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Law\u27s Credibility Problem
No full textCredibility determinations often seal people\u27s fates. They can determine outcomes at trial; they condition the provision of benefits, like social security; and they play an increasingly dispositive role in immigration proceedings. Yet there is no stable definition of credibility in the law. Courts and agencies diverge at the most basic definitional level in their use of the category.
Consider a real-world example. An immigration judge denies asylum despite the applicant\u27s plausible and unrefuted account of persecution in their country of origin. The applicant appeals, pointing to the fact that Congress enacted a rebuttable presumption of credibility for asylum-seekers on appeal. This presumption, the applicant argues, means that the Court of Appeals must credit his testimony and reverse the decision below.
Should the applicant win? Clearly, the answer depends on what credibility (and its presumption) entails. But the Supreme Court, confronting this question in Garland v. Dai, declined to provide an answer. Instead, it showcased the analytic confusion that surrounds credibility writ large. At oral argument, the Justices canvassed four distinct ideas of credibility. In their unanimous opinion, they offered a definition of credibility that managed to replicate, rather than resolve, the ambiguity among the four. Meanwhile, the everyday work of adjudication continues. Every year, thousands of cases are resolved on credibility groundsmany with life-altering consequences-despite the confusion at the heart of the legal concept.
The time has come for our legal system to clarify what it means by credibility. While the term can be an umbrella for different ideas, within any given adjudication-like an immigration proceeding-precision about how we are using it is a must. To that end, this Article explores different ideas of credibility, taking the Garland v. Dai argument and opinion as a source of (cautionary) inspiration. It explains why credibility is necessarily distinct from truth, and the malleable nature of the concept. Is credibility a synonym for persuasiveness? Does it refer to the likelihood that someone is telling the truth in this case? To the likelihood that they generally tend to tell the truth? To whether they seem like they\u27re telling the truth? Ultimately, there is no ideal definition of credibility; it depends on what work the concept is trying to do. What is far from ideal, however, is the current state of affairs, in which credibility means everything and nothing-notwithstanding its role in shaping people\u27s lives
How Patents Became Politics
No full textPolitical mobilization in the digital age often coalesces around opposition to the far-reaching protection of intellectual property. Both copyright and patent have materialized as the centerpiece of major political and legal debates that take a variety of forms, including the European pirate parties, NGOs such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the United States, and the call for Open Source software. The commonplace narrative is that self-interested stakeholders over the past century successfully fashioned an ever-expanding intellectual property system, and that resistance to such legal control of knowledge only emerged in our times. By contrast, this article recovers a little-known alternative story of patent law under siege. It focuses on the first United States intellectual property social movement, a late nineteenth-century attack by Prairie heartland populists on the patent system. In the course of this remarkable movement, protesters proposed a version of patent law centered around users rather than owners, invented an early form of a legal defense fund, convinced state governments to adopt patent infringement as public policy, and, ultimately, joined forces with political opponents to make court decisions less solicitous of patent rights. This article shows how a technical area of law was turned into politics in the nineteenth century. Yet it also provides a lesson for any future intellectual property movements. Through populist contestation at the grassroots level, patent was transformed from settled grants of rights to a fraught, even unstable, area of law
Mitigating Misinformation on Social Media Platforms: Treating Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a Quid Pro Quo Benefit
No full textThe rise of misinformation on social media has prompted governments worldwide to enact legislation that may affect every person’s right to freedom of opinion and expression. In the United States, combatting misinformation shares surprising bipartisan support in an ever-divided political landscape. While several proposals have emerged that would strip social media companies of the twenty-fiveyear-old law that shields them from lawsuits over content, it is unlikely that they would survive the seemingly insurmountable First Amendment scrutiny. Thus, an alternative to combatting misinformation is needed.
