Digital Commons Network^™

The Permissibility Of Acting Officials: May The President Work Around Senate Confirmation?, Nina A. Mendelson

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Recent presidential reliance on acting agency officials, including an acting Attorney General, acting Secretaries of Defense, and an acting Secretary of Homeland Security, as well as numerous below-Cabinet officials, has drawn significant criticism from scholars, the media, and members of Congress. They worry that the President may be pursuing illegitimate goals and seeking to bypass the critical Senate role under the Appointments Clause. But Congress has authorized—and Presidents have called upon—such individuals from the early years of the Republic to the present. Meanwhile, neither formalist approaches to the constitutional issue, which seem to permit no flexibility, nor current Supreme Court …

An Online Interactive Video Vignette That Helps Students Learn Key Concepts Of Fermentation And Respiration, Jean A. Cardinale, Dina L. Newman, L. Kate Wright

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Topics related to energy transformation and metabolism are important parts of an undergraduate biology curriculum, but these are also topics that students traditionally struggle with. To address this, we have created a short online Interactive Video Vignette (IVV) called To Ferment or Not to Ferment: That is the Question. This IVV is designed to help students learn important ideas related to cellular respiration and metabolism. Students in various courses across four institutions were assigned the IVV as an out-of-class preinstruction homework assignment. To test the effectiveness of this IVV on student learning, we collected and analyzed data from questions embedded …

Student Observations Of Postsecondary Classroom Instruction: Accessibility Challenges And Collaborative Feedback., Yasmine R. Jassal, Stephanie W. Cawthon, Sara Schley

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For deaf students, accessible classroom design is often provided through external services such as interpreters or speech-to-text providers. An approach based in Universal Design for Learning (UDL), though, seeks to engage students in learning by creating classroom spaces with accessibility integrated into the pedagogical approach. Realizing these goals requires participation from one of the most valuable, yet underused, resources: the students themselves. To that end, this paper examines a student-faculty collaborative approach to increasing accessibility for deaf students in postsecondary classrooms. Results of this study suggest that student observers are able to provide concrete and constructive feedback on strategies to …

Characterization And Antimicrobial Activity Of Biodegradable Active Packaging Enriched With Clove And Thyme Essential Oil For Food Packaging Application, Shubham Sharma, Sandra Barkauskaite, Brendan Duffy, Amit Jaiswal, Swarna Jaiswal

Articles

Bioactive packaging contains natural antimicrobial agents, which inhibit the growth of microorganisms and increase the food shelf life. Solvent casting method was used to prepare the Poly (lactide)-Poly (butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PLA-PBAT) film incorporated with the thyme oil and clove oil in various concentrations (1 wt%, 5 wt% and 10 wt%). The clove oil composite films depicted less green and more yellow as compared to thyme oil composite films. Clove oil composite film has shown an 80% increase in the UV blocking efficiency. The tensile strength (TS) of thyme oil and clove oil composite film decreases from 1.35 MPs (control film) …

Multi‑View Clustering For Multi‑Omics Data Using Unifed Embedding, Mohammed Hasanuzzaman, Sayantan Mitra, Sriparna Saha

Articles

In real world applications, data sets are often comprised of multiple views, which provide consensus and complementary information to each other. Embedding learning is an effective strategy for nearest neighbour search and dimensionality reduction in large data sets. This paper attempts to learn a unified probability distribution of the points across different views and generates a unified embedding in a low-dimensional space to optimally preserve neighbourhood identity. Probability distributions generated for each point for each view are combined by conflation method to create a single unified distribution. The goal is to approximate this unified distribution as much as possible when …

Scandalizing The Judiciary: An Analysis Of The Uneven Response Of The Supreme Court Of India To Sexual Harassment Allegations Against Judges, Sanjay Jain, Saranya Mishra

