Digital Commons Network^™

Reasoning From Injustice, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

In a series of lectures at Yale Law School, the Harvard political theorist Judith Shklar critiqued leading models of justice as overly abstract and lacking a realistic account of the social dynamics that perpetuate injustice. In this essay, Professor Tsai builds on Shklar’s account of injustice as a social phenomenon by offering a structural reading of key literary texts that explore the nature of legal injustice—from the Book of Job to Harriett Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Frederick Douglass’s The Heroic Slave. A close reading of these texts permits us to flesh out Shklar’s observations and “give injustice …

The Sports Parent's Predicament, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

Youth sport enjoys a favored status in American culture, encouraged by policymakers and local communities, pursued by parents, and remembered through rose-colored lenses by adults. Most lawyers are familiar with Justice Harry Blackmun’s ode to the magical qualities of baseball in Flood v. Kuhn, in which he took the liberty of running through his own memories of scores of baseball legends.¹ Congress and presidents want children to continue in sport.² Many in the health field argue that sport is important because exercise is important, and sport is treated as the natural manifestation of exercise.³ An enormous number—perhaps …

Benchmarking Age-Gates, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines how legal actors—particularly legislators, judges, and attorneys—invoke chronological age to justify the application of legal rules to adolescents. In doing so, they often rely on comparisons to existing “age-gates,” treating these thresholds (such as ages 18 or 21) as self-justifying reference points. Age 18, marking the legal transition from childhood to adulthood, and age 21, the former age of majority and current sales age for certain controlled substances, serve as especially powerful rhetorical anchors in age-based legal reasoning. These anchor points shape how legal actors advocate for or against particular age thresholds, often substituting analogy for substantive …

Performance Leads Governance: A Comment On Professor Tallarita’S Dual-Class Analysis, David J. Berger, Pierluigi Matera

Faculty Scholarship

The rise of dual-class stock structures in corporate governance has sparked intense academic, legal, and regulatory debate. In his recent contribution, Dual-Class Contracting, Professor Tallarita persuasively challenges some contemporary interpretations of contractarian theories by showing that dual-class structures do not reflect bespoke bargaining or firm-specific negotiation, but rather result from lawyer-driven standardization, social norms, and path dependency.

Drawing on Tallarita’s empirical findings, we argue that the reality of dual-class structures extends beyond governance formality. Specifically, we contend that investor behavior is driven not by structural governance ideals, but by corporate performance and mission alignment. Companies increasingly design governance structures based …

De Minimis Copying: An Empirical Study, Jessica Silbey, Samantha Zyontz

Faculty Scholarship

In the internet age, the copyright de minimis defense has increased in relevance as copyright lawsuits (and IP generally) are more mainstream and infringement liability more widespread. This Article is the first empirical analysis of copyright de minimis defense cases, collecting and analyzing all such decisions since the mid-19th century. It traces the doctrine’s development over the past century and its evolution in the digital era, when copying has become even more ubiquitous but its triviality remains widely disputed. The Article’s aim is not only to map the de minimis defense to learn more about it doctrinally—asking when is copying …

Mcmc-Net: Accelerating Markov Chain Monte Carlo With Neural Networks For Inverse Problems, Anuj Abhishek

Faculty Scholarship

In many computational problems, using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) can be prohibitively time-consuming. We propose MCMC-Net, a simple yet efficient way to accelerate MCMC via neural networks. The key idea of our approach is to substitute the true likelihood function of the MCMC method with a neural operator based surrogate. We extensively evaluate the accuracy and speedup of our method on three different partial differential equation-based inverse problems where likelihood computations are computationally expensive, namely electrical impedance tomography, diffuse optical tomography, and quantitative photoacoustic tomography. MCMC-Net performs similar to the classical likelihood counterpart but with a significant speedup. …

Differential Effects Of Macrophage Subtype-Specific Cytokines On Fibroblast Proliferation And Endothelial Cell Function In Co-Culture System, Phillip Mcclellan, Thomas R. Wong, Sara Hijaz, David R. Fletcher, Ozan Akkus, Tracey L. Bonfield, James M. Anderson, Adonis Hijaz

