Digital Commons Network^™

Dynamics And Inhibition Of Abc And Rnd Transporters Associated With Multidrug Resistances In Cancer And Pathogenic Bacteria, Hang Zhao

Biological Sciences Theses and Dissertations

The overexpression of efflux transporters is deemed to be one of the important mechanisms that contribute to Multidrug Resistance (MDR). In this dissertation, three transporters of significance were studied, the Breast Cancer Resistance Protein (BCRP/ABCG2) in a variety of cancer cells, the mtrCDE transporter from Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and the acrAB-tolC transporter from Escherichia coli. It is well known that the overexpression of BCRP in cancer cells results in these cells being resistant to the effects of many chemotherapeutics. This results in multidrug resistance for this cancer because of the fact that BCRP can transport many different types of …

Redefining “No Evidence Of A Breach” In Election Security, Yunsieg P. Kim

SMU Law Review Forum

For legal purposes, we rightly understand the lack of evidence to mean a lack of existence. For example, many candidates in the 2022 elections baselessly claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. But, absent evidence of systemic fraud, the law correctly determines that President Biden was duly elected. If the law entertained any outlandish assertion regardless of evidentiary support, accusers could peddle whatever claims they please, forcing the accused to disprove them. Similar to the legal understanding of “no evidence,” many appear to believe that no evidence of a security breach in our voting equipment indicates no breach. For …

Application Of Overburden Effects To The Elastic Scattering Limit For Cdmslite Run 3, Michael Litke

Physics Theses and Dissertations

Many different types of astronomical evidence suggest that most of the mass in the universe is attributable to a nonluminous matter, called dark matter by physicists. Dark matter is believed to be one or more new elementary particles with currently unknown properties. So far, the prevailing method for attempting to discern the properties of the new particle(s) is to observe a direct collision between dark matter and standard model particles. SuperCDMS is a direct detection experiment conducted underground that measures ionization and phonon energy in cryogenic germanium crystal detectors. While taking data in the CDMSlite configuration it can amplify the …

Confirm Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez To The Fifth Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

SMU Law Review Forum

The United States Senate must expeditiously confirm United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas Magistrate Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, who has definitely earned appointment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and will become the appellate court’s initial Latina member. This regional circuit effectively resolves substantial appeals, enjoys a large judicial complement, and certainly possesses a reputation as the nation’s most conservative appellate court. Ramirez, whom President Joe Biden nominated in mid-April, decidedly provides remarkable gender, experiential, ideological, and ethnic judicial diversity and has rigorously served as a Magistrate Judge and Assistant United …

The Consequences Of Gender-Affirming Care: A Survey Of U.S. And U.K. Law, Caroline Hoch

The International Law Review Association Student Forum

The prevalence of youth experiencing “gender dysphoria” over the last decade has exploded. More minors than ever before are identifying as a different gender than their biological sex. Yet, there is a divergence among nations regarding what care is best for minors questioning their gender identity. The United Kingdom has begun to move away from prescribing minors puberty blockers and hormone therapies, as the federal government in the United States seeks to protect and promote gender-affirming care for youth. The response among the states is far more fractured. Some states have imposed bans on gender-affirming care for minors. While there …

Cocaine And Corruption: The Rise In Drug Trafficking In Ecuador And Why It Isn’T Being Stopped, Ella Sicking

The International Law Review Association Student Forum

A state of emergency in Ecuador continues to be in effect as cocaine trafficking and gang violence become increasingly problematic. What started as cartel rivalries and increased cocaine production in bordering countries, Peru and Colombia, has turned into a full-scale drug war in Ecuador, stirring humanitarian and governmental concerns about the mounting violence in the once peaceful country. Increased regulation and United States intervention might be the only approach to save Ecuador from becoming a country ravaged by violence and run by the cartels, but local governmental corruption is currently acting as a barrier to a timely solution. While quick …

U.S.-Canadian Wildfire Cooperation, Nicholas Smetzer

The International Law Review Association Student Forum

Record-breaking wildfires are striking the United States and Canada with troubling, increasing frequency. As wildfires know no borders, climate change-related wildfires will increasingly damage the ecosystems and economies of both nations unless they develop an efficient system of cooperation to deal with this shared threat. As the U.S. and Canada share similar cultures, legal systems, and interests in preserving their ecosystems and air qualities, these countries are in a unique position to share intelligence and resources to properly address the scale of these disasters. Scholars such as Madison Gaffney have noted the potential for current legislation to expand and treat …

Chatgpt And Works Scholarly: Best Practices And Legal Pitfalls In Writing With Ai, Bill Tomlinson, Andrew W. Torrance, Rebecca W. Black

