Phosphorus Cycling in the Ellison Park Wetland at the Mouth of Irondequoit Creek, Rochester, NY: A Case Study Evaluating the Movement of Phosphorus as it Transits a Coastal Wetland of Lake Ontario

The Ellison Park wetland complex lies at the head of Irondequoit Bay, a large embayment on the south shore of Lake Ontario near Rochester, NY. It receives water from the Irondequoit Creek watershed, which drains an area of 391 km2 of mixed land use. This is a mature, marsh wetland with some locations encompassing riparian wetland characteristics. This project was developed to answer three objectives: what role hydrology plays in phosphorus (P) removal efficiency of the Ellison Park Wetland complex; what role sediments play in the retention or release of P; and the possibility of predicting P discharge from the Ellison Park Wetland into Irondequoit Bay. The results for soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) and total phosphorus (TP) show values in stream and wetland water samples during baseflow event periods ranging from 5.01 to 10.87 µg L-1 for SRP and 22.73 to 88.67 µg L-1 for TP. Stormflow event water samples are typically at higher concentrations ranging from 6.24 to 9.300 µg L-1 for SRP and 46.65 to 428.33 µg L-1 for TP. The SRP and TP values give evidence that hydrologic event type plays a significant role in the quantity of P in Irondequoit Creek and its removal efficiency by Ellison Park. In addition, data suggests the direction of P flux in Ellison Park moves from the wetland sediments to the depleted water column; a result of historical nutrient loading. Modeling of TP data produced prediction errors of less than 5%, suggesting that Ellison Park tends to react in a predictable manner when regarding TP data in relation to hydrologic event type

Effects of Social Context on Women’s Political Engagement: Evidence from Focus Group Experiments in Tanzania

Both theory and policy experts have sought to understand how norms around women’s political participation may shift. This dissertation provides evidence that the engagement of women can be affected by social contexts at the micro-level. Through two randomized field experiments, I show that the social referents who are present during a discussion about women and gender culture in Tanzania have a significant impact, not only in how those topics are discussed, but also on the behavior of the subjects with regards to women’s political participation. Between these two experiments, I conducted over 400 total focus groups in both rural and urban Tanzania. The treatment in each varied the relationship of the people present in order to measure the effects of social context. In the first paper, I show evidence that norms are a connecting link between attitudes and behaviors. Those norms may be demonstrated by novel discussion of the topic, or a conversation with a previously silent majority. I look at the effect of such discussions within primary social groups, the most basic social units. I conducted a randomized field experiment in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to understand how attitudes and behaviors might change with exposure to the opinions of friends and family. I used 348 focus groups made up of either the subjects\u27 friends, or their family members to test the heterogeneous effects of these groups. In this factorial design, half of the focus groups, in both family and peer conditions, discussed female representation and other gender norms in Tanzania. The other half discussed general questions of politics and culture in Tanzania. Via survey instrument and behavioral outcomes, I then measured their attitudes towards a number of gender norms using metrics common in the discipline. I found that while attitudes largely were progressive and unaffected by treatment, measures of behavior changed when respondents talked about these gender norms, particularly when they talked about those topics with friends. My research provides evidence that when a person observes that their existing attitudes match a newly revealed norm of their primary focus group, the cost of the behavior is reduced and the person is able to express their attitudes through behavior. The second paper explores patterns within the data to understand what social forces may be driving these effects. I build on the analysis of the first chapter and incorporate a rich data set collected during that experiment to explore possible explanations for the heterogeneous effects of the previous paper. I will show that even when the norms among family members and friends are similar to each other, the ways in which those norms are communicated, and the dynamics within that communication can cause heterogeneous effects between the two groups. The final paper in the dissertation considers how the presence of a white foreigner influences how women discuss gender issues in Tanzania. In this experiment, I varied the presence of a white, female researcher in 80 focus groups in rural Tanzania. This design allows me to estimate the average effects of the foreign researchers’ presence by comparing relative levels of engagement with the focus group questions given across the focus groups. I find that focus groups with a white researcher present had longer discussions, particularly on questions about gender and culture. These questions are ones in which the gender and foreignness of the researcher would be more salient. In some cases, these results suggest that data collected in the presence of a conspicuously foreign researcher might be more thorough than in the absence of such. However, the information may also be pandering to the perceived values of the researcher, making some types of data less reliable. In either case the project underlines the importance of considering the measurer, not just the measurement, especially on topics with evolving or sensitive norms such as gender

An Historical Account of the International Assembly

Summarizes the history of the International Assembly

The need for medical education reform: genomics and the changing nature of health information

No course in genetics can prepare the practicing physician to interpret whole-genome data. We argue that genetics is a microcosm of the changing dynamics of the practice of medicine. It illustrates the perfect storm of exponential increases in raw data with undetermined clinical relevance, ease of access to large amounts of data via the internet and shifting expectations of the doctor-patient relationship and the very mechanisms of health care delivery. Educational reform is needed across the continuum of medical education, from the student to the faculty training them, and requires a shift in focus from factual knowledge to data management and interpretation

Una Faccia, Una Razza? Citizenship and the culture of fascist empire in the Dodecanese Islands

