Digital Commons Network^™

Designing High Performance Overall Water Splitting Electrocatalysts From Non-Precious Metal Selenides, Abdurazag T. Swesi

Doctoral Dissertations

“The energy production has been depending mostly on fossil fuel which will be depleted someday in the near future. Aspects such as the loss of energy resources and destruction of the environment have motivated researchers for pursuing transition away from fossil fuels to renewable solar-fuels. Therefore, in order to meet the continuous increasing demand for energy, the hydrogen, with the largest energy density stored in it, can then efficiently be used in fuel cells without concern of contaminants. Water splitting reaction to generate H₂ and O₂ is one promising method of converting solar energy into fuels. The major …

Promoting Access Over Ownership: Realigning Antitrust And Intellectual Property Law To Usher In An Era Of Collaborative Consumption, Adrian Kuenzler

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Following the US Supreme Court's endorsement of the promotion of consumer welfare as the single goal of antitrust and intellectual property laws, many courts have reasserted their commitment to the market access doctrine for antitrust and intellectual property law liability. These courts have rejected the Court's submission in GTE Sylvania to adhere to a strict output/profitability test concentrating predominantly on the positive and negative welfare effects regarding allegedly infringing conduct. This Article examines several important antitrust and intellectual property law decisions and locates within them a common flaw to express an intelligible, distinct doctrinal function for giving precedence to market …

The "Strict Liability" Of Direct Patent Infringement, Lynda J. Oswald

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

In 1995, the Federal Circuit summarily attached the label of "strict liability" to direct patent infringement, even though that term does not appear in any US Patent Act enacted in the past two centuries. The catechism of "strict" direct patent infringement liability is now so well engrained in patent doctrine that it is easy to lose sight of how recent the advent of this terminology is in the case law, and how troublesome application of this standard has proven, even to the Federal Circuit, which created it. The first Patent Act (1790) preceded the emergence of tort law as a …

Free Speech Or Slavery Profiteering?: Solutions For Policing Online Sex--Trafficking Advertisement, Marguerite A. O'Brien

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Online sex trafficking is big business. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that sex trafficking generates billions of dollars per year. The marketplace for sex has moved from the street corner to classified ad websites such as Backpage.com, and all too often the victims of online sex trafficking are minors. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported an 846 percent increase in reports of child sexual exploitation between 2010 and 2015--growth the organization attributes to the availability of sex ads on websites such as Backpage.com. Law enforcement agencies and victims have sought to hold Backpage.com liable for facilitating …

Flagging The Middle Ground Of The Right To Be Forgotten: Combatting Old News With Search Engine Flags, Hannah L. Cook

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Incomplete and outdated news articles present an increasing problem for individuals who find themselves stigmatized on the basis of truthful but misleading reports. This Article proposes a moderate solution between the European right to be forgotten and the protectionless status quo in the United States. It proposes a flagging system, administered through Federal Trade Commission adjudications, where links to articles whose private harms outweigh their public benefits are flagged in the search results of an individual. This flag will help combat psychological biases that may cause decisionmakers to place an irrational weight on these articles while preserving the ability of …

Federalism And Federalization On The Fintech Frontier, Brian Knight

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The rise of financial technology (fintech) has the potential to provide better-quality financial services to more people. Although these enhanced financial services have arisen in order to meet consumer need, their regulatory status threatens that progress. Many fintech firms are regulated on a state-by-state basis even though their transactions are interstate, and they compete with firms that enjoy more consistent rules through federal preemption. This dynamic can harm efficiency, competitive equity, and political equity. This Article examines developments in marketplace lending, money transmission, and online sales of securities in an attempt to identify situations in which greater federalization of the …

Evaluating Market Reactions To Non-Practicing Entity Litigation, Emiliano Giudici, Justin Blount

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

An ongoing debate in patent law involves the role "non-practicing entities," sometimes called "patent trolls," serve in the patent system. Some argue they serve as valuable market intermediaries, while others contend they are a drain on innovation and an impediment to a well-functioning patent system. This Article adds to the data available in this debate by conducting an event study that analyzes the market reaction to patent litigation filed by large "mass aggregator" non-practicing entities against large publicly traded companies. This study advances the literature by attempting to reproduce the results of previous event studies done in this area with …

