Digital Commons Network^™

War Powers Reform: A Skeptical View, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

Debates about war powers focus too much on legal checks and on the President’s power to start wars. Congressional checks before and during crises work better than many reform-ists suppose, and there are ways to improve Congress’s political checking without substantial legal reform.

Government Counterspeech, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

We are awash in lies. Misinformation has always been with us, but the endemicity of social media and the depth of political polarization in the United States and elsewhere has enabled falsehoods to be amplified, monetized, microtargeted, and spread around the world at unprecedented speed and scale. The consequences for democracy, public health, and social harmony are emergent and grave.

Misinformation presents one of the most vexing challenges for content moderation on social media (and off it, such as on cable news) for myriad reasons. Because misinformation can be difficult or controversial to define, policing it risks chilling core political …

Investigation Of Flow Boiling Critical Heat Flux And Heat Transfer Within A Horizontally Oriented Channel With One-Sided Heating At Three Levels Of Subcooled Inlet, Chinmay Shingote, Cho Ning Huang, Chirag Kharangate

Faculty Scholarship

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact heater orientation and inlet conditions on heat transfer mechanisms during flow boiling, inside horizontally oriented rectangular channel using PF-5060. The experimental setup allows both upward and downward-facing single-sided heating configurations. Various inlet mass flux are examined, along with different levels of inlet subcooling. The impact of gravity is studied using flow visualization. During downward facing heating, vapor accumulates along the copper heater wall due to buoyancy effects resulting in notably low CHF and heat transfer values. In contrast, with upward facing heating, buoyancy assists in extraction of vapor from the …

Nudging Improvements To The Family Regulation System, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

The Restatement of Children and the Law features a strong endorsement of parents’ rights to the care, custody, and control of their children because parents’ rights are generally good for children. Building on that foundation, the Restatement’s sections on child neglect and abuse law would resolve several jurisdictional splits in favor of greater protections for family integrity, thus protecting more families against the harms that come from state intervention, especially state separation of parents from children.

But a close read of the Restatement shows that it only goes so far. It is not likely to significantly reduce the wide variation …

Restating The Law In A Child Wellbeing Framework, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The Restatement of Children and the Law is scheduled for formal adoption by the American Law Institute in 2024. When this project was first proposed, it was met with some skepticism, on the view that the regulation of children was not a coherent field of law. But after eight years of work on this Restatement, the Reporters have produced a comprehensive account of the law’s treatment of children and clarified that it is, indeed, an integrated and coherent area of law. Our work has uncovered a deep structure and logic that shapes the legal regulation of children in the family, …

(How) Can Litigation Advance Multiracial Democracy?, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

Can rights litigation meaningfully advance social change in this moment? Many progressive or social justice legal scholars, lawyers, and advocates would argue “no.” Constitutional decisions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court thwart the aims of progressive social movements. Further, contemporary social movements often decenter courts as a primary domain of social change. In addition, a new wave of legal commentary urges progressives to de-emphasize courts and constitutionalism, not simply tactically but as a matter of democratic survival.

This Essay considers the continuing role of rights litigation, using the litigation over race-conscious affirmative action as an illustration. Courts are a key …

Sex Differences Among Older Adults With Bipolar Disorder: Results From The Global Aging & Geriatric Experiments In Bipolar Disorder (Gage-Bd) Project, Kaylee Sarna, Joy Yala, Farren B.S. Briggs, Martha Sajatovic

Faculty Scholarship

Objective: Sex-specific research in adult bipolar disorder (BD) is sparse and even more so among those with older age bipolar disorder (OABD). Knowledge about sex differences across the bipolar lifespan is urgently needed to target and improve treatment. To address this gap, the current study examined sex differences in the domains of clinical presentation, general functioning, and mood symptoms among individuals with OABD. Methods: This Global Aging & Geriatric Experiments in Bipolar Disorder (GAGE-BD) study used data from 19 international studies including BD patients aged ≥50 years (N = 1,185: 645 women, 540 men).A comparison of mood symptoms between women …

Electronic Relaxation Mechanism Of 9-Methyl-2,6-Diaminopurine And 2,6-Diaminopurine-2′-Deoxyribose In Solution, Luis A. Ortiz-Rodríguez, Naishka E. Caldero-Rodríguez, Sourav Kanti Seth, Karitza Díaz-González, Carlos E. Crespo-Hernández

