Federalism, Liberty, and Equality in United States v. Windsor

This essay argues that federalism played a profoundly important role in the Supreme Court\u27s decision in United States v. Windsor, which struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Arguments to the contrary have failed to appreciate how Justice Kennedy\u27s opinion employed federalism not as a freestanding argument but as an essential component of his rights analysis. Far from being a muddle, as many have claimed, Justice Kennedy\u27s analysis offered one of the most sophisticated examples to date of the interconnections between federalism, liberty, and equality

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationGenetic testing for pathogenic variants resulting in increased breast cancer susceptibility is a useful tool in the clinic when determining the medical management of individuals with family histories of breast cancer. Once a pathogenic variant has been identified, healthy biological relatives can be testing for the pathogenic variant, and carriers can benefit from preemptive medical or surgical risk reduction strategies. Eligibility for genetic testing can be complicated; incorporating ages of onset for cancer diagnosis (≤ 50 years, for most cancers), cancer incidence across multiple generations, or biological relatives with multiple diagnoses of primary cancers. Recent advancements in technology, notably next-generation sequencing (NGS) applications in the clinic, have allowed the detection of pathogenic variants in a selection or panel of genes. This increased clinical sensitivity has increased the ability to identify those at increased risk for cancer, as well as the need to understand the genes and variants involved. Missense substitutions constitute an appreciable fraction of the burden of pathogenic variants, but are difficult to interpret. Many missense analysis programs have been developed as tools to estimate the deleteriousness of variants. Gene panels for cancer susceptibility include genes with differing levels of associated risk. For breast cancer panels, the high-risk genes include BRCA1, BRCA2, PALB2, and TP53. Carriers of pathogenic variants in high-risk breast cancer susceptibility genes have clear guidelines for clinicians. In order to determine the percentage of women impacted by pathogenic variants in moderate-risk breast cancer genes, variants in nine moderate-risk breast cancer susceptibility genes from previously published studies were graded for severity via frequency, protein location, and in silico predictions from Align-GVGD, MAPP, CADD, and Polyphen-2. Potentially pathogenic rare variants were grouped until an acceptable stratification for variants of uncertain significance (VUS) was established. We observed that 7.5% of early-onset breast cancer cases- versus 2.4% controls, were estimated to carry a medically actionable variant in at least one of the nine moderate-risk breast cancer genes. Genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (HBOC) and colorectal cancer (CRC) susceptibility have been shown to play a role in pancreatic cancer susceptibility. Germline genetic testing of pancreatic cancer cases could be beneficial for at-risk relatives with pathogenic variants in established HBOC and CRC genes. In pancreatic cancer cases ascertained at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital, but unselected for family history, 7.6-8.5% carried a variant that would alter the screening recommendations for at-risk relatives. A meta-analysis including additional published studies revealed that approximately 11.9% of unselected pancreatic cancer cases carry a pathogenic variant in HBOC or CRC susceptibility genes. The inclusion of both HBOC and CRC susceptibility genes in a panel test for pancreatic cancer cases finds a high enough percentage of carriers to rationalize genetic testing of these patients for HBOC and CRC susceptibility

Controls on reservoir character in carbonate-chert strata, Mississippian (Osagean-Meramecian), southeast Kansas

Osagean-Meramecian strata in southeast Kansas were investigated to determine structural, relative sea level, diagenetic, and depositional controls on stratigraphy, lithofacies distribution, and reservoir character. Lithofacies include echinoderm-rich bioclastic wacke-packstone, sponge-spicule-rich packstone, dolomitic bioclastic wackestone, argillaceous dolomite, tripolitic chert, and chert breccia. Four cores are used to construct a ten-mile long southwest-northeast cross section, which assists in interpretation of three genetic units. Paragenesis reveals that early and late dissolution enhance porosity in chert. Fluid inclusion microthermometry from megaquartz and baroque dolomite reveals variable but increasing homogenization temperatures (70˚C-160˚C) that increase in salinity through time. Data indicate that reservoir character is an interplay of depositional through late diagenetic events. The best reservoirs may be controlled by depositional setting that led to large amounts of chert and carbonate grains in grain support, alteration associated with subaerial exposure, and a hydrologic and structural setting that led to enhanced hydrothermal fluid flow for later dissolution

An investigation of technology mediation in interdisciplinary research within Higher Education

