Digital Commons Network^™

Interplanetary Risk Regulation, Jonathan B. Wiener, Charles (Chase) Hamilton

Faculty Scholarship

Space exploration promises new opportunities but also new risks. After centuries of national settlements and international conflicts on Earth, and the Cold War era of two great power states racing to the Moon, today we see a rapidly proliferating arena of actors, both governmental and non-governmental, undertaking bold new ventures off-Earth while posing an array of new risks. These multiple activities, actors, and risks raise the prospects of regulatory gaps, costs, conflicts, and complexities that warrant reconsideration and renovation of legacy legal regimes such as the international space law agreements. New approaches are needed, beyond current national and international law, …

The Dangerous Rise Of Dual-Use Objects In War, Oona A. Hathaway, Azmat Khan, Mara R. Revkin

Faculty Scholarship

Each day, the news brings stories of military attacks on schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, electrical facilities, and other critical civilian infrastructure. The militaries attacking these objects often seek to justify the attacks by claiming that the civilian objects are being used by militants. Objects that are believed to have both military and civilian use are often referred to as “dual-use” objects. Even though the term has become common, international law does not recognize a “dual-use” object as a legally meaningful category. Rather, the postwar Geneva Conventions that lie at the core of modern international humanitarian law establish a bright line …

New Insights On Expert Opinion About Eyewitness Memory Research, Travis M. Seale-Carlisle, Adele Quigley-Mcbride, Jennifer E. F. Teitcher, William E. Crozier, Chad S. Dodson, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

Experimental psychologists investigating eyewitness memory have periodically gathered their thoughts on a variety of eyewitness memory phenomena. Courts and other stakeholders of eyewitness research rely on the expert opinions reflected in these surveys to make informed decisions. However, the last survey of this sort was published more than 20 years ago, and the science of eyewitness memory has developed since that time. Stakeholders need a current database of expert opinions to make informed decisions. In this article, we provide that update. We surveyed 76 scientists for their opinions on eyewitness memory phenomena. We compared these current expert opinions to expert …

“Murder The Media”: Press Freedom, Violence, And The Public Sphere, Joseph Blocher

Faculty Scholarship

The first goal of this chapter is to argue that the press as an institution is entitled to special solicitude under the First Amendment, not only because it is textually specified in the Constitution or because it serves important roles such as checking public and private power, but because it can contribute to the marketplace of ideas in ways that a healthy democracy needs. In other words, the press as an institution can provide an important link between the First Amendment’s epistemic and democratic values. The chapter’s second goal is to provide a rough and preliminary sketch of the relationship …

Quantifying Riverine Plastic Pollution Using Participatory Science And Trash Traps, Nancy Lauer, Madison Haley, Emily Sutton, Rob Clark, Hannah Woodburn, Emma Crider, Kaity D’Angelo, Cecilia Kammire, Brandon Jones, David Caldwell, Taylor Register, Emily Fritz, Samantha Krop, Riley Lewis, Lisa Rider, Edgar Miller, Stephanie Stephens, Louisa Pitney, Emma Kaufman, Emma Stewart, Jason A. Somarelli, Michelle B. Nowlin

Faculty Scholarship

Local governments and environmental nonprofits are increasingly using trash traps to intercept and remove escaped plastics and other litter from stormwater systems and surface waters. In this paper, we demonstrate the utility of these devices for collecting data that provide insights into riverine litter sources and solutions. Between 2021 and 2024, seven Waterkeeper organizations in North Carolina maintained 21 in‐stream trash traps in watersheds across the state and trained staff and volunteers to record the types and quantities of litter during cleanouts. Over this period, Waterkeeper organizations and their volunteers documented 150,750 pieces of litter captured by traps. Captured litter …

Rethinking Human Rights Treaty Withdrawals: A Process-Based Approach, Laurence R. Helfer, Başak Çalı

