Digital Commons Network^™

The Inapplicability Of Government Speech Doctrine In School Libraries, Dallyn Edmunds

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Since 2021, the number of books removed from school libraries has risen dramatically. These removals have led to lawsuits and questions surrounding the control a state may exercise over the school library. In almost every current case, the government has argued these cases should be dismissed because of the government speech doctrine. A fairly recent creation, the government speech doctrine is the understanding that the government, in order to accomplish its purposes, may at times exercise viewpoint discrimination and regulate speech in ways that perhaps seem prohibited by the First Amendment. Evaluation in government speech cases has typically undergone a …

The Implication Of Permanence: Indigenous Water Rights In The State Of Arizona V. Navajo Nation, Collin Powell

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

In the State of Arizona v. Navajo Nation, the Supreme Court asked the Navajo to accept a contradiction. In light of disagreements over water rights between Arizona and the Navajo Tribe, members of the Navajo pointed to the Treaty of Bosque Redondo. The Treaty was a compromise between the Navajo and US Officials to reparate the Navajo after “The Long Walk”: a series of forced relocations against the Natives that resulted in over 2,500 deaths. Among these reparations was the guarantee of a “permanent home” on US federal lands. For over a century, case law defined a “permanent home” to …

Full Issue

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

No abstract provided.

Mobility Without Retention: Reforming The Compact Of Free Association To Address Human Capital Flight, Ellery Miller, Porter O'Reilly

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

In the aftermath of United States nuclear testing in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), which rendered several atolls uninhabitable, the country now confronts a different threat: sustained human capital flight. To compensate the RMI for nuclear damages, the United States signed into law the Compact of Free Association (COFA), a treaty structured around three core commitments: (1) defense and security, (2) economic assistance, and (3) unrestricted migration rights. Under COFA, Marshallese citizens may live and work in the United States without a visa, which has resulted in large-scale outmigration of the working-age and educated population. This Note argues …

Thinking Ahead: Ranking Substantive Canons To Protect Loper Bright, Tanner Macdonald

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

After forty-two years, the Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference in their decision Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024). The decision suggested a rising inclination towards legal formalism in cases of statutory interpretation. This Note argues that if the Court intends statutes to be interpreted in accordance with formalism, clarification is needed. Loper Bright was not sufficient to clear up the inconsistencies in statutory interpretation that the Court used to overrule Chevron. Without a strong prescription, Loper Bright will eventually collapse on itself. A formal ranking of substantive canons is one type of structure that would support Loper Bright and enable …

Rethinking Antitrust In The Age Of Fintech, Quaid Knell, Olivia Mossman

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

In cases involving large technology firms, current antitrust laws are proving difficult to enforce when applied through the traditional framework of price-centered metrics. Financial technology (fintech) companies are firms that integrate digital technology into financial services and operate through multi-sided platforms, and they are growing in number. This increased number of firms introduces the next challenge for antitrust enforcement, as traditional definitions of market dominance and monopolistic behavior are ill-suited to the realities of the digital landscape. Although there are no current antitrust lawsuits against major fintech firms, their existing structures and business models, if left unexamined, allow these firms …

“Loophole Of The Century”: Routine Use And The Privacy Act Of 1974, Joslynn Jensen

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

This Note examines structural weaknesses in the Privacy Act of 1974 and argues that the statute no longer provides meaningful safeguards for personal information held by federal agencies. Enacted in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, the Act was designed to ensure transparency, accountability, and individual control over government recordkeeping systems. However, two core features—the routine-use exception and the Act’s narrow remedial structure—have undermined these protections. The routine-use provision permits agencies to disclose personal records without individualized consent so long as the disclosure is deemed “compatible” with the purpose of collection and published in the Federal Register, a form of …

Regulating Ai, Jacob Leavitt

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Artificial intelligence, a new phenomena embedding itself in every aspect of public life, is advancing at unprecedented rates with potentially catastrophic consequences. While fragmented and reaction regulation frameworks are currently in place, based primarily on tort cases, this paper calls for a hybrid regulatory solution that combines federal administrative law and streamlined international policy. This paper assesses proposed regulatory solutions - tort law, an industry-drafted “AI Constitution,” a Communications Decency Act-style immunity framework, a domestic federal agency, and an international regulatory body. Based on these frameworks, the authors have developed five criteria for an effective solution - expertise, enforceability, obligation, …

Front Matter

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

No abstract provided.

