Digital Commons Network^™

Freedom, Democracy, And The Right To Education, Derek W. Black

Faculty Publications

While litigation continues in an effort to establish a fundamental right to education under the U.S. Constitution, the full historical justification for this right remains missing—a fatal flaw for many jurists. This Article fills that gap, demonstrating that the central, yet entirely overlooked, justification for a federal right to education resides in America’s education story during the era of slavery and Reconstruction.

At that time, education was first and foremost about freedom. The South had criminalized education to maintain a racialized hierarchy that preserved slavery. Many African Americans, seeing education as the means to both mental and physical freedom, made …

Calcium-Rich Dravite From The Arignac Gypsum Mine, France: Implications For Tourmaline Development In A Sulfate-Rich, Highly Magnesian Meta-Evaporite, Barbara Dutrow, Darrell Henry

Faculty Publications

Tourmaline occurs in a wide range of compositional environments, but its occurrence in meta-evaporites is less commonly investigated. Highly magnesian (XMg = 0.90–0.98), poikiloblastic tourmaline occurs in a sulfate-rich, anhydrite– gypsum-bearing meta-evaporite in the Arignac Gypsum Mine, France and preserves a petrologic record of this unusual geochemical environment. Originally a Triassic evaporite deposit, the sample is interpreted to have undergone high-tem-perature–low-pressure (HT–LP) metamorphism and subsequently experienced low-grade, highly deformed overprints. Poikiloblastic tourmaline preserves relicts of the HT–LP mineral assemblage, as inclusions of anhydrite, phlogopite, dolomite, tremolite, Cl-rich scapolite (71–85 % marialite component), rutile, zircon, and fluor-apatite. The low-grade deformational overprints …

Reddit As A Source Of Covid-19 Information: A Content Analysis Of R/Coronavirus During The Early Pandemic, Brent Hale, Mark Alberta, Seung Woo Chae

Faculty Publications

Emerging research has begun examining the utility of social media platforms for information dissemination during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following this developing thread, this work examines discourse within r/coronavirus, a Reddit forum (i.e., subreddit) developed to curate COVID-19 information that burgeoned during the early months of the pandemic. Through a content analysis of 226 posts and 2260 corresponding comments generated between February and May, 2020, this study investigated early-pandemic communication patterns in this platform, including what information was deemed important and how users framed causes and solutions. Overall, findings indicate that users of r/coronavirus prioritized information about COVID-19 spread, public health …

Hybrid Quantum-Classical Unit Commitment, Reza Mahroo, Amin Kargarian

Faculty Publications

This paper proposes a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm to solve a fundamental power system problem called unit commitment (UC). The UC problem is decomposed into a quadratic subproblem, a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) subproblem, and an unconstrained quadratic subproblem. A classical optimization solver solves the first and third subproblems, while the QUBO subproblem is solved by a quantum algorithm called quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA). The three subproblems are then coordinated iteratively using a three-block alternating direction method of multipliers algorithm. Using Qiskit on the IBM Q system as the simulation environment, simulation results demonstrate the validity of the proposed …

A Deep Learning Approach To Optimal Sampling Problems, Xinxin Wang, Xiangyu Meng, Fangfei Li

Faculty Publications

Time-triggered and event-triggered sampling methods have been widely adopted in control systems. Optimal sampling problems of the two mechanisms have also received great attentions. However, for high-dimensional systems, analytical methods have some limitations. In this study, we propose a model-free method, called soft greedy policy for neural network fitting, to calculate the optimal sampling period of the time-triggered impulse control and the optimal threshold of the event-triggered impulse control. A neural network is used to approximate the objective function and then is trained. This approach is more widely applicable than the analytical method. At the same time, compared with different …

Uncertainty-Autoencoder-Based Privacy And Utility Preserving Data Type Conscious Transformation, Bishwas Mandal, George Amariucai, Shuangqing Wei

