Digital Commons Network^™

Thermal Degradation Of Pvc In The Presence Of Polystyrene, Qiang Yao, Charles A. Wilkie

Chemistry Faculty Research and Publications

The thermal degradation of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) and blends of PVC with polystyrene has been studied using thermogravimetric analysis coupled to Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The degradation of PVC commences at weak links by an ionic pathway, but there is evidence to suggest the presence of a radical pathway at high temperatures. While there is some chemical interaction between PVC and polystyrene, the principal mode of stabilization is a physical process.

Studies On The Mechanism By Which The Formation Of Nanocomposites Enhance Thermal Stability, Jin Zhu, Fawn Marie Uhl, Alexander B. Morgan, Charles A. Wilkie

Chemistry Faculty Research and Publications

Polystyrene−clay and polystyrene−graphite nanocomposites have been prepared and used to explore the process by which the presence of clay or graphite in a nanocomposite enhances the thermal stability of polymers. This study has been designed to determine if the presence of paramagnetic iron in the matrix can result in radical trapping and thus enhance thermal stability. Nanocomposites were prepared by bulk polymerization using both iron-containing and iron-depleted clays and graphites, and they were characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and cone calorimetry. The presence of structural iron, rather than that present as an impurity, significantly increases the …

Work And Productivity In The 21st Century, Johann Van Reenen

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Advances in information technology have created the potential for global markets, virtually integrated work and workplaces, and international workforce development on a scale never before imagined. To capitalize on these developments, countries, organizations and their leaders need to understand the potential, the challenges, the policies and the attitudes that will be required for success in the electronic environment. This chapter provides an overview of the major technology and management trends and the formative role of digital libraries and information science. The characteristics of the 21st century, emerging trends for libraries and information management, knowledge management and technology driven changes, and …

Business And The Holocaust, Katie Weis

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

Caring For A Patient With Multiple Sclerosis (Ms) : A Possible Design For An Effective Support Group For The Caregivers Of Ms, Keely A. Mortenson

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

The Image And Perception Of Nursing Through The Use Of Metaphors, Maria Elena Rosa

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

Trends In Indian Health 1998-99, Division Of Program Statistics, Staff Office Of Planning, Evaluation And Research, Indian Health Service.

Native Health Database Full Text

The IHS Trends in Indian Health attempts to fulfill the basic statistical information requirements of parties that are interested in the IHS. The tables and charts contained in the IHS Trends in Indian Health describe the IHS program and the health status of American Indians and Alaska Natives residing in the IHS service area.

Pumpkinseed Population Characteristics In Nebraska Sandhills Lakes (Pisces, Centrarchidae: Lepomis Gibbosus), Jennifer C. Harrington, Craig P. Paukert, David W. Willis

Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences and Affiliated Societies

We investigated pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus) population characteristics in Nebraska Sandhills lakes because this region is near the southwestern edge of their native range. Pumpkinseeds were in low abundance (1.3-7.5 stocklength [i.e., ≥ 8 cm] fish per trap net night) and were collected from only seven of 30 lakes sampled. No preferred length (i.e., ≥ 20 cm) pumpkinseeds were collected in any of the seven lakes. Pumpkinseed relative weight (Wr) was positively related to bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) and yellow perch (Perea flauescens) Wr, suggesting that high condition of pumpkinseed was not detrimental to condition of …

Converging Numbers: Harmonization Of Accounting Standards With The Context Of The Role Of The Auditor In Corporate Governance, Poonam Puri

All Papers

The recent financial collapse of Enron and other corporate powerhouses as well as the demise of accounting firm Arthur Andersen brings into question the credibility of the auditor’s role in corporate governance. This article comments on the harmonization of accounting standards within the context of the role of the auditor in corporate governance.

Keeping The Government's Hands Off Our Bodies: Mapping A Feminist Legal Theory Approach To Privacy In Cross-Gender Prison Searches, Teresa A. Miller

Journal Articles

The power of privacy is diminishing in the prison setting, and yet privacy is the legal theory prisoners rely upon most to resist searches by correctional officers. Incarcerated women in particular rely upon privacy to shield them from the kind of physical contact that male guards have been known to abuse. The kind of privacy that protects prisoners from searches by guards of the opposite sex derives from several sources, depending on the factual circumstances. Although some form of bodily privacy is embodied in the First, Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, prisoners challenging the constitutionality of cross-gender searches most commonly …

Data Wars: How Superseding Forsham V. Harris Impacts The Federal Grant Award Process, Elizabeth G. Adelman

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Moving Toward A First-Best World: Minnesota's Position On Multiethnic Adoptions, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

The best world allows a child to grow to adulthood with biological parents, or at least one parent, who love the child unconditionally and who have resources to support the child. A second-best world allows the child to permanently and completely become part of an extended family that loves him or her and has the resources for supporting and meeting the child's needs. Hopefully this process costs little in terms of time or emotional or physical harm to the child. In traditional third-party adoptions, the child permanently moves and becomes part of (hopefully, at low cost) a family that will …

