Digital Commons Network^™

The Eminence Of Imminence And The Myopia Of Markets, Teneille R. Brown

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This article questions the privileging of disaster, or imminent threat, over more distant threats to public health. In many cases, this privileging makes sense as we do not have time to evaluate the threat under traditional frameworks. But in some cases, we privilege disaster in ways that may be ethically and legally unsound. Here I am interested in a particular type of public health threat – the negative consequences that stem from climate change. In this article I view the climate change discussion through the lens of distributive justice. I analyze the ethical as well as legal arguments for encouraging …

Through A Scanner Darkly: Functional Neuroimaging As Evidence Of A Criminal Defendant's Past Mental States, Teneille R. Brown, Emily R.D. Murphy

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

As with phrenology and the polygraph, we are again confronted with a device that the media claims to be capable of reading our minds. This new device is functional magnetic resonance imaging ("fMRI"), and it is currently being introduced to negate a criminal defendant's mens rea, such as the specific intent to kill. In this paper we will demonstrate that functional brain images should not currently be admitted into courts for this purpose. We will do so by walking through each step of the imaging methodology in plain terms, making it clear why the brain images are minimally probative when …

Protecting Crime Victims In Federal Appellate Courts: The Need To Broadly Construe The Crime Victims' Rights Act's Mandamus Provisions, Paul Cassell

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In 2004, Congress passed the Crime Victims’ Rights Act to dramatically reshape the federal criminal justice system and ensure that crime victims are treated fairly in the criminal process. An important feature of the CVRA is its provisions allowing victims to enforce their rights not only in trial courts, but also in appellate courts. Among the enforcement provisions is one guaranteeing a crime victim expedited access to appellate review. The CVRA provides that if the district court denies any relief sought by a crime victim, the victim “may petition the court of appeals for a writ of mandamus. . . …

Diversity Backlash: Examining The Caucasian Response In Homogenous And Heterogeneous Groups, Michael Dooney

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Art, Artifact, Anthropology: The Display And Interpretation Of Native American Material Culture In North American Museums, Laura Browarny

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Analyses Of Highway Project Construction Risks, Performance, And Contingency, Fahmy Diab Mohamed

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Past studies have highlighted the importance of risk assessment and management in construction projects and transportation industry, and have identified cost and time as the most important risks that transportation professionals want to understand and manage. The main focus of this study is to comprehensively analyze transportation construction risk drivers and identify the correlation of the significant risk drivers with project characteristics, cost growth, schedule growth, and project contingency. This study has adopted 31 relevant and significant programmatic and project-specific risk drivers from different past studies. These risk drivers have been analyzed and evaluated using survey responses from professionals in …

Analyses Of Highway Project Construction Risks, Performance, And Contingency, Mohamed F. Diab

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Past studies have highlighted the importance of risk assessment and management in construction projects and transportation industry, and have identified cost and time as the most important risks that transportation professionals want to understand and manage. The main focus of this study is to comprehensively analyze transportation construction risk drivers and identify the correlation of the significant risk drivers with project characteristics, cost growth, schedule growth, and project contingency. This study has adopted 31 relevant and significant programmatic and project-specific risk drivers from different past studies. These risk drivers have been analyzed and evaluated using survey responses from professionals in …

Regioselective And Enantioselective Nitrone Cycloadditions To Alkynones., Kelsey Lynn Dunkle

Chemistry and Biochemistry

There has been a need in agriculture, medicine, and organic chemistry for enantiopure isoxazolines. A direct method for their synthesis is from the cycloaddition of 1,3-dipoles and alkynes. Alkynones are difficult substrates to use in cycloadditions due to their high reactivity and sometimes instability. Due to their high reactivity it is often difficult to control regio- endo/exo, and enantioselectivities in dipolar cycloadditions of alkynones. This thesis details the cycloadditions of nitrones and alkynones using chiral Lewis acids leading to isoxazolines with high regio-and enantiocontrol. A chiral bisoxazoline-zinc(II) complex successfully catalyzed the enantioselective 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction of nitrone and alkynone derivatives. …

An Investigation Of The Kerogen-Mineral Interactions In Green River Oil Shale, Kristin Nadiene Alstadt

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Green River oil shale contains minerals, kerogen, and bitumen and yields a significant amount of oil upon heating. Kerogen is the insoluble organic remains found in sedimentary materials. It is a precursor to crude oil and is one of the most abundant forms of carbonaceous materials on earth. The richest oil shale deposits in the world are found in the Green River Formation located in the states of Utah, Wyoming and Colorado in the United States with the potential to be a major national resource. Current extraction methods involve heating the shale to high temperatures in order to decompose and …