Faculty Publications

We propose an adversarial learning framework that deals with the privacy-utility tradeoff problem under two types of conditions: data-type ignorant, and data-type aware. Under data-type aware conditions, the privacy mechanism provides a one-hot encoding of categorical features, representing exactly one class, while under data-type ignorant conditions the categorical variables are represented by a collection of scores, one for each class. We use a neural network architecture consisting of a generator and a discriminator, where the generator consists of an encoder-decoder pair, and the discriminator consists of an adversary and a utility provider. Unlike previous research considering this kind of architecture, …

Event-Triggered Control For Discrete-Time Systems Using A Positive Systems Approach, Frederic Mazenc, Michael Malisoff, Corina Barbalata, Zhong Ping Jiang

Faculty Publications

We provide an output feedback event-triggered controller for discrete-time linear systems. We make novel use of positive systems, interval observers, an event-triggered state estimator, and triggering times that are computed from estimator values. This provides a discrete-time analog of our recent positive systems approach for continuous-time systems. A key novel ingredient in our discrete-time event triggers is their use of vectors of absolute values, instead of the usual Euclidean norm. We illustrate the benefits of our method using a model for event-triggered BlueROV2 underwater vehicles.

Event-Triggered Prediction-Based Delay Compensation Approach, Frederic Mazenc, Michael Malisoff, Corina Barbalata

Faculty Publications

We provide a new event-triggered delay compensation approach for linear systems with arbitrarily long constant input delays. Our prediction map is expressible as a solution of a discrete time system. Our method ensures input-to-state stability. We also provide an analog under measurement delays, where the prediction map is expressible as a solution of a continuous-discrete system. Significant novel features are our combined use of matrices of absolute values and our prediction based event triggers, instead of Euclidean norms, and the fact that the predictor dynamics always has the same dimension as that of the original system. Our marine robotic example …

Event-Triggered Control For Continuous-Time Linear Systems With A Delay In The Input, Frederic Mazenc, Michael Malisoff, Corina Barbalata

Faculty Publications

We provide an event-triggered control technique for a family of linear time-varying continuous-time systems with a constant known pointwise delay in the input. We adopt a subpredictor based prediction technique, and we provide sufficient conditions that ensure that Zeno behavior does not occur. At each time, only delayed measurements are needed to implement the control. Also, the delay can be an arbitrarily large constant. We prove an input-to-state stability property for the closed-loop system, using the theory of cooperative systems. We apply our method to a gyroscopic control problem for a curve tracking dynamics arising in marine robotics.

Analyzing Tweeting Patterns And Public Engagement On Twitter During The Recognition Period Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Study Of Two U.S. States, Misbah Ul Hoque, Kisung Lee, Jessica L. Beyer, Sara R. Curran, Katie S. Gonser, Nina S.N. Lam, Volodymyr V. Mihunov, Kejin Wang

Faculty Publications

The abundance of available information on social media can provide invaluable insights into people's responses to health information and public health guidance concerning COVID-19. This study examines tweeting patterns and public engagement on Twitter, as forms of social media, related to public health messaging in two U.S. states (Washington and Louisiana) during the early stage of the pandemic. We analyze more than 7M tweets and 571K COVID-19-related tweets posted by users in the two states over the first 25 days of the pandemic in the U.S. (Feb. 23, 2020, to Mar. 18, 2020). We also qualitatively code and examine 460 …

The Trial Of Cinque - Steven Spielberg's Amistad, Jonathan Van Patten

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Gender Gap In Academic Patenting, W. Michael Schuster, Miriam Marcowitz-Bitton, Deborah R. Gerhardt

Faculty Publications

The gender gap in academia has long been the focus of public discourse regarding the role of universities in promoting social values. In this study, we consider women’s participation in transferring knowledge from the academy to industry. A prominent model for such transfer is reflected in patent registration for inventions developed through scholarly research. And while academic patenting is a significant component of the professional activities of many faculty members, the extent to which women’s scientific discoveries are patented and commercialized has received relatively little attention.

