University of Illinois at Chicago
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Oil and Water Do Mix: Foregrounding Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy in Developing Disciplinary Identities
No full textThis qualitative single-case study examined how a spoken word poetry unit foregrounding principles of culturally sustaining pedagogy culture uplifted students’ cultures and identities while developing their disciplinary habits of practice in English language arts (ELA). Through a research-practice partnership conducted in a middle-grade ELA classroom, the study documents the design and implementation of a curriculum that positioned students as co-constructors of knowledge, drawing on anchor texts that more closely reflected their lived experiences in an intentional effort to disrupt and ultimately expand traditional notions of the literary canon.
Findings reveal that, in honoring their powerful ways of knowing (and being) and creating space for their negotiation and sharing of self through poetry, students began to understand the practices privileged in the discipline as tools to support their meaning-making process. The study highlights how culturally sustaining pedagogy fostered critical literacy skills, rhetorical awareness, and a deeper sense of agency in academic spaces. Additionally, evidence suggested that integrating disciplinary habits of practice within a culturally sustaining framework enhanced students’ ability to analyze and interpret texts while cultivating a classroom environment that affirmed diverse voices and perspectives.
These findings have implications for literacy education, particularly in reimagining the role of disciplinary literacy within English Language Arts instruction. By shifting from a model that privileges traditional Eurocentric approaches to one that centers students' cultural and linguistic assets, educators can create more inclusive and equitable learning experiences and expand canonical ways of knowing. This study advocates for envisioning pedagogical approaches that are more transformative and reach toward ‘collectividuality’ (Stetsenko, 2017)—realizing ourselves and the world
Emotion-based Multimodal Music Classifier for Recommender Systems
No full textIn recent years, advancements in artificial intelligence have driven a growing demand for
personalized user experiences across various digital platforms. In the music domain, this
trend is reflected in the need for more sophisticated recommendation systems beyond
traditional collaborative filtering methods.
This thesis introduces an emotion-based multimodal music classifier, leveraging both
audio features and song lyrics to capture the emotional content of music. By focusing on
song content and emotional attributes, this approach aims to lay the groundwork for
recommendation systems capable of providing users with a more customized and
emotionally resonant experience, also addressing the cold-start problem typical of
collaborative filtering-based recommendation.
Following an overview of existing literature on the topic and the examination of the
challenges posed by the specific field of interest, the first contribution of this work is the
creation of a suitable dataset for Music Emotion Recognition: this is achieved by
extending a subset of the Music4All-Onion dataset with emotion-based labels for song
lyrics using an eight-class emotional model. Audio data, available in the form of pre-
extracted acoustic features, is analyzed using unsupervised machine learning methods to
meaningfully model the underlying structures and patterns associated with emotional
music content.
Different baselines methods are identified as benchmarks to comparatively evaluate the
proposed approaches. The final emotion-based multimodal classifier primarily relies on
textual data in the form of song lyrics, incorporating acoustic information as an auxiliary
feature to enhance the emotional classification. The model achieves promising results in
the context of Music Emotion Recognition, considering the data availability issues
characterizing research in this field
Electrochemical Analysis of Whole Human Saliva for Periodontitis and Glycemic Status
No full textBackground:
Periodontitis is a chronic inflammation of the periodontium caused by persistent bacterial infection, leading to the destruction of supporting tooth structures. It affects approximately 40% of the US population. Current diagnostic parameters, including bleeding on probing, clinical attachment levels, plaque index, gingival index, and bone loss, primarily indicate a history of disease. However, these markers become measurable only after significant tissue damage, making them poor prognosticators of disease progression or severity. Since periodontitis often progresses asymptomatically, many patients delay seeking care until the destruction is irreversible, and the ability to reconstruct the periodontium becomes limited. Early diagnosis is, therefore, critical for effective preventive intervention.
Objective:
This pilot study outlines implementing an electrochemical biosensor for the point-of-care (POC) assessment of periodontitis and related comorbidities. The project focuses on utilizing non-stimulated whole human saliva (WHS) as a non-invasive medium to monitor biomarkers associated with inflammation, soft tissue, and bone destruction, critical in periodontal disease progression. These biomarkers span microorganisms, enzymes, proteins, metal ions, and microRNA, ensuring a comprehensive approach to disease assessment.
Material and Methods:
The study uses WHS sample collection from 41 subjects, including controls and patients with varying stages of chronic periodontitis and A1c levels, to evaluate biomarkers' correlation with periodontal and diabetic conditions. A1c for each subject was tested chairside using a rapid A1c test during saliva collection.
This specific research project aimed to determine whether electrochemical analysis using biosensors would lead to different results when testing WHS of patients with and without periodontitis; and for patients with different A1c levels. Electrochemical analysis of WHS was completed using Gamry potentiostat and Gamry software. Open circuit potential (OCP), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and cyclic voltammetry (CV) were analyzed. Using this data, the capacitance and resistance of salivary samples were calculated.
Results:
The evolution of open circuit potential, cyclic voltammetry and EIS data ( Resistance and Capacitance) exhibit a clear difference between the WHS of subjects with varying glycemic and periodontal status.
