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Appoint Candace Jackson-Akiwumi To The Seventh Circuit, Carl Tobias May 2022

Appoint Candace Jackson-Akiwumi To The Seventh Circuit, Carl Tobias

University of Richmond Law Review

On November 30, Seventh Circuit Judge Joel Flaum assumed senior status when he completed over four decades of rigorous public service as a prominent jurist. On that day, the Senate resumed the prolonged lame duck session, which the GOP upper chamber majority began after voters had elected Joe Biden to replace former President Donald Trump. Trump correctly refrained from nominating Flaum’s successor. Four months later, President Biden dutifully announced that he would name Candace Jackson-Akiwumi to replace Flaum. Jackson-Akiwumi is a particularly qualified, mainstream nominee. Because she comprehensively answered senators’ complex, probing questions, and the Seventh Circuit lacks any people …


How President Biden Can Fill The Central District Of California Bench, Carl Tobias May 2022

How President Biden Can Fill The Central District Of California Bench, Carl Tobias

University of Richmond Law Review

President Joseph Biden confronts an enormous opportunity to seat highly qualified, mainstream federal judges in plenty of appeals court and district court openings which former President Donald Trump neglected to fill in his four-year term. The remarkable California trial level vacant emergency slots, particularly in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, are the United States’ worst-case scenario and consummate promise. The Central District of California tribunal had experienced as many as ten lengthy open court slots among twenty-eight posts during the Trump administration, but it encounters six vacancies today.


Optimal Fasting Duration To Effectively Suppress Physiological 18f- Fluorodeoxyglucose (Fdg) Myocardial Uptake On A Positron Emission Tomography Scan., Fatima Abdullahi Ali May 2022

Optimal Fasting Duration To Effectively Suppress Physiological 18f- Fluorodeoxyglucose (Fdg) Myocardial Uptake On A Positron Emission Tomography Scan., Fatima Abdullahi Ali

Master of Medicine in Imaging and Diagnostic Radiology

Background: Positron emission tomography (PET) with 18F fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) is used in evaluation of inflammatory disorders, including the heart such as cardiac sarcoidosis and myocarditis. However, the normal uptake of the myocardium is a challenge as it can obscure pathological uptake in these conditions. The primary objective of this study is to determine the optimal fasting duration to suppress physiological myocardial uptake and thereafter establish an imaging protocol. Methods: Patients who had whole body FDG PET CT examination for oncological evaluation at the Aga Khan University Hospital between January 2019 and December 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were divided into …


Coming Out As A Queer Latinx, Giselle Barajas May 2022

Coming Out As A Queer Latinx, Giselle Barajas

Audre Lorde Prize

This paper explores the feminist theories post-colonialism and gender theory to better understand the coming out experience for the queer latinx community. The latinx community face unique hurdles when coming out including battling cultural values, colonialism, language barriers, and identity. In order to better understand the coming out journey of queer latinxs and create safe queer spaces I propose that we reimagine familismo to emphasize love and acceptance over colonial ideas of machismo and marianismo. We can also decolonize both feminist theory and language.


Coming Out Culture And Lgbtq+ Teachers, Maddie Schaefer May 2022

Coming Out Culture And Lgbtq+ Teachers, Maddie Schaefer

Audre Lorde Prize

Teachers who are part of the LGBTQ+ community face unique circumstances when it comes to educating students about LGBTQ+ and other social issues, especially when they have multiple marginalized identities. Some teachers may not be safe or comfortable coming out, while others may feel pressured to come out in order to provide positive queer representation for students. The culture surrounding coming out in the U.S. may significantly contribute to this pressure. This essay analyzes non-binary teachers' perspectives on coming out in the classroom. Through this analysis, insight is provided into the ways in which queer teachers may intentionally or unintentionally …


A Music Industry Circuit Split: The De Minimis Exception In Digital Sampling, Michaela S. Morrissey May 2022

A Music Industry Circuit Split: The De Minimis Exception In Digital Sampling, Michaela S. Morrissey

University of Richmond Law Review

When hip-hop icon Biz Markie released his album “All Samples Cleared!” he joked of the end of what was known as the “Golden Age” of digital sampling in the hip-hop and rap music industry. The Golden Age began in the late 1980s, and because there was no regulation of the practice, it was a period of musical enlightenment in which musicians could freely utilize digital sampling without legal repercussion. However, in 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit handed down an opinion that sent shock waves across the music industry. In Bridgeport Music Inc. v. Dimension …


