Digital Commons Network^™

International Law As Behavior: An Agenda, Harlan G. Cohen, Timothy Meyer

Scholarly Works

Over the past few decades, scholars in a variety of fields – economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and international relations, among others – have made enormous strides studying the behavioral roots of international law by exploring individual motivations, describing organizational cultures, and mapping communities of practice. Taken together, the work of these scholars presents a complex, nuanced understanding of how international law works. However, these projects are rarely considered together: often separated by academic enclosures and focused on different subfields within international law, communication among scholars using different methodologies is restricted. The goal of this book is to break down some …

Tax Policy And Covid-19: An Argument For Targeted Crisis Relief, Assaf Harpaz

Scholarly Works

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a sharp global economic decline. By the end of 2021, the U.S. government responded to the downturn with record fiscal legislation totaling over $5 trillion, which includes considerable tax relief. Most notably, the U.S. government distributed over $800 billion in three rounds of advanced refundable tax credits (known as recovery rebates, or stimulus checks) to most households. Tax relief has been unprecedented in scale but has often been the product of political circumstances rather than principled policy design. Tax relief thus remains largely undertheorized and politically motivated.

This Article examines the U.S. tax policy response to …

Detwiler V. Dist. Ct. (Baker Boyer Nat'l Bank), 137 Nev. Adv. Op. 18 (May 5, 2021), Samantha Goett

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

No abstract provided.

Ask The Smart Money: Shareholder Votes By A "Majority Of The Quality Shareholders", Lawrence A. Cunningham

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Corporate directors, shareholders, judges and scholars are on edge. Directors yearn for a certain kind of shareholder, especially one that is patient and focused on the company, as opposed to indexers, who must hold it as part of their basket, or traders, who own fleetingly. Shareholders want a voice, and that patient-focused cohort has the softest one today, crowded out by indexers, like BlackRock, and legions of day traders, like those stalking GameStop. Courts, struggling under the conflicting weight of the business judgment rule and fairness scrutiny, look to shareholder voice as a solution. Yet scholars are troubled by the …

Denial Of Family Violence In Court: An Empirical Analysis And Path Forward For Family Law, Joan S. Meier

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Scores of women and children have suffered grave harm from courts’ punitive responses to mothers’ requests to protect their children from paternal abuse in the context of custody litigation. Rather than responding protectively, family courts frequently turn on the protective parent, ordering the children removed from the protective parent and sending them to live with or spend unprotected time with their allegedly abusive parent. In the worst of these cases, the abusive parent has used this court-ordered access to murder the child(ren), in the ultimate act of revenge against his adult victim. While courts’ resistance to mothers’ and children’s abuse …

Fall 2021 Supplement To Brauneis & Schechter, Copyright: A Contemporary Approach, Robert Brauneis, Roger E. Schechter

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Fall 2021 Supplement is the product of our effort to capture important developments in copyright law since the publication of the second edition of Copyright: A Contemporary Approach. It includes two new principal cases, both Supreme Court decisions: the 2021 fair use decision in Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., and the 2020 decision about copyright protection for state statutes in Georgia v. Public.Resources.Org. The supplement also includes notes on many other cases, and a few new features that we thought would enhance study of U.S. copyright law. In light of the passage of the Music Modernization Act in …

The Illusion Of Victory: Access To Abortion After June Medical Services, Brittany L. Raposa

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Towards The Point Of Care And Noninvasive Classification Of Bladder Cancer From Urine Sediment Infrared Spectroscopy. Spectral Differentiation Of Normal, Abnormal And Cancer Patients, Monika Kujdowicz, David Perezguaita, Piotr Chłosta, Krzysztof Okon, Kamilla Malek

Articles

Bladder cancer (BC) is the 9th cancer cause of death and one of most cost-intensive in the world. The diagnostic tools are still not at all satisfactory. Herein we evaluated the potential of infrared spectroscopy to detect molecular changes that precede and accompany the carcinogenesis in voided urine sediment. We collected 165 samples from patients being diagnosed for BC and measured them with attenuated total reflectance Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (ATR FTIR). Samples were primarily divided into three groups according to cytology that indicated the presence of normal, abnormal and cancer cells. ATR FTIR spectra of sediments were analyzed with …

From Bench To Worktop: Rapid Evaluation Of Nutritional Parameters In Liquid Foodstuffs By Ir Spectroscopy, David Perezguaita

