household well-being measured in terms of subjective standard of living and feelings of upward mobility. This implies that improving the outcomes for migrant children could be a policy tool for improving the well-being of migrant households

Synthesis and characterization of biotin derivatives as multifunctional oligosaccharide tags

The synthesis of novel multifunctional oligosaccharide tags with amino, azido, and alkyne termini is described. Tags with an amino terminus can be introduced into the carbohydrate at the reducing end through reductive amination, while 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition (“click chemistry”) can be used to label azido sugars with oligosaccharide tags having an alkyne terminus and vice versa

Black urine due to urobilinogen in a patient with alcoholic pellagra.

OBJECTIVES: Systemic exposure to drugs, chemicals and foods can cause abnormally colored urine. Food exposures are typically benign, but urine discoloration due to chemicals or drugs may indicate a potentially dangerous condition. Discolored urine can also be caused by medical problems. This brief report reviews the laboratory findings leading to lactic acidosis and elevated urine urobilinogen in an alcoholic patient with pellagra. DESIGN AND METHODS: A 66-year-old male, found unconscious in his hotel room, was brought to the emergency department (ED). Upon arrival he had hypothermia, a diffuse rash and altered mental status. During ED evaluation, a urinary catheter was placed and demonstrated black urine. Medical history noted chronic alcoholism, malnutrition, and poor self-care. RESULTS: Evaluation in the hospital suggested that his rash and neurologic changes were a result of malnutrition and vitamin deficiency. A thorough biochemical workup demonstrated that elevated urobilinogen was likely causing the patient's black urine. Serum niacin concentration was undetectable. His dermatitis improved with multivitamins, thiamine, and niacin as well as topical steroids. His mental status returned to baseline and he was discharged to a skilled nursing facility following a brief hospital stay. CONCLUSIONS: The patient's abnormal laboratory results were explained by his alcoholism and poor nutrition. Furthermore, urine color returned to normal with decreased concentration of urobilinogen, after vitamin supplementation and supportive medical care

Liquid chromatography high-resolution TOF analysis: investigation of MSE for broad-spectrum drug screening.

BackgroundHigh-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) has the potential to supplement other drug screening platforms used in toxicology laboratories. HRMS offers high analytical specificity, which can be further enhanced by incorporating a fragment ion for each analyte. The ability to obtain precursor ions and fragment ions using elevated collision energies (MS(E)) can help improve the specificity of HRMS methods.MethodsWe developed a broad-spectrum screening method on an ultraperformance liquid chromatography TOF mass spectrometer (UPLC-TOF-MS) using the MS(E) mode. A diverse set of patient samples were subjected to a simple dilute, hydrolyze, and shoot protocol and analyzed in a blind manner. Data were processed with 3 sets of criteria with increasing stringency, and the results were compared with the reference laboratory results.ResultsA combination of retention time match (±0.2 min), a protonated analyte, and fragment ion mass accuracy of ±5 ppm produced zero false-positive results. Using these criteria, we confirmed 92% (253/275) of true positives. The positive confirmation rate increased to 98% (270/275) when the requirement for a fragment ion was dropped, but also produced 53 false positives. A total of 136 additional positive drug findings not identified by the reference methods were identified with the UPLC-TOF-MS.ConclusionsMS(E) provides a unique way to incorporate fragment ion information without the need of precursor ion selection. A primary limitation of requiring a fragment ion for positive identification was that certain drug classes required high-energy collisions, which formed many fragment ions of low abundance that were not readily detected

Readmission Prediction for Diabetic Patients: A Scalable Big Data Approach for Resource-Constrained Hospitals

Hospital readmissions, particularly among diabetic patients, place a significant burden on healthcare systems by increasing operational costs and straining limited resources. This project presents a scalable, cloud-based solution that leverages machine learning and big data analytics to predict 30-day hospital readmissions. Utilizing a ten-year dataset of over 100,000 patient records, we implemented a Random Forest classifier trained on clinical, demographic, and hospitalization data. The system architecture integrates Google Cloud Platform services—including BigQuery, Vertex AI, and Looker Studio—with a custom Python/Flask web application for real-time data input and inference. Data preprocessing and feature engineering were conducted in Vertex AI Workbench, enabling the transformation of raw medical records into model-ready formats. Our deployed model achieves high accuracy and supports prediction through a REST API endpoint, with interactive dashboards providing actionable insights to healthcare providers. The project demonstrates the potential of artificial intelligence to support proactive care management and reduce hospital readmissions, while laying the groundwork for automated retraining pipelines to accommodate evolving patient data

