Digital Commons Network^™

Five Myths About Public Sector Labor Law In Nevada, Ruben J. Garcia

Scholarly Works

The forces of collective bargaining reform in the 78th Nevada Legislative Session primarily set about to: (1) make it easier for employees not to pay anything to the unions that are required to represent them in negotiations and grievance handling and (2) eliminate the kinds of agreements and practices that purportedly have caused financial turmoil to the state as it emerges from the depths of the Great Recession. Unfortunately, many of these “reforms” were based on misconceptions about the role and effects of public sector collective bargaining in Nevada and in American society generally. In this article, I describe five …

Telling Stories In The Supreme Court: Voices Briefs And The Role Of Democracy In Constitutional Deliberation, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

On January 4, 2016, over 112 women lawyers, law professors, and former judges told the world that they had had an abortion. In a daring amicus brief that captured national media attention, the women “came out” to their clients; to the lawyers with or against whom they practice; to the judges before whom they appear; and to the Justices of the Supreme Court.

The past three years have seen an explosion of such “voices briefs,” 16 in Obergefell and 17 in Whole Woman’s Health. The briefs can be powerful, but their use is controversial. They tell the stories of non-parties—strangers …

Notes From A Quiet Corner: User Concerns About Reinsurance Arbitration – And Attendant Lessons For Selection Of Dispute Resolution Forums And Methods, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Arbitration between insurers and reinsurers – those who insure insurance companies – should logically run as smoothly as any arbitration process. Like the traditional commercial arbitration that drove enactment of the Federal Arbitration Act, reinsurance arbitration involves experienced actors in a confined industry in which the parties should be constructively aware of the rules, norms, customs and practices of the industry. But in spite of this, reinsurance arbitration experiences consistent problems of which the participants complain. This article reviews the complaints and exams possible solutions – including the possibility of arbitrating less and litigating more. Although these possible solutions would …

Transformative? Integrative? Troublesome? Undergraduate Student Reflections On Information Literacy Threshold Concepts, Rachel E. Scott

Communications in Information Literacy

In this exploratory study the authors ask students enrolled in a credit-bearing undergraduate research methods course to rank and evaluate the troublesome, transformative, and integrative nature of the six frames currently comprising the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. The results indicate that students have valid insights into threshold concept-based instruction, but may confuse the application with the theory. If practitioners are to embrace not only the frames, but also the spirit of the Framework, we must directly involve students in our teaching and research practices.

The Reconquista Student: Critical Information Literacy, Civics, And Confronting Student Intolerance, Jonathan T. Cope

Communications in Information Literacy

Given the increasing power and prominence of political figures in the United States who openly espouse xenophobic, misogynistic, white nationalist positions it is only natural to anticipate encountering students who express these views in our libraries and classrooms. In this essay I use the methods of normative political theory to explore the following question: What are a set of consistent philosophical positions that Critical Information Literacy (CIL) could take that would allow it to respond to intolerance in a way that furthers its stated goals? CIL can draw upon the large body of literature on civic education in the United …

The Intersection Of Information And Science Literacy, Kristin M. Klucevsek

Communications in Information Literacy

To achieve higher science literacy, both students and the public require discipline-specific information literacy in the sciences. Scientific information literacy is a core component of the scientific process. In addition to teaching how to find and evaluate resources, scientific information literacy should include teaching the process of scholarship as a conversation and publication in the sciences. Faculty and librarians can be challenged in their efforts to teach students because of limited access to published research. Stronger scientific information literacy and more access to scholarly research could improve science literacy as a whole.

The Impacts Of Childhood Obesity On Adult Health And Quality Of Life‌, Miriam Weinstock

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Obesity has emerged as one of the most preeminent concerns of the modern era. Thirty six percent of our country’s citizens are classified as obese and six percent qualify as extremely obese. Developing obesity as an adult is fairly common, but countless studies have shown a direct correlation between childhood obesity and remaining severely overweight as an adult. Aside from the physical and aesthetic discomfort of maintaining superfluous girth, the health hazards threatening the obese population are extremely discomfiting. The enormity of the issue requires extensive study so that society can educate themselves of the dangers and how to prevent …

Healing Mechanism Investigation Of Self-Healing Concrete By Microencapsulated Calcium Nitrate, Gabriel Andres Arce Amador

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Durability of reinforced concrete structures depends highly on the integrity of the concrete which protects the structure from the environment. However, concrete is a brittle material and as such it is prone to cracking which allows for detrimental agents to penetrate the structure and produce early deterioration. Embedding microcapsules with chemical healing agents in concrete materials for self-healing applications as well as implementing SMAs as reinforcement of concrete structures for self-closing of cracks are both state-of-the-art techniques with enormous potential for enhancement of concrete infrastructure durability. In this work, both techniques are combined as an alternative for superior self-healing of …

