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The Impacts of KiwiCo Learning Crates on Elementary School-Aged Learners
Get PDFThe purpose of the present study was to investigate teachers’ implementation practices and their perceived impacts and attitudes towards the use of KiwiCo learning crates with respect to student motivation, interest in STEAM, and development of 21st century learning skills. This case study utilized a mixed methods research design that administered an online survey via Qualtrics, which included Likert-type items and open-ended questions, and interviewed teachers who had used KiwiCo learning crates in their classrooms. All respondents (n = 91) taught in a single school district in the western part of the United States, which is located in a large, suburban locale and includes a total of 30 elementary schools with more than 15,000
elementary school-aged students district-wide. Teachers had varying degrees of familiarity with the learning crates, but there were two groups, specifically, that were investigated: the 2024 summer school teachers (referred to herein as “Summer” teachers) and the 2024-2025 academic school year teachers (referred to herein as “STEAM” teachers).
The findings showed that teachers responded positively towards the KiwiCo learning crates. Because of the ample resources and training opportunities, there were few barriers to implementation, and teachers noted that the kits were well-designed and easy-to-use, though their success in the classroom was highly dependent on sufficient preparation on the part of the teacher. Ideally, a learning crate would be test-built prior to implementing it with students to better anticipate learners who might struggle with tasks. Teacher respondents also stressed the importance of aligning the kits with the appropriate age groups; to help with this, some schools partnered older students with younger students to help assist with more complex projects. In conclusion, the KiwiCo learning crates have a sterling reputation with elementary school teachers, who perceive the crates to be well-designed and easy to implement. Survey and focus group data support the finding that teachers perceive the KiwiCo learning crates to improve student attitudes, motivation, interest, confidence, and the development of essential 21st century skills
Strengthening Sanctions Exemptions to Safeguard Food Security in Targeted Nations
Get PDFHunger remains a persistent global challenge, with over 9 percent of the world’s population affected by undernourishment. Countries experiencing the highest levels of food insecurity share common characteristics, including prolonged exposure to economic sanctions. Evidence demonstrates that sanctions exacerbate food insecurity by impairing trade, disrupting agricultural and commercial systems, and limiting access to humanitarian assistance. Nations reliant on international trade or food aid to meet a significant proportion of their food needs are particularly vulnerable to these effects.
Humanitarian exemptions, introduced alongside sanctions regimes to mitigate their unintended impact on civilian populations, often fail to achieve their intended purpose due to flaws in design and shortcomings in implementation.
This study examines the relationship between sanctions and food security, centering on two critical events: the 2011 famine in Somalia and the 2021 economic collapse in Afghanistan. Findings reveal that sanctions significantly worsened food insecurity outcomes by preventing access to critical, life-saving assistance, ultimately leading to the deaths of a quarter million people in Somalia, and pushed 9 million people in Afghanistan to the brink of famine.
