Digital Commons Network^™

Doing Right By Nevada: Adopting The Uniform Bar Exam, Daniel W. Hamilton

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Patent Pool Outsiders, Michael Mattioli

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Individuals who decline to join cooperative groups — outsiders — raise concerns in many areas of law and policy. From trade policy to climate agreements to class action procedures, the fundamental concern is the same: a single member of the group who drops out could weaken the remaining union. This Article analyzes the outsider problem as it affects patents.

The outsider question has important bearing on patent and antitrust policy. By centralizing and simplifying complex patent licensing deals, patent pools conserve tremendous transaction costs. This allows for the widespread production and competitive sale of many useful technologies, particularly in the …

"We Only Spy On Foreigners": The Myth Of A Universal Right To Privacy And The Practice Of Foreign Mass Surveillance, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The digital age brought with it a new epoch in global political life, one neatly coined by Professor Philip Howard as the “pax technica.” In this new world order, government and industry are “tightly bound” in technological and security arrangements that serve to push forward an information and cyber revolution of unparalleled magnitude. While the rise of information technologies tells a miraculous story of triumph over the physical constraints that once shackled mankind, these very technologies are also the cause of grave concern. Intelligence agencies have been recently involved in the exercise of global indiscriminate surveillance, which purports to go …

Ethical Issues In Robo-Lawyering: The Need For Guidance On Developing And Using Artificial Intelligence In The Practice Of Law, Drew Simshaw

Scholarly Works

As in many other industries, artificial intelligence ("AI") is poised to drastically transform the legal services landscape. "Bots, " automated expert systems, and predictive analytics are already changing the way consumers seek, and lawyers provide, legal services. Among other impacts, AI has the potential to increase access to justice in the self-help, individual, and corporate law firm markets by lowering costs and expanding services to untapped markets. A prominent question in early literature on AI in law is whether these services constitute the unauthorized practice of law. Threshold questions of whether and by whom such services should be regulated are …

Exploring The Policy Value Of Cable Franchise And Peg Fees, Duncan Stewart, Lee Shaker

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Subscribers to cable television typically pay Franchise and Public–Educational– Governmental (PEG) Fees. Ostensibly, these monthly fees exist to compensate communities for the private use of public goods and to bolster the marketplace of ideas. Little empirical research, however, assesses the utility of these fees as policy mechanisms. In this article, we track the existence and dispensation of the fees in the 20 largest American cities by examining their recent annual budgets. This provides a foundation to consider the fees’ contributions in the context of ongoing legal challenges to their existence and the increase of digital television services beyond their purview.

Federalism And Gender Equality, Susan H. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Despite the enormous literature on federalism in constitutional design, and the growing attention to gender equality in constitutional design, there has been remarkably little attention paid to the interaction between the two. This article seeks to provide a summary of the existing literature on this intersection, to apply the insights of that literature to the case of Myanmar, and to offer a contribution concerning the theoretical connections between federalism and gender equality. The analysis generates four primary conclusions. First, federalism is inherently neither good nor bad for gender equality: it all depends on the details of the federal system and …

Judicial Selection And The Search For Middle Ground, Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article seeks to transcend perennial election versus appointment debates-including debates over campaign finance and the impact of "dark money"-by taking a closer look at why judicial selection is a contentious mess and discussing how it might be fixed. First, I present the case for elective and appointive systems. Second, I show that the arguments for each system are exaggerated or flawed.Third, I explore why it has been hard for proponents of each system to perceive and acknowledge those exaggerations and flaws, and propose ways to narrow the divide. Although the divide can and should be narrowed, I conclude that …

Well-Timed Solutions For Legal Education And The Bar, William D. Henderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Platform Law And The Brand Enterprise, Sonia K. Katyal, Leah Chan Grinvald

Scholarly Works

The emergence of platforms has transformed the digital economy, reshaping and recasting online transactions within the service industry. This transformation, as many have argued, has created new and unimagined challenges for policymakers and regulators, as well as for traditional, offline companies. Most scholarship examining platforms discuss their impact on employment law or consumer protection. Yet trademark law, which is central to the success of the platform enterprise, has been mostly overlooked within these discussions. To address this gap, this article discusses the emergence of two central forms of platform entrepreneurship-the platform, or "macrobrand" and the platform service provider, or the …

