Digital Commons Network^™

Fixed Points In Linear Regression, David L. Farnsworth

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There is a set of points in the plane whose elements correspond to the observations that are used to generate a simple least-squares regression line. Each value of the independent variable in the observations matches up with one of these points, which are called pivot or fixed points. The coordinates of the fixed points are derived, and the properties of the points are explored. All points in the plane that yield each of the fixed points are found. The role that fixed points play in regression diagnostics is investigated. A new mechanical device that uses linkages to model the role …

Pm2.5 Forecasting At U.S. Embassies And Consulates Worldwide Using Nasa Model Powered By Machine Learning, Junhyeon Seo, Alqamah Sayeed, Seohui Park, John Kerekes, Stephanie Christel, Mary Tran, Pawan Gupta

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Air quality forecasting is crucial for public health, especially in rural, suburban, and developing areas lacking reliable monitoring data. Hybrid monitoring (surface, satellite, and models) offers a scalable, cost‐ effective solution for tracking pollution and trends. This work presents a machine learning model that integrates ground measurements with global model outputs assimilating satellite observations to forecast air quality. Ground measurements of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from over 60 U.S. embassies and consulates were used to calibrate global model outputs for local air quality forecasting. Multi‐channel input data was prepared using the Goddard Earth Observing System forward processing for meteorology and …

The Right To Exit Religion, Zalman Rothschild

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This Article argues that just over fifty years ago, in Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Supreme Court recognized what might be called a right to exit religion. In this decision, the Court expressed appreciation for preserving insular religious communities, while simultaneously articulating the principle that accommodations for such communities must not unduly restrict community members’ ability to exit should they wish to do so. Yet courts and scholars have largely overlooked Yoder’s recognition of a right to exit religion. To make this “right” more concrete, the Article examines impediments to it through a case study of one large insular religious community—the …

Heritage In Search Of A Home: Archiving The Learning Designs And Artistry Of Instructional Television Of The 1970s And 1980s, Owen Gottlieb

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This chapter tells intertwined stories of the rescue and preservation of two archival collections of instructional (classroom) television programs and attendant materials from the ITV new wave of the 1970s and 1980s. A.I.T., the Agency for Instructional Television/Technology created innovative programming combining instructional design and media artistry, all focused on learners. The ability, afforded by these collections, to address key lacunae in the history could have significant implications for the design of learning media in its current forms of interactive media and video games for learning as well as the development of the next evolution of learning media and technology.

Does Third Party Litigation Funding Need Regulations On Consumer Protection, Ronen Avraham, Eric Schuller, Anthony J. Sebok

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Transcript of a roundtable discussion during the Third-Party Litigation Symposium at the S.J. Quinney College of Law.

How Experts View The Legal System's Use Of Scientific Evidence, Shari Seidman Diamond, Richard Lempert

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Legal scholars and courts frequently write about how scientific evidence is vetted and presented in legal proceedings, but the views of experts themselves have received little attention. Our research aims to fill that gap. This paper reports some of what we learned from a series of surveys we conducted, beginning with a survey in 2016 of scientists who had been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.3 Subsequent surveys were directed to subscribers of the journal Science who identified as scientists and engineers and to self-identified experts who advertised their availability as experts to lawyers or …

‘I Could Replicate The Situation Exactly The Same As I Do In Class’: Apprentice Lecturers Use Of A Learning Management System At An Irish University During And After Covid-19, Eleanor Attridge, Tom O'Mahony

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While technology is playing a more critical role in learning, apprentice lecturers’ use of technology to support learning is under-researched. This qualitative study explores apprentice lecturers’ use and experience of a Learning Management System during and after COVID-19. Thematic analysis was used to make sense of the rich data, gathered using semi-structured interviews, from ten apprentice lecturers. The analysis revealed that technology use largely mirrored participants’ teacher-centric face-to-face methods. This approach did not sustain apprentice online engagement. Applying the theoretical framework, TPACK revealed that limited pedagogical expertise and, to a lesser extent, limited technological proficiency shaped participants’ approaches. Systemic constraints …

Deleting Values May Either Increase Or Decrease Variance, David L. Farnsworth

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The impact upon variance when a value is deleted is addressed. It is shown that the cutoff for the deleted value yielding an increase or a decrease in variance is approximately one standard deviation from the mean for a univariate random variable with equally distributed probability on a finite set of elements and for a univariate set of observations. The influence of truncation of the domain for such a discrete random variable and for observations is considered.

