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Geophysical and Geochemical Examination of Yedoma Permafrost at the CRREL Tunnel
No full textThe purpose of this research was to build towards the capability of mapping a greater extent of Yedoma permafrost. Through the use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and stable isotope analysis, specifically oxygen-18 and deuterium (18O and 2H), we lay the groundwork for future efforts to map Yedoma permafrost distribution. Mapping Yedoma permafrost is important as it is a significant source of carbon and nitrous oxide and contains large quantities of ground ice which include massive ice wedges. With climate change causing permafrost thawing, Yedoma permafrost poses significant challenges for the future including but not limited to landslides, sinkholes, subsidence, and greenhouse gas release. To better predict the behavior of Yedoma permafrost thawing, it is necessary to know the extent to which Yedoma permafrost is distributed. To achieve the research goals, and build a knowledge base to aid in future research geared towards developing a more accurate distribution map, GPR and isotope studies were used. GPR was used to detect and develop a methodology for visually identifying subsurface ice wedges. It is planned for future research to use the GPR ice wedge identification methods with Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) technology to map and detect massive Yedoma subsurface ice wedges which will facilitate the mapping of large areas and estimation of Yedoma permafrost extent based on locations of these massive ice wedges. Oxygen and hydrogen isotopes were collected from a Yedoma ice wedge within the Dawson cut formation at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) permafrost tunnel. These isotopes were analyzed to infer local climatic conditions during the late Pleistocene. Developing a better understanding of regional climatic variation during this period is crucial for developing a more accurate map of Yedoma permafrost distribution. A better understanding of regional climatic variation of the Arctic during the late Pleistocene can be used to better predict locations of Yedoma permafrost and relict permafrost
Effects of Community Based Childhood Obesity Interventions on Family Health-related Behaviors: the Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration Project (CORD)
No full textChildhood obesity issue is a public health challenge that has increased in prevalence over recent decades. One of the reasons is that health and health behaviors are results of a complex system, involving factors and interactions at the individual, family, community, and societal levels. Although community-based, multi-level interventions intended to support and benefit families have been applied in many childhood obesity studies, research about parent and family (parent and child together) response to intervention and the association of parent response to child response is very limited. The Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration (CORD) project aimed to improve healthy eating and active living by linking public health and primary care interventions among children with obesity from 2-12 years old. CORD projects were based on the Obesity Chronic Care Model (OCCM). The OCCM integrates primary healthcare with public health efforts to prevent and manage obesity. It incorporates multiple systemic causes of obesity and describes a coordinated approach to prevention with the intent to provide supports that improve and sustain healthy family behaviors. Three projects were included in CORD and implemented in California, Massachusetts, Texas, and one evaluation center was included to combine and analyze data across all three projects. Each project team developed its own interventions in communities and primary care centers. The evaluation center coded the interventions into two categories since the three projects all did similar but unique interventions: Public Health and Primary Care Plus. Public Health intervention indicated project activities implemented to enhance services and environmental changes in the early childcare and education, public school, and community settings. Primary Care Plus intervention indicated augmentation of standard primary care services with secondary prevention activities (e.g., attending a healthy weight clinic) for families with children who were overweight or obese. Four non-randomized groups were defined based on exposure to one or more intervention components: public health only, primary care plus only, integrated for both public health and primary care plus, and a comparison group exposed to neither. All three sites collected a set of common measurements for evaluation. The CORD Evaluation Center combined the data reported by all three sites to result in a single database. This study is composed of three objectives. The first objective is to examine if there were any significant changes in parents’ health related behaviors and compare those changes among the different intervention groups. Parent behaviors are a primary determinant of home environment and child behaviors. The second objective is to evaluate if different intervention combinations resulted in significant differential responses at the family level (i.e., parent and child combined response). The last objective is to evaluate how different intervention combinations modified how any change in parent health-related behaviors affected changes in child behaviors. A multivariate path model was used to test association of intervention group with residual change of health-related behaviors for the family, parent and child together and the relation of parent behavior change to child behavior change. Parent and child health-related behaviors were modeled as latent variables associated with five measured indicators: daily fruit consumption, daily vegetable consumption, daily sugar sweetened beverage consumption, daily physical activity, and daily screen time. The sample includes 474 families from the CORD projects. During the 12-month