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Soulful Wellness and the Black Paradox: Reorienting Mind, Spirit, and Culture A Theological-Psychological Inquiry into Healing, Identity and Sacred Survival
No full textThis paper addresses the importance of religion in the African American community's mental health and healing practices, drawing on both African-derived traditions and Christian faith practices. Historically, African Americans have faced institutional oppression, racial trauma, and socioeconomic marginalization, but their resilience has frequently been strengthened by the incorporation of religious traditions. This study demonstrates how African religion, and the Black Church anchor both psychological survival and communal resilience in the face of generational suffering. The research also scrutinizes how medical and psychiatric institutions have traditionally pathologized Black religious expression, using terms like drapetomania and the labeling of "religious excitement." These actions criminalized culturally meaningful worship and fueled long-standing distrust of mental health services in Black communities. Drawing on cultural anthropology, theology, and neuroscience, this study also identifies faith as a fundamental mechanism for trauma recovery and resilience development. Presenting a culturally sensitive intervention paradigm based on the Health Belief Model, this research is tailored to the needs of African American communities. This paradigm highlights the importance of religion leaders, churches, and community networks in increasing mental health literacy and eliminating stigma. It also emphasizes African American religious traditions as viable and effective instruments for healing trauma and promoting well-being. Ultimately, the article advocates for a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to mental health care for African American communities' lived experiences, cultural traditions, and religious practices to achieve holistic healing.Author's Origina
From Building a First-Generation Digital Library Infrastructure to Reimagining Discovery
No full textTwenty-five years ago, Harvard University was in the early stages of a project to build a first-generation digital library infrastructure. The project was carefully named the Library Digital Initiative (LDI), signifying that ‘digital’ would be an integral and integrated aspect of ‘library’ and not a separate entity. The initiative aimed to develop knowledge and expertise relating to digital objects, as well as technical infrastructure to create, curate, access and preserve them, and to integrate the new digital collections with Harvard’s extensive tangible collections.
Today, we still benefit from the foresight of this first-generation development and the subsequent ones it spawned, but we are also at a pivotal point of reflecting on lessons learned and opportunities to be seized as we rebuild and reimagine our digital infrastructure and services in a vastly expanded data ecosystem. Predicting what libraries will look like two decades ahead is always conjecture. What we do know, however, is that while the themes and challenges from the past two decades endure, the way we are tackling them is different. This paper examines what has changed since early library digital initiatives, and the imperatives we see for the future.Version of Recor
From Advocacy to Implementation: A Decade of Women20 Influence on Global Gender Policy (2015 - 2024)
Get PDFThe Women20 (W20) engagement group has influenced international gender policies for a decade. This analysis tracks how W20 advocacy drives actual policy change in the world's largest economies. Through analysis of all 220 W20 policy recommendations and their translation into G20 Leaders’ Declarations and subsequent national reforms, this study shows how effectively civil society groups can influence international policies
Mathematical Knowledge of Middle School Teachers: Implications for the No Child Left Behind Policy Initiative
No full textThis article explores middle school teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching and the relationship between such knowledge and teachers'subject matter preparation, certification type, teaching experience, and their students' poverty status. The author administered multiple-choice measures to a nationally representative sample of teachers and found that those with more mathematical course work, a subject-specific certification, and high school teaching experience tended to possess higher levels of teaching-specific mathematical knowledge. However, teachers with strong mathematical knowledge for teaching are, like those with full credentials and preparation, distributed unequally across the population of U.S. students. Specifically, more affluent students are more likely to encounter more knowledgeable teachers. The author discusses the implications of this for current U.S. policies aimed at improving teacher quality
Liquid versus Air: Life Cycle Carbon of Cooling Down AI Data Centers
No full textThe rise of AI and cryptocurrency technologies has led to exponential growth in data centers globally. As these facilities consume substantial energy and contribute to significant greenhouse gas emissions, implementing sustainable cooling technologies in data center facilities is increasingly crucial. Preliminary findings suggested that applying liquid cooling systems within these data centers holds significant potential to markedly decrease energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and water usage (Manganelli et al., 2021). Initial estimations indicate that data center facilities incorporating liquid cooling mechanisms could reduce both embodied and operational carbon emissions by up to 50% throughout their life cycle compared to those employing conventional air cooling methods. This adaptation could result in near-zero water usage and decrease the physical size of data center buildings, further reducing carbon emissions and capital expenditure, potentially achieving cost neutrality over the facility’s life cycle. I primarily sought to answer three questions: How do liquid and conventional air cooling methods compare in terms of carbon emissions when evaluated through a comprehensive LCA? How does adopting liquid cooling influence data center facility design and resource utilization? Considering both upfront and operational costs, what are the cost implications of transitioning from traditional air cooling to liquid cooling? I hypothesized that data centers with liquid cooling systems will demonstrate substantial reductions in embodied and operational carbon emissions and water use, and despite higher upfront costs, liquid cooling systems will prove cost-neutral over their life cycle.
