Digital Commons Network^™

Ef21 With Bells & Whistles: Six Algorithmic Extensions Of Modern Error Feedback, Ilyas Fatkhullin, Igor Sokolov, Eduard Gorbunov, Zhize Li, Peter Richtarik

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

First proposed by Seide (2014) as a heuristic, error feedback (EF) is a very popular mechanism for enforcing convergence of distributed gradient-based optimization methods enhanced with communication compression strategies based on the application of contractive compression operators. However, existing theory of EF relies on very strong assumptions (e.g., bounded gradients), and provides pessimistic convergence rates (e.g., while the best known rate for EF in the smooth nonconvex regime, and when full gradients are compressed, is O(1/T2/3), the rate of gradient descent in the same regime is O(1/T)). Recently, Richtàrik et al. (2021) proposed a new error feedback mechanism, EF21, based …

Less Is More: On The Importance Of Data Quality For Unit Test Generation, Junwei Zhang, Xing Hu, Shan Gao, Xin Xia, David Lo, Shanping Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Unit testing is crucial for software development and maintenance. Effective unit testing ensures and improves software quality, but writing unit tests is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Recent studies have proposed deep learning (DL) techniques or large language models (LLMs) to automate unit test generation. These models are usually trained or fine-tuned on large-scale datasets. Despite growing awareness of the importance of data quality, there has been limited research on the quality of datasets used for test generation. To bridge this gap, we systematically examine the impact of noise on the performance of learning-based test generation models. We first apply the open …

On-Demand Scenario Generation For Testing Automated Driving Systems, Songyang Yan, Xiaodong Zhang, Kunkun Hao, Haojie Xin, Yonggang Luo, Jucheng Yang, Ming Fan, Chao Yang, Jun Sun, Zijiang Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The safety and reliability of Automated Driving Systems (ADS) are paramount, necessitating rigorous testing methodologies to uncover potential failures before deployment. Traditional testing approaches often prioritize either natural scenario sampling or safety-critical scenario generation, resulting in overly simplistic or unrealistic hazardous tests. In practice, the demand for natural scenarios (e.g., when evaluating the ADS's reliability in real-world conditions), critical scenarios (e.g., when evaluating safety in critical situations), or somewhere in between (e.g., when testing the ADS in regions with less civilized drivers) varies depending on the testing objectives. To address this issue, we propose the On-demand Scenario Generation (OSG) Framework, …

Demystifying Memorization In Llm-Based Program Repair Via A General Hypothesis Testing Framework, Jiaolong Kong, Xiaofei Xie, Shangqing Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Large Language Models (LLMs) have achieved remarkable success in various applications, particularly in code-related tasks such as code generation and program repair, setting new performance benchmarks. However, the extensive use of large training corpora raises concerns about whether these achievements stem from genuine understanding or mere memorization of training data—a question often overlooked in current research. This paper aims to study the memorization issue within LLM-based program repair by investigating whether the correct patches generated by LLMs are the result of memorization. The key challenge lies in the absence of ground truth for confirming memorization, leading to various ad-hoc methods …

Emulating Empire: Washington’S Preoccupation With British Counterinsurgency In Malaya And U.S. Commitment To Vietnam, Wen-Qing Ngoei

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This essay examines how Washington’s deep preoccupation with the British-Malayan counterinsurgency tactics–tactics that routed the guerilla fighters of the Malayan Communist Party–shaped US commitment to Vietnam. This US preoccupation, stoked by Britain’s (and Malaya’s) promotion of their counterinsurgency knowledge to US leaders, also influenced the lessons that US analysts and thinkers absorbed from the United States’ defeat in Indochina. Most studies of British-Malayan counterinsurgency and its connection to the Vietnam War fixate upon debating the relevance of the former to the latter and how this bears on US failures in Indochina. However, this essay focuses on the understudied fervor with …

Looking For The Public In Public Law, Nikhil Menezes, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

The “public” is everywhere and nowhere in contemporary public law. Everywhere, in that the term is constantly invoked to justify and explain existing arrangements. Nowhere, in that serious attempts to identify a relevant public and elicit its input are few and far between. Scholars and officials depict the U.S. public as playing myriad roles in governance — checking, guiding, approving, repudiating—without offering an account of how public preferences are formed or how they exercise influence on questions of interest.

