Digital Commons Network^™

Asian Elephant Rescue, Rehabilitation And Rewilding, Liv Baker, Rebecca Winkler

Animal Sentience

Thailand has fewer than 10,000 elephants left. More of them are living in captivity to serve the tourist industry under grim conditions than are living free in what is left of their wild habitat. Conservation efforts need to be focused on all surviving members of the species, captive and free, but they need to take into account the inextricable entanglement of human and nonhuman animal lives in Thailand today. There is an opportunity for rescuing, rehabilitating and reintroducing captive elephants to the wild with the help of the traditional expertise of a mahout culture that has been elephant-keeping for centuries. …

Anthropology And Conservation, Nicolas Lainé

Animal Sentience

Baker & Winkler make a welcome contribution to elephant conservation in Thailand in advocating a role for joint human/elephant labor and local expertise in rewilding. Their argument would benefit, however, if it drew more upon the local ethnographic evidence. Ethnocentric notions such as “welfare” and “wellbeing” may not fit into the local perception of pachyderms.

Elephants At Work, Jamie Lorimer, Khatijah Rahmat

Animal Sentience

Baker & Winkler (B&W) propose rewilding Asian elephants in a model in which they are rescued, rehabilitated and then given work with their mahouts in ecological restoration and ecotourism. In a sympathetic critique, we explore the status that B&W’s analysis accords to work. Types of work and working conditions need to be differentiated. We caution against a model of conservation that would make the future of life conditional on participating in the workforce.

Rewilding And Domestication: Clarifying Terminology, Catia Correia-Caeiro

Animal Sentience

Baker & Winkler (B&W) describe the state of Asian elephant conservation, raising unique issues, and proposing a direction based on rewilding. The long history and socio-biology of elephants and humans has some parallels with the domestication of dogs (and other species). However, markers of domestication seem absent from elephants. The proper use of terms such as “wild” and “domestic” is crucial in defining the best conservation strategies, and, more important, in attending to the welfare needs of individuals, which can differ between wild and domestic animals. B&W’s target article represents an important starting point for discussion around elephant conservation, but …

Beyond Cruzan: Dementia And The Best Interests Standard, Rebecca Susan Dresser

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Books Or Food? Food Insecurity And The Rise Of Campus Food Pantries, Sonya Sharififard

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a quantitative study of campus food pantries located in public four-year colleges and universities in the United States. The research aims to explain relationships among campus food pantries and surrounding neighborhood characteristics affecting local food environments. There are two parts to the study: (a) the quantitative analysis through responses from a participant questionnaire; and (b) a case study analysis to accompany the quantitative analysis. The researcher identified three metropolitan counties within U.S. census tracts, to determine the relationship between neighborhood demographics, the local food environment, and the impact on campus communities. The researcher explored food accessibility within …

Once Upon A Team: The Impact Of Personal Storytelling Types On Desire To Collaborate, Matt Ebeling

Theses and Dissertations

Personal story disclosure supports the development of interpersonal relationships through the building of trust and feelings of closeness. In organizational teams, trust is key to the promotion of cooperative behaviors and team performance, and collaboration within a team and across teams becomes exceedingly important as organizations grow and increase in complexity. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of specific types of personal storytelling on a person's desire to collaborate with others in the workplace. I conclude that the following characteristics of personal story sharing by co-workers have a positive impact on desire to collaborate with the …

What Role Can Social Cognitive Neuroscience Play In Promoting Prosocial Behaviors In Organizations, Lynne Forbes-Zeller

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to establish a correlation between the integration of Social Cognitive Neuroscience (SCN) frameworks (e.g., The SCARF model) into day-to-day social interactions in the workplace. The study also sought to determine whether SCN practices can increase prosocial behaviors and improve a leader's influence. This qualitative study had four phases: an educational video, a self-assessment, a learning workshop, and an experiential learning exercise. Data were collected through eight interviews. This study revealed that understanding the brain's influence in social environments increased prosocial behaviors and positively impacted leader thoughts and actions. Data showed taking the self-assessment, learning …

What Do Lawyers Contribute To Law & Economics?, Robert E. Scott, George G. Triantis

Faculty Scholarship

The law-and-economics movement has transformed the analysis of private law in the United States and, increasingly, around the world. As the field developed from 1970 to the early 2000s, scholars have developed countless insights about the operation and effects of law and legal institutions. Throughout this period, the discipline of law-and-economics has benefited from a partnership among trained economists and academic lawyers. Yet the tools that are used derive primarily from economics and not law. A logical question thus demands attention: what role do academic lawyers play in law-and-economics scholarship? In this Essay, we offer an interpretive theory of the …

Acts Of Meaning, Resource Diagrams, And Essential Learning Behaviors: The Design Evolution Of Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

Lost & Found is a tabletop-to-mobile game series designed for teaching medieval religious legal systems. The long-term goals of the project are to change the discourse around religious laws, such as foregrounding the prosocial aspects of religious law such as collaboration, cooperation, and communal sustainability. This design case focuses on the evolution of the design of the mechanics and core systems in the first two tabletop games in the series, informed by over three and a half years’ worth of design notes, playable prototypes, outside design consultations, internal design reviews, playtests, and interviews.

