Digital Commons Network^™

Response To Petition For Rehearing En Banc, Felicia M. Sonmez V. Wp Company Llc Et Al, Madeline H. Meth, Brian Wolfman, Becca Steinberg, Regina Wong, Elizabeth Brownstein, Nathaniel Allen Deacon

Faculty Scholarship

Felicia Sonmez alleges that the Washington Post violated the D.C. Human Rights Act by banning her from covering certain stories because she is a woman and a sexual-assault survivor. Op. 2-3. After finding Sonmez’s detailed allegations plausible, a panel of this Court rejected as premature the Post’s First Amendment defense that its decision was driven not by discrimination but by a desire to maintain an appearance of objectivity. Op. 4. Because “what actually motivated the Post editors to impose the bans on Sonmez is a factual question,” the panel held, the Post’s First Amendment defense could not be resolved on …

Memgb-Diff: Memory-Efficient Multivariate Gaussian Bias Diffusion Model For 3d Bias Field Correction, Shuo Li

Faculty Scholarship

Bias fields inevitably degrade MRI that seriously interferes the diagnosis of physicians for accurate analysis, and removing it is a crucial image analysis task. Generative models (such as GANs) are used for bias field correction, and outperform traditional methods, however are hindered by the high cost of data annotation and instability during training. Recently, the diffusion-based methods have excelled over GANs in many applications, and they are powerful in removing noise from images, while the bias field can be regarded as a smooth noise. However, it is a challenge to directly apply to 3D bias field correction due to sampling …

Nerve Transfers For Median Nerve Injury, Corinne Wee

Faculty Scholarship

Due to its role in hand function, median nerve injuries can have a significant impact on patients’ lives. Nerve transfers can be performed alone or in conjunction with tendon transfers to restore critical functions supplied by the median nerve, with a particular emphasis on restoring grasp, pinch, and sensation. Continued study into possible nerve transfers for median nerve injury has led to multiple options that can be tailored to the patient's demands, deficits, and injury pattern.

Human Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy: Potential Advances For Reducing Cystic Fibrosis Infection And Organ Inflammation, Tracey L. Bonfield, Hillard M. Lazarus

Faculty Scholarship

Innovation in cystic fibrosis (CF) supportive care, including implementing new antimicrobial agents, improved physiotherapy, and highly effective modulators therapy, has advanced patient survival into the 4th and 5th decades of life. However, even with these remarkable improvements in therapy, CF patients continue to suffer from pulmonary infection and other visceral organ complications associated with long-term deficient cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) expression. Human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been utilized in tissue engineering based upon their capacity to provide structural components of mesenchymal tissues. An alternative role of MSCs, however is their versatile utilization as cell-based infusion powerhouses due …

Pirfenidone Delivery By Blow-Molded Pcl Nanofiber Mat To Reduce Collagen Synthesis By Fibroblasts, Maximilian Zernic, Maryo Kohen, Faruk H. Orge, Amel Ahmed, Ozan Akkus

Faculty Scholarship

Elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) during glaucoma is sometimes mitigated by insertion of glaucoma drainage devices (GDD). Excessive fibrosis around GDD plates may confine drainage and requiring revision surgeries in some patients. Pirfenidone (PFD) is an FDA approved drug to treat lung fibrosis, and it may be effective in limiting capsule formation around the GDD. To enable this, we aimed to develop a polymeric GDD encasement sheath that can sustainably release PFD to reduce fibrous capsule formation. The PFD-doped sheath was manufactured by blow molding of (poly)caprolactone (PCL). We investigated the effects of PCL concentration, spray distance, and molecular weight on …

Plasmonic Enhancement Of Photothermal Conversion Efficiency In Gold-Nanoparticle Hydrogels, Mai S. Rashwan, Abed M. Al-Sheikh, Harihara Baskaran, Clemens Burda

