Digital Commons Network^™

Students’ Satisfaction When Using A Remote Virtual Lab Based On Amazon Ec2 For Networking Courses At Pucmm, Kenny Díaz Jorge

Theses

This thesis compared the students' level of satisfaction when using a remote virtual lab based on Amazon EC2 for networking courses at PUCMM, versus using the existing traditional laboratories. For this study junior and senior students were chosen from Systems Engineering and Telecommunications Engineering programs at PUCMM from two laboratories subjects: Operating Systems Lab I and Data Switching Lab. These lab subjects include certain number of laboratory practices during the whole class period. For this research, only one laboratory practice was evaluated (physically vs. virtually) in each subject. The rest of the laboratory practices were done as usual (physically) in …

How Does The Power Crisis Problem Affect Data Management In The Dominican Republic, José Raúl Vélez Díaz

Theses

In the last decade, the Dominican Republic has been affected by a power crisis nation wide. In 2008, the crisis reached a deficit of 40% in the generation of power; and the problem seems to go on as no agreement is executed to solve it. The problem is originated from the lack of efficiency of many generators, and debts with the generators companies. An important aspect of the power crisis is the challenge to provide power quality to electronic equipment. Data management can be affected by this problem whenever there is data corruption or lost, and devices are damaged. Data …

Evaluation Of Privacy Assurance Methods And Guideline Development: Implications For Dr’S Higher Education Institutions, Noe Luzon

Theses

This project evaluates the actual mechanism of privacy assurance in the Dominican Republic's Higher Education institutions towards a standardization process. International regulations and type codes such as U.S Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and Spain Castilla's University de La-Mancha conduct code for personal data protection have been examined in order to obtain a ground for comparing and evaluating Dominican Republic's higher education privacy assurance methods. The evaluation of the Dominican Republic's actual higher education was developed through investigation of the different processes and procedures that people who are responsible of the students personal data, follow to achieve their …

Feasibility Of Backing Up Server Information In A Distributed Storage Using Client Workstations Hard Drives, Raúl Rafael Acevedo Cárdenas

Theses

As a consequence of nowadays large hard disk capacities, we can frequently find many networks in corporate environment with a considerable amount of unused hard disk storage space dispersed among all its computers. In an immediate future, the purpose of this unused space is unclearly defined and represents a waste of resource. Several studies suggest and evaluate numerous ways to take advantages of workstation unused hard disk space in a network. However, there are no evidences of studies that consider disk-based backup, distributed storage, and the unused workstation storage aiming at backing up server information in small business network. Determining …

Security Practices: A Mixed Approach, Sourabh Dass

Theses

Consistency of information is ideally maintained by adhering to the best practices and policies. However, statistics show trends of rising threats in information security in global landscape. It leads us to believe that there may be scope for improvement in transforming a good policy on paper into a better practice. This thesis research identifies various points of failure that arise out of improper implementation of a good policy. This research provides basic guidelines for implementation of usable security policies.

Control Of Self-Reconfigurable Robot Teams For Sensor Placement, Jacob Hays

Theses

"Self Reconfigurable Robots (SRRs) are a system of many simple modules that can rearrange themselves to work together and better perform complicated tasks. They are in theory more extensible then traditional robotics. We investigate the particular problem of using SRRs to both explore and survey an unknown environment. The environment is explored by using the Robots internal sensors, and surveyed by placing a limited number of static sensors at ideal locations. The advantage of SRRs is that they can adapt to terrain difficulty by adjusting the number of individual robots on the field by reorganizing its modules. We test a …

Efficient Object Tracking In Waas Data Streams, Trevor Clarke

Theses

Wide area airborne surveillance (WAAS) systems are a new class of remote sensing imagers which have many military and civilian applications. These systems are characterized by long loiter times (extended imaging time over fixed target areas) and large footprint target areas. These characteristics complicate moving object detection and tracking due to the large image size and high number of moving objects. This thesis evaluates existing object detection and tracking algorithms with WAAS data and provides enhancements to the processing chain which decrease processing time and increase tracking accuracy. Decreases in processing time are needed to perform real-time or near real-time …