Faculty Scholarship

This article presents the case for reconsidering the rules governing withdrawals from human rights treaties that permit unilateral exit. Once a rarity, such withdrawals have been on the rise across the globe. We propose a process-based approach to address this trend. The heart of our proposal focuses on sequenced domestic and international processes to publicise and scrutinise the nearly unfettered authority of executive branch officials to exit from such human rights treaties. This approach requires that national executives explain and justify a decision to withdraw, which can then be evaluated by a wide range of domestic and international actors. Drawing …

A Critique Of Findings On Gun Ownership, Use, And Imagined Use From The 2021 National Firearms Survey: Response To William English, Deborah Azraek, Joseph Blocher, Philip J. Cook, David Hemenway, Matthew Miller

Faculty Scholarship

For a paper that has not yet been through peer review or even been formally published, William English’s “2021 National Firearms Survey” has been remarkably prominent in gun rights advocacy and scholarship. As of December 2024, it has been cited in roughly sixty-five briefs, invoked at oral argument in the Supreme Court and multiple courts of appeals, and regularly cited in public writings and published academic work.

This response is offered in the spirit of a peer review. Our focus is on methodological issues, questionable statistical results, and problematic conclusions. Because of serious methodological issues, English’s draft fails to provide …

The Invention Of The Judicial Administrative State, Marin K. Levy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Defining The Field Of Judicial Administration, Marin K. Levy

Faculty Scholarship

This Keynote address, as part of a symposium on "Theorizing the Judicial Process," aims to make a case for the field of judicial administration and to define the field more generally. Specifically, it seeks to raise the organizing questions of the field and to note the kind of work--descriptive, empirical, and theoretical--that is needed to answer them. The hope is to map out a collective research agenda for courts scholars to pursue into the future for the benefit of the academy and judiciary, both.

Judge–Scholar Collaboration And The Second Amendment, Andrew Willinger, Eric Ruben

Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholarship is overly abstract and theoretical, making it unhelpful to judges and lawyers. That, at least, is the classic critique from the bench. When it comes to the Second Amendment, however, a different pattern has emerged: judges consistently cite law review articles and look to the academy for guidance. Most recently, in United States v. Rahimi, some Justices went further, implicitly inviting more scholarly work to help the Court answer open questions raised by its novel methodological approach to the Second Amendment. This Article explores this aberrant trend.

We raise several explanations for the distinctive scholarly role in …

Multi-Risk Governance Of Solar Radiation Modification, Jonathan B. Wiener, Tyler Felgenhauer, Mark E. Borsuk

Faculty Scholarship

Solar radiation modification (SRM) presents important challenges to risk regulation and governance, arising from the array of multiple risks that SRM may influence. SRM would not simply reverse climate change, but could pose further ancillary impacts, depending on the method of SRM, such as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), marine cloud brightening (MCB), or a space-based planetary sunshade system (PSS). We identify multiple risks that SRM may influence, both biophysical and sociopolitical, to be compared to the multiple risks that may be affected by greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation and climate adaptation. This multi-risk framework helps analysts and decision makers identify, evaluate, …

Rethinking Behavior - Winter 2025, Midwest Symposium For Leadership In Behavior Disorders

ReThinking Behavior Magazine

A magazine for professionals serving children and youth with behavioral needs.

Winter 2025, Volume 8, Issue 2

The Impact Of Structural Gamification On Student Motivation And Engagement In A Middle School Language Arts Classroom, Natalie Campbell

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Engagement through gamification can play a crucial role in enhancing student motivation. Gamification provides direct feedback, makes learning interactive, fosters collaboration, and makes learning more autonomous (Kuh, 2001; Reeve & Tseng, 2011). Including game-thinking and game mechanics in the classroom adds an aspect of engagement that may otherwise be lacking.

