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Judicial Review of Agency Benefit-Cost Analysis
No full textarticle publisned in law reviewThis Article evaluates judicial review of agency benefit-cost analysis ("BCA") by examining a substantial sample of thirty-eight judicial decisions on agency actions that implicate BCA. Essentially, the Administrative Procedure Act tasks federal courts with ensuring that federal agency action is reasonable. As more agencies use BCA to justify their rulemakings, the court's duty often requires judges to evaluate the reasonableness of agency BCAs. In this Article, we discuss the challenges that trigger judicial review of agency BCAs and the standards that govern the review. We then present specific examples of how courts analyze BCAs. Overall, we find many examples of courts promoting high-quality and transparent BCA. Courts have been willing to question BCA methodology and assumptions and request more transparency on these issues. As agencies rely more on BCA in their decision making, judicial review of BCA will be increasingly important. The stakes are high. Additional judicial oversight can be valuable — but bolstering any oversight effort to provide a policy check can also impose societal costs if desirable policies are delayed or left unimplemented. Ideally, efforts to foster greater judicial review should be structured so that the enhanced role of the judiciary itself passes a benefit-cost test. Armed with this Article's examination of the state of judicial review of BCA, scholars can more effectively evaluate the impact of judicial checkpoints on the use of BCA in agency decision making and assess whether shifting more regulatory oversight authority to the courts would be an effective approach to fostering more welfare-enhancing policies
Predictive Effects of Quality and Duration of Sleep on Cognition and CSF Biomarkers
No full textThis study examined whether sleep quality or sleep duration was a
better predictor of cognition and CSF biomarker levels in older adults with normal cognition and MCI. Course PSY 4998, Honors Thesis, Professor Jo-Anne Bachorowski.Current literature on the effects of sleep on cognition has shown conflicting results regarding the effects of long and short sleep duration. Using previously collected data from the Vanderbilt Memory & Aging Project, this study explored the association between sleep and cognitive functioning and cerebrospinal fluid biomarker components of Alzheimer’s disease pathophysiology in older adults with normal cognition and mild cognitive impairment. Sleep quality was hypothesized to be a better predictor of cognitive functioning and cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers. The sample consisted of 66 older adults, with a mean age of 73.29. Half of the sample had mild cognitive impairment, while the other half had normal cognition. Results showed no significant predictive effects of either sleep quality or sleep duration on either cognitive measures or cerebrospinal fluid biomarker levels. However, results did show some sleep quality x diagnosis interaction effects for information processing speed, executive function and amyloid-beta levels, and sleep quality x sleep duration interaction for global cognition and amyloid-beta levels.Vanderbilt UniversityPsychologyCollege of Arts and ScienceThesis completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Honors Program in Psychological Sciences under the direction of Dr. Angela Jefferson, Ph.D
Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Levels and Fluctuation in Children of Depressed versus Nondepressed Mothers
No full textExamining respiratory sinus arrhythmia levels and fluctuation in offspring of depressed vs. non depressed during mood induction videos
PSY 296B, Honors Thesis, Dr. Saylor, Dr. BachorowskiPrevious research has demonstrated that offspring of depressed mothers are at increased risk for developing dysfunctional affect regulation, which is a risk factor for the onset of depression and other psychopathology. One way in which depression may be transmitted from mothers to their children is through dysfunctional neuroregulatory mechanisms, especially those related to affect regulation. Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA) has been shown to be related to affect regulation, and RSA level and fluctuation index an individual’s autonomic flexibility. The present study investigated whether there were differences in RSA level and fluctuation in offspring of depressed and nondepressed mothers, as well as how RSA levels related to affect. The study consisted of 92 mother-child dyads (37 mothers with a history of depression and 55 nondepressed mothers). Mothers and children completed questionnaires, and RSA data were obtained from children while they watched brief video clips (neutral, negative, and positive). RSA levels or fluctuation did not differ significantly between children of depressed and nondepressed mothers, and RSA levels did not significantly predict children’s affect during the mood induction videos. Exploratory analyses revealed a nonsignificant, trend for child sex and mother’s level of depression symptoms to predict RSA during the mood induction videos. Limitations of the current study and directions for future research are discussed.Vanderbilt UniversityPsychology and Human DevelopmentPeabody CollegeThesis completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Honors Program in Psychological Science
Law and the Art of Modeling: Are Models Facts?