On Castles And Commerce: Zoning Law And The Home Business Dilemma, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Journal Articles

Most zoning laws severely restrict residents' ability to work from home. Some prohibit it outright. These regulations serve the ostensible purpose of protecting neighbors from externalities that might be generated by home businesses. But, home occupation restrictions also reflect in a particularly sharp way the central motivating ideology underlying all zoning laws - namely, that the good life requires the careful segregation of work and home. Today, home business regulations are being challenged by both planning theory and economic reality. At the same time that many in the academy and planning professions are calling into question zoning's pervasive segregation of …

Troxel And The Limits Of Community, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

The Troxel grandparent-visitation case that frames this symposium, the Washington statute included in Troxel, the mercifully completed odyssey of Cuban-born Elian Gonzalez, and the "right to die" case of Hugh Finn all illustrate both the fervor with which the broader community justifies its involvement with families and the extremes to which this involvement can spread. Using constitutional language, advocates point out the rights of extended family members to continue or strengthen ties to children, whether adult or minor. On the other side, parents and spouses claim their own rights not to have outsiders second-guess or interfere with their decisions.

Though …

Trouble Preserving Paradise?, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Journal Articles

Election day 2000 was not a good day for proponents of suburban growth controls. The overwhelming initial support for initiatives that proposed state-wide growth management plans in Colorado and Arizona withered in the face of vigorous opposition campaigns. And, pro-planning forces in Oregon woke up on Wednesday morning to learn that voters had approved a little-noticed initiative amending the state constitution to require compensation for partial takings - that is, for any reduction in the fair market value of property resulting from government regulation - thus throwing into question the future of the State's widely touted model controlled-growth scheme.

These …

One Of A Kind - Professor Emeritus Charles E. Rice, Robert E. Rodes

Journal Articles

In the spring of 1959, when I was faculty advisor of the law review (then called the Notre Dame Lawyer), and my future colleague Bob Blakey was the student associate editor, we worked together on an article called A.I.D.—An Heir of Controversy. The subject, artificial insemination from a donor, was interesting, the treatment was at once lively, rueful, and orthodox, and the conclusion was an engaging shrug of the shoulders: "Upon that note . . . your writer respectfully throws in the towel.'' The author, a graduate of Boston College Law School taking an advanced degree at New York University, …

Why Retire The Feminization Of Poverty Construct?, Athena D. Mutua

Journal Articles

The "feminization of poverty" concept should be retired, if it has not already been so. It should be retired, even though the concept has been extremely powerful as a discursive construct. In a phrase, the idea captured a seemingly universal phenomenon, inspired theoretical research into the nexus between women and poverty, and summoned coalitions of women by marking an agenda for, and among, women across the boundaries of race, ethnicity, and nationality. In short, it has been a war cry, demanding and framing analyses of women's poverty, and justifying and inspiring women's collective action. Nevertheless, the feminization of poverty construct …

A Quiet Faith? Taxes, Politics, And The Privatization Of Religion, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

The government exempts religious associations from taxation and, in return, restricts their putatively political expression and activities. This exemption-and-restriction scheme invites government to interpret and categorize the means by which religious communities live out their vocations and engage the world. But government is neither well-suited nor to be trusted with this kind of line-drawing. What's more, this invitation is dangerous to authentically religious consciousness and associations. When government communicates and enforces its own view of the nature of religion - i.e., that it is a private matter - and of its proper place - i.e., in the private sphere, not …

Re-Interpreting The Effect Of Rights: Career Narratives And The Americans With Disabilities Act, David M. Engel, Frank W. Munger

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Savages, Victims, And Saviors: The Metaphor Of Human Rights, Makau Wa Mutua

Journal Articles

This article critically looks at the human rights project as a damning three-dimensional metaphor that exposes multiple complexes. It argues that the grand narrative of human rights contains a subtext which depicts an epochal contest pitting savages, on the one hand, against victims and saviors, on the other. The savages-victims-saviors (SVS) construction lays bare some of the hypocrisies of the human rights project and asks human rights thinkers and advocates to become more self-reflective. The piece questions the universality and cultural neutrality of the human rights project. It calls for the construction of a truly universal human rights corpus, one …

Justice Under Siege: The Rule Of Law And Judicial Subservience In Kenya, Makau Wa Mutua

Journal Articles

The piece examines the tortured history of the judiciary in Kenya and concludes that various governments have deliberately robbed judges of judicial independence. As such, the judiciary has become part and parcel of the culture of impunity and corruption. This was particularly under the one party state, although nothing really changed with the introduction of a more open political system. The article argues that judicial subservience is one of the major reasons that state despotism continues to go unchallenged. It concludes by underlining the critical role that the judiciary has to play in a democratic polity.

