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Crippled, Alyssa Sterkel

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

The Heart Of The Matter: The Function And Relational Effects Of Humor For Cardiovascular Patients, Nicholas Lee Lockwood

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study examined the possibility that cardiovascular patient health is enhanced by the intentional communication of humor and associated increases in relationship satisfaction. In an effort to study the relationship between these variables it was predicted that relationship satisfaction mediates the effects between humor functions and health. Questionnaire data was collected from members of two national support groups for patients of cardiovascular disease. Findings support humor functions distinguished in previous studies and support the hypothesis that relationship satisfaction mediates health. Specifically, distancing humor negatively predicted relationship satisfaction and health. These findings offer new insight into the variability of humor effects.

A Study Of The Perceptions Of English Faculty And Students Of Exit English Examinations At Taiwan's Technological And Vocational Higher Education Institutions, Yirng-Hurng Emma Liauh

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The mix-method research aimed to investigate the attitudes toward the implementation of Exit English Examination (EEE) from the perspectives of English faculties and their students at Taiwan's technological and vocational higher education institutions. The survey participants were 66 English faculty and 1009 students in ten first-tier Universities of Technology and Institutes of Technology in Northern Taiwan based on the admission scores of the Technological and Vocational College Entrance Examination in the school year of 2009-2010. Descriptive statistics, Chi-Square tests, Mann-Whitney U tests, Kruskal-Wallis tests, and Spearman Correlation tests of the SPSS were conducted to determine the characteristics and statistically significant …

Financial Resiliency Before, During, And After The Great Recession: Results Of An Online Study, Barbara O'Neill, Jing Jian Xiao

Human Development and Family Science Faculty Publications

Resilience can be defined as the capacity to adapt creatively to stressful life events and function well in the face of disruption, chaos, or challenging or threatening circumstances. Financial resilience is the ability to withstand both positive and negative life events that impact one’s income and/or assets. This paper describes the concept of financial resilience and results of an online study of personal resiliency resources (N =1,109) before, during, and after the recent Great Recession, including differences in financial practices between time periods. The article concludes with a discussion of findings and implications for consumer educators.

Detection Of The Sire1 Env-Like Protein, A Potential Retroviral Protein In Soybean, Garen Gaston

Master's Theses

Long terminal repeat (LTR) retroelements are mobile DNAs that are ubiquitous in eukaryotic genomes and include retroviruses, endogenous retroviruses and retrotransposons. Though retrotransposons, which are noninfectious, can make up as much as 80% of plant genomes, no traces of retroviral elements have been confirmed in plants. However, the 2000-copy soybean retrotransposon SIRE1 has an extra open reading frame, that has been described as env-like, because its conceptual translation product is predicted to have features of retroviral envelope proteins, which sponsor infectivity. Demonstrating that this region encodes an envelope protein would extend the range of endogenous retroviruses to plants. Demonstrating also …

Your Mayor, Your “Friend”: Public Officials, Social Networking, And The Unmapped New Public Square, Bill Sherman

Faculty Articles

The use of online social networks by local public officials has drawn the ire of local governments, some of whom have gone so far as to bar public officials from social networks for fear of violating campaign finance, open meeting, freedom of information, and government ethics laws. These objections overlook the unique nature of civic social networks as an emerging political institution, characterized by a high degree of transparency and intense public pressure for accountability. The nature of this new institution renders the alarmist reaction overblown. Civic social networks are the new public square, and local governments should embrace them …

The Muslim Manchurian Candidate: Barack Obama, Rumors, And Quotidian Hermeneutics, Bryan Adamson

Faculty Articles

This article examines the rumors about President Barack Obama which accused him of being Muslim, unpatriotic, and a terrorist sympathizer. Despite ample evidence that the rumors were patently false, on Election Day, fully 10% of the voters continued to believe that he was Muslim. In addition, many continued to harbor the pernicious racial, socio-ethnic, and religious biases that shaped the rumors. This article asks, and answers “why” the rumors persisted.

This article provides an answer from a unique communication theory perspective. This article first mines the sources of the Obama rumors, and how those rumors were amplified in the media. …

Compassionate Immigration Reform, Steven W. Bender

Faculty Articles

Ideals of comprehensive immigration reform have been co-opted by advocates of border and internal security and enforcement, leaving behind our aspirations as a compassionate nation of immigrants. Mindful of the tension between blind adherence to the rule of law and the goal of empathetic immigration policy, I suggest a reframing of comprehensive immigration reform as compassionate reform and sketch the details of this transformative policymaking approach.

