Digital Commons Network^™

A Century Of Complexity: Reassessing Jurisdictional Veil Piercing In Light Of Modern Corporate Structures, Dominic Steve Brown

Vanderbilt Law Review

Modern corporate enterprises frequently operate through intricate networks of layered subsidiaries, yet courts continue to rely on a rigid and outdated presumption of corporate separateness rooted in a decision predating the current personal jurisdiction regime. In the context of jurisdictional veil piercing, this presumption of separateness has produced doctrinal confusion, inconsistent outcomes, and underenforcement against parent corporations that frequently control, and profit from, forum-based activities carried out by subsidiaries.

This Note argues that the prevailing approach, involving the importation of substantive corporate law doctrines into the jurisdictional analysis, contravenes both modern personal jurisdiction doctrine and contemporary corporate practice. Drawing on …

Letter From John Coffee, Brig. General To Major General Andrew Jackson (Oct. 4th, 1814), John Coffee

Letters and Manuscripts

Transcript and correspondence from Brigadier General John Coffee to Major General Andrew Jackson that addresses a line of march that crossed the Tennessee River at the Muscle Shoals.

Pe2prompt: A Large Language Model-Native Framework For Interpretable Static Malware Analysis, Yilin Sun, Mohammad Masum

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Large Language Models (LLMs) possess strong general-purpose reasoning abilities, yet their integration into static malware analysis pipelines remains limited due to the representational gap between high-dimensional numerical features and the natural-language input format required for inference. This study introduces PE2Prompt, a Large Language Model-native framework for interpretable and industrially deployable static malware analysis. PE2Prompt formalizes a modular process that bridges numeric PE features and LLM reasoning through three key components: (1) LLM-guided feature curation directly from raw EMBER JSON fields to identify semantically relevant attributes; (2) numerical feature summarization, compressing byte-histogram and entropy distributions into interpretable descriptors; and (3) structured …

Letter From John Coffee, Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry & Mounted Riflemen To "Sir" (Major Genl. Andrew Jackson) & Note From Andrew Jackson, John Coffee, Andrew Jackson

Letters and Manuscripts

Transcription, correspondence, and note from Brigadier General John Coffee and Major General Andrew Jackson pertaining to the arrest of Colonel Nicholas J. Perkins commander of the West Tennessee Mounted Volunteer Cavalry.

Community-Based Well Testing And Outreach To Mitigate Human Health Risk From Unsafe Drinking Water, W. Adam Sigler, Katharine Sutphen, Margaret J Eggers, Kaleena Miller, Michelle Grocke-Dewey

Journal of Extension

Twenty-two percent of groundwater wells tested nationwide have one or more contaminants above a health threshold, yet many private well owners are unaware of these risks because they have not tested their water. Researchers piloted a community well testing clinic for education/outreach and surveyed participants about outcomes. Two months later, 75% of participants with high or intermediate health risk water quality results had taken action or intended to, indicating that community private well testing clinics can be effective in mitigating human health risks from contaminated drinking water.

Educating Livestock Producers And Monitoring The Ecological Health Of Grazing Spaces, Morgan Mathisonslee, Matt R. Raven, Crista Derry

Journal of Extension

Addressing the climate catastrophe requires a systems approach with a focus on regenerating agricultural landscapes. To address these complex problems, we offered a monitoring training focused on a systems approach to livestock stewardship using the Savory Institute's Ecological Outcomes Verification protocol to monitor ecosystem health. The training encouraged producers to use systems-based management practices to promote ecological regeneration. We found that despite producers not adopting the monitoring protocol, there were increases in the ecological health of their farms. We suggest Extension professionals consider teaching similar ecological monitoring protocols to benefit producers and support claims about regenerative agriculture.

Wage Inequalities In Informal Work: Race, Sex, And Citizenship Among Latino Workers In New York State, Amalia Torrecillas Fernandez

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

This report examines wage variation within informal work in New York State from 2016 to 2022, with particular attention to Latino workers. Using American Community Survey data from three five-year periods (2016, 2019, and 2022). The analysis explores how median hourly wages differ by ethnicity, sex, citizenship status, race, age, and nativity.

