Restoring the Land: Pro-Blackness as a Healing Force Against Anti-Black Classroom Management

This paper critically examines the systemic harm inflicted on Black students through anti-Black classroom management and disciplinary practices, positioning Pro-Blackness as a transformative framework for healing and justice. Grounded in healing justice and African Diaspora Literacy, the discussion highlights the pervasive impact of the “white gaze” in perpetuating inequities and the urgent need for educators to reject Eurocentric standards. The authors argue for a shift from punitive to Pro-Black classroom management practices that affirm Black cultural dimensions and foster holistic growth. Integrating strategies for self-reflection, relational accountability, and the inclusion of Black-centered pedagogy provides a roadmap for educators committed to creating equitable, affirming spaces for Black students. The paper ultimately challenges educators to engage in collective action to “heal the land” by honoring the humanity and potential of Black children.Educatio

Transparency Under Takeover: Financial Ramifications of the TEA Takeover of Houston ISD

This paper examines the financial transparency and accountability practices before and after the 2023 state takeover of the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Superintendent Mike Miles and his Board of Managers reallocated critical district resources towards troubling new “priorities,” while the district was facing a sizable deficit. Parents and community members raised concerns about the district’s transparency and accountability practices, which sparked backlash throughout the first year and a half of the takeover. Using a historical case study methodology (Widdersheim, 2018) and qualitative document analysis (Bowen, 2009), we examined school board meeting content, online news articles, and state policy to analyze the financial changes that HISD underwent as they transitioned to a state appointed superintendent and school board during the first two years of the state takeover. Findings suggest patterns of concerning fiscal practices under the post-takeover administration. We make recommendations for local and state educational agencies that may improve financial transparency and solvency during state takeovers.Educatio

Urban planning, Roman influence, and discourses of built space in the castros of Northwest Iberia : a digital archaeology of architecture in oppidum-type hillforts using settlement-scale spatial analysis in GIS

This dissertation seeks to develop new theoretical and methodological approaches to the interpretation of archaeological settlement layouts based on digital representation of site topography and architectural remains at the scale of the settlement. This objective is developed within the context of the archaeology of the castros, hillforts in Northwest Iberia associated mainly with the latter half of the Iron Age and the first few centuries of the Roman Period in this region (ca. 500 BCE – 200 CE). A novel GIS-based methodology is proposed incorporating concepts and methods from Space Syntax and spatial statistics. This methodology is applied in a case study to provide new descriptions of the spatial layouts of three hillfort settlements in northwestern Portugal, each with architectural remains dating to around the period of incorporation of this region into the Roman Empire. Two main research questions are addressed in executing the case study, both of which are aimed at clarifying problems in the archaeological literature concerning the relationship between urban planning and Roman influence in the oppidum-type castros. The proposed methods are shown to be viable in providing basic quantitative descriptions of relationships of proximity and orientation between architectural features, and further research to develop more robust modes of analysis is recommended. Attention is drawn to the need to provide clear epistemic justification for intuitive spatial descriptions of archaeological settlement layouts.Anthropolog

Microdroplet assay development for metabolic engineering and synthetic biology applications

Sustainable, efficient production of societally relevant chemicals in microorganisms is the epicenter of the field of metabolic engineering. Modern developments in DNA synthesis and sequencing have enabled high-information gene perturbation and protein engineering libraries that require reliable, reproducible, high throughput screening assays. Detailed herein are examples of utilizing growth-based assays and microfluidic screening to extract pertinent information from different gene perturbation libraries, microbial consortia, and engineered proteins. The first study details an approach to regulate gene expression in S. cerevisiae through utilization of a single-guide RNA library paired with dCas9 fused to either Mxi1 or VPR. Through these fusions and targets of guide RNAs, genes are either up or down regulated at increasing degrees. Using this library it was possible to identify target genes for moderate up and down regulation to improve growth on alternative carbon sources, namely glycerol and galactose. Final analysis of enriched guides via next generation sequencing identified moderate down regulation of essential genes, novel perturbations that would not have been isolated in traditional gene knock-out approaches. The studies detailed in chapters 3 and 4 delve into technical applications of microfluidics to screen for improved small molecule production. In chapter 2, the library detailed above is utilized to screen for gene targets that improve small molecule production in S. cerevisiae. This study also results in the development of a pico-injection microdroplet approach that utilizes cell-based biosensors to transduce small molecule production into a fluorescent signal. The study in chapter three characterizes this application further, ultimately leading identifying gene perturbations that improve early productivity or higher overall production, based on the time at which they were screened. In the fourth study, a previously developed CuAAC probe for extracellular electron transfer (EET) is ported into droplets to analyze an environmental microbial consortium. This study centers on the development of an oxygen-limited platform for anaerobic microbe cultivation in microdroplets, ultimately enriching environmental microorganisms previously uncharacterized for EET. This work expands the range of microorganisms compatible with this microdroplet system. In the final study, the microorganism array is expanded further through the development of a cytotoxicity assay for Sf9 insect cells is developed for use in microdroplets. This work lays a foundation for future applications to identify novel insecticidal toxins from engineered protein libraries. Collectively, these studies establish generalizable assays for high throughput screening of a wide array of organisms related to the field of synthetic biology.Biochemistr

