Digital Commons Network^™

Algorithmic Elections, Sarah M.L. Bender

Michigan Law Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) has entered election administration. Across the country, election officials are beginning to use AI systems to purge voter records, verify mail-in ballots, and draw district lines. Already, these technologies are having a profound effect on voting rights and democratic processes. However, they have received relatively little attention from AI experts, advocates, and policymakers. Scholars have sounded the alarm on a variety of “algorithmic harms” resulting from AI’s use in the criminal justice system, employment, healthcare, and other civil rights domains. Many of these same algorithmic harms manifest in elections and voting but have been underexplored and remain …

Community As Safe Space For Survival: African American Women And The Great Migration In Gloria Naylor’S The Women Of Brewster Place, Ann Petry’S The Street, And Toni Morrison’S Jazz, Carmel Aisha Breed-Thomas

Theses (2016-Present)

Abstract This project closely examines the unique challenges African American women faced as migrants from the rural South to the urban North during the Great Migration and particularly how community and safe spaces were necessary for survival. This article will focus on the literary works of The Street by Ann Petry, The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor, and Jazz by Toni Morrison to specifically analyze the migrant stories of African American women. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson is used as a non-fiction anchor text to compare and contrast the fictitious accounts alongside the non-fiction accounts. …

Effectiveness Of The Legal Rules That Protect Disabled People Through Neutrosophic Techniques, Santiago Fernando Fiallos Bonilla, Diego Xavier Chamorro Valencia, Diego Vladimir Garcés Mayorga, Eduardo Luciano Hernández Ramos

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

No abstract provided.

Aha! Examining Insight In Exploratory Learning Versus Traditional Instruction., Olivia Kaiser

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

In undergraduate classrooms, students are typically first taught the concepts and procedures for solving problems, then practice. With exploratory learning methods, students explore novel problems and generate original solutions before receiving instruction, which benefits conceptual understanding and future learning. The current study examined whether students who explore before instruction experience greater insight moments, and whether insight leads to better learning. Prior research demonstrates that individuals remember problem solutions better if they experience a sudden moment of solution clarity (Aha! Experience). Participants (N = 83) were randomly assigned to instruct-first or explore-first conditions and taught three types of magic tricks …

What Is There To Do If You Find An Old Indian Canoe? Anti-Colonialism In Maritime Archaeology, Sara A. Rich, Cheryl Sievers-Cail, Khamal Patterson

Honors College Faculty Publications

Following Max Liboiron’s claim that pollution is colonialism, the anti-colonial maritime archaeologist’s role in the Anthropocene might be to reframe research questions, so that focus is directed toward interactions between marine and maritime, and that the colonial ‘resurrectionist’ approach that has dominated nautical archaeology ought to be reconsidered altogether. This normative statement is put to the test with a 4000-year-old waterlogged dugout canoe that was illegally excavated from the Cooper River in South Carolina, USA. Upon retrieval, the affected tribal entities were brought into consultation with archaeologists and conservators to help decide how to proceed with the canoe’s remains. Tribal …

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year: Many Retail Stores May Concur, Manuel Reyes-Loya, Cecilia Cuellar

Hibbs Brief

In this issue of the Hibbs Brief, we discuss retail sales during the holiday season in the U.S., and we estimate its economic impact on the Tyler Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).

Lost In The Fire: Reflections On The Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial, Alina Ball

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The Tulsa Race Massacre centennial, occurring on the heels of the Movement for Black Lives and its historic national spotlight on racial inequity, provides a rare moment to be reflective about how transactional lawyering can advance racial and economic justice. This Essay examines the Greenwood District to not only explain the continuing economic disenfranchisement of people of color, but also provide transactional lawyers a case study through which they can critically examine their efforts to move beyond the rhetoric of economic development to rooting out racial violence and oppression that threatens not merely minority-owned businesses, but the lives of people …

Molecular Dynamics Simulations Of The Adenylate Kinase Enzyme And Its Mutant States, Beata Izabella Dulko Smith

