Digital Commons Network^™

Acid Rain: Detoxifying Diversity Jurisdiction’S Poisonous Cycle, Baerett Nelson, Gavyn Roedel

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Diversity jurisdiction authorizes federal courts to act as impartial tribunals over certain matters of state law. To preserve states' judicial sovereignty, the US Supreme Court has prohibited diversity courts from directly interpreting state law, holding that federal courts must "predict" the legal outcome as if a state court had adjudicated. However, litigant abuse hinders consistency in legal outcomes. Discrepancies between courts spur forum shopping, which cyclically generates more legal incongruence. This paper identifies a "toxic cycle" plaguing diversity jurisdiction and offers five prescriptions which courts and Congress must use to reverse it.

Modernizing The Birds And The Bees: New Standards For Sexual Education, Ashley Whetten, Katie Whitehead

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Conversations surrounding sexual education usually revolve around comprehensive sexual education curricula and abstinence-only until marriage curricula. These conversations and the federal funding budgets that developed from these programs prevent innovation and modernization of sexual education programs. Furthermore, research has demonstrated major flaws in both curricula. This paper does not argue for one approach to sexual education over another; instead, the proposals in this paper aim to bridge long-standing disputes on sexual education by creating a new standard of sexual education that also addresses the major downfalls of both current curricula. In order to qualify for funding the program would require …

To Put Her In Her Place: An Interrogation Of Death And Gender In Shakespearean Tragedy, Isabella A. Zentner

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This analysis investigates the gendered implications of Shakespearean heroines' deaths. Using Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Titus Andronicus as case studies, evidence is drawn from the text. This evidence is then supported by extensive historical research and reference to external critical studies of these tragedies. By identifying the gendered aspects of these heroines’ deaths, one can gain a greater understanding of Shakespeare’s view of female autonomy and power. The deaths Shakespeare inflicts often act as a punishment for the heroines' betrayal of traditional gender roles and forcibly return the heroines to the feminine sphere.

Entropic Interactionist Theory: Reading Social Constructionism Through Thermodynamics And Samuel Beckett, Brie Barron

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This essay aims to explain the breakdown of social constructs through the concept of Entropic Interactionist Theory. EIT argues that it is the nature of creations to be vulnerable to the same forces as their creator, and that social constructions (like identity, for example) are subject to the very same physical forces that give rise to humanity’s creative impulse. At its core, EIT is informed by social constructionism and Nietzschean sociological theory, but it names the second law of thermodynamics and the concept of entropy as the driving force behind societal disintegration. The complication with this theory is that it …

A Balancing Act: Overcoming Incommensurability In Rights Adjudication, Samantha Knutson Jex

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

The Supreme Court's current system for rights adjudication is insufficient in cases where both sides feel that a fundamental right has been violated, such as Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. To overcome this insufficiency, I argue that the Court should implement a new test that is a modified combination of the Supreme Court's strict scrutiny and the test used internationally for rights adjudication--the proportionality test. I call this new test the "Incommensurability Test" and explain how it works and why it is beneficial for rights adjudication in the United States. Applying the "Incommensurability Test" would enable the Court …

Full Issue

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

No abstract provided.

Kindness In The Bardo: Empathy As A Catalyst For Healing In Victims Of Dissociation, Julia Dorothea Chopelas

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

In George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo, a host of undead characters find themselves in a spiritual limbo based on the bardo. Although they won’t admit it to themselves, Roger Bevins III and Hans Vollman are most certainly dead. Despite their supernatural makeup as ghosts, Bevins and Vollman bear strong psychological resonance with the living: they are human, heartbroken, and lost. For the ghosts of Oak Hills Cemetery, the inefficient coping mechanism of dissociation perpetuates their afterlife imprisonment in the bardo. Bevins and Vollman suffer from a variety of dissociative symptoms, their minds’ psychological defense against the trauma that has …

"I Don't Think You Understand": Performativity And Comprehensibility In Washington Square, Robyn Amy Peterson

Theses and Dissertations

Washington Square, like The Portrait of a Lady, is an open-ended Henry James novel that concludes ambiguously and unhappily, counter to the trend of many other Victorian novels. While many contemporary Victorian novels center on marriage and inheritance plots, concluding their protagonists' struggles with felicitous performative utterances of "I do" and "I bequeath," Catherine Sloper's future is less clear: at the conclusion of Washington Square, she remains both unmarried and disinherited. Both characters and readers alike seem stymied by Catherine's motivations at the end of the novel, as famously studied in Judith Butler's essay, "Values of Difficulty." Catherine seems calculable, …

