Digital Commons Network^™

Automated Vehicles Are Probably Legal In The United States, Bryant Walker Smith

Texas A&M Law Review

This article provides the most comprehensive discussion to date of whether so-called automated, autonomous, self-driving, or driverless vehicles can be lawfully sold and used on public roads in the United States. The short answer is that the computer direction of a motor vehicle’s steering, braking, and accelerating without real-time human input is probably legal. The long answer, which follows, provides a foundation for tailoring regulations and understanding liability issues related to these vehicles.

The article’s largely descriptive analysis, which begins with the principle that everything is permitted unless prohibited, covers three key legal regimes: the 1949 Geneva Convention on Road …

The Precarious Position Of Same-Sex Divorce In Texas, Shawna M. Young

Texas A&M Law Review

Currently, same-sex couples that are legally married in a jurisdiction that recognizes same-sex marriage may not be able to divorce if they move to Texas. Of the few cases tried in Texas, most courts refused to grant the samesex divorce because the courts refused to recognize the underlying marriage. Because these couples cannot simply return to the granting state due to most states’ divorce residency requirements, they cannot divorce and face untold issues due to this inability. While Texas does offer the opportunity for the couple to declare the marriage void, declaring the marriage void is not an adequate legal …

When The Author Owns The World: Copyright Issues Arising From Monetizing Fan Fiction, Steven D. Jamar, Christen B’Anca Glenn

Texas A&M Law Review

Fan fiction is amateur writing that imaginatively reinvents a work in pop culture while maintaining the identifiable aspects of the preexisting work. Fans of various books, films, and television series write their own versions of the stories and post them online in fan fiction communities. Fan fiction as practiced today is a way for fans to creatively express themselves and become integrated into the story and world they love. The stories range from highly derivative works, where relatively few plot points are changed, to entirely new plot lines using the same world and characters of the original, underlying work. Some …

Contesting Disclaimer-Of-Reliance Clauses By Efficiency, Free Will, And Conscience: Staving Off Caveat Emptor, Shelby D. Green

Texas A&M Law Review

Mark Twain’s famous remark, “The report of my death was an exaggeration,” has become most apt in recent years as it pertains to the purported demise of the rule of caveat emptor in real estate transactions. An ancient maxim of law, caveat emptor puts a buyer on his guard to discover defects in things purchased, with no general duty by a seller to disclose defects of which he has knowledge. Despite the apparent abrogation of the concept by legislative and judicially-imposed- disclosure obligations, a new phenomenon has emerged that allows a seller of real property, or related real property services, …

Miniaturized Antenna Design For Wireless Biomedical Sensors, Mohannad M. Alharbi

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is focused on the design and simulation of miniaturized antennas for wireless biomedical sensors. The motivation of the work was to provide a solution for wireless systems that are embedded or placed on the body. Currently, small antennas are on demand to be implanted inside the body or placed closely to the body. The performance of such antennas, gain and efficiency, is affected by the lossy tissues that surround them. The goal of this work was to design antennas that are placed on a living body and integrated with a sensor system implanted in living tissue, to measure …

Advancing The Grounded Study Of Religion And Society In Latin America, Richard L. Wood

Sociology Faculty and Staff Publications

In rediscovering the interpenetration of popular culture and politics in Latin America, and thus the ways these realms mutually constitute one another, scholars have also witnessed the analytic irruption of one particular cultural fi eld: religion. Close attention to grassroots political culture allows us to probe how peoples spiritual subjectivity and political subjectivity overlap and cross-fertilize one another. In the process, religion shapes political outcomes in ways often unintended. Two further analytic insights are discussed: First, analysis of lived religion must partially decenter religious institutions from the focus of analysis but also pay attention to how institutions shape spiritual and …

Tourniquets—A Review With Recommendations, Seth Mccord

UNM Orthopaedic Research Journal

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Human Amniotic Membrane For Cartilage Repair: A Sheep Study, Samuel K. Tabet, David M. Conner

UNM Orthopaedic Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Experimental Analysis Of Nest-Site Choice And Its Relationship To Nest Success In An Open-Cup–Nesting Passerine, Sarah Cancellieri, Michael T. Murphy

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Nest placement presumably reflects selection for secure sites to minimize failure. Most tests of this hypothesis, however, have failed to support it. We used artificial nests (ARTs) to experimentally evaluate nest-site-choice behavior by an open-cup–nesting bird, the Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus). In 2010 and 2011, we placed ARTs in trees in the riparian zone at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon, USA, to test whether (1) characteristics describing the physical location in trees of used and unused ARTs differed, (2) used ART sites more closely resembled naturally chosen sites, (3) successful natural nests (NATs) and successful ARTs were similarly …

