Digital Commons Network^™

Racing To Safety: Tax Policy For Ai Safety-By-Design, Mirit Eyal, Yonathan Arbel

Articles

The White House recently announced its vision of artificial intelligence (AI) policy: AI development is a race and America must win it. To that end, a new America's AI Action Plan directs federal agencies and states to remove regulatory barriers to AI development and accelerate innovation. This approach leaves limited room for regulatory measures that would address the safety risks of powerful AI systems: their behavior in novel domains remains unpredictable, their decision-making opaqueness, and their alignment with human values is uncertain. While experts warn of large-scale accidents, policymakers find themselves in a bind: Regulate AI and cede ground to …

Alternative Color Mode Design: Supporting Mobile App Creators With Evidence-Based Guidelines, Sarah Andrew

Theses

Alternative color modes, such as light, dark, dim, and high contrast modes, in mobile apps can improve accessibility for people with vision impairments and usability for people without vision impairments across situational contexts. However, current mobile apps exhibit inconsistent color implementations for UI elements (e.g., background, text, buttons, images, and non-selectable icons), leaving users with limited accessible options. My dissertation addresses a central question in human-computer interaction and accessibility: How can mobile app designers be supported to implement alternative color modes that meet the accessibility and usability needs of people with and without vision impairments? Through an eight-study mixed-methods investigation, …

Avoiding Misleading Estimates Of Among-Individual Variance Caused By Non-Random Sampling Of Individuals In A Changeable Environment, Denis Réale, Hassen Allegue, Yimen G. Araya-Ajoy, Ned A. Dochtermann, Shinichi Nakagawa, Joel L. Pick, Holger Schielzeth, David F. Westneat, Niels J. Dingemanse

Biology Faculty Publications

Animal ecologists frequently quantify variance in hierarchically structured traits in wild populations. Importantly, phenotypic plasticity within the period of measurement can modify the trait of interest in response to various unmeasured, temporally or spatially changeable, environmental conditions. Non-random sampling among units of the random effect (e.g. individuals) regarding the environment at issue may lead to estimates of the variance among ((Formula presented.)) or within ((Formula presented.)) such units that conflate several types of processes. This mixing of underlying biology can affect interpretations of the random effect variance. Here, we explore the conditions leading to this situation and assess potential solutions …

Private Coverage, Public Risk: The Role Of Cyber Insurance In National Security Governance, Deborah L. Johnson

Faculty Publications

This Article explores the growing yet underexamined role of the commercial cyber insurance market in shaping the United States' approach to cybersecurity readiness. It argues that, as cyber threats against U.S. critical infrastructure and essential services increase, commercial cyber insurance has quietly come to function as a de facto governance tool in national cybersecurity. In hospitals, water and energy systems, and other public-facing sectors, policy language, underwriting questionnaires, and post-breach claims practices help define what counts as "reasonable" security, influence how organizations plan for and respond to incidents, and affect the pace and scope of recovery after an attack. Yet …

How Wasteful Is Signaling?, Alex Frankel, Navin Kartik

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Signaling is wasteful. But how wasteful? We study the fraction of surplus dissipated in a separating equilibrium. For isoelastic environments, this waste ratio has a simple formula: β/(β + σ), where β is the benefit elasticity (reward to higher perception) and σ is the elasticity of higher types’ relative cost advantage. The ratio is constant across types and is independent of other parameters, including convexity of cost in the signal. We show that the directional effects of β and σ on waste extend to non-isoelastic environments.

Military Recruiting Crisis: A Qualitative Study On The Motivation Of Generation Z, Ruth D. Kane

PhD in Organizational Leadership

This qualitative study investigates the declining motivation of Generation Z to join the U.S. military, using Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as a framework. Despite significant investments in recruitment, enlistment rates continue to decline, revealing a gap between military structures and the psychological needs of potential recruits. SDT provides a useful perspective by emphasizing the importance of autonomy, competence, and relatedness in motivating and promoting well-being. Through in-depth interviews with eight Gen Z individuals eligible for service, this study explores how social, cultural, and institutional factors influence perceptions of military service and career decisions. Results indicate that motivation to enlist increases when …

An Evidence-Based Educational Intervention To Enhance Nurses' Knowledge Of Metabolic Syndrome In Residential Care Facilities, Marie Tanyi

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Projects

The project addresses a critical gap in nursing education by implementing a structured, evidencebased educational intervention led by an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) to improve nurses’ knowledge of metabolic syndrome in residential care facilities. The purpose was to determine whether this intervention could significantly enhance nurses’ understanding and management of metabolic syndrome, a complex cluster of disorders present in adult populations. Nine nurses participated in targeted educational sessions focusing on definition, diagnosis, complications, and evidence-based prevention and management strategies. Each participant completed the Metabolic Syndrome Knowledge Scale (MSKS) questionnaire before and after the intervention to assess changes in knowledge. …

