University of Illinois at Chicago
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Forming Queerness: Experimental Forms and Queer Lineage in Post-Stonewall American Literature
No full textForming Queerness: Experimental Forms and Queer Lineage in Post-Stonewall American Literature explores three major figures of late 20th century American literature and their impact on the representation of LGBTQ+ art and culture: Audre Lorde, Robert Chesley, and Andrea Lawlor. By centering these figures as integral to the conditions of queer representation in American art, this dissertation animates writing following the Stonewall Riots of 1969, an event which marked a significant change for LGBTQ+ liberation movements, making the efforts of queer activists publicly visible and more urgent than ever. Not only did the Riots spark interest and public scrutiny of the movement, it also fundamentally reshaped the landscape of queer artistic output. The art produced in the years following the Riots marked a transformative moment for queer literary expression because they invited interrogation of the socio-cultural and political efficacies of queer art and culture. In many ways, the work produced in the years following Stonewall not only engaged new models of queer life and possibility but also contended with the rise of Feminist, Gender, and Queer theories that were proliferating in academic communities. My dissertation argues that writers engaged with form to imagine not only new literary possibilities but more explicitly interrogated how these new forms challenge heteronormative and conscriptive assumptions for queer expression
Utilizing 2D Attention-Based Models for Memory Efficient 3D Reconstruction
No full text3D reconstruction is a fundamental problem in computer vision and graphics, with applications in virtual reality, robotics, and digital content creation. Classical formulations such as voxel grids and meshes provide structured representations. Unfortunately, these representations present significant challenges in training deep learning models for real time processing due to their discrete structures and sparsity. To address some of the challenges, recent works use Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) and 3D Gaussian Splatting representations, which have enabled high-quality scene reconstruction with improved rendering capabilities. Compared to NeRFs, 3D Gaussian Splatting offers real-time rendering and the ability to represent large-scale scenes efficiently. However, one of its key limitations is the high memory and storage requirements, as accurately reconstructing a scene often requires millions of Gaussians. To overcome this, we propose a novel spatial grouping and 2D attention-based framework that learns compressed representations of 3D Gaussian Splatting scenes. Our method significantly reduces memory overhead while preserving visual fidelity and rendering quality, making it a viable solution for efficient and scalable 3D scene representation. We use the CO3D Dataset by Meta AI that contains 1.5 million frames from nearly 19,000 videos capturing objects from 50 MS-COCO categories. The dataset mimics real world settings as it is captured without any coordinate calibration, hence, despite its challenges, it allows us to test our framework close to daily application conditions. Our experimental evaluations indicate that it is possible to compress a 3DGS scene by as much as 16 times without compromising on its visual quality
Validation of an Inertial Microfluidic Isolation System for Liquid Biopsy
No full textLiquid biopsy is a critical tool for understanding cancer metastasis and monitoring disease progression. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) obtained from liquid biopsy samples provide essential information on disease progression in most solid tumors. Consequently, isolating and analyzing CTCs is vital to enhance our understanding of disease progression, assess interventions, and improve clinical outcomes in cancer patients. However, CTCs are exceptionally rare and difficult to isolate from blood, making them challenging to acquire and investigate. The rarity of CTCs is a consequence of both the nature of metastasis and the technical limitations of available isolation strategies. Commercial isolation systems use immunomagnetic techniques that rely on expensive antibodies and have low sensitivity and recovery rates due to heterogeneous expression of cellular surface markers. To address these issues, inertial microfluidic systems were developed to improve cell separation recovery and efficiency. These systems do not rely on surface marker detection but instead exploit inertial forces and the differential sizes of cells to separate CTCs from blood. In this work, we validate and assess the performance of a co-flow inertial microfluidic device for cell separation, focusing on its efficiency, purity, and recovery rate using murine metastatic breast cancer models. Additionally, we benchmarked the enhanced performance of the inertial microfluidic device against a commercial immunomagnetic separation system by isolating endogenous CTCs from pancreatic cancer patient blood. Finally, to further understand CTC behavior, we conducted in vitro analyses of pancreatic CTCs to investigate cancer cell phenotype and migration behavior under treatment
Stealthy Credential-Stealing Against Password Managers in Native App Ecosystems
No full textPassword managers significantly improve password-based authentication, by generating strong and unique passwords while also streamlining the actual authentication process through autofill functionality. Crucially, autofill provides additional security protections when employed within a traditional browsing environment, as it can trivially thwart phishing attacks due to the website's domain information being readily available. With the increasing trend of major web services also deploying standalone native applications, passwords managers have also started offering universal autofill and other user-friendly capabilities for desktop application environments. However, it is currently unclear how password managers' security protections apply in these environments. To fill that gap, in this thesis I present the first systematic empirical analysis of the autofill-related functionalities made available by popular password managers (including 1Password, Keeper and LastPass) in two major desktop environments: MacOS and Windows. We find that password managers adopt different strategies for interacting with desktop apps, and employ widely different levels of safeguards against UI-based attacks. For instance, on MacOS we find that a high level of security can be achieved by leveraging OS-provided APIs and checks, while on Windows we identify a lack of proper security checks mainly due to OS limitations. In each scenario, I demonstrate proof-of-concept attacks that allow other applications to bypass the security checks in place and stealthily steal user's credentials and one-time-passwords. Accordingly, I propose a series of countermeasures that can mitigate our attacks. Due to the severity of our attacks, we disclosed our findings and proposed countermeasures to the analyzed password manager vendors
