Reframing e-assessment: building professional nursing and academic attributes in a first year nursing course

This paper documents the relationships between pedagogy and e-assessment in two nursing courses offered at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. The courses are designed to build the academic, numeracy and technological attributes student nurses need if they are to succeed at university and in the nursing profession. The paper first outlines the management systems supporting the two courses and how they intersect with the e-learning and e-assessment components of course design. These pedagogical choices are then reviewed. While there are lessons to be learnt and improvements to be made, preliminary results suggest students and staff are extremely supportive of the courses. The e-assessment is very positively received with students reporting increased confidence and competency in numeracy, as well as IT, academic, research and communication skills

U.S. foreign policy and Israeli nuclear weapons, 1957-1982.

Thesis (M.A.

A Riparian Owner Can Be Divested of the Right to the Use of the Water Flowing by His Land for Failure to Timely File for a Permit with the Texas Water Rights Commission.

Abstract Forthcoming

The Balance between Individual Rights and Family Preservation: The Future of the Parent-Child Immunity Doctrine in Texas.

In the last decade approaching the 1970s, Texas has adopted a less rigid approach to the parent-child immunity doctrine, which equips parents with immunity from suits involving tort actions brought by their children. The support for this doctrine relies on the rationale that such actions disrupt family harmony and parental discipline averse to a civil society. This study examines the origin, development, and subsequent erosion of the parent-child immunity doctrine in other state jurisdictions by analyzing its development in common law. Texas’s approach to the parent-child immunity doctrine mirrors the developments of other state jurisdictions. While some states eliminated the doctrine in common law, other states abrogated the doctrine and passed legislation that provides exceptions to the rule. Three main exceptions prove to be common in any abrogation approaches a jurisdiction adopts. One, if the cause of action exists outside the parental relationship such as the employer-employee context, the suit is typically sustained. Two, if the minor’s cause of action can be redressed through the parent’s insurance, in the case of automobile accidents, family harmony is not harmed by the suit. Lastly, if family harmony is already disrupted through the maliciousness of the parent, then parental immunity is inappropriate. Texas has abrogated the doctrine to include an exception for the employer-employee relationship and common law has decided against parental immunity in cases where no reason for it exists. Texas has not yet recognized causes of action in lawsuits for auto accidents where parental immunity is invoked. Texas and other jurisdictions fear the slippery slope of flooding the courts with cases where vicarious liability can be resorted to for all injuries regardless of negligence, if insurance is present. The willingness of courts to re-evaluate laws as conditions change reveals the continuing development of justice

Distinct Patterns of HIV-1 Evolution within Metastatic Tissues in Patients with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma

Despite highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), AIDS related lymphoma (ARL) occurs at a significantly higher rate in patients infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) than in the general population. HIV-infected macrophages are a known viral reservoir and have been shown to have lymphomagenic potential in SCID mice; therefore, there is an interest in determining if a viral component to lymphomagenesis also exists. We sequenced HIV-1 envelope gp120 clones obtained post mortem from several tumor and non-tumor tissues of two patients who died with AIDS-related Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (ARL-NH). Similar results were found in both patients: 1) high-resolution phylogenetic analysis showed a significant degree of compartmentalization between lymphoma and non-lymphoma viral sub-populations while viral sub-populations from lymph nodes appeared to be intermixed within sequences from tumor and non-tumor tissues, 2) a 100-fold increase in the effective HIV population size in tumor versus non-tumor tissues was associated with the emergence of lymphadenopathy and aggressive metastatic ARL, and 3) HIV gene flow among lymph nodes, normal and metastatic tissues was non-random. The different population dynamics between the viruses found in tumors versus the non-tumor associated viruses suggest that there is a significant relationship between HIV evolution and lymphoma pathogenesis. Moreover, the study indicates that HIV could be used as an effective marker to study the origin and dissemination of lymphomas in vivo