Digital Commons Network^™

Long-Term Assessment Of Predatory Fish Removal On A Pond-Breeding Amphibian Community In Central Illinois, Lee M. Gross

Masters Theses

Habitat loss and fragmentation are important contributors to population declines in many species, so maintaining suitable habitat has become a priority for wildlife management. Removal of introduced fish can help restore suitable habitats for amphibian populations, although long-term assessments of such removals are lacking at the community level. In 2001, drift fences and pitfall traps were constructed around the majority of four ponds to monitor an amphibian community in a nature preserve in central Illinois. Rotenone™ was applied to ponds containing introduced fish in 2001, and again, in 2003. I collected data from 2005-2007 to determine the long-term impacts of …

Habitat Selection And Niche Partitioning Of Fox And (Sciurus Niger) And Gray (Sciurus Carolinensis) Squirrels In Charleston, Il, Katelyn Marti

Masters Theses

Two species of tree squirrels inhabit Charleston, IL; fox squirrels (Sciurus niger) and gray squirrels (Sciurus caro/inensis). Although these species are sympatric throughout much of the eastern U.S., urban settings are usually occupied by one or the other. In the few localities where they co-occur, little is known about how they partition habitat. Therefore, the objectives of my study were to determine: (1) the relative abundance of each species, (2) whether habitat use differs between species, (3) if habitat use shifts with season, time of day, domestic predator abundance, or mast availability, and (3) observe interspecific and intraspecific interactions. The …

From Hatred To Compassion: An Interview With Thupten Phelgye, Joanie Eppinga

Journal of Hate Studies

Thupten Phelgye was born in Tibet in 1957. He remembers the chaos brought by the Chinese invasion of his country in 1959. After several failed attempts to escape that resulted in their being placed in concentration camps, Phelgye’s parents managed to travel with him to India. There Phelgye heard His Holiness the Dalai Lama explicate four lines of a sutra, an experience that changed his life. He became a monk and, after an individual audience with the Dalai Lama at the age of 17, went into isolation for five years. Since rejoining society he has worked hard to better the …

A Three Part Study Exploring Psi-Conduciveness And Psi-Defensiveness In Groups, Gretchen M. Conner

Masters Theses

The current study examined three separate experiments, conducted during the Spring semester of 2006, designed to explore variables related to telepathy performance. The common theme which runs through all studies in the parapsychology laboratory including the three experiments covered in this document is the exploration of variables related to psi-defensiveness and psi-conduciveness within groups of participants. In Part I, groups of participants were rated by research assistants on the dimensions of friendliness and enthusiasm. It was hypothesized that as friendliness and enthusiasm ratings increased or decreased for a session, hit rates would correspondingly increase or decrease. Results indicated that as …

Using The Web To Effectively Attract Volunteers To Non-Profit Organizations, Adrian Goh, Joseph A. Allen, Steven G. Rogelberg, Anna Currie

Psychology Faculty Publications

Non-profit organizations often rely on volunteers to help staff and sustain organizational services, functions, and programs. The web is a critical vehicle for attracting these needed volunteers. The authors searched the available literature and reviewed close to 100 non-profit organizational websites to identify best practices of note. Fourteen best practices in web site design are forwarded and discussed.

A Genome Scan For Quantitative Trait Loci Affecting Male Reproductive Traits In A White Duroc × Chinese Erhualian Resource Population, Dongren Ren, J. Ren, Y. Y. Xing, Y. M. Guo, Y. B. Wu, G. C. Yang, H. R. Mao

Psychology Faculty Publications

Chinese Erhualian boars have dramatically smaller testes, greater concentrations of circulating androgens, and fewer Sertoli cells than Western commercial breeds. To identify QTL for boar reproductive traits, testicular weight, epididymal weight, seminiferous tubular diameter at 90 and 300 d, and serum testosterone concentration at 300 d were measured in 347 F₂ boars from a White Duroc × Chinese Erhualian cross. A whole genome scan was performed with 183 microsatellites covering 19 porcine chromosomes. A total of 16 QTL were identified on 9 chromosomes, including 1% genome-wide significant QTL for testicular weight at 90 and 300 d and seminiferous tubular …

Islam's Fourth Amendment: Search And Seizure In Islamic Doctrine And Muslim Practice, Sadiq Reza

Articles & Chapters

Modern scholars regularly assert that Islamic law contains privacy protections similar to those of the FourthAmendment to the U.S. Constitution. Two Quranic verses in particular - one that commands Muslims not to enter homes without permission, and one that commands them not to 'spy' - are held up, along with reports from the Traditions (Sunna) that repeat and embellish on these commands, as establishing rules that forbid warrantless searches and seizures by state actors and require the exclusion of evidence obtained in violation of these rules. This Article tests these assertions by: (1) presenting rules and doctrines Muslim jurists of …

The Interpretation Of Multilingual Statutes By The European Court Of Justice, Lawrence M. Solan

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Suing The Hired Guns: An Analysis Of Two Federal Defenses To Tort Lawsuits Against Military Contractors, Andrew Finkelman

