Digital Commons Network^™

Proposed Standards And Best Practices For Technological Infrastructure At Contact Centers In The Dominican Republic, Patricia Ortiz Suárez

Theses

The Contact Center industry in the Dominican Republic has experienced a considerable and fast growth in the last years. The main focus of this industry has been offering services to companies located outside the country. One notorious problem is the lack of written documentation in regards to general requirements needed to set up a Contact Center in the territory. The objective of this research is the presentation of a set of proposed standards and best practices for requirements of Technological Infrastructure for Contact Centers located in the Dominican Republic. These standards and best practices have been developed considering the needs …

Security Practices: A Mixed Approach, Sourabh Dass

Theses

Consistency of information is ideally maintained by adhering to the best practices and policies. However, statistics show trends of rising threats in information security in global landscape. It leads us to believe that there may be scope for improvement in transforming a good policy on paper into a better practice. This thesis research identifies various points of failure that arise out of improper implementation of a good policy. This research provides basic guidelines for implementation of usable security policies.

Investigating Attributes - From Technologist To Business Leader, Christopher Kronenthal

Theses

As technology matures, its proliferation within an organization is ever more evident, providing a myriad of opportunities for career advancement and visibility for those specialized in the field. Taking advantage of this environment requires certain skill sets and personality traits. This thesis attempts to synthesize two disparate categories of professional aptitude (technologist and executive/business leader) by utilizing the common psychological profile platform known as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and then, apply that synthesis to an analysis of whether or not a correlation exists between the two groups. The key denoting factor amongst the two demographics in the supporting studies …

An Analytic Investigation Into Self Organizing Maps And Their Network Topologies, Renee Baltimore

Theses

This paper details master's thesis work involving research and investigation into the approach of self-organizing maps for clustering of data, more specifically, clustering of image data, and how this can be used in understanding image composition. This work will build upon ideas which have previously been explored, such as using self organizing maps for identifying and grouping different regions of an image which may possess similar features. A large part of this research is based upon experimentation with a variety of topological models of the self-organizing map network and investigation into what advantages these different topologies afford the network in …

Does Dual Task Interference Affect Concurrent Duration Production?, Mary Merlau

Theses

Time perception has been cited as a good measure of workload because it seldom interferes with performance of tasks that do not require time estimation, is easy to implement, and is sensitive to task difficulty (Hart, 1975a; Zakay & Shub, 1998). It was hypothesized that duration productions could be used to measure workload caused by two word tasks that would interfere with one another as outlined by Wickens' (1980) multiple resource theory. To test this hypothesis participants estimated a 15 second duration while performing a visual animal name detection task, along with an auditory animal name detection task, or a …

The Tail Still Wags The Dog: The Pervasive And Inappropriate Influence By The Psychiatric Profession On The Civil Commitment Process, William Brooks

Scholarly Works

The imposition of substantive and procedural protections in the civil commitment process thirty years ago created the expectation that courts would scrutinize commitment decisions by psychiatrists more closely and serve as a check on psychiatric decision-making. This has not happened.

Today, psychiatrists continue to play an overly influential role in the civil commitment process. Psychiatrists make initial commitment decisions that often lack accuracy because they rely on clinical judgment only. Furthermore, many psychiatrists do not want legal standards interfering with treatment decisions, and the nebulous nature of the concept of dangerousness enables doctors to make pretextual assessments of danger. At …

The Accidental Clinician And The Experienced Director: A Conversation On The Value Of Externships, Marjorie A. Silver, Mary Jo Eyster

Scholarly Works

In the summer of 2010, Mary Jo Eyster and Marjorie Silver conversed, via email, about the ways in which externship programs add unique value to the student’s education, separate and apart from their cost-effectiveness as compared to the in-house clinic. The result is this paper, a dialogue between a stand-up teacher who chose to teach the externship seminar and a seasoned clinician.

