Digital Commons Network^™

Porn Wars: Serious Value, Social Harm, And The Burdens Of Modern Obscenity Doctrine, P. Brooks Fuller, Kyla P. Garrett Wagner, Farnosh Mazandarani

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

During the 1980s, anti-pornography ideologues—an unlikely alliance of feminist activists and right-wing evangelical Christians—waged an open war against pornography and the anti-censorship feminists who supported legal protection for pornographic works. Following a pivotal defeat of an anti-pornography ordinance in federal court, the ideologies constituted in the so-called “Porn Wars” continued to guide obscenity doctrine. These ideologies have informed lower courts’ understanding of the harms and values associated with sexually explicit content more than constitutional scholars recognize, at least explicitly. Although courts recognize core feminist values such as sexual autonomy and privacy in sexually explicit content, they have built doctrine that …

Slavery-Like Conditions And Abuse Of Positions Of Vulnerability: Why The United States Should Judge Countries' Efforts To Combat Human Trafficking Based On The Palermo Protocol And Consider The Effects Of Legalized Prostitution On Human Trafficking, Danica Baird

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Georgia Life Act: Limiting Women's State Constitutional Right To Privacy, Phoebe Varunok

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Supporters And Advocates In Disability Accommodations Meetings: Using Title Ix As A Framework, Marissa Ditkowsky

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Content Warning: This piece contains some discussion of sexual assault and violence.

The Intersection Between Disability And Lgbt Discrimination And Marginalization, Victoria M. Rodríguez-Roldán

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Sexual Contact Between A Suspect And Police Officers: How Far Should Police Go To Prove Prostitution?, Paula Del Valle Torres

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Future (Public Company Boardroom) Is Female: From California Sb 826 To A Gender Diversity Listing Standard, Sunitha Malepati

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Introduction

The issue of board diversity has received an unusual amount of attention in recent years as corporations face an increasing amount of pressure to add more women to their boards. In 2017, State Street Corporation, the world’s third-largest asset manager, made headlines when it announced its board gender diversity campaign by placing a statue of the Fearless Girl staring down the Charging Bull of Wall Street in New York City’s Financial District. At the beginning of 2020, Goldman Sachs announced that it would require companies it helps take public to have at least one diverse board member, with a …

Raising The Bar On Accessibility: How The Bar Admissions Process Limits Disabled Law School Graduates, Haley Moss

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Introduction

Think about the steps it takes to get from law school admission through passing the Bar exam. Not only do you have to graduate with your college degree, but you have to take the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT); enroll in law school; potentially take out student loans; do plenty of reading; pass all of your classes; survive a few internships; participate in clinics, practicums and activities; obtain the juris doctor degree; study for weeks and months on end to take the bar exam; and hope for good news to begin your journey as an attorney. While it sounds …

The Kids Are Alright? The Need For Kidfluencer Protections, Ana Saragoza

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Introduction

“Maybe guys have your hand on the toy but remember the camera. Leah, I can’t see your face babe, we gotta [sic] see it a little bit.” Nine-year-old identical twins Leah and Ava Clements are comparatively new to influencing, having started at the age of seven. Now at age nine, the twins have over one million followers on Instagram. The twins can earn upwards of ten thousand dollars per sponsored post. The Instagram influencer marketing business is estimated to be valued between five and ten billion dollars. Just as successful are minors who secure equally lucrative sponsorships for product …

Not Another Tween Tweet: Social Media, Schools, And A Return To Tinker, Benjamin P. Schroff

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Introduction

In May 2017, a high school student received the news that she made the junior varsity cheerleading squad for her sophomore year. The student then learned that an incoming freshman placed on the varsity squad over her. In response to this, the student posted a picture of herself and a friend on Snapchat, displaying their middle fingers and saying “f school, f softball, f cheer, f everything.” Soon after the student’s post, the coaches of the cheer squad suspended the student for one year, citing the school’s Cheerleading Rules. After the school board refused to get involved, the student’s …

Prospects And Pitfalls: Confronting Sexual Harassment In The Legal Cannabis Industry, Alexis N. Smith, Griffon Toronjo Pivateau

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

I. Introduction

In the last decade, the legal cannabis industry emerged as a fast-growing and complex new market. Legal cultivation of the cannabis plant promises to create tremendous economic opportunities. Further, the new market hints at significant social consequences. Numerous women have entered the field as entrepreneurs, advocates, and employees. Early reports indicate a much higher percentage of women within the cannabis industry than the agricultural industry in general.

