Digital Commons Network^™

Characterizing Changes In Extreme Ozone Levels Under 2050s Climate Conditions: An Extreme-Value Analysis In California, Bradley Wilson, Mariah Pope, Jeremy R. Porter, Edward Kearns, Evelyn Shu, Mark Bauer, Neil Freeman, Mike Amodeo, David Melecio-Vazquez, Ho Hsieh, Maggie Tarasovitch

Publications and Research

Ground-level ozone has a well established climate penalty associated with changing meteorological conditions under future climate change, but most existing research focuses exclusively on ozone-temperature relationships defined at specific locations. Using an extreme-value theory approach, we model relationships between temperature, humidity, and vapor pressure deficit and maximum daily 8 h ozone concentrations (MDA8) across California using a combination of ozone station network data and Community Multiscale Air Quality Modeling System (CMAQ) model output from 2008 to 2017. We use a spatial regression with time varying bias coefficients to fuse station observations and modeled output into a spatially explicit gridded ozone …

For Critical Language Awareness And Against The “Exclusive-Use-Of-The-Target-Language” Myth: The Effects Of Sociolinguistic Content In English In An Elementary Spanish Classroom, Beatriz Lado, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

Scholars have advocated for critical approaches to language education (e.g., Del Valle, 2014; Leeman & Serafini, 2016), including those that promote the development of Critical Language Awareness, CLA (e.g., Alim, 2010; Leeman, 2018). The goal is to develop students’ critical knowledge of the cultural, political, and social dimensions of language. To this end, Del Valle (2014) suggests the inclusion of language-related content units taught in the first or shared language from the early stages of language learning. This proposal entails revising strong beliefs such as the use of the non-target language in the new language classroom. The purpose of our …

Perspectives On Determinism In Quantum Mechanics: Born, Bohm, And The 'Quantal Newtonian' Laws, Viraht Sahni

Publications and Research

Quantum mechanics has a deterministic Schrödinger equation for the wave function. The Göttingen-Copenhagen statistical interpretation is based on the Born Rule that interprets the wave function as a ‘probability amplitude’. A precept of this interpretation is the lack of determinism in quantum mechanics. The Bohm interpretation is that the wave function is a source of a field experienced by the electrons, thereby attributing determinism to quantum theory. In this paper we present a new perspective on such determinism. The ideas are based on the equations of motion or ‘Quantal Newtonian’ Laws obeyed by each electron. These Laws, derived from the …

The Morning After The Rockefeller Drug Laws: Carey And Cuomo Implement Mass Incarceration In New York, Lebwah-Taliah Sykes

Theses and Dissertations

After Rockefeller Drug Laws passed in New York in 1973, the proportion of drug-related incarcerations remained steady for the following decade, despite overall incarceration numbers doubling. Fiscal constraints prevented Governor Hugh Carey from fully implementing drug laws, but he reallocated resources, increased the pool of people who were subject to longer sentences, made policy changes and contributed to a climate that laid the groundwork for prison expansions under Mario Cuomo. When fiscal constraints in New York State changed, Mario Cuomo’s criminal justice policy focused on implementing Rockefeller Drug Laws, resulting in mass incarceration in New York.

“Every Beat You Make Has A Time Of Day Or Color”: How Producers And Rappers Changed The Course Of Sampling Music, Elvin M. Castellanos

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis demonstrates the importance of the producer and artist relationship in hip hop songwriting and sampling, focusing on producers The Alchemist, Madlib, Sounwave, and Terrace Martin, and artists Freddie Gibbs, MF DOOM, Prodigy, and Kendrick Lamar. Topics covered range from sampling lawsuits and their impact on producers and artists in songwriting; what a producer and artist relationship looks like and how they benefit from their relationship; and the quality of music that comes from a close relationship between a producer and artist. I build upon research about the effects of sampling on hip hop by musicologist Amanda Sewell; sampling …

The Changing Evaluations Of Black Skin, White Masks Throughout History, Paul Gonzalez