In an attempt to provide an alternative, this Note presents a model for mitigating misinformation. By dissecting the concept of misinformation, exploring the ways in which social media platforms can mitigate misinformation, and proposing the use of misinformation labels, this Note suggests using Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a quid pro quo benefit to incentivize social media platforms to mitigate misinformation
Dataset to Benchmarking Lossless Still Image Codecs: Perspectives on Selected Compression Standards From 1992 Through 2022
No full textThe Connecticut Clean Slate Law
No full textBy erasing or sealing criminal records, Clean Slate policies propose a second-chance opportunity of employment, housing, and education to thousands of Americans. In targeting the archaic and inaccessible processes of expunging and sealing records, Clean Slate ambitiously pursues economic and public safety policy goals. In 2021, Connecticut joined the states devoted to ascribing to these goals when it enacted a Clean Slate law that aids thousands of Connecticut residents who face major disadvantages as a result of misdemeanor or low-level felony records stemming from years-old convictions.
Supporters of Connecticut’s Clean Slate law theorize that without the barriers imposed by criminal records preventing people from pursuing their goals or providing for their families, previous offenders will obtain employment, return to school, or otherwise positively contribute to the economy and society following their record expungements.
However, supporters of Clean Slate policies have made extensive promises of Clean Slate’s expected success, effects, and costs without extensive data. Moreover, Connecticut’s Clean Slate law does not address many Americans’ understandable concerns about the felonies eligible for record expungements, including implications such as recidivism following expungements. Although some research suggests positive outcomes following the enactment of Connecticut’s Clean Slate law, the statute lacks sufficient methods for data collection, tracking, and retention needed to effectively predict its effects and properly balance public safety with the expected benefits of expunging records, leading to a multitude of unanswered questions and trepidations.
Only a few states have enacted Clean Slate laws, but there is boisterous support for the second-chance opportunity promised by Clean Slate policies. With time, research, and support from other states, Connecticut’s Clean Slate law could be both a catalyst in state criminal record reform and a huge leap forward in criminal justice reform for the entire nation
Control and Design of a Passive Solar Lumber Drying Kiln
No full textThe passive solar lumber drying kiln design, developed by EE Senior Design Team 2317 is presented, tested, and discussed. The design incorporates solar power and a custom control system to dry 12’ lumber boards inside a shipping container much faster than air-drying methods, which can take up to a year for thorough drying, though this can be extended due to the unpredictability of weather events and conditions. This work presents the design as in the final report provided by the team, but provides a more detailed explanation and analysis of the microcontroller system, testing methods and outcomes, alternate solutions and possible future work. For the microcontroller system, methods and hardware are thoroughly discussed. For testing, although the prototype was never tested on actual lumber, small-scale testing was conducted as a proof-of-concept. Lastly, several alternate approaches are detailed. If the budget had been larger, many of these ideas may have been used, though future work could be done to improve the final state of the system to achieve these designs
Instilling Parental Confidence Through Text-linked Educational Modules at 6 and 24 Weeks
No full textBackground: Becoming a parent is one of the most demanding and intense social roles individuals can experience in their life (Vance & Brandon, 2017). A lack of maternal confidence and understanding of how to interact with their infant during the first six months of life may adversely affect their lifelong relationship.
Objective: To examine maternal descriptions of text-linked educational modules on infant development and play and their effect on maternal self-efficacy at 6 and 24 weeks.
Method: This study was a mixed-method approach of interviews collected as part of a larger randomized control intervention for mothers to manage their breast and nipple pain during breastfeeding through text messages. Mothers received text-linked educational modules which described their infant’s cognitive, social, and emotional development and age-appropriate infant play activities at 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, and 24 weeks. Mothers were asked face-to-face interview questions to evaluate the modules and complete the Karitane Parenting Confidence Scale to measure maternal self-efficacy at 6 and 24 weeks. Boyatzis’ thematic analysis guided the analysis and Taguette was used to create a codebook of themes. Descriptive statistics were used for demographic variables. Themes were converted to numerical values for regression analysis.
Results: At 6 and 24 weeks postpartum, maternal report of monthly infant development and play modules were positive. The maternal self-efficacy scores increased slightly between 6 (M=40) and 24 (M=41.9) weeks. One overarching theme of maternal confidence was identified with three supporting subthemes: Parental Reflection, Parental Modeling, and Parental-Infant Interaction. Regression analysis showed a statistically significant relationship between time, parity, and interview responses (p=0.011). The subtheme of Parental-Infant Interaction, controlling for time and parity, was near significant in predicting maternal self-efficacy between 6 weeks and 24 weeks (p=0.051).
