Racialization, sexualization, and resistance: a “subtle” look at Our Nig and “a subtlety”

This thesis sheds light on the historical patterns of racialization and sexualization of black women and how those patterns have created visual depictions of black women that are not only still being shown today, but also powerfully reclaimed and resisted by black women activists as forms of protest. With the rise of these careful theorizations of black women by black women (and men), this thesis turns to Nicole Fleetwood’s Troubling Vision: Performance, Visuality, and Blackness, Saidiya Hartman’s Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America, and Tavia Nyong’o’s The Amalgamation Waltz, as essential frameworks for my analysis that follows of sexualizations and racializations of black women in literature and visual culture, to understand both their past and enduring “cultural work” with a necessarily more inclusive and interdisciplinary understanding of that work than in the original introduction of this powerful phrase. Further, this thesis closely analyzes Harriet Wilson’s novel Our Nig and Kara Walker’s 2014 sculpture A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby since these are works that contain representations of black women crafted by black women. From this analysis, it was found that visual stereotypes of black women dating back to the nineteenth century have been used as resistance when manipulated by black women representing themselves. Therefore, literary tropes of black women and their appearances have been historically used to oppress black women, but over the years have been used by black women to reclaim authority over their bodies and to resist one dimensional stereotypes that have been used to oppress them

Effectiveness of a Repeated Readings Intervention with English Language Learners

Repeated readings has been shown to be effective with monolingual students to improve both reading fluency and comprehension (Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002; O'Shea, Sindelar, & O'Shea, 1985; Vadasy & Sanders, 2008; Wang & Algozzine, 2008); however, evidence for the effectiveness of this technique is more scarce with English Language Learners (ELLs). The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a basic repeated readings intervention with ELLs for strengthening their reading fluency and comprehension. Three elementary students from a school in northern Oklahoma participated in the intervention for approximately 15 minutes each school day for approximately 6 weeks. DIBELS passages were used to assess reading fluency. AimsWeb Maze passages were administered during three baseline sessions and three return-to-baseline sessions to measure comprehension. Treatment integrity and inter-rater agreement were also assessed. Change in the trend, level, and variability in the participant's performance duSchool of Teaching and Curriculum Leadershi

Human Fear Conditioning Conducted in Full Immersion 3-Dimensional Virtual Reality

Fear conditioning is a widely used paradigm in non-human animal research to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying fear and anxiety. A major challenge in conducting conditioning studies in humans is the ability to strongly manipulate or simulate the environmental contexts that are associated with conditioned emotional behaviors. In this regard, virtual reality (VR) technology is a promising tool. Yet, adapting this technology to meet experimental constraints requires special accommodations. Here we address the methodological issues involved when conducting fear conditioning in a fully immersive 6-sided VR environment and present fear conditioning data

Days of Future Past: Why Race Matters in Metadata

While marginalized as a juvenile medium, comics serve as an archive of our collective experience. Emerging with the modern city and deeply affected by race, class, and gender norms, comics are a means to understand the changes linked to identity and power in the United States. For further investigation, we turn to one such collective archive: the MSU Library Comics Art Collection (CAC), which contains over 300,000 comics and comic artifacts dating as far back as 1840. As noted on the MSU Special Collections’ website, “the focus of the collection is on published work in an effort to present a complete picture of what the American comics readership has seen, especially since the middle of the 20th century”. As one of the world’s largest publicly accessible comics archives, a community of scholars and practitioners created the Comics as Data North America (CaDNA) dataset, which comprises library metadata from the CAC to explore the production, content, and creative communities linked to comics in North America. This essay will draw on the Comics as Data North America (CaDNA) dataset at Michigan State University to visualize patterns of racial depiction in North American comics from 1890–2018. Our visualizations highlight how comics serve as a visual record of representation and serve as a powerful marker of marginalization central to popular cultural narratives in the United States. By utilizing data visualization to explore the ways we codify and describe identity, we seek to call attention to the constructed nature of race in North America and the continuing work needed to imagine race beyond the confines of the established cultural legacy

Priorities for future research on reducing and stopping psychiatric medicines using a James Lind Alliance priority setting partnership: The PROTECT study protocol [version 1; peer review: 2 approved]

Background: There is a growing number of service users looking to discontinue use of psychiatric medicines. Tapering is the recommended approach for reducing and/or discontinuing the use of psychiatric medicines. This involves gradually reducing the dose over time to minimise the potential for withdrawal symptoms. However, many uncertainties exist regarding the process of reducing and stopping psychiatric medicines. This study will use a James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership to determine the Top 10 unanswered questions and uncertainties about reducing and stopping psychiatric medicines. Methods: The Priority Setting Partnership will be conducted using the James Lind Alliance methodology. It will involve seven stages: (i) creating an international Steering Group of representatives from key stakeholder groups that will include people with lived experience of taking and/or stopping psychiatric medicines, family members, carers/supporters and healthcare professionals, and identifying potential partners to support key activities (e.g. dissemination); (ii) gathering uncertainties about reducing and stopping psychiatric medicines from key stakeholders using an online survey; (iii) data processing and summarising the survey responses; (iv) checking the summary questions against existing evidence and verifying uncertainties; (v) shortlisting the questions using a second online survey; (vi) determining the Top 10 research questions through an online prioritisation workshop; (vii) disseminating results. Conclusions: This study will use a Priority Setting Partnership to generate a Top 10 list of research questions and uncertainties about reducing and stopping psychiatric medicines. This list will help to guide future research and deliver responsive and strategic allocation of research resources, with a view to ultimately improving the future health and well-being of individuals who are taking psychiatric medicines

