Speaking the Language of Exclusion: How Equal Protection and Fundamental Rights Analyses Permit Language Discrimination (comment)

In the summer of 1995, the en banc Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Flores v. State upheld a lower court’s ruling to give a drunk-driving (DWI) offender a year in prison as opposed to probation. The trial judge denied the defendant probation due to his inability to speak English. The county in which the defendant was arrested and convicted did not provide a DWI rehabilitation program in Spanish, leading the judge to determine the defendant would not benefit from probation. In his appeal, Mr. Flores claimed the lower court violated his equal protection and due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and his equality rights and due course of law rights under the Texas Constitution. The case invited the court to resolve federal and state confusion over the issue of language and to find constitutional protection for those unable to speak English. The court declined this invitation, instead applying the rigid classification scheme for assessing equal protection claims. Those like Mr. Flores face a combination of difficulties, as they are members of a group which cannot be identical to one based on race or national origin; furthermore, judges can deny state privileges rather than fundamental rights without violating due process theory. Had it accepted the case, the Court could have demonstrated the Fourteenth Amendment analysis can be more flexible than the formulaic one the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals applied. The Court could have reached this result by declaring language-based discrimination as suspect, either because language is presumptively related to national origin or because it is the basis of invidious discrimination. Alternatively, the Court could have taken seriously the rational-basis test, as even minimal scrutiny merited an examination of the fit between denying a probation request and the stated goal of meaningful rehabilitation

Coltharp Family Genealogical Collection - Accession 1651

The Coltharp Family Genealogical Collection consists of research conducted by Beverley Dean Peoples primarily on the Coltharp/Colthrop Family through the Henry Coltharp (1753-1835) line and John Campbell Coltharp (1825-1902) lines. The records consists of photocopies and typescript of deeds, marriage records, wills, newspaper articles and obituaries, letters, genealogical publications, and photographs. Also included are printouts from online genealogical material and email correspondence with other genealogists and family members concerning her research. Most of the research deals directly with the Coltharp Family, however there is some records related to a few allied families including: Bailey; Billue; Epps; Faris; Merritt; Potts; Wagner; Wilson;https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/manuscriptcollection_findingaids/2654/thumbnail.jp

INVESTIGATING THE MECHANISM OF BACTERIAL CELL DIVISION WITH SUPERRESOLUTION MICROSCOPY

The molecular mechanisms that drive bacterial cytokinesis are attractive antibiotic targets that remain poorly understood. The machinery that performs cytokinesis in bacteria has been termed the 'divisome' (see Chapter 1 for description). The most widely-conserved divisome protein, FtsZ, is an essential tubulin homolog that polymerizes into protofilaments in a nucleotide-dependent manner. These protofilaments assemble at midcell to form the ‘Z-ring’, which has been the prevailing candidate for constrictive force generation during cell division. However, it has been difficult to experimentally test proposed Z-ring force generation models in vivo due to the small size of bacteria (< 1 μm diameter for E. coli) compared to the diffraction-limited resolution of light (~ 0.3 μm). In this work, quantitative superresolution and time-lapse microscopy were applied to examine whether Z-ring structure and function indeed play limiting roles in driving E. coli cell constriction (Chapter 2). Surprisingly, these studies revealed that the rate of septum closure during constriction is robust to substantial changes in many Z-ring properties, including the GTPase activity of FtsZ, molecular density of the Z-ring, the timing of Z-ring disassembly, and the absence of Z-ring assembly regulators. Further investigation revealed that septum closure rate is instead highly coupled to the rate of cell wall growth and elongation, and can be modulated by coordination with chromosome segregation. Taken together, these results challenge the Z-ring centric view of constriction force generation, and suggest that cell wall synthesis and chromosome segregation likely drive the rate and progress of cell constriction in bacteria. These investigations were made possible by advancements in quantitative superresolution microscopy techniques (see Chapter 3 for overview). One major obstacle encountered during the course of this work, and shared by those utilizing localization-based superresolution microscopy techniques, was the overestimation of molecule numbers caused by fluorophore photoblinking. Thus, Chapter 4 describes a systematic characterization of the effects of photoblinking on the accurate construction and analysis of superresolution images. These characterizations enabled the development of a simple method to identify the optimal clustering thresholds and an empirical criterion to evaluate whether an imaging condition is appropriate for accurate superresolution image reconstruction. Both the threshold selection method and imaging condition criterion are easy to implement within existing PALM clustering algorithms and experimental conditions

Heard Like a Shout

A collection of short stories about people and about sound.Bachelor of Art

It is Time to Get Back to Basics on the Border

Abstract forthcoming

Instruction Type and Student Major as they Relate to Student Success in College Level Developmental Mathematics Classes

Title from PDF of title page viewed February 6, 2019Dissertation advisor: Rita BargerVitaIncludes bibliographical references (pages 47-50)Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Education and Department of Mathematics and Statistics. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2018The low success rate of developmental (or remedial) mathematics courses is a hot topic at the higher education level. In this research, student success is considered in terms of final grade, D/F percentage, and withdrawal percentage. The author is interested in looking at student success at a Midwestern university as it relates to instructional delivery type (online vs traditional) and student major (arts and humanities, STEM, and undeclared). It was found that final grade and D/F percentage were statistically significant while withdrawal percentage was not when the data were analyzed with a two-way analysis of variance.Introduction -- Review of literature -- Methods -- Results -- Discussion -- Appendi

Phenotypic Variation of Partridge Pea \u3ci\u3e(Chamaecrista fasciculata)\u3c/i\u3e from Mississippi Persists in a Common Garden

Intraspecific phenotypic variation occurs for many different reasons and understanding its basis has applications in taxonomy, ecology, and evolution. Chamaecrista fasciculata (partridge pea) is a widely distributed species with much phenotypic variation and varied interactions with other species in communities where it grows. Botanists have often noted that phenotypic variation in some traits of this species increases from north to south in the eastern United States. In this study, we grew seeds collected from five Mississippi populations in a common greenhouse environment to determine if the observed variation in leaf and stem traits is maintained in this environment. Interpopulation variation in the greenhouse-grown plants was not as extensive as that observed under natural conditions, but significant differences were detected in the number of stems and leaves and shoot height. The number of flowers and final shoot weight of plants did not differ, suggesting that there may be multiple growth strategies for this species to achieve equal fitness. Variation was detected in stem and leaflet trichome density. The population collected at the lowest latitude showed the most distinct morphology, producing shorter plants with many branched stems, more leaves, and a higher degree of leaflet pubescence. Trait variation that has so often been observed in natural populations of this species is maintained in a common environment, suggesting a genetic basis for the observed variation. Phenotypic variation observed in this species may reflect both responses to varied selective pressures from interacting species and adaptation to differing climatic factors