Digital Commons Network^™

Severe Brain Injury, Disability, And The Law: Achieving Justice For A Marginalized Population, Megan S. Wright, Nina Varsava, Joel Ramirez, Kyle Edwards, Nathan Gueveremont, Tamar Ezer, Joseph J. Fins

Articles

Thousands of persons with severe brain injury who are minimally conscious or "locked in" are wrongly treated as if they are unconscious. Such individuals are unable to advocate for themselves and are typically segregated from society in hospitals or nursing homes. As a result, they constitute a class of persons who often lack access to adequate medical care, rehabilitation, and assistive devices that could aid them in communication and recovery. While this problem is often approached from a medical or scientific point of view, here we frame it as a legal issue amenable to legal remedies. This Article comprehensively explores …

Demarginalizing The Intersection Of Spirituality And Law: Oppositional Cultural Practice™ Theory, Self-Transcendence, And Social Change, Kim E. Clark

Western New England Law Review

This Article works toward a theory of self-transcendence that leads to social change. The Maslow self-transcendence hypothesis is reformulated. The old hypothesis, when applied to self-transcendence in humans, has two major problems: (1) it posits an erasure of the Self that was motivated to achieve the self-actualization state, i.e., the self-transcendence process causes erasure of the self-actualized Self as the individual moves toward gratifying self-transcendence motivational needs (ego-less, seeking communion with the transcendent, service to others, acting in more collectivist ways, coming to identify with something greater than the purely individual self); and (2) it does not adequately explain when …

Big Data: Destroyer Of Informed Consent, A. Michael Froomkin

Articles

The 'Revised Common Rule' took effect on January 21, 2019, marking the first change since 2005 to the federal regulation that governs human subjects research conducted with federal support or in federally supported institutions. The Common Rule had required informed consent before researchers could collect and use identifiable personal health information. While informed consent is far from perfect, it is and was the gold standard for data collection and use policies; the standard in the old Common Rule served an important function as the exemplar for data collection in other contexts. Unfortunately, true informed consent seems incompatible with modern analytics …

Names Are Important, Margaret Butler

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Timing And Method Of Virus Inoculation On The Severity Of Wheat Streak Mosaic Disease, E. N. Wosula, Anthony J. Mcmechan, Allison L. Knoell, Satyanarayana Tatineni, Stephen N. Wegulo, Gary L. Hein

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

Wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV), transmitted by the wheat curl mite Aceria tosichella, frequently causes significant yield loss in winter wheat throughout the Great Plains of the United States. A field study was conducted in the 2013–14 and 2014–15 growing seasons to compare the impact of timing of WSMV inoculation (early fall, late fall, or early spring) and method of inoculation (mite or mechanical) on susceptibility of winter wheat cultivars Mace (resistant) and Overland (susceptible). Relative chlorophyll content, WSMV incidence, and yield components were determined. The greatest WSMV infection occurred for Overland, with the early fall inoculations resulting in …

Current Controversies In The Use Of Dna In Forensic Investigations, Samuel Hodge

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Hearsay And Abuse: Where Past Is Present, The Hon. Andrea M. Leahy, Jared A. Mclain Esq.

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Asymmetric Patterns Of Small Molecule Transport After Nanosecond And Microsecond Electropermeabilization, Esin B. Sözer, C. Florencia Pocetti, P. Thomas Vernier

Bioelectrics Publications

Imaging of fluorescent small molecule transport into electropermeabilized cells reveals polarized patterns of entry, which must reflect in some way the mechanisms of the migration of these molecules across the compromised membrane barrier. In some reports, transport occurs primarily across the areas of the membrane nearest the positive electrode (anode), but in others cathode-facing entry dominates. Here we compare YO-PRO-1, propidium, and calcein uptake into U-937 cells after nanosecond (6 ns) and microsecond (220 µs) electric pulse exposures. Each of the three dyes exhibits a different pattern. Calcein shows no preference for anode- or cathode-facing entry that is detectable with …

Recent Data From Radiofrequency Denervation Trials Further Emphasise That Treating Nociception Is Not The Same As Treating Pain, Matthew K. Bagg, James H. Mcauley, G Lorimer Moseley, Benedict M. Wand

Physiotherapy Papers and Journal Articles

Chronic low back pain is a condition that current health care provision is failing and we suggest that recent evidence from the interventional pain medicine field points to what these failings are. Radiofrequency denervation is performed on the presumption that denervation of a peripheral structure will eradicate or significantly reduce pain and improve function. The results of six moderately sized and well conducted clinical trials that demonstrate no efficacy and no real-world effectiveness for denervation procedures are a stark illustration of how flawed this approach is. We suggest that these results represent a line-in-the-sand for back pain research and management. …

Trunk Muscle Activity During Drop Jump Performance In Adolescent Athletes With Back Pain, T. Palsson, J. Caneiro, R. Hirata, D. Griffin, William Gibson, Mervyn Travers