Functional Dynamics of Dendritic Cells in Response to Cutibacterium acnes Strains Associated with Healthy and Acne-Prone Skin
No full textNo description supplied</p
ODJobs: Automated Analysis of Microbial Growth Kinetics for Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing
No full textODJobs is a specialized R package designed for the automated processing and analysis of timestamped optical density data from 96-well plate readers, with particular focus on bacterial growth kinetics in antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Originally developed to support Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) determination studies involving nanomaterial antimicrobials, the package provides robust analytical workflows that are equally applicable to traditional small molecule antimicrobials
Do Couto - Supplemental Material AJP
No full textSupplemental Material:Impairment of Microvascular Endothelial Kir2.1 Channels Contributes to Endothelial Dysfunction in Human HypertensionDo Couto N, Fancher I, Hwang C-L, Phillips SA, Levitan I</p
CHALLENGING ISSUES FOR IMPROVING THE LEGAL ENVIRONMENT OF INVESTMENT IN MONGOLIA. Challenging Issues for Improving the Legal Environment of Investment in Mongolia
No full textThis work is an English translation of a Mongolian-language policy analysis by E. Tamir examining the legal and regulatory environment for foreign investment in Mongolia. The study discusses investment incentives, dispute-resolution mechanisms, and institutional stability, and compares the 1993, 2013, and 2024 draft Investment Laws of Mongolia.The translator reformatted the references into Chicago style and provided English titles with original Mongolian titles in brackets. Figures and tables have been reproduced or translated where appropriate. This translation was completed as an independent academic project at the University of Illinois Chicago.</p
Achieving Equity After SCALE: What Works, and Where Are We Now?
No full textThe purpose of this research was to explore how community coalitions that participated in the Spreading Community Accelerators through Learning and Evaluation (SCALE) initiative use strategies, methods, and tools from the initiative, including the Community of Solutions (COS), in their approach to addressing equity and how this approach has been sustained since the formal end of SCALE in 2020.</p
Exploring Equity and Inclusiveness in Workplace Wellness Programmes: A Multi-Case Study on Programme Access and Participation
No full textABSTRACTThe prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension is a growing public health concern, significantly impacting individual and population health. This study examines the role of workplace wellness programmes in addressing these health challenges, emphasising the need for inclusivity and equity in programme design and implementation.Workplace wellness programmes (WWPs), initially developed to enhance safety and product quality, have evolved to address modifiable health risk factors through comprehensive health promotion initiatives. However, existing programmes often inadequately address the diverse needs of various employee groups, particularly frontline and marginalised workers, who face significant barriers to participation. Framed within a public health leadership and equity lens, the research problem centres on the disconnect between wellness programme intent and lived experience.While many programmes are designed with the goal of improving population health and reducing healthcare costs, they frequently overlook the social determinants of health that shape participation and outcomes for marginalised employees.Literature findings reveal that while workplace wellness programmes can reduce absenteeism, healthcare costs, and improve employee engagement and productivity, their effectiveness is often limited by factors such as inadequate inclusivity and equity in programme design, which further impact programme access and participation. Programmes that fail to consider the broader determinants of health may not achieve the desired health outcomes across employee groups. The literature suggests that inclusive and equity-oriented wellness strategies must move beyond individual behaviour change models and instead embrace structural, participatory, and systems-informed approaches. Despite this, limited empirical data exist to guide practitioners and leaders in operationalising such approaches in complex workplace environments.This study adopted a multiple-case, mixed-methods pre-action research design consisting of three phases: (1) a document review of internal policies, strategies, and wellness-related materials from both companies; (2) semi-structured interviews with wellness professionals, human resource leads, and executives; and (3) focus group discussions with employees, with particular attention to shift-based, operational, and frontline roles. The research was guided by a social ecological model for health and informed by frameworks of cultural adaptation and sensitivity, patient-centred care and collaborative decision making, and inclusive and adaptive leadership, all of which align with anti-racism and equity (ARE) principles.This study identified critical gaps in current wellness initiatives, including the underrepresentation of low-income and minority employees in programme design, implementation, and participation.By centering the perspectives of marginalised employee groups and those responsible for wellness programme delivery, the study sought to inform the design of more equitable, contextually relevant, and sustainable wellness programmes. It also provides practical insights for public health leaders, human resource practitioners, and organisational decision-makers. Takeaways for public health leadership include the need for stronger alignment between wellness and DEIB strategies; participatory design processes that engage frontline staff; leadership modelling of wellness behaviours; and systems-level thinking that integrates wellness into the core of organisational life.Ultimately, the study contributes to advancing a workplace culture where health equity is not only aspirational but actionable.</p
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