Digital Commons Network^™

October To December 2015

All Summaries

No abstract provided.

Behind Enemy Phone Lines: Insider Trading, Parallel Enforcement, And Sharing The Fruits Of Wiretaps, Alexandra N. Mogul

Fordham Law Review

    Two key trends were present in the successful prosecution of Raj Rajaratnam and his coconspirators in one of the largest insider-trading conspiracies in history: the use of wiretaps to investigate and prosecute insider trading and a joint effort between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) to conduct the investigation. Despite the close working relationship between the DOJ and the SEC, the DOJ never disclosed the fruits of the wiretaps to the SEC, presumably due to its belief that Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (as amended, the …

The Secret Bank Settlement: Who Was Guilty And Who Was Not?, E Yang

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Since the subprime mortgage crisis, many banks agreed to pay huge sums to settle the government's accusations that they sold flawed mortgage securities in the 2008 crisis. The Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citi, Wells Fargo, and many other banks have paid a total of more than $130 billion for claims that they intentionally misled investors or were guilty of financial wrongdoing. Is there evidence to support this position and is it fair to assign equal blame to all the big banks? Here, we estimate the expected default rate based on loan characteristics reported by big banks and compare with …

Indoor Localization And Tracking Using Binary Information, Li Geng

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Real-time localization and tracking of people and assets within buildings is in high demand in many applications. These tasks are very challenging in indoor environments due to the physics of signal propagation and the multi-path interference. Satellite-based technologies such as the Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are notoriously unreliable in indoor environments. As a result, a variety of novel technologies have been developed to fill this gap. This dissertation focuses on the use of binary information for indoor localization and tracking, and in particular, on the use of the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. RFID is a …

The Research Express

Research Express Newsletter

• Grant Award Winners
• National Science Foundation (NSF) Webcast Presentations from the Fall 2015 NSF Grant Conference
• University of Florida to Pay Government $20 Million to Settle Audit Findings
• Audit Red Flags
• Enhancing Trust in Science Through Proper Standards
• Rate my newsletter….

The Copper Mountain Project: Financial Analysis And Sustainability Plan For The Copper Mountain Foundation A 501(C), Angela Totemoff

Student Projects for Graduate Degrees

The Copper Mountain Foundation (herein referred to as CMF) is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit that is fully funded, fully operated, and established by The Tatitlek Corporation (herein referred to as TTC). CMF currently has a program that provides scholarships and career grants for original enrollees and descendants of original enrollees of TTC. To be eligible to receive funding, a student must be an original enrollee of TTC or a lineal descendant of an original enrollee (by birth or adoption). Original enrollees of TTC either resided in the Native Village of Tatitlek or their families resided in Tatitlek at the …

An Administrative Stopgap For Migrants From The Northern Triangle, Collin Schueler

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

From 2011–2014, the United States Department of Homeland Security recorded an extraordinary increase in the number of unaccompanied children arriving at the southern border from Central America’s “Northern Triangle”—the area made up of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. In fact, in fiscal year 2014, United States Customs and Border Protection apprehended over 50,000 unaccompanied children from the Northern Triangle. That is thirteen times more than just three years earlier. This Article examines the intersecting humanitarian and legal crises facing these children and offers an administrative solution to the problem. The children are fleeing a genuine humanitarian crisis—a region overrun by …

New Directions In Protest Policing, Edward R. Maguire

Saint Louis University Public Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Odd Couple: The Estate Tax And Family Law, Margaret Ryznar

Louisiana Law Review

No abstract provided.

Emergency Takings, Brian Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Needs Assessment For The Topsfield Council On Aging, Jan E. Mutchler, Ceara Somerville

Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging Publications

The Town of Topsfield’s older population grew substantially during the last decade. Increases are expected to continue as the number of seniors increase moving forward, as well as the share of the Topsfield population they represent. In response to these demographic changes, a study was undertaken to generate and organize information on the older residents of Topsfield and the community organizations supporting their well-being. Special focus was placed on needs of older residents along with the capacity of the Topsfield COA to meet those needs. Methods used included description of existing data, key informant interviews, and focus groups aimed at …

Fiscal Year 2015 Fhwa-536 Report For The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Steven Douglas Kreis, Candice Y. Wallace, Bryan Gibson, Sarah M. Mccormack

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) requires state transportation agencies to submit a biennial report on local highway finances. The purpose of these reports is to provide FHWA with the data it needs to capture the financing of highway activities at the local level. Based on this information, it can identify trends in revenue, expenditures, investments, and program development, and in turn make decisions about future investments. The report, FHWA-536, asks agencies to report on four areas of local highway finance: 1) disposition of highway-user revenues; 2) revenues used for roads and streets identified by source and funding type; 3) road …

