Digital Commons Network^™

Because Comics: Comics Literacy And Multimodal Pedagogy, Shane Anthony Gomes

English

How and what we teach in the post-secondary English classroom has tremendous power, both regarding individual students and larger contexts in which they function. As post-secondary instructors, our pedagogical approach to our subjects can impact our student’s abilities and experiences directly through interactions with texts, and also impact our specific institutions, our academic disciplines, and larger social structures. This project will propose what is best termed a disruptive pedagogy, founded in comics literacy, and a primary goal is to effect change in the classroom and therefore in our students’ later social and professional contexts. Increasingly, what we teach in English …

Which Witch Is Witch: The Appropriation Of Women’S Pain In The Use Of The Witch Hunt Metaphor In Modern Political Rhetoric, Kaitlyn Grube

English

The evolution of the term “witch hunt” from a physical act to a political metaphor is largely overlooked by modern audiences. As the hysteria of the witch trials fades into popular memory, certain associations live on. In the case of the witch hunt, the association of the term ‘witch hunt’ is women’s innocence. Thousands of innocent women were killed in the original witch trials. The metaphor calls back to this collective memory of innocence. In politics, the witch hunt metaphor is used as a rallying cry against an accuser. White male politicians use this metaphor as a claim of innocence …

Blessed Is She: Gender Critique Through Performativity And Portrayals Of The Divine In Naomi Alderman’S The Power, Alexandra Dawn Froslie

English

Naomi Alderman’s 2016 novel The Power details the events that occur after women develop the ability to produce an electrical current throughout their bodies. This new physical power allows a matriarchal power structure to take the place of a patriarchy. Judith Butler’s theories regarding pastiche and drag help conceptualize Alderman’s portrayal of gender. Alderman essentializes gender roles but switches our common conception of them—in The Power, women are authoritative and violent, and men are submissive and passive. The discussion of gender performativity transitions into a discussion of gender in religious power structures. The character Allie employs ritual performativity to gain …

The Dangers Of Power: Government Control In The Worlds Of Condie’S Matched And Lowry’S The Giver, Deborah Faith Haley

English

This paper considers the topic of government control through the context of young adult dystopian literature. The novels The Giver (1993) by Lois Lowry and Matched (2011) by Ally Condie are specifically considered in their connection to governmental control over an entire society. The novels The Giver and Matched both provide views into worlds where such basic human experiences as language use and memory are controlled, so that the protagonists—Jonas (The Giver) and Cassia (Matched) –find themselves torn between trusting what they have been told all their lives by their respective societies and what they have come to understand through …

Meta-Analysis Comparing Watchmantm And Amplatzer Devices For Stroke Prevention In Atrial Fibrillation, Indranill Basu Ray, Dibbendhu Khanra, Sumit Shah, Sudhanva Char, Xiaoming Jia, Wilson Lam, Nilesh Mathuria, Mehdi Razavi, Bhavna Jain, Dhanunjaya Lakkireddy, Saibal Kar, Andrea Natale, Adedayo Adeboye, John Lynn Jefferies, Sripal Bangalore, Samuel Asirvatham, Mohammad Saeed

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: For patients with atrial fibrillation who are at high risk for bleeding or who cannot tolerate oral anticoagulation, left atrial appendage (LAA) closure represents an alternative therapy for reducing risk for thromboembolic events.

Objectives: To compare the efficacy and safety of the Amplatzer and Watchman^TM LAA closure devices.

Methods: A meta-analysis was performed of studies comparing the safety and efficacy outcomes of the two devices. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used to appraise study quality.