The Development Of Tigra: A Zero Latency Interface For Accelerator Communication In Risc-V Processors, Wesley Brad Green May 2022

The Development Of Tigra: A Zero Latency Interface For Accelerator Communication In Risc-V Processors, Wesley Brad Green

All Dissertations

Field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) give developers the ability to design application specific hardware by means of software, providing a method of accelerating algorithms with higher power efficiency when compared to CPU or GPU accelerated applications. FPGA accelerated applications tend to follow either a loosely coupled or tightly coupled design. Loosely coupled designs often use OpenCL to utilize the FPGA as an accelerator much like a GPU, which provides a simplifed design flow with the trade-off of increased overhead and latency due to bus communication. Tightly coupled designs modify an existing CPU to introduce instruction set extensions to provide a …


Synthesis Of Monodisperse Nanoscintillators At High Temperatures For Biomedical Relevant Applications, Eric Zhang May 2022

Synthesis Of Monodisperse Nanoscintillators At High Temperatures For Biomedical Relevant Applications, Eric Zhang

All Dissertations

Luminescent sub-100 nm particulates continuously generate immense research interest in the biomedical field for imaging, theranostics, and optogenetics. Conventionally, upconversion nanoparticles or UV activated semiconductors are studied, however these materials are limited by biological barriers such as the skin which reduces the penetration depth of these excitation sources, tissue's auto- fluorescence, and toxicity. One approach to overcome these challenges is to use nanoscintillators (sub-100 nm materials that can generate visible light using high energy excitation sources such as x-rays) which can generate light locally to the human body. Numerous scintillators have been reported since the discovery of x-rays from the …


Mythology In Art History: Course Curriculum, Marianna Martino May 2022

Mythology In Art History: Course Curriculum, Marianna Martino

Theses

The course entitled Mythology in Art History contains a scaffolded curriculum that introduces students to mythology throughout art history by learning how to analyze fine artwork. With each unit, students will demonstrate an increased control of art criticism, analysis, and knowledge as they develop stronger understanding of content. Students will be able to distinguish the elements of art and principles of design through various 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional art pieces from various time periods and cultures. Upon completion of this year-long program, students will demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of art analysis, allegory, and storytelling throughout art history, showing knowledge of the …


The Employment Situation Of Veterans: April 2022, Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University May 2022

The Employment Situation Of Veterans: April 2022, Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

Veteran employment trends and statistics among various demographics during April 2022


Perceptions Of Teachers & Parents On Creativity In Schools: A Business Solution To Support Student Creativity Through Adult Training, Keriann Armusewicz May 2022

Perceptions Of Teachers & Parents On Creativity In Schools: A Business Solution To Support Student Creativity Through Adult Training, Keriann Armusewicz

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Using research on the perceptions of creativity from parents and teachers, a business proposal is developed to support student creativity in schools through adult training. Perceptions of creativity vary greatly for teachers and are more consistent for parents. One possibility for this is that there is much more research about teacher perceptions than parent perceptions for this topic. One consistent finding across both populations is that when an adult has higher self-efficacy for creativity they are better able to identify and support creativity in others. Thus, a business plan has been developed to increase personal creativity in teachers and parents …


Accelerating Onboarding, Koheun Lee May 2022

Accelerating Onboarding, Koheun Lee

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project involved the research and development of an onboarding revision action plan for a multinational company based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia that’s been operating globally since 2011. The purpose of the project was to conduct research on how to optimize and accelerate the onboarding process for a company that’s had to pivot to working with consultants and working remotely in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic in the past couple years. The project aimed to create an onboarding “kit” of sorts to be handed over to a People & Culture hire to implement, but ended up taking the form …


Fostering Creativity In Education Including Natural Environments: A Course On Creativity For Children In Colombia, Tatiana Ortiz-Pradilla May 2022

Fostering Creativity In Education Including Natural Environments: A Course On Creativity For Children In Colombia, Tatiana Ortiz-Pradilla

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project is a contribution to the field of creativity and education. The project aimed to connect the research-based knowledge on how natural environments enhance creativity and put it in the service of creativity education for children. The main objective was to design a prototype of a course outline of a continuing education course on creativity that leverages the knowledge of the connection between creativity and natural environments for children between 7 and 12 years old in Medellín, Colombia, South America.