Examining physical activity among US college students following COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns : the role of race/ethnicity and acculturation

Objective: This study examined physical activity among US college students in the context following COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns, with a focus on racial/ethnic and cultural determinants. Sample: This study used cross-sectional data of the COVID-19 University Research on Education and Sustainability (CURES) project. Participants were college students from 7 public universities in the US (N = 1210; 75% female; 33.5% White, 9.1% Black, 47.6% Hispanic, and 7.1% Asian; Mage = 21.06; 85.6% born in the US, 51.6% had mother born in the US, and 49% had father born in the US). Method: The International Physical Activity Questionnaire - short form (IPAQ-SF) was used to assess physical activity and the Vancouver Index of Acculturation (VIA) – the American version was used to assess levels of heritage and US acculturation. Results: White students reported statistically significant higher physical activity than Hispanic (p < .05, Cohen’s d = .19) and Asian (p < .05, Cohen’s d = .36). In sedentary level, White students reported statistically significant lower levels than Asian (p < .05, Cohen’s d = -.45). Asian reported lowest physical activity, highest sedentary level, and highest prevalence of not meeting physical activity recommendation. Small negative correlation was found between heritage cultural level and total weekly physical activity among Hispanic students (r = - .09, p < .05). Conclusion: Race/ethnicity and cultural perception and practices could play a role in determine physical activity and sedentary behaviors among college students. The study calls for more qualitative research, and racial/ethnic and cultural-specific interventions to improve physical activity among Hispanic/Latin and Asian student populations.Kinesiology and Health Educatio

Expansion of Armatimonadetes through marine sediment sequencing reveals three classes with unique ecological roles

Marine sediments comprise one of the largest environments on the planet, and their microbial inhabitants are significant players in global carbon and nutrient cycles. With the advent of improved sampling techniques, recent scientific studies have shown the complexity of these communities and identified novel microorganisms from the ocean floor. Here we add to our understanding of understudied microbes by obtaining 77 metagenome-assembled genomes from the bacterial phylum Armatimonadetes in the Guaymas Basin, Gulf of California, and the Bohai Sea, coastal China. Seven of these MAGs are not classified at the class level. Thus, we propose to name these organisms Zipacnadia. Searches of public databases revealed that the 77 Armatimonadetes described in this study (including Zipacnadia) are globally distributed in hypoxic and anoxic environments and are dominant members of deep-sea sediments (up to 1.95% of the GB metagenomic raw reads). The Armatimonadetes described here also have unique metabolic capabilities for this phylum. They have pathways to reduce CO₂ to acetate via the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway (WLP) and generate energy through the oxidative branch of the Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas pathway using CO2 as an electron sink, maintaining the redox balance via WLP. Some of these organisms may also have an autotrophic lifestyle not previously identified in Armatimonadetes. Furthermore, these Armatimonadetes may play a role in sulfur and nitrogen cycling, using the intermediate compounds hydroxylamine and sulfite. The description of the Armatimonadetes identified in this study enhances our understanding of the diversity and metabolic potential of anoxic habitats worldwide.Marine Scienc

