The Impact of Hormone Replacement Therapy on the Clavicle

One of the many medical procedures of gender transition that are available for transgender individuals involve the use of cross-sex hormones to align one’s physical characteristics with one’s gender identity. During this process, transgender male-to-female patients may see the feminization of their bodies, while transgender female-to-male patients may see the masculinization of their bodies. Currently, little research has been done to show the full range of the effects that hormone replacement therapy induces, specifically regarding its impact on skeletal morphology. This lack of analysis is not only to the detriment of transgender patients themselves but also to the field of forensic anthropology. Methods of sex estimation on deceased individuals do not presently take gender identity or medical transition into consideration, potentially leading to misidentifications and unsolved cases. This literature review explores the potential influence of hormone replacement therapy in the development of the clavicle in transgender individuals under the age of 30, the average age at which the clavicle halts medial epiphyseal fusion and overall growth. The clavicle was chosen to study due to its ability to continue growing in length even after puberty has been surpassed, emphasizing that the introduction of cross-sex hormones at any point before medial epiphyseal fusion could influence its growth in length. This literature review also serves as a foundation for a future quantitative research study that measures the clavicle lengths of 17 transgender and non-transgender descendants to determine if there is a correlation between hormone replacement therapy and the clavicle’s length at death

A Semester Abroad discussion of the film

What does a French and Digital Media Production double major do when they study abroad in Paris, France? Create a film, of course. A Semester Abroad follows my various travels during the Fall 2023 semester. In this discussion of my film, I break down the process from my initial research on French cinema, which focused on filmmakers during the French New Wave film movement of the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, to the process of creating this film. Inspired by the vignettes of Dreams directed by Akira Kurosawa, a film I first watched in my Global Cinema course, I created short films or vignettes of each excursion and did not put them all together until the very end. The result is a roughly 40-minute film composed of several vignettes with their own unique style and mood. A brief analysis of the final vignette is included near the end of this discussion to inspire you, the reader, and soon, the viewer, to start your own film discourse

Patrician women in Renaissance Florence: Daughters, wives, mothers and nuns

The society, economy, and political institutions of Renaissance Florence between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries were dominated by powerful merchant, patrician families. These families continually worked to maintain their positions at the apex of Florentine society. The women in these patrician families, as daughters, wives, mothers, nuns, played an integral role in their struggle to remain atop the social, economic, and political spheres. In examining the lives of these females we need to ask, to what extent were the lives, roles, and power of patrician women in Renaissance Florence shaped by the needs and desires of their families and the patrician dominated culture? And was there actually any room for these women to negotiate agency or exercise influence in this male dominated culture? In this study, I will argue that women of the patrician class in Renaissance Florence occupied a nuanced domestic and social sphere. The social status, wealth, and power of these families depended on alliances created by strategic marriages of patrician daughters. To make their daughters attractive in the marriage market, young patrician girls were educated in the socially dictated virtues of chastity, modesty, and obedience. Once married, young patrician women were expected to take on the roles assigned to them by the patriarchy: becoming good wives and mothers. Throughout a woman’s life, she operated within a constrictive and regimented social structure, but a closer examination of the lives of several patrician women will reveal that within these roles, a number of them—wives, widows, and nuns—were able to exercise a great deal of power and influence in Renaissance Florentine society

The Impact of Food Insecurities on the Development of Psychopathology in Childhood and Adolescence: A Literature Review

With the widening inability to access affordable and nutritious food, many people worldwide deal with food insecurity, especially children and adolescents. This raises concerns for the well-being of children in the United States because of the impact food insecurity has on the development of children and adolescents regarding psychopathology. Recent research suggests that maternal depression, household sensitivity, parenting styles, and the exposure to violence may be directly linked to or explain the relation between food insecurity and psychopathology. This paper critically reviews and synthesizes the existing evidence of the direct relation between food insecurity and psychopathology. Additionally, this paper explores the mediating roles of maternal depression, household dynamics, parenting styles, and exposure to violence in understanding this relationship. The findings from this review will contribute to the future implications in terms of initiatives and intervention for those who have experienced food insecurity and related psychopathology

Investigating early childhood education through a systemic lens: What impact does early childhood education have on district level leadership

Public School educational leaders from around the United States are confronted with choices inhow to invest resources that can create the greatest impact for students. An often-overlooked area of investment is early childhood education. As defined by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), this is the period of development between birth through age 8 for any child. If a district were allowed to self-assess their own early learning readiness, will the leadership of that district be equipped and prepared to deliberate and make appropriately measured decisions based on current practices and utilized resources? This study seeks to explore how educational leaders, including superintendents, when confronted with the ability to self-evaluate their district’s early learning readiness, can uncover the impact early learning can have on the financial planning, facilities management, personnel decisions, family engagement, and the culture of their organization

Synthesis of dihydro-β-carbolines by tandem C-H activation and aza-Michael reaction in the presence of Rh(II)/squaramide catalysis: Investigation of the mechanism via computational methods

N-heterocycles are the major component of various bioactive natural products, pharmaceuticals, and their precursors. In particularly, β-carbolines are examples of substituted indole and its derivatives that serve as the basic structures of diverse, therapeutically important molecules with broad pharmacological properties. Rajasekar and Anbarasan have suggested a novel one-pot synthesis for dihydro-β-carbolines involving more than one catalytic system: a rhodium acetate dimer for C-H insertion on the indole and a basic organo-catalyst for the subsequent aza-Michael addition. The product can be obtained enantioselectively by using a chiral squaramide as the organo-catalyst. Since the mechanism of this reaction, including the rate determining step, has not been explored by either experimental or computational methods, the purpose of this study is to model the catalytic cycle and delineate the energetics of the reaction pathway. We have determined the structure of all intermediates and several transition states and calculated relative activation barriers using density functional theory (DFT) methods as implemented in the Gaussian suite of programs. We find that the nitrogen extrusion step has the highest activation barrier of those determined so far