Digital Commons Network^™

An International Approach To Homelessness. Part I: The Case Of India., Pranit Lanjewar, Jaroslaw Richard Romaniuk

Faculty Scholarship

This paper, the first in a two-part study on homelessness in developing countries, explores the causes of homelessness in countries with significant populations living in poverty. This instalment focuses primarily on homelessness in India. The country’s diversity in terms of culture and religion is reflected in challenges when approaching issues related to homelessness. We highlight governmental initiatives to combat homelessness and provide impoverished people and families with access to essential services. A qualitative research method was used. We interviewed the recipients of government services aimed at helping their families overcome homelessness. Our findings highlight the role of education and educational …

Opening Brief For Plaintiff-Appellant Emery Barron, Steven Mitchell, Carolyn Sacco, Shaina Sikka, Madeline H. Meth

Faculty Scholarship

By the time Emery Barron sued Pennsylvania Department of Corrections officials in 2021, they had kept him caged for almost six years in solitary confinement without providing a pathway for him to reenter general population. Department of Correction policy calls for officials to review the ongoing need for solitary confinement after an initial ninety-day stint in disciplinary confinement. However, procedural carve outs allow officials to leave people like Barron in solitary indefinitely without an opportunity to be heard by a decisionmaker and without requiring officials to assert any legitimate penological interest behind the confinement.

Under this scheme, which violated both …

Executive Function Among Older Adults With Bipolar Disorder: A Gage-Bd Analysis, Federica Klaus, Martha Sajatovic, Peijun Chen, Nicole Fiorelli, Ashley N. Sutherland

Faculty Scholarship

Objectives Executive function deficits in bipolar disorder (BD) are major contributors to disability in older age BD (OABD). We investigated the difference between OABD and age-equated healthy comparators (HC); and, in the OABD group, the associations of executive function with age, symptom severity, global cognition, and daily functioning. Design Cross-sectional analysis of executive function in OABD versus HC. Setting Analysis of large archival dataset harmonized from 12 international OABD studies. Participants Older adults (≥50 years) with OABD ( n = 614) and HC ( n = 192). Measurements Executive function was assessed via Trail Making Test B (TMT-B) completion time; …

Opening Brief For Plaintiff-Appellant Jacob Julick, Aryssa Harris, Cameron Tong, Madeline H. Meth

Faculty Scholarship

For ten days in the middle of winter, officers at the Kentucky State Penitentiary (KSP) confined Jacob Julick in freezing cells, dressed only in paper boxers, and without access to hygiene products, a shower, cleaning products, bedding, or shoes. The reason? Mistaken retribution in response to a recent assault on an officer in which Julick was not involved.

When Julick reported experiencing suicidal thoughts, Defendant Officer Jason Denny mocked him, telling him to “kill [him]self and do them the favor.” Shortly after, Julick was moved from his first solitary cell to a strip cage where he was handcuffed, shackled, and …

Neuroadaptive Return On Investment In Education: A Critical Review Of Eeg And Eye-Tracking For Decision Optimization, Piper Hutson, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

This article advances a critical synthesis of a proposed neuroadaptive return on investment framework that integrates electroencephalography and eye-tracking into educational decision systems. The analysis situates neuroadaptive ROI within scholarship on neurodiversity, engagement, and adaptive learning, arguing that process-level indicators of attention, cognitive load, and persistence merit inclusion alongside conventional outcome metrics in investment models. Methodological scrutiny examines construct validity for neural and gaze indices, requirements for multimodal fusion, calibration across heterogeneous learner profiles, and threats to internal and external validity in classroom contexts. Evidence from pilot implementations suggests feasibility for real-time pacing, friction-point detection, and targeted resource triage, although …

Large Language Models As Machines Of Beauty: Cognitive Averaging, Latent Space Geometry, And The Entropic Foundations Of Aesthetic Preference, Daniel Plate, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

This study advances the position that large language models (LLMs) and human perceptual systems are governed by a shared computational drive toward prototypicality, entropy reduction, and aesthetic coherence. Drawing on developmental evidence that infants exhibit early preferences for facial symmetry and averageness, the analysis situates aesthetic preference within broader research on processing fluency and predictive coding, emphasizing that biological perception rewards stimuli that reduce uncertainty and support efficient information compression. This foundation is used to examine how LLMs, through cross-entropy optimization, perplexity minimization, and latent space clustering, converge on high-density representational regions that operate as statistical prototypes of linguistic and …

