Digital Commons Network^™

Trends In China-Africa Economic Relations And Dispute Settlement, Won Kidane

Faculty Publications

The rapid rise in the last two decades of China-Africa economic interactions in trade, investment, construction projects, and loans require sustained inquiry into the substantive rules of engagement and mechanisms of dispute settlement. Evidently, however, it would quickly emerge that the improvements in supranational legal frameworks have not kept pace with the growing scale and complexity of the economic interactions. While trade relations between China and Africa are theoretically subject to the same multilateral World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, they are in practice mostly based on informal unilateral concessions. Moreover, investment relations are partially governed by fragmented and mostly outdated …

Governance Seams, Brett Frischmann, Paul Ohm

Faculty Publications

This Essay formalizes the concept of governance seams and develops theories for what they enable; how they arise; why they are some- times dismantled; and how, why, and when regulators might step in to protect endangered governance seams or to create new ones. Governance seams are socially constructed boundaries, borders, and interfaces that harness friction-in-design to enable governance. Governance seams mediate interactions among components of sociotechnical systems and between different parties and contexts. Delineating boundaries, borders, and interfaces as loci of transparency, coordination, and oversight supports mechanisms for deliberation, contestation, and protection, both by those within and those outside the …

The Right To Social Expungement, Itay Ravid

Faculty Publications

In recent years, policy makers advancing criminal legal reform have engaged
in attempts to correct years of harsh and expansive use of criminal laws. Two
main parallel trends dominate these attempts. One is forward-looking—the
decriminalization of many activities currently punishable by the criminal legal
system. The second is backward-looking, and related—expungement and vacatur
reforms that aim to allow individuals to start fresh.

While these latter efforts are intended to erase the criminal stain from official
criminal records, the non-official domain gained less traction, leading to an
absurd reality in which news stories about individuals’ criminal histories remain
accessible in the …

Decision Support Issues In Automated Driving Systems, William N. Caballero, David Ríos Insua, David Banks

Faculty Publications

Machine learning and computational processing have advanced such that automated driving systems (ADSs) are no longer a distant reality. Many automobile manufacturers have developed prototypes; however, there exist numerous decision support issues requiring resolution to ensure mass ADS adoption. In the coming decades, it is likely that production ADSs will only be partially autonomous. Such ADSs operate within predetermined conditions and require driver intervention when they are violated. Since forecasts of their 20-year market penetration are relatively low, ADSs will likely operate in heterogeneous traffic characterized by vehicles of varying autonomy levels. Under these conditions, effective decision support must consider …

Caveat Emptor: Scan Quality Of Elsevier’S Digital Backfile Pdf Collection, Gregory M. Nelson, Paul Kj Robbins, Dennis L. Eggett

Faculty Publications

Scans of journal articles originally published in print, otherwise known as digital journal backfiles, benefit library patrons by providing near instantaneous access to important older information and full-text searchability. Digital backfiles can serve as a reliable surrogate for their corresponding print journals which could be removed from the library, freeing up space for other patron services. Both benefits are realized when the scanned articles are of sufficient clarity to replace the print versions. Several studies have analyzed small and subject-narrow sections of Elsevier’s digital backfile. This article contains a scan-quality analysis from 1578 journals that contain nearly four million articles …

Discriminating Wirelesshart Communication Devices Using Sub-Nyquist Stimulated Responses, Jeffrey D. Long, Michael A. Temple, Christopher M. Rondeau

Faculty Publications

Reliable detection of counterfeit electronic, electrical, and electromechanical devices within critical information and communications technology systems ensures that operational integrity and resiliency are maintained. Counterfeit detection extends the device’s service life that spans manufacture and pre-installation to removal and disposition activity. This is addressed here using Distinct Native Attribute (DNA) fingerprinting while considering the effects of sub-Nyquist sampling on DNA-based discrimination. The sub-Nyquist sampled signals were obtained using factor-of-205 decimation on Nyquist-compliant WirelessHART response signals. The DNA is extracted from actively stimulated responses of eight commercial WirelessHART adapters and metrics introduced to characterize classifier performance. Adverse effects of sub-Nyquist decimation …

The Critique Is On The Glass: The Extension Of Museum-Presentation Techniques To Substantively Advance Law School Pedagogy, Rachel H. Smith

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In The Writing’s on the Wall: Using Multimedia Presentation Techniques from the Museum World to Improve Law School Pedagogy, Professor Cecilia A. Silver demonstrates how traditional law school teaching would benefit from embracing museum techniques. The Writing’s on the Wall offers museum presentation principles as a corrective to old-fashioned law teaching. And they certainly are. But they can be much more.

