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Foreward: Erie's Gift, Jay Tidmarsh

Journal Articles

Sometimes described as "one of the modem cornerstones of our federalism," Erie stands at its narrowest for a simple proposition: When a federal court decides a claim whose source is state law, the court must apply the same substantive common-law rules that a state court would apply to the claim. Dictated by statute, by policy, and by the Constitution, this result seems "superbly right" to many. Indeed, Erie's narrow holding is not controversial today.

Optimal Class Size, Opt-Out Rights, And "Indivisible" Remedies, Jay Tidmarsh, David Betson

Journal Articles

Prepared for a Symposium on the ALI’s Aggregate Litigation Project, this paper examines the ALI’s proposal to permit opt-out rights when remedies and “divisible,” but not to permit them when remedies are “indivisible.” Starting from the ground up, the paper employs economic analysis to determine what the optimal size of a class action should be. We demonstrate that, in some circumstances, the optimal size of a class is a class composed of all victims, while in other cases, the optimal size is smaller. We further argue that courts should consider optimal class size in determining whether to certify a class, …

Localism And Capital Punishment, Stephen F. Smith

Journal Articles

Professor Adam Gershowitz presents an interesting proposal to transfer from localities to states the power to enforce the death penalty. In his view, state-level enforcement would result in a more rationally applied death penalty because states would be much more likely to make capital charging decisions based on desert, without the distorting influence of the severe resource constraints applicable to all but the wealthiest of localities. As well conceived as Professor Gershowitz’s proposal is, however, I remain skeptical that statewide enforcement of the death penalty would be preferable to continued local enforcement. First, Professor Gershowitz underestimates the benefits of localism …

Development Of Risk Uncertainty Factors From Historical Nasa Projects, Tahani R. Amer

EMSE Doctoral Projects

NASA is a good investment of federal funds and strives to provide the best value to the nation. NASA has consistently budgeted to unrealistic cost estimates, which are evident in the cost growth in many of its programs. In this investigation, NASA has been using available uncertainty factors from the Aerospace Corporation, Air Force, and Booz Allen Hamilton to develop projects' risk posture. NASA has no insight into the developmental of these factors and, as demonstrated here, this can lead to unrealistic risks in many NASA Programs and projects (P/p). The primary contribution of this project is the development of …

Genetic Analysis Of Cortical Thickness And Fractional Anisotropy Of Water Diffusion In The Brain, Peter Kochunov, David C. Glahn, Thomas E. Nichols, Anderson M. Winkler, Elliot L. Hong, Joanne E. Curran, Rene L. Olvera, Matthew P. Johnson, Shelley A. Cole, John Blangero

School of Medicine Publications

Objectives: The thickness of the brain’s cortical gray matter (GM) and the fractional anisotropy (FA) of the cerebral white matter (WM) each follow an inverted U-shape trajectory with age. The two measures are positively correlated and may be modulated by common biological mechanisms. We employed four types of genetic analyses to localize individual genes acting pleiotropically upon these phenotypes.

Methods: Whole-brain and regional GM thickness and FA values were measured from high-resolution anatomical and diffusion tensor MR images collected from 712, Mexican American participants (438 females, age = 47.9 ± 13.2 years) recruited from 73 (9.7 ± 9.3 individuals/family) large …

The Impact Of Infectious Disease On Chronic Disease: A Review Of Contemporary Findings, Wendy Berke

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

Infectious diseases are among the top causes of death in adults and children. Chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer are among the top causes of death in adults. Associations between bacterial and viral infectious agents and subsequent development of chronic disease have been made in the past but are currently being reexamined with more rigor and specificity. This review examines infectious disease agent causes and associations with cancer, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, and neurodegenerative disease. These associations will impact future research, surveillance, treatment, and prevention of both infectious and chronic diseases.

Generational Shift And Drug Abuse In Older Americans, John B. White, David F. Duncan, Thomas Nicholson, Dana Bradley, John Bonaguro

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

Since the problem of substance abuse by older adults began to receive serious professional attention, the focus has been almost exclusively on alcohol abuse. This reality is changing as the “baby boomers” age. We examined data from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (1985) and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2006) comparing nationwide prevalence of both legal and illicit drugs. Use of drugs by category varied over the study period; some showed little change (e.g., alcohol) while others showed marked increase (e.g., marijuana, cocaine). We found that the population of older Americans in 2006 contained greater …

Stimulating School Reform: The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act And The Shifting Federal Role In Education, Benjamin Michael Superfine

Missouri Law Review

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), aimed at stimulating and stabilizing the American economy during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, reflects significant new dimensions of federal action in the area of educational reform. In addition to saving jobs in the educator workforce, the ARRA was designed to spark the implementation of specific reform strategies in states and schools and lay a foundation for the Obama administration's subsequent educational reform efforts, including the impending reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. While the goals of the educational reform provisions of the ARRA are laudable, …

Eeoc Reinforces Broad Interpretation Of Adaaa Disability Qualification: But What Does Substantially Limits Mean, Carol J. Miller

