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Imperfect Protection Against Perfect Enforcement: When Procedure Is Not Enough
No full textGovernment technology that exclusively detects illegal conduct is per se constitutional. Today, the Fourth Amendment provides no protection—zero—against government technology that identifies illegality without also revealing private, innocent behavior.
Meanwhile, alarmingly, government is rapidly developing—and deploying— technology that bypasses the need to examine private, innocent behavior in its detection of wrongdoing. Government can know there is contraband in your bedroom drawer without the need to rummage through that drawer, your home, or any of your private information and possessions. Government can know there is illegal content on your phone without the need to search through that phone or any of your private accounts and data. If enforcement technologies continue to develop apace, under existing law, government will be able to detect—and punish—every instance of illegal behavior, every time, without violating the Fourth Amendment. This imminent, staggering government power is called “perfect enforcement of law.”
The Fourth Amendment should stand against this dystopian power. The Fourth Amendment does not exist, I contend, merely to protect the innocent from government’s prying eyes and heavy hands. The Fourth Amendment should also provide space for some amount of lawbreaking—because some degree of lawbreaking is prosocial. A marginal amount of illegality is required to facilitate moral, political, and legal evolution.
This Note illustrates how the law crucially evolves in response to lawbreaking, outlines how current Fourth Amendment doctrine will deny this crucial feature of social and legal refinement in an age of perfect enforcement, and explores potential doctrinal reforms. Ultimately, this Note concludes that only substantive protections of illegality—not merely procedural protections—can perfectly protect against perfect enforcement. I term this novel framework “substantive criminal procedure.
Fighting Chance: Integrated Social Work Law Firm
No full textA 5-year business plan, with $10,000 in start-up funds, for a Connecticut nonprofit law firm employing both social workers and lawyers to provide services (legal and otherwise) to low-income clients who are not able to access legal services at legal aid clinics. The plan includes market assessment, budget, cash flow management, and hiring and scaling plan
Privacy Policy Indeterminacy
No full textDespite being subjected to decades of sharp criticism, privacy policies published by companies remain a linchpin of privacy regulation. Representations in these policies provide the main measure against which consumer privacy can be judged. Policies are rarely read by consumers. Instead, these policies are interpreted by company decision makers tasked with interpreting whether a proposed course of action is consistent with stated policies as well as underlying privacy law. To be effective, policies must constrain use of consumer data even when they are given a company-friendly reading.
Experimental evidence on the interpretation of privacy policies provides no grounds for encouragement about such constraint, because it suggests that policies are often so ambiguous that neither laypeople nor experts can consistently interpret them. This Article supports those experimental findings with real-world evidence— court filings by experts appointed to consider the legality of transfers of consumers’ private data. The study finds that even independent, court appointed experts rely on interpretive practices that are unreliable and inconsistent. It reveals divergences concerning what even relatively common, standard privacy policy provisions actually mean, in relatively common situations, such as the attempt to sell data as part of a reorganization or liquidation. This suggests that privacy regulation should not rely too heavily on the language of privacy policies unless greater consensus can be reached.
The Article then proposes to put the interpretation of privacy policies on more sound footing. It explores two primary approaches. Privacy policies could be subjected to more certain meaning through a turn to standardization, where policies are communicated by reference to interpretive principles laid out by regulation or by understanding grounded in empirical research on the meaning of the various terms. Alternatively, privacy policies could be subjected to a set of interpretive principles that would provide a more certain basis for interpretation and also encourage drafters of policies to state themselves more clearly
Abortion Hostility and the Earned Income Tax Credit
No full textThe future of abortion access in the United States is uncertain. PrecedingDobbs v. Women’s Health, many states enacted abortion policy considered hostile, culminating in strict or even total bans once Roe v. Wade fell. The purpose of this paper is to investigate one facet of the economic outcomes associated with changes in abortion policy. In order to do this I examine the relationship between hostile abortion policy and average reimbursements for the federal earned income tax credit (EITC). I construct a panel dataset which spans 2013 to 2022, with 510 observations: one for each state, for each year. By developing a method for categorizing the climate of abortion policy in each state, I estimate the association between state policy changing from not hostile to hostile and the average reimbursements for the federal EITC, using a fixed effects regression model. The models predict that an increase in hostility towards abortion via legislation is associated with a $21.54 increase in average individual reimbursements for the EITC, which was found to be statistically significant at one percent
Characterization of Platinum on Carbon Nanoparticles Selectively Coated with Titanium Nitride (TiN)