Effects Of Sediments On Bmps For Highway Runoff Control, Matthew Garder

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Numerous studies conducted on highway stormwater runoff and its control with Best Management Practices (BMPs) indicate that sediment is the major pollutant that affects performance and longevity of BMPs. Currently, there are several knowledge gaps related to the effects of sediments on highway BMPs: a) how much sediment will be generated by a construction site by a section of highway with its surrounding watershed under different conditions; b) how sediment is intercepted by different BMPs with or without pretreatment sections; and c) what are the effects of these sediments on BMPs’ hydraulic behavior, longevity, and pollutants removal or release. The …

Investigating Disparities In Behavior And Care Between Alaska Native And White Victims Of Sexual Violence: The Importance Of Culturally Competent Nursing Care, Elizabeth Danielle Koster

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Context: According to Alaska’s former governor the sexual violence issue in the state has become an epidemic. Four out of ten women in Alaska have been victims of sexual assault. The purpose of this research was to determine the existence of health care disparities in the treatment of Alaska Native women victims of sexual violence compared to white women victims and address the need for sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs) to provide culturally competent nursing care. Objective: The specific research questions addressed in this study compared multiple variables between Alaska Native and white women victims of sexual violence: behaviors during …

Databasing Delinquency, Kevin Lapp

UC Law Journal

Technological advances in recent decades have enabled an unprecedented level of surveillance by the government and permitted law enforcement to gather, store, and retrieve in real time enormous amounts of data. After nearly a century of limited record-making and enhanced confidentiality regarding juveniles, these data collection practices have quickly expanded to include youth. This Article uncovers the vast extent of modern data collection and distribution about juveniles by the criminal justice system from juvenile sex offender registration and their inclusion in gang and DNA databases, to schools turned into mandated law enforcement informants, to police and courts increasingly sharing juvenile …

Why Ban "Assault Weapons"?, James B. Jacobs

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Private Data, Public Safety: A Bounded Access Model Of Disclosure, Mary D. Fan

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Examining Employability As Associated With Ic3, Mos, And Aca Certifications, Kelley Leigh Todd

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Forrier and Sels (2003) define employability as “an individual’s chance of a job on the internal and/or external labor market” (p. 106) and is important (Wittekind, Raeder, & Grote, 2010). Possessing an industry certification may be considered an example of human capital skill. The human capital theory suggests qualifications, knowledge, skills, and experience of individuals may lead to increased earnings or productivity (Becker, 1993; Rosen, 1987; Schultz, 1971). As such, the human capital theory provides a framework for studying perceived employability (Wittekind, Raeder, & Grote, 2010; Verhaar & Smulders, 1999) as associated with IC3, MOS, and ACA industry certifications.

Randall …

The Anglo-American Reception Of Carl Schmitt From The 1930s To The Early 2000s, Benjamin T. Watkins

History Theses

This thesis examines the Anglo-American reception, from the 1930s to the early 2000s, of the ideas of the German political theorist Carl Schmitt. The introduction provides an overview the key concepts in Schmitt’s writings in the 1920s. Chapter one examines Schmitt’s influence on the German-Jewish émigré political theorists Leo Strauss and Hans Morgenthau, in an attempt to explain how Schmitt’s ideas were initially transported from Germany to the U.S. The second chapter is a more detailed case study of the American leftist journal, Telos, which played a key role in introducing Schmitt’s writings to a broader, English language audience in …

Stewards Of Place: The Role Of Dialogue And Deliberation In Strengthening Colleges And Universities, Windy Y. Lawrence, Zach Justus, Leah A. Murray, Barbara A. Brown

eJournal of Public Affairs

In 2014, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) produced a sequel monograph, Stewards of Place II, which followed up on and extended the learnings about community engagement from the preceding report— Stepping Forward as Stewards of Place—published over a decade earlier. This article examines some of AASCU’s learnings over the past 10 years about the important role of colleges and universities as stewards of place. Specifically, the authors contend that dialogue and deliberation are key approaches for strengthening the position of colleges and universities as stewards of place. The article defines dialogue and deliberation, discusses five main …

Automatic License Plate Recognition Using Deep Learning Techniques, Naga Surya Sandeep Angara

