Digital Commons Network^™

Developing The Who's Pandemic Treaty To Facilitate Global Solidarity And International Accountability, Sonam K. Shah

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Chinese Celebrities’ Political Signaling On Weibo, Dan Chen, Gengsong Gao

Political Science Faculty Publications

In China, celebrities can dominate public discourse and shape popular culture, but they are under the state’s close gaze. Recent studies have revealed how the state disciplines and co-opts celebrities to promote patriotism, foster traditional values, and spread political propaganda. However, how do celebrities adapt to the changing political environment? Focusing on political signaling on Weibo, we analyze a novel dataset and find that the vast majority of top celebrities repost from official accounts of government agencies and state media outlets, though there are variations. Younger celebrities with more followers tend to repost from official accounts more. Celebrities from Taiwan …

Marketing And The Church, Parker Panetti

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper attempts to take an in-depth look at the current state of the Church in America and how marketing has and will continue to play a key role in its position in society.

The word marketing comes from the concept of the merchant buying and selling a product - in the market. From a Christian perspective, marketing tells the story of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ - who bought and redeemed mankind for a price, saved from sin, and set apart for service to the Lord. Churches have this story, the greatest story to tell, but people are …

Mental Health Concerns In The Pediatric Population Following Covid-19, Kristina N. Yaczik, Ashley M. Komosinski

Honors Projects

The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to an increase in stress and mental health concerns in the pediatric population. Research indicates a decrease in pediatric mental health incidences in 2020, followed by an increase in 2021 and 2022. It is thought that the initial decrease may be due to the intensity of the pandemic at the time and a lack of hospital beds available. The increase suggests a response to the high levels of adversity and stress children and adolescents faced both during and after the origination of the pandemic. The evidence supports the idea that the COVID-19 pandemic had a …

The Role Of Virtual Reality In Art Therapy To Mitigate Autism Spectrum Disorder (Asd) Symptoms, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

Traditional art therapy sessions are designed for face-to-face engagement with patients as with other mental health services such as counseling. However, the pandemic of 2019 severely limited access to these services and, initially, led to widespread cancelation and postponement until the nature of COVID-19 could be better understood. When treatment resumed, video conferencing was the preferred method of holding therapy sessions one-on-one to diagnose patients and provide services. Similar approaches were taken in art therapy with less efficacy given the hands-on nature of the required activities. With the rise of virtual reality (VR) as a more widely accessible technology since …

Designing The House Of The Future: Social Commentary On Retrofuturism, Alyssa Woodruff

All Theses

This project explores the aesthetics of retrofuturism and the historical context of the house of the future. Retrofuturism captures how people perceived the future during previous eras in history. Conceptions of the future reflect the time period in which they are created. I designed and implemented a 3D model of a house of the future to express the aesthetics of mid-century modernism. I created the models in ZBrush and Maya. I took inspiration from The Jetsons cartoon, the New York World’s Fair of 1964-65, and Disneyland’s original Tomorrowland theme park. This project also incorporates contemporary features to reflect modern concerns. …

Strangers Switching Their Identities: Cultural Identity Management And Performance On Social Media A Qualitative Analysis Of International Students’ Intercultural (Ex)Change Processes And Perceptions Regarding Their Stay In The United States And Countries Of Origin, Vivian Kretzschmar

All Theses

In this globalized world, cross-country travel for education has been a prevalent (5.6 million students identified as international students in 2020) and ever-increasing (with a predicted increase of 250% by 2030) trend through the past decades. The sojourn impacts the students’ experience of the new culture and the ensuing shocks and adaptations. The understanding of something as complicated as culture, trying to be integrated into a new culture, and its perception to individuals, of course, have their ways of distinct communication trends through social media.

The struggle of maintaining and changing one’s cultural identity and adaptation across cultures has been …

In Vitro Rooting Techniques In Prunus Spp. For Propagation And Disease Screening For Armillaria Root Rot (Arr) Resistance, John Lawson

All Theses

Prunus is a genus widely cultivated to produce edible fruit including almond (P. amygdalus), peach (P. persica (L.) Batsch), cherries (P. avium and P. cerasus), among others. The cultivation of Prunus is economically important for several regions of the United States and relies on appropriate cultivars and rootstocks that are adapted to a growing region. Encroaching plant pathogens are forcing breeders to use sexually compatible germplasm from related species for introgression of novel alleles that confer tolerance or resistance. This is especially true in the rootstock breeding where interspecific hybridization is often used …

