Digital Commons Network^™

I Am Queer And Asian: The Crossroad Of Race And Lgbtqia+ Identity Among Queer Asian Canadian Youth And The Impacts Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Kenny Chee

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

LGBTQIA+ Asian youth face unique challenges due to their intersecting identities. Utilizing Asian Critical Race Theory and the Integration Model of Stress and Trauma in LGBTQIA+ Asians, LGBTQIA+ Asian youth are likely to experience detrimental mental health outcomes due to the stigmatization within their Asian culture and racial discrimination from the LGBTQIA+ communities. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing challenges because of the closure of community spaces and increased hate crimes against Asians. Nonetheless, research on the intersectional experiences of LGBTQIA+ Asians in Canada, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic is sparse. Thus, to address this gap, I …

Transformations Towards Just Urban Sustainabilities: A Community Psychology Approach To Analyzing And Fostering Urban Changes, Bianca C. Dreyer

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Cities are uniquely positioned to drive social change towards more just and sustainable futures. However, while discourses of ‘transformations towards sustainability’ have gained prominence, their focus on integrating equity and justice and tackling the root causes of current unsustainabilities is lacking. This document outlines a research endeavor aimed at analyzing and fostering urban sustainable transformations from a community psychology perspective. This research is based on the assertion that without radical change based in equity and justice considerations, transformative efforts fail. First, a theory of just urban sustainable transformations (JUST) is suggested that draws on urban transformations and just sustainabilities scholarship. …

Common Sense Or Sensibility: Vaccine Hesitancy, Parens Patriae, And The Common Good, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

Contending with national emergencies that develop into transnational catastrophes gives rise inevitably to concerns raised by libertarians and utilitarians over the extent to which the government — state, local, and federal — can restrict or redirect personal conduct to contain, if not resolve, any existing emergency condition. Using its parens patriae powers to protect the common good — especially the communal benefits of health and safety — government must endeavor to establish health care policies, and here, mandate vaccinations to combat the COVID-19 pathogen, against the benefits that are accruing to the general public. The conclusion drawn from this Article …

Restricting Scientific Legitimacy In The Age Of Biotechnology?, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

In the Age of Biotechnology, there is no more pressing question than whether a philosophy of science exists and translates into a notion that—with or without qualification—the sovereignty of science is central to the advancement of society and should be totally emancipated from concurrence or oversight by society at large. Far too many Americans choose neither to be “informed” nor to accept the responsibilities of citizenship to participate fully in a deliberative democracy—they have chosen instead to exercise their “right” to remain ignorant. Consequently, science reigns without restraint or even review. The scientific community has a coordinated responsibility to society, …

Short Circuiting The Administrative Judiciary: A Response To Linda Jellum, Marshall J. Breger

Scholarly Articles

Linda Jellum provides a powerful analysis of the status of the exhaustion process for the SEC administrative judiciary and more broadly of the entire administrative judiciary. Many of her arguments are telling and on point. I disagree with a number of her technical and statutory arguments, and even more so the consequences of her analysis for the administrative state as we know it.

Jellum's argument is that Congress did not intend to preclude district courts from hearing constitutional challenges to SEC adjudications because agency ALJs are not the right adjudicators to hear challenges to the constitutionality of their own operations.

Property And Moral Responsibilities: Some Reflections On Modern Catholic Social Theory, Lucia A. Silecchia

Scholarly Articles

Professor Eric Claeys’s forthcoming book, Natural Property Rights, offers a deep perspective on property rights principles. However, while the law tends to focus—as I believe it must—on property rights, rights are inextricably intertwined with duties or responsibilities. The natural rights framework for property is, as Claeys says, “good enough for government work.” It reflects a principled way for the government to allocate property rights and use the law to protect them.

However, it is necessary to look beyond what is desirable for government to protect through law. Other sources propose parameters for reasoned use of property with an emphasis on …

Creating A Trust Through Delegation, Raymond C. O'Brien

Scholarly Articles

Aging in America has precipitated increasing use of planning for incapacity devices, which include forms creating powers of attorneys ("POAs'). Simple forms may be found online, or they may become part of a sophisticated estate planning portfolio drafted by professionals. Resultingly, to support portability, enforceability, and protection against financial exploitation of vulnerable adults, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws approved the Uniform Power of Attorney Act in 2006 ("UPOAA "), which has been adopted by more than half of United States jurisdictions. One of the Act's provisions requires an express grant of authority contained within the principal's …