period, there were obvious changes in health-related behaviors, specifically an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption among parents in all groups. However, there were no significant differences observed among the intervention groups regarding changes in reported health-related behaviors for parents or families. This indicates that stability of behaviors persisted throughout time, regardless of the intervention. Children exhibited substantial improvements in their consumption of fruits and vegetables. However, the behaviors of parents were closely linked to the dietary habits reported by children after 12 months, suggesting a persistent influence across various intervention approaches. The results emphasize the crucial influence of parental behaviors on the growth of children's health habits, regardless of the specific techniques used for intervention. In summary, while facing many challenges, the CORD project has generated valuable information for future efforts in reducing childhood obesity. In order to promote the promotion of healthy lifestyles for parents and children, it is important for future programs to prioritize the health behaviors of parents and develop intervention methodologies and data collection methods
Assessing Access to Essential Community Resources via METRO Buses and Walking in Houston
No full textPublic transportation plays a critical role in ensuring equitable access to resources for lower-income communities. Houston's Fifth Ward is a majority black and brown community in Harris County, where 11.5% of black residents reported not having access to a private vehicle in 2021. This study assesses and compares the accessibility of four types of essential resources (medical facilities, libraries, green spaces, and grocery stores) via METRO bus and walking in Houston's Fifth Ward, Third Ward, and Greater Heights neighborhoods. Using r5r's multimodal travel time analysis, we estimated travel durations and accessibility levels for different resource types. Results indicate significant disparities in both travel time and accessibility to these resources. Notably, the Fifth Ward and Third Ward show longer travel times to certain resources compared to the Heights, even when the number of resources accessible is similar across all three neighborhoods. This suggests that differences in public transit infrastructure, frequency, and connectivity result in longer travel times for residents of the Fifth Ward and Third Ward. Findings from this study highlight the need for improved public transportation planning to bridge accessibility gaps, particularly for historically underserved communities. Future studies should incorporate factors such as transit safety, cleanliness, and disability accessibility to provide a more comprehensive understanding of public transit barriers. This study serves as a valuable tool for city planners and METRO in developing transit routes that more effectively connect underserved communities to essential resources. Finally, we have used r5r's routing analysis to create a transit guide to the Beloved Community, a forthcoming community center in the Fifth Ward, as a practical application of our research.Honors Colleg
Developing and Pilot Testing 360° Multi-Source Feedback Assessment Tool For Dietetic Intern Evaluation
No full textDespite the Accreditation Council for Education in Dietetics’ (ACEND) current core competency standards for dietetic assessment, the assessment practices of dietetic interns are not standardized, not evidence-based, not valid, do not capture a holistic view of a dietetic trainee’s skillset, and are prone to bias, specifically towards trainees from underrepresented populations. As they stand, the current core competencies are highly specific to evaluating dietetic knowledge and skills related to the profession. Yet, the core competencies lack focused, explicit and comprehensive inclusion of non-technical, soft-skill competencies such as career-readiness competencies, and collaborative-readiness competencies. Such challenges continue to give distorted and inconsistent estimations of dietetic professionals’ competence. The Multi-Source Feedback (MSF, also known as, 360-degree feedback) method of evaluation has been suggested for use in dietetic competence assessment due to the strong evidence supporting its superiority in validity, reliability, and feasibility. MSF collects feedback on a trainee from multiple assessors on multiple occasions and is capable of uncovering blind spots in a trainee’s skillset. Our study aimed to develop and pilot test a prototype of a 360o Multi-Source Feedback Dietetic Assessment Tool that addresses gaps in dietetic assessment. In Aim 1 of our project, a comprehensive list of non-technical competencies was compiled from: 1) semi-structured interviews with healthcare practitioners who work within the sphere of Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (RDs, RDNs or dietitians), 2) ratings of pre-existing collaborative readiness competencies and career-readiness competencies by healthcare practitioners who work within the sphere of RDNs. Collaborative-readiness competencies and career-readiness competencies were found to be observable, assessable, and valuable from allied health practitioners’ standpoint and were retained in the final assessment prototype. Competencies were added to the assessment prototype based on participants’ endorsement: Knowing and owning one’s role within the context of the multidisciplinary team, effective communication, clinical knowledge and expertise, speaking with certainty, and being an effective team player. In Aim 2 of our project, the 360o Multi-Source Feedback Dietetic Assessment Tool was tested for feasibility on nine dietetic interns who were enrolled in a clinical rotation as part of a dietetic internship program. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants to determine the facilitators and barriers of obtaining 12 evaluations from healthcare personnel who work in their sphere. Our results found the MSF360o dietetic assessment is easy to use but is not feasible in settings where dietetic interns are not receiving an adequate exposure to interprofessional collaboration experiences. The main barrier for feasibility stemmed from dietetic interns not approaching enough evaluators due to: 1) limited interprofessional exposure during clinical rotations and 2) interns’ discomfort from perceived reasons for raters’ rejection