Durability Of Concrete Members Strengthened With Cfrp Sheets Under Harsh Environmental Conditions, Md. Mozahid Hossain

Civil and Environmental Engineering

The deterioration of concrete structures 1s a maJor concern to the infrastructure community. Typical sources of deterioration may include aging,.incrcased service load, and environmental damage. Structural rehabilitation using carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets has recently attracted attention to the infrastructure community because of the superior strengthening effects in comparison to conventional repair methods. The CFRP sheets may be bonded on the deteriorated concrete structure using bonding agents to enhance load-carrying capacity. The most important consideration in such a strengthening method may be the long term durability under harsh environmental conditions. Furthermore, premature debonding of bonded CFRP sheets may also …

Policy Responses To The Closure Of Manufactured Home Parks In Oregon, Andrée Tremoulet

Dissertations and Theses

This is a case study about policy responses to a specific form of gentrification at the urban fringe: the closure of manufactured home parks in Oregon.

The study analyzes the following research questions: (a) What factors affected the quantity and distribution of manufactured home parks? (b) Why did parks close? (c) How did the state legislature respond and why? (d) What are the likely impacts of the state response? A wide variety of sources (e.g., key informant interviews, observations of meetings and public hearings, focus groups of park residents, archival materials and secondary data about manufactured home parks) are employed …

The Creative Use Of Dance/Movement Therapy Processes To Transform Intrapersonal Conflicts Associated With Sexual Trauma In Women, Emily Fern Dayton

Dissertations and Theses

Abstract This qualitative research explores creative movement processes such as dance/movement therapy (DMT), authentic movement (AM), and creative dance (CD) as possible tools for transforming sexual trauma for women. Eleven movement professionals were interviewed in a semi-structured research format. My direct experience and knowledge of sexual abuse, sexual trauma, and creative movement processes are interwoven with the research question: do creative dance/movement therapy processes contribute to the dynamic of healing for women transforming sexual trauma? These findings are inconclusive for the greater population of survivors of sexual abuse and sexual trauma. However, there are indications that DMT, AM, and CD …

Visions And Voices: An Arts-Based Qualitative Study Using Photovoice To Understand The Needs And Aspirations Of Diverse Women Working In The Sex Industry, Moshoula Capous Desyllas

Dissertations and Theses

The ways in which sex workers have been studied and represented historically, socio-politically and academically do not take into account their voices, subjective experiences and participation in the process. Women working in the sex industry are seldom heard and their needs are consistently defined and represented by others. This contributes to the stereotyping and stigmatization of sex workers, while academic research is consistently being done on sex workers instead of with them. This study uses the arts-based research method of photovoice with individuals working in the sex industry in Portland, Oregon to understand their needs and aspirations through their own …

An Environment-Based Education Approach To Professional Development: A Mixed Methods Analysis Of The Creeks And Kids Watershed Workshop And Its Impact On K-12 Teachers, Tiffany Bridgette Austin

Dissertations and Theses

This research is an in-depth study of an environment-based education (EBE) professional development program titled "Creeks and Kids" that models how to employ thematic instruction about watersheds using the environment of a school and its community as a context to integrate teaching and learning about water across core subject areas. This case study investigates the EBE characteristics of the Creeks and Kids Workshop and explores how they adhere to the National Research Council's Standards for Professional Development for Teachers of Science. A mixed-methods analysis gathered qualitative data about the overall experience of teacher-participants during the Creeks and Kids Workshop and …

Removing Textured Artifacts From Digital Photos Using Spatial Frequency Filtering, Ben Huang

Dissertations and Theses

An abstract of the thesis of Ben Huang for the Master of Science in Electric and Computer Science presented [August 12nd, 2010]. Title: Removing textured artifacts from digital photos by using spatial frequency filtering Virtually all image processing is now done with digital images. These images, captured with digital cameras, can be readily processed with various types of editing software to serve a multitude of personal and commercial purposes. But not all images are directly captured and even of those that are directly captured many are not of sufficiently high quality. Digital images are also acquired by scanning old paper …

Performance Measures For Managerial Decision Making: Performance Measurement Synergies In Multi-Attribute Performance Measurement Systems, Robert Andrew Fowke