The museum techniques that the article describes are a starting point for thinking about museums as a useful analog to law schools, especially in confronting the biases, hierarchies, and injustices of the past and present. The Writing’s …

The Global Fatty Liver Disease-Sustainable Development Goal Country Score For 195 Countries And Territories, Jeffrey V. Lazarus, Hannah Han, Henry E. Mark, Saleh A. Schattenberg, Jörn M. J., Ismaeel Yunusa Ph. D., Et Al.

Faculty Publications

Background & Aims:

Fatty liver disease is highly prevalent, resulting in overarching wellbeing and economic costs. Addressing it requires comprehensive and coordinated multisectoral action. We developed a fatty liver disease-Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) country score to provide insights into country-level preparedness to address fatty liver disease through a whole-of-society lens.

Approach & Results:

We developed two fatty liver disease-SDG score sets. The first included six indicators (child wasting, child overweight, non-communicable disease [NCD] mortality, universal health coverage service coverage index, health worker density, and education attainment), covering 195 countries between 1990-2017. The second included the aforementioned indicators plus an urban …

Stellar Mergers With Hpx-Kokkos And Sycl: Methods Of Using An Asynchronous Many-Task Runtime System With Sycl, Gregor Daiß, Patrick Diehl, Hartmut Kaiser, Dirk Pflüger

Faculty Publications

Ranging from NVIDIA GPUs to AMD GPUs and Intel GPUs: Given the heterogeneity of available accelerator cards within current supercomputers, portability is a key aspect for modern HPC applications. In Octo-Tiger, an astrophysics application simulating binary star systems and stellar mergers, we rely on Kokkos and its various execution spaces for portable compute kernels. In turn, we use HPX, a distributed task-based runtime system, to coordinate kernel launches, CPU tasks, and communication. This combination allows us to have a fine interleaving between portable CPU/GPU computations and communication, enabling scalability on various supercomputers. However, for HPX and Kokkos to work together …

Inverse Machine Learning Discovered Metamaterials With Record High Recovery Stress, Adithya Challapalli, John Konlan, Guoqiang Li

Faculty Publications

Lightweight shape memory polymer (SMP) metamaterials integrated with high strength, high flexibility, and high recovery stress are highly desired in load carrying structures and devices. A grand challenge is that these desired properties have contradictory requirements, for instance between strength and flexibility, and between flexibility and recovery stress. In this study, an inverse design framework using statistical tools and machine learning models is developed to design thin-walled cellular structures with the desired properties. The discovered thin-walled cellular structures are 3D printed using a novel SMP, which exhibited excellent structural properties with record high specific recovery stress. For comparison purpose, lattice …

A Quieter Ocean: Experimentally Derived Differences In Attentive Responses Of Tursiops Truncatus To Anthropogenic Noise Playbacks Before And During The Covid-19-Related Anthropause, Paige E. Stevens, Veda Allen, Jason N. Bruck

Faculty Publications

The effects of anthropogenic noise continue to threaten marine fauna, yet the impacts of human-produced sound on the broad aspects of cognition in marine mammals remain relatively understudied. The shutdown of non-essential activities due to the COVID-19-related anthropause created an opportunity to determine if reducing levels of oceanic anthropogenic noise on cetaceans affected processes of sensitization and habituation for common human-made sounds in an experimental setting. Dolphins at Dolphin Quest Bermuda were presented with three noises related to human activities (cruise ship, personal watercraft, and Navy low-frequency active sonar) both in 2018 and again during the anthropause in 2021 via …

Trauma-Informed Academic Partnership, Ingrid Weiss Slikkers

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Seeing Through Sonar: Detecting The Amazonian Manatee, Daniel Gonzalez-Socoloske, Isabella Koh