This Article seeks to identify and call attention to the foundational dilemmas underlying this disconnect, to clarify their normative contours and …

How Domestic Institutions Shape The Global Tech War, Anu Bradford, Eileen Li, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

The United States (U.S.), China, and the European Union (EU) are engaged in a national security-driven economic competition over advanced technology. Many scholars and commentators focus on the external dimension of this geopolitical contest; that is, they describe the strategic choices by each actor in terms of geopolitical realities, threat perceptions, and relative power. However, this Article brings to the fore the internal dimension of the global tech war. We argue that each player’s strategy in the tech war is a function of its internal features, including basic constitutional powers, domestic legal institutions, and the relationships between the government and …

After Notice And Choice: Reinvigorating “Unfairness” To Rein In Data Abuses, Lina M. Khan, Samuel A.A. Levine, Stephanie T. Nguyen

Faculty Scholarship

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has long served as America’s default privacy enforcer. Yet for much of its history, the agency relied on self-regulation through a “notice and choice” framework that left the public vulnerable in an era of rampant data collection and digital surveillance. Businesses overwhelmed users with dense privacy notices while amassing and exploiting vast troves of personal data. The agency’s historical approach, rooted in outdated assumptions about self-correcting markets and an ideologically cramped view of the FTC’s authorities and mandate, helped usher in a digital economy where data abuses became routine.

During the Biden Administration, the FTC …

The Administrative State's Second Face, Emily R. Chertoff, Jessica Bulman-Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

We often assume that there is one administrative state, with one body of administrative law that governs it. In fact, the administrative state has two distinct faces: one turned toward regulation and benefits distribution, and one turned toward physical force and surveillance. The two faces are growing further apart under the Roberts Court, which has hemmed in the first face with decisions like Loper Bright while showing solicitude for national security and law enforcement agencies.

This Article delineates the two faces of the administrative state. It provides a descriptive account of the second face and the distinctive administrative law that …

Bound: The Imaginative Surplus Of Contractual Intent, Elizabeth F. Emens

Faculty Scholarship

Contract law is generally understood in terms of enforcement. The legal definition of a contract is a promise that the state will enforce. Individuals are empowered by contract law to create legal arrangements that the state will step in and enforce. And yet most contracts never make it to court.

This Article inverts the conventional focus on enforcement through a study of extralegal contracts. These are formal written agreements that parties call contracts but are not intended for legal enforcement. Examples of these extralegal contracts include no-suicide contracts and contracts for sexual slavery.

Examining extralegal contracts offers multiple insights. First, …

Beyond Issuers: The Future Of Private Securities Litigation, Joshua Mitts

Faculty Scholarship

Private securities litigation has traditionally been viewed as a subfield of corporate governance, reducing agency costs by disciplining wayward management. In this brief Symposium essay, I argue that the future of private securities litigation lies beyond issuers. I discuss how a fraud claim under Rule 10b-5 can be understood as a kind of economic tort, and set out, in broad strokes, an economic analysis of claims against non-issuer defendants. I then consider emerging trends in the case law against non-issuers in social media and market manipulation cases. I conclude by identifying some challenges and opportunities for securities litigation in a …

Law Enforcement Privilege, Rebecca Wexler

Faculty Scholarship

You can’t question a secret you haven’t been told. The criminal legal system depends on fair and open proceedings to expose and regulate unlawful and unconstitutional police conduct through the courts. If police can use claims of secrecy to systematically thwart criminal defendants’ access to evidence, judicial review will fail. And yet that is exactly what is happening under a common-law doctrine called the “law enforcement privilege.” The privilege empowers police and prosecutors to rely on the results of secret investigative methods while withholding information from the defense about how those methods work. It risks perpetuating unconstitutional conduct, enabling wrongful …

Presidential Supremacy Over Administrative Agencies, Gary Gensler, Lev Menand

Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, the public has long benefited from the role played by administrative agencies with a degree of autonomy from the White House, each agency with distinct duties and authorities to implement the law as set out by Congress.

In its first hundred days, the second Trump administration has moved rapidly to centralise control over all administrative agencies, including so-called independent agencies, which have long operated at a greater remove from the White House than ‘executive’ agencies like the Department of State and the Department of Commerce. The administration is asserting an interpretation of the Constitution known as …

The Financial Sector And Global Dollar System, Gary Gensler, Lev Menand, Joshua Younger

Faculty Scholarship

The second Trump administration’s approach to financial markets and institutions mixes familiar deregulatory policies with a range of other policies (financial and non-financial) that are largely without precedent and may lead to significant structural change in the long term. Combined, these policies have the potential to affect the financial sector in at least four ways. First, they could threaten the foundations of the global dollar system – mutual cooperation, trust, and interdependency, both between the producers and consumers of financial instruments and among the nations that constitute the dollar bloc. Second, they may undermine financial stability by loosening prudential standards, …

(De)Funding Family Separations, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

Federal foster care funding exists in tension with foundational family law principles. The law protects family integrity: the state may only separate parents and children in extreme cases, and, when it does, the state must work to reunify families. Yet the federal funding system directs billions of federal dollars to support CPS agencies and pay subsidies to foster parents, adoptive parents, and guardians. It does so via an open-ended entitlement, so that the more families a state separates, the more federal funds it receives. This system makes it relatively cheaper for CPS agencies to take custody of children, incentivizes states …

Competence-Competence, Delegation, And The Aaa/Icdr Rules, Christopher R. Drahozal, George A. Bermann, Jack J. Coe Jr., Catherine A. Rogers

Faculty Scholarship

In 2021 and 2022, the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) amended their arbitration rules to address a “potential controversy” said to be caused by the Restatement of the U.S. Law of International Commercial and Investor-State Arbitration. The “potential controversy” is over whether the rules providing that arbitrators have “the power to rule on [their] own jurisdiction” should be interpreted as delegation clauses — that is, as “clearly and unmistakably” delegating exclusive authority to resolve jurisdictional challenges to the arbitrators instead of the court. Most courts have so interpreted the rules.

