Digital Commons Network^™

The New Normal: Regulatory Dysfunction As Policymaking, Ming Hsu Chen, Daimeon Shanks

Faculty Scholarship

Scholars often presume that administrative dysfunction is a deviation from the norm of regularity in administrative law. This presumption is reinforced by courts who defer to agencies on the basis of a legal fiction of idealized regularity. In reality, irregularities are common in policymaking and they make agencies vulnerable to dysfunction. Irregularities are not bugs, but features of the administrative state. Sometimes, a national emergency makes political influence unavoidable and urges departures from usual regulatory processes. At other times, however, the framing of a problem as a national emergency is a pretextual justification to pursue a pre- determined political goal …

Colorblind Nationalism And The Limits Of Liberalism, Ming Hsu Chen

Faculty Scholarship

Policymakers and lawyers posit formal citizenship as the key to inclusion. Rather than presume that formal citizenship will necessarily promote equality, this Article examines the relationship between citizenship, racial equality, and nationalism. It asks: What role does formal citizenship play in excluding noncitizens and Asian, Latinx, and Muslim citizens racialized as foreigners? What effects does it have on the meaning of being American as a non-White citizen? The Article argues that commitments to colorblind equality and democratic self-governance of the nation stand in contradiction to aspirations to protect all persons within the nation. Consequently, individual rights designed to remedy racial …

Advertising Medicine: Selling The Cure, Robin Feldman

Faculty Scholarship

Although most countries forbid advertising medicine to patients, “direct-to- consumer advertising” has flourished in the United States over the past century. Research shows that the practice prompts inappropriate prescriptions and disadvantages generic competitors, leading to adverse drug reactions and increased prescription drug spending. Nevertheless, a comprehensive regulatory system for direct-to-consumer advertising continues to escape the grasp of policymakers. Regulatory authority has bounced between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where primary jurisdiction now resides. Since the FDA assumed responsibility, the agency’s only major regulatory initiative has been to minimize disclosure requirements for advertisements. Enforcement …

Trade Secrets In Biologic Medicine: The Boundary With Patents, Robin Feldman

Faculty Scholarship

Can something be both open and secret? That is the conundrum facing society as trade secret rights chafe against patent rights in cutting-edge, biologic medicine. The conflict is unsurprising. Trade secret has emerged as a relatively late bloomer among the family of intellectual property rights and only recently has begun to establish the boundaries of its own space, a process in which it will inevitably knock against other intellectual property doctrines already occupying their own domains. Nor is it surprising that the clash would arise in a fast-moving area of medical science. From insulin products, to cancer treatments, to mRNA …

Critical Race Feminism, Health, And Restorative Practices In Schools: Centering The Experiences Of Black And Latina Girls, Thalia Gonzalez, Rebecca Epstein

Faculty Scholarship

Restorative practices (RP) in K-12 schools in the United States have grown exponentially since the early 1990s. Developing against a backdrop of systemic racism, RP has become embedded in educa- tion practice and policy to counteract the harmful and persistent patterns of disparities in school discipline experienced by students of color. Within this legal, social, and political context, the em- pirical evidence that has been gathered on school-based restora- tive justice has framed and named RP as a behavioral interven- tion aimed at reducing discipline incidents—that is, an “alternative” to punitive and exclusionary practices. While this view of RP is …

Transparency Deserts, Christina Koningisor

Faculty Scholarship

Few contest the importance of a robust transparency regime in a democratic system of government. In the United States, the “crown jewel” of this regime is the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Yet despite widespread agreement about the importance of transparency in government, few are satisfied with FOIA. Since its enactment, the statute has engendered criticism from transparency advocates and critics alike for insufficiently serving the needs of both the public and the government. Legal scholars have widely documented these flaws in the federal public records law. In contrast, scholars have paid comparatively little attention to transparency laws at the …

Standing For Rivers, Mountains - And Trees - In The Anthropocene, David Takacs

Faculty Scholarship

In his well-known article, Should Trees Have Standing?—Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects, Professor Christopher Stone proposed that courts grant nonhuman entities standing as plaintiffs so their interests may directly represented in court. In this Article, I review Stone’s ideas about standing and our relationship with the natural environment and describe the current, burgeoning, widespread trend toward granting not just standing, but legal rights and legal personhood to rivers, mountains, and other natural entities. I analyze the ways in which courts and legislatures in New Zealand, Australia, Colombia, and elsewhere are addressing concerns similar to Stone’s with expansive, even radical …

Spiritual And Sexual Simultaneity: The Fourteenth-Century Psalter Of Bonne Of Luxembourg, Zoe Johnson

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Stroke Clustering And Fitting In Vector Art, Khandokar Shakib

Senior Independent Study Theses

Vectorization of art involves turning free-hand drawings into vector graphics that can be further scaled and manipulated. In this paper, we explore the concept of vectorization of line drawings and study multiple approaches that attempt to achieve this in the most accurate way possible. We utilize a software called StrokeStrip to discuss the different mathematics behind the parameterization and fitting involved in the drawings.

