Digital Commons Network^™

Natural Born World Shakers : Southern Prisoners In Popular Film, Alan Gilchrist Pike

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

2010 Aasu Volleyball Guide, Armstrong State University

Armstrong Athletics: Women's Volleyball Records (Archived)

No abstract provided.

Contracting Over Liability: Medical Malpractice And The Cost Of Choice, Jennifer H. Arlen

Faculty Articles

Contractual liability proponents claim that states can best reform malpractice liability by allowing patients to contract over and out of liability. Proponents assert that informed patients would be better off if they were allowed to contract over liability than they would be if states reformed malpractice liability directly because informed patients would contract for the rules that maximize their welfare. Proponents also claim that states reforming malpractice liability could only benefit patients by including a right to contract out of liability. This Article demonstrates that these claims are incorrect. Informed patients who value state-imposed malpractice liability can be hurt by …

Domesticating Intelligence, Samuel J. Rascoff

Faculty Articles

In the best of circumstances, governing domestic intelligence is challenging. Intelligence sits in an uncomfortable relationship with law’s commitment to transparency and accountability. History amply demonstrates that intelligence—including domestic intelligence—frequently begins where the rule of law gives out. The inherent difficulty of governing intelligence has been unnecessarily exacerbated by a deep-seated and longstanding confusion about what domestic intelligence is. For over a century, policymakers and academic commentators have assumed that it is essentially a form of criminal investigation and that criminal law supplies the logical starting place for its effective governance. Over the years, this faulty premise has fostered a …

Taxing Punitive Damages, Gregg Polsky, Dan Markel

Faculty Articles

There is a curious anomaly in the law of punitive damages. Jurors assess punitive damages in the amount that they believe will best “punish” the defendant. But, in fact, defendants are not always punished to the degree that the jury intends. Under the Internal Revenue Code, punitive damages paid by business defendants are tax deductible and, as a result, these defendants often pay (in real dollars) far less than the jury believes they deserve to pay. To solve this problem of under-punishment, many scholars and policymakers, including President Obama, have proposed making punitive damages nondeductible in all cases. In our …

Organizational Guidelines For The Prosecutor's Office, Rachel E. Barkow

Faculty Articles

The article discusses organizational guidelines for the office of the prosecutor. It argues that it is time for the prosecutors to recognize that their own offices should be held to the same standards as other organizations. It describes the pressures that lead to the prosecutorial misconduct and the lack of any effective checks on this behavior. It outlines the parallels between prosecutorial misconduct and the misconduct of corporate employees, and describes how prosecutors have addressed organizational misconduct in the corporate context. It explains how the corporate compliance model could be practically applied to prosecutors' offices.

"Just Words": Common Law And The Enforcement Of State Constitutional Social And Economic Rights, Helen Hershkoff

Faculty Articles

[...] not all state constitutions include a state action requirement, and in some states-admittedly, only a few-state courts permit an individual to enforce public rights directly against another private actor. State constitutions do not, however, explicitly subject common law decision making to state constitutional regulation, and so questions about the application of state constitutional norms in the horizontal position remain open. Provisions such as Section 39(2) of the South Africa Constitution, for example, which requires that "[w]hen developing the common law or customary law, every court, tribunal or forum must promote the spirit, purport and objects of the Bill of …

Politicizing The Courts And Undermining The Law: A Legal History Of Colonial North Carolina, 1660-1775, Wiiliam E. Nelson

Faculty Articles

This Article is the first monographic history of the legal output of colonial North Carolina courts. Based on an examination of voluminous manuscript court records, it concludes that a fragile legal system developed during the first half-century of the existence of an initially small colony on the banks of the Albemarle Sound. Just as that legal system was gaining solid footing in the late 1720s however, it was destroyed when a sitting governor politicized it. The rule of law was slowly restored over the next quarter-century in the eastern portions of colonial North Carolina, and the legal system functioned effectively …

What The Federal Circuit Can Learn From The Supreme Court—And Vice Versa, Rochelle C. Dreyfuss

Faculty Articles

Speech on the institution of the Federal Circuit.