Informal workers represented 4.6%-4.7% of New York's workforce, approximately 569,000 to 589,000 workers between the years of study. A substantial wage gap persisted throughout the study period. Formal workers earned $18/hour in 2016 versus $12 for informal workers; by 2022, this widened to $24 versus $14, underscoring the …

The Effects Of Restorative Practices On Student Behavior And School Climate: A Case Study, Victoria Smith, M.A.T., Donna Governor, Ph.D, Carlise Womack-Wynne, Ed.D

Current Issues in Middle Level Education

Schools have been seeking alternatives to punitive discipline measures. As an alternative, restorative practices offer healing, community, and relationships. This case study examined a middle school that had been implementing restorative practices since the 2019–2020 school year, three full years at the time of study. A mixed-methods design was used in order to investigate whether the implementation of restorative practices had resulted in a decrease of student misbehaviors and an increase in staff perceptions of school climate. Staff were interviewed (n = 19) and surveyed (n = 44). A thematic analysis was conducted on the interview data, and …

“Learning To Ask The Deeper Questions Behind The Image That Most People Don’T See:” Teaching Critical Visual Literacy To History Teacher Candidates Through Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Heather Koopmans, Richard Hughes

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Despite the ubiquitous role of images in teaching history, few teachers have formal training in how to help students critically read photographs, paintings, and other images. The essay centers on research on how Critical Visual Literacy, which focuses on how images reflect complex issues of power in society, can assist emerging teachers in helping students think historically and better engage visual evidence associated with curriculum mandates to broaden historical narratives

Using Scenario-Based Generative Ai In A Social Studies Methods Course, Timothy Lintner, Ellis Reeves

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly transforming the landscape of educator preparation. This shift is especially evident in social studies. As emerging technologies like AI reshape how social studies is taught and learned, it is essential to incorporate them into course design and student outcomes. Simply put, we must ensure that the next generation of social studies educators can effectively use AI to create real-world, scenario-based learning experiences that foster inquiry and encourage student action-taking. This article examines how AI-supported, scenario-based learning was strategically integrated into a secondary social studies methods course at the University of South Carolina Aiken. From concept …

‘There Is No Continuity’: Assessment Of Pre-Service Teachers' Ability To Analyse Historical Sources In Two Ghanaian Public Universities, Anitha Oforiwah Adu-Boahen

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

The paper examined student-teachers’ understanding of change and continuity in History. Using a convergent parallel mixed method approach, one hundred and thirty-five (135) student-teachers from two public universities examined images depicting classroom settings in Ghana’s educational system from different periods. Respondents were expected to show and explain the continuities and changes in the different periods in Ghanaian history. They were to focus on the disparities in ‘change’ and ‘continuities’ in classroom settings in the Ghanaian educational system over time. Again, student-teachers were expected to transform their knowledge of these changes into historical understanding by writing an interpretation from the sources. …

Using The Past To Better Understand The Present: Contextualizing Today’S History Wars, For Ourselves And For Our Students, Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

This essay considers our contemporary moment in the context of the long history of the so-called "history wars" in the United States. It identifies four historical moments with ties to the present, and makes use of primary documents to discuss each time period. It also considers the ways in which historical activists such as Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois advocated for honest history in the past, and the ways in which we might argue for nuanced historical thinking in the present. Teachers may find the documents of use for their own classrooms, and a brief appendix at …

The End Of Unmeasured Exploitation: How A.S.M., C.A.S., And S.I.A. Challenge Digital Attention Capitalism, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Digital attention capitalism generates value through the capture and monetization of human attention, yet it has historically lacked standardized mechanisms for measuring attention-related harm. This paper argues that the Attention Safeguard Models (A.S.M.), Cognitive Attentional Standards (C.A.S.), and Sociological Impact Assessment (S.I.A.) collectively challenge this system by introducing an integrated framework for classifying, measuring, and evaluating digital attention harm and its societal consequences. C.A.S. provides standardized measurement of digital attention harm, A.S.M. identifies and classifies patterns of attentional disruption and manipulation, and S.I.A. evaluates broader impacts on institutions, communities, civic engagement, education, social cohesion, and inequality. Together, these systems transform …

New And Notes

Appalachia

Maine’s Barnard Forest is protected. Commercial logging goes forward in part of the White Mountain National Forest. A look back at Christine Woodside’s editorship of Appalachia. A tribute to outgoing longtime poetry editor Parkman Howe.