Effect of reliable electricity on health facilities, health information, and child and maternal health services utilization: evidence from rural Gujarat, India

Background: Reliable basic infrastructure, particularly electricity, is a critical enabling factor in improving health systems and consequently achieving the health sustainable development goals (SDGs). Yet, there is no systematic and rigorous study examining the effect of reliable electricity on health systems in a developing country context. In this study, we examine the effect of Jyotigram Yojana (JGY), a rural electrification program providing 24-h electricity to rural non-agricultural users in Gujarat, India, on core components of health systems including health facilities, health information, and health services utilization. Methods: We match data from the District Level Household and Facility Survey (DLHS-II and DLHS-III) and administrative data from electricity distribution companies on JGY implementation. Matching survey data with administrative data allows us to precisely identify the relevant sample from Gujarat for our data analysis. We then apply a difference-in-differences framework to address potential bias in JGY implementation by comparing the sample from Gujarat (treatment group) with that from Maharashtra (control group). Our key independent variable is a dummy indicating JGY implementation, which operationalizes access to reliable electricity. It takes value 1 if the PHC/eligible woman/child is located or residing in the state of Gujarat and 0 if located or residing in the state of Maharashtra. Our outcome variables cover three core components of health systems\u2014health facilities, health information, and child and maternal health services utilization. Each outcome is a binary variable. We therefore estimate probit models with appropriate control variables. Results: We find that JGY implementation significantly improved the operational capacity of health facilities, in particular primary health centers (PHCs), by increasing the availability and functionality of a wide range of essential devices and equipment. JGY also significantly increased access to health information through television. Further, JGY increased utilization of health services; in particular, it increased the probability of children receiving critical vaccinations and pregnant women receiving antenatal care. Our results are robust to alternate specifications and analysis using alternate data. Conclusion: Reliable electricity can be an effective tool in improving core components of health systems. In addition to targeting direct factors within the health systems such as health workforce and health financing, investments in supporting infrastructure are warranted to achieve the health SDGs

Conceptualizing Effective Social Policy Design: Design Spaces And Capacity Challenges

This article addresses the rise of design thinking and its problematics in the social policy sphere. In particular, it argues that studies of social policy design, like all design work in policymaking, must differentiate more carefully between technical and political considerations in public policymaking and examine the implications each process has for the content of social policy design, its implementation, and its prospects of success or failure. The article develops a model of social policy formulation spaces based on the extent to which policies are intended to address technical or political problems and a government’s capacity to engage in policy analysis and alternative assessment. This model is applied in the articles in this special issue to help understand the patterns of policy content and outcome success and failure found in this sector across multiple jurisdictions and issue areas.

Focus on environmental risks and migration: causes and consequences

Environmental change poses risks to societies, including disrupting social and economic systems such as migration. At the same time, migration is an effective adaptation to environmental and other risks. We review novel science on interactions between migration, environmental risks and climate change. We highlight emergent findings, including how dominant flows of rural to urban migration mean that populations are exposed to new risks within destination areas and the requirement for urban sustainability. We highlight the issue of lack of mobility as a major issue limiting the effectiveness of migration as an adaptation strategy and leading to potentially trapped populations. The paper presents scenarios of future migration that show both displacement and trapped populations over the incoming decades. Papers in the special issue bring new insights from demography, human geography, political science and environmental science to this emerging field

Demographic data for urinary Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) marker [IGFBP7]·[TIMP2] reference range determinations.

This data in brief describes characteristics of chronic stable comorbid patients who were included in reference range studies of [IGFBP7]·[TIMP-2] "Reference Intervals of Urinary Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) Markers [IGFBP7]·[TIMP2] in Apparently Healthy Subjects and Chronic Comorbid Subjects without AKI" [1]. In order to determine the specificity of [IGFBP7]·[TIMP-2] for identifying patients at risk of developing AKI we studied a cohort with nine broad classification of disease who did not have AKI. Details regarding the population that was targeted for inclusion in the study are also described. Finally, we present data on the inclusion criteria for the healthy subjects used in this investigation to determine the reference range