Faculty Scholarship

This study investigates the photothermal properties of citrate-capped gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) dispersed in agarose gel, examining various sizes and concentrations, particularly within a low-concentration range (0.2–2.5 nM). Heat transfer measurements are conducted on Au NP hydrogels using laser-light induced heating, revealing a size- and concentration-dependent temperature increase compared to the plain agarose gel matrix. Experimental data, combined with finite-element analysis, demonstrate that photothermal energy conversion efficiencies are dependent on NP size and concentration, while the thermal conductivity (TC) of all Au NP hydrogels remains constant and independent of these parameters within the tested concentration range. UV-visible spectroscopy indicates that …

The Virtual Wunderkammer: Integrating Neuroinclusive Design And Ai-Augmented Technologies For Immersive Museum Experiences, Piper Hutson, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

The Virtual Wunderkammer represents an innovative paradigm in museum exhibition design, integrating neuroinclusive principles with artificial intelligence (AI)-augmented technologies to foster immersive and cognitively accessible visitor experiences. Historically, the Wunderkammer, or "cabinet of curiosities," served as a precursor to modern museums, offering eclectic collections that stimulated intellectual curiosity and sensory engagement. The contemporary reimagining of this concept utilizes emerging technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), haptic feedback, and olfactory-enhanced digital environments to create personalized, adaptive museum experiences. This study explores the critical intersection of neuroaesthetics, cognitive science, and AI-driven interactivity in digital exhibitions, emphasizing their potential to …

Shadow Investment Companies, William A. Birdthistle, Gabriel Rauterberg, Jeffery Y. Zhang

Faculty Scholarship

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to track the value of fiat currency, most commonly the U.S. dollar. Over the past decade, they have grown from a niche innovation into the primary gateway between crypto markets and the traditional financial system, with daily trading volumes exceeding $100 billion. Despite their scale and centrality, stablecoin issuers occupy an uncertain and increasingly contested regulatory space.

This Article argues that the largest stablecoin issuers — such as Circle and Tether— are best understood not as banks or payments firms, but as investment companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940. As a matter of statutory …

Mainstreaming Parafamily, Elizabeth F. Emens

Faculty Scholarship

In Parafamily, Chen and Mulligan have managed to cover vast terrain, to catalogue important developments in law, to canvass insights from generations of thinkers, and to propose an ambitious yet pragmatic approach to the laws that govern human relationships, directly and indirectly. They do all this in a relatively short article composed of unusually readable prose. Quite a feat.

The focus of the piece is Chen and Mulligan’s contribution to the field of legal scholarship dedicated to relationships that go beyond the traditional nuclear family. As their title reveals, the authors contribute a new term and concept to this …

Human-Ai Collaboration In Writing: A Multidimensional Framework For Creative And Intellectual Authorship, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

The integration of AI technologies into the writing process has significantly altered traditional notions of authorship, creativity, and intellectual labor. Historically, writing was seen as a human-driven cognitive and creative exercise, but with the rise of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude, the line between human and AI contributions has become increasingly ambiguous. This paper addresses the limitations of the current sliding scale model, which views AI involvement as ranging from “none” to “complete”. In its place, we propose a new multidimensional framework that more accurately reflects the complexity of human-AI collaboration in writing. The model includes axes …

Performing Protest, Performing Memory: Speech Act Theory And January 6, Mary Lynne Gasaway Hill

Faculty Scholarship

In daily life, memory performs a staggering array of tasks. It offers reassurance, validation, legitimation, and approval. It transgresses boundaries and polices them. It confirms understandings and undermines them. It warms our hearts and chills our blood. In the realm of protest, as this article will show, memory works through intentional language use. In the context of activism, acts of memory are often performative: they aim not just to restate the status quo, but to change something about it. This chapter operationalises J.L. Austin’s Speech Act Theory (1994, SAT) as a lens through which to examine how the contentious discourse …

