17179 research outputs found
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Bodies, Bias, and Medical Deserts: A Multidisciplinary Look at Women's Health Access
Full text linkMedical deserts are areas with limited access to adequate healthcare. Structural violence is a form of violence that occurs when social institutions harm people by limiting their basic needs. While medical deserts impact several groups of people, women face sex and gender specific barriers. This research focuses on answering questions about policy and misinformation related to women’s health and how those have contributed to limited options for this demographic. I will use a multidisciplinary research strategy: historical diaries, historical medical and government documents, historical books and articles, with modern government documents, articles, books, medical research, and additional sources to support this argument. Historically, the social and medical constructs of gender, lack of access to health insurance, and inadequate medical research into women’s health issues has meant women in medical deserts have few options. Additionally, how class and race divides increase in relation to medical barriers. This will connect the ideas between the historical issues, and modern policy and misinformation, which create the structural violence against women in the United States. I will shed light on the connections between the structural violence and medical deserts.Anthropolog
Finders, Keepers, Looters, Weepers: The Case of the Shiloh Museum Collections
Full text linkNo abstract prepared.Anthropolog
Equity in Transit-Oriented Development in Dallas: Lessons From Mockingbird Station
Full text linkDallas's pioneering Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) at Mockingbird Station, completed in 2001, presents a critical case study for evaluating equitable development outcomes. While strategically located with multimodal transit access, concerns persist regarding its primary benefit to wealthier demographics. This study analyzes Mockingbird Station through the lens of equitable transit-oriented development (ETOD), examining its performance across the physical environment, the distribution of benefits and burdens among social groups, and resulting economic externalities. By synthesizing literature on TOD, gentrification, social equity, transportation equity, and ETOD, this research develops an analytical framework based on transit accessibility, connectivity, and use; transit dependency, income diversity, rental housing prevalence, and affordability; and walkability and residential density. Applying this framework, the study assesses the extent to which Mockingbird Station embodies equitable principles and identifies key lessons for fostering more inclusive TOD projects in Dallas and similar suburbanizing contexts. Comparisons with ETOD initiatives in Austin and Chicago further illuminate best practices and highlight the challenges and opportunities for achieving equitable outcomes in transit-adjacent development. The analysis reveals while equity strides have been recently made, Mockingbird Station shows significant inequities in its initial development and best practices need to be continued to cater towards a diverse populations.Geography and Environmental Studie
A Multi-Omics Approach to Investigate Immune Regulation of Host Symbiont Dynamics in Astrangia poculata
No full textAstrangia poculata is a temperate coral model system that engages in a facultative relationship with its algal symbiont meaning that it can exist in states of high symbiont density (brown), and low symbiont density (white) with no apparent cost to its fitness. Astrangia poculata can also be found in mixed forms which have brown and white polyps on a single individual, however the effects of symbiont density on immunity is poorly understood. Fortunately, A. poculata’s facultative nature makes it an ideal model for studying how symbiont density affects immunity. In this project, we split mixed A. poculata colonies into high and low symbiont density portions for the purpose of conducting immune assays, transcriptomics, and symbiont counts. DNA and RNA were extracted then processed and the data was analyzed. The corals were then airbrushed to remove tissue from the skeleton in order to perform immune assays. No significant differences were found in immunity between symbiont state within individual colonies, but protein synthesis and metabolic processes were found to be enriched in the high symbiont density portion, while structural integrity was enriched in the low symbiont density portion. The data gathered from this study has contributed to an understanding of how symbiont density contributes to the coral's immune system and differential gene expression.Biolog
Understanding the Academic Help-Seeking Experiences and Perceptions of First-Generation College Students in Developmental Education
No full textThis qualitative case study explores the academic help-seeking experiences and perceptions of first-generation college students enrolled in developmental education courses at a large public university. Guided by help-seeking theory, social capital theory, and self-efficacy theory, the research explores why these students seek academic help, how they go about it, and how they perceive the support. Five first-generation students participated in two semi-structured interviews (pre- and post-observation) and one observed tutoring session each, offering rich, narrative accounts of their help-seeking behaviors.
Four major themes emerged in response to why participants sought help: academic challenges such as tests and coursework struggles, the pursuit of good academic performance (e.g., GPA), long-term career goals, and family expectations and encouragement. Regarding how help was sought, participants tried to balance working on their own with getting support. They wanted to understand the steps to solve problems, not just get answers. They also preferred learning through active engagement and interaction in academic settings. Perceptions of academic help-seeking were shaped by emotional barriers (e.g., fear, shame), prior negative experiences, and a transformative process marked by growing comfort, positive shifts in attitude, and personal growth through support services. Although institutional support was available, participants often perceived it as insufficient or not well tailored to the needs of first-generation students.