Alpina

Appalachia

Reports of mountaineering in the greater ranges of Patagonia, Nepal, Tibet, Saudi Arabia, North America, and Madagascar include a wintertime solo of Cerro Torre, an 86-year-old’s summit of Manaslu, and a discussion of climbing permits on Everest. Nepal tourism officials list eight more high points as 8,000-meter peaks. Two men from France climb Jannu East. American Jim Morrison skis down Everest. Chinese climbers scale peaks in the area known as East of the Himalaya. Sentencing of three criminals. First ascents in Saudi Arabia. And more.

Accidents

Appalachia

Reports of rescues and accidents in the White Mountains of New Hampshire from the warm seasons of 2025 opens with a note about “the eleventh essential,” which is “a “mind of winter.” New Hampshire Fish and Game officers rescue a man stranded in cold rain after wandering along the Garfield Ridge Trail. A hiker is stranded by early-May snow on the Kilkenny Ridge Trail. The Cog Railway assists in a rescue of a woman who had tried to reach Lakes of the Clouds Hut in cold June weather. Rescuers assist a sick man off the Franconia Ridge. A man takes …

Letters

Appalachia

Praise for William Geller’s Winter/Spring 2026 piece, “Chesuncook, through the Life of Addie.”

John Kelley: Runner And Conservationist., Steve Fagin

Appalachia

A runner pays homage to his long friendship with an Olympian.

The Loss Of Guy Waterman, A Quarter-Century Later: Friends Climb Franconia Ridge To Remember Their Mountain Mentor, Doug Mayer

Appalachia

A man who helped recovered the body of his friend talks about his giant legacy.

The Long Way Home: What The Appalachian Trail Taught Me About Real-Time Dispatches, Christine Woodside

Appalachia

The outgoing editor-in-chief tells how she sent home dispatches for publication during the early weeks of her thru-hike, and then realized she didn’t need to tell everyone what she was doing.

Appalachia Summer/Fall 2026: Complete Issue

Appalachia

Summer/Fall 2026 - Volume LXXVII, Number 2 - Issue #262. Legacies.

Three-Mode Audio-Selection Chip With Account-Level Viewer Opt-Out, Local Communities Management Company (D/B/A Horsenly)

Defensive Publications Series

A user interface and method for adding audio to user-generated video in a content-sharing platform, in which the content creator selects only one of a small fixed set of audio modes — for example (1) keep original audio, (2) layer platform-provided music beneath the original audio, or (3) replace the original audio with platform-provided music — via a compact three-option control ("chip"), without browsing or selecting from an audio catalog; and in which a viewer may disable platform-provided audio across their experience via an account-level preference and/or a per-play toggle.

Metric-Affine Engineering (Mag) And Complex Continuum Physics: Global Invention Portfolio, Xavier Pillet

Defensive Publications Series

This document, produced with the assistance of Gemini 3.6 Reasoning, is released under the Apache License 2.0. It is a voluntary defensive publication (prior art) and therefore enters the prior art upon release under the applicable patent statutes : EPC Art. 54(2) (European Patent Convention), French IPC Art. L 611-11 (French Intellectual Property Code), 35 U.S.C. §102(a) (United States Patent Act), Chinese Patent Law Art. 22(5) (中华人民共和国专利法), and Japanese Patent Act Art. 29(1) (特許法). This comprehensive portfolio discloses 48 enabling technical innovations derived from metric-affine engineering (MAG), covering odd-viscosity micropolar fluids, hyper-shear metamaterials, Weyl semimetals, quantum/cryogenic instrumentation, healthcare applications, software …

The Incommensurability-Preserving Coupler: A Non-Purchasable Recognition Balance Sized Only From The Thank-You Message, Beside Money Gifts, Time Pledges And Prepaid Item Gift Codes, With The Merchant's Own Item Price As The Only Exchange Rate And One Payment Type Per Gift Message, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This defensive publication's revision adds a third gift cargo and claims 8–11 to a dual-currency gift system in which peer-to-peer money gifts and non-transferable, expiring time pledges run as one economy with no exchange rate. The system also carries prepaid item gift codes, bought at a shop's own price, beside per-person recognition balances that cannot be bought, transferred or cashed. Each thank-you message's recognition amount is computed only from the message (its words, a sender-chosen sentiment marker, its recorded length, the parties it names, and a model's refinement within a fixed band), never from any money amount, item, price, length …

