Digital Commons Network^™

How Different Esg Factors Across Cultures Affect Financial Performance, Matej Susec, Marc Sardy

Faculty Publications

This paper examines the financial performance of publicly traded companies based on their ESG factors’ specific commitment across different cultures. Using ESG ratings from HIP Investor Inc. on companies the agency evaluates and cultural dimensions as defined by Geert Hofstede, the average stock return of companies was compared to countries’ main stock indexes. The results show that the majority of the analyzed combinations of ESG factors and cultural dimensions outperformed the main stock indexes between the years 2016 and 2020. Moreover, it seems that for ESG committed companies, culture plays a role in ESG practices as well as financial performance.

Values And Other Decisional Factors Regarding Treatment Of Hypercalcaemia Of Malignancy: A Systematic Review Protocol, Aya Bassatne, Maya Rahme, Thomas Piggott, Hassan Murad, Layal Hneiny, Ghada El-Hajj Fuleihan

Faculty Publications

Introduction Hypercalcaemia of malignancy (HCM) is the second most common cause of hypercalcaemia and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Several treatment options are available including pharmacological therapy with bisphosphonates, denosumab, glucocorticoids and calcimimetics, as well as conventional therapy with hydration and possibly calcitonin. While guidelines have previously considered treatment effects, no guideline has yet considered a range of contextual factors impacting recommendations for the management. The aim of this study was to summarise the available evidence on important decisional factors for the development of guidelines for the treatment of HCM. These include patient’s values and preferences, cost, acceptability, …

No More Old Boys’ Club: Institutional Investors’ Fiduciary Duty To Advance Board Gender Diversify, Anat Alon-Beck, Michal Agmon-Gonnen, Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

As the benefits of gender equality for governance become more apparent, boardroom diversity initiatives abound. At the same time, institutional investors play an increasingly central role in the corporate world. This Article takes a novel approach to achieve this necessary change. Institutional investors already oversee firm leadership quite closely. This Article suggests that institutional investors hold a fiduciary duty to ensure there is gender diversity in leadership. As objections to state mandates persist, institutional investors can bring the benefits of private ordering to play a central role in ensuring equality.

Institutional investors play a dominant role over firms as principal …

Domestic Violence By Proxy: A Framework For Considering A Child’S Return Under The 1980 Hague Convention On The Civil Aspects Of International Child Abduction’S Article 13(B) Grave Risk Of Harm Cases Post Monasky, Andrew Zashin

Faculty Publications

This article offers a new approach for analyzing the 13(b) grave risk of harm defense, specifically as it relates to victims of domestic violence and their children, that is both practical and clear, and rooted in principles that are grounded in American jurisprudence that will result in more consistent rulings. Part I of this article provides background to the text of the Hague Convention, including the purposes of the text, the systematic return of a child to his or her habitual residence, the Article 13(b) grave risk of harm exception, and the role of undertakings. In Part II, the facts …

Free Speech & Abortion: The First Amendment Case Against Compelled Motherhood, Raymond Shih Ray Ku

Faculty Publications

The most important lessons are taught by example. Children learn the fundamental values that guide them throughout their lives from the examples set by their parents, especially their mothers. Even before they understand a language, they learn by observing and imitating the actions of their parents. For almost fifty years Roe v Wade guaranteed pregnant women the freedom to determine whether to carry their pregnancy to term. The right to obtain a safe abortion prior to viability is the most significant and controversial aspect of this freedom. The Supreme Court is now poised to overturn what it previously described as …

The Legal And Administrative Risks Of Climate Regulation, Jonathan Adler

Faculty Publications

Dramatic and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are necessary to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) at acceptable levels. Prioritizing federal environmental regulation as the primary means of achieving these goals may be a strategic mistake. Regulatory mandates, particularly if based upon existing statutory authority, will be vulnerable to legal attack, obstruction, and delay. Climate legislation can reduce the legal risks and accelerate the rate of policy implementation, but only on the margin. Adopting regulatory controls, sector-by-sector, technology-by-technology will be immensely resource intensive for the EPA and other federal agencies. Even with authorizing legislation, federal regulatory strategies may …

