Digital Commons Network^™

An Extended Hierarchical Task Analysis For Error Prediction In Medical Devices, Phillip H. Chung, Jiajie Zhang, Todd R. Johnson, Vimla L. Patel

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

This paper introduces an extended hierarchical task analysis (HTA) methodology devised to evaluate and compare user interfaces on volumetric infusion pumps. The pumps were studied along the dimensions of overall usability and propensity for generating human error. With HTA as our framework, we analyzed six pumps on a variety of common tasks using Norman’s Action theory. The introduced method of evaluation divides the problem space between the external world of the device interface and the user’s internal cognitive world, allowing for predictions of potential user errors at the human-device level. In this paper, one detailed analysis is provided as an …

Perfecting Patent Prizes, Michael B. Abramowicz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

A number of commentators in recent years have suggested permitting holders of intellectual property rights to give up these rights in exchange for cash prizes from the government. In this Article, Professor Abramowicz shows that each of the proposals has significant flaws that would make implementation impractical and argues that no single perfect formula or algorithm for determining the size of prizes exists. A prize system is nonetheless worth pursuing because it could increase social welfare significantly by eliminating deadweight loss. Professor Abramowicz recommends a relatively simple approach that would complement rather than replace the patent system. The proposal is …

Which Ties Bind? Redefining The Parent-Child Relationship In An Age Of Genetic Certainty, Naomi R. Cahn, June Carbone

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article addresses the role of the genetic tie in the parent-child relationship through three lenses. First, we argue that the legal system recognizes children's rights not by treating children as autonomous actors, but by identifying the individuals and institutions most likely to promote children's interests and encouraging their success. Second, we examine the existing empirical and socio-biological literature that considers the importance of biological relationships, and concludes that it demonstrates not a single set of answers, but a set of tradeoffs. The well-being of young children, particularly in societies less prosperous than our own, may depend on the mother's …

The World Trade Organization And Law Enforcement, Steve Charnovitz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Increased threats from transborder criminal activity are leading to stronger governmental and intergovernmental responses in the military, judicial, and regulatory arenas. These efforts, particularly the non-military efforts, raise a new issue in international economic law: the intersection between trade and law enforcement. This paper provides an overview of this “trade and law enforcement” linkage in four areas: (1) security, (2) health, (3) human rights, and (4) environmental protection. To explain the linkage between trade and law enforcement, I present the taxonomy of how trade measures are usable for law enforcement, and I offer a synopsis of the WTO provisions relevant …

Social Complexity And Transitive Inference In Corvids, Alan B. Bond, Alan Kamil, Russell P. Balda

Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences

The social complexity hypothesis asserts that animals living in large social groups should display enhanced cognitive abilities along predictable dimensions. To test this concept, we compared highly social pinyon jays, Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus, with relatively nonsocial western scrub-jays, Aphelocoma californica, on two complex cognitive tasks relevant to the ability to track and assess social relationships. Pinyon jays learned to track multiple dyadic relationships more rapidly and more accurately than scrub-jays and appeared to display a more robust and accurate mechanism of transitive inference. These results provide a clear demonstration of the association between social complexity and cognition in animals.

Searching By Rules: Pigeons’ (Columba Livia) Landmark-Based Search According To Constant Bearing Or Constant Distance, Marcia C. Spetch, Tiana B. Rust, Alan Kamil, Juli E. Jones

Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences

Pigeons (Columba livia) searched for a goal location defined by a constant relative spatial relationship to 2 landmarks. For one group, landmark-to-goal bearings remained constant while distance varied. For another group, landmark-to-goal distances remained constant while direction varied. Birds were trained with 4 interlandmark distances and then tested with 5 novel interlandmark distances. Overall error magnitude was similar across groups and was larger than previously reported for Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana). During training, error magnitude increased with interlandmark distance for constant-bearing but not constant-distance birds. Both groups searched less accurately along the axis parallel to landmarks …