Software-Defined Radios In Avalanche Detection, Andrew Mcdonald

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the use of software-defined radios (SDRs) to develop a low-cost radar system for avalanche detection. Avalanches are a significant danger in mountainous locations and existing systems are often difficult or expensive to use. This research assesses if commercially available SDRs can be used to create a radar system capable of detecting moving targets and accurately measuring distance. A frequency-modulated contiuous-wave (FMCW) radar was implemented using the LimeSDR-Mini and the USRP B210. Signal generation, data collection, and processing all are performed in software, enabling easy configuration. Improvements to data transfer methods for the LimeSDR-Mini reduced sampling errors and …

Does Concurrent Completion Of A Computer Task Interfere With Talking? Comparing Younger And Older Adults, Emma Simpson Hymas

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the impact of a computer-based divided attention task on spoken language and compares the impact between younger (18–30 years) and older (55–82 years) adults. Sixty adults participated in a speaking task and two computer tasks which varied in difficulty. The Level 1 computer task involved highlighting each instance of the word “the” and the Level 2 computer task involved highlighting each instance of the word “the” while also underlining each instance of the word “a”. Each task was completed alone and then two computer tasks with different levels of difficulty were completed concurrently with a procedural discourse …

The Fungi Behind The Forest: How Mycorrhizal Diversity Changes In Great Basin Bristlecone Pine In Response To Tree Age And Resource Availability, Zeb M. Mendenhall, Otto W. Groff, Austin J. Housley, Steven L. Petersen

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2026

2nd Place - Open House Presentation

Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva, hereafter bristlecone) is one of the longest living organisms on the planet1 (Fig.1).

Bristlecone form symbiotic relationships with Ectomycorrhiza (ECM) to gain important resources in dry, nutrient poor soils2 (Fig. 2).

Very little research exists on the relationship between bristlecone and ECM, limiting our understanding of how these trees survive.

This project investigates how ECM diversity changes in bristlecone with age and different resource availabilities.

Species Dynamics And Potential Invasion In The Restored Streams Of East Maui, Hannah Breinholt, Isabelle Hunter, Sarah Cole, Seth M. Bybee, Rachel L. Wood

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2026

100+ years of water diversions in East Maui disrupted this connectivity, threatening native species and their habitat

In 2018, stream flow was restored to 22 streams

Endemic amphidromous fish in East Maui streams depend on intact flow from mountains to sea (mauka-to-makai) and are especially vulnerable to habitat disruption and isolation [1]

Has stream restoration enabled native fish species to recolonize or has it created openings for non-native species?

Self-Reported Longest-Held Occupation Type In Relation To Epilepsy In Late Life: A Pooled Cohort Analysis Of Incidence And Prevalence, Daniel Guerrero Gutierrez, Sofia Pelagalli Maia, Hyunmi Choi, Jose Gutierrez, Natalie Bello, Mary L. Biggs, Emily M. Briceño, James F. Burke, Lisandro D. Colantonio, Mitchell S.V. Elkind, Annette L. Fitzpatrick, Christopher Gonzalez, Alden L. Gross, Lei Huang, Emily L. Johnson, W. Craig Johnson, Cheng-Shiun Leu, Deborah A. Levine, Minghua Liu, W.T. Longstreth Jr., Richard P. Mayeux, Sylwia Misiewicz, Dolly Reyes-Dumeyer, Tatjana Rundek, Danurys Sanchez, Steven J. Shea, Tian Wang, Carolyn W. Shu, Evan L. Thacker

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2026

Epilepsy in late life is influenced by biological, behavioral, social and environmental factors

Lifetime occupation type may capture socioeconomic, environmental, and long-term physical exposures relevant to brain health (e.g., manual labor, stress levels, neurotoxic exposures) that could influence neurological aging

Meta Analysis Of The Riverine Barrier Hypothesis In Mainland Southeast Asia, Gavin Kohl, Christian Furness, Eleanor Savage, Perry Van Wagoner, Randy Klabacka

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2026

Understanding the drivers of biodiversification is an important objective in evolutionary biology

Yet much is still unknown regarding the mechanisms that drive biodiversity in species

Identifying barriers between lineages is a viable approach to discovering potential drivers

Enhancing Metabolic Fitness Of Car T-Cells By Removing Cd6, Nate Neyman, Alka Guar, Annie Joy-Larson, Collin Mickelson, Scott Weber

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2026

Honorable Mention - Poster Design

CAR T-cell therapy is a highly effective cancer treatment involving engineering the patient’s T-cells to recognize and kill cancerous cells. This therapy has shown great success for blood cancers but has faced many challenges against solid tumors.

