The Effect of 4-aminopyridine on Phonotactic Selectivity in Female Crickets

My research project was designed to explore the effects of 4-aminopyridine (a potassium channel blocker) on phonotactic selectivity in female crickets, Acheta domesticus. These crickets underwent pre-tests for selectivity on a non-compensating treadmill during which their response to a range of male calling songs (30-90ms syllable periods) was recorded. A solution of 9.2 nl of saline or 10(-5)M 4-aminopyridine was nanoinjected into the supraesophageal ganglion. After a ten-minute recovery period, post-tests were performed, identical to the pre-tests. There was no significant effect of 4-aminopyridine on the females\u27 selectivity

America: Land of the Shackled

This Note will demonstrate the detrimental effects of shackling a pregnant woman and will examine some of the efforts currently being made to prohibit the practice, as well as provide some suggestions for prohibitory legislation. Part II of this Note will discuss the background of this pervasive issue, both how it has been viewed by the courts and the ways in which it has been dealt with by state legislatures that have enacted anti-shackling laws. Part III of this Note will analyze the positions of those who support a ban on the use of restraints on pregnant inmates and detainees. Part III will also address Martin v. County of Milwaukee, a case tried in July of 2017 which concerns issues central to this Note. Part IV will demonstrate the necessity of anti-shackling legislation and present suggestions for legislators to consider when enacting a statute of this kind

Mother Country: Reproductive Tourism in the Age of Globalization

Mother Country is a multi-sited, qualitative study of the United States fertility industry. I analyze the industry in two dimensions: as a particularly American institution and nascent profession, and as a destination for reproductive tourism. The United States fertility industry, buttressed by lax federal regulation, free market principles, and high technology resources, is organized to benefit certain classes of American citizens and foreign nationals in their quest to have children. As such, the United States has become a prime destination for people seeking assisted fertility services such as commercial surrogacy, egg donation, and sex selection, which are unavailable, inaccessible, or illegal in many countries. I employed a grounded theory and mixed-methods approach to my topic: I used participant observation and in-depth semi-structured interviews in three major metropolitan regions (New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco), to generate thick, empirical data about the fertility industry in these respective cities. I also employed ethnographic content analysis of medical and scientific journals, newspaper reports, and industry marketing materials, and comparative policy analysis on the state, federal, and international level to identify trends and patterns about the global state of the field. I find that the United States produces ideal conditions for a fertility industry with a global reach. It boasts a robust network of fertility doctors, family law attorneys, and egg donation and surrogacy brokers, in addition to advanced technologies, high success rates, and lax federal regulation that enables clients to obtain services in locales with policies amenable to their needs and desires. Moreover, the profession itself has situated itself in such a way that enables it to secure its position as an autonomous body with gatekeeping functions, as professional organizations establish norms of self-regulation absent the teeth or enforcement of law

TECHNOLOGIES OF APPREHENSION: THE FAMILY, LAW, SECURITY, AND GEOPOLITICS IN US NONCITIZEN FAMILY DETENTION POLICY AND PRACTICE

This dissertation examines how US immigrant family detention policy emerged from reinvigorated border security priorities, immigration policing practices, and international migration flows. Based on a qualitative mixed methods approach, the research traces how discourses of threat, vulnerability, and safety produce detainable child and parent subjects that displace “the family” as a legal entity. I show that immigration law relies on specific kinds of geographical knowledge, producing what I call the ‘geopolitics of vulnerability.’ More broadly, I analyze how current immigration enforcement practices work at local, national, and international scales, so that detention deters future migration as much as it penalizes existing undocumented migrants. Tracing how legal categorization, isolation, criminalization, and forced mobility discipline detained families, I show how detention bears down on migrant networks, defying individualized and national scalings of immigration law. Family detention, like the broader detention system, is authorized through overlapping forms of administrative discretion, and I analyze how the “plenary doctrine of immigration” resonates with ICE’s discretionary authority. Finally, I trace how immigrant rights advocates mobilizes conceptions of “home-like” and “prison-like” facilities, and how ICE reimagined its “residential” facilities in response. Empirically and theoretically, my project contributes the first academic study of US family detention to research on kinship, citizenship, security, geopolitics, and immigration enforcement

Who\u27s Swallowing the Bitter Pill ?: Reforming Write-Offs in the State of Washington

Washington’s application of the collateral source rule permits recovery for medical expenses that were never incurred and have no relationship to their market value. This application is set forth in Hayes v. Wieber Enterprises, Inc., where the plaintiff sued a restaurant for injuries she sustained from falling down the restaurant’s basement stairs. Why should the collateral source rule compel the defendant in Hayes to pay the original amount billed, $5,800, when the physician accepted$3,300 as payment in full? Is not $3,300 the reasonable or market value of the medical services provided to the plaintiff? This Comment discusses whether Washington should amend its application of the collateral source rule to disallow the recovery of write-offs and whether the amount accepted as payment in full by a medical provider is the reasonable or market value of the services provided

Program Evaluation of a Community-Based Door-Through-Door Medical Escort Service

This report summarizes the program evaluation findings of a Boston-based organization’s Medical Escort program. This “door-through-door” service strives to provide medical transportation, physical assistance, and emotional support to elders on their way to the doctor’s office, during medical appointments and on the way back home again. By offering added assistance the program attempts to remove environmental barriers associated with access to health care. This evaluation combines previously collected program statistics with surveys (32) from program volunteers and phone interviews (78) with recipients