Digital Commons Network^™

The Incredible Shrinking Confrontation Clause, Jeffrey Bellin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Sharp turns in the Supreme Court's recent Confrontation Clause jurisprudence have left scholars reeling from conflicting emotions: exhilaration, despair, denial, and soon, perhaps, cynical acceptance. While most commentators celebrated the demise of the incoherent Ohio v. Roberts framework, their excitement largely faded as the Court's decisions in Davis v. Washington and Bryant v. Michigan revealed nascent flaws in the evolving doctrine and sharply curtailed the newly revitalized confrontation right.

Recent scholarship strives to reanimate the jurisprudence by expanding the doctrinal definition of "testimonial" statements - the sole form of evidence Associate Professor, William & Mary Law School. I would like …

What Is The Essential Fourth Amendment?, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In More Essential Than Ever: The Fourth Amendment in the Twenty-First Century, Stephen Schulhofer provides a strong, popularized brief for interpreting the Fourth Amendment as a command that judicial review precede all non-exigent police investigative actions that are more than minimally intrusive. This review points out a few places where Schulhofer may push the envelope too far or not far enough, but concludes that More Essential Than Ever is a welcome reminder for scholars and the public at large that the Fourth Amendment is a fundamental bulwark of constitutional jurisprudence and deserves more respect than the Supreme Court has given …

Can The States Keep Secrets From The Federal Government?, Robert A. Mikos

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

States amass troves of information detailing the regulated activities of their citizens, including activities that violate federal law. Not surprisingly, the federal government is keenly interested in this information. It has ordered reluctant state officials to turn over their confidential files concerning medical marijuana, juvenile criminal history, immigration status, tax payments, and employment discrimination, among many other matters, to help enforce federal laws against private citizens. Many states have objected to these demands, citing opposition to federal policies and concerns about the costs of breaching confidences, but the lower courts have uniformly upheld the federal government’s power to commandeer information …

Plea Bargaining And The Right To The Effective Assistance Of Counsel: Where The Rubber Hits The Road In Capital Cases, John H. Blume

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Characteristics Of Public Alternative High Schools Specifically For Students Placed At-Risk: A National Study Using The 2003-04 And 2007-08 Schools And Staffing Survey, Masashi Izumi

Dissertations

In this study I investigated determinants of the average daily attendance (ADA) and graduation rate of public alternative high schools specifically for students placed at-risk by analyzing the nationally representative data from Schools and Staffing Surveys of 2003-04 and 2007-08. I built three models via successive block entry, predicting the ADA and graduation rate by (a) student demographics, (b) staffing characteristics, and (c) school processes. Through multiple regression analyses on ADA, I found (a) a positive relationship between career technical education and ADA; and (b) a negative relationship between teacher-student ratio and ADA. Through the set of multiple regression analyses …

An Inquiry Approach To Reading Instruction: A Case Study Of The Relationship Between Instruction And Motivation, Tammy Turri-Scodeller

Dissertations

This research is a qualitative case study analysis of the experiences of five fifth grade students who were involved in a classroom, action research project. The purpose of this action research was to measure the impact of this method of instruction on reading motivation of the fifth grade class as a whole. From the action research project, five, individual, student cases were purposefully sampled for further in-depth analysis. The objective of the individual student case study analysis was to explain how the behaviors of five students with a low level of reading achievement, activity, and motivation changed, or did not …

From Crisis To Stability: A Case Study Of Presidential Leadership At A Christian College, Jeffrey Gill

Dissertations

Despite healthy growth in past decades, in a time of national and global economic instability small, private Christian colleges now find themselves in a precarious position. Leading effectively in such colleges and universities in a time of external and/or internal crisis is a great challenge.

This research is about a small, Christian college with documented evidence of having survived two significant enrollment and financial crises (early 1990s and 2008-09), and is now stable, all under the leadership of a president who served during the 19 year time period of crisis and stability. The purpose of this study is to investigate …

Flow Measurement Accuracies Of In-Service Residential Water Meters, Devin M. Stoker, Steven L. Barfuss, Michael C. Johnson

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Water utility managers generally agree that water meters, especially mechanical water meters, experience a degradation of accuracy over time. This degradation is a function of several factors, such as wear, water quality, water velocities, throughput volumes, and installation and handling. Both a thorough understanding of the factors that affect meter accuracy and the ability to pinpoint, if possible, the optimal lifespan of any particular type of water meter in a residential distribution system are desirable for improved system management. The purpose of this article was to investigate the relationship between meter accuracy degradation and factors such as age, wear, and …

