BU Open Access Articles

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The ontology of Haag's local quantum physics
(MDPI AG, 2023-12-28) Jaeger, Gregg
The ontology of Local Quantum Physics, Rudolf Haag's framework for relativistic quantum theory, is reviewed and discussed. It is one of spatiotemporally localized events and unlocalized causal intermediaries, including the elementary particles, which come progressively into existence in accordance with a fundamental arrow of time. Haag's conception of quantum theory is distinguished from others in which events are also central, especially those of Niels Bohr and John Wheeler, with which it has been compared.
Thriving amidst challenges: the future of venture capital in Kazakhstan
(2024-06-24) Smagulova, Gulnur; Goncalves, Marcus
This presentation examines Kazakhstan's venture capital sector within Asia's developing markets, highlighting the influence of governmental support and the Astana International Financial Centre on the growth of tech startups. Through a literature review and research with local VCs, it addresses challenges like market instability, regulatory hurdles, and COVID-19 impacts. The talk emphasizes the necessity for solid partnerships, technological advancements, and deep local market understanding. It advocates for an ecosystem with clear regulations and international standards to foster innovation and economic development. Practical strategies for navigating the complexities of venture capital in developing markets, focusing on Kazakhstan, will be discussed, providing valuable insights for stakeholders in emerging economies.
Hands to oars: Aeschylus’ cosmo-phthoric spin on Empedocles’ whirlpool
(BU Open Access, 2023-02-17) Degener, John
As verso to the obverse of the gorgonic gaze of Iphigeneia ‘written’ in the fixed, all-apparent graphais in the Artemisian sacrifice, this study unfolds in the doxic Aphrodesian register the dynamics of Helen’s disembodied opsis, her image, that crosses both into Menelaus’ psyche and out through the hands of the warriors put to oars. Empedocles’ optics are argued to constitute a visual ray between viewer and object joined in the metaphorical grasping of hands. This grasping figures simultaneously metaphorical hands within Menelaus’ mind through which the opsis passes into unconsciousness and the physical hands put to oars. Menelaus’ pothos, longing, for Helen, drives the Trojan debacle as the vortex of Aeschylus’ cosmo-phthoric, cosmos-destroying, spin on Empedocles’ cosmogonic whirlpool of Aprhrodite and Ares. Aeschylus’ pathways, keleuthoi, on which the opsis moves in the register of doxein, contrast Empedocles’ pathways of the generations of forms in that of idein, and figure finally beneath the tapestries Agamemnon treads. In Aeschylus’ construction of the novel advent of proto imagination, that is, of the inward experience of the untethered image, the self-reflection of the auditor-spectator is instantiated as that of a bracketed, suspended [I] and is invoked there in the theatron to cycle between, on the diegetic level, the all-destroying vortex, on the dramaturgic mimetic level, the discharging of the dionysiac thrall in the dawning awareness of the illusion of the Gesamtwerk of Tragedy. The suspension of the dionysiac thrall reveals the ungrounded underpinning of Kierkegaard’s teleological suspension of the ethical as the abyssal [I] whence the movement of faith would spring up. Subtending then the singularity of Abraham, Knight of Faith, is the bracketed [I] shaken loose from the dæmonic tyranny of the symbolic order in the suspension of the unmediated commandment of the pagan gods as divine sanction of the sacrifice and the ethical universal.
Single cell profiling distinguishes leukemia-selective chemotypes
(2024-05-03) Thirman, Hannah L.; Hayes, Madeline J.; Brown, Lauren E.; Porco, John A.; Irish, Jonathan M.
A central challenge in chemical biology is to distinguish molecular families in which small structural changes trigger large changes in cell biology. Such families might be ideal scaffolds for developing cell-selective chemical effectors - for example, molecules that activate DNA damage responses in malignant cells while sparing healthy cells. Across closely related structural variants, subtle structural changes have the potential to result in contrasting bioactivity patterns across different cell types. Here, we tested a 600-compound Diversity Set of screening molecules from the Boston University Center for Molecular Discovery (BU-CMD) in a novel phospho-flow assay that tracked fundamental cell biological processes, including DNA damage response, apoptosis, M-phase cell cycle, and protein synthesis in MV411 leukemia cells. Among the chemotypes screened, synthetic congeners of the rocaglate family were especially bioactive. In follow-up studies, 37 rocaglates were selected and deeply characterized using 12 million additional cellular measurements across MV411 leukemia cells and healthy peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Of the selected rocaglates, 92% displayed significant bioactivity in human cells, and 65% selectively induced DNA damage responses in leukemia and not healthy human blood cells. Furthermore, the signaling and cell-type selectivity were connected to structural features of rocaglate subfamilies. In particular, three rocaglates from the rocaglate pyrimidinone (RP) structural subclass were the only molecules that activated exceptional DNA damage responses in leukemia cells without activating a detectable DNA damage response in healthy cells. These results indicate that the RP subset should be extensively characterized for anticancer therapeutic potential as it relates to the DNA damage response. This single cell profiling approach advances a chemical biology platform to dissect how systematic variations in chemical structure can profoundly and differentially impact basic functions of healthy and diseased cells.
