University of Illinois at Chicago
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“Lord I am 1”: The Solitary “I” and the Social Lyric
No full textThis dissertation explores the ways in which sociality and isolation are understood in lyric poetry. When Theodor Adorno begins his 1957 lecture “On Lyric Poetry and Society,” by suggesting that the topic “will make many […] uncomfortable,” he identifies that discomfort with the tendency, as he puts it, to “experience lyric poetry as something opposed to society, something wholly individual.” He clearly has in mind the kind of poem we associate more broadly with the “voicing” of an individual point of view, often (but not always) marked by the first-person singular pronoun. At the same time, Adorno sees this tendency as a function of material conditions that affect everyone – social conditions in other words— under which such poems get written. For Adorno, the fact that these conditions so often register as expressions of a singular voice or “solitary singer” is also what gives the lyric its power. Solitude in this form, Adorno argues, represents a universalizing fantasy of escape from those material conditions that, he says, “every individual experiences as alien, hostile, cold, oppressive.” Jonathan Culler’s 2015 study, Theory of the Lyric, offers a more abstract view of this tendency, one that doesn’t reduce lyric to something “wholly individual,” but that can still accommodate the solitary singers of the genre. Lyric’s work has been understood, Culler says, as above all “mimetic: an imitation of the subject.” Like Adorno, Culler also sees this aspect of lyric as an historically specific development, arguing that our inherited understanding of the lyric as an “imitation of the subject” – one that we also see reflected in Adorno’s critique of the genre – comes out of the Romantic period, “when a more vigorous and highly developed conception of the individual subject” made this kind of “mimesis” possible. For both Adorno and Culler – for that matter, even for many poets and critics of the Romantic period, the first-person singular “I” is thus never as solitary as it seems. The question my dissertation ask is this: if lyric is understood as playing a social role despite the fact that the lyric voice often seems to speak from a place of solitude, what do we make of poems in which solitude figures as necessary to lyric’s social project
Feasibility and Acceptability of an Open Trial Peer-Supported Mental Health Program for High School Youth
No full textFor many youths, schools are often the primary site to receive mental health care given these services are typically free, do not require travel to a clinic, and are embedded within the environment where youth spend most of their day. Growing evidence indicates that peer-supported treatments can provide unique benefits to youth regarding treatment engagement, reduction of stigma around mental health, and improving treatment outcomes. This study evaluated and open trial of a school-based intervention addressing internalizing symptoms for high school students with a peer-to-peer component to address treatment fidelity and increase social connectedness. Students (n= 9) participated in research evaluation of the intervention and provided both clinical and qualitative data and staff members (n=7) participated in qualitative interviews to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention. The study design includes both qualitative and quantitative data and included use of reliable change indices, rapid matrix analysis, the expanded framework for reporting adaptations, and evaluation of intervention engagement and implementation metrics (e.g., attendance, homework completion).
Results indicated that the intervention was favorable to students and staff and the intervention was not iatrogenic, though significant clinical gains among a majority of youth was not observed. Adaptations in this study were made collaboratively at each stage of implementation and staff found that the intervention was a good fit for the school, and that research staff felt engaged in the school. Students were engaged in the intervention and while they shared that social anxiety and stigma were barriers in the intervention, they noted growing readiness for and an appreciation of the peer support role. A conceptual model regarding peer-support role development and longitudinal youth engagement in school-based interventions was also developed integrating results and research literature that may be tested in the future
Therapeutic Effects and Targeted Delivery of Eupenifeldin in Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer
No full textCastration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) poses a major therapeutic challenge, as it often fails to respond to standard treatments such as taxane-based chemotherapies, androgen receptor pathway inhibitors, and radioligand-based approaches1–4. Despite these treatments, CRPC remains incurable, and novel therapeutic strategies are urgently needed1,5. This thesis investigates Eupenifeldin, a bistropolone natural product, as a potential therapeutic agent for CRPC and explores targeted drug delivery strategies to enhance its efficacy and specificity6.
Eupenifeldin demonstrated potent cytotoxicity in multiple CRPC cell lines, with nanomolar IC₅₀ values and significantly lower toxicity toward non-malignant prostate epithelial cells, indicating selectivity for cancer cells. Compared to docetaxel, a standard chemotherapy for CRPC, Eupenifeldin exhibited a more favorable selectivity profile. Further studies revealed that Eupenifeldin inhibits cell proliferation in a dose-dependent manner and induces apoptotic cell death through caspase-3/7 activation, suggesting that apoptotic pathways mediate its anticancer effects.