This action research study explored the impact of structural gamification on student engagement and motivation when incorporated in a middle school language arts classroom. Using a mixed-methods approach, the researcher measured student engagement and motivation. It reported detailed perceptions of participants through survey responses, examined achievement data from summative assessments, …

Educational Leadership In Model Plc Schools: Actions That Lead To Sustained Success, Nathan L. Wear

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of the current study was to identify leadership characteristics and actions by administrators in Model Professional Learning Community (PLC) status schools and identify what actions led to achieving Model PLC School status. The current study explored how effective PLC implementation impacts student achievement. Guided by DuFour et al.’s (2006) framework for PLCs (i.e., focus on learning, collaboration, and results), the current study investigated specific leadership behaviors that school leaders in Model PLC schools use to leverage results. The study sought to answer two research questions. First, what are the key characteristics and actions of the administrators in Model …

Meta-Learning Approaches For Causal Discovery In Dynamic Healthcare And Robotics Environments, Hayder Abbood Md Facp

Mesopotamian Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

Healthcare and robotics dynamic task domains are also known to be both complex and time-varying systems where reasoning about causal links are important for making reliable decisions. But causal structures in these domains are difficult to ascertain with limited data, distribution shifts, and changing environments. Meta-learning (or learning to learn) is a promising approach to combating these two obstacles by learning from experience across tasks to quickly adapt to new task environments. In this paper we provide a new framework that combines ideas from meta-learning and causal discovery, whose objective is to discover the underlying cause effect relationships in sequential, …

Data Mining Driven Segmentation Of Health Insurance Policyholders Using K-Means Clustering, Farah Ali Khairi, Laith Farhan, Oluwaseun A. Adelaja

Mesopotamian Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

This study illustrates a data‐driven approach to the segmentation of health insurance policyholders based on K-Means clustering of an open insurance dataset. Key demographic and financial features like age, body mass index (BMI), dependents, annual medical spending, and premium payment were normalized first to ensure comparability. The optimal number of clusters (k = 3) was determined using silhouette analysis, and three clusters were formed: (1) young, low‐cost individuals, (2) middle‐aged medium‐cost individuals, and (3) old, high‐cost individuals. Cluster centroids provide actionable profiles that can be utilized by insurers for target marketing, risk profiling, and development of customized plans. A set …

Accessing Online And Remote Learning Platforms In Kenyan Remote Areas During Covid-19 Pandemic, Florence Deya, Jane Rarieya

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

Online learning has taken root and with the advancement in technology more and more educators are embracing online learning. During the COVID-19 pandemic, with total shut down of face-to-face learning, the Kenyan government had moved learning online and remotely. To find out on how learners in remote areas were experiencing learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, a study was carried out using rapid ethnography design. Five final year secondary students were sampled. Data was collected through interviews, observations, and document analysis. This paper reports on the findings of online and remote learning platforms, which were available, accessed, and preferred by the …

Minimizing Cpu Utilization For Job Scheduling Problems By The Advanced Round Robin Method: A Pragmatic Perspective, Haribhau R Bhapkar, Pankaj R Chandre, Parikshit Mahalle

ASEAN Journal on Science and Technology for Development

CPU scheduling issues include minimizing waiting time for processes, ensuring fairness in resource allocation, and optimizing throughput. Balancing these objectives can be challenging, as improving one aspect may negatively impact another, making it essential to design efficient scheduling algorithms. This work presents an innovative approach to enhance CPU utilization through the development of a Result-Based Round Robin Scheduling Algorithm. Traditional Round Robin Scheduling methods often face challenges in efficiently allocating CPU time, leading to suboptimal system performance. In response to these limitations, the proposed method introduces a result-oriented strategy that dynamically adjusts time quantum allocations based on the execution progress …

Distance Metric Learning Techniques For The Performance Improvement Of Ml-Knn And Ranking-Svm-Based Multi-Label Pattern Classification, Shajee Mohan B. S., Sneha S Mohan

ASEAN Journal on Science and Technology for Development

A multi-label pattern classification system tries to predict the set of class labels of a test example by learning from the training examples with the relevant label sets. Classification that involve datasets having multiple labels found immense of applications in pattern analysis tasks involving image, music and video. A test sample can be labeled to indicate different objects, people, music categories or concepts. Classification problems involving data having multiple labels, have to consider training dataset associated with variety of labels. Multi-label extensions of popular algorithms, kNN and Support Vector Machine (SVM) called Multi-label kNN (ML-kNN) and Ranking-SVM are commonly used …