Switch-mode active EMI filtering

Power converters often require EMI filtering which usually involves bulky passive components. Active EMI filters (AEF) can reduce size but incur heavy losses in their linear amplifiers when designed to filter large ripple currents. This work proposes two different approaches for active EMI filters with a switch-mode amplifier to achieve reduced size and low loss penalty: a high-frequency AEF and a synchronous AEF. The high frequency AEF features a switching amplifier operating at 31 MHz to keep its own EMI out of the regulated EMI range. A fractional-order filtering technique is used to design the feedback compensation loop, achieving a high loop gain and thus high current attenuation of 30 dB from the active circuit at the dc-dc boost fundamental frequency of 150 kHz, while consuming only 1W for an output power of 120 W. The proposed high frequency AEF is compared to a passive LC filter for the same application and is shown to have a volume that is eight times smaller than that of the size-optimized LC filter. The proposed synchronous AEF, in contrast to the high-frequency AEF and other typical AEF circuits, does not use feedback, thereby avoiding the bandwidth and attenuation limitations associated with feedback stability. This AEF also has very low energy storage requirements compared to passive EMI filters and achieves very high efficiency compared to typical AEF circuits with linear amplifiers. Furthermore, it can simplify circuitry by directly utilizing the same gate signals as the main power converter. Additionally, the AEF does not interfere with the closed-loop controller of the main converter, a common challenge in the design of passive EMI filters or feedback-based AEFs. We demonstrated the proposed synchronous AEF through simulations and hardware prototypes for both a boost power factor correction (PFC) and a dc-dc boost converter, operating at different current control modes and switching frequencies. The AEFs achieved high differential-mode current attenuation from 20 dB to 65 dB at different harmonic frequencies and provided significant common-mode current attenuation of over 29 dB by injecting a common-mode current that largely cancels the common-mode current generated by the boost PFC. Additionally, the volumes of the synchronous AEFs are significantly smaller than those of conventional passive LC filters — approximately 1/16 to 1/32 of the size-optimized LC filter. They also have very low power consumption, with a maximum efficiency penalty of less than < 0.7% when filtering high current ripple ratios of up to R = 100% from the boost PFC, in contrast to AEFs based on linear amplifiers. Both AEF proposals present very promising approach to (mostly) replace the conventional LC filter and linear-mode AEFs for smaller volume and high efficiency. At the end of this work, we present the design and implementation of two ultra-fast isolated gate drivers with 2-8 ns propagation delays, one of which will be used to design the gate driver of the high-frequency AEF. This will help improve the compensator bandwidth of the high-frequency AEF, which is limited by propagation delays primarily caused by the bootstrap gate driver and the comparator in the previous design.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Magneto-optical characterization of ultrathin ferrimagnetic insulator bilayers

The demands for information storage and processing technologies continue to grow. We continue to press on for higher stability and density memory, and faster computation rates. We are even moving beyond classical computing models. Magnetic devices are prized for information storage owing to the stability of magnetization states in the absence of driving power and over many on-off cycles. Magnetic storage, however, has not been able to scale as quickly as other computing technologies. Devices such as hard disk drives tend to be one of the slowest parts of a computer because they require mechanical components and because they can only read/write from a single head. In the field of spintronics, researchers are exploring different alternative forms of storage technologies such as racetrack and skyrmion memory. These new memory devices allow for all-electrical reading and writing of bits in magnetic materials. These memory devices were first created using metallic ferromagnet films. The use of ferrimagnetic insulators as a platform for chiral domain wall motions and skyrmions are recent developments. Magnetic insulators have the potential to reduce the amount of charge current present in a working device and therefore reduce the amount of energy loss through mechanisms such as Joule heating. These materials also have several other useful characteristics such as smaller magnetizations, high tunability of anisotropy, and the potential for higher than GHz computing frequencies. However, studying ferrimagnetic thin films at the ultrathin limit necessary for room temperature skyrmion creation presents outstanding challenges in the characterization and optimization of these films. This thesis focuses on combining electrical transport and magneto-optical experimental methods in the study of thulium iron garnet (TmIG) ultrathin film systems. Detecting the presence of skyrmions in ultrathin magnetic insulating films is challenging. A standard electrical-read out method relies in the spin Hall-topological Hall effect. A heavy metal thin film, such as Pt, is deposited on the TmIG thin film and through the spin-Hall and inverse spin-Hall effects, we can detect changes to the transverse resistivity in this film generated by what is correlated to spin textures in TmIG. By using an ultra-high sensitivity Sagnac interferometer, we are able to measure the hysteresis curve for these ultrathin Pt/TmIG bilayers. The functional form of the hysteresis takes the same form as the spin-Hall anomalous Hall effect. By combining the optically determined spin Hall-anomalous Hall function with the Hall resistivity data, the anomalous contribution can be removed. For the first time, a fully quantified, room temperature spin Hall-topological Hall resistivity is presented for Pt/TmIG bilayers. A phenomenological expression for estimating skyrmion densities using the spin Hall-topological Hall resistivity is presented. The estimated skyrmion density suggests that the skyrmions in this system are on the order of 10s of nanometers in diameter. We also present work on the magnetic anisotropy of the ultrathin films as a function of magnetic layer thickness and show the large effect of the Pt layer induced interfacial anisotropy. This is necessary because one of the main parameters used to engineer a skyrmion phase is magnetic anisotropy. This work was performed by measuring three thickness of TmIG films with and without Pt, showing the anisotropy evolution. For the thicker films, in-plane hysteresis is measured using the polar MOKE configuration. The in-plane field sweeps indicate that the magnetization rotation is coherent and gives some information about in-plane saturation fields. These measurements show that without Pt, the TmIG films continue to exhibit perpendicular magnetic anisotropy to the thinnest film thickness. The interfacial anisotropy from Pt is shown to be comparable in magnitude to the volumetric anisotropy of the thickest film and produces an easy-plane anisotropy in the thinnest film. These results are discussed and estimates of the interfacial anisotropy magnitude are presented. Further avenues of study for the anisotropy are discussed with the goal of completely understanding the nature of the anisotropy for films exhibiting skyrmion phases at room temperature.Physic

