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Strangers And Brothers: A Homily On Transracial Adoption, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

The common law speaks to us in parables. Ours is Drummond v. Fulton County Department of Family and Children's Services. Just before Christmas 1973, a boy named Timmy was born to a white mother and a black father. A month later, his mother was declared unfit, and the Department of Family and Children Services placed Timmy with white foster parents - Robert and Mildred Drummond. The Drummonds were "excellent" and "loving" parents, and Timmy grew into "an extremely bright, highly verbal, outgoing 15-month baby boy." Then the Drummonds asked to adopt Timmy. The Department's reviews of the Drummonds' devotion …

Framing The View: The *Western Landscape And Nineteenth-Century Narratives Of Expansion., Thomas P. Kinnahan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study traces the flowering of Western scientific exploration during the fifteen years following the Civil War. During these years, the empirical modes of perception and representation associated with Western exploration gained growing cultural authority and increasingly came to frame discussions of Western policy. At the same time, the systematic exploration of the West revealed the region in new and sometimes startling ways, in some cases prompting far-reaching revisions in the nation's self-perception. The stakes of these revisions became especially acute in the 1870's as the nation's frontier line flowed toward the alien landscapes of the arid West, prompting both …

Going To Pot, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

In several earlier columns, I suggested that judges are usually poorly placed to make good biomedical policy, not least because the law so rarely offers them direct and cogent guidance. Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit proffered a new example of this old problem. In 1996, California's voters approved Proposition 215. Its "Compassionate Use Act of 1996" provided -that a patient "who possesses or cultivates marijuana for the personal medical purposes of the patient upon the written or oral recommendation or approval of a physician" committed no crime.

The Mechanisms Of Ethanol-Induced Damage To The Developing Cerebellum: Effects On The Cerebellar Granule Cells., Zheng Li

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Alcohol exposure causes developmental abnormality known as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), featured with central nervous system (CNS) dysfunction. The cerebellum is vulnerable to ethanol toxicity. Developmental exposure to ethanol depletes the number of cerebellar granule cells; however, the underlying mechanisms are unknown. A potential mechanism for ethanol-induced neuronal depletion is to reduce the pool of neuronal progenitors. The progression of the cell cycle is regulated by a family of protein kinases called cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs). We hypothesize that ethanol interferes with the CDK system and disrupts the cell cycle kinetics in cerebellar granule progenitors (CGPs). Pregnant rats were fed ad …

An Inverse Boundary Value Problem From Semiconductor Modeling., Mingying Lu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this thesis, we investigate an inverse boundary value problem arising from the study of semiconductor transistors. The problem is to recover a number of parameters in the coefficient function from the knowledge of the solution at some accessible boundary. We first review the mathematical models that describe the current flow in a transistor into an integrated circuit. We then obtain the theoretical results pertaining to this inverse problem, such as existence, monotonicity, differentiability, asymptotic properties and identifiability. We also formulate the partial differential equation model into a boundary integral equation model. For the differential equation model, we employ both …

Preparing For Climatic Change: The Water, Salmon, And Forests Of The Pacific Northwest, Philip W. Mote, Edward A. Parson, Alan F. Hamlet, William S. Keeton, Dennis Lettenmaier, Nathan Mantua, Edward L. Miles, David W. Peterson, David L. Peterson, Richard Slaughter, Amy K. Snover

Articles

The impacts of year-to-year and decade-to-decade climatic variations on some of the Pacific Northwest’s key natural resources can be quantified to estimate sensitivity to regional climatic changes expected as part of anthropogenic global climatic change. Warmer, drier years, often associated with El Niño events and/or the warm phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, tend to be associated with below-average snowpack, streamflow, and flood risk, below-average salmon survival, below-average forest growth, and above-average risk of forest fire. During the 20th century, the region experienced a warming of 0.8 ◦C. Using output from eight climate models, we project a further warming of …

How Much Do We Really Know About Race And Juries? A Review Of Social Science Theory And Research, Samuel R. Sommers, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

Articles

The past decade has witnessed numerous high-profile criminal trials in which controversial verdicts have been attributed to racethe race of the defendant, the racial composition of a jury, an attorney "playing the race card," and so on. A predominantly Black jury's acquittal of O.J. Simpson and White jurors' leniency in the police brutality cases of Rodney King and Amadou Diallo not only sparked public debate, but also led to rioting and violence. In the wake of trials such as these, many have questioned the viability of the American jury system.' More specific questions regarding the influence of race on jury …

A Methodology For Determining The Character Of Mine Roof Rocks., Gerald Lee Finfinger

