Digital Commons Network^™

Reflections Upon The Jurisprudence Of Justice Antonin Scalia: Selections From Securities Law, Arbitration, And Administrative Law, Anthony Michael Sabino

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Federalism And Constitutional Criminal Law, Brenner M. Fissell

Hofstra Law Review

A vast body of constitutional law regulates the way that police investigate crimes and the way that criminal cases are handled at trial. The Supreme Court has imposed far fewer rules regarding what can be a crime in the first place, how it must be defined, and how much it can be punished. What explains this one-sided favoring of “procedure” over “substance?” This Article aims to unearth and assess the justification that the Court itself most often uses when it refuses to place constitutional limits on substantive criminal law: federalism. While the Court often invokes the concept to rationalize its …

Legal Barriers And Disincentives To Self-Sufficient Disaster Preparation In The United States, Haley Palfreyman Jankowski

Hofstra Law Review

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey and a slew of other natural disasters affecting the United States, all Americans cannot help thinking about effective damage control for current and future disasters. I grew up in Houston, Texas where we went through countless hurricanes, torrential rainstorms, and the resulting power outages, and after surviving each one, we inevitably thought: What can we do to prepare better for the next one? Preparing to be self-sufficient in the aftermath of a life-changing disaster should be a top priority not just for individuals but for the government as well. After all, the more prepared …

Srnanalyzer-A Flexible And Customizable Small Rna Sequencing Data Analysis Pipeline., Xiaogang Wu, Taek-Kyun Kim, David Baxter, Kelsey Scherler, Aaron Gordon, Olivia Fong, Alton Etheridge, David J Galas, Kai Wang

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Although many tools have been developed to analyze small RNA sequencing (sRNA-Seq) data, it remains challenging to accurately analyze the small RNA population, mainly due to multiple sequence ID assignment caused by short read length. Additional issues in small RNA analysis include low consistency of microRNA (miRNA) measurement results across different platforms, miRNA mapping associated with miRNA sequence variation (isomiR) and RNA editing, and the origin of those unmapped reads after screening against all endogenous reference sequence databases. To address these issues, we built a comprehensive and customizable sRNA-Seq data analysis pipeline-sRNAnalyzer, which enables: (i) comprehensive miRNA profiling strategies to …

The Human Plasma Proteome Draft Of 2017: Building On The Human Plasma Peptideatlas From Mass Spectrometry And Complementary Assays., Jochen M Schwenk, Gilbert S Omenn, Zhi Sun, David S Campbell, Mark S Baker, Christopher M Overall, Ruedi Aebersold, Robert L Moritz, Eric W Deutsch

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Human blood plasma provides a highly accessible window to the proteome of any individual in health and disease. Since its inception in 2002, the Human Proteome Organization's Human Plasma Proteome Project (HPPP) has been promoting advances in the study and understanding of the full protein complement of human plasma and on determining the abundance and modifications of its components. In 2017, we review the history of the HPPP and the advances of human plasma proteomics in general, including several recent achievements. We then present the latest 2017-04 build of Human Plasma PeptideAtlas, which yields ∼43 million peptide-spectrum matches and 122,730 …

Widespread Theta Synchrony And High-Frequency Desynchronization Underlies Enhanced Cognition., E. A. Solomon, J. E. Kragel, Michael R. Sperling, Ashwini Sharan, G. Worrell, M. Kucewicz, C. S. Inman, B. Lega, K. A. Davis, J. M. Stein, B. C. Jobst, K. A. Zaghloul, S. A. Sheth, D. S. Rizzuto, M. J. Kahana

Department of Neurology Faculty Papers

The idea that synchronous neural activity underlies cognition has driven an extensive body of research in human and animal neuroscience. Yet, insufficient data on intracranial electrical connectivity has precluded a direct test of this hypothesis in a whole-brain setting. Through the lens of memory encoding and retrieval processes, we construct whole-brain connectivity maps of fast gamma (30-100 Hz) and slow theta (3-8 Hz) spectral neural activity, based on data from 294 neurosurgical patients fitted with indwelling electrodes. Here we report that gamma networks desynchronize and theta networks synchronize during encoding and retrieval. Furthermore, for nearly all brain regions we studied, …

Platelet-Rich Plasma Injection With Percutaneous Needling For Recalcitrant Lateral Epicondylitis: Comparison Of Tenotomy And Fenestration Techniques., Michael P. Gaspar, Michael A. Motto, Sarah Lewis, Sidney M. Jacoby, Randall W. Culp, A. Lee Osterman, Patrick M. Kane

Department of Orthopaedic Surgery Faculty Papers

Background: Recalcitrant lateral epicondylitis (LE) is a common debilitating condition, with numerous treatment options of varying success. An injection of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has been shown to improve LE, although it is unclear whether the method of needling used in conjunction with a PRP injection is of clinical importance.

