34296 research outputs found
Sort by
Finding Luis: A Creative Nonfiction Account of Law & Society
No full textThis essay explores the contradictions in legal theory and human experience through creative nonfiction. Its main purpose is to argue that a truly just society requires acknowledging the profound influence of individual narratives on the law. This is supported by blending personal narratives, critical analysis, and philosophical inquiry to reveal the gap between codified law and lived realities for marginalized individuals. This unique Legal Poetics methodology employs a series of six vignettes, such as the author\u27s and Luis\u27s shared experiences with traumatic brain injury and the denial of justice, as data. By integrating autoethnography, law as narrative, and performativity theories, it challenges law\u27s fictional objectivity and positions it as a dynamic, evolving poem, continuously re-legislated by collective imagination and empathy. Ultimately, it is a quest for interconnectedness, where justice emerges from shared humanity and the co-creation of new narratives, lighting a path for us to continue in solidarity
What Race Means for Health among Black Americans: How Microaggressions Shape Self-Efficacy and Readiness for Behavior Change
No full textObjectives: Persistent racial disparities in cardiovascular health among Black Americans reflect not only structural inequities in the United States, but also the racialized meanings of cardiovascular disease reproduced through public and private health communication. Drawing on ecological systems theory, this research examines how beliefs linking race and cardiovascular disease are reinforced through routine clinical interactions and how these meanings shape health behavior change. Method: Across two experimental mixed-methods studies, a model integrating ecological, social–cognitive, and behavior-change frameworks was tested. In Study 1 (N = 374), health-message framing was experimentally manipulated to examine effects on self-efficacy and decisional balance while controlling for prior experiences of racial microaggression in medical contexts. Study 2 (N = 589) extended this work by testing whether conceptualizations of race as biological/genetic and social/political moderated these effects. A subset of participants (n = 57) voluntarily provided narratives of racially charged healthcare experiences, which were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis to contextualize quantitative findings. Results: Racial microaggressions from health professionals disrupted self-efficacy and decisional balance for cardiovascular health behaviors. Endorsement of biological versus social race beliefs moderated these effects, shaping both their magnitude and direction. Qualitative findings revealed how everyday clinical interactions reproduce racialized meanings of disease risk and personal control. Conclusions: These findings identify clinical communication as a consequential site where racial meanings of disease are constructed and psychologically internalized, influencing motivation for health behavior change. Addressing biologically essentialist framing in healthcare may therefore be critical for strengthening self-regulation and reducing cardiovascular disparities among Black Americans
The Relationship of Tau Hyperphosphorylation with Nuclear Pathology and Oxidative Stress
No full textTau is traditionally associated with the cytoskeleton but is gaining recognition as a bona-fide nuclear protein. However, the role of nuclear tau in tauopathies is unclear. Our lab has previously generated a pathological form of tau pseudophosphorylated at S199, T212, T231, and S262 (PH-tau) that mimics the pathological behavior of AD-tau. PH-tau is shown to translocate into the nucleus of transiently transfected HEK-293 cells, whereas wildtype tau does not. Disruption of a putative NLS in the tau sequence prevents tau from entering the nucleus. The nuclear translocation of PH-tau requires both importin-α and importin-β. Nuclear PH-tau triggered a large increase in cell death, but this could be entirely prevented by blocking its entry into the nucleus. PH-tau-expressing cells also exhibited disruption of the nuclear lamina and mislocalization of TDP-43 and Ran to the cytoplasm. PH-tau does not bundle microtubules, and this effect is independent of nuclear translocation. These results demonstrate that the mechanism of tau translocation into the nucleus involves importin-α/β, and that PH-tau exhibits toxicity after its nuclear translocation. This suggests a model where hyperphosphorylated tau not only disrupts the microtubule network, but also translocates into the nucleus, inducing mislocalization of nuclear proteins and, ultimately, causing cell death.
