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Building an Equitable Food System: Lessons from Community-Driven Initiatives in the Chicago Region
Get PDFThis research explores how community assets can be mobilized to build a resilient, equitable food system by evaluating key learnings from the Chicago Region Food System Fund’s (CRFSF) March 2022 Community Assets funding round. The CRFSF provided grants to 48 non-profit organizations leveraging community strengths to transform how food is produced, processed, distributed, and consumed through approaches centered on economic and racial equity. The evaluation employs thematic content analysis of qualitative data from grantee applications and reports. The results will increase understanding of how community-driven initiatives enhance food system resilience, challenges encountered, and actionable recommendations to further strengthen local food systems
AI Foundations and Applications: Summary of a Panel Discussion at Loyola University Chicago
Get PDFThis document summarizes the panel discussion titled AI Foundations and Applications, held at Loyola University Chicago as part of the Forum on Global Affairs: Artificial Intelligence in a Globalized World series. The panel brought together interdisciplinary experts to discuss the foundational aspects of artificial intelligence (AI), its applications, ethical considerations, and implications for education and society
Tobramycin resistance is less likely to evolve under nitrogen limitation.
Get PDFI am investigating whether nutrient-limited environments impact the evolution of antibiotic resistance in Escherichia coli. We evolved E. coli for 24 days in nitrogen- or carbon-limited environments with and without tobramycin. Nitrogen-limited populations were less likely to evolve antibiotic resistance as many went extinct before day 24. Growth curves for the evolved and ancestral populations showed that tobramycin-resistant populations grew more slowly than the ancestor in the absence of antibiotics. I also conducted fitness assays to evaluate the competitive ability of the evolved populations compared to their ancestor
Exploring Attentional Mechanisms of Speech-Gesture Integration across Development
Get PDFGestures are hand movements that accompany speech and convey information. They can support communication and learning, but not everyone benefits equally. One factor may be the ability to integrate gesture with speech. This study examines the role of visual attention in speech-gesture integration across development using behavioral measures and eye tracking. Thirty adults and thirty 6- to 10-year-olds will watch videos of a narrator gesturing while speaking and answering questions. Analyses will explore attentional mechanisms underlying integration. Findings could inform educational strategies, optimizing learning through gestures, especially as children\u27s reliance on visual attention differs from adults
GirlForward Communications
No full textThis presentation covers my experience as the communications intern for a nonprofit called GirlForward that aims to provide resources and support to young refugee women in the Chicagoland area
Pruning One More Token is Enough: Leveraging Latency-Workload Non-Linearities for Vision Transformers on the Edge
No full textThis paper investigates how to efficiently deploy vision transformers on edge devices for small workloads. Recent methods reduce the latency of transformer neural networks by removing or merging tokens with small accuracy degradation. However these methods are not designed with edge device deployment in mind: they do not leverage information about the latency-workload trends to improve efficiency. We address this shortcoming in our work. First we identify factors that affect ViT latency-workload relationships. Second we determine token pruning schedule by leveraging non-linear latency-workload relationships. Third we demonstrate a training-free token pruning method utilizing this schedule. We show other methods may increase latency by 2-30% while we reduce latency by 9-26%. For similar latency (within 5.2% or 7ms) across devices we achieve 78.6%-84.5% ImageNet1K classification accuracy while the state-of-the-art Token Merging achieves 45.8%-85.4%
Unique Stress, Cultural Resources, and Psychological Resilience in Young African American Women: Insights for Effective Intervention and CVD Prevention
Get PDFObjective: Psychological resilience, defined as one’s self-reported ability to bounce back from stress, is understudied in young African American women (YAAW). Guided by community feedback, this study examined the associations between resilience and the following three constructs from Staudinger’s 2015 resilience and aging model: perceived stress, non-psychological resources, and psychological resources. We aimed to identify cultural resources that can enhance resilience in the face of unique stressors.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey was administered to 512 self-identified YAAW aged 18–35 years. Resilience was measured by the Brief Resilience Scale, ranging from one to five, with higher scores indicating greater resilience. We employed linear regression to examine the relationships among stressors, resources, and resilience, and then used elastic net (EN) regularization to identify the resources most strongly associated with resilience after adjusting for age and stressors. Data were analyzed using SAS version 9.4.
