Matching Items (14)
Description
In the last seven years the practice of capital punishment in the United States has been shaken by one of the most unlikely suspects- the prescription drug market. The practice of capital punishment has gone from fervent support to abolishment and back again throughout the nation's history. Over time the process of capital punishment has evolved from public hangings to a secretive medical procedure. The American people have become detached from the act because it is no longer right in front of their face, but often occurs in a small prison room with a viewing window for a select group of witnesses. The modern method of capital punishment is lethal injection- a three-drug protocol that is accepted as the most humane means of executing criminals. The protocol has faced criticism and legal challenges for years. This is in part because the United States stands alone as one of the last westernized democratic nations to regularly execute convicted criminals. European activist groups and government agencies have been fighting for abolishment in the United States for years with little progress. Recently, the activist groups discovered a novel way to make an impact on the capital punishment system in the United States that had not been attempted. The groups appealed to the drug manufacturing companies in Europe and exposed their supply chains to the public. When it was revealed that the drugs these companies produced were ending up in U.S. prisons for executions the companies eventually stopped all sales of execution drugs to U.S. corrections facilities. This led to the European Union banning all exports of drugs for lethal use in 2011. This study will analyze the effects of the lethal injection drug boycott on the death penalty in the United States. Since the ban, death penalty states have been scrambling in order to procure enough drugs to carry out their future executions. They have attempted to obtain the drugs illegally, trade between each other, reinstate older methods of execution, and entirely change their three-drug protocol to incorporate new drugs or less drugs. Executions have dropped both in the number of death sentences handed down and the number of executions. Also, polls analyzing acceptance of the death penalty have shown decreasing support for the practice domestically. Although there are other factors that may have contributed to the decline of capital punishment in the United States, it seems as though the international lethal injection boycott has made the most progress in the shortest amount of time and has the potential to drastically change the future of the death penalty in the United States.
ContributorsFleming, Karlea Paulette (Author) / Herbert, Anne (Thesis director) / Bodansky, Daniel (Committee member) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
My interest in this topic began last summer when I was fortunate enough to travel to Tomatin, Honduras on a microfinance mission with the organization Global Brigades. Microfinance previously an unknown concept to me, but once I saw the effect it had on the lives of those in need, I was immediately sold on its effectiveness. Microfinance stems from the field of developmental aid. While generally understood as one of the most powerful weapons in the fight against poverty, question as to which methods and techniques are the most effective are still unanswered. It is the goal of my thesis to examine the research in the area of microfinance, reveal the most effective methods, and apply these findings to improve the structure of the Global Brigade microfinance institution in Tomatin.
ContributorsZurek, Joseph William (Author) / Mendez, Jose (Thesis director) / Herbert, Anne (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
There is a growing body of scientific evidence that the health of the microbiome (the trillions of microbes that inhabit the human host) plays an important role in maintaining the health of the host and that disruptions in the microbiome may play a role in certain disease processes. An increasing number of research studies have provided evidence that the composition of the gut (enteric) microbiome (GM) in at least a subset of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) deviates from what is usually observed in typically developing individuals. There are several lines of research that suggest that specific changes in the GM could be causative or highly associated with driving core and associated ASD symptoms, pathology, and comorbidities which include gastrointestinal symptoms, although it is also a possibility that these changes, in whole or in part, could be a consequence of underlying pathophysiological features associated with ASD. However, if the GM truly plays a causative role in ASD, then the manipulation of the GM could potentially be leveraged as a therapeutic approach to improve ASD symptoms and/or comorbidities, including gastrointestinal symptoms.
One approach to investigating this possibility in greater detail includes a highly controlled clinical trial in which the GM is systematically manipulated to determine its significance in individuals with ASD. To outline the important issues that would be required to design such a study, a group of clinicians, research scientists, and parents of children with ASD participated in an interdisciplinary daylong workshop as an extension of the 1st International Symposium on the Microbiome in Health and Disease with a Special Focus on Autism (www.microbiome-autism.com). The group considered several aspects of designing clinical studies, including clinical trial design, treatments that could potentially be used in a clinical trial, appropriate ASD participants for the clinical trial, behavioral and cognitive assessments, important biomarkers, safety concerns, and ethical considerations. Overall, the group not only felt that this was a promising area of research for the ASD population and a promising avenue for potential treatment but also felt that further basic and translational research was needed to clarify the clinical utility of such treatments and to elucidate possible mechanisms responsible for a clinical response, so that new treatments and approaches may be discovered and/or fostered in the future.