Theses and Dissertations

Black Skin, White Masks, produced in 1952 by Frantz Fanon is an iconic piece of decolonization literature in which he speaks out against the physical, psychological, social, and economic effects of colonialism in Africa and evaluations of his work have continually evolved throughout the last 70 years. From 1952 to 1960, evaluations of his book was mostly confined in France, then in 1960 to 1968 his work was actively used in America as a guide on achieving political freedom for African Americans and analyzing the Civil Rights Movement and by 1990 onward, his book has been used to analyze …

Comparing Geostatistical Methods On Flood Risk To Infrastructure In Southeast Asia Using Google Street View Imagery: A Master’S Thesis, Christopher S. Aime

Theses and Dissertations

Urban flooding poses a serious challenge to development and the lives of people, particularly the residents of the rapidly expanding towns and cities in developing countries. Floods affect people's livelihood in Southeast (SE) Asia, ranging from death and injury to damaged homes, infrastructures, and agricultural land. In addition, floods expose infrastructure to more risks of structural damage, wearing them out, and aging them quickly, thus increasing maintenance and replacement costs.

Presented study found associations between such infrastructure elements as sill height, floors, building structures (e.g., attached vs. detached), slope, drainage, land-use, and street conditions. The study used Mechanical Turk method …

The Unknown Terror: Credit Card Debt Among The American Middle Class, Eamonn Maher

Theses and Dissertations

This Capstone focuses on a true crisis that affects many middle class Americans. Credit card debt has become a norm for American society and quietly has terrorized and dismantled the lives of many middle class Americans. From the rolling back of usury laws protecting predatorial interest rates, to many Americans losing jobs and income. This paper discusses the relationship between the reliance on credit cards and crippling debt for many Americans in the middle class.

The Role Of Slu7 In Spliceosome Function In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Sovira A. Chaudhry

Theses and Dissertations

The removal of introns from pre-messenger RNA via splicing in the nucleus is an essential step in gene expression. In recent decades, significant effort has been made to understand the chemical mechanisms of splicing reactions and the composition of the spliceosome that catalyzes them. Yet very little is known about the exact function of many splicing factors and small proteins within the spliceosome. Slu7, a pre-mRNA splicing factor, is essential during the second catalytic step of splicing because it interacts with several proteins and stabilizes the active site conformation. It has been found that Slu7 is involved in 3' splice …

Challenging Reform: A Formerly Incarcerated Student Roundtable Discussion, Colby Williams, Phil Miller, Jordan Sudol

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cruel And Usual: Contaminated Water In New York State Prisons, Shannon Haupt, Phil Miller

City University of New York Law Review

People who are currently or formerly incarcerated in New York State prisons know that the water inside is often not safe to drink. However, when they advocate for access to clean water, they are regularly met with retaliation and denial.

This article brings together firsthand accounts, case law, and ongoing investigations regarding water quality in New York State prisons. Contaminated water is not an anomaly in prisons–it is one of many severe conditions that people in prison are forced to live under which threaten their physical, mental, and emotional health. The daily abuses and harms suffered by incarcerated people are …

Aiming For The Trees: Random Access Information And Paik’S Video Study, Alexandra Juhasz

Publications and Research

Public lecture and paper presented for the 13th international symposium, The Gift of Nam June Paik, attending to his dreams of random access information and the inauguration of his Video Study.

Adhesively Bonded Multi-Material Single Lap Joints Under Static Tensile Loading, Yesim Kokner

Dissertations and Theses

Adhesive joints are widely used in a variety of industrial applications utilizing the improved mechanical properties they provide over traditional mechanical joining methods. [1] The lap joint is a usual test specimen with a view to assessing the strength and properties of joints.

This study deals with the stiffness, strength and fracture behavior of multi-material single-lap joints. It describes the mechanical behavior of a multi-material single lap joints subjected to static tensile loading in the longitudinal direction. First, steel-to-steel and aluminum-to-aluminum joints are tested to establish baseline data. Subsequently, multi-material joints consisting of aluminum-to-steel, aluminum-to-composite, and steel-to-composite joints were tested …

Volume 25.1, Footnote Forum: Editors' Note, Natasha Bynum, Colby Williams

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

Decarceration Means Funding The Incarcerated, David Campbell

City University of New York Law Review

While there are varied assertions as to what “defunding the police” and “reinvesting in communities” mean, I propose that one step towards this goal would be to redistribute the funds from Corrections Offices and bureaucratic management to incarcerated workers to ensure they are paid a suitable wage. If an increase in inmate pay appears outrageous to some, it is only because it entails beginning to treat inmates as full-fledged human beings and, in doing so, upsets the power dynamic between the incarcerated and their keepers.

