Digital Commons Network^™

Spherical Modes Driven Directional Modulation With A Compact Mimo Antenna, Abel Zamdemala, Nicola Marchetti, Max Ammann, Adam Narbudowicz

Articles

In this letter, a compact beamsteering MIMO antenna is proposed for Directional Modulation (DM) applications. A generalization of the beamsteering principle is presented and by exploiting the antenna’s unidirectional beamsteering capability within the entire azimuth plane, the system realizes secure steerable transmissions in the direction of the legitimate receiver, with a low Bit Error Rate (BER) of 10^(-5), while a high error rate of 10^(-1) is seen outside the desired regions. Numerical and experimental verifications are carried out to validate the proposed concept and comparisons with circular arrays are conducted, revealing that the system achieves comparable performance but with up …

Views Of The Irish Judiciary On Technology In Courts: Results Of A Survey, Brian M. Barry Dr, Rónán Kennedy Dr

Articles

Technology continues to transform how judges perform their functions, both in Ireland and elsewhere. This article reports the results of a survey of Irish judges on their use of technology in their role, their attitudes towards technology, and their views on how it impacts on the judicial function. The survey, part of a global survey, found that Irish judges habitually used digital technologies, and were broadly satisfied with the technology available in chambers, but less so with what was provided in courtrooms. Although generally happy to embrace change, the majority of respondents were concerned with, and did not prefer, online …

Nanomaterials-Based Biosensors For The Detection Of Prostate Cancer Biomarkers: Recent Trends And Future Perspective, Baljit Singh, Shiliang Ma, Tony O. Hara, Sargun Singh

Articles

Cancer is among the leading causes of death and an important barrier to improving life expectancy globally. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men worldwide. The detection of biomarkers in body fluids is the key topic for the diagnosis and prognosis of prostate cancer. Despite advances in prostate cancer detection methods, therapeutic agents and new biomarkers, prostate cancer remains a serious challenge. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is widely recognized as an important biomarker for the diagnosis of prostate cancer although researchers have also investigated the use of alternative biomarkers. Design and development of novel biosensors for prostate cancer …

Assessing The Evidential Value Of Mental Fatigue And Exercise Research, Darias Holgado, Cristian Mesquida, Rafael Roman-Caballero

Articles

It has often been reported that mental exertion, presumably leading to mental fatigue, can negatively affect exercise performance; however, recent findings have questioned the strength of the effect. To further complicate this issue, an overlooked problem might be the presence of publication bias in studies using underpowered designs, which is known to inflate false positive report probability and effect size estimates. Altogether, the presence of bias is likely to reduce the evidential value of the published literature on this topic, although it is unknown to what extent. The purpose of the current work was to assess the evidential value of …

Valorisation Of Crustacean And Bivalve Processing Side Streams For Industrial Fast Time-To-Market Products: A Review From The European Union Regulation Perspective, Yang Zou, Marc Heyndrickx, Jane Debode Jane Debode, Katleen Raes, Donatella De Pascale, Patrice Behan, Michelle Giltrap, Christine O'Connor, Runar Gjerp Solstad, Kjersi Lian, Themistoklis Altintzoglou, Ragnhild Dragoy, Nathalie Maria Scheers, Ingrid Undeland, Johan Robbens

Articles

A massive amount of crustaceans and bivalves are consumed each year, leading to millions of tons of processing side streams from the seafood industry. Considering the current trend of (bio)circular and zero-waste food production, crustacean and bivalve processing side streams (CBPS) seem a promising and emerging resource for producing high-value-added products. This paper highlights the general composition of CBPS with high commercial values, namely, protein, lipids, carotenoids, minerals and chitins. The extraction strategies of these fractions, including conventional chemical and environmentally friendly methods, are also discussed. This review presents and summarises CBPS as raw materials for developing fast time-to-market products …

Remote Justice & Domestic Violence: Process Pluralism Lessons From The Pandemic, Andrea K. Schneider, Heather Hlavka, Sameena Mulla, Erin Schubert, Aleksandra J. Snowden, Jennica Webster

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Domestic violence procedures, like so many court processes around the world, were forced to go online and remote during the pandemic. The impact was dramatic-there were fewer restraining order petitions filed in the first place and an even lower amount granted. In short, domestic violence survivors, among the most vulnerable in our court system, were even more challenged in the last two years. Like many court systems, Milwaukee will never go back to being fully in-person for all procedures in conjunction with domestic violence. The evolving hybrid choices could provide additional access to justice, or these processes could create additional …

Commercially Reasonable Sales In The 21st Century, David G. Carlson

Articles

It has been over 20 years since the 2000 amendments profoundly amended the foreclosure procedures in Article 9 of the UCC. This article reviews how the amendments have fared in the case law since then.