Introduction - In Search Of Common Ground On Abortion: From Culture War To Reproductive Justice, Justin Murray, Meredith Esser, Robin West

Articles & Chapters

This book is available on https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315588124 DOI https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315588124 eBook ISBN9781315588124

The Choice Is Yours! Researchers Assign Subject Metadata To Their Own Materials In Institutional Repositories, Maira Bundza

University Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

The Digital Commons platform for institutional repositories provides a three-tiered taxonomy of academic disciplines for each item submitted to the repository. Since faculty and departmental administrators across campuses are encouraged to submit materials to the institutional repository themselves, they must also assign disciplines or subject categories for their own work. The expandable drop-down menu of about 1,000 categories is easy to use, and facilitates the growth of the institutional repository and access to the materials through the Internet.

Tosca - Total Operations Management For Safety Critical Activities: Industry Needs For Innovative Methods, Olga Aneziris, Zoe Nivolianitou, Myrto Konstantinidou, Ioannis Papazoglou, Tom Kontogiannis, Chiara Leva, Nora Balfe, Emmanuel Plot, Marko Gerbec, Valerio Cozzani, Marco Pontigia

Conference papers

The Total Operations Management for Safety Critical Activities (TOSCA) project is a European Project aimed at an innovative approach able to integrate and enhance safety, quality and productivity. The scope of TOSCA is to work out a well-established and economically suitable framework in which the most innovative tools and techniques (advanced 3D software, virtual reality, innovative theoretical models, updated information exchange protocols etc.) are operated together in order to get advantage of the possible synergies in processing standards requirements, fulfill regulations, improve safety and enhance productivity. The work that has been performed and is presented in this paper aims at …

Converting Benchslaps To Backslaps: Instilling Professional Accountability In New Legal Writers By Teaching And Reinforcing Context, Heidi K. Brown

Articles & Chapters

A search in published and unpublished court decisions for derivations of phrases like "poorly written brief" or "failure to follow court rules" yields an alarming multitude of case opinions in which judges admonish lawyers of all levels of experience for shoddy briefs or for flouting non-negotiable substantive and procedural rules. Legal bloggers have affectionately dubbed these public reprimands "benchslaps."

Section I of this article provides a contextual background that professors and practitioners can share with rookie legal writers, using judicial opinions to demonstrate the eight most-common ways that attorney work product falls short of judges' expectations and, more importantly, how …

Multifunctional Gold Nanocarriers For Cancer Theranostics - From Bench To Bedside And Back Again?, Joao Conde, Furong Tian, Pedro V. Baptista, Jesús M. De La Fuente

Books / book chapters

No abstract provided.

2nd Place Research Paper: Effects Of Cognitive Interventions On The Cognition Of Patients Diagnosed With Dementia, Kiersten Kelly

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

The aim of this literature review was to test the hypothesis: If a patient diagnosed with dementia participates in a cognitive intervention, then they will develop fewer cognitive deficits than a patient diagnosed with dementia who does not participate in a cognitive intervention.

Recent literature was systematically searched using several databases. A total of 20 empirical articles were included in this review. Inclusion criteria consisted of a diagnosis of dementia for each participating patient. Each study includes an experimental group of patients who participated in a cognitive intervention and a control group of patients who did not participate in a …

Water For New Mexico Rivers, Beth Bardwell, Adrian Oglesby

Water Matters!

The Rio Grande, the Pecos, the Gila, the San Juan, the Canadian—New Mexico’s rivers are synonymous with the state’s culture and natural heritage. New Mexicans overwhelmingly care about the health of the state’s rivers and that includes flows to support fish and river dependent wildlife. Rivers, wetlands, and riparian areas comprise a very small part of our landscape—a mere 1 percent. This 1 percent plays an essential role in renewing the state’s water supply for its two million residents; for sustaining the state’s second largest industry—tourism; for producing food and fiber; and for sustaining New Mexico’s web of life. Eighty …

Inter-Basin Water Transfers, Anne Minard

Water Matters!

Inter-basin water transfers move water from one watershed to another. As droughts constrict the availability of water, and cities grow larger and thirstier, such transfers are increasingly being eyed as a solution. Although inter-basin transfers usually do not increase the overall availability of water in a state, they can move water to where it is needed most. Some of the main proponents of inter-basin transfers are pro-growth city and state governments as the re-allocation of water across watersheds allows for flexibility in planning for future growth.

