Digital Commons Network^™

Pitfalls Of Progressive Prosecution, Carissa Byrne Hessick

Faculty Publications

This Essay examines the political vulnerabilities facing the progressive prosecution movement, arguing that two core features of its public brand—emphasizing a fundamental break from traditional prosecution and pledging to “do less” by shrinking the criminal justice footprint—have inadvertently exposed reform‑oriented prosecutors to intensified backlash. Drawing on recent examples, the Essay shows how framing progressive prosecution as radically different obscures the long-standing prosecutorial tools these offices still rely on, enabling critics to portray routine exercises of discretion as unprecedented or dangerous. It further explains how decarceral commitments make progressive prosecutors easy targets when crime or disorder rises, both because voters may …

Fake And Real People In Bankruptcy, Melissa B. Jacoby

Faculty Publications

This essay explores the bankruptcy system’s structural bias in favor of artificial persons—for-profit companies, non-profit enterprises, and municipalities given independent life by law—relative to humans. The favorable treatment extends to foundational issues such as the scope and timing of debt relief, the conditions to receiving any bankruptcy protections, and the flexibility to depart from the Bankruptcy Code by asserting that doing so will maximize economic value. The system’s bias also contributes to the “bad-apple-ing” of serious policy problems, running counter to other areas of law that have deemed harms like discrimination to be larger institutional phenomena rather than merely the …

Sorting Bugs And Features Of Mass Tort Bankruptcy, Melissa B. Jacoby

Faculty Publications

In 1997, after two years of study, the National Bankruptcy Review Commission recognized bankruptcy’s potential as a forum to address mass tort problems. It emphasized, however, that Congress needed to do much more to ensure due process, address major risks of under-compensation and inconsistent compensation, and reduce uncertainty about the lawfulness of these cases. United States Supreme Court cases invalidating particular limited-fund class actions raised the stakes, casting doubt on certain analogous bankruptcy practices.

Congress adopted neither the Commission’s proposals nor others on the topic. Mass tort bankruptcy practice continued without legislative clarifications or improvements, culminating in recent high-profile and …

The Nightmare Of Dream Advertising, Dustin Marlan

Faculty Publications

Advertisers are attempting to market to us while we dream. This is not science fiction, but rather a troubling new reality. Using a technique dubbed “targeted dream incubation” (TDI), companies have begun inserting commercial messages into people’s dreams. Roughly, TDI works by: (1) creating an association during waking life using sensory cues (for example, a pairing of sounds, visuals, or scents); and (2) as the subject is drifting off to sleep, the association is again introduced with the goal of triggering related dreams with related subject matter. Based on a 2021 American Marketing Association survey, 77 percent of 400 companies …

Psychedelic Capitalism And The Perceptual Threshold, Dustin Marlan

Faculty Publications

This invited response to Mason Marks et al., Microdosing Psychedelics Under Local, State, and Federal Law examines how evolving psychedelic regulation may ultimately favor below‑perceptual‑threshold approaches—such as microdosing and nonsubjective psychoplastogens—over the traditional, above‑threshold psychedelic experience.

Because such developments risk marginalizing the culturally, spiritually, and cognitively significant psychedelic experience, the author contends that access to above‑threshold psychedelic states requires justification beyond clinical utility. Invoking principles of cognitive liberty, neurodiversity, and equitable access, the article recommends that decriminalization and supported adult‑use models accompany therapeutic frameworks to preserve the legal viability of non‑ordinary states of consciousness, even if below‑threshold medicines come to …

Multibillion-Dollar Tax Questions, James Alm, Jay A. Soled, Kathleen Delaney Thomas

Faculty Publications

Tax compliance in the United States historically hovers in the 80 percent range, costing the nation approximately half a trillion dollars annually in uncollected tax revenue. To foster greater tax compliance, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) should employ whatever tools are at its disposal. Standard deterrence theory argues that increasing the audit rate and imposing stiffer penalties would foster greater tax compliance. There are political headwinds, however, that strongly suggest that these approaches are not currently viable. Instead, there is a low-cost method that could yield greater tax compliance. Drawing on recent and compelling social science research, the IRS should …

Physicians Spreading Medical Misinformation: The Uneasy Case For Regulation, Richard S. Saver

Faculty Publications

Physicians have played a surprisingly prominent role in the current “infodemic” of false and misleading medical claims. Yet, state medical boards, the governmental agencies responsible for professional licensure and oversight, have sanctioned remarkably few physicians. Pushing back against the widespread criticism of medical boards for insufficient action, this Article questions the overall suitability of licensure regulation to police medical misinformation. First, uncertainty exists about medical boards’ jurisdiction and legal authority. Many misinformation claims have involved physicians communicating publicly, not while treating patients. Given the primarily patient-centered legal and ethical frameworks governing the practice of medicine, serious challenges arise in making …

