Digital Commons Network^™

Shutdown As Strategy: A Repeated Game Model Of Government Shutdowns With Audience Costs And Credible Commitment Problems, Tanisha Mazumder

Locus: The Seton Hall Journal of Undergraduate Research

Government shutdowns impose enormous costs on the economy and on federal workers, and yet they keep happening, and they keep getting longer. Why? The existing literature treats shutdowns as either a byproduct of legislative gridlock or a symptom of partisan polarization, but neither account explains why rational political actors repeatedly choose an outcome that nobody wants. This paper argues that shutdowns are not bargaining failures but strategic equilibrium outcomes, sustained by the political cost of being seen to back down. I model government shutdown as a repeated Chicken game between Democrats and Republicans with three parameters: the policy benefit of …

Debate Driven By Districts: Nullification At The Local Level In South Carolina, Dillon Kantor

Locus: The Seton Hall Journal of Undergraduate Research

Protective tariffs have long been a controversial topic in the United States, as individual states often have grievances with their implementation. The most dangerous of these controversies was the Nullification Crisis, a sectional conflict that almost led to South Carolina’s secession from the Union 30 years before the Civil War. Despite the wealth of scholarship that has covered the Nullification Crisis, no analysis has fully concentrated on the debates that drove the conflict on the local level. These local meetings and debates sought to settle where individual districts stood on key issues underscoring the crisis, such as the tariff itself, …

Nanoparticle-Based Innovations In Lung Cancer Treatment: Challenges And Opportunities, Shailesh Sharma, Chamanpreet Kaur, Gurminder Kaur, Surajpal Verma

Journal of Food and Drug Analysis

Nanoparticles (NPs) present a therapeutic revolution in the context of lung cancer, having several and unique advantages over many traditional drugs, such as increased specificity, minimal side effects on healthy tissues, and increased efficacy. It definitely provides a detailed understanding of preparation techniques for nanoparticles for lung cancer treatment, as well as assessment approaches and therapeutic applications of nanoparticles in cancer treatment. The incorporation of drugs into nanoparticle-based systems is then critically discussed with emphasis on their capability to circumvent MDR and target tumour cell lines. Also, the review mentioned the development in the agnostic application, the nanoparticles that are …

Signal-Anchored Growth Engine, Shreyas Prabhurao Kc, Ajay Raman Rayapati, Pranay Ashok Vyas, Praveen Subramonia Pillai

Defensive Publications Series

SIGNAL-ANCHORED GROWTH ENGINE

ABSTRACT

The present disclosure provides a computer-implemented method for generating quantified, evidence-grounded sales opportunities from heterogeneous payment-network data. A governed knowledge substrate is maintained, having a semantic metrics layer that defines certified metrics decoupled from physical storage and a signal ontology and knowledge graph that models, as typed entities and typed relationships, clients, products, enrollment relationships between the clients and the products, and upsell-candidacy relationships between the clients and the products. A selection of a client and a product is received. A planner produces an ordered analysis plan. A quantitative analyst, a relationship analyst, and a market …

Reward-Driven Agent-Aware Fraud Score Recalibration For Detecting Agent-Disguised Human Payments In Agentic Commerce, Shashika Ranga Muramudalige, Ravi Shankar Maruvada, Harishkumar Sundarji Majithiya

Defensive Publications Series

The present disclosure relates to a reward-driven, agent-aware fraud score recalibration system for detecting agent-disguised human payments in agentic commerce. The system operates as a model-agnostic overlay on an existing fraud scoring model and does not require access to model parameters, architecture, training data, feature importances, or reason codes. Raw transaction and session data are processed to extract behavioral signals, determine an agent probability and agent type, and evaluate behavioral signals against human and agent-type-specific behavioral baselines. Signals expected for legitimate agents, including off-hours activity, cross-border activity, non-personalized queries, absence of session warmup, and programmatic request timing, may be suppressed …

Method And System For Cross-Instance Prediction And Auditable Decision-Provenance Receipt Generation For Autonomous Actors, Eric Zavesky