Dissertations and Theses

This research tests for correlation between corporate performance and use of financial measures, nonfinancial measures, and number of balanced scorecard categories used. Literature notes a preference for managing by nonfinancial measures because financial measures are lagging indicators, but little empirical evidence is available on the relationship between nonfinancial measures and financial performance, and few companies are found to realize the benefits of nonfinancial measurements. The balanced scorecard has been studied to find the impact of diversity of performance measures, and anecdotal improvements have been reported, but there is a paucity of empirical evidence regarding how the use of a balanced …

Does Service Matter? An Examination Of Donor Perceptions Of Service Quality In College Athletics, Stephen L. Shapiro

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Faculty Publications

Service quality has been recognized as a strategic tool for improving organizational performance. Many non-profit organizations have taken a market-based approach to fundraising, which enhances the importance of service excellence. The purpose of this investigation was to examine donor perceptions of service quality in college athletics. First, an adapted version of Sargeant's (2001) non-profit service quality instrument was examined to assess its appropriateness within the context of college athletic donors. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and validity and reliability analyses provided evidence of an adequate model fit. Subsequently, three multiple linear regression models were developed to examine the relationship between service …

From Words To Worlds: Exploring Constitutional Functionality By Beau Breslin, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

This is a review of Beau Breslin's book, "From Words to Worlds: Exploring Constitutional Functionality" (Johns Hopkins, 2009). As an antidote to what he believes to be scholarly marginalization of the "unique" aspects of a written constitution, Breslin focuses attention on seven functions of such a legal text: transforming existing orders, conveying collective aspirations, designing institutions, mediating conflict, recognizing claims of subnational communities, empowering social actors, and constraining governmental authority. This review briefly critiques Breslin's functional approach and discusses two of the more pressing goals of modern constitutionalism: managing social conflict and preserving cultural heritage.

From The Classroom To The Courtroom: Intelligent Design And The Constitution, Jay D. Wexler

Faculty Scholarship

Although the Supreme Court of the United States has never developed a single clear test for determining what kinds of state action violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, schools that attempt to teach or introduce intelligent design as a purportedly scientific alternative to evolution likely fall afoul of the First Amendment's commands. Under the Court's most relevant precedent, Edwards v. Aguillard, teaching intelligent design violates the Establishment Clause because, among other things, there is an enormous disconnect between the purpose of teaching intelligent design and its effect. Moreover, public school teachers do not possess any First Amendment right …

Pregnant Man: A Conversation, Darren Rosenblum, Noa Ben-Asher, Mary Anne Case, Elizabeth Emens, Berta E. Hernandez-Truyol,, Vivian M. Gutierrez, Lisa C. Ikemoto, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Jacob Willig-Onwuachi, Kimberly Mutcherson, Peter Siegelman, Beth Jones

Faculty Scholarship

I'm a law professor who works on gender, sexuality, and culture in the international and comparative context. That's my head working. In "real" life, my partner, Howard, and I have been engaged in having a baby together for several years, a project that came to fruition with the birth of our daughter Melina. Of course, such a project evokes intensely complex feelings and thoughts. Beyond a simple transposition of the personal onto the political, I feel so fortunate to have engaged in myriad conversations with a variety of friends and colleagues who think much more carefully about the family and …

The Olympic Games And The Triple Bottom Line Of Sustainability: Opportunities And Challenges, Joseph Weiler, Arun Mohan

All Faculty Publications

Growing public expectations that the Olympic Movement and Olympic Host City Organizing Committees be socially, environmentally and economically responsible has made a commitment to integrate sustainability principles and practices a common theme in the bids of cities competing to host the Games. To understand the growing role of sustainability as an Olympic theme, the authors trace the evolution of the sustainability aspirations of the Olympic Movement by looking at the key Olympic Games and bids in this process. The authors determine that unlocking the potential of the Olympic Games to use sport to attract new audiences to sustainable living cannot …

Human Rights And American Bioethics: Resistance Is Futile, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The Borg are always confident that humans will be assimilated into their collective hive and therefore that, as they say, “resistance is futile.” In Star Trek, of course, the humans always successfully resist. Elizabeth Fenton and John Arras, like the Borg, resist the idea that humans are uniquely special as well as the utility of the human rights framework for global bioethics. I believe their resistance to human rights is futile, and I explain why in this essay. Let me begin with their subtitle, because we do seem to agree that popular culture is a powerful aid to understanding human …

Cloud Computing: Storm Warning For Privacy?, Nicole Ozer, Chris Conley

Faculty Scholarship

“Cloud computing” - the ability to create, store, and manipulate data through Web-based services - is growing in popularity. Cloud computing itself may not transform society; for most consumers, it is simply an appealing alternative tool for creating and storing the same records and documents that people have created for years. However, outdated laws and varying corporate practices mean that documents created and stored in the cloud may not have the same protections as the same documents stored in a filing cabinet or on a home computer. Can cloud computing services protect the privacy of their consumers? Do they? And …

