Digital Commons Network^™

Leading Unconducted Chamber Vocal Ensembles: A Case Study Of The University Of Northern Iowa Varsity Men's Glee Club Camerata, David Hoobler

Honors Program Theses

Recently, unconducted chamber vocal ensembles have emerged as one of, if not the most popular forms of vocal performing groups. TV shows such as "The Sing Off' and "Glee" showcase the musical abilities of this type of ensemble. Barbershop quartets enjoy high levels of popularity. Professional groups such as Voces8 and other groups on many college campuses are constantly in demand for performances. In addition, educators find it necessary to learn how to lead these groups especially in the state of Iowa where quartets are used for All-State auditions, and the popularity of Show Choir necessitates an unconducted vocal ensemble …

Italian Judges' Point Of View On Foreign States' Immunity, Elena Sciso

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Article gives an account of the most recent Italian practice as regarding foreign states' immunity from the jurisdiction of the forum state. In the absence of domestic laws regulating the matter, Italian courts thus far have been directly applying international customary law, making recourse to a progressive interpretation of international rules. In the past, Italian judicial practice together with the Belgian one gave a great contribution to the consolidation of the restrictive immunity theory. In the last few years, Italian courts have lifted immunity with respect to acts of a foreign state qualified as "acta iure imperii" in civil …

Foreign Official Immunity After Samantar: A United States Government Perspective, Harold H. Koh

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

I am delighted to speak here at Vanderbilt regarding the U.S. Government's perspective on Foreign Official Immunity after Samantar v. Yousuf.' In the Samantar case, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that the immunity of foreign government officials sued in their personal capacity in U.S. courts, including for alleged human rights violations, is not controlled by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, but rather, by immunity determinations made by the Executive Branch. Let me break my topic today into three parts: first, the world of foreign official immunity as it existed before the Samantar case; second, the Supreme Court's …

Due Process Rights And The Targeted Killing Of Suspected Terrorists, Benjamin Mckelvey

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with the approval of the Obama Administration, conducts targeted killings of individual suspected terrorists. These killings have significantly increased since the Iraq war and are now a central component of U.S. counterterrorism strategy. The targeted killing program consists mainly of missile strikes from Predator drones, which are unmanned aerial vehicles operated by the CIA. In May 2010, President Obama's National Security Council approved the targeted killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen and suspected al-Qaeda senior leader believed to be hiding in Yemen. As the first American targeted for extrajudicial lethal force, Aulaqi's situation quickly …

Responding To Narratives Of Sexualized Violence In The College Composition Classroom, Tessa M. Pitré

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This project examines the multiple challenges inherent in instructor response to narratives of sexualized violence within the college composition classroom. Rape, as well as other forms of sexualized violence, on university campuses is an endemic problem that affects the lives and safety of those who belong to these communities. This project considers, the multiple ways in which narratives of survival or experience of rape and other forms of sexualized violence enter the composition classroom. Drawing from the fields of trauma studies and feminist pedagogy, this paper suggests that there is an institutional failure to talk about sexualized violence in ways …

Recognition Of Library Terms And Concepts By Undergraduate Students, Lydia Ola Adedibu, Isaac Olugbenga Ajala

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study investigated the recognition of library terms and concepts used by undergraduate students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology students, Ogbomoso, Nigeria. 2,039 questionnaires were analysed. Four hypotheses were tested using Analysis of variance (ANOVA). The study revealed that the variables; age, gender, use of library, visitation to library, educational level, and familiarity with library before admission into the university were all significantly positive (P<0.01) thus influencing the extent of awareness of the respondents to the library terms, and concepts. Various recommendations such as librarians to always try to define terms, concepts, and jargon used for the first time, request for feedbacks from students either monthly, quarterly or bi-annually, and try to make access and retrieval of library resources more efficient and user friendly by using the language that users understand.

Federal Regulation And The Problem Of Adjudication, Marcia L. Mccormick

All Faculty Scholarship

After decades of deregulation, the United States seems to be entering a period of re-regulation, regulation to prevent harm that many activities might cause and also to create positive external benefits that those activities could yield, but might not without incentives. Most regulatory programs in the United States provide a blend of measures designed to create these positive external benefits, promote good practices in the industry, prevent harms, and provide those harmed with remedies. At a time in which we contemplate new ways to regulate to deal with the crises of the day and prevent the crises of tomorrow, this …

The Uncorporation And The Unraveling Of 'Nexus Of Contracts' Theory, Grant M. Hayden, Matthew T. Bodie

All Faculty Scholarship

This is a review of The Rise of the Uncorporation, by Larry E. Ribstein (Oxford University Press 2010). The Rise of the Uncorporation gives a compelling account of the increasing reliance on business forms other than the corporation. These new organizational forms - such as limited liability companies, limited liability partnerships, partnerships, and the like - give businesses greater freedom to structure themselves in ways that best facilitate their particular needs. And this, according to Ribstein, is an unqualified good, for it allows firms to operate more efficiently than if they were forced to assume an intensely regulated form.