Integrating Standards For Infrastructure Improvement And Resilience In University Curricula, Lisa Greenwood, Jennifer Schneider, Sumita Mishra, Yewande S. Abraham, Shriram Karpoora Sundara Pandian

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In today’s ever-changing world, we are increasingly vulnerable to shocks and stresses that disrupt industry and society. Persistent threats from natural and manmade hazards require our communities and infrastructure to be resilient despite possible disruption. Creating robust infrastructures is founded on operational and physical standards to withstand and respond to threats such as environmental exposures, climate change, and informational security breaches. The significant U.S. investment in infrastructure projects through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has amplified the need for professionals in engineering and related fields who – in addition to technical knowledge - possess the necessary knowledge and skill …

Is The Utpr Extraterritorial Or Discriminatory?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

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On January 20 President Trump issued two executive orders on international tax. The first order rejected the OECD’s two-pillar project, stating: The OECD Global Tax Deal supported under the prior administration not only allows extraterritorial jurisdiction over American income but also limits our Nation’s ability to enact tax policies that serve the interests of American businesses and workers. Because of the Global Tax Deal and other discriminatory foreign tax practices, American companies may face retaliatory international tax regimes if the United States does not comply with foreign tax policy objectives. This memorandum recaptures our Nation’s sovereignty and economic competitiveness by …

Defining Demand - The Suitability Of Sensor-Based Demand-Controlled Ventilation Within Deep Energy Retrofit Dwellings, Seamus Harrington, Mark Mulville

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This paper reviews a Sensor-Based Demand-Controlled Ventilation (SBDCV) system which seeks to provide fresh air for breathing and to dilute and exhaust pollutants and odours. Previous studies have demonstrated that the constant pressure system increases ventilation extract and inflow based on relative humidity levels and/or presence detection and works on the assumption that the level of ventilation provided is sufficient to control the concentration of all indoor air pollutants, including those that are not occupant generated. This paper presents the results obtained from monitoring the indoor air quality of eight dwellings that had undergone a fabric-first deep energy retrofit and …

Tax Experience Isn’T Everything: A Tale Of Two Justices., Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

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Any student of federal income taxation is familiar with a series of important Supreme Court tax decisions written by Justice Harry Blackmun (associate justice, 1970-1994). They would also know of three important decisions written by his contemporary, Justice Thurgood Marshall (associate justice, 1967-1991). It is interesting to compare the two, because Blackmun was the only recent justice with extensive tax practice experience, whereas Marshall had none. Yet, most of Blackmun’s tax opinions were wrong while Marshall’s opinions were right.

Fee-Shifting Shortcuts, Maureen Carroll

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Federal fee-shifting statutes, which allow certain prevailing plaintiffs to recover a reasonable attorney’s fee from the defendant, are critically important to civil rights enforcement. When it comes to the interpretation of these statutes, however, a wide gap separates the doctrine articulated by the Supreme Court and the decisions issued by lower courts. According to the Supreme Court, the calculation of a feeshifting award requires a highly contextualized inquiry, specific to the plaintiff’s attorneys and claims; in the lower courts, by contrast, judges take a set of welltrodden shortcuts that flatten many of the differences the case law makes relevant.