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations - Archive

Adenylate kinase (AK) is a small, monomeric enzyme present across all domains of life. It is responsible for maintaining homeostasis of an intracellular adenylate pool and catalyzes a reversible transfer of the phosphoryl group from NTP (nucleoside triphosphate) to NMP producing two NDP molecules. While most known isoforms take ATP as phosphate donor, AK3 present in mitochondrial matrix employs GTP. Crystallographic investigations revealed that the basis for its selectivity for GTP over ATP came from an additional hydrogen bond between guanosine’s O6 and backbone nitrogen of threonine is responsible for recognition of GTP. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have demonstrated that …

Development Of Colorimetric And Fluorescent Antibiotic Biosensors And Synthesis Of Drug-Related Biomimetic Molecules For Calcium Carbonate Polymorph Control And Stabilization, Shan Hazoor

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations - Archive

Polydiacetylene (PDA) polymers are conjugated macromolecules with desirable sensing properties. The presence of alternate double and triple bonds (en-yne subunits) generates electron delocalization in the PDA backbone, yielding a characteristic blue color, which changes to red upon environmental perturbations to the conjugated backbone structure. In chapter 1 PDA polymers containing a functional monomer 10,12- pentacosadiynoic acid-vancomycin conjugate (PCDA-Van) were prepared. Syntheses of different monomers containing different polar head groups were carried out to investigate a compatible monomer with PCDA-van stability. Gram-positive bacterial cell wall sequencing oligopeptides (OP) D-Ala-D-Ala and L-Lys-D-Ala-D-Ala were synthesized as a model for bacterial sensing. The PCDA-Van …

Probing Short-Range Structural Distortion Of Stereochemically Active Lone Pairs In Extended Solid-State Materials, Uyen Phuong Dang

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations - Archive

The structural and electronic effects of the lone pairs play an important role in magnetic, photocatalytic, and semiconducting behaviors of materials. Investigating the role of stereochemically active ns2 lone pairs derived from p-block cations in solid-state materials is important to phenomena associated with polarizable bonding, e.g., ferroelectricity. The effect of lone pairs in ferroelectric polarization has been studied on the lead metaniobate in which the covalency between Pb and O stabilizes the in-plane polarization which leads to orthorhombic symmetry. PbTiO3 has been widely studied for ferroelectric polarization associated with the off-centering of Ti in TiO6 due to the characteristic 6s2 …

Intelligent Fluorescence Image Analysis Of Giant Unilamellar Vesicles Using Convolutional Neural Network, Il Hyung Lee, Sam Passaro, Selin Ozturk, Juan Ureña, Weitian Wang

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Background: Fluorescence image analysis in biochemical science often involves the complex tasks of identifying samples for analysis and calculating the desired information from the intensity traces. Analyzing giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) is one of these tasks. Researchers need to identify many vesicles to statistically analyze the degree of molecular interaction or state of molecular organization on the membranes. This analysis is complicated, requiring a careful manual examination by researchers, so automating the analysis can significantly aid in improving its efficiency and reliability. Results: We developed a convolutional neural network (CNN) assisted intelligent analysis routine based on the whole 3D z-stack …

Philosophy For Children As A Form Of Spiritual Education, Olivier Michaud, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Department of Educational Foundations Scholarship and Creative Works

In the last two decades, some authors in the philosophy for children movement have theorized that the community of philosophical inquiry can be a form of spiritual practice, of the care of the self, or a wisdom practice (De Marzio, 2009; Gregory, 2009, 2013, 2014;Gregory & Laverty, 2009). Yet, it is unclear if philosophy for children is, by itself, a form of spiritual education, or if it requires some sorts of modification to be one. And, if it is or can be a form of spiritual education, we can interrogate in what ways and to what extent is it one. …

December 2022 Faculty Senate Packet, University Of Nebraska At Kearney Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Packets

No abstract provided.