Mechanistic studies revealed that Eupenifeldin caused a broad reduction in kinase phosphorylation, which correlated with a marked depletion in intracellular ATP levels. This metabolic disruption was attributed to Eupenifeldin’s ability to inhibit both glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), key energy-producing pathways in CRPC cells. Metabolic flux analysis confirmed that Eupenifeldin significantly decreased extracellular acidification rate (ECAR) and oxygen consumption rate (OCR), indicating glycolytic and mitochondrial metabolism suppression. Further analysis of metabolic enzyme expression demonstrated that Eupenifeldin downregulated key glycolytic regulators, including GLUT-1, HK2, and PKM2, which are critical for glucose uptake and metabolism. This metabolic stress was accompanied by a substantial increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, further contributing to cellular damage and apoptosis. The addition of a ROS scavenger partially rescued cell viability, confirming the role of oxidative stress in Eupenifeldin’s mechanism of action.
To enhance the therapeutic potential of Eupenifeldin, this study also focused on developing an optimized PSMA-targeted liposomal delivery system to improve drug accumulation in CRPC tumors while minimizing systemic toxicity. Given the overexpression of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) in advanced prostate cancer, Eupenifeldin-loaded liposomes functionalized with J-591, a monoclonal antibody targeting PSMA, were developed and evaluated. In vitro studies demonstrated that J-591-functionalized Eupenifeldin-loaded liposomes exhibited significantly greater cytotoxicity in PSMA-expressing CRPC cells compared to non-targeted liposomal Eupenifeldin or free drug, confirming the efficacy of active targeting.
An in vivo xenograft study was conducted to further assess the therapeutic potential of targeted Eupenifeldin delivery. The rationale for this in vivo investigation was twofold: first, to evaluate the effectivity of PSMA-targeted liposomal Eupenifeldin in selectively reducing tumor burden in CRPC models, and second, to establish intravenous (IV) administration as a feasible route for delivering Eupenifeldin in a systemic anti-tumor setting. Given that previous studies on Eupenifeldin delivery were primarily limited to intraperitoneal administration, it was critical to determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and safety profile for IV injection, which is a preferred route for clinical translation due to its potential for systemic drug distribution and controlled pharmacokinetics.
A dose-escalation study established 0.025 mg/kg as the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) for IV Eupenifeldin administration, providing a foundation for subsequent efficacy studies7. In xenograft-bearing mice, IV administration of Eupenifeldin led to a significant reduction in tumor burden, with PSMA-targeted liposomal Eupenifeldin demonstrating the highest therapeutic effect. Notably, tumors in mice receiving J-591-functionalized Eupenifeldin-loaded liposomes exhibited significantly greater growth inhibition than those treated with non-targeted formulations or free drug, confirming the efficacy of antibody-mediated tumor targeting
Extracellular Vesicles as Mediators of Communication Between Endothelial Cells and Fibroblasts
No full textDuring tissue repair, the peak of angiogenesis is characterized by dense, disorganized and poorly perfused vasculature. As healing progresses, many newly formed vessels regress while surrounding fibroblasts undergo robust proliferation and matrix remodeling. Although fibroblast activation often coincides with angiogenesis, the mechanisms of endothelial-fibroblast cross-talk remain poorly defined. One emerging mode of intracellular communication is through extracellular vesicles (EVs), capable of transferring regulatory molecules such as microRNAs (miRNAs) to nearby or distant cells.
This study investigated whether EVs secreted by human dermal microvascular endothelial cells (EC-EVs) influence fibroblast behavior. We isolated and characterized EC-EVs and confirmed their uptake by primary dermal fibroblasts. EV treatment enhanced fibroblast migration, proliferation, and collagen production in vitro. In a murine wound model, EC-EVs increased fibroblast density and collagen deposition in granulation tissue, though without accelerating wound closure, suggesting selective modulation of fibroblast function.
To uncover molecular mechanisms, small RNA sequencing of EC-EVs identified abundant miRNA cargo, and target prediction using the miRWalk database yielded over 13,000 high confidence gene targets. Bulk RNA sequencing of fibroblasts treated with EC-EVs for 24 and 48 hours revealed differentially expressed genes, with enrichment in angiogenic, chemotactic, and biosynthetic pathways, and downregulation of TGF-β signaling and ECM genes. Integration of predicted miRNA targets with transcriptomic data identified more than 5,000 overlapping genes, implicating PI3K-Akt, MAPK, Wnt, and hypoxia signaling pathways, as well as cytoskeletal and focal adhesion regulation.