Pre-Columbian Rock Mulching As A Strategy For Modern Agave Cultivation In Arid Marginal Lands, Hector Ortiz-Cano, Jose Antonio Hernandez-Herrera, Neil C. Hansen, Steven L. Petersen, Michael T. Searcy, Ricardo Mata-Gonzalez, Teodoro Cervantes-Mendivil, Antonio Villanueva-Morales, Pil Man Park, J. Ryan Stewart

Faculty Publications

Cultivation of C3 and C4 crops in semi-arid regions will be severely constrained as global temperatures rise. Consequently, alternative crops need to be sought out that adapt well to heat and drought and are productive despite limited access to water. Traits, such as crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM), enable economically important species such as those in the Agave genus adapt to drought and high temperatures. The succulence and high efficiency of agaves, which enables them to produce biomass with little water, underscores their feasibility as an alternative crop for semi-arid regions, such as the Sonoran Desert in the southwestern U.S. In …

The Form Of The Content: The Digital Archive Nahuatl/Nawat In Central America, Laura Matthew, Michael Bannister

History Faculty Research and Publications

The digital archive “Nahuatl/Nawat in Central America” (NECA) assembles and makes publicly available a growing corpus of Nahuan-language documents produced in Spanish Central America. Many are fragments within larger Spanish-language documents and difficult to locate in the archive. NECA has succeeded in bringing attention to this understudied corpus but has so far failed to attract users to its transcription and translation tool. We consider the reasons for this creative failure based on user data, and suggest that the specialized skills and distinct academic communities needed to move this project forward require other workspaces, including the non-digital, in advance of online …

Three Existentialist Readings Of Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera, Mariana Alessandri

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This essay provides three new and related philosophical readings of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/la Frontera: 1) in the lineage of canonical European Existentialists like Jean Paul Sartre, who provides an analysis of shame; 2) in the lineage of Mexican Existentialists like Samuel Ramos and Octavio Paz, who attribute a relative of shame to Mexicans; and 3) in dialogue with Africana Existentialists like Franz Fanon, who describe the bodily shame of nonwhites in racist societies. Anzaldúa’s concept of “linguistic terrorism,” which existentially translates into la vergüenza linguística, extends the scope of European, Africana, and Mexican Existentialisms while putting all three in dialogue …

Book Review: Neha Vora, Teach For Arabia: American Universities, Liberalism, And Transnational Qatar, Loukia K. Sarroub

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

With a provocative title that inherently questions who might be served and educated best by the branch campuses of top US universities in Qatar and Gulf states, Vora’s new book debunks some old myths and reminds readers from the outset that “liberalism has Arabian roots” (18). Vora wonders about and studies the transplant of liberal education into “so-called illiberal” countries like Qatar and other Gulf States. Her timely book offers on-the-ground perspectives of students and faculty in these transplant institutions as they engage with curriculum and one another in a new knowledge economy. The book contributes to scholarship about how …

Identity Negotiation In Multilingual Contexts: A Narrative Inquiry Into Experiences Of An African Immigrant High School Student, Lydiah Kananu Kiramba, James Oloo

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Background/Context: Inclusion of African immigrant youth voices in educational and research discourses remains rare despite the steady growth of this population in the United States over the past four decades. Consequently, the multilingual abilities of these youth remain typically unnoticed or ignored in the classroom, and little is specifically known about their histories, cultures, expectations, and achievements.

Purpose: Using the narrative inquiry approach and the Natural, Institutional, Discursive, Affinity, Learner, and Solidarity (NIDALS) theoretical lens, we explore the lived experiences of one African immigrant high school student in the Midwestern United States.