Articles

We evaluated the use of attenuated total reflectance infrared spectroscopy for simultaneous in situ quantification of the nutritional composition of liquid food stuffs in the industrial kitchen context. Different methodologies were compared, including dry and wet acquisition along with instrument parameters and measurement times of 4 and 60 s. The most effective technique was 1-minute measurement, with prediction errors of 2.6, 0.7, 1.0, 2.2, 0.8, 2.4 g/100 mL and 150 Kcal, for carbohydrates, proteins, fat, sugars, saturated fat, water and energy values, respectively.The 4-second method resulted in larger errors but was more applicable for inline measurements. Dry measurements successfully predicted …

Himpathy? The Impact Of Defendant Social Status On Perceptions Of A Rape Legal Case, Andrea Pals

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

There is limited work regarding multiple indicators of social status in the legal system (e.g., power and SES). The present study investigated the influence of defendant social status on case judgments in a first-degree rape case. The experiment used a 2 (defendant power: high vs. low) x 2 (defendant SES: high vs. low) x 2 (participant gender) between-subjects design. A sample of 282 community members were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Participants were presented with a case summary, asked to make guilt and credibility judgments, complete the system justification gender scale (gender SJ: Jost & Kay, 2005), and answer standard …

Physiological Stress Responding During Negative Memory Recollection And The Habitual Use Of Psychological Coping Strategies, Kyle P. Rawn

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Coping represents an important process for stress: how effectively one copes dictates how a person experiences stress. However, research has not yet examined how a person’s long-term coping habits are related to their physiological stress responding during a particular situation. The current study addresses this through examination of skin conductance level (SCL) trajectories and coping tendencies (i.e. habitual use of coping strategies) during an autobiographical interview. 167 college students completed questionnaires assessing their demographics and their frequency of use for fourteen coping strategies. SCL was collected while participants recalled and discussed a negative family memory from their childhood. Multilevel modeling …

The Role Of Alexithymia And Affective Lability In Disordered Eating Behaviors, Anna Marie Lilia Ortiz

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Affective distress may influence eating disorder behaviors in multiple ways. Affective lability refers to the tendency to experience frequent and striking fluctuations in mood. There is considerable evidence that it predicts eating disorder symptoms. Further, alexithymia is characterized by difficulties identifying and describing feelings and an externally oriented thinking style. Alexithymia has also been implicated in the development and maintenance of eating disorders. To date, these risk factors have been studied separately. Given the evidence that both alexithymia and affective lability are affective components associated with eating disordered behaviors, it may be important to examine possible relationships among alexithymia, affective …

How I Can Be Me: Associations Between Presentation Discrepancy And Mental Health Outcomes Among Lgbtq Adults, Samuel Bruun

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

One’s perception of their own personal appearance, and how one is viewed by others has been previously shown to have an impact on one’s mental health. Whether it be dealing with unrealistic body expectations depicted in the media, or attempting to appear sufficiently masculine, there are a multitude of ways in which one’s appearance can cause distress. Some appearance challenges are more identity specific, such as the struggles that some transgender people experience when attempting to achieve affirming gender presentation. Although these different concerns have been addressed individually in past research, there has not been an attempt to determine how …

Parent School Involvement, Student School Engagement, And Academic Achievement In Children Adopted From Foster Care By Lesbian And Gay Parents, Cassandra P. Vazquez

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Sparse research has examined academic outcomes of children adopted from foster care by lesbian and gay (LG) parents. Children who have experienced foster care are at greater risk for negative outcomes, but investment in academic achievement could help buffer potential adversity. Parent and student engagement with school peaks in middle childhood, so this may be an important period for understanding processes that influence academic achievement. This study explores how LG parents (N = 57) of school-aged children (Mage = 10.56 years) adopted from foster care in the U.S. involve themselves in their child’s school, how this involvement may …

Impact Of Ptsd On Hcv/Hiv Risk-Reduction Interventions Among Incarcerated Drug-Using Women In Rural Appalachia, Caitlyn Hood

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Justice-involved women in rural Appalachian Kentucky are a particularly vulnerable group in need of targeted risk-reduction interventions for hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Compared to women in the general U.S. population, justice-involved women in rural Appalachia report dramatically higher rates of HCV/HIV risk behaviors (e.g., injection drug use and risky sex), interpersonal violence (IV; e.g., physical, sexual, or emotional abuse), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). IV and PTSD may exacerbate rural Appalachian women’s risk for contracting and transmitting HIV/HCV, indicating a need to approach HCV/HIV risk-reduction interventions from a trauma-informed perspective.

