Digital Commons Network^™

The Re-Criminalization Of Sexual Minorities As A Testing Ground For International Human Rights Law In Africa, Matteo M. Winkler & Ilias Bantekas

Fordham International Law Journal

This Article scrutinizes the recently enacted statutes that re- criminalize sexual minorities in Africa from the standpoint of international human rights law (IHRL). These statutes are currently justified under cultural relativism, that is, the idea that African culture abhors homosexuality, which represents a malicious import from the Western world. We argue that the re-criminalization statutes violate IHRL in multiple stances and that in no way are these violations justifiable under cultural relativism. This does not mean that there is no virtue in cultural relativism, but a limit must be fixed to the dehumanization of minorities which is the intended purpose …

Fsu Law Focus - 02/21/2025, Fsu College Of Law Office Of Communications

FSU Law Focus Newsletter

From the Dean: FSU Center for Environmental, Energy, and Land Use Law Spring 2025 Distinguished Lecture - John Leshy; FSU Law in the News: D'Alemberte & Palmer Lecture; Frontiers in Law and Technology; Faculty In The News: Jacob Eisler; Faculty In The News: Jake Linford; Student Profile: 3L Melissa Canaan

Fsu Law Focus - 08/15/2025, Fsu College Of Law Office Of Communications

FSU Law Focus Newsletter

From the Dean: Princeton Law Review rankings (#14 overall, #7 academic experience, #2 best professors); FSU Law Faculty News; FSU Faculty Spotlight: David E. Landau; FSU Law Alumni News; FSU Law Social Snapshot

Exploring Students’ Problem Framing In Historical Inquiry: Towards A Framework For Research And Instruction, Alex Honold

Education Faculty Articles

Problem framing is an essential yet under-explored aspect of problem-based historical inquiry. This study investigated how tenth-grade students in one AP US History class framed an ill-structured historical causal reasoning problem. Data included students’ written brainstorms, students’ responses to open-ended interview questions, and researcher-created causal diagrams. The analysis, grounded in both empirical data and existing literature on historiography and problem-solving, reveals three key dimensions for researching and teaching problem framing: (a) establishing the scale of the problem space, (b) identifying relevant agents and structures, and (c) establishing causal interactions. The findings underscore the importance of metacognition, particularly the need to …

Beyond Legacy Leadership Models: Reframing Organizational Development For A Post-Digital, Systemic Era, J Sells

College of Arts and Cultural Studies

Legacy leadership models continue to dominate universities, leadership programs, and organizational development curricula. Frameworks such as the Four Colors typology, the Competing Values Framework (CVF), the Four Frames, and related personality- or quadrant-based theories were designed during a predigital era characterized by stability, linearity, and predictable organizational boundaries. However, the contemporary reality of leadership is radically different: leaders now operate within volatile, digitalized, AI-mediated, globally entangled supply value chain ecosystems. This paper proposes that legacy leadership frameworks are theoretically insufficient, structurally misaligned, and operationally outdated for developing leaders in twenty-first-century organizations. Drawing on systems thinking, digital transformation research, organizational complexity, …

Pathogenesis And Pathophysiology Of Celiac Disease, Kendall N. Reece

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Celiac Disease is an allergic response to foods that contain the protein gluten. Celiac Disease is classified as an autoimmune disorder, which specifically deteriorates the villi of the jejunal segment of the small intestine. Specific topics analyzed within this thesis include some physical attributes of Celiac Disease such as weight loss, diarrhea, dermatitis herpetiformis, etc. The basis of classification is discussed and the negative effects Celiac Disease has on the body, such as malabsorption, vitamin deficiencies, and damage to the villi. Diagnostics such as biopsy and blood tests, treatments both experimental and adhering to a gluten-free diet are discussed. Origination …

