East of Eden: A Contractual Lens for an Unsettled Area of First Amendment Shunning Jurisprudence

The Free Exercise Clause was enacted for the purpose of protecting diverse modes of religious practice. One practice that numerous religious traditions observe is shunning—the expulsion and social exclusion of noncompliant individuals from a religious community. Yet because shunning usually involves concomitant harm to religious congregants, plaintiffs often bring religious-tort claims against religious entities for the injuries they suffer. This implicates free-exercise concerns for both the plaintiff and the religious-entity defendant. Despite the utmost importance of religious freedom in American jurisprudence, courts analyze religious-tort claims in widely disparate ways. And they typically rely on consent and membership as the basis for judicial decisionmaking. But these analytical lenses are flimsy and lead to unpredictable outcomes. At times, they are underprotective of religious plaintiffs; at others, they penalize religious entities and chill religious practices. In order to clarify a muddled sphere of free-exercise jurisprudence, courts should adopt a contract paradigm for analyzing shunning claims. A contract paradigm would lead to cleaner results and would uphold the integrity of religious institutions, which are necessary for religious individuals to thrive

A Masterpiece of Simplicity: Toward a Yoderian Free Exercise Framework for Wedding-Vendor Cases

The Free Exercise Clause was enacted to protect diverse modes of religious practice. Yet certain expressions of free exercise have entailed concomitant harm to those outside the religious community, especially LGBTQ persons. This trend has been acutely present in the recent onslaught of wedding-vendor cases: LGBTQ persons seek the enforcement of statutorily protected rights, while religious objectors seek refuge from state intrusion under constitutional shelter. Consequently, wedding-vendor cases present an area of law in which free-exercise jurisprudence and anti-discrimination jurisprudence have been clashing. However, despite the primacy of religious freedom and equal protection in American jurisprudence, courts analyze wedding-vendor cases in widely disparate ways. At times, they are under-protective of members of the LGBTQ community; at others, they penalize wedding-vendors and chill longstanding religious practices. Thus, the prevailing analytical paradigms are flimsy and lead to unpredictable outcomes. This deficiency came to light as the Supreme Court addressed these complex legal issues in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. There, the Masterpiece Court’s holding is diffident and provides scant guidance to the lower courts in which these cases continue to percolate. Yet Masterpiece’s significance has been broadly misconstrued by commentators. Therefore, in order to clarify a muddled sphere of free-exercise and anti-discrimination jurisprudence, this Article’s task is twofold. First, it provides an interpretive lens for Masterpiece that is in tension with the general body of commentary surrounding the decision. Far from a victory for religious rights advocates, Masterpiece portended a path to analyzing free exercise claims according to a paradigm that disfavors religious liberties (if its line of reasoning persists). This Article’s second task is to advance a framework for analyzing wedding-vendor cases. This framework employs objective criteria from Wisconsin v. Yoder when examining requests of religious exemption to public accommodations laws—an approach that has fallen into judicial disuse given its ostensible burden on free exercise. Then, after Yoderian vetting criteria are satisfied, this framework allows for a narrow exception to small business owners that can demonstrate their religious practices’ rootedness in a longstanding religious tradition. This template would cause multiple parties to cede ground and reduce some of the strongest tensions in this area of law. As such, it would strike a more prudent balance between the dignitary rights of LGBTQ persons and the free-exercise rights of religious objectors

La Vida Nueva: Detainees, Arkansans, And Libertad During the Cuban Refugee Crisis of 1980-1983

Fort Chaffee, Arkansas and the surrounding communities were at the center of racial discrimination throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The area also serves as a case study for the treatment of Cubans during the Mariel Boatlift in the United States between 1980 and 1982. This thesis argues that Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, and other military bases across the United States served as a transitional space during the Mariel Boatlift that separated Cuban identities from fearful communities that continually fought against the different racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual identities of the Marielitos. An examination of the surrounding community, government officials, and the Cuban refugees highlights the intersections of these three perspectives

Investigating Emerging Bilingual Learner Related Field Experiences in School Psychology Graduate Training

There is limited research regarding school psychology field and practicum experiences that are devoted to developing skills related to emergent bilingual learners (EBL). This study attempted to better understand what types of EBL-related field and practicum experiences are most influential in preparing school psychologists to feel confident in their ability to provide school psychological services to EBL students. One hundred thirty-five practicing school psychologists were surveyed using a questionnaire focused on the types of EBL-related field and practicum experiences commonly found in exemplary multiculturally-focused school psychology graduate programs and practitioners’ perceptions of their ability to provide a number of services to EBL students. Results of this study suggest that structured EBL-related field and practicum experiences are most influential in school psychologists’ perceptions of preparedness and confidence providing services to EBL students. Additional factors were investigated (e.g., exposure to EBL students in practicum) and were also found to be influential

The Effect of Bedslide Report on Patient Satisfaction

https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/student_scholarship_posters/1095/thumbnail.jp

FAULT DETECTION AND DIAGNOSIS METHODS FOR RESIDENTIAL AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEMS USING CLOUD-BASED DATA