By contrast, the …

Alice’S Patent Puzzle: Unlocking Patent Eligibility For Diagnostic Methods Within Wonderland’S Faulty Two-Step Framework, Anjali Dhamsania J.D. Candidate

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

As it stands today, diagnostic tests and their methods are largely unpatentable. In 2012, the Supreme Court, in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., redefined the scope of patent subject matter, leaving a profound impact in the context of medical diagnostics. The subsequent decision by the Court in Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank International two years later significantly expanded the range of judicially created exceptions to statutory patent eligibility criteria to encompass “abstract ideas,” solidifying this “Alice-Mayo” framework as the definitive test to determine patent-eligible subject matter.

But this shift has made it exceedingly difficult to secure diagnostic …

Applying The Public Forum Doctrine To Public Official And Campaign Social Media Accounts, Jonathan Peters, Skylar Bandoly

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in the 2019 case Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University v. Trump that the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account was a designated public forum, making it a First Amendment violation for President Trump to block users from it on the basis of their viewpoints. A few years later, in the 2024 case Lindke v. Freed, the US Supreme Court established a two-part test to determine whether a public official’s social media activity constituted state action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This Article reviews these and related cases to explore—in the context …

State And Regulatory Agency Approaches To Limiting Deepfakes In Political Advertising, Mary Margaret Burniston J.D. Candidate

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

With recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), regulators have turned their attention to the issue of how—and whether—to regulate the use of AI in political advertisements. While nineteen states have passed legislation regulating AI in political advertising, such regulations may be challenged as violations of the First Amendment. Furthermore, federal agencies also dispute which regulatory agency has jurisdiction to address the problem, with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) both claiming authority. Beyond issues of jurisdiction, agency action is also limited by the US Supreme Court’s recent decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.

As …

Nil Speeds Ahead While Title Ix Trails Behind: Finding Room For Title Ix In The Evolving Nil Landscape, Sophie Zelony

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Title IX was enacted to eliminate sex-based discrimination in educational programs receiving federal funding, including intercollegiate athletics. While the law has successfully increased female participation in sports, disparities in the treatment of male and female athletes persist, particularly in the context of publicity and promotional resources. The rise of name, image, and likeness (NIL) opportunities has further widened this gap, as universities and their affiliated collectives disproportionately promote male athletes, enhancing their marketability and NIL earning potential. Schroeder et al. v. University of Oregon presents a novel legal issue—whether Title IX applies to NIL deals when universities provide unequal publicity …

Arkansas Corn And Grain Sorghum Research Studies 2024, Jason Kelley, Travis Faske

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

The 2024 edition of the Arkansas Corn and Grain Sorghum Research Studies Series includes research results on topics pertaining to corn and grain sorghum production, including weed, disease, nematode, and insect management; economics; irrigation; agronomics; soil fertility; drone use; and research verification program results.

Our objective is to capture and broadly distribute the results of research projects funded by the Arkansas Corn and Grain Sorghum Board. The intended audience includes producers and their advisors, current investigators, and future researchers. The Series serves as a citable archive of research results.

The reports inform and guide our long-term recommendations, but should not …

The Financial Effects Of Enrolling Students With Disabilities In Catholic High Schools In States That Offer Vouchers Or Scholarships For Students With Disabilities, Susan Noonan Dr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the financial effect of enrolling students with disabilities in Catholic high schools located in states that offer vouchers or scholarships for these students. Furthermore, the research aimed to understand the school’s experience in collaborating with the U.S. Department of Education to meet the criteria for voucher acceptance. It is important to note that enrollment and tuition revenue is the key to a school’s financial stability. Using an exploratory case study approach, information was gathered from a variety of stakeholders including the superintendent, administration, business manager, admissions coordinator, teachers, and counselors. The findings indicated that parents of children …

The Origins Of German Industrialization: The Transition To Capitalism In Prussian Agriculture, Daniel C. Colligan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation seeks to explain the origins of German industrialization. Historical accounts of German industrialization often chronicle the process of its development but leave reasons for its initiation unexplained. Theories that have attempted to locate the roots of rapid German economic growth have been found to be empirically unsatisfactory, and thus the accepted story has defaulted to a gradualist narrative which conceptualizes economic behavior as fundamentally unchanging throughout German history. This dissertation challenges this reigning view, attempting to provide an explanation for why Germany embarked on a rapid economic growth trajectory in the nineteenth century whereas many other similarly situated …

