Digital Commons Network^™

Advancing Sentiment Analysis Through Emotionally-Agnostic Text Mining In Large Language Models (Llms), Jay Ratican, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

The conventional methodology for sentiment analysis within large language models (LLMs) has predominantly drawn upon human emotional frameworks, incorporating physiological cues that are inherently absent in text-only communication. This research proposes a paradigm shift towards an emotionallyagnostic approach to sentiment analysis in LLMs, which concentrates on purely textual expressions of sentiment, circumventing the confounding effects of human physiological responses. The aim is to refine sentiment analysis algorithms to discern and generate emotionally congruent responses strictly from text-based cues. This study presents a comprehensive framework for an emotionally-agnostic sentiment analysis model that systematically excludes physiological indicators whilst maintaining the analytical depth …

The Perennial Eclipse: Race, Immigration, And How Latinx Count In American Politics, Rachel F. Moran

Faculty Scholarship

In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Evenwel v. Abbott, a case challenging the use of total population in state legislative apportionment as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The plaintiffs sued Texas, alleging that the State impermissibly diluted their voting power because they lived in areas with a high proportion of voting-age citizens. When total population was used to draw district lines, the plaintiffs had to compete with more voters to get their desired electoral outcomes than was true for voters in districts with low proportions of voting-age citizens. The Court rejected the argument, finding that states enjoy …

Rethinking Plagiarism In The Era Of Generative Ai, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, has precipitated a paradigm shift in the realms of academic writing, plagiarism, and intellectual property. This article explores the evolving landscape of English composition courses, traditionally designed to develop critical thinking through writing. As AI becomes increasingly integrated into the academic sphere, it necessitates a reevaluation of originality in writing, the purpose of learning research and writing, and the frameworks governing intellectual property (IP) and plagiarism. The paper commences with a statistical analysis contrasting the actual use of LLMs in academic dishonesty with educator …

Preserving Linguistic Diversity In The Digital Age: A Scalable Model For Cultural Heritage Continuity, James Hutson, Pace Ellsworth, Matt Ellsworth

Faculty Scholarship

In the face of the rapid erosion of both tangible and intangible cultural heritage globally, the urgency for effective, wide-ranging preservation methods has never been greater. Traditional approaches in cultural preservation often focus narrowly on specific niches, overlooking the broader cultural tapestry, particularly the preservation of everyday cultural elements. This article addresses this critical gap by advocating for a comprehensive, scalable model for cultural preservation that leverages machine learning and big data analytics. This model aims to document and archive a diverse range of cultural artifacts, encompassing both extraordinary and mundane aspects of heritage. A central issue highlighted in the …

Reclaiming The Symbol: Ethics, Rhetoric, And The Humanistic Integration Of Gai - A Burkean Perspective, Daniel Plate, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

This study delves into the intersection of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) and the Humanities, guided by the critical insights of Kenneth Burke, a seminal figure in the study of rhetoric and a vocal critic of scientism and positivism. The skepticism of the American literary theorist towards an uncritical embrace of science and technology, and his concerns over the inclination of the Humanities to adopt scientific methodologies at the expense of traditional forms of inquiry, provide a critical framework for examining the new role played by GAI within the Humanities. By framing these tools in the context of Burkean rhetorical theory, …

Lived Experiences: Growing Up With A Seriously Mentally Ill Parent, Deborah Lindell, Elliane Irani

Faculty Scholarship

Introduction: Individuals with serious mental illness often have persistent and disruptive symptoms. These can profoundly affect their children's lives, exposing them to adverse social and psychological conditions. Such conditions can result in traumatic lived experiences during childhood, which can carry over into adulthood, influencing their self-perceptions and shaping their attitudes toward themselves and society. To gain insights into this phenomenon, this study explored the lived experiences of adults who grew up with a parent with serious mental illness and their perceptions of their lives in adulthood. Design: This study used an interpretive phenomenological design. Methods: Participants were invited to voluntarily …

Competition And Congestion In Trademark Law, Christopher Buccafusco, Jonathan S. Masur, Mark P. Mckenna

Faculty Scholarship

Trademark law exists to promote competition. If consumers know which companies make which products, they can more easily find the products they actually want to purchase. Trademark law has long treated “source significance”—the fact that a particular trademark is identified with a particular producer—as both necessary and sufficient for establishing a valid trademark. That is, trademark law has traditionally viewed source significance as the only necessary precondition for a trademark being pro-competitive. In this Article, we argue that this equation of source significance and pro-competitiveness is misguided. Some marks use words that are so closely connected with the product being …

When Originalism Failed: Lessons From Tort Law, Donald G. Gifford, Richard C. Boldt, Christopher J. Robinette

Faculty Scholarship

Two recent Supreme Court decisions upended American life. Opinions released on consecutive days in June 2022 overturned the right of reproductive choice nationwide and invalidated a statute regulating the carrying of concealed weapons in New York. The opinions were united by a common methodology. Pursuant to what one scholar terms “thick” originalism, history, as told by the majority, dictated the resolution of constitutional disputes.

