Digital Commons Network^™

Sealed Justice: Federal Courts' Inconsistent Record-Sealing Rules And Their Impact On Judicial Transparency, David S. Ardia

Faculty Publications

Public access to court records is a cornerstone of democratic governance, enabling public oversight of the judiciary and fostering confidence in the rule of law. Despite a strong presumption in favor of openness under both the First Amendment and common law, the sealing of federal court records has become widespread, often with minimal judicial scrutiny. Re-cent investigations have revealed that excessive court secrecy shields government and corporate misconduct, conceals vital public-safety information, and erodes public confidence in the courts.

This Article presents the first comprehensive analysis of the local rules governing sealing in all 94 federal districts, reviewing more than …

Suspending The Truancy Paradigm, Barbara A. Fedders, Lucy Carlson, Max Parker

Faculty Publications

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, school absences have skyrocketed. While racially minoritized, disabled, and low-income students have historically been, and remain, most likely to experience absence, white and affluent students’ rates of attendance have also declined. To respond to this new universality of student absenteeism, some policymakers have begun to seek alternatives to what we term “the truancy paradigm.”

We define the truancy paradigm as the range of coercive and often punitive interventions deployed by states and school districts to enforce compulsory attendance statutes. This paradigm, we argue, wrongly assumes (a) that strict enforcement of compulsory attendance laws …

A Whole-Brain Voxel-Based Analysis Of Structural Abnormalities In Ptsd: An Enigma-Pgc Study, Jacklynn M. Fitzgerald

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Background

Patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) exhibit smaller regional brain volumes in commonly reported regions including the amygdala and hippocampus, regions associated with fear and memory processing. In the current study, we have conducted a voxel-based morphometry (VBM) meta-analysis using whole-brain statistical maps with neuroimaging data from the ENIGMA-PGC PTSD working group.

Methods

T1-weighted structural neuroimaging scans from 36 cohorts (PTSD n = 1309; controls n = 2198) were processed using a standardized VBM pipeline (ENIGMA-VBM tool). We meta-analyzed the resulting statistical maps for voxel-wise differences in gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) volumes between PTSD patients and …

Data‐Driven Approach To Dynamic Resting State Functional Connectivity In Post‐Traumatic Stress Disorder: An Enigma‐Pgc Ptsd Study, Jacklynn M. Fitzgerald

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been associated with aberrations in brain networks in the absence of a given cognitive demand or task, called resting-state networks. Prior work has focused on disruption in the static functional connectivity (FC) among specific regions constrained by a priori hypotheses. However, dynamic FC, an approach that examines brain network characteristics over time, may provide a more sensitive measure to understand the network properties underlying dysfunction in PTSD. Further, using a data-driven analytic approach may reveal the contribution of other larger network disturbances beyond those revealed by hypothesis-driven …

Mixing-Controlled Combustion Of Ethanol Enabled By Prechamber Ignition (Pc-Mcc): A Preliminary Experimental Demonstration, Jared Zeman, Ziming Yan, Michael Bunce, Adam Dempsey

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

This numerical study focuses on assessing the key design parameters of interest for use of an active prechamber igniter as an ignition assistance device to enable mixing-controlled combustion (MCC) of ethanol (E100) in a heavy-duty Caterpillar C9.3B engine. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations of a baseline diesel and prechamber retrofitted C9.3B at a gross indicated mean effective pressure (IMEPg) of 5 bar and 1800 rpm are carried out using CONVERGE. In particular, the sizing of the prechamber volume, sizing of total orifice cross sectional area (orifice diameter), and location of the prechamber relative to a centrally mounted common rail direct …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Voting Matters: Materiality Considerations And The Shareholder Vote, Renee M. Jones

Seattle University Law Review

For the shareholder franchise to have meaning, shareholders must have access to relevant information to inform their voting decisions. The securities laws’ disclosure requirements play an essential role in informing the shareholder vote.

