Digital Commons Network^™

2021 Survey Of Law Student Well-Being: National Report, Jerome M. Organ, David Jaffe, Katherine M. Bender

Grantee Research

A data dashboard for this report can be found here.

This report summarizes the data for the national sample of the 2021 Survey of Law Student Well-Being (2021 SLSWB). The primary goals of collecting and analyzing the responses from the 2021 SLSWB were to increase knowledge of:

• current substance use among law students,
• frequency and type of mental health issues among law students,
• help-seeking attitudes of law students around mental health and substance use issues including factors that may discourage help-seeking,
• the extent to which law students have experienced trauma and are dealing with ongoing effects of trauma,
• and …

The Fantasticks Program, Collin College

Theatre Programs

Program for The Fantasticks.

Autoethnography As Self-Portrait: An Autoethnographic Analysis Of Trauma-Sensemaking Through Art, Kally Werning

All Theses

This project thesis is centered around coping with early onset childhood trauma through an autoethnography of narrative and art creation. The goal of this project is to understand more deeply how the art making process synthesizes or disrupts trauma sense-making through the introspective lens of the artist as scholar. The project consists of an interactive art exhibit and this written scholarly analysis of the creation and display of this exhibit. This includes an introduction to my life as a trauma survivor and Greek-American woman, informed by communication scholarship and other relevant fields regarding narrative theory, Greek history, religious and trauma …

Nightmares And Hand Grenades: Dreams As A Storytelling Tool, Olivia Felber

All Theses

Dreams and nightmares feature prominently in art, story, and religious practice and tradition throughout history. In this paper I will discuss their prominence throughout these facets in daily life, and the various ways that we, as humans, have tried to elucidate meaning from them. I will study the nature and definition of dreams and nightmares through a scientific, cultural, and historical approach. I will also discuss folklore and the interpretation of nightmarish imagery in the context of an otherworldly adventure through a nightmare. These topics and themes will be shown, explained, and discussed through the methodology of my project- a …

Mapping The Sos204 ( Suppressor Of Sunn-1 204) Gene In Medicago Truncatula, Rakshya Shah

All Theses

Nodules in legumes allow the plant to form a symbiotic interaction with bacteria, providing access to the inert N₂ in the atmosphere. The Autoregulation of Nodulation Pathway (AON), a negative regulatory feedback mechanism, is a long-distance signaling system which controls the nodule numbers formed on roots, helping the plant conserve energy by not hosting bacterial symbionts beyond those needed by the plant. A forward genetic screen of the EMS mutagenized supernodulating sunn-1 mutant, a weak allele of SUNN in Medicago truncatula, identified 6 lines of heritable suppressor mutants that reduced the nodulating phenotype from supernodulating to wild-type. We used …

Network Effects Of Emergency Department Clinician Strain And Patient Congestion, Aisha Nelson

All Theses

We develop a discrete-event simulation model to study how staffing strain affects patient outcomes across a network of Emergency Departments (EDs). The aim is to observe how clinician staffing and transfers throughout the system affect the system’s behavior. We will study the network of the seven EDs in the Prisma Health-Upstate system. Patient acuity and resource need are stratified using the five-level Emergency Severity Index (ESI). Patient flow data within and between EDs are collected from EPIC, staffing data from ShiftAdmin, and environmental COVID-19 prevalence data from the Department of Health and Environmental Control. Time periods include the Omicron wave …

A Systematic Review Of Research On Treatment & Prevention Of The Neglected Tropical Disease Leishmaniasis, Aryn Akerberg

All Theses

Leishmaniasis is a life-threatening neglected tropical disease that is caused by the protozoa parasite, Leishmania. Over one million new human leishmaniasis cases occur each all over the world, affecting most the deeply impoverished regions of the world. The disease presents in three different forms: cutaneous leishmaniasis, mucocutaneous (mucosal) leishmaniasis, and visceral leishmaniasis. Symptoms can range from self-limiting lesion to more life-threatening conditions such as fever, kidney disease, and anemia. The Leishmania parasite is transmitted via the bite of the female phlebotomine sandfly and can infect many other mammals such as canines, rodents, bats, etc. The canine leishmaniasis epidemic is also …

Systematic Literature Review Of Roof Systems On Energy Efficiency Of A Building To Support An Ideal Study Framework, Ayushi Raj Dua