“The City Residents Do Not Get Involved”: Understanding Barriers to Community Participation in a Small Texas Boomtown

Background: Professional communication researchers have engaged communities through community research and interventions, such as town halls, charettes, and participatory design work. Such interventions rely on community members who are willing to get involved, voicing their perspectives, and engaging in productive dialogue. Yet, some communities do not have these precursor conditions for intervention: they face significant social barriers that make such interventions unlikely to succeed. In an interview- and document-based study, we examine the social barriers described by interviewees in “Permia,” a small town in the Texas Permian Basin region. In contrast to the five other communities we studied, Permia participants demonstrate little readiness to engage in community dialogue. We explore how Permia interviewees made sense of unwillingness to participate in its public life, how their understandings contrasted with the other communities we investigated, and how this research might guide professional communicators as they plan future community-based interventions. Literature review: We review the professional communication research on community interventions as well as relevant sociological literature on boomtowns. Research questions: 1. How do community leaders understand their community heritage as constraining or enabling development? 2. Where do community leaders and members see potential for change and growth in community development? Where do they see barriers, threats, and hard choices? 3. How do community leaders describe the relations among community development stakeholders? How do they describe expectations and trust among them on interpersonal, intergroup, and interorganizational levels? Research methodology: We collected documents and statistics about six small Texas towns, then interviewed community leaders about the towns’ advantages and challenges. Based on those interviews, we collected further documents. We analyzed the data using deductive and inductive coding, as well as narrative analysis. Results/discussion: Through coding, we determined that interviewees saw Permia’s residents as unwilling to engage in deliberations in traditional forums such as city council meetings, and that their explanations for this unwillingness fell into three categories of barriers: distrust of institutions, dwindling personal ties, and lack of moral expectations for residents to engage in community dialogue. These three categories contrast with the other communities we studied. Through narrative analysis, we identify stories that were told by the interviewees to explain how these barriers developed in Permia. Conclusion: We conclude by discussing how professional communicators might survey barriers to community dialogue. Such surveys can help professional communicators choose a pathway for intervention in their community projects.IC2 Institut

Factors associated with food delivery app use in young adults

Food delivery apps are highly popular among young adults and are often used to purchase calorie-dense foods, which are associated with a variety of health issues such as increased risk for obesity. Limited research exists on the use of food delivery apps and the research that has been conducted, focused on adults, suggests that food delivery app use differs by sociodemographic factors. Thus, the purpose of this study is 1) to describe food delivery app use among young adults, and 2) to examine the association between young adult food delivery app use and factors including age, race, ethnicity, sex, SES, food insecurity, living arrangement, financial responsibility, and full-time student status. Data are from the Promoting Young Adult Health Survey, a cross-sectional online survey with 1,038 young adults online from the Qualtrics panel January-February 2022. Poisson regression was used to examine the relationship between food delivery app use and the sociodemographic variables. Our results suggest that participants who reported being non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic had greater food delivery app use frequency as compared to participants who reported being white. Having higher perceived subjective social status, being food insecure, being financially responsible, and being a full-time student were all significantly associated with greater food delivery app use frequency. Living with someone else was significantly associated with lower food delivery app use frequency. Age, sex, and ‘Other’ Race/ethnicity were not associated with food delivery app use frequency. Overall, young adults use food delivery apps approximately twice a week with vulnerable groups such as Black and Hispanic young adults and young adults reporting food insecurity having greater frequency of use. This study provides a first step in understanding the characteristics of young adults who use food delivery apps more frequently. Given that this new technology can both increase access to unhealthy food options as well as healthy food options, future research is needed to better understand the types of food purchased through food delivery apps and the differences by the sociodemographic factors explored in this study.Kinesiology and Health Educatio