Digital Commons Network^™

Using Korematsu In A Constitutional Law Course, Lorraine Bannai, Eric K. Yamamoto

Using Korematsu to Teach Across the Law School Curriculum

No abstract provided.

Using Korematsu To Teach Professional Responsibility (Word With Government Documents At End), Lorraine Bannai

Using Korematsu to Teach Across the Law School Curriculum

No abstract provided.

Mental Health Among Chicanos And Chicanas: Barriers To Mental Health Care, Consequences Of Disparities, And Resources, Roma A. Kankaria, Shaheer Alam, Ananya Udyaver, Alyssa Sievers

UROP Posters

Mexican Americans, or Chicanos and Chicanas, face many barriers to mental health care. This literature review was conducted by the Collective Corazón—a VCU student organization, mentored by Dr. Indira Sultanić, that addresses Latinx health equity through service and advocacy—in order to examine the underlying causes and consequences of disparities in mental health in Chicanos and Chicanas. Some of the barriers that affect mental health care in Mexican Americans are racial inequities and discrimination, the societal and/or cultural stigma associated with receiving care, language barriers, lack of health insurance, and legal status. Furthermore, among Chicanos, machismo culture is associated with an …

Covid-19 Impact And The Association Between Sociodemographic, Social Support, Depression, And Anxiety In The Mindful Moms Program, Ashley Nguyen

UROP Posters

Background: The Covid-19 Pandemic lockdown resulted in lessened social support and a higher incidence of depressive symptoms in the United States. Low-income families were more likely to have experienced negative impacts on income, access to mental health treatment, stress, and discord within the family, and higher anxiety scores during the pandemic. Minority groups had higher COVID-19 incidence and mortality rates. More than 1 in 5 pregnant women in the United States experience clinically significant depressive symptoms, with marginalized populations carrying a greater burden. Maternal depression is linked to poor maternal and child health outcomes.

Depression scores of pregnant individuals during …

Civiic: Cybercrime In Virginia: Impacts On Industry And Citizens Final Report, Randy Gainey, Tancy Vandecar-Burdin, Jay Albanese, Thomas Dearden, James Hawdon, Katalin Parti

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

[First paragraph] Victimization from cybercrime is a major concern in Virginia, the US, and the world. As individuals and businesses spend more time online, it becomes increasingly important to understand cybercrime and how to protect against it. Such an understanding is dependent on valid and reliable baseline data that identifies the specific nature, extent, and outcomes of cybercrime activity. A better understanding of cybercrime activity is needed to target and prevent it more effectively, minimize its consequences, and provide support for both individual and corporate victims. Before that can occur, however, better baseline data are required, and this project was …

An Unconventional Pathway: A Qualitative Inquiry Into The Experience Of Racial Minority Transfer Students, Hanh My Mai Tran

Dissertations

Transfer students’ success is increasingly being discussed in higher education. A large population of transfer students includes racial minority, low-income, and first-generation college students. Due to the multiple layers of students’ identities, it has been difficult for educational leaders in institutions to grasp the essential elements needed to serve these students. As a result, this qualitative study contributes to this discussion and efforts to support the transfer student’s success. In this study, qualitative methods, including interviews with 14 students from 4-year universities and community colleges and a survey, were used to identify the steps and resources associated with supporting transfer …

Peremptory Norms Of General International Law (Jus Cogens) (Revisited) And Other Topics: The Seventy-Third Session Of The International Law Commission, Sean D. Murphy

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The International Law Commission (ILC) held its seventy-third session from April 18 to June 3 and from July 4 to August 5, 2022 in Geneva, under the chairmanship of Dire Tladi (South Africa). This session was the final one of the quinquennium, which originally would have occurred in the summer of 2021 but for the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the seventy-third session, the Commission completed the second reading of two topics: peremptory norms of general international law (jus cogens); and protection of the environment in relation to armed conflicts. The Commission completed a first reading of the topic on immunity of …