No full textarticle published in law journalIn 2013, the Supreme Court made the offhand comment that empirical models and their estimations or predictions are not 'findings offact" deserving of deference on appeal. The four Justices writing in dissent disagreed, insisting that an assessment of how a model works and its ability to measure what it claims to measure are precisely the kinds of factual findings that the Court, absent clear error cannot disturb. Neither side elaborated on the controversy or defended its position doctrinally or normatively. That the highest Court could split 5-4 on such a crucial issue without even mentioning the stakes or the terms of the debate, suggests that something is amiss in the legal understanding of models and modeling. This Article does what that case failed to do: it tackles the issue head-on, defining the legal status of a scientific model's results and of the assumptions and choices that go into its construction. I argue that as a normative matter models and their conclusions should not be treated like facts. Models are better evaluated by a judge,
they do not merit total deference on appeal, and modeling choices are at least somewhat susceptible to analogical reasoning between cases. But I show that as a descriptive matter courts often treat models and their outcomes like issues of fact, despite doctrines like Daubert that encourage serious judicial engagement with modeling. I suggest that a perceived mismatch between ability and task leads judges to take the easier route of treating modeling issues as facts, and I caution that when judges avoid hard questions about modeling, they jeopardize their own power and influence
Fresh Off the Boat: Book Report
No full textFinal project for ENGL 277 Asian American Literature; Spring 2015 --Stranger in a Home Land: Asian American Literature and the Mechanisms of Alienation.Creative project accompanied by a reflection paper
Independent School Leadership: Heads, Boards and Strategic Thinking
No full textLeadership Policy and Organizations Department Capstone ProjectVanderbilt UniversityDepartment of Leadership Policy and OrganizationsPeabody College of Education and Human Developmen
Behavioral War Powers
Get PDFA decade of war has meant a decade of writing on war powers. From the authority to start a war, to restrictions on fighting wars, to the authority to end a war, constitutional lawyers and scholars have explored the classic issues (war initiation, prosecution, and termination) through the classic prisms (text, history, and function) for a new generation of national security challenges. Despite the volume of writing on war powers and the urgency of the debates in the context of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, war powers debates are widely seen as stagnant. We introduce a new set of perspectives into the war powers literature. Over the last four decades, behavioral psychologists have identified persistent biases in individual and group decisionmaking. The behavioral revolution has had a significant impact on legal scholarship — primarily in law and economics — and has also influenced scholars in international relations, who increasingly write about psychological biases and other decisionmaking challenges. These insights, however, have yet to be applied in the war powers context. This Article brings the behavioral literature into the conversation on war powers, showing how lessons from behavioral psychology are relevant to decisions on war and peace. It outlines a variety of psychological biases that bear on decisions about war and peace, applies these lessons to a variety of war powers debates, and discusses broader institutional design strategies for debiasing decisionmaking. The lessons of psychology provide new functional perspectives on classic war powers debates: the authority of Congress versus the President to initiate wars, the scope of presidential authority to use force, the ability of Congress to restrict the conduct of war, the War Powers Resolution and the termination of wars, and the role of the United Nations. Some of the decisionmaking biases point in conflicting directions, so there are no simple answers or tidy solutions. But understanding where important decisions risk going wrong is the first step in figuring out how to make them go right
This Is My America: Songwriting and the American Dream
No full textFinal creative project for Eng 199: Foundations of Literary Study; Fall 2014. Lyrics for song titled "This is My America" accompanied by reflection paper
Translanguaging Pedagogy and Chinese English Learners
No full textTeaching and Learning Department Capstone ProjectDepartment of Teaching and LearningPeabody College of Education and Human Developmen
Fostering Critical Conversations through Read-Alouds: Critical Literacy in Early Elementary
No full textTeaching and Learning Department capstone projectDepartment of Teaching and LearningPeabody College of Education and Human Developmen