Digital Commons Network^™

Dosing Discrimination: Regulating Pdmp Risk Scores, Jennifer D. Oliva

Faculty Scholarship

Prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) predictive surveillance platforms were designed for-and funded by-law enforcement agencies. PDMPs use proprietary algorithms to determine a patient's risk for prescription drug misuse, diversion, and overdose. The proxies that PDMPs utilize to calculate patient risk scores likely produce artificially inflated scores for marginalized patients, including women and racial minorities with complex, pain­ related conditions; poor, uninsured, under-insured, and rural individuals; and patients with co-morbid disabilities or diseases, including substance use disorder and mental health conditions. Law enforcement conducts dragnet sweeps of PDMP data to target providers that the platform characterizes as "overprescribers" and patients that …

The Influence Of White Exceptionalism On Drug War Discourse, Jennifer D. Oliva, Taleed El-Sabawi

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Toward A Broader Vision Of Lawyering, Ascanio Piomelli

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Strengthening Systems Of Care For People With Or At Risk For Hiv, Hcv And Opioid Use Disorder: A Call For Enhanced Data Collection, Jennifer D. Oliva, Anthony J. Eller

Faculty Scholarship

Background: The syndemic between opioid use disorder (OUD), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) results in excessive burdens on the healthcare system. Integrating these siloed systems of care is critical to address all three conditions adequately. In this implementation project, we assessed the data capacity of the health system to measure a cascade of care (COC) across HIV, HCV and OUD services in five states to help guide public health planning. Materials and methods: Data for this study were gathered from publicly available datasets and reports from government (SAMSHA, CMS, HRSA and CDC) sites. We created, where …

Egg-Freezing, Uterine Transplants, And In Vitro Gametogenesis: Disruptive Or Normalizing Reproductive Technologies?, Radhika Rao

Faculty Scholarship

In the last year, headlines have heralded the introduction of several radical new technologies that promise to revolutionize procreation and transform our understanding of reproduction. In March 2021, for example, scientists revealed that mouse embryos had been grown in" artificial wombs" for 11 days, roughly half the animal's natural gestation period. According to Jacob Hanna, the biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel who led the research team: "This sets the stage for other species. I hope that it will allow scientists to grow human embryos until week five." At the same time, two groups of researchers reported …

Law In The Service Of Misinformation: How Anti-Vaccine Groups Use The Law To Help Spin A False Narrative, Dorit R. Reiss, Viridiana Ordonez

Faculty Scholarship

Social movements use legal tools to create narratives. Those narratives support social agendas which certain movements leverage to mislead their followers and potential followers. In this Article, we examine one influential anti-vaccine organization, the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), that uses its far-reaching platform to create false narratives around legal action. Again and again, this anti-vaccine group misrepresented both the legal and the factual meanings of court decisions, settlements, and other legal actions to create a narrative to galvanize its followers and influence newcomers. ICAN filed lawsuits that make anti-vaccine arguments—even when the legal framework did not fit doing so—and …

Exercising Control Or Giving It Up? What Elder Law Attorneys Should Know About Continuing Care Retirement Communities, Yvonne Troya

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Drafting Agricultural Legislation, Jessica Vapnek

Faculty Scholarship

"Agricultural legislation” is an umbrella term that covers a broad range of topics, including food, veterinary matters, plant protection, seeds, forestry, fisheries, water, and land. Agricultural legislation also intersects with other discrete subject areas, including environment, health, and trade. Because of these interconnections the borderlines – where agriculture begins and these related topics end – are debatable. How different countries view agriculture varies significantly. In the developed world, agriculture is mostly a commercial enterprise, and “agricultural law” is considered largely to apply to the business of agriculture, including agricultural finance, supply chains, marketing, insurance (crop, drought, pest), real estate, intellectual …

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 …

Teaching Interdisciplinary Perspectives On Citizenship And Immigration, Ming Hsu Chen

Faculty Scholarship

This essay reflects on the use of interdisciplinary perspectives in teaching survey and seminar classes on immigration and citizenship. It focuses on three benefits. First, empirical research gives the doctrine a reality check. Second, normative inquiry evaluates the doctrine against desired values. Third, policy analysis opens up possibilities for reforming and improving on doctrine.

