Digital Commons Network^™

The Universality Of Medicaid At Fifty, Nicole Huberfeld

Faculty Scholarship

This essay, written for the Yale Law School symposium on The Law of Medicare and Medicaid at 50, explores how the law of Medicaid after the ACA creates a meaningful principle of universalism by shifting from fragmentation and exclusivity to universality and inclusivity. The universality principle provides a new trajectory for all of American health care, one that is not based on individual qualities that are unrelated to medical care but rather grounded in non-judgmental principles of unification and equalization (if not outright solidarity). This essay examines the ACA's legislative reformation, which led to universality, and its quantifiable effects. The …

The Pneumatic Common: Learning In, With And From The Air, Derek R. Ford

Education Studies Faculty publications

Air is an immersive substance that envelopes us and binds us together, yet it has dominantly been taken for granted and left out of educational and other theorizations. This article develops a conceptualization of the pneumatic common in order to address this gap. The specific intervention staged is within recent educational literature on the common by Noah De Lissovoy, Tyson E. Lewis, and Alexander Means. This literature is surveyed and analyzed in relation to educational theory, curriculum, pedagogy, and policy. Claiming that the air is a central feature of and paradigm for the common, I then concentrate on making the …

Seeing The Whole Elephant: A Comprehensive Framework For Analyzing Resource-For-Infrastructure Contracts As Intended By The Parties, Dunia P. Zongwe

Southern African Journal of Policy and Development

The current state of scientific knowledge on resource-for-infrastructure (R4I) contracting is unclear and based on inadequate empirical grounds. As a result, it is not easy to tell a R4I contract apart from other forms of international business transactions, let alone describe it in a comprehensive, accurate and meaningful way. Such state of affairs is concerning given the dramatic transformative impact of R4I contracts. This article sheds light on R4I contracts and proposes a broad framework for analyzing these multibillion-dollar deals. It looks to the contracting parties’ intentions – as expressly set out in the texts of contractual and official documents …

Online Diagnosis Of Diabetes With Twitter Data, Farheen Ali

Masters Theses

"Innovation in technology enables people to communicate, share information and look for their needs by just sitting in rooms and going through some clicks. While social media has played a very important role in connecting people worldwide, its potential has stretched beyond the innovative idea of connecting people through their social networks. While many thought there was no meeting point for the healthcare sector and social media, it was a surprise when research and innovations have shown that social media could lay a very significant role in the health care sector.

Research has been done in developing models that could …

Characterizing The Influence Of Carbon On The Flowrate And Disinfection Efficacy Of Household Ceramic Water Filters, Jessie Yvonne Hahn

Masters Theses

"Drinking water contamination is a major cause of disease in developing countries. Point of Use (POU) water treatment technologies generally have low initial cost and allow rapid availability of improved water. Ceramic pot filters (CPFs) are a POU water source treatment technology which filter water by gravity through a porous ceramic media. Some filters in use contain carbon remnants left from the fugitive pore former as a dark carbon core. Using disk-shaped experimental ceramic filters produced in the lab to have varying levels of carbon, the percent carbon present was measured and a visual analysis method was developed to determine …

The Effects Of Physical Flash Hole Deviations On Factory-Grade Rifle Ammunition, Nicolaas Martin Schrier

Masters Theses

"The objective of this research is to determine the effect of dimensional and positional changes of the primer flash hole on the performance of factory-grade rifle ammunition. The studied variables were flash hole diameter, offset from center, and orientation of the offset in the primer pocket. Cartridge performance was quantified by measuring muzzle velocity, chamber pressure, and target grouping size (precision).

Five different flash hole diameters were tested for both the Remington .223 and Winchester .308 calibers: 1.4mm, 2.0mm (the Fiocchi standard), 2.4mm, 2.8mm, and 3.0mm. Each diameter was tested at three offsets: centered (no offset), 0.5mm from center, and …

Utilizing Learning Style Preferences And Quality Function Deployment For Curriculum Development, Julie M. Ezzell

Masters Theses

"Workplace requirements continually evolve to keep pace with the developing global market. To meet ever increasing standards, educational institutions have been investigating methods to prepare students for their future employment. Course modifications should be carefully considered to meet the requirements of all stakeholders, including those of the students. The objective of this research was to provide students with an overall better learning experience that tailors the teaching methods to his/her individual learning preferences. To meet this objective, a comprehensive survey was provided to an undergraduate course in quality. The survey documented the student's individuality when learning and made note of …

A Sentence-Based Image Search Engine, Weizhi Meng

Masters Theses

"Nowadays people are more interested in searching the relevant images directly through search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing, these image search engines have dedicated extensive research effort to the problem of keyword-based image retrieval. However, the most widely used keyword-based image search engine Google is reported to have a precision of only 39%. And all of these systems have limitation in creating sentence-based queries for images.