This …

Flow Dynamics Of Agricultural Waste Nanofibers: Shear, Temperature, And Oscillatory Insights, Bilge N. Altay, Burak Aksoy, James Atkinson, Christopher Lewis, Carlos Diaz-Acosta, Raymond Francis

Articles

The rheology and fiber size of corn stover (CS) and cleaned cotton gin trash (CGT) cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) were studied including behaviors at both moderate and extremely high shear rates, to simulate industrial processes ranging from mixing and pumping to high-speed coating, printing, and extrusion. Particle size analyzer showed that 99% of CS fibers measured around 226 nm, while 85% of CGT fibers were approximately 143 nm. Both CS and CGT CNFs formed gel-like suspensions, and shear flow tests revealed that all samples exhibited shear-thinning behavior, allowing easy flow under shear forces. Gels with higher solid content (1%) demonstrated extended …

Quantifying The Role Of Active Listening And Reassurance In Virtual Health Coach Interactions, Ghulam Hussain, Brian Keegan, Robert Ross

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Conversational Agents have the potential to support healthcare through coaching exercise routines, but are still lacking in demonstrating authentic social behaviours to support engagement. To this end, we present a series of experiments that we conducted in order to investigate how automated health care coaches can be more effective when their interaction style is tailored to demonstrate qualities associated with a good bedside manner, namely active listening and reassurance. To test this, we first developed a dataset of 135 dialogue excerpts from three distinct sources, i.e., original, handcrafted and LLMs, the latter two of which were tuned to demonstrate specific …

A Comparison Study Of Senior And Junior Deck Officers’ Interpretations Of The International Regulations For The Prevention Of Collisions At Sea, Ian Heffernan, Tom O'Mahony

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The International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea (IRPCS) provide a comprehensive set of instructions for watchkeeping officers to follow and prevent collisions at sea. This study compares how six newly qualified deck officers and six Master Mariners, who were all trained at the same college, applied the IRPCS. Individual, semi-structured interviews were used to uncover how the 12 participants applied and interpreted the rules for three authentic scenarios. Phenomenography was used to capture the qualitatively different means by which participants interpreted the IRPCS. For basic collision avoidance situations, the results indicated little difference between the cohorts' ability …

Institutionalized Ostracism, Danieli Evans

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Belonging is a fundamental need, like food or water. Hundreds of social psychology studies find that people who are ostracized (excluded, rejected, or ignored) experience severe pain and suffering. Ostracism threatens basic needs, triggers the same neurocognitive processing system as physical pain, and impairs functioning. Furthermore, ostracized people may cope in ways that beget “deviant” labeling and further ostracism.

Belonging and ostracism are prevalent themes in social psychology research, but these constructs have received relatively little attention in law. This Article begins to explore the implications of this research for law. I make three contributions: First, I name and describe …

Tax In Law Schools, Michael Hatfield

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At the 2023 Association of American Law Schools Tax Section meeting, professors discussed their impressions of a decline in the number of JD students studying tax. Their impressions were consistent with declines that have been documented in similar fields. Between 2011 and 2021, U.S. accounting programs saw an 18% drop in students, while new CPA candidates declined 39% from 2010 to 2022. In the United Kingdom, the number of law schools that teach tax has diminished by 43% since 2002. This Article examines tax education in 40 U.S. law schools, focusing on course offerings and enrollment trends from 2012 to …

Evaluating The Ghg Emissions, Land Use, And Water Use Associated With Contemporary Dietary Patterns In The Republic Of Ireland, Daniel Burke, Paul Hynds, Anushree Priyadarshini

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Dietary patterns are intrinsically linked to greenhouse (GHG) emissions, land use, and water use via food production systems. Analysing and comparing contemporary dietary patterns and their environmental impact is critical to identifying which should be promoted to enhance global sustainability. A cross-sectional survey of adult consumption patterns was conducted across Ireland with a representative sample size of 957 respondents. Subsequently, a farm-to-fork life cycle assessment (LCA) was employed via OpenLCA 2.0.4 to assess three primary environmental impacts (global warming, land use, and water use) across the population. Thirteen distinct dietary patterns were analysed: total population, rural, urban, self-reported (omnivore, flexitarian, …