Be With Me: Well-Being And Singling Contact; The Moderating Role Of Autistic Traits, Michelle Lupien Lieber

Theses and Dissertations

Sibling contact (synchronous or asynchronous) in young adulthood may have implications for individual well-being (health, life satisfaction & depressive symptoms). This link may be moderated by each individuals' traits, specifically autistic characteristics. Current literature has examined sibling contact, mediums of contact, autism relationships, but has yet to consider sibling contact moderated by autistic traits. This study analyzed data from 390 young adults 61% female, mean age = 25.65) who gave self-reports over two collection waves. Structural Equation Models found that regardless of autistic traits, synchronous contact was linked with increased life satisfaction as well as lower depressive symptoms, and asynchronous …

Spydrnet - An Open-Source Python Netlist Representation For Analysis And Transformation, Dallin Mark Skouson

Theses and Dissertations

SpyDrNet is an open-source structural netlist representation framework written in Python that allows users to create, analyze, and manipulate structural netlists. The internal format was designed to hold generic source structural netlists. Verilog and EDIF netlists generated by Vivado were read and written by SpyDrNet. Additional API functionality was built around the netlist representation. An application applying triple modular redundancy and duplication with compare was created and successfully used.

Examining The Perceptions Of Fake News, Verification, And Notices On Twitter, Brendan Patrick Gwynn

Theses and Dissertations

The rise of social media platforms has had a significant impact on the conventional model of gatekeeping. With increased access to information--as well as the ability to contribute to the public discourse--individuals no longer need to rely on the mass media for news. These realities have led to increased conversations surrounding credibility in the digital age. Although not a new concept, fake news has become increasingly common in recent years. The web--particularly social media outlets, like Twitter--have enhanced the spread of misinformation. To combat this, social media platforms have introduced gatekeeping features like verification marks and warning labels. However, questions …

Nutritional Messaging: To Eat Or Not To Eat?, Christina Triptow

Theses and Dissertations

There is a great deal of diet-specific processed foods on the market today. With so many options it can become difficult for consumers to decide what products to purchase. This situation is further intensified by the plethora of contradictory messages found in food advertising, especially in weight loss and dieting food advertising, but also seen in government nutrition campaigns and all over the internet on platforms like social media, blogs, and so forth. These messages can be confusing and frustrating for consumers as they try to decipher which foods they should eat to reach their health or weight loss goals. …

Virtual Advertising In The Nba: How Arousal Level And Visual Attention Alter Brand Recall And Recognition, Caleb H. Porter

Theses and Dissertations

During the 2020 season, the NBA implemented, for the first time, the use of virtual advertisements. Virtual advertisements are digitally superimposed ads directly on the court that are visible to anyone viewing the broadcasted version of a game. This study used eye-tracking and galvanic skin response (GSR) in conjunction with the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP; Lang, 2006a) to a) determine virtual advertising's effectiveness compared to traditional in-stadium advertising and to b) monitor the effect emotional arousal has on advertising recall and recognition. A sample of 176 fans of the Utah Jazz viewed one of four …

Comparing Survival And Cause-Specific Mortality Of Different Translocation Release Methods For Desert Bighorn Sheep, Taylor S. Daily, Carlos E. Gonzalez, Louis A. Harveson, Warren C. Conway, Froylan Hernandez

Western North American Naturalist

Historically, desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis mexicana) were prevalent throughout the Trans-Pecos region of Texas. However, they were extirpated by the 1960s due to unregulated hunting, habitat loss, predation, and disease transmission from livestock. Restoration efforts have been successfully conducted by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to increase population numbers of resident (i.e., animals that currently populate a region of interest) desert bighorn sheep at Black Gap Wildlife Management Area (BGWMA) through the use of translocations. Because there is a lack of knowledge on alternative release methods for large mammal translocations, our goals were to monitor cause-specific …

U-Splines: Splines Over Unstructured Meshes, Steven K. Schmidt

Theses and Dissertations

U-splines are a novel approach to the construction of a spline basis for representing smooth objects in Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE). A spline is a piecewise-defined function that satisfies continuity constraints between adjacent cells in a mesh. U-splines differ from existing spline constructions, such as Non-Uniform Rational B-splines (NURBS), subdivision surfaces, T-splines, and hierarchical B-splines, in that they can accommodate local variation in cell size, polynomial degree, and smoothness simultaneously over more varied mesh configurations. Mixed cell types (e.g., triangle and tetrahedron and quadrilateral and hexahedral cells in the same mesh) and T-junctions are also supported. The …