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The underground mining industry is dependent upon the implementation of an engineering design and strategy to adequately and safely control the surrounding rock mass, with support of the roof rocks being of the greatest concern. Primary roof support systems use mechanical structures, such as roof bolts, roof trusses and cable bolts, to stiffen and control the roof rocks. Each of these systems requires the drilling of a small-diameter hole into the roof which is used to insert the mechanical structure. The structures are designed for specific geological and geotechnical characteristics and the more information that can be collected on these …

Sometimes What Everybody Thinks They Know Is True, Richard D. Friedman, Roger C. Park

Articles

This essay responds to D. Davis and W. C. Follette (2002), who question the value of motive evidence in murder cases. They argue that the evidence that a husband had extramartial affairs, that he heavily insured his wife's life, or that he battered his wife is ordinarily of infinitesimal probative value. We disagree. To be sure, it would be foolish to predict solely on the basis of such evidence that a husband will murder his wife. However, when this kind of evidence is cobmined with other evidence in a realistic murder case, the evidence can be quite probative. We analyze …

Living Logos: Framing The Discourse Of The University Presidency., Mortimer Williams Gamble

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The purpose of this study was to analyze speeches and opinion articles of four presidents of doctoral-extensive universities to determine how the four leadership frames of Bolman and Deal (1984, 1997) are manifested in the public utterances of the presidents, and whether there is any relationship between those frames and the occasion and purpose for the discourse as defined by situational contingencies and the significance of the occasion. Conclusions were drawn as to whether the president, through his/her discourse, consistently operated in one or more frame(s) apparently chosen for what occasion and/or purpose; whether there is a correlation between frame …

Questions To Ask Before You Join A Club, Laura N. Beny, Paul S. Bird, Franci J. Blassberg, Michael P. Harrell

Articles

Despite the recent flurry of large transactions in which a consortium of private equity firms have teamed up to make joint bids and acquisitions, “club deals” themselves are not breaking news. In fact, they have been a staple of small- and middle-sized private equity M&A transactions for years. Recently, however, there has been a growing trend toward large club deals with enterprise values over $1 billion.1 Due to their size, complexity and, often, international dimension, these transactions have generated considerable attention in the business press and have prompted much discussion among private equity professionals and the limited partners whose money …

A New Model For The Assessment Of Nonpoint Source Pollution Using Gis And Virtual Intelligence., Seyed Razi Gaskari

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Today, nonpoint source (NPS) pollution remains as the leading cause of water quality problems in the United States (USEPA, 1996). The most common NPS pollutants are sediment (i.e. total suspended solids, TSS) and nutrients (i.e. total nitrogen, TN). These wash into water bodies from agricultural land, construction sites, and other areas of disturbance. To develop the virtual non-point source assessment system (VNPSAS) model, monitoring gauges were selected for data extraction from West Virginia and also the western part of Virginia. A geographic information system (GIS) was used as a productive environment for data extraction and spatial analysis. The information for …

What's In A Label?, James C. Hathaway

Articles

One of the most striking features of the international refugee regime as it has evolved over the last quarter century is the proliferation of labels. Rather than simply assessing the circumstances of applicants against the Convention refugee definition, the governments of most developed states have instead invented a seemingly endless list of alternative statuses - "B" status, humanitarian admission, temporary protected status, special leave to remain, Duldung, and the like. Persons assigned one of these labels have generally been protected against refoulement in line with Article 33 of the Refugee Convention. But in a variety of other ways, they have …

Beyond The Walls: A Research Study Of Eighth-Grade Students Mentored In A Hospital Setting., Aileen Grattan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This research study was designed to evaluate twelve eighth-grade students participating in the fourth year of a mentoring program to determine what effect the mentoring experience would have on the students' sense of a scientific community, their understanding of scientific knowledge and process skills and attitudes toward science. The mentoring program was developed through a partnership established between the researcher, an eighth-grade science teacher at a junior high school, and an administrator of a local hospital, to provide educational opportunities for students mentored by medical professionals. The research design included qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis. The qualitative instruments were …

Social Anxiety And Peer Experiences In Middle Childhood: The Importance Of Group Acceptance And Close Dyadic Friendships., Laurie A. Greco

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Interrelations among social anxiety, peer status, and friendship variables were investigated in an elementary school-aged sample (N = 490). Sociometric procedures, child-report, and teacher-report measures were administered on a single occasion during the fall semester. Relative to other sociometric groups, peer-rejected children reported higher levels of social anxiety and depression and were perceived by teachers as exhibiting more externalizing and internalizing difficulties and less socially skilled behavior and academic competence. Peer status and friendship variables were related to child-, peer-, and teacher-reported internalizing symptoms and externalizing behaviors. Regarding the identity of children's best friends, results varied by informant source, with …