Buildings account for nearly 40% of total energy consumption and nearly 75% of electrical energy consumption in the United States, and a significant portion of this energy consumption is due to the heating and cooling systems. Both commercial and residential heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are prone to faults that degrade performance and increase energy consumption. Furthermore, these systems are robust to faults in that they will operate with faults present for an extended period of time and will often continue to maintain a comfortable indoor environment. While considerable work has been devoted to developing fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) strategies for large and small commercial systems, relatively little has been done specifically for residential systems. This research presents novel FDD methods developed specifically for residential air conditioning systems. By using a novel set of virtual sensing methods, the proposed methodology eliminates the need for installing sensors on the outdoor unit. This is a significant advantage for residential ‘split’ air conditioning systems because installing sensors on both the indoor and outdoor units increases the complexity and cost of the data acquisition system. In addition to the proposed set of virtual sensors, this research provides solutions to two other problems that arise when implementing FDD methods on field-operating systems. (1) While most FDD methods use static models and rely on steady state analysis, field-operating systems often will not achieve steady state operation. This research provides a method for predicting the equilibrium operating point for many air conditioning parameters while the system is still in a transient response. This enables the equilibrium point to be determined before steady state operation has been achieved, and thus a static analysis may be performed without the system reaching steady state. (2) Existing change-point detection methods that could be used for detecting faults are impractical to implement on a large scale because they may require a priori knowledge, extensive tuning, or high computational loads. This research proposes a change-point detection algorithm for the purpose of fault detection which requires minimal assumptions, tuning, and computation. This change-point detection algorithm is suitable for deployment across many different systems simultaneously. In addition to the solutions outlined above for performing FDD using installed sensors, this research also proposes methods for performing fault detection and diagnose using only thermostat data. While a full strategy for thermostat data is not presented, crucial preprocessing methods that more complete methods will be built on are presented in detail. Nearly all of the data analyzed for each method described in this study uses event-based data uploaded in real-time to a cloud-based database and then queried and analyzed to perform FDD

CAPSTONE: Recovery & Operations of a Tumbling Small Satellite in Deep Space

The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) satellite, deployed in July 2022, experienced a thruster anomaly in September 2022 during its Ballistic Lunar Transfer (BLT) into the Earth-Moon L2 Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO). CAPSTONE\u27s primary mission objective to achieve and maintain NRHO serves to validate the cislunar CONOPS contemplated for NASA\u27s Lunar Gateway. Terran Orbital designed and built CAPSTONE, and serves as the operator of the on-orbit spacecraft. Advanced Space owns and operates the CAPSTONE payload and its software on behalf of NASA, as well as performs mission navigation and maneuver design. This 12U+ lunar nanosatellite contains a pump-fed hydrazine propulsion system from Stellar Exploration, enabling all orbital maneuvers and momentum management for the mission. The CAPSTONE mission is funded by the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) through the Small Spacecraft Technology program, and by the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) through the Advanced Exploration Systems program. This paper will examine the timeline, innovation, and steps taken by the spacecraft team to recover the vehicle from the thruster anomaly and the resulting high-rate tumble. The high-rate tumble was induced by a valve which became stuck open at the conclusion of Trajectory Correction Maneuver 3 (TCM-3). The timeline discussion includes initial autonomous fault recovery, the evolution of the state of the vehicle, and the recovery actions taken by a small, agile engineering team. The off-nominal attitude and thermal state was determined from a limited data set, requiring the largest assets in NASA\u27s Deep Space Network (DSN) to support communications with the vehicle. Once a determination was made that the hydrazine propellant was freezing, an assessment was made on the minimum amount of heat required to thaw propellant without placing the spacecraft in a power-negative state. The integrated spacecraft team performed root cause analysis and incrementally tested the propulsion system to recommission it in the face of an anomalous thruster valve. The recommissioning approach eventually lead to the development of a new propulsive state machine and Guidance Navigation and Control (GNC) thruster controller for detumbling. After recovering 3-axis attitude control, power and thermal stability, and establishing nominal communications, significant development and testing was required to ensure the vehicle could operate in the presence of a continued thruster anomaly. This effort enabled CAPSTONE to execute future propulsive maneuvers with an open thruster valve. The resultant updates were tested on Terran Orbital\u27s Hardware-in-the-Loop (HITL) platform in partnership with Stellar Exploration. A comparison of GNC subsystem requirements will be presented pre-and post-anomaly, based on the resulting capability and restrictions of the propulsion system to meet mission objectives. Ultimately, the spacecraft was successfully recovered from body rates exceeding 120 deg/s, allowing the CAPSTONE spacecraft to continue its mission, including successful insertion into NRHO in November 2022. An examination of the lessons learned for future deep space small satellite missions is also discussed herein

The Incidence of Breast Cancer among Disabled Kansans with Medicare

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer disparities by disability status are poorly understood. While previous studies have shown increased odds of late stage at diagnosis, it is unclear whether the incidence of breast cancer varies by disability status. METHODS: To assess cancer incidence and stage at diagnosis among disabled and nondisabled Medicare beneficiaries in Kansas, a retrospective cohort study was conducted using linked Medicare enrollment and Kansas Cancer Registry data from 2007 to 2009. Disability status was determined by the indicator for the original reason for Medicare eligibility. RESULTS: Among the 651,337 Medicare beneficiaries included in the cohort, there were 2,384 cases of breast cancer. The age-adjusted incidence was 313 per 100,000 among female beneficiaries with disabilities and 369 per 100,000 among nondisabled female beneficiaries. The adjusted incidence rate ratio was 0.93 (95% CI 0.73-1.18). When assessing stage at diagnosis, there was no difference in the odds of late stage at diagnosis by disability status (OR = 1.02; 95% CI 0.68-1.50). CONCLUSION: No significant difference in incidence or stage at diagnosis was identified among this cohort. The use of Medicare eligibility to define disability status presented a number of limitations. Future studies should seek alternate definitions of disability to assess disparities in breast cancer incidence, including definitions using Medicare claims data