The Physiological Effects Of Anabolic Steroids On The Human Body, Aedan Kerr

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) are synthetic derivatives of testosterone used both medically and illicitly for their muscle-building and performance-enhancing properties. While clinically prescribed for conditions like hypogonadism, osteoporosis, and muscle-wasting diseases, AAS are frequently abused by athletes and recreational lifters seeking rapid physical gains. AAS increase muscle protein synthesis via androgen receptor-mediated gene transcription, but they also predispose users to tendon ruptures and various organ functions. AAS abuse is strongly associated with a host of side effects including gynecomastia, male-pattern hair loss, infertility, hepatotoxicity, erythrocytosis, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, and hypogonadism. Cardiovascular complications such as left ventricular hypertrophy, cardiomyopathy, and myocardial infarctions …

Electronic Propulsion Engines: Revolutionizing Space Travel, Isaiah Echeverria

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Most spacecrafts rely on chemical propulsion to generate thrust and venture into the depths of outer space. They rely on principles from Newton’s three laws of motion, conservation of momentum-energy, and atomic physics. However, an electronic form of propulsion also exists providing spacecrafts an alternative opposed to the sole use of chemical energy. Electronic propulsion systems or engines last longer than current chemical spacecraft engines and are improving to produce greater amount of thrusts.

Comparing the two types of spacecraft engines shows the benefits and disadvantaged obtained by using either option as well as the main differences and similarities shared …

Adding Libraries To The Equation: Mathematical Sciences’ Underutilization Of Academic Librarians, Jennifer Lc Burke, Elizabeth C. Novosel, Daniel G. Kipnis, Rasitha Jayesekere

Scholarship and Professional Work

Academic librarians do not engage with all disciplinary departments equally. Despite equal or even greater efforts, some departments are less responsive to librarian outreach. One such department is mathematics. To understand mathematics departments’ relationships with their academic librarians, three mathematics librarians created a 20-question survey that was disseminated to mathematics faculty, instructors, and instructional staff in the United States and Canada. Of the 188 survey participants, more than a third reported that they never engage with their librarians, approximately half only do so occasionally, and a mere eight percent of participants collaborated with librarians to provide information literacy instruction (IL) …

Fp-25-01 First Marriage Rate, 2023, Natalie Bankey

National Center for Family and Marriage Research Family Profiles

No abstract provided.

Fp-25-04 Age Variation In Prevalence Of Cohabitation Among Unmarried Men And Women, 2009 & 2024, Christopher A. Julian

National Center for Family and Marriage Research Family Profiles

No abstract provided.

Fp-25-02 First Divorce Rate, 2023, Natalie Bankey

National Center for Family and Marriage Research Family Profiles

No abstract provided.

Fp-25-03 Remarriage Rate, 2023, Natalie Bankey

National Center for Family and Marriage Research Family Profiles

No abstract provided.

Fp-25-07 Same-Sex Married And Cohabiting Couples Raising Children, 2023, Christopher A. Julian

National Center for Family and Marriage Research Family Profiles

Using data from the 2023 American Community Survey (ACS), this Family Profile estimates the proportion of same- and different-sex couples raising children, disaggregated by relationship type (i.e., cohabiting or married) and age (i.e., 18-29, 30-39, 40-49, and 50-59). For this analysis, children are defined as biological, adopted, or stepchildren of the household head1 under the age of eighteen. Couples’ sex composition is coded directly using the recently revised household roster (Kreider & Gurrentz, 2019). To focus on couples raising minor children, we restrict our sample to those in which the younger member is under the age of sixty. This report …

Fp-25-11 Number Of Children Ever Born To Women Aged 45-50, 2024, Christopher A. Julian, Wendy D. Manning

National Center for Family and Marriage Research Family Profiles

No abstract provided.

Fp-25-09 Median Age At First Marriage: Geographic Variation, 2023, Natalie Bankey

National Center for Family and Marriage Research Family Profiles

In this profile we provide estimates of the median age at first marriage for the nation and each state by sex among those aged 15-54, using 2023 1-year estimates from the American Community Survey (ACS) (Table B12007). Direct estimates of the age at which half of males and females (who in the last year) married for the first time as well as the associated margins of error are provided. The ACS has been collecting data on marriage since 2008. This profile is an update to previous research on the median age at first marriage (FP-24-08).