The U.S. academy is a leader in science and a pioneer of technology transfer. …

Constraining Criminal Laws, F. Andrew Hessick, Carissa Byrne Hessick

Faculty Publications

This Article challenges the modern statutory interpretation of criminal laws. In doing so, it makes two distinct, but related contributions. First, it demonstrates that courts historically played a significantly more active role in interpreting criminal laws than they currently play. In particular, courts routinely interpreted statutes to reach no further than the text or the purpose, and they treated broadly written laws as ambiguous and in need of narrowing constructions. Put simply, courts used their interpretive powers to deliberately favor criminal defendants and constrain the criminal law. Second, it explains how a more active judiciary would combat some of the …

Survey Of Applications Of Neural Networks And Machine Learning To Covid-19 Predictions, Richard S. Segall

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have been used for COVID-19 detection and analysis. Specifically, the use of neural networks (NN) and machine learning (ML) are described along with which countries are creating these techniques and how these are being used for COVID-19 diagnosis and detection. Illustrations of multi-layer convolutional neural networks (CNN), recurrent neural networks (RNN), and deep neural networks (DNN) are provided to show how these are used for COVID-19 detection and prediction. A summary of big data analytics for COVID-19 and some available COVID-19 open-source data sets and repositories and …

Survey Of Recent Applications Of Artificial Intelligence For Detection And Analysis Of Covid-19 And Other Infectious Diseases, Richard S. Segall, Vidhya Sankarasubbu

Faculty Publications

The purpose is to illustrate how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have been used for detection and analysis of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases such as breast, lung, and skin cancers; heart disease; and others. Specifically, the use of neural networks (NN) and machine learning (ML) are described along with which countries are creating these techniques and how these are being used for COVID-19 or other disease diagnosis and detection. Illustrations of multi-layer convolutional neural networks (CNN), recurrent neural networks (RNN), and deep neural networks (DNN) are provided to show how these are used for COVID-19 or other disease detection and …

Using Open-Source Software For Business, Urban, And Other Applications Of Deep Neural Networks, Machine Learning, And Data Analytics Tools, Richard S. Segall, Vidhya Sankarasubbu

Faculty Publications

This article provides an overview with examples of what Neural Networks (NN), Machine Learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Analytics are, and with their applications in business, urban and biomedical situations. The characteristics of 29 types of neural networks are provided including their distinctive graphical illustrations. A survey of current open-source software (OSS) for neural networks, neural network software available for free trial download for limited time use, open-source software (OSS) for Machine Learning (ML), and open-source software (OSS) for Data Analytics tools are provided. Characteristics of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies for Machine Learning available as open-source are …

Pieces Of The Whole: Using The Research Process To Integrate Data Management And Information Literacy Skills, Patricia Condon, Megan Bresnahan, Eugenia Opuda

Faculty Publications

The research process is naturally embraced as part of the academic curriculum in higher education. Graduate students write theses and dissertations based on their original scholarships, undergraduate stu­dents produce papers for courses and work in labs or in the field, and both participate in faculty-led research projects. The research process is tack­led holistically through coursework, yet when library instructors are invited to teach students about information literacy and research data management topics, these may be presented as tangential to or mistimed with other course content and learning activities. In this chapter, the authors present a com­prehensive, student-centered model for teaching …

Band Gap Information Extraction From Materials Science Literature – A Pilot Study, Satanu Ghosh, Kun Lu

Faculty Publications

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a preliminary work on extracting band gap information of materials from academic papers. With increasing demand for renewable energy, band gap information will help material scientists design and implement novel photovoltaic (PV) cells.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors collected 1.44 million titles and abstracts of scholarly articles related to materials science, and then filtered the collection to 11,939 articles that potentially contain relevant information about materials and their band gap values. ChemDataExtractor was extended to extract information about PV materials and their band gap information. Evaluation was performed on randomly sampled information records …