Conclusion:
The findings suggest that the salivary biochemical properties may vary with peridoonytal and glycemic status. These findings highlight the potential of using electrochemical analysis of whole human saliva as an adjunct diagnostic tool and for monitoring of periodontal disease risk in patients with varying levels of glycemic control
Fostering Self-Determination Through Improv for Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
No full textThe current study aimed to explore how improvisation (improv)exercises impact self-determination of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). It is well documented that self-determination is a predictor of many positive outcomes contributing to a quality of life. A few limited studies have examined the impact of role playing and theatre exercises on social skills for youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and even fewer studies have examined the impact of such activities (including improvisation) on individuals with other IDDs. This study conducted and developed and tested a tested an improv intervention with a single group of ten individuals with IDD to explore the effect of 8 weeks of improv exercises on the participants’ self-determination and training experience. The multimethod design includes the ARCs self-determination scale gathered pre and post intervention and qualitative interviews at the end of the study. Implications of this study are important for researchers, practitioners, and caregivers who could use improv to foster self-determination of individuals with IDD in order to help individuals achieve a higher quality of life
Cyber-Physical Vulnerabilities and Resiliency of Power Electronics Systems
No full textThe increasing integration of power electronic systems (PES) in modern energy infrastructure has introduced significant cybersecurity vulnerabilities, particularly in the form of intrusions that disrupt control feedback, degrade performance, and compromise system stability. These vulnerabilities are exacerbated in networked PES architectures, where interconnected inverters and solid-state transformers (SSTs) rely on real-time communication and control coordination, making them susceptible to both cyber-physical attacks and delays induced by secure communication protocols. This dissertation investigates these challenges by analyzing the impact of side-channel noise intrusions (SNI) cyber threats on power converters, identifying their consequences on system performance, and developing novel methodologies to enhance resilience through detection, mitigation, and secure control frameworks. A major contribution of this work is the development of advanced resilient-by-design control mechanisms, including intrusion detection system (IDS) and impact mitigation algorithms, developed from spectral signature analysis, enabling real-time identification and self-healing of power electronics systems against malicious interferences to its closed-loop dynamic performance. To address the adverse effects of such intrusions, the study introduces novel mitigation strategies, including Kalman-filter-based signal reconstruction and adaptive control adjustments, which allow the system to maintain stability even when control feedback is compromised. By systematically characterizing cyber vulnerabilities, developing real-time detection and mitigation strategies, and proposing resilient multi-layered control architectures, this dissertation contributes to fortifying power electronics systems against evolving cyber threats, ensuring stable, secure, and efficient operation in future smart grids and energy networks
The Implementation and Maturity of Health in All Policies in Local Governments in the United States: A Qualitative Multiple Case Study
No full textPublic health problems are complex and are influenced by many factors related to social and structural determinants of health that contribute to inequities and differences in health outcomes. Evidence shows that current public health approaches are not fully addressing population health challenges. Today’s increasingly wicked and complex public health challenges cannot be solved in silos. Instead, they require cross-sector and collaborative policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) approaches, like Health in All Policies (HiAP). HiAP has the potential to address complex public health problems and improve health outcomes and health inequities because it is a cross-sector approach that does not concentrate on one issue. Rather, it takes a holistic view of upstream PSE factors that influence health (Green et al., 2021).While HiAP is an active and growing practice in the United States, it is difficult to know whether the patterns of adoption and implementation have changed over time (Onside Partners, 2023). Additional comparison case studies and evidence of local HiAP implementation are needed to better understand HiAP, the contexts in which it is most valuable, and what factors are required to support implementation (Green et al., 2021; Guglielmin, 2020; Huang et al., 2018). Much of the existing literature that describes HiAP implementation is internationally focused and may apply only partially to the U.S. context due to differences in public health systems, government structures, and politics (Huang et al., 2018). This study used a qualitative multiple-case study with a document review, key-informant interviews, and a facilitated discussion. First, it examined how local governments have implemented HiAP, focusing on the strategies that facilitate implementation, the role of HiAP characteristics, and achieved maturity levels. Second, it aimed to explore the opportunities for enhancing HiAP implementation in local governments. Throughout this exploration, this study provides valuable insights that inform policymakers, practitioners, and stakeholders, enabling more effective HiAP implementation strategies and contributing to improved health outcomes and equity at the community level. The study found that local governments used various strategies to implement HiAP. Higher-maturity cases had characteristics that supported HiAP, including supportive leadership, knowledgeable staff, and organizational structures to tackle complex challenges collaboratively and impactfully. The more mature cases also evidenced formal processes, evaluation and reporting systems, more comprehensive and multifaceted strategies, and sustained resource allocations. Opportunities for improving HiAP include securing dedicated funding, staff, and infrastructure to support implementation, and listening to and leveraging community voices, strong leaders, and champions. Overall, this study contributes to the existing literature to help practitioners better evaluate and modify their HiAP approach within their local contexts and provide more evidence to support implementation. </p
DMSP for R21 Gene Expression Study
No full textDMSP for research generating small amount of DNA and gene expression data, all of which will be publicly shared without constraints.</p
Impacts of emotion regulation on executive functions between women with and without ADHD
No full textThis poster presentation describes the impact of emotion regulation on executive functions between women with and without ADHD, showing how poor emotion regulation can decrease executive functioning. Women with and without ADHD were included for the main analyses; however, women with suspected ADHD were included earlier and demonstrated more severe deficits in executive functioning, emotion regulation, self-esteem, cognitive flexibility, and rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD). ADHD moderated the relationships between self-esteem and executive functioning and between emotion regulation and executive functioning. Overall, this research demonstrates that women with ADHD have severe difficulties with emotion regulation, executive functioning, and self-esteem compared to their counterparts without ADHD. Future research is crucial to further explore the difficulties faced by women with ADHD to improve earlier intervention and inform individualized treatment.</p
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