Fp-25-13 Crossover In The Median Age At First Marriage And First Birth: Forty-Three Years Of Change, Krista K. Westrick-Payne, Susan L. Brown, Wendy D. Manning

National Center for Family and Marriage Research Family Profiles

No abstract provided.

Fp-25-14 Forty-Five Years Of Change In Marriage And Motherhood Among Women, 1979 & 2024, Krista K. Westrick-Payne

National Center for Family and Marriage Research Family Profiles

No abstract provided.

Fp-25-16 Age Composition Of Same-Sex & Different-Sex Couples, 2023, Christopher A. Julian

National Center for Family and Marriage Research Family Profiles

No abstract provided.

Fp-25-21 Marriages To Same-Sex And Different-Sex Couples: 2019, 2021, & 2023, Christopher A. Julian, Krista K. Westrick-Payne, Wendy D. Manning

National Center for Family and Marriage Research Family Profiles

No abstract provided.

Fp-25-24 Age Variation In The Refined Divorce Rate, 1990 & 2023, Krista K. Westrick-Payne

National Center for Family and Marriage Research Family Profiles

No abstract provided.

The Right To Truth, Maureen Edobor

Scholarly Articles

This Article argues that today’s anti-CRT statutes, book bans, and “divisive concepts” laws are not isolated culture-war skirmishes but the latest chapter in a long campaign—dating back to the Lost Cause and the United Daughters of the Confederacy—to legislate white innocence as national identity. By sanitizing slavery, suppressing discussions of systemic racism, and threatening educators with punitive ambiguity, these laws flatten historical truth and convert classrooms into zones of anticipatory obedience. The result is a state-engineered amnesia that undermines the core First and Fourteenth Amendment protections the Supreme Court has recognized for more than a century, from Meyer and Barnette …

Developing Cultural Intelligence Skills At Gracepoint International Church In Gastonia, North Carolina, Sumner Brichelle Rhodes

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Churches across the globe are constantly being reshaped by issues of interculturality, global migration and questions of power and belonging. As churches deal with these dynamics, in our globalized world, it is important for them to have the tools and skills necessary to lovingly reach out to people of all cultures and differences. Reaching people of diverse backgrounds is a part of the Central Commission that Christ commanded for His Church in Matthew 28:19-20. This project explores how developing a high Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is essential for the Church. CQ can help churches lovingly connect with and embrace people of …

Identifying Early Warning Signs Of Construction Labor Shortages, Ahmed Shiha, Islam H. El-Adaway

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Construction labor shortages constrain project-level objectives and national development plans. The goal of this study is to utilize the lagged effects of macroeconomic conditions as early warning signs of construction labor shortages. To this end, the authors adopted a methodology, encompassing (1) retrieval of publicly available data and preprocessing of construction labor shortage as the target variable and macroeconomic measures as the explanatory variables, (2) identification of short-term associations between shortages and economic cycles using the Granger causality test, (3) examination of long-term relationships between labor shortages and economic conditions using the Johansen cointegration test, and (4) estimation of the …

Deep Learning-Based Ensemble Two-Step Classification Of Medical Images Using Cnn Architectures And Ensemble Methods, Noreliz Alorico

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

Breast cancer remains one of the most common cancers amongst women globally. Early detection is crucial for improving survival rates. While mammography is widely used and an effective imaging technique, it can sometimes yield false positive or false negatives. Mammogram interpretation is highly operator-dependent, introducing variability and the potential for diagnostic errors. Additionally, mammographic images have limitations, such as low contrast in breast tissue and overlapping structures that can obscure lesions or mimic abnormalities. These limitations can lead to unnecessary biopsies or delayed diagnosis. These challenges highlight the needs for advanced and data driven diagnostic tools to support and enhance …

Towards Smart Farming: Image-Based Crop Health Assessment And Disease Diagnosis Using Deep Learning Techniques, Kristina Botova

