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Vaccination Status, Views, and Opinions on the COVID-19 Vaccine
Full text linkThe Spring 2023 Tigers Care Vaccination Status and Views/Opinion Survey sought to capture perspectives on COVID-19 vaccination within the Texas Southern University community during spring festivities, engaging 126 respondents. Findings revealed that 86.29% were fully vaccinated, predominantly with the Pfizer vaccine. Among respondents, 78% had received a booster, and 42% expressed willingness to get a new booster in 2023.
Hesitancy was reported by 40% of participants, driven by concerns about long-term effects and vaccine safety. Factors like medical consultations and research helped change minds among hesitant individuals. A small segment (9.68%) remained unvaccinated, largely citing personal choice or distrust in vaccine safety.
Primary sources of vaccine information included online research, personal medical advice, and government communications. The survey highlighted the complex landscape of vaccine acceptance, reflecting ongoing concerns and the influence of accurate information in shaping vaccination decisions
Impact Of A Mentoring Program And Selected Demographic Factors On Behavioral Needs Of New Arrived Refugees
Full text linkThe purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of one-on-one mentoring program on the academic, social, psychological, and career needs of newly arrived refugees in the United States. Specifically, the research was concerned with the separated and combined effects of the variables gender and age on the academic, social, career, and psychological needs of mentored newly arrived refugees in the United States. The sample consisted of 50 refugee youth from two serving agencies located in the southern region of the United States. Judgmental sampling was utilized to select the population sample. Non-randomized control group, pretest-posttest design, and 2x2 Factorial design were used to analyze the combined effects of one-on-one mentoring programs on the academic, social, psychological, and career needs of newly arrived refugees. The RASCPN Questionnaire was used to collect data for this study. There were eight hypotheses tested at the .05 level of significance or better in this study. All eight hypotheses were tested for differences in the academic, social career, and psychological needs of newly arrived refugees based on their mentoring status, age, and gender. Hypothesis four was the only hypothesis of the eight null hypotheses that was found to be significant. The most interesting finding of the present study related to the significant influence that a one-on-one mentor program on the psychological needs of newly arrived refugees in the United States. Newly arrived refugees who were involved in one-on-one mentoring had significantly higher perceived psychological need scores than their counterparts who were not involved in one-on-one mentoring
Discovery Of Novel Hit Molecules Targeting Parp1 Using Structure-Based Design
Full text linkIn the United States of America alone, cancer is the second highest cause of death. While there have been many remarkable breakthroughs in cancer research, there is still a need for the development of new therapies that target the different mechanisms of cancer cells. Therefore, the focus of our research is identifying novel hit molecules targeting Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase 1. Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP1) is an enzyme that has many distinct functions in the body. PARP1 has four domains: zinc fingers also known as the DNA binding domain, BRCT domain, WGR domain, and the ART catalytic domain. Its most notable function is in DNA repair, which is possible because of its DNA binding domain. PARP1 helps catalyze the DNA repair pathway of single-strand breaks. Some of the deadliest cancers upregulate Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 to escape cell death, making it a suitable target for drug discovery. This study uses a combination of virtual high throughput screening, structure-based drug design, molecular dynamics, and inhibitor screening to identify molecules targeting Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase 1. Herein we discovered Hit 10, Hit 17, Hit 22, and Hit 24 in our PARP1 inhibitory screening and Hit 2, Hit 8, Hit 13, Hit 18, and Hit 22 from our molecular dynamics study, and Hit 22 showed good results in molecular dynamics and in screening with the PARP1 colorimetric kit with an IC50 value of 1.476 at 50 µM. It also has a novel structure that has never been reported for PARP1 inhibition. Based on our findings, Hit 22 could be a viable candidate for hit-to-lead characterization and could be evaluated further as a PARP1 inhibitor
Raza Schools: The Fight for Latino Educational Autonomy in a West Texas Borderlands Town