Belonging Against The Odds: Exploring Restorative Justice Practices As Pathways To Foster Belonging In New York City Transfer Schools, Miguel Rodriguez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The U.S. education system perpetuates structural inequities that disproportionately affect Black students with the School-to-Prison Pipeline (STPPL) criminalizing them through Zero-Tolerance policies. Transfer schools are often a last resort for students pushed out of traditional schools provide a lens to examine the impact of Restorative Justice Practices (RJP) and Black student representation on belonging. This quantitative dissertation study analyzes secondary data from the NYC Department of Education using multivariate models to explore the relationship between RJPs and sense of belonging (SOB). Model 1 found that discussing feelings and emotions at school (Tier 1 RJP) had the strongest association with SOB …

Re/Inventing Desire: Asexuality As A Tool For Utopian Intimacies, Amaranta Martinez Martinez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Asexuality became widely known in 2001 when David Jay, launched the Asexuality, Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), however, it’s been just throughout the last decade that it has gained popularity among LGBTQ studies. This thesis explores asexuality beyond its conventional framing as a sexual orientation, positioning it instead as a theoretical framework with the potential to challenge hegemonic understandings of sexuality. It does so by tracing the historical construction of sexual desire through the discipline of sexology, demonstrating how its discourses helped reinforce compulsory sexuality—the expectation that individuals must experience and act upon sexual desire (Emens 2014). Building upon this …

Problems And Paradigms In The Central Sahel Of Africa, Georgia Graham

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In Africa’s Central Sahel region—comprising of the countries of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso—environmental hardship, historical trauma, and contemporary conflict intersect with profound challenges of nation-building, state construction, and economic development. Situated in the semi-arid transitional zone between the Sahara Desert and sub-Saharan Africa, these landlocked states suffer from extreme geographical vulnerability. From the colonial period through to the present, these nations have experienced recurring droughts, persistent food insecurity, and entrenched poverty. Population growth has dramatically outpaced economic development; youth unemployment, limited educational opportunities, and scarce resources fuel social tension and potential conflict. Islamist insurgencies and increasingly violent ethnic conflicts …

Hope By A Thousand Cuts: Fashion Ethics From Cutting Fabric To Cutting A Fashion Film, Sarah G. Porterfield

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I conducted an experiment during which I learned to sew, created a clothing collection, and wore nothing but my collection for a month. Additionally, I documented my collection and the process in a fashion film. The goal of my experiment was to investigate fashion ethics. To gain a greater understanding of the underlying theories that fashion materializes and to grasp their ethical implications better, I studied the texts of fashion theorists such as Marx, Barthes, Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari, Butler, Benjamin, and Merleau-Ponty throughout my experiment. Therefore, I gained insight into many aspects of fashion ethics, from the beginning stages …

Menstrual Math: The Price Of Bleeding, Gabrielle Langston

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project examines the landscape of menstrual equity in the United States through a data storytelling lens, focusing on state-level policies regarding taxation and access to menstrual products. The analysis explores which states impose sales tax on menstrual products, if state schools provide free menstrual products, and which states ensure access for incarcerated individuals using publicly available datasets from advocacy groups. Additionally, there is an investigation into potential correlations between the gender wage gap and states that tax menstrual products, shedding light on economic and policy disparities.

Through its data visualizations, this project aims to provide a clear, although not …

Streaming Instabilities In Class 0/I Disks, Shirin Gul Zaidi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

While it is clear that planets form in protoplanetary disks, fragmentation and the radial drift of pebbles inhibit the growth of grains to planetesimals. To overcome these barriers, effective localized dust clumping on a short enough time scale is required. One promising solution to this problem is the streaming instability. Streaming instability is only triggered with a large enough dust-to-gas ratio and grain size. Though it is unknown when and where those conditions are met in protoplanetary disks, recent studies have indicated that planetary cores likely require early formation to match detected exoplanet system masses, so that we need to …

East Asian And “Extraordinary”: Intersecting Racial And Musical Identities In The Classical Music Solo Career, Audrey Chen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A performer’s success within the classical music industry is reliant not only on musical merit but also on extramusical factors like race, gender, class, and culture, all of which influence a musician’s upbringing. For East Asian musicians, distinctions of merit can be accompanied by racialized and often paradoxical narratives about Asian identity that essentialize their performance, personality, and background. This dissertation examines how Asian and Asian-American performers of Western classical music navigate this interplay of racial and musical identity within their careers, with a specific focus on string players and pianists.

Chapter 2 introduces five major racialized narratives used to …