Brief motivational interviewing and psychoeducation …

Altering The Distance: Using Construal Level Theory To Examine Conciliatory Policy Support, Brandon Reinkensmeyer

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Distancing—a cognitive reappraisal strategy—increases conciliatory policy support (i.e., policies redressing inequity) by reducing anger. Related but distinct research has used construal level theory (CLT), which explains the relationship between psychological distance and mental representations (e.g., events and attitudes), to explore intergroup relations. CLT demonstrates increased psychological distance induces abstract thinking, which leads to high-level construal (HLC) mindsets. HLC mindsets, like distancing, decrease political polarization and prejudice toward out-groups. As both distancing (an appraisal technique) and HLC mindsets (a potential outcome of appraisal techniques) may decrease political polarization and prejudice toward outgroups, across two experiments, the present work investigated whether …

Unlocking Progressive Corporate Governance: The Black And Brown Hdfc Key, Gregory Louis

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Improving The Civil-Military Relationship: Diversity And The U.S. Army, Cody Schuette

Journal of Strategic Security

Although the U.S. Army has significantly increased racial diversity in the aggregate, non-white Americans remain underrepresented as commissioned officers, especially in the General Officer ranks. This is a significant defense policy problem because research shows a strong correlation among the diversity of senior leaders and effectively processing complex information to generate innovative, creative, and efficient solutions. These positive traits of diversity will help General Officers prepare for and manage the long-term and strategic threats posed by peer or near-peer competitors and violent non-state actors. Increased diversity also improves the civil-military relationship by ensuring Army Generals mirror the nation they serve …

Who Determines Majorness?, Chad Squitieri

Scholarly Articles

The major questions doctrine is said to assist courts in identifying whether Congress has delegated authority to administrative agencies. A closer look at the doctrine, however, reveals that it has been used by courts to tell Congress how it can delegate authority. What is more, some textualists have proposed strengthening the major questions doctrine into a revived nondelegation doctrine, which speaks to whether Congress can delegate authority. This Article argues that the major questions doctrine, particularly in its strengthened form, runs afoul of key commitments of textualism.

Avian Biodiversity Of The Indian River Lagoon System, Florida, Richard L. Turner

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Despite claims about high avian biodiversity in the Indian River Lagoon system, previous efforts to inventory the birds have been limited in geographic extent or in habitat. Compilation of a list of birds could rely on many resources, but ones of widespread availability, greatest historical record, and highest density of sites are two citizen-science projects: the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) and eBird. Lists of species were harvested from 17 CBC sites (‘‘circles’’) back to 1910 and from 432 eBird sites (‘‘hotspots’’) since 2002 within the boundaries of the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program (IRLNEP). In addition to lagoon waters, …

Biodiversity Of The Indian River Lagoon System: A Cautionary Tale From The Birds, Richard L. Turner

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Prevailing dogma on comparative biodiversity of the Indian River Lagoon (IRL) stems mainly from one claim about ichthyofauna and two about avifauna. The extensive network of birdwatchers, clarity of bird taxonomy, long history of the Christmas Bird Count (CBC), and burgeoning database on ebird.org make birds excellent for geographic comparison. The 1985 claim that Merritt Island CBCs are often the ‘‘most speciose count’’ in the U.S. is unfounded. CBCs there in 1970–1985 never had the highest count, even compared to the nearby Cocoa site. For the 114th CBC (2013), it ranked 11th in Florida and 44th nationally. The 1989 claim …

Unqualified Student Loans Are Likely Dischargeable In Bankruptcy, Cristian Catanese

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excepr)

As a general matter, most student loans are excepted from discharge under section 523 of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”). The Bankruptcy Code prohibits discharge of certain student loans unless doing so “would impose undue hardship on the debtor and [their] dependents . . . .” Student debtors seeking to discharge student loan debt must file an adversary proceeding and demonstrate “undue hardship” — a difficult burden to meet. However, not all student loans may be subject to this requirement.

