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On Quasilinear Elliptic Problems With Finite Or Infinite Potential Wells, Shibo Liu

Mathematics and System Engineering Faculty Publications

We consider quasilinear elliptic problems of the form - div (φ (| ∇ u |) ∇ u) + V (x) φ (| u |) u = f (u), u ∈ W 1, φ (R N), where φ and f satisfy suitable conditions. The positive potential V ∈ C (R N) exhibits a finite or infinite potential well in the sense that V (x) V\left(x) tends to its supremum V ∞ ≤ + ∞ as | x | → ∞. Nontrivial solutions are obtained by variational methods. When V ∞ = + ∞, a compact embedding from a suitable subspace of …

Mss0111. Memphis And Charleston Railroad Depot Controversy Records Finding Aid

Special Collections Finding Aids

Correspondence, clippings, histories of the depot, reports, minutes of meetings, petitions, photographs, maps, and press releases documenting the history of what was the oldest railroad depot in continuous use in the United States, and the determined, yet unsuccessful efforts of Memphis organizations to save it from destruction, 1964-1968.

Fintech: New Battle Lines In The Patent Wars?, Megan M. La Belle, Heidi Mandanis Schooner

Scholarly Articles

Historically, financial institutions have relied on trade secrets and first-mover advantages, rather than patents, to protect their inventions. For the few financial patents that were issued, conventional wisdom was that they weren’t terribly interesting or important. In our 2014 study on financial patents, we showed that banks were breaking from past patterns and increasingly seeking patent protection. We explained that financial institutions were primarily building their patent portfolios as a defensive measure—i.e., to protect themselves from infringement suits. Indeed, the finance industry successfully lobbied Congress to include provisions in the America Invents Act of 2011 that made it easier to …

Looking Beyond The Profit And Into The Light: Consumer Financial Protection And The Common Good, Veryl Victoria Miles

Scholarly Articles

The intention of this Article is to review the various statements of Catholic Social Teaching that are fundamental in describing economic justice and that are most pertinent to any consideration of consumer financial protection as essential to the common good. This review will begin with Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum and other encyclicals that followed Rerum Novarum as a continuum of Church teaching regarding social and economic justice; the pastoral letter from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops entitled Economic Justice for All (1986); and the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace's handbook on the Vocation of …

Who Determines Majorness?, Chad Squitieri

Scholarly Articles

The major questions doctrine is said to assist courts in identifying whether Congress has delegated authority to administrative agencies. A closer look at the doctrine, however, reveals that it has been used by courts to tell Congress how it can delegate authority. What is more, some textualists have proposed strengthening the major questions doctrine into a revived nondelegation doctrine, which speaks to whether Congress can delegate authority. This Article argues that the major questions doctrine, particularly in its strengthened form, runs afoul of key commitments of textualism.

Cyber Trespass And Property Concepts, Adam J. Macleod

Scholarly Articles

Access to information is the purpose of the Internet. Ask anyone born after the dawn of the information age; they will tell you that cyberspace is the place to go if one wants to know stuff. On the other hand, many of the people who put stuff on the Internet or on systems connected to the Internet will tell you that, without legal rights to control or block access, people will not have incentives to put on the Internet stuff that is worth knowing. In this tension between access and control, property is generally assumed to be on the side …

Administrator Stress And Well-Being: Lessons Learned From Retired Administrators, Carrie Bosco

Dissertations

School and district leaders work in stressful jobs and a better understanding is needed about how these conditions affect their personal and professional lives. This study presents the stories of experienced K–12 public school and district administrators contending with and managing administrative stress and its effects on administrators. Through qualitative inquiry and narrative analysis, the learning that comes from experience is explored as a way of understanding administrative practice. Storied examples of stressful situations range from the most serious and traumatic events a school administrator might face to the daily grind of always being “on.” Powerful themes that emerged from …

An Analysis Of Job Stress As Experienced By Public School Site Administrators, Joseph A. Bosco

Dissertations

Public school site administrators face enormous challenges day in and day out. COVID-19 has created more challenges than ever for any organization, but for public school site administrators these types of challenges are once in a lifetime. When crisis hits, leaders are expected to be strong and levelheaded. However, these leaders are experiencing high levels of stress which can lead to burnout, depersonalization, or worse. Using a quantitative method, the study was done to better understand the stress public school site administrators are under. Public school administrators in Silicon Valley were surveyed using the Administrator Stress Index, which is the …