In Defense Of Appearances: What Caperton V. Massey Should Have Said, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

In June of 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the first time that an elected judge must recuse himself from a case that involves a major campaign contributor. In Caperton v. A. T. Massey Coal Co., a coal company had been hit with a $50 million jury verdict. While appealing this verdict, the company's CEO, Don Blankenship, spent $3 million to help a challenger, Brent Benjamin, who had no judicial experience, defeat the incumbent, West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw. Blankenship funded political attack ads by a political organization (And for the Sake of the Kids) that …

International Law And African Judiciaries: The Example Of South Africa, Erika George

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, commentators have questioned the extent to which African courts would rely upon foreign law or resort to rules of international law in their domestic decision making. I Comparatively, the African continent offers an interesting and important point of departure for exploring the influence of international law on domestic legal systems. While Africa boasts a number of new constitutional democracies, Africa is also home to a number of countries that remain burdened by colonial legacies and conflict.

It would not be unreasonable to expect international and foreign law to meet with considerable resistance or to be rejected as …

Liberty Lost: The Moral Case For Marijuana Law Reform, Eva Nilsen

Faculty Scholarship

Marijuana policy analyses typically focus on the relative costs and benefits of present policy and its feasible alternatives. This Essay addresses a prior, threshold issue: whether marijuana criminal laws abridge fundamental individual rights, and if so, whether there are grounds that justify doing so. Over 700, 000 people are arrested annually for simple marijuana possession, a small but significant proportion of the 100 million Americans who have committed the same crime. In this Essay, we present a civil libertarian case for repealing marijuana possession laws. We put forward two arguments corresponding to the two distinct liberty concerns implicated by laws …

Aerobic Training Increases Skin Perfusion By A Nitric Oxide Mechanism In Type 2 Diabetes, Sheri R. Colberg, Laura C. Hill, Henri K. Parson, Kathleen S. Thomas, Aaron I. Vinik

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Faculty Publications

It is well known that a number of locally released vasodilatory and vasoconstrictive compounds can affect skin perfusion. This study investigated the effects of aerobic training on the contribution of nitric oxide (NO), prostaglandins (PG), and endothelial-derived hyperpolarizing factor (EDHF) in stimulated dorsal foot skin perfusion in individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2DM). Ten previously sedentary, older individuals with T2DM (57.0 ± 3.1 years) and nine sedentary controls (53.5 ± 3.2 years) were tested before and after undertaking six months of moderate aerobic training three times weekly in a supervised setting. All subjects underwent measurement of baseline (32°C) and heat-stimulated …

Using Knowledge Of Student Cognition To Differentiate Instruction, Silvana M.R. Watson, Robert A. Gable

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Faculty Publications

By all accounts, learning is a complex task that requires a student to use and apply a range of cognitive skills. A student's ability to retain information while performing concurrent processing, often referred to as working memory (WM), is critical to the acquisition of increasingly more complex knowledge and skills. Not surprisingly, WM is often linked to successful learning and student academic achievement. According to the academic literature, WM is a very useful measure of a student's capability to acquire new information². Most students are able to successfully respond to classroom instruction that requires them to rely on their WM …

Maximizing Societal Benefits Associated With Alternative Fuel Subsidies: The Case Of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles, Samir Nazir

Theses

Government seeks to improve the welfare of its citizenry and intervenes in marketplaces to maximize benefits when externalities are not captured. By analyzing how welfare changes from area to area across the country in response to the same intervention informs where government should act. This thesis analyzes the case of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). PHEVs have many societal benefits, including improving national security, economic, environmental, and health advantages. The magnitude and distribution of these benefits depends on where PHEVs are deployed. This thesis develops and applies a methodology to determine if the benefits from PHEV deployment vary across the …

Analysis Of Symmetric Key Establishment Based On Reciprocal Channel Quantization, David Wagner

Theses

Methods of symmetric key establishment using reciprocal quantization of channel parameters in wireless Rayleigh and Rician fading channels are considered. Two important aspects are addressed through generic analysis: impact of a proximity attack by a passive eavesdropper and achievable key establishing rates. The analysis makes use of the National Institute of Standards and Technology statistical test suite applied to the channel quantization bits as the outputs of a random number generator. For proximity attacks, a passive mobile eavesdropper with an ability to approach one of the communicating parties and a possible signal-to-noise ratio advantage is assumed. The minimal required distance …