Digital Commons Network^™

Self-Produced Child Pornography: The Appropriate Societal Response To Juvenile Self-Sexual Exploitation, Mary Graw Leary

Scholarly Articles

The issues of “sexting” and “self-produced child pornography” (SPCP) have captured the attention of the media, courts, and state legislatures. A debate rages among advocates, policy makers, and reporters about how the law should address this activity. More than sixteen states have considered special legislation to address the problem and litigation has ensued. Lost in the debate are many realities including the complexity of the problem. This behavior implicates aspects of child development, child sexuality, child exploitation, teen dating violence, education, and parenting. While any deliberation about children and how the law should protect children is positive, sensationalism and oversimplification …

Kennedy V. Louisiana: A Chapter Of Subtle Changes In The Supreme Court’S Book On The Death Penalty—Sex Offenders: Recent Developments In Punishment And Management, Mary Graw Leary

Scholarly Articles

This paper examines the recent decision regarding the unconstitutionality of Louisiana's death penalty punishment for certain cases of child rape. The paper explores some of the nuanced language of the opinion as it indicates sublte shifts in the Court's death penalty analysis.

Control, Counter-Examples, And Reasons-Reluctance, Nicolas Michaud

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work considers the soundness of Henry Frankfurt's argument that the principle of alternative possibilities is false and the implications of his argument for holding agents responsible in a causally determined universe. Frankfurt does seem to be pointing clearly to the fact that many of us do continue to hold agents responsible despite a lack of alternative possibilities. What Frankfurt may be lacking is an adequate account of control which is taken up by John Martin Fischer. What Fischer presents us with is the possibility that the reason why we continue to hold Jones responsible is because of the kind …

Substance Use And Barriers To Treatment Across Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders And Asian Americans, Lauren Michelle Levine

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research shows that Asian Americans have lower rates of substance abuse treatment utilization than Caucasians. However, investigators have recently begun to separate Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders (NH/PI) from Asian Americans. Thus, it remains unclear whether disparities in barriers to treatment utilization differ across NH/Pis and Asian Americans. Data (N = 43,093) from the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a large, nationally representative survey was used in this study. A chi-square analysis examined whether disparities in barriers and utilization differed between NH/Pis (n = 300) and Asian Americans (n = 1,334). We found that NH/Pis who thought …

Parenting In Filipino Transnational Families, Amethyst Reyes Taylor

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study analyzed the experience of parenting within Filipino Overseas families as perceived by adult children. The impact of overseas workers is invaluable to the Philippine economy. The current study explored the dimensions of having a parent, mother or father, who is an overseas worker, acknowledging that there are clear challenges of parenting children with the barriers of geographical distance. International long distance telephone interviews were conducted with adult children of Filipino overseas workers. Results from consensual qualitative research analysis (C. E. Hill et al., 2005; C. E. Hill, B. J. Thompson, & E. N. Williams, 1997) indicated two …

The Significance Of Trust For Ethics Critical And Applied: A Critical Account Of Watsuji's Metaethics, Sean Patrick Smith

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Watsuji Tetsuro's philosophy in the early 20th Century presented a view of ethics that was markedly different from the more common theories of the Western philosophical tradition. He viewed ethics as a natural outgrowth of our essential nature as human beings. By investigating what it means to be human, Watsuji argued, one could develop a stronger understanding of our reasons and methods for being ethical. One of his ideas involved trust's importance and inevitability in our ethical palette. Developed by Watsuji, this connection between trust and our nature as human beings was interesting.

It is my claim that how we …

Tests For Correlation On Bivariate Nonnormal Distributions, Louanne Margaret Beversdorf

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many samples in the real world are very small in size and often do not follow a normal distribution. Existing tests for correlation have restrictions on the distribution of data and sample sizes, therefore the current tests cannot be used in some real world situations.

In this thesis, two tests are considered to test hypotheses about the population correlation coefficient. The tests are based on statistics transformed by a saddlepoint approximation and by Fisher's Z-transformation. The tests are conducted on small samples of bivariate nonnormal data and found to perfom well.

Simulations were run in order to compare the type …

Routing Protocol Performance Evaluation For Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks, Pedro A. Lopez-Fernandez

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Currently, MANETs are a very active area of research, due to their great potential to provide networking capabilities when it is not feasible to have a fixed infrastructure in place, or to provide a complement to the existing infrastructure. Routing in this kind of network is much more challenging than in conventional networks, due to its mobile nature and limited power and hardware resources.