Faculty Scholarship

Prolonged ultraviolet exposure results in the formation of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) in RNA. Consequently, prebiotic photolesion repair mechanisms should have played an important role in the maintenance of the structural integrity of primitive nucleic acids. 2,6-Diaminopurine is a prebiotic nucleobase that repairs CPDs with high efficiency when incorporated into polymers. We investigate the electronic deactivation pathways of 2,6-diaminopurine-2′-deoxyribose and 9-methyl-2,6-diaminopurine in acetonitrile and aqueous solution to shed light on the photophysical and excited state properties of the 2,6-diaminopurine chromophore. Evidence is presented that both are photostable compounds exhibiting similar deactivation mechanisms upon the population of the S1(ππ* La) state …

A General Materials Data Science Framework For Quantitative 2d Analysis Of Particle Growth From Image Sequences, Sameera Nalin Venkat, Thomas G. Ciardi, Mingjian Lu, Preston C. Deleo, Jube Augustino, Adam Goodman, Jayvic Cristian Jimenez, Anirban Mondal, Frank Ernst, Yinghui Wu, Roger H. French, Laura S. Bruckman

Faculty Scholarship

Phase transformations are a challenging problem in materials science, which lead to changes in properties and may impact performance of material systems in various applications. We introduce a general framework for the analysis of particle growth kinetics by utilizing concepts from machine learning and graph theory. As a model system, we use image sequences of atomic force microscopy showing the crystallization of an amorphous fluoroelastomer film. To identify crystalline particles in an amorphous matrix and track the temporal evolution of the particle dispersion, we have developed quantitative methods of 2D analysis. 700 image sequences were analyzed using a neural network …

Structuralism In Differential Equations, Colin Mclarty

Faculty Scholarship

Structuralism in philosophy of mathematics has largely focused on arithmetic, algebra, and basic analysis. Some have doubted whether distinctively structural working methods have any impact in other fields such as differential equations. We show narrowly construed structuralism as offered by Benacerraf has no practical role in differential equations. But Dedekind’s approach to the continuum already did not fit that narrow sense, and little of mathematics today does. We draw on one calculus textbook, one celebrated analysis textbook, and a monograph on the Navier–Stokes equation to show structural methods like Dedekind’s have long been central to differential equations, and have philosophically …

Identifying Virtual Care Modality In Electronic Health Record Data, Kurt C. Stange

Faculty Scholarship

Background: Virtual care increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic. The specific modality of virtual care (video, audio, eVisits, eConsults, and remote patient monitoring) has important implications for the accessibility and quality of care, but rates of use are relatively unknown. Methods for identifying virtual care modalities, especially in electronic health records (EHR) are inconsistent. This study (a) developed a method to identify virtual care modalities using EHR data and (b) described the distribution of these modalities over a 3-year study period. Methods: EHR data from 316 primary care safety net clinics throughout the study period (4/1/2020-3/31/2023) were included. Visit type …

Structural Insights Into Peptidoglycan Glycosidase Etga Binding To The Inner Rod Protein Esci Of The Type Iii Secretion System Via A Designed Esci-Etga Fusion Protein, Jacob Boorman, Focco Van Den Akker

Faculty Scholarship

Bacteria express lytic enzymes such as glycosidases, which have potentially self-destructive peptidoglycan (PG)-degrading activity and, therefore, require careful regulation in bacteria. The PG glycosidase EtgA is regulated by localization to the assembling type III secretion system (T3SS), generating a hole in the PG layer for the T3SS to reach the outer membrane. The EtgA localization was found to be mediated via EtgA interacting with the T3SS inner rod protein EscI. To gain structural insights into the EtgA recognition of EscI, we determined the 2.01 Å resolution structure of an EscI (51–87)-linker-EtgA fusion protein designed based on AlphaFold2 predictions. The structure …

A General Materials Data Science Framework For Quantitative 2d Analysis Of Particle Growth From Image Sequences, Sameera Nalin Venkat, Thomas G. Ciardi, Mingjian Lu, Preston C. Deleo, Jube Augustino, Adam Goodman, Jayvic Cristian Jimenez, Anirban Mondal [email protected], Frank Ernst, Yinghui Wu, Roger H. French, Laura S. Bruckman