An Elusive Peace: The Foreign Policy Challenges Of The Clinton Administration In A Post-Cold War World, Jennifer Perrett Galiouras

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT In modern US history, the 1990s are often regarded as “The Decade of Peace and Prosperity.” Though the liberalization of markets and a technology boom fueled American prosperity, expectations of post-Cold War peace remained elusive. The purpose of this study is to observe how in the moment when the US became the world’s superpower, it also began to retreat from a position of active leadership. Elected in 1992, President Bill Clinton looked towards the United Nations as the answer to keeping peace around the globe. His administration’s policies of democratic enlargement and aggressive multilateralism aimed to combine the spread …

Where's The Power - Defamation And Wrongful Interference In The Restatement Of Employment Law, Ruben J. Garcia

Scholarly Works

In this article, Professor Ruben Garcia argues that the Restatement of Employment Law ("REL") misses the opportunity to address power relations between employers and employees as part of the "law as a whole" in the torts of the workplace. He argues that the omission shows the limits of restatements generally. However, there were other roads not taken by the drafters that might have acknowledged these power differentials in the final draft. Professor Garcia also argues that the normative choices that are made by the REL about the doctrine of compelled self-publication are based on questionable footings. "[A]cceptance of the doctrine …

Design, Synthesis, And Evaluation Of Innovative Bodipy-Peptidic Conjugates For Biological Application, Tyrslai Menyaee Williams

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to colorectal cancer (CRC), methods of detection, photodynamic therapy (PDT), and EGFR as an attractive targeting strategy for imaging CRC. Chapter 2 details the synthesis of ten peptide sequences for targeting EGFR receptors at the site of CRC, as a collaborative work with Dr. Seetharama Jois. This chapter also investigates the efficacy of these peptides for EGFR. Chapter 3 offers the first synthetic strategy for developing BODIPY-peptide conjugates via amide linkages. All conjugates were optimized for the best reaction conditions and good yields were observed. Each conjugate was subjected to photophysical, SPR, and …

An Evaluation Of U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Planning For Off-Road Vehicle Use, Robert L. Fischman, Vicky J. Meretsky, Katie Freeman, Alexi Lamm, Leah Missik, Scott Salmon

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Off-road vehicles (hereafter, ORVs) rank high among public-land management challenges because they are popular, often impair environmental conditions, and may cause conflicts with other recreational users. Unit-level planning for federal lands increasingly translates broad, system-wide objectives, such as maintenance of ecological integrity, into place-based limitations on ORV use to minimize and mitigate adverse impacts on wildlife. We reviewed 176 planning documents covering 313 National Wildlife Refuges (hereafter, Refuges) to understand how planning supports or undermines ORV recreation management. These plans offer an important perspective on ORV management because the Refuges are a large, diverse system of conservation lands where recreation …

The Fooding Of Narrative In Contemporary Women's Transnational Fiction, Stacey Marie Amo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Fooding of Narrative in Contemporary Women’s Transnational Fiction examines how foodstuffs are strategically deployed in recent fiction about migration to the United States. The novels examined, all set in the period following the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, depict the experience of resettlement from a diverse set of postcolonial sites: Haiti, Cuba, Vietnam, and India. The Fooding of Narrative argues that food is deployed as a structuring trope and acquires narrative significance in articulating the profound sense of identity crisis that frequently accompanies the immigration experience. By focusing on food’s narrative significance in a broad …

Calling On The Cfpb For Help: Telling Stories And Consumer Protection, Pamela Foohey

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Since it began operating in 2011, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has handled more than a million complaints regarding consumer financial product and services. Beginning in June 2015, the CFPB began publishing consumers’ narratives submitted with their complaints. This Article analyses a random sample of 5,000 of these narratives to assess how people engage with the complaint mechanism in light of the CFPB’s role in processing complaints. I find that people predominately use the complaint function for two distinct purposes: to express their anger and frustration about companies’ practices, or to express sadness and fear about how companies’ practices …

Consumer Acceptance Of Licensed Brand Extensions: An Analysis Of Key Success Factors For Extending Into Fashion Categories, Langchao Zhang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Brand extension and lifestyle branding have been the most commonly used marketing strategies. Unlike other consumer goods, fashion products, or other lifestyle products contains strong meaning of the user’s identity, thus, once done well, the parent non-fashion brands could benefit from not only the profit generated by the extension, but also creating a closer and stronger relationship with customers. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to examine how fashion product attributes affect consumers’ behavioral intention towards the fashion extension, to examine how perceived fit and brand extension authenticity affect consumers behavioral intention towards the fashion extensions, to explore the …

