Digital Commons Network^™

Hidden Contracts, Shmuel I. Becher, Uri Benoliel

BYU Law Review

Transparency is a promising means for enhancing democratic values, countering corruption, and reducing power abuse. Nonetheless, the potential of transparency in the domain of consumer contracts is untapped. This Article suggests utilizing the power of transparency to increase consumer access to justice, better distribute technological gains between businesses and consumers, and deter sellers from breaching their consumer contracts while exploiting consumers’ inferior position.

In doing so, this Article focuses on what we dub “Hidden Contracts.” Part I conceptualizes the idea of hidden contracts. It first defines hidden contracts as consumer form contracts that firms unilaterally modify and subsequently remove from …

Twenty-First Century Split: Partisan, Racial, And Gender Differences In Circuit Judges Following Earlier Opinions, Stuart Minor Benjamin, Kevin M. Quinn, Byungkoo Kim

BYU Law Review

Judges shape the law with their votes and the reasoning in their opinions. An important element of the latter is which opinions they follow, and thus elevate, and which they cast doubt on, and thus diminish. Using a unique and comprehensive dataset containing the substantive Shepard’s treatments of all circuit court published and unpublished majority opinions issued between 1974 and 2017, we examine the relationship between judges’ substantive treatments of earlier appellate cases and their party, race, and gender. Are judges more likely to follow opinions written by colleagues of the same party, race, or gender? What we find is …

Balance In The Basin, Casey Lee Mcclellan

BYU Law Review

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) changed the way land managers and users interact with public lands. However, its stringent requirements are not responsive to today’s environmental and economic realities. For the future of sustainable mineral extraction, there must be a better way. Adaptive management, a more flexible planning process, should be used on public lands to ensure greater leeway for operators, environmentalists, and local economies. By analyzing rural northeastern Utah’s Uinta Basin’s history and existing public land use plans, this Note applies adaptive management to the area to show how thinking outside the box can solve seemingly unsolvable problems.

Unlocking The Potential Of Earned Value Management In Construction: A Comparative Study, Mohamed Elsaid

Theses and Dissertations

The implementation of earned value management (EVM) in the construction industry faces challenges when it comes to application, accuracy, and interpretability of results, with potential enhancements yet to be realized. In light of technological advancements, there is an opportunity to develop a controlled EVM approach for improved project management. The goal of this research is to enhance the application and accuracy of earned value techniques in Egyptian construction projects through a comprehensive evaluation of Earned Duration, Earned Schedule, and Planned Value methods. The key challenge that is addressed in this research lies in selecting an optimal technique considering the variations …

Appealing Magna Carta, Thomas J. Mcsweeney

Faculty Publications

In 1999, Professor Richard Helmholz published Magna Carta and the Ius Commune, in which he argued that some of the ideas and language found in Magna Carta provide evidence that the early common law was engaging with the ius commune, the ancestor of modern civil law traditions. This Essay examines one piece of evidence highlighted by Helmholz and more recently by Professor Charles Donahue: that the Articles of the Barons, a preparatory document for Magna Carta, uses a phrase borrowed from canon law, appellatione remota (without possibility of appeal). Helmholz and Donahue pointed to its use as evidence that …

Credit Risk Modeling Using Interpreted Xgboost, Marcin Hernes, Jędrzej Adaszyński, Piotr Tutak

European Management Studies

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to develop a credit risk assessment model usingb the XGBoost classifier supported by interpretation issues. Design/methodology/approach: The risk modeling is based on Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) in the research. It is a method used for regression and classification problems. It is based on a sequence of decision trees using a gradient-based optimization method of the loss function to minimize the errors of weak estimators. We use also methods for performing local and global interpretability: ceteris paribus charts, SHAP and feature importance approach. Findings: Based on the research results, it can be concluded that …

Social Media Utilization Of Public Benefit Organizations During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Piotr Szamrowski, Marian Oliński

