Digital Commons Network^™

Generation Z’S Perception Of Skin Cancer And How It Relates To Climate Change, Piercen Bogolea

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Skin cancer is the most common cancer worldwide, and climate change has been identified as a significant contributor. Preventative action early on can help reduce occurrence, but it is unknown if Generation Z is aware of this and is taking the necessary action now to protect themselves. This research aims to gauge the perception of Generation Z on the severity of skin cancer, the relationship between climate change and skin cancer, and the prevalence of preventative measures being taken. A survey was distributed to students aged 18 to 27 enrolled at the University of Central Florida through mixed sampling. The …

Measuring Personality And Animal Treatment Attitudes With The Pet Scale, Zackery J. Hilton

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Previous research has looked at the association between personality traits and the proclivity, or history, of committing acts that are characterized as animal abuse or animal cruelty. Much research has also found that individuals who exhibit this type of behavior towards animals also tend to exhibit similar behavior towards other individuals, mainly in the form of domestic or child abuse. Previous studies have measured animal abuse using very explicit and extreme criteria, using acts that are without question blatant abuse or torture; however, there is some grey area where many may argue whether certain acts should be considered abuse, which …

Venezuela's And Mexico's Oil Industries: Policy Making Sets The Course, Camila Gimenez Valero

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The puzzle of Venezuela's crisis is one that researchers often try to understand. How did one of the richest nations in the world become one of the poorest? Venezuela is nowadays seen as a country with political unrest, where people struggle to get by and with a corrupt government. However, this was not always the case. Throughout the 20th century Venezuela had remarkable economic stability. Having discovered the world's largest known oil reserves, the nation's economy quickly developed, and the country also became known for its long-standing democracy. After the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998, Venezuela began to decline …

Design And Implementation Of A Nursing Peer Practice Case Review Program In An Academic Surgical/Trauma Icu, Natalie Tredway

DNP Scholarly Projects

Background: Peer review has been in use in healthcare for many years, primary by physicians. Recently, however, nursing has adopted a framework for peer review within the profession. According to the American Nurses Association (admin, 2011), organizations are required to maintain a systematic peer review process aimed at evaluating nursing care and nursing care providers to obtain/maintain Magnet designation. According to Foster (2015) nursing peer review (NPR) is “process by which practicing registered nurses systematically assess, monitor, and make judgments about the quality of nursing care provided by peers as measured against professional standards of practice”. The focus is on …

Development Of An Educational Toolkit For Washington State Nursing Professionals Regarding Climate-Related Impacts On Health, Margaret "Maggie" Pinson

DNP Scholarly Projects

BACKGROUND: Most healthcare professionals (HCPs) know that climate change poses a serious threat to human health, but few physicians and nurses actually discuss climate-related impacts on health with their patients. This knowledge-practice gap poses a risk to patient safety.

PROBLEM: Patients who are unaware of environmental threats to health may develop new illnesses, experience unnecessary exacerbations of underlying health problems and may die.

METHODS: A quality improvement intervention that addressed the educational needs of HCPs as described in the literature was developed and hosted on an online survey platform.

INTERVENTION: Preintervention survey questions captured baseline attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge. The …

Pathways To Nursing And Midwifery Education In Tanzania With Reflection To The Global Perspectives: A Narrative Review, Tumbwene Mwansisya, Mary Lyimo, Eunice Pallangyo

School of Nursing & Midwifery, East Africa

Background/Objectives:

This review aimed to explore the pathways of nursing and midwifery education in Tanzania and compare them with global perspectives. The goal was to identify similarities, differences, and areas for potential improvement to align with international standards.

Methods:

A narrative literature review was carried out through databases with published studies in nursing and gray literature. The database search included Medline, PubMed, Google Scholar, EBSCO, PsycINFO, clinical nursing, and gray literature from January 2014 up to December 2024. The search process was carried out by the authors with the following key words: admission, pathway to nursing profession, delivery mode, …

Co-Designing An International Nursing Course On Workplace Violence In Ethiopia, Sweden, And Tanzania: A Collective Autoethnography, Martin Salzmann-Erikson, Elisabet Eriksson, Tilahun Saol Tura, Tumbwene Mwansisya, Loveluck Mwasha, Malin Jordal

School of Nursing & Midwifery, East Africa

This study explores whether and how the co-creation of an international university course on workplace violence served as a site of transformative learning for us as nursing educators across Sweden, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. Using collaborative autoethnography, our team of six faculty members critically reflected on pedagogical assumptions, educator identities, and experiences of cross-cultural collaboration. The data comprised written reflections, meeting transcripts, and observational notes. Through this process, our pedagogical approaches and professional identities were reshaped, shifting from content deliverers to reflective co-learners within the cross-cultural partnership. Our analysis highlights the interplay of cultural negotiation, logistical frictions, and unspoken yet influential …