Nevertheless, women face challenges and obstacles. The cannabis industry bears the characteristics of a start-up entity, but this entity resides within a market skewed by the federal law banning the cultivation …

Measurement Of Current Distribution In The Land Channel Direction Of A Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell, Chinmay Kulkarni

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A fully functional proton exchange membrane fuel cell with single land channel geometry on the cathode and segmented anode current collector with 9 mm² active area with a 350μm spatial resolution was utilized to measure the local current distribution in the land channel direction. A distinguished printed circuit board approach was used for the data acquisition to adapt to any flow field design.

Performance of this segmented cell was examined at dry, wet and moderate humidity settings to study the water transport phenomenon in the PEMFC. In the dry condition at 60 ͦ C with 0% relative humidity, the …

Livestock-Wildlife Dynamics And Subsequent Human Responses In Marginalized Communities Within Mexico’S Nationally Protected Areas, Deanna Seil

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Entering the planet’s sixth mass-extinction, monitoring biodiversity and the factors which affect it is of the utmost importance. This study on the interaction of humans and their livestock with wildlife, and the impact of this interaction on wildlife conservation, took place in Santiago Coatepec, located within the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve in Mexico. Wildlife interactions with livestock may depend upon species, season, ecological characteristics of the area, and livestock management practices. Using camera traps, field data, and interview data, I quantified livestock impact on wildlife behavior and community beliefs. Over two years, camera traps at 18 stations recorded 709 wildlife videos …

Assessing The Accuracy Of A Uav Snow Depth Survey: Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska Calm Grid, Ian Nichols

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Active layer depth and snow depth are annually collected across the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM) Network to observe the response of the active layer and near-surface permafrost to climate change over decadal-time scales. Snow depth is typically measured using a graduated steel probe at each grid node but, in this paper, we explore the viability of using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) (drone) technology to collect snow depth measurements at the 1 km² Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska CALM grid. This is achieved by comparing estimated UAV snow depths to measured snow depths collected using a MagnaProbe (MP) at each of …

Matlabta: A Style Critiquer For Novice Engineering Students, Marissa L. Walther

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Novice programmers, considered to be those who have yet to understand the fundamentals of programming, exist in both engineering and computing fields. Within computing, various resources exist to help novice programmers understand fundamentals and style guidelines such as WebTA, a code critique program that gives Java students feedback about their error and style issues. There is, however, a gap in automated code critique for MATLAB, a programming language that is popular in the engineering community. When it comes to MATLAB, there are not many programs that help novices understand their errors, and even fewer that help them understand style guidelines. …

Uniform Three-Class Regular Partial Steiner Triple Systems With Uniform Degrees, Prangya Rani Parida

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A Partial Steiner Triple system (X, T) is a finite set of points C and a collection T of 3-element subsets of C that every pair of points intersect in at most 1 triple. A 3-class regular PSTS (3-PSTS) is a PSTS where the points can be partitioned into 3 classes (each class having size m, n and p respectively) such that no triple belongs to any class and any two points from the same class occur in the same number of triples (a, b and c respectively). The 3-PSTS is said to be uniform if m = n = …

High-Performance Zero Liquid Discharge (Zld) Treatment Of High-Salinity Brines Using A Multiple-Effect Absorption Distillation Concept, Sunil Pinnu

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

State-of-the-art zero liquid discharge (ZLD) technologies are currently bound with either intensive use of high-grade electrical energy such as mechanical vacuum vapor compressors utilized in brine crystallizers or high capital cost with environmental concerns such as evaporation ponds. The present study aims to address these issues by an innovative desiccant-based ZLD system in which a multiple-effect distillation (MED) unit is uniquely embedded at the heart of an absorption-desorption system. Here, the MED and absorption systems are inherently coupled enabling both heat and mass transfer processes between a high-salinity water and a desiccant solution. The proposed technology employs an absorption-based thermally-driven …

Development Of A Software-Defined Underwater Acoustic Communication System, Zijian Zhu

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This report started with a brief history and recent development of underwater acoustic communication systems as well as software-defined radio technologies. Then, some challenges from underwater acoustic channels and available underwater acoustic communication modems are discussed. After finished introducing the basics of SDR and GNU Radio, a detailed description of implementing a software-defined acoustic communication system in GNU Radio are presented, along with some key concepts of the system.