Conformal electrodeposition of ultrathin polymeric films with tunable properties from dual-functional monomers
(Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), 2023-05-09) Wang, Wenlu; Zheng, Zhaoyi; Resing, Anton B.; Brown, Keith A.; Werner, Jörg G.
Conformal functional thin films are obtained from self-limiting electrodeposition of a dual-functional molecule with tailorable control over film thickness, permeability, and dielectric properties only by variation of the deposition conditions.
A guide to the ASLLRP Sign Bank – new search features
(American Sign Language Linguistic Research Project, BU, 2024-07-18) Neidle, Carol; Opoku, Augustine
Information about the data accessible from our websites, including especially the new functionality enabling search by sign video example.
New capability to look up an ASL Sign from a video example
(2024-07-18) Neidle, Carol; Opoku, Augustine; Ballard, Carey; Zhou, Yang; He, Xiaoxiao; Dimitriadis, Gregory; Metaxas, Dimitris
The pragmatic cycle of knowledge work: unlocking cross domain collaboration in open innovation spaces
(SAGE Publications, 2024-06-09) Carlile, Paul
Collaborating is increasingly characterized by working across domains and organizations. Teams rapidly form and dissolve, actors and settings frequently change, yet most academic research focuses on stable organizations and team configurations with familiar domains. This leads to the question: how do people successfully collaborate across domains and organizations in circumstances where there is little shared knowledge? We explored this question within the nascent digital health sector when Hacking Health—a non-profit organization—used an open innovation approach to bring together actors from different domains and organizations in temporary spaces to spur new collaborations. We found that actors faced many challenges and engaged in four interconnected types of knowledge work to address them: exploring, complementing, mapping, and modeling. This article reveals how Hacking Health’s open innovation approach used different kinds of temporary spaces to progressively orient actors in their knowledge work to develop sustainable collaborations to create digital health solutions.
Internationalization as an integrated process: evidence from SMEs in Lusophone Africa
(Informa UK Limited, 2022-01-02) Goncalves, Marcus
This study focuses on extant internationalization theories, attempting to elucidate the entry modes adopted by Lusophone African SMEs. It offers a critical overview of the leading frameworks, focusing on their primary attributes, challenges, and pitfalls in depicting similarities in the internationalization process and shortfalls in entry mode predictions. Based on the author’s challenges when investigating 29 Lusophone African SMEs in Mozambique and Angola in 2016, an integrated and more holistic framework for internationalization is proposed. It considers advancements in ICT and business digitalization via the internet, web-enabled tools, and platforms, including social media and online professional communities of practices.
What do you meme? An investigation of social media and mathematical identity
(Texas A&M) Benoit, Gregory; Salopek, Gabor
Mathematical spaces extend far beyond the classroom and physical environments into virtual spaces. Today’s students have more to consider than just their face-to-face experiences with mathematics inside or outside the classroom; they have the online perspectives of others to consider as well. To gain critical insight, research was conducted with semi-structured focus groups using an interactive mathematics internet meme activity. Using positioning theory, this article highlights students’ stances and three storylines as conceptual tools for better understanding their offline and online mathematical identities. Results show the two spaces are not mutually exclusive and students are succumbing and adhering to a larger hegemonic construction of mathematics found in the online communities with various points of tension found.
Kuhn’s ‘5th law of thermodynamics’: measurement, data, and anomalies
(Cambridge University Press) Bokulich, Alisa; Bocchi, Federica; Wray, K. Brad
We reconstruct Kuhn’s philosophy of measurement and data paying special attention to what he calls the “fifth law of thermodynamics”. According to this "law," there will always be discrepancies between experimental results and scientists’ prior expectations. The history of experiments to determine the values of the fundamental constants offers a striking illustration of Kuhn’s fifth law of thermodynamics, with no experiment giving quite the expected result. We highlight the synergy between Kuhn’s view and the systematic project of iteratively determining the value of physical constants, initiated by spectroscopist Raymond Birge, that was ongoing when Kuhn joined Berkeley in 1956. Our analysis sheds light on various underappreciated aspects of Kuhn’s thought, especially his notion of progress as improvement in measurement accuracy.