The Role Of Retrochiasmatic Neurons In Seasonal Breeding In The Ewe., Steven L. Hardy

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

A seasonal change in GnRH secretion is well documented in sheep. An alteration in the estradiol (E2) negative feedback mechanism is thought to promote ovarian quiescence via GnRH inhibition during spring and summer months in response to changes in day length. It is evident that the hypothalamus becomes hypersensitive to E2 during this time, but the mechanism driving the shift is not completely understood. However, it is clear that A15 dopaminergic (DA) neurons in the retrochiasmatic area (RCh) play a key role in these seasonal changes. These neurons mediated E2 negative feedback in anestrus, but do not respond to E2 …

Prediction Of Treatment Dropouts From Outpatient Substance Abuse Rehabilitation: A Discriminant Analysis., Phyllis J. Harner-Neer

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Significant research literature supports the need for programs better designed to meet the needs of adolescent substance treatment. There is little research, however, that addresses the identification of characteristics of those adolescents who do not complete treatment. Consequently, this study seeks to identify those characteristics of adolescents by segueing off of another study that proved successful in identifying characteristics among inpatient adult male substance abusers. This study looks at the archival data of 38 adolescents who attended outpatient substance abuse treatment at an experientially-based, substance abuse program designed for adolescents. Methodological processes included the use of demographic variables collected through …

Insuring Against Terrorism -- And Crime, Saul Levmore, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

The attacks of September 11th produced staggering losses of life and property. They also brought forth substantial private-insurance payouts, as well as federal relief for the City of New York and for the families of individuals who perished on that day. The losses suffered during and after the attacks, and the structure of the relief effort, have raised questions about the availability of insurance against terrorism, the role of government in providing for, subsidizing, or ensuring the presence of such insurance, as well as the interaction between relief and the incentives for taking precautions against similar losses in the future. …

A Tolerance Initiative Versus Multicultural Education: Portraits Of Teachers In Action., Raphael Chesare Heaggans

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Shadypine Middle School has recently implemented what they called a Teaching-for-Tolerance initiative designed to help all students become tolerant of cultural perspectives. This initiative involved teachers adding multicultural education to current curricula to show students groups of people who were discriminated and prejudiced against and their reaction to the discrimination and prejudice. Since teachers are using multicultural education as a base for this initiative, this study investigates how the tolerance initiative illustrates or exemplifies levels of multicultural education as described by Sonia Nieto. This study also investigates what the reactions of the parents and students are. This qualitative study employed …

Experimental Support For The Use Of Story Telling To Guide Behavior: The Effects Of Story Telling On Multiple And Mixed Fixed Ratio (Fr) /Differential Reinforcement Of Low Rate (Drl) Schedule Responding., Michelle Heffner

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Story telling is universal, and the significance of stories may lie in their ability to guide behavior. An informal analysis of story telling suggests that stories provide a model of behavior, establish motivation, and stimulate the development of self-generated rules. In psychotherapy, stories illustrate points, suggest solutions, improve client insight, increase motivation, and establish rapport (Barker, 1996; Zeig, 1980). Despite the popular use of stories across theoretical orientations and treatment approaches, it is not clear if stories facilitate behavior change. Observational and correlational data suggest that stories may guide behavior, but there is no experimental support for these findings. The …

Legal Transitions, Rational Expectations, And Legal Progress, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

In the literature on legal transitions, the term "transition policy" is generally understood to mean a rule or norm that influences policymakers' decisions concerning the extent to which legal change should be accompanied by transition relief, whether in the form of grandfathering or phase-ins or direct compensation. Legal change within this literature is defined broadly, and somewhat counter-intuitively, to include any resolution of the uncertainty regarding what the law will be in the future or how the law will be applied to future circumstances. Thus, a legal change would obviously include an unexpected repeal of a tax provision, such as …

Surface Mines As Landscape Features: Contrasting Microclimate And Forest Composition Among Open, Edge And Interior., Sheila A. Kazar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Surface mining disturbs thousands of hectares of forest every year in the Appalachian region resulting in the creation of forest edges. In this study, variability in air temperature and moisture, soil temperature and moisture, photosynthetically active radiation and wind velocity are quantified for open, edge and interior environments of reclaimed surface mines in north central West Virginia. Tree species composition, soil pH and compaction were also examined. Mean daily air and soil temperature, wind velocity and photosynthetically active radiation are lower, and soil and air moisture higher inside the forest than in the open or at the edge. Soil temperature, …

Se Battre Our Ses Droits Écritures, Litiges Et Discrimination Raciale En Louisiane (1888-1899), Rebecca J. Scott

Articles

Title in English: Fighting for public rights: writing, lawsuits and racial segregation in Louisiana (1888-1889).