SMU Law Review Forum

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have raised questions about whether the use of AI is appropriate and legal in various professional contexts. Here, we present a perspective on how scholars may approach writing in conjunction with AI and offer approaches to evaluating whether or not such AI-writing violates copyright or falls within the safe harbor of fair use. We present a set of best practices for standard of care with regard to plagiarism, copyright, and fair use. As AI is likely to grow more capable in the coming years, it is appropriate to begin integrating AI into scholarly writing …

A Hybrid Ensemble Of Learning Models, Bivin Sadler, Dhruba Dey, Duy Nguyen, Tavin Weeda

SMU Data Science Review

Statistical models in time series forecasting have long been challenged to be superseded by the advent of deep learning models. This research proposes a new hybrid ensemble of forecasting models that combines the strengths of several strong candidates from these two model types. The proposed ensemble aims to improve the accuracy of forecasts and reduce computational complexity by leveraging the strengths of each candidate model.

The Texture Of Everyday Life: Carceral Realism And Abolitionist Speculation, Shea Hennum

English Theses and Dissertations

Exploring the ways in which prisons shape the subjectivity of free-world thinkers, and the ways that subjectivity is expressed in literary texts, this dissertation develops the concept of carceral realism: a cognitive and literary mode that represents prisons and police as the only possible response to social disorder. As this dissertation illustrates, this form of consciousness is experienced as racial paranoia, and it is expressed literary texts, which reflect and help to reify it. Through this process of cultural reification, carceral realism increasingly insists on itself as the only possible mode of thinking. As I argue, however, carceral realism actually …

Perspective, Invention, And Metatheater In Renaissance Literature, William Roudabush

English Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation challenges the misconception of post-Reformation England as iconophobic. On the contrary, it argues that early modern English poets and playwrights adapt Continental theories and techniques from painting, translating them into their own poetic and dramatic forms. It explores how allusions to contemporary perspectival images serve as governing metaphors and structural devices for the works in which they appear. Particularly in the genre of the Elizabethan epyllion and in works by Shakespeare, it suggests that texts are designed to be read “perspectively,” to borrow Shakespeare’s coinage, so that they are open to ambiguity and multiplicity, and capable of being …

Journey With A Purpose, Walter Prescher

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

The modern church is in bondage from years of trauma rooted in the Post-Christendom decline. As the church has responded to the trauma it is enduring, it has responded by becoming stagnant as it seeks to maintain any relevance it still has. What the modern church is going through has strong parallels with the Hebrew people who were in bondage in Egypt and were delivered through the wilderness into the promised land of Canaan. Following this example, this dissertation walks church leadership through an understanding of the traumatized church and presents a what a modern-day Exodus journey could look like …

"Prodigals Of Traitors: American Pows During The Korean War, Brainwashing, And National Security", Brett Fearer

History Theses and Dissertations

American prisoners of war (POW) in Korea endured unimaginable hardship and pain while in captivity. American POWs suffered through long marches through the freezing mountains of Korea, were given little food or medical attention, and were sometimes executed on the spot when captured. Upon reaching the permanent POW camps along the Yalu River, POWs encountered a new challenge: Communist indoctrination. When the war ended, twenty-one American POWs chose to stay behind with their Chinese captors instead of returning. Additionally, American POWs were accused of collaborating with the enemy, and some military officials and journalists were suspicious of some POWs having …

A Southern People: The Choctaw Nation From Removal Through The Civil War, Josh Phillips

History Theses and Dissertations

While scholars have begun in recent years to give more attention to the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi region (including the Indian Territory), few have attempted to provide nuanced and comprehensive explanations for the actions of native peoples who took part in the conflict. While the pre-removal era of Choctaw history has received copious attention, the thirty years between removal and the Civil War have received only sparse examination. Historians who have written about this period have typically either gone into very little detail about why the Choctaws sided with the Confederacy or they have identified only one or two …

A Mechanics-Based Analytical Solution For Restrained Beams With Application To Progressive Collapse Behavior, Leven Deputy

Civil and Environmental Engineering Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents an axially restrained beam (ARB) model that incorporates axial-flexural interaction throughout the entire static load-deflection curve: the elastic material range, the plastic, flexural dominant range, the range beyond plastic flexure with increasing catenary effect, and the full catenary range. Energy methods are applied to static load-deflection curves to determine dynamic load-deflection relationships. Specifically, this dissertation considers the two conditions; Pinned-Pinned-Pinned (PPP) which has no flexural resistance at the boundaries, and Fixed-Fixed-Fixed FFF (also Pinned-Fixed-Pinned, PFP) condition which provides the beam with flexural resistance at the boundaries equal to flexural capacity of the beam. Behavior is explained analytically …

Protein Dynamics In Allostery And Computer-Aided Drug Design, Mayar Mohamed

Chemistry Theses and Dissertations

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is a powerful and versatile computational tool, that can be used in a wide range of applications from studying complex biological processes such as allostery to investigating the process of the protein-ligand binding in different computer-aided drug design implementations. In this work, various structural and drug discovery projects were performed by combining the state-of-art techniques molecular dynamics simulations, virtual screening, and binding free energy calculations with the innovative Markov State Model analysis and the machine learning techniques.