Results indicate that derisking and overcompliance behaviors by third-party actors are key barriers to the implementation of exemptions. Addressing this issue requires innovative solutions, such as incentivizing corporate social responsibility, tax benefits, and financing compliance frameworks for humanitarian actors. This research further argues that aid restrictions deployed alongside sanctions as punitive measures are de facto sanctions
Single-Molecule Investigation of Protein-mRNA Interactions in Ribosome-Associated Quality Control
Get PDFThroughout its life cycle, mRNA interacts with numerous RNA-binding proteins (RBPs), crucial for its journey from transcription to decay. Existing methods to study protein-mRNA interactions often lack spatial-temporal resolution, but advancements in single-molecule technologies offer a promising avenue for elucidating the real-time kinetics and causal effects of these interactions. Protein synthesis and mRNA translation are vital for cellular homeostasis, with the ribosome decoding mRNA to synthesize proteins. This process is intricately regulated by various protein factors controlling initiation, elongation, and termination of translation. While significant progress has been made in understanding initiation and termination, the mechanisms regulating elongation are less explored. Translation-coupled quality control has gained attention for its role in monitoring translation on defective mRNAs, with implications in neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's. My research focuses on the ribosome quality control (RQC) pathway, specifically examining the interactions of ZNF598, a key sensor of ribosome collisions, with translating mRNAs using single-molecule technologies. This thesis reviews mRNA translation regulation, RQC pathways, and single-molecule tools, followed by an exploration of methodologies to enhance signal-to-noise ratios. Our findings reveal ZNF598 as a rate-limiting factor in the RQC pathway, detailing its interactions with translating mRNAs under various conditions. These results advance our understanding of the RQC pathway and its implications in disease, offering novel insights and demonstrating the application of single-molecule technologies to study mRNA translation dynamics
EXAMINING FEDERAL FOOD ASSISTANCE PROGRAM PARTICIPATION AS A MEANS OF IMPROVING DIET-RELATED HEALTH EQUITY FOR INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES
No full textBackground
Indigenous foodways in the United States have been the target of genocidal actions and policies for five centuries, contributing to diet-related health inequities observed today. Though federal food assistance has an important role to play in improving food access and health equity, these programs don’t always meet the needs of Indigenous communities.
Objectives
The objectives of this dissertation are 1) to examine the history of genocide that begot diet-related health injustice; 2) to assess the extent to which accessibility and accessibility of federal food assistance programs have been evaluated among Indigenous Peoples in the U.S.; 3) to describe recent participation changes in tribally-administered WIC programs compared to regional and national changes; and 4) to characterize the system of factors impacting participation in two tribally-administered WIC programs.
Methods
A range of methodologies and approaches were used to address these objectives, including a scoping review, descriptive statistics from USDA WIC data tables, and use of qualitative stakeholder interviews to build causal loop diagrams.
Results
This work highlights a scarcity of available literature on the food assistance participation experiences and trajectories of Indigenous populations in the U.S. Focusing on tribally-administered WIC programs, we find that many experienced remarkably different changes in participation compared to regional and national averages during the years surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Causal loop diagrams created to elucidate factors impacting participation in tribally-administered WIC programs suggest that improvements to rural reservation infrastructure and reformation of bureaucratic procedures are necessary to ensure more equitable access to WIC.
Conclusions
If we are to leverage the potential impacts of food assistance on health equity, we must lay the groundwork by allowing Indigenous populations to be seen and counted and by striving to understand and address issues around program accessibility and acceptability
DECIPHERING TRANSCRIPTIONAL PROGRAMS OF CD8+ T CELLS ACROSS TREATMENT MODALITIES IN RESECTABLE LUNG CANCER
