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Religious Liberty vs. Discrimination: Striking a Balance When Business Owners Refuse Service to Same-Sex Couples Due to Religious Beliefs
Get PDFSame-sex marriage is now legal in all fifty states, which has created a same-sex wedding industry. Some business owners, who do not believe in discrimination based on sexual orientation, nevertheless have religious beliefs that forbid them from participating in same-sex marriage ceremonies and celebrations by providing goods and services for those ceremonies and celebrations. This comment argues for passage of a statute which adequately protects business owners who have religious objections to same-sex marriage, but does not provide for blanket discrimination against the LGBT community. The comment argues this goal is feasible if the statute is narrowly tailored to encompass only businesses in the wedding industry engaged in wedding-related business transactions. The comment further argues that the same statute can also ensure LGBT individuals are not discriminated against in conducting regular business activities. Finally, the comment proposes a sample statute successfully accomplishing the dual objectives of protecting religious liberty and banning discrimination based on sexual orientation
Elimination of Cash Bail in Illinois: Accessing Risk of Defendants Using Risk Assessment Tools
Get PDFIn recent years, Illinois through the SAFE-T Act moved to eliminate cash bail in its entirety, moving to a new form of pretrial detention. Under the SAFE-T Act, persons are either released (sometimes with conditions), or detained pending trial. This Note argues that Illinois should amend its current statutory framework to mandate the use of a risk assessment tool to help aid decisions about pretrial detention. In support of mandating a risk assessment tool, this Note analyzes pretrial detention schemes in New Jersey, New York, and Illinois. While New Jersey has achieved high appearance rates and has seen success in decreasing jail populations, New York has not seen the same success. This Note concludes that Illinois should adopt a form of the Public Safety Assessment (PSA) as it is used in New Jersey because both pretrial detention statutes focus on the threat to public safety and appearance at court
Renewable Energy in Illinois: The Agrivoltaics Contribution
Get PDFSiting of renewable energy production facilities on agricultural land often engenders conflict at the community level. The desire to preserve productive farmland and protect aesthetic connections to the rural landscape can be a significant impediment to renewable energy development. With respect to solar energy production, agrivoltaics— the colocation of solar power structures and agriculture—is a potential alternative to traditional binary approaches of characterizing land use. As a novel technological and land use strategy, a better understanding of the agrivoltaic policy environment is necessary to actualize implications for rural communities and progress toward renewable energy goals. Illinois, with its abundance in untapped renewable energy resources, highly productive agricultural land, and significant energy demand to meet the needs of its large population and economy, stands at the forefront of agrivoltaic research and development. This article identifies and analyzes key regulatory concepts in the agrivoltaic space, as well as policy observations from various stakeholder groups. The article concludes by proposing policy considerations for Illinois that may apply in similarly positioned states within the Midwest
Religion, Commercialism, and Identity in Equiano and Douglass\u27s Narratives
Get PDFSlave narratives, involving enslaved persons, tell the personal accounts of the lives and struggles faced by Africans during the slave trade. From the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, the abolitionist movement evolved, resulting in anti-slavery campaigns across the United States and Europe. In this paper, I will analyze two renowned slave narratives, first Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative and secondly, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life. I argue that in Equiano’s discourses he appeals to authority figures to advocate against slavery, however Douglass distrusts authority figures and determines that slaveowners are complicit in maintaining systems of oppression. This article addresses the economic, literary/social, and religious discourses that emerge in both slave narratives to understand the voices against the slave trade, especially pro-slavery rhetoric
Investigating the antecedents and consequences of workplace gaslighting: Interdependence theory and affective events theory perspectives.
