Digital Commons Network^™

Everybody Wants To Rule The World: Central Bank Digital Currencies In The Era Of Decoupling The World’S Two Largest Economies, James M. Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

Some 130 central banks around the world are experimenting with various levels of a central bank digital currency (“CBDC”), a digitized form of a sovereign-backed, national currency that is a liability of that country’s central bank. Unlike fiat currency, CBDCs are trackable and potentially subject to interference and even freezing by government authorities. CBDCs will affect citizens’ control over commerce, payments, and savings, and impact their privacy rights. The Chinese government has piloted, refined, and rolled out its own CBDC called the Digital Currency/Electronic Payment initiative (“DC/EP”), also known as the digital yuan or e-CNY. The Chinese government is far …

Holistic And Holy: An Inward Journey Toward Healing And Wholeness, Chad Mcswain

Doctor of Leadership

There are two ubiquitous challenges to the modern church in North America: declining church attendance and the mental health crisis. This is an opportunity for the modern church to take up the missional imperative by providing access to mental health resources to meet the mental and spiritual needs of those they serve, while creating a positive connection to those who do not currently attend church.

This doctoral project seeks to address both challenges by providing a podcast called, Holistic and Holy, Listener Guide, and website that creates conversations at the intersection of mental health and spirituality. This approach uses traditional …

Project Portfolio: Questions Leaders Ask As Modeled By Jesus, Kristy Newport

Doctor of Leadership

For people to be seen, heard, and understood, it is important for a leader to ask good questions. If this does not take place in a small group or within an organization, people do not feel appreciated. Often the result is people leaving a small group or organization. In order to address this need I have wanted to educate organizational leaders in the skill of asking good questions. As a marriage and family therapist I have experienced the power that questions bring. It is my hope to empower organizational leaders with tools for them to connect with those they lead. …

Second Look Commission 2024 Annual Report, Tennessee. Commission On Children And Youth.

Second Look Commission Annual Report

No abstract provided.

Second Look Commission 2024 Annual Report Highlights, Tennessee. Commission On Children And Youth.

Second Look Commission Annual Report

No abstract provided.

Inquiro 12 (Front Matter), Inquiro Staff

Inquiro (undergraduate research journal)

pp. -7

Letters from the editors: https://www.uab.edu/inquiro/issues/current-issue/letter-from-the-editors

E-Cigarette Toxicity And Neurological Function: An Escalating Public Health Concern, Anushka Patel

Inquiro (undergraduate research journal)

pp. 32-34

https://www.uab.edu/inquiro/issues/current-issue/e-cigarette-toxicity-and-neurological-function-an-escalating-public-health-concern

Navigating Puberty: A Systematic Review Of Sex And Puberty Education For Autistic Children, Victoria A. Boatright, Shannon M. Kirshy, Caroline G. Richter

Inquiro (undergraduate research journal)

pp. 24-31

https://www.uab.edu/inquiro/issues/current-issue/navigating-puberty-a-systematic-review-of-sex-and-puberty-education-for-autistic-children

Time To Abolish The Dea: Evaluating The Agency’S Failures And Calling For Community Investments, Ifetayo Harvey

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Computational Thinking And Equity-Centered Urban Preservice Residency Program's Impact On Stem Teachers, Jesse Ha, Wei Wei, Kimberley Gomez, Anuradha Ghosh

Department of Teaching and Learning Scholarship and Creative Works

Situated in an urban teacher residency program at the University of California, Los Angeles, that aims to prepare high school teachers for integrating computational thinking (CT) into equity-focused STEM teaching, this paper investigates the impact of the STEM+C3 program on preservice teachers' conceptualizations and integration of CT in classrooms. Our analysis of 10 interviews suggests that the STEM+C3 program had an overall positive impact on teaching residents' (TRs) understandings of equity-centered practices in CT pedagogy with a few teachers demonstrating shallower understandings. Most TRs were able to characterize identity and positionality while only a few were able to characterize diversity, …

Public Health Implications Of Social Media On Adolescent Health Behaviors: Upstream Approaches To Prevention Strategies, Joseph Donnelly, Elena Saldutti

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

This commentary provides a comprehensive overview of the influence of social media on the health and well-being of adolescents, focusing on emotional/mental health, self-esteem, alcohol and drug use, peer pressure, and both negative and positive influences. It highlights concerns about the potential negative impact of social media, including increased levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness, as well as the impact on self- esteem through seeking validation and unrealistic comparisons. Furthermore, it discusses how social media exposes adolescents to content promoting alcohol and drug use and amplifies peer pressure, leading to potential substance abuse and negative decision-making. Despite these drawbacks, the …

Tips From Sir Cluckerton: Effective And Fun Social Media With A Library Mascot, Allison Boswell, Laura Pitts

Research, Publications & Creative Work

In 2021, the Houston Cole Library (HCL) at Jacksonville State University (Jacksonville, AL) added a mascot to enhance social media posts, and the result has been successful. HCL’s simple low-cost mascot has consistently stimulated positive interactions between the library staff/faculty and students, community members and university officials. HCL’s library mascot has created a cult-like following that watches and comments on his adventures. This current discussion indicates how any library can create their own mascot regardless of budget restrictions and time commitments.