Focusing on the life-threatening journey of undocumented immigrants and the perils they and their families face once inside the United States, I argue for a time-out on deaths at the border and on workplace …

Faces Of Immigration Reform, Steven W. Bender

Faculty Articles

Recognizing the need for a sympathetic construction of immigrants as a precursor to comprehensive immigration reform that goes beyond enforcement prerogatives, this article surveys the various “faces” of immigration reform - both of advocates for progressive reform and the potentially sympathetic group images they wield. The article concludes that no image - whether of undocumented workers generally, farm laborers, immigrant children and Dreamers, or undocumented veterans - is poised to garner sympathy from voters and policymakers, particularly against the backdrop of the current economic crisis. Reform may hinge, then, on interest convergence so powerful that it transcends the prevailing negative …

Meeting Across The River: Why Affirmative Action Needs Race And Class Diversity, Deirdre M. Bowen

Faculty Articles

This paper is a response to Richard Sander’s latest work challenging the notion that race based affirmative action is still relevant and demanding that institutions of higher education consider class based affirmative action. To support his thesis, Sander conducts an empirical study on who benefits from affirmative action.

This Article is divided into three sections, each containing a critique of Sander’s arguments and analysis. First, I briefly reframe and reiterate the history of race and ethnicity in affirmative action’s origins to directly confront the assumption that Sander makes about what affirmative action’s original purpose entailed. The goal of Part I …

Matters Of Preference: Tracing The Line Between Citizens, Democratic States, And International Law, Mark A. Chinen, Lana J. Ellis

Faculty Articles

In this Article, we assess the role the aggregation of citizen preferences into the foreign policy choices of a democratic country might play in the legitimization of international law. After addressing some of the theoretical and empirical issues associated with such an approach, we use an anticipated reaction model developed by Michael Bailey to show that even in large democracies there are mechanisms through which citizen preferences can be and are reflected in the policy choices of their representatives.

Incumbents and candidates for office take policy positions in hopes of maximizing their future election chances. Although policymakers each have their …

Labor Values Are First Amendment Values: Why Union Comprehensive Campaigns Are Protected Speech, Charlotte Garden

Faculty Articles

Corporate targets of union “comprehensive campaigns” increasingly have responded by filing civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuits alleging that unions’ speech and petitioning activities are extortionate. These lawsuits are the descendants of the Supreme Court’s unexplained treatment of much labor speech as less worthy of protection than other types of speech. Starting from the position that speech that promotes democratic discourse deserves top-tier First Amendment protection, this article argues that labor speech--which plays a unique role in civil society--should be on an equal footing with civil rights speech. Thus, even if union advocacy qualifies as legal extortion, …

An Environmental Justice Critique Of Comparative Advantage: Indigenous Peoples, Trade Policy, And The Mexican Neoliberal Economic Reforms, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Faculty Articles

The free market reforms adopted by Mexico in the wake of the debt crisis of the 1980s and in connection with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have jeopardized the physical and cultural survival of Mexico’s indigenous peoples, increased migration to the United States, threatened biological diversity in Mexico, and imposed additional stress on the environment in the United States. Despite these negative impacts, NAFTA continues to serve as a template for trade agreements in the Americas. Unless this template is fundamentally restructured, future trade agreements may replicate throughout the Western hemisphere many of the economic, ecological and social …

Climate Change, Food Security, And Agrobiodiversity: Toward A Just, Resilient, And Sustainable Food System, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Faculty Articles

The global food system is in a state of profound crisis. Decades of misguided aid, trade and production policies have resulted in an unprecedented erosion of agrobiodiversity that renders the world’s food supply vulnerable to catastrophic crop failure in the event of drought, heavy rains, and outbreaks of pests and disease. Climate change threatens to wreak additional havoc on food production by increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, depressing agricultural yields, reducing the productivity of the world’s fisheries, and placing pressure on scarce water resources. Furthermore, the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis are occurring at a …

“Surplus Humanity" And The Margins Of Legality: Slums, Slumdogs, And Accumulation By Dispossession, Tayyab Mahmud

Faculty Articles

Marooned on the outskirts of the law, more than one billion people worldwide live in urban slums and squatter settlements, mostly in the global South. Law, extra-legality, and illegality commingle in urban slums to produce spaces and subjects at the margins of legal orders and formal economies. Three enduring and inter-related features of capitalism-accumulation by dispossession, a reserve army of labor, and an informal sector of the economy-produce and sustain urban slums. The genesis and persistence of slums and slum-dwellers testify to the iron fist of the state working in concert with the hidden hand of the market in the …

Is It Greek Or Déjà Vu All Over Again?: Neoliberalism And Winners And Losers Of International Debt Crises, Tayyab Mahmud

Faculty Articles

The global financial meltdown and the Great Recession of 2007-2009 have brought into sharp relief the uneven distribution of gain and pain during economic crises. The 2009-2010 debt crisis in Greece resulted in a windfall for financial institutions at the expense of taxpayers, a rollback of welfare systems, and the impoverishment of the working classes. This outcome is consistent with the pattern that has emerged in the international debt crises of the last three decades, including the Latin American crisis during the 1980s and the Asian crisis during the 1990s.