This thesis studies a practical image search scenario, where many people feel annoyed by using only keywords to find images for their ideas of speech or presentation through trial and error. This thesis …

Design And Implementation Of A Broker For Cloud Additive Manufacturing Services, Venkata Prashant Modekurthy

Masters Theses

"The growing number of cloud Additive Manufacturing (AM) services, offered by different providers over the Internet, makes it challenging for consumers to compare these cloud AM services to select a service of their choice. In addition, it is even more challenging for consumers to compare these cloud AM services against their personal preferences. This is because, consumers personal preferences on multiple service attributes such as price, material, accuracy, and schedule, should be considered for cloud AM service selection. The decentralized nature of these cloud AM services coupled by the need to consider consumers personal preferences during cloud AM service selection, …

Detection And Cancellation Of Sinusoidal Fading Power Variation In Wireless Communication Systems, Sushruth Sastry

Masters Theses

"Fading channel estimation in wireless communication systems depends on an expected model for fading and any assumptions made about the channel itself. The bit error rate (BER) performance of the communication system is affected by how closely these assumptions made in designing the estimation technique match the deployment environment. Any unforeseen disturbances or hindrances in the environment deteriorate the BER performance of the system when the estimation system is not designed to combat such disturbances. To deal with such unforeseen obstacles, additional mathematical models can be proposed to model such disturbances and then the estimation techniques can either be reinforced …

Freeform Extrusion Fabrication Of Titanium Fiber Reinforced 13-93 Bioactive Glass Scaffolds, Albin Thomas

Masters Theses

"Although implants made with bioactive glass have shown promising results for bone repair, their application in repairing load-bearing long bones is limited due to their poor mechanical properties as compared to human bones. This thesis study is on freeform extrusion fabrication of silicate based 13-93 bioactive glass scaffolds reinforced with titanium fibers. A composite paste was prepared with 13-93 bioactive glass filled with titanium fibers (~16 µm in diameter and aspect ratio of ~250) having 0.1 to 0.4 vol. % of the bioactive glass scaffold. This paste was then filled into a syringe manually, and then extruded through a nozzle …

Damage Detection Through Acoustic Emission Of Fracture Processes In Concrete Masonry Units, John Alexander Cain

Masters Theses

"Masonry structures are vulnerable to earthquakes; their brittleness and discontinuous formation make them susceptible to collapse. In the event of an emergency, this could be detrimental and perhaps fatal. The area of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is focused on understanding the behavior of structures for the sake of safety and predicting their longevity. One applicable technique to monitor this behavior is Acoustic Emission (AE). Acoustic Emissions are transient elastic waves released as microcracks nucleate from stress intensities, coalesce into cracks and then accumulate as damage. AE monitoring is a favorable method because it is capable of detecting cracking from within …

Best Practices Of Actively Engaged Volunteers Within A Megachurch, John M. Chase

Theses and Dissertations

In the realm of churches, recruiting, engaging, and retaining volunteers is essential for

churches to thrive. This applied dissertation was designed to identify best practices for

recruiting, engaging, and retaining volunteers within a megachurch. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to identify those factors that draw people to volunteer, keep them volunteering, and lead to their work satisfaction while they volunteer in a megachurch. The effect of demographics on volunteer satisfaction and engagement were also identified. The final product of this study was a set of best practices for any church to use to improve its volunteer program.

The …

2015-2016 Student Handbook, Nova Southeastern University

NSU Student Handbooks

No abstract provided.

Filling The D.C. Circuit Vacancies, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

This Article's initial section posits a D.C. Circuit snapshot. Part II surveys all three prospects' confirmations. Part III assesses consequences of, and extracts lessons from, the specific processes recounted. Part IV proffers suggestions for improvement.

Sticks And Stones: How The Ftc's Name-Calling Misses The Complexity Of Licensing-Based Business Models, Kristen Jakobsen Osenga

Law Faculty Publications

The purpose of this Essay is not to condemn the FTC study of PAEs. Instead, the FTC's study could be an incredibly important step in the right direction towards understanding the many complex business models that exist in the patent licensing world and how these firms affect innovation and competition.