Articles

The Supreme Court of India (SC) pronounced a momentous judgment in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan in 1997, categorically recognizing the menace of sexual harassment (SH) at workplace and constitutionally rendering it as being in violation of fundamental rights guaranteed by Articles 15, 19, and 21 of the Constitution of India 1950. The Court also provided a mechanism for redressal against SH, which was ultimately reinforced by Parliament with the enactment of Sexual Harassment at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013 (POSH Act). However, when it comes to allegations of SH against judges in the SC and High Courts …

Using Information Communications Technologies To Implement Universal Design For Learning, David Banes, Anne Hayes, Christopher Kurz, Raja Kashalnagar

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The purpose of this paper is to assist Ministries of Education, their donors and partners, Disabled Persons Organizations (DPOs), and the practitioner community funded by and working with USAID to select, pilot, and (as appropriate) scale up ICT4E solutions to facilitate the implementation of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), with a particular emphasis on supporting students with disabilities to acquire literacy and numeracy skills. The paper focuses primarily on how technology can support foundational skills acquisition for students with disabilities, while also explaining when, why, and how technologies that assist students with disabilities can, in some applications, have positive impacts …

Why Women Also Know History, Emily Prifogle, Karin Wulf

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"Women Also Know Stuff. Does that sound obvious? It's not, alas." In early 2016 a group of women political scientists announced in The Washington Post their reasons for forming a group called Women Also Know Stuff. The US presidential election dramatically exposed the ongoing imbalance in the consultation and citation of women experts in political discussion.1 The new group was responding directly to media bias, but it has long been clear that bias—not only against women but against people of color, LGBTQ scholars, and other groups—is persistent in academia. The historical profession is no exception.

Living With Machines. Ethical Implications And Imaginative Agency As Local Tactics Of Dwelling And Resistance In Everyday Interactions With Artificial Intelligence, Ester Toribio-Roura

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With the widespread of the Internet of things (IoT), algorithms are increasingly managing our everyday life. From navigating our way in cities to keeping track of our health, artificial intelligence has been beneficial to us in many ways. However, its algorithms can also be detrimental as a consequence of biased human programming. The result is that while technological progress delivers more and more human-like artificial intelligence, humans become dehumanised and therefore, disempowered in their everyday interactions with artificial intelligence.The solution(s) is not single-handed and calls for combined interventions at the macro and micro levels. Whilst reviewing recent top-down developments on …

Covid-19, Single-Sourced Diagnostic Tests, And Innovation Policy, Deb Chaarushena, Osman Moneer, Nicholson W. Price Ii

Articles

At the heart of the United States, disastrous response to the Covid-19 pandemic is a failure of diagnostic testing. That something so fundamental to medical care could be so botched evokes incredulity. From primary care offices to critical care settings, every patient encounter begins with a diagnostic workup. Diagnostic testing tools are key parts of the physician’s toolkit, and confirmatory testing is essential. But in the greatest public health challenge of the 21st century, the failures of diagnostic testing have been laid entirely bare.

Creating North Carolina Populism, 1900–1960: Part 2: The Progressive Era Legacy, 1930–1960, James L. Hunt

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Between 1900 and 1930, North Carolina’s first generation of professional historians constructed scholarly accounts of Tar Heel Populism. These pioneers offered a version of the recent past that supported white supremacy and the current Progressive Era political leadership. They agreed Populism’s destruction had been desirable. University-based historians opposed the Populist Party’s support for significant changes to tax policy, broad-based democracy, and radical forms of corporate regulation, especially of railroads, banks, and monopolies. The key figures included J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Simeon A. DeLapp, Florence E. Smith, and John D. Hicks. Most earned Ph.D. degrees in history from northern universities, …

Audio-Visual Caption Evaluation Metric For People Who Are Deaf And Hard Of Hearing, Akhter Al Amin

Articles

While the availability of captioned television programming has increased, the quality of this captioning is not always acceptable to Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) viewers, especially for live or unscripted content, broadcast from local television stations, especially in smaller markets. There is a need for formal metrics to evaluate captioning quality, to enable audits or quality assurance. Although some current caption metrics focus on comparing the textual accuracy (comparing the caption text and accurate transcription of what was spoken), there are other properties of captions that may affect quality or usability judgments. We propose to conduct experiments with DHH …

Seeing Beyond Courts: The Political Context Of The Nationwide Injunction, Charlton C. Copeland

Articles

No abstract provided.