Exploring The Intersection Between Psychedelics And The 4 P’S Of Creativity, Laura M. Dawn May 2022

Exploring The Intersection Between Psychedelics And The 4 P’S Of Creativity, Laura M. Dawn

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Psychedelics are extremely multifaceted and complex hallucinogenic compounds that induce an altered state of consciousness and can have a wide range of effects. The outcomes of one’s psychedelic experience are largely dependent on what’s known as “set and setting.” The purpose of this project is to make an argument that the lens through which we look at and explore psychedelics matters. Currently the primary lens through which Western culture is exploring exploring psychedelics is through the lens of reducing mental illness. When we look at the existing scientific research that focuses on psychedelics as a treatment for mental illness, and …


A Valve Design For A Sofc/Gt Hybrid System Utilizing Smart Materials, Ariztbe Valladolid May 2022

A Valve Design For A Sofc/Gt Hybrid System Utilizing Smart Materials, Ariztbe Valladolid

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This project includes vast research on the Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Gas Turbine (SOFC/GT) hybrid system. This systemâ??s goal is to create energy and to minimize the pollution by utilizing natural gas and a combination of different components such as a fuel cell, heat exchangers, bypass valves, turbines and combustors working together to create energy. This system was created for it to be used as a base for a future alternative to create clean energy all around the country. The SOFC/GT system consists of the fuel cell being pressurized by the gas turbine. Then the fuel cell exhaust gas in …


Art, Race, And The Carceral System: Perceptions Of Criminality In Artful Expression, Abiodun Akinseye May 2022

Art, Race, And The Carceral System: Perceptions Of Criminality In Artful Expression, Abiodun Akinseye

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Prior research suggests that rap music is viewed as more “criminal” than other musical genres. Furthermore, juries are likely to attribute criminal stereotypes to rappers, in part due to assumptions of guilt and innocence based on race (Smiley, 2017; Smiley & Fakunle, 2016). Recently courts have used rap lyrics as a form of confessionary evidence against rappers in the courtroom (e.g., McKinley Phipps v. Tim Wilkinson, 2001), but this practice does not extend to other art forms, such as stand-up comedy. This interdisciplinary paper utilizes a mixed-methods approach to research, using both content analysis and experimental methods to develop an …


Using Nasa's Tess Mission To Search For Extremely Low Mass White Dwarf Stars, Corinna Peña May 2022

Using Nasa's Tess Mission To Search For Extremely Low Mass White Dwarf Stars, Corinna Peña

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Extremely low-mass white dwarf stars (ELM) are white dwarf stars with a mass lower than 0.45 solar masses that could not have evolved through normal processes within the lifetime of our universe. Therefore, these objects can only be created through a common envelope phase or a stable Roche lobe overflow while in a binary. These objects have periods between a few minutes to a few hours, so they are very short lived which makes them very rare. My goal for this project was to find these ELM stars by using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) data. I analyzed this …


Natural Killer Cells In Liver Transplantation: Can We Harness The Power Of The Immune Checkpoint To Promote Tolerance?, Jennifer Halma, Stephen Pierce, Rebecca Mclennan, Todd Bradley, Ryan T. Fischer May 2022

Natural Killer Cells In Liver Transplantation: Can We Harness The Power Of The Immune Checkpoint To Promote Tolerance?, Jennifer Halma, Stephen Pierce, Rebecca Mclennan, Todd Bradley, Ryan T. Fischer

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

The roles that natural killer (NK) cells play in liver disease and transplantation remain ill-defined. Reports on the matter are often contradictory, and the mechanisms elucidated are complex and dependent on the context of the model tested. Moreover, NK cell attributes, such as receptor protein expression and function differ among species, make study of primate or rodent transplant models challenging. Recent insights into NK function and NK-mediated therapy in the context of cancer therapy may prove applicable to transplantation. Of specific interest are immune checkpoint molecules and the mechanisms by which they modulate NK cells in the tumor micro-environment. In …


Independent Dominating Sets In Unicyclic Graphs, Rachel Lopez May 2022

Independent Dominating Sets In Unicyclic Graphs, Rachel Lopez

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Wilf found the maximum number of independent dominating sets of a tree using algebraic methods, while Sagan gave an elementary proof. In this thesis, we maximize the number of independent dominating sets of unicyclic graphs, giving a new proof of a result of Jou and Chang. In our proof, we are able to reduce the problem to finding independent dominating sets of single-legged caterpillar graphs. We also study the number of single-legged caterpillar graphs, both oriented and unoriented, which are related to the Fibonacci Sequence. Finally, this thesis also examines the domination ratio in unicyclic graphs. The domination ratio is …


