Digital Commons Network^™

Framing The Ebola Outbreak: Systemic Influences On News Coverage, Adaobi Vivian Duru

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT Using a media systems comparative framework, I investigated the relationship between systemic characteristics and news coverage of international events. Leveraging a highly salient event: the Ebola outbreak, I extended the Hallin and Mancini Model to non-western democracies. This dissertation explored differences in media coverage of Ebola across media systems. Findings revealed that characteristics of media systems inform how news about an event is framed by reporters. By investigating news influences, this dissertation broadly sheds light on the latent influences of politics and culture on what audiences receive as news. My results showed that liberal media systems such as those …

Reconciling The Premium Tax Credit: Painful Complications For Lower And Middle-Income Taxpayers, Francine J. Lipman, James E. Williamson

Scholarly Works

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) makes available to certain middle and lower-income individuals a refundable tax credit, the Premium Tax Credit (PTC), designed to help them pay the premiums on their qualified health care plans. To achieve Congress’s goal of making health insurance affordable, the PTC is most often provided directly to an individual’s insurance provider each month in advance of actually claiming the PTC on the individual’s year-end annual tax return. Of the almost twelve million individuals who have enrolled in health insurance through the federal and state health exchanges in 2015, 85% of these individuals …

Locked Up: Fear, Racism, Prison Economics, And The Incarceration Of Native Youth, Addie C. Rolnick

Scholarly Works

Native youth are disproportionately incarcerated, often for relatively minor offenses. One potential solution is to move more Native youth out of federal and state courts and invest in tribal juvenile justice systems. Tribal systems are assumed to be less punitive than nontribal ones, so greater tribal control should mean less incarceration. Little is known, however, about the role of incarceration in tribally run systems. This article examines available information on Native youth in tribal juvenile justice systems from 1998 to 2013. At least sixteen new secure juvenile facilities were built to house youth under tribal court jurisdiction, with federal investment …

Undetected Conflict-Of-Laws Problems In Cross-Border Online Copyright Infringement Cases, Marketa Trimble

Scholarly Works

This article provides and analyzes data on copyright infringement cases filed in U.S. federal district courts in 2013; it focuses on infringement cases involving activity on the internet and discusses actual and potential conflict-of-laws issues that the cases raised or could have raised. The article complements the report entitled "Private International Law Issues in Online Intellectual Property Infringement Disputes with Cross-Border Elements: An Analysis of National Approaches" (the "Report"), which was published by the World Intellectual Property Organization in September 2015. In the Report its author, Professor Andrew F. Christie, discusses his empirical findings about the intersection of intellectual property …

Sudden Cardiac Death In Infants, Children And Young Adults: Possible Roles Of Dietary Magnesium Intake And Generation Of Platelet-Activating Factor In Coronary Arteries, Burton M. Altura, Wenyan Li, Aimin Zhang, Tao Zheng, Nilank C. Shah, Gatha J. Shah, Bella T. Altura

The School of Health Sciences Publications and Research

Magnesium (Mg) is a co-factor for more than 500 enzymes, and is the second most abundant intracellular cation after potassium. It is vital in numerous physiological, cellular and biochemical functions and systems necessary for life. Approximately 35 years ago, our laboratory suggested that a progressive, dietary deficiency and/or metabolic induced loss of Mg from the body, beginning early in life, particularly during development of the coronary arteries, could lead to coronary arterial vasospasm, ischemic heart disease, and sudden-cardiac death (SCD). Herein, we review evidence for a brand-new, novel hypothesis which combines knowledge suggesting a combined role for hypomagnesemia and platelet-activating …

The Humanities In The Law School Curriculum: Courtship And Consummation, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

Today the humanities occupy a small corner of the law school curriculum. Might they instead become a more vibrant partner in legal education? Might law and humanities scholarship escape the pages of law reviews and teach us something important about how to read and understand the law?

Despite the long theoretical dominance of legal realism in scholarly circles, much of legal education as we know it has remained mired in Langdell's formalist vision of the law—a vision of a narrow, abstract, impersonal system bereft of human meaning and value. But we can do better. We can approach law, and teach …

Complying With The Hipaa Privacy Rule: Problems And Perspectives, Stacey A. Tovino

Scholarly Works

Twenty years ago, President Clinton signed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) into law. Over the past two decades, the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has published several sets of rules implementing the Administrative Simplification provisions within HIPAA as well as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical (HITECH) Act within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). These rules include a final rule governing the use and disclosure of protected health information by covered entities and their business associates (Privacy Rule).