Faculty Scholarship

Macrophages are involved in several critical activities associated with tissue repair and regeneration. Current approaches in regenerative medicine are focusing on leveraging the innate immune response to accelerate tissue regeneration and improve long-term healing outcomes. Of particular interest in this regard are the currently known, four main M2 macrophage subtypes: M2interleukin (IL)-4,IL-13, M2IC, M2IL-10, M2non-selective adenosine receptor agonists (NECA) (M2IL-4,IL-13 → M2(NECA). In this study, rat bone marrow-derived macrophages (M₀) were polarized to each of the four subtypes M2IL-4,IL-13 → M2NECA and cultured for 72 h in vitro. Luminex assay results highlighted increased production of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases-1 (TIMP-1) …

Report Of The National Expert For The United States In Mapping Third Party Litigation Funding In The European Union, Maya Steinitz

Faculty Scholarship

Commercial third-party litigation funding (“TPLF”) is not centrally regulated in the United States.  It is subject to the overlapping jurisdiction of state and federal courts, state and federal legislatures, regulatory agencies, and bar associations. Legislation, regulation, and oversight of TPLF is being undertaken at each of those levels – much of it centered around the questions of when and whether TPLF should be disclosed; how to mitigate conflicts of interest created by TPLF (including the potential for claimants to lose control over their case to funders); and the identification of any foreign individuals, entities, or countries that may be providing …

Toward A Unified Neuroaesthetic Framework For Art-Based Interventions In Substance Use Recovery - A Review, Piper Hutson, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

Art-based interventions have gained increasing recognition as complementary strategies for substance use disorder (SUD) recovery and prevention, yet the field remains fragmented across clinical art therapy, community-based programs, and expressive digital practices. This article advances a unified neuroaesthetic framework that integrates sensory regulation, narrative integration, and interpersonal synchronization as the core mechanisms of healing. Drawing on recent U.S.-based empirical studies (post-2020), the paper synthesizes evidence from multiple modalities, including visual arts, music therapy, dance/movement practices, and digital storytelling, each demonstrating measurable effects on craving reduction, stress regulation, identity reconstruction, and social connection. Neuroscientific insights are central: findings highlight how creative …

Gaming As Therapeutic Modality For Military Veterans: Evidence, Mechanisms, And Program Design, Piper Hutson, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

This study synthesizes interdisciplinary evidence on game-based interventions for military veterans, mapping neurological mechanisms to clinically relevant outcomes while outlining design principles for community programs that leverage interactive media. The review characterizes how structured gameplay supports emotional regulation through attentional control, predictable feedback schedules, and reward-mediated learning that elevates motivation and mood; links to dopaminergic signaling and reduced rumination suggest plausible pathways for affective stabilization. Executive functions receive targeted engagement via strategy, puzzle, and action mechanics that demand working memory, cognitive flexibility, inhibition, and rapid decision-making, providing ecologically valid practice with measurable transfer to daily functioning. Social architectures in multiplayer …

The God Prompt And Deus Ex Machina: Techno-Theological Tropes And Operational Metaphors In Generative Media, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

This study reframes two durable tropes—the ―God Prompt‖ and the deus ex machina—as analytic lenses for understanding how contemporary generative systems stage beginnings and endings of cultural production. The ―God Prompt‖ denotes command-driven synthesis in which minimal textual instructions instantiate content on demand, crystallizing a production loop of input, model execution, and post hoc evaluation that orients anticipation toward instantaneous yield and controllable variation. The deus ex machina names an externally imposed resolution that interrupts causal development—historically a crane-borne god, functionally an algorithmic override—thereby concentrating attention on closure mechanics rather than world-building continuity. Read together, the pair offers a compact …

Quilting As Reproductive Justice Information Activism, Liz Chenevey

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Empirical Methods In Contract Law, Monika Leszczynska

Faculty Scholarship

Researchers employ various empirical methods to provide insights into contractual legal issues. For instance, systematic content analysis has been used to examine the terms of contracts or court judgments in contractual disputes. This approach, though different from doctrinal methods, enhances our understanding of legal content. Surveys and experimental methods, on the other hand, provide evidence on people's perceptions of contract terms or contractual behavior such as consent, misrepresentation, or breach. The findings from these studies inform contract law theories, which are based on assumptions about behavior in contractual relationships. Empirical studies also strengthen arguments in normative research by providing evidence …

