Digital Commons Network^™

Train Wreck: The U.S. Violation Of The Chemical Weapons Convention, David A. Koplow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is one of the most important multilateral arms control instruments; it requires its 188 parties to refrain from producing, acquiring, retaining or using chemical weapons (CW) and to destroy their existing CW stockpiles by a fixed date. The United States and Russia declared the possession of the world’s largest CW inventories and have been working assiduously to incinerate, chemically neutralize or otherwise dispose of their respective caches. Unfortunately, neither country met the treaty’s April 29, 2012 final, non-extendable deadline. The United States managed to destroy 90% of its CW stocks on time, but under …

Response: The Death Of The Bisexual Saboteur, Naomi Mezey

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Professor Glazer offers us, in Sexual Reorientation, an appealing and intuitive way to deal with the difficulty of bisexual identity, an identity that has always fit uneasily and sometimes quite unhappily in the LGBT rights movement. If the principal problem of bisexuality is its very temporal changeability, its tendency to dissolve into heterosexuality or homosexuality depending on the gender of one's sexual partner, then Glazer's solution is elegant. She proposes that we bifurcate (so to speak) sexual orientation into two subcategories and acknowledge for everyone both a general and a specific orientation. General orientation "is the sex toward which …

The Future Impact Of Same-Sex Marriage: More Questions Than Answers, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Same-sex relationships have already significantly altered family law, by leading to new formal relationship statuses and incorporation of the principle that both of a child’s legal parents can be of the same sex. This essay explores further changes that may lie ahead as same-sex marriage debates increasingly affect both family law and the social meanings of marriage. Marriage as an institution has changed most dramatically because of the cumulative effects of the last half-century of de-gendering family law. Same-sex marriage–and perhaps even more so, the highly visible cultural debate over it–is contributing to this process.

The author argues that the …

Women's Views On Conservation-Based Income Generation And Women's Empowerment In Kwandu Conservancy In Caprivi, Namibia, Kathryn Elizabeth Khumalo

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

While advocates of Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) contend that this decentralized approach to natural resource management has higher potential for the distribution of conservation and social benefits throughout civil society than conventional protected area approaches, there is limited empirical research to confirm it, especially regarding goals and claims of gender empowerment. To assess the impact of CBNRM on women's empowerment, this research selected Kwandu Conservancy in Namibia's Caprivi Region for in-depth study, an area with a relatively long and nationally-praised experience with CBNRM. The research was organized around the following two questions: how do women residing in Kwandu Conservancy …

Ph Modulation Of Fibril Dissociation And Copper Binding Properties Of The Prion Protein, Xu Qi

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The cellular form of prion protein (PrP^C) is a cell-surface glycoprotein attached to lipid rafts via its glycosylphosphatidylinositol anchor. Conversion of PrP^C to its "scrapie" conformer (PrP^Sc, the fibrillar form) constitutes the key event of the etiology of prion diseases. Fibril dissociation is necessary for efficient conversion and continued propagation of the disease state. Recent studies have revealed that conversion occurs along the endocytic pathway. To better understand the dissociation process, we have investigated the effect of low pH on the stability of recombinant prion fibrils. We show that under conditions that mimic the endocytic …

About Abortion: The Complications Of The Category, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

My subject this afternoon is abortion, a subject that for the last 40 years has embedded itself in American consciousness, American politics, and American culture with remarkable durability and reach. Looking only at the first decade of this century – from George W. Bush to Barack Obama, to use two presidential landmarks – abortion has been central to how Americans conceptualize, debate, and sometimes resolve all sorts of things: foreign aid, health care reform, high school sex education, and judicial nominations to the Supreme Court. Abortion has been at the heart of disputes over what products Walmart keeps on its …