Solid Waste Management Strategies In Coastal Areas Affected By Seawater Flood Disaster, Adib Khoirul Anas, Maryono Maryono, Hartuti Purnaweni

ASEAN Journal on Science and Technology for Development

Solid waste in areas affected by seawater floods must be handled specifically because people often dispose of solid waste on flooded land. This research aims to identify the performance of the community to manage solid waste and solid waste management strategy, solid waste measurement using SNI method 19-3964-1994. Analysis of land affected by seawater floods shows that 12 villages are flooded. Communities in coastal areas are not optimal in managing solid waste because the government has never given directions to manage solid waste in a good way, the facilities and marketing are inadequate so that solid waste is often not …

Potential Of Green Synthesis Of Silver And Gold Nanoparticles For The Management Of Metabolic Associated Steatotic Liver Disease: A Mini Review, Atiqah Suhaili, Ya Chee Lim, Mei Ann Lim, Lee Hoon Lim, Mohammad Mansoob Khan, Monowarul Mobin Siddique

ASEAN Journal on Science and Technology for Development

Metabolic-associated steatotic liver disease is a metabolic disorder with limited pharmacological treatment options and only one approved medication to date. MASLD can be asymptomatic in its earlier stage and hence, prevention of this disease progression is the most effective approach. Recently, green-synthesized nanoparticles, particularly silver (AgNPs) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), have gained interest due to their eco-friendly production, biocompatibility, and bioactive properties. This review highlights the biosynthesis of AgNPs and AuNPs using medicinal plant extracts and their reported biological effects relevant to MASLD management including anti-hyperlipidemic, anti-diabetic, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. While findings are promising, further mechanistic studies and preclinical …

Analysis Of Sea Level Rise In The Subduction Zone At The Coastal Area Of Selaru Island And Yamdena Island In Tanimbar Islands District, Ibnu A. Azies, Engki A. Kisnarti, Johar Setiyadi, Widodo S. Pranowo

ASEAN Journal on Science and Technology for Development

The phenomenon of sea level rise (SLR) is a global issue affecting coastal areas. This study analyzes SLR and land deformation in the subduction zone of the Tanimbar Islands, specifically the coastal regions of Adaut on Selaru Island and Saumlaki on Yamdena Island. Statistical methods and the CEEMDAN algorithm were used to process data on tides, Sea Level Anomaly (SLA), Sea Surface Temperature (SST), and the influence of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) over 30 years (1993–2022). Additionally, land deformation was analyzed using Sentinel-1A imagery. The results indicate that uplift is more dominant than subsidence, with an average annual uplift …

Unwritten Rules And Oral Transmission In Architectural Proportion Systems: Case Study Of Bubungan Tinggi House, Huzairin. Muhammad Deddy, Dila Nadya Andini, Rudi Hartono, Anna Oktaviana, Dahliani Dahliani

ASEAN Journal on Science and Technology for Development

The proportional systems in vernacular architecture often exist without formal written codification, raising questions about their transmission across generations. Bubungan Tinggi House which is a replica of the Banjar Kingdom palace was built by Banjarese merchants and aristocrats from the 16th to the 19th centuries, showing a uniform aesthetic quality, which indicates a regularity in the proportions of its form. However, no historical written manuals detailing these proportions are known to exist. To prove the existence of regularity in the Bubungan Tinggi House proportion system, research was conducted by taking 7 Bubungan Tinggi House samples spread across South Kalimantan province, …

Numerical Modeling Of Performance And Phenomena In A Single Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell, Doan Nguyen Cong, Hiep Nguyen Ha

ASEAN Journal on Science and Technology for Development

One of the methods to protect our environment is to convert the fuel's chemical energy directly into electricity, bypassing the fuel's combustion process. This method is implemented in devices called fuel cells. Among them, the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is widely used in practice because it has outstanding advantages such as high power density and efficiency, low operating temperature and noise, compactness, fast start-up, and, most importantly, only releases water, entirely safe for the environment. The paper presents a method for selecting materials for manufacturing PEMFC components, making a single PEMFC model based on the materials chosen, then …