Thermal Mapping Of Metal Casting Mold Using High Resolution Distributed Fiber-Optic Sensors, Muhammad Roman, Damilola Balogun, Chen Zhu, Laura Bartlett, Ronald J. O'Malley, Rex Gerald, Jie Huang

PSMRC Faculty Research

This article reports a technique to embed optical fiber into a copper mold plate for generating high-density thermal maps of the mold during the process of metal casting. The temperature measurements were based on acquiring and interpreting Rayleigh backscattering (RBS) signals from embedded fiber, using the interrogation technique of optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR). The instrumented mold plate was used to perform a cast-iron dip test and a steel dip test in a 200 lb induction furnace. The maximum temperatures recorded by the embedded fiber-optic sensors were 469 degrees C and 388 degrees C in the cast-iron and steel dip …

Avian Biodiversity Of The Indian River Lagoon System, Florida, Richard L. Turner

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Despite claims about high avian biodiversity in the Indian River Lagoon system, previous efforts to inventory the birds have been limited in geographic extent or in habitat. Compilation of a list of birds could rely on many resources, but ones of widespread availability, greatest historical record, and highest density of sites are two citizen-science projects: the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) and eBird. Lists of species were harvested from 17 CBC sites (‘‘circles’’) back to 1910 and from 432 eBird sites (‘‘hotspots’’) since 2002 within the boundaries of the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program (IRLNEP). In addition to lagoon waters, …

Biodiversity Of The Indian River Lagoon System: A Cautionary Tale From The Birds, Richard L. Turner

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Prevailing dogma on comparative biodiversity of the Indian River Lagoon (IRL) stems mainly from one claim about ichthyofauna and two about avifauna. The extensive network of birdwatchers, clarity of bird taxonomy, long history of the Christmas Bird Count (CBC), and burgeoning database on ebird.org make birds excellent for geographic comparison. The 1985 claim that Merritt Island CBCs are often the ‘‘most speciose count’’ in the U.S. is unfounded. CBCs there in 1970–1985 never had the highest count, even compared to the nearby Cocoa site. For the 114th CBC (2013), it ranked 11th in Florida and 44th nationally. The 1989 claim …

Efficient Algorithms For Identifying Loop Formation And Computing Θ Value For Solving Minimum Cost Flow Network Problems, Timothy Michael Chávez, Duc Thai Nguyen

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

While the minimum cost flow (MCF) problems have been well documented in many publications, due to its broad applications, little or no effort have been devoted to explaining the algorithms for identifying loop formation and computing the value needed to solve MCF network problems. This paper proposes efficient algorithms, and MATLAB computer implementation, for solving MCF problems. Several academic and real-life network problems have been solved to validate the proposed algorithms; the numerical results obtained by the developed MCF code have been compared and matched with the built-in MATLAB function Linprog() (Simplex algorithm) for further validation.

A Receiver Lacks Standing To Recover Fraudulent Transfers Under Ufta When Corporation Has Not Been Adequately Cleansed From Fraudulent Actions Of Ponzi Schemers, Chelsea Mcgee

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

A court-appointed receiver is charged with collecting the assets of an entity for the benefit of creditors. A receiver, however, only has standing to bring claims that the party in the receivership possessed. In determining whether a receiver has standing to bring a claim, it is necessary to differentiate between the types of claims that can be asserted on behalf of a corporation. First, there are actions that a receiver may bring directly against the principals of a corporation or the recipients of fraudulent transfers. Second, are common law tort claims that can be brought against a third party, …

Two Approaches For Evaluating A Debtor’S “Additional Circumstance” Under The Brunner Test To Qualify For A Hardship Discharge Of Student Loan Debt, Julie Aberasturi

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Under title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”), student loan debt is typically non-dischargeable in bankruptcy, except for circumstances in which the failure to discharge “would impose an undue hardship on the debtor and the debtor’s dependents.” However, the Bankruptcy Code does not define “undue hardship.” Instead, Congress “left it up to the various Bankruptcy Courts to utilize their discretion in defining what that term means after an analysis of the statute and a review of applicable legislative history.”

In determining what constitutes an “undue hardship,” a majority of courts rely on the three-prong Brunner test …

Unqualified Student Loans Are Likely Dischargeable In Bankruptcy, Cristian Catanese

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excepr)

As a general matter, most student loans are excepted from discharge under section 523 of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”). The Bankruptcy Code prohibits discharge of certain student loans unless doing so “would impose undue hardship on the debtor and [their] dependents . . . .” Student debtors seeking to discharge student loan debt must file an adversary proceeding and demonstrate “undue hardship” — a difficult burden to meet. However, not all student loans may be subject to this requirement.

