Digital Commons Network^™

Counterfeit Contact Lenses, Claire E. Mcdonnell

Articles

This article covers how counterfeit cosmetic and corrective contact lenses potentially reach the end user and the dangers of counterfeit lenses.

European Union/Oecd/International - Klaus Vogel Lecture 2023: The Past, Present And Future Of Destination-Based Income Taxation., Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

A significant obstacle to the unilateral adoption of the OECD’s Pillar One are tax treaties since many countries cannot override tax treaties unilaterally. In his Klaus Vogel Lecture for 2023, Professor Reuven Avi-Yonah asks what are the chances for adopting a true multilateral convention for income taxation?

Sidewalk Government, Michael C. Pollack

Articles

This Article is about one of the most used, least studied spaces in the country: the sidewalk.

It is easy to think of sidewalks simply as spaces for pedestrians, and that is exactly how most scholars, policymakers, and laws treat them. But this view is fundamentally mistaken. In big cities and small towns, sidewalks are also where we gather, demonstrate, dine, exercise, rest, and shop. They are host to commerce and infrastructure. They are spaces of public access and sources of private obligation. And in all of these things, sidewalks are sites of under-appreciated conflict. The centrality of sidewalks in …

Immigration - Lifeboat Earth - Is The Boat Full, Thomas Power

Articles

The Lifeboat Earth metaphor requires western liberals to consider answers to those normative questions posed by Hardin. But the answer to them possibly depends on the economic effects of immigration and this can come from both economic theory and research.

Ai And 6g Into The Metaverse: Fundamentals, Challenges And Future Research Trends, Muhammad Zawish, Fayaz Ali Dharejo, Sunder Ali Khowaja, Saleem Raza, Steven Davy, Kapal Dev, Paolo Bellavista

Articles

Since Facebook was renamed Meta, a lot of attention, debate, and exploration have intensified about what the Metaverse is, how it works, and the possible ways to exploit it. It is anticipated that Metaverse will be a continuum of rapidly emerging technologies, usecases, capabilities, and experiences that will make it up for the next evolution of the Internet. Several researchers have already surveyed the literature on artificial intelligence (AI) and wireless communications in realizing the Metaverse. However, due to the rapid emergence and continuous evolution of technologies, there is a need for a comprehensive and in-depth survey of the role …

Planning Report For The University Of Washington Center On Intimate Partner Violence Research, Policy And Practice, Mary A. Kernic, Avanti Adhia, Anna E. Bender, Natalie Dolci, Alice M. Ellyson, Mary Fan, V. Kalei Kanuha, Jennifer Piel, Dana Raigrodski, Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, Kiana Swearingen, Denise Walker, Carolyn West

Articles

This report is respectfully submitted to fulfill the legislative mandate pursuant to Section 602 of Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 1715 (2023) to generate a plan for the establishment of a University of Washington (UW) center on intimate partner violence (IPV) research, policy and practice. The goals of the center are to conduct IPV research, widely disseminate evidence-based and other high quality research to best inform policy and practice-based efforts in IPV prevention and harm reduction, and to ensure these efforts are informed and responsive to the needs of survivors and others impacted by IPV in Washington State.

Biobased Construction From Agricultural Crops: Paper 1 - A State Of Play Of Commercial Solutions In Europe, Patrick Daly, Paula G. Barril

Articles

In response to environmental concerns and the global warming issue in particular there is a growing drive to decarbonise the building sector and transition it to more circular practices.

Biobased construction materials, products and systems are an important low carbon and circular strategy as they can enable low to negative carbon construction and have strong circularity advantages notably being able to enter the bio cycle, using renewable, low to zero toxic resources and provide a range of other performance benefits, including moisture and vapour regulation.

This novel research presents a unique state of play on the commercial application of biobased …

Theorising Political Legitimisation: From Stasis To Processes, Paddy Dolan, Stephen Vertigans, John Connolly

Articles

Legitimacy remains a key concept in political sociology, and perhaps even more so in lay understandings of political processes and structures, as evidenced by conflict over territories and regimes around the world. However, the concept suffers from a rather static representation, and even when addressed in processual form, in terms of specific moments in the process, such as conditions favouring legitimacy or its effects. Building from an Eliasian perspective, we argue for a more processual concept of legitimisation to encompass the dynamic social networks (figurations) that constitute the more unintentional context for deliberate legitimation claims. As networks expand and intensify, …

Inclusive Counterfactual Generation: Leveraging Llms In Identifying Online Hate, M. Atif Qureshi, Arjumand Younus, Simon Caton

Articles

Counterfactually augmented data has recently been proposed as a successful solution for socially situated NLP tasks such as hate speech detection. The chief component within the existing counterfactual data augmentation pipeline, however, involves manually flipping labels and making minimal content edits to training data. In a hate speech context, these forms of editing have been shown to still retain offensive hate speech content. Inspired by the recent success of large language models (LLMs), especially the development of ChatGPT, which have demonstrated improved language comprehension abilities, we propose an inclusivity-oriented approach to automatically generate counterfactually augmented data using LLMs. We show …