Enter Sandman: The Viability Of Environmental Personhood To Us Soil Conservation Efforts, Thomas E. Johnson

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The US agricultural system relies on healthy soil for economic and environmental stability. The federal government established soil conservation efforts following the Dust Bowl, and state and local entities later developed legal tools to supplement soil conservation. These efforts, however, are insufficient to protect the nation's soil in the face of a changing climate. Conservation techniques are available that could substantially mitigate the effects of climate change, but the federal government lacks the tools to encourage their uniform adoption. The rigidity of prior state efforts, moreover, has disabled some landowners from adapting conservation lands to modern challenges. This Note recommends …

Legal Education In The Blockchain Revolution, Mark Fenwick, Wulf A. Kaal, Erik P.M. Vermeulen

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The legal profession is one of the most disrupted sectors of the consulting industry today. The rise of Legal Technology, artificial intelligence, big data, machine learning, and, most importantly, blockchain technology is changing the practice of law. The sharing economy and platform companies challenge many of the traditional assumptions, doctrines, and concepts of law and governance--requiring litigators, judges, and regulators to adapt. Lawyers need to be equipped with the necessary skill sets to operate effectively in the new world of disruptive innovation in law. A more creative and innovative approach to educating lawyers for the twenty-first century is needed.

The Non-Recording, Non-Artist" Recording Artist": Expanding The Recording Artist's Brand Into Non-Music Arenas, Suzanne Kessler

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The changing nature of the music business presents earnings challenges for both record labels and recording artists. Historically, labels and artists entered into recording contracts pursuant to which the artists created music which the labels funded, distributed, marketed, and promoted. Many artists made good livings from music sales, earning dollars per album, while the labels profited even more. However, as digital delivery, especially streaming, now supplants physical records as the primary music consumption manner, the money that labels and artists realize from music sales has significantly decreased. In particular, artists earn fractions of pennies per track streamed. Labels, too, are …

Nudging Robots: Innovative Solutions To Regulate Artificial Intelligence, Michael Guihot, Anne F. Matthew, Nicolas P. Suzor

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

There is a pervading sense of unease that artificially intelligent machines will soon radically alter our lives in ways that are still unknown. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology are developing at an extremely rapid rate as computational power continues to grow exponentially. Even if existential concerns about AI do not materialize, there are enough concrete examples of problems associated with current applications of AI to warrant concern about the level of control that exists over developments in this field. Some form of regulation is likely necessary to protect society from harm. However, advances in regulatory capacity have not kept …

Agent-Based Modelling Of The Relationships Among Kinship, Residence, And Exchange, James R. Allison

Faculty Publications

In the North American Southwest, archaeological research has documented ceramic exchange networks in which spatially proximate households in consumer communities have greatly varying amounts of imported pottery. This paper uses agent-based modelling to gain insight into the processes responsible for these distributions. The agent-based model used here tracks kinship ties among agents representing individuals who give birth, marry, co-reside with spouses, and exchange things in a virtual landscape filled with small settlements of up to a few hundred individuals. Exchange of goods in the model flows through the kinship networks. The results suggest that the differential distribution of goods among …

The Influence Of Religious Beliefs In Marriage, Loren D. Marks, David C. Dollahite, Michael A. Goodman

Faculty Publications

In this chapter, we examine the connection between religious beliefs and marriage more deeply. Namely, we will explore, uncover, and convey “insider’s insights” that will be valuable to many readers, particularly to college- aged emerging adults, most of whom will marry one day. Our hope is that these previews into marriage will better inform and prepare emerging adults for success.

The American Families of Faith project includes 200 wives and 200 husbands from marriages or remarriages with an average duration of a little over 20 years. To frame these facts differently, our sample draws on more than eight millennia of …

Mechanical And Surface Properties Of Technical And Single Flax Fiber In Micro And Nano Scale, Shabbir Ahmed

Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

The continued search for sustainable and eco-friendly materials led to the integration of bio-fibers as the reinforcement in composite materials. However, a wide variation in their mechanical properties poses a considerable challenge for their incorporation in load bearing and structural bio-composite materials. In this thesis, a rigorous experimental investigation is performed for quantifying this variation in mechanical properties of flax fiber such as ultimate strength, ultimate strain, and elastic modulus. The effect of stalk diameter and variety on strength and strain was investigated on a statistical basis. Probability distribution models were proposed for predicting the probability of failure on a …