The Correctional Institute Of Nothing, Frank Pruitt

City University of New York Law Review

Rehabilitation programs are crucial to address the conditions that lead people to commit crimes. Currently, effective rehabilitation programs are not offered in prisons; instead, the carceral system relies upon the erroneous assumption that incarceration itself fixes individual and social problems. In fact, prison conditions further entrench problematic behaviors. True rehabilitation allows incarcerated individuals to confront the offenses they committed, adopt new ways of thinking, and heal underlying trauma. The author, who has been incarcerated since 1989, identifies the lack of rehabilitation opportunities in prisons and offers a better, more humane way forward.

Q&A With Frank Pruitt, Frank Pruitt

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

Q&A With Felix Sitthivong, Felix Sitthivong

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Confusion About Causality At The Supreme Court, Issa Kohler-Hausmann, Robin Dembroff

City University of New York Law Review

Twice in the 2020 term, in Bostock and Comcast, the Supreme Court doubled down on a particular interpretation of how “but-for causation” applies to antidiscrimination statutes. According to the Court’s reasoning, an outcome is discriminatory because of some status—say, sex or race—if the outcome would not have occurred “but-for” the plaintiff’s status. We think this reasoning embeds profound conceptual errors that render the decisions deeply confused. Furthermore, those conceptual errors tend to limit the reach of antidiscrimination law. In this essay, we first unpack the ambiguity of the Court’s interpretation and application of but-for causal reasoning. We then show that …

Challenging Weapons Deals Between The United States And Israel: Limitations And Prospects, Ryan J. Mcnamara

City University of New York Law Review

Weapons deals with Israel violate the plain language and policy considerations of United States’ statutes blocking such aid to serial violators of human rights and nuclear rogue states. This Note seeks to review paths to enforcing these statutes, as well as the political forces hampering such efforts.

Casting Out From The Inside: Abolishing Felony Disenfranchisement In New York, Elizabeth Neuland

City University of New York Law Review

Felony disenfranchisement laws are an archaic practice, meant to silence a population that is often forgotten and overlooked by society. On the principles of rehabilitation and accountability, New York State ought to completely abolish felony disenfranchisement. It does not deter crime. In fact, recidivism rates show a decline when incarcerated individuals have rehabilitative opportunities through New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision ("DOCCS")-facilitated programming and family services. As the arguments laid out in this Comment demonstrate, it is imperative that the New York State Legislature takes prompt action to abolish felony disenfranchisement altogether.

Elderly, Detained, And Justice-Involved: The Most Incarcerated Generation, Rachael Bedard, Joshua Vaughn, Angela Silletti Murolo

City University of New York Law Review

The “graying” of the United States prison system is a well-documented phenomenon that describes the aging of the population currently held in U.S. state and federal prisons. This is generally attributed to the large number of individuals who are aging in place in prisons around the country due to long sentences and restrictive parole practices. Less well-known or well-characterized is the fact that the U.S.’s justice-involved population outside of prisons is also “graying”—that the demographics of people who are being arrested, jail detained, transferred to prisons on new criminal convictions, and monitored under community surveillance programs are also changing to …

Front Matter

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

Racist Animal Agriculture, Courtney G. Lee

City University of New York Law Review

Industrialized animal agriculture—concentrated animal feeding operations (“CAFOs”) and slaughterhouses—is inherently oppressive of both nonhumans and humans. This Article seeks to expose the human side of that exploitation, specifically examining how industrial animal agriculture was built upon and continues to propagate racism. The harms to humans of color perpetuated by this system are myriad and serious, ranging from physical to psychological and from troubling to life-threatening. This Article first examines how the animal agribusiness industry has harmed farmers and ranchers of color since the early 20th century through government-sponsored racist policies and practices. Second, the Article studies harms to workers, from …

The Color Of Local Government: Observations Of A Brown Buffalo On Racial Impact Statements In The Movement For Water Justice, Tom I. Romero Ii