Mary Jo and Marjorie agree that the well-designed, well-executed program should drive the design, teaching and administration of externships and their accompanying seminars. They share the goals that each of them privilege in the programs they have designed, …

Empirical Desert And The Moral Economy Of Punishment, Zachary R. Calo

Scholarly Works

This paper considers Paul Robinson's theory of empirical desert as an argument for moving beyond the debate between utilitarian and retributivist accounts of punishment. It is argued that empirical desert, in its attempt to replace philosophy with the insights of the social and biological sciences, fails to ground the foundational act of punishment in an adequate theoretical warrant. A particular problem confronting empirical desert is that while Robinson shifts the locus of punishment from theory to the intuitions of the relevant community, he does not adequately account for the dynamic process by which communities shape and structure their internal moral …

The Quasi-Class Action Method Of Managing Multi-District Litigations: Problems And A Proposal, Charles Silver, Geoffrey P. Miller

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article uses three recent multi-district litigations ("MDLs") that produced massive settlements-Guidant ($240 million), Vioxx ($4.85 billion), and Zyprexa ($700 million)-to study the emerging quasi-class action approach to MDL management. This approach has four components: (1) judicial selection of lead attorneys, (2) judicial control of lead attorneys' compensation, (3) forced fee transfers from non-lead lawyers to cover lead attorneys' fees, and (4) judicial reduction of non-lead lawyers' fees to save claimants money. These procedures have serious downsides. They make lawyers financially dependent on judges and, therefore, loyal to judges rather than clients. They compromise judges' independence by involving them heavily …

Evaluating Norms: An Empirical Analysis Of The Relationship Between Norm-Content, Operator, And Charitable Behavior, Brian Sheppard, Fiery Cushman

Vanderbilt Law Review

There are several kinds of norms, and this variety can lead to spirited debate about the best norm to employ for the regulation of a particular activity. Should the norm be mandatory or aspirational? A rule or a standard? One important area in which norm-choice has come to the fore is the American Bar Association's oversight of pro bono work. Currently, the organization utilizes an aspirational norm recommending that lawyers perform at least fifty pro bono hours annually, but there is pressure to adopt some sort of mandatory rubric. Inspired by this debate, we have designed and implemented an experiment …

Learning To Fly: How We Finally Got Our Documentaries Off The Ground, Rehema Trimiew

Theses

This paper chronicles the four years that I worked on my thesis film "Learning To Fly," which I screened at the RIT May 2010 screenings. Much of this process included significant obstacles that I was thankfully able to overcome due to the support of friends and family. I have tried to include many of the details of this journey, however this has created a lengthy account. For me it's important to include many of the traumatic moments that I experienced so that I can move on and create more, hopefully less distressing productions. Because I retained so many emails and …

Good Causes And Bad Science, Gregory Mitchell

Vanderbilt Law Review

No abstract provided.

Evidence Verité And The Law Of Film, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

This paper explores a puzzle concerning the authority of certain images that increasingly find themselves at the center of legal disputes: surveillance or “real time” film images that purport to capture an event about which there is a dispute. Increasingly, this kind of “evidence verité” is used in United States courts of law as the best evidence of what happened. Film footage of arrests, criminal confessions, photographs of crime scenes (during and after) is routinely admitted into court as evidence. It tends to overwhelm all other evidence (e.g., testimonial or documentary) and be immune to critical analysis. Why would this …

Dworkin's Two Principles Of Dignity: An Unsatisfactory Nonconsequentialist Account Of Moral Duties, Kenneth Simons

Faculty Scholarship

In his ambitious and wide-ranging new book, Justice for Hedgehogs, Ronald Dworkin offers an alternative to consequentialist theories of law, political morality, moral duties, and personal ethics. Respect for human dignity, he says, entails two requirements: self-respect, i.e., taking the objective importance of your own life seriously; and authenticity, i.e., accepting a personal responsibility for identifying what counts as success in your own life. For Dworkin, these two principles of dignity do triple duty. First, as a matter of personal ethics, they provide guidance about what we should do in order to live well. Second, they elucidate the rights that …

All In The Family, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Jacob Willig-Onwuachi

