Walking with Helen

Walk with me, Helen. Come walk in the Garden of the Gods. Sit with me under the red rocks and look - the snowy peaks reach at the sky. This is a worthy spot to talk, Here among the green and grand. Helen, my love, Your face launched a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium. Your name will not die, And your story will not cease. But was it worth it

A high excitation HII region in the faint dwarf elliptical galaxy A0951+68

We present the results of BVRI imaging and optical spectroscopy of the dwarf galaxy A0951+68. The images reveal that, although this galaxy is classified as a dwarf elliptical, it has some properties that are similar to dwarf irregular galaxies. It contains two bright knots of emission, one of which is red and unresolved and the other blue and resolved. The blue knot also shows a high excitation emission line spectrum. The observed line ratios indicate that this is an HII region, although with some line ratios that are border-line with those in AGN. The emission line luminosity is consistent with ionisation by a single, very luminous O star, or several smaller O stars, but the extended blue light in the knot shows that this has occurred as part of a substantial recent star formation event. We find that the metal abundance, while low compared to typical large galaxies, actually seems to be high for such a low luminosity dwarf. The position of A0951 in the literature is incorrect and we provide the correct value.Comment: 8 pages, Latex, 4 encapsulated postscript figures included, 1 separate JPEG figure; to be published in Monthly Notice

Adapting to College Life: An Ethnographic Study of the Linguistic Challenges Faced by Domestic Black Immigrant Students at Bridgewater State University

This linguistic qualitative ethnographic study sought to understand whether domestic and international, Black, English second language learning (ESL), immigrant students, who have completed their first year of college at BSU, perceive themselves as linguistically prepared for college life. Linguistic preparedness is critical for successful participation in the classroom and completion of required work. The research seeks to identify and analyze the programs BSU has established to assist this population in their adaptation to college life and in acquiring linguistic proficiency. The study employs a multi-tiered methodology beginning with semi-structured interviews with diversity administrators, ESL and Global Language faculty, informal interviews and interactions with members of the domestic and international, Black, ESL, immigrant population as well as interviews with research informants that are/were staff members of important resources at BSU, followed by rapport-building, participant and naturalistic (non-participatory) observations; semi-structured interviews with male immigrant students, female immigrant students who completed their first year of college. Selected by purposive sampling, the resulting case study of Bridgewater State University with respect to linguistic readiness for ESL immigrant students will offer emic (insider) perspectives of students’ own linguistic preparedness and contribute to a further understanding of the role of gender in linguistic readiness in the Black immigrant student population. Results offer insights into this population and generate recommendations that cater to struggling ESL students

Mentoring At-Risk Youth: A Case Study of an Intervention for Academic Achievement with Middle School Aged Students.

Students without caring, positive role models often make poor decisions. School personnel are aware of the need to help these students be productive members of society; therefore, they examine strategies and reforms to reach them. A mentoring program is one such intervention that is gaining in popularity. This research study examined a mentoring program entitled the LISTEN (Linking Individual Students To Educational Needs) Mentoring Program that I developed in 2003. For the purposes of this research, the mentoring program was developed and implemented in one middle school in Northeast Tennessee. The goal of the LISTEN mentoring program was to identify at-risk students and provide them with positive adult role models, who were not necessarily their classroom teachers. The mentors worked with the students to assist in developing positive behaviors and better decision making skills. The implementation of LISTEN was assessed throughout this study. The second component of the investigation focused on program perceptions by teachers and students. The final component of this research centered on recommendations for improving the program and enhancing the program\u27s components for further development. This experimental study analyzed archival data from 2004-2005 to determine the effects of the LISTEN mentoring program on identified at-risk students in grades 6 through 8 in a Northeast Tennessee middle school. Specifically, the study investigated the effects of a mentor program on students\u27 grade-point average, discipline referrals, and attendance records. Findings indicated that there were significant differences in students\u27 grade-point averages, school attendance, and discipline referrals from 1 school year to the next among students who participated in the LISTEN mentor program. Students\u27 grade-point averages increased significantly from 2003-2004 to 2004-2005 for 5 of the 6 six-week grading periods and for the entire year. Mean numbers of student discipline referrals and days absent decreased significantly for 5 of the 6 six-week grading periods from 2003-2004 to 2004-2005 and for the entire year. Contrary to typical at-risk behavior, this study showed that 54 of the original 57 participants returned to the school in the 2004-2005 school year, while only 3 students transferred to other schools

Ritalin to Roundup: Expanding the Pharmaceutical Industry Statutory Experimental Use Exception to Agriculture

