Digital Commons Network^™

Corporate Activism In The Age Of Lgbt Equality: The Promise And Limitations Of The Modern Executive Champion Of Lgbt Rights, Nii-Quarterlai Quartey

Theses and Dissertations

Over the course of the last 60 years, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) rights movement in the United States has become a beacon of light around the world where LGBT persons continue to face intolerance, discrimination, persecution, and death. As this qualitative phenomenological study was being written, LGBT Americans taking advantage of their legal rights to marry, still face employment discrimination, housing discrimination, adoption discrimination, immigration discrimination, and discrimination in public accommodations including a Presidential Executive Order, state, and local legislation forcing transgender people to use the restroom that reflects their assigned gender at birth. In fact, in almost …

Social Media Usage By Municipal Elected Officials For Open Government Community Engagement, Sarah Stoeckel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As public administration has evolved with the technological advances in today's society, it can be challenging to ensure the demands of the public are being met in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, and engagement. Nonetheless, a focus on community remains at the forefront of public administration. When looking at technology and the community, the tool known as social media emerges. Social media has allowed people to interact in new ways and therefore, has allowed the government to interact with citizens in ways they have not been able to in the past. In addition to attempting to modernize public administration, there has …

System Support For Stream Processing In Collaborative Cloud-Edge Environment, Quan Zhang

Wayne State University Dissertations

Stream processing is a critical technique to process huge amount of data in real-time manner.

Cloud computing has been used for stream processing due to its unlimited computation

resources. At the same time, we are entering the era of Internet of Everything (IoE). The emerging

edge computing benefits low-latency applications by leveraging computation resources at

the proximity of data sources. Billions of sensors and actuators are being deployed worldwide

and huge amount of data generated by things are immersed in our daily life. It has become

essential for organizations to be able to stream and analyze data, and provide low-latency …

The Role Of Dog Population Management In Rabies Elimination—A Review Of Current Approaches And Future Opportunities, Louise H. Taylor, Ryan M. Wallace, Deepashree Balaram, Joann M. Lindenmayer, Douglas C. Eckery, Beryl Mutonono-Watkiss, Ellie Parravani, Louis H. Nel

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Free-roaming dogs and rabies transmission are integrally linked across many low income countries, and large unmanaged dog populations can be daunting to rabies control program planners. Dog population management (DPM) is a multifaceted concept that aims to improve the health and well-being of free-roaming dogs, reduce problems they may cause, and may also aim to reduce dog population size. In theory, DPM can facilitate more effective rabies control. Community engagement focused on promoting responsible dog ownership and better veterinary care could improve the health of individual animals and dog vaccination coverage, thus reducing rabies transmission. Humane DPM tools, such as …

Persistent Spillback Of Bovine Tuberculosis From White-Tailed Deer To Cattle In Michigan, Usa: Status, Strategies, And Needs, Kurt C. Vercauteren, Michael J. Lavelle, Henry Campa Iii

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Free-ranging white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are believed to be a self-sustaining reservoir for bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in northeastern Lower Michigan, USA. Although a comprehensive control program is in place and on-farm mitigation strategies to curtail bTB transmission between cattle and deer have been implemented for over a decade, cattle and deer continue to become infected with the disease. Thus, renewed motivation to eradicate bTB is needed if that is truly the goal. Recurrent detection of bTB in cattle in the region is of mounting concern for state and federal agricultural agencies, producers, and wildlife managers. Current on-farm mitigation …

Member-Level Redundancy Of Built-Up Steel Axially Loaded Members, Jason B. Lloyd, Francisco J. Bonachera Martín, Cem Korkmaz, Robert J. Connor

S-BRITE Reports

Full-scale fracture tests were completed determining that mechanically-fastened steel built-up axially-loaded tension members are resistant to running fracture when a single component suddenly fractures. This characteristic of built-up member is referred to as Cross-Boundary Fracture Resistance (CBFR). A comprehensive finite element model-based parametric study was also performed investigating the post-fracture load redistribution behavior of multi-component built-up members. Simplified closed-form solutions were developed for engineering analysis of built-up members to evaluate for internal member redundancy and estimate safe inspection intervals that are based on the fatigue life of the member in the assumed faulted condition.

The Culture Of Misdemeanor Courts, Jessica A. Roth

Articles

The misdemeanor courts that preside over the majority of criminal cases in the United States represent the “front porch” of our criminal justice system. These courts vary in myriad ways, including size, structure, and method of judicial appointment. Each also has its own culture – i.e., a settled way of doing things that reflects deeper assumptions about the court’s mission and its role in the community – which can assist or impede desired policy reforms. This Article, written for a Symposium issue of the Hofstra Law Review, draws upon the insights of organizational culture theory to explore how leaders can …

Solitary Troubles, Alexander A. Reinert

Articles

Solitary confinement is one of the most severe forms of punishment that can be inflicted on human beings. In recent years, the use of extreme isolation in our prisons and jails has been questioned by correctional officials, medical experts, and reform advocates alike. Yet for nearly the entirety of American history, judicial regulation of the practice has been extremely limited. This Article explains why judges hesitate to question the use of solitary confinement, while also providing a path forward for greater scrutiny of the practice.