In the first project, the role of A’a helix as a key player in the transition between the light …

Eudaimonist Exemplarism And Saints, Brian C. Clark

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary moral philosophy tends to treat saints as either maximally moral and thus exemplary only for those who share their ideals or as so morally excellent that they are inimitable and “Other.” Thus, the saint is practically useless as a model for plain persons. Moreover, in the case of Christian saints, modern moral theories tend not to account for their religious and theological dimensions. As a remedy, this dissertation argues for thinking about the exemplarity of saints in eudaimonist and theologically naturalist terms. Christian saints exemplify what Christians consider human flourishing, revising natural accounts of human flourishing but preserving the …

Educating A Denomination: Albert C. Outler And American Theological Education, 1925 - 1974, Lane Davis

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation provides a critical biography of Albert C. Outler, a prominent historian and theologian in modern Methodism and analyzes three significant emphases in his work: ecumenism, theology and psychology, and Methodist doctrine. The study begins with Outler's formative education and his ministry as a Methodist pastor in Georgia. Outler's doctoral education at Yale focused his work on discovering the connections of the "common history" of all Christians. The study then considers Outler’s extensive work in three interconnected disciplines: ecumenical studies, the study of religion and psychology, and Methodist theology and doctrine. The connection between these diverse subjects lies in …

Optimizing Tumor Xenograft Experiments Using Bayesian Linear And Nonlinear Mixed Modelling And Reinforcement Learning, Mary Lena Bleile

Statistical Science Theses and Dissertations

Tumor xenograft experiments are a popular tool of cancer biology research. In a typical such experiment, one implants a set of animals with an aliquot of the human tumor of interest, applies various treatments of interest, and observes the subsequent response. Efficient analysis of the data from these experiments is therefore of utmost importance. This dissertation proposes three methods for optimizing cancer treatment and data analysis in the tumor xenograft context. The first of these is applicable to tumor xenograft experiments in general, and the second two seek to optimize the combination of radiotherapy with immunotherapy in the tumor xenograft …

Black Women Can Jump: The Untold Stories Of Black Women In Higer Education, Jennifer Jones

Education Policy and Leadership Theses and Dissertations

Black women have been a part of American Higher education for over a century (Gregory, 2002). Black women have encountered professional and personal barriers, yet they have made significant advances. Black faculty and administrators have juggled family and community responsibilities, and research state that Black women have more degrees than any group in the United States. However, they seem almost invisible in colleges and universities (Okoli, et al., 2020). Research also suggests disparities for Black women faculty in higher education compared to their white counterparts in tenure, pay, and rank. “Black female administrators in white academe are an endangered species. …

Visualized Algorithm Engineering On Two Graph Partitioning Problems, Zizhen Chen

Computer Science and Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Concepts of graph theory are frequently used by computer scientists as abstractions when modeling a problem. Partitioning a graph (or a network) into smaller parts is one of the fundamental algorithmic operations that plays a key role in classifying and clustering. Since the early 1970s, graph partitioning rapidly expanded for applications in wide areas. It applies in both engineering applications, as well as research. Current technology generates massive data (“Big Data”) from business interactions and social exchanges, so high-performance algorithms of partitioning graphs are a critical need.

This dissertation presents engineering models for two graph partitioning problems arising from completely …

Class Of 2023 Graduation Ceremony For The Degree Of Juris Doctor And Advanced Degrees, Southern Methodist University, Dedman School Of Law

Law School Commencement / Hooding Programs, 1942-present

No abstract provided.

