Digital Commons Network^™

Resilience Experiments On The Gpeni Testbed, Egemen K. Çetinkaya, Dongsheng Zhang, Mohammed J. F. Alenazi, Yufei Cheng, Parker Riley, James P. G. Sterbenz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Adaptive Multi-Vehicle Area Coverage Optimization System And Method, Ryan J. Meuth, John Lyle Vian, Emad W. Saad, Donald C. Wunsch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A mission planning system for determining an optimum use of a plurality of vehicles in searching a predefined geographic area (PGA). A discretizer subsystem may be used for sensing the capabilities of each vehicle to produce a point set defining a number of points within the PGA that the vehicles must traverse to completely search the PGA. A task allocator subsystem may determine an optimum division of the PGA into different subregions to be handled by specific ones of the vehicles, thus to minimize an overall time needed to search the PGA. A path optimizer subsystem may determine an optimum …

Narratives Of The European Crisis And The Future Of (Social) Europe, Philomila Tsoukala

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article examines two distinct types of narratives prevalent in academic writing and popular press regarding the causes of the crisis in Europe. The first type, a morality tale, attributes the crisis to profligate southern states that refused to abide by the strictures of the Stability and Growth Pact. The second type is focused on the structural reasons for the crisis, emphasizing the nature of the European Union as a non-optimal currency area, and the euro as a factor in the creation of trade imbalances and competitiveness problems within the euro zone. Each type of narrative suggests a different type …

Top 10 Law School Home Pages Of 2012, Roger V. Skalbeck, Matthew L. Zimmerman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

For a fourth consecutive year, every website home page of every ABA-accredited law school is evaluated and ranked based on objective criteria. The goal is to identify well-executed sites adopting best practices. For the 2012 report, twenty-six elements are evaluated across these three categories: Design Patterns and Metadata, Accessibility and Validation, & Marketing and Communications. For 2012, there are four new elements, two prior elements have been combined, and one element was dropped.

For 2012, forty-six schools now use the HTML5 doctype, which is up from thirteen in 2011 and just one in 2010. Eighteen schools achieve perfect scores in …

Performance Anxiety: Copyright Embodied And Disembodied, Rebecca Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The primary economic and cultural significance of copyright today comes from works and rights that weren’t contemplated by the Framers of the Constitution’s Copyright Clause. Performance—both as protected work and as right—is where much of copyright’s expansion has had its greatest impact, as new technologies have made it possible to fix performances in records and films and as cultural change has propelled recorded music and audiovisual works to the forefront of the copyright industries. Yet copyright has never fully conceptualized performance, and this has led to persistent confusion about what copyright protects.

One key problem of performance from copyright’s perspective …

Make Me Walk, Make Me Talk, Do Whatever You Please: Barbie And Exceptions, Rebecca Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Barbie represents an aspiration to an ideal and also a never-ending mutability. Barbie is the perfect woman, and she is also grotesque, plasticized hyperreality, presenting a femininity exaggerated to the point of caricature. Barbie’s marketplace success, combined with (and likely related to) her overlapping and contradictory meanings, also allow her to embody some key exceptions to copyright and trademark law. Though Mattel’s lawsuits were not responsible for the initial recognition of those exceptions, they illuminate key principles and contrasts in American law. Mattel attempted to use both copyright and trademark to control the meaning of Barbie, reflecting a trend towards …

Stochastic Constraint, Neal K. Katyal

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay reviews Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency After 9/11 by Jack Goldsmith (2012).

