Testing a public health orientation to climate adaptation planning

Thesis: Ph. D. in Environmental Planning and Public Policy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2018.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references.Current urban climate adaptation planning efforts tend to focus on protecting a city's physical assets from potential climate-related disasters, with an increasing emphasis on enhancing resilience, or building places that can absorb and withstand climatic shocks. Scholars and practitioners have critiqued climate adaptation planning's current focus on protecting physical assets, pointing out that adaptation plans rarely incorporate equity or social vulnerability. Consequently, calls have emerged for climate adaptation planning to focus on human vulnerabilities instead. To that end, my dissertation probes why and how the health impacts of climate change should be given a more prominent role in climate adaptation planning efforts. In reality, to structure the conversation around climate change to be about public health, cities will need new approaches to enhance public awareness of and facilitate engagement with climate risk management choices. Responding to calls for research on ways for cities to operationalize a focus on the health impacts of climate change, my dissertation project tested three methods of engaging citizens in public health-oriented climate adaptation planning. I find that cities have much to gain from framing climate change as a public health issue, as it boosts public concern about the severity of the problem and builds public support for policy action. I also find that serious games enhance awareness of local climate-related health risks and collective decision-making capacities, and argue that cities should utilize face-to-face and digital game-based engagement in climate adaptation planning efforts. My dissertation concludes with recommendations for cities on how to use a variety of public engagement methods to create pathways for envisioning local preferences in climate adaptation planning. This dissertation engages with and contributes to three areas of theory and practice. First, the dissertation examines the proposed normative and pragmatic benefits of cities adopting a public health orientation to climate adaptation planning. Second, the dissertation presents new tools for cities to enhance public awareness of and facilitate engagement with climate risk management choices. Finally, the dissertation project considers planners' roles in science-intensive planning and policymaking processes, in particular, through addressing the unique challenges to enhancing public engagement around climate change. Furthermore, it examines how planners can foster collective decision-making capacities among different publics, and ultimately, enable technically sound and politically feasible responses by individuals and communities to adapt to climate change.by Ella Jisun Kim.Ph. D. in Environmental Planning and Public Polic

Targeting the translational machinery in aggressive cancers

Eukaryotic initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) is a key focus in cancer research due to its central role in controlling the translation of tumour-associated proteins that drive an aggressive migratory phenotype. eIF4E activity, modulated via its availability and phosphorylation are regulated by the PI3K/AKT/mTOR and mitogen-activated protein kinase interacting protein kinases (MNK1/2). The latter phosphorylates eIF4E on Ser209 whereas mTORC1 phosphorylates and de-activates the eIF4E inhibitor, 4E-BP1, to release translational repression. The work presented here describes the synthesis and characterisation of 4-((4- fluoro-2-isopropoxyphenyl)amino)-5-methyl thieno[2,3-d] pyrimidine-6- carboylic acid, known as compound 1, a MNK1/2 inhibitor. Further analysis of compound 1 in combination with mTORC1/2 inhibitors show that inhibiting these pathways simultaneously effectively slows the rate of cell migration in MDA-MB-231 triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells. As an alternative approach, novel, cleavable dual MNK1/2 and PI3K/mTOR inhibiting hybrids were synthesised and characterised in MDA-MB-231 cells. These were found to be less effective at slowing cell migration than the combination of individual inhibitors. Molecular modelling of compound 1 revealed a large hydrophobic pocket which was exploited with a bulkier ferrocene group. Two novel ferrocene-containing compounds based upon compound 1 were synthesised and screened for MNK1/2 inhibition. To target migration more specifically, work was also carried out with an alternative translational protein, DDX3X. Both genetic knockdown and pharmacological inhibition alone and in combination with compound 1 reveal its potential as an anti-cancer target