Redefining Cell Culture Using A 3d Flipwell Co-Culture System: A Mimetic For Gut Architecture And Dynamics In Vitro, Saori Furuta

Faculty Scholarship

Gut mucosae are composed of stratified layers of microbes, a selectively permeable mucus, an epithelial lining, and connective tissue homing immune cells. Studying cellular and chemical interactions between the gut mucosal components has been limited without a good model system. We have engineered a three-dimensional (3D) multi-cellular co-culture system we coined “3D Flipwell system” using cell culture inserts stacked against each other. This system allows an assessment of the impact of a gut mucosal environmental change on interactions between gut bacteria, epithelia, and immune cells. As such, this system can be utilized in examining the effects of exogenous stimuli, such …

Super-Resolution Imaging Reveals Resistance To Mass Transfer In Functionalized Stationary Phases, Ricardo Monge Neria, Muhammad Zeeshan, Aman Kapoor, Tae Kyong John Kim, Nichole Hoven, Jeffrey Pigott, Burcu Gurkan, Christine Duval, Lydia Kisley

Faculty Scholarship

Chemical separations are costly in terms of energy, time, and money. Separation methods are optimized with inefficient trial-and-error approaches that lack insight into the molecular dynamics that lead to the success or failure of a separation and, hence, ways to improve the process. We perform super-resolution imaging of fluorescent analytes in five different commercial liquid chromatography materials. Unexpectedly, we observe that chemical functionalization can block more than 50% of the material’s porous interior, rendering it inaccessible to small-molecule analytes. Only in situ imaging unveils the inaccessibility when compared to the industry-accepted ex situ characterization methods. Selectively removing some of the …

Super-Resolution Imaging Reveals Resistance To Mass Transfer In Functionalized Stationary Phases, Ricardo Monge Neria, Muhammad Zeeshan, Aman Kapoor, Tae Kyong John Kim, Nichole Hoven, Jeffrey S. Pigott, Burcu Gurkan, Christine E. Duval, Lydia Kisley

Faculty Scholarship

Chemical separations are costly in terms of energy, time, and money. Separation methods are optimized with inefficient trial-and-error approaches that lack insight into the molecular dynamics that lead to the success or failure of a separation and, hence, ways to improve the process. We perform super-resolution imaging of fluorescent analytes in five different commercial liquid chromatography materials. Unexpectedly, we observe that chemical functionalization can block more than 50% of the material’s porous interior, rendering it inaccessible to small-molecule analytes. Only in situ imaging unveils the inaccessibility when compared to the industry-accepted ex situ characterization methods. Selectively removing some of the …

Can Chatgpt Implement Finite Element Models For Geotechnical Engineering Applications?, Hyoung Suk Suh

Faculty Scholarship

This study assesses the capability of ChatGPT to generate finite element code for geotechnical engineering applications from a set of prompts. We tested three different initial boundary value problems using a hydro-mechanically coupled formulation for unsaturated soils, including the dissipation of excess pore water pressure through fluid mass diffusion in one-dimensional space, time-dependent differential settlement of a strip footing, and gravity-driven seepage. For each case, initial prompting involved providing ChatGPT with necessary information for finite element implementation, such as balance and constitutive equations, problem geometry, initial and boundary conditions, material properties, and spatiotemporal discretization and solution strategies. Any errors and …

We Need To Talk: Modernizing Attorney-Client Jail Communications, Cynthia Alkon

Faculty Scholarship

Attorney-client jail phone calls, video calls, and emails are all routinely recorded and monitored by jails, with numerous examples of jails and private telecommunications providers giving those recordings and emails to law enforcement and prosecutors. This widespread failure to protect the confidentiality of attorney-client communications prevents lawyers from being able to enjoy easy, quick, and regular communications with their clients. In practice, and despite the ever-expanding communication methods in the outside world, those held in jails in this country while their criminal cases are pending are effectively stuck in the nineteenth century when the only way to communicate was in …