Research Design: Using narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, …

Nato And Collective Environmental Security In The Mena: From The Cold War To Covid-19, Ibrahim Al-Marashi, Amar Causevic

Journal of Strategic Security

The Covid-19 pandemic emerged as a global security risk, and national security institutions scrambled to manage a threat, not emanating from states or non-state actors, but from the environment. The pandemic serves as an empirical case to explore “anthropogenic strategic security,” or how security doctrines can anticipate and mitigate natural disasters, resulting from humanity’s exploitation of ecology and environment. This qualitative study addresses the question as to whether the NATO possesses the imaginative and institutional capacity to manage environmental risks resulting from climate change. By employing constructivist theory, this article argues that the Alliance needs to adopt holistic norms and …

Scientist Of The Week!, Sarah L. Sheffield, Lisette Melendez, Kristin Houdyshell, Mathew Burgos

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Late Holocene Droughts And Cave Ice Harvesting By Ancestral Puebloans, Bogdan P. Onac, Steven M. Baumann, Dylan S. Parmenter, Eric Weaver, Tiberiu B. Sava

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Water availability for Native Americans in the southwestern United States during periods of prolonged droughts is poorly understood as regional hydroclimate records are scant or contradicting. Here, we show that radiocarbon-dated charcoal recovered from an ice deposit accumulated in Cave 29, western New Mexico, provide unambiguous evidence for five drought events that impacted the Ancestral Puebloan society between ~ AD 150 and 950. The presence of abundant charred material in this cave indicates that they periodically obtained drinking water by using fire to melt cave ice, and sheds light on one of many human–environment interactions in the Southwest in a …

Changing The Subject Of Sati, Deepa Das Acevedo

Faculty Articles

Charan Shah's 1999 death was widely considered to be the first sati, or widow immolation, to have occurred in India in over twenty years. Media coverage of the event focused on procedural minutiae-her sari, her demeanor-and ultimately, several progressive commentators came to the counterintuitive conclusion that the ritually anomalous nature of Charan's death confirmed its voluntary, secular, and noncriminal nature. This article argues that the "unlabeling" of Charan's death, like those of other women between 1999 and 2006, reflects a tension between the nonindividuated, impervious model of personhood exemplified by sati and the particularized citizen-subject of liberal-democratic politics in India.

Essentializing Labor Before, During, And After The Coronavirus Pandemic, Deepa Das Acevedo

Faculty Articles

In the era of COVID-19, the term essential labor has become part of our daily lexicon. Between March and May 2020, essential labor was not just the only kind of paid labor occurring across most of the United States; it was also, many argued, the only thing preventing utter economic and humanitarian collapse. As a result of this sudden significance, legal scholars, workers’ advocates, and politicians have scrambled to articulate exactly what makes essential labor “essential.” Some commentators have also argued that the rise of essential labor as a conceptual category disrupts—or should disrupt—longstanding patterns in the way the nation …

Recognising The Place Of Food Tourism In Ireland: An Autoethnographic Perspective, John D. Mulcahy

Doctoral

This is an autoethnographic account, utilising prior publications, of my role in positioning food as a critical ingredient in Ireland’s tourism policy and strategy since 2009. As the architect and instigator of this project, my priorities were threefold: first, working from the ground up identifying local activists across the food tourism landscape to create an active and vibrant network; second, providing thought leadership for food tourism; and third, encouraging and funding others to conduct and disseminate similar research. I have chosen six book chapters, published as a result of my advocacy strategy, for this PhD by prior publication. They are …

"We Dare Say Love": Supporting Achievement In The Educational Life Of Black Boys (Book Review), Kala Burrell-Craft

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Parental Leave Policies: Implications For Higher Education Policy, Muneka Nwoko

Theses and Dissertations

A persistent disadvantage of individuals and couples navigating and negotiating parental leave policies is often embedded in biased assumptions. Oftentimes, as a result, individuals and couples inherently encounter vastly different parental leave experiences. However, recommendations from the literature and federal policy support the need for gender equity, family-focused initiatives, and workplace interventions related to individuals and couples navigating and negotiating parental leave processes. Yet because of a lack of policy standardization, policy protocols related to these recommendations have proved unsuccessful in addressing the complexities individuals and couples experience when navigating and negotiating parental leave processes. Thus, this study applies a …

Safety Culture In Collegiate Aviation: A Cross-Sectional Analysis Between Multiple Universities, Robert Foster

Theses and Dissertations

A concurrent-embedded mixed method was used to evaluate observed outcomes of safety culture among multiple collegiate aviation programs in the U.S. A hypothesized model that measures the relationships between scales of safety management systems (SMS), safety motivation (mediator), and safety behaviors (safety compliance, safety reporting, and safety participation) was assessed using structural equation modeling/path analysis (SEM/PA). Demographic differences in safety culture were also evaluated. Semi-structured interviews were used further to understand the impacts of SMS on safety culture. Findings suggest significant predictive relationships between SMS and observed safety culture outcomes. There was also a significant mediation role of safety motivation …