The modern agricultural biotechnology industry developed from a small cottage industry based on selective crop breeding into a multi-billion dollar industry based on the isolation and insertion of genes that code for commercially valuable crop traits. As it grew, the industry relied on patent protection to recoup its investment into new research and development of genetically engineered (GE) crops. A recent billion dollar patent infringement damage award to Monsanto based only on research activities of its competitors testifies to the importance of that patent protection. Had the Monsanto patent infringement case been between two pharmaceutical companies creating genetics-based drugs, the outcome would have been different. Instead of a one billion dollar award, the patent verdict would have been one of noninfringement. The difference between the two patent infringement cases lies with the Hatch-Waxman Act's statutory experimental use exception. The Hatch-Waxman Act controls the regulation of generic drugs by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Along with an abbreviated generic drug approval process, the Hatch-Waxman Act includes a statutory experimental use exception to patent infringement allowing pharmaceutical companies to conduct research on patented drugs if the research might be used in a regulatory submission to the FDA

Beyond Einstein and Edison: Claiming Space for Non-Faculty Inventors in Technology Transfer

Article published in the Indiana Law Review

Unveiling the Distinction between the University and its Academic Researchers: Lessons for Patent Infringement and University Technology Transfer

This Article explores the idea that a faculty member acting in the role of an academic researcher in the scientific disciplines should be viewed in the context of patent law as an autonomous entity within the university rather than as an agent of the university. The structure of the university laboratory within the university and the social norms associated with the activities that members of the research laboratory conduct supports such a view. Additionally, the data from the implementation of the Bayh-Dole Act reveal that universities and faculty scientists have different goals and motivations regarding the transfer of new technology to the private sector. Acknowledging a distinction between the university and its academic researchers would revive the application of the experimental use exception as a defense to patent infringement for the scientists who drive the innovation economy of our country. Also important, this distinction has implications for the way that entrepreneurship is defined in the context of academic researchers. A better understanding of academic entrepreneurship may lead universities to restructure incentives to encourage academic researchers to participate in transferring new inventions from the laboratory to the private sector

Partition as a Solution to Ethnic Civil War: Statehood, Demography, and the Role of Post-War Balance of Power for Peace

Partition has been proposed as a way to (i) end ethnic civil wars and to (ii) build a lasting peace after ethnic civil wars end. This dissertation builds on partition theory and the ethnic security dilemma in three ways, demonstrating empirical support for a novel theory of why violence recurs following the end of ethnic civil wars and how partition can be used to prevent such violence. The dissertation begins by introducing the puzzle of ethnic group concentration: the social sciences have demonstrated that concentrated ethnic groups produce both peace and violence. The first case study discredits the notion that ethnic group concentration produced during ethnic civil wars will produce an end to ethnic civil wars. I conducted detailed field research, producing a longitudinal study of ethnic migration and violence in the Georgia-Abkhaz civil war (1992-1993), which acts as a crucial case. I conclude that partitioning groups does not end ethnic war. This is the first accurate empirical test of the ethnic security dilemma. Next, the dissertation looks at partition's ability to build peace by concentrating ethnic groups in new homeland states, and I argue that post-partition violence is caused by weak states and the triadic political space endogenously created by partitions that do not separate ethnic groups completely. I call this the Third Generation Ethnic Security Dilemma, building on previous ethnic security dilemma research. I test this empirically by introducing an index measuring the degree to which partitions separate ethnic groups, and I compare all ethnic civil war terminations between 1945 and 2004, demonstrating that partitions which completely separate ethnic groups provide a better chance for peace. Third, I selected two cases (Moldova and Georgia) to examine the causal processes of post-war recurring violence. Georgia, which experienced post-partition violence, and Moldova, which did not, act as a structured case comparison. I conclude that mixed ethnic demography interacts with state-building to cause or avert renewed violence

Intellectual Property Revenue Sharing as a Problem for University Technology Transfer

The Bayh-Dole Act, often credited with the explosion of university technology transfer, requires universities to incentivize invention disclosure by sharing the royalties generated by patent licensing with inventors. Many scholars have debated the effectiveness of university implementation of this requirement, and, indeed, the low rate of invention disclosure by academic researchers to the university is often a bottleneck in the technology-transfer process. Unfortunately, most discussions focusing on inventor compliance with Bayh-Dole Act requirements have explored faculty-inventor motivations. However, in most cases, university inventions are joint products of a group of university members including not only faculty but also post-doctoral researchers or graduate students. This collaborative nature of scientific research seems to have been lost in the design of the technology-transfer system. Some scholars have discussed inventorship determinations and the impact of incorrect inventor identification in pre-America Invents Act patent law. Generally, however, the dynamic interactions between joint inventors with different positions within the university are a little studied area of the technology-transfer process. Less well studied is the Bayh-Dole Act requirement that all inventors share in the revenue from a university licensed patent. The distribution of licensing revenue among inventors creates a question of how to divide the portion of the royalties allocated to inventors by the university. This Article explores that revenue distribution. To the extent that the university asks the input of the inventors, many of the problems in the initial recognition of students and post-doctoral fellows as joint inventors become again important in assigning a percentage of the revenue. Additionally, the negotiation power imbalance between joint inventors may indicate that the university should play a larger role in revenue allocation than it does in initial inventor determinations