Secondary Courses Taught By Secondary Faculty: A (Personal) Call To Fully Integrate Skills Faculty And Skills Courses Into The Law School Curriculum Ahead Of The Nextgen Bar Exam, Oscar J. Salinas

Faculty Publications

This essay contends that law schools must reconsider how they educate future lawyers by elevating practical skills and the faculty who teach them, especially as the NextGen bar exam shifts toward assessing real‑world lawyering competencies. Through a blend of analysis and personal narrative, the author demonstrates how the traditional casebook‑Socratic model narrows the definition of merit, sidelines students whose strengths are not centered on rapid oral performance, and reinforces a hierarchy that undervalues skills faculty—who are often women and people of color—despite their central role in preparing students for practice.

Tracing the expansion of experiential learning after the Carnegie Report, …

Repugnant Precedents And The Court Of History, Daniel B. Rice

Faculty Publications

Aged Supreme Court precedents continue to tolerate many practices that would shock modern sensibilities. Yet the Court lacks standard tools for phasing out decisions that offend our national character. The very cultural shifts that have reoriented our normative universe have also insulated most repugnant precedents from direct attack. And the familiar stare decisis factors cannot genuinely explain what ails societally outmoded decisions. Even for justices inclined to condemn these embarrassments in less clinical terms, it is unclear what qualifies courts to make universalist claims about contemporary American values.

The Court recently sidestepped these difficulties by insisting that one of its …

Judicial Moral Prophecy, Daniel B. Rice

Faculty Publications

American judges decry past moral lapses as intolerable. They paint their predecessors’ worst mistakes as tragedies that must never be allowed to happen again. When given the chance to avoid new injustices, however, judges increasingly flaunt their moral indifference. They insist that legal fidelity requires them to ignore whether their own rulings will be remembered as monstrous. But this cavalier outlook—for all its devotion to the past—is remarkably ahistorical. Feats of legal craft have never survived cultural repudiation. When precedents become morally shameful, the quality of their reasoning ceases to matter. The opinions’ authors are remembered not for the technical …

Who Is Leading The Early Years? An Investigation Of Early Childhood Pedagogical Leadership In School Settings, Amie L. Fabry

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The early years of primary school in Western Australian is a complex space fraught with confusion and challenge as teachers experience competing demands on their pedagogical practice. In the early years, Kindergarten (starting at 3 1/2 years) through to Year 2 are mandated to use the Principles and Practices of the Early Years Learning Framework and are school audited on a modified form of the National Quality Standard. However, Kindergarten and Pre-primary teachers report concerns about the pushed down curriculum and the impact that pressure for academic achievement and formal learning is having on their pedagogy. Early childhood pedagogical leadership …

An Examination Of Kinanthropometric And Physical Injury Risk Factors In Elite Australian Football, Callum J. Mccaskie

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Kinanthropometric assessment is an integral part of understanding an athlete’s physical profile and readiness for competition. This typically includes a variety of different assessments which serve to quantify body shape, proportion, and composition in a bid to understand human physiology. Common assessments include stature, body mass, limb ratios, body circumferences, body mass index, skinfold testing, body composition testing, and musculoskeletal morphological evaluations. Specifically, kinanthropometric evaluations have involved the characterisation of athletes according to sport, sex, competition level and playing position. While this has provided researchers and practitioners with greater insight into athletic phenotypes, more purposeful kinanthropometric assessments which focus on …

Carbon Geosequestration And Enhanced Oil Recovery In Geological Formations: Multi-Scale Analysis, Auby Baban

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Carbon geosequestration (CGS) has been recognized as a strategic solution to prevent/counter the catastrophic consequences of climate change. However, despite recent cutting-edge technical research, predicting quantitative CO2 trapping in geological formations via capillary trapping is currently scarce. Moreover, several aspects of multiphase flow characteristics of CO2/brine/rock systems, that greatly impact carbon capture and containment security, require further investigations. Furthermore, combining carbon geosequestration with Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) is an efficient and economically attractive technology to reduce global warming caused by emissions of anthropologic CO2 from the combustion of fossil fuels, whereby it offsets some of the costs of CO2 extraction. …

Disciplines Different Of Fine-Grained Acknowledged Entity：A Case Of Doctoral Dissertations In Chinese Humanities And Social Sciences, Jiaxin He, Shijin Zhang, Jiayu Zheng, Xinlong Chu, Chengzhi Zhang