Physiotherapy Papers and Journal Articles

It was with great interest we read the recently published article “Trunk Muscle Activity during Drop Jump Performance in Adolescent Athletes with Back Pain.” Investigating back pain (BP) in adolescents is commendable as there is growing evidence that for many, an experience of BP as early as 14 years of age may relate to ongoing pain in adulthood (Coenen et al., 2017). Indeed, the conventional narrative is changing as individual physical factors such as posture, use of schoolbags, and hypermobility are only weakly associated with adolescent BP. Rather, factors which predict BP at a young age are considered to …

Honoring The National Parks: A Local Adaptation Of A Partners In The Parks Adventure, Joan Digby, Kathleen Nolan

Honors in Practice Online Archive

The National Collegiate Honors Council has long recognized that collaboration among institutions is important to honors education. Since its inception over five decades ago, NCHC has promoted the mutual exchange of ideas about honors in order to disseminate the best of these ideas as potential prototypes (Andrews). In addition to its annual NCHC conferences, which offer a large forum for sharing ideas, NCHC has fostered and supported a variety of collaborative programs such as Honors Semesters and Faculty Institutes, the most recent of which is the Partners in the Parks Program (PITP), which—like its predecessor programs—is designed not only to …

Ask Me About Ison: The Risks And Rewards Of Teaching An Interdisciplinary Honors Course On A Scientific Event Unfolding In Real Time, William L. Vanderburgh, Martin Ratcliffe

Honors in Practice Online Archive

On September 21, 2012, two astronomers using a telescope in the International Scientific Observing Network near Kislovodsk, Russia, discovered a comet that came to be formally known as C/2012 S1 and was popularly called Comet ISON. Just a year later, two honors instructors in Wichita, Kansas, found themselves teaching a course on Comet ISON that came to be formally known as Fire in the Sky and was popularly referred to as “the comet course.”

Student Preferences For Faculty-Led Honors Study Abroad Experiences, Nicholas R. Arens, Hanna Holmquist, Rebecca C. Bott-Knutson

Honors in Practice Online Archive

A critical component of any education, particularly an honors education, is an interdisciplinary curriculum that enriches the college experience. At South Dakota State University (SDSU), the Fishback Honors College strives to provide a robust and holistic educational experience through innovative honors courses paired with enriching co-curricular programs. One way to meet these goals is an honors study abroad experience included as part of the Fishback Honors College curriculum. The study abroad course is an integral part the honors curriculum, fulfilling the requirement of an interdisciplinary colloquium course and thus making it accessible to students from every field of study.

Tenure And Promotion In Honors, Rosalie Otero

Honors in Practice Online Archive

The Chronicle of Higher Education Review (2/11/05) published an article on “Collaborative Efforts: Promoting Interdisciplinary Scholars” by Stephanie L. Pfirman, James P. Collins, Susan Lowes, and Anthony F. Michaels. They wrote, “Creative research and teaching increasingly occur at the junction between traditional disciplines. As a result, many colleges and universities have committed themselves to fostering interdisciplinary scholarship. But the scholars who work at that junction are confronted with conventional departmental hiring, review, and tenure procedures that are not suited to interdisciplinary work and can slow or block the progress of their careers.”

The Role Of Multiple Dimensions Of Organized Activity Participation, Impulsivity, And Parental Monitoring On Externalizing Behavior Among Low-Income, Urban Adolescents., Amy Governale

Dissertations

Because the majority of teenage deaths are not due to illness, but instead attributed to risk behaviors, it is pertinent to determine under what circumstances adolescents are likely to injure themselves or others. One well-studied protective factor of adolescent externalizing behaviors is participation in organized activities. Unfortunately, the majority of research involving adolescents’ engagement in organized activities examines single dimensions of participation (intensity, duration, and breadth) at a time, within samples of middle-class, Caucasian youth. Few studies have examined how multiple dimensions of participation in organized activities, including how uninterrupted engagement in organized activities from school year to summer months, …

Gender Beliefs Of Teachers In Orthodox Jewish Early Childhood Programs, Ilana Chai Dvorin Friedman

Dissertations

The goal of this study was to explore gender beliefs of teachers in Orthodox Jewish coeducational early childhood programs and give voice to their experiences and viewpoints. Concurrently, a feminist poststructural and queer theory lens was utilized to uphold Gorsetman and Sztokman’s (2013) claim that Orthodox Jewish schooling is fraught with messages and discourses that inhibit “educating for the divine image” (p. 30). This study maintained the need to examine gender consciousness within Orthodox Jewish schooling to promote inclusion and equality.