Algorithmic Governance And The Boardroom: Empirical And Strategic Perspectives On Ai Integration In Corporate And Educational Oversight, James Hutson, Guarango Banerjee

Faculty Scholarship

The accelerating digitization of executive decision-making has prompted critical re-examination of the function and value of traditional boards of directors within corporate and educational institutions. Empirical research consistently reveals that human boards, while ostensibly tasked with strategic insight and fiduciary oversight, are frequently constrained by structural inefficiencies—such as director overcommitment, inflated compensation, and persistent conflicts of interest—that undermine organizational performance. Against this backdrop, the integration of Artificial Intelligence agents, either as analytic adjuncts or autonomous decision-makers, emerges as a plausible avenue for enhancing board effectiveness. This article synthesizes global case studies, peer-reviewed findings, and real-time technological developments to critically evaluate …

Social Cognition As A Mediator Between Neurocognition And Functional Outcome In Early Course Schizophrenia, Anju Kotwani, Jessica A. Wojtalik, Douglas D. Gunzler, Wilson J. Brown, Rochanne L. Honarvar, Martha Sajatovic

Faculty Scholarship

Social cognition is an established mediator between neurocognition and functional outcome in schizophrenia, but there is limited evidence for this model specifically in the early course, which is a critical window for intervention to reduce long-term disability. This study aimed to test the social cognition mediator model in the early course of schizophrenia and identify social cognitive subdomains that may have stronger indirect effects on the relationship between neurocognition and functional outcome. This secondary analysis utilized baseline cognitive and functional outcome data from a cognitive remediation trial for outpatients with early course schizophrenia (N = 102). A path analysis approach …

Social Cognition As A Mediator Between Neurocognition And Functional Outcome In Early Course Schizophrenia, Anju Kotwani, Jessica A. Wojtalik, Douglas D. Gunzler, Wilson J. Brown, Rochanne L. Honarvar, Martha Sajatovic

Faculty Scholarship

Social cognition is an established mediator between neurocognition and functional outcome in schizophrenia, but there is limited evidence for this model specifically in the early course, which is a critical window for intervention to reduce long-term disability. This study aimed to test the social cognition mediator model in the early course of schizophrenia and identify social cognitive subdomains that may have stronger indirect effects on the relationship between neurocognition and functional outcome. This secondary analysis utilized baseline cognitive and functional outcome data from a cognitive remediation trial for outpatients with early course schizophrenia (N = 102). A path analysis approach …

Academic Research And (Google Or Reddit): A Librarian-Faculty Collaboration To Improve Student Source Engagement, Stephanie Redekop, Olivia Hobbs

Faculty Scholarship

Effective source use is a critical skill for first-year writing students because it prepares them for academic, professional, and civic engagement; however, existing research demonstrates that selecting appropriate sources and engaging them insightfully remains a significant challenge. While students struggle with the combined pressures to read, evaluate, and synthesize scholarly sources, we argue that online media including news articles, opinion pieces, and social media posts are a potent but underutilized resource for building students’ competence and confidence with source use. In this article, we present the methods that we have collaboratively developed as an instruction librarian and a first-year writing …

Organizing For Abolition In Ice Custody, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes

Faculty Scholarship

The final Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) detainees were released from the Irwin County Detention Center in early September 2021.² A court did not order the end of ICE detention at Irwin. A social movement, led by people detained at Irwin, had a pronounced impact on the epistemological landscape and changed both normative principles and public opinion.³ Those detained at Irwin organized and acted to create new understanding of law and protect their rights in ways that courts and legislatures could not. This Essay tells the story of that demosprudential project; a dialectic between legal elites and people …

College Students' Perceptions Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai) Risks And Benefits In Pakistan, Rauf Arif, Muhammad Ittefaq, Lamia Zia

