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“One Step Too Many”: Deference in \u3cem\u3eBruen, Loper Bright\u3c/em\u3e, and \u3cem\u3eRahimi\u3c/em\u3e
No full textThis Article examines the Supreme Court’s rejection of deferential twostep tests in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. Prior to these decisions, Second Amendment and administrative law doctrines limited courts’ interpretive role at Step One in order to create space for regulatory judgments to which courts would defer at Step Two. Bruen and Loper Bright rejected this approach, reclaiming courts’ authority to ascertain legal norms and (less emphatically) to apply them to concrete disputes without deferring to regulators.
Although it was decided the same term as Loper Bright, many see United States v. Rahimi as a retreat from Bruen. Scholars describe the conflict between Bruen and Rahimi in terms of “levels of generality,” a perennially intractable concept. This Article reframes the levels-of-generality problem as a deference problem. Focusing on which forms of deference Bruen rejects—and which it embraces—shows the decisions to be in greater alignment than at first appears. It also suggests that the Court is not shying away from reclaiming the authority it claimed in Bruen and Loper Bright as the traditional province of the judiciary
La Razón de ser de los metodistas hoy: Una lectura del sermón “La Gracia Libre” de Juan Wesley para nuestros tiempos
No full textAlmost three hundred years have passed since John Wesley began the Methodist movement in England, and some may question its relevant to our current context. This article explores the role of Methodism through a contemporary re-reading of John Wesley\u27s sermon Free Grace. In dialogue with the current state of social, economic, and spiritual crises, the author compares the Wesleyan doctrine of universal grace and free will with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination and affirms the live-giving doctrine of free grace, which offers hope and social responsibility in the face of inequality and social injustice. By affirming these Wesleyan doctrines, Methodism returns to its original mission to reform the nation, particularly the Church; and to spread scriptural holiness over the land.”
Han pasado casi trescientos años desde que Juan Wesley inició el movimiento metodista en Inglaterra y algunos pueden cuestionar su eficacia para nuestro contexto actual. El artículo explora la relevancia contemporánea del metodismo a través de una relectura desde nuestros tiempos del sermón “La Gracia Libre” de Juan Wesley. En diálogo con el estado de las crisis sociales, económicas y espirituales, el autor examina la doctrina wesleyana de la gracia universal y el libre albedrío con la doctrina calvinista de la predestinación y concluye con la afirmación de la gracia libre que ofrece esperanza y responsabilidad social ante la desigualdad y el fatalismo de la sociedad. Afirmando estas doctrinas originales el metodismo retoma su misión original de “reformar la nación y esparcir la santidad escritural sobre la tierra”
The Impact of Working Conditions on Productivity: Evidence from the US Public Defense System
No full textPublic defenders provide essential legal representation to people who cannot afford an attorney. Yet, they do so under notoriously heavy caseloads, raising important questions about how workload affects the delivery of justice. As part of a larger study on public defense, Dr. Amy Mahler analyzed case records from two U.S. states and examined how strict case assignment rules created natural variation in attorney workloads. Her research also incorporated detailed time-use data to better understand how public defenders allocated their limited resources across different tasks. Dr. Mahler’s research sheds light on the connection between workloads and case outcomes in public defense and explores what these connections mean for ensuring fair and high-quality, effective representation
3D Multi-Threaded AI Navigation with Pathfinding and Obstacle Avoidance
No full textIn this thesis, I developed a 3D multi-threaded AI navigation system using my own custom-built C++ game engine. The system combines triangle-based A* pathfinding with real-time obstacle avoidance using a set of velocity-obstacle algorithms. It is designed to support large numbers of agents navigating complex environments while avoiding collisions. I created two main simulation modes: Navigation Mode, which integrates A* with ORCA to handle large-scale pathfinding and movement, and Obstacle Avoidance Mode, which allows direct comparison between VO, RVO, HRVO, and ORCA in a controlled test setting.
The terrain is procedurally generated using Perlin noise, and this terrain data is then used to generate a NavMesh composed of walkable triangles. Each triangle connects to its neighbors through shared edges, allowing agents to move fluidly across the mesh. My A* algorithm operates directly on this triangle structure and includes a pruning step that removes unnecessary waypoints to produce cleaner, more efficient paths. Pathfinding is fully multi-threaded, with each request running as an independent job using a custom job system, enabling fast and scalable computation.
For obstacle avoidance, I implemented several velocity-obstacle-based algorithms that allow agents to dynamically adjust their movement based on nearby agents. ORCA provides the most advanced solution, calculating half-plane constraints to ensure smooth and collision-free navigation. To support debugging and evaluation, I implemented visualizations for velocity cones, direction adjustments, and constraint regions.