This article explores the links between the fight against compulsory racial segregation and the day–to–day operation of the law in nineteenth century Louisiana. Using the figure of Louis A. Martinet, one of the organizers of the test case that yielded the U.S. Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson, the essay argues that Martinet’s role as notary reflects the central importance to the community of color of questions of public standing and written records. The article also identifies the concepts of "public rights" and "public liberties" …

Making Instructional Decisions: What Teacher Specialists Decide About And Do For Middle School Students With Reading Difficulty., Frances Laurel Boyd

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Concern about the efficacy of American education programs in reading is noted. Amid conflicting reports of what is wrong with American schools, steps must be taken which allow for growth among reading educators, especially those who work with older students who have not yet achieved grade appropriate reading skills. However, those who provide support programs need a body of information which allows them to address real needs that teachers have. The voice of teachers is under represented in program planning, yet could provide information crucial to the development of the most beneficial training and support programs. This study investigated the …

Fictions Of Nature: Ecology, Science, And Culture In Twentieth-Century British Literature., Neal Bukeavich

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation examines twentieth-century British fiction concerned with humankind's interactions with the nonhuman world. I analyze a range of literary works, including H. G. Wells's The Food of the Gods (1903), D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love (1920), and Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar (1968), Graham Swift's Waterland (1983), and J. G. Ballard's Rushing to Paradise (1994). This body of literature remains largely unexamined for its treatments of ecological issues and belongs to a national history deeply implicated in local and global environmental change. Moreover, my consideration of this literary tradition marks a …

Highways Of The Mind: The Haunting Of The Superhighway From The World's Fair To The World Wide Web., Helen J. Burgess

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation investigates the way in which the rhetorical construction of the highway has been haunted, first by narratives of promise and progress and then of decay and death. Highways are figured as technological wonders marking the advent of a better future in the 1939 World's Fair and the advertising campaigns of the 1950s, and then as wired-up networks of death in science fictional accounts from the 60s to the 90s. At stake in this project is the very status of metaphor in the analysis of technology. The highway is a compelling 20th-century metaphor that reveals anxieties we have about …

A Comparison Of Community Members' Preferences To Viewing Two Different Approaches To Therapy., Sherry Lynn Cain

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The perceptions of community members on a traditional Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) counseling approach and a multi-sensory REBT counseling approach were examined in this study. A total of 98 individuals, who were the staff and parents recruited from a community Headstart program, participated in the study. Simulated counseling sessions of the two approaches were presented to the community members through eleven minute videotapes. After watching the counseling sessions, individuals rated the sessions with the Counseling Style Preference Form and the Credibility/Expectancy Questionnaire. They also were asked to write comments about each of the counseling sessions. Paired sample T-tests yielded …

Quid Est Littera? The Materiality Of The Letter And The Presence Of The Past From Alcuin Of York To The "Electronic Beowulf"., Edward J. Christie

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation traces the history of the discursive construction of the alphabetic letter in English. Perceived by Anglo-Saxon literati as the “atomic” unit of text, and the “custodian of history,” individual letters were imbued with essential existence that ranked them, like numbers and physical atoms, as fundamental units of matter. In later technological remediations of Anglo-Saxon texts, like the Early Modern production of AElfric's “Easter Sermon” using specially made Anglo-Saxon typefaces, or the digital facsimile of the Beowulf manuscript similar transhistorical properties are imputed to the letter. In the first case, the form of Anglo-Saxon letters becomes the locus of …

Inmate Litigation, Margo Schlanger

Articles

In 1995, prison and jail inmates brought about 40,000 new lawsuits in federal court nearly a fifth of the federal civil docket. Court records evidence a success rate for inmate plaintiffs under fifteen percent. These statistics highlight two qualities long associated with the inmate docket: its volume and the low rate of plaintiffs' success. Then, in 1996, Congress enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), which dramatically altered the litigation landscape, restricting inmates' access to federal court in a variety of ways. This Article examines inmate litigation before and after the PLRA. Looking first at the litigation process itself, it …

A Comparison Of Demineralization Between Self-Etching Primer And Conventional Sealant: An In Vitro Study., Nihar D. Tanna

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The purpose of this in vitro study is to compare the resistance to demineralization between a self etching primer (SEP) and a conventional sealant. 120 tooth samples were assigned to 3 groups: SEP, Sealant, or a Control group with no treatment. After 48 or 72 hours of acidic challenge with ten Cateís solution, 200 µm sections were evaluated for the incidence of lesion, lesion depth, area and total fluorescence using confocal microscopy. Statistical analysis was performed using ANOVA. Incidence of lesion was 100% in the SEP and Control group and 50% in the Sealant group. Lesion depth (149.9 µm), area …