No full textIn 1929, a Latino community in the borderland city of Del Rio, Texas, established the first and perhaps only autonomous Mexican American school district in Texas history. How it did so—against a background of institutional racism, poverty, and segregation—is the story Jesús Jesse Esparza tells in Raza Schools, a history of the rise and fall of the San Felipe Independent School District from the end of World War I through the post–civil rights era.The residents of San Felipe, whose roots Esparza traces back to the nineteenth century, faced a Jim Crow society in which deep-seated discrimination extended to education, making biased curriculum, inferior facilities, and prejudiced teachers the norm. Raza Schools highlights how the people of San Felipe harnessed the mechanisms and structures of this discriminatory system to create their own educational institutions, using the courts whenever necessary to protect their autonomy. For forty-two years, the Latino community funded, maintained, and managed its own school system—until 1971, when in an attempt to address school segregation, the federal government forced the San Felipe Independent School District to consolidate with a larger neighboring, mostly white school district. Esparza describes the ensuing clashes—over curriculum, school governance, teachers’ positions, and funding—that challenged Latino autonomy. While focusing on the relationships between Latinos and whites who shared a segregated city, his work also explores the experience of African Americans who lived in Del Rio and attended schools in both districts as a segregated population.Telling the complex story of how territorial pride, race and racism, politics, economic pressures, local control, and the federal government collided in Del Rio, Raza Schools recovers a lost chapter in the history of educational civil rights—and in doing so, offers a more nuanced understanding of race relations, educational politics, and school activism in the US-Mexico borderlands
Evaluation and Heavy Metal Concentration Assessment in Selected Brands of Infant and Toddler Food Types in Houston, Texas
Full text linkHeavy metals and metalloids such as lead, cadmium, arsenic, nickel and zinc are an unavoidable contaminant of our ecosystem because of its natural occurrence They are also introduced into the environment anthropogenically through manufacturing, industrial agricultural processes which contaminates the food chain when taken up by food producing crops as a result of their presence in soil and water used in planting or feeding livestock. The adverse effects of these toxic elements have become a global threat to food security, particularly due to their inextricable association with human health. Exposure to environmental contaminants from daily diet is a major concern for all ages, although children are more vulnerable to their effects because they consume more food relative to their body weight and have underdeveloped nervous system. Exposure to toxic metals in children presents long-term health risks to growing infants and toddlers and have been linked but not limited to a variety of health issues such as disruptive behavior, neurological damage and attention deficit hyperactivity. A report recently released by the U.S House of Representatives in 2021, raised concerns about the dangerously elevated levels of heavy metals in baby food due to improper testing of raw ingredients used in making baby foods and finished baby food products and under-reporting by food manufacturers, of these high levels of toxicity which keeps toxic products on the market. Although, heavy metals can be found in some foods due to contaminated water and soil, their levels in foods, especially baby foods should be of great concern. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed daily permissible limits for some of these metals; however, a major challenge to this remains subpar testing practices, lenient self-regulating standards set by different food manufacturers where there are inconsistent and conflicting tolerable safe limit values set by various food agencies. The new U.S. FDA initiative, known as Closer to Zero Plan (C2Z) seeks to reduce to almost zero level, the toxic element exposures from foods eaten by babies and young children, therefore, this study was aimed at evaluating heavy metal concentrations in baby and toddler food products targeted at infant and toddler age groups produced by leading brands indicated in the report. Ten commercial baby foods from the top seven leading brands in the United States were purchased from a local store, representing six ingredient categories listed as a diary, fruit; leguminous vegetable; beef, chicken, root vegetable; or grains and evaluated for arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), Zinc (Zn) lead (Pb), Nickel (Ni), aluminum (Al) and chromium (Cr) in triplicates for heavy metal concentrations using the triple quadrupole inductively coupled mass spectrometry ) QQQ_ICP-MS), a tandem mass spectrometer method that has the capability of detecting analytes at lower detection limits. Nickel, Chromium and Zinc are vital in living organisms and necessary for metabolic and immune support while Arsenic, and Lead are non-essential but can be highly toxic even at extremely low concentrations of 0.005ug/g. In all the food types evaluated, aluminum (4.09 µg/g and 2.50 µg/g) and zinc (33.5 µg/g 69.5 µg/g, and 