Digital Commons Network^™

The Right To Keep And Bear Arms In Georgia, John R. Monroe

Mercer Law Review

This Article provides a survey of the right to keep and bear arms in Georgia as it has developed from colonial times to the present. While this Article is not about the Second Amendment, references to that amendment cannot be avoided because the two are intertwined.

The Article follows Georgia’s right to keep and bear arms in roughly chronological order, where discreet periods in history can be seen to have heavy influence on laws impacting the right to keep and bear arms. These periods include Colonial, Antebellum, Civil War years, Reconstruction and late nineteenth century, early twentieth century, and finally …

Labor And Employment Law, W. Jonathan Martin Ii

Mercer Law Review

This Article surveys recent developments in the state statutory and common law that affect labor and employment relations of Georgia employers. Accordingly, it surveys published decisions from the Supreme Court of Georgia and the Court of Appeals of Georgia from June 1, 2024 to May 31, 2025. This Article also includes highlights of certain revisions to the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (“O.C.G.A.”).

Hoarding And The Hoarded Home: A Phenomenological And Psychoanalytic Study, Brianna Stich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While research on hoarding tends to isolate hoarders from the homes they hoard and in which they live, the hoard and the hoarder share a life in the home. This study explores how hoarders live with and live through their hoard at home. It combines psychoanalysis and phenomenology within a unique methodological framework to provide a hermeneutic reading of the psychological significances of the hoarded home. In this study, the contemporary conceptualization of hoarding is historically situated and critiqued from a phenomenological perspective, and the view that hoarding is a single, behaviorally-defined syndrome that is explainable by a cognitive-behavioral model …

The Impact Of New York City’S Bail Reform, Ruya Y. Kutgun

Honors College Theses

This thesis examines the impact of New York City’s bail reform on crime, recidivism, and jail populations, with particular attention to whether the reform has contributed to increased violence. Implemented in 2020 to reduce racial and economic inequalities, bail reform eliminated cash bail for most low-level offenses and emphasized the least restrictive pretrial conditions, with subsequent amendments expanding eligibility for detention. Using cross-sectional data from multiple governmental and research institutions, this study analyzes arrest rates, rearrest rates, and jail population trends before and after implementation. Findings indicate no significant increase in recidivism or violent crime attributable to bail reform. Fluctuations …

Public Perception About Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy In South Central Nebraska, Rita Nnenne Oparaocha

Biology Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

The COVID-19 pandemic created a shift in the trajectory of vaccination hesitancy, altering risk perceptions and vaccination attitudes among individuals in rural communities. The 5C framework highlights confidence, complacency, constraints, calculation, and collective responsibility as influencing factors of vaccine hesitancy. This study assessed the proportion of adults who refused COVID-19 vaccination and identified the individual reasons for hesitancy among those who refused the COVID -19 vaccines in South Central Nebraska. Data was analyzed from a local cross-sectional public health survey administered to 2,034 adult participants over a six-month period (March-August 2024), including 91 respondents who were from outside the seven-county …

City Council Bill To Decrypt Police Radio Has A Surprising Winner — Citizen App, Mikella Schuetter, Kennedy Sessions, Marina Samuel

Capstones

After the NYPD encrypted police scanners in 2024, eliminating public access to police radio communications, the New York City Council passed a bill on Dec. 18 to restore limited access for journalists and the public. The move could benefit Citizen, a crime-alert app that has pushed for decryption while entering a “no cost” partnership with the city, even as former employees and advocates raise concerns about the app’s practices and growing role in New York City’s public safety.

Two Major Ontario Hospital Labs Bought Research Dogs From U.S. Breeder With Troubled Pastdogs Bred For Scientific And Medical Testing Suffer Abuse As The Scientific Industry Increasingly Turns To Alternatives For Research., Allison Hunter, Mary Beech, Sami Marshak, Kate Morano

Capstones

The purpose-bred dog breeding industry for research is little known. Each year, thousands of dogs are bred for scientific and medical testing, supplied to research facilities by a handful of major commercial breeders. But gaps in enforcement and regulation have allowed abuses to persist, even as the industry increasingly turns to alternatives to animal testing. Animal rights advocates have been decrying the treatment of these dogs. A federal Inspector General report found lax oversight of the industry, raising further concerns about how dogs are treated. This story was reported in collaboration with the Investigative Journalism Bureau, based in Toronto, and …

(Un)Intended Consequences Of Race In Medicine: The Ethics Of Race-Based Medical Practice And The Perpetuation Of Structural Racism, Allegra Merriweather

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation proposes that race-based medicine acts as a form of structural racism that is ethically indefensible. While it may be claimed to be a neutral diagnostic tool, the medical use of race as a biological proxy only further enforces the very hierarchies it purports to remediate, reinscribing inequity from conception to death. Building off Jacques Ellul’s work on Technique, we interpret race-based medicine as a self-perpetuating system that values procedural expediency over moral accountability. In nine chapters, the analysis follows the ways this technique is manifested in genetics and assisted reproduction, where commodified racial selection preserves social hierarchies; in …

New Harmony, The Owen Brothers, And The Origin Of The Smithsonian, Lucy Jayne Kamau

Communal Societies

No abstract provided.