Differences In Total Daily Energy Expenditure Across Field Sports: A Narrative Review, Brenen Skalitzky, Jennifer Fields, Margaret T. Jones, Chad Kerksick, Andrew Jagim

Faculty Scholarship

Background: Differences in total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) across sports, sex, and skill level support the need for sport- and athlete-specific energy intake recommendations. The purpose of the current review was to examine TDEE and related markers of energy expenditure across field-based team sports. A secondary aim was to evaluate physical activity levels (PAL), calculated as TDEE divided by resting metabolic rate (RMR), and their utility in estimating energy needs within team sports.

Methods: The review was limited to studies that included the field-based team sports of rugby or soccer and reported energy expenditure data using doubly labeled water …

Lawyers' Client-Inclusive Negotiations: The "New Mediation"?, Nancy A. Welsh, Donna Shestowsky

Faculty Scholarship

When proponents initially urged the courts to institutionalize mediation for the resolution of general civil cases, they argued that the procedure would be superior to trial—and also to lawyers’ settlement negotiations—in terms of parties’ exercise of self-determination, satisfaction with outcomes, and opportunity for voice. These claims, however, rested on certain assumptions, particularly regarding the implementation of mediation and lawyers’ settlement negotiations. In mediation, the parties were to take center stage, with the mediator assisting them by facilitating their communication and negotiation so that they could reach a customized resolution. Lawyers’ settlement negotiations in general civil litigation, meanwhile, were assumed to …

Local Government Standing As State Standing, Katharine Cooney, Katherine Mims Crocker

Faculty Scholarship

It is increasingly common, and controversial, for local governments to bring lawsuits as plaintiffs in federal court. Many questions about this practice raise matters that sound in policy. But some, including the issue of standing to sue, also raise issues of constitutional law. How local governments fit into standing rules should reflect how they fit into the U.S. constitutional system more broadly. As the Supreme Court put it in the famous (and infamous) 1907 case Hunter v. City of Pittsburgh, "[m]unicipal corporations are political subdivisions of the State, created as convenient agencies for exercising such of the governmental powers of …

Clinical Decision Support For Pharmacologic Management Of Treatment-Resistant Depression With Augmented Large Language Models, Martha Sajatovic

Faculty Scholarship

Background: We evaluated whether a large language model could assist in selecting psychopharmacological treatments for adults with treatment-resistant depression. Methods: We generated 20 clinical vignettes reflecting treatment-resistant depression among adults based on distributions drawn from electronic health records. Each vignette was evaluated by 2 expert psychopharmacologists to determine and rank the 5 best next-step pharmacologic interventions, as well as contraindicated or poor next-step treatments. Vignettes were then presented in random order, permuting gender and race, to a large language model (Qwen 2.5:7B), augmented with a synopsis of published treatment guidelines. Model output was compared to expert rankings, as well as …

Semaglutide For Metabolic Dysfunction–Associated Steatohepatitis (Mash): Estimating Eligibility From The 2021–2023 National Health And Nutrition Examination Survey (Nhanes), Jennifer B. Levin, Martha Sajatovic, Seth N. Sclair

Faculty Scholarship

There has been considerable interest in the potential of GLP-1 agonists for treating chronic liver disease.1 Following the positive results of the Phase 3 ESSENCE trial,2 on August 15, 2025, the FDA-approved Wegovy (semaglutide) for the treatment of metabolic dysfunction–associated steatohepatitis (MASH).3 Recently, the eligibility for semaglutide across all current indications in the United States, including diabetes management, weight management, and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD), was estimated to be nearly 137 million individuals based on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, 2015–2020).4 Although weight management subsumed all eligibility for secondary prevention of CVD, as well as …

Prevalence Of Sleep Disturbances And Factors Associated Among School Going Children In Uganda, A Cross-Sectional Study, Martha Sajatovic