Building The Egyptian Canon In Early 20th-Century Germany: The Case Study Of Georg Steindorff’S Excavations, Darby Linn

Art History Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a historiographic study of Germany Egyptology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with particular focus on how the different stakeholders involved in that academic environment – scholars, curators, donors and financiers, the German museum-going public, as well as Egyptian people who worked on archaeological excavations – influenced the development of the scholarly canon of ancient Egyptian art. The “canon” is an art historical concept from designating certain objects, styles, and forms as representative of a culture, time period, or artistic movement. Consequently, the canon establishes an artistic hierarchy according to European aesthetic standards that excludes …

"With All Deliberate Speed": The Ironic Demise Of (And Hope For) Affirmative Action, Vinay Harpalani

SMU Law Review Forum

This Essay examines the history of affirmative action, the recent Supreme Court oral arguments in the cases of SFFA v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC Chapel Hill, the perspective of each individual Justice on these cases, and the prospects for the Court’s rulings. It frames these issues around the irony of Brown v. Board of Education II (1955), where the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that school desegregation occur “with all deliberate speed.” Many critical commentators view this ironic phrase as a signal to Southern states to resist desegregation, even as it literally seemed to embody urgency. This Essay argues …

How To Solve The Initial Appearance Crisis, Malia N. Brink, Pamela R. Metzger, Jiacheng Yu

Deason Center Reports

Across the United States, people are arrested and held behind bars for days, weeks, and sometimes even months, without ever seeing a judge or attorney. These delays violate the United States Constitution’s promise that an arrested person—who is innocent unless proven guilty—will have prompt access to the courts, the assistance of counsel, and a fair and speedy trial.

These due process milestones begin at initial appearance: the first time an arrested person sees a judge about their case. At an initial appearance, the judge should inform an arrested person of the charges against them. The judge should also make an …

Reforging The Master’S Tools: Critical Race Theory In The First-Year Curriculum, Benjamin M. Gerzik

SMU Law Review Forum

This Article examines why and how critical race theory (CRT) should be taught as a mandatory component of the first-year law school curriculum. Learning the fundamentals of critical race theory is not only important to empathetically understand and serve those around you, but necessary to understand the law as it is. The law’s past and future require this. This Article first makes the positive argument for critical race theory’s necessity in legal education, showing that it rises above normative (albeit virtuous) justifications. It then briefly summarizes what critical race theory is by outlining its central tenets, as well as what …

Identifying Features And Predicting Consumer Helpfulness Of Product Reviews, Triston Hudgins, Shijo Joseph, Douglas Yip, Gaston Besanson

SMU Data Science Review

Major corporations utilize data from online platforms to make user product or service recommendations. Companies like Netflix, Amazon, Yelp, and Spotify rely on purchasing trends, user reviews, and helpfulness votes to make content recommendations. This strategy can increase user engagement on a company's platform. However, misleading and/or spam reviews significantly hinder the success of these recommendation strategies. The rise of social media has made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between authentic content and advertising, leading to a burst of deceptive reviews across the marketplace. The helpfulness of the review is subjective to a voting system. As such, this study aims …

Using Nlp To Model U.S. Supreme Court Cases, Katherine Lockard, Robert Slater, Brandon Sucrese

SMU Data Science Review

The advantages of employing text analysis to uncover policy positions, generate legal predictions, and inform or evaluate reform practices are multifold. Given the far-reaching effects of legislation at all levels of society these insights and their continued improvement are impactful. This research explores the use of natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to predictively model U.S. Supreme Court case outcomes based on textual case facts. The final model achieved an F1-score of .324 and an AUC of .68. This suggests that the model can distinguish between the two target classes; however, further research is needed before machine learning models …

Component Testing And Characterization Of An Innovative Pressurized Sand Damper For The Response Modification Of Structures, Konstantinos Kalfas

Civil and Environmental Engineering Theses and Dissertations

This study is partly motivated by the need to develop sustainable energy dissipation devices that do not suffer from oil leakage due to failure of their end seals and from displacement limitations; and partly from the need to develop a robust damper that consists only of traditional civil engineering materials (sand and steel) in association with the use of post-tensioned steel rods with which practitioner civil engineers are familiar. Past failures of fluid dampers are both disruptive and costly, therefore not in-line with the current design paradigm of sustainable engineering, where the design and construction of structural systems shall meet …

“Þer Watz Mete, Þer Watz Myrþe, Þer Watz Much Ioye”: The Manipulative Sotilte Of Middle English Romance, Kelly Evans

English Theses and Dissertations

The Middle English sotilte and its Middle French counterpart, the entremet, refer to the elements during a feast that conjure wonder. Like “feast” and “banquet,” both terms have been used interchangeably, with the entremet coming to signify a sweet dessert at the end of a meal in modern usage of the term. In Middle English romance, the sotilte of the feast builds upon the connotations that “subtlety” carry—guile, artifice, craft, even deceit.

Perhaps the most well-known of all Middle English sotiltes is the sudden intrusion of the Green Knight during the Christmastide feast in Sir Gawain and the Green …