European Management Studies

Purpose: The main purpose of the research was twofold. First, it was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the publishing activity of Polish public benefit organizations on Facebook. Second, to determine the impact of content published in a crisis situation on the public reaction. Design/methodology/approach: During the investigation, the financial reports of public benefit organizations were analyzed. Farther the basic parameters of the organization’s Facebook profile and the content published on Facebook were analyzed (1025 organizations were covered by the research). From the reports, financial data of organizations has been collected. Both in 2020 and in 2021, …

Using Long-Read Cage Sequencing To Profile Cryptic-Promoter-Derived Transcripts And Their Contribution To The Immunopeptidome, Ju Heon Maeng, H Josh Jang, Alan Y Du, Shin-Cheng Tzeng, Ting Wang

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Recent studies have shown that the noncoding genome can produce unannotated proteins as antigens that induce immune response. One major source of this activity is the aberrant epigenetic reactivation of transposable elements (TEs). In tumors, TEs often provide cryptic or alternate promoters, which can generate transcripts that encode tumor-specific unannotated proteins. Thus, TE-derived transcripts (TE transcripts) have the potential to produce tumor-specific, but recurrent, antigens shared among many tumors. Identification of TE-derived tumor antigens holds the promise to improve cancer immunotherapy approaches; however, current genomics and computational tools are not optimized for their detection. Here we combined CAGE technology with …

Chimera Baryon Spectrum In The Sp(4) Completion Of Composite Higgs Models, Ho Hsiao, Ed Bennett, Deog Ki Hong, Jong-Wan Lee, C.-J. David Lin, Biagio Lucini, Maurizio Piai, Davide Vadacchino

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

In strongly coupled gauge theories that serve as completions of composite Higgs models, thefermionic bound states formed by fermions (hyperquarks) transforming in different representations, called chimera baryons, could serve as top partners, by embedding of the Standard Modelappropriately. We report our results on the spectrum of chimera baryons in the �� ��(4) gauge theorywith hyperquarks transforming in fundamental and two-index antisymmetric representations. Forthis study, we adopt the quenched approximation. We investigate the mass hierarchy between thelightest chimera baryons with different quantum numbers, as a function of the lattice parameters.Inspired by baryon chiral effective field theory, and the Akaike Information Criterion, …

Lattice Studies Of Sp(2n) Gauge Theories Using Grid, Niccolo Forzano, Ed Bennett, Peter Boyle, Jong-Wan Lee, Julian Lenz, Biagio Lucini, Alessandro Lupo, Maurizio Piai, Davide Vadacchino, Luigi Del Debbio, Deog Ki Hong, C.-J David Lin

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Understanding The Biering-Sørensen Test: Contributors To Extensor Endurance In Young Adults With And Without A History Of Low Back Pain, Jonathan Shaw, Jesse V. Jacobs, Linda R. Van Dillen, George J. Beneck, Jo Armour Smith

Physical Therapy Faculty Articles and Research

The Biering-Sørensen test is commonly used to assess paraspinal muscle endurance. Research using a single repetition of the test has provided conflicting evidence for the contribution of impaired paraspinal muscle endurance to low back pain (LBP). This study investigated how Sørensen test duration, muscle activation, and muscle fatigability are affected by multiple repetitions of the test and determined predictors of Sørensen test duration in young adults with and without a history of LBP. Sixty-four young individuals performed three repetitions of the Sørensen test. Amplitude of activation and median frequency slope (fatigability) were calculated for the lumbar and thoracic paraspinals and …

Single-Pulse Electrical Stimulation Artifact Removal Using The Novel Matching Pursuit-Based Artifact Reconstruction And Removal Method (Mparrm), Tao Xie, Thomas J Foutz, Markus Adamek, James R Swift, Cory S Inman, Joseph R Manns, Eric C Leuthardt, Jon T Willie, Peter Brunner

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Structural Basis For Dna Proofreading, Gina Buchel, Ashok Nayak, Karl Herbine, Azadeh Sarfallah, Viktoriia Sokolova, Angelica Zamudio-Ochoa, Dmitry Temiakov