Personal Vehicles Evaluated against Climate Change Mitigation Targets

Meeting global climate change mitigation goals will likely require that transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions begin to decline within the next two decades and then continue to fall. A variety of vehicle technologies and fuels are commercially available to consumers today that can reduce the emissions of the transportation sector. Yet what are the best options, and do any suffice to meet climate policy targets? Here, we examine the costs and carbon intensities of 125 light-duty vehicle models on the U.S. market today and evaluate these models against U.S. emission-reduction targets for 2030, 2040, and 2050 that are compatible with the goal of limiting mean global temperature rise to 2 °C above preindustrial levels. Our results show that consumers are not required to pay more for a low-carbon-emitting vehicle. Across the diverse set of vehicle models and powertrain technologies examined, a clean vehicle is usually a low-cost vehicle. Although the average carbon intensity of vehicles sold in 2014 exceeds the climate target for 2030 by more than 50%, we find that most hybrid and battery electric vehicles available today meet this target. By 2050, only electric vehicles supplied with almost completely carbon-free electric power are expected to meet climate-policy targets

Nanoscale imaging of equilibrium quantum Hall edge currents and of the magnetic monopole response in graphene

The recently predicted topological magnetoelectric effect and the response to an electric charge that mimics an induced mirror magnetic monopole are fundamental attributes of topological states of matter with broken time reversal symmetry. Using a SQUID-on-tip, acting simultaneously as a tunable scanning electric charge and as ultrasensitive nanoscale magnetometer, we induce and directly image the microscopic currents generating the magnetic monopole response in a graphene quantum Hall electron system. We find a rich and complex nonlinear behavior governed by coexistence of topological and nontopological equilibrium currents that is not captured by the monopole models. Furthermore, by utilizing a tuning fork that induces nanoscale vibrations of the SQUID-on-tip, we directly image the equilibrium currents of individual quantum Hall edge states for the first time. We reveal that the edge states that are commonly assumed to carry only a chiral downstream current, in fact carry a pair of counterpropagating currents, in which the topological downstream current in the incompressible region is always counterbalanced by heretofore unobserved nontopological upstream current flowing in the adjacent compressible region. The intricate patterns of the counterpropagating equilibrium-state orbital currents provide new insights into the microscopic origins of the topological and nontopological charge and energy flow in quantum Hall systems

Mutant p53 proteins bind DNA in a DNA structure-selective mode

Despite the loss of sequence-specific DNA binding, mutant p53 (mutp53) proteins can induce or repress transcription of mutp53-specific target genes. To date, the molecular basis for transcriptional modulation by mutp53 is not understood, but increasing evidence points to the possibility that specific interactions of mutp53 with DNA play an important role. So far, the lack of a common denominator for mutp53 DNA binding, i.e. the existence of common sequence elements, has hampered further characterization of mutp53 DNA binding. Emanating from our previous discovery that DNA structure is an important determinant of wild-type p53 (wtp53) DNA binding, we analyzed the binding of various mutp53 proteins to oligonucleotides mimicking non-B DNA structures. Using various DNA-binding assays we show that mutp53 proteins bind selectively and with high affinity to non-B DNA. In contrast to sequence-specific and DNA structure-dependent binding of wtp53, mutp53 DNA binding to non-B DNA is solely dependent on the stereo-specific configuration of the DNA, and not on DNA sequence. We propose that DNA structure-selective binding of mutp53 proteins is the basis for the well-documented interaction of mutp53 with MAR elements and for transcriptional activities mediates by mutp53

Investigation of risk-aware MDP and POMDP contingency management autonomy for UAS

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are being increasingly adopted for various applications. The risk UAS poses to people and property must be kept to acceptable levels. This paper proposes risk-aware contingency management autonomy to prevent an accident in the event of component malfunction, specifically propulsion unit failure and/or battery degradation. The proposed autonomy is modeled as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) whose solution is a contingency management policy that appropriately executes emergency landing, flight termination or continuation of planned flight actions. Motivated by the potential for errors in fault/failure indicators, partial observability of the MDP state space is investigated. The performance of optimal policies is analyzed over varying observability conditions in a high-fidelity simulator. Results indicate that both partially observable MDP (POMDP) and maximum a posteriori MDP policies performed similarly over different state observability criteria, given the nearly deterministic state transition model