Molecular Characterization, Tissue Distribution, Subcellular Localization and Actin-Sequestering Function of a Thymosin Protein from Silkworm

We identified a novel gene encoding a Bombyx mori thymosin (BmTHY) protein from a cDNA library of silkworm pupae, which has an open reading frame (ORF) of 399 bp encoding 132 amino acids. It was found by bioinformatics that BmTHY gene consisted of three exons and two introns and BmTHY was highly homologous to thymosin betas (Tβ). BmTHY has a conserved motif LKHTET with only one amino acid difference from LKKTET, which is involved in Tβ binding to actin. A His-tagged BmTHY fusion protein (rBmTHY) with a molecular weight of approximately 18.4 kDa was expressed and purified to homogeneity. The purified fusion protein was used to produce anti-rBmTHY polyclonal antibodies in a New Zealand rabbit. Subcellular localization revealed that BmTHY can be found in both Bm5 cell (a silkworm ovary cell line) nucleus and cytoplasm but is primarily located in the nucleus. Western blotting and real-time RT-PCR showed that during silkworm developmental stages, BmTHY expression levels are highest in moth, followed by instar larvae, and are lowest in pupa and egg. BmTHY mRNA was universally distributed in most of fifth-instar larvae tissues (except testis). However, BmTHY was expressed in the head, ovary and epidermis during the larvae stage. BmTHY formed complexes with actin monomer, inhibited actin polymerization and cross-linked to actin. All the results indicated BmTHY might be an actin-sequestering protein and participate in silkworm development

Factors Associated with Revision Surgery after Internal Fixation of Hip Fractures

Background: Femoral neck fractures are associated with high rates of revision surgery after management with internal fixation. Using data from the Fixation using Alternative Implants for the Treatment of Hip fractures (FAITH) trial evaluating methods of internal fixation in patients with femoral neck fractures, we investigated associations between baseline and surgical factors and the need for revision surgery to promote healing, relieve pain, treat infection or improve function over 24 months postsurgery. Additionally, we investigated factors associated with (1) hardware removal and (2) implant exchange from cancellous screws (CS) or sliding hip screw (SHS) to total hip arthroplasty, hemiarthroplasty, or another internal fixation device. Methods: We identified 15 potential factors a priori that may be associated with revision surgery, 7 with hardware removal, and 14 with implant exchange. We used multivariable Cox proportional hazards analyses in our investigation. Results: Factors associated with increased risk of revision surgery included: female sex, [hazard ratio (HR) 1.79, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.25-2.50; P = 0.001], higher body mass index (fo

Every Tongue Got to Confess: Zora Neale Hurston as Afrofuturist

To understand Hurston’s influence on the black speculative practice and engagement in Afrofuturist practice, we must first understand the period she was working within— the Harlem Renaissance

Social support, God locus of health control, and quality of life among African American breast cancer survivors

As African American (AA) breast cancer survivors live longer with the disease, much attention should be directed to quality of life and factors influencing it. An understanding of survivors' belief that God controls their health and their social support needs is necessary as an effort to develop health care services and programs that are culturally sensitive. This study was the first to explore the association between an individual's belief that God controls their health, social support and quality of life among AA breast cancer survivors. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between social support, God Locus of Health Control (GLHC) and quality of life (QoL) among the survivors residing in Illinois. This study's alternative hypotheses predicted after controlling for age, location of residence, marital status, and time since diagnosis, social support and GLHC, combined and individually, would positively correlate to QoL for AA breast cancer survivors. The study used a descriptive, correlational and quantitative design by testing the variables using hierarchical multiple regression and Pearson correlation. A convenience sample of 92 AA women was recruited from a community hospital, a Federally Qualified Health Centers, a beauty shop, two support groups, a member association that advocates for health care disparities, and local newspapers. Quantitative measures included Social Support Questionnaire (Northouse, 1988), GLHC scale (Wallston et al., 1999), Quality of Life Index - Cancer Version III (QLI - CV III) (Ferrans, 1990), and Demographic Characteristics form created by researcher. Results concluded QoL was not affected by social support and GLHC, combined, and GLHC, individually. However, social support was a predictor of QoL. Statistically significant relationships were found between social support, QoL and its domains: a) health and functioning subscale, b) social and economic subscale, c) psychological/spiritual subscale and d) family subscale. Statistically significant relationships were not found between GLHC and QoL and its domains. The mean score for social support and GLHC scales were low compared to prior study results. The QLI - CV III mean score was moderately high compared to other study results. Additional findings concluded women residing in the suburb had statistically significant higher mean QoL than those living in the rural or urban areas of Illinois. Also, married women in this sample had a higher mean QoL than unmarried women. Although AA breast cancer survivors' QoL was not increased by their belief that God controlled their health and the mean social support score was low, the study results provided valuable information for future research and the development of social support programs that are culturally sensitive