This Article explores the use of thick originalism in several celebrated torts cases that raised constitutional issues. These cases illustrate two significant kinds of problems associated with a rigid historical approach to constitutional interpretation. The first …

Counseling Oppression, Angelo Petrigh

Faculty Scholarship

Critical scholars and public defenders alike have grappled with the contradictions at the heart of counseling clients in a carceral system. Systems of oppression operate within the public defender - client relationship because the defender’s role in translating the law also enforces its inequities. Counseling can obscure the workings of the system, providing an illusion of choice despite privileging certain forms of knowledge and tactics.

But the counseling site is also where defenders become exposed to client’s lived experiences, encounter collectivist tactics, and critically examine the tension of their role in the system. Likewise, through counseling defenders can pull back …

Desettling Fixation, Emily T. Behzadi Cárdenas

Faculty Scholarship

Scholars have long contemplated how the effects of colonialism have permeated even race “neutral” laws. This Article scrutinizes the ways Eurocentric copyright systems have failed to protect, and have even encouraged, the unauthorized uses of indigenous heritage in derivative subject matter, exposing how settler colonialism in copyright law has entrenched an unequal hierarchy among communities seeking copyright protection. Due to its ephemeral nature, intangible cultural heritage constantly faces the threat of exploitation by dominant cultures. The intangible heritage of indigenous groups has been particularly vulnerable to illicit and uncompensated commodification. Intangible heritage, such as oral histories and traditional dances, is …

Natural Language Processing And Neurosymbolic Ai: The Role Of Neural Networks With Knowledge-Guided Symbolic Approaches, Emily Barnes, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

Neurosymbolic AI (NeSy AI) represents a groundbreaking approach in the realm of Natural Language Processing (NLP), merging the pattern recognition of neural networks with the structured reasoning of symbolic AI to address the complexities of human language. This study investigates the effectiveness of neurosymbolic AI in providing nuanced understanding and contextually relevant responses, driven by the need to overcome the limitations of existing models in handling complex linguistic tasks and abstract reasoning. Employing a hybrid methodology that combines multimodal contextual modeling with rule-governed inferences and memory activations, the research delves into specific applications like Named Entity Recognition (NER), where architectures …

Contractual Landmines, Robert E. Scott, Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

Conventional wisdom is that the standardized boilerplate terms used in large commercial markets survive unchanged because they are an optimal solution to the contracting problems facing parties in these markets. As Smith and Warner explained, “harmful heuristics, like harmful mutations, will die out.” But an examination of a sample of current sovereign bond contracts reveals numerous instances of harmful landmines — some are deliberate changes to standard language that increase a creditor’s nonpayment risk, others are blatant drafting errors, and yet others are inapt terms that have been carelessly imported from corporate transactions. Moreover, these landmines differ from each other …

The Major Questions Doctrine At The Boundaries Of Interpretive Law, Daniel E. Walters

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s apparent transformation of the major questions doctrine into a clear statement rule demanding clear congressional authorization for “major” agency actions has already had, and will continue to have, wide-ranging impacts on American public law. Not the least of these is the impact it will have on the enterprise of statutory interpretation. Indeed, while it is easy to focus on the policy repercussions of a newly constrained Congress and newly hamstrung administrative state, this Article argues that equally important is the novel precedent that is set in this particular formulation of a clear statement rule, which stands almost …

Digital Resurrection Of Historical Figures: A Case Study On Mary Sibley Through Customized Chatgpt, James Hutson, Paul Huffman, Jeremiah Ratican

Faculty Scholarship

This study investigates the emerging realm of digital resurrection, focusing on Mary Sibley (1800–1878), the esteemed founder of Lindenwood University. The core objective was to demonstrate the capability of advanced artificial intelligence, specifically a customized version of ChatGPT, in revitalizing historical figures for educational and engagement purposes. By integrating comprehensive diaries from Sibley with Claude 2.0, the research utilized a substantial autobiographical dataset to develop a GPT beta version that replicates her distinct voice and tone. The incorporation of her official portrait and diaries into the GPT Builder was pivotal, creating an interactive platform that accurately reflects her perspectives on …

The Holistic Archival Personality Profiling Model (Happm): Comprehensive Data Integration For Personality Analysis, James Hutson, Pace Ellsworth