Exploratory Study Of Students’ Creative Mindset, Perceived Values Of Open Educational Resources, And Flow, Hungwei Tseng, Mark Sciuchetti, Yingqi Tang

Research, Publications & Creative Work

As the awareness, benefits, and adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) in various fields have increased, so have efforts to conduct research on its impact on students learning behaviors, experience, and engagement. However, limited research has been conducted regarding the efficacy of using OER on students’ perceived enjoyment in learning and interactions with educational materials. This study aimed to examine the relationships between creative mindset, flow experience, and perceived values of OER among 88 online undergraduate students. First, results revealed that students who have a growth-oriented creative mindset are more likely to understand and embrace OER’s intrinsic worth. Their willingness …

Exploratory Study Of Students’ Creative Mindset, Perceived Values Of Open Educational Resources, And Flow, Hungwei Tseng, Mark Sciuchetti, Yingqi Tang

Research, Publications & Creative Work

As the awareness, benefits, and adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) in various fields have increased, so have efforts to conduct research on its impact on students learning behaviors, experience, and engagement. However, limited research has been conducted regarding the efficacy of using OER on students’ perceived enjoyment in learning and interactions with educational materials. This study aimed to examine the relationships between creative mindset, flow experience, and perceived values of OER among 88 online undergraduate students. First, results revealed that students who have a growth-oriented creative mindset are more likely to understand and embrace OER’s intrinsic worth. Their willingness …

Litmag 2024, University Of Missouri-St. Louis

Litmag

Litmag’s mission is to nurture the creativity of the students, staff, and alumni of UMSL by providing a space to showcase the diverse literary and artistic talent on our campus. We aim to provide an inclusive, professional and high-quality publication free of charge to UMSL and the local community.

Dear Reader, On behalf of the editorial staff and myself, welcome to the 2024 edition of Litmag. With this year’s publication, our team sought to find honest expressions within familiar forms of writing and art. Litmag has driven discussion and craftsmanship. This year’s staff truly selected thoughtprovoking pieces. Curiosity compels us …

Neglected, Perplexing, Unpredictable: Remedies In International Commercial Arbitration, Charles H. Brower Ii

Nebraska Law Review

People often treat awards as the focal point of international commercial arbitration, but awards are not the focal point; remedies are. Yet remedies remain an undertheorized topic in the arena of international commercial arbitration. The whole topic of remedies is neglected; there is almost no quantitative data on the remedies requested or awarded in international commercial arbitration. Likewise, almost no standard works devote significant qualitative analysis to remedies.

Remedies are also perplexing because opinions on the sources and limits of a tribunal’s remedial powers are literally scattered to the four cardinal directions, with observers approaching remedial powers from the perspectives …

What Roosevelt Did To Brown V. Board Of Education, Or Race And Court Packing, Jill M. Fraley

Nebraska Law Review

Roughly one-third of American schools remain segregated. Scholars have offered a variety of explanations, mostly social and cultural, but sometimes legal, for why desegregation did not proceed effectively after Brown v. Board of Education. This Article articulates a less expected and previously undocumented cause: President [Franklin D.] Roosevelt’s prior attempt at court packing slowed—even derailed—desegregation.

The story of what Roosevelt’s court packing did to make the work of integration harder is a cautionary tale, particularly for those who want to alter the U.S. Supreme Court now in furtherance of a modern cause. The only reasonable route for reforming the …

Rising Tides, Rising Premiums, Kevin Freudenburg

Nebraska Law Review

Insuring flood-prone properties is a complex insurance problem. Attempts by the U.S. federal government to step in and correct perceived private market failures have often exacerbated the problem by artificially subsidizing building and rebuilding activity in low-lying areas. This article describes the fundamental problems inherent in the design of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) by analyzing the program through the lens of the insurance concepts of moral hazard and adverse selection. It also provides a comparative view of flood insurance schemes globally, and suggests possible reforms.

Zero Progress On Zero-Days: How The Last Ten Years Created The Modern Spyware Market, Mailyn Fidler

Nebraska Law Review

Spyware makes surveillance simple. The last ten years have seen a global market emerge for ready-made software that lets governments surveil citizens and foreign adversaries alike and to do so more easily than when such work required tradecraft. The last ten years have also been marked by stark failures to control spyware and its precursors and components. This Article accounts for and critiques these failures, providing a socio-technical history since 2014, focusing on the conversation about trade in zero-day vulnerabilities and exploits and more recently spyware. This Article also applies lessons from these failures to guide regulatory efforts going forward. …

Unfair Discrimination Standards, Actuarial Fairness, And Insurers’ Use Of Big Data, Laura L. Arp

Nebraska Law Review

Technological innovations in insurance rating allow increasingly large sets of data about insureds to be collected, analyzed, and turned into rates. Consumers’ concerns about artificial intelligence can translate into mistrust that their insurance rates accurately reflect the risk they present. In response, regulatory frameworks are being developed for testing these new algorithms. When people encounter the word “discrimination,” they often register a meaning of “unfair discrimination.” However, in the insurance context, “discrimination” is a neutral term.