Faculty Scholarship

Phase transformations are a challenging problem in materials science, which lead to changes in properties and may impact performance of material systems in various applications. We introduce a general framework for the analysis of particle growth kinetics by utilizing concepts from machine learning and graph theory. As a model system, we use image sequences of atomic force microscopy showing the crystallization of an amorphous fluoroelastomer film. To identify crystalline particles in an amorphous matrix and track the temporal evolution of the particle dispersion, we have developed quantitative methods of 2D analysis. 700 image sequences were analyzed using a neural network …

In Vivo Characterization Of Intracortical Probes With Focused Ion Beam-Etched Nanopatterned Topographies, Jonathan L. Duncan, Jaime J. Wang, Gabriele Glusauskas, Yue Gao, George F. Hoeferlin, Allison E. Hess-Dunning, Jeffrey R. Capadona

Faculty Scholarship

(1) Background: Intracortical microelectrodes (IMEs) are an important part of interfacing with the central nervous system (CNS) and recording neural signals. However, recording electrodes have shown a characteristic steady decline in recording performance owing to chronic neuroinflammation. The topography of implanted devices has been explored to mimic the nanoscale three-dimensional architecture of the extracellular matrix. Our previous work used histology to study the implant sites of non-recording probes and showed that a nanoscale topography at the probe surface mitigated the neuroinflammatory response compared to probes with smooth surfaces. Here, we hypothesized that the improvement in the neuroinflammatory response for probes …

Using Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Networks To Estimate Fleet-Wide Photovoltaic Performance Degradation Patterns, Yangxin Fan, Raymond Wieser, Xuanji Yu, Yinghui Wu, Laura S. Bruckman, Roger H. French

Faculty Scholarship

Accurate estimation of photovoltaic (PV) system performance is crucial for determining its feasibility as a power generation technology and financial asset. PV-based energy solutions offer a viable alternative to traditional energy resources due to their superior Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE). A significant challenge in assessing the LCOE of PV systems lies in understanding the Performance Loss Rate (PLR) for large fleets of PV systems. Estimating the PLR of PV systems becomes increasingly important in the rapidly growing PV industry. Precise PLR estimation benefits PV users by providing real-time monitoring of PV module performance, while explainable PLR estimation assists PV …

Using Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Networks To Estimate Fleet-Wide Photovoltaic Performance Degradation Patterns, Yangxin Fan, Raymond Wieser, Xuanji Yu, Yinghui Wu, Laura S. Bruckman, Roger H. French

Faculty Scholarship

Accurate estimation of photovoltaic (PV) system performance is crucial for determining its feasibility as a power generation technology and financial asset. PV-based energy solutions offer a viable alternative to traditional energy resources due to their superior Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE). A significant challenge in assessing the LCOE of PV systems lies in understanding the Performance Loss Rate (PLR) for large fleets of PV systems. Estimating the PLR of PV systems becomes increasingly important in the rapidly growing PV industry. Precise PLR estimation benefits PV users by providing real-time monitoring of PV module performance, while explainable PLR estimation assists PV …

Enhancing Workplace Neuro Health And Productivity: The Synergy Of Wearable Technology With Biophilic And Oxygenation Strategies, Piper Hutson, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

In the contemporary workplace, where a staggering 62% of employees reported experiencing burnout in 2023 according to a Medium article, the integration of wearable technology with biophilic and oxygenation strategies emerges as a vital Neurohemal initiative. This approach is particularly relevant for supporting neurodivergent individuals, as well as those recovering from stroke and long-COVID, in the context of return-to-office mandates. The article underscores the significance of research on increased hydrostatic pressure in circulation, particularly its impact on spinal and spinal cord blood flow during water immersion. This insight lays the groundwork for innovations like non-wet water massage devices, which could …

The Wages Of Crying Roe: Some Realism About Dobbs V. Jackson Women’S Health Organization, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Supreme Court’s reasoning in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organizationcannot be taken seriously. The Court’s stated rationale for rejecting continued protection of the abortion right—that abortion is not deeply rooted in nineteenth century history and tradition—applies with equal force to other substantive due process rights that the DobbsCourt repeatedly insisted were not under threat even without considering stare decisis, including contraception, sexual intimacy between consenting adults, and same-sex marriage. One should add inter-racial marriage and protection from involuntary sterilization to that list. Rather than applying its draconian version of the “history and tradition” test in a …