Jurisdictions are divided on whether unqualified student loans, i.e., loans outside the cost of …

A Bankruptcy Court May Temporarily Suspend Rent Obligation, Matthew Kipnis

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Section 365(d)(3) of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”) authorizes a court to “extend, for cause, the time for performance of any [rent] obligation[‘s] [on unexpired leases of nonresidential real property] that arise[] within 60 days after the date of the order for relief[.]” Historically, courts have recognized that under § 365(d)(3), there is a statutory obligation on debtors to pay rent on unexpired leases. Courts have also recognized that if a debtor’s rent obligation is deferred, lessors are entitled to adequate protection. However, courts are divided on the exact timing of when a debtor’s …

City’S Retention Of Impounded Vehicle Not Violation Of Automatic Stay, Alexis Zobeideh

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Upon the filing of a petition under title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”), creditors and other parties in interest are generally automatically stayed from taking any action against a debtor or property of the estate. The estate includes “all legal or equitable interests of the debtor in property as the commencement of the case,” with some exceptions. The automatic stay is “one of the most important protections and powerful tools available to a debtor in a bankruptcy.”

It is well established that a creditor cannot take affirmative steps against a debtor or estate property. Prior …

Are Settlement Agreements Executory Contracts? Courts That Say “No” Give More Power To Creditors In Bankruptcy Actions, Kevin Murray

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

In order to provide for quick and efficient resolutions in bankruptcy cases, courts will often encourage settlement agreements. Settlement agreements are so common that it is unusual for there not to be a settlement between adversaries. Additionally, settlement agreements are favored by law to allow the parties to avoid the expense and burdens that are associated with litigating claims.

Courts have taken two approaches when analyzing disputes that involve settlement agreements. Some courts have held that a settlement agreement is a court approved contract between two adversarial parties and its interpretation is governed by the general provisions of contract …

Dismantling Tools Of The Incompetent: Exploring Cultural Competence Training In Undergraduate Education Policy And Education Studies Programs, Ashley P. Allen

Dissertations

Cultural competence is described as a set of skills, values, and principles that acknowledge, respect, and work toward optimal interactions between the individual and the various cultural and ethnic groups with which an individual might come into contact. Scholars have been critical of cultural competence training because the three-dimensional approach which is its foundation fails to address institutional and systemic racism. I posit that undergraduate programs should provide training, so graduates are culturally competent entering their respective fields. I examined cultural competence training within education policy and studies undergraduate programs because these graduates will work within education at all levels …

Emancipatory And Controlling: Examining The Negotiation Of Masculinity-Centered Practices By Women's And Gender Equity Center Practitioners, Ashley M. Brown

Dissertations

Initiatives to understand and transform masculinity have increasingly emerged in higher education, calling attention to the consequences of dominant, masculine gender expectations that permeate throughout college campuses. These masculinity-centered practices in higher education encompass formalized, departmental initiatives for students, faculty, and/or staff that examine topics related to masculinity through educational workshops, speaker events, professional development sessions, dialogue spaces, and other efforts. While it is often assumed that these practices support the advancement of gender equity, scholars have theorized the ways in which this work can also lead to depoliticized efforts that may, in fact, reify patriarchal and other systems of …

The Upstart Peril In The Nineteenth-Century English Novel, Lydia Craig

Dissertations

Responding to the French Revolution (1789-1799) with his widely read text Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), conservative Whig politician Edmund Burke influentially accused an ambitious bourgeoisie of inciting the lower classes to revolt against the aristocracy and Bourbon dynasty. He also insinuated that only the class hierarchy and feudal respect prevented a similar upstart peril in England from occasioning revolution. For the English middle classes, this demonization of upstarts, or parvenus posed an ideological challenge to their public consolidation as a political and cultural force. Bourgeois authors from Jane Austen to Charles Dickens utilized an upstart rivalry device …

Impact Of Violence Exposure On Children's Mental Health And Family Functioning: An Ecological-Transactional Approach, Rice Mary Dusing

Dissertations

N/A

The Role Of The Co-Chaperone Protein Bcl-2-Associated Athanogene 3 (Bag3) At The Cardiomyocyte Sarcomere, Thomas Gwynn Martin

Dissertations

The co-chaperone protein Bcl-2-associated athanogene-3 (BAG3) is a central mediator of cellular protein quality control through autophagy. In the heart, decreased BAG3 activity through mutation or decreased expression are linked to dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Unfortunately, though clinical data indicates BAG3 mutations are a definitive cause of DCM, few mechanistic studies had been performed to decipher the fundamental role of BAG3 in cardiomyocytes. However, several studies suggested BAG3 was involved in maintenance of the sarcomere, the molecular contractile structure in muscle cells. The goals of this dissertation were to: 1. Determine the functional significance of BAG3 for the sarcomere, 2. Identify …