Results: Six studies encompassing 614 patients were included in the meta-analysis. Overall event rates were low for both devices. No significant differences between the …

Bit Optimized Reconfigurable Network (Born): A New Pathway Towards Implementing A Fully Integrated Band-Switchable Cmos Power Amplifier, Seyyed Babak Hamidi Perchehkolaei

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The ultimate goal of the modern wireless communication industry is the full integration of digital, analog, and radio frequency (RF) functions. The most successful solution for such demands has been complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, thanks to its cost-effective material and great versatility. Power amplifier (PA), the biggest bottleneck to integrate in a single-chip transceiver in wireless communications, significantly influences overall system performance. Recent advanced wireless communication systems demand a power amplifier that can simultaneously support different communication standards. A fully integrated single-chip tunable CMOS power amplifier is the best solution in terms of the cost and level of …

Development Of Performance Optimized Rotation Tolerant Viola-Jones Based Blackbird Detection, A Throughput Optimized Asynchronous Mac Implementation, And Automated Wheat Lodging Estimation, Nauman Jalil

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The research described in this doctoral dissertation focuses on three main topics:1) performance optimization of the Viola-Jones Algorithm (VJA) for red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) detection, 2) further increasing performance of an already optimized asynchronous Multiply and Accumulate (MAC) unit, and 3) development of a framework to differentiate between lodging and non-lodging areas of a field from visible and multispectral aerial drone images. The first topic explores VJA rotational robustness, since VJA object detection is inherently not invariant to in-plane object rotation. An efficient method to detect rotated blackbirds is developed, which provides a balance between detection accuracy and computational cost. …

Using Classification And Clustering To Predict And Understand Student Behavior In An Innovation-Based Learning Course, Lauren Nichole Singelmann

Electrical and Computer Engineering

One of the Grand Challenges for Engineering is advancing personalized learning, but challenges remain to identify and understand potential student pathways. This is especially difficult in complex, open-ended learning environments such as innovation-based learning courses. Student data from an iteration of an innovation-based learning course were analyzed using two educational data mining techniques: classification and clustering. Classification was used to predict student success in the course by creating a model that was both interpretable and robust (accuracy over 0.8 and ROC AUC of over 0.95). Clustering grouped student behavior into four main categories: Innovators, Learners, Surveyors, and Surface Level. Furthermore, …

Resilient Monitoring And Robust Control Towards Blackout Prevention In Modern Power Grids, Abhishek Banerjee

Electrical and Computer Engineering

This dissertation embodies a comprehensive approach towards resilient monitoring of frid events using Structure Preserving Energy Functions (SPEFs) and introduces a novel control architecture in Multi Terminal Direct Current (MTDC) grids, for inter-area oscillation damping and achieving robustness to AC as well as DC side, post-contingency events in the modern power grid. This work is presented as a collection of several publications which investigate and address the proposed research topics. At first, SPEFs are derived for multi-machine IEEE benchmark models with the help of the Wide-Area Measurements (WAMs). A physics-based hybrid approach to develop one-to-one mapping between properties of energy …

Does Trados Matter?, Abraham Cable

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Lower-Income Tax Planning, Manoj Viswanathan

Faculty Scholarship

Tax planning is generally criticized by scholars as inefficient; that is, imposing welfare-reducing costs by incentivizing transactions with few non-tax economic benefits. This Article argues that this view is unacceptably narrow and makes the original claim that tax planning by lower-income taxpayers is often welfare-enhancing and should, as a normative matter, be encouraged. As such, various parties, including the IRS, law school clinics, legal academics, and tax practitioners should actively strategize to reduce the transaction costs currently hindering lower-income tax planning. This Article then applies that mandate to a specific cohort of lower-income taxpayers- drivers working in the sharing economy-and …

The Politics Of Regulatory Enforcement And Compliance: Theorizing And Operationalizing Political Influences, Jodi L. Short

Faculty Scholarship

There is broad consensus in the literature on regulatory enforcement and compliance that politics matters. However, there is little scholarly convergence on what politics is or rigorous theorization and empirical testing of how politics matters. Many enforcement and compliance studies omit political variables altogether. Among those that address political influences on regulatory outcomes, politics has been defined in myriad ways and, too often, left undefined. Even when political constructs are explicitly operationalized, the mechanisms by which they influence regulatory outcomes are thinly hypothesized or simply ignored. If politics is truly as important to enforcement and compliance outcomes as everyone in …

When Are Vaccine Mandates Appropriate?, Dorit R. Reiss, Carmel Shachar

Faculty Scholarship

Vaccine refusal is a serious public health problem, especially in the context of diseases with potential to spark global pandemics, such as Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This article examines whether and when compelling vaccination through mandates and criminalization, for example, are appropriate. It argues that some legal approaches are ethical when they preserve social stability, trust in government, therapeutic research opportunities, or when they diminish disease severity.