The Physical-Emotional Distinction In Tort, Philip Petrov

Faculty Scholarship

Several legal scholars have recently argued that U.S. tort law’s physical-emotional distinction commits tort to the objectionable position of mind-body dualism, but they have not considered the distinction’s role as an aid to judicial cognition and decision-making. Drawing primarily on the law of negligent infliction of emotional distress, this essay argues that tort’s physical-emotional distinction is not a relic of mind-body dualism but a heuristic that judges have used to structure and simplify the difficult but unavoidable task of drawing lines between legally cognizable and non-cognizable harm. The analysis has at least three normative implications: (1) users of tort’s physical-emotional …

Automating Selective Area Electron Diffraction Phase Identification Using Machine Learning, Nathaniel Tomczak, Jennifer Carter

Faculty Scholarship

Selective area electron diffraction (SAED) patterns can provide valuable insight into the structure of a material. However, the manual identification of collected patterns can be a significant bottleneck in the overall phase classification workflow. In this work, we utilize the recent advances in computer vision and machine learning (ML) to automate the indexing of SAED patterns. The performance of six different ML algorithms is demonstrated using metallic plutonium-zirconium alloys. The most successful approach trained a neural network (NN) to make a classification of the phase and zone axis, and then utilized a second NN to synthesize multiple independent predictions of …

Abortion Politics And The Rise Of Movement Jurists, Robert L. Tsai, Mary Ziegler

Faculty Scholarship

This Article employs the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization and litigation in its wake as the jumping off point to reconsider the connections between judges, the Constitution, and social movements. That movements influence constitutional law, and that judicial pronouncements in turn are reshaped by politics, is well-established. But, while these accounts of legal change depend upon judges to embrace movement ideas, less has been written about the conditions under which judicial entrenchment can be expected to take place. There may, in fact, be different types of judicial dispositions towards external political phenomena.

In this Article, …

Reactive Amine Functionalized Microelectrode Arrays Provide Short-Term Benefit But Long-Term Detriment To In Vivo Recording Performance, Lindsey N. Druschel, Pierce E. Boucher, George F. Hoeferlin, Dhariyat M. Menendez, Jonathan L. Duncan, Jeffrey R. Capadona

Faculty Scholarship

Intracortical microelectrode arrays (MEAs) are used for recording neural signals. However, indwelling devices result in chronic neuroinflammation, which leads to decreased recording performance through degradation of the device and surrounding tissue. Coating the MEAs with bioactive molecules is being explored to mitigate neuroinflammation. Such approaches often require an intermediate functionalization step such as (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES), which serves as a linker. However, the standalone effect of this intermediate step has not been previously characterized. Here, we investigated the effect of coating MEAs with APTES by comparing APTES-coated to uncoated controls in vivo and ex vivo. First, we measured water contact angles …

Selective Neural Inhibition Via Photobiomodulation Alleviates Behavioral Hypersensitivity Associated With Small Sensory Fiber Activation, Andrew Buzza, Kalista Tapas, Junqi Zhuo, Stephen J. Lewis, Michael W. Jenkins, Michael Moffitt

Faculty Scholarship

Objective: Photobiomodulation at higher irradiances has great potential as a pain-alleviating method that selectively inhibits small diameter nerve fibers and corresponding sensory experiences, such as nociception and heat sensation. The longevity and magnitude of these effects as a function of laser irradiation parameters at the nerve was explored. Methods: In a rodent chronic pain model (spared nerve injury—SNI), light was applied directly at the sural nerve with four delivery schemes: two irradiance levels (7.64 and 2.55 W/cm2) for two durations each, corresponding to either 4.8 or 14.4 J total energy, and the effect on sensory hypersensitivities was evaluated. Results: At …

Pathogenicity Prediction Of Gabaa Receptor Missense Variants, Ya-Juan Wang, Giang H. Vu, Ting-Wei Mu