ContributorsFrye, Richard E. (Author) / Slattery, John (Author) / MacFabe, Derrick F. (Author) / Allen-Vercoe, Emma (Author) / Parker, William (Author) / Rodakis, John (Author) / Adams, James (Author) / Krajmalnik-Brown, Rosa (Author) / Bolte, Ellen (Author) / Kahler, Stephen (Author) / Jennings, Jana (Author) / James, Jill (Author) / Cerniglia, Carl E. (Author) / Midtvedt, Tore (Author) / Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering (Contributor)
Created2015-05-07
Description
This creative project was designed to highlight the good that can come from playing video games using From Software's "Dark Souls" as a case study.In this project, I analyse "Dark Souls" as an allegory for depression, examining how the story, game play and level design all create a mindset in the game's players similar to that of those experiencing depression. I then discuss how certain aspects of the game, including level design, the game mechanics used to handle in-game death, and the passive multiplayer systems, all combine in order to encourage the player to stay engaged with the game and believing in the possibility of success. Via these systems, I believe that in creating "Dark Souls" From Software made an experience in which those grappling with depression can practice the techniques most useful in combating depression in a safe environment. Finally, I discuss the ways that "Dark Souls" designers emotionally affect those playing their game using techniques that are unavailable to other media. I highlight these storytelling devices, and explain why they are either best utilized by or only viable in video games as an example of what unique abilities gaming has as a cultural storytelling medium. I also explore solutions for discussing video game mechanics and game play with a non-gaming audience, utilizing game play recordings to provide examples of the discussed game play mechanics. These techniques can be viewed in the attached video.
ContributorsPalmer, Chad Raymond (Author) / McMahon, Jeff (Thesis director) / Hunt, Kristen (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
Thomas Otway’s Classic, A Plot Discovered through my own theatrical adaptive process: an exploration of the relationship between power, gender, drugs, music, love, and violence. Conceptually, the piece was adapted into two worlds. The first, a blatant, elizabethan, contrastingly intense world of realism. The second, a black light neon fueled frenzy of storytelling through song and choreographed movement. The presence of these two worlds living side by side resulting in a deeper look at the effect of drug use on how we perceive our social, political, economic, and emotional climates. The proposed (and completed) time frame for adaption of the play is two semesters, followed by a semester of pre production, casting, designing, directing, and producing. The show went up in the Prism Theatre through Binary Theatre Company April 12th, 14th, and 15th, with an extension to the next weekend by popular demand.
The purpose of this project stands: An idea that sparks a passion, idea, or question in the audience that ties directly into our current political discussion, while remaining integral to the academic world, serving as one of the most concentrated locations of permission to think openly and ask difficult questions. A Plot Discovered in particular achieves this by asking what it means to have power and to not, to be a man in another man’s world, to be a woman in any man’s world, to be neither really man or woman but somewhere in between, the consequences of dictatorship and revolution, why the human condition loves to get high, as well as the devotion and blindness of love on three different levels: friendship, romance, and family. These themes serve the script as it was written in all three of the applied timelines (it’s original 1600s, the adapted 1970s, and our current) leading to the biggest question of them all, do we as humans really evolve or is it a mere illusion painted by our ability to enhance the environment around us?
The desire to adapt A Plot Discovered came during a conversation with my peers during a semester spent studying classical drama at Oxford University. As we debated the themes of the play, a guitarist played post Vietnam War era music in the street below echoing up the cobblestone street and entering our dining hall window. The result was an artistic revelation that would drive my passion into this project for the next two years. Rewriting, designing, casting, directing, and reflecting upon A Plot Discovered has proved not only the most difficult but also the most rewarding event within my undergraduate studies.
View A Plot Discovered miniature documentary here: https://vimeo.com/325355612
The purpose of this project stands: An idea that sparks a passion, idea, or question in the audience that ties directly into our current political discussion, while remaining integral to the academic world, serving as one of the most concentrated locations of permission to think openly and ask difficult questions. A Plot Discovered in particular achieves this by asking what it means to have power and to not, to be a man in another man’s world, to be a woman in any man’s world, to be neither really man or woman but somewhere in between, the consequences of dictatorship and revolution, why the human condition loves to get high, as well as the devotion and blindness of love on three different levels: friendship, romance, and family. These themes serve the script as it was written in all three of the applied timelines (it’s original 1600s, the adapted 1970s, and our current) leading to the biggest question of them all, do we as humans really evolve or is it a mere illusion painted by our ability to enhance the environment around us?