On Law’S Tiebreakers, Adam M. Samaha

Faculty Articles

Tiebreakers are familiar tools for decisionmaking. Ready examples include penalty shootouts in soccer matches and vice presidents breaking tie votes in the Senate. But we lack a precise understanding of the concept and a normative theory for the use of tiebreakers. This Article strictly defines a tiebreaker as a kind of lexically inferior decision rule and then builds justifications for tiebreaking decision structures. Concentrating on situations in which ties are considered intolerable, the Article suggests methods for either preventing ties or designing sensible tiebreakers. As to the latter, tradeoffs are identified for the use of random variables, morally relevant variables, …

The Tupelo Symphony Orchestra : Past, Present, And Future, Charlotte V. Hester

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Perception Of Risk Of Heart Disease In Comparison To Actual Risk In College Females, Samantha Hirth

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Built Environment And Active Commuting To School In Oxford, Ms : Examining Actual And Perceived Barriers, Wallace Blake Goldman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Osteology Of The Chalillo Dam Archaeology Salvage Project, Upper Macal River Valley, Belize, Lenna M. Nash

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Acoustically-Enhanced Contaminant Remediation : The Effect Of Acoustic Energy On The Remediation Of Contaminated Soil And Groundwater / Shannon Wilson, Shannon Wilson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Now Watch Me : The Black Dancing Body And Southern Identity, I'Nasah Kiam Crockett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Coverage Of Sexual Political Scandal By The Media : A Case Study Of The Eliot Spitzer Scandal From March 10-March 17, 2008, Leslie A. King

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Spreading A Positive Message About Work, Earnings And Benefits Through Peer Networking: Findings From The Peer Employment Benefits Network, Jennifer Sullivan Sulewski, Rick Kugler, John Kramer

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

Misunderstanding and fears about the impact of earnings on benefits represent a significant barrier in the return-to-work efforts of people with disabilities. This pilot project evaluated an approach to spreading a positive message about work and dispelling myths about the effects of work on Social Security benefits through outreach and networking in the disability community. A peer leadership project was developed by enlisting 33 people with disabilities, mainly through disability advocacy organizations, who had experience with disability benefits. They received several days of basic training about work incentives, networking strategies, and community resources that support employment. These peer leaders then …

Physics For Future Physicians And Life Scientists: A Moment Of Opportunity, Catherine H. Crouch, Robert Hilborn, Suzanne Amador Kane, Timothy Mckay

Physics Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Housing And Community Development, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Researchers in housing and community development design and evaluate policies regarding access to attractive, affordable and sustainable housing and improving the social, physical and economic infrastructure of communities, especially those in the urban core. Practitioners in this field confront political considerations, administrative guidelines and limited funding.

Decision science can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of market-rate housing development and provide support for policy responses to issues such as affordable housing, race and class segregation, ineffective and/or inequitable economic development, and sustainable development. This research spans many disciplines, including systems modeling, urban economics, multi-criteria decision modeling, stochastic models and decision support …

Immigration, Ethnicity, And Marginalization: The Maya K’Iche Of New Bedford, Jorge Capetillo-Ponce, Gissell Abreu-Rodriguez

Trotter Review

On Tuesday, March 6, 2007, more than 300 armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 361 presumed undocumented immigrant workers at the Michael Bianco Inc. factory in New Bedford, Massachusetts. More than half of the workers detained were from Guatemala, the majority belonging to the Maya K’iche (we will use K’iche) community, an ethnic group originally from the mountains of western Guatemala whose members began arriving in the New Bedford area from Providence, Rhode Island, where there is an older K’iche community, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, at the height of a violent confrontation in Guatemala between …

Service Versus Advocacy? A Comparison Of Two Latino Community-Based Organizations In Chelsea, Massachusetts, Glenn Jacobs

Trotter Review

Anyone walking down Chelsea’s main drag, Broadway, would be struck by its raucous cacophony of sights and sounds, a panoply of foreign languages spoken by women (many mothers with young children and infants), children, teenagers, and men of a variety of physiognomies and skin tones; a collage of small specialty shops selling jewelry, clothing, religious statues, CDs, and mobile phones; and restaurants and eateries serving El Salvadoran, Vietnamese, Mexican, and Chinese food; pawnshops, check-cashing places, bakeries, and coffee shops, with occasional rectangles of negative visual space occupied by the post office and chain drug and convenience stores. It is a …

Apoptosis Initiation And Angiogenesis Inhibition: Melanoma Targets For Nanosecond Pulsed Electric Fields, Xinhua Chen, Juergen F. Kolb, R. James Swanson, Karl H. Schoenbach, Stephen J. Beebe

Bioelectrics Publications

Many effective anti-cancer strategies target apoptosis and angiogenesis mechanisms. Applications of non-ionizing, nanosecond pulsed electric fields (nsPEFs) induce apoptosis in vitro and eliminate cancer in vivo; however in vivo mechanisms require closer analysis. These studies investigate nsPEF-induced apoptosis and anti-angiogenesis examined by fluorescent microscopy, immunoblots, and morphology. Six hours after treatment with one hundred 300 ns pulses at 40 kV/cm, cells transiently expressed active caspases indicating that caspase-mediated mechanisms. Three hours after treatment transient peaks in Histone 2AX phosphorylation coincided with terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling positive cells and pyknotic nuclei, suggesting caspase-independent mechanisms on nuclei/DNA. Large …