Purpose: To determine whether percutaneous needle tenotomy is superior to percutaneous needle fenestration when each is combined with a PRP injection for the treatment of recalcitrant LE.

Study Design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3.

Methods: A total of 93 patients with recalcitrant LE were treated with a PRP injection and …

Protecting Whistleblowing (And Not Just Whistleblowers), Evan J. Ballan

Michigan Law Review

When the government contracts with private parties, the risk of fraud runs high. Fraud against the government hurts everyone: taxpayer money is wasted on inferior or nonexistent products and services, and the public bears the burdens attendant to those inadequate goods. To combat fraud, Congress has developed several statutory frameworks to encourage whistleblowers to come forward and report wrongdoing in exchange for a monetary reward. The federal False Claims Act allows whistleblowers to file an action in federal court on behalf of the United States, and to share in any recovery. Under the Dodd- Frank Act, the SEC Office of …

Esmerelda's 1600 Feathers, Corinne Casey, Ellen Wise, Kendall Ericksen

Environmental Studies Student Projects

ESA’s 1,600 Feathers is a children’s story that was created in response to a Congress letter from August 2017 addressed to several members of the Committee on Natural Resources and Agriculture. This letter requested for the 1973 Endangered Species Act to be “modernized” in order to reduce the economic burdens it imposed on farmers and ranchers. They argued the existing ESA was a “clear failure” having only accomplished recovery and delisting of 42 out of the 1,652 plant and animal species under its protection. The intentions of our story were to highlight the endangered and threatened species that have successfully …

16th Meeting Of The States Parties To The Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (2017), Apmbc

Global CWD Repository

The 16MSP is a formal meeting of the 162 States which are parties to the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction. The 16MSP is being held in accordance with Article 11 of the Convention and pursuant to decisions of the 2016 Fifteenth Meeting of the States Parties (15MSP).

The 16MSP takes place on the year of the 20th anniversary of the adoption and signature of the Convention and will gather together States Parties and not party to the Convention, interested organisations and members of civil society to …

A Blessing To All Nations: Examining Call Narratives In The Hebrew Bible, Brianna Rideout

Honors College

In the New Testament, Jesus tells his followers to go into the world and preach the good news of the kingdom of God. One aspect of this kingdom is God’s love for all creation. However, the missional call in the Old Testament has been largely ignored. Some Old Testament scholars have argued in favor of a mission to the nations in the Hebrew Bible on the basis of Isaiah 40-55. Others have argued against it saying that the prophetic message here is for reform directed toward their own community. Still, the genre of the call narrative and its role in …

A Comparative Literature Review Of Intelligent Tutoring Systems From 1990-2015, Brice Robert Colby

Theses and Dissertations

This paper sought to accomplish three goals. First, it provided a systematic, comparative review of several intelligent tutoring systems (ITS). Second, it summarized problems and solutions presented and solved by developers of ITS by consolidating the knowledge of the field into a single review. Third, it provided a unified language from which ITS can be reviewed and understood in the same context. The findings of this review centered on the 5-Component Framework. The first component, the domain model, showed that most ITS are focused on science, technology, and mathematics. Within these fields, ITS generally have mastery learning as the desired …

Design And Development Of An Electronic Granular Urea Applicator As An Attachment With Rice Transplanter, Md Towfiqur Rahman

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In rice production system, transplanting and fertilizer application are tedious, time consuming and laborious task, and mostly done manually in Bangladesh. Mechanical planting of rice and granular urea placement have distinctive advantages over manual operation. Mechanical planting of rice becoming popular in the country in recent years and few machines have been developed for guti-urea deep placement, however having some limitations. Considering precise guti-urea placement along with rice transplanting, an attempt was under taken to design and fabricate an electronic control guti-urea applicator to be attach with a 4-row walk behind type rice transplanter. Fabrication of the electronic guti-urea applicator …