To test these hypotheses, I analyzed the environmental and cost implications of data center cooling technologies through a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) of liquid and traditional air cooling systems. The LCA adhered to the ISO standards (14040, 14044, 14067, and 15686), encompassing all stages of the data center's life cycle, reporting Global Warming Potential in kgCO2e. Material inventory data from equipment manufacturers and data center operators were aggregated and anonymized to create representative models of data centers using both cooling methods. The liquid cooling LCA models achieved up to 50% reductions in embodied and operational carbon emissions compared to conventional air cooling systems. Liquid cooling also enabled near zero water usage and a 50% smaller data center building size, which resulted in embodied carbon reductions and less resource use throughout the life cycle. My research findings present a compelling case for approaching data center cooling solutions with a holistic life cycle perspective, identifying the most environmentally sustainable and cost-effective cooling method, and providing recommendations for reducing data centers' environmental impact. The outcomes should be significant for data center operators, designers, and construction managers, enabling more sustainable and cost-effective design strategies for future data centers
Innovation Policies Under Economic Complexity
No full textGrowth Lab Working Paper Series No. 234Recent geopolitical challenges have revived the implementation of industrial and innovation policies. Ongoing discussions focus on supporting cutting-edge industries and strategic technologies but hardly pay attention to their impact on economic growth. In light of this, we discuss the design of innovation policies to address current development challenges while considering the complex nature of productive activities. Our approach conceives economic development and technological progress as a process of accumulation and diversification of knowledge. This process is limited by the tacit nature of knowledge and by countries’ binding constraints to growth. Consequently, effective innovation policies should be place-based and multidimensional, leveraging countries’ existing capabilities and addressing countries’ current problems. This contrasts policies that lead to economic efficiencies, such as copying other countries’ solutions to problems that countries do not currently have.Version of Recor
Get-Up
No full textGet-Up is a screenplay that offers a candid portrait of Green, a seven-year-old boy from southern Indiana who is surviving poverty with his hustler dad and his sick mom. Set in 1985, Green is disregarded for “odd” behavior, including his detached gaze toward the world beyond his windows, and his inability to physically engage with others, even his mother. As Green’s world expands through new relationships with the men of Fink’s Pool Hall and the Salvio family across the street, he transforms, gaining vibrancy and connection, quietly claiming his identity and security, while easing the hardened adults that surround him.
Get-Up is a character-driven drama within the father-son theme. The screenplay employs both catalytic characters and character pairing. The father is simultaneously heroic and disappointing. Similarly, Green is a son who embodies both innocent vulnerability and the strength of a guardian. Through this characterization, intimate action and dialogue, introspection at a macro level becomes spectacle.