The most practical way to conduct routing studies of MANETs is by means of simulators such as GloMoSim. GloMoSim was utilized in this research to investigate various performance statistics and draw comparisons among different MANET routing …

Investigation Of Social Connectedness In A College Population And Its Relationship To Perceived Stress And Health Symptoms, Sanya Sholetta Whittaker

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study investigated factors related to social connectedness and social support in a college population. Participants in the study were 486 volunteer students at the University of North Florida. All data were collected through a world wide web surveying program that allowed each participant to complete surveys on computers from any location. The surveys administered were the Social Connectedness Scale, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), the Perceived Stress Scale 10, the Patient Health Questionnaire 15 (PHQ15), and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale- Revised (CESD-R) along with a demographics questionnaire. Results show that participants in …

Factors Associated With Successful Hispanic Students In Higher Education, Ana G. Linares

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Hispanic population in the United States already constitutes the fastest growing minority group in the United States and by the year 2050 this group will constitute 24% of the total population and one fourth of the national workforce. Because this is a very young population whose median age is 27.2 years old, the education of this group is pivotal to the future of this nation. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceived importance of personal and external factors found in the literature as significant in Hispanic college success for a sample of 137 Hispanic college seniors …

Enterprise Resource Planning In Higher Education: A Comparative Case Study, Aaron Charles Marterer

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Case study research on enterprise systems in higher education organizations has shown that the challenges associated with implementing enterprise systems in higher education occur when unique organizational characteristics found in universities do not align with the standard characteristics built into the software programs. Based on such findings, the purpose of this study was to further explore the interaction between higher education organizations and enterprise systems during Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementations in order to gain insight into the effects of ERP implementations in higher education. Through the theoretical lens of actor-network theory, the purposes of this comparative case study at …

The Problem Of Religious Learning, Marc O. Degirolami

Scholarly Articles

The problem of religious learning is that religion-including the teaching about religion-must be separated from liberal public education, but that the two cannot be entirely separated if the aims of liberal public education are to be realized. It is a problem that has gone largely unexamined by courts, constitutional scholars, and other legal theorists. Though the U.S. Supreme Court has offered a few terse statements about the permissibility of teaching about religion in its Establishment Clause jurisprudence, and scholars frequently urge policies for or against such controversial subjects as Intelligent Design or graduation prayers, insuffi- cient attention has been paid …

Generalization Of The Hybrid Logistic Model For More Than One Rare Risk Factor, Mamunur Rashid

Mathematics Faculty Publications

Logistic models are commonly used to analyze case-control data. For case-control studies, if there tends be rare disease in the control group with the risk factors, then the estimation procedure using logistic regression model for such factors becomes difficult. To overcome such situation, Chen et. al. (2003) proposed a hybrid logistic model in which they first estimate the problematic risk factor assuming that proportions having disease of such risk factor are treated equal for all permissible strata of the other risk factors, and then the residual of the risk factors are modeled by using logistic regression model. The purpose of …

The American Presidency, The 2008 Election, And The Constitution's Natural Born Citizenship Proviso, Sarah Helene Duggin, Mary Beth Collins

Scholarly Articles

The following discussion describes the historical context of the natural born citizenship clause; explores some of the issues the proviso raises in contemporary American society, particularly its impact on Senator McCain and future presidential hopefuls; and offers a brief reflection on why the United States needs to amend Article II to eliminate natural born citizenship as a qualification for the presidency and vice presidency.

Corpulent Counter-Publics: Radical Cheerleading And Resignification Of The Fat Body, Emily Dianne Cram

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This thesis investigates the power of language, discourse, and symbols in the dominant construction of corpulence, and how it simultaneously constricts subjectivity and offers avenues of resistance and revolt. I focus my analysis on the public protest actions of San Francisco's radical cheerleading troupe The Bod Squad. I argue that The Bod Squad's protest constitutes a counter-public sphere in its rhetorical functions of positive self-representation and public confrontation. Through their protest actions, The Bod Squad stretches dominant ideologies of corpulence to create discursive space for alternative articulations of identities, interests, and needs. This thesis challenges traditional counter-public sphere theory and …

Virtual Prototyping With Surface Reconstruction And Freeform Geometric Modeling Using Level-Set Method, Weihan Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