No full textNon-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains the leading cause of cancer-related mortality, with a 5-year overall survival rate of only 21% for metastatic cases. Perioperative immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) combined with chemotherapy is the standard of care for patients with resectable lung cancer. ICB leverages endogenous tumor-reactive T cells within the microenvironment, making it crucial to understand their baseline functional characteristics and how these treatments activate these T cells for effective tumor eradication. Our research focuses on the functional programming of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and the differential effects of neoadjuvant PD-1 blockade (αPD-1) alone versus in combination with chemotherapy (αPD-1+Chemo) on CD8+ TILs. We performed single-cell immunogenomic profiling on 21 untreated tumor resections and 16 resections from patients treated with neoadjuvant αPD-1+Chemo, integrating these data with profiles from 19 additional neoadjuvant αPD-1-treated tumors. This analysis aimed to elucidate how chemotherapy enhances the efficacy of neoadjuvant nivolumab in NSCLC. Our findings provide a comprehensive baseline characterization of TILs in treatment-naïve NSCLC, using single-cell TCRseq/RNAseq to identify diverse TIL subsets and their implications for disease recurrence. We identify 13 CD8+ TIL subsets with distinct tissue-resident memory (TRM) patterns, reflecting stages of memory to effector differentiation. We show that neoadjuvant treatment enhances the expression of CXCL13+ TILs, shifting them from a canonical TRM state to more effector subsets. Interestingly, within treatment-naïve CD8+ TILs, these TRM changes may coincide with disease recurrence at two years. We also examine the effects of neoadjuvant therapies on CD8+ TILs, revealing distinct transcriptional changes induced by αPD-1 monotherapy versus αPD-1 combined with chemotherapy. Specifically, chemotherapy enhances the formation of GZMK+CD8+ TILs. Notably, we show that αPD-1+Chemo treatment improves TIL activation and memory potential, with both single-cell and spatial transcriptomics highlighting differential TIL localization in areas of tumor regression. These insights underscore the importance of personalized treatment strategies tailored to genetic and treatment-specific factors
On the Frontlines - Investigating Heavy Alcohol Use Among Virginia Emergency Medical Services Clinicians
No full textBackground: Emergency Medical Services (EMS) clinicians experience high levels of emotional injury in the course of their work due to repeated exposure to trauma, extended work shifts, sleep interruptions, and more. Substances such as alcohol may be used by clinicians to cope with mental health challenges, as a part of social norms, or for relaxation. However, little is known about the burden and impacts of alcohol misuse among EMS clinicians.
Methods: Crude rates of alcohol-related death, and corresponding rate ratios, were compared among Virginia EMS clinicians, nurses, and the general population using Virginia death certificate data from 2018—2022. Alcohol-attributable deaths were identified using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Alcohol-Related Disease Impact Methodology. Leading causes of alcohol-related death were summarized for each group. Numbers and proportions of deaths among EMS clinicians by sociodemographic characteristic were calculated. Using a 2022 survey of Virginia EMS clinicians, associations were evaluated between self-reported heavy alcohol consumption and clinicians’ ages, sexes, marital statuses, geographical areas of employment, certification levels, employment/volunteer statuses, EMS service years, and reports of anxiety, burnout, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), insufficient sleep, suicide contemplation, pay satisfaction, and intentions to quit EMS.
Results: Alcohol-related death rates were higher among EMS clinicians than nurses but were equivalent between clinicians and the general population. Most clinician alcohol-attributable deaths were due to suicide. Disproportionate burdens of death were seen among unmarried clinicians and those ≤44 years old. Survey analyses showed 35.9% of respondents reported heavy alcohol use at least monthly. Odds of heavy drinking were higher in males, 18—24-year-olds, unmarried clinicians, paramedics and intermediate/advanced emergency medical technicians, clinicians with 16—25 service years, and those reporting depression, PTSD, anxiety for ≥26 days, or insufficient sleep for ≥6 days.
Conclusion: Heavier drinking was noted among EMS clinicians experiencing mental health disorders, with an overlap seen between alcohol use and suicidality. This research demonstrates the importance of promoting positive mental health and reducing alcohol consumption among U.S. EMS clinicians. Future studies should examine substance misuse among U.S. EMS clinicians, with the goal of safeguarding the health of those who serve and protect so many
Worldbuilding in Steampunk Fiction
Get PDFThis dissertation, Worldbuilding in Steampunk Fiction, examines a genre of popular literature that requires its readers to possess a significant level of technological, historical and literary erudition and, above all, to adapt their reading habits to palimpsest texts that revisit the past through the prism of literature.
To understand how this relatively new genre modifies the literacy of its readers, this study focuses primarily on fictional worldbuilding, notably following the works of Nelson Goodman’s Ways of Worldmaking (1978). Indeed, in worldbuilding, the paradox of Steampunk becomes most apparent as it is both a global and a local literature. Each new fictional universe refers to many literary works that readers worldwide are expected, if not to know, at least to recognize as belonging to the genre. Many of these works are internationally recognized, not least because of their distinctive, usually late 19th-century global technological aesthetics or because of the characters that often feature in the genre. Yet Steampunk is at the same time intrinsically rooted in a local culture that only a local readership will recognize and interpret as it was intended.