A Major Storm Hits A Forgotten Region And A Feeding Frenzy Fails To Materialize: Hurricane Rita, News Coverage, And Southeast Texas, Jason C. Sides, James Vanderleeuw, Tina Capeles

East Texas Historical Journal

No abstract provided.

Judicial Review Of Disproportionate (Or Retaliatory) Deportation, Jason A. Cade

Scholarly Works

This Article focuses attention on two recent and notable federal court opinions considering challenges to Trump administration deportation decisions. While finding no statutory bar to the noncitizens’ detention and deportation in these cases, the court in each instance paused to highlight the injustice of the removal decisions. This Article places the opinions in the context of emerging immigration enforcement trends, which reflect a growing indifference to disproportionate treatment as well as enforcement actions founded on retaliation for the exercise of constitutional rights. Judicial decisions like the ones considered here serve vital functions in the cause of immigration law reform even …

Backyard Breeding: Regulatory Nuisance, Crime Precursor, Lisa Milot

Scholarly Works

The harms of puppy mills have been well-publicized over the past decade: hundreds of female dogs living out their lives in small cages, producing puppies for sale with each heat cycle, with neither the breeding stock nor puppies receiving normal veterinary care. In popular media, academic critiques, activist publications, and legislative discussion, puppy mills are contrasted with smallvolume dog breeders—the hobby breeder or inadvertent breeder who has only a few dogs and treats them as pets or members of the family, breeding occasionally for personal reasons. Both state and federal laws have been designed to regulate puppy mills and other …

The Second Amendment As Positive Law, Joseph Blocher, Darrell A.H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Exposure To Natural And Urban Environments And Children’S Self-Regulation, R Jenkin, I Frampton, Mp White, S Pahl

School of Psychology

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Client Criminal History: Barriers To Consider For The Rehabilitation Counselor, Brent Van Ham

Research Papers

For people navigating the world with a disability, the presence of a criminal record may present them with yet another challenge to function within their lives to the fullest extent possible. The prevalence of people who seek rehabilitative services who have criminal records may require counselors to have more knowledge of the barriers that they frequently encounter. The rehabilitation counselor who works with these clients must take these barriers into account when planning and implementing services for them, just as they must take into account other barriers that are socially derived, such as discrimination in all of its forms and …

"Innocence" And The Guilty Mind, Stephen F. Smith

Journal Articles

For decades, the “guilty mind” requirement in federal criminal law has been understood as precluding punishment for “morally blameless” (or “innocent”) conduct, the goal being to define the mental element in terms that will protect offenders from conviction unless they had adequate notice of the wrongfulness of their conduct. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Elonis v. United States signals a significant shift in mens readoctrine, recognizing for the first time the potential for disproportionately severe punishment as a justification for heightened mens rea requirements. This long-overdue doctrinal move makes perfect sense because punishment without culpability and excessive punishment …

Punishing Criminals For Their Conduct: A Return To Reason For The Armed Career Criminal Act, Sheldon Evans

Scholarship@WashULaw

For over twenty-five years, the Armed Career Criminal Act has produced inconsistent results and has taxed judicial economy perhaps more than any other federal sentencing mechanism. This recidivist sentencing enhancement is meant to punish habitual criminals based on their numerous past crimes, but the Supreme Court’s application of the Act too often allows habitual criminals to escape the intended enhancement on a legal technicality. This comes as a result of the Court’s categorical approach, which punishes habitual criminal offenders based on the statutory elements of their past crimes rather than the conduct of their past crimes. In an effort to …

The Institutional Design Of Punishment, Aaron J. Rappaport

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Is Religion A Threat To Human Rights? Or Is It The Other Way Around? Defending Individual Autonomy In The Ecthr's Jurisprudence On Freedom Of Religion, Andrea Scoseria Katz, Paulo Pinto De Albuquerque

Scholarship@WashULaw

Religious freedom is part and parcel of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR)’s broad catalogue of human rights. Yet in reality, religion and human rights can have a fraught, conflictive relationship. Is religion a threat to human rights? Are human rights a threat to religion?

These questions resist easy answers, yet an examination of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) suggests that, on the whole, the Court has been more successful in identifying threats posed by religious beliefs or organizations to human rights than vice-versa. As to the former, we examine case-law in two subject …

Style, Substance, And The Right To Keep And Bear Assault Weapons, Allen Rostron

Campbell Law Review

Assault weapons have long been a subject of intense controversy. The debate has intensified in recent years after a series of mass shootings in which perpetrators used AR-15 rifles or other military-style weapons, such as the shootings in Newtown, Aurora, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, and Parkland While the federal assault weapon ban has expired, some state legislatures have enacted bans. Critics complain that these laws irrationally condemn certain types of firearms simply because they have a military appearance. Gun control advocates argue that these laws are not just about superficial appearances and that the banned weapons are …

Libertarian Gun Control, Fredrick E. Vars, Ian Ayres

Articles

No abstract provided.