Together, these findings demonstrate that EC-EVs reprogram fibroblast phenotype through both direct transcriptomic and miRNA-mediated mechanisms, uncovering a novel mode of endothelial-fibroblast communication that may be leveraged to modulate tissue repair
Regulation of Myeloid Leukemia Cells by Platelet Factor 4
No full textLeukemic stem cells (LSCs) are thought to be the main drivers of relapse in Acute Myeloid Leukemia. LSCs ability to retain key properties of healthy hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) means they are quiescent, chemo-resistant, and able to repopulate eradicated leukemic blasts, making LSCs an important target in AML. However, their interactions with and regulation by the bone marrow microenvironment deserve further exploration. Here, we examined the efficacy of the megakaryocyte-derived chemokine platelet factor 4 (PF4) to inhibit LSC proliferation and alter the course of AML disease progression in syngeneic mouse models and human AML cells. We found that PF4 preferentially acts on LSCs via low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) to inhibit their proliferation and deregulate lipid metabolism. When given in combination with chemotherapy, PF4 prolongs the overall survival of leukemic mice. Collectively, our results indicate that PF4 disrupts lipid metabolism in AML, halting disease progression and conferring long-term survival in leukemic mice
Investigating Interlingual Errors to Enhance Intelligent Writing Assistants for Second Language Learners
No full textLanguage-learning apps offer convenient, low-pressure learning environments, often providing real-time feedback to users. One popular type of software is automated writing assistants (AWAs), which afford language-learning opportunities through explanatory messages in response to grammatical errors found in a given piece of text. These AWAs have been built upon advances in machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) for state-of-the-art grammatical error correction and feedback capabilities, as well as decades of research in language pedagogy investigating the optimal construction and delivery of corrective feedback.
This work concerns a well-documented class of errors that often arise from a word-by-word translation from a native language to a target language -- interlingual errors. Though researchers have suggested developing targeted lessons and feedback that expose learners to incongruences between native and target languages to address these errors, few studies have investigated the effectiveness of this contrastive feedback and how it is received, especially in the context of AWAs. In this work, I seek to bridge this gap by exploring the feasibility of integrating contrastive feedback for interlingual preposition errors in an AWA. In particular, I (1) present and compare ML- and neural language model-based approaches to preposition error detection, highlighting the capabilities of ML classifiers with linguistically-informed features, (2) develop and validate a scalable technique for collecting annotations of interlingual errors, (3) propose and evaluate a statistical method for diagnosing an error as interlingual, and (4) conduct a user study investigating the effectiveness and perceptions of contrastive feedback in an AWA-like environment, finding that while contrastive feedback is not significantly more beneficial than direct feedback, it is still an effective and engaging type of feedback in treating interlingual errors
Ecological Conservatism and Traits Predict Introduction Risk and Co-Occurrence for the Flora of Chicago
No full textHuman activity over the past century has dramatically reshaped global plant diversity and distribution. The degradation of natural habitats and redistribution of plant species has changed the makeup of plant communities, generally leading to increased homogenization and decreased biodiversity. While many plant species have suffered from human activity, others have thrived due to their skill at colonizing habitats marked by anthropogenic activity. In this thesis, we examine how various traits impact a plant’s ability to exploit human caused dispersal and disturbance. In chapter 1, we examine the coefficients of conservatism (C-scores) for the flora of the Chicago region. These scores designate a plant’s tolerance to anthropogenic disturbance and we found that they were effective predictors of species assemblages. We also found that traits such as life span, phylogenetic relationship, and wetland affinity were associated with C-score while breeding system and diaspore mass were not. In chapter 2, we examine what traits are associated with non-native introduction and post introduction invasion. We found that tolerance to both a wide range of climates and to anthropogenic disturbance predicted introduction and invasion. Other traits, like lifespan and wetland affinity had different effects during introduction than they did during invasion, while other traits like breeding system never had an effect. The results from these two chapters give insight into what traits help a plant thrive alongside humanity while simultaneously helping aid our understanding of conservation tools like C-score as well as drivers of introduction and invasion
Itakuchi: Echoes from the Twilight House
No full textItakuchi, the cadejo, is no phantom or myth. It is an echo
Of both history and culture
Of the personal and traditional
Of memory and sound
Of exile and belonging
Of language and silence
Of withering and bloom
Wandering the hueco, the space between–The Twilight House–what was and what might be.
