Acer rubrum: Descending towards forest dominance

Acer rubrum, more commonly known as the red maple, is a hardwood, late successional species of tree commonly planted for its deciduous nature and vibrant coloring of its leaves in the beginning of autumn (Abrams, 1998). The species is very tolerant of varying light and soil moisture levels and often dominates sub and mid-canopy levels of hardwood forests (Missouri Botanical Gardens). It was hypothesized that as the I moved from an upland location to a lowland location near a wetland that the A. rubrum trees would be more productive and have a greater above ground biomass. This was not supported by the data collected and a T-test comparing average percent slope and above ground biomass (p = 0.0002949) indicated that these results were significant. An inverse relationship between the two variables suggested that A. rubrum was more productive in drier, upland regions compared to the moist soils closer to the wetland. These results, while significant, did not have the best representation of the sample due to the varying number of trees in each transect region.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1484/thumbnail.jp

Improving telehealth education and training: A needs assessment of healthcare providers and trainees

Telehealth utilization has increased dramatically since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. There are many positive impacts of this shift to telehealth, including increasing access to care and reducing patient burden. However, healthcare providers report several consistent challenges that limit their ability to deliver telehealth, such as effective communication, technological difficulties, and difficulty performing physical examinations. To address these concerns, it is necessary to integrate telehealth education and training into healthcare professional training programs and healthcare systems. While many institutions have implemented telehealth education and training since the start of the pandemic, there is little consistency in the content, duration, and activities used in these interventions. The aim of this research was to assess healthcare providers\u27 and trainees\u27 experiences with telehealth education/training, needs for additional education/training, and self-efficacy in delivering telehealth. In Study 1, focus groups and interviews were conducted with licensed providers. In Study 2, samples of licensed providers and current trainees were recruited to participate in an online questionnaire including open-ended questions about telehealth education/training experiences and needs. These results were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Findings from this research revealed that providers are generally confident in their ability to use telehealth but that there is room for improvement in existing telehealth education/training interventions. Providers and trainees would benefit from education/training that focuses on common challenges in telehealth visits such as patient-provider communication and troubleshooting technological issues, particularly experiential training (e.g., standardized patient visits) that provide opportunities to practice these skills. Furthermore, it is critical to tailor telehealth education/training to the specific medical contexts and patient populations in which providers are most likely to use telehealth

Liner Notes on Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music as a Praxis of Self-Fashioning

Liner Notes on Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music as a Praxis of Self-Fashioning interprets Black musical performance in identity-making, with a focus on how music and Black trans identity intersect and informs Black trans girlhood. As such, Black trans girls render ourselves legible, i.e. understood without shame or judgment, by constructing our identities through the music by Black women we listen and dance to, or watch and sing. These musical connections affirm the possibilities of Black femme expression. This expression of Black femininity is due to what I call an Afrofuturist affect, by which I refer to the transfer of emotions, sensations, and embodied knowledge from Black musical cultural productions to Black trans girl subjects who use these tools and resources to (re)formulate our identities and (re)orient them to promote a sense of pride, pleasure, and satisfaction in mind, body, and spirit. Through this process, Black trans girls create a unique sense of girlhood that transcends adolescence and challenges the definitions and constructs of “Black,” “trans,” “girl,” and “woman” simultaneously. As a Black transgender scholar, I seek to intervene within Black transfeminist scholarship to advocate for an affective understanding of Black trans realities that moves beyond a call for empathy, as empathy does not prioritize the subject of harm. Instead, having an affective understanding of Black trans realities acknowledges the power imbalances and oppressive structures within our white cis-hetero patriarchal society. Therefore, championing the Black trans girls’ visibility and creating safe spaces for Black trans girls to embrace our future as Black women

S18, E07: US Virgin Islands (Aired 2/20/2025)

The US Virgin Islands are the topic of the fifth in this series, with Aughie and Nia discussing the rich history of the islands.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/civil_discourse/1262/thumbnail.jp