Journal of Scientific Information Research

[Purpose/significance]Thesis acknowledgment is a public text in which the authors express their gratitude to individuals and institutions those support their research. It is helpful to understand the individuals and institutions that play a role in the cultivation of doctoral candidate in different disciplines by extracting the entities of acknowledgment and comparing the distribution of the objects of acknowledgment in the dissertations of different disciplines.[Method/process]In this paper, we gained more than 60 000 Chinese doctoral dissertations acknowledgment of 21 humanities and social sciences disciplines, extracted acknowledged entities from acknowledgment, and constructed a fine-grained classification system of acknowledgment entities. The classification system …

Arhs 5973 Seminar In Art History, Ana Pulido Rull

All Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Climate Choice Architecture, Felix Mormann

Faculty Scholarship

Personal choices drive global warming nearly as much as institutional decisions. Yet, policymakers overwhelmingly target large-scale industrial facilities for reductions in carbon emissions, with individual and household emissions a mere afterthought. Recent advances in behavioral economics, cognitive psychology, and related fields have produced a veritable behavior change revolution. Subtle changes to the choice environment, or nudges, have improved stake-holder decision-making in a wide range of contexts, from healthier food choices to better retirement planning. But the vast potential of choice architecture remains largely untapped for purposes of climate policy and action. This Article explores that untapped potential and makes the …

Opening The Virtual Window: How On-Line Processes Could Increase Access To Justice In The Criminal Legal System, Cynthia Alkon, Amy Schmitz

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the potential of technology to improve access to justice (A2J) in criminal courts, specifically for nonviolent misdemeanor cases. Despite a push for innovation in courts, criminal courts have been slow to embrace change and technological innovation due to factors like constitutional constraints and funding limitations. This article argues that criminal courts need "virtual windows" alongside traditional "brick and mortar doors" to enhance A2J. It proposes a problem-solving approach focusing on misdemeanor cases, a high-volume category where technology can have a significant impact. The paper highlights the importance of ensuring defendants make "knowing and intelligent" pleas despite the …

Communication Scholarship And The Quest For Open Access, Preston Carmack, Michael R. Kearney, Abbey Mccann

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

The advent of black, green, and gold open access publication models poses unique questions for scholars of communication. Plato’s (1956) classic critique of writing in the legend of Theuth and Thamus warned that the printed word “rolls about all over the place, falling into the hands of those who have no concern with it” (pp. 69–70). More than two 2 millennia later, scholars and administrators at all levels of the discipline face just such a phenomenon. As scholars of cyberspace debate whether “information wants to be free” (Levy, 2014), a communication perspective involves consideration of the importance of authorship and …

“A Cog In A Wheel That Gets It Done”: A Qualitative Study Of The Experiences Of Faculty Seeking Administrator Support, Lakesha Anderson, Mattea A. Garcia

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

This qualitative study sought to determine the stressors that motivate faculty to seek administrator support and examined faculty experiences of administrator support. Participants were 27 full- and part-time faculty members who completed a seven-item online questionnaire. Findings show that many participants felt unsupported by their administrator while navigating the stressful situations for which they sought help. This lack of support led to negative departmental cultures and faculty feeling insecure, undervalued, and isolated. This study highlights the need for policies and practices designed to build relationships between faculty and administrators. Efforts to improve the faculty-–administrator relationship can lead to increased understanding, …

The Impact Of Student Motivation, Preparation, And Learned Helplessness On Undergraduate Students’ Communication With Advisors, Heather Carmack

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine communication factors that influence students’ academic advising appointments, including predictors of scheduling future advising appointments. Undergraduate students’ motivation and feelings of learned helplessness were related to their advising meeting preparation and their communication involvement during advising meetings. Students who reported high levels of motivation and low levels of learned helplessness were more likely to prepare for advising meetings and be communicative during meetings. Students with immediate advisors were more likely to communicate with their advisors during meetings. Advising meeting preparation, motivation, and learned helplessness were significant factors in future advising appointments.

Learning To Think Like A Leader, Mark Hickson Iii

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

This is the second in a three-part series that the author has been working on. The first part was included in an earlier issue of this journal.

Journal Of The Association For Communication Administration: Complete Volume 40

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

This is the complete volume of JACA Volume 40.

Self-Efficacy And Research Output Among Librarians In Polytechnic Libraries In South-South, Nigeria, Osaheni Oni Cln, Esharenana E. Adomi

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Purpose: This article examines the self-efficacy and research output of librarians in polytechnic libraries in South-South Nigeria.

Design, methodology, and approach: This study adopted an ex-post facto research design and used a questionnaire to collect data from librarians in Polytechnic Libraries in South-South, Nigeria.

Findings: This study showed a moderate relationship between self-efficacy and the research output of librarians in polytechnic libraries in southern Nigeria. The study also revealed that self-efficacy will significantly predict research output among librarians in polytechnic libraries in southern Nigeria.