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Developments In The Law Affecting Electronic Payments And Financial Services, Sarah Jane Hughes, Stephen T. Middlebrook, Tom Kierner

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Our past surveys have observed that frequent changes in the rules surrounding electronic payments-spurred by both regulation and enforcement actions create uncertainty and make forward progress difficult for many providers. This survey year is no exception: regulators have taken "two steps forward, one step back" on a number of fronts. This survey reports on (1) the proposal by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC") regarding "fintech" charters, which states have challenged in actions still pending- (2) changes to Regulation CC regarding remote check deposit and disputes over altered or forged checks-(3) the Supreme Court's decision in Expression …

Innovation Diffusion In The Legal Industry, William D. Henderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article is adapted from a series of blog posts originally found in my recently-started blog entitled Legal Evolution. The foundational material set forth in this article (and in those blog posts) applies to the legal services market insights gained from disciplines other than law. This article begins by setting forth the well-established theory of an "innovation diffusion curve" and the research that has identified the factors that affect the rate of adoption of innovations. This article identifies why innovation in the legal services market is desirable and applies to the legal services field insights drawn from this research in …

Reaching And Teaching Millennials: Designing The Future Of Student Services, Kimberly Mattioli, Brian Detweiler, Mike Martinez Jr.

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Today’s students have come to expect library services that are quite different from their predecessors and law librarians must evolve to meet their needs. As law libraries in the United States face the realities of declining enrolment and decreasing budgets, it is imperative that we find new and creative ways to build positive relationships with our students while also preparing them for the realities of practicing law in an environment driven by rapid technological change. Three law librarians from the United States, Brian Detweiler, Kimberly Mattioli, and Mike Martinez, Jr., discuss their successes and failures in reaching out to their …

Criminalizing Battered Mothers, Courtney Cross

Scholarly Works

How a domestic violence survivor responds to the abuse she is experiencing depends on many factors. Some critical considerations include her access to resources, desire to stay in her relationship, and assessment of her own safety. Criminal and civil court systems place enormous pressure on survivors to separate from their abusive partners. Not only are survivors with children pressured to leave, they are punished when they stay. That punishment can come in any combination of diminished custody rights, limited parental rights, and incarceration. Yet a survivor who flees with her children is not immune to these same consequences: if she …

Is There A Future For Work?, Wendi S. Lazar, Nantiya Ruan

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

A Decision Tree Analysis Of Nonindigenous Species Risk From Ballast Water To The Lower Columbia River And Oregon Coast, Usa, Danielle Verna, Richard R. Rueb, Crysta Gantz, John Gala, Jeremiah Green, John A. Zalusky, Rian Vanden Hooff

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Hazard characterization and risk assessment are commonly used to prioritize vectors of nonindigenous species (NIS) for inspection or other prevention opportunities. Commercial shipping vessels are a target of such vector-based management since ballast water has been known to transport NIS between aquatic ecosystems globally. Here we used a risk-based screening protocol to prioritize vessels discharging ballast water to the lower Columbia River and Oregon coast. We began by adapting established methods of assessing risk factors that influence the initial stages of the invasion process (arrival and survival). We created relative risk scales for each factor using data collected from vessels …

Noise Induced Hearing Loss Accountability On Jobsites Within The Construction Industry, Joseph O. Lamphere

Construction Management

Noise induced hearing loss is a major issue on jobsites within the construction industry. Every day workers are exposed to hazardous levels of noise, but they are not being properly managed to mitigate this issue. Workers have misconceptions about the topic, but more surprisingly are sometimes indifferent to the effects; believing hearing loss is inevitable, or it can be cured with a hearing aide. Construction has inherent dangers that workers have to deal with every day. Hearing loss might not be on the top of their lists, but the effects are permanent, and they cannot be cured with a hearing …

The Application Of The Learning Sciences To The Design And Delivery Of Student-Centered Learning Activities, Michael Hamlin

Touro University Worldwide Publications and Research

The goal of this chapter is to provide a framework for creating student-centered learning activities that rest on a firm theoretical foundation and are based on a definition that highlights the actual learner abilities involved in successful student performance. To achieve this goal, it is important to establish a definition of student-centered learning that can be used to guide the selection of the important pedagogical elements that must be addressed in the design of student-centered learning activities. Having established these foundational elements, the chapter provides a framework for the design of case-based instruction that incorporates teaching and learning principles derived …

