Digital Commons Network^™

Compassion And Well-Being: The Effects Of An Online Filmmediated Compassion Education On Undergraduate Students, Thupten Tendhar

Open Access Dissertations

An increasing number of college students in the US are reportedly experiencing significant levels of emotional distress and mental health challenges. College students who practice compassion have been found to have significantly lower negative emotions when compared to students who do not practice compassionate thinking. This underscores the need for compassion education programs. However, only a limited number of college students benefit from existing compassion programs because many are too busy to commit to eight or more weeks of such face to face training along with their regular course load and work schedule. This study used a quantitative method with …

Impaired Cu-Zn Superoxide Dismutase (Sod1) And Calcineurin (Cn) Interaction In Als: A Presumed Consequence For Tdp-43 And Zinc Aggregation In Tg Sod1g93a Rodent Spinal Cord Tissue, Jolene M. Kim, Elizabeth Billington, Ada Reyes, Tara Notarianni, Jessica Sage, Emre Agbas, Michael Taylor, Ian Monast, John A. Stanford, Abdulbaki Agbas

Faculty and Staff Publications

Impaired interactions between Calcineurin (Cn) and (Cu/Zn) superoxide dismutase (SOD1) are suspected to be responsible for the formation of hyperphosphorylated protein aggregation in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Serine (Ser)- enriched phosphorylated TDP-43 protein aggregation appears in the spinal cord of ALS animal models, and may be linked to the reduced phosphatase activity of Cn. The mutant overexpressed SOD1G93A protein does not properly bind zinc (Zn) in animal models; hence, mutant SOD1G93A-Cn interaction weakens. Consequently, unstable Cn fails to dephosphorylate TDP-43 that yields hyperphosphorylated TDP-43 aggregates. Our previous studies had suggested that Cn and SOD1 interaction was necessary to keep Cn …

Physical Foundations Of Biological Mentality, Kenneth Augustyn

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Dualism struggles to connect two layers: the conscious mind and the physical workings of matter. It ignores a vast middle layer between the two, a layer that is beneath consciousness yet above known physical law. This middle layer is trans-robotic mentality, a means discovered by Nature to transcend robotic mentality. This middle layer evolved over billions of years before consciousness emerged from it, assuming more and more functions critical to survival as species evolved. Consciousness eventually emerged from trans-robotic mentality (not from robotic mentality), first intermittently then later more-or-less continuously. But there is no direct link between consciousness and matter. …

Private Government And The Transparency Deficit, Alfred C. Aman, Landyn W. Rookard

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Modern government is comprised of a complex admixture of public and private actors. From the provision of public services, to growing movements to sell off national parks, to the very task of legislating, the public is unlikely to encounter an area of government that is untouched by privatization. But public transparency mechanisms, including the seminal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), rely upon an outdated, rigid conception of the private-public dichotomy. They fail to provide the public with any meaningful access to what we call the “private government,” which includes the private actors who bear an increasing responsibility for performing governmental …

Taxing E-Commerce In The Post-Wayfair World, David Gamage, Darien Shanske, Adam Thimmesch

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Enhanced Scrutiny On The Buy-Side, Afra Afsharipour, J. T. Laster

Georgia Law Review

Empirical studies of acquisitions consistently find
that public company bidders often overpay for targets,
imposing significant losses on bidder shareholders.
Numerous studies have connected bidder overpayment
with managerial agency costs and behavioral biases that
reflect management self-interest. For purposes of
corporate law, these concerns implicate the behavior of
fiduciaries—the officers and directors of the acquiring
entity—and raise questions about whether those
fiduciaries are fulfilling their duty of loyalty. To address
comparable sell-side concerns, the Delaware courts
developed an intermediate standard of review known as
enhanced scrutiny. There has been little exploration,
however, of whether the rationales for applying
enhanced scrutiny …

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of Online Reviews: The Trouble With Trolls And A Role For Contract Law After The Consumer Review Fairness Act, Wayne R. Barnes

Georgia Law Review

The advent of the internet has brought innumerable
innovations to our lives. Among the innovations is the
meteoric rise in the volume of e-commerce conducted on
the internet. Correspondingly, consumer-posted
information about merchants, goods, and services has
also become a rich source of information for consumers
researching a purchase online. This information takes
many forms, but a major category is the narrative review
describing the purchase and experience. Such reviews
are posted on websites such as Yelp, Amazon, and
TripAdvisor, on apps, and on social media such as
Facebook and Twitter. The amount and volume of
reviews has exploded in …

America’S (D)Evolving Childcare Tax Laws, Shannon W. Mccormack

Georgia Law Review

Proponents touted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the
TCJA)—enacted in the twilight of 2017—by claiming it
would help American working families. But while the
TCJA expanded some benefits available to parents with
dependent children, these parental tax benefits may be
claimed regardless of whether or to what extent
childcare costs are incurred to work outside the home.
To help working parents with these (often significant)
costs, Congress might have turned to two other
mechanisms in the tax law—the “child and dependent
care credit” and the “dependent care exclusion.” While
these childcare tax benefits are only available to working
parents …