Faculty Scholarship

Your essay “Pregnant Man?” highlights many significant issues concerning the intersection of law, gender, sexuality, race, class, and family. In an earlier article A House Divided: The Invisibility of the Multiracial Family, we explored many of these issues as they relate to multiracial families, including our own. Specifically, we, a black female-white male married couple, analyzed the language in housing discrimination statutes to demonstrate how law and society function together to frame the normative ideal of family as heterosexual and monoracial. Our article examined the daily social privileges of monoracial, heterosexual couples as a means of revealing the invisibility of …

Complimentary And Complementary Discrimination In Faculty Hiring, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

This Article focuses on one form of discrimination in faculty hiring. Specifically, this Article concentrates on discrimination against the "overqualified" minority faculty candidate, the candidate who is presumed to have too many opportunities and thus gets excluded from faculty interview lists and consideration. In so doing, this Article poses and answers the question: "Can exclusion from interviewing pools and selection based upon the notion that one is just 'too good' to recruit to a particular department constitute an actionable form of discrimination?" Part I of this Article begins by briefly reviewing the changes in faculty diversity and inclusion at colleges …

Health Reform: What's Insurance Got To Do With It? Recognizing Health Insurance As A Separate Species Of Insurance, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

Health insurance can be, and to a large extent already is, a separate species of insurance. This article describes the different views of insurance that made health reform contentious. It argues that the goals of health reform are incompatible with conventional views of insurance. Nonetheless, reforming health insurance to achieve those goals does not require as dramatic shift as some might think, because health insurance has already become primarily a means of paying for health care, rather than a simple risk spreading device for specified losses.

Defending Disclosure In Software Licensing, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

For lack of our imagination, this article does not have the most scintillating title. However, the subject matter is critically important. We survey prominent kinds of disclosures in law and show why the disclosure tool, though subject to substantial criticism, is central to the legitimacy of any legal regime. Our working example is the American Law Institute’s “Principles of the Law of Software Contracts” (hereinafter “ALI Principles”).

The ALI Principles include three kinds of disclosure: disclosure of facts (concerning the quality of software),disclosure of terms (of standard forms), and disclosure of post-contract intentions (to pursue remote disablement of software). We …

Justice And Elegance For Hedgehogs - In Life, Law, And Literature, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

At a time when value pluralism and even value polarization seem to be undeniable facts of contemporary life, Ronald Dworkin unrepentantly defends the unity of value. His point of departure is the Greek poet Archilochus’s saying, “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing,” made famous in liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s essay, The Hedgehog and the Fox. In his forthcoming book, Justice for Hedgehogs, Dworkin argues for the integration of ethics, personal morality, and political morality and contends that law is a branch of political morality that in turn is a branch of morality, broadly understood. …

Cautions On The Use Of Economics Experiments In Law, Kathryn Zeiler

Faculty Scholarship

The recent move to import empirical results into law and policymaking have introduced challenges related to drawing proper inferences from quantitative studies. The purpose of this essay is to elaborate on three specific cautions on the use of economics experiment results. First, critiques of experiment designs based on external and ecological validity are often misplaced. Second, some legal scholars have fallen into the problematic habit of applying results from experiments directly to law and policy rather than applying well-supported theories. Third, the divergent purposes behind economics studies and legal scholarship give rise, in part, to problematic cherry picking of experimental …

Revolution In Pragmatist Clothing: Nationalizing Workplace Law, Jeffrey M. Hirsch

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Identity Scripts & Democratic Deliberation, Holning S. Lau

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ageism And Psychological Well-Being In Older Adults, Jenny Denver

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Despite being faced with difficulties such as declining physical health and negative stereotypes, older adults are often able to maintain a positive sense of well-being in the face of such challenges (Mroczek & Kolarz, 1998). This finding is known as the paradox of well-being. The present study examined this phenomenon as it relates to the experience of ageism, reactions to aging as interpreted through identity process theory, and psychological well-being. The study is an exploratory examination of these factors in a sample of 137 community-dwelling older adults. It was hypothesized that 1) a greater experience of ageism would be associated …

The Age Of Innocence: A Cautious Defence Of Raising The Age Of Consent In Canadian Sexual Assault Law, Janine Benedet