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Show And Tell: Approaches For Effective Figures, Stephen R. Midway, Jennifer R. Brum, Matthew Robertson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Achieving The Achievable: Realistic Labor Law Reform, Rafael Gely

Faculty Publications

A common reprise among labor activists and scholars has been that for the fortunes of labor to change, the law must change. Prompted perhaps by a seeming surge in labor movement activity over the past few years, including headline-grabbing strikes and recent union victories at several U.S. Starbucks locations, various labor law activists and scholars have called to seize the moment and proposed the enactment of comprehensive labor law reform. We argue in this Article that broad-scale labor law reform is unlikely to be enacted by the current U.S. Congress or even have all its provisions pass muster when potentially …

The Clinic As A Site Of Grounded Pedagogy, Madalyn K. Wasilczuk

Faculty Publications

Legal education tends to focus on teaching students federal law from hefty casebooks, inculcating the ability to "think like lawyers." In a sea of Socratic lectures and hypotheticals, students often take refuge in clinics as an island of practical skills-building, client centeredness, and individual fulfillment. Yet even clinics sometimes fail to highlight for students how the place where they practice, with its particular political context and history, shapes their clients' lives and legal problems. This Article describes the law school clinic as a site of grounded pedagogy: a teaching method that centers the con­nection between local history and the present …

Real Mediation Systems To Help Parties And Mediators Achieve Their Goals, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

This article argues that it is time for a paradigm shift in our current general mediation theory because of numerous problems. Our current theory is incomplete at best and seriously misleading at worst. The traditional mediation models are oversimplified, poorly mapping onto the reality of practice. They combine multiple elements that are not necessarily correlated. Many practitioners ignore them because they are confusing or not helpful. People do not understand the theoretical meanings because the terms are not consistent with commonly understood language. Arguments about what is or is not real or good mediation have spawned unhelpful ideological divisions in …

Environment-Tolerant Ionic Hydrogel–Elastomer Hybrids With Robust Interfaces, High Transparence, And Biocompatibility For A Mechanical–Thermal Multimode Sensor, Ya Lu, Yiying Yue, Qinqin Ding, Changtong Mei, Xinwu Xu, Shaohua Jiang, Shuijian He, Qinglin Wu, Huining Xiao, Jingquan Han

Faculty Publications

The human skin, an important sensory organ, responds sensitively to external stimuli under various harsh conditions. However, the simultaneous achievement of mechanical/thermal sensitivity and extreme environmental tolerance remains an enormous challenge for skin-like hydrogel-based sensors. In this study, a novel skin-inspired hydrogel–elastomer hybrid with a sandwich structure and strong interfacial bonding for mechanical–thermal multimode sensing applications is developed. An inner-layered ionic hydrogel with a semi-interpenetrating network is prepared using sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as a nanofiller, lithium chloride (LiCl) as an ionic transport conductor, and polyacrylamide (PAM) as a polymer matrix. The outer-layered polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomers fully encapsulating the hydrogel …

Regional Variation In Feeding Patterns Of Sheepshead (Archosargus Probatocephalus) In The Northwest Gulf Of Mexico, Elsa M. Gutierrez, Jeffrey D. Plumlee, Derek G. Bolser, Brad E. Erisman, R. J.David Wells

Faculty Publications

Feeding patterns of sheepshead, Archosargus probatocephalus, in the northwest Gulf of Mexico were examined from samples collected at two locations in Texas, USA; Galveston and Port Aransas. A total of 53 sheepshead stomachs (Galveston, n = 35; Port Aransas, n = 18) had their contents analyzed along with tissue samples from the muscle and liver for a stable isotope analysis (δ13C, δ15N, and δ34S) because they provide a contrast between short-term (liver) and long-term (muscle) measurements. Multiple species of amphipods made up the majority of the prey items in sheepshead from Galveston (%IRI = 61.79), whereas barnacles were the primary …

A Review Of Methods Of Assessing Preference For Social Stimuli, Samuel L. Morris, Madison L. Gallagher, Alva E. Allen