This Essay focuses on the question of the materiality of information in the context of shareholder voting. It addresses the question of whether ESG-related information is material, positioning the materiality inquiry within the context of shareholders’ voting decisions. It explores the definition of materiality with a focus on the “reasonable investor” concept embedded within the definition. The Essay argues that the implicit expectations of many commentators that …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Understanding The Big Three’S Wavering Support Of Environmental And Social Shareholder Proposals, Jeff Schwartz, Jefferson Jensen

Seattle University Law Review

Because of their substantial equity portfolios, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street (the Big 3) are central players in corporate governance. It is, therefore, critical to understand how they vote. One puzzle is that their support for shareholder proposals on environmental and social matters appears to waiver. In 2020, for instance, BlackRock supported 11.1% of environmental proposals at S&P 500 firms. In 2021, it seemingly reversed course, supporting 55.2%. It then flipped again, supporting 32.1% in 2022. Such statistics suggest that the Big 3 are constantly changing their views on these topics. This Article seeks to better understand whether this is …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Existing Personal Leadership Prototypes Versus Organizational Leadership Prototypes: How Individuals Manage Tensions Between Leading With Authenticity And Conformity During Their Socialization As Leaders In Organizations, Benjamin M. Galvin, Jeffrey S. Bednar, Archie Bates

Faculty Publications

Based on qualitative data collected at the United States Military Academy (West Point), this research enhances our understanding of how individuals manage tensions between leading with authenticity and organizational pressures for conformity, resulting from a lack of alignment between their existing personal leadership prototypes and organizational prototypes of leadership. Our theoretical model moves beyond existing research on leader identity construction− which largely treats individuals as blank slates as they construct who they will be as leaders in organizations− by highlighting how individuals learn to enact a leadership approach during socialization that fits within their personal zone of acceptable authenticity and …

Special-Purpose Governments, Conor Clarke, Henry Hansmann

Scholarship@WashULaw

When one thinks of government, what comes to mind are familiar general-purpose entities like states, counties, and cities. But more than half of the 90,000 governments in the United States are strikingly different: They are “special-purpose” governments that do one thing, such as supply water, fight fire, or pick up the trash. These entities have expanded far more rapidly than any other form of government. Yet they remain understudied, and they present at least two puzzles. First, special-purpose governments are difficult to distinguish from entities that are typically regarded as business organizations—such as consumer cooperatives—and thus underscore the nebulous border …

Creating And Implementing An Inclusive Metadata Policy, Nicole Lewis, Jeremy Myntti

Faculty Publications

The BYU Library developed an Inclusive Metadata Policy for metadata creators to use when creating and remediating descriptions to be more inclusive. Accompanying the policy is a companion document with recommendations and examples, including links to many external resources. In addition to working with stakeholders in the library to develop the policy, we consulted with the University’s Office of Belonging. This presentation will describe the process we used to create the library policy and recommendations document and share information about how the policy has been implemented.

Designing For Relational Ethics In Online And Blended Learning: Levinas, Buber, And Teaching Interfaith Ethics, Michael Hubbard Mackay, Jason K. Mcdonald, Andrew C. Reed

Faculty Publications

Online and blended learning (OBL) overemphasize the process of creating artifacts, producing strategies, or otherwise utilizing a “making” orientation in education. As an alternative to this making-orientation, we offer a model for relational course design founded in the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Buber. We examine an OBL course design focused on interfaith leadership and ethics that lends itself to the need for relational pedagogy. The focus on asymmetrical and symmetrical relationships that separate Levinas and Buber’s philosophies enable rich ways of designing relational pedagogies and for resisting the making orientation. By focusing on human relationships, we demonstrate design …

Instructional Designer Perspectives On The Pursuit Of Quality In Online Course Design, Jason K. Mcdonald, Stephen C. Yanchar

Faculty Publications

In this qualitative study we investigated the experiences of instructional designers as they sought to build quality into online courses. Through semi-structured interviews, we explored what enabled and hindered their pursuit of quality, how they experienced their efforts in this regard, what mattered to them, and complexities that accompanied this pursuit. Our analysis of participant experiences suggested four themes: (1) connections between quality and designers’ ability to act autonomously; (2) connections between quality and collaborative, team-based relationships; (3) ambivalence due to tensions between autonomy and collaboration; and (4) ways of coping with limits on autonomy and collaboration. We conclude our …

The Wind In The Willows Effect: Does Age Affect Human Versus Animal Faux Pas Recognition?, Gray Atherton, Lucy Robinson, Lucie Guy-Smith, Liam Cross

School of Psychology

Children’s literature is rife with anthropomorphic or non-human characters that may be used as a scaffold to teach children about theory of mind (ToM) or the ways in which people think or feel about the social world. In this study, 107 typically developing U.K. school children in Years 1, 3, and 5 (5–10 years of age) completed a human and anthropomorphic ToM test that tested their understanding of faux pas. Specifically, children from these three age groups were given a human version of 20 faux pas stories and an identical animal version of the same stories 1 week apart (with …