“What Does The Black Legend Have To Do With Cusco?”: Un Discurso De La Alteridad, La Evangelización, Y El Arte Religioso En El Cusco Colonial, Cammy Bly

Senior Independent Study Theses

Este trabajo considera las representaciones gráficas y artísticas de la conquista y la evangelización de las Américas en el contexto de la construcción del yo y del otro de Tzvetan Todorov y la reconceptualización de La Leyenda Negra de Walter Mignolo. Todorov propone que la conquista de las Américas es la conquista que “el yo hace del otro” (Todorov 13). Según Todorov, la construcción de la alteridad, u otherness, motivó las acciones de los conquistadores en las Américas y puso a los indígenas en una posición social inferior. Además de la teoría de Todorov, Walter Mignolo utiliza el …

Puffins, The Charismatic Clowns Of The Sea: Examining The Relationship Between Community Identity And The Social Construction Of Animals, Megan Henry Tuennerman

Senior Independent Study Theses

This study analyzes the factors, internal and external, that affect the relationship between community identity and the social construction of animals, and the ways in which that social construction impacts the environment. Studied through the lens of the relationship between Atlantic Puffins and the human communities they live near, these questions situate our understanding of human societies as within, as opposed to above, the environment. Without this perspective, enacting environmental protections across the globe is ineffective. The study was conducted using ethnographic methods, including 11 formal interviews with community members and experts, along with observations in Iceland and Canada. Results …

Still Awaiting Justice: An Analysis On The Impact Of Anti-Immigrant Sentiment On The Reproductive Autonomy Of Migrant Women, Annays Esperanza Yacaman

Senior Independent Study Theses

My research aims to explain the impact of anti-immigrant sentiment on the reproductive autonomy of migrant women. Legislators typically act as their constituents feel on a certain issue, so I aimed to explore how legislators responded with legislation when their constituents held higher levels of anti-immigrant sentiment, hypothesizing that this would lead to more legislation limiting the reproductive autonomy of migrant women. I explore topics of eugenics and how anti-immigrant sentiment has led to modern day eugenics.

My hypothesis did not manifest itself in the expected way, but the results do provide evidence for a causal link between legislation meant …

From The Parks To The Polls: National Parks, Place Attachment, And Environmental Voting Behavior, Rebecca Larue

Senior Independent Study Theses

This study examines the relationship between National Park visitation, place attachment, and levels of support for pro-environmental ballot measures. The theoretical argument for this relationship is that increased visitation to National Parks will lead to increased place attachment, or connection, to the National Parks. This increased connection to a place of natural beauty could cause people to be more inclined to support ballot measures that protect the environment. A survey, administered through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, was used to collect the data, and a mediation analysis was used to analyze it. The results of this study show that visitation to National …

Dichotomous Logic And The Failings Of Girlboss Feminism: Multiplicity Beyond Man's Episteme, Grace Susan Robinson

Senior Independent Study Theses

My Independent Study thesis is divided into three chapters. In Chapter 1, I explore the manner in which our colonial and gendered order revolves around a universalized and fragmented episteme. Such an episteme manufactures a dichotomous logic, separating people into categories such as the colonizer/native and man/woman. These categorizations serve to center and uplift white, bourgeois, heterosexual men as embodying ideal humanity, and assigning deviance, irrationality, and bestiality to all of those who do not fit in. I will discuss the way that such a framework was constructed and perpetuated to support patriarchal and colonialist aims, exploring the way that …

Analysis Of The Antimicrobial Activity Of The Novel Chemotherapeutic Drug, Tpp1, Against Pseudomonas Aeruginosa And The Hydrogel Delivery Of Water-Soluble Antimicrobial Compounds, Alex Gasper

Senior Independent Study Theses

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the world, and it is commonly linked with bacterial infections that often complicate treatments. Recently, chemotherapeutics have been developed that are able to act as anti-cancer agents using delocalized lipophilic cations (DLCs) that are able to specifically target mitochondrial membranes of cancer cells. TPP1 is a newly developed chemotherapeutic drug that has activity against bladder cancer and melanoma cell lines in vitro. In order to determine if TPP1 has antimicrobial activity, TPP1 was tested against a common bacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, to determine if antimicrobial activity was present. This testing was …

The Effects Of Venlafaxine And Voluntary Exercise On Chronic Unpredictable Stress Induced Anxiety, Marly Mcgowan