Faculty Publications

Research on preference and reinforcer assessments has historically focused on the evaluation of edible and leisure reinforcers, but the identification and use of individualized social reinforcers may be beneficial for several reasons. Recently, many studies have evaluated methods of assessing preference for social stimuli. The procedures and outcomes across these studies have varied greatly, and the current state of evidence for methods of assessing preference for social stimuli remains unclear. Thus, we conducted a review to synthesize all previous research in this area, evaluate the evidence for the utility of this general methodology, and identify factors that may influence its …

The Impact Of Covid-19, Mental Health Distress, And School-Based Sociocultural Protective Factors Among Elementary-Aged Children And Their Caregivers, Aijah K.B. Goodwin, Anthony J. Roberson, Ar’Reon Watson, Grace L. Chen, Anna C.J. Long

Faculty Publications

Given the individual and systemic stress endured by children and families during the COVID-19 pandemic, research examining culturally responsive school experiences and supports to enhance resilience is critical. This study examined the relationship between caregivers’ perceptions of COVID-19 impact, mental health distress among children and caregivers, and school-based sociocultural protective factors, including culturally responsive practices in schools and the relationships between teachers and caregivers, concurrently and longitudinally. Data were collected from caregivers of elementary-aged children at two-time points from March to April 2020 (N = 174) and one year later in 2021 (N = 114). Regression analyses revealed that COVID-19 …

Environmental Attitudes And Fertility Desires Among Us Adolescents From 2005–2019, Heather M. Rackin, Alison Gemmill, Caroline Sten Hartnett

Faculty Publications

Objective: This brief report examines links between environmental attitudes and fertility desires over time in the United States. Background: To understand fertility decision making, it is important to identify factors that influence fertility desires. Concerns about environmental problems may be associated with lower desired fertility, especially in recent cohorts transitioning to adulthood. Youth may feel that having one less child can reduce their “carbon footprint” or may be unwilling to bring children into an uncertain and difficult future due to climate change. Method: Data are from 12th graders in the Monitoring the Future study (2005–2019; N = 34,104). Regression is …

Total Daily Energy Expenditure Has Declined Over The Past Three Decades Due To Declining Basal Expenditure, Not Reduced Activity Expenditure, John R. Speakman, Jasper M.A. De Jong, Srishti Sinha, Klaas R. Westerterp, Yosuke Yamada, Hiroyuki Sagayama, Philip N. Ainslie, Liam J. Anderson, Lenore Arab, Kweku Bedu-Addo, Stephane Blanc, Alberto G. Bonomi, Pascal Bovet, Soren Brage, Maciej S. Buchowski, Nancy F. Butte, Stefan G.J.A. Camps, Jamie A. Cooper, Richard Cooper, Sai Krupa Das, Peter S.W. Davies, Lara R. Dugas, Ulf Ekelund, Sonja Entringer, Terrence Forrester, Barry W. Fudge, Melanie Gillingham, Santu Ghosh, Annelies H. Goris, Michael Gurven, Lewis G. Halsey, Catherine Hambly, Hinke H. Haisma

Faculty Publications

Obesity is caused by a prolonged positive energy balance1,2. Whether reduced energy expenditure stemming from reduced activity levels contributes is debated3,4. Here we show that in both sexes, total energy expenditure (TEE) adjusted for body composition and age declined since the late 1980s, while adjusted activity energy expenditure increased over time. We use the International Atomic Energy Agency Doubly Labelled Water database on energy expenditure of adults in the United States and Europe (n = 4,799) to explore patterns in total (TEE: n = 4,799), basal (BEE: n = 1,432) and physical activity energy expenditure (n = 1,432) over time. …

Consumers’ Acceptance, Emotions, And Responsiveness To Informational Cues For Air-Fried Catfish (Ictalurus Punctatus) Skin Chips, Silvia Murillo, Ryan Ardoin, Witoon Prinyawiwatkul

Faculty Publications

Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) skins, as filleting byproduct, were developed into a crispy snack food via air-frying. Consumers rated catfish skin chips (CSC) across sensory modalities (9-point hedonic scales, a just-about-right scale, and “yes/no” for purchase intent, PI) for Plain-, Lemon & Pepper-, and Barbecue-flavored samples during two consumer studies (N = 115 each). Paprika- flavored CSC were excluded from Study 2 due to inferior acceptance and emotional ratings. CSC-elicited emotions were evaluated using a 25-term lexicon with CATA (Check-All-That-Apply) scaling (Study 1) and refined with an abbreviated lexicon containing food-evoked sensation-seeking emotions (5-point intensity scale). The two consumer studies differed …