Automatic Verification Of Multi-Agent Systems Security Properties Specified With Ltl, Kholud Alghamdi, Marius Silaghi

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

We propose a way to verify security requirements of critical multi-agent system processes by using logic representations and automatic reasoning. The typical multi-agent system considered in our work would be an election system with agents representing their users and aiming to ensure security. Relevant processes are authentication, voting, re-voting, and election verification. The security requirements commonly addressed in such a voting system are: no user can vote unless it got authenticated, no invalid vote should be counted, no vote should be counted twice, and each valid vote should be eventually counted. We show a model of such security requirements by …

Covid-19 Vaccination In Palestine/Israel: Citizenship, Capitalism, And The Logic Of Elimination, Nicolas Howard, Emily Schneider

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Despite Israel’s responsibility under international law to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics in its occupied territories, Israeli officials have refused to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Through a critical discourse analysis of Israeli officials’ statements regarding Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, this paper explores how Israel evades this responsibility while presenting itself as committed to public health and human rights. We find that Israeli officials strategically present Palestinians as an autonomous nation when discussing COVID-19 vaccinations, despite Israel’s ongoing attempts to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Relatedly, Israel justifies …

Adapting Nlp Techniques In Transfer Learning For Forensic Authorship Profiling, Esam Alzahrani

All ETDs from UAB

Cybercrimes have risen and caused threats to regular internet users. In recent times, the increased use of online social networks (OSNs) allows people to easily share opinions, personal information, and others. Since a major part of OSNs content is textual content, immense research has focused on text analysis techniques using machine learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP). One important area of research focused on text analysis using machine learning is forensic text analysis. Digital forensics is a discipline concerns finding, preserving, and presenting admissible evidence in court. Sadly, the convenience of OSNs creates an optimal venue for cybercriminals to perform …

Adaptive Functioning And Academic Achievement In Survivors Of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Associations With Executive Functioning And Socioeconomic Status, Victoria C. Seghatol-Eslami

All ETDs from UAB

This study examined the associations of functional outcomes (adaptive functioning and academic achievement) with executive functioning and neighborhood-specific variables (area deprivation and child opportunity) and individualized education plan (IEP) support in survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). From a retrospective database, 44 patients (38.6% female, 72.7% non-Hispanic White, ages 6-17) previously diagnosed with low-risk or standard-risk pre-B cell ALL and treated with chemotherapy-only were identified. Participants were evaluated on performance-based measures of executive functioning and academic achievement, and parent-ratings of executive and adaptive functioning. Within adaptive functioning, 45.5% of patients showed impairment (≥ 1 SD above the normative mean) …

Give Him To God, Brian Renninger

All ETDs from UAB

This thesis is a fictional reimaging of my personal and familial experience with the opioid crisis in rural Alabama. Give Him to God is the story of Mary, a younger than average grandmother that has spent much of her early life within the grips of drug addiction. Her reluctant search for her son Jack, an addict himself and absent father to her granddaughter Liz, leads Mary through a reckoning of sorts as to where responsibility might lie in how their lives seem to repeat in an endless cycle of poverty and addiction. Within a sleepless few days, Mary confronts the …

Representing Motherhood And Aging In Leonora Carrington's Bird Iconography, Claire Lesar

All ETDs from UAB

This thesis investigates the evolution of animal representations in paintings and sculptures of Leonora Carrington (1917-2011). Writings on her early Surrealist work often draw attention to Carrington’s embrace of the horse as a representation of self. However, over her extensive career, the menagerie of animals she draws from to depict herself evolves. I suggest that Carrington’s horse is more broadly significant as a narrative model that she adapts later in her career and that Carrington’s use of bird iconography emerges as a new form to symbolize other “rebirths” or periods of transition in her life, such as motherhood and aging. …

The Ethos Of Donald Trump: Trump's Lack Of Presidential Decorum From 2016 Forward And Its Impact On American Politics, Nora M. Krall

