Digital Commons Network^™

Is Cognitive Fatigue Pushing Peripheral Group Members Towards Extreme Attitudes?, James E. Robinson

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Both cognitive fatigue and group membership impact how individuals respond to persuasive messaging. Cognitively demanding tasks cause mental fatigue, lessening the ability to effortfully consider persuasive messaging and increasing the likelihood of making automatic decisions based on heuristics (Schmeichel et al., 2003). Additionally, self-perception of prototypicality (i.e., level of group membership) impacts motivation to identify with and engage in group normative behavior (Hohman et al., 2017). This research project aimed to further the understanding of how prototypicality and cognitive fatigue interact and come to impact attitude and the effortful elaboration of persuasive messaging.

Molecular Characterization Of Bla Oxa-51 Gene Among Acinetobacter Baumannii Isolates In Babylon Province, Huda H. Al-Hasnawy, Alya A. Rahi, Baraa H. Hadi

Hilla University College Journal For Medical Science

Background: Acinetobacter baumannii, identified as an ESKAPE pathogen, is part of a group of bacteria known for their high antibiotic resistance and significant role in nosocomial infections. Objectives: The objective of the current study is to investigate the genetic sequences of the blaOXA-51 gene in A. baumannii isolates. Materials and Methods: 600 specimens were collected during the period from September 2022 to December 2022 from three hospitals in Babylon Province/ Iraq. Results: In the present study, 20 (3.33%) out of 600 isolates from (urine, Burn, blood and wound)in percentage 6(30%), 5(25%), 5(25%), and 4(20%) respectively. The identification …

Formulation And Characterization Of Poloxamer-Based Mucoadhesive Vaginal In Situ Gelling System Of Miconazole Nitrate, Omar Mohammed Alwan, Iman Sabah Jafar

Hilla University College Journal For Medical Science

Background: Vaginal candidiasis is the most prevalent illness among women and is mostly caused by Candida albicans, which causes most clinic visits. Objectives: The present study aimed to formulate and improve miconazole nitrate-containing thermosensitive bioadhesive gel for vaginal drug delivery to achieve better therapeutic effectiveness and patient compliance in the management of vaginal candidiasis. Materials and Methods: Miconazole nitrate (MN) was prepared as a (2%) vaginal gel by using 18% poloxamer (PLX) 407, 2% PLX 188 as thermoresponsive polymers, and Carbopol (CP) 934 and CP 940 as bioadhesive polymers. The prepared formulations were assessed for parameters such as gelation …

Contrast-Associated Nephropathy: A Comprehensive Review, Karam Akram Al- Akkam, Mufeed Jalil Ewadh, Shukry Faez Al-Saad

Hilla University College Journal For Medical Science

Acute renal failure can be attributed to Contrast-Associated Nephropathy (CAN), which remains a threat due to population variation and the increasing use of contrast media in various techniques. Thus, this review aims to discuss the pathophysiology, factors and risk factors for CAN, measures for prevention, and approaches to its management. The pathophysiology of CAN is extensive and encompasses various factors. Vasoconstriction and medullary hypoxia in the renovascular bed area are crucial in the pathogenesis of CAN. Several contrast media can provoke the formation of free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS), leading to oxidative stress, an inflammatory response, and enhancing …

Table Of Contents

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

17(30) 2024

Editorial Foreword, Małgorzata Kozak, Marta Sznajder

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

Editorial foreword

Media Pluralism And Competition In The Media Sector: The Italian Experience, Valeria Caforio

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

In economic sectors where constitutional principles come to the fore, legislators must reconcile individual rights and freedoms with market principles, such as the arm’s length principle, and economic freedoms, particularly the freedom to conduct business. This balance is particularly significant in the media sector, where the principle of media pluralism is paramount. Media pluralism, as acknowledged by the Italian Constitutional Court in 1988, encompasses two dimensions: internal pluralism, which secures citizens’ access to diverse, objective, and impartial information (individual freedoms); and external pluralism, which prevents the concentration of resources among a limited group of economic actors (economic freedoms). Against this …

The Dsa’S Crisis Response Mechanism And The Indispensability Of Social Media Networks, Baskaran Balasingham, Sofia Minichová