Single-Cell Protein Profiling Of Wastewater Enterobacterial Communities Predicts Disinfection Efficiency, Gomathinayagam Ponniah, Han Chen, Ronda Michielutti, Nancy Salonen, Paul H. Blum

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The efficiency of enterobacterial disinfection is dependent largely on enterobacterial community physiology. However, the relationship between enterobacterial community physiology and wastewater processing is unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate this relationship. The influence of wastewater treatment processes on enterobacterial community physiology was examined at the single-cell level by using cultureindependent methods. Intracellular concentrations of two conserved proteins, the growth-related protein Fis and the stationary-phase protein Dps, were analyzed by epifluoresence microscopy of uncultivated cells by using enterobacterial group-specific polyclonal fluorochrome-coupled antibodies. Enterobacterial single-cell community protein profiles were distinct for different types of biological treatment. The differences were …

Joint Effects Of Population Density And Toxicant Exposure On Population Dynamics Of Capitella Sp. I, Valery E. Forbes, Richard M. Sibly, Inez Linke-Gamenick

Valery Forbes Publications

Very few studies have analyzed the dependence of population growth rate on population density, and even fewer have considered interaction effects of density and other stresses, such as exposure to toxic chemicals. Yet without such studies we cannot know whether chemicals harmful at low density have effects on carrying capacity or, conversely, whether chemicals reducing carrying capacity are also harmful at low density, impeding a population’s capacity to recover from disturbance. This study examines the combined effects of population density and a toxicant (fluoranthene) on population growth rate (pgr) and carrying capacity using the deposit-feeding polychaete Capitella sp. I as …

Against Principled Antitrust, Edward T. Swaine

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Competition policy is on the WTO agenda for the Doha Round, but it is unlikely that it will result in any substantive international standards; the goal, instead, seems to be to agree on core principles to guide the development of national law, including transparency, non-discrimination, and procedural fairness, perhaps extending to special and differential treatment for developing countries. While there is much to commend these principles, this paper takes a deliberately contrarian view, arguing that core principles are not at all where WTO competition policy should begin. It further disputes the appropriateness of applying an emerging meta-principle of the WTO …

Hyperthermophilic Alpha-Glucosidase Gene And Its Use, Paul Blum

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Recombinant, thermostable alpha-glucosidases from archaeal micro-organisms and isolated DNA encoding for such alpha-glucosidases are provided. The isolated DNA is obtained by use of DNA or antibody probes prepared from the DNA encoding S. sulfataricus alpha-glucosidase. Also provided are methods for producing recombinant archaeal thermostable alpha-glucosidase and transformants incorporating thermostable alpha-glucosidase. Autoprocessing of plant tissue through the use of transgenic thermostable glycosyl hydrolases is described.

The Origins And Growth Of Information Privacy Law, Daniel J. Solove

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In recent years, information privacy has emerged as one of the central issues of our times. Today, we have hundreds of laws pertaining to privacy - the common law torts, criminal law, evidentiary privileges, constitutional law, at least twenty federal statutes, and numerous statutes in each of the fifty states. To understand the law of information privacy more completely, it is necessary to look to its origins and growth. This article provides a brief overview of the history of the development of information privacy law. In particular, it explores the way that the law has emerged in response to changes …

The Virtues Of Knowing Less: Justifying Privacy Protections Against Disclosure, Daniel J. Solove

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Article develops justifications for protections against the disclosure of private information. An extensive body of scholarship has attacked such protections as anathema to the Information Age, where the free flow of information is championed as a fundamental value. This Article responds to two general critiques of disclosure protections: (1) that they inhibit freedom of speech, and (2) that they restrict information useful for judging others.