All ETDs from UAB

In American politics, the concept of presidential decorum is upheld through the complexity of political and presidential rhetoric. When Donald Trump became president, he sought to break what standard decorum was in order to justify his desires as president. This breaking of decorum is complex in nature and is paired with mediatization, demagoguery, populism and collectivism, all of which are rhetorical strategies that challenge the norms within American democracy and in turn, have created a shift in what is considered presidential. Donald Trump seeks to utilize his personal ethos alongside these rhetorical methods to infiltrate multiple subsets of society, thus …

A Prospective Randomized Clinical Trial To Compare Side Access Mucosal Releasing Incision (Samri) And Sulcular Tunnel Access And Root Coverage Procedures With Coronally Advanced Flap And Acellular Dermal Matrix (Adm) To Treat Teeth With Gingival Recession And Lack Of Adequate Keratinized Tissue. A Pilot Study, Karen Younghee Jo

All ETDs from UAB

Aims. The primary aim of this randomized, blinded, controlled clinical trial was to compare clinical and patient-centered outcomes obtained following soft tissue grafting utilizing the Side Access Mucosal Releasing Incision (SAMRI) or Sulcular Tunnel Access (STA) procedures with acellular dermal matrix (ADM) and coronal flap advancement to treat Miller Class I and II recession defects on single rooted teeth. Methods. Five patients and eight recession defect sites with Miller Class I or II gingival recession and £ 2mm of keratinized tissue at each site were randomly divided into two groups (A: SAMRI, B: STA) and were treated and evaluated for …

Characterizing Occupational Status History And Assessing Occupational Status As A Social Determinant Of Health In The Deceased Organ Donor Population, Nicole F. Pelletier

All ETDs from UAB

Transplant physicians review clinical data ranging from laboratory values to substance use history and use prediction models combining these factors, along with previous recipient outcomes, to evaluate deceased organ donors for organ suitability. Factors such as social determinants of health (SDOH) are not currently included in prediction models, despite evidence of relationships between SDOH and health outcomes in the general population. Occupational status is a SDOH routinely collected at the time of donation and stored in DonorNet, but not yet characterized in the deceased donor population. Despite well-documented relationships between occupational status and health outcomes in the general population, these …

Predictors Of Us Hospital Responsiveness To International Patient Inquiries, Suzanne M. Garber

All ETDs from UAB

Medical travel has been growing at a steady rate as global travel has also increased. However, with the advent of COVID-19, all global travel came to a screeching halt, including travel intended for medical purposes across borders. Now that travel is resuming worldwide, American hospital administrators are anxious to fill their beds with more profitable, international patients to make up for revenue losses incurred during the pandemic. Existing literature on the topic of medical tourism focuses on the role of patient initiative, choice, and risk-taking behaviors with little mention of hospital leadership’s ability or desire to construct a management strategy, …

Grainyhead-Like 2 (Grhl2) Has Anti-Oncogenic Potential In Glioblastoma, Rachel M. Carnes

All ETDs from UAB

Grainyhead-like 2 (GRHL2) is a complex transcription factor associated with roles in both development and cancer. In development, GRHL2 suppresses a series of genes associated with the mesenchymal phenotype, while actively promoting the expression of genes associated with the epithelial phenotype. Due to this GRHL2 is considered a main gatekeeper of the epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), playing a crucial role in epithelial morphogenesis and neural tube closure. These basic traits for GRHL2 have also been found to be similar in cancer. GRHL2 has multi-faceted functions in cancer, in which it can be considered either an oncogene or a tumor …

The Role Of Dock3 In Normal Skeletal Muscle Function And Metabolism, Adrienne Samani

All ETDs from UAB

DOCK (dedicator of cytokinesis) are proteins of an 11-member family of typical guanine exchange factors (GEFs) expressed almost exclusively in the brain and spinal cord. Human pathogenic DOCK3 variants have been identified to cause debilitating neuromuscular phenotypes such as muscle hypotonia, ataxia, and intellectual disability. Our lab identified DOCK3 as being strongly upregulated in Duchene muscular dystrophy (DMD), specifically in the skeletal muscles of DMD patient and mouse skeletal muscles. Global Dock3 KO mice on the dystrophin-deficient background exacerbated skeletal muscle and cardiac phenotypes. Similarly, DOCK3 KO mice appeared to have poor muscle architecture, locomotive activity, reduced myogenic fusion, impaired …