Investigating Attributes - From Technologist To Business Leader, Christopher Kronenthal

Theses

As technology matures, its proliferation within an organization is ever more evident, providing a myriad of opportunities for career advancement and visibility for those specialized in the field. Taking advantage of this environment requires certain skill sets and personality traits. This thesis attempts to synthesize two disparate categories of professional aptitude (technologist and executive/business leader) by utilizing the common psychological profile platform known as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and then, apply that synthesis to an analysis of whether or not a correlation exists between the two groups. The key denoting factor amongst the two demographics in the supporting studies …

Unified Communications: The Search For Roi Through Tomorrow’S Business Communication Solutions, Vincent Puglia

Theses

The traditional workplace is evolving; the way in which businesses communicate today is different than it was in the past and yet is likely to change again in the future. The current state of the economy and globalization has forced every organization to review its future business plans and cut costs everywhere including communications. Organizations are seeking out technology in hopes of finding new ways to reduce their bottom-line communication costs. Today, many enterprise business infrastructures are comprised of separate networks - voice, data, and mobile - yet most of the time these networks never interact. The ability to link …

An Analytic Investigation Into Self Organizing Maps And Their Network Topologies, Renee Baltimore

Theses

This paper details master's thesis work involving research and investigation into the approach of self-organizing maps for clustering of data, more specifically, clustering of image data, and how this can be used in understanding image composition. This work will build upon ideas which have previously been explored, such as using self organizing maps for identifying and grouping different regions of an image which may possess similar features. A large part of this research is based upon experimentation with a variety of topological models of the self-organizing map network and investigation into what advantages these different topologies afford the network in …

The Accidental Clinician And The Experienced Director: A Conversation On The Value Of Externships, Marjorie A. Silver, Mary Jo Eyster

Scholarly Works

In the summer of 2010, Mary Jo Eyster and Marjorie Silver conversed, via email, about the ways in which externship programs add unique value to the student’s education, separate and apart from their cost-effectiveness as compared to the in-house clinic. The result is this paper, a dialogue between a stand-up teacher who chose to teach the externship seminar and a seasoned clinician.

Mary Jo and Marjorie agree that the well-designed, well-executed program should drive the design, teaching and administration of externships and their accompanying seminars. They share the goals that each of them privilege in the programs they have designed, …

The Quasi-Class Action Method Of Managing Multi-District Litigations: Problems And A Proposal, Charles Silver, Geoffrey P. Miller

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article uses three recent multi-district litigations ("MDLs") that produced massive settlements-Guidant ($240 million), Vioxx ($4.85 billion), and Zyprexa ($700 million)-to study the emerging quasi-class action approach to MDL management. This approach has four components: (1) judicial selection of lead attorneys, (2) judicial control of lead attorneys' compensation, (3) forced fee transfers from non-lead lawyers to cover lead attorneys' fees, and (4) judicial reduction of non-lead lawyers' fees to save claimants money. These procedures have serious downsides. They make lawyers financially dependent on judges and, therefore, loyal to judges rather than clients. They compromise judges' independence by involving them heavily …

Cooperative Interbranch Federalism: Certification Of State-Law Questions By Federal Agencies, Verity Winship

Vanderbilt Law Review

When an unresolved state-law question arises in federal court, the court may certify it to the relevant state court. The practice of certification from one court to another has been widely adopted and has been touted as "help[ing] build a cooperative judicial federalism." This Article proposes that states promote cooperative interbranch federalism by allowing federal agencies to certify unresolved state-law questions to state courts. It draws on Delaware's recent expansion of potential certifying entities to the Securities and Exchange Commission to argue that this innovation should be extended to other states and other federal agencies. Certification from federal agencies to …

Fragments Of Time, Jaclyn Didas

Theses

Reminiscing upon my childhood in the countryside, I strive to find a visual resting place for these thoughts. By reinterpreting past moments through metal, my work becomes a tangible artifact of a personal history. I use metal to shape these abstract views into the past; often referring to the energy and feeling of a moment rather than a literal representation. It is my aim to immortalize special symbolic memories like this, giving them tangible form. This thesis reveals a collection of important moments in my life interacting with the natural world. These instances are not the so-called momentous occasions, but …