Butterflies & You: Considerations Of Human Relationships With The Natural World (Paper), Madison Colby

2026 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents & Media

Science communication only accounts for approximately 2% of the entire scientific output of 2017-2022 (Parejo-Cuéllar et. al, 2024). It is an under-researched and under-valued field, especially in an age that has devalued science as a whole. The delicate art of explaining complicated ideas to people who are unfamiliar with scientific jargon is vital to humans’ understanding of the world. Butterflies & You is a documentary film exploring the relationship between humans and the many different butterfly species that call Illinois home. Video-based science communication is important to research and practice because of its impact on environmental advocacy and the growing …

Situating Ai Within The History Of Technological Adaptation In Law, Karin Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article will first trace this history of technological disruption and adaptation in the law. It will then situate the current AI moment within this established pattern, arguing that AI’s capabilities create an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate a pedagogical shift from foundational structure to sophisticated substance. Further, it will explore AI's significant potential as an equalizer for multilingual students. Finally, it will address the legitimate risks of AI, concluding that a framework grounded in professional ethics and critical human oversight is the key to harnessing its benefits responsibly. The challenge is not to resist this new technology, but to adapt …

Bitcoin As A Hedge Against Exchange Rate Risk In Brazil: Evidence From A Garch Analysis With Monetary Policy Controls (2016–2024), Pedro Mira Pierucetti

Theses & ETDs

This thesis investigates whether Bitcoin behaves as a hedge or a risk asset in Brazil under domestic and global monetary policy shocks. Using monthly data from 2016 to 2024, the analysis examines the relationship between Bitcoin returns (in BRL), the USD/BRL exchange rate, the Brazilian Selic rate, and the U.S. Federal Funds Rate. To account for volatility clustering and time-varying risk commonly observed in cryptocurrency markets, the study employs a GARCH(1,1) framework to model both conditional returns and volatility. The results provide evidence on whether Bitcoin in Brazil responds positively to currency depreciation, consistent with a hedge against exchange- rate …

The Energy And Environmental Footprint Of Ai, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Ethan I. Thorpe, Jonathan M. Gilligan

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to create major economic and social benefits, but also to rapidly escalate electricity demand and its associated environmental impacts. Information availability has been a cornerstone of environmental law for half a century, and this Article argues that providing information to individual, corporate, and other users about the electricity demand and environmental impacts of AI can reduce those impacts without delaying development of the technology. Little is known about how different large language models (LLMs) compare on these metrics, though. To address whether users have access to the information necessary to address this shortcoming, the …

Expressive And Acquisitive Norms Of Property In The Municipal And Private Contexts: Guerrilla Gardening And Property Reform, Anna Benham

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

There exists a type of expressive property outlaw—the guerrilla gardener. Guerrilla gardening is the practice of gardening without the legal right to do so. The practice of guerrilla gardening can sometimes take on rooted permanence, and as a result, progressively higher stakes. Guerrilla gardeners can operate over years, planting plots of greenery in areas where their hard work can be removed, quite literally, overnight. Many guerrilla gardeners operate with the implicit consent of their neighbors—consent that can be revoked at any time. However, when one bends away from the light insurrections of nonoffensive trespass and examines the other end of …

A Guide To The Best Reading Of Environmental Law: Presumptions For Stability In Statutory Interpretation, Sanne H. Knudsen

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Administrative law is in flux and its doctrines flexible. Recent doctrinal shifts—like the ousting of Chevron and the introduction of the major questions doctrine—raise significant questions about how courts will determine the best reading of statutes and carve out a role for agency expertise in statutory interpretation. For environmental law, a field that relies heavily on federal agencies for implementation, the flux and flexibility of administrative law presents challenges. But they also present opportunities.

On the one hand, the recent changes to administrative law pose a destabilizing and deregulatory risk for environmental law unless courts develop a consistent methodology for …

The Effect Of Open-Ended Questioning On Preschool Literacy And Language Development, Roxy Moorman

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

This inquiry-based study examines the impact of intentional open-ended questioning on preschool children’s language development and emergent literacy skills during shared reading. Grounded in research highlighting the importance of teacher–child interactions, this study addresses the problem that many preschool classrooms rely heavily on closed-ended questions that limit opportunities for extended dialogue and expressive language growth. The purpose of this study is to determine whether increasing the frequency and quality of open-ended questioning leads to improvements in children’s vocabulary, comprehension, conversational turn-taking, and overall participation in classroom discourse. Conducted in a preschool classroom with nine students over a six-week period, the …

Library News April 2026, Research Medical Library

Library News 2026

• Measuring Impact: How the RML Supported High-Quality Scientific Publishing in 2025
• Names, Logos, and Seals Through the Years
• Recent Published Books from UT MD Anderson Authors and Editors
• In What Instances Should You Use “Instance” and “Incidence”?