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Faculty Papers

DNA polymerase (DNAP) can correct errors in DNA during replication by proofreading, a process critical for cell viability. However, the mechanism by which an erroneously incorporated base translocates from the polymerase to the exonuclease site and the corrected DNA terminus returns has remained elusive. Here, we present an ensemble of nine high-resolution structures representing human mitochondrial DNA polymerase Gamma, Polγ, captured during consecutive proofreading steps. The structures reveal key events, including mismatched base recognition, its dissociation from the polymerase site, forward translocation of DNAP, alterations in DNA trajectory, repositioning and refolding of elements for primer separation, DNAP backtracking, and displacement …

An Ensemble Dnn Model For Automatic Detection Of Covid-19 From Cxr Scans, Hagar Hesham Eldawoudy, Mohamed Abdelazim Mohamed, Eman Abdelhalim

Mansoura Engineering Journal

The new coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been destructive to human life and has resulted in a significant number of deaths globally. Detecting COVID-19 as early as possible is a critical way to prohibit the virus from quickly passing among people. RT-PCR is a method used for COVID-19 detection, but it is very expensive and isn’t an accurate method due to its sensitivity of 60–70%. For these reasons, deep learning and imaging techniques are combined by doctors, scientific experts, and professionals for accurate and rapid COVID-19 detection. In this work, we propose a stacked ensemble model based on Linear Regression …

Aesthetics After The Ontological Turn: An Ecological Approach To Artificial Creativity, Miguel Carvalhais, Diniz C. Ribeiro

Critical Humanities

The development of chatbots and other generative systems powered by AI, particularly the latest version of ChatGPT, rekindled many discussions on topics such as intelligence and creativity, even leading some to suggest that we may be undergoing a “fourth narcissistic wound”. Starting from Margaret Boden’s approach to creativity, we will argue that if computational systems have always excelled at combinatorial creativity, current AI systems stand out at exploratory creativity but are perceived as still falling flat regarding transformational creativity. This paper explores some of the reasons for this, including how, despite the immensity of the conceptual space that results from …

Guilty Machines: On Ab-Sens In The Age Of Ai, Dylan Lackey, Katherine Weinschenk

Critical Humanities

For Lacan, guilt arises in the sublimation of ab-sens (non-sense) into the symbolic comprehension of sen-absexe (sense without sex, sense in the deficiency of sexual relation), or in the maturation of language to sensibility through the effacement of sex. Though, as Slavoj Žižek himself points out in a recent article regarding ChatGPT, the split subject always misapprehends the true reason for guilt’s manifestation, such guilt at best provides a sort of evidence for the inclusion of the subject in the order of language, acting as a necessary, even enjoyable mark of the subject’s coherence (or, more importantly, the subject’s separation …

Winn Dixie Stores V. Eastern Mushroom Marketing Cooperative Inc

2023 Decisions

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Prediction Of Moisture Content Of Hummus Peach Based On Multi-Burr Hyperspectral Data, Gao Aidi, Qiao Fengzhang, Zhu Wenxuan, Zhong Xiaopin, Deng Yuanlong

Food and Machinery

Objective: To propose a new solution to overcome the two challenges of data with spikes and small sample sizes in nectarine hyperspectral measurement. Methods: Based on hyperspectral imaging technology, image processing methods were used to identify the area of nectarines in the hyperspectral image, and the spectral reflectance data of the area was calculated to form a hyperspectral curve image. For hyperspectral image data with spikes and noise, compared the effects of several data preprocessing methods, including polynomial smoothing algorithm (SG), multivariate scatter correction algorithm (MSC), standard normal variate algorithm (SNV), first-order derivative operator (D1), and second-order derivative operator (D2) …

Rapid Detection Of Moisture Content Of Pineapple Based On Near Infrared Spectroscopy And Ssa-Relm, Zhao Yanli, Zhao Qian, Li Zhiqiang

Food and Machinery

Objective: A method for a fast and non-destructive detection of pineapple moisture content was established. Methods: A novel detection model of pineapple moisture content was proposed based on continuous projection feature wavelength selection and Sparrow search algorithm. Firstly, according to the characteristic of pineapple NIR data with high dimension and redundant information, the results of feature wavelength selection such as successive projections algorithm, principal component analysis and full-band were compared, the selection method of characteristic wavelength of pineapple near infrared spectrum was determined. Secondly, considering that the performance of RELM model was affected by the selection of input layer weight …