Glycosaminoglycan Modulation of Cathepsin D in the context of Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disorder, and the most common form of dementia, characterized by a loss in memory and other cognitive abilities presenting with extensive neuronal loss, amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles. Cathepsin D (CatD) is a lysosomal aspartyl protease that has been shown to break down these aberrantly formed proteins. Physiologic modulators of this clearance mechanism, which could herald a new era of AD therapeutics, remain poorly studied. One type of modulator known to date is the family of glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). Here, we study a range of natural and unnatural GAGs of varying chain lengths and sulfation levels to comprehensively understand GAG modulation of both zymogenic form of CatD (z-CatD) and mature- CatD (m-CatD). Using computational studies, we show the unique structures of z-CatD and m-CatD endows both proteins with the ability to bind preferentially to distinct sulfated GAGs at one of the two putative sites of binding. Enzyme kinetics shows that both the z-CatD and m-CatD are activated at low GAG levels, whereas higher levels induce inhibition. Interestingly, the extent of activation is dependent on the type of GAG as well as the form of CatD. Together, these studies reveal that the higher affinity site corresponds to activation, whereas the lower affinity site corresponding to inhibition. Overall, the phenomenon of GAG-concentration dependent dual modulation of CatD (activation and inhibition) presents a very interesting molecular regulatory mechanism with possible consequences in clearance of plaques and tangles

The Influence of Gender Identity and Healthcare Delivery Experience on HIV Screening

This dissertation examines the roles of gender identity, healthcare experience, and practitioners\u27 scope of healthcare services in the uptake of annual HIV screening among the understudied population of transgender individuals. Transgender individuals are about half as likely to have an annual HIV screening despite having similar risk profiles to men who have sex with men (MSM). The current HIV guidelines for MSM recommend annual HIV screening because of the risky sexual practice, anal sex with other men. Similar to MSM, transgender individuals who have anal sex with men are at higher risk than the general population for HIV acquisition because of their continuous engagement in anal sex with men. Increasing transgender-specific healthcare knowledge among practitioners may lead to the inclusion of transgender individuals in standardized HIV screening guidelines, lessen negative healthcare engagement experiences, and broaden practitioners’ healthcare scope, all of which may increase HIV screening among high-risk (i.e., engaging in receptive anal sex) transgender individuals. In the first investigation, we seek to understand if there are HIV screening differences among communities with similar risk profiles (engaging in receptive anal sex), specifically MSM versus transgender individuals. In the second and third investigation, we seek to understand possible contributors associated with HIV screening behaviors of transgender individuals with high-HIV-acquisition risk. This dissertation addresses 3 research questions: 1) Is there a relationship between gender identity and annual HIV screening among high-risk transgender individuals? 2) Is there a relationship between healthcare experience and annual HIV screening among high-risk transgender individuals? 3) Is there a relationship between practitioners\u27 scope of healthcare services and annual HIV screening among high-risk transgender individuals? Our findings suggest that despite having a similar high-risk profile (engaging in receptive anal sex), when compared to MSM, transgender individuals were less likely to have an annual HIV screening. Furthermore, transgender individuals who received primary care services in the past 12 months had a higher likelihood of having an annual HIV test. These findings suggest that being transgender and having high-HIV-acquisition risk (i.e., receptive anal sex with men) may impact annual HIV screening uptake, but their odds of having an annual HIV screening are higher when involved with primary care services. However, when examining the relationship between healthcare experience and annual HIV screening, we found no significant relationships. Furthermore, high-risk transgender individuals whose practitioners’ scope of services includes both trans-related and routine healthcare (versus routine healthcare only) were more likely to have an annual HIV screening, suggesting that when treating high-risk transgender individuals, the scope of the practitioner may impact the rate of HIV screening. Further work in this field includes developing, testing and evaluating survey questions that explicitly address sexual practices in order to isolate high-HIV-acquisition-risk (i.e., engaging in receptive anal sex) populations, as well as, developing survey questions with clear distinctions between healthcare provider types

Exploring Assessment Literacy in Different Educational Contexts: Pre-Service, In-Service & Higher Education

This is a three-paper dissertation that explores how assessment literacy is developed and used across K–12 and higher education. The first paper examines how pre-service teachers develop assessment literacy within a teacher residency program. It focuses on how new teachers learn to use assessments through program design, feedback, and mentorship. The second paper analyzes how assessments are actually used in K–12 schools. It uses a latent profile analysis to identify different ways teachers work with assessment data in practice. The third paper shifts to higher education and explores how faculty apply assessment literacy in their teaching, grading, and course planning. It looks at how their understanding of assessments is shaped by their department or institutional context. Together, these three studies give a broad look at how instructors across different educational settings build and use assessment knowledge. By exploring teacher preparation and real-world assessment practices, the dissertation highlights how professional learning, context, and systems-level factors influence how assessment literacy shows up in practice

Sink Into Serenity: Exploring the Healing Properties of Bathing Culture

In an effort to deconstruct the ideas of privacy as they’re understood in the west, this project’s concept revolves around levels of transparency and how that can eliminate barriers and feelings of shame surrounding the human body, fostering a greater sense of community through shared vulnerability