The recurrent international debt crises of the last three decades …

Neither A Model Of Clarity Nor A Model Statute: An Analysis Of The History, Challenges, And Suggested Changes To The “New” Article 120, Hon. Jack Nevin, Joshua R. Lorenz

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Parental Precaution: Neurobiological Means And Adaptive Ends, Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook, Colin Holbrook, Martie G. Haselton

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Humans invest precious reproductive resources in just a few offspring, who remain vulnerable for an extended period of their lifetimes relative to other primates. Therefore, it is likely that humans evolved a rich precautionary psychology that assists in the formidable task of protecting offspring. In this review, we integrate precautionary behaviors during pregnancy and postpartum with the adaptive functions they may serve and what is known of their biological mediators, particularly brain systems motivating security and attachment. We highlight the role of reproductive hormones in (i) priming parental affiliation with young to incentivize offspring protection, (ii) focusing parental attention on …

Falling Through The Crack: How Courts Have Struggled To Apply The Crack Amendment To Nominal Career And Plea Bargain Defendants, Maxwell Arlie Halpern Kosman

Michigan Law Review

Under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, a defendant is normally obligated to attend all of the proceedings against her. However Rule 43(b)(2) carves out an exception for organizational defendants, stating that they "need not be present" if represented by an attorney. But on its face, the language of 43(b)(2) is ambiguous: is it the defendant or the judge who has the discretion to decide whether the defendant appears? That is, may a judge compel the presence of an organizational defendant? This Note addresses the ambiguity in the context of the plea colloquy, considering the text of several of the …

A Green Board As A Climate-Change Imperative: Appointing A Climate-Change Expert To The Audit Committee, Porcher L. Taylor Iii, Harris L. Kay

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

This article makes the innovative and timely case for a climate change imperative: a green board. Urgency is evident, with the arrival of "a fast-emerging new burden on board members to oversee their company's posture on climate change and to begin monitoring an area that, until now, has drawn scant attention in the boardroom."²¹ One major impetus for the proposal advocated in this Article is that there is apparently a dearth of green boards in corporate America.²² In contrast, European and Canadian companies appear to be at the vanguard of utilizing green boards.²³

Quantitative Carré Differential Interference Contrast Microscopy To Assess Phase And Amplitude, Donald D. Duncan, David G. Fischer, Amanda Dayton, Scott A. Prahl

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present a method of using an unmodified differential interference contrast microscope to acquire quantitative information on scatter and absorption of thin tissue samples. A simple calibration process is discussed that uses a standard optical wedge. Subsequently, we present a phase-stepping procedure for acquiring phase gradient information exclusive of absorption effects. The procedure results in two-dimensional maps of the local angular (polar and azimuthal) ray deviation. We demonstrate the calibration process, discuss details of the phase-stepping algorithm, and present representative results for a porcine skin sample.

Can Non-Invasive Sampling Determine The Inflammatory Status Of The Intra-Uterine Environment?, Daniel G. Kiefer Md, Sean M. Keeler Md, Jolene C. Muscat Md, Michael Demishev Md, Anthony M. Vintzileos Md, Nazeeh Hanna Md

Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology

No abstract provided.

Chinese Popular Opinion Towards The One Child Policy, Alyssa W. Yuen

Honors Theses

Alyssa W. Yuen: Chinese's Popular Opinion Towards the One Child Policy (Under the direction ofDr. Gang Guo)

The One Child Policy has been implemented since 1980, and is the world’s longest implemented population control policy. Popular opinion towards the policy is inevitable. This thesis attempts to explain the rationale behind the One Child Policy, the impacts the policy has had on China socially, economically, and environmentally, and the effects the policy has had on the Chinese population. The research question for this thesis is, "What affects Chinese popular opinion about the One Child Policy?”

The first section ofthis thesis illustrates …

Bermuda's Legacy: Policy, Patents, And The Design Of The Genome Commons, Jorge L. Contreras

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

You're Doing It Wrong: How The Anti-Law School Scam Blogging Movement Can Shape The Legal Profession, Lucille A. Jewel

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Policy-Induced Competition: The Case Of Cable Tv Set-Top Boxes, Ralitza A. Grigorova-Minchev, Thomas W. Hazlett

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Tempting The Sword Of Damocles: Reimagining The Copyright/Dmca Framework In A Ugc World, Jordan Sundell

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Structure-Function Analysis Of Global Pharmaceutical Linkage Regulations, Ronald A. Bouchard, Dan Cahoy, Bengt Domeij, Graham Dutfield, Tom Faunce, Aidan Hollis, Paul Jones, Feroz Ali Khader, Joel Lexchin, Heesob Nam, Juan Luis Serrano

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Food Advertising And Childhood Obesity: A Call To Action For Proactive Solutions, Roseann B. Termini, Thomas A. Roberto, Shelby G. Hostetter

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

A Failure To Comply: An Initial Assessment Of Gaps In Iom's Medical Device Study Committee, Ralph F. Hall, Eva Stensvad

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.