The American Rescue Plan Act And State Tax Cuts, Jonathan L. Entin

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Marginal Warming Associated With A Covid-19 Quarantine And The Implications For Disease Transmission, P. W. Miller, C. Reesman, M. K. Grossman, S. A. Nelson, V. Liu, P. Wang

Faculty Publications

During January-February 2020, parts of China faced restricted mobility under COVID-19 quarantines, which have been associated with improved air quality. Because particulate pollutants scatter, diffuse, and absorb incoming solar radiation, a net negative radiative forcing, decreased air pollution can yield surface warming. As such, this study (1) documents the evolution of China's January-February 2020 air temperature and concurrent particulate changes; (2) determines the temperature response related to reduced particulates during the COVID-19 quarantine (C19Q); and (3) discusses the conceptual implications for temperature-dependent disease transmission. C19Q particulate evolution is monitored using satellite analyses, and concurrent temperature anomalies are diagnosed using surface …

Elevating Dissolved Oxygen - Reflections On Developing And Using Long - Term Data, Nancy N. Rabalais

Faculty Publications

This prospectus took me about as long to generate as my 36 - year record of working on the issue of northern Gulf of Mexico (nGOM) oxygen deficiency, or so I felt. There was so much to cover, but I focused on the issue of hypoxia on the Louisiana continental shelf from the early 1980s to present and my participation in the research and outreach. Not that I was ignoring other aspects of my academic research career (e.g., stone crab populations and their differences in physiology and larval development along the nGOM coast; settlement of crab megalopae, especially blue crabs, …

3d Printing In Construction: Current Status, Implementation Hindrances, And Development Agenda, Xin Ning, Tong Liu, Chunlin Wu, Chao Wang

Faculty Publications

3D printing (3DP) is regarded as an innovation that contributes to automation in civil engineering and offers benefits in design, greenness, and efficiency. It is necessary to objectively analyze the current status and challenges associated with 3DP and identify future research directions to properly understand its construction applications. Previous research has focused more on the technical dimension of 3DP; however, the nontechnical dimension of the technology may hinder its implementation and thus must be paid particular attention to. This study presents a systematic review of the existing literature from both technical and nontechnical dimensions by combining quantitative and qualitative studies. …

A Survey Of Open Source Statistical Software (Osss) And Their Data Processing Functionalities, Gao Niu, Richard S. Segall, Zichen Zhao, Zhijian Wu

Faculty Publications

This paper discusses the definitions of open source software, free software and freeware, and the concept of big data. The authors then introduce R and Python as the two most popular open source statistical software (OSSS). Additional OSSS, such as JASP, PSPP, GRETL, SOFA Statistics, Octave, KNIME, and Scilab, are also introduced in this paper with function descriptions and modeling examples. They further discuss OSSS's capability in artificial intelligence application and modeling and Popular OSSS-based machine learning libraries and systems. The paper intends to provide a reference for readers to make proper selections of open source software when statistical analysis …

Clarifying The Relationship Of Dissociative Experiences To Suicide Ideation And Attempts: A Multimethod Examination In Two Samples, Mikayla C. Pachkowski, Megan L. Rogers, Boaz Y. Saffer, Nicole M. Caulfield, E. David Klonsky

Faculty Publications

Fears of pain, injury, and death may represent key barriers to acting on suicidal thoughts. Dissociation, which involves a disconnection from one's body, may reduce fears and sensations of pain associated with harming the body, in turn facilitating suicide attempts. This study examined whether dissociation differentiated individuals with a history of suicide attempts from those with a history of suicide ideation, and investigated whether other relevant constructs explain this relationship. Sample 1 included 754 undergraduates (Mage = 21, 79% female) who completed a battery of self-report measures. Sample 2 included 247 undergraduates (Mage = 19, 74% female) who completed a …

So Many Have Died: Covid-19 In America's Nursing Homes, David M. English

Faculty Publications

As of the date of this writing in late September 2020, over 77,000 residents and staff of long-term care facilities have died of COVID-19 with more to come. This article will describe the reasons for this mass wave of death and provide practical suggestions for attorneys who represent a resident or family members of residents.

