University of Illinois at Chicago
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Don't Just Tick the Box: Encouraging Dialogue on Complex Animal and Human Health Issues - Workshop Survey
No full textRole-play simulation (RPS) descriptionRPS is a dynamic experiential activity in which a diverse group of stakeholders play specific roles to simulate a real-life negotiation and/or make decisions about complex social-environmental issues. During this RPS workshop, participants will play the role of a forest stakeholder (i.e., government agency, family forest landowner, outdoor recreation agent, or local organic farmer) to make decisions on the type of forest management methods and tick control methods that they would like to suggest to the local government. The RPS is a simulated negotiation in which participants will represent a role different from their real-life role.Workshop surveyAll workshop participants receive a pre- and post-workshop paper survey in a packet already identified with an ID number (for keeping track of same participant’s pre and post workshop responses). ID numbers are linked to participant’s occupation and affiliation only. Workshop surveys are anonymous, and participants take about 20 minutes to respond to them during the facilitated workshop schedule. Surveys are used to assess workshop participants’ knowledge of ticks, Lyme disease, and forest management practices, the likelihood of implementing forest management practices that impact tick density and TBD prevalence and learning outcomes of using RPS for forest management. The surveys combine Likert-type scale, multiple option, open-ended, and demographic questions.</p
Surveillance of Injuries in Farmworkers
No full textThis presentation from the 2024 Conference of the International Society for Agricultural Safety and Health provides an overview and preliminary data from a project to develop a surveillance program for work-related illnesses and injuries (WRIIs) in Illinois agriculture.</p
<b><i>How-to Guide:</i></b> Extracting Injury Data for Agricultural Injury Surveillance
No full textAgriculture is among the most hazardous sectors in the economy; hired migrant and seasonal farmworkers (FWs) are at high risk of work related injury and illness (WRII). Public health surveillance—finding cases and uncovering exposure mechanisms and adverse health outcomes—is critical for prevention. Reporting and recordkeeping systems are useful tools for public health surveillance, but they are limited. To identify and mitigate workplace hazards, we are producing a series of guides to “find’ farmworkers in existing health and employment databases in Illinois. Our ultimate goal is to reduce the morbidity and mortality burden and improve the wellbeing of hired farmworkers.</p
The Great Lakes Center for Farmworker Health and Wellbeing 2023-2024 Annual report
No full textThe GLCFHW has released its 2024 annual report highlighting the activities and progress of its second year. Highlights are summarized below.Major accomplishments:Expanding the Center’s External Advisory Board, budget, and online presenceBuilding stronger collaborations between the Center’s core teamsConnecting with over 450 farmworkers across 13 townsStrengthening partnerships with farmworker-serving organizationsPresenting and publishing research findingsKey lessons from outreach work:The need for more visual rather than text-based training materials for farmworkersThe importance of creating confidential spaces where farmworkers can share their experiencesThe insights that can be gained from field observations to better understand farmworkers’ lived realitiesNext steps for the coming year:Deploying a tested survey tool measuring farmworker health and wellbeingDeveloping processes to detect, count, and prevent occupational pesticide illnesses in IllinoisDeepening our understanding of farmworkers and labor supervisors’ perspectives on workplace heat safety clothingProducing more accurate recommendations regarding the kinds of drinks to use for fluid replacement to prevent heat-related illnessesExploring the structure and importance of social networks within the farmworker community</p
The Role of Endothelial cell-derived Extracellular Vesicles in modulating Fibroblast Function in Skin Wound Healing
No full textAn adequate wound healing response requires the coordination of intercellular signals between multiple cell types. Following skin injury, endothelial cells and fibroblasts provisionally replace the site of injury with newly vascularized granulation tissue. Given the spatial and temporal overlap of these two cell types in the healing response, we hypothesize that endothelial cell-derived extracellular vesicles (ECEVs) could provide a communication pathway by which ECs influence fibroblast behavior. In this study we investigated the effects of ECEVs on fibroblast function both in vitro and in vivo through a murine skin wound healing model. Transcriptomic analysis showed that the uptake of ECEVs by fibroblasts altered functions and pathways relating to cell division, ECM organization, and fibrosis. This gene signature resulted from upregulation of the transcription factor ETV1, which enhanced fibroblast susceptibility to FGF2 found on ECEVs. This transcriptomic analysis was functionally corroborated through in vitro assays in which fibroblasts demonstrated enhanced proliferation, cell cycle progression, and altered ECM deposition following ECEV treatment. Administration of ECEVs to healing mouse wounds led to increased collagen density and fibroblast quantity in the wound bed of scar tissue. Our study highlights a previously undefined role for ECEVs in regulating fibroblast function during wound repair.</p
<b>Black and Latina Family Child Care Educators' </b><b>Community-Centered Care</b><b>: Cultivating Healthy Development and Family Well-Being</b>