Mapping Cognition Across Lab And Daily Life Using Experience-Sampling, Louis Chitiz, Bronte Mckeown, Bridget Mulholland, Raven Star Wallace, Ian Goodall-Halliwell, Nerissa Siu Ping Ho, Delali Konu, Giulia Poerio, Jeffrey D. Wammes, Michael Milham, Arno Klein, Beth Jefferies, Robert Leech, Jonathan Smallwood

School of Psychology

The goal of psychological research is to understand behaviour in daily life. Although lab studies provide the control necessary to identify cognitive mechanisms behind behaviour, how these controlled situations generalise to activities in daily life remains unclear. Experience-sampling provides useful descriptions of cognition in the lab and real world and the current study examined how thought patterns generated by multidimensional experience-sampling (mDES) generalise across both contexts. We combined data from five published studies to generate a common ‘thought-space’ using data from the lab and daily life. This space represented data from both lab and daily life in an unbiased manner …

The Effect Of Deferring Feedback On Rule-Based And Information-Integration Category Learning, Charlotte E.R. Edmunds, Kathryn Carpenter, Andy J. Wills, Fraser Milton

School of Psychology

Previous work has shown that deferring feedback significantly impairs two-dimensional information-integration category learning, often thought to recruit an implicit learning system, but leaves intact unidimensional rule-based learning, commonly assumed to engage an explicit system. These results were taken to support the influential COmpetition between Verbal and Implicit Systems (COVIS) dual-process theory. This conclusion has subsequently been challenged by the finding that this dissociation disappears when the number of relevant dimensions is matched between tasks. However, as well as replacing a unidimensional rule-based task with a two-dimensional conjunction task, a different set of stimuli were used making it unclear which of …

What Can Conjuring Tell Us About Cognition? The Future Of The Science Of Magic, Geoff G. Cole, Gustav Kuhn

School of Psychology

During the past 20 years a number of articles have appeared within a field that has become known as the “science of magic.” This subdiscipline of psychology posits that the ancient art of conjuring can be used to develop psychological theories and knowledge, and more than 150 peer-reviewed articles have now been published. In the current article, we critically evaluate what can be considered as the three central tenets of the discipline: that the methods used in magic can be incorporated within experimental research, that magicians have particular insight into human cognition and behavior, and that the deconstruction of magic …

Timing Is Everything: Congruence, Controllability, And Performance Measure Weighting, Hayden T. Gunnell, Gary Hecht, William B. Tayler, Kristy L. Towry

Faculty Publications

We investigate whether the weights managers place on performance measures for performancebased compensation depend on whether weights are determined at the beginning or end of the performance period. We propose that managers frame the weighting decision differently depending on timing. Specifically, prior to employee effort, managers frame the decision as intended to align employee effort to firm objectives, whereas after employees have exerted effort, managers frame the weighting decision as intended to evaluate employee effort. Thus, we expect, and find, that managers weight measures that are more congruent with firm objectives more heavily when weightings are determined ex ante (before …

Comparing The Sensitivity And Specificity Of Novel Motor Assessments For Traumatic Brain Injury, Paula K. Johnson, Ariana M. Hedges-Muncy, Erin D. Bigler, Lorie Richards, Steven Knight Charles

Faculty Publications

Background: Portable technology that records movements with high accuracy provides potential for sensitive clinical movement tests for individuals who experienced a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Objective: (1)To present impairments assessed using markerless motion capture (MMC) and (2) to compare the sensitivity and specificity of the MMCmediated tests to each other and to common clinical tests. Design: Screening study, using as criterion standard the ability to classify participant with TBI versus control participant. Setting: Research laboratory. Participants: The study included 30 individuals with TBI and 101 control participants. Entry criteria included most recent head injury < 5 years old, no history of movement issues prior to injury, no movement-affecting medications, and sufficient cognitive ability to follow instructions. Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: Performance on MMC-mediated tests and existing clinical analogs. MMC-mediated tests included finger oscillation, simple reaction time, and visually guided movement tasks. For comparison, participants also completed the following clinical tests: Halstead–Reitan finger tapping, simple reaction time test, and Beery Visuomotor Integration test. Impairments were identified as test scores of participants with TBI that fell outside of the 95% interval of control participants’ test scores. Random forest analysis was used to calculate the sensitivity and specificity of MMC and clinical tests according to their ability to correctly classify participants with TBI and control participants. Results: MMC-mediated tests revealed impairments in more participants with TBI than clinical tests in all three TBI groups (mild, repeated, and moderate to severe). Similarly, MMC-mediated tests revealed a higher percentage of scores as impairments than clinical tests in all three groups with TBI. Furthermore, MMC-mediated tests proved more sensitive and more specific than clinical tests (70% versus 50% and 98% versus 93%, respectively). Conclusion: MMC-mediated tests are sensitive and specific (compared to traditional clinical tests) and have potential to fill a gap in clinical care of TBI.