Nepantla: The Space In-Between, Samantha Shamard

All Theses

The word Nepantla is from the Mesoamerican Nahuatl language and is used by theorist Gloria Anzaldúa to describe a space of mixed, and borderland identity. Nepantla: the space in-between creates a physical manifestation of my experience as a mixed Latina woman raised in American suburban culture. This series is made up of ceramic objects on wall-mounted altars made of wood panels adorned with wallpaper and paint. The surfaces utilize visual references and color schemes from 90s girls’ bedrooms and Mexican pop-culture. Ceramic bones and cacti mounted onto the altar forms are all made through molded ceramic processes, which for me …

Cover Cropping And Organic Amendments To Improve Sandy Soils Under Organic Vegetable Production, Charles Williamson

All Theses

Coastal Plain soils in the Southeastern USA are typically sandy with poor soil structure, low soil organic carbon (SOC) content, and meager soil fertility that pose challenges to organic agriculture. Adding organic inputs is a strategy to improve these soils' physical, chemical, and biological characteristics. Here, we aim to investigate the impacts of Cover Cropping (CC) and manure inclusions on sandy soils under organic vegetable production. The experiment design was a randomized complete block with two treatments of manure application (with and without) and four CC treatments of cereal rye (Secale cereale), hairy vetch (Vicia villosa), …

Performance Based Design And Machine Learning In Structural Fire Engineering: A Case For Masonry, Deanna Craig

All Theses

The volatile and extreme nature of fire makes structural fire engineering unique in that the load actions dictating design are intense but not geographically or seasonally bound. Simply, fire can break out anywhere, at any time, and for any number of reasons. Despite the apparent need, fire design of structures still relies on expensive fire tests, complex finite element simulations, and outdated procedures with little room for innovation. This thesis will make a case for adopting the principles of performance-based design and machine learning in structural fire engineering to simplify the process and promote the consideration of fire in all …

The Serbian Orthodox Church As A Transnational Political Actor: A Case Study Of Regime Change In Montenegro, Dunja Arandjelovic

All Theses

Although many scholars have considered how religious institutions can affect democratic change, little attention has been given to the contemporary transnational potential of a church with a distinctively national identity. This study will explore the capacity of national churches to act transnationally by analyzing the Serbian Orthodox Church’s (SOC) recent political intervention in Montenegro, during which the church mobilized almost half of the Montenegrin population during the COVID pandemic in a movement that led to the defeat of Montenegro’s president in parliamentary elections for the first time in 30 years. My project is based on in-depth elite interviews with ten …

Examining The Perceptions Associated With Sunday Hunting Restrictions In South Carolina, Elizabeth Piller

All Theses

Public land is an invitation for many to engage with the natural world through a variety of different activities. Sometimes these activities are mutually exclusive and can cause land use conflict, which natural resource managers must navigate. One example of this conflict is restrictions to Sunday hunting. In South Carolina, Sunday hunting is allowed on private late but banned on public Wildlife Management Area (WMA) land. This regulation remains from ‘blue laws,’ laws prohibiting certain activities on Sundays to honor the Christian Sabbath (Balestra, 2008). Blue laws are typically thought of as prohibiting alcohol, but eleven U.S. states currently have …

Oam-Based Wavelets In A High Speed Optical Probing System For Measuring The Angular Decomposition Of The Environment, Justin Free

All Theses

This thesis presents the theoretical development of orbital angular momentum (OAM) based wavelets for the analysis of localized OAM information in space. An optical probing system for generating and detecting these wavelets is demonstrated; individual wavelets can scan the environment in 10µs or less. The probing system was applied to a three-dimensional atmospheric turbulence distribution to obtain a continuous wavelet transform of the angular information of the turbulent propagation path about a fixed radius. An entire continuous wavelet transform was measured in 3.8ms; the measurements are much faster than the turbulence and give insight into the short time scale of …

To Be A Cloud, Huan Laplante

All Theses

The intersections between Buddhism, queerness, and art making support one another in their power to unveil the impermanent nature of the self. My work rests at these moments, taking refuge in the ability to simultaneously release and rebuild a sense of self that exists beyond the boundaries of individualism. To Be a Cloud documents my journey of looking into the origins of the self and reflecting upon the transience of body and mind. Utilizing a broad range of sensuous materials such as textiles, handmade paper, and charcoal, paired with the repetitive motions of stitching, tearing, and mark-making cultivate a rhythmic …

A World Without Prosecutors, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

Bennett Capers’ article Against Prosecutors challenges us to imagine a world where we “turn away from prosecution as we know it,” and shift “power from prosecutors to the people they purport to represent.”

[...]