It's A Goodyear For Innovation, Nathaniel Rellinger, Erin Horstman, Miranda Radesic, Layne Mckinley, Nash Smalley, Rachel Starvaggi

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Innovation is nothing new to The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The near future will bring another phase of evolution as the focus of tires sales will shift with the growing popularity of ride sharing, car sharing, and autonomous vehicles. For the scope of our project, it initially seemed obvious to use Goodyear’s good name as a selling point for a partnership with car sharing companies. We surveyed students at several colleges across Ohio that have car sharing fleets on campus and asked them about how they utilize the vehicles. After discovering through these interviews that ride sharing was more …

Three Essays On Financial Collaboration In The Government And Nonprofit Sectors, Saerim Kim

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

The primary objective of this dissertation is to study the management of public and nonprofit resources and financial risk. Governments will be able to use its findings to continue to provide public services in collaboration with other sectors, including the nonprofit sector. Nonprofit financial self-sufficiency and sub-award grant mechanisms between the government and nonprofit sectors are two primary areas to be examined. This dissertation consists of three essays. The first investigates how the diversification of nonprofit revenue portfolios influences extreme revenue risks; the results show that the chance of extreme revenue loss increases when revenue sources are highly correlated to …

Three Essays On Local Public Finance, Thomas Daniel Woodbury

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

This dissertation seeks to develop the subject of local public finance in a manner consistent with the political economy of local governments. For ease of description, each essay will be discussed briefly.

The first essay is titled "The Provision of Generalized Local Public Goods Financed by Distortionary Taxation." This essay models the provision of a local public good that is simultaneously utilized as a public consumption good and a public intermediate good. Since the public good can simultaneously enter both utility and production functions, it is considered a "generalized public good." This is done to model the provision of infrastructure …

Testing Religion: Adjudicating Claims Of Religious Persecution Brought By Iranians In The U.S. And Germany, Holger Sonntag

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Stop Repeating History: The Story Of An Amicus Brief And Its Lessons For Engaging In Strategic Advocacy, Coalition Building, And Education, Robert S. Chang, Alice Hsu, Robert A. Johnson, Elizabeth C. Rosen, Sofie Syed

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Collaborating Homeless Outreach In Broward County: A Law Enforcement And Social Services Engagement, Edward Rafailovitc

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

In Broward County, Florida, over 2,600 individuals experience homelessness daily (Broward Regional Health Planning Council, 2015). Both positive and negative publicity have resulted, based on how local governments have addressed the problem using law enforcement. The typical cycle of homelessness often results in arrests for life-sustaining misdemeanor crimes that would be better suited for diversion into social services. A recent phenomenon between law enforcement and social services emerged in Broward County to help problem-solve reducing criminal recidivism of the homeless. The focus of this study was the collaboration in Broward County between law enforcement and social services to improve communication …

Citizen Perceptions Of Institutional Disparities And The Reintegration Of Nonviolent Drug Related Offenders, Terrance Hinton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In 2017, Louisiana had the highest incarceration rate in the nation with 1,420 of every 100,000 adult males being placed in a state or local penitentiary. To address this issue, a series of criminal justice reforms were passed within the Louisiana legislature that released thousands of former offenders back into the community. The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand the attitudes, thoughts, and opinions of citizens in a single Louisiana city regarding ex-offender re-integration and disparities within the criminal justice system. March and Olsen's Rational Choice Institutionalism was used to explain how environment impacts individual perception and choices …

Effects Department Of Justice Investigations Have On Violent Crime And Arrest Rates, D. Scott Hoffman

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In 1994 Congress enacted the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which in part gave the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division (DOJCRD) the power to investigate local law enforcement agencies for Constitutional and civil rights violations. Researchers have found these investigations are expensive, time consuming, and highly intrusive to a law enforcement agency. To understand how these investigations are impacting communities, data were gathered on cities with local law enforcement agencies that have experienced an investigation by the DOJCRD. Using a quasi-experimental, multiple time-series research design with a paired samples t-test, the dependent variables (violent crime and arrest …

Perspectives And Post-Release Experiences Of Convicted African American Women Drug Offenders, Janet Fash

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Prisons in the United States are full to capacity because of the revolving doors created by recidivism. African American women comprise a significant proportion of those who return to prison, yet most studies about women and recidivism focus on the experiences of white women. The communities into which formerly incarcerated African American women are released do not make things easier in terms of the potential for reoffending because of the difficult access to good jobs, safe housing, good health care services, and assistance with child cares services. Using Cullen's social support theory as the foundation, the purpose of this general …

Understanding The Perceptions And Decision-Making Behaviors Of First Responders In The Context Of Traumatic Events And Ptsd, Sunday O. Olatunji

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Previous researchers have indicated that first responders are in an ever-changing environment, and unfortunately, the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among first responders is increasing. This study sought to better understand first responders' perceptions of emergency preparedness protocols and training, as well as the prevalence of PTSD. This study also examined first responders' thoughts, decision making processes, and protective actions information, communications necessary during situations of emergency preparedness for traumatic events, and how PTSD impacted this process. A sample of 16 first responders of various ages was recruited for the purpose of this study. The participants were made up …