With The Terror Presidency, Professor Jack Goldsmith wrote, hands down, the very best analysis of the national security issues surrounding President George W. Bush's tenure. In Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency After 9/11, Goldsmith returns to the same set of problems, but adopts a different tack. He argues that the modern wartime Executive is constrained in new ways beyond the traditional system of checks and balances, and that these new constraints combine to create an effective system that checks executive power. Though …

The Wonder-Clause, Anna Gelpern, Mitu Gulati

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Greek debt crisis prompted EU officials to embark on a radical reconstruction of the European sovereign debt markets. Prominently featured in this reconstruction was a set of contract provisions called Collective Action Clauses, or CACs. CACs are supposed to help governments and private creditors to renegotiate unsustainable debt contracts, and obviate the need for EU bailouts. But European sovereign debt contacts were already amenable to restructuring; adding CACs could make it harder. Why, then, promote CACs at all, and cast them in such a central role in the market reform initiative? Using interviews with participants in the initiative and …

Bloomberg’S Health Legacy: Urban Innovator Or Meddling Nanny?, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Michael Bloomberg leaves the mayoralty of New York City, with his health legacy is bitterly contested. The public health community views him as an urban innovator—a rare political and business leader willing to fight for a built environment conducive to healthier, safer lifestyles. To his distractors, however, Bloomberg epitomizes a meddling nanny—an elitist dictating to largely poor and working class people about how they ought to lead their lives. His policies have sparked intense public, corporate, and political ire—critical of sweeping mayoral power to socially engineer the city and its inhabitants.

Here, I seek to show how Bloomberg has fundamentally …

Toward A Jurisprudence Of Law, Peace, Justice, And A Tilt Toward Non-Violent And Empathic Means Of Human Problem Solving, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this essay the author sets out some questions about whether law can be made a site of encouraging more positive, peace seeking, non-violent, and pro-social behaviors. These questions derive from my own family history, as well as from my experience as a social and political activist, and also as a practicing lawyer and legal scholar. She begins in the introduction by setting out these questions in light of current conditions of domestic and international violence and some past considerations of categories of law. In the second section of this essay the author explains where her questions come from—her personal …

The Rebirth Of The Neighborhood, J. Peter Byrne

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay argues that new urban residents primarily seek a type of community properly called a neighborhood. “Neighborhood” refers to a legible, pedestrian-scale area that has an identity apart from the corporate and bureaucratic structures that dominate the larger society. Such a neighborhood fosters repeated, casual contacts with neighbors and merchants, such as while one pursues Saturday errands or takes children to activities. Dealing with independent local merchants and artisans face-to-face provides a sense of liberation from large power structures, where most such residents work. Having easy access to places of sociability like coffee shops and bars permits spontaneous “meet-ups,” …

Putting A Price On Whales To Save Them: What Do Morals Have To Do With It?, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The author explores the moral implication of a proposal to create an international market in whale shares as an alternative to the dysfunctional International Whaling Commission. She finds the proposal amoral because whales, like humans, have an intrinsic right to life. Since this leaves whales vulnerable to whale hunting nations, she suggests that international environmental organizations might help a whale preservation norm emerge in whaling nations by using education and interventionist activities that focus on whaling’s cruelty to ultimately encourage the citizens and governments of those nations to change their self-image as whale eating cultures.

The Developmental Path Of The Lawyer, Michael J. Cedrone

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

My mother does not drive, and I own a towel that I cannot use-these are my reasons for studying law.

I am an integrated tapestry of elation and disappointment, risk and reward, ambiguity and conviction .. .. I discovered [through adversity] that transitional challenges were not permanent impediments to my progress, but were instead emboldening catalysts to my personal evolution and professional development.

These two stories come from admissions essays submitted by members of Georgetown University Law Center's class of 2014, recently published in the Law Center's alumni magazine. The published essays provide fascinating views into the personal experiences and …

No-Boundary Thinking In Bioinformatics Research, Xiuzhen Huang, Barry Bruce, Alison Buchan, Clare Bates Congdon, Carole L. Cramer, Steven F. Jennings, Hongmei Jiang, Zenglu Li, Gail Mcclure, Rick Mcmullen, Jason H. Moore, Bindu Nanduri, Joan Peckham, Andy Perkins, Shawn W. Polson, Bhanu Rekepalli, Saeed Salem, Jennifer Specker, Donald C. Wunsch, Donghai Xiong, Shuzhong Zhang, Zhongming Zhao

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Currently there are definitions from many agencies and research societies defining "bioinformatics" as deriving knowledge from computational analysis of large volumes of biological and biomedical data. Should this be the bioinformatics research focus? We will discuss this issue in this review article. We would like to promote the idea of supporting human-infrastructure (HI) with no-boundary thinking (NT) in bioinformatics (HINT).