Electrical Engineering Theses

Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) systems capture a vehicles license plate and recognize the license number and other required information from the captured image. ALPR systems have number of significant applications: law enforcement, public safety agencies, toll gate systems, etc. The goal of these systems is to recognize the characters and state on the license plate with high accuracy. ALPR has been implemented using various techniques. Traditional recognition methods use handcrafted features for obtaining features from the image. Unlike conventional methods, deep learning techniques automatically select features and are one of the game changing technologies in the field of computer …

Alaska State Trooper Critical Incident Response Team And Peer Support Program Development, Cari Miller

Student Projects for Graduate Degrees

Law enforcement officers experience enormous job-related stress burdens in comparison to other career fields. Officers routinely encounter stressful situations from sources specific to their occupation, particularly their frequent exposure to dangerous situations, violence, and witnessing human suffering and depravity. Negative effects of occupational stress are exhibited in physical, physiological, emotional, and psychological changes. Law enforcement stress management programs are developed to provide resources to offset the negative effects, provide positive coping strategies to reduce stress, and increase the officer’s quality of life. This project developed program documents, policies, and procedures for the Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) and Peer Support …

Civil Liability For Injuries Caused By Dogs After Tracey V. Solesky: New Path To The Future Or Back To The Past?, Alberto Bernabe

Seton Hall Journal of Legislation and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Probation Officer Roles: A Statutory Analysis, Ming-Li Hsieh, Moana Hafoka, Youngki Woo, Jacqueline Van Wormer, Mary K. Stohr

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

There are a limited number of studies that explore the legally prescribed roles of probation officers. To address this, the current study employed a statutory analysis to examine how probation officer roles have changed over the past 30 years, identifying which tasks and roles are statutorily mandated for probation officers. Findings indicate that there is an emergence of a "case manager" approach in the legally prescribed roles for probation officers in many states, even though law enforcement-oriented tasks are slightly more prescribed by law than rehabilitation-oriented tasks.

An Analysis Of The Effects Of The Social Disorganization Theory On Juveniles In Georgia, Anna M. Watson

Theses and Dissertations

Social disorganization is represented by an inability of community members to attain mutual goals or to resolve commonly experienced problems (Bursik, 1988). Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay were the first sociologists to denote this occurrence in Chicago. Shaw and McKay are examined as reputable sociologists and a summary of their work on this topic is discussed. This thesis sought to determine the social disorganization in Georgia by examining and analyzing the rates of juvenile delinquency. This thesis contains a literature review, a methodology and an analysis section. The literature review covered the history of the theory, tracing it back to …

One Centimeter Over My Back Yard: Where Does Federal Preemption Of State Drone Regulation Start?, Henry H. Perritt, Albert J. Plawinski

North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology

No abstract provided.

Vol. 7 No. 1, Fall 2015; As If All The World Were Watching: Why Today's Law Enforcement Needs To Be Wearing Body Cameras, Rikkilee Moser

Northern Illinois Law Review Supplement

The widespread use of body-worn cameras among police departments across the nation is not only the next logical step in law enforcement, but in the wake of the confrontation in Ferguson, Missouri between Michael Brown and Darren Wilson, it is also crucial to ensuring the safety of both civilians and officers alike. This article discusses the numerous advantages to body-worn technology and the positive results that have been demonstrated by precincts already utilizing the equipment; as well as dispels several counter arguments, namely that body-worn cameras are a violation of privacy.

Alaska Young Driver Safety: Distracted Driving, Seat Belt Use And Drinking And Driving, Shannon Savage

Student Projects for Graduate Degrees

United States teenagers have the highest crash rate of any group in the nation. The data tell us that there are eight identified leading causes of teen injuries and deaths associated with vehicle collisions: Driver inexperience; driving with teen passengers; nighttime driving; not using seat belts; distracted driving; drowsy driving; reckless driving; and impaired driving (CDC, 2014). Alaska data tell a similar story. The leading causes of crashes for Alaskan teen drivers are: driver inattention, unsafe speed, failure to yield and driver inexperience (Alaska Injury Prevention Center, 2012). In partnership with the Alaska Injury Prevention Center, this practicum project created …

Chew On This: Learning From Colorado's Edible Marijuana Market, Christina Cole

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Arguably, not since the repeal of Prohibition has there been a scenario in which a change in public opinion resulted in the legalization of a previously unlawful product, in this instance marijuana, resulting in a significant positive economic impact, as well as a financial windfall for governmental entities. On the surface, it may seem like a win-win situation, but, in reality, for an unsuspecting, uninformed consumer, like the nineteen-year-old student from Wyoming and the New York Times columnist, it could become a no-win situation.

Chadbourn Square, Blake Muldrow, Michael Simmons, Rob Turk

Master of Real Estate Development

No abstract provided.