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Breaking Barriers, Pushing Promise: American's Need For An Embryonic Stem Cell Regulatory Scheme, Sylvia E. Simson

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

The Development Of International Norms For Insurance Regulation, Elizabeth F. Brown

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Patenting Human Embryonic Stem Cells: What Is So Immoral?, Joshua Whitehill

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Exporting Morality With Trade Restrictions: The Wrong Path To Animal Rights, Gary Miller

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Construct Validity And Diagnostic Utility Of The Cognitive Assessment System: Discriminating Individuals With Adhd From Random Normals, Allison R. Gaboury

Masters Theses

This study examined the construct validity and diagnostic utility of the Cognitive Assessment System (Naglieri & Das, 1997). Distinct group differences and discriminative validity of 40 kindergarten through second grade students (20 meeting ADHD criteria on the Structured Diagnostic Interview for Parents and the Adjustment Scales for Children and Adolescents, 20 random matched control) on measures of Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive Processing were completed. The ADHD and random matched control groups differed significantly on Planning and Attention scores with large effect sizes but not on Simultaneous or Successive scores. Low Planning and Attention scores but normal Simultaneous and Successive …

Book Review: "Beyond Compare: St. Francis De Sales And Sri Vedanta Desika On Loving Surrender To God", Reid B. Locklin

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

A review of Beyond Compare: St. Francis de Sales and Sri Vedanta Desika on Loving Surrender to God by Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

Book Review: "Christianity In India: From Beginnings To The Present", Kristin Bloomer

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

A review of Christianity in India: From Beginnings to the Present by Robert Eric Frykenberg.

Levinas And The Invisibility God, Jeffrey Dudiak

Quaker Religious Thought

No abstract provided.

Noninvasive Measurement Of Aminolevulinic Acid-Induced Protoporphyrin Ix Fluorescence Allowing Detection Of Murine Glioma In Vivo, Summer L. Gibbs-Strauss, Julia A. O'Hara, P Jack Hoopes, Tayyaba Hasan, Brian W. Pogue

Dartmouth Scholarship

Aminolevulinic acid (ALA)-induced protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) fluorescence is studied as a contrast agent for noninvasive detection of murine glioma, using the fluorescence-to-transmission ratio measured through the cranium. Signals measured prior to administration of ALA are very similar between control animals, 9L-GFP, and U251 tumor-bearing animals. However, 2 h after ALA administration, the PpIX signal from both tumor-bearing groups is significantly higher than the control group (9L-GFP group p-value=0.016, and U251 group p-value=0.004, relative to the control group). The variance in signal from the 9L-GFP group is much larger than either the control group or the U251 group, which is consistent …

Quantitative Imaging Of Scattering Changes Associated With Epithelial Proliferation, Necrosis And Fibrosis In Tumors Using Microsampling Reflectance Spectroscopy, Venkataramanan Krishnaswamy, P Jack Hoopes, Kimberley S. Samkoe, Julia A. O'Hara, Tayyaba Hasan, Brian W. Pogue

Dartmouth Scholarship

Highly localized reflectance measurements can be used to directly quantify scatter changes in tissues. We present a microsampling approach that is used to raster scan tumors to extract parameters believed to be related to the tissue ultrastructure. A confocal reflectance imager was developed to examine scatter changes across pathologically distinct regions within tumor tissues. Tissue sections from two murine tumors, AsPC-1 pancreas tumor and the Mat-LyLu Dunning prostate tumor, were imaged. After imaging, histopathology-guided region-of-interest studies of the images allowed analysis of the variations in scattering resulting from differences in tissue ultra-structure. On average, the median scatter power of tumor …

Corporate Voting, Paul H. Edelman, Robert B. Thompson

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Discussion of shareholder voting frequently begins against a background of the democratic expectations and justifications present in decision-making in the public sphere. Directors are assumed to be agents of the shareholders in much the same way that public officers are representatives of citizens. Recent debates about majority voting and shareholder nomination of directors illustrate this pattern. Yet the corporate process differs in significant ways, partly because the market for shares permits a form of intensity voting and lets markets mediate the outcome in a way that would be foreign to the public setting and partly because the shareholders' role is …

Course Correction: My Term At Afghanistan's Graduate School Of War, Ganesh Sitaraman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Camp Julien is surrounded by reminders of Afghanistan's past. The coalition military base which sits in the hills south of Kabul, just high enough to rise above the thick cloud of smog that perpetually blankets the city, is flanked by two European-style palaces built in the 1920s by the modernizing King Amanullah. Home to Soviet troops and mujahedin during the past decades of war, the now-crumbling palaces are littered with bullet holes and decorated with graffiti in multiple languages. Uphill from Julien is the old Russian officers' club, dating from the Soviet invasion and featuring a recently refilled swimming pool …

Environmental Law, Rachael Anderson-Watts, Naeha Dixit, Christopher J. Dunsky

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The decisions of the Michigan Supreme Court and the Michigan Court of Appeals during the Survey period, May 23, 2007 to July 30, 2008, did not dramatically change the course of environmental law in Michigan, nor did they contain any major surprises. The state Supreme Court's decision in Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation v. Nestl Waters North America, Inc. is the most significant decision in the Survey period because it held that plaintiffs in Michigan Environmental Protection Act (MEPA) cases must now satisfy federal standing requirements. Although the Nestl9 decision may make it more difficult for ordinary citizens to use …

Brain Imaging For Legal Thinkers: A Guide For The Perplexed, Owen D. Jones, Joshua W. Buckholtz, Jeffrey D. Schall, Rene Marois

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

It has become increasingly common for brain images to be proffered as evidence in criminal and civil litigation. This Article - the collaborative product of scholars in law and neuroscience - provides three things.