No full textProton exchange membrane fuel cells are a promising low-carbon technology that still face problems including low durability during their normal operation cycles. At the cathode, the carbon supports of the catalysts may corrode. Atomic layer deposition of titanium nitride is performed on prepared catalyst layer samples. The purpose of the deposition is to create a thin film over the carbon supports to reduce carbon support corrosion and improve the lifespan of the fuel cell. Sheet resistances and contact angles are measured for the samples before and after the deposition, although some samples did not receive the deposition and post-deposition characterization for this work. The sheet resistance is converted to bulk electrical conductivity using the sample thickness. Electrical conductivities and contact angles are important predictors of how the fuel cell would manage the transport of electrons and water, respectively. Conductivity and contact angle values are compared before and after titanium nitride deposition. For the samples that were completed, titanium nitride deposition decreased the electrical conductivity and decreased the contact angle of the samples. Relations between these properties and performance in a fuel cell are discussed, including a recommendation on improving these properties
Implementation of Explainable AI for Bearing Fault Classification
No full textIt is difficult to overstate the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) over the past decade. The rapid expansion of machine learning has stimulated a race to deploy AI in all facets of life, one such domain being machine health monitoring. There is no doubt that machine learning excels in prediction accuracy, but oftentimes, these models are cryptic and fail to provide valuable insight into their decisions. This paper presents an overview of a neural network and what it means to learn. Next, two distinct Explainable AI (XAI) techniques will be presented: Gradient Class Activation Mapping and SimplEx . Finally, these XAI methods are implemented on a bearing vibration dataset typically used for benchmarking machine learning algorithms for bearing fault classification. Both XAI methods are implemented and demonstrated to be effective tools, offering utility in fault classification tasks
Financial Stability and Instability in a Musical Career: A Statistical and Sociological Analysis
No full textOver several generations, the notion of the “starving artist” has become a cultural stereotype, often overshadowing the complex realities musicians face while sustaining their careers. Not only does this harmful trope contribute to the invalidation of music as a legitimate career, but it also prevents emerging artists from pursuing their passion for fear of failure (Da Costa, 2020). This thesis explores the intersection of statistical and sociological factors that create both challenges and opportunities for those pursuing careers in music. Through analysis of economic and social factors, this research seeks to deconstruct stereotypes and promote a clear understanding of the dynamics that shape twenty-first-century music careers. It serves to demonstrate that a living wage for musicians is not only possible, but quite manageable, as long as they remain adaptable and open to working in a wide variety of musical endeavors
Impact of Blender Type on Tribocharging in Pharmaceutical Powders using Surface Modified V-Blender
No full textPowders are a vital component of the pharmaceutical industry as they provide the basis for many solid dosage forms like tablets and capsules. Although, when using powders a common challenge is electrostatic charge accumulation due to numerous particle-particle and particle-wall collisions. This accumulated charge can lead then to poor powder homogeneity and compromised powder flow properties. In this study, tribocharging of pharmaceutical powders was analyzed using various V-blenders and mixing times . The evaluated blenders include: Aluminum, Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), and surface modified Aluminum-PVC. Using the blenders, the model drug, Ibuprofen, was processed for different time intervals such as 5, 10, 20, and 30 minutes at 10% blender fill volume. For further analysis, the obtained results were then compared with a previous study conducted by our group using 5% blender fill volume. After analyzing the results, it was observed that a surface-modified blender leads to a significant reduction in tribocharging and for all blenders, there is a general increase in charge until 30 minutes of which a saturation point occurs. Additionally, the cross-study analysis demonstrated an increase in fill volume can result in a decrease in tribocharging of ibuprofen which could be attributed to a decrease in the number of particle wall collisions
Molecular Mechanisms of Sensory Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 Infection: A Comprehensive Literature Review
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic has upended the world in the last few years, bringing with it countless varying physiological effects, some of which extend beyond the acute phase of the infection. Long-term COVID-19, also referred to as chronic or “long-haul” COVID, has become an increasingly prevalent health issue in recent years. Long term sensory loss, particularly anosmia and ageusia (loss of smell and taste respectively), are among the biggest concerns to patients suffering from this condition due to the considerable detriment to their quality of life. This literature review aims to provide an overview of the molecular mechanisms associated with sensory loss among individuals with long-term COVID-19. It also discusses the complex interactions between viral infection, immune response, and neuronal damage. A deeper understanding of these mechanisms is crucial for the development of effective treatment in the future, to ultimately improve the quality of life for COVID-19 survivors