Conclusion: Mothers reported that the play modules encouraged maternal-infant interaction and increased their self-efficacy. Text-linked support is a powerful platform for accessible maternal intervention that can be implemented across a large population
The Intersection of Herbicide Policy, Exposure, and Health at the University of Connecticut
No full textPesticides play an extremely complicated role in our everyday lives. From the water you use to make your coffee, to the breastmilk your neighbor provides for their child, to the lake your dog swims in, chemical pesticides or their byproducts have been found in nearly every corner of our lives. The chemicals used in synthetic herbicides, a subcategory of pesticides, have far reaching negative impacts on human health, biodiversity, and water quality. Despite there being numerous published studies on the relationships between pesticide exposures and health, there is still ongoing discord and controversy surrounding their role in our lives. After providing a brief overview of pesticide uses, regulations, and ingredients, this paper analyzes the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program at The University of Connecticut (UConn) Storrs, and discusses the specific pathways in which synthetic herbicides negatively affect health. The second portion of this project uses an action-based approach to apply the knowledge gained during the primary research portion to reduce pesticide use on campus. With help from Re:wild Your Campus, an organization working to reduce synthetic pesticide use on campuses across the U.S., I have been advocating for UConn to implement a synthetic herbicide-free pilot project in Storrs. The slide deck outlines the pilot program proposal, a cost-benefit analysis, and three case-studies from other colleges and universities that have implemented similar projects. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this thesis provides an unbiased look at the core problems that exist within the agrochemical industry, how health is impacted, and what a progressive, climate-forward university like UConn can do as a community to protect human and environmental health
Development of ToM in Autistic Youth: The Potential Impact of Language
No full textTheory of Mind (ToM) includes the ability to attribute mental states (e.g., “happy”, “confused”) to oneself and others (Wimmer & Perner, 1983). Typically developing (TD) children demonstrate high performance on ToM tasks, while children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may encounter difficulties with ToM (Peterson et al., 2005). The role of language in ToM development is unclear, as Perner et al. (1998) claimed that school-age children’s language levels did not impact their ToM ability but did not formally assess language. However, de Villiers and Pyers (2002) reported relationships between ToM and complex syntax. The current study elaborates on the existing literature by exploring the relationship between parent and participant language input to participant ToM ability. The participants of this study consist of 13 autistic teens and 19 typically developing teens. Across a two-day home visit, participants completed narrative elicitation tasks, ToM first and second-order false belief tasks, and the Aliens Categorization Game with their parent. The results of this study found that participants with greater language ability scored higher on ToM tasks. The findings of this study also provide insight into the psychosocial use of parent language and how that relates to ToM ability. The present study also confirms the use of text analysis programs like LIWC-22 to further elucidate the relationship between language and ToM
Effects of Tempering Temperature on Gas Turbine Fan Cases
No full textThe project aimed to investigate the effects of tempering temperature on metals used for gas turbine engine fan cases as a major relevant concern is containing blades in during blade-out events. There are three ways to accomplish this: using a thicker metal, incorporating different materials into the case, or heat treating the metal. This project focused on the third solution: reviewing the impact toughness and hardness of fractured samples and their equivalent ductile-to-brittle transition shear faces. Given its availability, 1045 steel, as opposed to aerospace grade metals, was used for in-house testing. The data obtained from these experiments were then combined with findings from previous research conducted at other institutions to draw final conclusions. This study’s initial hypothesis was that increasing the tempering temperature on metals would lead to greater impact toughness and therefore better resistance against blade-out events. The data showed, however, that while 1045 steel demonstrated this correlation, aerospace-grade metals used in other studies did not. Instead, they showed that the trend only worked within certain ranges of temperatures. At specific temperatures, the impact toughness began to decrease despite the temperature increasing. The study concluded that using tempering as a method of increasing impact toughness is feasible but would require further experimentation to determine the optimal duration and temperature of tempering for fan case applications. Future investigations include finding temperature and time limits for individual metals to observe when the impact toughness stops increasing, as well as exploring other properties that are affected in the tempering process