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 …

Patents As Property For The Takings, Robin Feldman

Faculty Scholarship

The Fifth Amendment’s Compensation Clause contains only a few simple words: “nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” Yet these simple words have confounded legal minds for over 200 years, and as Congress has contemplated various patent law reforms in recent decades, the specter of the Fifth Amendment looms on the horizon. Conventionally, commentators and judges break down the clause into a few diferent components, each of which has generated a voluminous body of caselaw and corresponding scholarly inquiry. First, there is the question of takings: How does one know if something has been “taken” …

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 …

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 …

Public Undersight, Christina Koningisor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Open Trial Of Acceptance And Commitment Therapy With Exposure And Response Prevention In An Intensive Outpatient Setting For Adults With Ocd, L. K. Capel, P. Zurita-Ona, C. Muller, Michael P. Twohig

Psychology Faculty Publications

Intensive outpatient (IOP) treatment settings for adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are common, but data on their effectiveness is limited. The effectiveness of IOP treatment for adults with OCD using combined Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) was studied with eight adults. The intervention was 15 hours per week for three weeks. Measures were collected at pre-treatment, one-week, two-weeks, post-treatment, and at one-month follow-up. At the end of treatment, all participants were in the mild range of OCD symptom severity with a mean symptom decrease of 58%. Psychological inflexibility, depression, anxiety and stress significantly decreased …

The Implementation Of Conversation-Help-Activity-Movement-Participation-Success Procedures To Improve Behavior And Academic Performance, Henreta Jarrett

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation was designed to examine the fidelity level of implementation of Conversation-Help-Activity-Movement-Participation-Success (CHAMPS) classroom management strategies designed to reduce students’ behavior problems and boost academic performance at a large Title I elementary school in the southeastern United States. The participants included 10 teachers with experience teaching Grades 3 to 5 who had 3 years of experience implementing the CHAMPS classroom-management plan.

The researcher implemented bracketing, intuition, open-ended coding, and Axial coding to examine the implementation of the CHAMPS classroom-management plan in reducing behavior problems and boosting academic performance. The evaluation intended to address the central research question: How is …

Does Most-To-Least Prompt Fading Lead To Independence In Tooth Brushing In Children With Intellectual Disability?, John W. Byrd

Theses and Dissertations

The problem identified in this research was that the most-to-least (MTL) prompting strategies used for individuals with intellectual disability (ID) had not been consistently demonstrated in research for personal hygiene, specifically tooth brushing. It has been well known that people with ID acquire skills differently than typically developing individuals (Cengher et al., 2018). Difficulty with developing hygiene skills such as brushing teeth is not limited only to those with physical disabilities because individuals with ID can struggle with hygiene skills as well. MTL prompt fading procedures have been used to teach many skills to individuals with ID (Drummond, 2018).

The …

Autoeficacia Del Docente De Educación Física General Y La Inclusión De Estudiantes Con Necesidades Especiales [Self-Efficacy Of The General Physical Education Teacher And The Inclusion Of Students With Special Needs], Raul Berrios

Theses and Dissertations

El propósito de este estudio fue determinar el nivel de autoeficacia de los docentes de educación física general, sobre la inclusión de estudiantes con necesidades especiales en las áreas de estrategias de instrucción, manejo de la sala de clases y cómo lograr la participación de los estudiantes.

El diseño utilizado fue uno no experimental con un enfoque transeccional o transversal descriptivo. El marco teórico seleccionado fue la teoría social cognitiva de Bandura, de la cual se desprende el componente de la teoría de autoeficacia.

La muestra estuvo conformada por los 37 docentes de educación física general de un municipio del …

The Experiences Of The Elderly Transitioning From Home To The Nursing Home Setting, Brent James Munson

Theses and Dissertations

Elderly persons transitioning from home to a nursing home setting may struggle with unaddressed mental health issues. The problem addressed in this study involved a lack of evidence regarding how elderly individuals experience these transitions in living from their own perspectives. The purpose of this study was to better understand the lived experiences of elderly people who are making the transition from home to a nursing home setting.

The qualitative design utilized in the research was phenomenology. Fourteen participants were interviewed to ascertain their experiences in the transition from home to a nursing home setting. Follow-up questions were formulated and …

Exploring Attitudes Of Middle School Stakeholders Towards Teachers Carrying Handguns In Schools, Roger Pacheco

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation focused on the attitudes of teachers, administrators, and parents towards teachers carrying handguns in middle schools. This qualitative study will illustrate the perceptions of specific middle school stakeholders and their views on the issue of middle school teachers carrying guns on school grounds. The lack of research about teachers carrying handguns in schools can be detrimental to informing policymakers and school officials when deciding to allow teachers to carry firearms on campus. Arming teachers has become a phenomenon of interest with many high stakeholders, but to understand the logic behind arming teachers, a historical timeline of school …

Self-Actualized Leaders’ Relationships With Dynamic Teams, Joseph Walter Pieri

Theses and Dissertations

A recent study of 831 companies around the world found that employees on average tend to spend 54% of their time working within teams (Frey et al., 2013). Today, this number is estimated to be an additional four to six percent higher (Gallup, 2020). Despite the upward trend of increased reliance on team-based structures in effort to improve productivity and boost morale, research reveals approximately two-thirds of U.S. employees are not engaged in their workplace (Gallup, 2020). More than half (51%) of workers merely go through the motions of their job, barely meeting minimum position responsibilities. However, leadership is essential …

Examining Motivators That Influenced African American And Latinx Students To Degree Completion Of A Doctoral Program, Travis L. Stokes

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to provide an investigation of the motivators that influence African American and Latinx students to complete a doctoral program. There are numerous studies that show data on low enrollment and retention of this population. Further, there is ample evidence of attrition, but there is a need to hear their voices share the experiences of successful doctoral graduates from this population.