Algorithmic Selection Of Iconic Constitutions, Tejas Ramdas, Patrick Chung-Chia Huang, Nuno Garoupa, Martin T. Wells, Yun-Chien Chang, Tom Ginsburg

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

This chapter examines the influence of pre-20th century constitutions using a quantitative approach, comparing expert-selected “iconic” constitutions with those identified algorithmically. In prior work, human experts identified four influential constitutions: the U.S. 1791, France 1791, Spain 1812, and France 1848. Here, we employ a genetic algorithm and Document Term Matrix (DTM) analysis to assess which one or four of 180 pre-1899 constitutions had the greatest textual impact on 581 post-1900 constitutions. Two criteria guide the selection: coverage and originality. Through iterative optimization, the algorithm identifies the most textually influential constitutions, allowing for a direct comparison with expert selections. This chapter …

The U.S. Forced Labor Import Ban: A Tool For Raising Labor Standards In Supply Chains?, Jennifer Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Forced labor is rampant across global supply chains. Addressing it at individual sites of production results in a game of whack-a-mole. An effective response must target the structural drivers of the problem: the large firms at the top and middle of supply chains that pressure suppliers at the bottom to cut labor costs in order to remain competitive. In the absence of other U.S. laws that address the structural causes of forced labor, this Article argues that the forced labor import ban in section 307 of the United States Tariff Act may have the potential to be utilized by civil …

Race, The Academy, And The Constitution Of The War On Drugs, I. Bennett Capers, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Scholarship

The war on drugs is widely viewed as a policy failure. Despite massive government intrusions on personal liberty, drug addiction, overdoses, and drug-related violence have only increased since the war was declared in 1971. David Pozen’s new book, The Constitution of the War on Drugs, reveals a constitutional failure as well. Pozen chronicles a host of constitutional arguments that American litigants deployed to protect a “right” to use drugs with surprising, if fleeting, success. Pozen asks what might have been, exploring why the courts backtracked and effectively removed the Constitution as a meaningful obstacle to drug prohibitions. 

This Review …

Now?, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

This essay brings Afrofuturism, and its notion of the plasticity of time, to imagine how we will think of the past in the future and, more specifically, to consider what will "enrapture, haunt, and/or plague thinkers in the future." Although many answers come to mind, including this country's original sin-slavery-ultimately this essay turns to our current technologies, especially policing technologies. And this essay turns the question around to ask, "How should we in the present think about the future? And what can we do now to change it?"

Under Political Pressure: How Courts And Congress Can Help Prosecutors Do Justice, Bruce A. Green, Rebecca Roiphe

Faculty Scholarship

Some subordinate federal prosecutors faced a challenging professional dilemma in the early days of the second Trump Administration. It arose from the tension between their role as public officials and lawyers who owe fiduciary duties to the public and their role as Department of Justice (DOJ) employees who take direction from higher-ups. The DOJ leadership directed these subordinate prosecutors to use their considerable power in ways evidently designed to advance partisan political objectives. This was contrary to the clear understanding previously expressed by courts, the legal profession, and the DOJ itself that prosecutors have a duty to seek justice, which …

Novel Sex Work Anti-Discrimination Protections, Chi Adanna Mgbako, Christine Eldabh, Katie Falk, Emma Pennie

Faculty Scholarship

Sex workers throughout the world experience ubiquitous and acute discrimination in every facet of their lives due to deeprooted stigma. Societal fear and hatred of sex workers often lead to their exclusion from healthcare services, financial institutions, and accessible housing, as well as their marginalization by the carceral state, family law systems, media, and politicians. Between 2022 and 2024, the Australian jurisdictions of the Northern Territory, Queensland, and Victoria passed groundbreaking legislation codifying novel anti-discrimination protections for sex workers. These laws are the first in the world to explicitly protect sex workers against discrimination in accommodation, employment, government services, and …