Evaluation Of Alternative Colony Hybridization Methods For Pathogenic Vibrios, Andrew M. Schwartz, Haley A. Marcotte, Crystal N. Johnson

Faculty Publications

Vibrios, such as Vibrio parahaemolyticus, are naturally occurring halophilic bacteria that are a major cause of foodborne illness. Because of their autochthonous nature, managing vibrio levels in marine and estuarine environments is impossible. Instead, it is crucial to reliably enumerate their abundance to minimize human exposure. One method of achieving this is the direct plating/colony hybridization (DP/CH) method, which has been used to efficiently quantify pathogenic vibrios in oysters and other seafood products. Although successful, the method relies on proprietary resources. We examined alternative approaches, assessed the influence of the reagent suppliers’ source on enumeration accuracy, and made experimental adjustments …

The Flower Garden Banks Siderastrea Siderea Coral As A Candidate Global Boundary Stratotype Section And Point For The Anthropocene Series, Kristine L. Delong, Kylie Palmer, Amy J. Wagner, Mudith M. Weerabaddana, Niall Slowey, Achim D. Herrmann, Nicolas Duprey, Alfredo Martínez-García, Jonathan Jung, Irka Hajdas, Neil L. Rose, Sarah L. Roberts, Lucy R. Roberts, Andrew B. Cundy, Pawel Gaca, J. Andrew Milton, Handong Yang, Simon D. Turner, Chun Yuan Huang, Chuan Chou Shen, Jens Zinke

Faculty Publications

The proposed Anthropocene Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) candidate site of West Flower Garden Bank (27.8762°N, 93.8147°W) is an open ocean location in the Gulf of Mexico with a submerged coral reef and few direct human impacts. Corals contain highly accurate and precise (<±1 year) internal chronologies, similar to tree rings, and their exoskeletons are formed of aragonite and can be preserved in the rock record. Here we present results from a large Siderastrea siderea coral (core 05WFGB3; 1755–2005 CE) sampled with annual and monthly resolutions that show clear markers of global and regional human impacts. Atmospheric nuclear bomb testing by-products (14C, 239+240Pu) have clear increases in this coral starting in 1957 for 14C and the first increase in 1956 for 239+240Pu (potential bases for the Anthropocene GSSP). Coral δ13C declined especially after 1956 consistent with the Suess effect resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. Coral skeletal δ15N starts to increase in 1963 corresponding with the increase in agricultural fertilizers. Coral Hg concentrations (1933–1980) loosely track fluctuations in industrial pollution and coral Ba/Ca increases from 1965–1983 when offshore oil operations expand after 1947. Coral temperature proxies contain the 20th-century global warming trend whereas coral growth declines during this interval.

North Flinders Reef (Coral Sea, Australia) Porites Sp. Corals As A Candidate Global Boundary Stratotype Section And Point For The Anthropocene Series, Jens Zinke, Neal E. Cantin, Kristine L. Delong, Kylie Palmer, Arnoud Boom, Irka Hajdas, Nicolas Duprey, Alfredo Martínez-García, Neil L. Rose, Sarah L. Roberts, Handong Yang, Lucy R. Roberts, Andrew B. Cundy, Pawel Gaca, James Andy Milton, Grace Frank, Adam Cox, Sue Sampson, Genevieve Tyrrell, Molly Agg, Simon D. Turner