A Three-Part Study to Enhance Understanding of Latino Parents’ Involvement in Children’s Early Education
No full textBackground: Parent involvement in children’s education is positively associated with student achievement across grade levels, academic outcomes, and student demographic groups. The benefits of parent involvement on children’s educational attainment have consistently been documented in the literature. Although the importance of parent involvement has been established and decades of research has focused on better understanding parent involvement predictors and effects, we know far less about the culturally rooted influences of education involvement in Latino families. Parent involvement has demonstrated greater benefits for Latino students compared to other student ethnic groups, which highlights the importance of examining parent involvement among Latinos. Although Latinos are the largest and second fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, little is known about how cultural, language, and social variables influence their perceptions and direct their involvement in children’s early education, such as preschool. Purpose: Using archival data from a randomized control trial (RCT), the present three studies use a cultural exploratory lens and emphasis on sociocultural and demographic variables to uncover more fully Latino parents’ perceptions and motivations for involvement in their children’s preschool years. Methods: The analytic sample comprised Latino parents whose children were in preschool. Results: Study findings indicate that acculturation did not moderate the association between parents’ perceptions of teacher involvement invitations and children’s early language outcomes. Results from the second study indicate that teacher characteristics, specifically teacher’s Hispanic/Latino ethnicity, predicted Latino parents’ perceptions of home-based involvement invitations. Finally, results from the third study indicate that the cultural value emphasizing the importance of supporting the development of children’s morality and book knowledge predicted Latino parents’ involvement in home-based shared book reading. Conclusion: Findings from this three-part study broadly and collectively contribute to a better understanding of the effects of cultural, social, and linguistic factors on Latino parents’ perspectives and experiences relating to their involvement in children’s early education. The aim of this three-part study was to further promote culturally sensitive research, theoretical frameworks, educational reforms, and professional school practices that integrate a culturally responsive and strength-based approach. Implications and suggestions for actionable steps are discussed
Topological Entropy of a Sinai Billiard as a Function of Scatterer Radii
No full textThe Sinai Billiard Map is a discontinuous map where a particle moves through the two-torus, colliding with periodic convex scatterers that are appropriately sized such that the billiard has a finite horizon. We describe a particle's trajectory by defining a symbolic mapping of a particle's collisions with the scatterers and assign that trajectory a sequence of symbols corresponding to its collisions. The topological entropy of the billiard map is h*=log(L)/n as n goes to infinity, where n is the number of collisions and L is the number of unique sequences of length n. This research project shows that there exists a clear and understandable relationship between the topological entropy of a system and the size of the scatterers, which is supported by our numerical results.Mathematics, Department ofHonors Colleg
Differential Impacts of Perinatal and Socioeconomic Risk on Executive Function and Socioemotional Processing in Early Childhood
No full textEarly-life adversity is associated with 9-10% reduction in prefrontal cortex volume, affecting cognitive control and emotional regulation. This poses challenges for the developing brain, producing difficulties in learning, executive functioning and later social competencies. Early executive and socioemotional functioning lay the foundation for higher-order processes which ultimately influences academic achievement and social development. However, individual variability exists, with some children demonstrating resilience despite adversity. Understanding factors contributing to risk and resilience is critical for developing targeted interventions. Thus, this study examines how perinatal risk (e.g., prematurity, NICU admission, maternal substance use) and socioeconomic risk (e.g., income-to-needs ratio [INR], child opportunity index [COI]) differentially impact EF and socioemotional processing in early childhood. Children (ages 3-7) completed the Neuropsychological Assessment, including the Statue task (measuring attention/inhibition) and Affect Recognition (assessing socioemotional processing). Results revealed that INR was the only factor significantly associated with Affect Recognition, with higher INR linked to better socioemotional processing. However, no significant associations were found for EF (Statue task). These findings suggest that socioeconomic factors, particularly INR, uniquely contribute to social perception. This study highlights the critical role of socioeconomic risk in early childhood development, offering opportunities for intervention targeting SES-related disparities. Future research should explore specific socioeconomic mechanisms influencing socioemotional outcomes and examine whether perinatal risk factors interact with socioeconomic conditions to shape EF and social development.Psychology, Department ofHonors Colleg
Reading Hardy's Victorian Antiheroine, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, as a Saidian Contrapuntal "Other"