Proteomic Evidence For The Plasticity Of Cultured Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells, Ahmet Tarik Baykal, Betül Baykal, Müge Serhatli, Zelal Adigüzel, Mehmet Altuğ Tunçer, Ömer Kaçar, Kemal Baysal, Ceyda Açilan Ayhan

Turkish Journal of Biology

Morphological, functional, and gene expression studies have established the phenotypic plasticity of smooth muscle cells (SMCs). These cells have been shown to respond to environmental stimulants such as extracellular matrix and growth factors. Cellular changes can vary between extremes defined as the contractile and synthetic states. Various growth factors have been shown to have profound effects on the phenotype of these cells. In this study, we intended to investigate the effects of growth factor-rich medium on the protein expression of vascular SMCs in culture. Interestingly, transiently changing the type of medium did not result in any apparent morphological differences, yet …

Effect Of Drought Stress On Oxidative Damage And Antioxidant Enzyme Activity In Melon Seedlings, Musa Kavas, Mehmet Cengi̇z Baloğlu, Oya Akça, Fatma Seli̇n Köse, Derya Gökçay

Turkish Journal of Biology

Drought stress is one of the most serious environmental limitations affecting the growth and productivity of plants. In the current study, oxidative damage and antioxidant responses under polyethylene glycol (PEG)-induced osmotic stress were compared in 2 melon cultivars, Kırkağaç and Galia. Melon seedlings were subjected to PEG-6000 solutions of 2 different osmotic potentials, -0.2 MPa and -0.4 MPa. Various physiological parameters, malondialdehyde (MDA), proline content, and antioxidant enzymes including catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and glutathione reductase (GR) were measured. A reduction in fresh and dry weights of shoot and root tissues was observed. Significant proline accumulation was detected with …

Global Assessment Of Network Inference Algorithms Based On Available Literature Of Gene/Protein Interactions, Gökmen Altay, Nejla Altay, David Neal

Turkish Journal of Biology

We propose a framework that uses the available gene/protein interaction databases of the literature as a universal benchmark in order to globally assess the inference performances of gene network inference algorithms. We also developed an R software package for convenient use of the framework, which can also be used in general as a quick tool to search in the literature for available validations of interactions. We applied the proposed approach to 2 publicly available prostate cancer gene expression datasets and a large breast cancer gene expression dataset. The results revealed different aspects and superiority of algorithms that had not been …

Purification And Characterization Of Trehalase From Seeds Of Chickpea (Cicer Arietinum L.), Maimona Kord, Elhusseiny Youssef, Hanaa Ahmed, Ebtesam Qaid

Turkish Journal of Biology

In the present study, trehalase was purified and characterized from the seeds of Cicer arietinum L. ‘Giza 1’. Crude extract was prepared and purified for electrophoretic homogeneity using ammonium sulfate, chromatography on DEAE-cellulose, CM Sepharose, and Sephadex G-200. The final specific activity was 7 U/mg protein, with 232-fold purification. The purified enzyme exhibited its pH optimum at 5.5. The optimum temperature was 60 °C. The determined K_m value was 3.64 mM trehalose. The enzyme activity was stimulated by 20 mM Mn^{2+}, Ni^{2+}, or Co^{2+}, while it was inhibited by 20 mM Na^+, K^+, Li^+, Ca^{2+}, Zn^{2+}, Cu^{2+}, or Fe^{3+}. Zn^{2+} …

Privacy-Preserving Friend Recommendations In Online Social Networks, Bharath Kumar Samanthula