Title Theft, Stewart E. Sterk

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Real property owners across the country have been targeted by scammers who prepare deeds purporting to convey title to property the scammers do not own. Sometimes, the true owners are entirely unaware of these bogus transfers. In other instances, the scammers use misrepresentation to induce unsophisticated owners to sign documents they do not understand. Property doctrine protects owners against forgery and fraud—the primary vehicles scammers use in their efforts to transfer title. Owners enjoy protection not only against the scammers themselves, but generally against unsuspecting purchasers to whom the scammers transfer purported title. Recovery of title, however, involves costs and …

Third-Party Releases Under The Bankruptcy Code After Purdue Pharma, Jeanne L. Schroeder, David G. Carlson

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The biggest bankruptcy case ever (as measured by unsecured claims against a debtor-in-possession) is In re Purdue Pharma, LLC. The bankruptcy court affirmed a plan discharging the Sackler family (equity owners and often officers of Purdue) of all “derivative” claims that belonged to the debtor-in-possession. The settlement was bought for a substantial sum payable over time by the Sacklers. A debtor-in-possession is the sole owner of a derivative claim and has the power to bind all the creditors to a settlement. Under the Bankruptcy Code, a plan discharging derivative claims is confirmable. In fact, as we will, show, a great …

Adolescent Overweight And Obesity In Ireland—Trends And Sociodemographic Associations Between 1990 And 2020, Aoibhín Moore Heslin, Aisling O'Donnell, Laura Kehoe, Janette Walton, Albert Flynn, John Kearney, Breige Mcnulty

Articles

Background: Overweight and obesity in adolescence is a growing issue and can have a range of both short- and long-term consequences on health.

Objectives: To analyse trends in adolescent weight status in Ireland across a 30-year period and to examine the influence of sociodemographic factors on overweight/obesity in Irish adolescents over time.

Methods: Body composition and body mass index weight status of Irish adolescents were compared using data from three nationally representative, cross-sectional Irish national food consumption surveys from 1990, 2006 and 2020. Adjusted analysis of associations between socio-demographic factors with the risk of adolescent overweight/obesity at each time point …

Effect Of Pre-Analytical Variables On Raman And Ftir Spectral Content Of Lymphocytes, Jade F. Monaghan, Daniel Cullen, Claire Wynne, Fiona Lyng, Aidan Meade

Articles

The use of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy (RS) for the analysis of lymphocytes in clinical applications is increasing in the field of biomedicine. The pre-analytical phase, which is the most vulnerable stage of the testing process, is where most errors and sample variance occur; however, it is unclear how pre-analytical variables affect the FTIR and Raman spectra of lymphocytes. In this study, we evaluated how pre-analytical procedures undertaken before spectroscopic analysis influence the spectral integrity of lymphocytes purified from the peripheral blood of male volunteers (n = 3). Pre-analytical variables investigated were associated with (i) sample preparation, …

Comparing Poor And Favorable Outcome Prediction With Machine Learning After Mechanical Thrombectomy In Acute Ischemic Stroke, Matthias A. Mutke, Vince I. Madai, Adam Hilbert, Esra Zihni, Arne Potreck, Charlotte S. Weyland, Markus A. Mohlenbruch, Sabine Heiland, Peter A. Ringleb, Simon Nagel, Martin Beendszus, Dietmar Frey

Articles

Outcome prediction after mechanical thrombectomy (MT) in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and large vessel occlusion (LVO) is commonly performed by focusing on favorable outcome (modified Rankin Scale, mRS 0–2) after 3 months but poor outcome representing severe disability and mortality (mRS 5 and 6) might be of equal importance for clinical decision-making.

Corrigendum: Human Mental Workload: A Survey And A Novel Inclusive Definition, Luca Longo, Christopher D. Wickens, Gabriella Hancock, P. A. Hancock

Articles

In the published article, the name of Gabriella Hancock was incorrectly written as “Gabriela M. Hancock.” The correct name is “Gabriella Hancock.” In the published article, there was also an error in the author list as published. Gabriella Hancock was listed as the last author, but should have been listed as third author. P. A. Hancock was listed as third author but should be listed as the last author. The corrected author list appears below. Luca Longo1, Christopher D.Wickens, Gabriella Hancock and P. A. Hancock. The authors apologize for this error and state that this does not change the scientific …

How Visual Stimuli Evoked P300 Is Transforming The Brain–Computer Interface Landscape: A Prisma Compliant Systematic Review, Jai Kalra, Prashasti Mittal, Nirmiti Mittal, Abhishek Arora, Utkarsh Tewari, Aviral Chharia, Rahul Upadhyay, Vinay Kumar, Luca Longo