All Theses

A sustainable building envelope is a crucial element to build energy efficient structures that contribute towards sustainable communities. The demand for sustainable building envelopes has grown in response to a growing emphasis on sustainable living. The roofing system is an important component of a sustainable building envelope because it influences the building's energy consumption and indoor comfort levels. The current study focuses on roofing systems and associated solar reflectance and albedo values to document the impact on energy efficiency via cooling/heating energy usage, dollar savings and temperature (ambient and surface) reductions due to the roofing systems. Additionally, the study focuses …

A Multi-Lab Experimental Assessment Reveals That Replicability Can Be Improved By Using Empirical Estimates Of Genotype-By-Lab Interaction., Iman Jaljuli, Neri Kafkafi, Eliezer Giladi, Ilan Golani, Illana Gozes, Elissa J Chesler, Molly A. Bogue, Yoav Benjamini

Faculty Research 2023

The utility of mouse and rat studies critically depends on their replicability in other laboratories. A widely advocated approach to improving replicability is through the rigorous control of predefined animal or experimental conditions, known as standardization. However, this approach limits the generalizability of the findings to only to the standardized conditions and is a potential cause rather than solution to what has been called a replicability crisis. Alternative strategies include estimating the heterogeneity of effects across laboratories, either through designs that vary testing conditions, or by direct statistical analysis of laboratory variation. We previously evaluated our statistical approach for estimating …

Seeing The Forest And The Trees: Holistic View Of Social Distancing On The Spread Of Covid-19 In China, Danlin Yu, Yaojun Zhang, Jun Meng, Xiaoxi Wang, Linfeng He, Meng Jia, Jie Ouyang, Yu Han, Ge Zhang, Yao Lu

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The human social and behavioral activities play significant roles in the spread of COVID-19. Social-distancing centered non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are the best strategies to curb the spread of COVID-19 prior to an effective pharmaceutical or vaccine solution. This study investigates various social-distancing measures’ impact on the spread of COVID-19 using advanced global and novel local geospatial techniques. Social distancing measures are acquired through website analysis, document text analysis, and other big data extraction strategies. A spatial panel regression model and a newly proposed geographically weighted panel regression model are applied to investigate the global and local relationships between the spread …

The Impact Of A School-Based Academic Support Program On Students’ Psychosocial Impairment, Gwyne W. White, Danielle R. Hatchimonji, Esha Vaid, Rickey A. Caldwell, Maurice J. Elias

Psychology Faculty Publications

The skills conveyed in high school are essential for success, and evidence suggests that psychosocial well-being is critical to that process. Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) is an in-school, academic support program that targets underserved students. The current study explored the impact of an intervention program targeting academic achievement on student perceptions of social support and psychosocial impairment. The study was conducted in an under-resourced, majority Latinx high school and the sample included 75 AVID students and 140 demographically matched controls. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were performed to identify the impact of participation in the AVID program on symptoms of …

Press Release - New Associate Dean, Rachel Vacek, University Libraries

Libraries' Documents

No abstract provided.

Foraging Dubuque: A Guide To Foraging In Dubuque County, Hailey Wedewer

Open Access Books

This book come into fruition only a few weeks into my 11 month Green Iowa AmeriCorps service term with Dubuque County Conservation. All Green Iowa AmeriCorps's members are required to complete a Personal Development Project over the course of their service term. This project must relate to either the mission of GIA or of the host site. Dubuque County Conservation's vision is "to engage the community's stewardship and enjoyment of its natural resources."

When brainstorming possible project ideas, I knew I wanted to choose something I knew little about, but wanted to learn more about. I had been wanting to …

The Public Stakes Of Consumer Law: The Environment, The Economy, Health, Disinformation, And Beyond, Rory Van Loo

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

Consumer law has a conflicted and narrow identity. It is most immediately a form of business law, governing market transactions between people and companies. Accordingly, the microeconomic analysis of markets is the dominant influence on consumer law. But consumer law is often described as, and assumed to be about, protecting the consumer, which implicates small instances of individual injustice. Both of these lenses are valuable but reflect limited awareness of the field’s importance among lawmakers, scholars, and the public. We are all consumers. Exchanges between consumers and corporations contribute to global warming when people buy energy-inefficient household appliances; drive public …