Private Caregiver Presumption For Elder Caregivers, Raymond C. O'Brien

Scholarly Articles

The percentage of older Americans increases each year, with a corresponding percentage increase of those considered the older old. Many older persons will develop chronic conditions, decreasing their ability to manage the activities of daily living and requiring many to move into assisted living facilities or group homes. When surveyed, a majority of people expressed that they wish to age in their own homes, and government programs are increasingly supportive of this option. This is a viable option for many if they have the assistance of private caregivers—who provide a vast array of support services—and essential person-to-person human contact during …

The 2022 Conference Of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools: Reflections On Faculty Vocation And Support, Lucia A. Silecchia

Scholarly Articles

In the United States, numerous law schools identify themselves as “religiously affiliated.” There are many opportunities and challenges that come with such affiliation. What “religiously affiliated” may mean for a law school’s faculty is a particularly critical aspect of this question. I was grateful to have been invited to reflect on what religious affiliation might mean for faculty hiring at the “Past, Present, and Future of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools” conference. What follows are reflections that consider not merely that question—important as it is—but also explore what happens after the hiring decision to make the vocation to teach at a …

The Bare Necessity Of Natural Law, Adam J. Macleod

Scholarly Articles

According to legend, someone asked literary giant Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, whether he believed in infant baptism. He replied that, not only did he believe in it, he’d seen it done. Hundreds of generations of lawyers and jurists, including many of the most influential legal scholars and judges in history, have believed in natural law for the same reason. And many still do.

Natural law and natural rights are not “nonsense on stilts,” as Jeremy Bentham famously dismissed them.1 Natural law reasoning is what lawyers and judges do every day. Today, many people tend to think of …

Opus As The Core Of Property, Adam J. Macleod

Scholarly Articles

No account of property law can achieve a comprehensive understanding without factoring in natural rights. Professor Eric Claeys's new book offers a significant contribution to contemporary property theory by setting out the most comprehensive and defensible theory of natural property rights to appear in a long time. Claeys describes the function of property as productive work. Intentional planning, purposeful effort, and creative ordering enable people to achieve lives of flourishing. And, as Claeys demonstrates in careful detail, the various norms and institutions of property law make possible those exercises of practical reason and the flourishing that results from them. Natural …

Pressure Induced By Roll-Down Foam-Earplugs On Earcanal, Ahmed Dalaq, Luiz Melo, Franck Sgard, Olivier Doutres, Éric Wagnac

Études primaires

Physical discomfort of earplug is a common complaint, so much so it jeopardizes the health and safety of workers, resulting in frequent noncompliance to proper wearing of earplugs. A pressing need thus arises to understand the underlying mechanics for the interaction of earplugs with earcanal walls. An idealized cylindrical geometry of earcanal is first treated with computational and analytical modeling to predict the pressure induced by roll-down cylindrical PVC foam earplugs. In order to predict representative pressure values and distribution, we estimated the hyperelastic properties of foam-based earplugs and characterized their behavior using a stent testing machine (J-Crimp^TM machine) …

Commonalities And Differences In Carotid Body Dysfunction In Hypertension And Heart Failure, Igor S. A. Felippe, Rodrigo Del Río, Harold D. Schultz, Benedito H. Machado, Julian F R Paton

Journal Articles: Cellular & Integrative Physiology

Carotid body pathophysiology is associated with many cardiovascular-respiratory-metabolic diseases. This pathophysiology reflects both hyper-sensitivity and hyper-tonicity. From both animal models and human patients, evidence indicates that amelioration of this pathophysiological signalling improves disease states such as a lowering of blood pressure in hypertension, a reduction of breathing disturbances with improved cardiac function in heart failure (HF) and a re-balancing of autonomic activity with lowered sympathetic discharge. Given this, we have reviewed the mechanisms of carotid body hyper-sensitivity and hyper-tonicity across disease models asking whether there is uniqueness related to specific disease states. Our analysis indicates some commonalities and some potential …

Indigenous Long-Term Supports And Services – Elders, Traditional Knowledge, And Tree Rings, Cole Allick

Theses and Dissertations

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Elders are rapidly aging and are a growing segment of Indian Country. Elders are critical to knowledge dissemination and enable the resiliency of Indigenous peoples through their teachings, wisdom, and guidance. There is a dire need to better understand and prepare for this rapidly aging population given that reliable data is limited or simply nonexistent. This dissertation in practice utilizes a framework inspired by Indigenous teachings of the Medicine Wheel and from the social ecological model to address the literature gap regarding Elders and healthy aging. This framework was created with intention that each …

Remote Sensing Of Chlorophyll-A In Small And Medium Lakes In The Minnesota Northern Forest Ecoregion, Jacob Alan Moll

