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Background: Tissue non-specific alkaline phosphatase (TNAP) is an enzyme which functions within the body to catalyze the hydrolysis of pyrophosphate to phosphate, and is a well-known mediator of bone mineralization. It has also been identified as a positive mediator of intracellular lipid accumulation (ICLA) in both murine and human preadipocytes as well as in the hepatocellular cell line HepG2. However, the mechanism through which TNAP functions to control ICLA is not known. Both osteoblasts and adipocytes are both of mesenchymal origin and thus may share conserved mechanisms through which TNAP functions. Within bone, TNAP converts pyrophosphate (which inhibits mineralization) to phosphate. This phosphate is essential to the mineralization process through binding to hydroxyapatite crystals, and it also activates the transcription of genes whose products function in osteoblast differentiation, including NRF2. This thesis therefore aimed to determine the role of both pyrophosphate and TNAP-generated phosphate in ICLA. In addition, it is possible that TNAP may interact with other proteins, as it is known that TNAP is able to dephosphorylate proteins such as tau. This thesis therefore aimed to determine whether TNAP binds to other proteins in the context of ICLA. Lipids are not only stored within hepatocytes and adipocytes, but are also found in cells of the adrenal cortex, and TNAP is known to be expressed within such cells. Therefore, this thesis also aimed to determine whether TNAP is involved in the accumulation of cholesterol esters within lipid droplets in the adrenal cortex. Methods: To determine the effect of high intracellular pyrophosphate levels on ICLA, 3T3-L1 cells (a preadipocyte cell line) were cultured in the presence and absence of probenecid, an inhibitor of the pyrophosphate transporter ANK, and induced to accumulate lipids. Lipid accumulation was monitored through Oil red O staining. The effect of probenecid treatment on TNAP activity and intracellular pyrophosphate levels was also analysed. To determine whether TNAP functions in ICLA by producing phosphate for gene induction, 3T3-L1 cells were stimulated to undergo ICLA in the presence and absence of the TNAP inhibitor levamisole, which in turn blocks ICLA. Levamisole treated cells were also incubated with phosphate to see if this would overcome the inhibitory effect of levamisole on ICLA. The ability of phosphate to induce gene expression of NRF2 was determined through real-time PCR. In addition, an NRF2 expressing plasmid was transfected into cells treated with the TNAP inhibitor levamisole to determine if this would also overcome the block on ICLA caused by TNAP inhibition. In silico analysis identified TRAF2 as a potential binder of TNAP. The expression of TRAF2 during ICLA was determined through real time PCR, and the effect of overexpression of TRAF2 on intracellular lipid accumulation was determined through the transfection of a TRAF2 expressing plasmid in cells induced to undergo ICLA. To determine whether TNAP modulates lipid accumulation in cells of the adrenal cortex, the Y1 murine adrenocortical cell line was cultured in the presence and absence of TNAP inhibitor levamisole, and ICLA measured by Oil Red O staining. The location of TNAP within Y1 cells was identified by histochemical staining. Results: Cells treated with probenecid showed increased pyrophosphate levels (expressed as a % of levels observed at baseline) when compared to untreated controls (155.5 ± 15.1 % vs 51.1 ± 18.9 %; p=0.001) after 24 hours of culture. Increased pyrophosphate levels resulted in ICLA within 3T3-L1 cells surpassing levels seen in untreated controls (507.4 ± 30.4 % vs 337.6 ± 16.17 %; p=0.004). This increase in pyrophosphate was coupled to an increase in TNAP activity within the initial 24 hours (291.5 ± 72.8 % vs baseline of 100%; p=0.038) compared to that seen in control experiments (103.43 ± 24.3 % vs baseline of 100%; p=0.848). Cells treated with levamisole showed minimal ICLA and when exogenous phosphate was added, lipid levels were reconstituted to levels similar to that seen in cells induced to accumulate lipids in the absence of levamisole (284.01 ± 62.52% vs 275.86 ± 35.52%; p= 0.83). In the presence of levamisole plus exogenous phosphate, NRF2 expression was upregulated within 1 hour of treatment to levels greater than that seen in the absence of phosphate but presence of levamisole (216.64 ± 19.24% vs 98.28 ± 3.79%; p=0.004). Expression of NRF2 (through transfection with an NRF2 expression plasmid) in cells deficient in TNAP activity (via levamisole treatment), and induced to accumulate lipids, was not able to completely reconstitute ICLA when compared to cells not treated with levamisole (193.72 ± 16.51 vs 326.46 ± 47.64; p = 0.019), but ICLA was still greater than that observed at baseline. In silico analysis predicted that TNAP would bind to TRAF2, yet neither band shift assays nor immune co-precipitation showed evidence of this. However, TRAF2 mRNA was down regulated within 3T3-L1 cells during adipogenesis, reaching levels of 15.27 ± 10.27% (p= 0.014) of baseline (levels prior to induction of intracellular lipid accumulation) by day 4 of lipid accumulation. Overexpression of TRAF2 during adipogenesis markedly reduced intracellular lipid accumulation (147.88 ± 11.28% vs 326.46 ± 47.64%; p=0.028 (after 8 days of culture)). In Y1 cells TNAP activity is upregulated during ICLA, reaching 233 ± 37.56% (p=0.019 vs. baseline) of baseline levels within the initial 24 hours. Inhibition of TNAP activity through levamisole treatment resulted in a decrease in ICLA when compared to cells not treated with levamisole. Histochemical analysis showed that TNAP activity was localised to the lipid droplet. Discussion and Conclusions: Within 3T3-L1 cells TNAP mediates intracellular lipid accumulation through the generation of phosphate. The phosphate is able to increase the expression of NRF2, however it is likely that NRF2 is not the only gene whose expression is regulated by TNAP-generated phosphate. It was found that TNAP and TRAF2 do not bind to each other in the context of ICLA; however TRAF2 is a negative mediator of ICLA through a TNAP-independent mechanism. Functional TNAP is necessary for the accumulation of cholesterol esters within the Y1 cell line, suggesting that TNAP is essential for lipid accumulation in cell types that store lipids in intracellular membrane-bound droplets in the form of triglycerides or cholesterol esters. / GR2018