Gender Equality Plans In Research Organisations And Higher Education Institutions As A Catalyst For Transformative And Sustainable Change, Yvonne Galligan

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Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) play a pivotal role in shaping the European Union’s commitment to fostering sustainable structural change in Research organisations regarding gender equality. This article considers the dynamic evolution of the EU policy on GEPs, assesses the state of play with regards to GEPs following the requirements at EU level, and poses the question: What further can be done to deliver the transformative potential of GEPs, embed their sustainability and advance towards inclusiveness at greater speed? Drawing on the insights of feminist institutionalism, which highlights the relevance of informal practices as well as formal rules in shaping an …

Math And Aftermath: Impacts Of Unbundling A Large Journal Package On Researcher Perceptions And Behavior, Kizer S. Walker, Adam Chandler, Caitlin Finlay, Gabriela Castro Gessner, Tobi Hines, Jesse Koennecke, Susan Kendrick, Leah Mcewen, Jacob Sayward, Henrik W.W. Spoon

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This study seeks to understand the effects on researchers’ work at a large research university in the wake of the university library’s shift from a near-comprehensive journals package with a single, large publisher to a selective list of individual journal subscriptions. Analyzing historical journal usage, along with turnaway and interlibrary loan trends from the years following the changes, the authors made use of structured interviews with local researchers to bring context and meaning to the quantitative data. The interviews highlighted researchers’ strategies for gaining access to literature in their fields to which the library does not subscribe, and revealed assumptions …

Cultural Cognition And The Thoughtful Judge, Jack H.L. Whiteley

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That judges follow what the law is, and not what they wish it was, is a requirement of the rule of law. At the same time, scholars, lawyers, and judges often say that judges’ values influence their decisions. Connecting these two ideas has generated a conversation about the relationship between law, ideology, and politics.

Recently, part of this conversation has focused on a theory called cultural cognition. The theory offers an account of how people’s values shape how they interpret things without their noticing. People whose values tend toward hierarchy sometimes perceive facts differently than people whose values tend toward …

Tonry’S Blueprint For The Comparative Study Of Sentencing Law And Policy, Kevin R. Reitz

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This essay explores Michael Tonry’s treatment of sentencing law and policy within the U.S. as an inherently comparative project. The essay draws from Tonry’s “early period” in comparative sentencing from the late 1970s to the middle 1990s, when his writing was largely U.S.-centric, focued on quickly changing conditions in dozens of states and the federal system. Tonry classified the several models of “sentencing reform” that were being tried across the country, drew contrasts in the legal architectures of the new systems, collected data and evaluation research for as many states as possible, and treated the reform-active states as “laboratories” whose …

Lawyers’ And Law Professors’ Experience With Worker Governance, Brett H. Mcdonnell

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Part I surveys some of the leading arguments concerning the benefits and costs of worker governance. It also describes some of the ways in which those benefits and costs can evolve along with the growth, or lack thereof, of companies with worker governance. Part II looks at governance in law firms. It considers how the explanations for the adoption of worker governance fare with respect to law firms, notes the limited, elitist nature of worker governance within law firms, and considers the consequences of that real but elitist worker governance for the understanding of lawyers. Part III considers the same …

Presidential Control And Administrative Capacity, Nicholas Bednar

Articles

Presidential control is the power to direct administrative capacity toward the President’s own policy objectives. Accordingly, presidential power vis-à-vis administrative policymaking has two necessary components: control and capacity. First, the President must have the ability to set the agency’s policymaking agenda and direct the day-to-day activities of its leadership and career employees. Second, the agency needs a well-managed team of policymakers with expertise and experience in both the substantive policy area and the policymaking process. Yet scholars have long assumed—without much empirical testing—that the administrative state has sufficient capacity to implement the President’s agenda. Not so.

