Re-Envisioning Law Student Scholarship

This Article recommends that we think more intentionally about how law students’ engagement in scholarship can promote their professional development. In so doing, we should recognize that legal scholarship plays a different role for law students than it does for law professors. Rather than trying to replicate law professors’ relationship with scholarship, the pedagogy of law student scholarship should focus more intentionally on the value of scholarship for law students—most of whom will not become law professors. This Article suggests that much of the value of scholarship for law students lies in process, rather than product. Rather than thinking of process largely as a means to the end of students’ creation of a traditional scholarly paper, process should be appreciated for the valuable role that it can play in students’ professional development. The Article offers examples of ways to re-focus attention on the process of scholarship, with a particular focus on topic selection and reflection, to promote the role of scholarly engagement in students’ professional development. In addition, the Article suggests taking advantage of the scholarly freedom that law students have to think creatively about the products of the scholarly process, in order to enable students to both devote more time to the process itself and engage in projects that have more meaning to them

The Effects of Vestibular Stimulation Rate and Magnitude of Acceleration on Central Pattern Generation for Chest-Wall Kinematics in Preterm Infants.

The vestibular system of the fetus is responsive to accelerations in utero by 25 weeks gestational age (Hooker, 1969). However, the restrictive environment of the crib/isolette in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and decreased positional changes limits vestibular experience and associated neural activity among preterm infants. This project was developed to test a set of hypotheses concerning the role of vestibular inputs on respiratory and oromotor systems during suck and early feeding development in preterm infants. Linear acceleration of the vestibular otoliths was achieved using a customized glider chair, the VestibuGlide System, developed in the Communication Neuroscience Laboratories at the University of Kansas. The VestibuGlide system features an integrated position-servo motor and a digital controller to generate physiologically appropriate sinusoidal displacements of the glider chair in the horizontal plane at specified rates (.5, .65, .8, .95 Hz) and accelerations (.21, .36, and .51 m/s2). It was hypothesized that providing this type of input to the vestibular apparatus will modify the central patterning of chest wall motion, and secondarily may alter suck and feed development during a critical period of brain development. Twelve preterm infants (7F/5M, birth GA 32; 6, BW 1927g) were recruited from the NICU at Stormont-Vail Regional Hospital in Topeka. Each infant received the 15 minute gliding protocol starting at 32 wks PMA, 3x/day before a scheduled feed for 10 days. Infants were fitted with two soft cloth Respitrace¢â inductance bands around the rib cage and abdomen to measure respiratory rate. The gliding protocol alternates between baseline and stimulus conditions every minute. During baseline conditions, the glider chair was stationary. Respiration, suck dynamics, and pulse-oximetry were recorded and monitored throughout the study. On average, infants received 24 VestibuGlide sessions. Stimulus condition had a significant effect for the in rib cage [F (7, 77) = 25.53, p < 0.01] and abdominal [F (7, 77) = 23.60, p < 0.01] breaths per minute (BPM). In general, infants increased their respiratory rate in response to the VestibuGlide stimulus. Stimulus number 7 provided the highest acceleration to the infant and induced significantly higher BPM than stimuli 1, 4, and 5 for the rib cage and stimuli 1 and 4 for the abdomen. It is clear that acceleration has the largest influence over the respiratory central pattern generator (rCPG) and is capable of inducing significant changes in chest wall kinematics. In spite of the increases in BPM during vestibular stimulation, infants maintained stable oxygen saturation (SpO2) and pulse rate throughout the VestibuGlide study. In fact, stimulus condition had a significant effect on SpO2, F (7, 77) = 2.57, p <.05. Infants had higher SpO2 during stimulus conditions 3, 4, and 6 compared to baseline conditions; however, after a Bonferroni-correction these differences could not reach statistical significance. Infants are able to modify their respiratory rate in response to vestibular stimulus while maintaining their SpO2and pulse. All infants were offered a Soothie¢â pacifier during each VestibuGlide session. Vestibular stimulation had no effect on NNS development. Oral feeds were measured in days to achieve ¡Ã90% oral feed for two consecutive days. A daily oral feed percentage was calculated across the eight daily feeds for all infants in the study and was compared to a cohort of 12 untreated preterm infants matched for birth GA (n=12, 7F/5M, GA 33; 2, BW 1950g) from an ongoing NIH trial underway in the mentor¡¯s laboratory (NIH R01 DC003311, Barlow-PI) recruited from Stormont-Vail Healthcare NICU in Topeka, KS and Overland Park Regional Medical Center NICU in Overland Park, KS. ANOVA revealed no difference in the oral feed growth slopes between the VestibuGlide treated infants and the control infants: F (1, 22) = .25, p =.625. On average, VestibuGlide infants advanced their oral feeds at 8.17% per day; whereas, control infants advanced their oral feeds at 9.47% per day. The length of stay in the NICU was measured from the admission date (birth date) to the discharge date for all infants in the VestibuGlide study and 15 untreated preterm control infants matched for birth GA (n=15 8F/7M, GA 32; 5, BW 1888g). ANOVA revealed a significant difference between the two groups F (1, 26) = 4.82, p=.03. The VestibuGlide group discharged from the hospital 9 days sooner than the control infants resulting in a substantial reduction in hospitalization costs (~$31,500/infant). Overall, vestibular stimulation delivered to the preterm infant between 32 and 34 weeks PMA effectively modulates respiratory rate and resets the rCPG