Articles

Non-invasive Visual Stimuli evoked-EEGbased P300 BCIs have gained immense attention in recent years due to their ability to help patients with disability using BCI-controlled assistive devices and applications. In addition to the medical field, P300 BCI has applications in entertainment, robotics, and education. The current article systematically reviews 147 articles that were published between 2006-2021*. Articles that pass the pre-defined criteria are included in the study. Further, classification based on their primary focus, including article orientation, participants’ age groups, tasks given, databases, the EEG devices used in the studies, classification models, and application domain, is performed. The application-based classification considers …

Schizo-Net: A Novel Schizophrenia Diagnosis Framework Using Late Fusion Multimodal Deep Learning On Electroencephalogram-Based Brain Connectivity Indices, Nitin Grover, Aviral Chharia, Rahul Upadhyay, Luca Longo

Articles

Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a serious mental condition that causes hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking. Traditionally, SCZ diagnosis involves the subject’s interview by a skilled psychiatrist. The process needs time and is bound to human errors and bias. Recently, brain connectivity indices have been used in a few pattern recognition methods to discriminate neuro-psychiatric patients from healthy subjects. The study presents Schizo-Net , a novel, highly accurate, and reliable SCZ diagnosis model based on a late multimodal fusion of estimated brain connectivity indices from EEG activity. First, the raw EEG activity is pre-processed exhaustively to remove unwanted artifacts. Next, six brain …

An Aggregation-Based Algebraic Multigrid Method With Deflation Techniques And Modified Generic Factored Approximate Sparse Inverses, Anastasia Natsiou, George A. Gravvanis, Christos K. Filelis-Papadopoulos, Konstantinos M. Giannoutakis

Articles

In this paper, we examine deflation-based algebraic multigrid methods for solving large systems of linear equations. Aggregation of the unknown terms is applied for coarsening, while deflation techniques are proposed for improving the rate of convergence. More specifically, the V-cycle strategy is adopted, in which, at each iteration, the solution is computed by initially decomposing it utilizing two complementary subspaces. The approximate solution is formed by combining the solution obtained using multigrids and deflation. In order to improve performance and convergence behavior, the proposed scheme was coupled with the Modified Generic Factored Approximate Sparse Inverse preconditioner. Furthermore, a parallel version …

Do Games Reduce Math Anxiety? A Meta-Analysis, Pierpaolo Dondio, Viacheslav Filonenko, Mariana Rocha

Articles

In this paper, we meta-analyse the empirical evidence about the effectiveness of game-based interventions to reduce students' level of math anxiety. After performing a search for randomised controlled studies relevant to game-based intervention for math anxiety, 16 experimental studies with a total of 686 participants described in 11 peer-review articles met the selection criteria.A random-effects meta-analysis indicated a small and non-significant reduction of math anxiety (mean effect size ES=-0.32, CI=[-0.64,0.01]). The results were moderated by several factors: non-digital games were more effective, while digital games had a negligible mean effect size of $ES=-0.13$, $CI=[-0.33,0.08]$. The effect size was moderated also …

A Multidimensionality Reduction Approach To Rainfall Prediction, Menatallah Abdel Azeem, Prasanjit Dey, Soumyabrata Dev

Articles

The rainfall has an impact on various fields and industries, including transportation, construction, tourism, health, and wildlife preservation. Accurate rainfall prediction is essential for mitigating the negative impact of rainfall on these sectors. However, previous studies on rainfall prediction have been mainly based on datasets from North America, Europe, Australia, and Central Asia, covering different periods. This study proposes using weather datasets covering the past 5 to 10 years to capture recent patterns in weather data. Additionally, the curse of dimensionality can impact model performance and lead to overfitting. Therefore, this study proposes utilizing dimensionality reduction techniques to ensure that …

An Integrated Model For Information Adoption&Trust In Mobile Social Commerce, Fulya Acikgoz, Abdelsalam Busalim, James Gaskin, Shahla Asadi

Articles

ABSTRACT Despite the growing importance of mobile social commerce (ms-commerce), little research has been conducted on the effects of informational and social factors on users’ post-adoption behavior. We, therefore, build on the understanding of mobile social commerce in the UK market and how it affects users’ post-adoption behaviors. Our theoretical model leverages the information adoption model, social support theory, and social influence theory. Data was gathered from 377 ms-commerce users from the UK and analyzed via Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM). The research findings show that both informational and social factors have a positive impact on information adoption in ms-commerce apps. …

The Potential And Limitations Of Conversational Agents For Chronic Conditions And Well-Being, Ekaterina Uetova, Lucy Hederman, Robert J. Ross, Dympna O'Sullivan

Articles

Conversational agents are becoming more common in the health and wellness domains in part due to assumptions regarding potential improvements in individuals’ outcomes. This paper presents initial findings from a review of conversational agent use in healthcare for chronic conditions and well-being. A search of the literature was performed on electronic databases PubMed, ACM Digital Library, Scopus and IEEE Xplore. Studies were included if they were focused on chronic disorder management, disease prevention or lifestyle change and if systems were tested on target user groups. This paper investigates the health domains, the user profiles and reasons why conversational agents may …