This Article argues that …

Ai Assistance In Legal Analysis: An Empirical Study, Jonathan H. Choi, Daniel Benjamin Schwarcz

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No abstract provided.

In Memoriam: Robert D. Cooter, Francesco Parisi

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The International Review of Law & Economics is publishing these notes in memory and celebration of Robert D. Cooter—its Editor from 1988 to 2004—offering brief reflections on him as teacher, scholar, and exemplar. A giant of law and economics, Robert D. Cooter combined breadth with creative insight: he helped build a systematic economic understanding of torts, contracts, and property, a novel approach to public law and Constitutional design, and opened new frontiers on the interaction between law and social norms and on the expressive power of law. His humanity and scholarly ethos—curiosity, humor, and intellectual honesty—left a lasting mark on …

High Tech Touts, Sherman J. Clark

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This essay has three interrelated aims. First, it articulates a set of capacities I call virtues of attention—capacities for intuitive discernment, good judgment about what is worth sustained focus, and the ability to engage deeply with worthwhile things. These are eudaimonist virtues in that they help us live well, not merely act rightly. Second, the essay explores what I call poisonous persuasion: the idea that rhetorical appeals, especially those used in marketing, may not only succeed by appealing to certain desires or habits of mind but may also deepen and entrench them. Third, I bring these insights together to examine …

Boden Lecture: Taxation Of Autonomous Artificial Intelligence, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Lucas Brasil Salama, Herbert Snitz, W. Robert Thomas

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This Article proposes that tax can be a useful supplement to other measures to regulate Autonomous Artificial Intelligence (AAI) and limit its potential harmful effects. This proposal differs from command-and-control regulation of AAI along the lines of European Union legislation that may unduly limit the development of AAI. It also differs from existing proposals to tax AAI to generate revenue to help workers displaced by AAI programs, or to tax the data used by AAI The proposal is based on granting AAI programs like ChatGPT separate legal personhood, like corporate personhood, while incentivizing or requiring their corporate owner to place …

Environment Scan Of Generative Ai Infrastructure For Clinical And Translational Science, Hua Xu, Jiang Bian, Chunhua Weng, Yifan Peng, Betina Idnay, Zihan Xu, William G. Adams, Mohammad Adibuzzaman, Nicholas R. Anderson, Neil Bahroos, Douglas S. Bell, Cody Bumgardner, Thomas Campion, Mario Castro, James J. Cimino, I. Glenn Cohen, David Dorr, Peter L. Elkin, Jungwei W. Fan, Todd Ferris, David J. Foran, David Hanauer, Mike Hogarth, Kun Huang, Jayashree Kalpathy-Cramer, Manoj Kandpal, Niranjan S. Karnik, Avnish Katoch, Albert M. Lai, Christophe G. Lambert, Lang Li, Christopher Lindsell, Jinze Liu, Zhiyong Lu, Yuan Luo, Peter Mcgarvey, Eneida A. Mendonca, Parsa Mirhaji, Shawn Murphy, John D. Osborne, Ioannis C. Paschalidis, Paul A. Harris, Fred Prior, Nicholas J. Shaheen, Nawar Shara, Ida Sim, Umberto Tachinardi, Lemuel R. Waitman, Rosalind J. Wright, Adrian H. Zai, Kai Zheng, Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, Bradley A. Malin, Karthik Natarajan, Nicholson Price, Rui Zhang, Yiye Zhang

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This study reports a comprehensive environmental scan of the generative AI (GenAI) infrastructure in the national network for clinical and translational science across 36 institutions supported by the CTSA Program led by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at the United States. Key findings indicate a diverse range of institutional strategies, with most organizations in the experimental phase of GenAI deployment. The results underscore the need for a more coordinated approach to GenAI governance, emphasizing collaboration among senior leaders, clinicians, information technology staff, and researchers. Our analysis reveals that 53% of …