'Amageddon': The Unholy Trinity Of Class Monopoly Rent In The Emerald City, Elijah Connor Hansen

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

Intense redevelopment has steamrolled across Seattle’s South Lake Union and Belltown neighborhoods, home to the headquarters of the world’s largest ecommerce corporation, Amazon. After the corporation established a presence in what is now referred to as ‘Amazonia’ in 2007, the surrounding urban landscape underwent a colossal metamorphic overhaul as high-tech and biotech industries, along with bourgeois luxury high rises, replaced old warehouses and empty parking lots. These new industries have attracted tens of thousands of people to the city, resulting in an oversaturated housing supply and an ensuing housing affordability crisis as rents have continued to skyrocket year after year. …

Rhetorical Analysis Of Statements Of Purpose (Sps) For Admission To Graduate School: A Shared-Understanding Perspective Of The Sp Genre, Priyanka Ganguly

Masters Theses

"In this study, I analyzed twenty-four statements of purpose (SPs) submitted to the Department of English and Technical Communication at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) by current and former students. My goal was to determine the applicants' shared understanding of the SP genre. I analyzed the SPs from three dimensions: rhetorical moves, rhetorical appeals (pisteis), and rhetorical style (elocutio).

To understand the rhetorical moves used by the applicants, I analyzed the content of their SPs according to the categories (moves) and codes (steps) validated in my pilot study. To understand the arguments used by the …

‘Not Shap’D For Sportive Tricks:’ Representations Of Disability In Film And Digital Broadcast Cinema Adaptations Of Early Modern Drama, Grace Mccarthy

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In films that feature disability, we see the recursive and discussion-limiting impulse to say “this representation is negative. Therefore, the representation should not be seen,” based on critical theories and methodologies outside the purview of film studies. Unfortunately, the overlay of an English, narratological, sociological, or medical methodology and terminology onto a film representation of disability is ultimately recursive and self-limiting; critical and advocate calls for accuracy to the lived experience of people with disabilities in on-screen representations decline to engage with the visual construction of cinematic representations of disability and the often fascinating cinematographic and thematic patterns that emerge …

Seeking A Path To Wellness And Flourishing: Exploring Ecological Citizenship, Systems Thinking, And Environmental Governance In Southwest Yukon, Amanda Solmes

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

While efforts toward environmental management (EM) have been increasing, the state of our natural world is getting worse. Numerous reports have outlined that today’s environmental problems are predominantly human-induced, yet approaches to EM often only address “environmental” rather than “human” issues. More holistic approaches are required. This thesis explores “ecological citizenship” (EC) as an alternative framework that may have the potential to address elements too often left out of top-down and reductionist approaches. Academic and case-based notions of this concept are explored, and a new definition for the term is developed. A case study, drawn from the rich results of …

A Qualitative Exploration Into The Subjective Experiences Of Healthcare Serial Killers, Florence Tang

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The prototypical serial killer is widely perceived as extremely violent offender who murders out of sexual gratification (Hodgkinson et al., 2017). The perception of serial killers primarily being sexual sadists may be greatly affected by an overfocus of research on sexually violent serial killers and a lack of attention on their non-sexually motivated counterparts such as healthcare serial killers (HCSK) (Lubaszka et al., 2014). In addition, a lack of qualitative inquiry into the experiences of serial homicide may be an impediment to understanding the deeper psychological reasons of why serial killers commit homicide (Kerr & Beech, 2016; Skrapec, 2001a). The …

Hypothetical Human Immune Genome Complex Gradient May Help To Explain The Congenital Zika Symdrome Catastrophe In Brazil: A New Theory, F. R. S. Oliveira, C. C. Bresani-Salvi, C. N. L. Morais, A. W. Bigham, U. Braga-Neto, Gladys E. Maestre, John L. Vandeberg, E. T. A. Marques, B. Acioli-Santos

School of Medicine Publications

There are few data considering human genetics as an important risk factor for birth abnormalities related to ZIKV infection during pregnancy, even though sub-Saharan African populations are apparently more resistant to CZS as compared to populations in the Americas. We hypothesized that single nucleotide variants (SNVs), especially in innate immune genes, could make some populations more susceptible to Zika congenital complications than others. Differences in the SNV frequencies among continental populations provide great potential for Machine Learning techniques. We explored a key immune genomic gradient between individuals from Africa, Asia and Latin America, working with complex signatures, using 297 SNVs. …