Digital Commons Network^™

The Role Of Friction In The Static Equilibrium Of A Fixed Ladder: Theoretical Analysis And Experimental Test, Mark P. Silverman

Faculty Scholarship

In a recent publication the author derived and experimentally tested several theoretical models, distinguished by different boundary conditions at the contacts with horizontal and vertical supports, that predicted the forces of reaction on a fixed (i.e. inextensible) ladder. This problem is statically indeterminate since there are 4 forces of reaction and only 3 equations of static equilibrium. The model that predicted the empirical reactions correctly used a law of static friction to complement the equations of static equilibrium. The present paper examines in greater theoretical and experimental detail the role of friction in accounting for the forces of reaction on …

Studying Galaxy Troughs And Ridges Using Weak Gravitational Lensing With The Kilo-Degree Survey, Margot M. Brouwer, Vasiliy Demchenko, Joachim Harnois-Déraps, Maciej Bilicki, Catherine Heymans, Henk Hoekstra, Konrad Kuijken, Mehmet Alpaslan, Sarah Brough, Yan Chuan Cai, Marcus V. Costa-Duarte, Andrej Dvornik, Thomas Erben, Hendrik Hildebrandt, Benne W. Holwerda, Peter Schneider, Cristóbal Sifón, Edo Van Uitert

Faculty Scholarship

We study projected underdensities in the cosmic galaxy density field known as 'troughs', and their overdense counterparts, which we call 'ridges'. We identify these regions using a bright sample of foreground galaxies from the photometric Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS), specifically selected to mimic the spectroscopic Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey. Using background galaxies from KiDS, we measure the weak gravitational lensing profiles of the troughs/ridges. We quantify the amplitude of their lensing strength A as a function of galaxy density percentile rank P and galaxy overdensity δ, and find that the skewness in the galaxy density distribution is reflected in the …

Multivariate Multiple Regression Models Of Poly(Ethylene-Terephthalate) Film Degradation Under Outdoor And Multi-Stressor Accelerated Weathering Exposures, Devin A. Gordon, Wei-Heng Huang, Roger H. French, Laura S. Bruckman

Faculty Scholarship

Developing materials for use in photovoltaic (PV) systems requires knowledge of their performance over the warranted lifetime of the PV system. Poly(ethylene-terephthalate) (PET) is a critical component of PV module backsheets due to its dielectric properties and low cost. However, PET is susceptible to environmental stressors and degrades over time. Changes in the physical properties of nine PET grades were modeled after outdoor and accelerated weathering exposures to characterize the degradation process of PET and assess the influence of stabilizing additives and weathering factors. Multivariate multiple regression (MMR) models were developed to quantify changes in color, gloss, and haze of …

Introduction To The Protection Of Non-Traditional Trademarks: Critical Perspectives, Irene Calboli

Faculty Scholarship

During the past decades, the domain of trademark law and the scope of trademark protection have been expanded significantly. The flexible application of prerequisites for registration has paved the way for the recognition of a wide variety of signs as subject matter eligible for trademark protection. This includes single colors, shapes, sounds, smells, video clips, holograms, and even gestures. However, this expansion of the scope of trademark protection has been accompanied only by a partial expansion of the grounds for refusal relating to these registrations and the creation of defenses that permit unauthorized use in the interest of freedom of …

Hands Off “My” Colors, Patterns, And Shapes! How Non-Traditional Trademarks Promote Standardization And May Negatively Impact Creativity And Innovation, Irene Calboli

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter criticizes the protection of non-traditional trademarks (NTTMs) by focusing on three specific examples from the fashion industry: Louboutin, Gucci, and Bottega Veneta. In particular, besides repeating that granting exclusive rights to NTTMs equates in foreclosing competitors and third parties from using any identical and similar product design and products feature, this chapter highlights an additional problem related to the protection of NTTMs. Notably, that, by recognizing and protecting as marks elements that are product design and aesthetic product features, protecting these marks supports a system of intellectual property protection that promotes standardization, rather than creativity and innovation, in …

Non-Traditional Trademarks: The Error Costs Of Making An Exception The Rule, Glynn Lunney

Faculty Scholarship

Over the last sixty years, courts and the USPTO have engaged in an ill-advised expansion of trademark subject matter. Where once only words or emblems attached to a product could serve as a trademark, today a product’s design or packaging itself may receive such protection. This expansion was and is a mistake. There may indeed be rare cases where a product’s design or packaging conveys brand-specific information and could receive protection without impairing competitor’s ability to offer substitutes. Such cases are the exception and not the rule, however. Extending the strong legal presumptions and property-like protection trademark law provides to …