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Nascar Green: The Problem Of Sustainability In Corporations And Corporate Law, Matthew T. Bodie

All Faculty Scholarship

The concept of "sustainability" is, at root, about a commitment to considering the future of the planet in our everyday affairs. In the corporate law context, supporters of sustainability seek to integrate these long-term environmental and social concerns into the corporation's DNA. This article seeks to explore sustainability as a corporate law concept by looking at the sustainability efforts of NASCAR and its affiliated firms. NASCAR has undertaken a series of "green" initiatives, most notably in the promotion of alternative fuels. These sustainability efforts are facilitated, in part, by the unusual structure of NASCAR and the sport of stock-car racing. …

Beyond The Tide: Beginning Admiralty With The Steamboat Magnolia, Joel K. Goldstein

All Faculty Scholarship

Admiralty is potentially one of the richest subjects in the law school curriculum. This claim may be received skeptically by those who have neither taught nor taken the course. Yet my experience as a student in, and teacher of, the course confirms my belief that Admiralty holds that promise, especially if it is presented not simply as a vehicle to train the relatively few who hope to become maritime lawyers, but as an opportunity for students with different aspirations to explore some of the most interesting issues in law. As a crosscutting course, Admiralty offers a chance to integrate materials …

The New Common Law Courts, Culture, And The Localization Of The Model Penal Code, Anders Walker

All Faculty Scholarship

Few tropes in American law teaching are more firmly entrenched than the criminal law division between Model Penal Code and common law states. Yet, even a cursory look at current state codes indicates that this bifurcation is outmoded. No state continues to cling to ancient English common law, nor does any state adhere fully to the Model Penal Code. In fact, those states that adopted portions of the Code have since produced a substantial body of case law – what this article terms “new common law” – transforming it. Taking the controversial position that criminal law pedagogy is antiquated, this …

Constitutional Rights In The Balance: Modern Exclusionary Rules And The Toleration Of Police Lawlessness In The Search For Truth, Stephen C. Thaman

All Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the tension in modern criminal procedure between the goal of ascertaining the material truth of the criminal charge and the respect for important human rights of criminal suspects during the investigation of the alleged criminal responsibility. It examines two major areas where police run the risk of violating and often do violate the constitutional rights of criminal suspects during interrogations and during invasions of privacy in the form of dwelling searches and interception of confidential communications. The approaches of modern democracies to this dilemma run from the strict exclusion of all direct and indirect evidence (fruits of …

Investors Beware: Assessing Shareholder Derivative Litigation In India And China, Ann M. Scarlett

All Faculty Scholarship

In response to the 2008 financial crisis, the United States government bailed out many business entities in exchange for equity and debt interests in such entities. It also dramatically increased the regulations imposed on businesses. This level of government ownership and intervention in corporations is rare in free-market capitalist systems such as the United States. Government ownership and control, however, are common among historically socialist countries such as India or communist countries such as China. Yet, the United States’ recent actions stand in stark contrast to the trend in India and China, which have both been moving toward more capitalist …

Cultural Understandings Of Risk And The Tyranny Of The Experts, Molly J. Walker Wilson

All Faculty Scholarship

Every year, law-makers and agency regulators, with the input of industry experts and scientists, make hundreds of decisions about how to regulate conduct and allocate resources to address various types of risks that threaten the well-being of American citizens. In fact, managing and minimizing risk is one of the most important tasks of today’s policy-makers. In spite of this fact, most actions are taken without systematic consideration of the preferences of the very people whose welfare is at stake. There are two reasons for this. First, the dominance of Traditional Risk Analysis, with its emphasis on statistics and cost-benefit analysis, …

Choosing Justices: How Presidents Decide, Joel K. Goldstein

All Faculty Scholarship

Presidents play the critical role in determining who will serve as justices on the Supreme Court and their decisions inevitably influence constitutional doctrine and judicial behavior long after their terms have ended. Notwithstanding the impact of these selections, scholars have focused relatively little attention on how presidents decide who to nominate. This article contributes to the literature in the area by advancing three arguments. First, it adopts an intermediate course between the works which tend to treat the subject historically without identifying recurring patterns and those which try to reduce the process to empirical formulas which inevitably obscure considerations shaping …