Tau has a known relationship with oxidative stress, which has long been recognized as a contributor to AD pathogenesis. Despite this, we still do not have a complete understanding of how oxidative stress influences the development of tauopathies, particularly on a more chronic timeframe. I report that acute and chronic oxidative stress conditions lead to different subcellular distributions of tau, with acute stress promoting nuclear translocation and chronic stress returning some nuclear tau to the cytoplasm. Both stress conditions increase tau phosphorylation at T212, T231, and S262. Tau phosphorylation at T212 is greater in the cytosol, while tau phosphorylation at T231 is greater in the nucleus. However, tau phosphorylated at S262 is found only in the nucleus, suggesting a key role for this site in regulating tau shuttling. Stress conditions triggered an increase in cell death, which was attenuated by the expression of either WT-tau or tau-R406W. The protective effect of these tau forms was notably stronger under chronic stress. PH-tau expression further increases the toxicity caused by acute stress and triggers cell death even in non-tau-expressing cells. Both of these effects are reduced under chronic stress conditions. An increase in tau aggregation is also observed for both acute and chronic stress, but the effect of chronic stress is more pronounced. From these results, I propose that tau acts as a stress-response protein under both acute and chronic stress conditions, but through different mechanisms, with the acute stress response relying on tau’s DNA-binding capability, and the chronic stress response relying on its aggregation
A Brief Measure of Decisional Balance for Health Equity Engagement among Health Professionals
No full textRacial health and healthcare inequities are sustained in part by health professionals’ beliefs about the benefits and costs of equity-focused action, yet no validated decisional balance measure exists for this domain. This study introduces and evaluates the Health Equity Decisional Balance (HEDB) scale. Eighty-eight health professionals completed the scale of ten proposed items assessing perceived pros and cons of engaging with health and healthcare equity work, along with a measure of Anti-Racist Efficacy (ARE) (Eschmann et al., 2023). Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to test the latent structure of the scale and its predictive validity. A two-factor model retaining eights items with correlated pros and cons showed excellent fit (χ²(25)=32.98, RMSEA=.061, CFI=.982). Pros and cons were strongly and inversely related (r=−.90, p\u3c .001), consistent with decisional balance theory. When modeled as latent predictors, pros showed a strong positive association with anti-racist self-efficacy (ARE) (β=.82, p=.037), whereas cons was not significant. Together, the factors accounted for 20% of variance in efficacy. The HEDB scale provides a brief, psychometrically sound measure of health professionals’ readiness-related beliefs about health and healthcare equity work
SEEK IN CUNY Archives
No full textSEEK in CUNY Archives is an inclusive research guide to archival materials about the Percy Ellis Sutton Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) program, and College Discovery (CD) program available at CUNY archives. The SEEK Program was established within CUNY in 1965 on the pre-baccalaureate level to integrate Black and Puerto Rican students into the CUNY system and expanded to other senior-level colleges in 1966. The program provides students with academic and financial support, as well as tutoring and counseling services. Currently, the SEEK Program is available at twelve of CUNY’s four-year colleges. College Discovery is a two-year program offered at six of CUNY’s community colleges and provides students with the same opportunities as the SEEK program on an associate degree level.
The purpose of this guide is to provide students and researchers with an overview of all available SEEK and CD collections and materials in the various archives in the CUNY system. Materials about SEEK and College Discovery programs can be found in the records of SEEK and College Discovery offices, as well as in other collections relating to college administration, college publications, Open Admissions, Ephemera Collections, and other special collections. The guide is organized by repository with descriptions about which archival collections contain SEEK and College Discovery materials
FBI National Stolen Art File: Lost Artifacts and Missing Data
No full textThis data exploration project studies the FBI’s National Stolen Art File (NSAF). The NSAF is a repository for information on stolen artistic and cultural objects. By design, the objects in the NSAF should have distinguishing features and some monetary value, with a present minimum of $5,000 USD. As a public awareness tool, the objects in the NSAF should have a reasonable chance of being identified and potentially restituted in the future.
Using object data taken from the NSAF on August 25, 2024, my data exploration work includes a narrative of the data preparation process and a series of data visualizations. The most significant findings in this report are reflections on the overarching challenges and opportunities offered by the NSAF dataset.
The analysis and accompanying visualizations in this project provide examples for how further research and more consistent object data might be employed to identify physical conditions and social contexts associated with higher incidences of cultural object theft. The code repository is publicly available at: https://github.com/alliarnold/fbi_stolen_art_research
Public Finance, Private Profit: The Contradictions of Public Resource Capture by Financialized Landlords in North America
No full textThis dissertation examines how public finance, particularly public and public sector pension funds and municipal “affordable housing” programs, contribute to the deepening financialization of multi-family rental housing in North America, in turn reshaping the conditions under which working class people carry out social reproduction. Across Canada and the United States, rental housing has been rapidly consolidated under the ownership of financialized landlords, who’s imperative to generate profit has worked to increasingly subordinate the use value of housing to its exchange value. While existing scholarship has foregrounded private finance, this project demonstrates that public finance and resources are deeply implicated in these transformations, often intensifying the very housing crises they purport to address.