Automated Agencies, Joshua D. Blank, Leigh Osofsky

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

When individuals have questions about federal benefits, services, and legal rules, they increasingly seek help from government chatbots, virtual assistants, and other automated tools. Most scholars who have studied artificial intelligence and federal government agencies have not focused on the government’s use of technology to offer guidance to the public. The absence of scholarly attention to automation as a means of communicating government guidance is an important gap in the literature. Through the use of automated legal guidance, the federal government is responding to millions of public inquiries each year about the law, a number that may multiply many times …

Freedom To Pray, Not To Protest, Leah Reiss

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

The Supreme Court has never definitively ruled on the constitutionality of curfews that target political activity. Historically, curfews have been very difficult to challenge. They suffer from mootness issues because they tend to be temporary in nature, so associated harms are also temporary. Likely as a result, challenges to curfews more commonly take the form of a complaint regarding misconduct by a law enforcement officer during the curfew, rather than a facial challenge to the curfew itself. Further, courts are typically deferential to state claims of police power, which provides the authority for state and local governments to take action …

Tea And Donuts, Derek E. Bambauer, Robert W. Woods

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

U.S. trademark law often permits simultaneous use of the same brand by multiple entities. Its approach to deciding when and how this concurrent use is permissible has become antiquated, rooted in outdated assumptions about trade and telecommunications. By using the physical location of mark-users as a proxy for consumer confusion, trademark law creates doctrinal inconsistencies, undercuts trademark law’s notice function, and can cause the confusion it seeks to prevent. In theory, someone who registers their mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office obtains nationwide rights; in practice, those rights remain limited to the places where the registrant actually conducts …

An Examination Of Destination And Business Place Identity Along The Wild Atlantic Way (Ireland) Tourism Route, Ziene Mottiar, Theresa Ryan

Conference papers

An examination of the layers of business place identities resulting from the creation of a road tourism route: an exploration of the Wild Atlantic Way

Proposal and originality (500 characters)

This paper is focussed on the Wild Atlantic Way (WAW) in Ireland and explores the concept of entrepreneurial place identity in terms of tourism routes. Place identity has been shown to be important for tourism entrepreneurs as it affects their self- efficacy (Haller, Assaker and Lee, 2013) and their strategies (Mottiar, 2016). This paper seeks to explore how tourism businesses have altered their identity as a result of the WAW. …

Graduate List - May 2023, University Of Nebraska At Omaha

Commencement Lists

No abstract provided.

Understanding The Relationship Between Organic Chemistry Misconceptions And Students’ Chemistry Self-Efficacy In Higher Education Organic Chemistry Courses, Lauren A. Dudley

Education (PhD) Dissertations

Organic chemistry is accepted as a crucial part of science higher education funneling students into many career opportunities such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and medical industries. Students attempting organic chemistry courses in higher education are among a plethora of majors including biology, chemistry, health science, and engineering. However, organic chemistry as a course has stayed fairly stagnant for the past 50 years. Students in this course typically resort to rote-memorization and often regard the course itself as insurmountable. To answer the decreasing retention rates seen across the United States, the research revolving around organic chemistry knowledge and teaching methodologies has increased …

How Market-Driven Policies Impact A Private Vocational College Department In China, Huiru Zhu

Education (PhD) Dissertations

This study explored the relationship between China’s market-driven policies and instruction in a higher vocational college. I applied a critical lens to examine low-quality teaching and learning in a broad social context, aiming to reveal that instructional problems should not unilaterally ascribe to individuals such as teachers and students. The theoretical framework of this research was Marxist philosophy and Freirean critical pedagogy. I adopted a qualitative case study in a department of China’s private vocational college to clarify three questions: What are the department’s market-driven policies? How do market-driven policies impact department members’ relationships? How do members of the department …

Analyzing The Overturning Of Roe Vs Wade On Twitter Using Natural Language Processing Techniques, Gabriela Pinto

Computational and Data Sciences (MS) Theses

In 1973, the historic U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) case of Roe vs. Wade provided the constitutional right
to abortion. However, on May 2, 2022, Politico magazine leaked the draft opinion on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The leak generated a surge of users to post their opinion on the case that would eliminate abortion as a constitutional right. Then, on June 24, 2022, SCOTUS overturned Roe vs. Wade. In this thesis, we aim to investigate the public opinion and reaction towards the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. We collected 20,640,166 tweets using Twitter API for Academic Research and …

Labeling Compliance, Species Authentication, And Short-Weighting Of Prepackaged Frozen Shrimp Sold In Grocery Stores In Southern California, Mckenna Rivers

