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2026 October 9 - State Of The University Address, Office Of The President, East Tennessee State University

Office of the President Speeches

No abstract provided.

Results Without Reasons, Margaret H. Lemos

Vanderbilt Law Review

Modern theories of precedent assume a connection between the outcome of a case and the reasons that support it. A case stands as precedent not (only) for its result but for its ratio decidendi, the rationale on which the decision is based. But what happens when there is no such rationale—when a multimember court issues a decision without majority agreement on the reasons? In the Supreme Court, such cases are governed by Marks v. United States, which instructs lower courts to find the Court’s holding in the position of the Justice(s) who “concurred in the judgments on the …

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frequently operate through intricate networks of layered subsidiaries, yet courts continue to rely on a rigid and outdated presumption of corporate separateness rooted in a decision predating the current personal jurisdiction regime.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 …

The Normative Canons Of Criminal Law, Brian G. Slocum

Vanderbilt Law Review

The rule of lenity is an ancient maxim directing that ambiguities in criminal statutes be interpreted in favor of defendants. Courts rarely rely on the rule of lenity, though, and its future is currently being debated. Justice Kavanaugh argues for its elimination, even as Justice Gorsuch argues for it to be strengthened. Most commentators agree with Justice Gorsuch, typically advocating that the rule of lenity be made more powerful. This Article argues for a different approach: The rule of lenity can be strengthened by limiting it to resolving linguistic ambiguity. 

This Article explains why the rule of lenity plays an …

Resources Shaping Science Teachers' Design And Implementation Of Scientific Argumentation Instruction: A Systematic Review, Nannan Fan, Eric A. Kirk, Minghui Zhu, Troy D. Sadler

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Scientific argumentation is a core scientific practice recognized by multiple national science standards, yet many science teachers experience challenges integrating it into their classrooms. This systematic review examined the resources identified by research as shaping teachers’ argumentation instruction and how these resources were reported to support teachers’ classroom practice. Guided by an adapted version of the Pedagogical Design Capacity Framework, we analyzed 79 empirical studies published between 1983 and 2025. Resources were categorized as personal, instructional, or contextual, and their specific supportive aspects were grouped according to their reported contributions. Personal resources included teachers’ beliefs, knowledge of argumentation, and pedagogical …

Community-Based Water Management Through Cultural Ecosystem Services: Traditional Wisdom And Modern Adaptation In Senjoyo Spring, Indonesia, Puji Winarti, Sri Haryani, Sri Wardani, Langlang Handayani

Journal of Environmental Science and Sustainable Development

Small-scale freshwater ecosystems play vital ecological and cultural roles. However, community-based water management (CBWM) often lacks a clear analytical approach to integrating cultural ecosystem services (CES) and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), limiting the practical understanding of culturally grounded governance. To address this gap, this qualitative study explores the interactions between CES and TEK, analyzes their roles within CBWM, and identifies their implications for sustainable water governance. The integration between cultural value and local ecological knowledge makes Senjoyo Spring an appropriate location for this study. Data were collected through interviews with 20 key informants, field observations, forum group discussions (FGDs), and …

Weird Cops (Agency Police), Farhang Heydari

Vanderbilt Law Review

The police badge has migrated deep into the administrative state. Parks, schools, transit, housing, revenue, conservation, insurance, and gaming agencies now field tens of thousands of sworn “Agency Police”—often with full arrest powers despite missions far removed from general public safety. The footprint of these officers is significant and expanding, outpacing the growth of traditional law enforcement. Far from being limited to certain communities, Agency Police attract support across the political spectrum, from law-and-order policymakers to reformers. And yet, Agency Police are largely ignored in legal scholarship. The result is that a large slice of U.S. criminal enforcement is poorly …

Defining Quality Of Life: The Lived Experience Of Adults With Pulmonary Hypertension And The Impact Of Activity-Inducted Respiratory Distress, Bethany Adams

2026 Henry Ford Health Annual System Nursing Research & Evidence-Based Practice Symposium

No abstract provided.

Two New Non-Parametric Item Selection Methods For Cd-Cat, Li Junjie, Zheng Huijing, Kang Chunhua, Yimu Zhang

Chinese/English Journal of Educational Measurement and Evaluation | 教育测量与评估双语期刊

Computerized adaptive testing for cognitive diagnosis (CD-CAT) is a method that combines cognitive diagnosis testing and computerized adaptive testing. Compared with traditional cognitive diagnostic tests, it is more efficient and offers more tailored insights into examinees’ knowledge state. As a core part of CD-CAT, the item selection method directly affects the accuracy and efficiency of the overall assessment. This study aims to construct two nonparametric item selection methods based on the Hamming distance nonparametric difference index (HD-NDI) and the general Hamming distance nonparametric difference index (GHD-NDI). Subsequently, the performance of the two proposed item-selection methods in CD-CAT is examined through …

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 …

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 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.