Doctoral Dissertations

"Online social networks, such as Facebook and Google+, have been emerging as a new communication service for users to stay in touch and share information with family members and friends over the Internet. Since the users are generating huge amounts of data on social network sites, an interesting question is how to mine this enormous amount of data to retrieve useful information. Along this direction, social network analysis has emerged as an important tool for many business intelligence applications such as identifying potential customers and promoting items based on their interests. In particular, since users are often interested to make …

Bio-Inspired Design, Fabrication And Testing Of Bipolar Plates For Pem Fuel Cells, Nannan Guo

Doctoral Dissertations

"The flow field of a bipolar plate distributes reactants for polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells and removes the produced water from the fuel cells. It greatly influences the performance of fuel cells, especially the concentration losses. Two approaches were developed to improve flow field designs in this dissertation. One is inspired by the biological circulatory structures and called bio-inspired designs, which have great potential to transport reactant efficiently and hence improve fuel cell performance. Another way is using a network-based optimization model to optimize the conventional flow field configurations, i.e., pin-type, parallel and serpentine designs, to improve flow distributions …

Polybenzoxazine Aerogels: Synthesis, Characterization, Conversion To Porous Carbons, And Energetic Composites, Shruti Mahadik-Khanolkar

Doctoral Dissertations

"Aerogels are nanoporous, low-density bulk objects, consisting of three-dimensional assemblies of nanoparticle. Structured similarly, polymeric aerogels are emerging as a mechanically strong alternative to traditional silica aerogels, which are fragile. Amongst polymeric aerogels, those based on polybenzoxazine (PBO - a type of phenolic resin), are extremely robust and comprise an economic alternative to resorcinol-formaldehyde aerogels, also a class of phenolic resins, as the main source of carbon aerogels. The drawback of the PBO chemistry has been the long (days) processing time at high-temperatures (>130 ºC). Herewith, we have developed an energy- and time-efficient process to PBO aerogels by inducing …

Interacting Stress Concentration Factors And Their Effect On Fatigue Of Metallic Aerostructures, David Warren Whitley

Doctoral Dissertations

"During fabrication of certain aerostructure components, a situation can arise where a hole is mislocated so that it interferes with a radius, chem-mill step, machined step, or some other similar detail. The interaction of stress concentration effects between a hole and step are not well understood and the resulting impact on fatigue performance is difficult to predict. There exists a need for fatigue data that can be used to determine the analysis methods for evaluation of the interaction of machined steps and fastener holes. In this dissertation, the effect of stress concentrations placed in close proximity to each other and …

Enamel Coated Steel Reinforcement For Improved Durability And Life-Cycle Performance Of Concrete Structures: Microstructure, Corrosion, And Deterioration, Fujian Tang

Doctoral Dissertations

"This study is aimed (a) to statistically characterize the corrosion-induced deterioration process of reinforced concrete structures (concrete cracking, steel mass loss, and rebar-concrete bond degradation), and (b) to develop and apply three types of enamel-coated steel bars for improved corrosion resistance of the structures. Commercially available pure enamel, mixed enamel with 50% calcium silicate, and double enamel with an inner layer of pure enamel and an outer layer of mixed enamel were considered as various steel coatings. Electrochemical tests were respectively conducted on steel plates, smooth bars embedded in concrete, and deformed bars with/without concrete cover in 3.5 wt.% NaCl …

Numerical Analyses Of Long Carbon Fiber Reinforced Concrete Panels Exposed To Dynamic Loading, Zahra Sadat Tabatabaei

Doctoral Dissertations

"The purpose of this research was to evaluate impact and blast performance of long carbon fiber reinforced concrete experimentally and numerically. Experimental tests were conducted on plain concrete (PC), reinforced concrete, and four different types of long carbon fiber reinforced concrete (LCFRC). The results from each test were then compared to one another. This comparison indicates that adding long carbon fibers to concrete both increases the post-cracking behavior of concrete and decreases the spalls in either an impact or blast test. Among all of the fibers tested, Fiber Type B3 outperformed the other fibers, absorbing more energy during impact. Numerical …