Assessing The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Metastatic Lung Cancer Time To Treatment Initiation, Health Care Resource Utilization, And Costs In The United States, Teresa M. Zyczynski

All ETDs from UAB

The COVID-19 pandemic has derailed normal operations in the health care delivery systems in the United States (US) and globally, providing prioritized care to patients seeking acute management of the novel coronavirus and its complications. Simultaneously, cancer screening tests have decreased, resulting in decreased rates of cancer diagnoses and referrals to oncologists. The purpose of this study was to assess time to treatment initiation (TTI) with systemic cancer therapy in patients with newly diagnosed metastatic lung cancer, metastatic lung cancer-related and total healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) and costs during the pandemic/post-pandemic period compared with the pre-pandemic period. The retrospective claims …

Care-Resistant Behavior Trajectories Of Individuals Living With Dementia In Nursing Homes And Distal Outcomes In Oral Health: A Secondary Analysis, Chunhong Xiao

All ETDs from UAB

Persons living with dementia who exhibit care-resistant behaviors (CRB) are likely to resist mouth care and have poor oral health. Knowing the “balance” between providing optimal mouth care while managing CRB is critical for developing tailored interventions. No evidence has demonstrated a balance between CRB level, mouth care completion, and oral health status. The overarching goal of this study was to identify a balance or “sweet spot” between enough mouth care to maintain oral health and a manageable level of CRB intensity. The purpose of this study was to examine and describe the characteristics of CRB trajectories as they relate …

"Bricks Without Straw": An Oral History Of Culturally Relevant Caring In Historic A.H. Parker High School In Birmingham Alabama, Penny S. Seals

All ETDs from UAB

Industrial High School, later renamed A.H. Parker High School after the inaugural principal, Arthur Harold Parker, is a predominantly African American high school located in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1900, A.H. Parker High School was established as the first four-year public high school for African American students in Birmingham. Historically, Parker has been recognized as being the heart of Black secondary education in Birmingham. Unfortunately, limited scholarly research exists detailing this historic schooling environment that motivated Black students to excel, despite vast inequities and inequalities. This dissertation tells the story of A.H. Parker High School with a focus on the culturally …

Evaluating The Association Among Demographic, Disease, And Symptom Profiles And Quality Of Life In Connective Tissue Disease-Related Interstitial Disease, Lanier O'Hare

All ETDs from UAB

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Connective tissue disease-related interstitial lung disease (CTD-ILD) results in an unrelenting symptom burden and may progress to death. The morbidity and mortality associated with CTD-ILD likely has a profound impact on individuals’ quality of life (QOL). Quality of life is a phenomenon that has yet to be sufficiently described in the literature on CTD-ILD. The factors associated with QOL in other chronic lung diseases have been described, but because of the different clinical and demographic characteristics of CTD-ILD, it is unknown if these same factors are associated with QOL in CTD-ILD. The purpose of this study was to examine …

Guided Exploration Of Military Servicewomen's Healthcare Experiences And Related Outcomes (Gems Hero), Princess Victoria Jane Nash

All ETDs from UAB

Purpose: This study focuses on factors related to healthcare seeking behaviors and utilization of Veterans Affairs primary care services by female African American Veterans. The purpose of this mixed methods study is to assess what factors influence seeking care at VA healthcare facilities. Research Design: This study used a modified explanatory sequential mixed methods design to assess health services utilization and healthcare experiences of African American female Veterans. This research utilized items from the Health Belief model as a guiding framework to highlight factors that could impact VA healthcare utilization. Methodology: Health services utilization analysis used national data from the …