Theses and Dissertations

Algae blooms have become increasingly common in many bodies of water and are occurring in more and more new locations. Past methods have relied on in-situ sampling to determine Chl-a concentrations and can be time and cost intensive. With the use of NASA’s Harmonized Landsat imagery existing methods of index calculation can be implemented, with the added benefit of an increase in temporal resolution. This increase in temporal resolution allows for more detailed spatial and temporal analysis such as hot spot analysis. Harmonized Landsat imagery was proven sufficient in spatial and temporal resolution for detection of Chl-a in small and …

Year In Review July 2022 To June 2023 And President's Report

Jackson Purchase Historical Society Journal Archive

President's Report: July 2022 - June 2023

Bill Mulligan

Book Reviews

Jackson Purchase Historical Society Journal Archive

Book Reviews

Traces: a novel

The Gospel of Freedom: Black Evangelicals and the Underground Railroad

The Accidental Fame and Lack of Fortune of West Tennessee's David Crockett

Liberty Brought Us Here: The True Story of American Slaves Who Migrated to Liberia

The Finest Place We Know: A Centennial History of Murray State University

A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South

A Crime Of Passion In Calloway County

Jackson Purchase Historical Society Journal Archive

A Crime of Passion in Calloway County

Bobby Smith Bryant

Calloway County Bicentennial Celebration: A Panel Discussion

Jackson Purchase Historical Society Journal Archive

Calloway County Bicentennial Celebration: A Panel Discussion

Bill Mulligan, Bobby Smith Bryant, Gina Winchester, Randy Patterson, and Pat Seiber

"Ideal Press Work": The Contributions Of Kentucky Suffrage Press Superintendents To Public Relations History

Jackson Purchase Historical Society Journal Archive

"Ideal Press Work": The Contributions of Kentucky Suffrage Press Superintendents to Public Relations History

Melony Shemberger

Development Of A Latex Agglutination Test Based On Vh Antibody Fragment For Detection Of Streptococcus Suis Serotype 2, Kiratika Chidkoksung

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Streptococcus suis serotype 2 (S. suis 2) is an important porcine pathogen that causes diseases in both swine and humans. For rapid S. suis 2 identification, a novel latex agglutination test (LAT) based on heavy-chain variable domain antibody (VH) was developed. Firstly, the soluble 47B3 VH antibody fragment from a phage display library, in which cysteine residues were engineered at the C-terminus, was expressed in Escherichia coli. The purified protein was then gently reduced to form monomeric soluble 47B3 VH subsequently used to coat with latex beads by means of site-specific conjugation. The detection sensitivity was found to be as …

Exploring Academic Libraries' Core Values [Presentation Slides], Julia K. Nims

Faculty Scholarship 2023

Many academic libraries create mission and vision statements to communicate their purpose, priorities, and aspirations to both internal and external stakeholders. Core values, which express a library’s guiding principles or behaviors, are often included as part of these foundational documents. However, while there is already a significant and growing body of literature examining academic library mission and vision statements, such as their inclusion of specific library roles or functions, far less attention has been paid to libraries’ core values. To better understand these public declarations of convictions, the core values from 24 academic libraries in Michigan and Ohio were collected …

Development Of Sensors For Bacteria And Wound Environment Monitoring, Pannawich Thirabowonkitphithan

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a leading cause of death and reduces life expectancy. Complications from diabetes have wreaked havoc not only on patients' quality of life, but also on the global burdens of public health and socioeconomic development. The most frequent complication among patients with diabetes mellitus is diabetic wounds, particularly diabetic foot ulcers because of the damage to sensory nerves and blood vessel issues brought on by elevated blood glucose levels. As a result, chronic wounds eventually develop and are prone to infection. In this study, several novel analytical devices for the detection of wound infections and the wound …

Innate Immune Cell Dysfunction And Systemic Inflammation In Children With Chronic Liver Diseases Undergoing Transplantation, Krupa R Mysore, Sunil Kannanganat, Jeremy M Schraw, Philip J Lupo, John A Goss, Kenneth D R Setchell, Farrah Kheradmand, Xian C Li, Benjamin L Shneider

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Advanced liver diseases (ALD) can affect immune function and compromise host defense against infections. In this study, we examined the phenotypic and functional alterations in circulating monocyte and dendritic cells (DCs) in children with ALD undergoing liver transplantation (LT). Children were stratified into 2 clusters, C1 (mild) and C2 (severe), on the basis of laboratory parameters of ALD and compared with healthy pediatric controls. Children in C2 had a significant reduction in frequencies of nonclassical monocytes and myeloid DCs. Children in C2 displayed monocyte and DC dysfunction, characterized by lower human leucocyte antigen DR expression and reduced interleukin 12 production, …