This dissertation studies various Steampunk works published over several decades: Morlock Night (1979) by K. W. Jeter, L’Instinct de l’équarisseur (2002) by Thomas Day, Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist (2001-2009), Le Paris des Merveilles series (2004-2024) by Pierre Pevel and Christelle Dabos’ La Passe-miroir (2013-2019). By comparing emblematic works of Steampunk fiction in the three main cultural areas (Anglophone, Francophone, and Japanese) in which the genre has developed, this work aims, in the words of Marcel Detienne, to “compare the incomparable” by examining not the commonalities between these works, but rather the
particularities that modify the experience of readers from outside each work’s target cultural areas. The method of research at work in this dissertation draws as well on the work of Clifford Geertz, who previously demonstrated that any work of art can only be fully understood within the local culture that generated it. Jacques Ellul's essays on technology also shed light on Steampunk authors' critical discourse on modern technocratic society. In contrast, Kitaro Nishida's work on technology and the treatment of history provides new insights into the workings of Steampunk, both in Japan and the West.
The results of this comparative analysis show that Steampunk works are simultaneously hypercultural and hyperlocal. Since they exist in a cultural web of literary, historical, and artistic references, they require their readers to collect multiple allusions from these three domains, yet elements appearing in all three areas do not transmit the same meaning to different audiences. Steampunk authors routinely use the differences between the levels of erudition of different readerly communities to introduce hierarchies of more or less competent reading. Such a method, however, rather than proving to be exclusionary, broadens their readership and fosters a multiplicity of groups of readers with different local readerly traditions. There is thus no culture of canonical interpretations of Steampunk. The global literary community that continues to grow around this genre, although heavily reliant on deep cultural literacy and erudition, increasingly demands reevaluation of the the traditional notion of 'canon' and the author’s authority, challenging us to think critically about the constantly evolving and dynamic landscape of hypermodern popular literature
Optical characterization of digital micromirror devices for astronomical instrumentation
No full textSpectra contain a wealth of information on the physical and chemical properties of astronomical objects. Current and future large imaging surveys are reaching unprecedented sensitivities and the number of objects requiring characterization is quickly becoming untenable for single-object spectroscopy. Digital micromirror devices (DMDs) offer a solution for creating a robust and rapidly reconfigurable slit unit for multi-object spectroscopy. DMDs offer the unique ability to monitor the real time position of each slit on the sky across the entire instrument field of view. Furthermore, DMDs can near-instantaneously change the distribution and shape of slits on the sky—an attribute particularly advantageous for follow-up observations of transient sources. Herein I assess and characterize the performance of DMDs through high-resolution optical near-field finite-difference time-domain simulations, which are informed and validated using laboratory measurements of the DMD efficiency and contrast ratio. Our group employed DMDs in the design and fabrication of the SOAR Adaptive Module Optical Spectrograph (SAMOS)—a DMD-based multi-object spectrograph and imager. As part of the initial commissioning process of SAMOS on the 4.1 meter SOAR Telescope in Cerro Pachón, Chile, I used the instrument to perform an in-situ evaluation of the DMD optical performance through a measurement of the contrast ratio with respect to wavelength. I find the median contrast from 4000 Å to 6000 Å to be 5840:1, and the median contrast from 6000 Å to 9500 Å to be 2790:1. In processing the first light data and assessing SAMOS's ability to perform science, I show that the instrument is a capable tool for conducting multi-object spectroscopy. I detail the lessons learned and design considerations for future DMD-based instruments, concluding that DMDs are versatile and well-suited for use in spectroscopy. Finally, I cover the design of a different instrument, FALCON: a high-throughput wide-field spectrograph for the Magellan Baade 6.5 meter telescope in Las Campanas, Chile. FALCON is a multi-channel, multi-object spectrograph that separates objects in the field using a machined plate slit mask. The wide 23’’ x 23’’ field of view is enabled by a novel camera design that I discuss in detail
Structures of Articulation: Race and Class Politics in Chicago’s Postindustrial Periphery, 1966–2023
No full textThe aim of this dissertation is to advance a theoretical framework for the study of working-class racial politics. It focuses on the articulated race and class politics of Mexican Americans in Chicago’s Southeast Side across two historical conjunctures, from the steel industry’s apex in the twentieth century to the present post-industrial age. The dissertation describes a shift over time from a predominantly “race-prismatic” politics to a predominantly “class-prismatic” politics at the neighborhood level; and it offers an explanation for this shift linked to transformations in the structures of capital accumulation, neighborhood-level civil society, and city- and national-level policies.