Neutrosophic Principle Of Interconvertibility Matter-Energy Information, Florentin Smarandache, Stefan Vladutescu

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The research aims to reveal and prove the thesis of the neutral and convertibility relationship between constituent constructive elements of the universe: matter, energy and information. The approach perspective is a computationally-communicative neutrosophic one. We configure a coherent and cohesive ideation line. Matter, energy and information are fundamental elements of the world. Among them, there is an inextricable multiple, elastic and evolutionary connection. The elements are defined by the connections between them. Our hypothesis is that the relationship between matter, energy and information is a neutral one. This relationship is not required by the evidence. At this level, it does …

Use Of Incentive-Based Pricing: Cataloguing Current Water Rate Structures And Analyzing Community Adopter Characteristics For Select Municipalities In New Mexico, Ashley M. Hooper

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

Facing water scarcity, population growth, and issues of climate change, New Mexico municipalities should consider incentive-based pricing (IBP), empirically shown to encourage conservation. Given that adoption of IBP will likely be affected by community and political will, it is important to know what socio-economic and demographic factors may influence a municipalitys decision to adopt. As such, this research descriptively summarizes and catalogues the use of IBP structures for a select sample of 30 NM communities; further, t-tests are used to statistically investigate significant differences in a select set of 12 community characteristics between those that adopt IBP and those that …

Past, Present, Future: The Evolution Of A Wetland Treatment System In Dutchman Canyon On Vermejo Park Ranch, Zoe Isaacson

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

The purpose of this research was to track the evolution of a constructed wetland system through time while taking into consideration anthropogenic perturbations to the system. It was accomplished by reviewing 30 years-worth of literature associated with the project site, gleaning relevant information, and then synthesizing the information to form a complete evolutionary timeline. In August 2012 a wetland was constructed using water from the evaporation ponds. The Dutchman Canyon wetland, a continuous flow, free surface wetland, was thus formed. The wetland was intended to passively treat poor-quality mine seepage and impart an improved wetland habitat for a diversity fauna …

The International War Against Doping: Limiting The Collateral Damage From Strict Liability, Thomas W. Cox

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the World Anti-Doping Code are largely considered the model for an effective and well-coordinated antidoping regime. This model has allowed numerous sports and various countries to secure the same rules for domestic and international athletes. Within this regime, strict liability for prohibited substances stands as the "cornerstone." Strict liability has allowed antidoping officials to prosecute doping violations through an effective testing regime. However, this principle occasionally implicates innocent athletes with no intention of performance enhancement. This Note proposes that WADA modify its criteria for including substances on the Prohibited List and suspend strict liability …

Learning With Laz, Cynthia R. Chambers

ETSU Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Functional Genomics Of Acclimation And Adaptation In Response To Thermal Stress In Daphnia, Lev Y. Yampolsky, Erliang Zeng, Jacqueline Lopez, Patricia J. Williams, Kenneth B. Dick, John K. Colbourne, Michael E. Pfrender

ETSU Faculty Works

Background: Gene expression regulation is one of the fundamental mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity and is expected to respond to selection in conditions favoring phenotypic response. The observation that many organisms increase their stress tolerance after acclimation to moderate levels of stress is an example of plasticity which has been long hypothesized to be based on adaptive changes in gene expression. We report genome-wide patterns of gene expression in two heat-tolerant and two heat-sensitive parthenogenetic clones of the zooplankton crustacean Daphnia pulex exposed for three generations to either optimal (18°C) or substressful (28°C) temperature. Results: A large number of genes responded …

Recognition Functions Of Pentameric C-Reactive Protein In Cardiovascular Disease, Alok Agrawal, Toh B. Gang, Antonio E. Rusiñol

ETSU Faculty Works

C-reactive protein (CRP) performs two recognition functions that are relevant to cardiovascular disease. First, in its native pentameric conformation, CRP recognizes molecules and cells with exposed phosphocholine (PCh) groups, such as microbial pathogens and damaged cells. PCh-containing ligand-bound CRP activates the complement system to destroy the ligand. Thus, the PCh-binding function of CRP is defensive if it occurs on foreign pathogens because it results in the killing of the pathogen via complement activation. On the other hand, the PCh-binding function of CRP is detrimental if it occurs on injured host cells because it causes more damage to the tissue via …

Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (Pedv) Co-Infection Induced Chlamydial Persistence/Stress Does Not Require Viral Replication, Robert V. Schoborg, Nicole Borel