Food Science (MS) Theses

While shrimp is the most-consumed seafood product in the United States, there is a lack of research into the extent of short-weighting and mislabeling of shrimp in the marketplace. The objective of this study was to investigate frozen shrimp for Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) compliance, species authentication, acceptable market names, net weights, and percent glaze. A total of 106 frozen shrimp packages were purchased from grocery stores in Southern California. Samples were determined to be COOL compliant if both the procurement method and country of origin were reported at the point of sale. Species authentication and acceptable market names …

Single-Laboratory Validation For The Detection Of Salmonella Enterica In Meat Analog Products, Amanda Tabb

Food Science (MS) Theses

Meat analogs are becoming increasingly popular for health, environmental, and ethical reasons. However, these products are at risk for contamination with Salmonella enterica. Therefore, it is important to ensure that detection methods for S. enterica in meat analog products are effective. Currently, the Bacteriological Analytical Manual (BAM) chapter on Salmonella detection calls for pre-enrichment of meat analogs using lactose broth (LB) with added surfactants, Tergitol Anionic 7 or Triton X-100. However, it remains to be determined whether surfactants are necessary for pre-enrichment of meat analogs. Following pre-enrichment, screening with VIDAS is typically performed. While VIDAS is an effective screening method, …

Kinetic And Mass Spectrometric Characterization Of Anti-Greening Mechanisms Of Cysteine And Glutathione In Chlorogenic Acid-Lysine Solutions, Charles Taylor Drucker

Food Science (MS) Theses

Effective decolorization methods mitigating green compound formation from alkaline chlorogenic acid-amino acid reactions can facilitate greater consumption of chlorogenic acid-rich products. While thiols show promise as decolorization agents to replace sulfites, their application has not been optimized. In this work, cysteine and glutathione were probed for their varying kinetic effects on the onset of chlorogenic acid-lysine induced greening. A six-parameter model developed from a reparametrized Weibull cumulative distribution function accurately captured the time- and thiol concentration-dependence of greening in chlorogenic acid-lysine-thiol solutions at pH 8.0 and 9.0, illustrating the pH-dependence of each thiol’s effectiveness at lowering terminal greening magnitude as …

Lovecraftian Queerness: Weird And Queer Temporalities In Lovecraft Country And Detransition, Baby, Eurydice Dye

English (MA) Theses

By analyzing H. P. Lovecraft’s work through the lens of queer temporality, I offer a queer perspective on Lovecraft, reading the monstrous outside in his work as a queer figure and casting the temporal conflict common to Lovecraftian horror as a conflict between dominant time and outside time. I argue that, by placing queerly-temporal protagonists in conflict with dominant temporalities, queer fiction is essentially an inversion of Lovecraftian horror. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope of the novel, I develop a theory of the queer chronotope in fiction to align with the queer temporalities that queer characters inhabit. …

Book Review: Take My Word For It: A Dictionary Of English Idioms, Gerald Leonard Cohen

Arts, Languages and Philosophy Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Let’S Make Patterns!: Symmetric Rubik’S Cube Permutations, Danny Anderson

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Rubik’s cubes are well-known for having several different patterns, or permutations, that can be made from them. Meanwhile, cubes generally display a wide variety of symmetries. Naturally, these ideas can be combined to form a notion of "symmetric Rubik's cube patterns." The goal of this paper is to find an algorithm that can produce all of the permutations that display symmetries.

Pulse: The Monthly Newsletter Of Nnlm Region 2, May 2023, Network Of The National Library Of Medicine, Regional Medical Library 2

NNLM Region 2 Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Investigation Of The Role Of Dax-1 In The Hpa Axis In Human Adrenal Cells, Katerina N. Fargas

Undergraduate Honors Theses

DAX-1 is a nuclear hormone orphan receptor that plays a key role in the development of reproductive tissues and steroid hormone production. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis is the pathway for steroid hormone production, primarily glucocorticoids, mineralocorticoids, and adrenal androgens, in the human body. The mechanisms of DAX-1 in hormone production in the adrenal cortex of the HPA axis are not completely understood and, therefore, were the focus of this honors thesis research project. Due to the high level of DAX-1 expression, SW13 adrenal carcinoma cells were conducted for these experiments. We investigated whether glucocorticoids, specifically the synthetic glucocorticoid dexamethasone, had any …