Appalachia Summer/Fall 2026: Complete Issue

Appalachia

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

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 …

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 …

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 …

Brand Identity As Architecture: The B-Heart Logo, B-Prefix Naming, Heartbeat Animation As Display Of A Proof-Of-Humanity Attestation, And Aura-Color Two-Ledger State Primitive — Rotated-Heart Bistable Logo, Single-Letter Product Prefix, Logo Animation Bound To Proof-Of-Personhood Attestation, And Avatar Ring Color From Balance Zero-Crossing Frequency, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This paper discloses a brand-identity system in which each element of a logo does functional work beyond recognition. (I) A logo made by rotating an unmodified heart silhouette 45° clockwise, so that it reads at once as a heart and as the capital letter B — a reading that survives at favicon size because it depends on no internal whitespace. (II) A product-naming convention in which every product takes a one-letter prefix that is the logo's own letter reading, so the prefix cannot come apart from the mark. (III) A logo animation with a cardiac morphology — two pulses, the …

Transparency As Enforcement: Anti-Abuse Without Legal Contract Machinery — Community Disclosure In Place Of Terms-Of-Service Enforcement, Limited To Incurred Obligations, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This paper discloses a design pattern for abuse prevention in online platforms and shared-fund applications that replaces terms-of-service enforcement, dispute resolution and account termination with disclosure: the conduct to be policed is made visible to the bounded community it affects, and that community's own response is the sanction. Three properties make disclosure work as enforcement: the visibility itself is the mechanism, the response is proportioned by the community rather than by a binary rule, and participants join knowing what will be visible. Two deployments are specified: disclosure to a family of every reward its steward receives from the family's shared …

Fractal Three-Level Architecture For Reciprocity Economies: Self-Similar Family-And-Global Layering With A Single Mental Model — A Shared Three-Level Account Hierarchy (Pooled Fund, Give-Forward Account, Individual Account) For Family And Peer-To-Peer Payments, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This paper discloses an account architecture for a reciprocity platform — software through which people give one another money as thanks — designed to operate at two scales, within families and between strangers peer to peer, with one three-level account hierarchy at both, so that a participant who has learned the family-scale system recognizes the planetary-scale one. The three node types are a pooled fund that aggregates contributions and disburses them under published rules; a give-forward account, whose balance can only be passed on to other people; and an individual's own account. Four transfer conventions apply identically at each scale: …

Malina V. 158 Mgt. Llc

All Decisions

In this rent overcharge action, tenants moved for summary judgment declaring their apartments rent stabilized and establishing the frozen legal regulated rent. App Div 1st affirmed. The landlord's claimed pre-HSTPA high-rent vacancy deregulation based on IAIs failed because landlord submitted no invoices, contracts, or checks specific to the affected apartment and no testimony tying renovation records to the unit. Landlord therefore failed to establish sufficiently costly improvements to support deregulation. Under RSL § 26-517(e) and RSC § 2528.4(a), the legal regulated rent is frozen at the last reliable DHCR-registered stabilized rent until landlord complies with registration requirements.

New And Emerging Drug Therapy In Primary Open-Angle And Normal-Tension Glaucoma: Pharmacology, Neuroprotection And The Endpoint Problem, Stephanie Mroczkowska, Leanne Smewing, Doina Gherghel

School of Health Professions

Glaucoma is a group of progressive optic neuropathies characterized by retinal ganglion cell (RGC) loss, optic nerve head damage and corresponding visual-field loss. Intraocular pressure (IOP) is the principal modifiable risk factor, and lowering IOP remains the only treatment approach that has been shown in randomized clinical trials to slow glaucomatous progression, including in normal-tension glaucoma (NTG). However, IOP reduction does not eliminate progression in all patients, indicating that susceptibility to pressure-related damage is heterogeneous and that additional biological mechanisms are relevant. This review examines current and emerging pharmacological strategies for IOP lowering, approaches intended to protect RGCs independently of …

Dellisa Richardson V. Cascade Skating Rink

2026 Decisions

USDC for the District of New Jersey

Shamel Jones V. John Wetzel

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Maria Martinez V. Attorney General United States Of America

2026 Decisions

Agency

Layee Sanoe V. Attorney General United States Of America

2026 Decisions

Agency

Usa V. Robert Pennington

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Spectator 2026-10-08, Editors Of The Spectator

The Spectator

No abstract provided.