Effect Of Metal Speciation In Fly Ash On Environmentally Persistent Free Radical Formation, Elisabeth Eileen Cook

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Waste incineration and Superfund sites lead to the formation of pollutants harmful to both the environment and human health. Environmentally Persistent Free Radicals (EPFRs) are a class of newly discovered radical pollutants known to form on combustion by-products such as fly ash and particulate matter. EPFRs are rapidly gaining attention for their harmful effects on the environment and human health. Previous research has shown the formation of EPFRs through surface-mediated reactions with transition metal-oxides on particulates. The work presented in this dissertation explores the relationship between fly ash composition and EPFR formation. Fly ash production occurs from combustion systems, namely …

Prison To School To Redemption: A Full Circle Channel To The Complete ‘School-To-Prison Pipeline’, Kristen Alana Antoine

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate education and self-efficacy for incarcerated men who have chosen to pursue post-secondary educations despite being in the confinement of the PIC. A narrative inquiry design was used. This is where the story of a real life problem or situation is used to provide sufficient background data in order to analyze and solve a problem. It was important to share the stories of the participants so that readers could understand the overall effects of education and religion in this culture. The study data was collected through participant letters, face-to-face discussion, PASCI survey, artifacts, …

Shame Agent, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

As a nation, we have recently experienced a significant positive shift in norms against casual campus sexual violence. These changes are perhaps as dramatic as the attitudinal shifts over recent decades regarding drunk driving or cigarette smoking. In a world in which masculinity is too often associated with sexual conquest, and women still suffer under intense and conflicting pressures regarding their sexual behavior, pushing this potential transformation forward is both difficult and necessary. Enforcement of Title IX protections has become a crucial driver of much of this change.

This is an account of some of what I learned as a …

An Examination Of The Impact Of Venture Philanthropy On The Mission Of Higher Education, Shon Baker

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Across the United States, state legislative funding declines are forcing colleges and universities to rapidly adjust to a variety of shortfalls in revenue. Even the most prosperous universities, normally immune to decreases in funding, find themselves experiencing financial difficulty. To offset fiscal gaps caused by budget shortfalls and legislative decisions, university presidents are increasingly turning to fundraising as a means of filling the financial void and no donors are more poised to give transformational gifts than venture philanthropists. While the donations of venture philanthropists are highly sought, little research has been given to the potential for threats to academic freedom …

Microbial Distributions And Survival In The Troposphere And Stratosphere, Noelle Celeste Bryan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Although bioaerosols in the lower altitudes of the atmosphere have been extensively studied, little is known about the distribution and nature of microorganisms at altitudes above the Earth’s surface. To examine the vertical distribution of microorganisms in the atmosphere, a helium balloon payload system was developed to sample bioaerosols at stratospheric altitudes of up to 38 km, where temperature, air pressure, relative humidity, and ultraviolet-C (UV-C) radiation conditions are similar to the surface of Mars. Bioaerosol concentrations between 3 and 29 km were similar to each other, ~three-fold lower than those in the convective boundary layer (CBL; 0-3 km; 1 …

The Other "Personal Injury": Coverage B Of The Cgl Policy, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Termite Gut Microbes As Tools And Targets For Termite Control, Chinmay Vijay Tikhe

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Formosan subterranean termite (FST), Coptotermes formosanus, is an invasive urban pest in the United States. Colonies of the FST are dependent on the symbiotic gut protozoa for cellulose digestion in the workers’ guts, and the gut bacterial community is known to provide essential nutrients to the termite. The objectives of this PhD research were to develop and evaluate paratransgenesis and phage therapy for termite control. During this study, a termite gut bacterium: Trabulsiella odontotermitis was genetically engineered and was evaluated as a ‘Trojan horse’ for paratransgenesis. We proved that T. odontotermitis can tolerate 50 times more concentration of ligand-Hecate …

Managerial Labor Mobility In The National Football League, Jeremy Joseph Foreman

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Within the present dissertation, determinants of leader dismissals, promotions, and demotions are explored. A model of CEO dismissals is adapted to the context of the National Football League (NFL), whereby head coaches represent CEOs. Building upon empirical studies of the CEO dismissal model, a proxy is established which is representative of actual candidates to replace an executive rather than proxies based on industry and firm characteristics. Using the proxy for candidates provided statistically insignificant results that challenge the theoretical relationship between candidate availability and executive dismissals. Additionally, the present dissertation proposed and found empirical justification for incorporating an additional socio-political …