Leading The Court: Studies In Influence As Chief Justice, Joel K. Goldstein

All Faculty Scholarship

Chief Justice Roberts has now completed five years of what is likely to be a lengthy tenure in the Court’s center seat. The quality of his institutional leadership, like that of his predecessors, resists confident contemporary assessment to a unique degree among principal offices of American government inasmuch as much of what a Chief Justice does is invisible to all but a relatively few observers, most or all of whom generally remain discreetly silent about such matters. Nonetheless, history counsels that the professional and interpersonal skill which a Chief Justice displays may substantially affect the Supreme Court and the quality …

Understanding Exclusion Of The Cisg: A New Paradigm Of Determining Party Intent, William P. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

The village market of old has become a global market today. The products we use or consume on a daily basis are produced all over the world. Asparagus grown in Peru, coffee beans harvested in Guatemala, shoes made in Italy, and Japanese automobiles are all readily available to consumers throughout the United States. Moreover, U.S. companies—even small U.S. companies—have their products manufactured in foreign jurisdictions where labor is cheap and the necessary raw materials are plentiful. And those U.S. companies who do manufacture their products in the United States nevertheless often obtain their parts, components, raw materials, and supplies from …

'The Mess We’Re In': Five Steps Towards The Transformation Of Prison Cultures, Lynn S. Branham

All Faculty Scholarship

Few dispute that conditions in prisons need to be improved – that, for example, prisoners with mental-health problems need to have those problems addressed, and addressed effectively, while they are confined. But the more fundamental question is whether prisons can be, not just improved, but transformed. Transformation in this context means deep and sustained changes in the ethos of those who work and live in prisons. That ethos would reflect at least four precepts: (1) hope as an imperative; (2) the viability of renewal; (3) the catharsis that attends personal responsibility and accountability; and (4) the duty and call, extending …

Beyond Experience: Getting Retributive Justice Right, Dan Markel, Chad Flanders, David C. Gray

All Faculty Scholarship

How central should hedonic adaptation be to the establishment of sentencing policy?

In earlier work, Professors Bronsteen, Buccafusco, and Masur (BBM) drew some normative significance from the psychological studies of adaptability for punishment policy. In particular, they argued that retributivists and utilitarians alike are obliged on pain of inconsistency to take account of the fact that most prisoners, most of the time, adapt to imprisonment in fairly short order, and therefore suffer much less than most of us would expect. They also argued that ex-prisoners don't adapt well upon re-entry to society and that social planners should consider their post-release …

Spelling Murkowski: The Next Act - A Reply To Fishkin And Levitt, Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

Both Joey Fishkin’s and Justin Levitt’s responses to my article, “How Do You Spell MURKOWSKI?” deal thoughtfully with the deeper questions raised by the Murkowski litigation. They both wonder, in various ways, what the right way to think about voter assistance should be. But they approach the issue from very different angles. Fishkin focuses on the state’s obligation to assist voters: to what extent, and in what ways, is the state obligated to help voters vote? Levitt approaches the question of voter assistance from nearly the opposite angle: what responsibilities do voters have in making sure that their vote counts, …

Cost And Sentencing: Some Pragmatic And Institutional Doubts, Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

In 2010, the Missouri Sentencing Commission recommended that, in addition to offense and offender characteristics, the pre-sentencing reports prepared for the sentencing judges should also include the costs of various possible sentences. In this brief essay, I focus mainly the pragmatic case for considering cost as a factor in judicial sentencing, asking about what goals adding cost is supposed to achieve, and whether it will in fact achieve those goals. I ask three questions in particular: (1) Will including cost in the Missouri Sentencing Assessment Reports (SARs) actually change judicial behavior in the ways supporters of the reform favor? (2) …

The Present Day Genesis And Evolution Of Cave Minerals Inside The Ojo De La Reina Cave (Naica Mine, Mexico), Giovanni Badino, José Maria Calaforra, Paolo Forti, Paolo Garofalo, Laura Sanna

International Journal of Speleology

Ojo de la Reina is the first and the smallest cave intersected at the -290 level in the Naica Mine (Mexico), therefore it was the first cavity in which the lowering of temperature induced by mine ventilation caused condensation over crystals’ surface since 2005. The consequent dissolution of the gypsum crystals and subsequent condensed water evaporation lead to the deposition of several new minerals, among which some highly soluble Mg/Na compounds (bloedite, epsomite, halite, hexahydrite, kieserite, starkeyite). The single available source of Mg and Na ions in this minerogenetic environment is represented by the huge fluid inclusions widespread within the …