Explainable Ai For 6g Use Cases: Technical Aspects And Research Challenges, Shen Wang, M. Atif Qureshi, Luis Miralles-Pechu{\'A}N, Thien Huynh-The, Thippa Reddy Gadekallu, Madhusanka Liyanage

Articles

Around 2020, 5G began its commercialization journey, and discussions about the next-generation networks (such as 6G) emerged. Researchers predict that 6G networks will have higher bandwidth, coverage, reliability, energy efficiency, and lower latency, and will be an integrated “human-centric” network system powered by artificial intelligence (AI). This 6G network will lead to many real-time automated decisions, ranging from network resource allocation to collision avoidance for self-driving cars. However, there is a risk of losing control over decision-making due to the high-speed, data-intensive AI decision-making that may go beyond designers’ and users’ comprehension. To mitigate this risk, explainable AI (XAI) methods …

Numeracy-Meets: Supporting The Teaching Of Numeracy To Vulnerable Adult Groups, Fiona Faulkner, Mark Prendergast, Niamh O'Meara, Kathy O'Sullivan, Annette Forster

Articles

A key commitment of the Adult Literacy for Life Strategy (2021) is to reduce the number of adults in Ireland with unmet numeracy needs from 25% to 12%. One of the main challenges in achieving this is the varied provision of adult numeracy education. Many numeracy practitioners are either employed part time or are volunteers with few opportunities for professional development and networking with their peers. This paper details the design, implementation, and evaluation of a professional development model that aimed to support adult practitioners’ in developing their learners’ numeracy skills. This was done through the development of a new …

Progressing Children's Right To Be Heard In Public Decision-Making: Perspectives On Using Social And Digital Media To Facilitate Children's Participation, Kevin Lalor, Brian O'Neill, Thuy Dinh

Articles

Children's right to be heard is expressed in Article 12 of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. Mechanisms and methods to facilitate the inclusion of young people's views have been developed by youth workers, advocates and policy-makers and include diverse consultation approaches, including surveys, polls, consultation meetings and formal structures such as youth parliaments. Even though social and digital media are now pervasive in the lives of children, the potential to use these as tools to facilitate youth consultation is still surprisingly at an early stage of development. This paper presents findings from a national mixed-method study …

Rejoinder To Book Review Of "Rural Transformations And Rural Crime", Matt Bowden, Alistair Harkness

Articles

A review of a book we edited, Rural Transformations and Rural Crime (Bowden & Harkness, 2022) was published in Volume 32, Issue 3 of Rural Society (Scott, 2023) in December 2023. The review makes two key but highly misleading charges. The first is an intimation that rural criminology is dominated by a clique of scholars; and second that the book by and large lacks critical analysis to the reviewer's liking. The reviewer provides a glimpse of a broad analysis of the field and adopts an independently minded position. Indeed, some observations and claims are made that should rightly be part …

What’S In A Name? Esg Mutual Funds And The Sec’S Names Rule, Jill Fisch, Adriana Robertson

Articles

As investor money flows into environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) mutual funds, regulators have raised growing concerns about greenwashing—specifically that a fund’s name will falsely suggest that the fund invests in companies that meet certain ESG standards. To address these concerns, the Securities & Exchange Commission (“SEC”) proposed amendments to the Investment Company Act (“Names Rule”). The amendments extend the scope of the Names Rule to funds whose names include terms such as ESG, green, or sustainable. If adopted, they will require such funds to invest at least 80% of the value of their assets in companies that meet the …

Discretionary Investing By ‘Passive’ S&P 500 Funds, Adriana Robertson, Peter Molk

Articles

So-called passive index funds—investment funds that are designed to track a prespecified underlying index—have become a dominant force in the investing landscape, collectively controlling over $12 trillion in assets. It is widely assumed that these funds are obligated to follow their underlying index, and that fund managers cannot, or do not, select portfolios that devi- ate from the index’s holdings. As a result, various critics have attacked these funds, raising concerns about their corporate governance incentives and their influence on market efficiency.

We show this assumption is overly simplistic. To do so, we examine funds that track the most prominent …

Opening Dialogue, Lee Bollinger, Geoffrey Stone

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No abstract provided.

Real-World Prior Art, Jonathan Masur, Lisa Ouellette

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No abstract provided.

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

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No abstract provided.

Grid Reliability In The Electric Era, Joshua Macey, Hannah Wiseman, Shelley Welton

Articles

The United States has delegated the responsibility of keeping the lights on to a self-regulatory organization called the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). Although NERC is a crucial example of industry-led governance—and regulates in an area that is central to our economy and basic human survival—this unusual institution has received scant attention from policymakers and scholars. Such attention is overdue. To decarbonize its economy, the United States must enter a new “electric era,” transitioning many sectors to run on electricity while also transforming the electricity system itself to run largely on clean but intermittent renewable resources. These new resources …

On The Genealogy Of Intimate Digital Harm, Aziz Huq

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No abstract provided.

The Shadow Of The Law Of The Police, Adam Davidson

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No abstract provided.