Analysis Of Genotype, Phenotype, And Age Progression In Phelan-Mcdermid Syndrome, Sara Sarasua

All Dissertations

Phelan-McDermid syndrome is a developmental disability syndrome associated with deletions of the terminal end of one copy of chromosome 22q13. The observed chromosomal aberrations include simple terminal deletions, interstitial deletions, deletions and duplications, and duplications without deletions. All patients have some degree of developmental disability and many also have hypotonia, autism, minor dysmorphic features, and seizures. I performed an epidemiological and cytogenetic investigation to better understand the etiology of Phelan-McDermid syndrome and to provide information to patients and their families, clinicians, and researchers investigating developmental disabilities. Deletions vary widely in size, from 60 kb to more than 9 Mb, but …

The Effects Of 0.2 Hz Varying Latency With 20-100 Ms Varying Amplitude On Simulator Sickness In A Helmet Mounted Display, Matthew St. Pierre

All Dissertations

The relationship between the occurrence of simulator sickness (SS) and the several characteristics of latency (i.e., added latency, amplitude of latency, and frequency of latency) in a helmet-mounted display (HMD) were explored in this study. The experience of SS while using an HMD has often been attributed to system latency. These findings are typical in research where HMDs with head trackers are used. The current study explored the effects of 200 ms added constant latency, latency varying at 0.2 Hz with a constant 100 ms amplitude, and latency varying at 0.2 Hz with a 20-100 ms varying amplitude on the …

Assessing The National Innovation System In A Developing Country Context: A Framework And Evidence From Thailand, Maleena Parkey

All Dissertations

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Molecular Genetics Of Nodule Number Regulation: Cloning, Characterization And Functional Studies Of The Root Determined Nodulator1 (Rdn1) Gene In Medicago Truncatula, Tessema Kassaw

All Dissertations

Nitrogen is critical to life. However, the majority of nitrogen on earth (in the atmosphere) is inert and unavailable to nearly all organisms. Metabolically diverse prokaryotes are the only organisms capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen; rhizobia set up a symbiosis with legume plants allowing the plants to benefit from this ability. Since nodulation and the subsequent nitrogen fixation processes are energy intensive, the host plant must balance hosting of the rhizobia by limiting the number of nodules it forms through a mechanism called Autoregulation of Nodulation (AON). My study of mutants in the model legume Medicago truncatula defective in AON …

Network Traffic Analysis Using Stochastic Grammars, Chen Lu

All Dissertations

Network traffic analysis is widely used to infer information from Internet
traffic. This is possible even if the traffic is encrypted. Previous work uses
traffic characteristics, such as port numbers, packet sizes, and frequency,
without looking for more subtle patterns in the network traffic. In this work,
we use stochastic grammars, hidden Markov models (HMMs) and probabilistic
context-free grammars (PCFGs), as pattern recognition tools for traffic
analysis.
HMMs are widely used for pattern recognition and detection. We use a HMM
inference approach. With inferred HMMs, we use confidence intervals (CI) to
detect if a data sequence matches the HMM. To …

Principals' Experiences Regarding Culturally Responsive Leadership Preparation And Practices That Promote Academic Achievement Of African American Students, Monica Brown

All Dissertations

Culturally responsive education improves the educational success of ethnically diverse students (Gay, 2002). The research presented states the case of the need of culturally responsive leadership preparation programs that influence the practice of culturally responsive principals. Emerging evidence has found that preparation programs impact the efficacy of future school leaders (Darling-Hammond, LaPointe, Meyerson, Orr, & Cohen, 2007; Jackson & Kelly, 2002). A large body of literature points to persistent achievement gaps for children of color and especially for African American males and demands that school leadership preparation attend to issues of cultural competence (Dantley, 2005; Evans, 2007; Lopez, Magdeleno, & …

Coaching Equestrian Vaulting: The Motivation Behind Volunteer Coaching, Amy Mccune

All Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to identify the primary motivations for people to become and continue as equestrian vaulting coaches. Using a nomothetic context for research, this study focused on gaining a better understanding of equestrian vaulting coaches by identifying factors that generally motivate their participation in the sport. The first research question related to what motivates someone to become a vaulting coach while the second question related to what motivates these coaches to continue in the coaching role.
Fifteen female coaches were selected for interviews from the American Vaulting Association membership. Interview questions were based on a preliminary …