Standing on extensive empirical research, including ethnography, archival research, and comparative-historical analysis, the dissertation engages with current debates in political sociology about the interconnections between race and capitalism. Building on Antonio Gramsci’s theory of civil society, and Stuart Hall’s theory of articulation of disparate ideologies and their historical conditions of possibility, this study introduces and deploys the concepts of “race-class articulation” and “conjunctural structures of articulation” as tools for analyzing the conditions under which the appeals of social movements and other actors achieve—or fail to achieve—salience.
In the first conjuncture, from 1966 to 1975, the steel industry’s strength fostered race-prismatic politics. Mexican American steelworkers, buoyed by economic security and residential stability, organized to address racial inequality through the neighborhood’s many civil society institutions. Two competing race-prismatic articulations emerged: one centered on Mexican American unionists’ working-class power, and another on Hispanic empowerment driven by aspiring political operatives.
In the second conjuncture, from 2010 to the present day, deindustrialization of steel in the 1980s precipitated the disintegration of civil-society institutions, eroding the basis for racial politics, despite persistent racial inequality exacerbated by financialized urban development. In response to racial justice movements, residents expressed grievances and aspirations through working-class neighborhood populism. In examining the contemporary conjuncture, the dissertation compares the role of teachers and police in this shifting race-class articulation. While teachers’ union activists slowly lost residents’ support for their efforts to bridge racial justice and working-class politics, the political campaign of a local police officer found surprising resonance with neighborhood residents’ class-prismatic politics
FOREIGN LANGUAGE TRAINING IN THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE: AN EXOTIC SKILL THAT WAS HARD TO OBTAIN IS NOW A MONSTER THAT IS HARD TO CONTAIN
Get PDFFew Americans know what diplomats even do, which means that even fewer Americans know how they are trained. The people could be forgiven, though- In the year 1906, The Department of State sent the same ambassador to China as the Congo because ambassadors were assigned alphabetically. In the 1950s, things were only marginally better: the Secretary of State, the U.S.’s top diplomat, did not know how many embassy workers in Paris spoke French. Knowing that, one would find it hard to take seriously the Foreign Service Institute, the school that trains America’s diplomatic and consular workforce… despite its best efforts. In reality, the FSI has been on a path of constant improvement since its very inception. After all, it is indeed the place where the officials in the State Department learned their lessons. Some problems in the Department of State are as modern as the times; but others are as old as the nation itself. Diplomats in the United States today are still going out into the field without the skills they need. Some of them do not even speak the language of the country to which they are assigned. Worse still- those at the top of the Department of State have all the knowledge they need to solve the problem; they just lack the budget and the manpower to get it done. In 2024, the Foreign Service Institute was the closest it has ever been to solving the problems within itself, and its Department as a whole… New budget cuts in 2025 threaten this progress, but the school that trains diplomats is showing peerless resolve.
This thesis tells the history of language training and occupational education for diplomats and other foreign affairs personnel. In that history, corruption is exposed, the civil service is professionalized, standards are introduced, and not only is the development of the Foreign Service Institute delivered in a way never before seen in academia; but the ongoings of FSI today in 2025 are written on paper for the first time, ever