No full textMy research project depends on postcolonial scholar Edward Said's theory of contrapuntalism, specifically as it relates to imperialism and colonialism. Said defines contrapuntalism as the practice of taking "account of both processes, that of imperialism and that of resistance to it" (Said 66); imperial/colonial practices created a need for contrapuntal readings of texts in order to discover what was excluded by an author and what needed to be inferred/or what perspectives ended up being obscured (typically those of colonized people). In this project, I proposed that the contrapuntal lens can be used to analyze characters who have been pathologically otherized and can therefore be read through that lens, even if they are not necessarily colonized people. I extended Said's theories outward to Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'urbervilles, a novel that follows a young woman's life in rural Victorian England. I interpreted Tess Durbeyfield as a counterpoint due to the infrastructure of systematic oppression contributing to her death and put her in contrast with Jane Austen's comparatively privileged heroine, Fanny Price. I chose Tess in particular because her hardships are often ascribed to mystical forces like fate, but I proposed that her status as a counterpoint despite technically being part of the British empire are what otherize her and lead to her execution.English, Department ofHonors Colleg
SPARROW: A Simulation Platform for Enhancing UAV Resilience
No full textThe increasing deployment of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in mission-critical applications—such as disaster response, reconnaissance, and environmental monitoring—demands platforms that remain effective under adversarial pressure. While existing simulators model flight dynamics and environmental conditions with high fidelity, they lack integrated capabilities for evaluating system resilience against AI-targeted attacks. This work introduces SPARROW (Simulation Platform for Adversarial Resilience and Response Optimization Workflows), a novel testbed that unifies industry-standard UAV simulation tools with end-to-end adversarial evaluation capabilities. SPARROW extends established frameworks by integrating high-fidelity physics simulation, software-in-the-loop (SITL) testing, standardized communication protocols, flight control, and mission-level autonomy into a cohesive and modular architecture. Our platform supports simulating single-agent and multi-agent swarm configurations, enabling systematic evaluation of autonomous behavior under various environmental and adversarial threat scenarios. SPARROW simulates attacks across the autonomy stack—including environmental disturbances, visual-input adversaries for single agents, and data poisoning or communication disruption in distributed swarms. To demonstrate its utility, we present two case studies: (1) a single-agent navigation system implementing a hybrid AI architecture combining reinforcement learning (RL) with a centralized vision-based policy, and (2) a distributed multi-agent swarm coordination system with collaborative learning capabilities that incorporates feature extraction from visual data to support mapping, localization, and resilient collective behavior when operating under adversarial pressure. Experimental results show that SPARROW effectively identifies vulnerability thresholds, uncovers compound failure modes, and highlights critical resilience gaps in perception and decision-making pipelines. As an open-source, extensible platform, SPARROW empowers researchers, engineers, and practitioners to rigorously test, validate, and improve autonomous UAV systems—supporting more reliable, robust, and responsibly grounded deployment in real-world environments
Investigation Of The Himalayan Mega-Thrust Geometry; Implications For The Structural Architecture And Landscape In Eastern Nepal
No full textThe Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT) is the basal detachment along which the Indian plate subducts beneath the Himalayan thrust belt. Ramps (or steps) in the MHT control the location of mesoscale structures, regions of active uplift, and earthquake clusters. These ramps are widely thought to strike east-west and dip north through western and central Nepal. My research investigates their geometry as they extend eastwards into Eastern Nepal by constructing a 3-D geologic model of the thrust belt structure and integrating it with analyses of the geomorphology and seismicity. My results show that the structure of the thrust belt, seismicity clusters, and meso-scale geomorphic features (ridges and valleys) transition from east-west striking west of the study area to north-south striking within the study area. The structural pattern revealed in my 3D geologic model suggests these changes are the result of the translation of thrust sheets over north-south striking lateral ramps in the MHT. Specifically, I show that crustal thickening patterns, structural trends, and topographic relief patterns are best explained by two lateral ramps and a pair of frontal ramps, one towards the front of the thrust belt and another in the rear near the Greater Himalaya crystalline sequence. The two most striking structural features in my geologic model are two north-south trending anticlinorium defined by the geometry of the MCT, one of the main shear zones in the thrust belt. Structural transects across the lateral ramps reveal that 9 km of crustal thickening is estimated beneath the MCT and within the Lesser Himalayan Sequence (LHS) rocks. My 3-D model also indicates that the western and eastern ramps are 50 and 25 km long, respectively, and are connected to flats at different depths. North-south topographic swath profiles highlight a physiographic transition (PT2) pattern, supporting this geometry, where said transitions are geomorphic indicators of the structural controls of the region. Topographic Ruggedness Index analysis confirms these low-relief surfaces, suggesting landscape response caused by lateral ramp structures