UV Responses in Native Hawaiians or Other Pacific Islanders and Asians Residing in Hawaiʻi and in Maryland

Background: UV exposure causes a wide range of skin damage including cutaneous melanoma. The mechanisms of cellular and molecular damage as well as erythemal and pigmentation responses to UV exposure have largely been studied in the White population. Methods: This study systematically investigates responses to UV exposure in the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) and Asian populations living in Hawai’i (A/HI) as well as in Asians living in Maryland (A/MD). Results: Our analyses indicate that the NHPI population is less sensitive to UV exposure than the A/HI population. Comparisons between the two Asian groups suggest that, despite slightly but not statistically different baseline constitutive pigmentation (pre-UV exposure), the A/HI and A/MD had similar UV sensitivity, measured as minimal erythemal dose (MED). However, the A/MD population had higher levels of oxy-hemoglobin at doses of 2.0, 2.8 and 4.0 MED. Unexpectedly the A/MD subjects retained higher levels of pigmentation 2 weeks post UV exposure. Conclusion: This study provides insight into UV responses of the inhabitants of Hawai’i and shows that such responses are statistically significant for relatively small samples of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, and for Asians living in Hawai’i and Asians living in Maryland.

Liberation as Revolutionary Praxis: Rethinking Buddhism Materialism

While it is only in recent decades that scholars have begun to reconsider and problematize Buddhist conceptions of “freedom” and “agency,” the thought traditions of Asian Buddhism have for many centuries struggled with questions related to the issue of “liberation”—along with its fundamental ontological, epistemological and ethical implications. With the development of Marxist thought in the mid to late nineteenth century, a new paradigm for thinking about freedom in relation to history, identity and social change found its way to Asia, and confronted traditional religious interpretations of freedom as well as competing Western ones. In the past century, several attempts have been made—in India, southeast Asia, China and Japan—to bring together Marxist and Buddhist worldviews, with only moderate success (both at the level of theory and practice). This paper analyzes both the possibilities and problems of a “Buddhist materialism” constructed along Marxian lines, by focusing in particular on Buddhist and Marxist conceptions of “liberation.” By utilizing the theoretical work of Japanese “radical Buddhist” Seno’o Girō, I argue that the root of the tension lies with conceptions of selfhood and agency—but that, contrary to expectations, a strong case can be made for convergence between Buddhist and Marxian perspectives on these issues, as both traditions ultimately seek a resolution of existential determination in response to alienation. Along the way, I discuss the work of Marx, Engels, Gramsci, Lukàcs, Sartre, and Richard Rorty in relation to aspects of traditional (particularly East Asian Mahāyāna) Buddhist thought.

The Design of XML-Based Model and Experiment Description Languages for Network Simulation

The Simulation Automation Framework for Experiments (SAFE) is a project created to raise the level of abstraction in network simulation tools and thereby address issues that undermine credibility. SAFE incorporates best practices in network simulationto automate the experimental process and to guide users in the development of sound scientific studies using the popular ns-3 network simulator. My contributions to the SAFE project: the design of two XML-based languages called NEDL (ns-3 Experiment Description Language) and NSTL (ns-3 Script Templating Language), which facilitate the description of experiments and network simulationmodels, respectively. The languages provide a foundation for the construction of better interfaces between the user and the ns-3 simulator. They also provide input to a mechanism which automates the execution of network simulation experiments. Additionally,this thesis demonstrates that one can develop tools to generate ns-3 scripts in Python or C++ automatically from NSTL model descriptions.