How did Italy imagine its ‘Greek’ occupied territories of the inter-war period? This paper takes the Dodecanese Islands as its privileged site for discovering the Fascist regime’s attitudes toward its nonAfrican but, nonetheless, colonially occupied subjects of the Mediterranean—subjects who may have been the same in face, but were different in race. It examines the creation of a special form of citizenship, cittadinanza egea italiana, as a political instrument to encourage imperial loyalty and to initiate a project of cultural, but also ethnic, transformation in the islands. By examining in particular how Fascist Italy made use of the Second Treaty of Lausanne (1923), when integrating Dodecanese subjects as Italian nationals, the paper shows how Fascist governance’s struggle to establish hierarchies and racial differences between Italians and its occupied subjects in the eastern Mediterranean never reached a satisfactory resolution and eventually gave way to Anti-Semitic policies and a hardline approach to colonial occupation.Publisher PD

Bringing the empire home : Italian fascism’s Mediterranean tour of Rhodes

From 1912 until World War II, Italy occupied Rhodes and thirteen other islands in the Southeast Aegean as part of its territorial expansion. In comparison with Italian colonies in Africa the islands have received significantly less historical and critical attention. This article brings the Southeast Aegean into the light and into dialogue with ongoing debates about Italy’s colonial past. I argue that the islands offer an important lens onto the relationship between overseas expansion and the remaking of Italian national identity at home. The essay reconstructs a massive project to reinvent the port of Rhodes as an upscale resort town of cultural attraction for Italian and European tourists. It describes how the urban renovation of Rhodes was marked simultaneously by the desire to modernize the island and by the desire to preserve, embellish and celebrate the exotic setting of the island. Analyzing architecture, urban planning, touring propaganda, and representations of the local community in photography and film, the article illuminates Italian fantasies of recuperating cosmopolitan histories through Mediterranean colonial tourism. At the same time, these fantasies evolved over time. The articles tracks an unresolvable ambivalence about whether the islands were “Western” or “Eastern”—part of metropolitan Italy or part of its overseas expansion—and its ideological challenge to the Fascist ideas about nation and race.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Seasonal Dynamics of Lipid Metabolism and Energy Storage in the Brazilian Free-Tailed Bat

As small, flying, mammalian endotherms, insectivorous bats are adapted to operate at high levels of energy expenditure. In response to seasonally variable challenges, we predicted that bats should balance energy budgets by flexibly adjusting aspects of their physiology or behavior in ways that elevate metabolic capacity. We examined variation in energy storage and pathways for oxidative metabolism in Brazilian free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) related to estimated costs associated with reproduction and migration. We collected pectoral muscle and liver from female T. brasiliensis at six time points during the summer and fall and measured changes in the activity of four enzymes involved with lipid metabolism. Body mass varied substantially with life-cycle stage, suggesting that rapid accumulation and use of fat stores occurs in response to current and anticipated energy demands. Catabolic enzyme activity (carnitine palmitoyltransferase [CPT], 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase [HOAD], and citrate synthase [CS]) in the muscle was increased during lactation compared with early pregnancy but exhibited no change before fall migration. While there was no temporal change in lipid biosynthetic capacity in the liver, fatty acid synthase activity was negatively correlated with body mass. Variation in body mass and enzyme activity in T. brasiliensis during the summer suggests that stored energy is mobilized and lipid oxidative capacity is increased during periods of increased demand and that lipid biosynthetic capacity is increased with depletion of fat stores. These results suggest that bats are able to flexibly adjust metabolic capacity based on energy requirement to maintain energy balance despite high levels of expenditure

Mizzou Missteps

By denying that issues of bias and mistreatment exist and then confronting such issues with disdain, some White Americans enable injustice and abet systems of oppression. Black students at the University of Missouri in fall 2015 had seen this narrative ring true several times. The resulting events, including protests, a hunger strike, and several administrator resignations, cast light on the experience of black students at Mizzou through nationwide media coverage. This case study examines three opportunities turned missteps of administrators that exacerbated an already charged, contentious environment: the president’s refusal to acknowledge protestors at a homecoming parade, a too-little-too-late meeting with stakeholders, and the impacts of the football team’s involvement. In a country whose everyday population growth is 90 percent non-white, a greater awareness of the racial inclusion work needed on college campuses today is necessary. I hope my narrative heightens this awareness

Hemodynamic Instability during Dialysis:The Potential Role of Intradialytic Exercise

Acute haemodynamic instability is a natural consequence of disordered cardiovascular physiology during haemodialysis (HD). Prevalence of intradialytic hypotension (IDH) can be as high as 20–30%, contributing to subclinical, transient myocardial ischemia. In the long term, this results in progressive, maladaptive cardiac remodeling and impairment of left ventricular function. This is thought to be a major contributor to increased cardiovascular mortality in end stage renal disease (ESRD). Medical strategies to acutely attenuate haemodynamic instability during HD are suboptimal. Whilst a programme of intradialytic exercise training appears to facilitate numerous chronic adaptations, little is known of the acute physiological response to this type of exercise. In particular, the potential for intradialytic exercise to acutely stabilise cardiovascular hemodynamics, thus preventing IDH and myocardial ischemia, has not been explored. This narrative review aims to summarise the characteristics and causes of acute haemodynamic instability during HD, with an overview of current medical therapies to treat IDH. Moreover, we discuss the acute physiological response to intradialytic exercise with a view to determining the potential for this nonmedical intervention to stabilise cardiovascular haemodynamics during HD, improve coronary perfusion, and reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in ESRD