Tribal Sovereignty and Native American Women’s Rights in the Wake of Castro-Huerta

This thesis will primarily examine the sexual assault crisis Native American women face and the jurisdictional issues that influence whether and how tribes prosecute and punish perpetrators. Federal Indian policy and various Supreme Court cases have increasingly undermined tribal sovereignty over the past few centuries, resulting in tribal governments lacking the ability to respond to sexual violence against their members. Native women who experience sexual violence often find themselves entangled in a complex web of jurisdictional issues, resulting in a lack of clarity about which government body has authority. As a result, their cases are frequently left unprosecuted, denying them access to justice. Recent legislation has allocated greater sentencing and jurisdictional authority to tribes, and McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020) represents a continuation of restoring tribal sovereignty. The Court ruled that the territory designated for the Creek Nation within Oklahoma has maintained its status as “Indian country” as recognized since the 19th century. Despite this positive trend, the Court in Castro-Huerta v. Oklahoma (2022) held that Oklahoma has concurrent jurisdiction with the federal government to prosecute crimes committed by non-Natives against Natives on tribal land. Castro-Huerta further complicates the jurisdictional confusion because it adds another government entity into the sphere of jurisdiction in Indian country. This thesis analyzes the underlying debate in McGirt and Castro-Huerta and explains the Native female perspective in the debate. After covering relevant federal Indian policy and law, various solutions that have been recommended will be discussed in depth. This thesis argues for a short-term solution to prove tribes have the capacity to protect their own members in order to combat the most recent attack on tribal sovereignty and the welfare of Native women. This thesis also recommends that Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe (1978) should be congressionally overturned, as the Court ruled in this case that tribes lack the right to prosecute non-Natives who commit crimes against Natives on tribal land. In order to truly empower Native women and address their longstanding challenges, it is imperative to emancipate them from the intricate web of jurisdictional constraints, while also upholding the autonomy of tribes. This will enable them to seek justice and recourse after years of being denied both

Assistive Intelligence: Replication and Mediation of Modern

This project is an exploration of frames of reference that guide human authorship and how they influence machine output . “Reference frames are [used] to make predictions, create plans, and perform movements.” (Hawkins 131). We guided our exploration under the principle that if we control who authored the frames of reference that the AI receives, then that would influence the output of the machine. However, we began to question to what degree we need to control the machine in order to have a valuable output –is human-intelligent authorship necessary for machine intelligence to function productively, or is machine intelligence enough of an author on its own? Through this exploration we began to understand machine and human intelligences as interdependent

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Reducing radiation dose to selected organs by selecting the tube start angle in MDCT helical scans: A Monte Carlo based study

Purpose: Previous work has demonstrated that there are significant dose variations with a sinusoidal pattern on the peripheral of a CTDI 32 cm phantom or on the surface of an anthropomorphic phantom when helical CT scanning is performed, resulting in the creation of “hot” spots or “cold” spots. The purpose of this work was to perform preliminary investigations into the feasibility of exploiting these variations to reduce dose to selected radiosensitive organs solely by varying the tube start angle in CT scans

Pediatric organ dose measurements in axial and helical multislice CT

An anthropomorphic pediatric phantom (5-yr-old equivalent) was used to determine organ doses at specific surface and internal locations resulting from computed tomography (CT) scans. This phantom contains four different tissue-equivalent materials: Soft tissue, bone, brain, and lung. It was imaged on a 64-channel CT scanner with three head protocols (one contiguous axial scan and two helical scans [pitch=0.516 and 0.984]) and four chest protocols (one contiguous axial scan and three helical scans [pitch=0.516, 0.984, and 1.375]). Effective mA s [=(tube current×rotation time)∕pitch] was kept nearly constant at 200 effective mA s for head and 290 effective mA s for chest protocols. Dose measurements were acquired using thermoluminescent dosimeter powder in capsules placed at locations internal to the phantom and on the phantom surface. The organs of interest were the brain, both eyes, thyroid, sternum, both breasts, and both lungs. The organ dose measurements from helical scans were lower than for contiguous axial scans by 0% to 25% even after adjusting for equivalent effective mA s. There was no significant difference (p>0.05) in organ dose values between the 0.516 and 0.984 pitch values for both head and chest scans. The chest organ dose measurements obtained at a pitch of 1.375 were significantly higher than the dose values obtained at the other helical pitches used for chest scans (p<0.05). This difference was attributed to the automatic selection of the large focal spot due to a higher tube current value. These findings suggest that there may be a previously unsuspected radiation dose benefit associated with the use of helical scan mode during computed tomography scanning

Radiation Dose to the Fetus for Pregnant Patients Undergoing Multidetector CT Imaging: Monte Carlo Simulations Estimating Fetal Dose for a Range of Gestational Age and Patient Size

Purpose: To use Monte Carlo simulations of a current-technology multidetector computed tomographic (CT) scanner to investigate fetal radiation dose resulting from an abdominal and pelvic examination for a range of actual patient anatomies that include variation in gestational age and maternal size