Enzymatic In-Situ Transesterification Of Neutral Lipids From Simulated Wastewater Cultured Chlorella Emersonii And Pseudokirchneriella Subcapitata To Sustainably Produce Fatty Acid Methyl Esters, Priyanka Priyanka, Gemma K. Kinsella, Gary Henehan, Barry J. Ryan

Articles

Alternative, more sustainable and environmentally positive, sources of energy are one of the current global challenges. One approach to achieving more sustainable sources of energy is to use waste from one system as a raw material for energy production, following the circular biosystem philosophy. This study successfully adopted this approach whereby microalgae strains Chlorella emersonii and Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata were bioprospected and metabolically engineered in simulated wastewater supplemented with glucose to produce neutral lipids. Using a two-step cultivation approach neutral lipid content was enhanced in Chlorella emersonii and Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata biomass. Via in-situ transesterification, these neutral lipids were subsequently bioconverted to …

The Data City, The Idiom And Questions Of Locality, Noel Fitzpatrick

Articles

The paper aims to provide both a radical critique of the “smart city” as a techno-ideological apparatus,that through data analysis and algorithmic forms of governmentality tends to colonize space and time, and an attempt to reframe the very concept of intelligence within the smart cities. Two concepts are presented as tools for such a reframing: locality and idiom, where the first is conceived as openness of meaning generated by a territory, while the latter,analysed througha paradigmatic Irish example (Friel’s play Translations), prepares the ground for the pars construensof the paper. The claim, built by intertwining a set of authors (Ricoeur, …

Prosecutorial Declination Statements, Jessica A. Roth

Articles

This Article examines how prosecutors convey to various audiences their decisions not to charge in discrete cases. Although prosecutors regularly issue public statements about their declinations—and anecdotal evidence suggests that declination statements are on the rise—there is an absence of literature discussing the interests that such statements serve, the risks that they pose, and how such statements are consistent with the prosecutorial function. Prosecutors also operate in this space without clear ground rules set by law, policies, or professional standards. This Article attempts to fill that void. First, it theorizes the interests potentially advanced by such statements—characterized as signaling, accountability, …

A Sentence Need Not Begin With A Capital Letter, Jakob Patekar

Articles

This paper examines the challenge of starting a sentence with a proper noun or an abbreviation that is written with an initial lowercase letter (e.g. iPhone, danah boyd, pH). Traditionally, placing such words at the beginning of a sentence would be avoided, but this limits one's syntax and style. Hence, the aim of this paper is to explore the rules and practices of writing certain proper nouns and abbreviations with a lowercase letter and starting a sentence with such words in Croatian and English. Therefore, we reviewed the rules and guidelines in orthography handbooks and style guides, analyzed the corpora …

What The Post-Coronavirus University Will Look Like, Thomas Power

Articles

The opportunity of a crisis is that it forces an industry to re-examine its policies and practices. Since the coronavirus pandemic university leadership teams have been forced to re-examine its policies and practices on teaching, learning, research and funding.