Surrounding tumor cells there is a lack of essential nutrients (oxygen, glucose) for T-cells to metabolize efficiency. Additionally, there is a buildup of excess waste products that directly impair T-cell function (1). To overcome these obstacles, scientists are working on developing longer lasting T-cells with improved metabolism to improve efficacy against cancer cells.

Cover And Front Matter

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

The "Family Of Things": Mary Oliver, Anthropomorphism, And Conflicting Approaches To Spirituality In Nature, Sophie West

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Objective Conditioning Via Latent-Factor Modeling, Kalman-Smoothing, And Hidden Markov Clustering: An Application To Empirical Asset Pricing, Melanie R. Neller

Theses and Dissertations

Empirical asset pricing relies heavily on conditioning sets--industry groupings, size buckets, valuation screens, and other researcher-defined partitions--to structure cross-sectional tests and portfolio construction. While intuitive, such partitions risk blending heterogeneous firms, masking latent exposures, and introducing omitted-variable bias. This thesis develops an objective, mathematically grounded conditioning pipeline that replaces subjective groupings with latent-factor extraction, Kalman-based data techniques, and probabilistic clustering via Gaussian hidden Markov models (HMMs). Using CRSP monthly returns, the framework stabilizes noisy return data, extracts systematic structure through principal component analysis (PCA), identifies homogeneous stock cohorts through HMM clustering, and models regime persistence using Markov transition matrices. These …

Full Issue

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Electrochemical Sensors And Processes In Molten Salts: Chlorine Production, Electroanalytical Chemistry, And Thin-Layer Electrodes, Tyler Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Molten salt electrochemistry has historically played a substantial role in the metallurgical industry, and this trend is only accelerating in areas of green steel, direct ore processing, and rare-earth processing. In addition, the recent surge of interest in molten salt nuclear reactors has provided an additional application for molten salt electrochemical processes, including the reprocessing of used nuclear fuels and the development of electrochemical sensors for nuclear applications. In this work, the development of a chloride volatility separation process for used nuclear fuel is advanced; electroanalytical methods are improved for identifying and quantifying unknown analytes with and without the presence …

The Politics Of Exposure: How Local Israeli Violence Affects Palestinian Public Opinion, Noah Passey

Undergraduate Honors Theses

International violence has been connected to domestic public opinion in a variety of ways. Most of the research on this topic focuses on large-scale events like war and ignores smaller events like airstrikes, border conflicts, and police action. This thesis examines small-scale, individual-level violence in Palestine and what impact this violence has on Palestinian public opinions. It uses data on Palestinian casualties to specifically examine the effects of violence perpetrated by Israel in the period 2000-2016—a period marked by frequent conflict short of all-out war. Through multilevel regression analysis, I find that this low-level violence does influence Palestinian public opinion, …

De Aquí Y De Allá: Exchanging Language And Visual Culture In The Lower Rio Grande Valley, Chloë M. Robinson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study examines graphic design in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) as a site of cultural hybridity, shaped by transnational histories and bilingual practice. It explores how Mexican and Anglo design markers intersect and are negotiated in daily life through analysis of 2,180 visual artifacts, interviews with ten local creatives, and a survey of fifty residents. Historical research traces influences like nineteenth-century wood type and rótulo signage to contemporary advertising. Interviews reveal that local creatives navigate hybrid identities through code-switching, bilingual fluency, and borderlands experiences. Survey results show that participants’ language preferences predict how they categorize and rank typographic …

Silicosis Evaluation Among Native Spanish-Speaking Workers: An Exploratory Pilot Survey Of Occupational Medicine Providers, Caroline Olsen

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Silicosis is a lung disease caused by inhalation of respirable silica particles. Silicosis is usually characterized by high occupational exposure to silica in industries like mining, sandblasting, construction, and stone fabrication. Recent research showing increasing rates of silicosis among native Spanish-speaking workers demonstrates the need for improved silicosis diagnosis and patient education. While research has been done to understand the epidemiological distribution of silicosis and native Spanish-speaking workers, there has been limited research evaluating occupational medicine providers’ clinical practices related to the diagnosis of silicosis among this population.