No full textThe economic ramifications of child care in the United States are considerable, with an estimated valuation of $99.3 billion (Care Aware of America and the Buffett & Early Childhood Institute, 2025). This sector is pivotal, facilitating the creation of over 2 million jobs nationwide, thereby highlighting the integral role of child care in sustaining the workforce and broader economy (Yoonjeon & Austin, 2025). As of 2019, nearly 60% of the 15.3 million households with children under the age of five relied on non-parental care, reflecting a significant reliance on such services (Cui & Natzke, 2021). Additionally, approximately 2.7 million parents reported modifications of their employment circumstances in response to challenges associated with securing adequate child care, thus illustrating the profound connection between child care accessibility and parental employment stability(Yoonjeon & Austin, 2025).Participation in high-quality early care and education (ECE) programs for children from birth to age five has been associated with substantial public health benefits. Research indicates that these programs facilitate critical developmental milestones, including enhanced brain development, improved executive function, and increased self-regulation capacities(Schoch et al., 2023). The educational and health benefits of high-quality early education are particularly salient for low-income children, notably boys, who demonstrate improved educational outcomes, higher lifetime earnings, and better health indicators as a result of such programs(Garcia & Heckman, 2016; Reynolds et al., 2011).Despite the well-documented advantages of ECE, the systems that underpin these programs are beset by numerous challenges, including funding constraints, workforce turnover, and issues related to program accessibility(Petig et al., 2024). There exists an urgent need for increased investment in high-quality ECE initiatives to adequately cater to the diverse needs of children, their families, and the dedicated professionals within the ECE workforce. Such investments are essential not only for sustaining high-quality programs but also for improving the overall effectiveness of care provided to children.To advance the understanding of these systemic issues, further research is needed, particularly regarding the lived experiences of Black Indigenous Women of Color (BIWOC) Family Child Care (FCC) Educators. These educators are crucial in delivering nurturing and high-quality care to children and families residing in resource-limited communities. The present study seeks to gather and analyze the insights of BIWOC FCC Educators, focusing on the components within ECE systems—their interrelated organizations, policies, and practices—that empower these educators to offer quality care and socioeconomic support in high-poverty areas. By elevating the voices of these educators and gaining a deep understanding of their perspectives, this research aims to contribute to the discourse on systemic reform and equity within the early care and education landscape.</p
Finite Element Modeling and Validation of the Patellofemoral Joint
No full textThe patellofemoral joint is part of the knee joint, which is considered the largest joint in the human body. The patellofemoral joint is composed of the patella, a flat, rounded triangular bone, the distal part of the femur, which forms an inverted U-shaped intercondylar groove, and the articular cartilage that covers both the distal femur and posterior patella. Articular cartilage has several functions to enhance functionality in this joint (e.g., reduce friction, shock absorption, load distribution). Patellofemoral disorders are a leading cause of knee pain and cartilage degeneration, with a diagnosis of 1.5%-7.3% of all patients seeking medical care within the United States. Females experience patellofemoral pain more often than males, and the pain increases with age (the 50-59-year-old age group had the most cases). The most relevant patellofemoral
joint diseases are associated with overuse, repetitive stress, muscle imbalance, misalignment, or poor patellar tracking because the kneecap may not move appropriately along the femoral groove during flexion and extension. A non surgical approach is usually preferred for these pathologies, but the failure of conservative management will result in exploring surgical approaches. A common surgical treatment when conservative treatments fail is Tibial Tubercle Osteotomy (TTO), which consists of the realignment of the patellar tendon, moving the tibial tubercle, where the patellar tendon is inserted. This thesis is part of a larger project whose final goal is to obtain a validated finite element modeling framework that can predict patellofemoral contact mechanics and changes after TTO surgery, assess patients before surgery, and plan the surgery
accordingly with quantified measurements. The aim is to obtain the best surgical outcome possible and plan the surgery accordingly. Based on this final goal, the primary specific goal of this study is to develop a pipeline to create patient-specific models of the patellofemoral joint from clinical images (MRI), starting with cadaver specimens. Once the workflow is established and the baseline patellofemoral joint model is created, the secondary goal is to evaluate its
sensitivity to numerical parameters and uncertainties arising during its development. Finally, the last goal to validate the pipeline is to compare the FE model results of these cadaveric models created with experimental results derived from cadaveric experiments. This validation will be useful to quantify the trustability and accuracy of the created pipeline. Contact pressure
between patella articular cartilage and femur articular cartilage will be the primary variable in evaluating results. Once validated, the pipeline will be used to create patient models. In particular, 10 knees of subjects with abnormal sagittal tubercle-trochlear groove distances will be analyzed with the aim of identifying some anatomical predictors of surgical success by comparing
initial anatomy and the outcome of 5mm and 10mm anteriorization of the tibial tubercle. The project has some limitations related explicitly to non-patient-specific parameters used, such as material properties of bones, cartilage, and soft tissue, geometrical aspects of soft tissue, and ideal waveform as boundary conditions to simulate squatting movement. Overall model behavior, sensitivity studies, and comparison to experiments suggests that it can be a valuable tool in surgical planning and patient assessment
Bureaucracy and its Liberal Imaginings: Victorian Aesthetics of the State