BANG! is a thesis paper presented in conjunction with a visual art show that is made up of paintings, sculptures, and site specific installations. Primary ideas explored with the body of work are those of growth and expansion, energy, contradiction, excess, collection, play, drama, and nostalgia, specifically relating to color relationships and physical material.

This M.F.A. thesis paper and drawing installation deal with the physical relationship of the body to itself, and with the neurological wiring connecting the parts to each other and to the whole. In my drawing 10 Months/ 9 x 20 Feet, I work on a scale several times that of my own body. Issues explored include contingency, relationships, accumulation, parameters, play, record, time, duration, proprioception, metonymy, fragmentation, space, scale, sight, process, and drawing. Over ten months, I produced a single drawing measuring twenty feet across and nine feet tall. My body’s repetitive contorting in order to trace itself, in order to literally circumnavigate a moving form, can be seen as a means of familiarizing myself in a tactile sense with the physical relationship of myself to myself.

Microalgae have been in the center of research for several years due to their high production rates. The use of fresh-water algae in the production of biofuels coupled with wastewater treatment has become a topic of modern research. While most algal farming is performed in warm and sunny climate, this project focused on naturally occurring microalgae in Northern Sweden and their ability to reclaim wastewater and produce lipids. The four microalgae Chlorococcum sp. (MC1), Scotiellopsis reticulata (UFA-2), Coelastrella sp. (3-4) and Chlorella vulgaris (13-1) were grown under mixotrophic conditions in municipal wastewater (MWW), pulp and paper wastewater (PnP) and mixtures of both. Except of UFA-2, I found the growth of the tested species to be limited in pure PnP, however, mixtures of PnP and MWW were suitable for algal growth. The removal rates of total nitrogen achieved the goals regulated by the Swedish government for wastewater reclamation. Phosphorus, of which maximal levels according the Swedish regulations need to be below 0.5 mg/L, was efficiently removed by the strain 3-4 in PnP and in MWW + PnP (ratio 3+1) as well as by the strain 13-1 in MWW + PnP (ratio 3+1). The tested microalgae are therefore appropriate candidates to be used in sustainable wastewater treatment. The algal biomass composition was determined with the help of Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and an increase in the spectra for biomass grown in wastewaters within the fingerprint region (800 – 1800 cm-1) was observed. From this, I conclude that the lipid content was elevated in the biomass received after growth in PnP and all mixtures of MWW and PnP compared to the in BG11 grown biomass, which acts as a control group. A quantitative lipid analysis performed on the biomass of the strains UFA-2 and 3-4 confirmed higher lipid amounts after growth in PnP wastewater compared to growth in BG11. These findings show that the examined microalgae might have the potential to be used as a potential feedstock for biofuel productions after cultivation in local wastewaters.