Part I of this Essay describes the genesis of the FTC's interest in patent licensing firms and the details of the § 6(b) study. It also explores the un- derlying bases for the FTC's interest in this area, specifically the claims about how patent licensing firms impact innovation and competition. …

Study On Phase-Matched Amplification Of Coherent Electromagnetic Waves Through Co-Planar Traveling Wave Structure For Broadband Power Rf Generation, Andrew Rae Palm

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In a non-relativistic plasma regime, an electron beam with a few tens of keV is capable of producing a powerful coherent radiation when it is synchronized with a backward or forward electromagnetic wave traveling along a periodic slow wave structure with a metal corrugation or a dielectric. In particular, the forward synchronization efficiently converts the power lost from the electron beam, while being decelerated, to a RF power of forward traveling wave, which is the basic principle of RF traveling wave amplifiers (TWAs). TWAs are widely used with solid-state drivers in microwave power modules (MPMs) for long distance communications and …

Design Of Rigid Mechanical Manipulating System For Multiple Lasers, Vinay Prabhath Turaga

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to design a mechanical manipulator that is optimized for handling class IV fiber lasers used for Laser Assisted Machining (turning) of ceramics. The design should be cost effective, simple and would produce more flexibility and robustness for the machining process. At the same time, the system should also include stability, rigidness and a few degrees of freedom when compared to more expensive counterparts such as industrial robots. This concept was developed and based on Northern Illinois University's project on Laser Assisted Machining (LAM) of ceramic work pieces where turning operation was the primary objective. …

Smartphones Wandering At The Mall : A Case Study Investigating The Use Of Smartphones On English Oral Learning Skills In A Collaborative Mobile-Assisted Language Learning Environment, Anwer S. Al-Zahrani

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The rapidly ever-changing pace of technology imposes the need for integrating new emerging technologies. Under the umbrellas of mobile learning and language learning, Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) finds its promising, new spot on the surface of emerging trends in education. In both the K-12 and higher education domains, future generations are more likely to own and be closely attached to mobile technologies more than ever.;As Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) facilitates language learning via mobile devices, many students strive to improve their English learning skills. Students usually struggle with listening and speaking because of the prompt nature of most conversations, unlike …

Social Bonds, Cardiovascular Function, And Serotonin : Insights From An Animal Model, Neal Daniel Mcneal

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Social relationships positively influence psychological and biological function in humans and other mammals. The disruption of an individual's social environment through separation or death often results in social isolation, which can adversely impact mental and cardiovascular health (Frasure-Smith, Lesperance, & Talajic, 1993; Gore, 1978). The general purpose of this experiment is to further investigate neurobiological mechanisms mediating the adverse effects of social stress and focused on the role of serotonin in that relationship. An animal model was used to simulate social stress in humans. Specifically, the goal of this study is to explore the effects of sertraline hydrochloride (Zoloft) on …

Has The “Machinery Of Death” Become A Clunker?, Stephen F. Smith

Journal Articles

From the Essay

This symposium essay sounds a cautionary note while ultimately remaining agnostic about what the future holds for the death penalty. There are a variety of reasons to be skeptical about the abolitionists' newfound optimism. The usual reasons for optimism about ending the death penalty-sharp declines in public support for the death penalty and of the ultimate sanction-do not necessarily portend the demise of the death penalty. This essay argues that other factors can account for recent declines in capital punishment and that there are countervailing factors suggesting that the American death penalty is alive and well, despite …

Thermal Degradation Of Amines For Co2 Capture, Quanzhen Huang

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

In the selection of candidates for CO₂ absorption, solvent thermal degradation has become a general concern due to the significant impact on operational cost and the intention to use thermal compression from high temperature stripping to minimize the overall process energy. In this research, the impact of flue gas contaminants on Monoethanolamine (MEA) thermal degradation was investigated at elevated temperatures consistent with those in the CO₂ stripper. Nitrite, fly ash, sulfate and thiosulfate were each added to 5.0 M MEA and the contaminant-containing MEA solutions were degraded at 125 °C, 135 °C and 145 °C. MEA degrades significantly …

Nanoparticle Behavior In Biological Gels And Biofluids: The Impact Of Interactions With Charged Biogels And The Formation Of Protein Coronas On Nanoparticles, Xiaolu Zhang