This Article attempts to unpack the multiple and complex facets present in the definition of unfair discrimination—and in particular proxy discrimination—as applied to insurance, …

Is West Virginia A Haven For Disabled Workers? An Evolving Story, James V. Koch, Robert M. Mcnab

Economics Faculty Publications

With a particular focus on West Virginia, this study utilizes state-level monthly panel data over 13 years (2010-2022) to examine the determinants of the rates of application of individuals for Social Security Administration disabled worker income payments (SSDI) and the initial recommendations of those applications for approval by the states. Application rates are particularly sensitive to the educational attainment of state populations and approval rates to economic conditions. However, in contrast to media coverage and public perceptions, both the number of applications for SSDI and approval rates have been declining nationally and in West Virginia.

The Federal Government’S Role As The Warden Of Immigrants, Pedro Gerson

Nebraska Law Review

This Essay examines the evolving landscape of immigration enforcement within the broader context of federal confinement in the United States. The current “crisis” at the southern border, characterized by historic levels of migrant influx and shifting political tides toward restrictionism, underscores the federal government’s increasing emphasis on confinement as a tool of migration control. Furthermore, this Essay argues the need to conceptualize federal confinement as a unified system encompassing both immigration detention and incarceration, which reveals the extent to which immigration has become a dominant factor in federal custody. Drawing on data and analysis, it demonstrates that immigration-related offenses now …

Heads Held High And Hands Holding Hope: The Victory And Vulnerabilities Of The Indian Child Welfare Act After Haaland V. Brackeen, Mikayla Jones

Nebraska Law Review

Congress enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in 1978 to mitigate the catastrophic effects of the federal government’s longstanding policy of forcibly removing Indian children from their families and tribal communities. ICWA has safeguarded Indian children and families for decades by setting minimum standards in state child welfare proceedings to prevent unwarranted removals, support family preservation and reunification, and foster cultural and community connection.

However, ICWA has faced numerous legal challenges since its implementation—often on the theory that the law discriminates against Indian children on the basis of race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. In 2023, the …

Using A Congressional-Executive Agreement To Protect Abortion At Home And Abroad, Amanda V. Landaverde

Nebraska Law Review

In the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the Court rejected the existence of a constitutional right to abortion and obliterated the only federal protection of abortion. Two years after the Court’s decision, Congress has not passed federal legislation protecting abortion, and our country has no national standard on abortion access. In the meantime, in states with draconian abortion restrictions, women are forced to wait until they are at death’s door before the state allows them to have an abortion. This occurs despite the majority of Americans supporting some form of abortion access.

Although potential legislation …

Public Lands In Private Hands: Corner-Crossing Is An Ominous Grey Area In Wyoming Law, Christian Moncrief

Nebraska Law Review

Corner-crossing is a tactic used by recreators in Western states with ample public land. Corner-crossing occurs when a recreator reaches a four-way junction of two corners of public land and two corners of private land and steps or climbs diagonally from one corner of public land to another. This practice frequently occurs in areas where public and private lands are interlocked in an alternating checkerboard pattern. Due to the millions of acres of corner-locked public land in Wyoming and the implications of this practice on private property rights, corner-crossing is an extremely pressing issue in Wyoming. The legality of corner-crossing …

Franchise Law, Deborah S. Coldwell, Kristina Pierre-Louis, Sam Mallick, Wilson Miller, Chris Hamborsky

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

A Role Model Among Law Professors, Randy Beck

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Critique Of The Current Epidemic In Our Criminal Justice System: “Guilty Until Proven Innocent”, Jaclyn Marsh

SMU Law Review

It has been a long-held notion of American jurisprudence that a citizen of this country shall not be deprived of their fundamental rights until required so by law. It is an offshoot of this notion that an American should not be deprived of these fundamental rights through being confined to jail or prison until twelve of their own fellow peers have laid down a finding of guilty. However, this phenomenon is exactly what is happening today, and the issue has been steadily increasing in occurrence since the passing of a federal statute in 1984.

Because of judicial interpretation and government …

Press Freedoms Under Pressure: Clinical Perspectives On The State Of Press Freedoms In Texas In 2024, Peter B. Stefensen, Thomas S. Leatherbury

SMU Law Review

Amid existential challenges to the press as an institution, public accountability journalists in Texas are navigating their own set of difficulties. For those who report on state and local entities, journalists are encountering increasingly constrained avenues for obtaining public information, a greater tendency for government bodies to prioritize image control over transparency, a higher likelihood of retaliation from public officials for performing important accountability work, and a judiciary that seems to respect the press less and less. By surveying journalists, and members of press and legal organizations who support accountability journalism, we use their accounts to evaluate these trends, to …

Insurance Law, J. Price Collins, Janet Tolbert, Ashley Gilmore

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This Article describes and analyzes major developments in insurance law that occurred in Texas between December 1 and November 30 of 2022.