Formulation And Immunogenicity Of L1 Orf1 Mrna Vaccine In Mice, Raj Nandani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents the design, formulation, and immunogenicity evaluation of a novel mRNA vaccine targeting the L1 ORF1p protein, a tumor-associated antigen. The vaccine was synthesized using in vitro transcription and encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), with both unmodified uridine and N1-methylpseudouridine variants tested. Physicochemical characterization confirmed optimal particle size (160–220 nm), acceptable zeta potential, and encapsulation efficiency ranging from 74% to 92%, with preserved RNA integrity post-formulation. These results validate the robustness of the formulation workflow and its suitability for antigen delivery. Immunogenicity studies in C57BL/6 mice revealed modest but promising immune responses. While early activation markers (CD69) and …

What Might Contract Theory Be?, Gregory Klass

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Few contract theories begin with so comprehensive a discussion of method as does Stephen Smith’s book, Contract Theory. In the first chapter, “What Is Contract Theory,” Smith describes an interpretive approach guided by four goals: fit with the existing law, internal coherence, moral attractiveness, and transparency to legal actors.

This chapter in Understanding Private Law: Essays in Honour of Stephen A. Smith, does a deep dive into Smith’s description and defense of those goals. Smith pictures the contract theorist as an observer standing outside legal practice, interpreting the law but not participating in it. That picture results in …

Mind The Gap(S): Mitigating Harassment In A Post-#Metoo Workplace, Jamillah Bowman Williams, Elizabeth C. Tippett, Anu Ramdin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In a post-#MeToo workplace, harassment remains pervasive, and harassment law still fails to provide protection for the harms experienced by many workers—particularly those in the most vulnerable jobs. Even when reform efforts are introduced through legislation, courts, and agency guidance, it often does not provide greater power, autonomy, and dignity to women in ways that would more meaningfully protect them from workplace abuse. We are the first to create a database of state legislation, including over three thousand bills, that allows us to empirically analyze the extent to which lawmakers comprehensively address harassment following the rise of the #MeToo movement. …

The Scope Of The Prior Art, John R. Thomas

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The courts and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) assess whether an invention may be patented by comparing it to the state of the art, which the patent community terms the “prior art.” Heavily influenced by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Learned Hand, and more recently expanded by the America Invents Act, the Patent Act features the broadest definition of prior art in U.S. history. No matter how remote, evanescent, or obscure, any activity or publication that occurs one day before the inventor files a patent application—anywhere in the world—may prove patent-defeating.

The government also holds patent proprietors accountable …

Pozen And The Puzzle Of Counterfactuals, Louis Michael Seidman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Constitution and the War on Drugs, David Pozen’s carefully researched and brilliantly argued book, is both illuminating and disturbing: illuminating because it unearths forgotten moments when judicially formulated constitutional doctrine that could have ended or sharply restricted the War on Drugs were well within the Overton Window, and disturbing because it surfaces hard questions about historical contingency and the scope of the change that might have occurred in a counterfactual world. In this review, the author argues that the failure to specify both the nature of the counterfactual and the breadth of the alternative possibility have confused discussions …

The Administrative State's Second Face, Emily R. Chertoff, Jessica Bulman-Pozen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We often assume that there is one administrative state, with one body of administrative law that governs it. In fact, the administrative state has two distinct faces: one turned toward regulation and benefits distribution, and one turned toward physical force and surveillance. The two faces are growing further apart under the Roberts Court, which has hemmed in the first face with decisions like Loper Bright while showing solicitude for national security and law enforcement agencies.

This Article delineates the two faces of the administrative state. It provides a descriptive account of the second face and the distinctive administrative law that …

Asking The Right Questions About Legal Finance In United States Aggregate Dispute Resolution, J. Maria Glover

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Third-party legal finance is one of the most controversial modern developments in civil justice, both in the United States and across the globe. It is particularly controversial when mentioned in the same breath as aggregate litigation. Current debate trains on a series of repeated questions: whether and how to ban litigation finance in aggregate litigation; whether the use of litigation finance should be disclosed in discovery; and whether litigation finance is allowed under various (and often ancient) legal doctrines. Obscured from view is what I believe to be the most fundamental question: What is the proper role of litigation finance …