Financial Literacy And Fraud Vulnerability In Digital Finance: Evidence From The 2024 Nfcs, Mercedes Palacios Diaz

Posters - 2026

Digital finance has expanded rapidly through fintech platforms and cryptocurrency markets, increasing access to financial services while also exposing individuals to higher levels of financial fraud. Most research treats fraud vulnerability as a single outcome, without distinguishing between financial loss and the ability to recognize scams. This study examines how financial literacy shapes fraud vulnerability through its effects on fraud victimization and scam awareness, highlighting its dual role in reducing financial losses and improving scam recognition. Fraud vulnerability is therefore analyzed across two distinct dimensions: realized financial loss and scam awareness.

Calculated Self-Presentation: Japan At Twentieth Century American World’S Fairs, Mary Rose Comerford

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

World’s fairs are places of innovation, culture, and technology. They are places where visitors go to be wowed by the innovations of other countries, but do they have a deeper meaning? In this thesis I will argue that world’s fairs serve a purpose beyond the sharing of culture and innovation. They allow national commissions to control the narrative of their country through a careful curation of displays that meet the objectives of their government. Countries’ objectives at world’s fairs change all the time, depending on their position in the world and what serves their best interest. The fairs themselves each …

A Wealth Of Well-Being, Jake Grove

Furman Magazine

Jose Morales-Martinez '18 gives back to a community that has shown him so much.

Machine Learning In Fundamental Physics: From Early Universe Signatures To Qcd Evolution, Brandon Stevenson

Physics Theses and Dissertations

In both cosmology and small-x quantum chromodynamics, the relevant theoretical predictions are well-defined but expensive to evaluate repeatedly over broad parameter spaces or large ensembles of simulated data. The central question of this thesis is when machine learning can accelerate those calculations without weakening the reliability of the final physics conclusions. The thesis develops and tests this idea in three settings. First, it studies the Derivative Approximation for Likelihoods (DALI) as a means of diagnosing when Fisher-matrix forecasts cease to be trustworthy in cosmological parameter inference. Second, it investigates graph-based spherical neural networks for estimating primordial non-Gaussianity directly from simulated …

Effects Of Bhb(Beta-Hydroxybutyrate) Of Mood, Memory, And Handgrip, Christianna Needham, Sahanj Joshi, Jairaj Bajaj

Undergraduate Student Symposium

The purpose of this study was to test the effects of acute beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) on handgrip, mood states and memory of healthy men and women. The subjects were exercise science students from Nova Southeastern University between 18-22 years of age. Subjects performed Handgrip strength, Profile of Mood States (POMS), and Memtrax the tests prior to consuming BHB, as well as 30 minutes, and 60 minutes post consumption. A total of 136 healthy participants (20.5±1.4 years) were randomized into three groups: D-BHB (n=47), L-BHB (n=46), or placebo (n=43). A Two-Way ANOVA test revealed no significant …

The Central Role Of Caffeine In Energy Drink Effects, Viviana Valerio, Sarah Bailey

Undergraduate Student Symposium

The goal of this study was to assess the effects of caffeine in an energy drink against a caffeine-matched control on attention span. Two double-blind groups of a total of 107 subjects were formed. Each group was either assigned to the energy drink (C4 - Nutrabolt®) or a caffeine-matched control of 200 mg of caffeine. The subjects consumed the caffeine sources and waited 45 minutes. They then completed a psychomotor vigilance test (PVT), Memtrax (memory), handgrip strength, and a wall-sit endurance test. There were no differences in the improvement (pre vs. post) of the PVT test between the caffeine-matched control …

Data Siloing As A Solution To Google’S Illegal Monopoly, Derek Polson, Victoria Wood

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

While the court-issued remedies prescribed in United States of America v. Google LLC (2024) aim to curb Google’s use of anticompetitive practices, they fail to address the structural mechanisms that sustain its monopoly. Antitrust remedies in the U.S. traditionally seek to (1) end anticompetitive practices and (2) reopen competitive market conditions. The court’s approach in this case does neither. By leaving intact Google’s ability to leverage significant barriers to entry and its unparalleled big data advantage, the court’s remedies preserve the very conditions that entrench Google’s dominance in the digital advertising and search engine markets. This note argues that data …