Social Enterprise Lawyering, Alina S. Ball

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Institutionalizing The Centers For Disease Control And Prevention's Independence, Dorit R. Reiss

Faculty Scholarship

The United States' response to the COVID-19 pandemic was sub­ optimal. One problem in it was the politicization of the public health response. One aspect of that politicization was aggressive political intervention in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC) efforts to provide guidance and help pandemic response. The concern was strong enough that four previous CDC Directors, in an unusual step, published an op-ed calling out political intervention in the CDC. This article proposes two changes to strengthen the CDC's institutional independence: codifying the CDC's role in preventing diseases and reducing harms in a statute, and restructuring …

Considerations In Mandating A New Covid-19 Vaccine In The Usa For Children And Adults, Dorit R. Reiss, Arthur J. Caplan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Digging The Rabbit Hole, Covid-19 Edition: Anti-Vaccine Themes And The Discourse Around Covid-19, Tara C. Smith, Dorit R. Reiss

Faculty Scholarship

This article draws on a broadcast popular among the anti-vaccine community to map out six themes used by the broadcast to mislead viewers about COVID-19. The themes are the claim that “they” e government and pharma e are lying to you, claims that COVID-19 is an excuse to remove civil liberties, viewing everyone as an expert, claiming that science cannot save us, skewing the science, and a claim that “they” are out to harm the viewers. The article points out that similar themes are used to mislead followers with anti-vaccine information. It highlights the concern that these themes will not …

The Zooming Of Federal Civil Litigation, Scott Dodson, Lee Rosenthal, Christopher Dodson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Citizenship Denied: Implications Of The Naturalization Backlog For Noncitizens In Military, Ming Hsu Chen

Faculty Scholarship

The immigration system is in crisis. Long lines of asylum seekers at the border and immigrants in the interior spend years waiting for their day in immigration court. This is true in the agencies that process appli- cations for immigration benefits from legal immigrants as well. Since 2016, delays in naturalization have increased to historic proportions. The problem is even worse for military naturalizations, where delays are ac- companied by denials and overall declines in military naturalizations. It is the latest front in the battle on legal migration and citizenship. These impediments to citizenship demonstrate an extreme form of policies …

How Much Procedure Is Needed For Agencies To Change Novel Regulatory Policies?, Ming Hsu Chen

Faculty Scholarship

The use of guidance documents in administrative law has long been controversial and considered to be one of the most challenging aspects of administrative law. When an agency uses a guidance document to change or make policy, it need not provide notice to the public or allow comment on the new rule; this makes changes easier, faster, and less subject to judicial review. Under the Obama Administration, guidance documents were used to implement policy shifts in many areas of administrative law, including civil rights issues such as transgender inclusion and campus sexual harassment, and immigration law issues such as deferred …

The Legalization Of Restorative Justice: A 50-State Empirical Analysis, Thalia Gonzalez

Faculty Scholarship

his Article addresses the increasing formal legal nature of restorative justice in the United States. Over the last three decades, a substantial body of research has demonstrated the ways in which restorative justice offers an alternative societal response to crime and harm. It has also examined how restorative justice empowers individuals and groups to address violence, respond to social, political and economic injustice, and engage in resistance to existing structural inequities. Yet a prominent gap in the field exists: a comprehensive theoretical and empirical examination of the codification of restorative justice in state law. Studies of this nature are essential …

Off-Label Drug Risks: Toward A New Fda Regulatory Approach, George Horvath

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sentenced To Surveillance: Fourth Amendment Limits On Electronic Monitoring, Kate Weisburd

