Trends in Youth Drug Behavior in Guam

As a United States territory, the island of Guam is home to 159,358 individuals, including adolescents and young adults. Drug activity among Guamanian youth has increased considerably over the last 20 years. The purpose of this study is to examine trends in drug-related activities and behaviors among adolescents on the island of Guam, using the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) public data set. Participating in drug use, sale, or other distribution during adolescence has been associated with declining grades, dropping out of high school, patterns of criminal activity, and both physical and mental health conditions, making it a concerning public health issue. The 2013 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey shows that 41 percent of youth in Guam reported being offered, sold, or given an illegal drug at school; this is double the national average (CDC, 2015). While we have seen the national average going down since 2001, the rates in Guam have increased by 14 percent since 2001 and, despite these concerning statistics, very little evidence exists to suggest why the burden of illegal drug sale or distribution on school property is higher in Guam than in other parts of the United States and territories. We will explore both school-based and other related drug behaviors reported by the YRBSS dataset from 1995 to 2013. This study is a preliminary effort to a larger study of drug perceptions among youth that will take place in Guam as a part of a faculty-mentored research experience in Summer 2015, partially funded by the Office of Undergraduate Research

Syllabus: College of Natural Sciences, Junior Year Writing

CNS JYW is a multidisciplinary professional writing course. Every discipline comes complete with instructions on how to think, talk, and write in order to act like a member of that discipline and to recognize and comprehend others within that field. This writing course brings these distinctions to life by focusing on both formal and informal argumentative and technical writing for different genres and audiences. Writing intensive, the course presents the methods of inquiry, evidentiary procedures, genres, and text conventions that characterize the way scholars and professionals craft written texts. The course reinforces college-level vocabulary, critical analysis, and textual evidence and referencing strategies, and extends their application to specific concerns and practices within the disciplines encompassed by the College of Natural Sciences. To support students’ research and referencing, the course reinforces and extends technology and information-based literacies introduced in previously required writing courses

A New Standard of Review in Free Exercise Cases: Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment & Security Division

In Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division, the United States Supreme Court was called upon to clarify the appropriate level of review to be applied in cases which examine the first amendment right to free exercise of religion. The Court ruled that the compelling state interest test is the proper standard to be used. The Court also accorded first amendment protection to beliefs which are not shared by other members of a religious group and which are instead the unique interpretation of an individual member and not acceptable, logical, consistent or comprehensible to others

Change and Standardization in Anyang: Writing and Culture in Bronze Age China

This dissertation is particularly concerned with various changes that occurred over roughly the last two centuries of the Shang period, that is, during the Anyang period, which stretches from approximately 1250 BCE to approximately 1050 BCE. This period, which begins just before the earliest evidence for writing in what is now China and stretches until the fall of the last Shang king, contains the entirety of the recorded history of the Shang dynasty. After discussing the dating of Shang oracle-bone inscriptions, I first address changes in Shang writing, demonstrating that it becomes increasingly regularized over the period. The earliest examples of Shang writing, especially those dating from the reign of king Wu Ding, show high levels of graphic and linguistic variation—that is, graphs/words are written differently from one inscription to the next, syntax is sometimes inconsistent, and aspects like text direction vary wildly; additionally, the semantic content of these inscriptions is far more diverse than is the case toward the end of the period. Using this apparent regularization as a backdrop, I address the Shang’s changing relationships with certain non-Shang peoples, especially those known as the fang-countries. Palaeographical materials are primarily drawn from the Shang, but later periods also provide useful examples of the kinds of processes at work, and I pay special attention to early examples of Chinese writing found outside Anyang. I focus on the newest collection of scientifically excavated Shang inscriptions, Yinxu Xiaotun cun zhong cun nan jiagu (Oracle bones from the center and south of Xiaotun village in the Wastes of Yin), published in 2012. Compared to other collections, relatively little work has been done on this one, and it happens to contain many inscriptions especially relevant to some of the questions under discussion, from issues of dating to the Shang’s relationships with other peoples. While other corpora of Shang oracle-bone inscriptions are also essential to this project, this newest collection is its foundation. The second part of this dissertation presents a transcription of the entire collection, together with a full English translation, its first ever into another language