Jurisdictions are divided on whether unqualified student loans, i.e., loans outside the cost of …

Standing To Challenge Bankruptcy Court’S Approval Of Retiree Benefits Settlement, Inkook Choi

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Section 1114 of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”) provides in relevant part that: “the debtor in possession shall timely pay and shall not modify any retiree benefits” unless “the court, on the motion of the [debtor] or authorized representative [of the retirees,]” orders or the debtor and the authorized representative agree to the modification of such benefits. A bankruptcy court may, after notice and hearing, approve a settlement, including a settlement of retiree benefit claims, under Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9019. Consequently, creditors and other parties in interest may voice their views on …

Bankruptcy Courts Are Divided On Reducing A Debtor’S Obligation To Pay Rent When Government Regulations Restrict A Debtor’S Ability To Generate Income, Brittany M. Clark

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Many indoor retail establishments and restaurants that faced shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic (the “Pandemic”) filed voluntary petitions for relief under chapter 11 of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”), and subsequently requested rent abatement under § 365(d)(3) of the Bankruptcy Code or state law. Notwithstanding the unique and extreme circumstances caused by the Pandemic, not all bankruptcy courts agree on the extent to which judges have the discretion to grant abatement motions for rent payments that are otherwise due under § 365(d)(3). Some bankruptcy courts have granted debtors the ability to defer post-petition …

Impact Of Covid-19 On Debtor’S Obligations To Comply With Duties To Pay Rent, Joseph Diorio

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Under section 365(d)(3) of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”), a debtor-in-possession is required to “timely perform all the obligations of the debtor . . . arising from and after the order for relief under any unexpired lease of nonresidential real property until such lease is assumed or rejected, notwithstanding section 503(b)(1) of this title.” Section 365 was implemented to relieve landlords from the burden of proving the rent payments owed by the debtors prior to rejection were “actual and necessary” costs of preserving the bankruptcy estate. Section 365 has been heavily litigated since early …

Evaluating The Availability Of An Income-Driven Repayment Plan Under The Two Doctrinal Tests For Undue Hardship, Emily R. Fisher

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

A fundamental goal of bankruptcy is to give the debtor a “fresh start” by discharging their debts. For student loan debtors in bankruptcy, the opportunity of a “fresh start” is limited. Under title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”), student loans are not dischargeable unless excepting such debt from discharge would impose an undue hardship on the debtor and the debtor’s dependents. Without guidance from the statutory text, the definition of undue hardship is left up to judicial interpretation, giving rise to much litigation.

An issue that frequently arises when undue hardship is litigated is the …

Ability Of The Eeoc To Litigate For Compensation On Behalf Of A Specific Individual Despite Automatic Stay, Julia Guthy

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Exceprt)

Section 362 of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”) provides for an automatic stay, i.e., a “statutory injunction against efforts outside [a] bankruptcy to collect debts from a debtor under the protections of the Bankruptcy Code.” However, pursuant to section 362(b)(4) of the Bankruptcy Code, a governmental agency may commence or continue an action against a debtor to enforce the agency’s police or regulatory power despite the automatic stay (hereinafter, the “§362(b)(4) Exception”). For the exception to apply, the action of the governmental agency must “protect the public health and safety” as opposed to “a …

A Bankruptcy Court May Temporarily Suspend Rent Obligation, Matthew Kipnis

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Section 365(d)(3) of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”) authorizes a court to “extend, for cause, the time for performance of any [rent] obligation[‘s] [on unexpired leases of nonresidential real property] that arise[] within 60 days after the date of the order for relief[.]” Historically, courts have recognized that under § 365(d)(3), there is a statutory obligation on debtors to pay rent on unexpired leases. Courts have also recognized that if a debtor’s rent obligation is deferred, lessors are entitled to adequate protection. However, courts are divided on the exact timing of when a debtor’s …

Did The Consolidated Appropriations Act Make Bankruptcy Debtors Eligible For Ppp Loans?, Mary Theresa Michalos

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

In response to the economic fallout of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the “CARES Act”), which makes government-guaranteed loans available to qualified small businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”). The PPP was not created as a standalone program but was added to the existing section 7(a) program, which subjects the PPP to existing conditions and regulations, as well as existing Small Business Administration (the “SBA”) authority. The CARES Act expressly gives the SBA “[e]mergency rulemaking authority” to “issue regulations” carrying out the PPP. And it provides that the SBA …