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

Accurate crop monitoring is essential for optimizing agricultural productivity and ensuring food security. This study presents a comprehensive deep learning framework for image crop type recognition, health status prediction, and disease detection using multiple Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models. The proposed approach uses open-source datasets consisting of five crop types (apple, corn, grape, potato, tomato), varying health conditions, and common diseases. By deploying specialized CNN architecture focused on each task, the system achieves a high accuracy of 99.25% in classifying crop types, identifying health status, and detecting specific diseases. Compared to a single CNN model, the use of the proposed …

Survivorship From Pediatric And Adult Brain Tumors: The 2024 Brain Tumor Epidemiology Consortium Meeting Report., Scott L Coven, Roberta Mckean-Cowdin, Michael E Scheurer, Kimberly J Johnson, Luc Bauchet, Carol Kruchko, Ching C Lau, Quinn T Ostrom, John Villano, Yan Yuan, Friederike Erdmann

Faculty Research 2025

The Brain Tumor Epidemiology Consortium (BTEC) is an international organization with membership of individuals from the scientific community with interests related to brain tumor epidemiology, including surveillance, classification, methodology, etiology, and factors associated with morbidity and survival. The 2024 annual BTEC meeting entitled "

Spectral Divergence Prioritizes Key Classes, Genes, And Pathways Shared Between Substance Use Disorders And Cardiovascular Disease., Everest Castaneda, Elissa J Chesler, Erich Baker

Faculty Research 2025

Introduction: Substance use disorders (SUDs) are heterogeneous diseases with overlapping biological mechanisms and often present with co-occurring disease, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD). Gene networks associated with SUDs also implicate additional biological pathways and may be used to stratify disease subtypes. Node and edge arrangements within gene networks impact comparisons between classes of disease, and connectivity metrics, such as those focused on degrees, betweenness, and centrality, do not yield sufficient discernment of disease network classification. Comparatively, the graph spectrum's use of comprehensive information facilitates hypothesis testing and inter-disease clustering by using a larger range of graph characteristics. By adding a …

Response Of Cultured Primary Gingival And Periodontal Ligament Cells To Angiotensin Ii And Il1Β Challenges., Thais Francini Garbieri, Thiago José Dionísio, Bella Luna Colombini-Ishikiriama, Rafaela Alves Da Silva, Vanessa Soares Lara, Sandra Helena Penha Oliveira, Maria Helena Fernandes, Andrew S Greene, Carlos Ferreira Santos

Faculty Research 2025

Angiotensin II (Ang II) releases inflammatory mediators from several cell types. The objective of this study was to investigate the potential of Ang II to induce mRNA expression of inflammatory mediators in primary cultured fibroblast-like cells isolated from gingival and periodontal ligament tissues. A synergistic effect of co-treatment with Ang II and Interleukin-1β (IL1β) on the mRNA expression of inflammatory mediators was explored. Immunophenotyping of STRO-1, Ang II type 1 receptor (AT1R), and Ang II type 2 receptor (AT2R) was performed using flow cytometry. Cell cultures were challenged with Ang II (1 µM) for 3, 6, and 24 h with …

Employee Perspectives On Genetic Testing In The Workplace: Results From A National Survey., J Scott Roberts, Wendy R Uhlmann, Drew Blasco, Anya E R Prince, Sarah Mccain, Subhamoy Pal, Kunal Sanghavi, Elizabeth Charnysh, Charles Lee

Faculty Research 2025

INTRODUCTION: Genetic testing for health-related purposes is now offered in some workplace wellness programs, with notable ethical, legal, and social implications. However, little is known about employee perspectives on workplace genetic testing (wGT).

METHODS: We surveyed a large, diverse national sample of 2,000 employed adults (mean age = 43 years; 51% female). Survey measures assessed respondents' wGT beliefs, perceptions of employer motivations for offering wGT, and privacy concerns.

RESULTS: Most respondents (57.4%) agreed that wGT would improve employees' health, and 46.7% agreed it could aid recruitment and retention of employees. Many respondents attributed legally prohibited motivations to employers offering wGT, …