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

Social media networks have become predominant sources of free and open access information. However, they generally fall outside the scope of media regulation, leaving information on those platforms largely unregulated. While social media is a catalyst for disinformation and propaganda, it also allows for fast and widespread dissemination of reliable information. A crisis response mechanism (CRM) was added to the Digital Services Act which gives the European Commission the power to require providers of very large online platforms to assess the contribution of their services to a serious threat to public security or public health and apply effective countermeasures. Although …

Speaking Power To The People: Serbian And Brazilian Media Systems In Populist Times, Ricardo Ribeiro Ferreira, Alexander Mesarovich

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

A decline in journalistic standards and increased media control, are well recognized hallmarks of increased autocratisation and democratic backsliding. This paper investigates the impact of populism on the media landscape in two different countries, Brazil and Serbia. It argues that despite the radical differences in structural factors (wealth, relationship with the EU, history of democracy, political system, etc.), these countries have witnessed a similar decline in media quality, as well as a decline in the quality of democracy. Using the Serbian case as a ‘standard’ case of populist control and drawing on interviews with Brazilian journalists as a ‘surprising’ case, …

Press Publishers’ Right And Competition Law. Case Comment On The French Competition Authority’S Decisions Against Google, Michalina Kowala, Miłosz Malaga

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

This case comment discusses a set of decisions issued by the Autorité de la concurrence (the French Competition Authority, FCA) regarding Google’s conduct vis-à-vis press publishers. The analysis concerns Google’s refusal to respect its obligations, resulting from the Digital Single Market Directive of in 2019, regarding the press publishers’ exclusive right concerning the online use of their press publications, as well as its further implications. Moreover, it involves also systemic observations and broader market context. The objective of this case comment is to discuss the FCA’s decisions, and more broadly, to identify further systemic consequences these decisions may bring for …

Entire Issue Vol. 17 No. 30

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

Vol. 17(30) 2024

Speech Regulation And Tobacco Harm Reduction, Jonathan H. Adler, Jacob James Rich

Faculty Publications

Part I of this essay describes what is currently understood about the relative health risks of ENDS [electronic nicotine delivery systems] and other vaping products, particularly as compared to combustible cigarettes.

Part II of this essay describes the current regulatory regime governing tobacco products and how this regime has been applied to ENDS and other vaping products.

Part III of this essay explains how the FDA’s regulatory regime hampers the ability of ENDS manufacturers to inform consumers about the relative risks of their products and the potential use of ENDS as smoking cessation aids.

Part IV explains why this regulation …

Mercy For The Masses: A Default Rule For Automatically Triggered Commutations, Adam Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

This Essay considers how governors who are interested in reducing mass imprisonment can provide “mercy for the masses” who are in the middle of the criminal justice punishment spectrum. It draws on the successful mass pardons for misdemeanor marijuana offenses, as well as the aspects of the Obama Clemency Initiative that worked well. The proposals that follow offer four variations on a default rule for automatic, but modest, mass commutations.

[...]

This Essay proceeds as follows. First, Part I explains how the modern clemency power has often been focused on death penalty cases and low-level misdemeanors. Part II then recounts …

Learning To Disagree Agreeably, Allison Orr Larsen

Faculty Publications

But the most important lesson I learned from Judge Wilkinson—out of many important lessons—is the one brought home to me by witnessing his friendship with Judge Michael: the law works only when lawyers learn to “disagree agreeably.” This is a phrase the Judge taught me—and he always attributed to people from whom he learned it—but for me it encapsulates the Judge in every way. It is easy to talk about being collegial in the abstract, but Judge Wilkinson practices what he preaches.

In this brief Essay, on the occasion of celebrating a man who shaped my career and life in …

Becoming A Doctrine, Allison Orr Larsen

Faculty Publications

On the last day of the 2021–22 Term, the Supreme Court handed down a decision on “the major questions doctrine” and granted certiorari to hear a case presenting “the independent state legislature doctrine”—neither of which had been called “doctrines” there before. This raises a fundamental and underexplored question: how does a doctrine become a doctrine? Law students know the difference between doctrinal classes and seminars, but how does an idea bantered about in a seminar (say, about agencies deciding major questions) become a “doctrine” complete with judicial tests, steps, and exceptions? Taking an analogy to medicine, when does …

The Broken Token Problem: Why Crypto Classification Remains Elusive, Lev E. Breydo

Faculty Publications

Crypto is at a crossroads. After trillions in value destruction, a cascade of bankruptcies and millions of defrauded believers, many are wondering whether the sector has a future. Regulators, meanwhile, are not taking chances, “carpet bombing” crypto with legal actions. Notwithstanding the stakes, consensus remains elusive regarding first-order questions—including, what is crypto?