Developing Performance Indicators To Evaluate The Management Effectiveness Of The Massachusetts Ocean Management Plan, Jack Wiggin, Dan Hellin, Kristin Uiterwyk, Robert E. Bowen, Prassede Vella, John Weber, Stephanie Moura, Nicholas Napoli, Kim Starbuck, Howard Krum

Urban Harbors Institute Publications

In June 2009, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) released its draft Massachusetts Ocean Management Plan (draft plan) for public comment. The plan is required by the Oceans Act of 2008 to, among other things, be adaptive to evolving knowledge and understanding of the ocean environment. The plan’s Science Framework establishes a blueprint for future research and data acquisition and ensuring that the plan evolves and its management measures adapt to this new and enhanced information. As stated in Chapter 5 of the draft plan, an important part of the science framework is the development and …

Disrupted But Not Destroyed: Fictive-Kinship Networks Among Black Educators In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Daniella Ann Cook

Faculty Publications

Drawing on Adkins’ (1997) notion of reform as colonization and using ethnographic data from African American teachers in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, this article discusses how black educators’ fictive-kinship (Fordham 1996, Chatters, Taylor, and Jayadoky 1994, Stack 1976) networks have been altered in the changing landscape of reform. I argue that the importance of fictive-kinship relationships among educators and students was ignored in school-reform efforts in post-Katrina New Orleans. Post-Katrina school reforms disrupted, but did not destroy, these fictive-kinship networks. I discuss three themes: (1) fictive-kinship networks created before Katrina cultivated an environment centered on cooperation, collaboration, and solidarity, …

Protecting Water Resources And Managing Stormwater: A Bird's Eye View For New Hampshire Communities, Julia Peterson, Amanda Stone, James J. Houle

UNH Stormwater Center

No abstract provided.

Fungi-Derived Natural Products With Binding Affinities For Human Opioid Or Cannabinoid Receptors, Jiangtao Gao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Both opioid and cannabinoid receptors belong to the large superfamily of GPCRs and play an important role in a variety of processes including pain, craving, neurodegeneration, metabolic regulation, anxiety and immune function. Therefore, recent advances and discoveries in opioid and cannabinoid receptors have paved the way for a very exciting future for opioid and cannabinoid receptors-based therapies to potentially treat a variety of conditions. However, the growing realizations of the complexity of these two receptors regulation in physiological and pathological conditions have discouraged the development of new therapeutics. So, it is important for us to identify new chemical scaffolds which …

Pharmacological Reversal Of Cognitive Bias In The Chick Anxiety-Depression Continuum Model, Kristen Anne Hymel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cognitive bias is a phenomenon that presents in clinical populations where anxious individuals tend to adopt a more pessimistic interpretation of ambiguous aversive stimuli and depressed individuals not only tend to adopt a more pessimistic interpretation of ambiguous aversive stimuli, but also a less optimistic interpretation of ambiguous appetitive stimuli. Such biases have also been pharmacologically reversed in clinical trials. To measure cognitive bias in the chick anxiety-depression continuum model, chicks exposed to an isolation stressor of 5 min to induce an anxiety-like or 60 min to induce a depressive-like state were then tested in a straight alley maze to …

Missouri County Profiles: Tobacco-Related Disparities In Missouri, Center For Public Health Systems Science, Amy Sorg, Sarah Shelton, Jenine Harris

Center for Public Health Systems Science

This report identified tobacco-related disparities in Missouri through examining tobacco use, secondhand smoke exposure, and smoking cessation based on demographic, socioeconomic and personal characteristics. Findings from this report can be used to better understand differences in tobacco use among specific populations across the state. Addressing groups that are bearing a disproportionate burden from tobacco use will contribute to comprehensive tobacco control efforts, reducing overall tobacco use and making Missouri a healthier place to live.

Public School District: Baseline Policy Assessment, Center For Public Health Systems Science, Sarah Moreland-Russell, Bobbi Carothers, Laura Brossart

Center for Public Health Systems Science

This report from the CPPW project presents the findings from a baseline assessment of tobacco policies in all St. Louis County public school districts. These findings are provided to stakeholders to help inform intervention efforts for strengthening school tobacco policies.