Single-Cell Approach Reveals Intercellular Heterogeneity In Phage-Producing Capacities, Sherin Kannoly, Gabriella Oken, Jonathan Shadan, David Musheyev, Kevin Singh, Abhyudai Singh, John J. Dennehy

Publications and Research

Bacteriophage burst size is the average number of phage virions released from infected bacterial cells, and its magnitude depends on the duration of an intracellular progeny accumulation phase. Burst size is often measured at the population level, not the single-cell level, and consequently, statistical moments are not commonly available. In this study, we estimated the bacteriophage lambda (ƛ) single-cell burst size mean and variance following different intracellular accumulation period durations by employing Escherichia coli lysogens bearing lysis-deficient ƛ prophages. Single lysogens can be isolated and chemically lysed at desired times following prophage induction to quantify progeny intracellular accumulation within individual …

Table Of Contents

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

“The Times They Are A-Changin’:” A Dedication To The Past, Present, And Future Of Mercer Law Review, Cathy Cox

Mercer Law Review

Longtime readers of Mercer Law Review’s Annual Survey of Georgia Law likely know that Mercer Law School is steeped in history. It is the first American Bar Association-accredited law school in the state of Georgia, having earned that distinction in 1925—more than fifty years after the law school was actually founded in 1873. In the same vein, the Mercer Law Review was founded in 1949 and remains the oldest continuously-published law journal in Georgia.

When I became a student at Mercer Law School, I knew little about Mercer Law’s history or heritage, or for that matter, about lawyers or law …

Administrative Law, Moses M. Tincher, Chelsea J. Harris

Mercer Law Review

This Article surveys cases from the Supreme Court of Georgia and the Georgia Court of Appeals from June 1, 2021 through May 31, 2022, in which principles of administrative law were a central focus of the case. Review of decisions by administrative agencies will be the first topic discussed, followed by cases discussing discretionary appeals, followed by cases discussing procedural requirements, with scope of authority to follow. The Article will conclude with cases discussing statutory construction.

Domestic Relations, Charles V. Crowe

Mercer Law Review

This Article addresses noteworthy appellate decisions and legislative updates relevant to Georgia domestic relations law during the Survey period from June 1, 2021 through May 31, 2022.

Evidence, John E. Hall Jr., W. Scott Henwood, Krysta Grimes

Mercer Law Review

Georgia’s judicial system has continued to grapple with the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) for more than two years since the Honorable Harold D. Melton, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia,
first issued the Order Declaring Statewide Judicial Emergency on March 14, 2020. That order was extended fifteen times before finally terminating on June 30, 2021.

Seemingly in response to the world of uncertainties created by COVID-19, Georgia appellate courts took the opportunity to provide some additional interpretation and explanation to various aspects of Georgia’s new Evidence Code. This Article highlights some of the continuing interpretations of Georgia’s evidence …

Labor And Employment Law, W. Jonathan Martin Ii, Alyssa K. Peters, Patricia-Anne Brownback, David S. Cromer

Mercer Law Review

This Article surveys revisions to the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (O.C.G.A.) and decisions interpreting Georgia law from June 1, 2021 to May 31, 2022, that affect labor and employment relations for Georgia employers.

Legal Ethics, Patrick Emery Longan

Mercer Law Review

This Survey covers the period from June 1, 2021 to May 31, 2022. The Article discusses developments with respect to attorney discipline, bar admission, malpractice and other civil claims, ineffective assistance of counsel, disqualification of counsel, contempt, prosecutorial misconduct, judicial conduct, amendments to the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct, and formal advisory opinions of the State Bar of Georgia Formal Advisory Opinion Board.

Torts, David Hricik

Mercer Law Review

The Supreme Court of Georgia’s decisions from June 1, 2021 to May 31, 2022, ran the gamut in terms of both significance and subjects. Among the major decisions affecting Georgia tort law were the court’s decisions addressing apportionment, personal jurisdiction, defamation, products liability, and intellectual property.

Trial Practice And Procedure, Joseph M. Colwell, Christopher B. Mcdaniel

Mercer Law Review

This Article addresses selected opinions and legislation of interest to the Georgia civil trial practitioner issued during the Survey period of this publication.

You Can’T Simply Say “No!” Almighty Ceo: Georgia’S View On The Apex Doctrine And Discovery Abuse, W. Warren Hedgepeth

Mercer Law Review

Discovery is the process that allows litigants to gather information from the opposing party in a civil lawsuit. Discovery practices differ among states, and each state’s discovery laws generally determine (1) the scope and limits of what information can be gathered, (2) how it is gathered, and (3) when it is gathered. Depositions are included in discovery methods and allow parties to ask the deponent questions relating to the case. Depositions are not only expensive but can be disruptive, especially to high-level corporate executives whose time and dedication to their companies should be their primary focus. In some jurisdictions, corporate …

