Digital Commons Network^™

Virtuous Law-Breaking, G. Alex Sinha

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

A rapidly growing body of scholarship embraces virtue jurisprudence, a series of (often ad hoc) attempts to incorporate the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics into legal theory. Broadly understood, virtue ethics describes an approach to moral questions that emphasizes the importance of developing and embodying various virtues, often as manifestations of human flourishing. Scholars typically contrast virtue ethics with deontological and consequentialist moral theories, tracing virtue-centered analysis to ancient Greek philosophers, and in particular to Aristotle. Virtue ethics has experienced a revival over the past 65 years; but, long before that, it proved especially influential in Catholic moral thought, particularly …

Caremark And Esg, Perfect Together: A Practical Approach To Implementing An Integrated, Efficient, And Effective Caremark And Eesg Strategy, Leo E. Strine Jr., Kirby M. Smith, Reilly S. Steel

Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership

With increased calls from investors, legislators, and academics for corporations to consider employee, environmental, social, and governance factors (“EESG”) when making decisions, boards and managers are struggling to situate EESG within their existing reporting and organizational structures. Building on an emerging literature connecting EESG with corporate compliance, this Essay argues that EESG is best understood as an extension of the board’s duty to implement and monitor a compliance program under Caremark. If a company decides to do more than the legal minimum, it will simultaneously satisfy legitimate demands for strong EESG programs and promote compliance with the law. Building on …

A Surrogate Weather Generator For Estimating Natural Gas Design Day Conditions, David J. Kaftan, George Corliss, Richard J. Povinelli, Ronald H. Brown

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Natural gas customers rely upon utilities to provide gas for heating in the coldest parts of winter. Heating capacity is expensive, so utilities and end users (represented by commissions) must agree on the coldest day on which a utility is expected to meet demand. The return period of such a day is long relative to the amount of weather data that are typically available. This paper develops a weather resampling method called the Surrogate Weather Resampler, which creates a large dataset to support analysis of extremely infrequent events. While most current methods for generating weather data are based on simulation, …

Gangmastering Passata: Multi-Territoriality Of The Food System And The Legal Construction Of Cheap Labor Behind The Globalized Italian Tomato, Dr. Tomaso Ferrando

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Juveniles Are Different”: Easier Said Than Done Resolving Disparities Among Courts Regarding The Constitutionality Of Sentencing Juveniles To De Facto Life-Without-Parole, Audrey Fernandez

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Let's Get Free: Family Policing, Prison Industrial Complex Abolition, And Transcendent Love, Emma Li

Scripps Senior Theses

My objective is to illuminate the painful, discriminatory, and avoidable effects of family separation underneath the American child welfare system and tradition of family policing. In this bureaucratically sprawling and interconnected system comprising of prisons, courts, social workers, and doctors, individual blame is assigned to parents, families, and communities facing long-running systemic problems. Family policing and the child welfare system have long been excluded from conventional discussions surrounding the harms of police and prisons. The everyday violence Black, Latinx, and low-income families face at the threat of/implementation of family separation - an immensely traumatic and agonizing process - must be …

The Internet-Extended Mind: The Psychological Ramifications And Philosophical Implications Of Cognitive Offloading, Gloria Choi

Scripps Senior Theses

In this thesis, I explore the internet-extended mind through both philosophical and psychological lenses in order to investigate the questions “To what extent is the mind extended onto the internet and, more generally, outside our bodies?” and “How will an increasingly internet-extended brain change the ways in which humans communicate, remember, and behave?”. First, I introduce the idea of a mind that extends out into the world, instead of lying solely in the brain. Then, I outline existing research that introduces the challenges and implications of an internet-extended mind in an ever-changing internet landscape. Next, I discuss how the internet …

Identification And Sequence Analysis Of Set Superfamily Genes In Hymenopteran Insects, Tanima Joshi

Scripps Senior Theses

Post-translational chemical modifications of histones, the proteins that package DNA, are a key component of the “language” of epigenetics. SET (Suppressor of Variegation 39, Enhancer of Zeste, Trithorax) domain-containing proteins are crucial enzymes that establish histone methylations as a major part of the histone code. Studies using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model organism have provided most of the known information on SET genes/protein diversity and function in insects. To expand our knowledge of this important protein family, I identified all SET domain-containing genes in a select group of insects belonging to the Hymenoptera order: wasps, bees, ants, …

Legacy Of The Special Court For Sierra Leone: Creating Space For Non-Judicial Alternatives, Linda Carter

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Beliefs About Mental Illness In A Spanish Speaking Latinx American Sample, Michiyo Hirai, Serkan Dolma, Laura L. Vernon, George A. Clum

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

The US Hispanic population is large and rapidly growing, with serious healthcare disparities. Alarmingly, 67% of Hispanic adults with a mental illness go untreated. Attempts to increase treatment rates have had limited success, likely partly due to stigma beliefs. There is an urgent need to develop and utilize a Spanish language stigma assessment tool. The current study is the first to do so, translating the Beliefs Toward Mental Illness (BTMI; Hirai et al., 2018) scale into Spanish (S-BTMI). Our psychometric findings with English-Spanish bilingual Latinx undergraduate students suggest that the S-BTMI can be a reliable measure of mental illness stigma. …