Bounded Rationality, Paternalism, And Trademark Law, Stacey Dogan

Faculty Scholarship

We don’t need behavioral economics to understand that trade marks can shape consumer preferences in ways that have little to do with objectively measurable differences in product quality. Scholars, judges, economists, and policymakers have long recognized the tendency of strong marks to skew consumer decisions. The concern lies not only in price effects but with the allocative effects of encouraging investment in persuasive advertising, rather than product innovation or similar “productive” pursuits. While informative advertising can benefit consumers, advertising that creates artificial brand-based differences between otherwise identical products appears not only costly to consumers but also socially wasteful.

This Essay …

Two-Tiered Trademarks, Glynn Lunney

Faculty Scholarship

Today, we have a two-tiered trademark system. In the top tier, both parties can afford to litigate. In the lower tier, only one party can. This two-tiered system has arisen over the last century because courts refused to follow the law. Faced with trademark law that led to seemingly unjust outcomes in the case before them, courts rewrote trademark law. When those initial rewrites led to different sorts of seeming injustice as cases continued to arise, courts rewrote trademark law again and again. Moreover, judges rewrote trademark law not as part of any systemic and coherent plan for trademark law, …

The Wind: An Unruly Living, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer

Faculty Scholarship

A process begun in Pisa, Italy in April of 2016 during a workshop on political theory in the Anthropocene, The Wind ~ An Unruly Living is a philosophical exercise (askêsis, translated, following Ignatius of Loyola, as “spiritual exercise”). In his exercise, Bendik-Keymer throws to the void: the ideology of self-ownership from a society of possession. By using the Stoic kanôn, the rule of living by phûsis, he follows an element. Unhappily for the Stoic and happily for us, the wind is unruly. A swerve of currents through a social fabric, it’s full of holes, all holely. Stretch …

Mental Health Problems Of The Youngest Generation Of American Veterans (Problemy Zdrowia Psychicznego Najmłodszego Pokolenia Weteranów Amerykańskich), Jaroslaw Richard Romaniuk

Faculty Scholarship

Wartime activities determine the threats to a soldier’s life and health. To prepare soldiers for a new forms of warfare, one should know the challenges the soldier faces in the midst of battle and after returning home. From 2001 to 2015, 1.2 million American soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan used the health care services of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. An analysis of the resulting medical interventions makes possible a long term evaluation of the effects of war, some of which appear only after the soldier returns to civilian life. This study analyzes the research on the mental health …

Kob-Tv Interviews Kastenberg On The Stolen Valor Act, Joshua E. Kastenberg

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Kastenberg discusses the likehood of a local teenager being tried for murder as an adult.

Diverse Originalism, Christina Mulligan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Dynamics Of Nonlinear Random Walks On Complex Networks, Per Sebastian Skardal, Sabina Adhikari

Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, we study the dynamics of nonlinear random walks. While typical random walks on networks consist of standard Markov chains whose static transition probabilities dictate the flow of random walkers through the network, nonlinear random walks consist of nonlinear Markov chains whose transition probabilities change in time depending on the current state of the system. This framework allows us to model more complex flows through networks that may depend on the current system state. For instance, under humanitarian or capitalistic direction, resource flow between institutions may be diverted preferentially to poorer or wealthier institutions, respectively. Importantly, the nonlinearity …

Evolution Of Communal Roosting: A Social Refuge-Territory Prospecting Hypothesis, James F. Dwyer, James D. Fraser, Joan L. Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

© 2018 The Raptor Research Foundation, Inc. Avian communal roosts provide insight into evolution and serve as focal points for conservation. Nonbreeding Crested Caracaras (Caracara cheriway; hereafter caracaras) use communal roosts, but evolutionary implications have not been explored. Though nonbreeding caracaras are nonmigratory, the scientific literature fails to explain seasonal differences in their movement and survival concurrent with seasonal consistency in their habitat and social ecology. In the Social Refuge-Territory Prospecting hypothesis we propose, socially subordinate nonbreeding caracaras precluded from breeding by habitat limitation use communal roosts as social refuges to avoid aggression from dominant territory holders during nonbreeding seasons, …

A Versatilidade Dum Método Crítico: As Minhas Andanças Com A Teoría Dos Polisistemas, Thomas Harrington