Water Reallocation In The West: Government And Markets, Vanessa Casado Pérez

Faculty Scholarship

Water is multifaceted: it is a human right, a production input, a sacred element, an investment asset, public property, and a fugitive resource. Its reallocation is inherently difficult because of its natural characteristics and its hybrid nature that combines public ownership with private rights. The future of the U.S. West necessitates the reallocation of water resources, even with potential new water supplies. As climate change intensifies, reallocation will take various forms—all involving government intervention to some degree, from eminent domain to competitive markets. For water markets to function effectively, they require robust institutional infrastructure to prevent issues like imperfect information …

The Common Law Of Constitutional Conventions, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Jill Lepore’s Jorde Symposium lecture paints a rich portrait of state constitutional conventions as engines of democratization during the 1800s and issues a dire warning about the United States’ ongoing amendment drought. Citing their unfamiliarity, however, Lepore declines to consider federal constitutional conventions as a possible corrective. In this response Essay, I argue: first, that Lepore’s marginalization of Article V’s convention mechanism is in tension with her own historical and normative account; second, that while Lepore’s wariness of conventions is entirely understandable given the state of our politics — and entirely commonplace among progressives — it carries significant risks …

Completing Icwa’S History, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

When the Supreme Court, in Brackeen v. Haaland, upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) — federal legislation making it harder for child family regulation (a.k.a. child protection) agencies to separate Indigenous children from their parents — it centered Congress’s effort to remedy a long history of unwarranted separations of Indigenous families.

Law For The Rich, Alex Raskolnikov

Faculty Scholarship

With top incomes and wealth reaching historic highs, scholars and politicians have proposed new taxes and novel legal rules aimed at reversing the emergence of the new Gilded Age. Yet while new taxes target the rich directly by imposing greater burdens only on those with incomes or wealth above multi-million-dollar thresholds, none of the proposed legal reforms do anything of the sort. There appears to be no interest in changing property law, corporate law, antitrust law, or labor law, among others, to have special, more burdensome rules applicable only to the rich. This Article asks: Why not? Why shy away …

When Anti-Fraud Laws Become A Barrier To Computer Science Research, Madelyne Xiao, Andrew Sellars, Sarah Scheffler

Faculty Scholarship

Computer science research sometimes brushes with the law, from red-team exercises that probe the boundaries of authentication mechanisms, to AI research processing copyrighted material, to platform research measuring the behavior of algorithms and users. U.S.-based computer security research is no stranger to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in a relationship that is still evolving through case law, research practices, changing policies, and legislation

Amid the landscape computer scientists, lawyers, and policymakers have learned to navigate, anti-fraud laws are a surprisingly under-examined challenge for computer science research. Fraud brings separate issues that …

Interference With The Democratic Process As Public Nuisance, Richard C. Boldt, Donald G. Gifford

Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the tort of public nuisance provides a vehicle for holding accountable those engaged in antidemocratic conduct. Recent history suggests that neither the criminal justice system nor Constitutional checks and balances are always up to the task. Following the 2020 election, some supporters of President Trump stormed the Capitol to prevent the counting of the electoral votes, tampered with election machines, and intimidated election workers and voters. Depending on the results of the 2024 election, criminal charges against Trump and some of his followers may be dismissed. The Senate failed to convict the President on articles of …

Who Teaches Consumer Law?, Jeff Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

This paper reports on a survey of 31 law professors teaching consumer protection law conducted in connection with the Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice at the UC Berkeley School of Law and the Center for Consumer Law at the University of Houston Law Center’s 2024 Teaching Consumer Law Conference. Surveys posed at previous editions of the Teaching Consumer Law Conference focused largely on what topics are covered in consumer law courses. The 2024 iteration of the survey instead explored responding professors’ goals in consumer law courses and experiences with and views on consumer law matters. Among the findings: …