The Use Of Nucleotide Salvage Pathway Enzymes As Suitable Tumor Targets For Antibody-Based And Adoptive Cell Therapies, Edwin J. Velazquez

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the progress made in cancer research, cancer remains one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Although the development of new cancer treatments has improved cancer patients' survival rate, a significant number of patients experience refractory and recurrence events with serious side effects. It is known that the immune system actively participates in eliminating cancer. However, cancer cells can develop mechanisms to evade the immune system resulting in immunotolerance. Immunotherapy aids the patient's immune system's ability to recognize and eliminate cancer cells. During the last three decades, immunotherapy has gradually emerged as an effective and more specific approach to …

A New Age Of Film Music: Emotional Responses To Midi Mockups Versus Orchestral Recordings, Amberlee Woodhouse

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Music software is becoming advanced enough to make it difficult for the average person to tell the difference between a MIDI mockup and a recording of an orchestra. This study compares the emotional responses subjects have to electronically created recordings to the emotional responses subjects have to orchestral recordings. Little research has been done on this subject. I hypothesized that the two recordings would communicate the same emotions, but the live recordings would create more emotional intensity. 65 subjects between the ages of 18 and 24 from various musical backgrounds were tested. They listened to both types of recordings of …

Monitoring Occupancy Of Bats With Acoustic Data: Power And Sample Size Recommendations, Jeremy A. Baumgardt, Michael L. Morrison, Leonard A. Brennan, Helen T. Davis, Rachel R. Fern, Joseph M. Szewczak, Tyler A. Campbell

Western North American Naturalist

Bats are difficult to study due to their nocturnal, cryptic, and highly vagile nature. Ongoing advances in acoustic recording hardware and call classification software have made species detection and activity monitoring more feasible. Our objectives were to determine the effort necessary to monitor bat assemblages using an occupancy framework and acoustic data and to provide guidelines for researchers interested in developing similar monitoring programs. We collected data at 2 study areas in South Texas from June through September in 2015, 2016, and 2017. We used Pettersson D500X Mk II real-time full-spectrum detectors and classified sound files using SonoBat bat call …

Surfing The Waves: An Examination Of School Funding Litigation From Serrano V. Priest To Cook V. Raimondo And The Possible Transition Of The Fourth Wave, Christine Rienstra Kiracofe, Spencer Weiler

BYU Education & Law Journal

To mark the important anniversary of the landmark school finance case Serrano v. Priest, we examine the small(er) but important role that federal claims have played in school funding litigation.

A Tale Of Serrano: Three V. Priest, John E. Coons

BYU Education & Law Journal

Of my fifty-years of post-Serrano observations, the clearest is that more of the same is not the answer to this society's worst public school problem: our deliberate and unnecessary purging of the legal responsibility and authority of the lower-income parent, the same authority and responsibility so highly valued by the middle class.

John Serrano Did Not Vote For Proposition 13, William A. Fischel

BYU Education & Law Journal

Rather than advancing new arguments, this essay will review my work on this subject in the form of a memoir (with popular-song headings that betray my vintage) about my evolving interest in the Serrano and Proposition 13 connection.

Towards Trojan Detection From A Raw Bitstream, Corey Ryan Simpson

Theses and Dissertations

Many avenues exist to insert malicious circuitry into an FPGA designs, including compromised CAD tools, overwriting bitstream files, and post-deployment attacks. The proprietary nature of the Xilinx bitstreams precludes the ability to validate an implemented design. This thesis introduces the BitRec and IPRec projects in an effort to support trojan detection tools. BitRec provides a novel approach to mapping of the Xilinx bitstream format into FPGA features in order to recreate the original design's netlist. BitRec supports the 7 Series, UltraScale and UltraScale+ architectures. IPRec then provides a novel approach to recognizing parameterizable IP within a flattened netlist in an …

A Comparison Of Square-Wave Voltammetry Models To Determine The Number Of Electrons Exchanged In Metal Deposition, Ranon Fuller, Tyler Williams, Mark H. Schvaneveldt, Devin Rappleye

Faculty Publications

A comparison of square-wave voltammetry models for calculating the number of electrons exchanged in a metal deposition reaction. Experiments were conducted for silver deposition on platinum in an aqueous HNO₃ solution and for nickel and lanthanum deposition on platinum in molten LiCl. Diffusion coefficients for Ni²⁺ and La³⁺ in LiCl at 700^oC are calculated. Accuracy of soluble-soluble models versus a soluble-insoluble model is discussed. A simple method for determining the number of electrons exchanged under the constraint of well-compensated ohmic drop is proposed and evaluated.