Patent Infringement In Time, John R. Thomas

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

No patent lasts forever. When intellectual property rights expire, a canonical principle states, all benefits of their ownership cease. But patents may cast a long shadow after they are gone, hindering the advent of immediate competition upon their expiration. The law acts unevenly in these circumstances, leading to questionable intellectual property and public health policies. Ordinarily competitors cannot make and use a patented invention until the patent's term has concluded. This delay ordinarily extends the effective period of exclusivity that the patentee enjoys. However, a statutory safe harbor shields from infringement acts undertaken "solely for uses reasonably related" to Food …

Pave Outer Space And Put Up A Parking Lot: Lagrange Points Should Be The Common Heritage Of Mankind, David A. Koplow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Outer space offers a vast array of opportunities, with different locations or regions available for exploitation by diverse users for a growing variety of satellite functions. But not all sectors of space are equally valuable for all applications, and the most desirable venues can become crowded, affording a premium for those who gain access first and impeding the development of a fair and efficient all-inclusive international legal regime.

This article focuses on Lagrange points, a finite series of special locations in space where the gravitational forces from a pair of large celestial bodies interact in unusual ways. These points afford …

What Is Trump Immunity?, Carlos Manuel Vázquez

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court held that a former President is entitled to an immunity in criminal cases in certain circumstances. The decision has been heavily criticized, with many commentators saying it places the President above the law. Exactly how it does so depends on what type of immunity a former President enjoys. Is the immunity enjoyed by former Presidents in criminal cases an immunity from the operation of the primary obligations imposed by the criminal laws in question? Or is it an immunity from being subjected to certain types of sanctions for having violated validly …

Does The Original Meaning Of The Fourteenth Amendment Protect Economic Liberty?, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In my remarks today, I will defend the proposition that the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment protects "economic liberty." To clarify the issue, let me being by defining economic liberty. I define economic liberty as the right to acquire, use and possess private property and the right to enter into private contracts of one's choosing. If these rights are protected by the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, then we can conclude that the Amendment does protect economic liberty.

In my view, the evidence that the original meaning Fourteenth Amendment protects rights of private property and contract is overwhelming. …

Just Research And Citation, Amanda Levendowski

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Contemporary research and citation practices are often unjust. Data cartels like Westlaw and Lexis have parent companies that prioritize profits in ways that threaten immigrants. Even before the Dobbs decision, search engines could be deployed to weaponize data against pregnant people seeking reproductive care. Women and people of color have been legal scholars for more than a century but, as many scholars have observed, colleagues consistently under-cite, mis-cite or appropriate those scholars’ work with minimal recourse. Citation materials are often inaccessible to disabled people, poor people, or the public due to poor design, paywalls, or unpreserved content that falls prey …

De/Reconstructing Delinquency, Eduardo R. Ferrer

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Hundreds of thousands of children are brought under the jurisdiction of delinquency courts every year in the United States. Despite the reality that most children engage in delinquent behavior during their adolescence, poor children, children of color, children with disabilities, and children who identify as LGBTQIA+ comprise a disproportionate number of those who become delinquency system-involved. These disparities exist by design. Their origins can be traced back to the flawed first principles upon which the juvenile court was built and, specifically, to the unduly expansive legal definition of delinquency that has undergirded the jurisdiction and power of the juvenile court …

Management Strategies To Improve Gastrointestinal Health And Productivity Of Native And Dairy-Derived Steers Fed In Confinement, Becca B. Grimes Francis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation was to evaluate strategies to mitigate metabolic disorders in confinement fed steers. The first study was conducted on yearling beef steers to investigate the effect of a rumen buffer, calcium magnesium carbonate (CMC), when fed with or without tylosin phosphate (TYL), on growth performance, rumination activity and liver abscess prevalence. Supplementation of a rumen buffer was not an effective alternative to a feed-grade antimicrobial for the control of liver abscesses in beef steers. Supplementation of CMC reduced DMI, thus negatively influencing BW and ADG. No associative effects of CMC and TYL were observed for any …

Discovery Of Photosynthetic Oxic N2-Fixation In Cyanobacteria Using Wet Lab And Machine Learning Approaches, James A. Young Iii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Integrated Wetland Condition Index And Environmental Metric Framework For The Prairie Pothole Region, Mercedes L. Batalla

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The USDA-NRCS Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) assists landowners with protecting, restoring, and enhancing wetlands. Evaluating wetland conservation efforts is crucial for informing future management decisions. However, assessment frameworks vary across regions and among stakeholders. The Prairie Pothole Region is an ecologically unique landscape characterized by its abundance of wetlands that provide important ecosystem services. To evaluate wetlands enrolled in ACEP, I sampled forty-five semi-permanent wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region from July – August 2023 and 2024. I selected and sampled twenty-six wetlands enrolled in ACEP. Nineteen additional wetlands not enrolled in ACEP were also sampled; these included nine …