Faculty Scholarship

Variants in the genes encoding gamma-aminobutyric acid type A (GABAA) receptor subunits are associated with epilepsy. To date, over 1000 clinical variants have been identified in these genes. However, the majority of these variants lack functional studies and their clinical significance is uncertain although accumulating evidence indicates that proteostasis deficiency is the major disease-causing mechanism. Here, we apply two state-of-the-art modeling tools, namely AlphaMissense and Rhapsody to predict the pathogenicity of saturating missense variants in genes that encode the major subunits of GABAA receptors in the central nervous system, including GABRA1, GABRB2, GABRB3, and GABRG2. We demonstrate that the predicted …

Discord In Concordance Cosmology And Anomalously Massive Early Galaxies, Stacy S. Mcgaugh

Faculty Scholarship

Cosmological parameters are constrained by a wide variety of observations. We examine the concordance diagram for modern measurements of the Hubble constant, the shape parameter from the large-scale structure, the cluster baryon fraction, and the age of the universe, all from non-CMB data. There is good agreement for (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.). This concordance value is indistinguishable from the WMAP3 cosmology but is not consistent with that of Planck: there is a tension in (Formula presented.) as well as (Formula presented.). These tensions have emerged as progressively higher multipoles have been incorporated into CMB fits. This temporal evolution is …

Life In A Fishbowl: Space And Environmental Enrichment Affect Behaviour Of Betta Splendens, Ronald G. Oldfield, Emily K. Murphy

Faculty Scholarship

The public has expressed growing concern for the well-being of fishes, including popular pet species such as the Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens). In captivity, male Bettas behave aggressively, often causing injuries and death if housed together. As a result, they are typically isolated in small fishbowls, which has been widely criticised as cruel. To investigate the impact of keeping Bettas in these conditions, we recorded the behaviour of individual males in containers of different sizes that were either bare or enriched with gravel, large rocks, and live plants. When male Bettas were housed individually in small bowls (0.5 L) …

Biotic Interactions Vary Across Species' Ranges And Are Likely Conserved Through Geological Time, Iulian Gherghel, Ryan Andrew Martin

Faculty Scholarship

Aim: The evolutionary interactions between western spadefoot toads (genus Spea) represent a textbook example of character displacement, facilitated by dietary specialization of one Spea species on fairy shrimp (Anostraca) when all three co-occur. The aim of this study is to understand the covariation between predator (Spea) and prey (Anostraca) range shifts in response to climate change oscillations, and whether biotic interactions can be used to project species distribution models on different time scales when studying species with dietary specialization. Taxon: Amphibia: Spea spp. and Crustacea: Anostraca. Location: North America. Methods: Using multiple modelling techniques, we first estimated the potential distribution …

Impact Of Elexacaftor/Tezacaftor/Ivacaftor On Lipid And Fat‐Soluble Vitamin Levels And Association With Body Mass Index, Tanvi Patel, Kimberly Mcbennett, Senthilkumar Sankararaman, Teresa Schindler, Nori Mercuri Minich, Katherine Kutney

Faculty Scholarship

Introduction:Cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) modulators improve gastrointestinal absorption of nutrients and may result in changes in body mass index (BMI), serum lipids, and fat-soluble vitamin levels. We hypothesized that serum lipids and vitamin levels would increase with CFTR modulator therapy and that greater increase in lipids and vitamin levels would be related to greater increase in BMI. Methods:A retrospective study was performed to evaluate the impact of elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor (ETI) on nutritional parameters, serum lipids, and fat-soluble vitamin levels. Pre-ETI values (<2 years prior) and post-ETI values (>1 month after) were compared. Linear regression was used to evaluate whether change in BMI is associated …

When Originalism Failed: Lessons From Tort Law, Donald G. Gifford, Richard C. Boldt, Christopher J. Robinette

Faculty Scholarship

Two recent Supreme Court decisions upended American life. Opinions released on consecutive days in June 2022 overturned the right of reproductive choice nationwide and invalidated a statute regulating the carrying of concealed weapons in New York. The opinions were united by a common methodology. Pursuant to what one scholar terms “thick” originalism, history, as told by the majority, dictated the resolution of constitutional disputes.

This Article explores the use of thick originalism in several celebrated torts cases that raised constitutional issues. These cases illustrate two significant kinds of problems associated with a rigid historical approach to constitutional interpretation. The first …

Silencing Jorge Luis Borges The Wrongful Suppression Of The Di Giovanni Translations, Wes Henricksen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.