Itakuchi is not the cadejo of Salvadoran legend:
a dog-like creature with goat hooves and alighted charcoal eyes
a black dog and a white dog
a predator along roads, forests, and the countryside
Itakuchi is:
a warden and chronicler of tales
the carrier of the sun through the silent dead night
the new American: displaced, indigenous, fragmented
mine, niné
Listen to Itakuchi’s whistling howl gently shiver the houses, the sounds carried on by wind. Its story, our story from The Twilight House, inscribed in sand along the Pacific Ocean and fracturing all over el mundo with the help of friends
Rocío, my sister the Rain
Max, my brother the Snow and Ice
Sunbae, the Winds of Experience
Terrícola, the Earth
Tunal, the Sun and Breath
You may never know Itakuchi. Pero donde sea que te encuentres, when your hueco opens, it’ll find you
Speaking Identity: Language Investment and Agency Among Spanish Heritage Speakers
No full textThis dissertation investigates how Spanish heritage speakers (HS) in Chicago negotiate their bilingual identities and invest in their heritage language amid competing social forces. Drawing on frameworks of identity, agency, and critical language awareness, the study explores how Spanish shapes participants’ Latine identities and what factors influence their language investment. Using a qualitative grounded-theory approach, I collected data from ten undergraduate heritage Spanish students (ages 19–23) through linguistic autobiographies, semi-structured interviews, and a group discussion. Data were analyzed inductively, identifying themes related to identity, language use, and power dynamics.
Findings reveal that agency is central to heritage language investment. In schools, participants experienced both support (e.g., translanguaging) and exclusion (e.g., English-only norms). They resisted marginalization by strategically asserting their bilingualism, demonstrating Critical Linguistic Agency (Cibils, 2011). Beyond school, family and community networks served as “counterspaces,” where Spanish was valued for cultural connection and social support. Participants leveraged Spanish to maintain family ties, navigate social networks, and assert their linguistic identity.
The study concludes that HS actively negotiate bilingualism, balancing the cultural value of Spanish with institutional pressures favoring English. Even when their Spanish skills felt “incomplete,” participants found ways to validate their linguistic identity. The dissertation advocates for educational practices that recognize students’ hybrid language practices, promote translanguaging, and challenge deficit perspectives, empowering heritage speakers as agents of cultural continuity
STANNIC: Systolic Stochastic Online Scheduling Accelerator
No full textEfficient workload scheduling is a critical challenge in modern heterogeneous computing environments, particularly in high-performance computing (HPC) systems. Traditional software-based schedulers struggle to efficiently balance workload distribution due to high scheduling overhead, lack of adaptability to dynamic workloads, and suboptimal resource utilization. These pitfalls are compounded in heterogeneous systems, where differing computational elements can have vastly different performance profiles. To resolve these hindrances, we presented a novel FPGA-based accelerator for stochastic online scheduling (SOS), in which we modified a greedy cost selection assignment policy by adapting existing cost equations to engage with discretized time before implementing them into a hardware accelerator design. The proposed design achieved high throughput, low latency, and energy-efficient operation, offering an alternative to traditional software scheduling methods, all of which make the SOS accelerator a strong candidate for deployment in high-performance computing systems, deep learning
pipelines, and other performance-critical applications. By introducing a hardware-accelerated approach to real-time scheduling, this work established a new paradigm for adaptive scheduling mechanisms in heterogeneous computing systems.
While this presented design leveraged hardware parallelism, pre-calculation, and precision quantization to reduce job scheduling latency, the presented architecture’s operational flow was envisioned from a task centric perspective. This perspective resulted in a pipelined design in which tracking of previously assigned tasks was handled by multiple, decentralized memory elements. Coherency of these discrete memories had to be strictly maintained leading to several performance bottlenecks, such as slow iteration speeds, high interconnectivity congestion, and severe resource usage.
In this thesis, I present an alternative architecture, which is rooted in a machine schedule centric perspective. Inspired by systolic processing architectures, this new design centralizes the memory elements into connected structures which leverage the imposed ordering of WSPT scheduling to both simplify memory management and to further accelerate scheduling decisions. These enhancements have
resulted in an FPGA SOS scheduler design with lower latency and a smaller hardware footprint. Due to these improvements, the new design is also capable of scheduling for larger heterogeneous systems, with the new design being capable of synthesizing bitstreams for system configurations with 14x more
machines than the previous design was capable of. All of these improvements in performance metrics were achieved without increasing the power usage of the FPGA performing the scheduling operation over its baseline power draw, with each design size maintaining 21W of power draw. In improving upon the scheduler’s latency, size, and scalability, while maintaining overall power draw, this thesis further improves and highlights the capability of hardware-based acceleration in heterogeneous, real-time scheduling
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