The United States prison population has grown seven-fold over the past 35 years. This dissertation looks at the impact this growth in incarceration has on crime rates and seeks to understand why this drastic change in public policy happened. Simultaneity between prison populations and crime rates makes it difficult to isolate the causal effect of changes in prison populations on crime. This dissertation uses marijuana and cocaine mandatory minimum sentencing to break that simultaneity. Using panel data for 50 states over 40 years, this dissertation finds that the marginal addition of a prisoner results in a higher, not lower, crime rate. Specifically, a 1 percent increase in the prison population results in a 0.28 percent increase in the violent crime rate and a 0.17 percent increase in the property crime rate. This counterintuitive result suggests that incarceration, already high in the U.S., may have now begun to achieve negative returns in reducing crime. As such it supports the work of a number of scholars (Western 2006, Clear 2003) who have suggested that incarceration may have begun to have a positive effect on crime because of a host of factors. Most of the empirical work on the question is undertaken at an aggregate level (county, state, or national data). Yet, criminologists (Sampson et al. 2002, Spelman 2005 and Clear 1996, 2007) have long argued that the complex intertwining of crime and punishment is best understood at the neighborhood level, where the impacts of incarceration on social relationships are most closely felt. This dissertation examines the question using a panel of neighborhoods in Tallahassee, Florida for the period 1995 to 2002. I find evidence to support the contention that the high levels of prison admissions and prison cycling (admissions plus releases) is associated with increasing crime rates in disadvantaged neighborhoods. This effect is not found in other neighborhoods. Looking more closely at the issues of race and class, I find that while marginalized neighborhoods experience slightly higher crime rates, they are faced with much higher incarceration rates. In Black neighborhoods in particular, prison admissions are an order of magnitude higher in comparison with non-Black neighborhoods even though underlying crime rates are not very different. If incarceration does not lower crime, then why did prison populations multiply seven-fold? This dissertation argues that mass incarceration is a central institution in the neoliberal social structures of accumulation. Mass incarceration as an institution plays a critical but underappreciated role in channeling class conflict in the neoliberal social structures of accumulation (SSA). Neoliberalism has produced a significant section of the working class who are largely excluded from the formal labor market, for whom the threat of unemployment is not a sufficient disciplining mechanism. At the same time, it has undermined the welfare systems that had managed such populations in earlier periods. Finally, the racial hierarchy essential to capitalist hegemony in the United States was threatened with collapse with the end of Jim Crow laws. This dissertation argues that mass incarceration has played an essential role in overcoming these barriers to stable capitalist accumulation under neoliberalism.

In this dissertation, I try to understand processes of dispossession and exclusion within a class-focused Marxian framework grounded in the epistemological position of overdetermination. The Marxian concept of primitive accumulation has become increasingly prominent in contemporary discussions on these issues. The dominant reading of "primitive accumulation" in the Marxian tradition is historicist, and consequently the notion itself remains outside the field of Marxian political economy. The contemporary literature has de-historicized the concept, but at the same time missed Marx's unique class-perspective. Based on a non-historicist reading of Marx, I argue that primitive accumulation--i.e. separation of direct producers from means of production in non-capitalist class processes--is constitutive of capitalism and not a historical process confined to the period of transition from pre-capitalism to capitalism. I understand primitive accumulation as one aspect of a more complex (contradictory) relation between capitalist and non-capitalist class structure which is subject to uneven development and which admit no teleological universalization of any one class structure. Thus, this dissertation claims to present a notion of primitive accumulation theoretically grounded in the Marxian political economy. In particular, the dissertation problematizes the dominance of capital over a heterogeneous social formation and understands primitive accumulation as a process which simultaneously supports and undermines such dominance. At a more concrete level, I apply this new understanding of primitive accumulation to a social formation--consisting of "ancient" and capitalist enterprises--and consider a particular conjuncture where capitalist accumulation is accompanied by emergence and even expansion of a "surplus population" primarily located in the "ancient" economy. Using these theoretical arguments, I offer an account of postcolonial capitalism in India, distinguishing between two different regimes--1) the dirigiste planning regime and 2) the laissez-faire regime. I argue that both regimes had to grapple with the problem of surplus population, as the capitalist expansion under both regimes involved primitive accumulation. I show how small peasant agriculture, traditional non-capitalist industry and informal "ancient" enterprises (both rural and urban) have acted as "sinks" for surplus population throughout the period of postcolonial capitalist development in India.