ETSU Faculty Works

Chlamydiae may exist at the site of infection in an alternative replicative form, called the aberrant body (AB). ABs are produced during a viable but non-infectious developmental state termed "persistence" or "chlamydial stress." As persistent/stressed chlamydiae: (i) may contribute to chronic inflammation observed in diseases like trachoma; and (ii) are more resistant to current anti-chlamydial drugs of choice, it is critical to better understand this developmental stage. We previously demonstrated that porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) co-infection induced Chlamydia pecorum persistence/stress in culture. One critical characteristic of persistence/stress is that the chlamydiae remain viable and can reenter the normal developmental …

The Tlr9 Ligand, Cpg-Odn, Induces Protection Against Cerebral Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury Via Activation Of Pi3k/Akt Signaling., Chen Lu, Tuanzhu Ha, Xiaohui Wang, L. Liu, Xia Zhang, Erinmarie Olson Kimbrough, Zhanxin Sha, Meijian Guan, John Schweitzer, John Kalbfleisch, David Williams, Chuanfu Li

ETSU Faculty Works

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) have been shown to be involved in cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. TLR9 is located in intracellular compartments and recognizes CpG-DNA. This study examined the effect of CpG-ODN on cerebral I/R injury. C57BL/6 mice were treated with CpG-ODN by i.p. injection 1 hour before the mice were subjected to cerebral ischemia (60 minutes) followed by reperfusion (24 hours). Scrambled-ODN served as control-ODN. Untreated mice, subjected to cerebral I/R, served as I/R control. The effect of inhibitory CpG-ODN (iCpG-ODN) on cerebral I/R injury was also examined. In addition, we examined the therapeutic effect of CpG-ODN on cerebral I/R injury …

Β-Arrestin2/Mir-155/Gsk3Β Regulates Transition Of 5'-Azacytizine-Induced Sca-1-Positive Cells To Cardiomyocytes, Jing Zhao, Yimin Feng, Hui Yan, Yangchao Chen, Jinlan Wang, Balvin Chua, Charles Stuart, Deling Yin

ETSU Faculty Works

Stem-cell antigen 1-positive (Sca-1+) cardiac stem cells (CSCs), a vital kind of CSCs in humans, promote cardiac repair in vivo and can differentiate to cardiomyocytes with 5'-azacytizine treatment in vitro. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are unknown. b-arrestin2 is an important scaffold protein and highly expressed in the heart. To explore the function of b-arrestin2 in Sca-1+ CSC differentiation, we used b-arrestin2-knockout mice and overexpression strategies. Real-time PCR revealed that b-arrestin2 promoted 5'-azacytizine-induced Sca-1+ CSC differentiation in vitro. Because the microRNA 155 (miR-155) may regulate b-arrestin2 expression, we detected its role and relationship with b-arrestin2 and glycogen synthase kinase 3 …

Do Municipal Stat Programs Improve Services And Reallocate Resources? Evidence From Louiestat, Jamie Giles

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Performance metrics and municipal stat programs are becoming increasingly popular to measure performance of city departments in order to improve services and save taxpayers’ dollars. The intent of this research is to give decision makers a better understanding to what extent municipal stat programs make an impact on the departments being measured, using an analysis of Metro Louisville’s LouieStat as evidence. Understanding the effect of PerfomanceStat tools will provide insight for the Louisville Administration and for other cities considering using a similar tool.

The literature finds performance management tools to be more widely used as a management tool to influence …

Academic Asset Or Instructor’S Indulgence? The Effect Of Arts & Cultural Institutions On Academic Achievement, Hank Harned

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Across the country arts and cultural institutions seek to preserve our past and use it to educate our future. As their exhibits expand these institutions have become treasures in their own rights; places like the Smithsonian Institute are landmarks that attract visitors from around the world. In addition to travelers they also attract school groups. For decades schools have been using “field trips” to museums as a way to supplement their curriculum. But do these trips actually benefit the students or are they a waste of resources? This project aims to evaluate whether these institutions are an asset to academics …

Nonprofit Organizations & Social Media Fundraising: An Analysis Of The Goodgiving Guide Challenge, Laura Whitaker

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

In today’s age of social media and interconnectedness, nonprofit organizations have the ability to be creative in their fundraising efforts. One method of online fundraising is a social media campaign, such as the GoodGiving Guide Challenge, an eight-week online charitable giving campaign for nonprofit organizations across Central Kentucky.

A review of related literature shows that previous studies have touched on the growing trend of social media as a nonprofit marketing tool, the role of internet in the nonprofit sector in general, the return on investment in nonprofit internet use, and the importance of accountability and trust in terms of online …