Supporting Disaster Resilience Spatial Thinking With Serious Geogames: Project Lily Pad, Brian Tomaszewski, Amy Walker, Emily Gawlik, Casey Lane, Scott William, Deborah Orieta, Claudia Mcdaniel, Matthew Plummer, Anushka Nair, Nicolas San Jose, Kyle Pecsok, Emma Thomley, Erin Mahoney, Emily Haberlack, David Schwartz

Articles

The need for improvement of societal disaster resilience and response efforts was evident after the destruction caused by the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. We present a novel conceptual framework for improving disaster resilience through the combination of serious games, geographic information systems (GIS), spatial thinking, and disaster resilience. Our framework is implemented via Project Lily Pad, a serious geogame based on our conceptual framework, serious game case studies, interviews and real-life experiences from 2017 Hurricane Harvey survivors in Dickinson, TX, and an immersive hurricane-induced flooding scenario. The game teaches a four-fold set of skills relevant to spatial thinking and disaster …

Questions Concerning Attention And Stiegler’S Therapeutics, Noel Fitzpatrick

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The article sets out to develop the concept of attention as a key aspect to building the possible therapeutics that Bernard Stiegler’s recent works have pointed to (The Automatic Society, 2016, The Neganthropocene, 2018 and Qu’appelle-t-on Panser, 2018). The therapeutic aspect of pharmacology takes place through processes that are neganthropic; therefore, which attempt to counteract the entropic nature of digital technologies where there is flattening out to the measurable and the calculable of Big Data. The most obvious examples of this flattening out can be seen in relation to the use of natural language processing technologies for …

Disability And Reproductive Justice, Samuel Bagenstos

Articles

In the spring of 2019, disability and abortion rights collided at the Supreme Court in a case involving an Indiana ban on “disability-selective abortions.” In a lengthy concurrence in the denial of certiorari, Justice Thomas argued that the ban was constitutional because it “promote[s] a State’s compelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics.” Just a few months earlier, disability and reproductive rights issues had intersected in a very different way in the debate over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Disability rights advocates drew attention to an opinion then-Judge Kavanaugh had written …

Raman Spectroscopy Of Lymphocytes For The Identification Of Prostate Cancer Patients With Late Radiation Toxicity Following Radiotherapy, Daniel Cullen, Jane Bryant, Adrian Maguire, Denish Medipally, Brendan Mcclean, Laura Shields, Emma Noone, Shirley Bradshaw, Marie Finn, Mary Dunne, Aoife M .Shannon, John Armstrong, Orla Howe, Aidan Meade, Fiona Lyng

Articles

The success of radiotherapy in tumour control depends on the total dose given. However, the tolerance of the normal tissues surrounding the tumour limits this dose. It is not known why some patients develop radiation toxicity and, currently, it is not possible to predict before treatment which patients will experience adverse effects. Thus, there is an unmet clinical need for a new test to identify patients at risk of radiation toxicity. Here, we report a new approach based on Raman spectroscopy.Blood samples were collected from 42 patients who had undergone radiotherapy for prostate cancer and had shown either severe or …

A Proposal Digital Marketing Strategy For Marcheluzzo Srl: Training And Evaluating A Prediction Model For The Number Of Adv. Impressions, Charles Alves De Castro

Articles

This research aims to describe a digital marketing strategy elaborated to be deployed in the MarcheluzzoSrl Company located in Italy. In addition, it intends to give a wide range of information to the company about its customers, target, competitors, market, digital marketing strategy, and potential recommendations. It is also important to highlight that this strategy is focused on the Brazilian market. Most of the information collected for the situational analysis and many other components for this research were gathered through the author`s perception during his internship in the company. The methodology includes secondary data collected through field observation in the …

Importing Prescription Drugs From Canada — Legal And Practical Problems With The Trump Administration's Proposal, Rachel E. Sachs, Nicholas Bagley

Articles

As Americans report ever-growing difficulty affording their prescription drugs, President Donald Trump has come under increasing pressure to act. To date, the Trump administration has attempted to advance a number of policy initiatives by means of executive action, but it has not yet adopted a program that would meaningfully assist patients. Most recently, the administration proposed a rule that, if finalized, would allow states to develop programs to import lower-priced prescription drugs from Canada, with the intent of reducing spending on drugs by U.S. patients and states and increasing access for patients.

Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction Of Polyphenols From Ginger (Zingiber Officinale) And Evaluation Of Its Antioxidant And Antimicrobial Properties, Amy Murphy, Eilish Norton, Faye Montgomery, Amit Jaiswal, Swarna Jaiswal

Articles

In this present study, ultrasound-assisted solvent extraction conditions were optimized to develop a more efficient method that would result in maximum extraction of polyphenols from ginger. To achieve this optimal extraction process, a central composite design of response surface methodology was applied. A second-order polynomial equation was developed, indicating the effect of ginger concentration (400-1,200 mg/20mL solvent), solvent mixture composition (20-100%), temperature (30-70°C) and treatment time (10-30 min) on polyphenols extraction. The optimum parameters were found to be 1200mg of ginger prepared with 86% ethanol and sonication for 11 minutes at 65°C. The total phenolic and flavonoid content of ginger …

Assessing The Market Niche Of Eurasian Rail Freight In The Belt And Road Era., Xu Zhang, Hans-Joachim Schramm

Articles

This paper presents an overview of the recent development of Eurasian rail freight in the Belt and Road era and further evaluates its service quality in terms of transit times and transport costs compared to other transport modes in containerised supply chains between Europe and China.

A trade-off model of transit time and transport costs based on quantitative data from primary and secondary sources is developed to demonstrate the market niche for Eurasian rail freight vis-a-vis the more established modes of transport of sea, air, and sea/air. In a scenario analysis, further cargo attributes influencing modal choice are employed to …

Theory Of The Nudnik: The Future Of Consumer Activism And What We Can Do To Stop It, Yonathan A. Arbel, Roy Shapira

Articles

How do consumers hold sellers accountable and enforce market norms? This Article contributes to our understanding of consumer markets in three ways. First, the Article identifies the role of a small subset of consumers-the titular "nudniks"-as engines of market discipline. Nudniks are those who call to complain, speak with managers, post online reviews, and file lawsuits. Typified by an idiosyncratic utility function and certain unique personality traits, nudniks pursue action where most consumers remain passive. Although derided in courtrooms and the court of public opinion, we show that nudniks can solve consumer collective action problems, leading to broad market improvements. …

Expungement Of Criminal Convictions: An Empirical Study, J.J. Prescott, Sonja B. Starr

Articles

Laws permitting the expungement of criminal convictions are a key component of modern criminal justice reform efforts and have been the subject of a recent upsurge in legislative activity. This debate has been almost entirely devoid of evidence about the laws’ effects, in part because the necessary data (such as sealed records themselves) have been unavailable. We were able to obtain access to de-identified data that overcome that problem, and we use it to carry out a comprehensive statewide study of expungement recipients and comparable nonrecipients in Michigan. We offer three key sets of empirical findings. First, among those legally …

Competition Wrongs, Nicolas Cornell

Articles

In both philosophical and legal circles, it is typically assumed that wrongs depend upon having one’s rights violated. But within any market-based economy, market participants may be wronged by the conduct of other actors in the marketplace. Due to my illicit business tactics, you may lose profits, customers, employees, reputation, access to capital, or any number of other sources of value. This Article argues that such competition wrongs are an example of wrongs that arise without an underlying right, contrary to the typical philosophical and legal assumption. The Article thus draws upon various forms of business law to illustrate what …

Understanding Violent-Crime Recidivism, J.J. Prescott, Benjamin Pyle, Sonja B. Starr

Articles

People convicted of violent crimes constitute a majority of the imprisoned population but are generally ignored by existing policies aimed at reducing mass incarceration. Serious efforts to shrink the large footprint of the prison system will need to recognize this fact. This point is especially pressing at the time of this writing, as states and the federal system consider large-scale prison releases motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Those convicted of violent crimes constitute a large majority of older prisoners, who are extremely vulnerable to the spread of the virus behind bars. Excluding them from protective measures will deeply undermine those …