The Politics Of Twilights: Notes On The Semiotics Of Horizon Photography, Michael W. Raphael

Publications and Research

Visual sociology is crucial for exploring the indexical meanings that thick description cannot capture within a cultural setting. This paper explores how such meanings are created within a subset of the domain of photography. Using data gathered over several years, I constructed the semiotic code ‘horizon’ photographers use when ‘in the field’ for photographing periods of twilight. This code explains the relevance of subject matter to the photograph’s aesthetics. Specifically, I detail how ‘the horizon’ communicates the potential for the photographer to ‘capture’ the index of a symbol that later permits the photographer to culturally mark scenes with ‘light’. In …

Forgiveness: An Ordered Pluralism, Miranda Fricker

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Queer Solidarities: New Activisms Erupting At The Intersection Of Structural Precarity And Radical Misrecognition, Michelle Fine, María Elena Torre, David M. Frost, Allison L. Cabana

Publications and Research

This article investigates the relationship between exposure to structural injustice, experiences of social discrimination, psychological well being, physical health, and engagement in activist solidarities for a large, racially diverse and inclusive sample of 5,860 LGBTQ/Gender Expansive youth in the United States. Through a participatory action research design and a national survey created by an intergenerational research collective, the “What’s Your Issue?” survey data are used to explore the relationships between injustice, discrimination and activism; to develop an analysis of how race and gender affect young people’s vulnerabilities to State violence (in housing, schools and by the police), and their trajectories …

Going Public: How And Why To Develop A Digital Scholarly Identity, Katina Rogers, Lisa M. Rhody, Danica Savonick, Lisa Tagliaferri

Publications and Research

Establishing a meaningful digital identity is essential to managing one’s scholarly and professional reputation. This workshop addresses ways to cultivate an online identity and offers guidance on “going public” using tools and strategies for building a community around your work. Topics include social media, writing for different audiences, personal websites, digital dissertations, and more.

What Kinds Of Comparison Are Most Useful In The Study Of World Philosophies?, Nathan Sivin, Anna Akasoy, Warwick Anderson, Gérard Colas, Edmond Eh

Publications and Research

Cross-cultural comparisons face several methodological challenges. In an attempt at resolving some such challenges, Nathan Sivin has developed the framework of “cultural manifolds.” This framework includes all the pertinent dimensions of a complex phenomenon and the interactions that make all of these aspects into a single whole. In engaging with this framework, Anna Akasoy illustrates that the phenomena used in comparative approaches to cultural and intellectual history need to be subjected to a continuous change of perspectives. Writing about comparative history, Warwick Anderson directs attention to an articulation between synchronic and diachronic modes of inquiry. In addition, he asks: If …

The Doctoral Dissertation And Scholarly Communication: Adapting To Changing Publication Practices Among Graduate Students, Roxanne Shirazi

Publications and Research

As graduate students begin to publish earlier in their careers, the relationship between the doctoral dissertation and scholarly publishing is evolving. Many students now include their own previously published work in a dissertation, requiring instruction in publication contracts and copyright transfer agreements at the point of submission to the graduate school. There are repercussions to publishing as a graduate student for which our institutions are not well prepared, and to which librarian could apply our expertise. This article briefly reviews the history of dissertation publishing and introduces issues surrounding the use of previously published materials in doctoral dissertations.

Translingual Practices And Neoliberal Policies: Attitudes And Strategies Of African Skilled Migrants In Anglophone Workplaces, Sara Vogel

Publications and Research

At what point do scholarship and pedagogy in sociolinguistics and language education become complicit in neoliberalism? What can researchers learn from their multilingual informants about how to resist neoliberalism? Those are central questions readers ponder as they dive into Suresh Canagarajah's logically organized and well-argued volume, Translingual Practices and Neoliberal Policies: Attitudes and Strategies of African Skilled Migrants in Anglophone Workplaces. A book that uses empirical data to support theory construction, it is written for scholars who have followed recent debates in the sociolinguistics and language education fields.