Faculty Scholarship

The traditional approach to biographical profiling, predominantly reliant on limited and fragmented datasets, has frequently resulted in superficial personality understandings. This is largely due to an overemphasis on official records and notable events, neglecting the rich tapestry of everyday experiences and personal interactions that significantly shape personalities. To address this shortcoming, this article introduces a multi-disciplinary methodology, The Holistic Archival Personality Profiling Model (HAPPM), which integrates a diverse array of archival materials, including personal correspondences, social media footprints, and family memorabilia. This approach involves digitizing various data forms, including handwritten documents, into machine-readable text, and then semantically classifying this data …

Individuality And The Collective In Ai Agents: Explorations Of Shared Consciousness And Digital Homunculi In The Metaverse For Cultural Heritage, James Hutson, Jay Ratican

Faculty Scholarship

The confluence of extended reality (XR) technologies, including augmented and virtual reality, with large language models (LLM) marks a significant advancement in the field of digital humanities, opening uncharted avenues for the representation of cultural heritage within the burgeoning metaverse. This paper undertakes an examination of the potentialities and intricacies of such a convergence, focusing particularly on the creation of digital homunculi or changelings. These virtual beings, remarkable for their sentience and individuality, are also part of a collective consciousness, a notion explored through a thematic comparison in science fiction with the Borg and the Changelings in the Star Trek …

Command And Control: Operationalizing The Unitary Executive, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

The concept of the unitary executive is written into the Constitution by virtue of Article II’s vesting of the “executive Power” in the President and not in executive officers created by Congress. Defenders and opponents alike of the “unitary executive” often equate the idea of presidential control of executive action with the power to remove executive personnel. But an unlimitable presidential removal power cannot be derived from the vesting of executive power in the President for the simple reason that it would not actually result in full presidential control of executive action, as the actions of now-fired subordinates would still …

Digitizing The Cultural Capital: Harnessing Digital Humanities For Heritage Preservation In Bujumbura, Burundi, James Hutson, Pace Ellsworth, Matt Ellsworth, Jean Bosco Ntungirimana

Faculty Scholarship

In an era where the erosion of cultural heritage is increasingly prevalent, there exists a critical imperative to explore and implement innovative methods for the preservation and revitalization of cultural identities, as exemplified by the urgent situation in Bujumbura, Burundi. Central to this study is the exploration of innovative digital methodologies for archiving a wide spectrum of cultural artifacts, including both notable and everyday heritage elements, in Bujumbura. Traditional approaches to biographical and historical profiling have predominantly focused on official records and significant events, often neglecting the richness of personal experiences and everyday interactions that substantially shape cultural identities. To …

A Revised Perspective On Non-Debtor Releases, Joshua M. Silverstein

Faculty Scholarship

“Non-debtor releases” are bankruptcy orders that extinguish claims against a party other than a bankrupt debtor over the objection of the creditor. Also known as “third-party releases,” the legality of these orders is one of the most important and controversial issues in bankruptcy law specifically and business law generally. The split in the courts over the propriety of non-debtor releases stretches back thirty-five years. However, the United States Supreme Court is poised to resolve the split this term in the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy. In two prior articles published in 2006 and 2009, I argued that third-party releases are permissible under …

Synthesizing Sentience: Integrating Large Language Models And Autonomous Agents For Emulating Human Cognitive Complexity, Jay Ratican, James Hutson, Daniel Plate

Faculty Scholarship

The paper aims to present a novel methodology for emulating the intricacies of human cognitive complexity by ingeniously integrating large language models with autonomous agents. Grounded in the theoretical framework of the modular mind theory-originally espoused by Fodor and later refined by scholars such as Joanna Bryson—the study seeks to venture into the untapped potential of large language models and autonomous agents in mirroring human cognition. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence, exemplified by the inception of autonomous agents like Age in GPT, auto GPT, and baby AGI, underscore the transformative capacities of these technologies in diverse applications. Moreover, empirical studies …

Care Work, Gender Equality, And Abortion: Lessons From Comparative Feminist Constitutionalism, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

Julie Suk, After Misogyny: How the Law Fails Women and What to Do About It (2023).

Julie Suk’s ambitious book, After Misogyny: How the Law Fails Women and What to Do About It, contributes to a feminist literature on equality and care spanning centuries and national boundaries, yet offers timely diagnoses and prescriptions for the United States at a very particular moment. That “moment” includes being four years into the COVID-19 pandemic and over one year into the post-Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey world wrought by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. That moment …

The Role Of Faculty In Durable Skills Development In Higher Education, James Hutson, Mark Valenzuela, Shannon Wright, Elizabeth Melick