Identifying opportunities for co-production of commodities and water quality improvements in agricultural landscapes in the US Cornbelt

One of the most striking features of the US Cornbelt is the degree to which it has been designed, constructed, and intricately managed by humans for the production of agricultural products – primarily row-crop corn and soybeans. The production of provisioning ecosystem services, such as row-crop corn and soybeans, often comes at a tradeoff to other ecosystem services, such as enhanced water quality for aquatic life, recreation, and human consumption. Best management practices (BMPs) are tools that landowners can implement and manage as a way to co-produce row-crop corn and soybeans and enhanced water quality in extensively managed agricultural landscapes. Yet, selecting how and where to locate BMPs to impact aggregate ecosystem service outcomes, such as enhanced water quality, is a complex decision-making process that often involves multiple stakeholders and objectives. This research evaluates opportunities to improve the efficiency of BMP placement and management within and among crop fields and within watersheds to co-produce provisioning and regulating ecosystem services (ES), specifically row-crop corn and soybeans and enhanced water quality, in the US Cornbelt. This dissertation includes three distinct studies across three, nested scales (sub-field, field, and watershed) to examine environmental, economic, and social opportunities and tradeoffs associated with the implementation and management of BMPs designed to reduce nitrate loss to surface waters in central Iowa. To assess nitrate-nitrogen (hereafter nitrate) retention in vegetative BMPs, the relationship between nitrate retention and plant species composition was examined in nine different monocultural and polycultural communities in a plot-based experiment. Results show a small, but significant difference between monocultural and polycultural plant communities in their ability to retain nitrate. On average, polycultural communities retained 31.5% (95% CI – 1.0%, 53.2%) more nitrate than monocultural communities. This difference was driven largely by alfalfa, which was planted as a monoculture in this experiment; alfalfa retained 63.0% (95% CI – 32.9%, 80.0%) less nitrate than the polycultural communities. Among polycultural communities, which varied in species richness (2-14 species per community), no impact was found of plant diversity on nitrate retention. To understand farmers’ and farmland owners’ willingness to participate in new spatially targeted conservation planning frameworks designed to increase BMP efficacy, 18 farmers and farmland owners whose fields were identified via a spatial targeting technique focusing on soil and nutrient loss were interviewed in two watersheds in central Iowa. Results suggest that farmers and farmland owners often recognized the importance of producing a diverse suite of on- and off-farm ecosystem services, but lacked the context, information, certainty, and incentives to manage for them. Farmers and farmland owners were receptive to using technologies to target BMPs to areas with known resource concerns, but expressed concerns about applications in their fields, and perceived challenges related to cost, management complexity, coordination with government programs, and loss of autonomy. For broad acceptance, a spatially targeted conservation approach would need to be paired with expanded partnerships, trusted technical service, and adaptation incentives to reduce farm-level economic tradeoffs. To evaluate the cost and effect on water quality from nitrate loss under spatially targeted alternative land management scenarios, an innovative spatially targeted conservation protocol, coupled with a GIS-based landscape planning tool, was developed, applied, and evaluated in an Iowa watershed. We found large reductions in watershed-level nitrate loss could be achieved through coordinated placement of BMPs on high-contributing parcels with limited reduction of cultivated land, resulting in improved surface water quality at relatively low economic costs. For example, one landscape scenario with wetlands, cover crops, and saturated buffers removed less than 5% of cultivated area and reduced nitrate loss by an estimated 49%, exceeding the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy goal for enhancing water quality. Annualized establishment and management costs of landscape scenarios that met the nonpoint source nitrogen reduction goal in the watershed varied from $3.16 to$3.19 million (2017 USD). These results highlight the potential to minimize land-use tradeoffs by coupling targeted conservation and planning tools to help stakeholders achieve aggregate surface water quality outcomes within agricultural landscapes. Taken cumulatively, this research suggests opportunities for improving the design, implementation, and management of BMPs to produce row-crop corn and soybeans while enhancing water quality in agricultural landscapes. Innovative and purposeful BMP design, stakeholder collaboration, and decision tools, programming, and incentives will be important components of conservation planning and water quality achievements