Between Law And Diplomacy: The Conundrum Of Common Law Immunity, Chimène I. Keitner

Georgia Law Review

Drawing the line between disputes that can be adjudicated in domestic (U.S.) courts and those that cannot has perplexed judges and jurists since the Founding Era. Although Congress provided a statutory framework for the jurisdictional immunities of foreign states in 1976, important ambiguities remain. Notably, in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Samantar v. Yousuf that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) does not govern suits against foreign officials unless the foreign state is the “real party in interest.” This decision clarified, but did not fully resolve, conceptual and doctrinal questions surrounding the immunities of foreign officials whose conduct …

To Be The Body Of Christ: Discipleship (Solidarity) And Eucharist, M. Shawn Copeland

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

In this presentation, I explore the relation between discipleship as solidarity and Eucharist. To this end, the Gospel of Luke sets the scriptural parameters, as the story of the disciples on the way to Emmaus and their experience of recognizing Jesus at table in the breaking of bread is narrated only in this Gospel. Written in the final decades of the first century and addressed to a community of mixed social and economic standing, Luke’s narrative has come under critique for its tendency to convey double-messages and its ambiguity toward women and the poor. New Testament scholar Sharon Ringe has …

Foreword To Latcrit 2017 Symposium: What’S Next? Resistance Resilience And Community In The Trump Era, Jorge R. Roig, Saru M. Matambanadzo, Sheila I. Vélez-Martínez

Scholarly Works

In this Foreword, we strive to contextualize “LatCrit XXI: What’s Next?” against the backdrop of two crises: the current political crisis in the United States and the continuing crisis of scarcity that impacts the legal academy. Through an examination of these crises, we will reveal how LatCrit scholars, in their efforts to build community and in their commitment to critical outsider scholarship, are part of the constellations of resistance that struggle against el mundo malo. We will argue that LatCrit has become a necessary institution for those seeking to engage in persistent resistance and dissent in the critical and progressive …

Learner Engagement In Blended Learning Environments: A Conceptual Framework, Lisa R. Halverson, Charles R. Graham

Faculty Publications

Learner engagement correlates with important educational outcomes, including academic achievement and satisfaction. Although research is already exploring learner engagement in blended contexts, no theoretical framework guides inquiry or practice, and little consistency or specificity exists in engagement definitions and operationalizations. Developing definitions, models, and measures of the factors that indicate learner engagement is important to establishing whether changes in instructional methods (facilitators) result in improved engagement (measured via indicators). This article reviews the existing literature on learner engagement and identifies constructs most relevant to learning in general and blended learning in particular. The authors present a possible conceptual framework for …

Somatosensory Cross-Modal Reorganization In Children With Cochlear Implants, Garrett Cardon, Anu Sharma

Faculty Publications

Deprived of sensory input, as in deafness, the brain tends to reorganize. Cross-modal reorganization occurs when cortices associated with deficient sensory modalities are recruited by other, intact senses for processing of the latter’s sensory input. Studies have shown that this type of reorganization may affect outcomes when sensory stimulation is later introduced via intervention devices. One such device is the cochlear implant (CI). Hundreds of thousands of CIs have been fitted on people with hearing impairment worldwide, many of them children. Factors such as age of implantation have proven useful in predicting speech perception outcome with these devices in children. …

Introduction To The Second Special Issue On Biological Mentality, Kenneth Augustyn

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

No abstract provided.

Johannes Brahms’S Fünf Ophelia-Lieder Performance History, Cultural Context, And Character Study As It Pertains To Johannes Brahms’S Fünf Ophelia-Lieder: A Performer’S Perspective, Caryn Alexis Crozier

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This document aims to contribute research on the lesser known and under researched vocal works by Johannes Brahms, particularly his Fünf Ophelia Lieder. This song cycle, while not written to be performed on its own, originally, is a rich technical resource for beginning singers and advanced singers alike. Brahms wrote a simple melody with sparse accompaniment that really allows the performer to focus on language, technique, or dramatic interpretation. This document looks at Brahms’s setting of Ophelia’s mad scene through many different lenses including theoretical, by analyzing each song musically and dramatically, historical analysis of Hamlet and its many iterations, …

Using The Enrichment Triad Model To Explore Place And Support Curriculum In One Rural Gifted Program, Myriah Mae Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Using narrative inquiry, this case study explored how one teacher, who had deep connections to place, learned and utilized the place-based Enrichment Triad in her rural Appalachian elementary gifted program. Data collected included teacher, student, and parent interviews and classroom observations. Data were analyzed using a socio-cultural narrative analysis and narrative thematic analysis. Results from analysis created thick descriptions of the teacher’s journey to teaching, her existing practices, her experiences learning and implementing the framework, and her future curricular intentions. Developments in the teacher’s practice included establishment of scope and sequence, a sharing of power, and embracing students’ identities through …