Faculty Publications

Corals are unique in the suite of proposed Anthropocene Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) archives, as living organisms that produce aragonite exoskeletons preserved in the geological record that contain highly accurate and precise (<±1 year) internal chronologies. The GSSP candidate site North Flinders Reef in the Coral Sea (Australia) is an offshore oceanic reef, and therefore less vulnerable to local human influences than those closer to the coast. Here, we present geochemical records from two Porites sp. corals sampled at an annual to pluri-annual (i.e. 3–5 years) resolution that shows clear global and regional human impacts. Atmospheric nuclear bomb testing by-products (14C,239+240Pu) show a clear increase in the Flinders Reef corals coincident with well-dated nuclear testing operations. By contrast, the radionuclides 241Am and 137Cs are present at low or undetectable levels, as are spheroidal carbonaceous fly-ash particles. Coral δ13C shows centennial variability likely influenced by growth effects in the 18th century and with a progression to lower values starting in 1880 CE and accelerating post-1970 CE. The latter may be related to the Suess effect resulting from 13C-depleted fossil fuel burning. Coral δ15N decreased between 1710 and 1954 CE with a reversal post-1954 CE. Coral temperature proxies indicate prominent centennial variability with equally warm conditions in the 18th and end of 20th century. However, the exact mechanisms responsible for the mid-20th century changes in these parameters need to be scrutinised in further detail. Plain Language summary: This work proposes a candidate natural archive for the official marker of the Anthropocene that geologists will use to mark this important interval in time. Our candidate is a live coral from North Flinders Reef in the Coral Sea (Australia), located 150 km east of the Great Barrier Reef, a location that is remote from direct local human influences. Corals are a unique archive of tropical ocean change because they incorporate the geochemical signature from seawater into their limestone skeleton during their long life-spans. Here we investigated a number of geochemical markers in yearly growth layers of the corals to define several markers for the Anthropocene based on changes in temperature, water chemistry, chemicals from pollution and fertilisers, radioactive products from nuclear bomb testing, and by-products from burning fossil fuels. We have detected clear human influences in several of these markers.

Constraints On The Timing And Extent Of Deglacial Grounding Line Retreat In West Antarctica, Ryan A. Venturelli, Brenna Boehman, Christina Davis, Jon R. Hawkings, Sarah E. Johnston, Chloe D. Gustafson, Alexander B. Michaud, Cyrille Mosbeux, Matthew R. Siegfried, Trista J. Vick-Majors, Valier Galy, Robert G.M. Spencer, Sophie Warny, Brent C. Christner, Helen A. Fricker, David M. Harwood, Amy Leventer, John C. Priscu, Brad E. Rosenheim

Faculty Publications

Projections of Antarctica's contribution to future sea level rise are associated with significant uncertainty, in part because the observational record is too short to capture long-term processes necessary to estimate ice mass changes over societally relevant timescales. Records of grounding line retreat from the geologic past offer an opportunity to extend our observations of these processes beyond the modern record and to gain a more comprehensive understanding of ice-sheet change. Here, we present constraints on the timing and inland extent of deglacial grounding line retreat in the southern Ross Sea, Antarctica, obtained via direct sampling of a subglacial lake located …

Interactive Effects Of Climate Change‐Induced Range Shifts And Wind Energy Development On Future Economic Conditions Of The Atlantic Surfclam Fishery, Stephanie Stromp, Andrew M. Scheld, John M. Klinck, Daphne M. Munroe, Eric N. Powell, Roger Mann, Sarah Borsetti, Eileen E. Hofmann

Faculty Publications

Rising water temperatures along the northeastern U.S. continental shelf have resulted in an offshore range shift of the Atlantic surfclam Spisula solidissima to waters still occupied by ocean quahogs Arctica islandica. Fishers presently are prohibited from landing both Atlantic surfclams and ocean quahogs in the same catch, thus limiting fishing to locations where the target species can be sorted on deck. Wind energy development on and around the fishing grounds will further restrict the fishery. A spatially explicit model of the Atlantic surfclam fishery (Spatially Explicit Fishery Economics Simulator) has the ability to simulate the consequences of fishery displacement …

Research On The Total Channel Capacities Pertaining To Two Coverage Layouts For Three-Dimensional, Uav-Assisted Ad Hoc Networks, Xiao Yan, Shenglong Zhu, Qian Wang, Hsiao Chun Wu

Faculty Publications

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) employed as airborne base stations (BSs) are considered the essential components in future sixth-generation wireless networks due to their mobility and line-of-sight communication links. For a UAV-assisted ad hoc network, its total channel capacity is greatly influenced by the deployment of UAV-BSs and the corresponding coverage layouts, where square and hexagonal cells are partitioned to divide the zones individual UAVs should serve. In this paper, the total channel capacities of these two kinds of coverage layouts are evaluated using our proposed novel computationally efficient channel capacity estimation scheme. The mean distance (MD) between a UAV-BS in …