#Bailfail: How Non-Uniform Bail Schedules May Have A Deleterious Effect On Human Trafficking Prosecutions, Benjamin Thomas Greer

Widener Commonwealth Law Review

No abstract provided.

Challenges In Addressing Cyberharassment Of Domestic Violence Victims Within The Council Of Europe Instruments, Gulnaz Alasgarova

Widener Commonwealth Law Review

No abstract provided.

Neither Confirm Nor Deny—The U.S. Navy’S Declaratory Policy On Nuclear Weapons, Jeffrey A. Larsen, James J. Wirtz

Naval War College Review

The reintroduction of the submarine-launched nuclear cruise missile into the U.S. Navy’s arsenal signals a shift in U.S. nuclear policy, challenging long-standing declaratory norms and public statements such as the “neither confirm nor deny” stance on the presence of nuclear weapons on warships.

Tracking In The Fast Lane: Are License Plate Readers An Invasion Of Privacy?, Lorelai Kline, Madelyn Paul, Catherine Scott, Tessa Mullinix

Student Scholar Symposium

The increasing deployment of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) by law enforcement agencies has sparked significant debate regarding the balance between public safety and individual privacy rights in the digital age. This research investigates whether the use of LPRs constitutes an invasion of privacy, examining the tension between law enforcement's legitimate need for surveillance tools and citizens' constitutional rights to privacy.

This research examines court decisions and legal articles to understand how LPRs affect privacy rights. By looking at important cases like Carpenter v. United States and reviewing what legal experts have written, we can better understand when and how …

Will This Too Pass? How The Criminalization And Derogation Of Unhoused People Is One Mark Of Our Descent Into Fascism, Michaela R. Martin Strout

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

Reimagining Success In Specialty Courts: Developing A Recovery-Oriented Success Model (Rosm) To Guide Funding, Evaluation, And Participant Outcomes In Massachusetts, Kerri Cianciarulo

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

A Stable Home, Ava Merriman

Marian Library Blog Archive

Among the multiple uses of Fitz Hall is the central space filled with over 3,600 Nativities.

Does Legal Cynicism Mediate The Relationship Between Parental Incarceration And Child Delinquency?, Elizabeth Rose Bishop, Theresa Moore

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Research has explored the extent of the prison boom from its origin in the 1970s to the present where the issue of high prison populations remains today. However, the inmates are suffering a multifaceted array of consequences to their actions. Directly they are serving a legal sentence but indirectly families that are left behind also suffer unforeseen aftermaths. Literature diving into the prison boom and wide array of implications of incarceration has only recently begun and, as it has increased over time, has begun to turn the lens to this vulnerable population that has been left behind. Families that are …

Engaging Seminars: The Impact Of Storytelling In Public Safety Education, Mimi Gough, Glenn L. Walton

The Guardianship Journal

This paper examines the important role of storytelling in higher education as a technique for engaging students in course content and applies its relationship to the experiential learning theory (ELT) in which learners are actively seeking knowledge through authentic application. Storytelling can be a particularly effective method when used during live online seminars in public safety education, since this particular program of study often relies on verbally communicating realistic and credible information. Sharing various examples of actual encounters can help students better prepare for these types of situations when they face them in their future careers. Incorporating evidence to support …

Examining The Role Of Early Bilingualism On Interference Suppression And Prefrontal Connectivity, Matthew L. Cook, Lisa K. Boyce, Allison S. Hancock, Mackenzy S. Turner, Spencer D. Bradshaw

Human Development and Family Studies Student Research

Inhibitory control is a core cognitive function that is primarily associated with activation in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and is the cognitive function that inhibits impulses, thoughts, and suppresses irrelevant information to an identified goal or task. Prior research suggests that bilingualism may affect brain activity related to inhibitory control, yet few studies have compared functional activity between monolingual and bilingual children. The current study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to examine region of interest comparisons and task-state functional connectivity across the PFC during an interference suppression Simon task with 13 bilingual (East Asian or Ibero-romance paired with English) and …

Fsec Meeting Minutes December 17, 2025, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

Framing Of Immigration In The News And Its Effects On Social Media Discourse On The Southcoast Of Massachusetts, Mariel Surprenant

Political Science Undergraduate Theses

Why do immigrant communities often express anti-immigrant sentiment? This study will focus on examining what political discourse about immigration dominates the news ecosystem of the Southcoast of Massachusetts, and what effect that discourse has. Immigration in the U.S. has become an increasingly politicized issue, dominating political discourse, motivating voter behavior, and shaping regional political identities. This study will use content analysis of Southcoast newspapers to examine how the local news frames immigration and discourse analysis to examine the opinions of everyday citizens revealed as by their social media comments on posts about immigration by the same local news sources. The …