Complimentary And Complementary Discrimination In Faculty Hiring, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

This Article focuses on one form of discrimination in faculty hiring. Specifically, this Article concentrates on discrimination against the "overqualified" minority faculty candidate, the candidate who is presumed to have too many opportunities and thus gets excluded from faculty interview lists and consideration. In so doing, this Article poses and answers the question: "Can exclusion from interviewing pools and selection based upon the notion that one is just 'too good' to recruit to a particular department constitute an actionable form of discrimination?" Part I of this Article begins by briefly reviewing the changes in faculty diversity and inclusion at colleges …

Health Reform: What's Insurance Got To Do With It? Recognizing Health Insurance As A Separate Species Of Insurance, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

Health insurance can be, and to a large extent already is, a separate species of insurance. This article describes the different views of insurance that made health reform contentious. It argues that the goals of health reform are incompatible with conventional views of insurance. Nonetheless, reforming health insurance to achieve those goals does not require as dramatic shift as some might think, because health insurance has already become primarily a means of paying for health care, rather than a simple risk spreading device for specified losses.

Government Speech 2.0, Helen Norton, Danielle K. Citron

Faculty Scholarship

New expressive technologies continue to transform the ways in which members of the public speak to one another. Not surprisingly, emerging technologies have changed the ways in which government speaks as well. Despite substantial shifts in how the government and other parties actually communicate, however, the Supreme Court to date has developed its government speech doctrine – which recognizes “government speech” as a defense to First Amendment challenges by plaintiffs who claim that the government has impermissibly excluded their expression based on viewpoint – only in the context of disputes involving fairly traditional forms of expression. In none of these …

Abuse Of Rights: The Continental Drug And The Common Law, Anna Di Robilant

Faculty Scholarship

This Article deploys a comparative approach to question a widely shared understanding of the impact and significance of abuse of rights. First, it challenges the idea that abuse of rights is a peculiarly civilian "invention," absent in the common law. Drawing on an influential strand of functionalist comparative law, the Article identifies the "functional equivalents of the doctrine in the variety of malice rules and reasonableness tests deployed by American courts in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century in fields as diverse as water law, nuisance, tortious interference with contractual relations, and labor law. The Article investigates the reasons why in …

The Legal Ecology Of Resistance: The Role Of Antibiotic Resistance In Pharmaceutical Innovation, Kevin Outterson

Faculty Scholarship

Antibiotic effectiveness is a common pool resource that can be prematurely depleted through resistance. Some experts warn that we may face a global ecological collapse in antibiotic effectiveness. Conventional wisdom argues for more intellectual property rights to speed the creation of new antibiotics. Recent theoretical literature suggests that conservation-based approaches may yield superior results. This Article describes a novel typology for organizing these emerging theories, and provides an early empirical test of these models, using proprietary data on the sales of vancomycin, an important hospital antibiotic for the last three decades.

The results challenge the assumptions in several models, and …

Defending Disclosure In Software Licensing, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

For lack of our imagination, this article does not have the most scintillating title. However, the subject matter is critically important. We survey prominent kinds of disclosures in law and show why the disclosure tool, though subject to substantial criticism, is central to the legitimacy of any legal regime. Our working example is the American Law Institute’s “Principles of the Law of Software Contracts” (hereinafter “ALI Principles”).

The ALI Principles include three kinds of disclosure: disclosure of facts (concerning the quality of software),disclosure of terms (of standard forms), and disclosure of post-contract intentions (to pursue remote disablement of software). We …

Trademark Remedies And Online Intermediaries, Stacey Dogan

Faculty Scholarship

For several years now, courts and commentators have tussled over the question of whether online intermediaries can face liability under trademark law. Because both case law and commentary have largely focused on the threshold question of "trademark use, " we know little about what specific behavior will subject intermediaries to liability and what remedies might follow. This Essay takes some preliminary steps toward addressing those questions.