Then, some hardware specifications are presented, following by detailed documentation on a software-defined acoustic communication system experiment with a host computer, a USRP, an acoustic hydrophone, and a hydrophone. At the …

Acute Physiological Responses To Arm-Cranking With Blood Flow Restriction, Benjamin Cockfield

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Physiological responses to aerobic blood flow restriction exercise (BFR) are well documented for lower-body exercise but not upper-body exercise. I evaluated cardiorespiratory (heart rate, VO2, RER, ventilation), metabolic (tissue saturation, deoxyhemoglobin concentrations), and perceptual (effort, pain) responses to arm cranking with BFR at varying arterial occlusion pressures (AOP). Ten adults performed 4 intermittent arm cranking protocols (6x2-min, 1-min recovery): 1) low load (LL) – 40%VO2peak and 0% AOP; high load (HL) – 80%VO2peak and 0% AOP; (BFR50) – 40%VO2peak with 50% AOP; (BFR70) – 40%VO2peak with 70% AOP. Heart rate, RER, and ventilation, were higher with BFR compared to LL …

Nanofiber Scaffolds As 3d Culture Platforms, Stephanie Bule

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Cell culture has become the basis for understanding the fundamental mechanisms of cell, tissue and organ function. Although major advancements in uncovering the underlying processes and mechanisms of normal and diseased cell biology have been made by using two-dimensional (2D) cell culture, there is a recent shift in moving towards three-dimensional (3D) culture platforms. The motivation is to better recapitulate the microenvironment of cells in vivo to obtain results that are more indicative to actual cellular processes. In this study, electrospun nano-fibrous scaffolds made of polycaprolactone were used as a 3D culture tool to investigate difference in cell behavior and …

Modeling The Effects Of Wastewater Infrastructure Options On Water Quality In Greater Cleveland, Ohio, Mike Foster

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The city of Cleveland, OH, and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District are in the process of an ambitious engineering project designed to reduce the amount of untreated wastewater that is discharged into Lake Erie and its tributaries. The project involves the construction of seven tunnels that will intercept combined sewer overflows for transport to wastewater treatment plants, along with upgrades to the treatment capacity of these plants. This report will examine the water quality impacts of this project, as well as the impact of six additional proposed management options, on the streams of Greater Cleveland and the Lake Erie …

A Cluster Analysis Of Social Media Use In The Anglophone Crisis In Cameroon: A Case Study Of Facebook Posts., Neh Claudia Soh

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis applies a method of rhetorical criticism – cluster analysis – to explore the different narratives on and about the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon by two prominent rhetors involved in the crisis. The artifacts in the study were Facebook posts published by Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, and a prominent Anglophone activist, Mark Bareta. The thesis set out to answer two research questions. The first question focused on the descriptive narratives that emerge from the rhetors in the crisis; the second question focused on the rhetors’ motives. The different narratives that emerged showed that Cameroon’s president pushed the narratives of …

Electrospun Nanofiber Scaffolds As A Platform For Breast Cancer Research, Carolynn Que

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Tumorigenesis is a complex process involving numerous cellular signaling cascades and environmental factors. Here, we report the fabrication of 3D scaffolds with different morphologies obtained by to study cancer cell proliferation and migration. Using an FDA approved, biocompatible and biodegradable polymer Polycaprolactone (PCL), we electrospun nanofiber scaffolds having mesh, aligned, and honeycomb morphologies. The role of the morphology and cellular preferences to nutrition in cell adhesion and proliferation was assessed using scaffolds obtained by electrospinning PCL with fluorescent fructose-like molecular probes. Cell viability, cell morphology, localized cellular growth as related to scaffold morphology and availability of the fructose-like molecular probes …

Fluid Inclusion Study Of Selected Calcite Associated With Native Copper, Quincy Mine, Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan, David Kelly

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Keweenaw Peninsula is famous for hosting the largest accumulation of native copper anywhere in the world. Previous studies have looked for the fluids responsible for creating the native copper deposits but were unable to conclusively demonstrate that fluid inclusions can provide valuable insight into the hydrothermal/metamorphogenic fluids responsible for these unique deposits.

