55453 research outputs found
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Department of African American Studies
No full textA photographic print of an individual, Billy Gaines, sitting at a paino that has a candle and cross on it. They appear to be playing the piano and singing. Ther word religion is handwritten in red ink at the bottom of the print.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/rg60/1172/thumbnail.jp
Junior Recital, Allison Estabrook, piano, video
No full textJunior Recital, videoAllison Estabrook, pianoFriday, August 22, 2025 at 6:00 p.m.Recital HallJames W. Black Music Center1015 Grove Avenue | Richmond, VirginiaThe presentation of this junior recital will fulfill in part the requirements for the Bachelor of Music degree in Performance. Allison Estabrook studies piano with Dr. Magdalena Adamek
Low Brass Studio Recital, video
No full textStudio Recital VideoLow Brass Studio Recital, videowithHope Armstrong Erb, pianoThursday, November 12, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.Recital HallJames W. Black Music Center1015 Grove Avenue | Richmond, Virgini
Trumpet Studio Recital, video
No full textStudio Recital videoTrumpet Studio Recital, videowith Hope Armstrong Erb, Mary Voutsas, and Dimitrije Vasiljevic, pianoWednesday, November 12, 2025 at 5:30 p.m.Recital HallJames W. Black Music Center1015 Grove Avenue | Richmond, Virgini
Senior Recital, Emily Speight, flute
No full textSenior RecitalEmily Speight, fluteBrent te Velde, pianoSunday, November 9, 2025 at 6:00 p.m.Recital HallJames W. Black Music Center1015 Grove Avenue | Richmond, VirginiaThe presentation of this senior recital will fulfill in part the requirements for the Bachelor of Music degree in Performance. Emily Speight studies flute with Dr. Tabatha Easley
Linguistic Whiteness: A Comparative Discourse Analysis of Race, Agency, and Algorithmic Neutrality in U.S. History Curriculum
No full textThis study examined how whiteness has shaped curricular representations of Black resistance during the Civil Rights Movement across a state-adopted U.S. history textbook and a popular digital learning platform. Using a qualitative comparative discourse analysis grounded in Critical Race Theory, Whiteness as Property, and Critical Whiteness Studies, and operationalized through Systemic Functional Linguistics, the study analyzed how transitivity, agency, and evaluative language encode racial meaning at the clause level.
Findings revealed three dominant patterns: (1) Moralizing Whiteness, where nonviolence is framed as civic virtue while Black militancy is cast as morally suspect; (2) Containment of Black Anger, in which lexical and linguistic choices delegitimize Black resistance and prioritize white comfort; and (3) Illusion of Inclusion through Erasure, where progress-oriented narratives flatten structural inequities and recenter whiteness as the universal civic subject. Digital curriculum amplified these patterns through brevity, narrator tone, multimodal compression, and interface features that project neutrality while constraining interpretive agency. This study contributes a replicable linguistic method for analyzing racialized curriculum discourse and advances theorization of digital whiteness, highlighting the need for clause-level scrutiny in curriculum studies
Learning to Deceive and Persuade: Predictive Agents with Language and Personality Diversity in Social Deduction Games
No full textThis thesis presents a novel multi-agent architecture that combines Joint Em bedding Predictive Architectures (JEPA), Free Energy Principle (FEP)–inspired planning, and language-based social interaction. The system is evaluated in a custom Werewolf-style hidden-role game, where agents must coordinate, persuade, or deceive under partial observability. Each agent encodes its belief state into a latent representation, predicts future trajectories under candidate actions, and selects votes or eliminations through a planner trained to minimize prediction error. To enable communication, agents are equipped with trainable mouthpieces. A lightweight SpeakerBandit selects from discrete templates using REINFORCE on judge-derived rewards, while a logit-bias head steers a pretrained large language model by adjusting token probabilities across speech-act categories. Both mechanisms adapt over time, producing communication strategies aligned with role-specific goals. A rubric-driven LLM-as-Judge evaluates utterances for coherence, truthful viii ness, role alignment, and social safety, providing structured feedback that shapes both message generation and action selection. Agent diversity is introduced through personality traits sampled from config urable distributions. Personality knobs introduce behavioral variance by modulating speech-act preferences and style through fixed, sampled traits. Together, JEPA-based predictive modeling, FEP-style uncertainty minimization, judge-mediated language, and personality-driven variability yield agents that outperform reinforcement learning baselines in prediction accuracy, voting success, and communicative adaptability. The results demonstrate that predictive world models augmented with language and social influence provide a promising path toward more general and socially capable AI system
Development of Lipid-based Nanoformulations of Macrophage Targeting immunotherapies for Oral Inhalation Using a Continuous Manufacturing Approach and Design of Experiments
