Digital Commons Network^™

Through The Garden, Across The Pond, And Beyond: Comparing Noncompetes With Garden Leave And Trade Secret Law, Kathleen Fink

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

Proving The Matrix: On The Admissibility And Use Of Prior Negotiation Evidence As An Aid To Contractual Interpretation, Daniele Bertolini

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article examines the relevance and admissibility of prior negotiation evidence in contract interpretation. According to a long-established common law rule (“exclusionary rule”), the evidence of pre-contract negotiations is not admissible as an aid to contract interpretation. This study argues that the exclusionary rule is unjustified and should be abandoned. Judges should be allowed to use prior negotiation evidence to support inferences about the existence of the empirical facts constituting the relevant factual matrix, while the use of such evidence should not be allowed to support interpretive inferences about the meaning of the contract language. The distinction between empirical and …

Contesting State Capture, Lucien Ferguson

Cardozo Law Review

State capture poses a distinctive challenge to democracy in the United States. As well-resourced individuals and interest groups exert ever-increasing influence over public policymaking, the American legal system loses its moorings in majority will and democratic faith. The costs of this process are borne by the poor and working classes. Unlike most public-law scholarship concerned with state capture, this Article surfaces potential remedies in the underutilized tools of state constitutional law. Drawing on state constitutional history and political-economic scholarship, it argues that when confronted with legislation suspected of capture, state courts should abandon rational basis scrutinyin favor of more searching …

Tax Policy And The Global Saving Glut, Hillel Nadler

Cardozo Law Review

The tax rules governing investment in the United States offer very favorable treatment to foreign investors: the typical foreign investor pays no US. tax on passive investment in the United States. These tax rules have been shaped by the assumption that the United States needs to attract scarce financial capital to fill the gap between domestic saving and investment. But that assumption is wrong; global financial capital is not scarce. Over the past three decades, regressive economic policies abroad have suppressed consumption and led to an overabundance of saving. What is more, instead offinancing productive investment, the flow of that …

Bribery Law: Is Anything Left?, Richard W. Painter

Cardozo Law Review

Part I of this Article discusses the traditional understanding of bribery that existed at common law at the time of the Founding and presumably is embodied in the reference to bribery in the Impeachment Clause of the Constitution. Part I additionally discusses the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits holders of federal office from receiving gifts, offices, and emoluments from foreign governments without consent of Congress. Part II discusses recent judicial developments weakening the traditional notion of bribery. Specifically, Section II.A discusses how the Supreme Court has narrowed the definition of bribery in the federal criminal code. Section II.B …

Why Courts Should Not Discipline Trump's Lawyers, Rebecca Roiphe

Cardozo Law Review

After the first Trump administration, there were multiple coordinated efforts to discipline lawyers in highly charged political cases. For example, a California bar court recommended that John Eastman be disbarred. Eastman helped craft the legal argument that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the right to delay or decline to certify the election results, and the disciplinary case concluded that he lied publicly, in his memos to his client and Pence, and to courts. This Article draws on Eastman's case to argue that disciplinary charges in politically charged cases are often unconstitutional and even when they are not, they are unwise …

Kenneth Chesebro And The Ethics Of Election Subversion, Sung Hui Kim

Cardozo Law Review

This Article examines the role of attorney Kenneth Chesebro in orchestrating the "fake electors plot" following the 2020 US presidential election. It traces Chesebro's transformation from a Harvard-educated lawyer with Democratic ties to a key architect of Donald Trump's post-election strategy to derail the transfer of power to Joseph Biden. Part I provides a detailed chronology of Chesebro's activities between November 2020 and January 2021, revealing how his legal advice evolved from preserving legal rights in Wisconsin to a coordinated plan to impanel alternate electors across multiple battleground states as a pretext for the Vice President to intervene unilaterally in …

Introducing Social Determinants Of Health To The Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Network: Development And Implementation In The Uniform Data Set, Megan Zuelsdorff, Erin L. Abner, Joyce E. Balls-Berry, Gregory A. Jicha, Serggio Lanata, Gladys Maestre, Monica Rosselli, Shana D. Stites, Rachel A. Whitmer, Consuelo H. Wilkins

School of Medicine Publications

The Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers (ADRCs) consortium represents a critical locus of research on Alzheimer's disease and related disorders (ADRD) prevention, diagnosis, and intervention. Through the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center's (NACC) standardized protocol, the Uniform Data Set (UDS), ADRCs have collected rich, harmonizable clinical and cognitive data. However, the collection of social data has been sparse and Center specific, constraining ADRD science that addresses research priorities on social determinants of health (SDOH) and health equity. Capitalizing on the transition to a revised UDS version 4, an interdisciplinary committee representing 10 ADRCs reviewed the literature and instrumentation, ultimately creating a brief …