Improving Broiler Performance Utilizing Modern Feed Additives, Niles Rourke Ridgeway

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Modern broiler production strives to make modest improvements regarding broiler performance. This remains a goal as global population increases thusly increasing the quantity of an affordable, high quality source of protein. In recent years, an added stressor to achieving prior goals is mostly related to consciousness of environmental and consumer health. For decades, integrators have utilized minimal amounts of antibiotics as a barrier to most pathogens affecting the microbiome of a broiler’s gastrointestinal tract. Regulatory efforts have now prohibited most of previous sub-therapeutic medicine and started an in-depth scope of broiler gut health and interaction with antibiotic alternatives. In an …

Canonical Wnt Mechanisms In Neural Crest Induction, Mark Stephen Perfetto

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Canonical Wnt signaling is a pathway that is critical for normal development and the progression of disease. The canonical Wnt signaling pathway was put together carefully by synthesizing decades of research. Over those decades, canonical Wnt signaling was found to be crucial for nearly all aspects of development, but of importance to this thesis, is a key regulatory factor for the development of the highly migratory multipotent stem cells, the neural crest. As our knowledge of the importance of canonical Wnt signaling grew, research is being conducted to further our understanding of how canonical Wnt signaling communicates with other signaling …

Metal Nanomaterials: Immune Effects And Implications Of Physicochemical Properties On Sensitization, Elicitation, And Augmentation Of Allergic Disease, Katherine Adair Roach

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Many allergenic metals are being manufactured in nanoparticulate forms. Although the decreased size profile of metal nanomaterials has been consistently associated with more pronounced lung toxicity compared to larger materials, it is unclear if metal-induced immunotoxic effects exhibit a similar size-dependency.

The central hypothesis of these studies was that metal nanoparticles cause more pronounced immunomodulatory effects on allergic processes than larger forms of respective metals. Moreover, it was anticipated that, similar to their inflammatory potential in airways, the magnitude of these responses would correlate best with the dose metric of surface area.

The first set of studies utilized fine and …

Artificial Immune System For Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Abnormal Condition Detection And Identification, Ryan G. Mclaughlin

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

A detection and identification scheme for abnormal conditions was developed for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based on the artificial immune system (AIS) paradigm. This technique involves establishing a body of data to represent normal conditions referred to as “self” and differentiating these conditions from abnormal conditions, referred to as “non-self”. Data collected from simulation of the UAV attempting to autonomously fly a pre-decided trajectory were used to develop and test a scheme that was able to detect and identify aircraft sensor and actuator faults. These faults included aerodynamic control surface locks and damages and angular rate sensor biases. The …

The Marvel Sonic Narrative: A Study Of The Film Music In Marvel's The Avengers, Avengers: Infinity War, And Avengers: Endgame, Anthony Walker

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This document explores the music of three films in the Marvel Avengers enterprise: Marvel’s The Avengers, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. It does not examine the second film of the series, Avengers: Age of Ultron. The document seeks to uncover and further understand the music’s function in each film and to determine its continuity throughout all three films. This study uses a combination of film music studies and theory-based analysis to support the findings with the aim of identifying connecting musical elements that stretch throughout these three films. This includes the use of leitmotif/themes, previously …

Critical Physicochemical Properties For Nanoparticle Toxicity: Impact Of Surface Coating And Size On Particle-Induced Cell Transformation And Inflammatory Response, Tiffany Kornberg

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Nanoparticles, which measure 100 nm in at least one dimension, have surged in development, production, and use for a wide range of applications. However, the rapid pace of development for these emerging materials with unclear/unknown toxicity profiles makes it difficult to adequately assess health risk associated with exposure. One critical obstacle which limits scientific research to fill these critical knowledge gaps is the lack of accurate and predictive models for nanotoxicology studies, particularly those which involve occupationally relevant exposure scenarios (pulmonary exposure to low dose of particles in the circulating air). Typically, animal models are used to assess potential systemic …

The Acute Effect Of Propanil On Reproductive Hormones, Ovarian Gene Expression And Splenic Cells In C57bl/6 Female Mice, Malia Danielle Berg

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Earlier evidence indicates exposure to propanil, a post-emergent herbicide used on rice and wheat fields, increases the number of antibody-secreting cells (ASC) in the spleen of mice after immunization with heat-killed Streptococcus pneumoniae (HKSP, 2x10⁸ CFU). Interestingly, an intact hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis is required for this immune response assessed on day 7-10 after immunization in female mice. Hence, an overarching premise is that propanil arbitrates the connection between the reproductive and immune system by altering the concentration of hormones involved in the HPG axis, which may then affect the populations of splenic cells. Hypotheses were tested with C57Bl/6 female …