Understanding The Relative Attentional Demands Of The Dimensions Of Interface Consistency, Jeremy Mendel

All Dissertations

A consistent interface is thought to be beneficial because it allows users to draw on previous training and experience when operating a new interface. Design guidelines like the eight golden rules of interface design argue that a highly consistent interface improves system usability (Shneiderman, 1987). However, interface consistency is not monolithic; instead it is a complex, multidimensional construct. I refer to the two dimensions of interface consistency as perceptual consistency (the appearance) and conceptual consistency (the functionality) of an interface. Perceptual consistency considers aspects like interface layout and orientation; conceptual consistency considers how the system operates or responds. I sought …

Key Strategies Of Sustainable Real Estate Decision-Making In The United States: A Delphi Study Of The Stakeholders, Pernille Christensen

All Dissertations

Sustainable real estate is a growing sector within the commercial real estate industry, yet there is still a lack of consistency among the multitude of sustainability performance measurements and reporting requirements around the world. As a result of this confusion, stakeholders have developed different strategies and requirements for sustainability, which in turn makes it difficult to communicate with other stakeholders about sustainability in real estate. Without the ability to communicate with other stakeholders about sustainability efforts, comparison of sustainable real estate becomes a challenge, thus impeding progress towards a competitive sustainable real estate market.
This study presents the results of …

Gene Duplication And The Evolution Of Hemoglobin Isoform Differentiation In Birds, Michael T. Grispo

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The majority of bird species co-express two functionally distinct hemoglobin (Hb) isoforms in definitive erythrocytes: HbA (the major adult Hb isoform, with α-chain subunits encoded by the α^A-globin gene) and HbD (the minor adult Hb isoform, with α-chain subunits encoded by the α^D-globin gene). The α^D-globin gene originated via tandem duplication of an embryonic α-like globin gene in the stem lineage of tetrapod vertebrates, which suggests the possibility that functional differentiation between the HbA and HbD isoforms may be attributable to a retained ancestral character state in HbD that harkens back to a primordial, …

The Impact Of Prolonged Participation In A Pro-Social Cognitive Behavioral Skills Program On Elementary Age Students, With Behavior Related Disorders, Behavior Accelerative, Behavior Reductive, And Return To Regular Classroom Outcomes, Ted H. Esser

Student Work

Overall, pretest-posttest results indicated statistically significant pretest beginning program compared to posttest ending program percentage of behavioral improvement for on task, following directions, and positive interactions outcomes improvement for individual students who completed the elementary grades pro-social cognitive behavioral skills program within one school year or less ( n = 16), within one to two school years (n = 14), and within one school year or less ( n = 15). These results indicate program intervention effectiveness for these students. The posttest ending outcomes compared to posttest ending for on task, following directions, and positive interactions outcomes for individual …

The Impact Of Teacher Administered Positive Behavioral Support Interventions On The Behavior And Achievement Of Intermediate Level Students Identified With Measured Moderate, Mild, And Low Disruptive Externalizing Behaviors, Gregory W. Betts

Student Work

Students who demonstrated moderate (n = 18), mild (n = 22), or low (n = 46) externalizing behaviors as rated by teachers on the Universal Behavior Screen at the research school decreased the amount of externalizing behaviors displayed in the research school setting. At posttest 61 students scored in the low range, 24 students scored in the mild range and one student scored in the moderate range demonstrating the effectiveness of the school wide positive behavior support program which focused on a positive proactive reinforcement intervention for all students. While posttest NeSA-Reading scores showed no significant improvement, …

Why The National Popular Vote Compact Is Unconstitutional, Norman R. Williams

BYU Law Review

Unable to secure passage of a federal constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College, several opponents of the Electoral College have sought to establish the direct, popular election of the President via an interstate compact according to which individual signatory states agree to appoint their presidential electors in accordance with the nationwide popular vote. Ostensibly designed to prevent elections, such as the one in 2000, in which the Electoral College “misfired” and chose the candidate who received fewer popular votes, the National Popular Vote Compact has been adopted by several states, including California. In this Article, I argue that the National …

The Rules Of Facebook Friendship: A Two-Stage Examination Of Interaction Rules In Close, Casual, And Acquaintance Friendships, Erin M. Bryant, Jennifer Marmo

Human Communication and Theatre Faculty Research

The present study examined friendship rules on the online social networking site Facebook. Study 1 used focus group data to inductively create a list of 36 Facebook friendship rules. Study 2 utilized survey data to examine college students’ endorsement of the various rules in close, casual, and acquaintance friendships. Results indicated five categories of Facebook friendship rules, which included rules regarding communication channels, deception and control, relational maintenance, negative consequences for the self, and negative consequences for a friend. Additionally, close friends, casual friends, and acquaintances significantly differed in their endorsement of four of the five rules categories. Results suggested …

Competition Law In Macedonia In 2011-2012: New Perspectives And New Challenges, Adnan Jashari, Nora Ziba Memeti

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

No abstract provided.