The Link Between Functional Behavioral Assessment And Behavioral Intervention Plans, Megan Kathleen Seamans Anderson

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The inclusion of functional behavioral assessment (FBA) and behavioral intervention plans (BIP) in the mandates of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) 2004 changed the way an educator can discipline a student with a disability . Limited research has been conducted to evaluate FBAs and BIPs completed in the school setting, more specifically the use of FBA data to inform the BIP, and compliance with IDEIA mandates. The current study examined 72 initial FBAs and BIPs completed by school teams in a Midwest regional education agency. Findings indicate the majority of teams were out of compliance with IDEIA …

Specters Of Law: Why The History Of The Legal Spectacle Has Not Been Written, Peter Goodrich

Articles

The article examines the intersection of law, theology, and visual/performance elements, arguing that legal discourse often overlooks the significance of typography, imagery, and theatricality. It highlights how legal texts use formatting techniques like bold and italics to convey meaning and draws parallels with theological concepts, such as the duality of power and the role of images in governance. The analysis critiques the legal tradition for neglecting these performative aspects and emphasizes the need to recognize law as a theater that denies its own theatricality.

The Design, Construction, And Operation Of A Two-Photon Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope, Benjamin Alexander

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

No abstract provided.

Psychopathy: Correlates Of The Mmpi-2-Rf And Ppi-R, Katherine Achsah Lisa Hall

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The present study sought to examine the utility of the MMPI-2-RF (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008) in assessing psychopathic personality traits. In past studies, the Restructured Clinical scales (RC4, RC9, RC7, and RC2) have been positive predictors of psychopathic characteristics. The aim of this study is to validate and build upon the previous research by re-examining the Restructured Clinical scales (RC4, RC9, RC7, and RC2) and investigate the MMPI-2-RF fear scales (Behavioral-Restricting Fears & Multiple Specific Fears), High-Order Scale (Behavioral/Externalizing Dysfunction), Externalizing Scale (Juvenile Conduct Problems and Substance Abuse) and the Personality Psychopathology Five scales (Negative-Emotionality/Neuroticism-Revised & Introversion/Low Positive Emotionality-Revised). It …

Examining The Relationship Between Fact Learning And Higher Order Learning Via Retrieval Practice, Pooja Agarwal

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The development of higher order skills is a desired outcome of education. Some believe that higher order learning can be improved directly, whereas others argue that higher order learning can be improved via the enhancement of factual or conceptual knowledge. The relationship between fact and higher order learning is often speculated, but empirically unknown. This project examines whether retrieval practice via quizzing, a strategy typically used to enhance fact learning, can be used as a strategy to improve higher order skills in both laboratory and applied settings. In the current study, higher order skills were considered to comprise the understand, …

Quantitative Perfusion-Sensitive Mri Phantoms, Jeff Anderson

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Perfusion-sensitive MR methods are increasingly utilized in preclinical and clinical MR research studies with the promise of providing quantitative estimates of parameters that describe in vivo microvasculature. One of these techniques, dynamic contrast enhanced: DCE) MRI, has found particularly common use in oncology for the detection, staging, and monitoring of highly vascularized tumors. DCE-MRI has been qualitatively validated by various studies that show a high correlation between modeled parameters from DCE and histologically measured microvascular density: MVD). However, in the absence of a matching "gold-standard" technique, DCE-MRI has not yet been quantitatively validated: i.e., the accuracy of the estimated parameters …

Motion-Based Video Games For Stroke Rehabilitation With Reduced Compensatory Motions, Gazihan Alankus

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Stroke is the leading cause of long-term disability among adults in industrialized nations, with 80% of people who survive strokes experiencing motor disabilities. Recovery requires daily exercise with a high number of repetitions, often without therapist supervision. Motion-based video games can help motivate people with stroke to perform the necessary exercises to recover. We explore the design space of video games for stroke rehabilitation using Wii remotes and webcams as input devices, and share the lessons we learned about what makes games therapeutically useful. We demonstrate the feasibility of using games for home-based stroke therapy with a six-week case study. …

Improving The Dispersive Optical Model Toward A Dispersive Self-Energy Method, Seth Waldecker

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The connection between the dispersive optical potential and the irreducible nucleon self-energy from Green's function theory is improved, providing a tighter link between nuclear reactions and nuclear structure. In particular, since the self-energy is inherently nonlocal, an explicitly nonlocal term is incorporated in the real part of the dispersive optical potential, which has been assumed to be local in previous parametrizations. The explicit treatment of nonlocality allows for a proper solution of the Dyson equation, and the resulting propagator can then be used to calculate experimental observables associated with ground state properties, such as the charge density, particle number, and …