An Expanded View Of Translanguaging: Leveraging The Dynamic Interactions Between A Young Multilingual Writer And Machine Translation Software, Sara Vogel, Laura Ascenzi-Moreno, Ofelia García

Publications and Research

Two central forces re-shaping education in the 21st century in the United States are the increasingly diverse and rich multilingual practices of students, as well as our growing use of digital technologies to communicate and make meaning (Deumert, 2014; García, Bartlett & Kleifgen, 2007; Jewitt, 2008; New London Group, 1996). Even if much scholarship has focused on the trends of multilingualism and multimodalities as separate entities, there are many intersections. Digital tools like machine translation software are being used in schools by multilingual students, and their often-monolingual teachers. Frameworks for multilingual teaching and learning involving intentional use of machine translation …

Proceedings Of The Cuny Games Conference 4.0: The Interactive Course, Robert O. Duncan, Joe Bisz, Julie Cassidy, Kathleen Offenholley, Maura A. Smale, Carolyn Stallard, Deborah Sturm, Anders A. Wallace, Cuny Games Network

Publications and Research

Proceedings of the CUNY Games Conference, held from January 22-23, 2018, at the CUNY Graduate Center and Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Critical Play with History (Panel) - Composition & Storytelling - Health & Cognitive Sciences - Gaming Anthropology: Teaching Culture and Power Through Games and Design (Panel) - Twine & Writing Games - Easy Ideas II - STEM Games - Global Games for Change Catalog (Panel) - Comics & Active Learning - Fact Checking & Research - Computer Science & Game Design - SimGlobal: Building a Serious Roleplay Course for the Social Sciences (Panel) - Role Playing Games, Narrative, …

Burnout Syndrome And Depression, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

In this chapter, we proposed an overview of burnout, from the introduction of the construct in the mid-1970s to the growing realization that the syndrome was better conceived of as a depressive condition. Recent studies have shown that the distinction between burnout and depression is problematic, both theoretically and empirically. The history of burnout research suggests that transdisciplinary communication and methodological standards should be strengthened to avoid the proliferation of constructs that, in fact, refer to the same phenomena. Construct proliferation, a transgression of the scientific canon of parsimony, is considered a major problem today because it undermines theory building …

Perception Of American–English Vowels By Early And Late Spanish–English Bilinguals, Miriam Baigorri, Luca Campanelli, Erika S. Levy

Publications and Research

Increasing numbers of Hispanic immigrants are entering the US and learning American–English (AE) as a second–language (L2). Previous studies investigating the relationship between AE and Spanish vowels have revealed an advantage for early L2 learners for their accuracy of L2 vowel perception. Replicating and extending such previous research, this study examined the patterns with which early and late Spanish–English bilingual adults assimilated naturally-produced AE vowels to their native vowel-inventory and the accuracy with which they discriminated the vowels. Twelve early Spanish–English bilingual, 12 late Spanish–English bilingual, and 10 monolingual listeners performed perceptual-assimilation and categorical-discrimination tasks involving AE /i,ɪ,ɛ,ʌ,æ,ɑ,o/. Early bilinguals …

On The Profitability Of Uas-Based Ndvi Imagery For Variable Rate Nitrogen Prescriptions In Corn And Wheat In North Dakota, Christopher Joseph Duchsherer

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

This study examines the grower’s decision to invest in precision agriculture technologies especially in-season variable rate nitrogen applications based on NDVI data collected from UAVs. NDVI, yield, soil, and other field data were collected from multiple corn and wheat fields located throughout North Dakota. Each field was divided into management zones to determine profitability of utilizing the technology based on in-season nitrogen applications for the grower’s field practice, high, low, and no applications. Results show that using the NDVI data collected from UAVs can be profitable when the grower decides to make the decision to apply nitrogen in a sidedress …

The Role Of Trade Facilitation Indicators And Genetically Engineered Restrictive Index On U.S. State Exports And Efficiency, Kwame Asiam Addey

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

Trade Facilitation Indicators have become important mechanisms of monitoring the ease of trade. Another issue of rising concern is the pervasive debate on genetically engineered organisms and the development of Genetically Engineered Restrictive Index to evaluate its implications on trade. With regards to these, the objective of the United States Trade Representative is to eliminate implicit trade barriers. Hence, this study examines the impact of TFIs on U.S. agricultural export and its efficiency. From the results, a 1% increase in destination’s Genetically Engineered Restrictive Index leads to a US$ 9,426.82 and US$ 74,268.04 decline in corn and soybean exports while …