The desire to adapt A Plot Discovered came during a conversation with my peers during a semester spent studying classical drama at Oxford University. As we debated the themes of the play, a guitarist played post Vietnam War era music in the street below echoing up the cobblestone street and entering our dining hall window. The result was an artistic revelation that would drive my passion into this project for the next two years. Rewriting, designing, casting, directing, and reflecting upon A Plot Discovered has proved not only the most difficult but also the most rewarding event within my undergraduate studies.
View A Plot Discovered miniature documentary here: https://vimeo.com/325355612
ContributorsSchneider, Fay Elizabeth (Author) / McMahon, Jeff (Thesis director) / Barker, David (Committee member) / Weise, Chris (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Six Years From Now is a verbatim theatre piece all about mental health. This creative project involved interviewing twelve different people about mental health and residential treatment centers, and then creating a play consisting of a series of monologues created from the exact words spoken in the interviews. The goal of writing this play was to help tell other people's stories, educate others about what living with mental illness is really like, educate others on modern residential treatment centers, and reduce the stigma around mental health and mental illness.
ContributorsHirsch, Jenae Danielle (Author) / McMahon, Jeff (Thesis director) / Partlan, William (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Reveal follows the story of high school student Jason as he navigates the hardships of high school and the personal hardships of sexual identity. The thesis was created through research of other LGBTQ performers and interviews conducted on campus. It includes a one-act script followed by a list of the sources that I used to further my writing experience.
ContributorsPinero, John Richard (Author) / McMahon, Jeff (Thesis director) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
In recent years, sex trafficking awareness and intervention have skyrocketed in the United States. The 2016 Polaris Hotline Statistics Sheet reports a drastic increase of reported sex trafficking cases over the span of four years, with only 3,409 cases of human trafficking in 2012 and 8,042 in 2016, 73% of which were specifically sex trafficking cases (Polaris Project, 2016). The incidence of sex trafficking has not increased, but rather, attention to sex trafficking and implementation of legislation has increased awareness and reporting (Farrell et al., 2012). While this rise in public awareness of sex trafficking has positively impacted victim identification, there has not been an increase in convicting sex traffickers (Polaris Project, 2016). According to the 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report, 3,000 federal investigations that involved human trafficking, the majority of which specifically involved sex trafficking, were opened in 2015. Of these federal investigations, only 10% led to case prosecutions. Analyzing the relationship of law enforcement, specifically vice units, and victims of sex trafficking is just one of the many ways to address this complex issue. This study consisted of a qualitative analysis of the makeup, training, and policing methods of vice units nationwide. It further aimed to determine the vice officer perceptions regarding the elements that make sex trafficking cases convictable.
ContributorsPradhan, Krishnaa (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis director) / Kinzig, Ann (Committee member) / Kim, Grace (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Our lives are full of possibilities but also of self-imposed limitations. For some, finding their purpose in life and their place in the society is instinctive, but for many of us it requires a deliberate search. For the latter, self-discovery is a journey; an intentional path of many turns and twists, ups and downs, some surprises. It requires a person to slow down and assess oneself. What has been so far, what is right there on the surface, what is hidden deep down, and what is it that one strives for? Now, imagine narrowing down that path even more, and try to answer the question: Who am I as an artist?
ContributorsBlasko, Tanja (Author) / McMahon, Jeff (Thesis director) / Bowditch, Rachel (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This thesis is the culmination of the Barrett Honors Intercontinental Study Award. For this scholarship, I created a comparative legal study of the approaches to juvenile justice in Norway, Germany, Malawi, and Japan, focusing on their compliance with international norms of restorative justice practices advanced by the United Nations (UN) in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Before commencing my comparative study, I traveled to Switzerland and Belgium to speak with restorative justice theorists at the UN and the International Juvenile Justice Observatory about the enduring relevancy of the CRC and international juvenile justice efforts. In the process, I examined how these international norms of restorative justice come to be incorporated in domestic legal systems. From this, I gained an understanding of the reasons some countries successfully adapt international norms while others struggle to uphold even the most basic human rights. My goal throughout this process has been to cull best practices for international norm creation and domestic norm implementation from this research, and further study how best to promote restorative juvenile justice in countries that do not meet international standards, beginning with the United States. For the purpose of this thesis, I will focus my analysis on Norway and Malawi.
ContributorsNicoletti, Brigitte (Author) / Herbert, Anne (Thesis director) / Durfee, Alesha (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05