The Implication Of Permanence: Indigenous Water Rights In The State Of Arizona V. Navajo Nation, Collin Powell

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

In the State of Arizona v. Navajo Nation, the Supreme Court asked the Navajo to accept a contradiction. In light of disagreements over water rights between Arizona and the Navajo Tribe, members of the Navajo pointed to the Treaty of Bosque Redondo. The Treaty was a compromise between the Navajo and US Officials to reparate the Navajo after “The Long Walk”: a series of forced relocations against the Natives that resulted in over 2,500 deaths. Among these reparations was the guarantee of a “permanent home” on US federal lands. For over a century, case law defined a “permanent home” to …

Full Issue

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

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Preservice Teachers’ Knowledge, Skills, And Perceptions Related To Data-Based Decision Making In Elementary Reading Instruction, Erin K. Washburn, Samantha A. Gesel, Miranda S. Fitzgerald, Corinne R. Kingsbery

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Teachers’ knowledge of and ability to use reading assessments and assessment data to inform instruction has long been recognized as a core teaching competency. Data-based decision making (DBDM) is a process by which educators examine assessment data to identify student strengths and needs and apply those findings to their practice. DBDM has been linked to student achievement/engagement and positive teacher self-efficacy. However, DBDM, specifically in reading, is a complex process for teachers. Preservice teacher preparation has been deemed a space for the introduction of DBDM in reading. However, few studies have explored how targeted instruction in reading-related DBDM may impact …

Thinking Ahead: Ranking Substantive Canons To Protect Loper Bright, Tanner Macdonald

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

After forty-two years, the Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference in their decision Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024). The decision suggested a rising inclination towards legal formalism in cases of statutory interpretation. This Note argues that if the Court intends statutes to be interpreted in accordance with formalism, clarification is needed. Loper Bright was not sufficient to clear up the inconsistencies in statutory interpretation that the Court used to overrule Chevron. Without a strong prescription, Loper Bright will eventually collapse on itself. A formal ranking of substantive canons is one type of structure that would support Loper Bright and enable …

Rethinking Antitrust In The Age Of Fintech, Quaid Knell, Olivia Mossman

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

In cases involving large technology firms, current antitrust laws are proving difficult to enforce when applied through the traditional framework of price-centered metrics. Financial technology (fintech) companies are firms that integrate digital technology into financial services and operate through multi-sided platforms, and they are growing in number. This increased number of firms introduces the next challenge for antitrust enforcement, as traditional definitions of market dominance and monopolistic behavior are ill-suited to the realities of the digital landscape. Although there are no current antitrust lawsuits against major fintech firms, their existing structures and business models, if left unexamined, allow these firms …

“Loophole Of The Century”: Routine Use And The Privacy Act Of 1974, Joslynn Jensen

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

This Note examines structural weaknesses in the Privacy Act of 1974 and argues that the statute no longer provides meaningful safeguards for personal information held by federal agencies. Enacted in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, the Act was designed to ensure transparency, accountability, and individual control over government recordkeeping systems. However, two core features—the routine-use exception and the Act’s narrow remedial structure—have undermined these protections. The routine-use provision permits agencies to disclose personal records without individualized consent so long as the disclosure is deemed “compatible” with the purpose of collection and published in the Federal Register, a form of …

Good Faith And The Ministerial Exception, Kailey Hopkins, Nathan Gurr

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, lower courts, in attempting to adhere to the ruling, have largely disregarded the Court’s explicit instruction to avoid adopting a “rigid formula” for determining ministerial status. Instead, they have repeatedly relied on the factors identified in that decision as a functional test. When the Court revisited the ministerial exception, it reaffirmed that no definitive legal standard governs the designation of a “minister,” while modestly broadening the doctrine by emphasizing that formal titles are less significant than functional considerations. This Comment argues that the lower courts’ …

How Can Librarians In Developing Countries Apply Evidence-Based Information Practices To Enhance Library Services In The Digital Era? A Scoping Review, Jackline Estomihi Kiwelu, Martha Lyaka, Patrick Ngulube

Libraries

This scoping review maps existing literature on how librarians in developing countries apply evidence-based information practice (EBIP), identifying key themes and evidence gaps for future research. The review followed Arksey and O’Malley’s five-stage framework and applied the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2020 checklist alongside the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme for appraising study quality. From 6,693 records retrieved, ten studies met the inclusion criteria. The mapped studies suggest that librarians apply EBIP in diverse professional activities such as collection development, advocacy, reference services, information literacy instruction, decision-making, evaluation, monitoring performance, and enhancing service quality. Evidence-based approaches were …