This exploratory pilot study evaluated occupational medicine providers’ experiences related to silicosis …

Generalizing Networks To Address Data Imbalance For Facial Action Unit Recognition, Andrew W. Sumsion

Theses and Dissertations

Facial action unit (AU) recognition is used in a variety of downstream applications, including sign language translation, dementia detection, pain detection, and other high-impact tasks that require understanding facial motion. Although AU recognition is a well-established field, a number of unresolved issues remain. An initial problem is the need to improve overall performance on the benchmark datasets, as measured by the average F1 score. Also, the performance across all individual AUs, not just the average F1 score, needs to be increased. Recently, the field has shifted its attention towards ensuring that AU recognition models generalize beyond the distributions represented in …

Within Sacred Walls: Cloister Architecture And The Virgin Mary As The Hortus Conclusus In 14th- And 15th-Century Italian Art, Catherine Howard

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The practice of cloistering allows women to exist in spaces dedicated to meditation and religious devotion. The physical nature of the cloister, which involves walls separating these religious women from the world, maintains a distinction between the cloister as spiritual and the world as secular.

One of the many titles of the Virgin Mary is the hortus conclusus, or “walled garden.” This metaphor is intended to emphasize her spiritual separation from the sins of the world, as well as her perpetual virginity. Artistic depictions of the Virgin in this role, particularly from Italy in the 14th and 15th centuries, often …

The Capitol’S Punishment: A Disability Theory Reading And Analysis Of The Hunger Games Series, Brynne Farnsworth

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper analyzes how disability is treated in The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. Through a close analysis of the variety of perspectives on disability, Collins presents the Capitol as having an othering, dehumanizing approach to disability, while District Thirteen makes some accommodations but ultimately reveals itself to have a similar point of view as the Capitol. While not perfect, the perspective of the Districts prevails through its approach of empathy and connection and implies a hope for a society that draws on those connections over divisions. Collins also overarchingly promotes hope for those with disabilities throughout the series …

The Story Of Belonging: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Transformative Storytelling As A Catalyst For Belonging, Kennedy Kleinman

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines how transformative storytelling functions as a catalyst for belonging within institutional contexts, focusing on Brigham Young University (BYU). While institutions increasingly prioritize belonging through policies and programs, many students continue to experience isolation, loneliness, and belonging uncertainty. This project argues that storytelling addresses this gap by providing students with opportunities to participate in their own belonging and contribute to feelings of belonging for other students. This study analyzes student stories developed in structured workshops and shared at BYU campus StorySLAM events. Stories are evaluated for their use of four rhetorical tactics: counter-narrative, bridge-building between ingroups and outgroups, …

From The Pulpit To The Polls: How Religiosity And Gender Affect Political Ambition In Utah, Sydnee Beck

Undergraduate Honors Theses

What role does religiosity play in political ambition for men and women, especially for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah? Research on political ambition and gender has not typically focused on religiosity, but the few researchers that have studied it focus on a metric called “Biblical literalism” (Cassese and Holman 2016). I agree with research claiming that religiosity effect on political ambition is gendered, but take a different approach in crafting a religion-based relationally embedded model of political ambition, specifically in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Carroll and Sanbonmatsu 2013). Female …

Are You Listening?, Hanna H. Eyre

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines the interconnection between music, religion, and a feminist lens in the form of a sixteen-song Christian album. The content of the music broaches topics specific to women’s issues including family dynamics, maternal mortality, and invisible labor while also covering more broad topics of repentance, developing a more nuanced relationship with the Savior, recognizing divinity in ourselves and others, and our Heavenly Mother. This paper includes the groundwork research and experiences that led me to write this album, the methods I took to write, record, and produce the album, and an analysis of how the music changed, and …