The Coming Water Crisis: A Common Concern Of Mankind, Edith Brown Weiss

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay argues that fresh water, its availability and use, should now be recognized as ‘a common concern of humankind’, much as climate change was recognized as a ‘common concern of humankind’ in the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and conservation of biodiversity was recognized as a ‘common concern of humankind’ in the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. This would respond to the many linkages between what happens in one area with the demand for and the supply of fresh water in other areas. It would take into account the scientific characteristics of the hydrological cycle, address …

The Structural Role Of Private Enforcement Mechanisms In Public Law, J. Maria Glover

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The American regulatory system is unique in that it expressly relies upon a diffuse set of regulators, including private parties, rather than upon a centralized bureaucracy, for the effectuation of its substantive aims. In contrast with more traditional conceptions of private enforcement as an ad hoc supplement to public law, this Article argues that private regulation through litigation is an integral part of the structure of the modern regulatory state. Private litigation and the mechanisms that enable it are not merely add-ons to our regulatory regime, much less are they fundamentally at odds with it.

Yet mechanisms of enforcement attendant …

The Limits Of Government Regulation Of Science, John D. Kraemer, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The recent controversy over the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity’s (NSABB) request that Science and Nature redact key parts of two papers on transmissible avian (H5N1) influenza reveal a troubled relationship between science and security. While NSABB’s request does not violate the First Amendment, efforts to censor the scientific press by force of law would usually be an unconstitutional prior restraint of the press absent a compelling state interest. The constitutional validity of conditions on grant funding to require pre-publication review of unclassified research is unclear but also arguably unconstitutional.

The clearest case where government may restrict publication is …

Bison Conservation In The Northern Great Plains, Michel Thomas Kohl

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Temperate grasslands are the least protected ecosystem in the world. In North America, only < 4% of tallgrass prairie, 64% of mixed-grass prairie, and 66% of shortgrass prairie are intact. Historically, grazing played an important role in maintaining prairie landscapes through nutrient cycling and the diversification of vegetation structure and composition. Within grasslands, the plains bison (Bos bison) was the most numerous and influential grazer. However, by 1900 bison were reduced to ¡Ü 1,000 animals throughout North America. Today, bison are scattered throughout their historical range, numbering > 500,000 individuals. Recent questions have surfaced regarding the success of this effort, however, because < 21,000 plains bison are managed as conservation herds (n = 62) and 8% of those herds are managed on areas of > 2,000 km2. In addition, >100,000,000 cattle now graze rangelands in the U.S. and Canada leading to questions regarding the ecological significance of replacing bison with livestock. Our objectives were to increase knowledge regarding the ecological similarities between bison and cattle, and to determine how both species can be managed to mimic ecological patterns that approximate historical bison populations. We used behavioral observations, movement analyses, and Resource Selection Function (RSF) analyses too quantify …

Capitalism, Contraception And Chemicals: A Medical Anthropological Analysis Of The Premature Sexual Development Epidemic In Puerto Rican Females, Holly Lynn Horan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

An Investigation of Etiologies: The Biosocial Exploration of Premature Sexual Development in Puerto Rico Objective: The purpose of this study was to argue for an anthropological approach in the investigation of the world’s highest recorded prevalence of precocious puberty and premature thelarche that occurred in Puerto Rico in the late 1970s. After 30 years of biomedical research, definite etiologies of this epidemic remain unknown; prompting for a more dynamic, biosocial approach in studying this pediatric health phenomenon. Methods: This research began with a literature review of mixed-methods data. Literature sources were segmented by qualitative and quantitative methods. Each source was …

College Dating Couples' Use Of Conflict Management During A Prisoner's Dilemma Task: An Exploratory Study, Kristen E. Waldemayer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Dating violence that occurs in young college-aged couples is unique when compared to other types of violence. Aggression occurring in these couples is often bidirectional, highly impacted by situational stressors, and perpetrated by both males and females at relatively equal rates. Most importantly, dating aggression occurs within a developmental context when individuals are attempting to balance autonomy and intimacy within their relationships. However, little is known about conflict management within dating couples or if conflict management processes differ substantially for aggressive and non-aggressive dating couples. Although there has been extensive research in marital processes in conflict, only recently have researchers …