The West As Fiction In First-Generation Arab Immigrant Literature, Rimun Murad

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The West as Fiction in First-Generation Arab Immigrant Literature investigates the resemblance between the Arab immigrant experience, in first-generation Arab immigrant literature, and the experience of fiction reading. This dissertation analyzes Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North (1966), Waguih Ghali’s Beer in the Snooker Club (1964), Walid Al Hajjar’s trilogy The Search for the Self (1973, 1979, and 1984), Leila Aboulela’s The Translator (1999), Alaa Al Aswany’s Chicago: A Novel (2007), and Rabih Alameddine’s I, the Divine: A Novel in First Chapters (2001). Drawing from genre, postcolonial, and diasporic studies, this project argues that the West, for first-generation …

Benchmark Regulation, Gina-Gail S. Fletcher

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Benchmarks are metrics that are deeply embedded in the financial markets. They are essential to the efficient functioning of the markets and are used in a wide variety of ways-from pricing oil to setting interest rates for consumer lending to valuing complex financial instruments. In recent years, benchmarks have also been at the epicenter of numerous, multi-year market manipulation scandals. Oil traders, for example, deliberately execute trades to drive benchmarks lower artificially, allowing the traders to capitalize on the manipulated benchmarks. This ensures that later trades relying on the benchmarks will be more profitable than they otherwise would have been. …

Local Embeddedness Matters: A Study Of Hip-Hop Artists' Interaction With Their Local Community, Castel Vette Sweet

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation study is an exploration of hip hop and rap artists’ embeddedness in local communities, and their interpretation of the connectedness between their work and their communities. I explore the influence of place and space in the identity development of artists, and how artist use those identities to guide their interactions with their local community. I also investigate the significance of artists’ interactions and relationship in the cultivation of social and cultural capital. In contrast to previous scholarship emphasising the negative influence rap and hip-hop artists have on their communities, I utilize in-depth interviews with artists to examine the …

Osteogenic Potential Of Poly (L-Lactic Acid) Scaffolds Prepared By Thermally Controlled Methods On Human Adipose Derived Stem Cells, Harish Chinnasami Shanmugam

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Thermally Induced Phase Separation (TIPS) method was used to make porous three-dimensional PLLA scaffolds. The effect of imposed thermal profile during freezing of the PLLA in dioxane solution on the scaffold was characterized by their micro-structure, porosity (%), pore-sizes distribution and mechanical strength. The porosity (%) decreased considerably with increasing concentrations of PLLA in the solution, while a decreasing trend was observed with increasing cooling rates. The mechanical strength increases with increase in PLLA concentration and also with increase in the cooling rate for both types of solvents. Therefore, mechanical strength was increased by higher cooling rates while the porosity …

Private Vs. Public: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender Student Experiences And The Influence Of Anti-Discrimination Policies With Respect To Religion, Shalonda Michelle Skidmore

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

For a vast majority of Americans, religion is an integral part of life. In fact, 10:30am on Sundays is considered the most holy time in the United States as most persons have just left, are currently attending, or are on their way to their various places of worship. Believing in organized religion comes with challenges, as religion has often been the basis and justification for discriminatory practices. These challenges can cause emotional tension, especially to those who identify with teachings that religions have traditionally condemned. This document sought to determine if religion matters to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) …

Microcavity Enhanced Beaming And Magneto-Optical Switching Of Light, Ali Haddadpour

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, we show numerically that a compact structure, consisting of multiple optical microcavities at both the entrance and exit sides of a subwavelength plasmonic slit, can lead to greatly enhanced directional transmission through the slit. The microcavities increase the resonant enhancement of the emission in the normal direction and/or the coupling between free space waves and the slit mode. An optimized structure with two microcavities on both the entrance and exit sides of the slit leads to ~ 16 times larger transmission cross section per unit angle in the normal direction compared to the optimized reference slit without …

Judicial Power, The Judicial Power Project And The Uk, Paul Craig

Articles by Maurer Faculty

It is axiomatic that all power requires justification, and that is equally true for judicial power as for other species thereof. This article is primarily concerned with judicial power in the UK. The subject will be approached through consideration of the Judicial Power Project, which has been critical of the courts, much of this being sharp-edged, and fierce. There is repeated talk of judicial overreach and consequent legitimacy crisis, as the courts are said to encroach on terrain that is properly the preserve of the political branch of government.

It is by the same token important that the critics are …