The Formation And Degradation Of Carboxysomes During Heterocyst Development In Filamentous Cyanobacteria, Maxwell Anton Jakubiak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Photosynthetic carbon (CO2) fixation and solar-powered nitrogen (N2) fixation are foundational biochemical processes that introduce essential elements into the biosphere. While atmospheric dinitrogen gas (N2) is unusable to most organisms, diazotrophs utilize the nitrogenase enzyme to reduce N2 to ammonia. Because all known nitrogenases are highly susceptible to irreversible oxygen inactivation, N2 fixation is generally incompatible with oxygenic photosynthesis. However, several cyanobacteria are both photosynthetic and diazotrophic, balancing these opposing metabolisms by temporally or spatially separating the respective enzymes. Anabaena sp. PCC 7120 is a model multicellular cyanobacterium that grows in filaments of photosynthetic vegetative cells, which respond to nitrogen …

Simulating Positive Ion Distribution In The Protodune Single Phase Detector, Vishnu Pfeiffer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work covers the validation and implementation of a model to solve for argon ion (Ar+) distribution in the ProtoDUNE-SP liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC). ProtoDUNE-SP undergoes a constant flux of cosmic ray muons due to surface operation. The performance of the ProtoDUNE-SP provided valuable insights into single-phase technology, membrane cryostat technology, and calibration of cryogenic instrumentation. Still, challenges in achieving precise measurements persist due to the space charge effect—the distortion of the electric field within the detector due to the accumulation of positive argon ions generated from constant cosmic muon flux. The overarching goal of this thesis is …

Learning Positive Deviance Techniques: How Non-Conformity To Vote-Buying Is Practiced And Its Outcomes, The Ugandan Context, Collins Kwarisima

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research has investigated the use of positive deviance or exemplary behavior as an innovative approach to addressing political corruption, specifically the vote-buying practice in Uganda. To understand the techniques of positive deviance in vote-buying, this study was guided by the main research question: How is non-conformity to vote-buying practiced, and what are its outcomes? Individual and focus group interviews were utilized to collect qualitative data from 40 respondents (voters and political leaders) who deter the vote-buying practice in Rukungiri District, Western Uganda. With the help of community gatekeepers, the study followed the inclusion criteria to identify voters and political …

Developing Proportional Hazards Mixture Cure Models And Predicting Risk For Persons With End-Stage Kidney Disease, Nathan Meyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traditional survival analysis techniques assume that all individuals will eventually experience the event of interest. This is as opposed to allowing for a subset of cured individuals. Hence, we consider a mixture cure model that can allow a subset of people to be cured of the disease and will never experience the event of interest. This gives a more accurate interpretation of survivability by analyzing both the shortand long-term effects of a set of variables on the individuals’ survival probabilities. However, the cure status is considered an unknown variable. Thus, the expectationmaximization algorithm is required to estimate this latent variable …

Molecular Dynamics Simulations Of Key Parameters On Thermal Properties Of Carbon Nanotube Modified Epoxy Composites, Lida Najmi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The application of carbon nanotube (CNT)-reinforced epoxy matrix composites (CRECs) has attracted extensive attention in various industrial sectors due to the significant improvement of material properties imparted by CNTs. The thermal behavior of these nanocomposites is governed by complex heat transfer mechanisms operating at different scales, resulting in a complex relationship between the effective thermal response and the microstructural characteristics of the composite. In this study, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were used to investigate the thermal conductivity of CRECs, focusing on the effects of key parameters such as the length and volume fraction of CNTs, the degree of cross-linking within …

Review: The Shape Of Power: Stories Of Race And American Sculpture, Jiaying (Gloria) Dai

Art Inquiries

The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture, co-curated by Karen Lemmey,

Tobias Wofford, and Grace Yasumura, ambitiously asked: How does American sculpture

intersect with the history of race in the United States?1 Positioning itself as the first major survey

exhibition of American sculpture in decades, this exhibition featured 82 sculptures created by 70

artists spanning from 1792 to 2023.

The Failed Experiment Of §230 Of The Communications Decency Act: How It Facilitates Exploitation And How It Must Be Reformed, Mary Graw Leary

Scholarly Articles

Two truths coexist: The Internet has brought with it tremendous changes for learning, connection, and business; and the Internet and other digital platforms have led to an unprecedented exploitation of children on a scale never before imagined. This is due in large part to §230 of the Communications Decency Act – the law which tech platforms have perverted to immunize them from liability for their activity which causes extreme harm. This duality has led to a current vigorous debate about whether this 1996 law has any value in the 21st Century.

This article answers that question with a resounding no, …