Those Without History: Recaptured Africans, American Free Blacks, and the US-Liberia Connection

This thesis explores the early history of the Republic of Liberia, paying particular attention to the role of recaptured Africans—African people being illegally transported by slavers to become slaves in the western hemisphere who were “re-captured” by the US Navy between 1819 and 1861—within that story. This piece engages with the establishment of the American Colonization Society, the creation of the American colony that would become Liberia, and the attempts to assimilate recaptives into Liberian culture. By examining why American free blacks (later known as “Americo-Liberians”) were sent to Liberia, and why recaptured Africans were incorporated into the country by those people, this thesis aimed to answer one central question: what can the history of recaptured Africans teach a historian about the connection between Liberia and the United States? This thesis argues that the Americo-Liberian drive to incorporate recaptured Africans into the country highlighted their belief in unavoidable ethnic and cultural differences, leading them to promote the idea that settler Liberians needed to “civilize” and “uplift” those they viewed as lacking cultural refinement. I contend that the impulse to integrate and assimilate Africans into Americo-Liberian culture—and Liberia itself—was connected to the American colonization supporters’ drive to separate free blacks from the US, because both of these mindsets were premised on a sense of cultural superiority aimed at those perceived as lesser beings. Additionally, this thesis highlights the importance of recaptured Africans within the early history of Liberia, showing that they helped initiate the start of the republic, made up a significant proportion of the laboring class in the nineteenth century, and were in many regards the most incorporated group of Africans in Liberia. This thesis highlights another link between the United States and its former colony, and that connection is significant for truly understanding the early history of Liberia.Bachelor of Art

Architectures of School Mathematics: Vernaculars of the Function Concept

This study focuses on the history of school mathematics through the discourse surrounding the function concept. The function concept has remained the central theme of school mathematics from the emergence of both obligatory schooling and the science of mathematics education. By understanding the scientific discourse of mathematics education as directly connected to larger issues of governance, technology, and industry, particular visions for students are described to highlight these connections. Descriptions from school mathematics focusing on expert curricular documents, developmental psychology, and district reform strategies, are meant to explain these different visions. Despite continued historical inquiry in mathematics education, few studies have offered connections between the specific style of mathematics idealized in schools, the learning theories that accompanied these, and larger societal and cultural shifts. In exploring new theoretical tools from the history of science and technology this study seeks to connect shifting logic from efforts towards rational organization of capitalist society with the logic of school mathematics across the discursive space. This study seeks to understand this relationship by examining the ideals evinced in the protocols of educational science. In order to explore these architectures, the science of mathematics education and psychology are examined alongside the practices in the New York City public schools--the largest school system in the nation. To do so, the discourse of the function concept was viewed as a set of connections between mathematical content, psychology, and larger district reform projects. Four architectures--the mechanical, thermodynamic, cybernetic, and network models--are examined

Modelling Welfare Transitions to Prioritise Sustainable Development Interventions in Coastal Kenya

Welfare transitions are weakly understood in sub-Saharan Africa due to limited panel data to analyze trajectories of household escaping from, falling into, or remaining out of deprivation. We model data from 3500 households in coastal Kenya in three panels from 2014 to 2016 to evaluate determinants of welfare by multidimensional and subjective measures. Findings indicate that more than half of the households are deprived, with female-headed households being the most vulnerable and making the least progress. The subjective welfare measure identified three times more chronically poor households than the multidimensional metric (27% vs. 9%); in contrast, the multidimensional metric estimated twice as many ‘never poor’ households than the subjective measure (39% vs. 16%). The ‘churning poor’ were broadly consistent for both measures at roughly half the sample. Four welfare priorities converged from modelling welfare transitions. Broadening access to secondary education and energy services, improving the reliability and proximity of drinking water services, and ending open defecation improve welfare outcomes. While the policy implications do not align neatly with Kenya’s national and county government mandates, we argue that prioritising fewer but targeted sustainable development goals may improve accountability, feasibility, and responsibility in delivery if informed by local priorities and political salience