Forecasting Groundwater Responses To Dam Removal, Antony Ray Berthelote

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation contains three papers describing groundwater system responses to dam removals and presents current and new methodologies that managers can use to proactively forecast and mitigate those impacts. The three papers bring together literature, data gathering, data analysis, testing, and modeling techniques that apply groundwater science to forecasting the response of groundwater systems to dam removal actions. Conceptual and numerical models developed as part of this work provide scientists, environmental consultants, regulators and managers with tools to assess the consequences of the removal of stream reservoirs on the adjacent and underlying groundwater system The first chapter/paper, Responses of Groundwater …

Technological Innovation, International Competition, And The Challenges Of International Income Taxation, Michael J. Graetz, Rachael Doud

Faculty Scholarship

Because of the importance of technological innovation to economic growth, nations strive to stimulate and attract the research and development ("R&D") that leads to that innovation and to make themselves hospitable environments for the holding of intellectual property ("IP"). Tax policies have taken center stage in their efforts to accomplish these goals and to capture a share of the income from technological innovations.

Designing cost-effective methods of supporting technological innovations has, however, become substantially more difficult as the world economy has become more interconnected. Where R&D is performed and where income is earned change in response to the nature and …

Understanding The Critical Role Of A Wetland In Maintaining The Ecosystem: A Case Study, Sushil Tuladhar

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Beaver Valley Wetland in north-east Iowa was studied to determine its functionality in filtering incoming contaminants from the surrounding agricultural fields. The study was conducted from May through November of 2011. Altogether 78 water samples (from 13 sites), 84 soil samples (from 14 sites), and some sediment samples were collected for chemical analysis. Heavy metals in three different soil categories, such as surface, 6” deep, and sediments were found to be at or below the acceptable concentrations, indicating no immediate concern for metal toxicity in the wetland environment. The chemical tracers that were used to study the sub-surface flow regime …

Patron-Driven Acquisition And Circulation At An Academic Library: Interaction Effects And Circulation Performance Of Print Books Acquired Via Librarians’ Orders, Approval Plans, And Patrons’ Interlibrary Loan Requests, David C. Tyler, Christina D. Falci, Joyce C. Melvin, Marylou Epp, Anita M. Kreps

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Numerous publications on patron-driven acquisition (PDA) for print books and similar materials have reported that patron-requested materials circulate more. Tying circulation to selector may be failing to address the complex of factors that contributes to items’ circulation. In the present study, the authors revisit a PDA program’s data and to determine whether PDA print books’ circulation advantage persists when the potential interactions of several additional variables are taken into account. As with prior studies, library patrons were significantly better predictors of circulation than were librarians or approval plans. However, librarians proved to be significantly better predictors than were approval plans.

Magneto-Electric Dipole Antenna Based On Differentially-Excited Composite Right/Left-Handed (Crlh) Transmission Lines, S. Gupta, Lijun Jiang, C. Caloz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A new magneto-electric (ME) dipole antenna array is proposed which provides a combined electric- and magnetic-dipole response in a planar configuration. The proposed structure is based on Composite Right/Left-Handed (CRLH) transmission lines, which is differentially fed and operated in the zeroth-order regime to provide maximal gain for the combined radiators. The basic principle of the proposed ME-dipole antenna is discussed and demonstrated with full-wave simulation results. © 2013 IEEE.

Integration Of Arbitrary Lumped Multiport Circuit Networks Into The Discontinuous Galerkin Time-Domain Analysis, Ping Li, Li Jun Jiang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A hybrid electromagnetic (EM) circuit simulator is proposed for incorporating multiport lumped circuit networks through their admittance matrices into the discontinuous Galerkin time-domain (DGTD) method. The admittance matrix in the Laplace domain can be derived analytically or obtained from network parameters such as -parameters in the frequency domain. To convert frequency-dependent -parameters into the admittance matrix in the Laplace domain, the vector-fitting technique is employed to facilitate the mapping process. The computational domain of interest is split into two subdomains. One is the EM part solved by the DGTD, and another is the circuit part modeled by the basic I-V …