Capers joins a long line of authors seeking to attack mass incarceration by reducing the role of prosecutors. I agree with these authors that we should dramatically shrink the footprint of American criminal law and ending the war on drugs is a good place to start. But while Capers styles his proposal as a “[r]adical change,” I find the focus on prosecutors in this context decidedly …

Incidence Of An Insulin-Requiring Hyperglycemic Syndrome In Sars-Cov-2-Infected Young Individuals: Is It Type 1 Diabetes?, Massimo Pietropaolo, Peter Hotez, Nick Giannoukakis

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Pancreatic ACE2 receptor expression, together with increased prevalence of insulin-requiring hyperglycemia in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), suggested that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pancreatic infection might trigger a β-cell-selective inflammation precipitating autoimmune type 1 diabetes (T1D). We examined T1D incidence in patients with COVID-19 inside a large, global population using a "big data" approach. The incidence in 0-30-year-old patients with confirmed COVID-19 over an ∼15-month period from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic was compared with an age-matched population without COVID-19 inside the TriNetX COVID-19 Research Network (>80 million deidentified patient electronic medical records globally). …

The Role Of Investment Treaties And Investor–State Dispute Settlement (Isds) In Renewable Energy Investments, Ladan Mehranvar, Sunayana Sasmal

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Achieving our global goals of universal access to clean energy and averting a climate crisis will require a mass scale-up of investments in renewable energy infrastructure, redirecting capital from carbon intensive energy and transport systems. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that the transformation of the energy system alone will need cumulative investments to reach USD 110 trillion by 2050 to keep the rise in global temperatures to well below 2°C and towards 1.5°C during this century. Of that amount, over 80% will need to be invested in renewables, energy efficiency, end-use electrification, and power grids and flexibility.

The private …

Legal Reform To Enhance Global Text And Data Mining Research: Outdated Copyright Laws Around The World Hinder Research, Sean M. Fiil-Flynn, Brandon Butler, Michael Carroll, Or Cohen-Sasson, Carys Craig, Lucie Guibault, Peter Jaszi, Bernd Justin Jütte, Ariel Katz, João Pedro Quintais, Thomas Margoni, Allan Rocha De Souza, Matthew Sag, Rachael Samberg, Luca Schirru, Martin Senftleben, Ofer Tur-Sinai, Jorge L. Contreras

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Phosphate Mineralogy And Paragenesis Of The Fletcher Pegmatite, North Groton, New Hampshire, Susanna T. Kreinik

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Investigation of phosphate assemblages selectively collected at the Fletcher Mine pegmatite, North Groton, New Hampshire, yielded eighteen discrete secondary phosphate species. Secondary phases were formed via metasomatic (high temperature) and hydrothermal (low temperature) alteration of primary triphylite and fluorapatite. Mineral associations bear proximal phases known to occur under contrasting conditions, both oxidizing and reducing, suggesting the formation of microenvironments during concomitant mineral generation. Late-stage hydrothermal fluids provide ions taken up in low temperature secondary phases with calcium and magnesium most prevalent in these suites. High iron to manganese ratios in analyzed specimens establish the relative evolution of the pegmatite host. …

Girlhood And Engendered Alienation In The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter And A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Lauren C. Dolese

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Utilizing a girls’ studies perspective and materialist feminist lens, this paper seeks to put Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) in conversation with Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943). Besides being published in the early 1940s, both works feature young girls navigating class struggles, exploring their identities, and struggling against dominant ideologies specific to their time and place. McCullers’ and Smith’s novels depict how a patriarchal, capitalist society imposes upon young women a narrow, misogynistic view of themselves and the women around them—facilitating the social reproduction of oppression and alienation. In depicting these realities of …

The Economic Impact Of Artprize 2022, Christian Glupker, Paul Isely

Other Faculty Publications

SUMMARY OF ECONOMIC IMPACT

ArtPrize 2022 is estimated to have generated or supported economic benefits for Kent County in the following ways:

• 753,601 total visitors, with 56% visiting from outside of Kent County. Over 14 states and four countries were represented. The average age of all visitors was 46 years old.
• 56% of all visitors and 73% of all nonlocal visitors stated that ArtPrize 2022 was their primary reason for visiting Grand Rapids.
• There were 858,582 total primary visitor days, with 59% coming from nonlocal visitors. These nonlocal visitors spent on average 1.67 days at ArtPrize.
• Direct spending of all …

Inclusive Job Descriptions Toolkit, Emily Frigo, Annie Bélanger, Kristin Meyer, Jason Durham, Brian Merry

Library Reports and Communication

The goal of the toolkit is to directly reflect our IDEA values and apply them to how we write job descriptions from start to finish for all positions in the Libraries. Supervisors, employees, and any key decision maker involved in the job description writing process should use this toolkit. The first part of the toolkit outlines best practices in developing job descriptions from both process and equity perspectives. The second part offers an equity lens to use to review the job descriptions. The Appendices include additional language, an implementation guide, and job description templates with instructions.