Antidepressant-Like Actions Of Inhibitors Of Poly(Adp-Ribose) Polymerase In Rodent Models, Gregory A. Ordway, Attila Szebeni, Liza J. Hernandez, Jessica D. Crawford, Katalin Szebeni, Michelle J. Chandley, Katherine C. Burgess, Corwin Miller, Erol Bakkalbasi, Russell W. Brown

ETSU Faculty Works

Many patients suffering from depressive disorders are refractory to treatment with currently available antidepressant medications, while many more exhibit only a partial response. These factors drive research to discover new pharmacological approaches to treat depression. Numerous studies demonstrate evidence of inflammation and elevated oxidative stress in major depression. Recently, major depression has been shown to be associated with elevated levels of DNA oxidation in brain cells, accompanied by increased gene expression of the nuclear base excision repair enzyme, poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1. Given these findings and evidence that drugs that inhibit poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 activity have antiinflammatory and neuroprotective properties, the present study …

Bastardly Duppies & Dastardly Dykes: Queer Sexuality And The Supernatural In Michelle Cliff’S Abeng And Shani Mootoo’S Cereus Blooms At Night, Rahul K. Gairola

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This paper explores the ways in which the "duppy," or malevolent spirit, circulates the fictive landscape of the queer novels of Michelle Cliff and Shani Mootoo. I explore the ways in which the unhappy ghost is a figure which comments on the sexual pathology of postcolonial queerness in the Caribbean. I focus on the characters of Clare in "Abeng" and Mala in "Cereus Blooms at Night" in a bid to elucidate the ways that Caribbean lesbianism invokes, on the one hand, what M. Jacqui Alexander calls "erotic autonomy as a form of decolonization politics" in the material eroticism of women …

Rupturing The Genre: Un-Writing Silence In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’S Americanah, Felix Mutunga Ndaka

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This paper examines Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah (2013) and it’s troubling of the silencing and policing of black female migrants. Focusing on the salon/hairdressers and Ifemelu’s blog, I argue that the former represents an intimate and politicized narrative space whose production and habitation invites us to engage with migrant/feminine interactions and non-normative feminine aesthetics. In addition, I read the virtual site of Ifemelu’s blog as a space that transcends the circumscribed nature of interracial relations and dialogues. By portraying these spaces’ cultivation of heterogeneity and polyvocality, Adichie’s text advances an alternative politics of inhabiting racially and patriarchally hierarchized foreign spaces.

Exploring The Gendered Nature Of National Violence: The Intersection Of Patriarchy And Civil Conflict In Tanella Boni’S Matins De Couvre-Feu (Mornings Under Curfew), Janice Spleth

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Placed under house arrest during a period of civil conflict, the fictional narrator of Tanella Boni’s Matins de couvre-feu uses this time of enforced solitude to review her personal experiences as a woman in relationship to the instability now threatening the country. This reading of Boni’s work examines the narrator’s perspective on war in the context of feminist theories on the gendered nature of violence in order to better situate the narrative within a more extensive transnational discourse on the role of gender in the waging of war and the preservation of peace.

Dutch Caribbean Women’S Literary Thought: Activism Through Linguistic And Cosmopolitan Multiplicity, Florencia V. Cornet

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

In a select group of works by late 20th and early 21 st century Curaçaoan women novelists and poets such as Nydia Ecury (1926- 2012), Diana Lebacs (b.1947), Myra Römer (b.1946), Aliefka Bijlsma (b.1971), and Mishenu Osepa-Cicilia (b.1978), we see through what is often an autobiographical subjectivity, a “transnational collective plurality and difference” that describes the empowering physical and psychological possibilities that come with cross-national travel, immigration, cosmopolitanism, and linguistic multiplicity. This paper will present the politics of Curaçaoan-Dutch Caribbean women’s cosmopolitanism and linguistic multiplicity as transformative tools for personal and collective agency and activism for autonomy.