Regarding the free speech critique, the Article argues that not all speech is of equal value; speech of private concern is less valuable than speech of public concern. The difficulty, however, is distinguishing between …

A Comprehensive Reading Program To Increase Reading Skills Of Low-Performing Students, Annie C. Savage

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

This dissertation describes a schoolwide program that was designed to improve reading skills of students at a middle school with a population of 700 students. Located in the northwest section of Huntsville, Alabama, the public school houses students in grades 6, 7, and 8. An analysis of data from the Stanford Achievement Test, the Qualitative Reading Inventory, and the Student Test and Assessment of Reading indicated that more than 50% of the students in the school were reading below their grade-level equivalency.

Several previously implemented instructional strategies, such as Accelerated Reader and the Alabama Reading Initiative Program had not impacted …

A Strategic Approach To Promote Ninth-Grade Academic Success, Beverly W. Glover

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

This applied dissertation, conducted February 2000 through April 2001, describes an approach to increasing student motivation that promoted 9th-grade academic success in an inner-city high school of a Southeastern Georgia community. The targeted population was freshman students in a very large, diverse, multicultural environment. The students ranged from the very highest affluent socioeconomic group to the lowest poverty group.

Low performance was evident on standardized measures of student progress upon their entering 9th grade. A lack of motivation for successful learning was evident. The students in this study were in need of extensive help to succeed academically and reach their …

Data Users Conference_2000-2005, University Of New Mexico Bureau Of Business And Economic Research, New Mexico Economic Development Department

Historic Publications

DATA USERS CONFERENCE.

New Mexico Labor Market Review 01-01-2003, New Mexico Department Of Labor

Historic Publications

The New Mexico Labor Market Review is a monthly publication presenting statistical data and analysis on labor market conditions throughout New Mexico. Issues examine statewide and regional trends in employment, unemployment, labor force estimates, industry activity, wages, occupational demand, and related economic conditions, often accompanied by feature articles on topics affecting the state’s economy. This issue covers November 2002.

Facing Tyranny With Justice: Alternatives To War In The Confrontation With Iraq, George Bisharat

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Racism And U.S. Immigration Law: Prospects For Reform After "9/11?", Richard A. Boswell

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reining In The American Litigator: The New Role Of American Judges, Richard L. Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Looking Back At The Lawyering Process, Beatrice A. Moulton

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Providing Literacy Support For Unsuccessful Limited English Proficient Seventh And Eighth Grade Students By Increasing Access To Varied Support Strategies, Amanda Lynch

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

This applied dissertation was designed to provide assistance to struggling limited English proficient (LEP) students at a Title I Middle School. The goal was that 25 students would have access to additional supports to improve language arts grades, reading skills, and attendance in school. Parents were invited to participate.

The solution strategies included (a) incorporating books into the homes of the target group, known as Lit Kits, (b) creating staff development for teachers, (c) providing the target group an additional hour of school each day focusing on literacy skills, homework completion, and learning strategy skills, (d) implementing a monthly family …

Development Of A Service-Learning Program For Scottsdale Community College, Carolyn O’Connor

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

This applied dissertation was designed to develop a service-learning program for Scottsdale Community College (SCC) which is one of only two Maricopa Colleges that do not have a service-learning program.

Five research questions were addressed in this dissertation. Development and evaluation problem-solving methodologies were employed throughout this study. Both quantitative and qualitative research designs were used to guide the data collection, using a service learning questionnaire, faculty and agency surveys, interviews, and two case studies.

The research revealed that several factors must be in place prior to implementation in order to insure the success of the program. 1) Service-learning must …

An Exclusive Right To Evoke, Stacey Dogan

Faculty Scholarship

Ten years ago, in White v. Samsung Electronics America, the Ninth Circuit held that a robot violated Vanna White's publicity rights. Since the White decision, the tendency to equate evocation with infringement in trademark and right of publicity cases has only grown. In contrast to this expansionist trend in trademark and right of publicity law, however, courts in recent copyright cases have arguably backed off from a strong right to evoke. This Article identifies these trends and suggests some reasons for concern over an exclusive right to evoke. The author argues that if we wish to preserve a rich commons …

Intimate Affiliation And Democracy: Beyond Marriage?, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This article takes up the question: Should family law and policy move beyond marriage? It assesses a spectrum of answers to that question. Rejecting proposals, on the one hand, to shore up traditional marriage, and, on the other, to abolish marriage, it argues that family law and policy should not move wholly beyond marriage, but should support marriage in a way that better fosters greater equality within and among families. The article is part of a symposium on "Marriage, Families, and Democracy," published in 32 Hofstra Law Review 23-421 (2003).