This Article addresses the question of what it means for …

Gambling Disorder, Vulnerability, And The Law: Mapping The Field, Stacey A. Tovino

Scholarly Works

This Article seeks to descriptively map the sub-field of gambling disorder and the law and ask whether individuals with gambling disorder are vulnerable under the law. Like other scholarship that descriptively maps ethical, legal, and social implications of lesser known conditions and developments, this Article seeks to describe the treatment of individuals with gambling disorder in a variety of illustrative, but not exhaustive, legal contexts, to identify the limited scholarship assessing the application of the law to individuals with gambling disorder, and to invite members of the health law academy to bring their significant expertise to bear on these issues …

Inattentional Blindness: Psychological Barriers Between Legal Mandates And Progress Toward Workplace Gender Equality, Rachel J. Anderson

Scholarly Works

This Article uses a law and psychology approach to identify ways to strengthen the administration of justice in the corporate workplace. Essentially, a better understanding of human behavior provides insights that are useful in crafting effective laws and improving the implementation of existing laws. The analysis of perception gaps due to inattentional blindness uncovers an under-theorized factor contributing to an enduring problem. Part I sets out the workforce crisis at the individual, company, national, and international levels and the role of gender inequality in this crisis and the pace of change. Part II discusses perception gaps among demographic groups as …

Research Instruction And Resources In The Transactional Skills Classroom: Approaches To Incorporating Research Instruction Into Transactional Skills Courses, Lori D. Johnson, Jeanne Price, Eric H. Franklin

Scholarly Works

Professors Lori Johnson, Jeanne Price, and Eric Franklin discuss methods of teaching legal research skills in the context of a transactional law class.

Seeing Higher Education And Faculty Responsibility Through Richard Matasar's Critiques Of Law Schools: College Completion, Economic Viability, And The Liberal Arts Ideal In Higher Education, John Valery White

Scholarly Works

Professor John Valery White argues that the crisis in higher education has been framed around discomfort with and critiques of changes that have taken place in the last few decades as universities grew and became more complex, and more expensive. These arguments raise valid and significant concerns about higher education and its subcomponents like legal education but on the whole have missed the true challenge to higher education of recent years. He argues that the significant current policy push to improve college attainment has led to the loss of academic authority and leadership by higher education institutions, their administrators, and …

The Drug Court Paradigm, Jessica M. Eaglin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Drug courts are specialized, problem-oriented diversion programs. Qualifying offenders receive treatment and intense court-supervision from these specialized criminal courts, rather than standard incarceration. Although a body of scholarship critiques drug courts and recent sentencing reforms, few scholars explore the drug court movement’s influence on recent sentencing policies outside the context of specialized courts.

This Article explores the broader effects of the drug court movement, arguing that it created a particular paradigm that states have adopted to manage overflowing prison populations. This drug court paradigm has proved attractive to politicians and reformers alike because it facilitates sentencing reforms for low-level, nonviolent …

External Forces, Internal Dynamics: Foreign Legal Actors And Their Impact On Domestic Affairs (Book Review), Jayanth K. Krishnan, Vitor M. Dias, Martin Hevia

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Review examines the influence of foreign legal actors on jurisdictions that are not their own. Rachel Stern, a scholar of China, reflects on this point in her groundbreaking book published in 2013. In her penultimate chapter, Stern discusses how such foreign legal actors wield influence in China because of their presence on the ground. Building off of Stern's research, this Review proceeds to ask whether foreign legal actors can influence a domestic environment when that environment prohibits them from permanently working there. The analysis below will suggest so, arguing that the forces of globalization can enable foreign legal …

Writing For A Mind At Work: Appellate Advocacy And The Science Of Digital Reading, Mary Beth Beazley

Scholarly Works

Professor Beazley explores the future implications to appellate advocacy as we move into the digital age. Understanding how that digital world affects legal reading is vital to understanding the future of appellate advocacy. Lawyers need to understand some of the science of how people read and interact with the written word; unfortunately, we have been slow to grasp the importance of this science. She defines and explains the concepts of "Active Readers" and "Knowledge Work." She then addresses some of the issues that arise as active readers transition from paper to digital platforms. Professor Beazley concludes by describing some of …

Mobile Homes: Class, Space And Race In Idealized Landscapes Of Home, Annemarie Michele Galeucia

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores the connections between public perceptions and regulation of mobile homes, and how this connection in turn represents and regulates the bodies residing within them. Applying various qualitative methods in participant and media research, I explored the material and social/symbolic aspects of mobile homes in and around East Baton Rouge Parish, LA, as well as media (primarily news) discussing mobile homes across the United States. I sought to explore these in relation to the normative and ideal expressions and image of the American home and its relationship to idealized American landscapes. Dialectics of mobility/rootedness and physical and social …

Writing Specialist As Rescue Club, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

In this column in The Second Draft, a biennial online publication of the Legal Writing Institute featuring essays, book reviews, and shorter articles of interest to legal writing professionals, Professor Joan Howarth discusses the importance of her Writing Specialist, a key member of her faculty while Dean of Michigan State School of Law.