Idioms Or Open Choice? A Corpus Based Analysis, Kaitlyn Alayne Vanwagoner

Theses and Dissertations

The ambiguous nature of idioms has been a persistent challenge for English language learners and researches alike. Problematic issues include identifying which idioms are most pertinent for study, and the question of how frequently idiom forms found in dictionaries and other canonized resources actually function as idioms in real language use. This study differentiates between idiom forms used idiomatically (idiom-principle) versus literally (open-choice principle), and provides quantitative data to assess this difference. The data was obtained through a corpus analysis of 1,000 randomly-selected idioms in 10,000 randomly-selected contexts (10 contexts per idiom), and revealed that the majority of idiom forms …

Bard Free Press, Zine (December 1, 2017), Bard College

Bard Free Press - All Issues (2000-2018)

No abstract provided.

Association Between Latent Toxoplasma Gondii Infection And Alzheimer's Disease, Cynthia Elizabeth Wyman

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Many studies have found an association between Toxoplasma gondii seropositivity and behavioral and cognitive changes in animal models and in humans. In addition, early findings have suggested an association between T. gondii seropositivity and Alzheimer's disease (AD). We sought to determine whether there is an association between T. gondii seropositivity and AD as well as cognitive functioning (including memory, working memory, processing speed, language functioning, executive functioning) in a large, well-characterized sample of subjects with AD and matched controls without dementia. Method: Using ELISA assays, we determined anti-T. gondii IgG antibody titers in 114 control subjects and in 105 …

Sustained Sensitizing Effects Of Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha On Sensory Nerves In Lung And Airways, Ruei-Lung Lin, Qihai Gu, Mehdi Khosravi, Lu-Yuan Lee

Physiology Faculty Publications

Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) plays a significant role in the pathogenesis of airway inflammatory diseases. Inhalation of aerosolized TNFα induced airway hyperresponsiveness accompanied by airway inflammation in healthy human subjects, but the underlying mechanism is not fully understood. We recently reported a series of studies aimed to investigate if TNFα elevates the sensitivity of vagal bronchopulmonary sensory nerves in a mouse model; these studies are summarized in this mini-review. Our results showed that intratracheal instillation of TNFα induced pronounced airway inflammation 24 hours later, as illustrated by infiltration of eosinophils and neutrophils and the release of inflammatory mediators and …

Complement 3a Receptor In Dorsal Horn Microglia Mediates Pronociceptive Neuropeptide Signaling, Suzanne Doolen, Jennifer Cook, Maureen Riedl, Kelley Kitto, Shinichi Kohsaka, Christopher N. Honda, Carolyn A. Fairbanks, Bradley K. Taylor, Lucy Vulchanova

Physiology Faculty Publications

The complement 3a receptor (C3aR1) participates in microglial signaling under pathological conditions and was recently shown to be activated by the neuropeptide TLQP‐21. We previously demonstrated that TLQP‐21 elicits hyperalgesia and contributes to nerve injury‐induced hypersensitivity through an unknown mechanism in the spinal cord. Here we determined that this mechanism requires C3aR1 and that microglia are the cellular target for TLQP‐21. We propose a novel neuroimmune signaling pathway involving TLQP‐21‐induced activation of microglial C3aR1 that then contributes to spinal neuroplasticity and neuropathic pain. This unique dual‐ligand activation of C3aR1 by a neuropeptide (TLQP‐21) and an immune mediator (C3a) represents a …

Influence Of Epstein-Barr Virus On Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Development And The Role Of Depression On Disease Progression, Caleb Cornaby

Theses and Dissertations

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease affecting 20 to 250 individuals per 100,000 worldwide. Symptomology includes dermatological manifestations such as discoid lesions, acute cutaneous rashes, and oral and nasal ulcers, along with musculoskeletal, pulmonary, and renal complications. Abnormal T and B lymphocyte function and apoptosis, immune complex clearance, complement function, and nucleosome processing are typical of disease pathophysiology. SLE is the result of both environmental and genetic factors, which together create the conditions leading to disease onset and progression. Of these environmental factors, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection is known to cause the genesis of cross-reactive antibodies in SLE …

Synthesis Of Regioselectively Acylated Quercetin Analogues With Improved Antiplatelet Activity, Yu Duan, Na Sun, Min Xue, Xiaolan Wang, Hu Yang