Development And Validation Of An Adolescent Sleep Algorithm For Pediatric Primary Care, Holly Hink

Doctoral Scholarly Projects & Capstones

Poor sleep quality is a common challenge for many adolescents due to various developmental, environmental, and social factors. Nearly half of all adolescents reported regularly experiencing sleep disruptions. Poor sleep quality among adolescents might have severe mental, emotional, and cognitive consequences including an increased risk for several psychiatric conditions, obesity, and poor academic performance. However, sleep disorders among this population frequently go unreported and are rarely screened during annual well-child exams with primary care providers. The purpose of this project was to develop an evidence-based sleep algorithm for pediatric primary care providers designed to improve screening and treatment of adolescent …

Empirical Evidence Of Factors To Improve Student Engagement From Experiential Learning Activities, Lara Molendijk, Ross H. Taplin, Andrew J. Brennan

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Experiential learning activities (ELAs) are student-centered activities, such as case studies, that have benefits derived by students being active. Although the literature contains advice on which characteristics enhance ELAs, empirical evidence measuring the impact of these characteristics on engagement is scarce. This paper aims to fill this gap by comparing student engagement from 34 ELAs with varying levels of six characteristics the literature claims are beneficial. Data from a student questionnaire are analyzed with regression and content analyses. The results suggest engagement is most effectively improved when ELAs are authentic and contain the right level of detail and, to a …

What Do Safety And Risk Mean To Women Who Choose To Birth At Home? A Systematic Review, Candice Chauncy, Kate Dawson, Sara Bayes

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Introduction: Despite clear evidence to support the safety and efficacy of homebirth, the concept challenges the almost universal belief that hospital is the safest place to give birth. Homebirth remains largely unsupported around the world due to prevailing beliefs and constructs surrounding risk and safety. Despite barriers to access, women continue to choose home as a place to birth. Methods: A systematic review of qualitative research was conducted to explore and understand women's views on what constitutes risk and safety in labour and birth for those who choose to birth at home. All studies were evaluated for quality and relevance. …

Regulation Of Tfeb In Human Placental Cytotrophoblasts And Syncytiotrophoblasts, A Mathew, J S Trausch-Azar, C Azar, M Schuetz, M R Mahjoub, A L Schwartz

2020-Current year OA Pubs

While cellular proteins exist in a dynamic state maintained by the balance of synthesis and degradation, there is a paucity of information on these processes in placental trophoblasts, including within cytotrophoblasts which differentiate into multi-nucleate syncytiotrophoblasts. TFEB, a transcription factor with a myriad of cellular activities, is one of the most abundant genes expressed in syncytiotrophoblasts compared to cytotrophoblasts. TFEB is localized to the nucleus of human BeWo differentiated syncytiotrophoblasts and to the cytoplasm of the undifferentiated cytotrophoblasts. Within both the cytotrophoblasts and syncytiotrophoblasts, TFEB exists in subcellular compartments as both phosphorylated and unphosphorylated forms and translocates between cytoplasm and …

Navigating Travel Therapy: Balancing Benefits And Risks For Optimal Wellness, Fangli Hu, Jun Wen, Wei Wang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This research note examines travel therapy as a novel healthcare approach in which positive travel experiences serve to promote well-being. It emphasizes the need for a balanced assessment of the benefits and risks associated with travel therapy, offering insights into this practice's evolving roles in the health and wellness domains.

Do Parents ‘Know Best’ When It Comes To Their Teenaged Children’S Experiences Of Sexual Content Online?, Harrison W. See, Kjartan Ólafsson, Brian O’Neill, Lelia Green, Carmen Jacques, Kelly Jaunzems

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

In 2010, the EU Kids Online project, and aligned AU Kids Online study, interviewed one parent and one child (9–16) from 25,542 families across 26 countries. Information gathered included parents’ awareness of their child’s experiences of sexual content online. This dataset has since been updated by recent ethnographic work in Australia and Ireland, capturing parents’ approaches to managing their children’s (11–17) digital engagement with sexual content. Parents identified risks and benefits in their children’s encounters with adult content online. This article concludes that parents do not judge the efficacy of their digital parenting around preventing their child from seeing restricted …

Using Natural Language Processing And Machine Learning To Detect Online Radicalisation In The Maldivian Language, Dhivehi, Hussain Ibrahim, Ahmed Ibrahim, Michael N. Johnstone

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Early detection of online radical content is important for intelligence services to combat radicalisation and terrorism. The motivation for this research was the lack of language tools in the detection of radicalisation in the Maldivian language, Dhivehi. This research applied Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to detect online radicalisation content in Dhivehi, with the incorporation of domain-specific knowledge. The research used Machine Learning to evaluate the most effective technique for detection of radicalisation text in Dhivehi and used interviews with Subject Matter Experts and self-deradicalised individuals to validate the results, add contextual information and improve recognition accuracy. The …