Senior Independent Study Theses

Anxiety disorders can impair cognition and emotional control, particularly in the face of novel situations, which is concerning due to the high prevalence of such diagnoses. Exposure to unpredictable chronic stress can provide a way to induce anxiety-like behaviors in rodents by disrupting the stress response systems, including the HPA axis and autonomic nervous system. Pharmacological treatments, including SNRIs like venlafaxine, and voluntary exercise are both anxiolytic treatments that can alleviate the impacts of chronic stress. Using unpredictable chronic stress to mimic the human condition, and exposure to venlafaxine and exercise to mitigate the stress, the open field and elevated …

A Strange Object That Breaks Your Heart: Short Stories, Annie Sheneman

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Diversity And Inclusion Policies On Business Performance, Eraj Sikandar

Senior Independent Study Theses

In the United States, social justice and equality have become a centralized concern over the past couple of years resulting from widespread incidents of racialized violence, and the passing of multiple anti-LGBTQ+ bills. Consequently, people have started demanding greater accountability and initiatives to protect minority communities. Many businesses, to stay competitive and support the needs of their employees and customers, have strengthened their commitments to foster a culture of diversity and inclusion at work. With increasing attention being given to such policies, it is important to ask how diversity and inclusion efforts can impact organizations through employee wellbeing and firm …

Time Flies: An Analysis Of Circadian Impact Upon Cell Cycle Regulation Using Boolean Modeling And A Developmental Drosophila Model, Emma Elizabeth Davidson

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Highlights Generation For Tennis Matches Using Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing And Audio Analysis, Alon Liberman

Senior Independent Study Theses

This project uses computer vision, natural language processing and audio analysis to automatize the highlights generation task for tennis matches. Computer vision techniques such as camera shot detection, hough transform and neural networks are used to extract the time intervals of the points. To detect the best points, three approaches are used. Point length suggests which points correspond to rallies and aces. The audio waves are analyzed to search for the highest audio peaks, which indicate the moments where the crowd cheers the most. Sentiment analysis, a natural language processing technique, is used to look for points where the commentators …

Microplastics As Carrier Of Pahs Released From Oil Spills: Measuring Ingestion And Bioaccumulation Rates In Copepods, Manasi Desai

Senior Independent Study Theses

Microplastics (MP; plastics < 5mm) are a growing problem in the marine environment due to a large influx of plastics entering the marine environment through rivers, wastewater and litter from land. MP are known to adsorb nonpolar compounds in the water including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) released from oil spills. In this study, I quantified the ingestion rates of a marine copepod (Calanus finmarchicus) on clean polystyrene MP beads (12 um) and phenanthrene loaded MP beads (0.8 pg PAH pellet -1). I measured the phenanthrene load in copepods ingesting phenanthrene sorbed MPs and copepods exposed to phenanthrene only to measure the role of MP as a vector for PAHs into marine food webs. Additionally, I examined the fecal pellets to check the presence of MPs and if phenanthrene was still adsorbed to them. The results showed that microplastics do not act as vectors as there was no significant difference between the body load of phenanthrene in copepods from ingestion of PAH sorbed MPs and the body load from passive uptake of phenanthrene in solution. Copepods ate significantly lower phenanthrene loaded MP (1.81 x 104 beads cop-1 day-1) than microplastics only (2.67 x 104 beads cop-1 day-1) suggesting that copepods can reject particles based on chemical content. Accumulation of phenanthrene within the copepods (GC-MS analysis) showed individual copepods can accumulate between 3.48 to 4.11 ng of PAH which potentially can biomagnify in the marine food web upon predation. Fecal pellet analysis showed that an average of 2013 MP beads are present with a mean phenanthrene load of 0.15 pg bead-1. For the social science research, I conducted a literature review examining the current Indian plastic waste management strategies, legislations and its implementation. My results find that the Indian government over the years has progressively enacted and amended its policies to try to keep pace with the issue of plastic pollution. However, key challenges in the implementation such as poor enforcement, inadequate training for recycling lack of plastic alternatives and proper waste disposal infrastructure all contribute to the unsuccessful management of waste. Usage of plastic in road construction has shown to be a viable option in reducing plastic waste in India and also improving road conditions.

Wildfire Simulation Using Agent Based Modeling: Expanding Controlled Burn Season, Morgan C. Kromer

Senior Independent Study Theses

The United States is home to many different and unique forests. Prior to the 21st century, the United States Forests Service assumed that the best way to protect these forests was to put all efforts to keeping them alive. An enemy to these efforts were wildfires, thus the US adopted a complete fire suppression approach. At the turn of the century, the US realized that wildfires are a necessary part of a forest ecosystem, as they help return nutrients to the soil and reduce ground fuels. However, after suppressing all fires for over 100 years, the forests evolved into a …

A Time For Wisdom (Introduction), Mark R. Mcminn

Faculty Publications - Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) Program

No abstract provided.