Psychosocial Factors In Coronary Heart Disease, Elizabeth J. Vella Phd

Faculty Publications

Cardiovascular disease represents the leading cause of death globally, which includes mortality due to stroke and coronary heart disease (CHD); of these two forms of cardiovascular disease, CHD accounts for more deaths annually (World Health Organization, 2015). The primary features of CHD include plaque development in the coronary arteries (atherosclerosis), heart attack (myocardial infarct), and acute chest pain (angina; Labarthe, 1998). The traditional risk factors for CHD include age, obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, inactive lifestyle, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and family history of the disease (World Heart Federation, 2015). Epidemiologic evidence suggests that traditional risk factors of CHD …

The Impact Of Covid-19 On The Use Of Academic Library Resources, Ruth Connell, Lisa Wallis, David Comeaux

Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted higher education, including academic libraries. This paper compares the use of library resources (including interlibrary loan, website and discovery tool pageviews, database use, patron interactions, etc.) at three university libraries before and after the pandemic. The latter part of the 2019 and 2020 spring semesters are the timeframes of focus, although two control timeframes from earlier in those semesters are used to determine how the semesters differed when the coronavirus was not a factor. The institutions experienced similar patterns of use across many metrics.

The Operation Of Supervisory Colleges In Eu Banking Supervision: A Case Study Of Soft Law Becoming Hard Law, Duncan E. Alford

Faculty Publications

In this paper, I consider the case of supervisory cooperation among bank regulators where voluntary cooperation (soft law) over a period of 50 years has become hard law (regulations and directives) within the European Union. Driven by major international bank failures or financial crises, international standards for prudential supervisory cooperation among bank regulators have steadily developed and become more precise and defined since the early 1970s.

Moral Bars To Intellectual Property: Theory & Apologetics, Ned Snow

Faculty Publications

Various intellectual creations are raising complex moral issues in intellectual property law. Videos of mass shootings made by perpetrators, statues of the Confederacy displayed openly, torture techniques used on criminal detainees, and devices for consuming illegal drugs are only a few examples. These expressive and inventive works pose the question of whether their apparent immoral nature should preclude intellectual property protection. Although courts and scholars have long debated moral values in intellectual property doctrines, the literature is largely silent on the effect of intellectual property theory. The question thus arises: Do the utilitarian, labor-desert, and autonomy theories of intellectual property …

Barring Immoral Speech In Patent And Copyright, Ned Snow

Faculty Publications

In the past three years, the Supreme Court has twice ruled that Congress’s moral bars to trademark protection violate the First Amendment. Those rulings raise a simple question in other areas of intellectual property. Does the First Amendment preclude Congress from denying patent or copyright protection based on a moral reason? Congress, for instance, might deny patent protection for inventions directed toward the consumption of marijuana. Inventors would accordingly choose not to disclose knowledge about those inventions to the public, and the denial would chill their speech. Similarly, Congress would chill speech if it denied copyright protection for moral reasons. …

Black Urban Ecologies And Structural Extermination, Etienne C. Toussaint

Faculty Publications

Residents of low-income, metropolitan communities across the United States frequently live in “food apartheid” neighborhoods—areas with limited access to nutrient-rich and fresh food. Local government law scholars, poverty law scholars, and political theorists have long argued that structural racism embedded in America’s political economy influences the uneven development of such Black urban ecologies. Accordingly, food justice scholars have called for local governments to develop urban agricultural markets that combat racism in global corporatized food systems by localizing food development. These demands have only amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has ravaged Black communities where residents suffer from preexisting health conditions …