Paper Trails, Trailing Behind: Improving Informed Consent To Ivf Through Multimedia Applications, Jody L. Madeira, Barbara Andraka-Christou

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Though intended to educate patients on the risks, benefits, side effects and alternatives within medical treatment, informed consent documents may have unanticipated consequences for patients. Patients may regard these forms as little more than a ritual to access treatment. Or patients may perceive that these forms exist to protect doctors rather than to contribute to a meaningful, patient-protective educational interaction. To rehabilitate the informed consent project, this essay considers the baggage that informed consent documents have acquired through practical use, explores patients' and providers' lived experience of informed consent, and considers whether a multimedia consent application would be a viable …

The Mnemonic Maid: Joan Of Arc In Public Memory, Tara Beth Smithson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the relationship between Joan of Arc, postcolonial identity, and public memory. Since her repopularization in the nineteenth century, Joan of Arc has become one of the most emblematic figures of French history. Commemorated in public statuary, celebrated by writers, and championed by politicians, la Pucelle’s story is tantamount to national myth. While Joan of Arc’s centrality to France’s iconic imagining of itself during the spread of its empire has received much critical attention, her postcolonial afterlife remains understudied. This project offers a counterpoint to the prevailing assumption that Joan of Arc has few implications for postcolonial studies …

Policing And The Clash Of Masculinities, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

In 2014 and 2015, the news media inundated U.S. society with reports of brutal killings by police of black men in major American cities. Unfortunately, police departments do not typically keep data on police killings of civilians. The data that exist do show, however, that at least for a five-month period in 2015, there was a disproportionate rate of police killings of unarmed black men.

There is no question that race and class play a key role in the nature of policing that occurs in poor black urban neighborhoods. However, the relationship between police officers and their victims is not …

Data-Driven Rational Drug Design, Yun Ding

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Vast amount of experimental data in structural biology has been generated, collected and accumulated in the last few decades. This rich dataset is an invaluable mine of knowledge, from which deep insights can be obtained and practical applications can be developed. To achieve that goal, we must be able to manage such "Big Data'' in science and investigate them expertly. Molecular docking is a field that can prominently make use of the large structural biology dataset. As an important component of rational drug design, molecular docking is used to perform large-scale screening of putative associations between small organic molecules and …

Vaccinations: Weighing The Risks And Benefits, Yosis Shapiro

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Research has proven that vaccines prevent disease. Important medical organizations conclusively support and advise the administration of vaccinations to prevent diseases that once caused devastating effects both in the individual who contracted, and in communities where these diseases spread. While some groups protest against the constitutionality of vaccinating, others counter that failure to do so subjects the unvaccinated to illness and death by contracting and spreading of the sickness. Despite statistics on reduced incidence of diseases with few consequences as a result of vaccine-induced passive immunity, fears of harm secondary to vaccination loom. In the 21st Century, many people are …

Cognitive Effects Of Breastfeeding, Abraham Englard

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

This paper explores the cognitive effects of breastfeeding through Intelligence Testing and Imaging Testing that compares IQ, success, and brain structure of individuals that were breastfed, formula fed, and both breastfed and formula fed. Intelligence studies available are widespread for all age groups and signify a causal relationship between breastfeeding and intelligence. However, imaging testing is not as extensive, but shows a strong correlation between cognitive development and breastfeeding. The mechanism of breast milk’s impact on cognitive development is at an exploratory phase, with a possibility that docosahexaenoic and arachidonic acids, along with other nutrients found in breast milk, contribute …

Effects Of Vaccine Preservatives And Adjuvants On Childhood Neurodevelopment, Reut Raveh

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Parental concerns about the safety of childhood vaccinations began in the 1990’s and continue until today. A primary concern of many parents is whether the adjuvants and preservatives added to the vaccines have the potential to cause neurodevelopmental disorders in young children. An overview of various studies was done to determine if thimerosal affects childhood neurodevelopment with studies suggesting that thimerosal potentially causes neurodevelopmental disorders. However, some studies suggest the opposite. As a result it is impossible to conclude whether thimerosal affects childhood neurodevelopment. However, measures should be taken to remove thimerosal from the childhood vaccination schedule. Additionally, the studies …