Gender-Related Language Trends In Online Written News: Comparative Corpus Analysis Of Prescribed Vs. Actual Usage, Brooke James

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Contrary to traditional thought in linguistics and editing, recent studies using corpus-based evidence suggest that historical English usage patterns influenced prescriptive usage manuals’ guidelines more than the other way around. To investigate the modern relationship between English language prescriptions and usage, this study focuses on the wide-reaching genre of written online news and the topic of gender-fair language. It compares changes regarding gender-specific language in the Associated Press’s stylebooks to actual usage trends as documented in the News on the Web (NOW) corpus. Results from NOW show -man title variants as the dominant form in the early 2010s, consistent AP …

Variability In Variables: An Analysis Of Variable Use In A Middle School Mathematics Textbook, Annalisa G. Lavin

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Variables are an important part of mathematics as they allow mathematicians to generalize and more easily express mathematical ideas, however research has shown that students struggle with understanding variables. One way to study variable use is to classify variables into different types based on how they are used. This study uses variable types to investigate variable usage in a middle school mathematics textbook. This study identified 9 variable types and 3 algebraic processes that variable types are tied to. This analysis also found evidence of a growing complexity in variable use, starting with sophisticated variable use in grade 6 and …

Motives For Repression Of Chinese Ethnic Minorities: A Comparative Case Study Of Xinjiang And Tibet, Haley Grizzell

Undergraduate Honors Theses

While Xinjiang suffers genocide and Tibet has experienced human rights abuses for years from the Communist Party of China (CPC), government abuses in Xinjiang are far more severe, even though the regions represent similar (low) levels of separatist, terrorist violence. To understand this variation in the CPC’s treatment of its western ethnic minorities, I theorize that the actions in Xinjiang must be tied to regime survival, which in China is tied to performance. The CPC’s performance has been lacking in providing power for its urban population, which makes up its most important base of legitimacy. According to my theory, educated, …

Symbolic Semantic Memory In Transformer Language Models, Robert Kenneth Morain

Theses and Dissertations

This paper demonstrates how transformer language models can be improved by giving them access to relevant structured data extracted from a knowledge base. The knowledge base preparation process and modifications to transformer models are explained. We evaluate these methods on language modeling and question answering tasks. These results show that even simple additional knowledge augmentation leads to a reduction in validation loss by 73%. These methods also significantly outperform common ways of improving language models such as increasing the model size or adding more data.

The Effect Of Soot Models In Oxy-Coal Combustion Simulations, Kamron Groves Brinkerhoff

Theses and Dissertations

Soot in coal combustion simulations is often ignored due to its computational complexity, despite significant effects on flame temperature and radiation. In this research, a 40 kW oxy-coal combustion system is modeled using Large Eddy Simulations (LES) and a semi-empirical monodisperse coal soot model. Simulation results are compared to experimental measurements of temperature, species concentrations, and soot concentration. Cases where soot is modeled are compared with cases where soot is neglected to determine the accuracy benefits of modeling soot. The simulations were able to replicate experimental results within an acceptable level of error. Including soot in the simulations did not …

“The Only Story I’Ll Be Able To Tell”: An Analysis Of Shame And Queer Identity In Gothic American Campus Novels, Aubrey Dickens

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis analyzes shame and queerness in contemporary gothic American campus novels, also known as “dark academia” novels. The thesis looks specifically at the novels The Secret History by Donna Tartt, published in 1992 and considered to be the first dark academia novel, and Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas, published in 2020 and a more modern adaptation on the subgenre. The two novels deal explicitly with how shame constitutes identity, specifically in regards to individuals who are depicted as queer or outside of heteronormative expectations of sexuality. Queerness in the context of this paper is defined as any portrayal of …

Full Issue - Leadership

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

“Leadership is all about changing the order of things. Machiavelli said, ‘There is nothing so difficult or so dangerous as to undertake to change the order of things.’ And that is true. It is difficult, and it is sometimes dangerous, because people resist and people are afraid. And that is why only leaders can drive change.”

“Management is the production of acceptable results within known constraints and conditions; very important. But management is not leadership.” https://ecorner.stanford.edu/videos/the-difference-between-management-and-leadership/,

Taken From Carly Fiorina, Former CEO, HP, Speech from Stanford eCorner