Faculty Scholarship

Background: Sleep disturbances greatly impact children's academic performance and social well-being. This study set out to determine the prevalence of sleep disturbances and factors associated among school going children in Kawempe division, Kampala, Uganda. Methods: In a community cross-sectional study, 548 study participants using random cluster sampling were enrolled. The children start lessons at 8am and end the days classes at 5pm. Random cluster sampling method was used to select participants from the 19 parishes in Kawempe district. Data was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire and Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children (SDSC). Descriptive statistics and multivariate binary logistic regression were …

Antidepressant Use In Older Age Bipolar Disorder (Oabd): Results From The Gage-Bd International Consortium, P. J. Chen, Lisa T. Eyler

Faculty Scholarship

Background Antidepressants are still commonly prescribed in bipolar disorders, despite ongoing controversy of the potential risk of inducing hypomania/mania. There is limited knowledge about the characteristics of antidepressant use in older age bipolar disorder (OABD; age ≥50) in the current literature. Aim To describe antidepressant use, sociodemographic and clinical correlates of a global sample of OABD individuals. Methods The Global Aging and Geriatric Experiments in Bipolar Disorder (GAGE-BD) consortium provided cross-sectional international data on OABD individuals ( n = 746) and younger-age bipolar disorder (YABD, age <50 years; n = 692) regarding antidepressant use. Multivariate logistic regression was employed to assess the association between AD use with demographic and clinical variables. Results Of 1252 participants, 33.1 % of OABD individuals and 38.1 % of YABD individuals were using antidepressants. In multivariable models among OABD, antidepressant use was associated with BD type II (OR = 1.61, 95 % CI: 1.09–2.38), higher depression severity (mild-to-moderate: OR = 1.86, 95 % CI: 1.13–3.06; severe: OR = 4.23, 95 % CI: 2.38–7.50), lower YMRS scores (OR = 0.93, 95 % CI: 0.89–0.97), female sex (OR = 1.37, 95 % CI: 1.00–1.89), lower education (OR = 0.61, 95 % CI: 0.43–0.86), and being unemployed (OR = 0.69, 95 % CI: 0.50–0.96). Antidepressant monotherapy was reported in 18 % of OABD users ( n = 46) and 19 % of YABD users ( n = 51). These findings suggest that both clinical severity and sociodemographic characteristics influence antidepressant prescribing in OABD. Conclusion Antidepressant use was less prevalent in OABD compared to YABD, and associated with female sex, lower education, lack of occupation, type II BD, higher depression severity and lower mania scores. In OABD, antidepressants appear to be used more commonly in contexts where they may be clinically more indicated, such as increased depression severity.

State Of Ohio Adversity And Resilience (Soar) Study Protocol: A Comprehensive, Multimodal, Family-Based, Longitudinal Observational Investigation Of Risk And Resilience In Mental Health And Substance Use Disorders, Chris Flask, Martha Sajatovic

Faculty Scholarship

Introduction Deaths related to drug overdose and suicide in the USA have increased 500% and 35%, respectively, over the last two decades. The human and economic costs to society associated with these - €- deaths of despair' are immense. Great efforts and substantial investments have been made in treatment and prevention, yet these efforts have not abated these increasing trajectories of deaths over time. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated and highlighted these problems. Notably, some geographical areas (eg, Appalachia, farmland) and some communities (eg, low-income persons, - €- essential workers', minoritised populations) have been disproportionately affected. Risk factors have been …

Brain Mri For The Diagnosis Of Dementia In Low- And Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Protocol Of Diagnostic Utility And Imaging Findings, Stephen E. Jones, Martha Sajatovic

Faculty Scholarship

Introduction The utility of brain MRI in dementia diagnosis offers critical insights into structural brain changes, such as hippocampal and thalamic atrophy, which are hallmark features of Alzheimer's disease and Alzheimer's disease-related dementias. However, its use, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), is affected by limited accessibility. This protocol outlines a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the diagnostic utility, feasibility and challenges of integrating brain MRI for dementia diagnosis in LMICs. Methods and analysis The review follows Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols with a priori eligibility criteria and is registered in PROSPERO. Searches (from …

Association Between Adherence Barriers, Self-Reported Adherence, And Psychiatric Symptoms Among Adults With Bipolar Disorder, Martha Sajatovic, Jennifer B. Levin, Clara Adeniyi, Jessica Black, Celeste Weise, Nicole Fiorelli, Erika Kelley