Defensive Publications Series

A system and method for cross-instance prediction and auditable decision-provenance receipt generation for autonomous actors. The system comprises a local sensor suite and world model resident on an autonomous actor, an institutional prediction service maintaining a learned evidence model built from anonymous sensor submissions contributed by autonomous actors across multiple operators, and a decision receipt generator. In operation, the autonomous actor queries the institutional prediction service with its sensor observations and contextual state; the service returns an evidentiary prediction derived from the aggregated cross-instance evidence model operating on spatial and temporal axes; and the receipt generator cryptographically binds the submitted …

Shaniyra Scott V. Valerie Arkoosh

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

John Grove V. Mml Investors Services Llc

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Jarvis Roberts V. State Of Pennsylvania

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Spartan Daily, October 20, 2026, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2026

Volume 167, Issue 25

October 1, 2026

The Breeze, 2020-

No abstract provided.

Fines, Fees, And The Carceral Economic Conditions Of Public Education, Thalia González

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In this Article, I apply an expanded concept of education carcerality to identify and analyze a largely unexamined modality of punitive economic governance—intra-system educational fines and fees. Distinguished from other forms of childhood financial sanctions, including the criminalization of ordinary child and adolescent behavior in schools through the use of municipal fines and fees, these carceral-penal practices are exclusively defined, imposed, and collected within school systems themselves. Drawing on original data from 101 publicly available policies governing the two largest school districts by student population in each state and the District of Columbia, this Article contributes to the literature with …

Life After Moelis: A Trulia Moment For Governance Claims?, Kyle A. Pinder

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

At the height of the merger-tax litigation bubble, the Delaware Court of Chancery issued its In re Trulia Stockholder Litigation decision, which disincentivized meritless M&A disclosure claims. Similarly, for the past several years, Delaware corporations have faced a wave of facial validity challenges to charter, bylaw, and governance-agreement provisions. Most of these claims end the same way: The corporation amends the challenged provision and pays a mootness fee, often while maintaining that the provision was lawful all along. Two recent Delaware Supreme Court decisions may disrupt that sequence. Kellner v. AIM ImmunoTech Inc. confirmed that a facial validity challenge fails …

Deportation By Deception: Coerced Administrative Voluntary Departures And The Illusion Of Choice, Fonda Pham

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Administrative voluntary departure allows noncitizens facing removal to leave the United States by waiving their right to a hearing before an immigration judge. Although this process provides noncitizens with a quicker alternative to a lengthy removal hearing, the process is not always as “voluntary” as its name suggests. Over the past four decades, noncitizens have alleged that immigration officers threatened and intimidated them in order to obtain waivers of consent, including threats against family members, prolonged detention, and physical abuse. Although the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution states that all persons physically present in the U.S. must receive due process …

Integrating Ai In Lesson Planning: Critical Reflection And Thoughtful Implementation, Chris Wilcoxen, Amanda Steiner, Julie Bell

The Interdisciplinary Journal for Research on Pedagogy and Learning Design, Vol. 1, Issue 1., Fall 2026

If generative AI can reduce the cognitive load associated with preliminary planning tasks, beginning teachers might gain space to develop their lessons and adapt instruction more quickly. This study employed a directed qualitative content analysis to examine how beginning teachers modify AI-generated lesson plans in ways that reflect pedagogical reasoning. Data collection occurred throughout the instructional cycle. Artifacts analyzed included 1) modified AI-generated lesson plans 2) recorded lesson implementation videos, 3) written or video reflections, and 4) open ended survey questions. The study yielded 88 qualitative artifacts and 26 open-ended responses. Findings indicate that while AI provides a useful baseline …

The Myth Of Evenhanded Administration: Integrating Individual Heterogeneity Into Benefit–Cost Analysis, Richard L. Revesz, Burçin Ünel, Sarah Wheaton

Duke Law Journal

In 2025, the Trump administration ended long-standing efforts to determine the extent to which pollution has disproportionate impacts on different communities, including overburdened and disadvantaged communities. But, at the same time, it reaffirmed its commitment to performing benefit–cost analysis to analyze the consequences of regulations. These approaches are mutually inconsistent. A proper benefit–cost analysis simply cannot be done without considering the distribution of a policy's impacts.