New Debiasing Strategies In Collaborative Filtering Recommender Systems: Modeling User Conformity, Multiple Biases, And Causality., Mariem Boujelbene May 2022

New Debiasing Strategies In Collaborative Filtering Recommender Systems: Modeling User Conformity, Multiple Biases, And Causality., Mariem Boujelbene

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recommender Systems are widely used to personalize the user experience in a diverse set of online applications ranging from e-commerce and education to social media and online entertainment. These State of the Art AI systems can suffer from several biases that may occur at different stages of the recommendation life-cycle. For instance, using biased data to train recommendation models may lead to several issues, such as the discrepancy between online and offline evaluation, decreasing the recommendation performance, and hurting the user experience. Bias can occur during the data collection stage where the data inherits the user-item interaction biases, such as …


Public Health Contagion Of White Supremacy: Examining The Pipeline Of Attitudes About Racism And Racial History Education Among High School Students., Trinidad Jackson May 2022

Public Health Contagion Of White Supremacy: Examining The Pipeline Of Attitudes About Racism And Racial History Education Among High School Students., Trinidad Jackson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We are living in compounded states of upheaval. Violence and exemption from it across socioecological levels have shaped how humans survive, thrive, and die. While different violence typologies exist, the U.S., prioritizes interpersonal violence as its primary target of intervention, often through structural means that foster and reinforce interpersonal violence. The omission of structural and cultural agents and outcomes of violence allows perpetrators to infiltrate and reproduce savage, dehumanizing ideologies in perpetuity. Instead of sustaining societal pillars that oppress and destroy, we must fertilize public health research, practice, and sociopolitical activism with pillars that both inform and activate liberatory consciousness …


Genomic Tools And Models For Investigating The Role Of Germline Diversity In Mouse Antibody Repertoire Development., Justin T. Kos May 2022

Genomic Tools And Models For Investigating The Role Of Germline Diversity In Mouse Antibody Repertoire Development., Justin T. Kos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Given the diversity and complexity within immunoglobulin (IG) loci, effective mouse models first require characterization of intra-strain differences and construction of high-quality reference assemblies for IG loci in several representative strains. To understand light chain germline diversity across biomedically significant mouse strains, we profiled the expressed IGK and IGL repertoires of 18 commonly used laboratory mouse strains using AIRR-seq. Across strains, we observed germline IGKV sequences shared by three different IGK haplotypes and a more conserved IGLV germline repertoire among common laboratory strains. Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) Single-Molecule Real-Time (SMRT) sequencing was used to sequence and assemble bacterial artificial chromosomes (BAC) …


Role Of Galactose, Thiazolidinediones, And Neet Proteins In Mitochondrial Physiology And Therapeutic Development., Robert Anthony Skolik May 2022

Role Of Galactose, Thiazolidinediones, And Neet Proteins In Mitochondrial Physiology And Therapeutic Development., Robert Anthony Skolik

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the relationship between mitochondrial physiology and development of therapeutics. Mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with both acute and chronic forms of pathophysiology. This work aims to address development efforts at the cell culture and drug-target levels with respect to mitochondria. At the cell culture level, I characterize an approach that has been shown to improve the physiological dependency on mitochondria in tumor-derived cells. I demonstrate that prolonged replacement of glucose with galactose in culture medium induces a global metabolic shift in hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2) cells to closer reflect a primary hepatocyte phenotype (Chapter 2). I characterize this shift …


New Accurate, Explainable, And Unbiased Machine Learning Models For Recommendation With Implicit Feedback., Khalil Damak May 2022

New Accurate, Explainable, And Unbiased Machine Learning Models For Recommendation With Implicit Feedback., Khalil Damak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recommender systems have become ubiquitous Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that play an important role in filtering online information in our daily lives. Whether we are shopping, browsing movies, or listening to music online, AI recommender systems are working behind the scene to provide us with curated and personalized content, that has been predicted to be relevant to our interest. The increasing prevalence of recommender systems has challenged researchers to develop powerful algorithms that can deliver recommendations with increasing accuracy. In addition to the predictive accuracy of recommender systems, recent research has also started paying attention to their fairness, in particular …


(De)Legitimizing Genres: Rhetoric And Tactical Institutional Critique., Walker Smith May 2022