Time To Heal: Trauma's Impact On Rape & Sexual Assault Statutes Of Limitations, Fredrick E. Vars, Jillian Miller Purdue

Articles

Short statutes of limitations for sex crimes ask the impossible of many vic- tims: report the crime before they have recovered from the trauma. Perpetra- tors go free as a direct result of the injury they caused. Nearly a third of victims of rape and sexual assaulthave PTSD during their lifetimes. PTSD is associated with three symptoms pertinent to reporting a crime: avoidance cop- ing (avoidingdistressing thoughts, feelings, or reminders of the attack), disso- ciative amnesia (forgetting important or all aspects of the attack), and depression. These symptoms all affect a victim's psychological ability to report a crime before a …

The Credibility Effect: Defamation Law And Audiences, Yonathan A. Arbel

Articles

What should be the legal response to false statements? In the context of defamation law, courts try to set a standard that balances the interests of speakers and their potential targets. This article empirically demonstrates an unappreciated effect of such decisions on third parties: a credibility effect. Using a series of lab experiments, I find that defamation law makes individuals more trusting of reports from various media. This credibility effect is desirable when the report is true but can lead to unintended consequences in the case of misinformation. In particular, the credibility effect is shown to cast a stigma on …

Disarmament Is Good, But What We Need Now Is Arms Control, Daniel H. Joyner

Articles

This article aims to correct a number of misconceptions held by both scholars and activists about the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), and international nuclear weapons law generally. It first reviews the development of international law related to nuclear weapons, and provides a novel taxonomy of legal obligations divided into three substantive categories. It then examines the TPNW within that taxonomy, and considers how it should be understood to fit within this legal context. It concludes that the TPNW is essentially a nuclear disarmament treaty. While it should be welcomed as a contribution to nuclear …

Crying Wolf: Neo-Patriots, Critical Race Theory, And The Constitutional Protection Of "Dangerous" Ideas, Bryan K. Fair

Articles

Most Americans do not realize that, notwithstanding the First Amendment's free speech guarantee, for most of our nation's history, judges sent men and women to prison for expressing ideas considered too "dangerous." It was not until the late 1960s that the Supreme Court rejected the clear and present danger doctrine, insisting that statutes banning speech must draw a distinction between advocacy of ideas and advocacy of imminent lawless action. The Court held that under that constitutional norm, the government could not send a Klansman to prison for expressing racist, anti-Semitic, or otherwise dangerous or offensive ideas. Since then, banning the …

At The Nexus Of Antitrust & Consumer Protection, Luke Herrine

Articles

This Essay uses Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act to examine the theoretical and practical relationship between antitrust and consumer protection law. It argues that, since roughly 1980, there has been a hegemonic "neoliberal"framework, one that has in recent years been challenged by an emerging "moral economy" framework. The neoliberal framework conceptualizes antitrust as preventing firms from conspiring to throttle output, with a focus primarily on consumers' interests in low prices, and consumer protection as making consumers informed, rational, and able to switch between competitors with relatively low cost. The moral economy framework conceptualizes both areas of law …

The (Tax) Policy Entrepreneur, Mirit Eyal-Cohen

Articles

No abstract provided.

Common Law Constitutionalism And The Protean First Amendment, Ronald Jr. Krotoszynski

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No abstract provided.

Enforcing Equity Joyce A. Hughes: A Celebration, Daiquiri J. Steele

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No abstract provided.

Competitive Sustainability: The Intersection Of Sustainability And Business Success, Clyde Eiríkur Hull

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Sustainability that beats the competition is different from sustainability that does not. Some who care very much about sustainability may not care at all about business success. However, they should. If businesses were to see that competitive sustainability leads to financial success, they would take it up and abandon nonsustainable practices

Enhancing The Wettability Of Polyetheretherketone (Peek) Membrane With Ozone For Improving Fuel Cell Performance, Hunter Heineman, Omran Omar, Benjamin Rippel, Ryan Keeley, Michael Mehan, Surendra K. Gupta, Gerald A. Takacs

Articles

Ozone was reacted with the aromatic membrane polyetheretherketone (PEEK) to form oxidized functional groups on the surface to enhance the attraction and transport of protons in fuel cells. Ozonation of unsaturated C-C sp2 bonds in PEEK formed a primary ozonide which dissociated to primarily produce O=C-O/O=C-OH moieties, and the root mean squared roughness factor (Rq) decreased from 7.4 nm, for the untreated sample, down to 3.1 nm. The oxidation of the surface and decrease in surface roughness made the surface increase in hydrophilicity as observed by the decrease in the water contact angle (CA) from 80.3° for untreated PEEK down …