Limits Of The Classic Method: Positive Action In The European Union After The New Equality Directives, Daniela Caruso

Faculty Scholarship

The European Union's member states are currently implementing two new directives, prohibiting discrimination on such grounds as race, ethnicity and religion. Both directives allow for positive action - a European version of affirmative action confined to "soft," non-quota measures arguably reconcilable with the canon of individual equality. Based on time-honored EC provisions on gender discrimination, the European Court of Justice has already scrutinized, and occasionally prohibited as in breach of EC individual rights, states' positive action in favor of women. The Court is now likely to extend the same mode of scrutiny to the forms of discrimination contemplated by the …

Puppy Love: Bioterrorism, Civil Rights, And Public Health, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Florida has been the state humorists most like to make fun of since the 2000 presidential election, especially when it comes to politics. And humorists are almost the only commentators who can be counted on to tell us the truth about the state of American politics today. When Californians decided to recall their Governor, for example, Conan O'Brien observed: "Yesterday Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he would run for governor of California. The announcement was good news for Florida residents, who now live in the second-flakiest state in the country."' And when more than 200 people filed to run for Governor, Jay …

Blinded By Bioterrorism: Public Health And Liberty In The 21st Century, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

In Blindness, Nobel Prize laureate Jos6 Saramago chronicles the quarantining of the first victims of a plague of blindness.1 We meet many people who become blind in Saramago's novel, including an opthamologist, a one-eyed man with an eye patch, and a man born blind. Saramago reminds us that we are all blind in one way or another, and that there are many things about ourselves and our society that we can't or won't see. The quarantine itself turns out to be isolating, inhumane, and degrading; the interred blind being portrayed by themselves and others as pigs, dogs, and "lame crabs." …

The Right To Health And The Nevirapine Case In South Africa, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Thanks to activists in South Africa, the right to health as a human right has returned to the international stage, just as it was being displaced by economists who see health through the prism of a globalized economy and by politicians who see it as an issue of national security or charity. The current post-apartheid debate in South Africa is not about race but about health, and in this context, the court victory by AIDS activists in the nevirapine case has been termed not only, as stated in one British newspaper, “the greatest defeat for [President Thabo] Mbeki's government” but …

Arbitrage, Bioethics, And Cloning: The Abcs Ofgestating A United National Cloning Convention, Rosario M. Isasi, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

America's inability to craft a regulatory ethics of abortion has led to a
/="/">wild west of unregulated research with human embryos and pregnant
/="/">women by our private infertility industry. Because of an "all or nothing"
/="/">research mentality, it is becoming increasingly impossible to suggest
/="/">outlandish and reckless reproductive research possibilities without seeing
/="/">them actually pursued. And if even the wild west seems a bit inhospitable
/="/">to particular research goals, such as cloning to produce the genetic duplicate
/="/">of an existing person, media darlings like Severino Antinori and Zavos
/="/">Panos, and even members …

Pharmacogenomics, Genetic Tests, And Patent-Based Incentives, Michael J. Meurer

Faculty Scholarship

Pharmacogenomics promises to revolutionize medicine by using genetic information to guide drug therapy. Genetic tests will help doctors improve drug safety and efficacy by better matching patients and drugs. This Article evaluates the effectiveness of patent-based incentives to create genetic tests, and the optimal mix of public and private sector pharmacogenomic R&D. Drug patent owners have a strong incentive to develop genetic tests that predict adverse drug reactions and allow them to market drugs that otherwise would be shelved. Incentives are also strong for genetic tests that are created as part of the drug development process. Incentives tend to be …