(De)Legitimizing Genres: Rhetoric And Tactical Institutional Critique., Walker Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation forwards a rhetorical theory of institutions that centers their genre-based communications, redefines institutions in relation to organizations, and contributes to the field’s understanding of how communities collaboratively rewrite entrenched institutionalized practices from the outside, thus reducing the harm that institutions can enact. Using evangelical church policies on marriage as a case study, I answer the following questions: How do historically sedimented institutions, their genres, and their practices rhetorically impose, legitimize, and regulate certain patterns of social life? How does an evangelical Christian church manage to govern the gendered and sexual lives of their members and maintain their power …


The Water We Were Swimming In: Transgender And Gender Nonconforming Students' Lived Experiences In Engineering., Natalie Saroff Oliner May 2022

The Water We Were Swimming In: Transgender And Gender Nonconforming Students' Lived Experiences In Engineering., Natalie Saroff Oliner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Few studies address the lived experiences of transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) students in engineering. Grounded in critical trans politics (Spade, 2015), this dissertation contributes to the literature on TGNC students in engineering by examining their experiences negotiating their identities while navigating interrelated systems of oppression in a field dominated by White, heterosexual, cisgender men. Using a critical constructivism framework, I conducted a narrative inquiry to explore the lived experiences of five TGNC students in engineering programs. Participants experienced TGNC oppression at their universities, built LGBTQ+ and TGNC communities, and described more welcoming climates in non-engineering contexts compared to engineering. …


Authentically (Un)Real Assessing Vh!'S Basketball Wives And Its Violent & Colorist Portrayals Of Black Women., Wilma Denae Powell May 2022

Authentically (Un)Real Assessing Vh!'S Basketball Wives And Its Violent & Colorist Portrayals Of Black Women., Wilma Denae Powell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Does reality television serve as solely a form of entertainment, or could reality television also be maintaining hegemonic beliefs and reinforcing biased views of Black women? Since 2010, Vh1’s Basketball Wives has given audiences the opportunities to entertain themselves by watching women who are/were married to, dating, or are the mothers of children fathered by professional basketball players. Despite the show’s name, few members of the cast are currently married and audiences only get mere glimpses of the cast in motherly or marital interactions. So, what does Basketball Wives offer audiences who tune in to watch Black women for entertainment? …


High-Probability Tasks And Task Completion Rates Of Students With Emotional And Behavioral Disorders., Amy R Hall May 2022

High-Probability Tasks And Task Completion Rates Of Students With Emotional And Behavioral Disorders., Amy R Hall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an investigation into the effects of high-probability tasks on the task completion rates of three students diagnosed with an emotional and behavioral disorder. It begins with a close look into best practices verses common practices, examines students supports currently available in schools, and highlights gaps present in today’s educational system for students who exhibit significant challenging behaviors. The dissertation reviews literature available on the topic of high-probability tasks as a logical solution to combating gaps in behavior support and describes methodology used to investigate the strategy and its effects. It closes by presenting data, conclusions, implications, and …


The Glass Coffin: Gothic Adaptations And The Formation Of Sexual Subjectivity., Colton T. Wilson May 2022

The Glass Coffin: Gothic Adaptations And The Formation Of Sexual Subjectivity., Colton T. Wilson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is now an almost foregone conclusion that classic depictions of vampirism resonate with contemporary queer audiences. A sympathetic response to the monster’s persecution is often the key factor in these arguments, yet little attention is paid to the textual details that prompt such a process of identification. This study posits that the iconography used to establish a connection between monstrosity and non-normative sexuality has its origins in Victorian Gothic fiction, whose descriptions of vampirism were assimilated into the discourse of the fin-de-siècle medical field known as sexology. Theories that defined homosexuality as an illness with physical and psychological symptoms …


Cannabinoids And Retinal Fibrotic Disorders., Lucy June Sloan May 2022

Cannabinoids And Retinal Fibrotic Disorders., Lucy June Sloan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Retinal fibrosis is detrimental to vision. Retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells contribute to several retinal fibrotic diseases. Upon exposure to TGF-β, a key fibrotic cytokine, RPE cells trans-differentiate to myofibroblasts marked by the integration of α-SMA fibers into F-actin stress fibers, which confer strong contractility. Myofibroblasts produce and contract the collagen-rich fibrotic scar and disrupt retinal architecture. In this study, we investigated the in vitro effects of the putative endocannabinoid compound N-oleoyl dopamine (OLDA) on TGF-β2 induced porcine RPE cell contraction and α-SMA expression. Using an in vitro collagen matrix contraction assay, we found that OLDA inhibited TGF-β2 induced contraction …