"More and more products with complex geometries are being designed and manufactured by computer aided design (CAD) and rapid prototyping (RP) technologies. Freeform surface is a geometrical feature widely used in modern products like car bodies, airfoils and turbine blades as well as in aesthetic artifacts. How to efficiently design and generate digital prototypes with freeform surfaces is an important issue in CAD. This paper presents the development of a Virtual Sculpting system and addresses the issues of surface reconstruction from dexel data structures and freeform geometric modeling using the level-set method from distance field structure. Our virtual sculpting method …

The Effect Of Free Chlorine And Monochloramine On Lead In Drinking Water And Epitaxial Electrodeposition Of Tin Sulfide, Sansanee Boonsalee

Doctoral Dissertations

"Electrochemical deposition is utilized in various electronic and photovoltaic applications and in the protective coating industries. This dissertation primarily addresses the environmental aspects of electrochemical deposition. In the first part of this study, Pb dissolution in drinking water was investigated in the presence of two disinfectants: free chlorine (in the form of HOCI/OCr) and monochloramine (NH₂Cl). In the second part of this study, epitaxial SnS nanodisks were electrodeposited onto a Au(100) substrate. Water utility systems use either free chlorine or monochloramine in their disinfection program. Whereas free chlorine reacts with natural organic matter in the water to produce halogenated organic …

Population Based Estimates Of Medial Ulnar Collateral Ligament Injury, Samantha Lynne Sweet

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Injuries to the elbow are common among overhead throwers, especially in baseball players. There has been speculation that medial ulnar collateral ligament (MUCL) injuries have been increasing over the past fifteen years, however, population based estimates of MUCL injuries currently do not exist. The purpose of this study was to determine MUCL injury incidence rates derived from the National Center for Health Statistics over a three-year period. Non-identifiable, aggregate data provided by the National Center for Health Statistics were used in this study. The two main databases utilized were the NAMCS and the NHAMCS. Injury data from 2003 - 2005 …

Lex Naturalis And Jus Naturale, Kenneth Pennington

Scholarly Articles

After the air attacks of September 11, 2001 the United States government decided to fortify all public government buildings and spaces of importance in Washington, D.C. that might be targets of future attacks. The expenditures for these projects ran to millions of dollars and included the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. These extensive fortifications were inspired by widespread fear at all levels of the American government that extreme measures were needed to protect themselves and government buildings. This culture of fear quickly became an accepted part of American political discourse. Fear was no longer cowardly; it became a …

Understanding The Absence Of A Duty To Reasonably Rescue In American Tort Law, Marin Roger Scordato

Scholarly Articles

The absence in American tort law of a duty to reasonably aid a stranger in peril is perplexing. It is an odd gap in the otherwise nearly pervasive presence of a duty of reasonable care in the modern law of negligence. It utterly fails to accurately articulate our conventional sense of morality and appropriate social behavior. It stands in stark contrast to the treatment of this issue throughout the rest of the world. It is a rule of tort law for which very few commentators have had a kind word.

This Article sets forth a spirited defense of the traditional …

Of Panjandrums, Pooh Bahs, Parvenus, And Prophets: Law, Religion, And Medical Science, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

This Monograph derives from a Lecture, under the same title, given in Sydney, Australia, honoring Michael D. Kirby, AC, CMG, Justice of The High Court of Australia. The first part of the Monograph analyses the significant contributions that Justice Kirby has made as a compassionate champion of human rights and acknowledges what is styled as the Kirby Ethic which, in turn, is seen as the foundation for the body of work of the Justice as well as the moving force in his private life as well. Building upon a theory of transcendent idealism which interprets God's purpose as safeguarding the …

‘Slender Knowledge’: Sovereignty, Madness, And The Self In Shakespeare’S King Lear, A.G. Harmon

Scholarly Articles

In King Lear, the English law of madness, especially the aspects of testamentary devises, royal accession, waste, and plunder, is thematized in such a way that the conflict between civil order and savage nature is brought to the foreground. This dynamic overshadows, and to some extent disguises what truly lies at the heart of ancient Britain’s woes: a deficit of ontological self-inquiry on the part of the sovereign and his royal retainer, Gloucester, from which all of the other complications ensue.