Model minority masochism
(Oxford Univ Pr on Demand, 2022-03-01) Rivera, Takeo
Detailed balance for particle models of reversible reactions in bounded domains
(AIP Publishing, 2022-05-28) Zhang, Ying; Isaacson, Samuel A.
In particle-based stochastic reaction-diffusion models, reaction rates and placement kernels are used to decide the probability per time a reaction can occur between reactant particles and to decide where product particles should be placed. When choosing kernels to use in reversible reactions, a key constraint is to ensure that detailed balance of spatial reaction fluxes holds at all points at equilibrium. In this work, we formulate a general partial-integral differential equation model that encompasses several of the commonly used contact reactivity (e.g., Smoluchowski-Collins-Kimball) and volume reactivity (e.g., Doi) particle models. From these equations, we derive a detailed balance condition for the reversible A + B ⇆ C reaction. In bounded domains with no-flux boundary conditions, when choosing unbinding kernels consistent with several commonly used binding kernels, we show that preserving detailed balance of spatial reaction fluxes at all points requires spatially varying unbinding rate functions near the domain boundary. Brownian dynamics simulation algorithms can realize such varying rates through ignoring domain boundaries during unbinding and rejecting unbinding events that result in product particles being placed outside the domain.
Better than bipolar: US-China competition from TPP to BRI and FOIP
(World Scientific Publishing, 2022-11-01) Ye, Min; Zhu, Zhiqun
Policy circles in the U.S. and China are full of skeptics of interdependence. Entering the intense stage of great-power contest, they have advocated decoupling as an acceptable--and even desirable--path forward. But, is interdependence truly that bad? Is it such a vulnerability to the warring states that decoupling should be actively pursued? Or, has interdependence also contributed to stability in the U.S-China rivalry? How? This chapter addresses the validity and limitations of three dominant bipolar perspectives--Thucydides’s Trap, Civilizational Clash, and Divided Peace. Then it presents the domestic processes of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy. The analysis establishes that, while power and ideological conflicts are salient, these competing initiatives demonstrate "complex competition" embedded in an interdependent strategic environment. The interplay of domestic and transnational coalitions has worked to mitigate the great power rivalry in the recent decade.
How APIs create growth by inverting the firm
(INFORMS, 2023-12-07) Van Alstyne, Marshall; Benzell, Seth; Hersh, Jonathan
Traditional asset management strategy has emphasized building barriers to entry or closely guarding unique assets to maintain a firm’s comparative advantage. A new "Inverted Firm" paradigm, however, has emerged. Under this strategy, firms share data seeking to become platforms by opening digital services to third-parties and capturing part of their external surplus. This contrasts with a "pipeline" strategy where the firm itself creates value. This paper quantitatively estimates the effect of adopting an inverted firm strategy through the lens of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), a key enabling technology. Using both public data and that of a private API development firm, we document rapid growth of the API network and connecting apps since 2005. We then perform difference-in-difference and synthetic control analyses and find that public firms adopting public APIs grew an additional 38.7% over sixteen years relative to similar non-adopters. We find no significant effect from the use of APIs purely for internal productivity, the pipeline strategy. Within the subset of firms that adopt public APIs, those that attract more third-party complementors and those that become more central to the network see faster growth. Using variation in network centrality caused by API degradation, an instrumental variables analysis confirms a causal role for APIs in firm market value. Finally, we document an important downside of public APIs: increased risk of data breach. Overall, these facts lead us to conclude that APIs have a large and positive impact on economic growth and do so primarily by enabling an inverted firm strategy.
Ethical responses to COVID pandemic: compassion, solidarity, and justice
(Springer Nature, 2022-08-01) Collins, Mary; Garlington, Sarah; Schweiger, G.
This book is of great interest to academic philosophers, but also to researchers from the social sciences. This book directly addresses the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Correction, uncertainty, and anchoring effects
(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2023-07-18) Lee, Chang-Yuan; Morewedge, Carey
We compare the predictions of two important proposals made by De Neys to findings in the anchoring effect literature. Evidence for an anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic supports his proposal that System 1 and System 2 are non-exclusive. The relationship between psychophysical noise and anchoring effects, however, challenges his proposal that epistemic uncertainty determines the involvement of System 2 corrective processes in judgment.