Training Tomorrow’S Lawyers: What Empirical Research Can Tell Us About The Effect Of Law School Pedagogy On Law Student Learning Styles, Eric A. Degroff

Southern Illinois University Law Journal

Generations X and Y, which together account for the vast majority of today’s law school classes, are quite unlike previous generations in their approach to learning.  Legal scholars have begun to note the disparity between the learning styles and thought processes of today’s students and many of their professors, and some have suggested that a more experiential pedagogy might enhance the learning process for many of today’s students.  Unfortunately, the academy has little empirical data to evaluate what kind of difference a more experiential approach would make. The research described in this article was designed to help bridge that gap …

Coder Reliability And Misclassification In The Human Coding Of Party Manifestos, Slava Mikhaylov, Michael Laver, Kenneth Benoit

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) provides the only time series of estimated party policy positions in political science and has been extensively used in a wide variety of applications. Recent work (e.g., Benoit, Laver, and Mikhaylov 2009; Klingemann et al. 2006) focuses on nonsystematic sources of error in these estimates that arise from the text generation process. Our concern here, by contrast, is with error that arises during the text coding process since nearly all manifestos are coded only once by a single coder. First, we discuss reliability and misclassification in the context of hand-coded content analysis methods. Second, we …

Bereavement Among Urban University Students: The Role Of Meaning Making In Adjustment To Loss, Rebecca L. Norris-Bell

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Employing Neimeyer's theory of meaning reconstruction as a guiding framework, this study examined meaning making in a diverse sample of bereaved university students. The aims of this study were to 1) identify types of meanings made about loss, 2) examine socio-demographic and bereavement-related characteristics that might influence meaning making, and 3) investigate associations between types of meanings and post-loss psychological adjustment. Participants were 229 students from an urban commuter university. This was a cross-sectional study, employing self-report data collected on a secure, Web-based system. Participants were 18 years or older and had experienced the loss of a friend or family …

Being A (Good) Student: Conceptions Of Identity Of Adult Basic Education Participants Transitioning To College, Mina Reddy

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the perceptions of identity of a category of students that has rarely been studied in the context of higher education. These are adults who have participated in GED preparation or English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses in Adult Basic Education (ABE) programs. A college education is increasingly necessary for individual economic success and a higher quality of life, and a college-educated workforce is a major element in national economic competitiveness. Rates of college enrollment and persistence of ABE students, however, are low. The study seeks to determine how ABE students and graduates conceive of their …

December 2012 Commencement Program, Bowling Green State University

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Volatile Memory Message Carving: A "Per Process Basis" Approach, Aisha Ibrahim Ali-Gombe

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The pace at which data and information transfer and storage has shifted from PCs to mobile devices is of great concern to the digital forensics community. Android is fast becoming the operating system of choice for these hand-held devices, hence the need to develop better forensic techniques for data recovery cannot be over-emphasized. This thesis analyzes the volatile memory for Motorola Android devices with a shift from traditional physical memory extraction to carving residues of data on a “per process basis”. Each Android application runs in a separate process within its own Dalvik Virtual Machine (JVM) instance, thus, the proposed …

The Effects Of Energy Beverages In Counteracting The Symptoms Of Mild Hypoxia At Legal General Aviation Altitudes, Daniel Mark Bull

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to conduct preliminary research, in the form of a pilot study, concerning the natural effects of hypoxia compared to the effects of hypoxia experienced after the consumption of an energy beverage. The study evaluated the effects of hypoxia on FAA certificated pilots at a simulated legal general aviation altitude, utilizing the normobaric High Altitude Lab (HAL) located at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Florida. The researcher tested 11 subjects, who completed three simulated flight tasks within the HAL using the Frasca International Mentor Advanced Aviation Training Device (AATD). The flight tasks were …