Artificial Sweeteners And Weight Gain: Fighting Or Feeding The Obesity Epidemic?, Shanna Frisch

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Our world has developed an obsession with weight control and, as a result, has begun replacing high calorie foods with low-fat and non-caloric substitutes. Artificial sweeteners are a widely used solution to this growing problem. Though the intention when using artificial sweeteners is to lose weight, studies have shown that the opposite sometimes occurs. Researchers attempt to explain this surprising phenomenon with multiple hypotheses. Lack of appetite suppression and reward response may cause individuals to search for more food and to consume more calories. Artificial sweeteners can also have negative affects on biological mechanisms such as resting metabolic rate, as …

Inmate Populations In A Disaster: A Labor Force, A Vulnerable Population, And A Hazard, Jordan Carlee Smith

LSU Master's Theses

Within the disaster literature, few studies have been devoted to the role of incarcerated populations as a source of labor within the context of emergency operations. When faced with a lack of resources, emergency management rely on inmate labor forces to prepare for and respond to hazards and disasters. In the U.S., inmates from the Louisiana State Penitentiary helped with sandbagging the facilities in preparing for the potentially flooding of the Mississippi River and Hurricane Katrina (Gaillard, 2012). The state of California has long maintained inmate firefighting forces to combat destructive wildfires statewide (Goodman, 2012). However, there has never been …

Development Of Microfluidic Devices To Study Algal Chemotaxis And Long-Term Growth Dynamics, Benjamin Seth Roberts

LSU Master's Theses

Harmful algal blooms pose a threat to human health and the environment. Many complex factors influence their formation and development, and much is still unknown. One major influencing factor that is well-known yet poorly studied is algal chemotaxis. Many studies have examined chemotaxis in other organisms, but very little about chemotaxis in algae has been studied, largely because existing technology and assay techniques are inadequate. Microfluidics offers many possibilities for cell biology, and has been applied to the study of chemotaxis in other organisms already. These techniques can be applied to the study of algal chemotaxis as well. We present …

Decolonizing World History: Mis-Representations Of The Middle East In Secondary Social Studies Textbooks, Amanda Megan Schellhaas

LSU Master's Theses

This study utilizes content analysis to evaluate three United States High School World History textbook’s coverage of the Middle East since 1945 in order to determine if an authentic global approach to history is being utilized. This was determined by analyzing the amount of coverage that was dedicated to the Middle East, the focus of the narrative, and the portrayal of the Middle East. Analysis of the narrative content of the texts showed that coverage of the Middle East overall did not receive an equitable representation in comparison to other regions. The focus of this coverage centered on defining the …

Developing And Characterization Of Catfish Skin Hydrolysates Including Antioxidant And Antimicrobial Properties, Cesar Augusto Galindo Perez

LSU Master's Theses

Catfish skin (CS) contains considerable amount of protein that may be hydrolyzed enzymatically to generate hydrolysates (CSH) which may have antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. The generation of natural compounds with these properties is of special interest to the food industry. The objective of this study was to develop and characterize CSH including antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. CSH were produced from different enzymatic reaction periods using alkaline protease, and their characterization, antioxidant, antimicrobial, and some functional properties were evaluated. A selected CSH was analyzed for peptide composition and partial amino acid sequences. The color analysis showed that darker, more yellow, and …

Strategic Use Of Language In White House Twitter Communications, Margo L. Jolet

LSU Master's Theses

Lippmann (1922) theorized that we understand our world through elites and the media because we cannot experience everything ourselves. We look to others to share their experiences with us. In this way, the media and elites tell us what is important in our world. Converse (1964), Zaller (1992), and Lupia (1994) argue that not only do elites and the media help us see what is important, but they draw out attributes of these issues to help us make political determinations congruent with our belief systems. In this thesis, I conduced two studies investigating candidate, party, and White House tweets about …

Characterization Of Sulfur Chemistry In Louisiana Coastal Wetland Soils Using X-Ray Absorption Fine Structure (Xafs) Spectroscopy, Negar Dehghani Tafti

LSU Master's Theses

Sulfur is one of the most abundant elements in the environment, which plays a vital role in the growth and functioning of plants and microorganisms. It is found in an extended variety of species in gases, liquid, and solid forms and present in various nature systems. Wetlands are one of the largest global sinks/sources of sulfur. Being existing in a variety of oxidation states, sulfur contributes to biogeochemical cycles of coastal wetlands through involving in humification processes as well as influence on metal sulfide formation and consequently, methanogenesis and greenhouse gas emission. In this study, we have evaluated sulfur chemistry …