30.2 µg/g) were the most elevated in the infant food age group while lead and cadmium metals in all other food types were observed at levels not exceeding the tolerable limits except in rice cereal. The acceptable daily limits of Aluminum and Zinc are 1 µg/g /day and 0.3 µg/g /day. The mixed model generated for this analysis found significant differences in metal concentrations (F6,24=2.75, p=0.03). The overall average metal concentration in the food was 0.96 µg/g. No significant correlations were found between the packaging materials used and the observed metal concentrations (P \u3e0.05, Std error 1.94). Food products formulated from fruits and root tubers commonly referred to as plant-based food products, exhibited the highest concentrations of all tested heavy metals although none of the food labels reported the levels of heavy metal concentrations in the food products. Transparency in reporting toxic metal content on food labels will help consumers make an informed decision when purchasing these food products
The Optimization of Microtransit in Houston Suburban Outer Ring II Transit Deserts.
Full text linkDuring the past decade, urban cities have been inundated with a plethora of on-demand smartphone enabled transportation services including ridesoucring, ridesplitting, and most recently microtransit. At the same time, local governments are accentuating the gentrification of blighted central city neighborhoods. While the revitalization is causing an increase in the tax base and property values, the adverse impacts are resulting in rising housing cost and the displacement of socio-economic disadvantaged African Americans. A mounting body of research is finding this demographic group migrating outward to suburban low-density spatially fragmented areas for affordable housing. However, transit coverage and supply are minimal to non-existent in suburban low-density landscapes. Microtransit has emerged as one mobility solution to increase access and improve connectivity for socioeconomic disadvantaged populations (also referred to as transit disadvantaged populations) living in suburban transit deserts. The purpose of this study is to examine the intersection of suburban poverty and demand response transit and is guided by the following question: how can microtransit serve as a FM-LM mobility solution in suburban outer-ring transit deserts to increase access to employment opportunities and essential destinations for transit disadvantaged populations? To answer the question, a four-tier methodology was applied to Houston (Harris County), Texas. Using demographic and socioeconomic data from the U.S. Census and American Community Survey (ACS), a demographic longitudinal ring analysis found that during the past 20 years, the racial minority and low-income share has increased significantly in outer-ring spaces. Two areas reached the level of concern - Alief and Greater Greenspoint. Findings from the Transit Equity Emphasis Area Assessment found that the Greenspoint area had the highest concentration of transit dependent populations. Lastly, a Microtransit On-Demand (MOD) framework was developed between the severe suburban transit equity emphasis area (Greenspoint) and essential destinations to fill the gap in transit provision. Microtransit can serve as one mobility solution to safeguard transit equity in suburban outer-ring spaces, serving as first mile-last mile connection to/from fixed route bus and transit facilities
A School to Probation Pipeline: Examining the Perceptions of Juvenile Justice Personnel with Youth in Harris County
Full text linkThe school-to-prison pipeline represents a perspective in the administration of justice, where youths in an educational environment are funneled out of the public school system into the correctional institutions. There is a dearth of knowledge in the literature regarding the net-widening effects on youths brought into the juvenile and the criminal justice system that otherwise would have remained in their educational institutions without the criminal justice intervention. The expansion of the justice system\u27s reach to the youths has become so prevalent, raising concerns that research has yet to illustrate what happens before a youth goes from school disciplinary measures and into the prison system. This dissertation endeavors to close this vital gap in the literature by narrowly examining the school to probation pipeline to illustrate how youths are removed from the public school system and subsequently placed on probation through the juvenile justice system\u27s surveillance. The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of individuals who work directly with youth involved in the school-to-probation pipeline using Harris County in Houston, Texas, as the study site. Fundamentally, the current dissertation employs a qualitative methodology that relies on the perceptions of the juvenile justice personnel, including juvenile counselors, teachers, juvenile probation officers, juvenile case workers, and juvenile detention officers’ interviews in Harris County. Purposive sampling technique is used for the interviews. The interviews helped the study to address the research questions in this dissertation and apply positive behavioral intervention and support as a way of addressing the issue of school suspensions that become a gateway to school-to-probation pipeline; utilizing social control and critical race theories found in criminology as the models of explanation. The findings from this research will bring awareness to the existence of the school-to-probation pipeline. It is anticipated that the data generated from this study would highlight the over-criminalization of minority youths within the public-school settings. The justification for this research appropriately would articulate cogent juvenile justice policy-making parameters for the criminal justice administrators and the society