Results: YAAW with higher resilience experienced fewer stressors and reported greater access to both non-psychological and psychological resources. In the adjusted EN model, perceived stress (β = −0.16), internalized racism (β = −0.06), and adverse childhood experiences (β = −0.03) demonstrated the strongest associations with lower resilience. Conversely, improvisational skills (β = 0.23), (emotional stability or the absence of) neurotic personality traits, β = −0.22), presence of conscientious personality traits (β = 0.08), and not expressing anger to cope with discrimination (β = −0.04) had the strongest associations with higher resilience. Notably, high improvisation skills and low levels of neuroticism were identified as key resilience resources.
Conclusion: Stress reduction techniques that focus on addressing racial trauma and highlight the health-promoting aspects of AA cultural identity, such as improvisation, may play an important role in fostering resilience among YAAW. Further research is needed to validate these findings and to help inform the development of effective intervention strategies in this group
Five-Year Outcomes of Water Vapor Therapy versus Doxazosin, Finasteride, and Combination Therapy for Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms Secondary to Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia: Cohort Data from the Medical Therapy of Prostatic Symptoms (MTOPS) Trial
No full textObjective: To compare 5-year clinical and subjective treatment outcomes of water vapor thermal therapy to MTOPS trial cohorts receiving doxazosin, finasteride, or combination therapy.
Methods: MTOPS subjects who received doxazosin, finasteride, combination therapy, or placebo (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00021814) were compared to the treatment arm of a randomized controlled trial of thermal therapy using the Rezūm System (NCT01912339). Only MTOPS subjects who met criteria for the Rezūm trial were included (prostate volume 30-80 cc, IPSS ≥ 13). Inverse probability weighting by the propensity score was used to adjust for potential confounding variables. Subjective, objective, and clinical progression outcomes were compared over 5-years.
Results: Symptom scores improved from baseline after thermal therapy throughout the study (∆ IPSS=-11.1 at 3 months to -9.5 at 5 years). By 5 years thermal therapy had the lowest rate of clinical progression at 4.6% while thermal therapy symptom improvement was similar to finasteride (p=0.10) and combination therapy (0.77) but remained superior to doxazosin (p=0.004) and placebo groups (p= 0.035). Objective outcomes after Rezūm were more variable throughout follow-up, with peak flow showing benefit through year 3 only, and no benefit over placebo with respect to post void residual.
Conclusions: WVTT patients experienced lower rates of clinical progression at 5-years post-treatment and thus may represent a benefit compared to pharmaceutical therapy for appropriately selected patients. Additionally, a single Rezūm treatment produces symptom score improvements that are initially superior to daily long-term medication, however this advantage wanes over time
Redefining Ritual: Navigating the Intersection of Transgender and Jewish Identities
No full textJewish practices vary widely across denominations and individual communities, reflecting diverse cultural influences and interpretations of Jewish law and tradition. For transgender Jews, navigating the intersection of their gender identity and Jewish identity can be challenging, and individuals may struggle to find a community where all aspects of their identity are fully accepted. Studying their narratives and learning from their experiences is vital for understanding how to create spaces that support these intersectional identities.
The purpose of my research is to learn more about the experiences of transgender Jews and how individuals navigate the intersection of their gender identity and Jewish identity, specifically how one’s relationship with Judaism, Jewish practices, and Jewish community may change after transitioning.
I conducted semi-structured interviews with eight individuals that identified as transgender and as Jewish. I asked questions related to how they defined their gender and Jewish identities, what being Jewish looked like for them growing up and now, their experiences coming out, their experiences with gender norms growing up, and how they engage with Jewish practices and community since transitioning.
The interviews revealed several challenges concerning the intersection of gender and Jewish identity. Participants described these identities as deeply connected, but reported difficulty finding fully accepting spaces. This resulted in navigating difficult choices and sometimes suppressing parts of themselves within Jewish or queer communities.
This study reveals a need for more Jewish spaces that are both affirming of trans identities and religiously fulfilling for a range of practices. Even in more liberal movements, the gender binary present in Judaism proves to be an obstacle for Jews who do not fit into that binary