Groundwater and Welfare: A Conceptual Framework Applied to Coastal Kenya

The links between groundwater and welfare are highly contested, unclear and confounded by political, environmental and economic factors. The lack of understanding of these links has wider implication on policies and strategies aimed at accelerating the sustainable development goals of safely-managed drinking water services and eradicating poverty. This study provides empirical evidence of the existing links between groundwater and poverty using welfare metrics versus productive uses of water, groundwater table depth, drinking water services and groundwater dependency with data obtained from a household socio-economic survey (n = 3349), a water audit of water infrastructure (n = 570) and volumetric usage from water data transmitters (n = 300). Results show that the bottom welfare households are characterized by greater dependency on shallow groundwater, less acceptable drinking water services by taste, reliability, affordability or accessibility but not quantity. Productive use of groundwater for livestock accrues to the middle welfare quintiles with the bottom and top welfare quintiles by choice or exclusion having little engagement. Groundwater productive uses, services and characteristics explain at least 17% of the variation in a households' welfare with productive uses particularly benefiting female headed households. These findings suggest that ancillary investments to improve affordability and reliability of rural water services will be needed to enhance welfare of the poor who depend on groundwater systems. Further, such knowledge of the relationships between water and welfare can support the formulation of policies and strategies aimed at poverty reduction, inclusive growth and access to safe water for all

A Cultural Theory of Drinking Water Risks, Values and Institutional Change

Global progress towards the goal of universal, safely managed drinking water services will be shaped by the dynamic relationship between water risks, values and institutions. We apply Mary Douglas’ cultural theory to rural waterpoint management and discuss its operationalisation in pluralist arrangements through networking different management cultures at scale. The theory is tested in coastal Kenya, an area that typifies the challenges faced across Africa in providing rural communities with safely managed water. Drawing on findings from a longitudinal study of 3500 households, we examine how different management cultures face and manage operational, financial, institutional and environmental risks. This paper makes the case for cooperative solutions across systems where current policy effectively separates communities from the state or markets. The contribution of this research is both a theoretical and empirical case to consider pluralist institutional arrangements that enable risks and responsibilities to be re-conceptualised and re-allocated between the state, market and communities to create value for rural water users

The endogenous preproglucagon system is not essential for gut growth homeostasis in mice

Objective: The prevalence of obesity and related co-morbidities is reaching pandemic proportions. Today, the most effective obesity treatments are glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) analogs and bariatric surgery. Interestingly, both intervention paradigms have been associated with adaptive growth responses in the gut; however, intestinotrophic mechanisms associated with or secondary to medical or surgical obesity therapies are poorly understood. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess the local basal endogenous and pharmacological intestinotrophic effects of glucagon-like peptides and bariatric surgery in mice. Methods: We used in situ hybridization to provide a detailed and comparative anatomical map of the local distribution of GLP-1 receptor (Glp1r), GLP-2 receptor (Glp2r), and preproglucagon (Gcg) mRNA expression throughout the mouse gastrointestinal tract. Gut development in GLP-1R-, GLP-2R-, or GCG-deficient mice was compared to their corresponding wild-type controls, and intestinotrophic effects of GLP-1 and GLP-2 analogs were assessed in wild-type mice. Lastly, gut volume was determined in a mouse model of vertical sleeve gastrectomy (VSG). Results: Comparison of Glp1r, Glp2r, and Gcg mRNA expression indicated a widespread, but distinct, distribution of these three transcripts throughout all compartments of the mouse gastrointestinal tract. While mice null for Glp1r or Gcg showed normal intestinal morphology, Glp2r−/− mice exhibited a slight reduction in small intestinal mucosa volume. Pharmacological treatment with GLP-1 and GLP-2 analogs significantly increased gut volume. In contrast, VSG surgery had no effect on intestinal morphology. Conclusion: The present study indicates that the endogenous preproglucagon system, exemplified by the entire GCG gene and the receptors for GLP-1 and GLP-2, does not play a major role in normal gut development in the mouse. Furthermore, elevation in local intestinal and circulating levels of GLP-1 and GLP-2 achieved after VSG has limited impact on intestinal morphometry. Hence, although exogenous treatment with GLP-1 and GLP-2 analogs enhances gut growth, the contributions of endogenously-secreted GLP-1 and GLP-2 to gut growth may be more modest and highly context-dependent

Simulation Modelling in Ophthalmology : Application to Cost Effectiveness of Ranibizumab and Aflibercept for the Treatment of Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration in the United Kingdom

Previously developed models in ophthalmology have generally used a Markovian structure. There are a number of limitations with this approach, most notably the ability to base patient outcomes on best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in both eyes, which may be overcome using a different modelling structure. Simulation modelling allows for this to be modelled more precisely, and therefore may provide more accurate and relevant estimates of the cost effectiveness of ophthalmology interventions