Experimental Investigation Of The Temperature Effects On The Behavior Of Adhesively-Bonded Dissimilar Materials, Britt Helten

Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

The effects of temperature on the fatigue and low velocity impact (LVI) behaviors of adhesively-bonded single-lap joints (SLJs) composed of a pultruded E-glass/polyurethane composite bonded to 5052 aluminum and A36 steel were investigated. The fatigue behavior was studied via the evaluation of the F-N and stiffness degradation diagrams at load levels between 50% and 80% of the ultimate static load and temperatures between 0°C and 75°C. Fatigue life was found to decrease with increasing temperature and was independent of adherend material. Adherend material and load level did not have a significant effect on the stiffness degradation behavior. The LVI behavior …

Design And Control Of A Micro/Nano Load Stage For In-Situ Afm Observation And Nanoscale Structural And Mechanical Characterization Of Mwcnt-Epoxy Composites, Wyatt C. Leininger

Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

Nanomaterial composites hold improvement potential for many materials. Improvements arise through known material behaviors and unique nanoscale effects to improve performance in areas including elastic modulus and damping as well as various processes, and products. Review of research spurred development of a load-stage. The load stage could be used independently, or in conjunction with an AFM to investigate bulk and nanoscale material mechanics. The effect of MWCNT content on structural damping, elastic modulus, toughness, loss modulus, and glass transition temperature was investigated using the load stage, AMF, and DMA. Initial investigation showed elastic modulus increased 23% with 1wt.% MWCNT versus …

การพัฒนาโปรแกรมการจัดการซ่อมบำรุงรักษาบนมือถือสำหรับโรงงานผลิตภัณฑ์เคมี, จารุวรรณ แต้มศรี

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

งานวิจัยนี้ได้พัฒนาระบบการจัดการซ่อมบำรุงรักษา ด้วยระบบปฏิบัติการแอนดรอยด์บนมือถือ ซึ่งระบบที่พัฒนาขึ้นได้นำไปประยุกต์ใช้กับระบบซ่อมบำรุงรักษาของท่อส่งเคมีภัณฑ์ โดยปัจจุบันการนำระบบการจัดการซ่อมบำรุงรักษาด้วยเครือข่ายคอมพิวเตอร์ที่ใช้ในการจัดการข้อมูลยังไม่สามารถตอบสนองต่อความต้องการได้ ดังนั้นโปรแกรมที่พัฒนาขึ้นจะมีระบบการแจ้งซ่อมบำรุงและสามารถรายงานผลการซ่อมบำรุงได้แบบทันท่วงที เพื่อให้ผู้ปฏิบัติงานสามารถตอบสนองและตรวจสอบเหตุขัดข้องได้ในทันที นอกจากนี้โปรแกรมที่พัฒนาขึ้นยังสามารถช่วยวางแผนการจัดการจัดตารางเวลาซ่อมบำรุงรักษาในอนาคต จากการทดลองโปรแกรมที่พัฒนาขึ้นเพื่อช่วยในการลดความสูญเสียทางด้านเวลาในการดำเนินการส่งเอกสารทางอีเมลตั้งแต่ต้นจนจบกระทวนการ และทำการบันทึกข้อมูลลงในระบบฐานข้อมูล เมื่อนำระบบแอพพลิเคชั่นมาใช้ในการจัดการระบบซ่อมบำรุงรักษามีความเป็นระบบมากขึ้น โดยมีความสะดวกในการบันทึกข้อมูลในขั้นตอนต่างๆ ในการดำเนินงาน พบว่า ระยะเวลาเฉลี่ยก่อนเสียหายแต่ละครั้งเพิ่มขึ้น 11% ระยะเวลาเฉลี่ยตั้งแต่เสียหายจนใช้งานได้แต่ละครั้งลดลง 5%

Review Of “Energy Dissipation In Hydraulic Structures” By H. Chanson, A Borthwick

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Current And Wave Effects Around Windfarm Monopile Foundations, Jon Miles, Tom Martin, Liam Goddard

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Androdialysis: Analysis Of Android Intent Effectiveness In Malware Detection, A Feizollah, Nb Anuar, R Salleh, G Suarez-Tangil, S Furnell