Bone Fusion System, Frank D. Vrionis, Kamran Aghayev, Sabrina A. Gonzalez Blohm, James J. Doulgeris

USF Patents

A method and system for performing bone fusion and/or securing one or more bones, such as adjacent vertebra, are disclosed. The screws include a threaded tip connected to a main shaft and a threaded outer sleeve that rotates relative to the outer shaft until locked down. Independent rotation of the threaded outer sleeve relative to the threaded distal tip allows compression or distraction to modify the gap between the vertebral bodies. The screws are passed from the inferior to superior vertebra or superior to inferior, for example, through a trans-pedicular route to avoid neurological compromise. At the same time, the …

A Novel Multimodal Postoperative Pain Protocol For 1- To 2-Level Open Lumbar Fusions: A Retrospective Cohort Study, Michael Markowitz, Barrett I. Woods, Gregory D. Schroeder, Christopher K Kepler, David Kaye, Mark Kurd, Joshua Armstrong, Alex R. Vaccaro, Kris Radcliff

Rothman Institute Papers

BACKGROUND: There has been increased interest in exploring methods to reduce postoperative pain without opioid medications. In 2015, a multimodal analgesia protocol was used involving the perioperative use of celecoxib, gabapentin, intravenous acetaminophen, lidocaine, and liposomal bupivacaine. Overall, the goal was to reduce the utilization of scheduled opioids in favor of nonopioid pain management.

METHODS: The results of a consecutive series of 1- to 2-level open primary lumbar fusions were compared to a cohort of patients after the implementation the perioperative multimodal pain management protocol. Primary endpoints included patient-reported pain scores and secondary endpoints included length of stay.

RESULTS: There …

Microcalcification Crystallography As A Potential Marker Of Dcis Recurrence, Zoey A Miller, Arielle Mueller, Taebeom Kim, Jennifer F Jolivert, Ray Z Ma, Sahil Muthuswami, April Park, Derek B Mcmahon, Kevin T Nead, Ryan M Carey, Robert J Lee

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) have high mortality and significant treatment-related morbidity. It is vital to discover effective, minimally invasive therapies that improve survival and quality of life. Bitter taste receptors (T2Rs) are expressed in HNSCCs, and T2R activation can induce apoptosis. Lidocaine is a local anesthetic that also activates bitter taste receptor 14 (T2R14). Lidocaine has some anti-cancer effects, but the mechanisms are unclear. Here, we find that lidocaine causes intracellular Ca

Advancements In Panoramic-Dic System For Vascular Imaging, Zhuangyu Zhang

Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Independent Study

Digital Image Correlation (DIC) has become an important imaging technique in biomechanics, known for its non-invasive, optical assessment capabilities. However, traditional DIC systems have several limitations in biomechanical applications such as restricted observational fields and challenges to maintain the sample integrity. Advancements in the DIC technique have led to the development of panoramic-DIC (pDIC) systems. The pDIC system addresses the need for more comprehensive imaging of quasi-cylindrical samples by utilizing a sophisticated array of cameras and mirrors. It employs a concave conical mirror, transforming a conventional binocular stereo-DIC setup into an almost infinite-view system, through the use of multiple cameras …

Doug Haner Oral History, Doug Haner, Lorenzo Spaccarelli

Raymond College

No abstract provided.

People Are Less Myopic About Future Than Past Collective Outcomes, Markus Prior, Abdelaziz Alsharawy, Talbot M Andrews

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Myopia involves giving disproportionate weight to outcomes that occur close to the present. Myopia in people's evaluations of political outcomes and proposals threatens effective policymaking. It can lead to inefficient spending just before elections, cause inaction on important future policy challenges, and create incentives for government interventions aimed at boosting short-term performance at the expense of long-term welfare. But, are people generally myopic? Existing evidence comes mostly from studies that disregard either the future or collective outcomes. Political science characterizes people as myopic based on how they retrospectively evaluate collective outcomes, such as the state of the economy. Behavioral economics …