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Drosophila Suzukii Fight Performance Reduced By Starvation But Not Affected By Humidity, Jessica S. Wong, Adam C. Cave, Danielle M. Lightle, Walter F. Mahaffee, Steve E. Naranjo, Nick G. Wilman, J. Megan Woltz, Jana C. Lee

Faculty Scholarship

Drosophila suzukii is widely studied because of its status as a global pest of berries and soft fruits. Environmental conditions and access to food resources impact the physiology and ftness of D. suzukii; these factors could also affect dispersal. Flight mills are a convenient tool for measuring and comparing the fight performance of insects. In this study, two experiments examined the efects of diet and humidity on D. suzukii fight performance using custom-built fight mills, and a third experiment compared the energy reserves of D. suzukii flown or not flown on fight mills. Over all fight assays, the median fight …

Seeing Bullshit Rhetorically: Human Encounters And Cultural Values, Leonard Shedletsky

Faculty Scholarship

This essay explores the idea that calling bullshit exemplifi es Mercier and Sperber”s social intuitionist theory. It discusses a range of empirical research related to bullshit, including belief in the worldviews of Individualist vs. Communitarian and Hierarchical vs. Egalitarian with regard to accepting and rejecting ideas. Calling bullshit fits well with using the heuristics of like/not like and cognitive mechanisms of debunking misinformation.

Assessing The Impact Of The Global Compacts On Refugees And Migration In The Middle East, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

Today, the overwhelming burden of the global refugee and migrant crisis is borne by the Middle East region, driven by protracted armed conflict and exacerbated by a deficit of applicable international legal norms. Most States in the Middle East have not adopted the international treaties that provide protection guarantees for refugees and stateless persons, the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons, and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. The lack of legal status for persons displaced by conflict, many of whom are stateless refugees, leaves them in situations …

Green Lacewings And Water Sprays For Azalea Lace Bug Control, Jana C. Lee, Barry Finley, S. Michael Flores, Katerina Velasco Graham, J. Megan Woltz, Jessica S. Wong, Robin S. Rosetta

Faculty Scholarship

The azalea lace bug, Stephanitis pyrioides, is a serious pest of azaleas and rhododendrons which is often controlled by systemic insecticides. However, the efficacy of softer approaches such as biological control and water sprays against this pest on rhododendrons is unknown. Therefore, we tested the commercially available green lacewing predator, Chrysoperla rufilabris, and water sprays on lace bug infestation in one laboratory and four field trials. First, 2nd instar predator larvae were confirmed to consume lace bug nymphs and sometimes adults. Second, tapping predator larvae from hexcel units over dry leaves of potted rhododendrons and shaking loose eggs …

Substellar And Low-Mass Dwarf Identification With Near-Infrared Imaging Space Observatories, Benne W. Holwerda, J. S. Bridge, R. Ryan, M. A. Kenworthy, N. Pirzkal, M. Andersen, S. Wilkins, R. Smit, S. R. Bernard, T. Meshkat, R. Steele, R. C. Bouwens

Faculty Scholarship

Aims. We aim to evaluate the near-infrared colors of brown dwarfs as observed with four major infrared imaging space observatories: the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Euclid mission, and the WFIRST telescope. Methods. We used the SPLAT SPEX/ISPEX spectroscopic library to map out the colors of the M-, L-, and T-type dwarfs. We have identified which color-color combination is optimal for identifying broad type and which single color is optimal to then identify the subtype (e.g., T0-9). We evaluated each observatory separately as well as the narrow-field (HST and JWST) and wide-field (Euclid and …

Tribute To Professor Mark J. Pettit, Jr., Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

When the BU School of Law community lost Professor Mark Pettit, Jr. last summer, we lost a great teacher, perhaps the best law teacher in the United States. His classes sang even when he was not singing. I have an overwhelming feeling of gratitude at having been Mark’s friend and colleague for the past thirty-four years. When my friends at the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School learned I would be teaching at BU Law, they urged me to seek Mark out. Mark taught there as a clinical instructor before he came to BU, and …

The Depravity Of The 1930s And The Modern Administrative State, Gary S. Lawson, Steven Calabresi

Faculty Scholarship

Gillian Metzger’s 2017 Harvard Law Review foreword, entitled 1930s Redux: The Administrative State Under Siege, is a paean to the modern administrative state, with its massive subdelegations of legislative and judicial power to so-called “expert” bureaucrats, who are layered well out of reach of electoral accountability yet do not have the constitutional status of Article III judges. We disagree with this celebration of technocratic government on just about every level, but this Article focuses on two relatively narrow points.