Generally, benefit–cost analyses are conducted based on impacts on an average member of the population—that is, a person with median characteristics. Often, however, the populations affected by government policies vary from the median in …

Moving Beyond Comparators: Rethinking Title Vii Intersectional Claims, Virali Patel

Duke Law Journal

Title VII promises to protect employees from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. However, for plaintiffs who assert claims on the basis of more than one identity, that promise often falls apart in court. This Note argues that the comparator requirement is part of the issue. Courts often demand that plaintiffs point to a "similarly situated" coworker who both was treated better and resembles the plaintiff in almost every respect but for the protected trait. Because antidiscrimination doctrine most commonly analyzes race and sex as separate, non-overlapping categories, intersectional plaintiffs face an evidentiary bind: Comparators available …

Overbreadth, Facial Validity, And The Nature Of First Amendment Rights, Randy J. Kozel

Duke Law Journal

The doctrine of First Amendment overbreadth instructs judges to treat certain statutes as unenforceable even if they have lawful applications. The theory is that if a statute restricts too much protected speech, it is invalid on its face. The fact that it has some lawful applications will not save it.

This Article seeks to redefine the relationship between overbreadth, facial invalidity, and judicial review of speech restrictions. It disentangles overbreadth concerns from facial defects, shifting the focus to the underlying sources of constitutional infirmity. The Article's central claim is that it is impossible for a statute to fail as overbroad. …

Grants Pass And Its New Defendants: Looking To Drug Courts To Improve Homeless Courts, Paige Kupas

Duke Law Journal

The U.S. Supreme Court's 2024 decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson was consequential both for the judicial system and for homeless defendants. The Court's holding that ordinances punishing sleeping and camping outside were not cruel and unusual punishments under the Eighth Amendment opened the floodgates for municipalities to either pass or enhance enforcement of such ordinances. What followed was an increase in the number of homeless defendants in the court system. Not only does this Grants Pass result put more pressure on already overburdened court dockets, but it also exacerbates an already broken system in which the most …

“I’M A Biracial Person Who Looks White In A Black Man’S Rap Game”: Exploring Expressions Of Multiracialized Masculine Vulnerability In Logic’S “Everybody”, Matthew Oware

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The field of Black vulnerability studies includes analyses of Black men rap artists’ sexual debut, romantic relationships, mental stress, self-medication, and suicidal thoughts. I expand this analysis to Black-white mixed-race men who express emotional vulnerability regarding their racial identities. Using a case study of the song “Everybody” by Logic—a Black and white, mixed-race man—I find that Logic expresses joy and pride in his Black and biracial identity. Similarly, I observe that he expresses anger and frustration toward those who question, dismiss, or degrade his Black and biracial identities, a pattern paralleled in research on multiracial individuals. By analyzing his radio …

Report On Open Educational Resource And Open Access Publication Practices Of Winona State University Educators, Kayla Olson

Library Faculty Works

This report presents the findings from a survey disseminated to all employees over Winter 2026 that focused on Winona State University educators' knowledge of and practices around copyright/intellectual property, open educational resources (OERs), and open access (OA) publishing. It establishes a baseline understanding of our educators’ advanced information and professional development needs, and can be replicated in the future if needed. In all, responses suggest that there may be continued interest in professional development and support around OERs, some interest in professional development around OA publishing, and potential benefits to further faculty and staff development around copyright/intellectual property. The author …

3890-98 Broadway Assoc. Llc V. Hiraldo

All Decisions

App Term 1st affirms (Ortiz, J.) denial of tenant's motion to vacate default judgment. The process server's affidavit constitutes prima facie evidence of proper service under RPAPL § 735(1), and tenant's mere conclusory denial of receipt was insufficient to rebut the presumption. Tenant also failed to demonstrate a meritorious defense.

East Harlem Mec Parcel C, L.P. V. Smalls

All Decisions

App Term 1st affirms (Ortiz, J.) denial of landlord's motion to renew filed nearly two years after the original dismissal order. Landlord offered no reasonable justification for failing to present the new evidence in the original motion. Additionally, the new evidence — an ex parte unsworn DOB letter — does not constitute a formal agency opinion or definitive final agency determination entitled to deference, so it would not have changed the outcome.

Lafayette Nelson Apts., Llc V. Perez

All Decisions

App Term 1st affirms lower court post-trial order finding that tenant did not make himself or his apartment available for repairs, defeating his warranty-of-habitability defense. The appellate court accords due deference to lower courts on matters of credibility, and upholds the determination.