Part of the problem, this Article posits, is that we have largely been thinking about crypto incorrectly. Rather than a simple, uniform asset, crypto represents a highly heterogenous ten-thousand-instrument universe. One size cannot possibly fit all.

This Article introduces a novel unifying taxonomy for the sector based …

Aggressor Status And Its Impact On International Criminal Law Case Selection, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

The laws of war apply equally to all parties to a conflict; thus, a party that violates international law by launching a war is granted the same international humanitarian law rights as a party that is required to defend against the illegal war. This doctrine—known as the equal application doctrine—has been sharply critiqued, particularly by philosophers, who claim the doctrine to be morally indefensible. Lawyers and legal academics, by contrast, defend the equal application doctrine because they reasonably fear that applying different rules to different warring parties will sharply reduce states’ willingness to comply with the international humanitarian law system …

Permitting The Future, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Introduction to the research colloquium, "Permitting the Future" (2023) sponsored by the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law and the Property and Environment Research Center.

Papers "explore the ways in which the extensive permitting and review requirements adopted at the federal and state level are constraining needed development and infrastructure and suggest possible avenues of reform."

Foia-Flooded Elections, Rebecca Green

Faculty Publications

After the 2020 election, the United States has witnessed a crisis in confidence in election outcomes. The crisis has fueled massive public pressure on election offices to release election records via state 'freedom of information act" (FOIA) requests. This deluge of records requests places enormous strain on already overburdened and underfunded state and local election offices. Operating under strict statutory FOIA response deadlines, election officials spend hundreds of hours on records requests to the detriment of election preparedness potentially further exacerbating criticism of their offices. Making matters worse, election officials often lack guidance on which records may and may not …

Reimagining The Inclusive Jury, Anna Offit

Faculty Publications

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, everyday life for many Americans was upended. And yet, the jury trial remained viable — even vital. Faced with an era-defining public health disaster, courts innovated, embracing novel technologies and techniques to reimagine where and how justice might be made. But why did it take a pandemic to spur this kind of institutional creativity? Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, people who were otherwise eligible to participate as jurors were routinely — and uncontroversially — struck or exempted from service due to limited mobility, vision and hearing loss, and caregiving responsibilities. Recent experience …

Mirabile Dictu: The Bryn Mawr College Library Newsletter 27 (2024), Bryn Mawr College Library

Mirabile Dictu: Newsletter of the Bryn Mawr College Libraries

No abstract provided.

The Game, The Players, And The Board, Bruce E. Boyden

Faculty Publications

Christopher Seaman and Thuan Tran’s fascinating article, Intellectual Property and Tabletop Games, raises important questions about the role of intellectual property in developing and distributing innovative products. The market for tabletop games, Seaman and Tran argue, is able to sustain a high level of creativity at a high up-front cost, all while protected by some but not all of the IP rights that other industries’ outputs receive. Is that evidence of IP’s necessity or its superfluousness? In this Response, I argue that the answer is a little bit of both. Whereas prior scholarship has shown the lack of an …

Showing Mercy Through A Presumption Of Retribution, Marah S. Mcleod

Journal Articles

From the Article

This Essay proposes a path toward the systematic consideration of mercy in American sentencing. America does not have to choose between retributive blame on the one hand and nonjudgmental mercy on the other. Inspired by Whitman's description of the European "presumption of mercy," America can implement a presumption of its own-one that opens the door to the nonarbitrary exercise of mercy, while retaining a clear focus on retributive desert. Such a presumption, tailored to American political realities and moral norms, might be called a "presumption of retribution"-and this presumption could be codified in law while explicitly made …

Inhaling The Unseen: Exploring The Presence Of Microplastics In The Human Respiratory Tract, Kara Coffman-Rea

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Microplastics (plastic pieces less than 5 mm) have emerged as a pervasive form of pollution acknowledged as a universal threat to both environmental and human health. Their small size and widespread distribution pose significant risks to marine life, terrestrial ecosystems, and ultimately human health. Microplastics have been reported in food and drink items designated for human consumption, in cosmetics and consumer goods designed for human use, and within the air we breathe, each providing an entry route for microplastics to enter the human body. Recently, microplastic particles have been detected in a variety of human tissue samples (e.g., lung tissue). …