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

With the rapid growth of nanotechnology, situations where nanomaterials will interact with biological systems will unquestionably grow. Therefore, it is increasingly understood that interactions between nanomaterials and biological environments will play an essential role in nanomedicine. Biological polymer networks, including mucus and the extracellular matrix, serve as a filter for the exchange of molecules and nanoparticles. Such polymer networks are complex and heterogeneous hydrogel environments that regulate transport processes through finely tuned particle-network interactions. In chapters 3 and 4, we investigate the role of electrostatics on the basic mechanisms governing the diffusion of charged molecules inside model polymer networks by …

Information (2015), Virginia Coastal Policy Center, William & Mary Law School

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

No abstract provided.

Victimization Among Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorder : An Examination Of Youth Anxiety And The Role Of Social Support, Nathan Matthew Elzinga

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This research study sought to better understand the relation between high functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and victimization from bullying. The literature thus far has identified that youth with high functioning ASD are more likely to be victimized than typically developing peers or peers with other disabilities, yet relatively little work has been done to further understand this relation. The current study sought to better understand parent-child agreement rates regarding child experiences of victimization from bullying as well as how these rates differ depending upon a child's ASD presentation. Because of the way the unique social presentation of youth with …

Women Of Color Counselor Educators : Overall Job Satisfaction And Subjective Well-Being At Predominately White Universities, Latehesha Fitch

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study explored the level of overall job satisfaction and subjective well-being among women of color counselor educators at predominately White universities. More specifically, this study focused on university factors and personal factors that contribute to their job satisfaction and subjective well-being. The women of color counselor educators in this study also highlighted recommendations for improving recruitment and retention rates in addition to providing insight on coping skills for new women entering the field. Participants consisted of tenured and non-tenured minority women counselor educators (i.e., African American/Black, Latino/Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Biracial/Multiracial, Other). Participants completed the 41-item Occupational …

Your Teacher Said What On Facebook : Application Of First Amendment Rights To Teacher Cyber Speech, Anthony M. Scarsella

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

There have been many recent instances of teachers being disciplined or terminated due to their activity on social networking sites. School administrators will likely be confronted with a growing number of reports of alleged inappropriate online teacher speech and required to make determinations regarding disciplinary action. This study researched the relevant history of judicial application of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment free speech rights for public employees; investigated how the Supreme Court applied, modified and refined the judicial test outlined in Pickering v. Board of Educ. in public employee free speech cases and; examined how the United States federal Circuit …

Nanomechanical And Scaling Behavior Of Nanoporous Gold, Nicolas J. Briot

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Nanoporous metals have recently been drawn significant interest in various fields of research. Their high surface-to-volume ratio present a strong potential for applications in sensing, catalysis, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and even in the medical field. However, the mechanical properties of nanoporous metals have not yet been well determined, as conducting mechanical tests was found to be challenging. Scaling relations linking the mechanical properties of porous materials to those of their dense counterparts are successfully and widely used for many porous metals. However, their applicability to nanoporous metals have recently been questioned, as estimations from the classic scaling relations were found …

Engineered Surface Properties Of Porous Tungsten From Cryogenic Machining, Julius M. Schoop

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Porous tungsten is used to manufacture dispenser cathodes due to it refractory properties. Surface porosity is critical to functional performance of dispenser cathodes because it allows for an impregnated ceramic compound to migrate to the emitting surface, lowering its work function. Likewise, surface roughness is important because it is necessary to ensure uniform wetting of the molten impregnate during high temperature service. Current industry practice to achieve surface roughness and surface porosity requirements involves the use of a plastic infiltrant during machining. After machining, the infiltrant is baked and the cathode pellet is impregnated. In this context, cryogenic machining is …

The Impact Of Aging And Estrogen Therapy On Synaptic Mitochondrial Bioenergetics In An Alzheimer's Mouse Model, Eric W. Hendricks

Masters Theses

Mitochondrial dysfunction, such as reductions in ATP production via oxidative phosphorylation, is a recognized pathological symptom of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease (AD). One of the known risk factors for the development of AD is the inheritance of a specific genotype of a lipid transporting protein known as apolipoprotein E (apoE). How apoE contributes to the development and progression of AD is poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between mitochondrial dysfunction and genetic predisposition to AD via apoE. Mitochondrial bioenergetics and enzymatic activity were investigated in an AD mouse model (apoE KO) …