Investigating The Role Of Ilv1 On Stress Response In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Luke H. Beachboard

Honors Theses

Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a model organism within molecular genetics, is also known for its broad role within baking, brewing, biofuel, and pharmaceutical industries. An unpublished study at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga observed decreased cell viability in an ILV1 Knockout strain of S. cerevisiae when exposed to environmental stressors. A subsequent study at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga found expression levels of the candidate genes to be significantly altered within the ILV1 Knockout strain relative to the BY4743 Wildtype strain, demonstrating the reality of a pleiotropic role within ILV1. Now, this study aims to further investigate this peculiar characteristic …

The Commodification Of International Adoptees Through A Conflict Lens, Andrew S. Antcliffe

Honors Theses

The practice of international adoption, also known as intercountry adoption (ICA), can be defined as a transference of a child from international borders (Ma, 2017). International, also known as intercountry, adoption is a process that is widely characterized to provide the creation of families and humanitarian aid to orphaned children. It is most often facilitated by privatized intermediaries, predominantly facilitating the transference of children from non-Western nations to Western ones. Adopting abroad has largely been framed as a practice of humanitarianism, yet instances of corruption, neglect, and abuse have shown a different nature of the system. Dominant source countries, such …

The Decline Of Hip-Hop As A Political Medium: An Examination Of Digital Sampling And Its Impact On The Genre's Evolution, Justin A. Laporta

Honors Theses

The decline of hip-hop as a political medium has been a dramatic turn for the genre since its creation. The specific use of digital sampling was a mechanism in the genre's ability to express African American socio-political struggles. During hip-hop's "Golden Age," artists used sampling not only as a creative tool but as a means to politically empower communities, foster civic engagement, and revive historical messages of resistance. However, the rise of mass commercialization and the imposition of legal copyright restrictions—particularly through landmark cases like Grand Upright Music Ltd. v. Warner Brothers (1991) and Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films …

Beatrice Wanjiku: A Portrait Of Human Vulnerability, Suzanne R. Vuoncino

Theses

Abstract artist Beatrice Wanjiku uses an anatomical composition to illustrate a sense of vulnerability, an element of human identity, in relation to one’s social environment. Going beyond the skin, Untitled excavates the mental and emotional aspects of the human condition and gives expression to experience. By observing her figural composition, examining the foundation of identity theory, and interpreting her use of abstraction, I will describe how Untitled speaks to a message of connectivity through a portrait of human vulnerability. This thesis argues that one’s environment affects the individual and exemplifies how vulnerability is seen as a pervasive aspect of human …

Trembling At The Threshold: Zurbarán's Saints And The Crisis Of Masculine Virtue, Andrew T. Epsilantis

Theses

No abstract provided.

Disagreeing With Yourself: Horizontal Stare Decisis In State Intermediate Appellate Courts, Steve Leben

Faculty Works

Some statewide intermediate appellate courts, like those in Kansas, do not follow horizontal stare decisis one panel of the court can disagree with, but not overrule, another. This article reviews how precedential disagreements arise in the Kansas Court of Appeals, what the costs and benefits are of not following horizontal stare decisis, and how attorneys might change their advocacy approach in a state like Kansas. The article concludes that the benefits of the Kansas practice achieving better development of the law and justice in individual cases outweighs the harm of less predictability in precedent

Better Together – Maximising Group Creativity Through Co-Design, Sophie Tversky

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The complexity and systems-level nature of organisational and societal challenges have called for engaging team creativity, benefiting from differing perspectives and experiences to drive impactful solutions. Surveying the co-design and group creativity literature, it is suggested that creative potential of a group is only realised when several polarities are leveraged by facilitators and orchestrators of the process. This concept was validated and extended through conducting a thematic analysis of a series of exploratory interviews, resulting in the identification of interdependent themes comprising stacks of polarities and a key problem to solve. The themes identified were: Determining Whether Co-Design is Appropriate, …

Divergence Tackle Box: Materials And Activities To Improve Scholastic Outcomes For Neurodivergent Students, Their Teachers, And Their Peers, Louise D. Eberle

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Abstract of Project

DIVERGENCE TACKLE BOX: MATERIALS AND ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE SCHOLASTIC OUTCOMES FOR NEURODIVERGENT STUDENTS, THEIR TEACHERS, AND THEIR PEERS

Divergence Tackle Box: Materials and activities to improve scholastic outcomes for neurodivergent students, their teachers, and their peers proposes a set of activities and resources for helping students with ADHD self-regulate while in mainstream classroom settings while cultivating divergent thinking skills. The tasks draw from academic literature and informal interviews regarding current common practices for addressing ADHD in schools. Also explored are potential misalignment between common approaches and evidence-based interventions, and potential opportunities for further advocacy and development regarding …