Faculty Scholarship

Aims: While suboptimal medication adherence is a widely recognized problem for people with bipolar disorder (BD), it is less clear how individual characteristics are associated with varying levels of adherence and how specific adherence barriers impact behaviors. This interim analysis from an ongoing randomized controlled trial (RCT) examined associations between patient-reported adherence, adherence barriers, and mood symptoms among poorly adherent individuals with BD. Methods: RCT participants were adults age ≥ 18 years old with BD Type 1 or 2, difficulties with medication adherence, and actively symptomatic as measured by Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) score ≥ 36, Young Mania Rating …

Beyond Phonics: Neuroaesthetic And Symbolic Divergence In Culturally Responsive Dyslexia Screening, Piper Hutson, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

Recent advances in neuroscience and educational technology have challenged the traditional phonological-deficit model of dyslexia, revealing the profound influence of visual-symbolic processing, neuroaesthetic resonance, and cultural context in the reading brain. This article interrogates prevailing assessment paradigms by synthesizing research on the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA), cross-linguistic literacy systems, and emerging neurodiversity frameworks. The study addresses the urgent need to reconceptualize dyslexia as a heterogeneous divergence in symbolic processing—rooted as much in neuroaesthetic and visuospatial alignment as in phonemic awareness. Existing screeners, predominantly optimized for English and other Latin-based scripts, systematically neglect the cognitive realities of learners in multilingual …

Resonant Body Communication For Neurodivergent Contexts: A Multimodal, Temporally Elastic Blueprint For Inclusive Biometric Systems, Piper Hutson, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

Prevailing emotion-sensing systems privilege a facial-and-gaze paradigm that encodes neurotypical tempo, channel priority, and expression classes, thereby mischaracterizing or erasing neurodivergent communication. This article advances a design-oriented framework for biometric sensing that centers resonant body communication: temporally extended, multimodal, and environmentally situated patterns of posture, gesture, rhythm, and interoception that carry affective meaning. Through an integrative methodology that synthesizes cognitive neuroscience, embodied arts practices, and human–computer interaction, the study formalizes a theoretical model with four pillars: temporal elasticity, multimodal sensory hierarchies, resonant gestures and rhythmic entrainment, and environmental attunement. Building on this model, the article specifies technical requirements for next-generation …

Composition Pedagogy As Ai‑Native Coding: From Design Kit To Scholarly Framework, Daniel Plate, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

This article advances a field-ready framework that reconceives first-year composition as AI-native coding, translating a complete “design kit” into scholarly method, evaluative protocol, and curriculum architecture. Background: Contemporary composition pedagogy emphasizes process, genre awareness, and collaborative revision; meanwhile, modern software practice operationalizes iteration through version control, test-driven development, and continuous integration. The uploaded kit demonstrates that these cultures are isomorphic: writing stages align with SDLC phases, and automated pipelines can lint prose, execute argument “tests,” and publish artifacts with auditable histories. Approach: The study systematizes that kit into (1) a conceptual map that recasts authorship as orchestration and verification, (2) …

Beyond Mass Deportation, Nancy Plankey-Videla, Huyen Pham, Angela D. Morrison, Luz E. Herrera

Faculty Scholarship

Donald Trump’s threats to carry out the mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants helped propel him to a second term as President of the United States. For the estimated 11 million people in the U.S. without lawful status, those threats have increased fears of forced returns to their countries of origin. While American immigration law is heavily focused on the legal processes leading to deportation, little attention has been paid to the post-deportation experiences of individuals who must reintegrate into their home countries. This gap in understanding is especially alarming given the high stakes of reintegration. A successful transition can empower …

Ai Companions And The Lessons Of Family Law, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Virtual friends and lovers powered by artificial intelligence are rapidly moving to the center of our emotional and social lives. Millions of people turn to AI companions every day for conversation, romance, sexual intimacy, therapy, and education. AI companionship holds promise, potentially reducing loneliness, supporting people without access to mental health treatment, helping students learn, and offering a judgment-free space for sensitive conversations. But AI companionship also raises significant concerns. The technology's addictiveness may exacerbate loneliness and can undermine human relationships. Therapy bots may prove more harmful than helpful. AI companions can be emotionally abusive. And their access to the …