Multiantenna Multisource Multirelay Spectrum Sharing Networks: Buffer-Aware Direct Link Activation For Higher Reliability And Lower Overhead, Omid M. Kandelusy, Nicholas J. Kirsch

Faculty Publications

Cooperative relaying can be implemented in spectrum sharing networks to extend the range of reliable communication. In this paper, we incorporate multiple-antenna technology and buffer-aided relaying to guarantee a highly reliable connectivity for the secondary network with several source nodes. The multi-antenna configuration for the sources and destination nodes suggests that there are several potential source-to- destination channels which can be auspicious for the network in two ways. First: to balance up the buffer states. Second: to expand the link selection opportunity at each time step. Motivated by this rationale, we propose a buffer-aware communication protocol to incorporate the direct …

Disparities In Demand For Covid-19 Hospital Care In The United States: Insights From A Longitudinal Hierarchical Study, Wolfgang Messner

Faculty Publications

Background and aims

This study examined disparities in hospitalization for COVID-19 within the U.S. by racial and ethnic groups, health insurance status, and social support structure.

Methods

Using publicly available ecological case and contextual data from July 2020 to April 2021, a longitudinal hierarchical model for the 51 U.S. states was constructed.

Results

Racial/ethnic disparities were observed, such as that hospitalization rates were higher in states with a higher percentage of Black (β = .002, P = .009) and American Indian or Alaska Native persons (β = .003, P = .03). Conversely, lack of health insurance was related …

Genealogy Behind Bars: An Update, Kathrine C. Aydelott

Faculty Publications

This brief essay is an update to “Genealogy Behind Bars: Professional Development Through Prisoner Requests: A Case Study,” in Genealogy and the Librarian: Perspectives on Research, Instruction, Outreach and Management, Carol Smallwood and Vera Gubnitskaia, eds. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2018, which see for context.

Protective Orders And Limited Guardianships: Legal Tools For Sidelining Plenary Guardianship, David M. English, Nina Kohn

Faculty Publications

By encouraging use of limited guardianships and protective orders instead of full guardianships, states can reduce the likelihood of unnecessarily stripping adults of their civil rights. Yet, although such less restrictive alternatives have long been available to most courts, in practice, their use remains limited and sporadic. This article argues that this lack of use suggests that it is not sufficient for the law to state a preference for these less restrictive alternatives, it must actually create systems that incentivize their use and actively discourage the use of full guardianships. This article then shows, using the Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship, and …

Addressing Big Tech's Market Power: A Comparative Institutional Analysis, Thomas A. Lambert

Faculty Publications

This Article provides a comparative institutional analysis of the three leading approaches to addressing the market power of large digital platforms: (1) traditional antitrust law, the approach thus far taken in the United States; (2) ex ante conduct rules, the approach embraced by the European Union's Digital Markets Act and several bills under consideration in the U.S. Congress; and (3) ongoing agency oversight, the approach embraced by the United Kingdom with its newly established "Digital Markets Unit." After identifying the general advantages and disadvantages of each approach, the Article examines how they are likely to play out in the context …

Supply Chain Transparency: Consumer Reactions To Incongruent Signals, Diane A. Mollenkopf, Simone T. Peinkofer, Yu Chu

Faculty Publications

In response to consumers' growing interest in how products are sourced, produced, and distributed, organizations are increasingly transparent about their supply chain sustainability practices. Supply chain transparency (SCT) efforts are intended to signal positive information about the company to consumers but the benefits are often unclear, especially when consumers receive multiple, but mixed signals that include negative events. We draw on signaling theory to explore how consumers develop impressions of a company's products based on different evaluative dimensions: the positive integrity signal of SCT and the negative capability signal of a product recall. The incongruent signal set creates ambiguity for …

Predicting And Explaining Pre-Service Teachers’ Social Networking Technology Adoption, Nandita Gurjar, Stephen Sivo