Impact of skeletal heterogeneity and treatment method on interpretation of environmental variability from the proteinaceous skeletons of deep-sea gorgonian octocorals

The stable isotope geochemistry of gorgonian octocoral skeletons facilitates detailed time series reconstructions of nutrient biogeochemistry. However, comparisons among reconstructions from different locations require realistic estimates of the uncertainty surrounding each measured geochemical value. Here, we determine quantitative uncertainties related to 1) standard skeletal pretreatment in preparation for stable isotopic analysis and 2) biological variability associated with a heterogeneous isotopic composition of the gorgonin skeleton. We found that the 5% HCl pretreatment required for the δ13C measurements does not significantly impact the δ15N values of the skeleton nor the reproducibility of the δ15N measurements. In contrast, while 5% HCl pretreatment significantly altered bulk δ13C values via removal of CaCO3, it did not change amino acid δ13C values in the organic skeleton. We found that the variance of repeat measurements of skeleton samples formed contemporaneously and homogenized skeleton for both δ13C and δ15N exceeded that of instrumental uncertainty of an acetanilide standard. This indicates that instrumental uncertainty underestimates the true precision of an isotopic measurement of the organic skeleton. Furthermore, measurements of contemporaneous skeleton around the circumference of an octocoral colony yielded variability exceeding that of homogenized skeleton. Based on these results, we find that 1) both δ13C and δ15N values can be measured simultaneously in pretreated skeleton, 2) growth bands should be homogenized prior to analysis, and 3) reported error should include uncertainty due to biological effects determined from repeat analysis of homogenized skeleton and not just instrument error to reduce false significant differences. Our results present an important protocol for processing proteinaceous octocoral skeletons and propagating uncertainty to more accurately reconstruct nutrient dynamics from proteinaceous deep-sea octocoral skeletons

MODIFYING METADATA BASED ON A RECEIVED GESTURE

A metadata modification system can be used to modify metadata associated with one or more products displayed at a display screen. The system presents the metadata associated with one or more products at the display screen of the electronic device. The system receives a gesture from a user at the display screen. The system modifies the metadata associated with one or more products based on the received gesture from the user

Visualized Automatic Feedback in Virtual Teams

Management of effort is one of the biggest challenges in any team, and is particularly difficult in distributed teams, where behavior is relatively invisible to teammates. Awareness systems, which provide real-time visual feedback about team members’ behavior, may serve as an effective intervention tool for mitigating various sources of process-loss in teams, including team effort. However, most of the research on visualization tools has been focusing on team communication and learning, and their impact on team effort and consequently team performance has been hardly studied. Furthermore, this line of research has rarely addressed the way visualization tool may interact with team composition, while comprehension of this interaction may facilitate a conceptualization of more effective interventions. In this article we review the research on feedback in distributed teams and integrate it with the research on awareness systems. Focusing on team effort, we examine the effect of an effort visualization tool on team performance in 72 geographically distributed virtual project teams. In addition, we test the moderating effect of team composition, specifically team members’ conscientiousness, on the effectiveness of the effort visualization tool. Our findings demonstrate that the effort visualization tool increases team effort and improves the performance in teams with a low proportion of highly conscientious members, but not in teams with a high proportion of highly conscientious members. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings, and suggest the need of future research to address the way technological advances may contribute to management and research of team processes

Generalizing the Wythoff Array and other Fibonacci Facts to Tribonacci Numbers

In this paper, we generalize a lot of facts from John Conway and Alex Ryba's paper, \textit{The extra Fibonacci series and the Empire State Building}, where we replace the Fibonacci sequence with the Tribonacci sequence. We study the Tribonacci array, which we also call \textit{the Trithoff array} to emphasize the connection to the Wythoff array. We describe 13 new sequences.Comment: 28 pages, 5 table