Lidocaine Induces Apoptosis In Head And Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Through Activation Of Bitter Taste Receptor T2r14, Zoey A Miller, Arielle Mueller, Taebeom Kim, Jennifer F Jolivert, Ray Z Ma, Sahil Muthuswami, April Park, Derek B Mcmahon, Kevin T Nead, Ryan M Carey, Robert J Lee

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) have high mortality and significant treatment-related morbidity. It is vital to discover effective, minimally invasive therapies that improve survival and quality of life. Bitter taste receptors (T2Rs) are expressed in HNSCCs, and T2R activation can induce apoptosis. Lidocaine is a local anesthetic that also activates bitter taste receptor 14 (T2R14). Lidocaine has some anti-cancer effects, but the mechanisms are unclear. Here, we find that lidocaine causes intracellular Ca

Aortic Valve Leaflets Are Asymmetric And Correlated With The Origin Of Coronary Arteries, Taylor S Koerner, Thomas Cunningham, Mayme E Marshall, Lauren S Talley, Megan Childress, Rami M Kharouf, Wen Li, Jorge D Salazar, Antonio F Corno

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Asymmetry of the aortic valve leaflets has been known since Leonardo Da Vinci, but the relationship between size and shape and origin of the coronary arteries has never been examined. Our aim was to evaluate this anatomy in a population of pediatric patients using a cross-sectional study design.

METHODS: Consecutive pediatric patients with trans-esophageal echocardiography (TEE), with or without trans-thoracic echocardiography (TTE), were included in our study. Exclusion criteria: (I) bicuspid aortic valve; (II) aortic valve stenosis; (III) hypoplasia of aortic valve annulus, or aortic root; (IV) truncal valve; (V) coronary artery atresia; (VI) previous surgery on aortic valve …

Information-Rich 6d Single-Molecule Imaging Design Using Optimization, Tingting Wu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

When studying biochemical processes, localizing the targets alone will not paint a complete picture. We also need techniques to probe how biomolecules interact with one another, including how molecules are organized into larger structures, how they are oriented with respect to surrounding molecules, and how local chemical parameters, like pH and hydrophobicity, vary spatially and temporally. My dissertation focuses on single-molecule orientation localization microscopy (SMOLM, Chapter 1). The objective is to develop imaging techniques for measuring how molecules are oriented with respect to their surrounding molecules, namely, 3D orientation. Achieving optimal imaging performance requires careful design of both the forward …

Genomic Loci Influence Patterns Of Structural Covariance In The Human Brain, Junhao Wen, Aristeidis Sotiras, Daniel S Marcus, Pamela Lamontagne, John C Morris, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Normal and pathologic neurobiological processes influence brain morphology in coordinated ways that give rise to patterns of structural covariance (PSC) across brain regions and individuals during brain aging and diseases. The genetic underpinnings of these patterns remain largely unknown. We apply a stochastic multivariate factorization method to a diverse population of 50,699 individuals (12 studies and 130 sites) and derive data-driven, multi-scale PSCs of regional brain size. PSCs were significantly correlated with 915 genomic loci in the discovery set, 617 of which are newly identified, and 72% were independently replicated. Key pathways influencing PSCs involve reelin signaling, apoptosis, neurogenesis, and …

Co-Transmitting Interneurons In The Mouse Olfactory Bulb Regulate Olfactory Detection And Discrimination, Ariel M Lyons-Warren, Evelyne K Tantry, Elizabeth H Moss, Mikhail Y Kochukov, Benjamin D W Belfort, Joshua Ortiz-Guzman, Zachary Freyberg, Benjamin R Arenkiel

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Co-transmission of multiple neurotransmitters from a single neuron increases the complexity of signaling information within defined neuronal circuits. Superficial short-axon cells in the olfactory bulb release both dopamine and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), yet the specific targets of these neurotransmitters and their respective roles in olfaction have remained unknown. Here, we implement intersectional genetics in mice to selectively block GABA or dopamine release from superficial short-axon cells to identify their distinct cellular targets, impact on circuit function, and behavioral contribution of each neurotransmitter toward olfactory behaviors. We provide functional and anatomical evidence for divergent superficial short-axon cell signaling onto downstream neurons …