The Influences of Role Stress and School-Related Factors on the General Perceived Self-Efficacy of Elementary School Counselors
Full text linkThe purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between role stress, school related factors, and the general perceived self-efficacy of elementary school counselors. Specifically, this study was concerned with the predictability of role stress factors (role ambiguity and role conflict) and school related factors (school classification and counselor-to-student ratio) on the general perceived self-efficacy of elementary school counselors ability to effectively implement a rigorous comprehensive counseling program. The participants of this study included 90 elementary school counselors currently servicing students in grades Kindergarten – Fifth grade at public-schools within the Houston Metropolitan area and surrounding cities. A non-experimental design was utilized in this study. More specifically, a correlational research design was employed in this study. Each elected participant completed the following instruments: School Counselor Activity Rating Scale (SCARS), School Counselor Self-Efficacy Scale (SCSES), and a researcher-created demographic questionnaire. Three hypotheses were tested at the .05 level or better. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation was employed to determine the relationship between interval/ratio level and dichotomous level variables used in the study. The standard multiple regression procedure was utilized to test the data. The analysis of data revealed that all three hypotheses were found to be significant. Role stress factors of role ambiguity and role conflict and school related factors of school classification and counselor-to-student ratio were found to be statistically significant predictors of the general perceived self-efficacy of elementary school counselors’ ability to effectively implement a rigorous comprehensive counseling program. The major findings of this study indicate that as elementary school counselors general perceived self-efficacy scores increase, their ability to effectively implement a rigorous comprehensive counseling program aligned with ASCA increases as well. By identifying factors that impact the general perceived self-efficacy of elementary school counselors, campus administrators and additional educational stakeholders can seek to align school counselors roles, duties, and responsibilities with ASCA and the trainings and education elementary school counselors received during their graduate studies. Such an alignment allows the opportunity for the best utilization of the expertise of the professional
elementary school counselors on respective campuses and it allows elementary school counselors the ability to truly facilitate and nurture the social and emotional growth of students due to clearly defined roles and responsibilities aligned with the needs of the campus but driven by the implementation of a balanced and rigorous comprehensive counseling program
Regional Toll Roads and Median Income: An Examination of The Relationship Between Toll Roads and Community Realities
Full text linkCongestion pricing is viewed as a resource that will charge drivers a fee for operating specific lanes of the roadway. This fee aids in decreasing traffic congestion by having drivers utilize additional roadway space. This resource of toll pricing can also address the importance of decreasing the carbon footprint from highway travel. Various transportation sources have reported traffic congestion on roadways will increase as the United States population will increase. This research will examine the relationship between toll rates and the income of regional populations within the Houston tolling system. The Sam Houston 288 Express Toll Road and The Westpark Toll Road will be studied to determine the average cost of a 15-mile trip for gasoline vehicles. Data presented in this research may reveal the cost burden if any is experienced by drivers who access the toll in Houston communities. The cost burden and the cost of transportation are two important key factors that will shape the concept of equity within this report. This research aims to provide a better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of accessing toll roads within Houston and how this experience will shape the future of transportation for drivers