Insurer Moral Hazard In The Workers' Compensation Crisis: Reforming Cost Inflation, Not Rate Suppression, Martha T. Mccluskey

Journal Articles

This article challenges the standard story of the insurance crisis that led to the near-collapse and major reform of a number of states’ workers’ compensation programs in the 1980s and 1990s.

In the prevailing account, insurance costs rose due to expanding costs of benefits for injured workers’, much of which was blamed on wasteful or abusive "moral hazard" by workers and their lawyers and doctors. Because state regulators had substantial power to control insurance rates, this account claims governments tried to suppress prices in the face of rising benefit costs in a misguided attempt to avoid political trade-offs between labor …

Contemporary Western Representations Of Jesus In Islam, Harold Chad Hillier

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Unknown to many in “Christian” North American society, the person of Jesus is highly revered among the millions of Muslims in the world. This shared reverence for Jesus between Muslims and Christians allows for possible dialogue and greater understanding between adherents of the two religions. Moreover, the renewed interest in scholarship on Jesus, whether historical or theological, allows the Jesus traditions of Islam to become additional sources in this field of scholarship. Given these two reasons, the academic scholar of religion, then, has a motivation to dive into the growing wealth of discussions on the Islamic Jesus in the West. …

"The Most Glorious Story Of Failure In The Business": The Studebaker-Packard Corporation And The Origins Of Erisa, James A. Wooten

Journal Articles

The Studebaker-Packard Corporation occupies a distinctive place in the lore of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. No single event is more closely associated with ERISA than the shutdown of the Studebaker plant in South Bend, Indiana. Soon after the plant closed in December 1963, Studebaker terminated the retirement plan for hourly workers, and the plan defaulted on its obligations. The plight of Studebaker employees quickly emerged as a symbol of the need for pension reform. This article examines the history of the Studebaker-Packard Corporation to understand why and how the shutdown came to play a role in …

Human Rights International Ngos: A Critical Evaluation, Makau Wa Mutua

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 7 in NGOs and Human Rights: Promise and Performance, Claude E. Welch, Jr., ed.

The Human rights movement can be seen in a variety of guises. It can be seen as a movement for international justice or as a cultural project for “civilizing savage” cultures. In this chapter, I discuss a part of that movement as a crusade for a political project. International nongovernmental human rights organizations (INGOs), the small and elite collection of human rights groups based in the most powerful cultural and political capitals of the West, have arguably been the most influential component of …

Chasing Bits Across Borders, Patricia L. Bellia

Journal Articles

As computer crime becomes more widespread, countries increasingly confront difficulties in securing evidence stored in electronic form outside of their borders. These difficulties have prompted two related responses. Some states have asserted a broad power to conduct remote cross-border searches - that is, to use computers within their territory to access and examine data physically stored outside of their territory. Other states have pressed for recognition of a remote cross-border search power in international fora, arguing that such a power is an essential weapon in efforts to combat computer crime. This Article explores these state responses and develops a framework …

Religious Claims And The Dynamics Of Argument, M. Cathleen Kaveny

Journal Articles

This Article investigates the questions whether and when religious claims may enter into public debate about important political issues by considering the purposes of argument in the public square. These purposes include: (1) argument as self-disclosure; (2) argument as persuasion; and (3) argument as bulwark against engagement with the ideas of others. The Article argues that restrictions on the use of religious claims in public deliberations and discussion impede the legitimate functions of public argument as self-disclosing and persuasive activities. In contrast, such restrictions contribute to the use of argument as bulwark, which is arguably destructive to public deliberation in …

Nothing Comes Of Nothing… Or Does It? A Critical Re-Examination Of The Doctrine Of Separability In American Arbitration, Tanya J. Monestier

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Feminism And Child Custody Under Chapter Two Of The American Law Institute's Principles Of The Law Of Family Dissolution, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

The Chief Reporter of the American Law Institute's Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution wrote in his introduction; "Children are necessarily at the heart of any set of principles of family law." My favorite chapter of the Principles is Chapter Two, entitled "Principles Governing the Allocation of Custodial and Decisionmaking Responsibilities for Children." As of this writing, Chapter Two holds the distinction of being the only portion to have been adopted by a state legislature. While other Chapters had Reporters who were women, Chapter Two not only had a feminist Reporter, but the "allocation principle" that forms the substantive …

Students And Due Process In Higher Education: Of Interests And Procedures, Fernand N. Dutile

Journal Articles

In the process of enforcing their academic and disciplinary standards, colleges and universities increasingly find themselves confronting the possibility and even the reality of litigation. At public institutions, of course, the strictures of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment loom especially large. Meeting the complex needs of their institutions and students as well as the expectations of American courts presents an ongoing and daunting challenge to higher education personnel.

For both internal and external reasons, institutional dealings with aberrant students in public higher education has, over the years, developed on a dual track. Courts themselves have generally treated …