Liberty And Justice For Y’All: Allowing Legal Paraprofessionals To Practice Law To Reduce The Effects Of Legal Deserts In Rural Georgia, Amanda Claxton

Mercer Law Review

The lack of attorneys in rural America is not merely a social or cultural problem—it is a legal problem that officers of the courts cannot continue to ignore. Legal deserts are geographical areas where legal services are widely unavailable. Particularly in rural Georgia, legal deserts are a substantial issue. Attorneys and nonprofit organizations have attempted to ease the detrimental effects of legal deserts in a variety of ways; for various reasons, those efforts have been insufficient, and rural counties struggle to attract lawyers. Still, there is one method of resolving legal deserts that Georgia has yet to attempt: creating an …

Unveiling The Potential Of Calcium And Natamycin For Botrytis Blight Management On Cut Roses, Melissa Munoz

All Dissertations

Botrytis blight caused by the fungus Botritys cinerea is the most devastating disease of cut roses. The extensive use of fungicides used for Botrytis blight management during cut rose production and postharvest represents a severe threat in terms of fungicide resistance development as has been previously reported. Additionally, health concerns for growers and the environment are growing in recent years making consumers more aware of the fungicides in the products that they consume including ornamentals. This scenario highlights the importance of searching for alternative products to synthetic fungicides. During this research, the use of calcium as an alternative management strategy …

Transgender Health: Exploring Medicalization And The Interactions Of Race/Ethnicity, Disability, And Education, Evan Thomas England

Master's Theses and Capstones

There is a wide range of experiences among and between transgender, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) and disabled groups, but they all share histories of medicalization that result in marginalized health experiences and access to health care. To what extent do these health experiences and outcomes vary for U.S. adults with multiply marginalized intersectional identities? How, if at all, does the established moderating capability of education impact health outcomes for people who are transgender? Using data from the 2020 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, this study utilizes regression modelling to explore the interactions of race/ethnicity, disability, and education with …

Determining The Role Of Environmental Variability On Marine Megafauna Abundance Trends: A Case Study Of Cocos Island, Costa Rica, Julia Saltzman

Master's Theses and Capstones

Despite being economically, ecologically, and culturally important many species of marine megafauna are threatened with extinction. The reasons for the imperiled state of many marine megafauna include overfishing, habitat loss, pollution, and climate change. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are often proposed as a management tool for marine megafauna. However, it is difficult to monitor the efficacy of marine protected areas when it is unclear if abundance trends are due to management or environmental variability. Indeed, many studies to date on the efficacy of MPAs fail to account for environmental variability, or account for limited covariates. In this thesis, I examine …

Characterizing The Traditional Fisheries Of Salary, Madagascar Within A Marine Protected Area, Caitlin R. Shanahan

Master's Theses and Capstones

Protected Areas are a tool used by the International Union Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to limit changes to and preserve important and fragile ecosystems, allowing varying permissible activities within their boundaries. Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs) are a similar tool, but with a higher emphasis of community engagement in the planning process with community-based ownership and regulation. In Madagascar, there are both IUCN Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and LMMAs established to help conserve their high marine biodiversity and healthy reef systems. While the LMMAs and some of the MPAs permit sustainable fishing, it is unknown if the traditional, small-scale fisheries …

Phenylboronic Ester-Modified Polymeric Nanoparticles For Promoting Trp2 Peptide Antigen Delivery In Cancer Immunotherapy, Qiyan Wang, Zhipeng Dong, Fangning Lou, Yunxue Yin, Jiahao Zhang, Hanning Wen, Tao Lu, Yue Wang

Dermatology Articles

The tremendous development of peptide-based cancer vaccine has attracted incremental interest as a powerful approach in cancer management, prevention and treatment. As successful as tumor vaccine has been, major challenges associated with achieving efficient immune response against cancer are (1) drainage to and retention in lymph nodes; (2) uptake by dendritic cells (DCs); (3) activation of DCs. In order to overcome these barriers, here we construct PBE-modified TRP2 nanovaccine, which comprises TRP2 peptide tumor antigen and diblock copolymer PEG-b-PAsp grafted with phenylboronic ester (PBE). We confirmed that this TRP2 nanovaccine can be effectively trapped into lymph node, uptake by dendritic …