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

The wide popularity of Android systems has been accompanied by increase in the number of malware targeting these systems. This is largely due to the open nature of the Android framework that facilitates the incorporation of third-party applications running on top of any Android device. Inter-process communication is one of the most notable features of the Android framework as it allows the reuse of components across process boundaries. This mechanism is used as gateway to access different sensitive services in the Android framework. In the Android platform, this communication system is usually driven by a late runtime binding messaging object …

Exact Classical And Quantum Dynamics In Background Electromagnetic Fields, Tom Heinzl, Anton Ilderton

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Nonverbal Immediacy As A Characterisation Of Social Behaviour For Human–Robot Interaction, J Kennedy, P Baxter, T Belpaeme

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

An increasing amount of research has started to explore the impact of robot social behaviour on the outcome of a goal for a human interaction partner, such as cognitive learning gains. However, it remains unclear from what principles the social behaviour for such robots should be derived. Human models are often used, but in this paper an alternative approach is proposed. First, the concept of nonverbal immediacy from the communication literature is introduced, with a focus on how it can provide a characterisation of social behaviour, and the subsequent outcomes of such behaviour. A literature review is conducted to explore …

Regional-Scale Probabilistic Shoreline Evolution Modelling For Flood-Risk Assessment, Stuart Stripling, Michael Panzeri, Belen Blanco, Kate Rossington, Paul Sayers, Alistair Borthwick

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Rapid deterministic modelling of shoreline evolution at regional and coastal-scheme scale enables Monte-Carlo simulations by which long-term shoreline statistics can be estimated. This paper describes UnaLinea, a fast, accurate finite difference solver of the one-line sediment continuity equation. The model is verified for the evolution of an initially straight shoreline of a plane beach subject to regular breaking waves at constant angle of incidence in the presence of either a groyne or a continuous single-point feed of sediment. Grid convergence and stability tests are used to obtain accurate, stable results, with satisfactory computational efficiency. Influences of wave input filtering and …

Deep Uv Hardening Of Photoresist For Shaping Of Graphene And Lift-Off Fabrication Of Back-Gated Field Effect Biosensors By Ion-Milling And Sputter Deposition, Bing Li, Genhua Pan, Ahmed Suhail, Kamrul Islam, Neil Avent, Paul Davey

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Numerical Analysis Of The Thermomechanical Behaviour Of An Integrally Water-Heated Tool For Composite Manufacturing, Rzgar Abdalrahman, Stephen Grove, Adam Kyte, Md Jahir Rizvi

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Location Based Transmission Using A Neighbour Aware With Optimized Eifs Mac For Ad Hoc Networks, Jims Marchang, Bogdan Ghita, David Lancaster

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Experimental Methodology For The Quantification Of Crack Tip Plastic Zone And Shape From The Analysis Of Displacement Fields, J. M. Vasco-Olmo, Fa Diaz, M. N. James, C. J. Christopher, E. A. Patterson

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

The current work presents a novel methodology for the experimental quantification of the crack tip plastic zone during fatigue crack growth. This methodology is based on the application of yield criteria to estimate the area and the shape of the plastic zone at the crack tip. The implementation of the proposed methodology requires the use of strain maps calculated from the differentiation of the displacement fields obtained by digital image correlation (DIC). Stress maps can subsequently be inferred from both von Mises and Tresca yield criteria. Fatigue tests and associated measurements of plastic zone size and shape were conducted on …

Modal Testing Of Offshore Rock Lighthouses Around The British Isles, James Brownjohn, Alison Raby, James Bassitt, Emma Hudson, Alessandro Antonini

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

M2m Application Service Provision: An Autonomous And Decentralised Approach, M Steinheimer, U Trick, W Fuhrmann, B Ghita, G Frick

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

This publication presents a novel concept for autonomous and decentralised M2M application service provision. The functional architecture of the approach is introduced as well as a detailed description of the system structure and process for application creation. Furthermore, this publication describes details about the proposed process for decentralised M2M application service management and formal description of M2M application services as well as independent validation of M2M application service configurations. Finally, the prototype M2M system realising the proposed concept is introduced and several scenarios are evaluated.

Assay Of Ip Mobility Management In Sdn Based Mobile Network Architecture, M. Dawood, W. Fuhrmann, B. V. Ghita

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.