Impact Of Sociodemographic, Clinical, And Intervention Characteristics On Pain Intensity Within A Single Music Therapy Session, Samuel N. Rodgers-Melnick, Douglas Gunzler, Thomas E. Love, Siran M. Koroukian, Mark Beno, Jeffery A. Dusek, Johnie Rose

Faculty Scholarship

Several studies support the efficacy of music therapy (MT) for reducing pain, but few have examined which interventions are most effective or which patients are more likely to respond. This study investigated which sociodemographic, clinical, and intervention characteristics are associated with clinically significant reductions in pain intensity (0–10 numeric rating scale reduction ≥2 units) within a single MT session. We conducted a retrospective review of 2039 MT sessions provided across a large health system among 1203 adult patients reporting pre-session pain ≥4/10, a complete post-session pain score, and a complete pre-session stress score. We employed a multivariable logistic mixed effects …

The Use Of Long-Acting Injectables For People With Schizophrenia: Consensus Panel Recommendations For Overcoming Barriers And Implementing Treatment, Martha Sajatovic

Faculty Scholarship

Introduction: Antipsychotic medications are effective for people living with schizophrenia, but long-term treatment adherence remains challenging, leading to relapses and poor outcomes. Long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIs) may improve adherence and reduce relapses compared with oral antipsychotics. Barriers to the use of LAIs exist, yet practical recommendations to overcome them are lacking. Therefore, an expert consensus panel was formed to develop key recommendations using a modified Delphi panel method. Methods: The panel chair and Interactive Forums, Inc., conducted a narrative literature review of English-language articles published in the 10 years before 02/02/2024. Panelists rated, discussed, and re-rated proposed statements during 2 …

The Role Of Employee Relationship Orientation In The Value Co-Creation – Firm Performance Link, Perry L. Parke, Prachi Gala, Pramod Iyer, Stefan Sleep, Mona Sinha

Faculty Scholarship

Purpose – This paper links employees’ relationship orientation, or their sense that the organization respects their contribution, to value co-creation and overall firm performance. It also measures the effects on innovation and knowledge sharing.

Design/methodology/approach – A total of 301 US product and marketing managers participated in a survey. Measurement and structural models were evaluated using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

Findings – Main findings suggest that increased value co-creation (VCC) activity has a significant effect on employee relationship orientation. This study also finds that employee relationship orientation plays a mediating role in the relationship between VCC and firm …

The Pastor As Romantic Author: Ai, Preaching, And The Unacknowledged Inheritance Of Authenticity, Daniel Plate, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

This article interrogates contemporary reactions to sermons produced with generative technologies through a historical–conceptual lens, arguing that widespread judgments of such outputs as “soulless,” “generic,” or lacking a “beating heart” are best explained by an unacknowledged inheritance from nineteenth-century Romantic expressivism. Rather than treating resistance to machine authorship as a theological verdict on computational incapacity, the study reconstructs how Romanticism centered authorship in sincere self-expression and solitary genius, displacing earlier heraldic expectations that prized fidelity to a received message. Methodologically, the analysis combines intellectual history with discourse analysis of global Christian experiments in synthetic composition (2020–2025), denominational guidance, and media …

Drive-By Mediation And Other Opportunistic Distortions Of Process, Nancy A. Welsh

Faculty Scholarship

Many states in the United States, along with many nations, have implemented special benefits and privileges to encourage parties’ use of mediation to assist their communication, negotiation, and ultimate resolution of disputes. This is despite how loosely mediation is defined. This Article discusses how vague definitions, paired with special benefits and privileges, are incentivizing both the opportunistic distortion of mediation and the use of mediation for improper purposes. In Texas, for example, judges are extraordinarily limited in their ability to disapprove parents’ mediated child custody agreements—even if there is reason to worry that an agreement is contrary to the best …

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 …

Criminal Court's Disability, Zohra Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

Do criminal courts meaningfully accommodate psychiatric disability? A review of competency proceedings across the United States suggests not. In competency to stand trial proceedings, criminal court actors offer a narrow vision of psychiatric disability that excludes many defendants. Ultimately, the institutional context of criminal court undermines even the meagre accommodations that the competency framework provides.

Competency proceedings are the constitutional accommodations available to disabled defendants if they can establish that they are unable to consult with their lawyers or if they do not have a rational or factual understanding of the proceedings against them. After a finding of incompetency, the …