Faculty Scholarship

Although Emsi and other market researchers have found that employers desire durable skills (formerly known as “soft skills”) in new hires, there have been few studies dedicated to identifying how faculty perceptions of skill development differ in degree and by area, and how that might impact how such skills are embedded in classroom instruction. This study proposes to investigate the perceptions of faculty from different academic backgrounds and how their disciplines and experiences may contribute to their perceived role in curricular, cocurricular or extracurricular offerings that support durable skill development. Results from the study demonstrate the differing perspectives and expectations …

Forum Fights And Fundamental Rights: Amenability’S Distorted Frame, James P. George

Faculty Scholarship

Framing—the subtle use of context to suggest a conclusion—is a dubious alternative to direct argumentation. Both the brilliance and the bane of marketing, framing also creeps into supposedly objective analysis. Law offers several examples, but a lesser known one is International Shoe’s two-part jurisdictional test. The framing occurs in the underscoring of defendant’s due process rights contrasted with plaintiff’s “interests” which are often dependent on governmental interests. This equation ignores, both rhetorically and analytically, the injured party’s centuries-old rights to—not interests in—a remedy in an open and adequate forum.

Even within the biased frame, the test generally works, if not …

Bura Ura, Kendu Waiyo (Rain Falls, Water Rises): The Tyranny Of Water Insecurity And An Agenda For Abolition In Kodi (Sumba Island, Indonesia), Cynthia Twyford Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the dynamic links between transformations in freshwater ecosystems and social changes in the Kodi region of Sumba (Indonesia). Insights into the politics surrounding changing hydrosocial systems are generated by using a feminist anthropology approach together with critical development studies and intersectionality theory. In aligning with fellow feminists whose advocacy sometimes takes the form of scholarship, I lay out a five-prong strategy for collecting empirical evidence from persons who are vulnerable when hydrological systems change and offer eight principles for future development interventions. The argument related to the five-prong toolkit is that by conducting intensive, extensive, opportunistic, and …

Measurement Of Prospective Memory In Spanish Speakers, Laura Cadavid, Alicia Camuy, Valerie Velez, Sarah Raskin

Faculty Scholarship

Introduction: This study aimed to provide preliminary evidence on the psychometric properties of a measure of prospective memory in Spanish speakers, the Memory for Intentions Test (MIST) Spanish translation.

Methods: In addition, this study investigated whether acculturation influenced performance on the MIST. Finally, we measured other cognitive factors that might be impacting the relationship between culture and prospective memory performance. These factors were working memory, autobiographical memory, and episodic future thought.

Results: Overall, the psychometric properties of the Spanish MIST appear to be similar to the English language MIST, but our sample size was too small to allow for the …

Real-Time Mapping With Global Positioning Systems Devices In A Mixed Methods Toolkit For Studying Social And Environmental Change, Cynthia Twyford Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

To explore the process through which people develop knowledge about socioecological change, this article describes a mixed-methods toolkit containing a technique for making maps in real time while moving through landscapes. The quantitative component of the toolkit is grounded in ethnobiologists’ embeddedness in place-based communities and harnesses the power of global positioning systems (GPS). As GPS-wielding ethnobiologists engage in participatory mapping by moving through landscapes with their research collaborators, we can use handheld devices and simultaneously communicate with satellites in outer space to produce maps in real time. Within the existing, large inventory of ethnobiological methods, using handheld GPS devices …

The Case Against The Debt Tax, Vijay Raghavan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Stories From The Negative Spaces: United States V. Thind And The Narrative Of (Non)Whiteness, Joy Kanwar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Poetry Of Prompts: The Collaborative Role Of Generative Artificial Intelligence In The Creation Of Poetry And The Anxiety Of Machine Influence, James Hutson, Ana Schnellmann

Faculty Scholarship

2022 has been heralded as the year of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Generative AI like ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion, along with a host of others, launched late in the year and immediately disrupted the status quo of the literary and art worlds, leading to outcries to ban “AI Art” and spawning an entirely new market of NFTs. Fears over the “death of the artist” and the “death of college composition,” however, are unfounded when considering the historical adoption of emerging technologies by creatives and the reconsideration of authorship that began with post structuralism and the Foucauldian Death of the Author …

If We Build It, Will They Legislate? Empirically Testing The Potential Of The Nondelegation Doctrine To Curb Congressional "Abdication", Daniel E. Walters, Elliott Ash

Faculty Scholarship

A widely held view for why the Supreme Court would be right to revive the nondelegation doctrine is that Congress has perverse incentives to abdicate its legislative role and evade accountability through the use of delegations, either expressly delineated or implied through statutory imprecision, and that enforcement of the nondelegation doctrine would correct for those incentives. We call this the Field of Dreams Theory—if we build the nondelegation doctrine, Congress will legislate. Unlike originalist arguments for the revival of the nondelegation doctrine, this theory has widespread appeal and is instrumental to the Court’s project of gaining popular acceptance of a …