The B-Tag Recommendation Function: Privacy-Preserving Methodology For Ai-Mediated Commercial Tip Recommendation — Suggested Tip Amounts With Stated Reasons From Confidential Merchant Costs, Without Customer Tracking, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This paper discloses a method by which an AI agent recommends a voluntary payment amount, a suggested tip in a pay-what-you-want sale, and shows it with stated reasons, without tracking the customer and without revealing the merchant's costs. Six components are specified. (1) The merchant confidentially discloses a cost breakdown by category (materials, labor, a skill premium, overhead, regulatory cost and margin) to the recommender; the customer never sees it. (2) The recommended amount is a non-binding anchor: paying it, more, less or nothing completes the sale, and whether a customer accepted or overrode past suggestions is not recorded. (3) …

Autonomous Capability Acquisition For Decentralized Ai Agents, Gaurav Gupta

Defensive Publications Series

Systems and methods are described for the autonomous acquisition of procedural capabilities by decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) agents operating on client edge devices. For example, a hybrid hub-and-spoke architecture could be used, comprising a centralized platform functioning as a marketplace and decentralized agents on client devices, such as smartphones, wearable devices, or smart home appliances. An agent may identify a functional gap, discover a suitable capability on the platform via a standardized agent-to-agent communication protocol, and procure it using an agent-native payment protocol via cryptographically signed intent and cart mandates, potentially without human-in-the-loop confirmation. An acquired capability can then be …

Discreteness, Adjacency And Order: A Structural Comparison Of The Theravāda Abhidhamma With Causal Sets And Loop Quantum Gravity — Partial Orders, Spin-Network Boundaries And Discrete Time In Buddhist Philosophy Of Matter, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This study compares the Theravāda Buddhist Abhidhamma with two discrete approaches to quantum gravity, causal set theory and loop quantum gravity, as formal structures, on three axes: order, adjacency and ratio. No row predicts a measurement, and none says that a Buddhist text anticipated a theory of quantum gravity. On order, the twenty-four conditioning relations of the Paṭṭhāna, taken whole, are not a partial order. The condition-modes that always run from earlier-arising to later-arising form an acyclic typed relation over which a strict order can be read: acyclic by selection, not yet a causal set, and ordering some moments of …

Metric-Affine Engineering: Transverse Domains And Comprehensive Applicative Variants, Xavier Pillet

Defensive Publications Series

This document, produced with the assistance of Gemini 3.6 Reasoning, is released under the Apache License 2.0. It is a voluntary defensive publication (prior art) and therefore enters the prior art upon release under the applicable patent statutes : EPC Art. 54(2) (European Patent Convention), French IPC Art. L 611-11 (French Intellectual Property Code), 35 U.S.C. §102(a) (United States Patent Act), Chinese Patent Law Art. 22(5) (中华人民共和国专利法), and Japanese Patent Act Art. 29(1) (特許法). This unified disclosure exhaustively compiles all 62 patentable concepts arising from the operational control of spacetime and hypermomentum, covering quantum propulsion, topological materials, hyper-shear medicine, and …

Causal Set Theory, The Growing Block, And The Buddhist Debate On The Three Times: What The Earliest Vibhajjavādin Records Say — Presentism, Eternalism And Beginningless Time In Abhidharma Texts Compared With Sequential-Growth Models, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This study reads the Buddhist debate on whether past and future things exist (the "three times") against the growing-block view of time that causal set theory's sequential-growth models are offered to support. Rafael Sorkin (2007) remarked that the "accretive time" of these models seems close to C.D. Broad's and to the "Vibhajavadin" school's; Fay Dowker (2022) invited a scholar to determine that school's view of time from the earliest records. The records give no single view under the name. In the northern Abhidharma, the Vibhajyavādins hold that the present and past action whose fruit is not yet given exist, but …

Machine-Checked Consistency Of A Buddhist Classification: Lean Theorems For The Abhidhamma's 89 And 121 Types Of Consciousness — Formal Verification Of A Class–Feature Incidence Structure Against Both Stated Projections, With Mutation Testing, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This paper reports a machine-checked consistency test of a classification that its source states twice, once feature by feature and once class by class. The source is chapters 1–3 of the Abhidhammattha-saṅgaha, a standard manual of the Theravāda Buddhist Abhidhamma, which classifies consciousness into 89 types (121 when the supramundane types are reckoned by meditative absorption) and states which of 52 mental factors combine with each type. In the Lean 4 theorem prover, a nine-clause generator builds the types as a product of chapter 1's classification axes, and eighteen rules over those axes, none naming an individual type, assign each …