This report focused on fluid inclusions from calcite precipitated during the native copper mineralizing event. Calcite crystals with inclusions of native copper growing into vugs from a single location, the Quincy Mine, were hypothesized to have a higher chance to be undisturbed by seismic events that would …

Sensor Fusion And Non-Linear Mpc Controller Development Studies For Intelligent Autonomous Vehicular Systems, Ahammad Basha Dudekula

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The demand for safety and fuel efficiency on ground vehicles and advancement in embedded systems created the opportunity to develop Autonomous controller. The present thesis work is three fold and it encompasses all elements that are required to prototype the autonomous intelligent system including simulation, state handling and real time implementation. The Autonomous vehicle operation is mainly dependent upon accurate state estimation and thus a major concern of implementing the autonomous navigation is obtaining robust and accurate data from sensors. This is especially true, in case of Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensor data. The IMU consists of a 3-axis gyro, …

Spatial Analysis Of The Infrastructural Demands Of Integrating 5g Technology: A Case Study In The City Of Detroit, Gregory Putman

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The invention of 5G technology is expected to revolutionize wireless communication, technology, and capabilities. One major challenge in realizing this vision is the actual deployment of 5G nodes and the development of 5G network infrastructure. Higher frequency and shorter wavelengths that are characteristic of 5G technology is expected to decrease signal range radii of 5G nodes, which could have serious implications for the implementation of a 5G network. This study assessed cell signal density and cell signal coverage that could be achieved using existing 4G infrastructure in the city of Detroit. Results indicate that existing infrastructure is not capable of …

Optimal Mission Planning Of Autonomous Mobile Agents For Applications In Microgrids, Sensor Networks, And Military Reconnaissance, Casey D. Majhor

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

As technology advances, the use of collaborative autonomous mobile systems for various applications will become evermore prevalent. One interesting application of these multi-agent systems is for autonomous mobile microgrids. These systems will play an increasingly important role in applications such as military special operations for mobile ad-hoc power infrastructures and for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions. In performing these operations with these autonomous energy assets, there is a crucial need to optimize their functionality according to their specific application and mission. Challenges arise in determining mission characteristics such as how each resource should operate, when, where, and for how long. …

Cosmic-Ray Acceleration In The Cygnus Ob2 Stellar Association, Binita Hona

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Cygnus region of our Galaxy consists of an active star forming region and a wealth of various astrophysical sources such as pulsar wind nebulae (PWN), supernova remnants (SNRs), and massive star clusters. Massive stellar clusters and associations have been postulated as possible sources of cosmic rays (CRs) in our Galaxy. One example of a gamma-ray source associated with a stellar association lies in the Cygnus region known as the "Cygnus Cocoon". It is an extended region of gamma-ray emission in the Cygnus X region and attributed to a possible superbubble with freshly accelerated CRs which are hypothesized to produce …

Aperture-Level Simultaneous Transmit And Receive (Star) With Digital Phased Arrays, Ian Cummings

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In the signal processing community, it has long been assumed that transmitting and receiving useful signals at the same time in the same frequency band at the same physical location was impossible. A number of insights in antenna design, analog hardware, and digital signal processing have allowed researchers to achieve simultaneous transmit and receive (STAR) capability, sometimes also referred to as in-band full-duplex (IBFD). All STAR systems must mitigate the interference in the receive channel caused by the signals emitted by the system. This poses a significant challenge because of the immense disparity in the power of the transmitted and …

General Accounting And Auditing Developments, 2020/21; Audit Risk Alerts, American Institute Of Certified Public Accountants (Aicpa)

Industry Guides (AAGs), Risk Alerts, and Checklists

No abstract provided.