Oral Language In The Prewriting Stage In Early Childhood: A Mixed Methods Study, Rebekah Lee Reach

All ETDs from UAB

The purpose of this study was to investigate the difference oral language experiences during the prewriting stage of writing make in a student’s quality of writing, enjoyment of writing, and writing behaviors in kindergarten, first, and second grades. Convergent mixed methods design was used for this study. Triangulation of data was completed using three data collection methods: observations, student interviews, and writing samples produced by four kindergarten students, four first grade students, and four second grade students. Each participant engaged in a pretest and posttest for four weeks. The writing samples were scored, and repeated measure design was implemented using …

Retention Strategies For Non-Traditional Pathway Teachers: Keeping New Teachers In The Profession, Leslie Cranford Richards

All ETDs from UAB

Over the past 30 years, teacher turnover has increased significantly (Simon & Johnson, 2015), contributing to the teacher shortage in the United States. This shortage of teachers has necessitated the employment of more teacher candidates from non-traditional teacher certification pathways. Espinoza et al. (2018) found that teachers from non-traditional certification pathways are “2 to 3 times more likely to leave teaching than fully prepared teachers” (p. 1). Given that teacher retention would help solve the teacher shortage problem (Ingersoll, 2001), it is important to determine what working conditions and support would encourage these non-traditional certification pathway teachers to stay in …

Superhero Media And Risk-Taking: Is Superhero Play A Risk Factor For Unintentional Injury In Preschool-Aged Children?, Casie H. Morgan

All ETDs from UAB

The preschool years represent a time of rapid human development, hallmarked by exploring one’s environment through gross and fine motor movement, touching and tasting physical objects, and imaginative pretend play. This exploration is developmentally appropriate, but also presents risks. Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for preschool-aged children, and common injuries reflect exploration and risk-taking exhibited during play. Pretend play may be particularly risky if children imitate risky models like superheroes. Superhero media is extremely popular among young children, leading many children to identify closely with superheroes. Frequent exposure and subsequent identification with superheroes is concerning because media …

Examining Family Health Through Family-Centered Care Within An Organizational Context, Bria Kathryn Morgan

All ETDs from UAB

Introduction: Family health is characterized as a multi-dimensional process that is shaped by a number of social determinants. Similar to individual health, various domains work in conjunction and intersect to produce family health. Family-centered care is one of the many ways that healthcare providers can support health, however, little is known about if and how it is beneficial for family health. Considering the relevance of an organizational context, this study seeks to understand the delivery of care within an organization and providers’ perceptions of family-centered care. Data/Methods: Using the case of the Ronald McDonald House, this study integrates qualitative content …

Evaluation Of A Living Shoreline Technique On A Southeastern United States Reservoir, Eric V. Muth

All ETDs from UAB

The impoundment of rivers in the southeastern United States has led to the creation of reservoirs that have seen the riparian zone become heavily developed with residential real estate. As the hybrid river/lake systems started forming new shorelines, property owners reacted by attempting to reduce their losses. This has been done in a variety of ways, with the majority falling into the bulkhead category. The use of vertical hard armament has resulted in a loss of ecological function and an increase in erosion of the lakebed at the toe or escarpment. In response to this, the idea was proposed by …

Relationship Between Neighborhood Deprivation And Epigenetic Age Acceleration With Pain In Adults With Musculoskeletal Pain, Pamela Jackson

All ETDs from UAB

Residents of high-deprivation neighborhoods shoulder a greater burden of age-related health conditions, including experiencing worse chronic musculoskeletal pain outcomes, compared to residents of more affluent neighborhoods. Advancing age is a risk factor for chronic health conditions, which epigenetic modifications may explain. Epigenetic age acceleration occurs when an individual’s epigenetic age is older than their chronological age, and that discordance has been identified as a strong predictor of age-related conditions. Epigenetic age acceleration has also been correlated with neighborhood deprivation. However, the mechanisms for neighborhood disparities in chronic musculoskeletal pain remain unclear. The purpose of this dissertation study was to examine …