Old Testament Ordination (Male-Only) And Commissioning And New Testament Commissioning, Roy Gane

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

.

Rs-Gis Approach On Biomass Energy Potential Estimation Of Sugarcane Residues In Medellin, Cebu, Wenyville Nabor Galang, Ian Dominic Tabañag, Michael Loretero

Applied Environmental Research

The need to use alternative energy sources is driven by the continued rise in fossil fuel price, increasing population and energy demand most particularly in a developing country like the Philippines. Biomass resources such as sugarcane residues provide alternative means to utilize its untapped potential for renewable energy. The use of remote sensing technology and geo-graphic information system enables detailed assessment on the quantification of its distribution, abundance and quality that will yield an effective and efficient use of its potential. Available energy potential measurement was conducted in the town of Medellin, part of Bogo-Medellin mill district, in the northern …

Petrogenic And Biogenic Inputs Of N-Alkanes Along Shoreline Of The Caspian Sea In The Mazandaran Province, North Of Iran, Seyed Raheb Hosseini Bizaki, Ahmad Reza Rabbani, Alireza Riyahi Bakhtiari, Mitra Cheraghi, Parisa Babaie

Applied Environmental Research

The Caspian Sea is the largest lake in the world and is facing an increasing risk of contamination. Sea-based and land-based hydrocarbons inputs are the most critical pollutants of the Caspian Sea. In the present study, n-alkanes and related diagnostic ratios were used to identify the sources of hydrocarbon contaminants in surface sediments along the southern coastal area of the Caspian Sea in Mazandaran province. 27 surface sediment samples were collected from a depth of 5 meters under sea level. Contaminant’s compositions were extracted by Soxhlet apparatus and analyzed by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry. According to the results, the total …

Prediction Of Groundwater Quality Index In The Selected Divisions Of Srikakulam Using Artificial Neural Networks Approach, Santhosh Kumar Nadikatla, Mushini Venkata Subbarao, M.P.S. Murali Krishna

Applied Environmental Research

Applicability of artificial neural network (ANN) modelling in predicting the water quality index (WQI) and in turn to ascertain the suitability of the water for human consumption has been presented in the paper. In the light of the present study, seventy-nine (79) groundwater samples were collected from two mandals (divisions) Veeraghattam (VGT) and Palakonda (PLKD) and analyzed for physicochemical parameters during the pre-monsoon and post-monsoon seasons of 2015 and 2016. In computing the WQI, physicochemical parameters such as  pH, EC, TDS, TH, Ca, Mg, chlorine, fluoride, nitrite, DO and TA have been considered. From the results it was found that …

Groundwater Quality Assessment Using Groundwater Quality Index And Multivariate Statistical Methods And Human Health Risk Assessment In A Coastal Region Of The Vietnamese Mekong Delta, Nguyen Thanh Giao, Phan Kim Anh, Huynh Thi Hong Nhien

Applied Environmental Research

This study aimed to evaluate the suitability of groundwater for drinking purposes and assess the associated human health risks for different age groups in a coastal province of Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Twenty groundwater samples were collected in Soc Trang Province, and various water quality parameters were analyzed. The data were employed to calculate entropy-weighted groundwater quality index (EWQI), principal component analysis (PCA), cluster analysis (CA), and non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks for adult and children health. The results revealed that groundwater in some locations, especially in GW19, was polluted by hardness, total dissolved solids, NH4+, Cl-, Fe, total coliform, and E. …

Cause For Concern Or Cause For Celebration?: Did Bostock V. Clayton County Establish A New Mixed Motive Theory For Title Vii Case And Make It Easier For Plaintiffs To Prove Discrimination Claims?, Terrence Cain

Seattle University Law Review

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee “because of” race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. This seems simple enough, but if an employer makes an adverse employment decision partly for an impermissible reason and partly for a permissible reason, i.e., if the employer acts with a mixed motive, has the employer acted “because of” the impermissible reason? According to Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc. and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, the answer is no. The Courts in Gross and Nassar held …

First Comes Love. Then Comes Marriage. Then Comes A Baby In A Baby Carriage: An Application Of Protective Surrogacy Laws To The Tarheel State, Justin Lo

Seattle University Law Review

Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and determining parentage have a common feature: each is governed by state law or the lack of such laws. This lack of statutory regulations presents significant legal challenges to gay men who wish to start a family. Because same-sex male couples seeking to become fathers through ART and surrogacy are the most likely demographic to be impacted when determining parentage, laws that influence the direction of surrogacy will undeniably facilitate whether both males will be deemed a father. To provide same-sex male couples with a pathway to parenthood, North Carolina should (1) develop robust, protective surrogacy …