Thesis advisor: Theodore Papageorgiou / This dissertation addresses questions in the labor market with a focus on firms. In the first chapter, I examine different learning opportunities across firms by distinguishing learning from coworkers and firms. The second chapter studies firm organizational spillovers. In the third chapter, I investigate how exporting affects firms' hiring decisions in the entry-level labor market. Chapter 1: This chapter examines and separately identifies two types of learning at the workplace: learning from coworkers and learning from firms. I consider a structural model of idea flows in a competitive market where workers' compensation consists of learning, amenities, and wages. Workers accumulate human capital by interacting with their coworkers and directly from their firm. Using German employee-employer matched data, I exploit a clustering method to classify firms into learning and amenity groups. Then I allow learning functions to differ across groups and separately estimate firm learning and coworker learning parameters. Amenity value is estimated from switchers by relying on features of the model. I find that both types of learning are significant, consistent with previous studies examining each learning type separately. There is significant heterogeneity across firms of different types: some firms provide workers with more firm learning, while in others, workers' learning mostly comes from their coworkers. The relationship between two non-wage compensation also varies across workers. I explore the implication of the findings for inequality. Chapter 2: In this chapter, Div Bhagia and I study whether the organizational decisions of new entrants in a market are influenced by the hierarchical structure of their incumbent peers. Using matched employer-employee data from Brazil, we classify establishments into one to four-layer entities and examine how a new entrant’s decision to add an organizational layer varies with the average number of layers of other establishments in their industry and location. To address the potential endogeneity of peers’ layers, we construct an instrument based on layers of other establishments in peers’ firms that operate in different markets. We find that new entrants are twice as likely to add a layer within five years if their average peer has one more layer at the time of entry. Our results suggest that organizational structure spillovers can provide a new source of agglomeration advantages. We also find that the influence of peers is stronger in more similar industries. Additionally, we show that new entrants with high-layer peers hire more workers from within the market in the newly created layers, indicating personnel exchanges as a mechanism for organizational spillovers. Chapter 3: I investigate the impact of exporting on hiring decisions in the entry-level labor market. Firms face higher opportunity costs of foregone output when they hire inexperienced workers, who require more training than experienced workers. Using Korean establishment-level data, where I distinctively observe experienced and inexperienced new hires, I show that exporting firms hire fewer inexperienced workers but more experienced workers than non-exporting firms. Moreover, foreign market opportunities further induce exporters to favor experienced workers. This finding suggests that high export opportunities, which increase the opportunity costs of training, may increase barriers to better jobs in the entry-level labor market for young workers. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

World poverty is a persistent phenomenon despite international efforts and the improvements achieved in the last few decades. For many people it can be a chronic condition. This thesis aims at testing that the main reason some people are poor is due to a poverty trap, i.e., to some contextual mechanisms which limit their ability to escape poverty, reproducing it over time. To investigate this hypothesis, this thesis is guided by three different questions. First, does a poverty trap emerge in the aftermath of an extreme weather shock? Second, do communities in a humanitarian context have the same wealth dynamics? Third, what is the role of income diversification for agricultural households for asset accumulation, and does it depend on their wealth? The analysis focuses (a) on the case of Nigeria and a devastating flood, (b) on refugees and host communities in Uganda and (c) on agricultural households in Tanzania, respectively. Results show that Nigerian flooded households have poverty traps dynamics, condemning the poorest in a destitute state over time. Refugees and host communities in Uganda have similar wealth dynamics but both converge to a low-wealth equilibrium, suggesting a structural poverty trap that worse for refugees. Income diversification in Tanzania shows important nonlinearities according to households’ wealth: it fosters the accumulation of durable assets for better-off households only, while helping the poorest to accumulate livestock. These findings shed light on the interaction of low-income conditions and contextual challenges and opportunities, suggesting policy actions able to lift poor people above a wealth threshold, improve their living conditions and favouring their profitability.

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