Agents use physics-based movement with smooth acceleration, turning, and terrain-aware positioning. In Obstacle Avoidance Mode, agents are placed in a sandbox environment loaded from an OBJ model, which creates a closed space for consistent behavior testing. This project gave me the opportunity to explore how pathfinding, real-time avoidance, and multi-threaded systems can be combined to create scalable and intelligent 3D AI navigation. It demonstrates how custom-built solutions can meet the demands of modern simulation and game environments
Path Tracing and Physically-based Rendering with DirectX Raytracing
No full textThis artifact is designed to simulate global illumination by using DirectX raytracing pipeline. Physically-based Rendering (PBR) and path tracing were integrated to achieve photo realistic rendering effect
A Real-Time Animation Toolkit with Blending, Root Motion Control, Interruption, Events, and Layering
No full textThis thesis presents a real-time animation toolkit designed for interactive 3D applications, with a focus on games. The toolkit integrates advanced features including animation blending, root motion control, interruption handling, event systems, and layering to achieve fluid and responsive character movement. Built around a quaternion-based math library, the system ensures smooth transitions between animations, eliminates joint snapping, and avoids gimbal lock. Root motion extraction and application enable physics-accurate movement driven by animations. The artifact—a third-person action game—demonstrates the toolkit\u27s efficacy, showcasing seamless animation transitions, efficient GPU-based vertex updates, and good performance (0.56–1.25ms per frame). Results confirm the system\u27s ability to synchronize visual and physical motion, support complex interactions (e.g., combat), and maintain realism through layered animations (e.g., item use during locomotion). The toolkit\u27s modular design, leveraging XML for data-driven collision and animation sequencing, ensures scalability and adaptability for diverse projects
The Champion of Images: A NeuroAI Framework for Understanding Image Effects on Consumer Decision-Making
No full textIn today\u27s e-commerce landscape, consumers\u27 first interactions with products often occur through product thumbnails, called champion images . Champion images are common in search results and influence click-through behavior. This research investigates what makes these images click-worthy by developing a novel NeuroAI approach-an image mining method that bridges neuroscience and computer vision models. Using a large-scale open-source fMRI dataset, we trained prediction models of neural responses to images and conducted two novel fMRI studies to validate this approach. We applied these models to analyze a global online travel agency platform\u27s hotel search clickstream data. Examining the modeled neural responses to champion images in hotel listings, we found that images with lower neural processing demands were more likely to attract click-throughs, which persisted after controlling for hotel quality, price, and image type. We identified three key neurally-informed features that could influence click-through behavior: retinotopic demand, implied motion, and navigational affordance. Our approach explains additional variance in click-through behavior beyond existing non-neurally informed image metrics. This research establishes a neurobiologically grounded framework for understanding visual marketing, offering theoretical insights into processing fluency in online search environments and practical recommendations for optimizing product images to improve click-through rates
Obituary for the Birth Certificate
No full textHave birth certificates outlived their usefulness? Birth certificates establish an individual’s name, identity, age, race, sex and gender, parental authority, and citizenship. In addition, the information collected at the time of birth and reflected on a long-form birth certificate provides data for public health policy, population statistics, internal migration, government planning, and resource allocation. Birth certificates are also the all-access pass to American life, necessary for many functions of modern life: registering a child in school, signing a child up for soccer, getting a driver’s license and passport, enlisting in the military, and applying for government benefits. All of this, for a simple and ubiquitous government document, is a lot. And some of these functions are contradictory, producing confusion and uncertainty about family connections, citizenship, and identity.
Using birth certificates in adoption as a case study, this Article examines the contradictions inherent in relying on birth certificates to do too much. By examining the history and myriad functions of birth certificates, particularly in the context of adoption, this Article illustrates the ways our current regime of birth certificates creates inefficiencies, confusion, and outright deception. It proposes the disaggregation of the functions of birth certificates to reflect more accurately the valuable truths needed from this most important government document. In particular, this Article suggests an alternative to birth certificates—a series of narrowly tailored government documents, including a certificate of parental authority—to reflect more accurately the reality of today’s more complex lives and families
Characterization And Control Of Rod-Like Soft Robots
No full textMicro-scale robotic systems have garnered significant interest for applications in micromanufacturing and biosensing, yet quantitative design rules linking geometry, stiffness distribution, and magnetic actuation to locomotion performance at low Reynolds number remain limited. This thesis investigates magnetically actuated rod-like soft robots composed of hydrogel filaments with embedded micro-magnets and tunable hard:soft length ratios. Four- and eight-magnet swimmers with hard:soft ratios ranging from 1:1 to 2.5:1 and 4:3:1 are fabricated using a simple molding-and-insertion process and tested in water and silicone oil. A triaxial Helmholtz coil system generates rotating magnetic fields from 1 to 10 Hz, and a custom image-processing pipeline extracts time-averaged propulsion speeds and stability metrics from recorded trajectories. Experiments show propulsion speeds on the order of 0.1-1.0 mm/s depending on fluid viscosity, magnet count, and stiffness ratio. In water, eight-magnet swimmers with 1:1 and 4:3:1 stiffness distributions exhibit the most efficient and stable locomotion in the 7-9 Hz band, achieving substantially higher speeds than their four-magnet counterparts. In silicone oil, stiffer 2:1 and 4:3:1 designs exhibit optimal responses at lower frequencies (approximately 2-7 Hz), while softer swimmers require higher driving frequencies to reach comparable speeds. Overall, increasing tail stiffness shifts the optimal frequency to lower values and enhances performance in highly viscous media, whereas softer designs support broader high-frequency plateaus in low-viscosity environments. These results provide experimentally grounded design guidelines connecting stiffness, magnet distribution, and actuation frequency to swimming performance, supporting rod-like soft robots as tunable microrobots for microfluidic transport and sensing tasks