There has been a growing awareness of interdisciplinary collaboration as a means of addressing new challenges within academic research, and digital technology has been a core underlying support in these endeavours (Scanlon et al., 2013, p.49; Haythornthwaite et al., 2003, p.144). ‘Digital technologies will be a core aspect of interaction and cooperation between different fields of expertise’ (Costa, 2011, p.84). This paper investigates the process of technology-mediated knowledge co-production in interdisciplinary research in Higher Education, and explores how researchers from different disciplines appropriate technology to break down disciplinary boundaries. Through the presentation of findings from a collective case study of two interdisciplinary research projects based at the University of Oxford - the Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions Project (AshLi) and Poetry Visualisation: Imagery Lens for Visualising Text Corpora (PVis) - this paper aims to challenge conventional approaches to investigating the use of technology in interdisciplinary scholarship, responding to the paucity of research at the intersection of interdisciplinarity, collaborative research and technology in academia. Findings from interviews with academic researchers, and a visual analysis of project artefacts, elucidate a mutually shaping relationship between innovative research technologies and new interdisciplinary research practices. Technology can be constructed through the integration of disciplinary perspectives. Researchers from different disciplines both adopt and adapt technologies, and through these processes, disciplinary boundaries are broken down, and knowledge is co-created. This iterative process of mutual shaping assumes different nuances according to the disciplinary ‘make-up’ of a project, the technologies involved, and the ways in which the researchers appropriate technologies according to their disciplinary backgrounds. Using the social construction of technology (SCOT) as a theoretical framework illuminates researchers’ diverse perceptions of technologies and interdisciplinary practices, and highlights the importance of interpretation in the use of technology within these contexts. This paper contributes to the area of networked learning by highlighting that collaboration around research technologies has not been explored very much in the field, nor has the potential for building on other concepts from the area of science and technology studies (STS) such as Actor-Network Theory (Clough et al., 2010; Adams and Thompson, 2014). In this way, the findings hold broad implications for substantive promotion of a more nuanced view of modern interdisciplinary practices

CUL Mentoring Committee Annual Report 2013-2014

The mission of the CUL Mentoring Committee is to facilitate and support the development of mentoring opportunities for all interested staff members. This is the Annual Report of the Committee for the period of 2013-2014

Use of Psychological Skills by Risk Sport Athletes

Psychological skills can help athletes maximize their physical skills (Smith, Schutz, Smoll, & Ptacek, 1995) and overcome sport-related adversity. These skills may be especially beneficial to athletes performing within natural and unstable risk sport environments. The current study assessed psychological skills among risk sport athletes (N = 232) and the impact of experience on the use of such skills. Risk sport athletes of varying degrees of experience completed a modified version of the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory (ACSI; Smith et al., 1995). Risk sport athletes exceeded the midpoint on all of the ACSI subscales, indicating psychological skills usage. Experienced athletes scored significantly higher (p \u3c .05) on three of the subscales and the total score, then leisure and novice athletes. These findings suggest the use of psychological skills within unpredictable and dynamic risk sport environments

An Examination of the Sufficiency of Small Qualitative Samples

These findings suggest that under some study conditions, rich qualitative findings can be discovered with relatively small sample sizes. Further determining the parameters under which this applies would be helpful to researchers and research participants alike. Most efforts thus far have been done with studies relying on individual interviews, and many are within the medical field. In addition, examinations of minimal required sample sizes that examine available interviews once, in the order they were collected, raise concerns about possible temporal bias. We sought to examine the minimum sample sizes needed to adequately include the themes and codes in areas of inquiry within the field of social work. Considering three distinct qualitative research studies inclusive of both individual interviewing and focus group data collection approaches, we addressed four research questions: (1) What minimum sample size is needed to adequately identify codes (smaller units of meaning) within the data? (2) What minimum sample size is needed to ensure that all larger themes are partially represented by at least one of the codes that comprise that theme? (3) What minimum sample size is needed to fully realize the complete dimensionality of all themes by including all assigned codes? (4) Are minimum sample sizes needed consistent across different substantive areas of exploration and different modes of data collection, specifically individual interviews and focus groups? To address temporal bias, we addressed these questions by examining multiple random draws of various sample sizes within each included qualitative study

Empirical Challenges to Studying Terrorism and Homicide

The study of terrorism has bridged multiple scholarly domains. Terrorism is discussed within political science as a form of political violence (Crenshaw 1981) related to civil conflict (Findley and Young 2012) and interstate war (Findley, Piazza, and Young 2012). Terrorism is studied within criminology as a form of criminal violence along with homicide and assault, and under political crime as a form of oppositional action put alongside sedition and treason (J.I. Ross 2006). In scholarly work, it is becoming increasingly more common to see works on terrorism connected to political violence (e.g., Thomas 2014) or political crimes (e.g., Chermak, Freilich, and Suttmoeller 2013), but less so with other forms of crime (e.g., Mullins and Young 2012). How is studying homicide different from studying terrorism? And how is it similar? The term terrorism evokes images of 9/11, the Boston Bombing, or other grizzly attacks committed for an ideological reason. Conversely, the term homicide brings to mind shootings on the streets or in one’s home, generally for personal reasons. At first glance, these two concepts may not appear connected to one another. LaFree and Dugan (2004), for instance, explore the relationship between terrorism and crime, including homicide, and suggest a long list of affinities and differences. While their investigation is theoretical, this chapter provides an empirical approach. We use standard modeling approaches from the homicide and terrorism literatures to predict each outcome cross‐nationally. Potentially surprising to some who feel these are wholly distinct phenomena, we find more similarities than differences between the factors that predict each. In what follows, we discuss the issues with defining, operationalizing, and measuring both terrorism and homicide, and challenges with finding valid and reliable cross‐national data on both. We discuss the cross‐national study of both terrorism and homicide, including their similarities, differences, and what lessons could be learned from the study of other cross‐national forms of political violence. We then use cross‐national data to see if models of homicide can predict terrorist attacks and vice versa. We conclude with a discussion of the replication results, research that blends violence types, and future research directions