Access To Music Among Air Traffic Controllers: Perceptions, Performance, Stress, And Ethics, Vincent Paul Domen

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the interactions between music listening, stress, and performance among 268 air traffic controllers. The research questions included: (1) What is the relationship between air traffic controller perceived performance and music listening?; (2) What is the relationship between air traffic controller stress level and music listening?; (3) Should music listening be considered an ethical and/or effective solution to improve emotional and physiological outcomes among air traffic controllers? The results showed that as ratings increased for (1) agreement that participants listened to music while working, (2) time spent listening to music; (3) beliefs that …

Nosocomial Outbreak Of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus Faecium (Vre) St796, Switzerland, 2017 To 2020, Vanja Piezzi, Nasstasja Wassilew, Andrew Atkinson, Stéphanie D'Incau, Tanja Kaspar, Helena Mb Seth-Smith, Carlo Casanova, Pascal Bittel, Philipp Jent, Rami Sommerstein, Niccolò Buetti, Jonas Marschall

2020-Current year OA Pubs

A large clonal outbreak caused by vancomycin-resistant

Infections In The First Year Of Life And Development Of Beta Cell Autoimmunity And Clinical Type 1 Diabetes In High-Risk Individuals: The Trigr Cohort, Olga Kordonouri, David Cuthbertson, Malin Belteky, Bärbel Aschemeier-Fuchs, Neil H White, Elisabeth Cummings, Mikael Knip, Johnny Ludvigsson

2020-Current year OA Pubs

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: Accumulated data suggest that infections in early life contribute to the development of type 1 diabetes. Using data from the Trial to Reduce IDDM in the Genetically at Risk (TRIGR), we set out to assess whether children who later developed diabetes-related autoantibodies and/or clinical type 1 diabetes had different exposure to infections early in life compared with those who did not.

METHODS: A cohort of 2159 children with an affected first-degree relative and HLA-conferred susceptibility to type 1 diabetes were recruited between 2002 and 2007 and followed until 2017. Infections were registered prospectively. The relationship between infections in the …

Ten Simple Rules And A Template For Creating Workflows-As-Applications, Michael J. Roach, N. Tessa Pierce-Ward, Radoslaw Suchecki, Vijini Mallawaarachchi, Bhavya Papudeshi, Scott A. Handley, C. Titus Brown, Nathan S. Watson-Haigh, Robert A. Edwards

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Implementing Educational And Systems-Level Changes To Improve Cancer Screening Rates Among State Employees In Missouri, Misty A Phillips, Sarah Chavez, Maggie Grotefendt, Xarria Lewis, Melanie Gowdy, Jane A Mcelroy, Jean S Wang, Sandra Hentges

2020-Current year OA Pubs

As of 2022, only 51% of active eligible state employees in Missouri have been screened for colorectal cancer and 67% for breast cancer, despite having state-sponsored health insurance. In fall 2020, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services Comprehensive Cancer Program partnered with the Missouri Cancer Consortium to create a strategy to improve cancer screening rates among state employees. The project was designed to include 3 phases: 1) a colorectal cancer education phase, 2) an expanded education phase that included additional cancers, and 3) a proposed intervention phase that will include screening events. In the first phase, in 2020, …

Listeria Motility Increases The Efficiency Of Epithelial Invasion During Intestinal Infection, Inge M. N. Wortel, Seonyoung Kim, Annie Y. Liu, Enid C. Ibarra, Mark J. Miller

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) is a food-borne pathogen that causes severe bacterial gastroenteritis, with high rates of hospitalization and mortality. Lm is ubiquitous in soil, water and livestock, and can survive and proliferate at low temperatures. Following oral ingestion of contaminated food, Lm crosses the epithelium through intestinal goblet cells in a mechanism mediated by Lm InlA binding host E-cadherin. Importantly, human infections typically occur with Lm growing at or below room temperature, which is flagellated and motile. Even though many important human bacterial pathogens are flagellated, little is known regarding the effect of Lm motility on invasion and immune evasion. …

Controversies In Spine Research: Organ Culture Versus In Vivo Models For Studies Of The Intervertebral Disc, Shirley N Tang, Andres F Bonilla, Nadeen O Chahine, Aimee C Colbath, Jeremiah T Easley, Sibylle Grad, Lisbet Haglund, Christine L Le Maitre, Victor Leung, Annette M Mccoy, Devina Purmessur, Simon Y Tang, Stephan Zeiter, Lachlan J Smith

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Intervertebral disc degeneration is a common cause of low back pain, the leading cause of disability worldwide. Appropriate preclinical models for intervertebral disc research are essential to achieving a better understanding of underlying pathophysiology and for the development, evaluation, and translation of more effective treatments. To this end, in vivo animal and ex vivo organ culture models are both widely used by spine researchers; however, the relative strengths and weaknesses of these two approaches are a source of ongoing controversy. In this article, members from the Spine and Preclinical Models Sections of the Orthopedic Research Society, including experts in both …