From Moral Psychology to Methods Morale: How Studying Moral Obligation Turned into a Duty to Study Methods

Thesis advisor: Liane YoungThesis advisor: Hiram BrownellWhen (moral) psychologists make a claim (e.g., “Participants judged X as morally worse than Y”), how many participants are represented? Such claims are often based exclusively on group-level analyses; here, psychologists often fail to report, or perhaps even investigate, how many participants judged X as morally worse than Y. More troubling, group-level analyses do not necessarily generalize to the person-level. This dissertation first investigates a moral cognition hypothesis about the relation between perceptions of relationship obligations and moral evaluations of helping behavior. It is found that people, on average, judge agents who help strangers as more morally good than agents who help family members, but people also judge agents who help strangers instead of family members as less morally good than agents who help family members instead of strangers. Second, methodological issues with these studies are assessed, fixed, and thus the original psychological effect is retested with better experimental designs, measures, and analyses. Third, it is discovered that the moral cognition hypothesis consistently describes the psychology of only a minority of participants. Moreover, it is discovered that most psychologists misinterpret typical group-level analyses as revealing how prevalent a psychological phenomenon is. Finally, a set of simple and flexible methodological and statistical options are offered to better align typical psychological hypotheses with appropriate analyses, enabling researchers to confront this “group-to-person generalizability” problem in their own work.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Psychology

Acute effects of proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation on peak torque and muscle imbalance

Background: The effects of proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) stretching on muscle imbalance are not fully understood. The aim of this study was to examine the acute effects of PNF stretching on knee extension and flexion peak torque (PT), as well as the conventional and functional hamstrings to quadriceps (H:Q) ratios. Methods: Fifteen men (age = 22 ± 1 years; body mass = 76 ± 12 kg; height = 176 ± 7 cm) and fifteen women (age = 22 ± 2 years; body mass = 63 ± 8 kg; height = 161 ± 5 cm) performed concentric quadriceps and hamstrings, and eccentric hamstrings muscle actions at different angular velocities (60, 180, and 300 ◦ ·s −1 concentric; 60 and 180 ◦ ·s −1 eccentric) before and after a bout of PNF stretching, and a control condition. Results: Neither PNF or control conditions affected concentric PT or H:Q ratios (p \u3e 0.05), apart from knee extension at 60 ◦ ·s −1 in men (p = 0.001). However, there was a reduction in hamstrings eccentric PT in both control and PNF conditions for men and women (p = 0.003). Conclusions: PNF stretching of the hamstrings may not adversely affect the H:Q ratios, and consequently not negatively affect injury risk associated with muscular strength imbalances

Building Leadership Capacity: How One Massachusetts School District Facilitates and Sustains Teacher Growth

Thesis advisor: Lauri JohnsonDistrict leadership has been found to have a measurable effect on student achievement by creating conditions within which teachers and administrators frame their daily work with children. The superintendent is uniquely poised to build the needed infrastructure of support and assure its alignment with the philosophy and mission of the district and, in turn, with the work of the school. By attending to the habits and conditions that allow a staff to work as a unit, superintendents are able to contribute to the development of a community of professional learners within and among district schools. This qualitative case study analyzed district leadership practices that support ongoing teacher growth in a Massachusetts school district by examining the work of the superintendent and the impact of his leadership on the ongoing development of a community of professional learners at the district and school level. Data included interviews with teachers and administrators, artifact analyses, and observations of district meetings. Findings reveal the superintendent's use of a PLC process to model and provide support to school-level leaders by encouraging broad-based participation in the skillful work of leadership; establishing a clear vision which resulted in program coherence; fostering a system of inquiry-based accountability that informed decision making and practice; and nurturing organizational relationships that involved high district engagement and low bureaucratization which supported school-based collaborative teacher growth.Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2014.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education

Northern Monterey Bay upwelling shadow front : observations of a coastally and surface-trapped buoyant plume

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 114 (2009): C12013, doi:10.1029/2009JC005623.During the upwelling season in central California, northwesterly winds along the coast produce a strong upwelling jet that originates at Point Año Nuevo and flows southward across the mouth of Monterey Bay. A convergent front with a mean temperature change of 3.77 ± 0.29°C develops between the warm interior waters and the cold offshore upwelling jet. To examine the forcing mechanisms driving the location and movement of the upwelling shadow front and its effects on biological communities in northern Monterey Bay, oceanographic conditions were monitored using cross-shelf mooring arrays, drifters, and hydrographic surveys along a 20 km stretch of coast extending northwestward from Santa Cruz, California, during the upwelling season of 2007 (May–September). The alongshore location of the upwelling shadow front at the northern edge of the bay was driven by: regional wind forcing, through an alongshore pressure gradient; buoyancy forces due to the temperature change across the front; and local wind forcing (the diurnal sea breeze). The upwelling shadow front behaved as a surface-trapped buoyant current, which is superimposed on a poleward barotropic current, moving up and down the coast up to several kilometers each day. We surmise that the front is advected poleward by a preexisting northward barotropic current of 0.10 m s−1 that arises due to an alongshore pressure gradient caused by focused upwelling at Point Año Nuevo. The frontal circulation (onshore surface currents) breaks the typical two-dimensional wind-driven, cross-shelf circulation (offshore surface currents) and introduces another way for water, and the material it contains (e.g., pollutants, larvae), to go across the shelf toward shore.Funded primarily by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation

A common p73 polymorphism is associated with a reduced incidence of oesophageal carcinoma

The incidence of oesophageal adenocarcinoma is rising; to date, no susceptibility genes have been identified. p73, a novel p53 homologue, maps to chromosome 1p36, a region commonly deleted in oesophageal cancers. p73 shares some p53-like activity, but in addition, may also play a role in gastrointestinal epithelial inflammatory responses. A non-coding p73 polymorphism (denoted AT or GC) may be functionally significant. We investigated whether this polymorphism might play a role in the aetiopathogenesis of oesophageal cancer. This was a case–control, retrospective study. 84 cases of oesophageal cancer (25 squamous and 59 adenocarcinoma) and 152 normal population controls were genotyped for this polymorphism. Informative cases were examined for p73 LOH within the tumour. AT/AT homozygotes were significantly less prevalent in the oesophageal cancer population (1/84 = 1.2%) compared to controls (15/152 = 9.9%) (P < 0.02), corresponding to an odds ratio of 0.11 (95% C.I. 0.02–0.6, P < 0.02), or 9-fold reduced risk. Moreover, AT/AT homozygotes were significantly less frequent in the cancer population than would be expected under the Hardy–Weinberg hypothesis (P = 0.0099). LOH at the p73 locus was observed in 37.8% (14/37) of the AT/GC heterozygotes studied; in all cases there was loss of the AT allele. Our findings indicate that p73 AT/AT homozygotes appear to be protected against the development of oesophageal cancer. Clinically, this observation could have implications in aiding identification of high-risk Barrett's oesophagus patients.© 2001 Cancer Research Campaign  http://www.bjcancer.co

Interpreting and acting upon home blood pressure readings: A qualitative study

This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. Copyright @ 2013 Vasileiou et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background: Recent guidelines recognize the importance of home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) as an adjunct to clinical measurements. We explored how people who have purchased and use a home blood pressure (BP) monitor make sense of, and act upon, readings and how they communicate with their doctor about the practice of home monitoring. Methods: A qualitative study was designed and participants were purposively recruited from several areas in England, UK. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 18 users of home BP monitors. The transcribed data were thematically analysed. Results: Interpretation of home BP readings is complex, and is often characterised by uncertainty. People seek to assess value normality using ‘rules of thumb’, and often aim to identify the potential causes of the readings. This is done by drawing on lay models of BP function and by contextualising the readings to personal circumstances. Based on the perceived causes of the problematic readings, actions are initiated, mostly relating to changes in daily routines. Contacting the doctor was more likely when the problematic readings persisted and could not be easily explained, or when participants did not succeed in regulating their BP through their other interventions. Most users had notified their doctor of the practice of home monitoring, but medical involvement varied, with some participants reporting disinterest or reservations by doctors. Conclusions: Involvement from doctors can help people overcome difficulties and resolve uncertainties around the interpretation of home readings, and ensure that the rules of thumb are appropriate. Home monitoring can be used to strengthen the patient-clinician relationship

Challenges and opportunities for enhancing groundwater data access and usability in low- and middle-income countries: insights and recommendations from WaSH researchers and practitioners

Groundwater provides more than half of all water for drinking and irrigation worldwide. Monitoring and managing groundwater resources is essential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. However, groundwater resources need to be better monitored. We explored practical approaches to improve groundwater monitoring for informed decision-making, focusing on low- and middle-income country settings. Case studies from a 2023 UNC Water and Health Conference side event highlighted innovative approaches, including open-source data modeling, groundwater monitoring in humanitarian contexts, and using in situ sensors to monitor drought resilience. The case studies described field data integration, remote sensing, and technology (e.g., Modflow-USG, ModelMuse, Drought Resilience Impact Platform). Barriers to groundwater data use were identified by side event participants, including inadequate data access, insufficient collaboration and leadership, and challenges in integrating diverse data and technology. Side event recommendations included creating a central groundwater monitoring data repository, building greater hydrogeology capacity in the WaSH sector, and increasing funding for data collection and monitoring. We urge government leaders to develop regulations and build internal capacity for sustainable groundwater management. This comprehensive approach aims to address challenges and promote informed decision-making for the long-term sustainability of groundwater resources

Partial replacement of cement for waste aggregates in concrete coastal and marine infrastructure

The effects of climate change and an expanding human population are driving the need for the expansion of coastal and marine infrastructure (CMI), the development of which is introducing hard substrate into the marine environment on a previously unseen scale. Whilst the majority of previous research has focussed on how physical features affect intertidal macrobiotic communities, this study considered the effects of differences in the chemical composition of concrete on subtidal biofilm and macrobiotic communities. Two commonly used cement replacements, pulverised fly ash (PFA) and ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS), were used in a combination of proportions to assess how concrete tiles with differing surface chemistries affect development of early successional stages of marine biofouling communities. Controlled leaching experiments showed that although total metal leaching varied considerably between tile type, tiles containing GGBS resulted in statistically lower amounts of metal released compared with tiles containing PFA. Concrete treatment had no effect on the percentage cover or richness of diatoms, but there were significant increases in both over the duration of the experiment. Concrete treatments containing GGBS had a lower richness of native macro-fouling species compared to the control, but there was no significant difference in non-native species richness among treatments. Results suggest that different components can be used to alter the surface chemistry of concrete to further enhance the ecological value of CMI more than physical features can achieve alone