Grit and Legal Education

One factor that has received much attention in recent years is “grit,” which has been defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” Although grit has been studied in a number of different contexts, grit is understudied in the context of legal education. In light of the existing research regarding grit and performance, and the ongoing interest in law student learning, motivation, and performance, we undertook a research project to investigate the relationship between grit and law school academic performance. Although we hypothesized that grit would be positively related to law school GPA, we did not find a statistically significant relationship (positive or negative) between grit and law school GPA. In addition to examining the relationship between grit and law school GPA, we also conducted exploratory analyses to compare the grit scores of women and men. These analyses indicated a statistically significant difference between the grit levels of female and male participants, with female participants having higher levels of grit. The results of our research project raise questions about the role of grit in legal education and, most importantly, point the way for future research regarding grit, legal education, and law practice. The remainder of this article will discuss our research and the implications of this research. Specifically, Part II of the article situates our research within existing research regarding grit and performance, and regarding the law school experiences of female and male law students. Part III describes the methodology of our research project. Part IV presents the results of the project. Part V of the article discusses these results and the implications of these results. Part V also discusses the limitations of this research and identifies avenues for further research regarding law students and grit. Part VI concludes

Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Defensive Pessimism in Legal Education

This Article presents the results of the first empirical research project to investigate law students’ use of defensive pessimism. Previous researchers have suggested that defensive pessimism may benefit law students academically. Defensive pessimism is a strategy that involves setting low expectations and reflecting extensively on what could go wrong in connection with a future event in order to manage anxiety and improve performance. However, up until now, law students’ use of defensive pessimism has not been empirically studied. We investigated law students’ use of defensive pessimism. Contrary to the suggestions of other scholars, we did not find statistically significant relationships between defensive pessimism and law school academic performance. However, we did find positive relationships between defensive pessimism and neuroticism, and defensive pessimism and perceived stress. These results suggest that legal educators cannot rely exclusively on academic performance to identify students who are in distress. Students may be in distress in law school but that distress may not be manifested in lower academic performance. Moreover, legal educators should be mindful of the different strategies that students’ use in performance situations in order to more constructively interact with law students and better prepare students to work effectively with others who may not necessarily use the same strategies

The Effects of Vestibular Stimulation Rate and Magnitude of Acceleration on Central Pattern Generation for Chest Wall Kinematics in Preterm Infants

Objective—To examine the role of vestibular inputs on respiratory and oromotor systems in healthy preterm infants. Study Design—27 preterm infants were quasi-randomly assigned to either the VestibuGlide treatment or control groups. VestibuGlide infants were held in a developmentally supportive position, given a pacifier and received a series of vestibular stimuli, counterbalanced across rate and acceleration conditions, 15 minutes 3x/day for 10 days. The control infants were also held in a developmentally supportive position, given a pacifier for 15 minutes 3x/day for 10 days but did not receive the VestibuGlide stimulation. Result—A multi-level regression model revealed that treatment infants increased their respiratory rate in response to vestibular stimulus and that the highest level of vestibular acceleration delivered to the infants (0.51 m/s2) resulted in a significant increase in breaths per minute. Conclusion—Vestibular stimulation delivered to preterm infants prior to scheduled feeds effectively modulates respiratory rate and resets the respiratory central pattern generator

The Effects of Vestibular Stimulation Rate and Magnitude of Acceleration on Central Pattern Generation for Chest Wall Kinematics in Preterm Infants

Objective—To examine the role of vestibular inputs on respiratory and oromotor systems in healthy preterm infants. Study Design—27 preterm infants were quasi-randomly assigned to either the VestibuGlide treatment or control groups. VestibuGlide infants were held in a developmentally supportive position, given a pacifier and received a series of vestibular stimuli, counterbalanced across rate and acceleration conditions, 15 minutes 3x/day for 10 days. The control infants were also held in a developmentally supportive position, given a pacifier for 15 minutes 3x/day for 10 days but did not receive the VestibuGlide stimulation. Result—A multi-level regression model revealed that treatment infants increased their respiratory rate in response to vestibular stimulus and that the highest level of vestibular acceleration delivered to the infants (0.51 m/s2) resulted in a significant increase in breaths per minute. Conclusion—Vestibular stimulation delivered to preterm infants prior to scheduled feeds effectively modulates respiratory rate and resets the respiratory central pattern generator