Coevolution Combined With Molecular Dynamics Simulations Provides Structural And Mechanistic Insights Into The Interactions Between The Integrator Complex Subunits, Bernard Fongang, Yannick N Wadop, Yingjie Zhu, Eric J Wagner, Andrzej Kudlicki, Maga Rowicka

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Finding the 3D structure of large, multi-subunit complexes is difficult, despite recent advances in cryo-EM technology, due to remaining challenges to expressing and purifying subunits. Computational approaches that predict protein-protein interactions, including Direct Coupling Analysis (DCA), represent an attractive alternative for dissecting interactions within protein complexes. However, they are readily applicable only to small proteins due to high computational complexity and a high number of false positives. To solve this problem, we proposed a modified DCA approach, a powerful tool to predict the most likely interfaces of protein complexes. Since our modified approach cannot provide structural and mechanistic details of …

Leveraging Informative Missing Data To Learn About Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome And Mortality In Long-Term Hospitalized Covid-19 Patients Throughout The Years Of The Pandemic, Emily Getzen, Amelia Lm Tan, Gabriel Brat, Gilbert S Omenn, Zachary Strasser, Qi Long, John H Holmes, Danielle Mowery

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Electronic health records (EHRs) contain a wealth of information that can be used to further precision health. One particular data element in EHRs that is not only under-utilized but oftentimes unaccounted for is missing data. However, missingness can provide valuable information about comorbidities and best practices for monitoring patients, which could save lives and reduce burden on the healthcare system. We characterize patterns of missing data in laboratory measurements collected at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital System from long-term COVID-19 patients and focus on the changes in these patterns between 2020 and 2021. We investigate how these patterns are associated …

Minimax Estimation For Personalized Federated Learning: An Alternative Between Fedavg And Local Training?, Shuxiao Chen, Qinqing Zheng, Qi Long, Weijie J Su

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

A widely recognized difficulty in federated learning arises from the statistical heterogeneity among clients: local datasets often originate from distinct yet not entirely unrelated probability distributions, and personalization is, therefore, necessary to achieve optimal results from each individual's perspective. In this paper, we show how the excess risks of personalized federated learning using a smooth, strongly convex loss depend on data heterogeneity from a minimax point of view, with a focus on the FedAvg algorithm (McMahan et al., 2017) and pure local training (i.e., clients solve empirical risk minimization problems on their local datasets without any communication). Our main result …

A Query Engine For Self-Controlled Case Series, With An Application To Covid-19 Ehr Data, Xiaojin Li, Yan Huang, Licong Cui, Guo-Qiang Zhang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Self-controlled case series (SCCS) is a statistical method in epidemiological study design that uses individuals as their own controls, with comparisons made within the same individuals at different time points of observation. SCCS has been applied in settings where it is difficult to identify comparison or control groups. To provide computational support for SCCS, we introduce a query engine called Self-Controlled Case Query (SCCQ) and use it to extract cohorts of self-controlled case series from a large-scale COVID-19 Electronic Health Records (EHR) dataset. Visual summary of the queried population through the R-Shiny visualization framework offers SCCQ's query result dashboard to …

Investigating Cellular Heterogeneity At The Single-Cell Level By The Flexible And Mobile Extrachromosomal Circular Dna, Jiajinlong Kang, Yulin Dai, Jinze Li, Huihui Fan, Zhongming Zhao

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Extrachromosomal circular DNA (eccDNA) is a special class of DNA derived from linear chromosomes. It coexists independently with linear chromosomes in the nucleus. eccDNA has been identified in multiple organisms, including Homo sapiens, and has been shown to play important roles relevant to tumor progression and drug resistance. To date, computational tools developed for eccDNA detection are only applicable to bulk tissue. Investigating eccDNA at the single-cell level using a computational approach will elucidate the heterogeneous and cell-type-specific landscape of eccDNA within cellular context. Here, we performed the first eccDNA analysis at the single-cell level using data generated by single-cell …

Contextual Variation Of Clinical Notes Induced By Ehr Migration, Kurt Miller, Sungrim Moon, Sunyang Fu, Hongfang Liu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The structure and semantics of clinical notes vary considerably across different Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, sites, and institutions. Such heterogeneity hampers the portability of natural language processing (NLP) models in extracting information from the text for clinical research or practice. In this study, we evaluate the contextual variation of clinical notes by measuring the semantic and syntactic similarity of the notes of two sets of physicians comprising four medical specialties across EHR migrations at two Mayo Clinic sites. We find significant semantic and syntactic variation imposed by the context of the EHR system and between medical specialties whereas only …