Making Federalism Work: Lessons From Health Care To The Green New Deal, Jesse M. Cross, Shelley Welton

Faculty Publications

For decades, federalism had a bad reputation. It often was perceived as little more than a cover for state resistance to civil rights and other social justice reforms. More recently, however, progressive scholars have argued that federalism can meaningfully advance nationalist ends. According to these scholars, federalism allows for spaces in which norms can be contested, developed, and extended. This new strain of scholarship also recognizes, however, that these federalist structures can still shield national-level reforms from reaching all Americans. Many see such gaps as a regrettable but unavoidable feature of our federalist system.

But to embrace federalism as an …

Effects Of Moderate Sleep Restriction During 8-Week Calorie Restriction On Lipoprotein Particles And Glucose Metabolism, Joshua R. Sparks, Ryan R. Porter, Shawn D. Youngstedt, Kimberly P. Bowyer, J. Larry Durstine, Xuewen Wang

Faculty Publications

Study Objectives

This study examined how glucose, glucose regulatory hormones, insulin sensitivity, and lipoprotein subclass particle concentrations and sizes change with sleep restriction during weight loss elicited by calorie restriction.

Methods

Overweight or obese adults were randomized into an 8-week calorie restriction intervention alone (CR, n = 12; 75% female; body mass index = 31.4 ± 2.9 kg/m2) or combined with sleep restriction (CR+SR, n = 16; 75% female; body mass index = 34.5 ± 3.1 kg/m2). Participants in both groups were given the same instructions to reduce calorie intake. Those in the CR+SR group were instructed to reduce their …

Examination Of Athlete Triad Symptoms Among Endurance-Trained Male Athletes: A Field Study, Erin M. Moore, Clemens Drenowatz, David F. Stodden, Kelly Pritchett, Thaddus C. Brodrick, Brittany T. Williams, Justin M. Goins, Toni M. Torres-Mcgehee

Faculty Publications

Studies examining the physiological consequences associated with deficits in energy availability (EA) for male athletes are sparse. To examine male athlete triad components; low energy availability (LEA) with or without an eating disorder risk (ED), reproductive hormone [testosterone (T)], and bone mineral density (BMD) in endurance-trained male athletes during different training periods. A cross-sectional design with 14 participants (age: 26.4 ± 4.2 years; weight: 70.6 ± 6.4 kg; height: 179.5 ± 4.3 cm; BMI: 21.9 ± 1.8 kg/m2) were recruited from the local community. Two separate training weeks [low (LV) and high (HV) training volumes] were used to collect the …

Implementation Of Brain Breaks(R) In The Classroom And Its Effects On Attitudes Towards Physical Activity In A Chinese School Setting, Ke Zhou, Sensen He, Yanli Zhou, Biljana Popeska, Garry Kuan, Li Chen, Ming-Kai Chin, Magdalena Mo Ching Mok, Christopher R. Edginton, Ian Culpan, J. Larry Durstine

Faculty Publications

This study aimed to examine the effects of three-months of classroom-based Brain Breaks Physical Activity Solution (Brain Breaks®) on attitudes toward physical activity levels of primary school children in Henan Province, China. The participants were 704 children enrolled in grades 3–5 who were randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control group. The experimental group participated in Brain Breaks® video intervention for 3–5 min daily, at low-to-moderate intensity for three consecutive months. The control group resumed their normal routine. The children’s attitudes in both groups towards physical activity (PA) were evaluated using the self-reported Attitudes toward Physical Activity Scale …

Impact Of Adverse Childhood Events On The Psychosocial Functioning Of Children Affected By Parental Hiv In Rural China, Jordan Ezell, Sayward Harrison, Yanping Jiang, Xiaoming Li

Faculty Publications

Introduction: Children affected by parental HIV are more likely than unaffected peers to experience trauma and are at-risk for negative psychological and social outcomes. This study aimed to examine the relationship between adverse childhood events and psychosocial functioning among children affected by parental HIV.