Social Care Managers' Perspectives On Statutory Registration Of Social Care Workers In Ireland, Audrey Moore, Kevin Lalor

Articles

The focus of this paper is social care managers' views on the impact of the statutory registration of social care workers in Ireland. The findings suggest that registration is welcomed by social care managers who believe that it will impact positively on societal recognition of social care workers as professionals and that it will improve accountability within the sector. However, the findings also suggest that there is confusion regarding information about registration and issues remain in the sector regarding multiplicity of titles, roles, and duties of social care workers. We conclude that the opening of the register is only a …

Can Community Festivals Make Urban Places More Hospitable?, Bernadette Quinn

Articles

Cultivating places and spaces to encourage sociality and foster sociocultural inclusion is a very pertinent societal challenge. Community festivals are often marshalled in the interest of making cities more hospitable for the increasing numbers of migrants, refugees, remote workers and tourists internationally on the move. This study investigates if and how community festivals are constructing hospitality through their practices. The findings are drawn from a qualitative study of two community festivals in Dublin's North East Inner City, an ethnically diverse area characterized by social disadvantage. They suggest that community festivals can make places more hospitable. However, the approaches taken to …

Light And Dark Mode: A Comparison Between Android And Ios App Ui Modes And Interviews With App Designers And Developers, Sarah Andrew, Chelsea Bishop, Garreth W. Tigwell

Articles

Mobile app light and dark modes offer improved usability within different contexts (e.g., dark mode for easier night reading). Yet, little research has investigated the prevalence of light and dark modes across platforms, the intricacies of UI color changes, and challenges in the design and development process. Our investigation focused on comparing light and dark mode designs. We carried out a manual inspection of 120 popular Android and iOS apps to find that only 55\% (Android) and 48\% (iOS) of the apps included any modes. We also found significant variability in how many UI elements changed between modes. We interviewed …

“There’S A Lifestyle, An Appreciation, A Beauty”: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Of Masters Rowers, Jason Rich, Pamela Beach, Heidi K. Byrne

Articles

Masters rowing has seen a measurable increase in participation, with masters rowers engaged in the sport for competition, health, and recreation reasons. Unlike other masters sports, masters rowing has a unique high level of synchronous, cooperative, and interdependent elements. To better understand the benefits and challenges of participation in competitive masters rowing, the purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of competitive masters rowers. Twelve competitive masters rowers were recruited and interviewed. Utilizing an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach to guide data collection, analysis, and interpretation, the analysis revealed four major themes: navigating community relationships, finding a reason …

Making Law Practice Technology More Simulation-Based, Jacob Sayward

Articles

Law and Technology Legal Technology Law Practice Technology Technology Competency Law Legal Education Legal Profession Technology Technology Education Technology Planning or Policy

Opportunistic Breach Of Contract, Francesco Parisi, Brian H. Bix, Ariel Porat

Articles

Law and economics scholarship has traditionally analyzed efficient breach cases monolithically. By grouping efficient breach cases together, this literature treats the subjective motives and the distributive effects of the breach as immaterial. The Restatement (Third) of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment introduced a distinction based on the intent and the effects of the breach, allowing courts to use disgorgement remedies in cases of ‘opportunistic’ breach of contract (i.e., ‘deliberate and profitable’ breaches). In this article, we evaluate this approach, focusing on the effects of disgorgement remedies on allocative and productive efficiency, information-forcing and competitive effects, and restraint of breach-searching incentives. We …

"With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility": Improving Your Feedback And Hallmarks Of Effective Feedback, Randall Ryder

Articles

Effective feedback can change a law student’s trajectory in law school and beyond. The feedback-centric nature of experiential learning courses allows law students to both develop their skills and personal lawyering style. However, many experiential instructors are from a different generation, with different expectations and communication styles than today’s law students. This article highlights hallmarks of effective feedback for the modern law school classroom. As the field of law continues to evolve, law schools will need to as well.

This article discusses four key hallmarks: (1) provide feedback in multiple formats,(2) help each student develop their personal style, (3) explain …

Platform Unions, Charlotte Garden

Articles

How should we regulate social media platforms to prevent harmful treatment of users? Regulators, advocates, and scholars have grappled with this problem for years. Many proposed solutions, ranging from improving privacy disclosures, to promoting competition between platforms, to requiring platforms to pay users for their data, are at best incomplete.

This Article begins from the premise that platform problems are collective problems and proposes a collective solution: empowering users to organize platform unions. Much like labor unions give employees a say in in their working conditions even when they lack individual bargaining power, platform unions would facilitate collective bargaining over …

Importance And Interpretive Questions, Ilan Wurman

Articles

In its October 2021 Term, the Supreme Court formalized what it calls the major questions doctrine. The doctrine, as currently formulated, appears to require a clear and specific statement from Congress if Congress intends to delegate questions of major political or economic significance to agencies. The doctrine has been almost universally assailed on the right by scholars who argue that the doctrine is inconsistent with textualism and on the left by those who claim it is a recently invented, functionalist tool devised to reach antiadministrativist results. One can explain at least some of the cases, however, in a way that …