Global Coordination Between Gene Expression Processes In C. Crescentus, James Raymond Aretakis

Wayne State University Dissertations

Gene expression is an essential process of all organisms which occurs in two steps, mRNA transcription, and translation and which is shut off by mRNA decay. For a bacterium to grow and divide, these steps need to be tuned to optimize the synthesis rates of thousands of proteins from their genes. Genome-wide experiments were used to determine the absolute transcription rates, mRNA degradation rates, and translation rates on a gene by gene basis in the model bacterium Caulobacter crescentus. This not only provides a system biology view of the organism’s gene expression resource allocation, but also provides a chance to …

Maximizing User Engagement In Short Marketing Campaigns Within An Online Living Lab: A Reinforcement Learning Perspective, Aniekan Michael Ini-Abasi

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

MAXIMIZING USER ENGAGEMENT IN SHORT MARKETING CAMPAIGNS WITHIN AN ONLINE LIVING LAB: A REINFORCEMENT LEARNING PERSPECTIVE

by

ANIEKAN MICHAEL INI-ABASI

August 2021

Advisor: Dr. Ratna Babu Chinnam Major: Industrial & Systems Engineering Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

User engagement has emerged as the engine driving online business growth. Many firms have pay incentives tied to engagement and growth metrics. These corporations are turning to recommender systems as the tool of choice in the business of maximizing engagement. LinkedIn reported a 40% higher email response with the introduction of a new recommender system. At Amazon 35% of sales originate from recommendations, …

Reforming The Mississippi Criminal Code Part Iii: Person-Endangering Crimes Against Habitation And Property: Arson, Burglary, Robbery, And Related Crimes, Judith J. Johnson

MC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Teaching Strategic Decision Making: Business Management Simulations As A Tool For Generative Learning, Donal O'Brien

Irish Journal of Academic Practice

This paper takes a generative learning perspective to study the pedagogical benefits of employing simulated virtual learning environments to replicate real world business decision making. Simulated business games have been growing in importance on many business programmes over the last twenty years, and the increase in online delivery due the Covid 19 pandemic has heightened the focus on this type of virtual delivery. As members of a management students take part in running a simulated business gaining real management experience. Students make weekly strategic decisions for their company, market results are then released for the company each week and the …

Authentic Assessments: Preparing Undergraduate Computing Students For A New Future Of Remote Internships, Farrah Higgins

Irish Journal of Academic Practice

It is accepted practice now in higher education in Ireland that assessments should be designed to assess the learning outcomes of a module and the skills needed for professional practice. Due to the current demands and challenges of remote working, employers are looking for a new set of employability skills where graduates can work autonomously and network remotely. Authentic assessments are an opportunity to produce ‘remote work ready’ graduates for this new working environment. However, authentic assessments can be decontextualised if they are designed without considering both academic outcomes and industry/real-world activities. The following practitioner case study reviews the research …

Building Multistories: Embedding The Library Services For Inclusive Teaching And Learning In A Diverse Curriculum., Fionnuala Darby, Lindsay Dowling

Irish Journal of Academic Practice

There is an expanding shift in the academy to pedagogical developments that aim to address the shortage of custodians of knowledge from Black and ethnic minorities as a contributing factor in sustaining systemic racism and stereotypes in higher education. Further to this, Appleton states that decolonising will only take place and be successful if there are real structural changes in the module, programme, inside the classroom and across the university to create equity and fairness of experience and outcome for every student irrespective of their background. Building MultiStories is constructed as a process whereby staff and students, together, work to …

On-Road Remote Sensing Of Automobile Emissions In The Fresno, Ca Area: Spring 2021, Gary A. Bishop

Fuel Efficiency Automobile Test Publications

No abstract provided.

Twitter News And The Uninformed Citizen, Will Harris

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

This essay examines how social media as a source of news has severely impacted the political knowledge of the citizens of the United States. Research shows that while the media traditionally has been a moderator that sought to improve knowledge among voters and inspire them to determine their own beliefs, the rise of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have inspired a polarizing effect on those who use the platform. Thus, social media is driving both conservatives and liberals away from the middle without providing them the knowledge that they need to have informed opinions. This study sought …

Image Transmission Over Resource-Constrained Low-Power Radio Networks, Paschal O'Connor

Masters

The transmission of large amounts of data over resource-constrained radio frequency (RF) networks is impacted by regulatory constraints and can affect reliability due to channel congestion. These barriers limit the use case to specific applications. This research extends the use case scenario to include the transmission of digital images over such networks which to date has not been widely documented. To achieve this, the overall data volume needs to be reduced to manageable limits. Drawing on previous theoretical work this research explored, developed and implemented novel image compression techniques suitable for use in resource-constrained RF networks.