Bringing social reproduction theory into conversation with the literature on housing financialization, this dissertation argues that state strategies for managing crises of social reproduction rely on marketized governance approaches that ultimately provision the means of social reproduction to some while undermining access for others. Through a comparative, mixed-methods analysis, the project traces two key pathways through which public resources are captured by financialized landlords: the growing allocation of public and public sector pension capital to financialized rental real estate; and the transfer of public land and public finance to private developers through affordable housing programs in Toronto and New York City. These cases reveal how the state’s management of social reproduction is intertwined with, and often constituted through, the expansion of financialized housing
The Experiences of the Transfer of Learning Path: MSW\u27s Perceptions of Organizational Influences
No full textPublic child welfare agencies make substantial financial and organizational investments to support workforce members returning to school to obtain advanced degrees, most notably the Master of Social Work (MSW); however, challenges remain in ensuring that newly acquired knowledge and skills are effectively and continuously applied into practice settings, a process known as transfer of learning. The work environment plays a critical role in shaping organizational conditions that either support or impede successful transfer of learning, yet empirical research remains limited in guiding public child welfare organizations to develop strategies that sustain educational investments and contribute to improved outcomes for children, youth, families, and communities. This qualitative study employs a grounded theory approach to illuminate organizational strategies that support transfer of learning within public child welfare agencies. The study included twenty participants with pre-MSW public child welfare experience who returned to practice in the same agency following completion of their MSW degrees. Findings highlight the central role of peer relationships in supporting the transfer of learning journey and navigating the transition from student to advanced practitioner or administrator. The study offers implications for public child welfare workforce programming and policy; for schools of social work investing in university–agency partnerships; and for the social work profession more broadly, with implications for future research also discussed
Mapping Memory: Space and the Afterlives of Violence in Iraqi and American Fiction after 2003
No full textThis dissertation examines the literary afterlives of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq through a comparative analysis of Iraqi and American fiction, arguing that war is most powerfully inscribed not only through events or testimony but through narrative space as a medium of memory. Bringing Iraqi novels and American war narratives into sustained dialogue, the study explores how literature maps violence onto cities, neighborhoods, domestic interiors, battlefields, and transnational borders, transforming these sites into palimpsests where personal trauma, collective history, and imperial power converge.
The project is grounded in the premise that the post-2003 Iraqi and American narratives examined here emerge from radically asymmetrical historical, cultural, and institutional conditions, producing divergent narrative protocols of memory. Iraqi fiction—written from within Iraq and across the diaspora—registers war as an extension of everyday life, embedding violence within long histories of authoritarianism, sanctions, displacement, and occupation. Urban spaces such as Baghdad and Basra appear as layered archives of memory where the present is haunted by unresolved pasts. By contrast, much American war literature is shaped by the authority of soldierly testimony and the institutional circuits of the MFA, publishing, and critical reception apparatus. These narratives frequently render Iraqi space through the restricted optics of combat and trauma, foregrounding immediacy, disorientation, and the limits of representation while often marginalizing civilian perspectives.
Drawing on theories of cultural memory, empire, spatial narratology, and hauntology, the dissertation analyzes how war reshapes narrative temporality and spatial form. It treats novels as sites where memory is produced, managed, and contested, rather than as transparent records of experience. Through close readings of post-2003 Iraqi fiction, including works by Sinan Antoon, Ahmed Saadawi, Diaa Jubaili, and Muhsin al-Ramli, alongside American narratives by Kevin Powers, Matt Gallagher, Ben Fountain, Elliott Colla, and many others, the study demonstrates how literature functions simultaneously as archive, counter-archive, and critique of imperial memory.
By situating Iraqi and American texts within a shared yet uneven framework of empire and representation, this dissertation challenges nationally bounded approaches to war literature. It argues that only a comparative, transnational reading can account for the asymmetries of voice, visibility, and remembrance that continue to shape how the Iraq War is narrated, remembered, and forgotten
Cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations? How Mexican Americans Think About U.S. Security Policy
No full textThis thesis examines the political, social, and security implications of the U.S. government’s designation of cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), with a particular focus on its effects on U.S.–Mexico relations and Mexican American communities. While existing research has extensively analyzed counterterrorism and cartels, there is still an open debate regarding the justification to designating cartels as FTOs. Additionally, there is a gap in the scholarship focus on Mexican American communities’ opinion. This study addresses both gaps by analyzing how terrorism labels reshape security cooperation, legal authorities, and public perceptions of cartels, violence, and drug addiction in Mexico and the U.S.
To answer the central question, how do Mexican Americans interpret U.S. counterterrorism and security policy pertaining to Mexico, especially the designation of cartels as FTOs?, the research applies a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative analysis of U.S. policy, Congress project reforms, and bilateral security agreements with data from an original survey and follow-up questions applied to a focus group of U.S. citizens with a Mexican American heritage and living in the U.S., but also a general survey with Mexican immigrants and U.S.-born Mexican Americans. The qualitative analysis traces the evolution of the U.S. war against cartels and counterterrorism discourse, while the focus group explores perceptions of security, sovereignty, human rights, civil liberties, racial profiling, and economic consequences within affected communities.
The findings indicate that designating cartels as FTOs expands the perceived legitimacy of security measures while increasing concerns over human rights, sovereignty, civil rights, racial profiling, diplomacy, and economic disruption. The thesis contributes to the literature on international relations focused on security by demonstrating how designating cartels as FTOs serve as a tool of state power, affecting international cooperation and, by consequence, domestic political and community dynamics. The conclusions underscore the need for greater consideration of community-level factors in setting security policies in the U.S., particularly among Mexican Americans when the policy relates to Mexico