Shaping Strategy In The Digital Age: The Impact Of Consumer Electronic Word Of Mouth On Firm Strategic Emphasis, Brandon Holle, Hang T. Nguyen, Hieu V. Phan

Faculty Scholarship

This research explores how consumer electronic word of mouth (eWOM) influences a firm’s strategic emphasis, focusing on the distinct effects of positive and negative eWOM on value appropriation (e.g., advertising) versus value creation (e.g., R&D). Analyzing over 33 million social media posts covering 39 corporate brands from 2010 to 2020, the authors find that positive consumer eWOM influences firms to prioritize a strategic emphasis on value appropriation, while negative consumer eWOM is associated with a strategic emphasis on value creation. These effects are moderated by product category, market competition, and industry instability. Firms in hedonic categories have attenuated responses to …

Critical Constitutional Law And The Alito Palimpsest, William J. Aceves

Faculty Scholarship

This article uses an innovative metaphor—the palimpsest—and a provocative philosophical tradition—genealogy—to generate a new theory of critical constitutional law. It is a theory born from this unique moment in time.

Originalism is now ascendant at the Supreme Court. Its search for essential origins in history as a method for grounding extant constitutional values was used in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to end recognition of the fundamental right to abortion. The Court’s conservative majority has made clear that Dobbs is only the beginning.

Critical constitutional law uses the metaphor of the palimpsest to study law and the search for …

(Non)Police Brutality, Shawn E. Fields

Faculty Scholarship

Local governments increasingly rely on unarmed, nonpolice experts to provide public safety services. In response to demands to reduce police violence, many municipalities have empowered paramedics, mental health counselors, social workers, and homeless outreach personnel, to triage health and safety issues without police involvement. Pilot programs reallocating police funds to these alternate responders appear to reduce arrest rates and rates of police violence. But they have not eliminated acts of violence committed by these nonpolice actors themselves. Shocking stories of paramedics chemically sedating motionless patients to death, social workers assaulting clients, and homelessness response units brutally dispersing unhoused persons after …

Lone Stars Lessons, Amy F. Kimpel

Faculty Scholarship

This Article provides the first comprehensive empirical account of Operation Lone Star (OLS), Texas Governor Abbott’s immigration enforcement initiative at the southern border. Though OLS consists of several components, including border wall construction and the busing of migrants to “blue” states, the machinery of OLS is primarily designed to apprehend recent migrants and prosecute them for violations of Texas state criminal law. The most common OLS prosecutions are for misdemeanor criminal trespass after migrants are arrested on private ranch lands near the border. As many criminal justice reforms aim to shrink the scale and scope of the criminal legal system, …

The First Thing We Do Is Kill All The Lawsuits, Kenneth S. Klein

Faculty Scholarship

As insurance premiums spike across the Nation, insurers are (yet again) pointing the finger at lawyers and lawsuits as an explanation. This Article offers new and important data on whether, in fact, currently there is a crisis of litigation in the United States. Neither the assertion of a litigation crisis, nor legislatures adopting systemic reform in response to the perception of one, is anything new. For almost two hundred years, there have been recurring cycles of complaints about lawyers, lawsuits, and their impact on society. Yet each time independent researchers have looked at the assertion, they have found the data …

Navigating Copyright In Ai-Enhanced Game Design: Legal Challenges In Multimodal And Dynamic Content Creation, Andrew Begemann, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in video game design has transformed traditional workflows, allowing for the generation of text, images, music, videos, and code at unprecedented scales. However, this advancement presents complex challenges for copyright law, traditionally rooted in human originality and authorship. This article examines recent case law that underscores the evolving legal landscape, exploring landmark cases such as Zarya of the Dawn and Andersen v. Stability AI. These cases reveal the tensions between AI-generated outputs and copyright eligibility, especially in the dynamic, multimodal compositions inherent to video games. The review analyzes how various AI tools are employed …

Universal Public Defense, Alexis Hoag-Fordjour

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.