As young children actively engage in gender construction, teachers play a vital role reinforcing and/or challenging norms and available …

Best Practices In Global Mental Health: An Exploratory Study Of Recommendations For Psychologists, Kimberly Hook

Dissertations

This qualitative study aimed to provide best practice recommendations for psychologists who work within the field of global mental health. Global mental health seeks to improve mental health treatment equity on a worldwide scale, through mechanisms such as task shifting, advocacy on a governmental/community/systems level, and through capacity building. Global mental health is a growing field, and there have been calls for increased engagement in these efforts from the psychological community. Nevertheless, few recommendations are in place regarding how to practically move towards these goals in an ethical, culturally-relevant manner, though other related disciplines, such as psychiatry and public health, …

Biophysical Studies Of Guanine Nucleotide-Binding Alpha Subunits, Brian Leverson

Dissertations

Guanine nucleotide-binding (G?) proteins have been intensely studied over the years due to their role as signal transduction proteins. Proper function depends on three flexible switch regions that are involved in the relatively slow hydrolysis of GTP, allowing for the proteins to act as a molecular on/off switch. The structure of a protein is essential to its biological function. Occurrences of mutations in the genes GNAS and GNAI1 to highly conserved arginine residue in the switch II region have been detected in several types of cancers.

Utilizing the combinations of temperature denaturation, kinetics assays, and molecular dynamics, we plan to …

Application Of Synthetic Organic And Medicinal Chemistry Toward Medical Advances In Cancer, Antibiotics, And Drug Delivery, Marlon Lutz

Dissertations

Cancer and bacterial infections are a great concern in our society and have affected populations worldwide. The objective of this research was to discover new therapies for treating bacterial infections and cancer, and for promoting drug delivery.

DapE is an essential component in succinylase biosynthetic pathway, which is critical to production of lysine and m-DAP which both are essential in protein synthesis and bacterial peptidoglycan cell wall construction. Synthetic approaches were developed to prepare a new substrate for the N-succinyl-L,L-diaminopimelic acid desuccinylase (DapE) enzyme enabling the discovery of new antibiotics that inhibit DapE.

MMPs are over expressed in cancer, in …

The Impact Of Sociodemographic Factors On Health-Related, Neuropsychological, And Psychosocial Functioning In Youth With Spina Bifida, Jaclyn Lennon Papadakis

Dissertations

Objective: There is a lack of research on the impact of sociodemographic factors on youth with spina bifida (SB). This is concerning given the pervasive health disparities that exist in pediatric chronic illness groups. The aims of this study were to examine: (1) differences in health-related, neuropsychological, and psychosocial functioning among youth with SB based on sociodemographic risk; (2) cumulative risk as a predictor of youth outcomes, as moderated by age; (3) SB-related family stress as a mediator of the associations between sociodemographic/cumulative risk and youth outcomes, longitudinally. Methods: Participants (M age = 11.43, 53.6% female) were recruited as part …

Studying The Antagonistic Relationship Between Nkg2d And Tgf-Β Signaling In Cd8+ T Cells, Kushal Prajapati

Dissertations

Despite the remarkable success of cancer immunotherapies in treating patients with hematological cancers, the clinical response rates of immunotherapies in the case of solid tumors have been dismal. One major reason for the lower response rates is tumor-induced immune-suppression mediated by TGF-?, which directly suppresses the functionality of CD8+ T cells by inhibiting their activation, proliferation, and acquisition of inflammatory cytokines, granzyme B and perforin. On the other hand, NKG2D, a potent co-stimulatory receptor, has effects on CD8+ T cells opposite to that of TGF-?. In T cells from 22 healthy human donors, we found that the suppression by TGF-? …

Regulation Of Bacterial Glycogen Synthesis: Structure-Function Relationship Of Adp-Glucose Pyrophosphorylase, Hiral Priyank Patel

Dissertations

Starch is an important source for energy, and it has become a significant resource for bio-fuel production. ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase is the enzyme that controls the synthesis of starch in plants, and glycogen in bacteria. This regulation is mainly driven by allosteric activators (Fru6P, FBP, and Pyruvate) in bacteria. It has been hypothesized that inter-subunit communications are important for the allosteric effect in this enzyme. Here we show that one specific subunit interface and the interaction between amino acids Arg11 and Asp141 are critical for the regulatory signal in the enzyme from Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Manipulation of this regulatory signal is critical …

To What Extent Does Transcendental Meditation (Tm) Relieve Symptoms In Patients With Ptsd?, Sanya Dhami

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a disorder that is currently increasing among the general public. Unfortunately, researchers have yet to find an effective treatment. Due to the lack of treatment, Transcendental Meditation has become a popular option and may potentially be an alternative treatment therapy. The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which Transcendental Meditation (TM) relieves symptoms in patients with PTSD by analyzing brain activity. A comparison was also made between traditionally used PTSD therapies and TM. Because the research regarding this topic is relatively new and was more heavily focused on patients with …

Utopia And Contemporary Human Society: A Model For Sustainable Continuance, David Blake Corman

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Sir Thomas More’s Utopia outlines a bustling, blissful society in which all individuals live equitably, happily, and comfortably. Utopia, which literally means “no-place,” simply does not exist. However, More provides Utopia as a progressive template through which analogous contemporary social and economic structure may be assessed. Juxtaposing contemporary society with Utopia, a relatively superior or perfect state, illuminates some factors inhibiting modern society from otherwise ascending to the state and functionality of a Utopia.