God, Gold, Or Glory: Norman Piety And The First Crusade, Samuel Andrew Bartlett

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent trends in crusade historiography depict the Frankish participants of the First Crusade as acting out of piety, while their Norman counterparts remain as impious opportunists. This thesis challenges this prevailing point of view, arguing that the Norman crusaders met the same standard of piety as the Franks. To support my theory, I looked at four different facets on the question of Norman piety, dividing them up into chapters of my thesis. In the first chapter, there is a brief discussion of the current portrayal of the Normans in modem crusade historiography. In the next chapter, I established what piety …

Modeling And Synergy Testing Of Drug Combination Data: A Pharmacokinetic Analysis, Jacy Rebecca Crosby

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, we present and implement a method to assess the mathematical synergy of two-drug combinations based on a stochastic model. The drugs in question are two isomers that are applied to the human eye via a liquid eye drop. Techniques applied to the data in this paper can be applied to other two-drug combination studies.

We derive the mean and the variance terms of the drug combination "effects" in closed form using Ito's method of stochastic differential equations. The model fit of the data to the individual subject is examined by both statistical and graphical methods. Two estimation …

All For One: A Review Of Victim-Centric Justifications For Criminal Punishment, Adam J. Macleod

Scholarly Articles

Disparate understandings of the primary justification for criminal punishment have in recent years divided along new lines. Retributivists and consequentialists have long debated whether a community ought to punish violators of legal norms primarily because the violator has usurped communal standards (the retributivist view), or rather merely as a means toward some end such as rehabilitation or deterrence (the consequentialist view). The competing answers to this question have demarcated for some time the primary boundary in criminal jurisprudential thought. A new fault line appears to have opened between those who maintain the historical view that criminal punishment promotes the common …

Predicting And Reducing Warranty Costs By Considering Customer Expectation And Product Performance, Naresh Kumar Sharma

Doctoral Dissertations

"This dissertation develops from quality loss function to warranty loss function in which customer expectation is also considered to be a variable. First, Taguchi's quality loss function for the larger-the-better case, which is different from the smaller-the better and nominal-the-best cases, has been assimilated into the other two by introducing a term called the target-mean ratio. Further topics addressed include the implications of a finite target on the classification of LTB characteristics, a new concept of a "Complementary Characteristic", operating window, complexity, and SN ratio based on complexity. A warranty is a buyer's confidence owing to the seller's assurance to …

User-Generated Content And Virtual Worlds, Greg Lastowka

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Many legal commentators have claimed that virtual worlds owe their popularity to their focus on user-generated content and user creativity. While this is true in part and authorial freedom may draw consumers to virtual worlds, user-generated content can also pose risks to virtual world business from both an aesthetic and legal perspective. A significant tension exists between permitting participants to create content freely and building a successful virtual environment. In some instances, user-generated content can overwhelm virtual worlds. The future of user-generated content in virtual worlds is not clear, given the significant practical and legal problems that accompany user-generated content.

Pornography, Coercion, And Copyright Law 2.0, Ann Bartow

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The lack of regulation of the production of pornography in the United States leaves pornography performers exposed to substantial risks. Producers of pornography typically respond to attempts to regulate pornography as infringements upon free speech. At the same time, large corporations involved in the production and sale of pornography rely on copyright law's complex regulatory framework to protect their pornographic content from copying and unauthorized distribution. Web 2.0 also facilitates the production and distribution of pornography by individuals. These user-generators produce their own pornography, often looking to monetize their productions themselves via advertising revenues and subscription models. Much like their …

Fantasy Crime: The Role Of Criminal Law In Virtual Worlds, Susan W. Brenner

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Article analyzes activity in virtual worlds that would constitute crime if they were committed in the real world. It reviews the evolution of virtual worlds like Second Life and notes research which indicates that more and more of our lives will move into this realm. The Article then analyzes the criminalization of virtual conduct that inflicts "harm" in the real world and virtual conduct that only inflicts "harm" in the virtual world. It explains that the first category qualifies as cybercrime and can be prosecuted under existing law. Finally, it analyzes the necessity and propriety of criminalizing the second …

A Libel Law Analysis Of Media Abuses In Reporting On The Duke Lacrosse Fabricated Rape Charges, David A. Elder

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The broad outlines of the monumental injustices involved in the Duke lacrosse rape-that-never-happened case are well known. An unethical local prosecutor, Michael B. Nifong, for partisan political reasons, pursued the Duke lacrosse team and ultimately indicted three of its members based almost solely on the accusations of a wholly unreliable, self-proclaimed victim. Nifong received generous support and sustenance from many left-leaning, politically active Duke faculty, an extraordinarily inept (or worse) Duke administration, and almost the entirety of the mainstream media. Ultimately, following a detailed analysis by his office, North Carolina Attorney General Roy A. Cooper publicly excoriated Nifong in concluding …