Faculty Scholarship

With the rapid advancements in technology over the past 2 decades, it has become crucial to understand people’s attitudes toward artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and its associated risks. Given the increasing access to the AI technologies, it is imperative to examine how young people in non-Western societies like Pakistan perceive AI risks and benefits. We conducted an online survey of college students who had used AI technology in the past 6 months. The results of our study indicate that the majority of college students view AI technology positively and perceive it as an opportunity to enhance workplace productivity. In addition, …

Barriers And Enablers Of Early Health-Seeking Behaviour Among Women With Preeclampsia And Eclampsia: A Qualitative Study At A National Referral Hospital In Uganda, Shirley Moore, Martha Sajatovic

Faculty Scholarship

Background: Globally, 2–8% of women experience hypertensive disorders in pregnancy (HDPs), including preeclampsia and eclampsia, which are the second leading cause of maternal mortality and morbidity. According to the management protocol for preeclampsia in Uganda, weekly follow-up is recommended for women with preeclampsia without severe features who are below 37weeks of gestation; however, this has not been feasible to most cases of preeclampsia/eclampsia (PE/E). There is still limited information describing barriers and enablers of early health-seeking behaviour amongst women with PE/E, yet this is needed to improve their healthcare. This study explored the barriers and enablers of early health-seeking behaviour …

Planetary Health: At The Crossroads Of Cvd Prevention, Tasveer Khawaja, Sanjay Rajagopalan

Faculty Scholarship

Purpose of Review: To highlight important recent findings demonstrating the interconnectedness of planetary and human health with a focus on cardiovascular disease. Recent Findings: Data continue to demonstrate a clear interconnectedness between the health of the planet and human health, with cardiovascular disease as an important outcome. The central roles of air pollution, non-optimal temperatures, water/waste management, and food/biodiversity are highlighted. We also highlight the clear opportunity for healthcare organizations to facilitate change that will yield positive environmental and patient outcomes. Summary: The undeniable interconnectedness of the health of the planet and human health serves as a call to action …

Mitigating Ai Bias With Prompt Augmentation, Verónica C. Gonzales

Faculty Scholarship

Large-language-model (“LLM”) outputs are inevitably shaped by assumptions, biases, and attitudes rooted in racism and other systemic inequities embedded in the civil-law tradition. This Equity-in-Justice CLE focuses on helping civil legal service providers recognize and work to eliminate biases in generative AI outputs through equity-centered prompt augmentation and engineering. These small, cost-free interventions re-orient LLMs assistance toward fairness, cultural competency, and client-centered outcomes. Participants leave with an action plan for embedding anti-bias safeguards in everyday research, drafting, and client communication tasks.

Too Many Mergers? The Golden Parachute As A Driver Of M&A Activity In The 21st Century, Jeffrey N. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the corporate governance regime in the United States has produced a level of mergers and acquisition activity greater than the social optimum because of the current version of the “golden parachute,” a super-bonus payoff to a target CEO. In the late nineteenth through the twentieth century, M&A activity was characterized by “waves” that reflected adaptations to changing external environment, whether the efficient production frontier, regulatory constraints, or capital market developments. Economically-motivated parties saw the opportunities in changing the boundaries of the firm; successful first-movers spawned imitators, hence a wave, which eventually subsided, often alongside deteriorating capital …

Teaching Transactional Skills And Lawyering Values To First-Year Students Through An Affordable-Housing Deal, Laura E. D'Amato

Faculty Scholarship

With the anticipated launch of the NextGen bar exam next year, transactional lawyering skills are enjoying increased attention in first-year law school curricular development. At the same time, recent amendments to ABA Rule 303 have made it essential for new law students to learn about the profession’s core values and responsibilities. While these evolving priorities open the door to pedagogical innovation, incorporating two distinct topics into an already packed curriculum can be challenging. This article explores how a simulated affordable-housing financing deal has served as a cohesive foundation for introducing first-year students to transactional skills and core professional values.