All Faculty Publications

In 2008, Canada raised the age of consent to sexual activity with an adult from 14 years of age to 16. This change was motivated, in part, by several high profile cases of internet “luring” of younger teenagers. This article considers whether raising the age of consent has had any benefits. It begins by discussing the history and development of age of consent laws in Canada. The justification for a statutory age of consent has shifted from one based on the age at which a girl is deemed to be sexually available to one based on her capacity to give …

The Psychology Of Good Character, Alice Woolley, Jocelyn Stacey

All Faculty Publications

This paper explores the significance of the changing nature of the good character requirement for law society admission in Canada. It posits that good character has shifted from a philosophical concept into a psychological concept, with evidence of past bad acts claimed to be relevant for whether an applicant represents a future risk to the public. This shifting conception of character has, however, been only partial, and the decision-making processes of Canadian law societies have not kept pace with it. Instead, the decision-making process defines character generally and generically, with only occasional emphasis on character as a relevant predictor of …

Relationship Between Multiple Sources Of Perceived Social Support And Psychological And Academic Adjustment In Early Adolescence: Comparisons Across Gender., Sandra Yu Rueger, Christine K. Malecki, Michelle K. Demaray

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

The goal of the current study was to investigate gender differences in the relationship between multiple sources of perceived support (parents, teachers, classmates, close friends, and school) and indices of psychological and academic adjustment. As a preliminary analysis, the study provided further psychometric support for the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (CASSS: Malecki, Demaray, & Elliott, 2003). The results of the main analyses supported previous findings related to gender differences in mean levels of perceived support and extended findings demonstrating the importance of support from parents and the general peer group for both boys and girls. Overall, these results …

Lifting As We Climb: Experiences Of Black Diversity Officers At Three Predominantly White Institutions In Kentucky, Erica Nićcole Johnson

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Recently, colleges and universities across the country have created executive level positions responsible for institutional diversity. The origins of this work within higher education lay in the civil rights movements and its consequences for desegregation of higher education. Early diversity officer positions usually resided within student affairs. However, as the responsibilities of these offices have changed, the reporting lines have also changed such that diversity officers are now commonly situated within academic affairs. This exploratory study examines these administrative positions responsible for diversity at southern white institutions. The research takes an in-depth look at how these positions have shifted over …

Monetary Recoveries For State Crime Victims, Jeffrey A. Parness, Laura Lee, Ed Laube

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

Crime victim recoveries are typically available in American states through three separate, but related, avenues: a criminal proceeding (with or without a formal charge); a related civil claim (including a pre-suit settlement); and, a related administrative or special court proceeding. Multiple avenues can be pursued simultaneously. These avenues often, but not always, have constitutional as well as statutory foundations. Unfortunately state crime victims often go without recovery. Barriers to recovery include intrastate and interstate confusion over terms like restitution and victim. More can be done for victims, especially during criminal case sentencing. Unlike federal district courts, state criminal courts typically …

The Impact Of Structural Adjustment Loans On Civil Conflict, Lue Anda Francis

LSU Master's Theses

This paper examines the impact of structural adjustment loans of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on Civil Conflict. The paper argues that there are three major shortcomings to previous research on this topic. Previous research has focused more on grievances with little focus on the opportunities that may influence rebel behavior. In addition, previous research has placed little focus on the role of state capacity can play in affecting rebel behavior. As such previous research has not fully explained how both opportunities and willingness (Most & Starr 1989) are necessary conditions needed for civil conflict to occur …

A High Fat Diet Attenuates The Fermentation Effects Of Resistant Starches And Fructans, Felicia Robin Goldsmith

LSU Master's Theses

In our previous studies, ingestion of prebiotics in low fat diets resulted in decreased cecal pH from 8 to about 6 and increases in short chain fatty acids indicating robust fermentation. However, in some preliminary studies this effect on fermentation was not seen when rodents were obese and/or fed a high-fat diet. This comprehensive high-fat diet study was conducted to determine which sources and combinations of prebiotics would enhance fermentation despite a high dietary fat content. The effects of prebiotics in a high-fat diet (44% energy) on pH, cecal weights, abdominal fat, and body weight were studied in mature male …