Faculty Publications

This research study examined pre-service teachers’ (N=250) intentions to adopt Twitter for professional development. The study used the Technology Acceptance Model to test research hypotheses grounded in the literature. The data were collected with a survey questionnaire and analyzed with Structural Equation Modelling. Findings indicated that ease of use, subjective norms, and perceived connectedness explained the variability in intentions to use Twitter. Perceived mobility, mediated through perceived behavioral control, explained participant differences in the perceived ease of use. Implications for stakeholders include highlighting the role subjective norms and mobile applications play in facilitating the ease of use and connectedness because …

Trust In Science: The Crisis Of Expertise As An Ideological, And Not Only A Scientific Controversy, David S. Caudill

Faculty Publications

Within the so-called "culture wars" dividing our nation politically, there is a law-related division over the trustworthiness of consensus science-the so-called "crisis of expertise." When the science concerning climate change, mask-wearing, or vaccinations becomes politicized, it loses its mooring in scientific evidence and impacts the effectiveness of regulatory law. Perhaps counter-intuitively, however, the solution is likely not to wear "Because Science" t-shirts while insisting on "cold, hard facts" and diagnosing as stupid those who believe the scientific theories of marginalized, minority-view scientists. Indeed, a certain level of modesty-regarding the uncertainties and tentativeness of even the best science-is necessary for the …

Countering The Big Lie: The Role Of The Courts In The Post Truth World, Edward D. Cavanagh

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

This Essay analyzes the role of the courts in handling Trump’s election lie. It argues that the courts were certainly correct in giving short shrift to Trump’s lawsuits, but further that the courts should have done more than simply dismiss Trump’s claims. Had the courts aggressively utilized existing tools to identify and punish prosecution of baseless claims, including Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the courts’ inherent powers to control proceedings before them, the Trump election lie might well have been put to rest immediately before it could take root among die-hard Trump supporters. This …

The Roots Of Collapse: Imposing Constitutional Governance, Catherine Baylin Duryea

Faculty Publications

The foundational assumption of constitutional governance poses a conundrum for contemporary state-builders: a constitution heavily influenced by foreigners does not represent the views of the governed. Can a modern state-building effort foster democratic institutions when the new government reflects foreign? Nowhere was this tension more apparent than in Afghanistan, where the United States and the United Nations were heavily involved in drafting the 2004 Constitution. They shaped the process from the initial framework to the final, frenzied approval. Foreigners were engaged at both the procedural level—determining how the negotiations would occur and who would participate—and at the substantive level—providing input …

Zooming In On Neutrals’ Implicit ‘Isms, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Video conferencing, extolled for its economic and efficiency benefits, has now become an accepted option in the “new normal” of dispute resolution practice. Consequently, our professional discussions about video conferencing have advanced from sharing the mechanics of “how to” conduct an arbitration or mediation on Zoom to more nuanced explorations about the appropriate use of video conferencing. This column contributes to this exploration by questioning how dispute resolution processes conducted via video conferencing might trigger the implicit biases of arbitrators and mediators and compromise a neutral’s ethical obligation to be impartial. When a neutral conducts their dispute resolution processes …

Pleading And Advocating A Negligence Claim Through The Regulation Best Interest Lens, Christine Lazaro, Michael S. Edmiston

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

On June 5, 2019, the SEC adopted the Regulation Best Interest Rule Package, consisting of (i) Regulation Best Interest: The Broker-Dealer Standard of Conduct (“Reg. BI”); (ii) Form CRS Relationship Summary and Amendments to Form ADV;(iii) the SEC Interpretation Regarding Standard of Conduct for Investment Advisers; and (iv) the SEC Interpretation Regarding the “Solely Incidental” Prong of the Broker-Dealer Exclusion from the Definition of Investment Adviser. Brokers were obligated to begin compliance with Reg. BI as of June 30, 2020.

Reg. BI contains four component sections mandating duties for brokers and firms: Disclosure, Care, Conflicts of Interest, and Compliance. …