Section 1112(B) Of The Bankruptcy Code Allows A Bankruptcy Court To Dismiss A Case Filed In Bad Faith, Antonio Sciarrotta

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

The United States Bankruptcy Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”) offers a wide range of instances where a bankruptcy court can dismiss a case. Section 1112(b) of the Bankruptcy Code provides that “the court shall convert a case under this chapter to a case under chapter 7 or dismiss a case under this chapter, whichever is in the best interests of creditors and the estate, for cause . . . .” Section 1112(b)(4) lists different scenarios that constitute “for cause.” Although not explicitly within the statutory scheme, a requirement that the debtor files his bankruptcy petition in good faith is one …

The Debtor’S Conduct At The Time Of Filing Controls In Determining Whether A Debtor Is Eligible To Convert Their Existing Case To A Case Under Subchapter V Of The Bankruptcy Code, Eric Silverstein

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Congress passed the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (the “SBRA”) to give small businesses a better chance to successfully reorganize under Chapter 11 of Title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”). One of the SBRA’s most important amendments was the addition of Subchapter V to Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, which was designed to reduce the cost and complexity of a small business reorganization. Because the statute’s express terms do not address its application to existing debtors, courts have been forced to address issues of conversion and eligibility. Generally, conversion of a case is …

Do Parents Receive Reasonably Equivalent Value For Paying College Tuition For Their Children Making Such Payments Avoidable, Alexandria Stiteler

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Under section 548 of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”), a trustee may avoid a transfer by a debtor that was an actual or constructive fraud. An actual fraudulent transfer is a transfer made with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors. In general, a constructive fraudulent transfer is a transfer or the incurrence of an obligation by a debtor that was made within two years before the date of filing the bankruptcy petition, for less than reasonably equivalent value, at a time when the debtor was insolvent and could not pay its debts …

Timing And Location Of Comi Determined At The Timing Of Filing Chapter 15 Petition, Priya Suresh

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

A debtor’s center of main interest (“COMI”) is not defined under title of 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”). As a result, bankruptcy courts have taken a number of different approaches to determining a debtor’s COMI. The starting place for determining COMI is the statutory rebuttable presumption that a debtor’s registered office, or habitual residence is the debtor’s COMI. If the presumption is rebutted, the party seeking recognition as a foreign main proceeding must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the debtor's COMI is in the jurisdiction where the proceeding is pending. Under chapter …

How Courts In The Second Circuit Decide On A Stay Pending Appeal In Bankruptcy Actions, Valerie Timmerman

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Absent a stay, an appeal may be mooted by actions taken while the appeal is pending. The Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure permit a court to grant “a stay of a judgment, order, or decree” pending an appeal. The purpose of a stay “is to preserve the status quo pending appeal and to protect the rights of all parties in interest.” The standard for a grant or denial of a stay under Bankruptcy Rule 8007 has historically differed among courts, with some favoring the “judicial discretion” test and others opting for the “preliminary injunction” test, depending on the nature …

City’S Retention Of Impounded Vehicle Not Violation Of Automatic Stay, Alexis Zobeideh

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Upon the filing of a petition under title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”), creditors and other parties in interest are generally automatically stayed from taking any action against a debtor or property of the estate. The estate includes “all legal or equitable interests of the debtor in property as the commencement of the case,” with some exceptions. The automatic stay is “one of the most important protections and powerful tools available to a debtor in a bankruptcy.”

It is well established that a creditor cannot take affirmative steps against a debtor or estate property. Prior …

Are Settlement Agreements Executory Contracts? Courts That Say “No” Give More Power To Creditors In Bankruptcy Actions, Kevin Murray

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

In order to provide for quick and efficient resolutions in bankruptcy cases, courts will often encourage settlement agreements. Settlement agreements are so common that it is unusual for there not to be a settlement between adversaries. Additionally, settlement agreements are favored by law to allow the parties to avoid the expense and burdens that are associated with litigating claims.

Courts have taken two approaches when analyzing disputes that involve settlement agreements. Some courts have held that a settlement agreement is a court approved contract between two adversarial parties and its interpretation is governed by the general provisions of contract …

The Platform Architecture Of Health Insurance And Managed Care, Laurell G. Richardson

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

No abstract provided.