Categorical Perception Of The Index Finger As An American Sign Language Phonological Construct, Lareina Hingson, Jeffrey Jack Green, Brooklyn Lorenc

Faculty Publications

In American Sign Language, specific handshapes found in the manual alphabet and/or numbering system (such as the pointed index finger—the number “1”—and its bent counterpart—the letter “x”) are assumed to be phonologically distinct under the rationale that bentness of the finger(s) constitutes a phonemic distinctive feature. This study investigates this notion, building on previous behavioral studies of American Sign Language categorical perception of bentness of the index finger. We examined varying levels of bentness between 180◦ and 90◦ using a scale ranging from the signs BLACK and SUMMER in the standard dialect. Experiment 1 found that when presented with all …

Sources Of Influence In Marriage And Parenting For Interfaith Couples, William D. Stanford, Justin J. Hendricks, Ted G. Futris, Loren D. Marks, David C. Dollahite

Faculty Publications

Interfaith marriages are increasingly common, yet research on their family dynamics and sources of influence in family functioning remains limited. Relatedly, although research highlights religion’s influence on family processes, most studies only include same-faith couples. Subsequently, we qualitatively explored the experiences of 32 happily married interfaith couples, examining their sources of guidance in marriage and parenting, reasons for rejecting influences, and the role of religion in their family functioning. We identified one theme of rejecting outside influence and five key themes/sources of influence: one another/themselves, family, friends, media/professionals, and spiritual sources. Findings emphasize similarities between interfaith couples and American families …

Testing The Effect Of Speaker Diarization And Speech Separation On Vowel Formant Estimates, Joseph A. Stanley, Lisa Morgan Johnson, Earl Kjar Brown

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Historic Rock Hill Collection - Accession 1875, Historic Rock Hill, White Family, Fewell Family, Rock Hill History

Manuscript Collection

The Historic Rock Hill Collection consists of materials relating to the history of Rock Hill and its notable historic buildings, locations, and families. This collection includes various photographs of buildings and roads, news clippings, records, yearbooks, fliers, maps, and prints pertaining to Rock Hill, S.C. The collection also includes Historic Rock Hill records (donation records and a photo journal), photographs and records pertaining to the White Family and the Fewell Family, as well as land plats, maps, and renovation plans of the White Home and Historic Rock Hill property. Historic Rock Hill, which was founded in the 1980s as the …

Annual Security Report For Calendar Year 2024, Illinois State University Police Department

Clery Act Annual Security Report

Illinois State University Police Department Annual Security Report

2025 Digital Commons And Experts Annual Report, Amanda Steinvall

Publications 2026-present

No abstract provided.

Confining Rights: The Neuroscientific Challenge To Long-Term Solitary Confinement Under The Eighth Amendment

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Prima Facie Regulatory Capture: Lessons From Epa’S Regulation Of Glyphosate And Pfas ‘Forever Chemicals’, Jason Maclean

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

In From The Cold: Notes On Sixteenth-Century English Catholic History, Freddy Cristobal Dominguez

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

English Catholic history continues to tread new ground, revisit old theories, and draw together theoretical and geographical frameworks. However, it continues to struggle to be accepted as part of the "mainstream" narrative of English history. In this review essay, I explore three key areas of growth related to the study of sixteenth-century English Catholicism: returning Catholics to the "high politics" of England; a renewed emphasis on gender, particularly the role of religious women; and an international/transnational orientation that reaffirms the close ties between Britain and the Continent. Recently reviewed works include Lillian Lodine-Chaffey, A Weak Woman in a Strong Battle: …