Fighting Antibiotic Resistance: Marrying New Financial Incentives To Meeting Public Health Goals, Aaron S. Kesselheim, Kevin Outterson

Faculty Scholarship

The world faces a worsening public health crisis: A growing number of bacteria are resistant to available antibiotics. Yet there are few new antibiotics in the development pipeline to take the place of these increasingly ineffective drugs. We review a number of proposals intended to bolster drug development, including such financial incentives for pharmaceutical manufacturers as extending the effective patent life for new antibiotics. However, such strategies directly conflict with the clear need to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions and could actually increase prescription use. As an alternative, we recommend a two-prong, "integrated" strategy. This would increase reimbursement for the appropriate, …

Justice And Elegance For Hedgehogs - In Life, Law, And Literature, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

At a time when value pluralism and even value polarization seem to be undeniable facts of contemporary life, Ronald Dworkin unrepentantly defends the unity of value. His point of departure is the Greek poet Archilochus’s saying, “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing,” made famous in liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s essay, The Hedgehog and the Fox. In his forthcoming book, Justice for Hedgehogs, Dworkin argues for the integration of ethics, personal morality, and political morality and contends that law is a branch of political morality that in turn is a branch of morality, broadly understood. …

The New Price To Play: Are Passive Online Media Users Bound By Terms Of Use, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

When individuals turn on the television, listen to the radio, or purchase newspapers, they are not forming contractual relationships. Yet, almost without exception, online readers, viewers and listeners are required to enter into "terms of use" contracts. These ubiquitous agreements are generally unfavorable for the user in areas of intellectual property rights and privacy. In addition, the terms often restrict users' behavior and their ability to litigate any disputes with a Web site. In analyzing the implications of contracts for Web site users, this article examines whether courts have recognized a distinction between online consumers, interactive users, and "passive media …

Arbitrators And Accuracy, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

An arbitrator’s primary duty remains the delivery of an accurate award, resting on a reasonably ascertainable picture of reality. Litigants wanting only quick or cheap solutions can roll dice, and have no need of lawyers. Evidentiary tools in arbitration should balance sensitivity toward cost and delay against the parties’ interest in due process and correct decisions. If arbitration loses its moorings as a truth-seeking process, nostalgia for a golden age of simplicity will yield to calls for reinvention of an adjudicatory process aimed at discovering the facts, finding the law, and correctly construing contract language.

Towards A Right To Engage In The Fair Transformative Use Of Copyright‑Protected Expression, Graham Reynolds

All Faculty Publications

Networked digital technologies have given Canadians the opportunity to engage with culture in a way that has never before been possible. Empowered and inspired, individuals from Prince George to the Georgian Bay to George Street are rejecting their former role as passive consumers of culture in order to participate in a continuing process of cultural (re)creation, production, and dialogue. One way in which they are doing so is by engaging in the transformative use of existing expression, a type of creative activity in which previously existing expression is reworked for a new purpose, with new interpretations or with a new …

Electronic Records And The Law Of Evidence In Canada: The Uniform Electronic Evidence Act Twelve Years Later, Luciana Duranti, Corinne M. Rogers, Anthony F. Sheppard

All Faculty Publications

This article analyzes the adequacy of The Uniform Electronic Evidence Act, twelve years after its adoption, in dealing with the complexity of the records created, used, or stored in the digital environment. In the face of rapidly changing technology, the authors believe that the nature and characteristics of electronic records cannot be accounted for by simple modifications to the existing law of evidence, but require a new enactment following upon a close collaboration among records professions, legal and law enforcement professions, and the information technology profession. The new rules, comprehensively encompassing issues of relevance, admissibility, and weight of electronic documentary …

Constitutional Construction And Departmentalism: A Case Study Of The Demise Of The Whig Presidency, Michael J. Gerhardt

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Identity Scripts & Democratic Deliberation, Holning S. Lau

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Why The Assertion Of A "Nationalist" Presidency Does Not Support Claims For Expansive Presidential Power, William P. Marshall

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.