Disrupting power relations in the middle school choir: a student-centered approach
(Routledge, 2024-05-15) Debrot, Ruth; Haning, Marshall; Prendergast, Jocelyn; Weidner, Brian
A STUDENT -CENTERED APPROACH: My students have taught me many things. Perhaps the most important thing I have learned from them is that they long to study music in social settings that are relevant to their lives. After more than two decades of teaching middle school, I observed that choir, in the traditional sense, no longer addressed the needs and interests of my students. I found that my students possessed a vast array of musical knowledge from sources outside of school. I noticed that chorus, from an adolescent perspective, is primarily a “means of meeting new people and making new friends” (Shehan-Campbell et al., 2007, p. 221). Using actions, words, and miscreant behaviors, my students communicated their desire to study music in a social setting that addressed their musical needs and interests. This led me to reexamine my approach to middle school choral music education. POINT OF DEPARTURE: I began to ask critical questions. For example, how do singers learn to make creative artistic and musical decisions when the music and the performance of it are determined by the conductor (O’Toole, 1994)? How does performing concert repertoire result in the advancement of individual musicianship and the musical independence that is needed to make music in other contexts or at other times in the future (Regelski 2017)? What about repertoire? Miksza (2013) argued that published repertoire lists often silence popular forms or music from non-traditional sources because they are not “artistically rich” or vocally appropriate in educational settings (p. 49). These questions prompted further inquiry. Educational leaders have affirmed the importance of student-centered classrooms, in which students are engaged in collaborative, hands-on activities and where problem solving is a valued tool in curriculum design (Debrot, 2017; Cremata 2017). Many proposed curricular reforms have suggested the inclusion of alternative approaches to music learning; specifically, an increase in the degree of individual student empowerment and broadening the range of collaborative approaches to music making that teacher and students engage in (Allsup 2003; DeLorenzo 1989; Kratus 2007; Williams 2011; Miksza 2013; Regelski 2014). These ideas informed my new curricular goals. RECONCEPTUALIZING THE CLASSROOM: Using a critical participatory action research methodology (Carr & Kemmis, 1986; Kemmis & McTaggart, 1987; Kemmis et al., 2014), I set out to discover improved, alternative pedagogical approaches to middle school choral education that would incorporate the passion for music and learning that my students brought with them into the school choir. I conducted my research project with my students rather than on them. The goal was to create a collaborative, student-directed learning environment where students were socially engaged, musically challenged, felt safe to take risks, and were supported in their learning. Borrowing from Allsup (2003), I created an action plan in which the students shared in the design of the study, established their own procedures, rules, and protocols, and assisted in the analysis of data. I was drawn to this pedagogical approach because when students are given the opportunity to explore freely and work democratically––using music of their own choosing––they will create music that “reflects a world that is theirs; a world they understand and a world that defines who they are” (p. 35). PRACTICE, PERFORM, CRITIQUE: Working collaboratively, my students and I constructed a workable approach called the practice/perform/critique model of middle school choral learning. The model consisted of practicing with specified time limits, performing, and receiving feedback from peers. Practicing with specified time limits kept the students on task, performing made the students accountable for their progress, and receiving feedback from peers kept the students apprised of their learning goals. The model required that the students’ function interdependently, use metacognitive strategies, engage in critical dialogue, and target common goals. Most importantly, the model provided the students with a sense of autonomy and made them responsible for their own social and musical growth. CONCLUSION: Pedagogical and organizational changes allowed me to explore a curricular model that is collaborative, active, dialogic, and non-hierarchal, valuing the perspectives of the students (Froelich, 2007; Pinar, 2011). Ultimately, I found that teaching within a constructionist, student-centered learning environment necessitated I stand back, observe, and empathize with the “goals the pupils set for themselves” (Green, 2008, p. 24). Working together, my students and I discovered some viable pedagogical approaches for middle school, which might empower others to help adolescent singers develop a life-long regard for the relevance of music as a presence in their lives, whether it be as singers, performers, listeners, composers, arrangers, or songwriters.
An individual-differences perspective on variation in heritage Mandarin speakers
(Cambridge University Press, 2024-02-12) Chang, Charles; Yao, Yao; Rao, Rajiv
This chapter takes an individual-differences perspective on the dual sound systems of American heritage speakers (HSs) of Mandarin Chinese. Based on detailed socio-demographic data and production data on segmentals and suprasegmentals, we build holistic demographic and phonetic profiles for HSs, as well as native speakers and late learners, to explore how different aspects of their two languages (Mandarin, English) may develop in relation to each other and how individual variation in production may be related to socio-demographic factors. Using multiple factor analysis (MFA), we describe the range of these profiles, identify clusters of variation defined by different socio-demographic factors, and argue that some factors (e.g., age of arrival, language(s) spoken at home) have more predictive power for phonetic profiles than others. Overall, our results suggest a significant, if limited, link between socio-demographic factors and production, but only in Mandarin. We conclude by discussing the advantages and disadvantages of group-based and individual-centered approaches.
Face values: Fargo on second look
(2024-07-30) Degener, John

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