The researcher posited systemic racism in education caused low enrollment and graduation rates among African American and Latinx students. Then, an interview protocol was developed to elicit responses regarding what caused the persistence to complete …

Using A Behavioral Skills Training Model For Instructing Educators In Functional Assessment And Intervention Procedures In The Classroom Setting, Lorne Thomas Balmer

Theses and Dissertations

Educators often manage behavior through suppression rather than working to address the root cause of problematic behavior in the classroom. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 mandates the use of functional assessment for students with varying exceptionalities to ensure students are educated in the least restrictive environment. However, functional assessment is an evidence-based strategy that could be employed by all teachers to enhance classroom management practices universally. Behavioral skills training is a research-validated approach that is often used to train professionals on a number of skills.

The present study investigated the use of a behavioral skills training …

Police Officer Attitudes About The Importance Of External Procedural Justice, David Borchardt

Theses and Dissertations

External procedural justice has been found to have a relationship with cooperation, compliance, and police legitimacy. Extant methods to increase external procedural justice during police-citizen interactions have been met with mixed results. Fair policing from the inside out proposes that organizationally just treatment of officers will lead to external procedural justice during encounters between officers and citizens. Police organizational justice, comprised of the dimensions of distributive justice, procedural justice, interpersonal justice, and informational justice, has been found to have a relationship with external procedural justice, however, the majority of research has been conducted using overseas samples. The minority of work …

Teacher Perceptions Of Classroom Management Programs To Improve Whole-School Measures Of Attendance, Disruptive Classroom Behaviors, And Academic Outcomes, Charles E. Natt, Jr

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative case study explored how the implementation of Capturing Kids’ Hearts (CKH) and Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) classroom management programs when implemented together affected students and teachers of a Louisiana K-12 school compared with using the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) program alone. Teachers at the school who had used the PBIS alone and then also used the newly implanted CKH and MTSS programs participated in in-depth interviews to examine the practical effectiveness of both program implementations upon students and classroom learning effectiveness. Teacher perceptions were also compared with ex post facto data for the school from …

A Study Of A Bring Your Own Device Initiative, Myriame Delva Pierre

Theses and Dissertations

The intended purpose of this applied dissertation was to examine how teachers use student-owned technology devices for learning in the classroom and to determine how the use of these devices influence teacher planning and the classroom environment. The Bring Your Own Device initiative was an effort to prepare students by allowing them to use and leverage technology devices in the classroom to advance and enhance their learning (Greer, 2013). It is an initiative that incorporates the use of handheld technology devices into schools to better motivate student engagement. The study determined that mobile devices, as a significant part of daily …

Superdome Services, Inc.: Tracing The Convergence Between Black Enterprise And Neoliberalism In A Post-Civil Rights Era New Orleans, 1974-1977, Daniel Pantini , '22

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

Utilizing records drawn from New Orleans’ Times Picayune and Louisiana Weekly newspapers, this research paper will attempt to explore early manifestations of neoliberalism during the 1970s Superdome controversy. In 1974 a predominantly-Black firm, Superdome Services, Inc. (SSI) was awarded a multi-million-dollar contract to manage the new Superdome, making them the largest Black-owned public contractor in the country. Within 3 years, political and media campaigns emphasizing on the company and its leaders’ alleged incompetence, theft, and criminality led to the cancellation of their contract and privatization of Superdome management. This paper will attempt to relate the press coverage of this era …

Discovery Of Inhibitors Of Peptidoglycan O-Acetyltransferase B (Patb) From Neisseria Gonorrhoeae, A New Potential Antibacterial Target, Stefen Stangherlin

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Experts project that by 2050, 10 million lives will be lost annually as a result of antimicrobial resistant infections, surpassing all current leading causes of death, and costing the global economy $100 trillion USD on healthcare efforts. To promote research and development of novel antibiotics, the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a list of priority pathogens regarded as serious or urgent threats of antimicrobial resistance. Many pathogenic bacteria, including several priority pathogens, produce O-acetylated peptidoglycan to establish infection and avoid host immune responses. Consequently, the enzymes responsible for producing O-acetylated peptidoglycan in Gram-negative pathogenic …