Faculty Scholarship

As courts and legislatures increasingly recognize that “digital is different” and attempt to limit government surveillance of private data, one group is conspicuously excluded from this new privacy-protective discourse: the five million people in the United States on probation, parole, or other forms of community supervision. This Article is the first to explore how warrantless electronic surveillance is dramatically transforming community supervision and, as a result, amplifying a growing privacy-protection disparity: those in the criminal legal system are increasingly losing privacy protections even while those not in the system are increasingly gaining privacy protections. The quickly expanding use of GPS-equipped …

The Legal Reconstruction Of Walls: N.D. & N.T. V. Spain, 2017, 2020, Moria Paz

Faculty Scholarship

Recently, Western democracies have turned to building border walls as a strategy of immigration control. This Article makes two claims. First, human rights courts and quasi-judicial bodies are deeply implicated in this move. In the past decade or so, these institutions have been successful in both enforcing and creating new rights for asylum seekers and irregular migrants. They have used variants of access to guarantee hyper-protection to individual non-nationals who have either entered a host state or come under its effective control. This legal success has resulted in the unintended consequence of rendering wall-building a logical move for state prevention …

Slicing Defamation, Yonathan A. Arbel

Articles

No abstract provided.

Theory Of The Nudnik: The Future Of Consumer Activism And What We Can Do To Stop It, Yonathan A. Arbel, Roy Shapira

Articles

How do consumers hold sellers accountable and enforce market norms This Article contributes to our understanding of consumer markets in three ways First The Article identifies the role of a small subset of consumers "” the titular "˜nudniks' "” as engines of market discipline Nudniks are those who call to complain speak with managers post online reviews and file lawsuits Typified by an idiosyncratic utility function and personality traits nudniks pursue action where most consumers remain passive Although derided in courtrooms and the court of public opinion we show that nudniks can solve consumer collective action problems thereby leading to …

What Is A Fair Price For Objector Blackmail? Class Action Objectors And The 2018 Amendments To Rule 23 Symposium, Elizabeth J. Cabraser, Adam N. Steinman

Articles

No abstract provided.

Using Machine Learning And Text Mining Algorithms To Facilitate Research Discovery Of Plant Food Metabolomics And Its Application For Human Health Benefit Targets, Jithin Jose Mathew

Genomics and Bioinformatics

With the increase in scholarly articles published every day, the need for an automated systematic exploratory literature review tool is rising. With the advance in Text Mining and Machine Learning methods, such data exploratory tools are researched and developed in every scientific domain. This research aims at finding the best keyphrase extraction algorithm and topic modeling algorithm that is going to be the foundation and main component of a tool that will aid in Systematic Literature Review. Based on experimentation on a set of highly relevant scholarly articles published in the domain of food science, two graph-based keyphrase extraction algorithms, …

The Law Of Rescue, Shalini Bhargava Ray

Articles

Diverse areas of law regulate acts of rescue, often inconsistently. For example, maritime law mandates rescue, immigrant harboring law prohibits it, and tort law generally permits it but does not require it. Modern legal scholarship has focused principally on mandatory and permissive forms of rescue. With humanitarian actors facing prosecution for saving migrants' lives in the Arizona desert and elsewhere, however, scholarly treatment of the phenomenon of prohibited rescue is increasingly urgent. By analyzing disparate regimes of rescue, and focusing on migrant rescue specifically, this Article makes three contributions. First, it argues that the law of rescue generally privileges property …

Insuring Apologies, Benjamin J. Mcmichael

Articles

Based on evidence demonstrating that an apology from a wrongdoer to a victim can assuage the victim's anger, reduce the likelihood that the victim seeks legal redress, and facilitate settlement, state legislatures have passed apology laws to encourage the delivery of more apologies. Aimed primarily at medical malpractice litigation-a traditional locus of the tort reform effort-apology laws render apologies from physicians to patients inadmissible in subsequent legal proceedings. In theory, privileging apologies will encourage their use and reduce malpractice liability risk as patients assert fewer claims and settle those claims that are asserted. However, if apology laws encourage the delivery …