Evaluating The Consistency Of A Breathing Flow Recording Device Across Different Elastomeric Half-Mask Respirators, Samuel Jennings Munnis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is the organization in charge of approving respiratory devices in the United States, as permitted by 42 CFR Part 84. Standards that NIOSH uses to certify powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs) are based on respiratory data collected before the 21^st century. With new technologies, it is possible to gain a more accurate understanding of breathing flow of healthcare workers (HCWs). A new portable breathing flow recording device developed by The S.E.A. Group was intended for use with a Sundström SR100 mask with a P100 filter. This study tests the device with …

Thermal Performance Of Growth At Consumption Maximum (C-Max) And Routine Metabolic Rate (Rmr) In Brook Trout Salvelinus Fontinalis From Four Populations In Central Appalachia, Cory Michael Hartman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Growth of an individual is the end result of many physiological processes stemming from the consumption of food items. These processes can be influenced by many variables including temperature. Current bioenergetics models for Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis suggest growth increases with temperature until an inflection point of 20.2°C. With a warming climate, and water temperatures expected to rise, the ability of a population to adapt to the warming environment is crucial to the survival of the species. For this study we sought to see how spatial variation would influence the specific consumption, conversion efficiency, and specific growth at consumption maximum …

Historic Log Buildings As Archives Of Past Forest Ecology, Kristen K. De Graauw

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation is composed of three separate but related manuscripts with the common theme of using historic log buildings from the central Appalachian Mountain region of eastern North America as ecological archives. In Chapter 1, I explore the biases, limitations, and ecological applications of tree-ring data from historic log buildings. European immigrants selected trees from a forested stand based on species, log sizes, and construction locations. Despite this selection bias, ecological information can be gleaned from historic log buildings, which offer a complementary record of past forest ecology and represent a site type that is not often associated with old-growth …

Promoting Cognitive And Fine Motor Development In The Art Room For Young Students With Exposure To Trauma: An Exploratory Case Study., Tiffany Marie Minuci

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Despite the overwhelming research that suggests visual artmaking experiences can produce positive outcomes for individuals, many state art education policies fail to implement and integrate the arts into core academic curriculums. Specifically in the state of West Virginia, kindergarten through twelfth grade students often lack the access to a quality and consistent art education. With high teacher-pupil ratios and inclusive learning environments, educators face the difficult task of meeting all the individual needs of their students’ in the classroom. This not only affects whole student populations, but also poses risks for children who have been exposed to trauma. Traumatic experiences …

Morphological And Phylogenetic Resolution Of Diplodia Spp., Emerging Canker Pathogens Of Oak (Quercus Spp.), In The United States, Savannah Lyn Ferreira

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In Mediterranean Europe and the United States, oak species (Quercus spp.) have been in a state of declining health and vigor for the past several decades. Several biotic agents have been found to contribute to this decline to varying degrees including Phytophthora cinnamomi and Armillaria spp., both causal agents of root rots, and various insect defoliators. In the U.S., Bretziella fagacearum, the causal agent of oak wilt, has also been implicated. More recently, Diplodia corticola (Dc) and other Diplodia spp. have been implicated in causing dieback and mortality of oak species in Europe and in …

Multidimensional Analysis Of Vulnerability: Methodological Advances And A Case Study From Malawi., Park Mcmillan Muhonda

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Since 1990s rural households in Malawi, constituting 85% of the population, have experienced deepening livelihood vulnerability, often manifested as persistent food insecurity. Livelihood crises have since been blamed on or attributed directly to weather perturbations/climatic shocks i.e. El-Nino induced climate variability/drought conditions. This study revealed that persistent livelihood crisis in rural Malawi cannot be attributed to or squarely blamed on weather shocks alone, rather it is at the intersection of various livelihoods shocks that rural livelihood vulnerability in Malawi is exacerbated i.e. worsening and deepening.

Thus, rural livelihood vulnerability to climate shocks in Malawi is manifest not in isolation but …

Population Health Of Spotted Salamanders (Ambystoma Maculatum) In Created Vernal Pools: An Integrative Approach, Alice R. Millikin

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Habitat creation is an important tool for conservation to counteract habitat loss and degradation. Vernal pools are susceptible to destruction due to limited detection, protection, and regulation. These wetlands provide fishless breeding habitat for many amphibian species including spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) in eastern North America. Determining whether created vernal pool habitat is successful is often determined by demographic data of colonizing populations. I suggest that hormone levels, population genetics, and disease prevalence can improve our understanding of population health in created habitat. The goal of this dissertation was to assess the health of spotted salamander larvae in …