Get-Up is not purely autobiographical, but the story is woven with strands of personal truth. I was with my dad when he got laid off from his job as a security guard, and I spent my childhood trying to impress him in Fink’s Pool Hall, surrounded by rough men who were always just getting by
UM171 glues asymmetric CRL3-HDAC1/2 assembly to degrade CoREST corepressors
No full textUM171 is a potent agonist of ex vivo human hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) self-renewal. By co-opting KBTBD4, a substrate receptor of the CULLIN3-RING E3 ubiquitin ligase (CRL3) complex, UM171 promotes the degradation of the LSD1-CoREST corepressor complex, thereby limiting HSC attrition. However, the direct target and mechanism of action of UM171 remain unclear. Here, we reveal that UM171 acts as a molecular glue to induce high-affinity interactions between KBTBD4 and HDAC1/2 to promote corepressor degradation. Through proteomics and chemical inhibitor studies, we discover that the principal target of UM171 is HDAC1/2. Cryo-electron microscopy analysis of dimeric KBTBD4 bound to UM171 and the LSD1-HDAC1-CoREST complex unveils an asymmetric assembly, in which a single UM171 molecule enables a pair of KELCH-repeat propeller domains to recruit the HDAC1 catalytic domain. One KBTBD4 propeller partially masks the rim of the HDAC1 active site, which is exploited by UM171 to extend the E3-neo-substrate interface. The other propeller cooperatively strengthens HDAC1 binding via a distinct interface. The overall CoREST-HDAC1/2-KBTBD4 interaction is further buttressed by an endogenous cofactor, inositol hexakisphosphate, which acts as a second molecular glue. The functional relevance of the quaternary complex interaction surfaces is demonstrated by base editor scanning of KBTBD4 and HDAC1. By delineating the direct target of UM171 and its mechanism of action, we reveal how the cooperativity offered by a dimeric CRL3 E3 can be leveraged by a small molecule degrader.Chemistry and Chemical BiologyAccepted Manuscrip
"Development and Pilot Testing of an Observational Instrument to Evaluate the Integration of Cognitive Load Theory and Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning in First-Year Medical Lectures"
No full textLectures are common educational activities used in health profession education; however,
they are often criticised for low learner engagement, satisfaction and learning experiences.
Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) and Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML) can
address these deficiencies. Currently, no tools exist to evaluate the extent of use of CLT and
CTML as theoretical frameworks in lecture design. This research developed and validated a
rubric to quantify the integration of CLT and CTML in lecture design.
Two research questions guided the study: (1) What is the validity evidence according to
the Messick framework for the use of a novel rubric as an assessment tool for Cognitive Load
Theory and Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning Principles in respiratory lectures at the
University of Sydney, Australia? (2) To what extent do anatomy and pathophysiology medical
school lectures from the respiratory module incorporate principles of Cognitive Load Theory
and Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning in their design and delivery?
The project was conducted in two phases. Phase 1 focused on rubric development
through expert input and iterative refinement. Fifteen assessors scored a lecture on histology of
upper airways, yielding an intraclass coefficient (ICC) score of 0.59 (moderate inter-rater
reliability (IRR)). Semi-constructed interviews gathered qualitative data, refining the rubric into
a 12-item version. A second lecture on microbiology of pneumonia, scored by thirteen assessors
achieved an ICC of 0.78 (good IRR), confirming no further revisions were needed.
Phase 2 tested the rubric on three additional lectures covering anatomy of the upper and
lower respiratory airways and pathophysiology of tuberculosis. This phase assessed the extent
that CLT and CTML principles were integrated into lecture design and the consistency of IRR,
yielding ICC scores of 0.99, 0.99 and 0.99 (excellent IRR). Principles 1-6, 10 and 11 associated
with presentation skills, such as use of voice, visuals, gestures, and content organisation were
highly used (92%-100%). Principles 7-9 and 12, associated with cognitive engagement and
visual integration, were less frequently observed (0%- 62%).
These results validate the rubric for assessing CLT and CTML integration in lecture
design, helping medical educators optimise teaching strategies and improve educational
experiences