Composition, Distribution, And Conservation Of The Herpetofauna Of Santa Barbara Mountain, Honduras, Alicia Marie Ward

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Santa Barbara Mountain is an important and unique ecosystem in Honduras because of its topography and high proportion of endemic species. Despite its prospects for valuable discoveries and the profusion of threats to its biodiversity, there is almost no scientific information about Santa Barbara Mountain. This study is the first systematic investigation of hepetofauna species on the mountain. Research objectives included inventorying of the reptile and amphibian species present on Santa Barbara Mountain, identifying locations and microhabitat types where each species can be found, and determining if the amphibian disease chytridiomycosis is present and in which locations. A community education …

Consequences Of Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor Activation In Steady-State And Inflammatory Dendritic Cells, Thomas Simones

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a steroid-like transcription factor that mediates the toxicity of various environmental pollutants, including 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and TCDD-like compounds. Exposure to environmentally relevant levels of TCDD and TCDD congeners has been shown to cause immune suppression, yet the mechanisms underlying TCDD-induced immune suppression remain poorly understood. Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen presenting cells (APCs) that play an integral role in both innate and adaptive immune responses. DCs constitutively express AhR and represent a highly sensitive immune cell population to AhR activation by environmental pollutants. In a murine inflammatory bone marrow-derived DC (BMDC) model, AhR …

Exploring Visitor Experiences Along The Going-To-The-Sun Corridor Of Glacier National Park, Elena Nikolaeva

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Visitor use on the Going-to-the-Sun Road (GTSR) corridor is one of the most critical issues that Glacier National Park faces. According to the park’s General Management Plan, it should be addressed to safeguard the quality of park resources and the visitor experiences. 80% of park visitors travel along at least some part of the road, which is the primary park experience and one of the most spectacular highlights of the park. The road was built in early 1930, and now brings almost 2 million visitors annually into the heart of Glacier NP. Increased number of cars on this narrow historic …

Forgotten Sepulchers: The Uninscribed Tombs In The Valley Of The Kings In Luxor, Egypt, Roselyn Campbell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The elaborately decorated tombs in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt, have captured the imagination of scholars and tourists alike for thousands of years. Yet despite the attention lavished on these tombs, they are outnumbered in the Valley of the Kings uninscribed tombs that have been largely ignored. Excavations in several of the uninscribed tombs have demonstrated that although their walls may be bare, the tombs are certainly not empty, and a variety of finds ranging from scattered funerary objects and human remains to several nearly intact burials of high officials have been uncovered. This thesis will assemble …

Heat Acclimatization During Seasonal Wildfire Suppression, Brianna Lui

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine heat acclimatization across a 4-month fire season in the western United States. Methods: Wildland firefighters (WLFF) (n =12) and non-WLFFs (n =14) completed a 60-min heat stress trial (treadmill walking at 50% peak VO2) in a climate controlled chamber (43.3°C, 33% RH) prior to and following the fire season (May through September). Peak VO2, body composition, core (Tc) and skin (Tsk) temperatures, heart rate (HR), physiological strain index (PSI), plasma volume change, sweat rate and perceived exertion (RPE) were measured during the heat stress trials. Results: Average peak VO2 was similar …

Impacts Of Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak On Biogeochemical Cycling In A High Elevation Whitebark Pine Ecosystem, Megan Keville

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Ecological disturbances can significantly impact biogeochemical cycles in terrestrial ecosystems, but the effects of the current widespread mountain pine beetle outbreak on ecosystem processes like carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling are poorly understood. This is especially true in high elevation whitebark pine (WbP) (Pinus albicaulis) ecosystems of western North America. WbP has been described as a keystone species, providing a critical food source and regulating hydrologic regimes. However, widespread WbP mortality caused by the mountain pine beetle drives structural and physiological changes in WbP forests, which could result in shifts in pools and fluxes of C and N within …