No full textGaslighting is a phenomenon that has been understudied in management and organizational behavior research. Unlike overt forms of abuse such as abusive supervision and bullying, gaslighting operates through subtle tactics aiming at undermining the victim\u27s perception of reality and self-worth. Understanding the causes and consequences of workplace gaslighting is essential for creating healthier and more productive work environments. This research builds on interdependence theory with insights from affective events theory to address two broad questions: what are the antecedents and consequences of workplace gaslighting. This research contributes to the development of a theoretical model of workplace gaslighting. Findings from the survey-based two-wave study showed support for the positive relationship between supervisor Machiavellianism and workplace gaslighting. Furthermore, this relationship is accentuated when there is relationship conflict between subordinate and supervisor. Results also showed support for the positive relationship between workplace gaslighting and state paranoia. Finally results showed defensive silence as an outcome of workplace gaslighting and this relationship was mediated by state paranoia. However, the results failed to support relational demography as an antecedent of workplace gaslighting or relative power as a moderator. The results also failed to find support for state paranoia as a mediator between workplace gaslighting and ingratiation and task performance, respectively. The manuscript concludes by discussing the theoretical contributions of these findings, and their practical implications for managers
ESSAYS IN MACROECONOMICS
No full textThe first Chapter investigates Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) price convergence across U.S. states using a 1963-2018 panel dataset. We focus on precise measurements of the convergence rate towards PPP. The methodological sequence includes a benchmark AR (1) model, corrected for cross-sectional dependence and assessments for cross-sectional heterogeneity, yielding a more rapid rate of convergence via unbiased estimations of price level convergence. Specifically, in our major price-level indicator, we find a mean reversion rate of 3.29 years after correcting for cross-sectional dependence, as against 12.12 years before the correction. In addition, we examined the possibility of some states in certain region exhibiting faster price convergence relative to the others. We find a slower convergence rate in the Northern states relative to Southern states. Chapter two investigates the transmission of monetary policy into financial markets during the COVID-19 pandemic, examining the impact on interest rates, exchange rates, stock market indices, and long-term government bond yields across 17 advanced economies. Leveraging panel data spanning from 2002 to 2022, we employ interacted panel vector autoregression (PVAR) methodology to analyze differences in policy transmission between the pandemic period and normal times. Our findings indicate that the emergence of pandemic has weakened the transmission of monetary policy to financial markets to a large extent. Thus we see a notable difference in the effectiveness of conventional monetary policy during the pandemic, with policy rate changes exhibiting diminished impact on financial market variables compared to normal times. We attribute this divergence to heightened uncertainty, cautious investor behavior, and the unprecedented economic complexities brought about by the pandemic. Chapter three examines the persistence of productivity shocks across different U.S. states, employing the autoregressive coefficient to measure the extent to which past productivity levels influence current levels. The methodological sequence includes a benchmark AR (1) model, correction for cross-sectional dependence via the Dynamic Common Correlated Effects Model (DCCE), and assessments for cross-sectional heterogeneity. Our analysis reveals significant variation among states, with Pennsylvania displaying very high persistence and Virginia much lower persistence when using Minnesota as the numeraire. We also examine the half-life of productivity shocks, defined as the time required for the impact of a shock to reduce by half. Pennsylvania\u27s half-life of 22.34 years suggests highly persistent shocks, whereas Virginia\u27s 0.76 years indicates rapid dissipation. Minnesota\u27s half-life is 1.93 years, providing a reference point for the comparison
Sublimity, Wonder, and Modes of Knowing: A Poetic Genealogy from Milton to Romanticism
No full textTracing poetic interpretations of sublimity’s relation to wonder, this project considers how several British poets flourishing between the 1660s and the 1840s leverage poetic form and content to critique received knowledge about learning, friendship, and the divine. They recognize that the relationship among these three elements is in flux, and thus their consideration of and attempts to encounter sublimity, and thereby access wonder and the un-reasonable, reveal possibilities that social teachings and practices could not and did not recognize as viable options. The simple fact of acknowledging the unknown as well as what is considered impossible makes them, and thus their readers, more sensitive to new ways of thinking about existing problems and thereby creates space for alternative ways of thinking, connecting with other human beings, and relating to the divine
AI-AIDED JOINT VISIBILITY REGION DETECTION AND CHANNEL ESTIMATION FOR EXTREMELY LARGE APERTURE ARRAYS
No full textMassive multiple input multiple output(MIMO) technology, now commercially deployed in 5G wireless systems, enhances spectral and energy efficiency. While compact antenna arrays assume wide-sense stationary (WSS) channels, recent studies reveal that extremely large aperture arrays (ELAAs) exhibit non-WSS characteristics, leading to variability in received signal properties such as average power. This study begins by examining the unique propagation characteristics of ELAAs and the importance of visibility regions (VRs) in channel estimation and precoder designs. A comprehensive case study and analytical analysis demonstrate the effectiveness of VR-aware system design approaches, leading to significant improvements in ELAAs system performance, including minimized inter-user interference and enhanced achievable sum rates.Building on these insights, this research introduces a hybrid deep learning architecture combining one-dimensional convolutional neural networks (1D-CNN) and long-short term memory (LSTM) networks for precise VR classification. This hybrid model, using a diverse dataset generated through Monte-Carlo simulations to capture various VR combinations, shows higher accuracy in classifying VRs, which is crucial for improving channel estimation and designing VR-aware precoders. The model\u27s efficacy is validated through rigorous numerical results, highlighting its robustness and efficiency. Subsequently, a hybrid deep learning architecture, 1D CNN-LSTM, is presented to estimate the channel for each user at the ELAA through a data-driven deep learning technique. A diverse dataset, generated through Monte-Carlo simulations of the system and channel model, captures various VR combinations to improve channel estimation.Furthermore, this study develops a multi-task learning (MTL) 1D CNN-LSTM framework to simultaneously address VR classification and channel estimation in ELAA systems. This MTL model leverages uplink pilot signals as inputs, enhancing both tasks\u27 accuracy and performance. The proposed approach demonstrates superior performance in terms of lower mean squared error (MSE) and higher achievable rates compared to conventional methods.The results confirm the potential of deep learning models to significantly improve ELAA-based communication systems\u27 performance, providing a robust foundation for future research. Future work should focus on developing adaptive learning techniques, integrating ELAA systems with emerging technologies, enhancing dataset generation for better model robustness, and validating these frameworks in real-world environments