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The aim of the present study was to report on a complete synthetic approach, namely benzylation-hydrolysis-acylation-hydrogenation, to the synthesis of regioselectively acylated quercetin analogues using low-cost rutin as a starting material. Three quercetin analogues, quercetin-3-O-propionate (Q-pr), quercetin-3-O-butyrate (Q-bu) and quercetin-3-O-valerate (Q-va), containing 3-, 4- and 5-carbon aliphatic acyl chains, respectively, were synthesized and characterized with ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), ¹³C NMR and mass spectrometry. Compared with quercetin, all three analogues exhibited improved lipophilicity. The lipophilicity of the analogue increased with increasing acyl chain length. Q-va exhibited the highest lipophilicity among the three analogues, but a lower water …

Prevention Of Anthrax Epidemic In Sheep And Goats With Anthracinum 200, Balakrishna Dabbir

Indian Journal of Research in Homoeopathy

Objective: To study the effect of Anthracinum CH 200 to prevent anthrax in sheep and goats in less and highly endemic villages of Kadapa district, Andhra Pradesh, India was studied. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in 159,250 sheep and goats, in anthrax-endemic Kadapa district in India, from 2003 to 2008, consecutively covering 1 endemic and 17 less endemic villages. Fifteen millilitres of Anthracinum 200 dilution was mixed thoroughly with 1 L of 2.5% albendazole suspension and drenched orally either with a drenching gun or with a 10-ml syringe, in a single bolus of 10 ml for adults and …

Let’S Put Demography Back Into Economics: Population Pyramids In Excel, Humberto Barreto

Economics and Management Faculty publications

The economics curriculum today does not emphasize the study of population. This needs to change immediately because we are in the midst of another demographic sea change, slamming on the brakes right after a rapid acceleration during the last half of the 20th century. Instead of glibly tossing a dependency ratio onto a slide, this paper offers an easy way to improve demographic literacy using population pyramids. Simulation is used to explain the pyramid and its dynamic properties, and then real‐world data are presented. Microsoft Excel’s ability to act as a browser and download data with a single click of …

Vocalizations And Associated Behaviors Of The White-Nosed Coati, Nasua Narica, December 2017, Jeremy Giampaoli

Monteverde Institute: Tropical Ecology and Conservation

Vocalizations emitted by mammals in a social context can be linked to behavioral states. These different states may exhibit specific acoustic characteristics, such as long call duration, harmonics, and wide frequency range. My objective in this study was to describe the different vocalizations of White-Nosed Coatis (Nasua narica) according to their behavioral context. I recorded vocalizations of ten individual males and a social group of coatis in Monteverde, Costa Rica. Based on the associated behaviors, I grouped the calls into three behavioral states: aggressive, relaxed, and alarmed. After analyzing the acoustic characteristics of the vocalizations using spectrograms, I further discriminated …

Differential Maternal Defense Behavior In Three Species Of Treehoppers (Hemiptera: Membracidae), December 2017, Mackenzie Kui

Monteverde Institute: Tropical Ecology and Conservation

Maternal care in the animal kingdom can vary immensely from species to species, but the reason for its ubiquity underlies an evolutionary impulse to pass on favorable genes to the next generation. In treehoppers, maternal care increases the rate of offspring survival through species-specific levels of protection from both predation and parasitism. To investigate the factors that influence maternal care, I introduced a variety of animate and inanimate stimuli to both brooding and non-brooding treehoppers in three species: Antianthe expansa, Alchisme grossa, and Umbonia crassicornis. By quantifying their responses as proxies for energy output, I concluded that maternal defense is …

An Analysis Of Temporal And Frequency Niches During The Dawn Chorus Of Birds In Monteverde, Costa Rica, December 2017, Brianne Nguyen

Monteverde Institute: Tropical Ecology and Conservation

Many animals communicate using acoustic signals, making frequency bands a limited resource. To deal with this, animals can partition themselves into acoustic frequency niches. Species of insects, anurans, and birds have been observed to call at discrete frequencies when sharing space with each other. In this study, I recorded and analyzed the temporal and frequency overlap in bird calls around dawn in Monteverde, Costa Rica over the course of ten days. I found very little temporal overlap in the sample I recorded. The calls that did overlap often also overlapped in frequency. My results suggest that frequency niches are not …