A Comparison Of Corrosion Potential, Installation, Maintenance, And Anti-Microbial Efficacy: Copper Combined With A Polymer Matrix Or Stainless Steel For Use In A Hospital Setting, Barika Mirza

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

According to Boev and Kiss in their article, “Hospital-Acquired Infections,” hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), also known as nosocomial infections, are currently the leading cause of deaths and disability in hospitalized patients (2017, p. 51), so they cost both patients and hospitals a lot of money. As of right now, QualityNet reports on their “Scoring Methodology” page that Obamacare’s Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) Reduction Program requires for hospitals with high cases of HACs to be subject to a reduction of Medicare payments (n.d.). The World Health Organization explains in Prevention of hospital-acquired infections: A practical guide, 2nd edition that HAIs can be acquired …

Conservative Colonization: An Ethical Analysis Of Galactic Expansion, Parker Vesely

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Space: the final frontier. Humanity has long held a fond appreciation for this vast unknown, and it has been featured in both art and academia since the dawn of time. Scientific knowledge of both the Earth and the solar system have greatly advanced in the last seventy years since humanity launched its first object, a German V-2 rocket, into the atmosphere. This obsessive curiosity did not cease with the Lunar Landing, but instead increased ten-fold with dreams of extraterrestrial life and extraterrestrial living. As the day humans will set foot on Mars steadily approaches, humankind faces a daunting dilemma: how …

Bridging Aesthetic Theory: Comparing Scottish Enlightenment Theories To Modern Neuroscience Evidence, Calen Smith

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Artistic disciplines burgeoned in Scotland during the eighteenth century. As fields such as sculpture, painting, literature, and music thrived, so did philosophy. Responding to the advancements of the fine arts, philosophers such as Hume, Reid, and Hutcheson began to write about the philosophy of art—aesthetics. Though they addressed a variety of themes in their writings, aesthetic theory can generally be characterized by three main questions: does beauty originate internally (person) or externally (object), are there universal traits that create beauty, and lastly, what is the role of the critique (expert) in recognizing and interpreting beauty? Three hundred years later, academic …

Ainsworth Fall Field Days, Janis Paseka

Nebraska Bird Review

The 2018 NOU Fall Field Days took place in and around Ainsworth on Sep. 14 – 16, with 48 in attendance. It was a hot and windy weekend, but 137 species were located. Two Sandhill Cranes in the Niobrara River at the Carns Bridge attracted birders, especially since the two cooperatively moved from one side of the river to the other, allowing county listers to count them in both. The bird of the weekend, however, was the Red-naped Sapsucker at Plum Creek Valley WMA. It was a county bird for everyone, a state bird for many and a life bird …

Escarabajos Longicornios (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae Y Disteniidae) Del Parque Nacional Darién, Panamá, Alfredo Lanuza-Garay, Alonso Santos Murgas

Insecta Mundi

Darién National Park (PND), a natural connection between South and Central America, is the largest national park not only in Panama but in all of Central America. Due to its strategic geographical situation, it is a place for the interchange of the North and South American fauna, where endemic invertebrates and vertebrates are very abundant. Through the use of malaise traps and light traps placed at different points within the PND, 183 individuals of 87 species of longicorn beetles in the families Cerambycidae and Disteniidae were collected. Also, four species of longhorn beetles (Cerambycidae) are reported for the first time …

A Review Of The Genus Beltia Jacoby (Chrysomelidae: Eumolpinae: Eumolpini), With Descriptions Of Fourteen New Species From Costa Rica, Panama, And Northwestern South America, R. Wills Flowers

Insecta Mundi

Adults of the Neotropical genera Beltia Jacoby (type species: Beltia nicaraguensis Jacoby) and Colaspoides Laporte (type species: Colaspoides limbata [Olivier]) (Chrysomelidae: Eumolpinae: Eumolpini) are difficult to separate. In this paper, the genus Beltia Jacoby is redefined and diagnosed by features of the pygidium, lateral wings of the prosternum, and metatibiae to distinguish it from Colaspoides and other medium-sized, ovate Eumolpini. Fourteen new species from Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru are described and illustrated—Beltia awapita, B. confusa, B. gorgona, B. herreri, B. ledesmae, B. napoensis, B. osa, B. rugosa, B. sanchezae, B. talaga, B. tilarana, B. tisingalita, B. …