Improving Patient-Provider Communication In The Health Care Context, Charlotte M. Glidden

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The following study focuses on ways in which health care providers seem to competently breaking bad news to patients that are college age (18-25yrs old). Breaking bad news is an inevitable and daunting part of working in the health care profession. Delivering this type of news to college age students could occur more frequently than with other cohorts. Buckman (1992) presents methodology for teaching breaking bad news to health care providers in the form of the SPIKES model, which are similar to the identified “essential elements” of communication in medical encounters described by communication scholars (Makoul, 2001). Several interviews were …

Mathematical Modeling And Disease Related Applications: A New Method Of Estimating Bacterial Mutation Rates, Dynamics Of Killer Yeast In A Chemostat, And Other Problems, Nicholas Fitzgerald Mcclure

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Among the main mechanisms of evolution we find adaptation, genetic drift, gene flow, mutation, natural selection and speciation. The following thesis explores bacterial mutation rate, mutants, mutators, and how competition acts as a driving force of adaptation.

In chapter 1, the system used in reference for mutation is the devolopment of Pseudomonas aeruginosa antibacterial resistance in the Cystic Fibrosis patients. Current methods for determining mutation rate are quite involved mathematically or complicated experimentally. A new method for estimating mutation rate is discussed and compared with two other widely used methods.

In chapter 2, a microarray data set of different strains …

Diagnosis Threat In A Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Population, Haley Gail Trontel

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The present study examined the effect of diagnosis threat on neuropsychological test performance. Forty-nine participants with a history of mTBI were randomly assigned to either a Diagnosis Threat group or a Control group. The Diagnosis Threat group was told that they were selected to participate based on their history of head injury and that they might expect to perform more poorly on testing. Participants in the Control group were told to perform to the best of their ability. It was hypothesized that individuals who had a history of mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) made salient prior to testing (Diagnosis Threat …

Effects Of Biotic Interactions On Climate-Growth Relationships Of Douglas-Fir And Ponderosa Pine, Gunnar Carnwath

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Plant processes depend on the interplay between intrinsic characteristics (e.g., photosynthetic capacity) and external variables, such as light, temperature and water availability. However, these factors are often tightly interconnected and vary significantly among species with different life history strategies and within a species across environmental gradients. Moreover, plant-plant interactions may directly affect both intrinsic variables and local environment through direct effects on resource availability and habitat structure. Yet, despite general scientific agreement that the relative effects of abiotic stress and competition are directly linked, relatively little is known about the effects of competitive interactions on climate-growth relationships of trees. This …

Finding The Center Of Gospel-Centered Therapy, Richard N. Williams

Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy

In his thoughtful paper, Dr. Robert Gleave (2012) explores what it might mean for one to claim that any therapy is gospel centered. He concludes that the idea of a gospel-centered therapy is in some sense at odds with the spirit of the restored gospel because it would slip into a prescriptive form, laying our principles that would necessarily apply across all people and circumstance, and therefore constituting a sort of grand theory. In response to Dr. Gleave's description, however, the present paper suggests that a genuinely gospel-centered theory (or a therapy derived from it) will not necessarily devolve into …

Full Issue, Issues In Religion And Psychotherapy

Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy

No abstract provided.

Bathed In The Light: Conceptual Considerations For The Gospel-Centered Psychologist, Edwin Gannt

Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy

This paper is a brief response to Dr. Robert Gleave's (2012) article " Gospel Centered 'Therapist' or Gospel Centered 'Therapy': Is There a Difference and Does It Matter?" Dr. Gleave's essay is commended for its insight, timeliness, and importance to the LDS clinical and counseling community. Three areas in which LDS therapists need to engage in careful conceptual consideration of the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of their approach to therapy are enumerated: moral agency, embodiment, and sexuality. It is argued that a gospel-centered perspective in psychology requires that the LDS therapist pay careful attention to the conceptual "fit" between these …

Exploring Psychology And Religious Experience: Relevant Issues And Core Questions, Mauro Properzi

Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy

Religious experience often involves what is perceived to be divine communication to single individuals or to humanity at large. Yet, since revelatory experiences involve both a supernatural source of truth and a human receptor who interprets and filters the message, psychology may appropriately play a role in the study and analysis of these phenomena. In this essay I provide some general suggestions on how psychology may contribute to the study of revelatory religious experiences, namely by exploring the descriptive, the pragmatic, and the functional-psychoanalytic dimensions of revelation. Indeed, by moving away from reductivist explanations and by framing analyses in the …

Encyclopedia Of The Sciences Of Learning [Book Review], Anne Jumonville Graf

Library Faculty Research

The Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning is the first major reference work in the growing and highly visible field of learning sciences. It brings together definitional entries from scholars who represent the breath of this interdisciplinary area of study, teaching, and practice: biology, neuroscience, psychology, computer and information science, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, education, and a range of narrower technical and applied fields. Given the increasing amount of scholarly and popular attention to the dimensions and questions of human learning, it’s important to note that this encyclopedia devotes equal time to animal and machine learning as well; this is a …

Reimagining Criminal Prosecution: Toward A Color-Conscious Professional Ethic For Prosecutors, Justin Murray

Publications

Prosecutors, like most Americans, view the criminal-justice system as fundamentally race neutral. They are aware that blacks are stopped, searched, arrested, and locked up in numbers that are vastly out of proportion to their fraction of the overall population. Yet, they generally assume that this outcome is justified because it reflects the sad reality that blacks commit a disproportionate share of crime in America. They are unable to detect the ways in which their own discretionary choices--and those of other actors in the criminal-justice system, such as legislators, police officers, and jurors--contribute to the staggering and disproportionate incarceration of black …

Workers Exposed To Metalworking Fluids: Evaluation Of Bioaerosol Exposure And Effects On Respiratory And Skin Health, Caroline Duchaine, Yvon Cormier, Yan Gilbert, Marc Veillette, Jacques Lavoie, Anne Mériaux, Christine Touzel, Denis Sasseville, Yves Poulin

Rapports de recherche scientifique

Cliquez ici pour la version française de ce rapport

Certains problèmes respiratoires sont observés chez les machinistes travaillant avec des fluides de coupe solubles (FC). Ces problèmes pourraient être reliés aux aérosols contenant des microorganismes présents dans les systèmes de FC. Pour mieux comprendre les effets de ces aérosols sur la santé humaine, l’environnement de travail doit être caractérisé. Nous avons détaillé la flore microbienne des FC ainsi que celle de l’air, les brouillards d’huile, les poussières inhalables et les endotoxines de 44 sites d’usinage répartis dans 25 usines du Québec. La PCR quantitative a été utilisée afin de dénombrer …

Occupational Health And Safety Of Students Who Hold Jobs During The School Year: Effects Of Concurrent School Activity And Work Constraints, Luc Laberge, Élise Ledoux, Chloé Thuilier, Michaël Gaudreault, Jeanne-Sophie Martin, Esther Cloutier, Julie Auclair, Lise Lachance, Suzanne Veillette, Claude Rozon, Marco Gaudreault, Nadine Arbour, Sandra Bescou, Thomas Agenais, Laurence Hostiou

Rapports de recherche scientifique

Cliquez ici pour la version française de ce rapport

Cette recherche s'inscrit dans la foulée des travaux publiés au Québec depuis les années 1990 qui ont contribué à l'émergence d'un nouveau champ de recherche sur le travail rémunéré chez les étudiants. Ces travaux s'intéressent plus particulièrement à l'incidence du travail rémunéré sur les études. Cependant, rares sont ceux qui ont directement abordé les atteintes potentielles à la santé en lien avec le travail rémunéré des étudiants, notamment les accidents de travail, les troubles musculo-squelettiques (TMS), la détresse psychologique et la fatigue.

Bien que les étudiants travailleurs soient moins à risque …