City University of New York Law Review

Industrialized animal agriculture—concentrated animal feeding operations (“CAFOs”) and slaughterhouses—is inherently oppressive of both nonhumans and humans. This Article seeks to expose the human side of that exploitation, specifically examining how industrial animal agriculture was built upon and continues to propagate racism. The harms to humans of color perpetuated by this system are myriad and serious, ranging from physical to psychological and from troubling to life-threatening. This Article first examines how the animal agribusiness industry has harmed farmers and ranchers of color since the early 20th century through government-sponsored racist policies and practices. Second, the Article studies harms to workers, from …

Death By A Thousand Duck Bites In A No-Man’S Land: Navigating Section 230’S Scope And Impact In A Changing Internet And World, Val Rigodon

City University of New York Law Review

Section 230 of Title 47 of the United States Code, colloquially known as Section 230, is hailed by many as the law that created the internet. It was conceived to promote the growth of the internet by protecting internet platforms from liability for third-party speech that was out of their control. However, while the internet has changed and grown more intrusive in everyday life, Section 230 has not grown to reflect that. It has been broadened in a way that allows internet platforms to escape liability. People are not generally able to hold internet platforms accountable for harms that were …

Workin' Languages: Who We Are Matters In Our Writing, Sara P. Alvarez, Amy J. Wan, Eunjeong Lee

Publications and Research

The steady increase of movements of people around the world has transformed the face, potential, and expectations of the US writing classroom. These intersecting shifts have also contributed to critical discussions about how writing educators should integrate students’ linguistic diversity and ways of knowing into literacy instruction. This chapter’s central premise is to share with students how the work that they already do with languages has great value. Specifically, the chapter introduces terms, concepts, and strategies to support students in identifying how their own multilingual workin’ of languages contribute to the making of academic writing. Our goal is to support …

Do Students’ Questions During Chemistry Lectures Predict Perceived Comprehension And Exam Performance?, Bradley W. Bergey, Jennifer G. Cromley, Avi Kaplan, James D. Bloxton Ii

Publications and Research

Question generation is theorized to support comprehension, self-regulation, and achievement, yet the empirical based for whether and how student-generated questions are associated with comprehension monitoring and whether they predict future performance remain open questions. To address these, we investigated the questions undergraduate students in an introductory chemistry course recorded in question logs across an 8-lecture unit and their relations with post-lecture self-appraisals of comprehension and exam performance. Results indicated that students who generated more questions during lectures, who were able to resolve fewer of their questions, and who generated questions indicating large exam-relevant knowledge gaps reported lower levels of comprehension …

Reciprocity Of Thermal Diffusion In Time-Modulated Systems, Jiaxin Li, Ying Li, Pei-Chao Cao, Minghong Qi, Xu Zheng, Yu-Gui Peng, Baowen Li, Xue-Feng Zhu, Andrea Alù, Hongsheng Chen, Cheng-Wei Qiu

Advanced Science Research Center

The reciprocity principle governs the symmetry in transmission of electromagnetic and acoustic waves, as well as the diffusion of heat between two points in space, with important consequences for thermal management and energy harvesting. There has been significant recent interest in materials with time-modulated properties, which have been shown to efficiently break reciprocity for light, sound, and even charge diffusion. However, time modulation may not be a plausible approach to break thermal reciprocity, in contrast to the usual perception. We establish a theoretical framework to accurately describe the behavior of diffusive processes under time modulation, and prove that thermal reciprocity …

An Archimedes' Screw For Light, Emanuele Galiffi, Paloma A. Huidobro, J. B. Pendry

Advanced Science Research Center

An Archimedes’ Screw captures water, feeding energy into it by lifting it to a higher level. We introduce the first instance of an optical Archimedes’ Screw, and demonstrate how this system is capable of capturing light, dragging it and amplifying it. We unveil new exact analytic solutions to Maxwell’s Equations for a wide family of chiral space-time media, and show their potential to achieve chirally selective amplification within widely tunable parity-time-broken phases. Our work, which may be readily implemented via pump-probe experiments with circularly polarized beams, opens a new direction in the physics of time-varying media by merging the rising …