First, responding more to implicit assumptions that pervade modern discourse than specifically to Professor Metzger’s analysis, we challenge the normally unchallenged …

Sorting Out White-Collar Crime, Miriam Baer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Then And Now: Mark Pettit’S Modern Unilateral Contracts In The 1980s And In The Age Of Blockchains, Daniela Caruso

Faculty Scholarship

Having read Jack Beermann and Fran Miller’s moving and insightful essays, I find myself unable to express in further words how wonderful Mark was and how much I miss him. I ask therefore that Jack and Fran allow me to join their celebration of Mark’s inimitable brilliance and generosity. What I offer today is a particular word of praise for an article by Mark which is not only my favorite, but also an extremely well regarded contribution to contract law scholarship: Modern Unilateral Contracts. 1 In this oft-cited and oft-quoted piece,2 published in this Law Review in 1983, Mark took …

Karaoke Car Talk With Mark Pettit, Frances H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

Mark Pettit and I played our own version of Carpool Karaoke long before it became a media favorite. Mark was the quiet one, a prisoner in my car for more than forty years of driving back and forth to the Law School on the Mass Pike. We were cooped up alone together for an hour and a half almost every day, sometimes under trying circumstances, including monumental traffic jams and weather horrendiomas. Some days we had more direct conversation with one another than either one of us had with our own spouses. So I thought I’d give you a little …

Comment On 'Error And Regulatory Risk In Financial Institution Regulation', Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

I agree with just about everything Jonathan Macey (2017) says in his symposium contribution. His claim that bureaucratic tendencies toward regularity—specifically, treating like cases alike—generate errors in categorization seems appropriate to me. His explanations of the pathologies in financial regulation should fall in the category of essential or required reading for anyone who chooses to write on the topic. Where I differ from Macey is in the choice of framework, or perspective from which to view the pathologies. Whereas Macey adopts an “error cost” framework, which is clearly appropriate for this symposium, I would build explicitly on a “public choice” …

Free Trade, Immigrant Workers, And Employment Discrimination, Angela D. Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

This article reframes the outward-looking perspective on workers’ rights provisions in free trade agreements. It argues that those provisions provide an opportunity to reinforce the workplace rights of noncitizen workers in the United States. Scholars and worker advocates have criticized recent free trade agreements for their lack of enforcement mechanisms and protections for workers in developing countries. They argue that this has encouraged a race to the bottom on the part of multi-national corporations who relocate to developing countries to take advantage of cheap labor costs, thereby costing U.S. workers’ jobs.

This article shifts the focus. Instead, it argues that …

Market Segmentation Vs. Subsidization: Clean Energy Credits And The Commerce Clause's Economic Wisdom, Felix Mormann

Faculty Scholarship

The dormant Commerce Clause has long been a thorn in the side of state policymakers. The latest battleground for the clash between federal courts and state legislatures is energy policy. In the absence of a decisive federal policy response to climate change, nearly thirty states have created a new type of securities—clean energy credits—to promote lowcarbon renewable and nuclear power. As more and more of these programs come under attack for alleged violations of the dormant Commerce Clause, this Article explores the constitutional constraints on clean energy credit policies. Careful analysis of recent and ongoing litigation reveals the need for …

Sweetheart Deals, Deferred Prosecution, And Making A Mockery Of The Criminal Justice System: U.S. Corporate Dpas Rejected On Many Fronts, Peter Reilly

Faculty Scholarship

Corporate Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) are contracts negotiated between the federal government and defendants to address allegations of corporate misconduct without going to trial. The agreements are hailed as a model of speedy and efficient law enforcement, but also derided as making a “mockery” of America’s criminal justice system stemming from lenient deals being offered to some defendants. This Article questions why corporate DPAs are not given meaningful judicial review when such protection is required for other alternative dispute resolution (ADR) tools, including plea bargains, settlement agreements, and consent decrees. The Article also analyzes several cases in which federal district …

The War(S) On Christmas In The Law Books, Kurt Metzmeier

Faculty Scholarship

This piece takes a reference to a December 25, 1823, session of the Kentucky Senate as a starting point to discuss the legal history of Christmas in America and specifically Kentucky from the Puritan era when it was banned, to the early 1800s when it was officially ignored, to the late 19th century when it was raised to a legal holiday (and when many of the day's tradition were created).