Single-Atom Catalysts For Electrochemical Energy Conversion: Copper Single-Atom Catalyst For Oxygen Reduction Reaction And Quantification Of Site Density By Co Stripping Voltammetry, Dawatage Perera

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Fuel cells are considered a promising technology for achieving cleaner and more sustainable energy production and utilization. However, one of the current major challenges is the economic viability associated with the extensive use of Pt group metal (PGM) catalysts, particularly on the cathode side. Therefore, non-PGM single-atom catalysts (SACs) have received considerable attention as alternatives for PGM catalysts in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), which occurs at the cathode of the fuel cell. Among various SAC structures, the non-PGM/nitrogen-doped carbon-based structure (M-N-C) stands out for its excellent ORR performance.

Chapter 2 illustrates the use of copper metal in place of …

Synthetic Strategies Toward The Development Of Stable Gold-Based Anticancer Agents And Their Mechanistic Insight, Adedamola Arojojoye

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Despite notable advancements in the design and synthesis of novel chemotherapeutic drugs, cancer continues to be a leading cause of death in the United States. Metallodrugs, especially Au complexes, have played a prominent role in the search for the next generation of chemotherapeutic agents. Herein, I report on the synthetic strategies towards the rational design of stable Au (Au)-based agents, study their reactivity in biological environment, and offer insights into the cytotoxic mechanism of action in cancer. Chemotherapeutic Au compounds exist mainly in +I or +III oxidation states. Repurposing of the Au(I) FDA approved auranofin for the treatment of diseases …

Synthesis, Functionalization, And Application Of Polymeric Membrane Blends Of Polysulfone, Poly-Ether Ether-Ketone, And Natural Fiber Additive Biochar For Optimal Water Treatment., Abelline Katusiime Fionah

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

According to the Center for disease control (CDC), an estimated 1.7 to 2.2 million persons die from waterborne diseases annually. The majority of individuals dying from diseases resulting from unsafe drinking water, such as diarrhea and gastroenteritis, are children. This has in turn created a global water crisis. Different methods have been developed to treat contaminated water in response to the global water crisis such as adsorption, filtration, ozonolysis, catalysis, etc. Of the methods available, filtration via polymeric membranes has been one of the most successfully applied. A membrane is a thin semi-permeable barrier (often made of a polymer) used …

Automation Of Productive Machinery. Bases For An Innovative Business Model, Carlos Guillermo Hernández-Cenzano, Angel Contreras-Cruz, Eduardo Humada-Tello

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Nowadays, some laboratories perform elastic properties tests for concrete or rock cores using equipment manufactured 50 years ago. The original data collection procedure uses analog and manual recordings, which can cause inaccuracies in the measurements taken during these trials The process is tedious and updated since each trial's measurement data is recorded manually. In this context, this study systematizes the process and proposes an automated data acquisition and recording system for this type of equipment, followed by a case study presenting a rock compression test.

Examining Twitter As A Learning Tool On Saudi Female Undergraduate Student Achievement And Attitudes: A Mixed-Methods Study, Hend Bamalan

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Today’s learners commonly belong to a generation that grew up surrounded by using technological devices in classrooms, such as smartphones, laptops, iPads, or other tools – making them digital natives. To meet the nature of digital natives’ learning needs, the focus of educational institutions has been on adapting their instructional practices to align with the new realities. In Saudi Arabia, higher education institutions were encouraged to include more instructional technology to align with the nature of digital natives and improve students’ academic performance and engagement. The use of Twitter as a learning tool in higher education is a new educational …

Turnover Intention Of Women Leaders: The Role Of Leader Identity Development, Haleigh Broucher

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Women’s turnover rate within leadership positions exceed that of men, but the literature fails to outline the specific contexts and antecedents of such gender differences in turnover. Drawing from the leader identity literature, I outline how gender differences in leader identity strength can help illuminate why we see higher turnover intention of women in leadership positions. Given that a strong leader identity has shown to lower turnover intention, I investigate how the leader identity development process unfolds differently for women (compared to men). Leader identity development occurs through the exchange of leader behavior asserting authority (i.e., leader claims) and follower …