A compression technique was …

Automated Tracking Of Hand Hygiene Stages, Rashmi Bakshi

Masters

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) estimates that 2.5 millioncases of Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) occur each year in the European Union. Handhygiene is regarded as one of the most important preventive measures for HAIs. If it is implemented properly, hand hygiene can reduce the risk of cross-transmission of an infection in the healthcare environment. Good hand hygiene is not only important for healthcare settings. Therecent ongoing coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the importance of hand hygiene practices in our daily lives, with governments and health authorities around the world promoting goodhand hygiene practices. The WHO has published …

Machine Learning For Auditory Hierarchy, William Coleman

Dissertations

Coleman, W. (2021). Machine Learning for Auditory Hierarchy. This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Technological University Dublin. Audio content is predominantly delivered in a stereo audio file of a static, pre-formed mix. The content creator makes volume, position and effects decisions, generally for presentation in stereo speakers, but has no control ultimately over how the content will be consumed. This leads to poor listener experience when, for example, a feature film is mixed such that the dialogue is at a low level relative to the sound effects. Consumers can complain that they must turn …

Cough Monitoring Through Audio Analysis, Thomas Snella

Dissertations

The detection of cough events in audio recordings requires the analysis of a significant amount of data as cough is typically monitored continuously over several hours to capture naturally occurring cough events. The recorded data is mostly composed of undesired sound events such as silence, background noise, and speech. To reduce computational costs and to address the ethical concerns raised from the collection of audio data in public environments, the data requires pre-processing prior to any further analysis.

Current cough detection algorithms typically use pre-processing methods to remove undesired audio segments from the collected data but do not preserve the …

Analysis Of Power Quality Constrained Consumer-Friendly Demand Response In Low Voltage Distributions Network, Chittesh Veni Chandran

Dissertations

Load management using demand response (DR) in a low voltage distribution network (LVDN) offers an economically profitable business platform with peak load management. However, the inconvenience caused to the consumer in depriving their devices and the low levels of associated incentive have contributed to lower consumer acceptance for DR programs in the community. However, with the increasing number of controllable consumer loads, a residential-level DR program is highly plausible in the short to medium term. Further, additional DR capabilities (including ancillary services) are likely to improve the remuneration potential for participants in DR. Considering the perspective of a distribution network …

Application Of Big-Data For Epidemiological Studies Of Refractive Error, James Loughman

Articles

To examine whether data sourced from electronic medical records (EMR) and a large industrial spectacle lens manufacturing database can estimate refractive error distribution within large populations as an alternative to typical population surveys of refractive error.

Direct Multiplexing Of Low Order Aberration Modes In A Photopolymerbased Holographic Element For Analog Holographic Wavefront Sensing, Emma Branigan, Suzanne Martin, Matthew Sheehan, Kevin Murphy

Conference Papers

The fabrication of an analog holographic wavefront sensor, capable of detecting the low order defocus aberration, was achieved in an acrylamide-based photopolymer. While other implementations of holographic wavefront sensors have been carried out digitally, this process utilises a recording setup consisting only of conventional refractive elements so the cost and complexity of holographic optical element (HOE) production could be much reduced. A pair of diffraction spots, corresponding to a maximum and minimum amount of defocus, were spatially separated in the detector plane by multiplexing two HOEs with different carrier spatial frequencies. For each wavefront with a known aberration that was …

Winter Measurements Of Heavy-Duty Vehicles To Characterize The Cold Temperature Effectiveness Of Selective Catalytic Reductions Catalyst In Controlling Oxide Of Nitrogen Emissions, Gary A. Bishop, Molly J. Haugen, Brian C. Mcdonald

Fuel Efficiency Automobile Test Publications

No abstract provided.

On-Road Remote Sensing Of Automobile Emissions In The Chicago Area: Fall 2020, Gary A. Bishop

Fuel Efficiency Automobile Test Publications

No abstract provided.

Autonomic Management Of Service Level Agreements In Cloud Computing, Stefan Edwin Karl Frey

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Autonomic Management of Service Level Agreements in Cloud Computing Cloud computing has been one of the major trending topics of recent years in the Information Technology (IT) industry. In contrary to the previous IT service delivery models, where all the services and resources were hosted locally, the idea behind cloud computing is to deliver computing resources or services on-demand over a network on an easy pay-per-use business model. This paradigm change included almost all areas of the modern IT landscape, be it the storage and sharing of data for example with services like Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive or …

Statistical Inference About Bivariate Survival Data With Semi-Competing Risks Using Copulas, Lexy Sorrell

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Bivariate, semi-competing risk data are survival endpoints where a terminal event can censor a non-terminal event, but not vice versa. An example is the endpoints of graft failure and death; death can censor graft failure, but graft failure cannot censor death. There are potential correlations between these endpoints as they are measured on the same individual. Traditional methods of calculating correlations cannot be used directly as censoring can occur on one or both survival endpoints. We develop methods using a copula-based approach to study the dependence structures between two survival endpoints while the marginal distributions are fixed. We use several …

Review: Internationalizing The Writing Center: A Guide For Developing A Multilingual Writing Center, Svetlana Koltovskaia

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.