No full textBureaucracy and its Liberal Imaginings: Victorian Aesthetics of the State endeavors, much like Thomas Carlyle, to understand the crisis of the present through an analysis of the past, but more specifically through fictions of the Victorian past. For it is only there, in the amalgam of stories fixated on the issue of reform and empire as found in the works of Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad, that we can find any insight into our own perceptions, perplexities, perturbations about the underlying tensions that organize (or disorganize) liberal society as a whole. Which is to say, bureaucracy, while on the one hand an integral apparatus underpinning the burgeoning modern state, is, on the other, an emotion, an experience, a sensation of anxiety and trepidation that evokes a certain way of thinking about the world. What I argue below is that this unique mode of contemplation, while typically perceived by contemporaries as “paranoid,” is in fact a reasonable albeit complicated struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible, to make the intangible tangible, to represent what is typically beyond representation. And in making such an argument, I am also suggesting that the idea of bureaucracy is at once inflected by the contradictions inherent to liberalism (a simultaneous demand for more and less State), and that such an inflection produces within the Victorian frame of mind—and arguably our own—a crisis of uncertainty which demands explanation and rectification, one that is ultimately formalized in the works of the above mentioned Victorians as a critical yet sympathetic plea for the expansion and solidification of democracy or a call for its destruction by way of charismatic, revolutionary heroes. And lastly, a claim such as mine seeks to complicate traditional theories and notions of bureaucracy found in John Stuart Mill and Max Weber in an effort to demonstrate the seriousness of such imaginings and why they should not be discounted on the face of their sometimes preposterous nature—a lesson all too prescient now
What! Is This the Kitchen?: Domestic Advice and the Market for a Model Kitchen, 1841-1959
No full textWhat! Is this The Kitchen? asesses the American middle-class kitchen and its association with domestic advisors, advertisers, and magazine editors at three pivotal moments in its history from 1841-1959. Most importantly, the thesis analyzes how the user, whom these parties assumed was a white housewife with some access to domestic servants or labor-saving devices, related to the sources she used and likely trusted to guide her decision-making in the kitchen. In the middle of the 19th century and just after the Civil War, this source was Catherine Beecher, a domestic advice expert and public writer and educator who endeavored to enable these women to function in their space with patriotism and Christian grace. In the early 20th century, Christine Frederick wrote domestic advice guided not by religious morality, but by secular zeal for the new field of scientific management, which she adapted to the home and helped to sell to housewives vis a vis the Hoosier Manufacturing Company, for whom she was a spokesperson. Finally, in the 1950s, shelter magazines took the singular figure of a domestic advisor and spread it over editors and periodicals bolstered by home research institutes. Anne Sonopol Anderson, one of these editors, was the spokeswoman for this process on the international stage, appearing as the demonstration housewife in the RCA Whirlpool Miracle Kitchen at the 1959 American Exhibition in Moscow. As a corollary to exhibition kitchens, the thesis also examines Levittown, itself an internal model of American identity.
These women were engaged in defining, sharing, and shaping the habitus of the middle class as it grew and coalesced into the largest bloc of the American public. At stake in their efforts is the increased understanding of white middle class American life through its women and their life at home, in both the magazines they read and the kitchens they used
APUF Faults: Testing, Diagnosing, and Salvaging
No full textArbiter Physically Unclonable Functions (APUFs) are hardware security primitives that generate unique digital fingerprints for integrated circuits (ICs) by exploiting manufacturing randomness. Ideally, a good APUF production line is characterized by symmetry, or equal delay for each track pair from the mask, and uniform, unskewed PV for all of the stages of all APUFs. This paper theoretically and numerically examines the impact of faults native to APUFs -- mask parameter faults from the design phase, or process variation (PV) during the manufacturing phase. We model them statistically and explain quantitatively how these faults affect the APUF response bias and uniqueness. We propose simple and efficient testing methodologies for faults in the APUF production line. The number of APUFs with positive responses (called the response bias) is used for the detection of the mask-phase fault, while the number of APUFs with the same response is used for the detection of the PV-phase fault. On a single APUF instance, these faults manifest as outlier delta elements in magnitude. To detect such faulty APUF instances and diagnose the abnormal delta elements, we propose a testing methodology that partitions a random set of challenges so that a specific delta element can be targeted, forming a perceivable bias in the responses over these sets. This low-cost approach is highly effective in detecting and diagnosing bad APUFs with abnormal delta element(s).
Instead of discarding these unqualified APUFs, our work proposes to use challenge selection to mitigate the undesired fault impacts. We present a systematic challenge selection-based salvaging strategy where faults ``cancel'' each other, such that the response bias and uniqueness are as close to ideal as possible. This is achieved based on a method to estimate the intensity of each faulty element for an APUF batch with many -faults, and the estimated result is valid for salvaging APUFs generated from this -fault production line. The presented strategies are low-cost (which means they need only a small number of APUF samples, no extra hardware), effective, and applicable to multiple faults
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