First, it provides the first introduction, specifically for legal thinkers, to brain imaging. It describes in accessible ways the new techniques and methods that the legal system increasingly encounters.

Second, it provides a tutorial on how to read and understand a brain-imaging study. It does this by providing an annotated walk-through of the recently-published work (by three of the authors - Buckholtz, Jones, and Marois) that …

Negotiation In Cross-Cultural Marriages : An Exploratory Qualitative Study Among Middle Class Professionals In Hong Kong, Pui Kwan Man

Lingnan Theses

This thesis attempts to focus on families and their children (if any) in cross-cultural marriages. These families potentially face extra stress and strains in addition to those which all families face. As a result of recent social and economic changes, certain roles such as those of the breadwinner and caregiver, traditionally male-female roles, may be becoming more interchangeable. Cross-cultural families’ may have differences in cultural backgrounds, attitudes and expectations, as well as potential support networks, so the research will investigate whether these sorts of changes place even greater than usual demands on families.

Therefore, it may be important for couples …

A Defense Of The Integrationist Test As A Replacement For The Special Defense Of Insanity, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article, written for a symposium on "Criminal Law and the Excuses," defends the "Integrationist" approach to analysis of the exculpatory effect of mental disability that I developed in Chapter Two of my book, Minding Justice: Laws that Deprive People with Mental Disability of Life and Liberty. The book argues that the special nature of the insanity defense should be reconsidered now that modern criminal law, in particular the Model Penal Code, has subjectivized affirmative defenses such as self-defense and duress for people who are not mentally ill. More specifically, the claim is that these latter defenses capture the universe …

Antibiotics, Herbs, And Magic: Health Practices In Contemporary St. Petersburg, Christine Shu

Honors Theses

In St. Petersburg, Russia, two seemingly conflicting health doctrines, western medicine and alternative medicine, play significant roles in residents' health culture. I define alternative medicine as all health practices that use such natural products as herbs, natural honey, water, seeds, berries, and even animal products, and as such unobtrusive body therapies as acupuncture, massage, yoga, or animal therapies. I define western medicine as all treatments that involve the manipulation of ingredients in a chemistry laboratory (such as antibiotics, antiviral drugs, antihistamines. or pain killers) and all body therapies intrusive to the body (such as operations). Through interviews with St. Petersburg …

Serendipity, Sean B. Seymore

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Serendipity, the process of finding something of value initially unsought, has played a prominent role in modern science and technology. These "happy accidents" have spawned new fields of science, broken intellectual and technological barriers, and furnished countless products that have altered the course of human history. In the realm of patent law, one curious aspect of accidental discoveries that has received little attention in the academic literature and the courts is how they mesh with the substantive law of invention. This Essay shows that applying conventional doctrines to accidental inventions is theoretically untenable and, in certain circumstances, may result in …

Cities, Green Construction, And The Endangered Species Act, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The geographic footprint of cities--the space they occupy--is relatively small in comparison to their ecological footprint, which is measured in terms of impact on the sustainability of resources situated mostly outside of the urban realm. Ironically, the Endangered Species Act (ESA), though widely regarded as one of the most powerful environmental laws, has been and continues to be administered with respect to urbanized land masses primarily with the objective of managing their geographic footprints. This Article uses the example of "green construction" techniques to explore this disconnect between the macro-scale contribution of cities' ecological footprints to species endangerment and the …

Queering Sex Machines : The Re-Articulation Of Non-Normative Sexualities And Technosexual Bodies, Hok Bun, Isaac Leung

Lingnan Theses

From the simple electronic vibrator to the complex assemblages of cybersex, sex and technology have always intersected. The dynamic relations between sexuality and technology are constantly changing along with the ways in which human beings achieve psychological and bodily pleasure through these devices. Sex machine, a term that denotes an automated device that can assist human in the pursuits of sex, has been broadly defined as therapeutic and pleasure machines in the West. Large numbers of sex machines have been documented in Europe and America starting from the nineteenth century, and were widely produced and utilized by medical practitioners, sex …

Ethical Problems In Connection With World Poverty, Wing Fan

Lingnan Theses

World economy has been doing well in recent decades even taking into account the current financial crisis. However, there are even more people suffering from poverty and related issues than earlier. I am going to discuss the issue of helping poor people in the context of ethics.

In my thesis, I will firstly state the standard of absolute poverty, which will be the main focus in the remainder of the text. Then, I will present the argument given by a contemporary philosopher, Peter Singer, that urges us to give money to the poor people. I will go through his argument …