Immunosuppressive Formulations For Immunological Defense Against Traumatic Brain Injury, Abhirami Thumsi, Abhinav P. Acharya, Jeffrey Capadona, Sanmoy Pathak, Taravat Khodaei, Madan Mohan Chandra Sekhar Jaggarapu, Abhirami P. Suresh

Faculty Scholarship

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and subsequent neurodegeneration is partially driven by chronic inflammation both locally and systemically. Yet, current clinical intervention strategies do not mitigate inflammation sequelae necessitating the development of innovative approaches to reduce inflammation and minimize deleterious effects of TBI. Herein, a subcutaneous formulation based on polymer of alpha-ketoglutarate (paKG) delivering glycolytic inhibitor PFK15 (PFKFB3 inhibitor, a rate limiting step in glycolysis), alpha-ketoglutarate (to fuel Krebs cycle) and peptide antigen from myelin proteolipid protein (PLP139-151) is utilized as the prophylactic immunosuppressive formulation in a mouse model of TBI. In vitro, the paKG(PFK15+PLP) formulation stimulates proliferation of immunosuppressive regulatory …

Family Caregivers’ Perceptions Of Quality Of Dementia Self-Care In Wakiso District, Uganda, Martha Sajatovic, Kylie Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

INTRODUCTION: In Sub-Saharan Africa, most people with dementia are cared for in the home setting (dementia self-care) with hardly any support from the formal health and social care system. The study explored family caregivers' perceptions of quality of dementia self-care. METHODS: A descriptive-exploratory qualitative study design was used. Data were collected through four focus group discussions with 48 family caregivers of older people with dementia, recruited from four villages of the Wakiso district in Uganda. RESULTS: Five themes emerged: (1) patience and understanding; (2) maintaining hygiene and cleanliness; (3) constant supervision and safety precautions; (4) personalized care by understanding individual …

Targeted Delivery Of Rapamycin Via Epidermal Growth Factor Receptors In Pancreatic Cancer Cells Inhibits Cell Proliferation And Induces Apoptosis, Nawab Ali, Adeolu S. Oluremi, Christopher Baldwin, Nickolas Gustavison, Mujeebat Bashiru, Adeniyi Oyebade, Noureen Siraj, Raj Raghavendra Rao

Faculty Scholarship

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is aggressive and deadly; most PC cells overexpress an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). EGFR-targeting peptide (GE11) was conjugated to gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) for delivering rapamycin (Rap), an mTOR inhibitor that reduces proliferation and induces apoptosis. Biophysical techniques confirmed the conjugation. Rap loading efficiency was 41.5%, with sustained release at a lower pH. Conjugates showed higher uptake in PANC-1 cells than unmodified AuNPs. It also inhibited proliferation and induced apoptosis via pathways involving reactive oxygen species, mitochondrial damage, and caspase activation. This approach represents a promising nanoparticle-based therapeutic strategy targeting PC cells, utilizing GE11-EGFR interactions to minimize …

Diffusion Model For Medical Image Denoising, Reconstruction And Translation, Wei Wang, Shuo Li

Faculty Scholarship

Diffusion models, as a class of generative models, have demonstrated significant performance in image generation since their inception. The fundamental principle behind diffusion models is the definition of a forward process and a reverse process. The input data is progressively perturbed by adding random noise during the forward process, and the expected noise distribution is learned. In the reverse process, noise is gradually reduced from a Gaussian distribution to generate the image. Recently, diffusion models have been widely adopted in various image processing tasks, including text-to-image synthesis, denoising, segmentation, and object detection. In medical image analysis, diffusion models have shown …

Medium Matters In Preparing For Law Practice: Critical E-Reading, Amanda L. Sholtis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

From Palimpsest To Prompt: Rewriting Shakespeare, Creative Authorship, And The Generative Logics Of Large Language Models In Contemporary Theatre, Michael Harding, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the convergence of creative authorship, adaptation, and generative artificial intelligence within contemporary theatre, taking Michael Harding‘s Awake, Young King as a central case study. Through the rewriting of Shakespearean drama, Harding‘s creative process demonstrates how theatrical meaning emerges through ongoing negotiation among playwright, performer, and audience, with scripts historically subject to revision, improvisation, and reinterpretation. Concerns regarding copyright, intellectual property, and the role of AI in the performing arts are reframed as extensions of enduring debates over originality and authorship, rather than novel threats. Tracing the evolution from The Rise of James VI to Awake, Young King, …