Originality/value: This study generated significant findings that are capable of encouraging polytechnic management …

An Empirical Analysis Of The Impact Of Covid-19 On Trade: Evidence From A Small Island African Economy, Z Khan Jaffur, V Tandrayen-Ragoobur, B Seetanah

Journal of African Trade

This study investigates the potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and related containment measures on the trade system of Mauritius for the period January 2010 to June 2021. As the pandemic spread across the globe due to high interconnectedness across countries, authorities has also established stringent health containment measures in the form of restrictions on people and businesses to slow the propagation of the virus. Being a small island economy highly dependent on international trade, Mauritius also faced the brunt of the pandemic which disrupted its economic activities and trade flows with its main trading partners. COVID-19 incidence and lockdown …

Stochastic Tumor-Immune Interaction Model With External Treatments And Time Delays: An Optimal Control Problem, H. J. Alsakaji, F. A. Rihan, K. Udhayakumar, F. El Ktaibi

All Works

Herein, we discuss an optimal control problem (OC-P) of a stochastic delay differential model to describe the dynamics of tumor-immune interactions under stochastic white noises and external treatments. The required criteria for the existence of an ergodic stationary distribution and possible extinction of tumors are obtained through Lyapunov functional theory. A stochastic optimality system is developed to reduce tumor cells using some control variables. The study found that combining white noises and time delays greatly affected the dynamics of the tumor-immune interaction model. Based on numerical results, it can be shown which variables are optimal for controlling tumor growth and …

An Exploration Of Human And Platform Intra-Actions In A Digital Teaching And Learning Environment, Sarah Julia Calderwood

All Works

This study uses a sociomaterial critical posthuman paradigm to examine possibilities, constraints, and tensions that come into view in the ‘intra-action’ between teachers and a digital environment. It considers how teacher subjectivities may be reimagined in new digitised visuospatial environments. This qualitative study utilises reflective interviews with things to illuminate general issues of subjectivities in human/digital contexts in a newly adopted Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) at a university in the Middle East. The interviews reveal several diffractions from the new entanglement created by introducing the new VLE. This highlights what it means to be a higher education educator in the …

Resilience, Crisis Management And Continuous Improvement Against The Impact Of Covid-19 On Employees’ Engagement And Emotions. Insights From A Cypriot Sme, Christina Nizamidou

All Works

COVID-19 forced governments and organizations to navigate unchartered waters and shift to remote work to prevent its spreading, aiming to be resilient and maintain their sustainability. Recent research showed that COVID-19 impacted employees’ engagement and emotions. As every crisis is unique and every organization experiences a crisis differently, this study adopts the single-case study research method to understand better how a Cypriot SME in the financial service dealt with COVID-19 and its aftermath. By interviewing multiple employees from all hierarchical levels, it assesses the company’s level of resilience. Moreover, it demonstrates the company’s challenges to preserve its commitment to continuous …

Overhead Based Cluster Scheduling Of Mixed Criticality Systems On Multicore Platform, Amjad Ali, Asad Masood Khattak, Shahid Iqbal, Omar Alfandi, Bashir Hayat, Muhammad Hameed Siddiqi, Adil Khan

All Works

The cluster-based technique is gaining focus for scheduling tasks of mixed-criticality (MC) real-time multicore systems. In this technique, the cores of the MC system are distributed in groups known as clusters. When all cores are distributed in clusters, the tasks are partitioned into clusters, which are scheduled on the cores within each cluster using a global approach. In this study, a cluster-based technique is adopted for scheduling tasks of real-time mixed-criticality systems (MCS). The Decreasing Criticality Decreasing Utilization with the worst-fit (DCDU-WF) technique is used for partitioning of tasks to clusters, whereas a novel mixed-criticality cluster-based boundary fair (MC-Bfair) scheduling …

Lstda: Link Stability And Transmission Delay Aware Routing Mechanism For Flying Ad-Hoc Network (Fanet), Farman Ali, Khalid Zaman, Babar Shah, Tariq Hussain, Habib Ullah, Altaf Hussain, Daehan Kwak

All Works

The paper presents a new protocol called Link Stability and Transmission Delay Aware (LSTDA) for Flying Ad-hoc Network (FANET) with a focus on network corridors (NC). FANET consists of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that face challenges in avoiding transmission loss and delay while ensuring stable communication. The proposed protocol introduces a novel link stability with network corridors priority node selection to check and ensure fair communication in the entire network. The protocol uses a Red-Black (R-B) tree to achieve maximum channel utilization and an advanced relay approach. The paper evaluates LSTDA in terms of End-to-End Delay (E2ED), Packet Delivery Ratio …

Explainable Machine Learning For Evapotranspiration Prediction, Bamory Koné, Rima Grati, Bassem Bouaziz, Khouloud Boukadi

All Works

No abstract provided.