Methods: A total of 790 children ages 6–17 from Henan, China were enrolled in a longitudinal, randomized controlled trial of a resilience-based psychosocial intervention. At baseline, children reported on numerous psychosocial factors, including trauma exposure, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and peer social functioning. We used linear regression analysis to test the direct effect of trauma …

After Marriage Equality: Dual Fatherhood For Married Male Same-Sex Couples, Jessica Feinberg

Faculty Publications

In most states, married male same-sex couples who conceive children via gestational surrogacy using sperm from one member of the couple and donor ova must pursue adoption in order to establish legal parentage for the member of the couple who is not genetically related to the child. This is because only a minority of jurisdictions have surrogacy laws that recognize the non-biological intended parent as a legal parent in this situation, and across the United States cisgender male same-sex couples are excluded from the longstanding non-adoptive marriage-based avenues of establishing parentage currently available to both different-sex couples and female same-sex …

The Geography Of Abortion Rights, B. Jessie Hill

Faculty Publications

Total or near-total abortion bans passed in recent years have garnered tremendous public attention. But another recent wave of more modest-looking abortion restrictions consists of laws regulating the geography of abortion provision through management of spaces, places, and borders. In the 1990s and early 2000s, numerous states adopted laws regulating the physical spaces where abortions can be performed. These laws include mandates that abortions be performed in particular kinds of places, such as ambulatory surgical centers, or that abortion-providing facilities have agreements in place with local hospitals. One consequence of such regulations has been to reduce the availability of abortion …

How The Fourth Amendment Frustrates The Regulation Of Police Violence, Seth W. Stoughton

Faculty Publications

Within policing, few legal principles are more widely known or highly esteemed than the “objective reasonableness” standard that regulates police uses of force. The Fourth Amendment, it is argued, is not only the facet of constitutional law that governs police violence, it sets out the only standard that state lawmakers, police commanders, and officers should recognize. Any other regulation of police violence is inappropriate and unnecessary. Ironically, though, the Constitution does not actually regulate the use of force. It regulates seizures. Some uses of force are seizures. This Article explains that a surprising number of others—including some police shootings—are not. …

Arbitration In The Age Of Covid: Examining Arbitration's Move Online, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

Arbitration has been moving online over time with the growth of the Internet and Online Dispute Resolution (“ODR”), which includes use of technology to assist online negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and variations thereof. Online Arbitration (“OArb”) is nonetheless a unique subset of ODR because it usually culminates in a final and binding award by a neutral third party that is enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”). Indeed, I have written about OArb on prior occasions, due to its unique status under the FAA and other arbitration laws. However, OArb was relatively limited until the COVID-19 pandemic sparked the acceleration of …

The Paradox Of Exclusive State-Court Jurisdiction Over Federal Claims, Thomas B. Bennett

Faculty Publications

Standing doctrine is supposed to ensure the separation of powers and an adversary process of adjudication. But recently, it has begun serving a new and unintended purpose: transferring federal claims from federal to state court. Paradoxically, current standing doctrine assigns a growing class of federal claims - despite Congressional intent to the contrary - to the exclusive jurisdiction of state courts. Even then, only in some states, and only to the extent authorized by state law.

This paradox arises at the intersection of three distinct areas of doctrine:

(1) a newly sharpened requirement of concrete injury under Article III that …

We Belong Together; Libraries, Communities And Third Places, Randa L. Morgan

Faculty Publications

University students expect much from their libraries. They want a place to study and research. They want a place to eat and hang out with their friends. They want to be able to relax between classes and find a quiet place to focus on work. They want a home away from home. As libraries have begun to accommodate these requests and shift away from the traditional ideas of a library, our students’ expectations are contradictory: have we lost the stereotypical idea of a library or are we in a renaissance where libraries are a third place for many students? Academic …