Sound Canvas: A Tool To Create Personalized And Immersive Soundscapes, Faizan Kazani

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Sound Canvas is a digital application developed to provide sound as a creative outlet, engaging, immersing, and making you feel good about the creative process. A few of the main objectives of this project include maximizing the potential of using sensory stimuli, particularly the sense of hearing, to witness growth in creative thinking and our overall subjective well-being. The tool aims to provide users with an interactive experience that uses sound as a trigger and focal point to increase involvement in the creative process. The outcome of this creative engagement will be a personalized soundscape that a user can resonate …

Equipping Project Managers With A Creative Problem-Solving Framework: A Leadership Development Approach, Alodie Reyes Dockery

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project explores how standardized processes can foster a change in mindset within accounting and finance functions at a large banking organization. It introduces a Creative Problem-Solving Leadership Framework (CPS-LF) that integrates Agile, Design Thinking, Lean Six Sigma, and Sprint methodologies within the FourSight CPS model. The framework was developed as an interactive digital tool and delivered through a four-part training series, guiding project managers through CPS stages (Clarify, Ideate, Develop, Implement) to identify challenges and apply appropriate methodologies. This project aims to strengthen problem-solving, innovation, and efficiency in highly regulated environments by enhancing creative leadership skills and promoting a …

An Integrative Approach To Einstein’S Field Equations Of General Relativity For High School Students, Christina M. Aintablian

Senior Honors Theses

Einstein’s Field Equations form the foundation of the theory of General Relativity, describing the interdependence of mass-energy and spacetime curvature, where curvature gives rise to gravity. However, the complexity of these equations makes them difficult for high school students to grasp. The mathematical framework of General Relativity is introduced step by step, beginning with relative motion and culminating in a discussion of complex phenomena that challenge modern physics. Each explanation intertwines core concepts of relativity with pre-established mental models to enhance learning. Through the use of figures, analogies, narratives, and thought experiments, a structured framework is developed to make relativity …

To Heal A Mind: A Comparison Of Functional And Conventional Treatments In Major Depressive Disorder, Gillian Chambers

Senior Honors Theses

Incidence of major depressive disorder is increasing year over year, with little able to be done to halt the spread of the condition. However, there are many treatment possibilities considered unconventional by the healthcare system. This thesis examines the respective benefits and risks, in comparison to one another, between conventional pharmacological treatment and functional, holistic treatment of depression. This was done via integrative review of available clinical literature, synthesizing evidence on both conventional and functional treatments for depression, as dictated by Whittemore and Knafl (2005). Exploratory search methods revealed 758 records fulfilling inclusion criteria, which were screened and narrowed down …

La Contextualización De Las Misiones Cristianas En Quito, Ecuador: Celebrar La Cultura Al Comunicar La Verdad, Sarah Huneycutt

Senior Honors Theses

Sin un conocimiento adecuado de cómo contextualizar su ministerio en contextos culturales únicos, los misioneros no podrán honrar a la gente local, llegar a sus corazones e invitar a todas naciones a la meta unida de glorificar a Dios. Aunque bien existen muchos recursos sobre regiones amplias o aun continentales, pocos existen que ofrezcan una comprensión de comunidades específicas. Para rellenar este vacío, la investigación actual intentó recopilar información sobre una región especifica—Quito, Ecuador—y examinar las implicaciones para misiones cristianas actuales en Quito.

Para contestar estas preguntas, se realizó un estudio etnográfico cualitativo mientras que la investigadora vivía en Quito. …

A Causal Model Of Performance Shaping Factors For Human Reliability Analysis In Manufacturing., Prameet Ranjan Jha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human reliability analysis is a critical component of probabilistic risk assessment, aimed at predicting and mitigating human errors in complex systems. This dissertation develops a novel approach to human reliability analysis in manufacturing by integrating structural equation modeling and Bayesian networks to improve the estimation of human error probabilities. Traditional human reliability assessment methods, such as the Standardized Plant Analysis Risk-Human Reliability Analysis (SPAR-H) and the Technique for Human Error Rate Prediction (THERP), provide structured techniques for estimating human error probabilities. However, these methods often fail to capture the complex interdependencies among performance shaping factors (PSFs), limiting their applicability in …

Evaluating The Relationship Between Musical Sophistication And Melodic And Harmonic Expectations., Anya Elizabeth Shorey-Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Expectations help us navigate our environment, especially in familiar contexts. Western tonal music offers one such context where expectations are at play. While implicit musical expectations occur in listeners without musical training, musical training can sharpen expectations. Two primary open questions are investigated here. First, explicit pitch-based expectations for less musical participants have been relatively neglected. Second, general musicality and formal musical training have not been well separated in previous research, making it difficult to understand if sharpening of expectations is associated with training itself or with broader musical interactions. Experiments 1 and 2 adapted an explicit music production task …