The findings highlight that first-generation students do not approach academic help in the same way; rather, their experiences are shaped by a complex interplay of personal, familial, and institutional factors. This study offers implications for practice and policy, as well as recommendations for future research to further support the success of first-generation students in developmental education.Curriculum and Instructio
Implementing an Educational Module to Improve Understanding of and Explore Attitude Changes Regarding Implicit Bias in a Bachelor of Science Nursing Course
No full textAims. The research focuses on implementing an educational module in a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) Junior course to improve nursing students’ understanding of implicit bias and explore potential attitude changes. The hypothesis is that providing implicit bias education to junior year BSN students will positively change their understanding of the role implicit bias has and how it relates to their own implicit bias. Background/Literature Review. Implicit bias refers to subconscious attitudes or stereotypes that affect individual’s understanding, actions, and decisions, often leading to disparities in treatment. In healthcare, implicit bias has been shown to negatively impact patient outcomes, contributing to unequal care, delayed diagnosis, and mistrust, particularly among marginalized populations. Design. Quasi-Experimental Methods. Questionnaire placed in online survey format in Qualtrics. An invitation was sent to a convenience sample of 150 BSN students at St. David’s School of Nursing, Texas State University. The email invitation included an explanation of the study, the IRB and consent, the pre-and post-test survey links, and links to three educational modules for viewing. Qualtrics was used to collect survey data. Questionnaire placed in inline survey format in Qualtrics. Results. Twenty-three students participated in the study. Thirteen students completed both the pre and post survey. Survey results were analyzed to identify overall shifts from the pre-to-post survey. All the questions, except one, had an average positive shift between the pre-to-post survey. One question outlier had no shift. Conclusion. The results of this support the use of educational modules about implicit bias for nursing student and indicated that this educational approach can initially change students’ knowledge about and responses to implicit bias.Nursin
Unraveling the Sexual Victimization of Sex Workers: A Latent Class Analysis through the Lens of Environmental Criminology
No full textPast research on violence against sex workers has contributed to our understanding of this phenomenon yet, often do not offer concrete preventative measures. The current study aims to investigate this issue through an environmental criminology perspective, and to identify measures that can be implemented to decrease violence through a situational crime prevention framework. Our sample consist of 402 French sex workers who experienced violent victimization (1990–2018). Latent class analysis revealed a four-class solution: (1) indoor/low-moderate guardianship, (2) outdoor/low guardianship, (3) mobile/low guardianship, and (4) mobile/moderate guardianship. Actionable crime prevention methods to mitigate the risk of violence suggested for each of the classes included pre-screening clients, installing panic buttons/closed-circuit television, offering self-defense and conflict management courses, and working in tandem
UAV Navigation for Urban Firefighting using Deep Reinforcement Learning
No full textUrban firefighting is a complex problem to tackle for firefighters. During the offensive firefighting mode of an urban firefighting event, the firefighters perform rescue operations inside the burning structure. The difficulty of locating victims, who may be unconscious, is compounded by several environmental hazards. These include elevated temperatures, reduced visibility, toxic smoke, low oxygen levels, and weakened structure rigidity. On top of these environmental challenges, locating victims becomes more challenging because the victim may not always be conscious during an urban fire event. This thesis aims to develop a reinforcement learning agent for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to navigate a structure and locate the victims trapped within that structure through designing, training, and implementing various Deep Q-learning to achieve complex navigation. The data from the Global Positioning System (GPS), Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR), and infrared camera of the UAV will serve as inputs for Dueling Double Deep Q-Network (D3QN), Double Deep Q-Network (Double DQN), and Dueling Deep Q-Network (Dueling DQN) algorithms, and the output will be the decision that various algorithms take to move the UAV to optimize the navigation task. The environment for the UAV navigation will be created using Python’s Pygame library, and the LiDAR and thermal camera input for the UAV will be simulated. The success of the optimization task will be judged based on cumulative maximum reward, reward distribution histogram, Temporal Difference (TD) error and number of successful episodes of the UAV agent.Engineerin
Local Environmental Responses to Regional Climatic Changes During the Holocene: A Case Study from Palmetto State Park, Texas
No full textNo abstract prepared.Geography and Environmental Studie