Missouri Law Review

Part I of this Article recognizes the difficulty in calculating how many workers are disabled. Such difficulties have been used by the courts to justify differing interpretations of what constitutes a disability. This Part also discusses the origin of the ADA and provides a brief overview of the 2008 ADAAA. Part I of the Article examines the United States Supreme Court's interpretations that narrowed the construction of what is a "substantial limitation" and what is an ADA disability. This Part highlights the lack of consensus between the courts, Congress, and the EEOC, as well as the courts' apparent disregard of …

Walking Out On The Check: How Missouri Abandoned Its Public Defenders And Left The Poor To Foot The Bill, Chris Dandurand

Missouri Law Review

This Note looks at the Pratte decision, which arose primarily from the MSPD's most recent effort to cope with its drastically insufficient level of funding. In Missouri, as in many other states, the funding crisis has manifested itself in the form of extremely high caseloads for public defender offices. Straining to prevent a system-wide collapse, the Missouri Public Defender Commission (Commission) enacted regulations that gave each district office of the public defender the power to manage its caseload. These regulations effectively gave each district office the discretion to deny representation to indigent defendants who were otherwise entitled to counsel under …

In A Class Of Their Own: The Eighth Circuit Upholds A Credit Card Agreement's Class Action Waiver And Mandatory Arbitration Clause, Lucinda Housley Luetkemeyer

Missouri Law Review

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently joined the cadre of courts to uphold class action waivers in arbitration agreements. In Cicle v. Chase Bank USA, the court held that a Missouri woman's putative class action suit against a credit card company was barred due to theclass action waiver in her card agreement's arbitration clause. The Eighth Circuit reversed a sharply worded federal district court order and rejected the plaintiff s contention that the class action waiver was a "de facto immunity provision[]" for the credit card company which would leave her and other similarly situation …

Giving A Voice To The Inanimate: The Right Of A Corporation To Political Free Speech, Alex Osterlind

Missouri Law Review

This Note examines the concept of corporate personhood and whether the state-created corporate entity is contemplated by the First Amendment. To discuss this controversy in relation to federal election laws constraining corporate financing, this Note first explains the particulars giving rise to the Citizens United case. Next, this Note examines the legislative and judicial treatment of corporate financing laws in regard to elections. Building upon this milieu, this Note presents the viewpoints of both those opposed to unrestricted corporate political speech as well as those championing a broad interpretation of the First Amendment that encompasses the corporate entity. Finally, this …

Swimming Against The Tide: The Eighth Circuit Holds That Fleeing A Police Officer In A Motor Vehicle Is Not A Crime Of Violence, Nichole Walsch

Missouri Law Review

In 2009, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that the Minnesota offense of fleeing a peace officer in a motor vehicle is not a "crime of violence" for the purposes of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines (Sentencing Guidelines), a crime of violence is defined as any state or federal offense "punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year" that involves the use of physical force against another person or that "is burglary of a dwelling, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential …

An Analysis Of E-Commerce Sales Patterns In Rural Small Business, Timothy W. Langemo

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Approach To The Synthesis Of Plakortethers A-E, Duminda Shiromalee Liyanage

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Monetary And Point Influences On Peak Shift Of The Generalization Gradient, Eevett Loshek

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Cross-Sectional Analysis Of The Observed Differences In States' Gdp Per Capita, Kienan Mick

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

No Country For End Men : A Re-Evaluation Of Small Ensemble Blackface Minstrelsy, 1843-1883, Dorothea J. Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

R.G. Collingwood's Philosophy Of History And Its Enduring Influence On Historians, Dalton R. Little

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Technical Evaluation Of Sugar Beet Pulp As An Alternative Feedstock For Bioethanol Production, Ebenezer Donkoh

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Perceptions Of Stalking : Impact Of Victim Gender And Response, Heather Ellingson

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Phenotypic Effects Of Varying The Dosage Of A Chromosome Segments Utilizing Maize B-A Translocations, Dale Cletus Brunelle

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Child Credibility And Interview Techniques In Child Physical And Sexual Abuse Cases : A Survey Of Medical Professionals, Karey O'Hara Brewster

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Ellipitic Functions As Solutions To The Schwarzschild Orbit Equation And A Model For Dark Matter Distributions In Galaxies, Matthew G. Brorby

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Optimization Of Bench Scale Fatty Acid Extraction From Thermally Cracked Crop Oil And Recovery Of The Trimethylamine Solvent, Dennis Vosgerau

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Investigation Of The Effects Of Cognitive Apprenticeship Within A Simulation-Based Learning Environment On Emergency Medical Technician (Emt) Students' Development Of Diagnostic Reasoning Skills, Sherman A. Syverson

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Overcoming Isolationism : How Woodrow Wilson Won North Dakota In The Presidential Election Of 1916, Peter Stordahl

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Gas Permeability Measurements Of Barrier Films And Hyperbranched Polymer Membranes, Zainul Abedin Sutarwala

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Spanish Newspaper Coverage Of The Burka Ban : Frames And Their Interpretations, Tetiana Vaskivska

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Fire Safety Programs, Ronald Kunda

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.