525 W. 52 Prop. Owner V. Tsokanos

All Decisions

App Term 1st affirms (Ortiz, J.) in objectionable conduct holdover based on unlawful short-term rentals. Tenant consented to the accelerated trial date and offered no good reason for an adjournment; applications for adjournments are addressed to the court's sound discretion and are upheld absent an abuse of discretion.

Strategy Is Not Conscience: The Moskovitz Perspective, Artificial Intelligence, And The Moral Imperatives Of Military Command And Control, James Giordano

Strategic Insights

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers significant advantages for military decision-making, but its ability to identify effective strategies does not guarantee ethical or legal justification. Building on Dr. Peter Moskovitz’s distinction between strategy and conscience, Dr. James Giordano addresses the risks of overreliance on AI-generated recommendations and the need to preserve human judgment, authority, and accountability in military operations. He introduces Synthesized Command and Control (SYNTHComm), a proposed framework for integrating AI capabilities with human command, and offers five recommendations for the Department of War focused on command authority, system validation, operator training, and international norms. The article emphasizes that military AI …

Integrating Tacit And Explicit Knowledge Across Construction Projects: A Qualitative Evidence Synthesis Of Knowledge Transfer, Lessons Learned, And Organizational Learning, Felix M. Delmonte

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Abstract

Construction projects rely on knowledge distributed among temporary, multidisciplinary teams, firms, and lifecycle stages. Practical judgment often remains with experienced participants, while written accounts may omit the conditions and reasoning needed for later use. This research examines how construction scholarship explains the movement of project knowledge from capture through sharing and retrieval to reuse on another project. It treats these activities as distinct, and considers tacit expertise alongside explicit records, with attention to who contributes knowledge, who needs it, and where it must travel. The planned approach is a qualitative synthesis of published, peer-reviewed research from 2022–2026. The available …

The Law Of General Average, Luca Anderlini, Joshua C. Teitelbaum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Part of a ship’s cargo is jettisoned in order to save the vessel and the remaining cargo from imminent peril. How should the loss be shared among the cargo owners? The law of general average, an ancient principle of maritime law, prescribes that the owners share the loss proportionally according to the respective values of their cargo. We analyze whether the law of general average is a truthful and efficient mechanism. That is, we investigate whether it induces truthful reporting of cargo values and yields a Pareto efficient allocation in equilibrium. We show that the law of general average is …

Altered Sperm Dna Methylation Provides An Epigenetic Route From Overweight And Older Men To Intergenerational Disease Transmission., Mathieu Schulz, Xiaojian Shao, Romain Lambrot, Christine Lafleur, Donovan Chan, Marie-Charlotte Dumargne, Amanda J. Macfarlane, Sergey Moskovtsev, Guillaume Bourque, Tomi Pastinen, Clifford Librach, Hope Weiler, Jacquetta Trasler, Sarah Kimmins

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

The occurrence of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders has been steadily increasing for decades, yet we have little understanding of modes of inheritance implicated in these diseases. Epidemiology studies have revealed an association between an elevated paternal Body Mass Index (BMI) and age as factors implicated in increased risk for neurodevelopmental disorders in children. Epigenetic regulation of gene expression by DNA methylation at cytosines is susceptible to environmental, diet, and lifestyle changes. Yet, whether a man's BMI and age influence the sperm methylome and potentially impact offspring development remains unresolved. Using MethylC capture sequencing, we identified over 38,000 differentially methylated CpGs in …

Constructing The Cyber Workforce Gap: Measurement And Its Consequences, Ryan Straight

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Cyber workforce-gap figures steer federal strategy, industry advocacy, and the growth of educational programs. Rather than estimating the U.S. gap, this review examines how the estimates are made: through job-posting analytics, survey-based estimation, and federal accounting, each of which must assume its way from instrument to labor market. A census of this journal's complete run illustrates what those figures underwrite in one venue: of 176 items published across eleven years, 51 invoke a labor-market workforce claim, 46 treat it as settled fact, and only one, an editorial, interrogates it. Meanwhile, the producers and auditors of those figures have diverged. Between …