No full textDevelopment of Lipid-based Nanoformulations of Macrophage Targeting immunotherapies for Oral Inhalation Using a Continuous Manufacturing Approach and Design of Experiments A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University By Asma Al-Terawi, B.S, M.S Director: Prof. Sandro R.P. da Rocha, Ph.D. and Prof. David Edwards, Ph.D. Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common primary bone malignancy, with the lungs being the predominant site of metastasis. At diagnosis, approximately 80% of patients harbor undetectable pulmonary metastases, while 20% present with overt osteosarcoma lung metastases (OSLM). Despite multimodal treatment approaches, survival outcomes for OSLM have remained stagnant since the 1980s, highlighting the urgent need for novel therapeutic strategies. This dissertation investigates the development of macrophage-targeted nanoimmunotherapies for local pulmonary delivery to modulate the tumor microenvironment (TME) in OSLM. Two inhalable nanocarrier systems were developed: (1) a liposomal formulation of the CSF-1R inhibitor PLX3397 (L-PLX), and (2) lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) encapsulating mRNA encoding interferon-gamma (IFNγ), both designed for oral inhalation (OI) to reprogram tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) toward an anti-tumorigenic phenotype. Using a continuous manufacturing platform with toroidal microfluidics and a Quality-by-Design (QbD) framework, both formulations were optimized through Design of Experiments (DOE) For L-PLX, the flow rate ratio (FRR) emerged as the most significant factor affecting hydrodynamic. 16 diameter (H.D.), with optimal conditions identified as FRR 5:1 (PBS), lipid-to-drug ratio 5:1, total flow rate of 10 mL/min, and ambient temperature. The optimized L-PLX achieved high encapsulation efficiency (\u3e85%), drug loading (\u3e4.5%), H.D. ≈ 155 nm, and PDI \u3c 0.2. It remained stable over 3 months at 2–8°C and retained integrity post-nebulization, producing respirable aerosols (Dv50 ≈ 3.9 µm). In vitro, studies showed superior efficacy in reducing M2- like TAMs compared to free PLX. The second platform, mRNA-loaded LNPs encoding enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP), was optimized using a two-level A-optimal DOE. The final formulation, composed of SM-102, DPPC, β-sitosterol, and DMG-PEG2k, exhibited high encapsulation efficiency, H.D. \u3c 100 nm, strong eGFP expression, and batch-to-batch reproducibility. Short-term stability studies confirmed preservation of physical properties, with a moderate decline in encapsulation and expression over time. Collectively, these findings demonstrate the feasibility and translational potential of scalable, inhaling nanocarrier systems for TAM-targeted immunotherapy in OSLM. The use of clinically relevant components including FDA-approved PLX3397 and mRNA-LNP platforms validated by vaccines underscores the promise of these systems to enhance standard of care therapies and address an unmet clinical need in metastatic osteosarcom
Financial Health Literacy of Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Qualitative Research Study
No full textBackground: Financial health literacy (FHL) is an emerging concept with unique application to older adults. Multiple complexities converge in older age that create increased financial vulnerability (e.g., retirement, chronic disease). However, low financial and health literacy are common in older adults, impacting their ability to self-manage. The AWV’s focus on prevention offers an opportunity to incorporate a proactive approach to financial-related assessment. This study will explore the perceived value of assessing FHL in primary care settings and the financial-related barriers and facilitators to implementing the personalized prevention plan.
Methods: The conceptual framework was guided by the Individual and Family Self-Management Theory. A qualitative descriptive design was used, and directed content analysis guided data analysis. Semi-structured interviews were done with older adults (n=16) and providers (n=5) who had completed or administered an AWV from two primary care clinics at two academic medical centers.
Results: Findings support that FHL is a modifiable risk factor that should be assessed in primary care. While most responses confirmed the value of incorporating a financial perspective into the AWV, financial questions are notably sensitive. Eight themes were identified and support the proposed conceptual framework of FHL.
Conclusions: Patients will benefit from targeted interventions to enhance FHL. Implications for policy, clinical practice, and education include a need to examine opportunities to enhance the AWV. Further research is needed to (1) support the development of a validated tool to measure FHL in older adults and (2) integrate a financial expert to support the primary care team
The Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Student Engagement at a Historically Black University
No full textThis study examined student engagement across three NSSE administrations at an HBCU—pre-COVID (2018), during COVID (2019), and post-COVID (2022). Engagement was analyzed across four themes: Academic Challenge, Learning with Peers, Experiences with Faculty, and Campus Environment. Results showed that Learning with Peers declined significantly over time, with the largest drop between 2018 and 2022, reflecting pandemic-related disruptions to peer interaction. No significant year effects emerged for the other themes. Two-way MANOVAs indicated that gender, first-generation status, and major did not significantly predict engagement, nor did they interact with year. In contrast, classification emerged as the most consistent predictor, with upper-division students reporting higher engagement. Overall, findings suggest that engagement at this HBCU remained stable across most domains despite COVID-19, with peer learning as the primary area affected. Implications for strengthening collaborative learning opportunities are discussed