Comparative Analysis Of Machine Learning And Statistical Models For Railroad–Highway Grade Crossing Safety, Erickson Senkondo, Deo Chimba, Masanja Madalo, Afia Yeboah, Shala Blue

Civil and Architectural Engineering Faculty Research

Railroad-highway grade crossings (RHGCs) are critical points of conflict between roadway and rail systems, contributing to over 2000 crashes and 250 fatalities annually in the United States. This study applied machine learning methods (ML) techniques to model and predict crash frequency at RHGCs, using a comprehensive dataset from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT). The dataset included 807 validated crossings, incorporating roadway geometry, traffic volumes, rail characteristics, and control features. Five ML models—Random Forest, XGBoost, PSO-Elastic Net, Transformer-CNN, and Autoencoder-MLP—were developed and compared to a traditional Negative Binomial (NB) regression model. Results showed that ML …

The Relationship Between K-12 Public School Funding, Per Pupil Expenditures, And Student Achievement, Regina R. Frazier-Bagley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Public school district leaders are challenged with funding K-12 education that creates the desired student academic performance. Grounded in student-based budgeting theory, this quantitative ex post facto study aimed to investigate the relationship between K–12 public school funding, per-pupil expenditures, student achievement, and graduation rates in Georgia. The study included secondary data from 51 North Georgia public school districts for the 2018–2019 school year. Multiple regression analysis was completed to examine the relationship between the independent variables—state funding, per-pupil expenditures, and academic achievement in math, science, and language arts—and the dependent variable: graduation rates. The results of the analysis were …

Beyond Gun Control: How March For Our Lives Frames Gun Violence Prevention As Positive Peace, Ashley E. Nickels, Amanda D. Clark

Peace and Conflict Studies

March for Our Lives (MFOL) is a youth-led social movement that has redefined the framing of gun violence prevention, expanding it beyond policy-focused gun control efforts to a broader vision of positive peace. Rather than positioning gun violence solely as a matter of firearm regulation, MFOL constructs it as a structural justice issue, linking it to systemic inequities such as racial oppression, economic inequality, and political disenfranchisement. This study examines how MFOL’s movement framing reshapes understandings of gun violence prevention by emphasizing community transformation, intersectional justice, and collective safety. Drawing on framing theory, we analyze how MFOL presents gun violence …

Ole Miss Playoff Game Gifts Oxford, Region Economic Holiday Surge, Marvis Herring

University of Mississippi News

OXFORD, Miss. – The Ole Miss Rebels make their NCAA College Football Playoff debut on Saturday (Dec. 20) at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, hosting Tulane University and transforming Oxford into the most sought-after spot in the entire state.

Petty Cash Funds And Change Funds Policy

Business & Finance Policies

This policy provides direction on petty cash funds and change funds and clarifies appropriate uses and oversight of such funds while ensuring compliance with all state, federal, and Board of Regents (BOR) requirements.

Caste And American Citizenship In The Trump Era, Carol Nackenoff

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Workplace Violence: A Paradigm Shift, Ann Marie Hutchens

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Workplace violence (WPV) has reached epidemic proportions. WPV poses devastating results on the healthcare industry: affecting quality of care and patient outcomes, contribute to the development of physical and psychological conditions for nurses, and reduce the healthcare teams’ level of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The United States is already facing a nursing shortage due to baby boomers retiring and an increase chronic disease and the elder population. Although strongly prevalent, WPV is significantly underreported. It is believed that the low rate of reporting is a consequence of apathy that violence is an occupational hazard, and that nothing will change. …

Research For Structural Change: An Abolitionist Teaching Activity For Early-Career Scholars, Sophia Sarantakos, Shannon Sliva

Feminist Pedagogy

In recent years, social work practitioners, educators, and scholars have increasingly wrestled with the harmful history of the profession, and sought ways to align the field with the anti-oppressive principles it has long espoused. One expression of this struggle is a growing interest in prison-industrial complex (PIC) abolition, primarily among social work students and early career scholars, who are eager to study this critical theory of change and apply it to the various domains of social work practice and research (e.g., schools, family policing, healthcare, the legal system, and beyond). As social work educators and scholars whose work is centered …

Creating Abolitionist Classroom Environments And Three Abolitionist Learning Activities, Marina Bell

Feminist Pedagogy

In this paper I describe some of the approaches I have developed over the past six years of abolitionist teaching in the classroom. I will focus on three activities for helping students grapple with abolitionist concepts, principles, and values experientially, with the goal of generating conversation about some of their most challenging aspects, and working through emotions around them. Specifically these exercises are: 1) Distinguishing between carceral and abolitionist reforms, 2) What do we do with “the dangerous people” and our feelings about them?, and 3) A mutual aid exercise in which I have students identify and choose together what …