Shopping For Privacy: How Technology in Brick-and-Mortar Retail Stores Poses Privacy Risks for Shoppers

As technology continues to rapidly advance, the American legal system has failed to protect individual shoppers from the technology implemented into retail stores, which poses significant privacy risks but does not violate the law. In particular, I examine the technologies implemented into many brick-and-mortar stores today, many of which the average everyday shopper has no idea exists. This Article criticizes these technologies, suggesting that many, if not all of them, are questionable in their legality taking advantage of their status in a legal gray zone. Because the American judicial system cannot adequately protect the individual shopper from these questionable privacy practices, I call upon the Federal Trade Commission, the de facto privacy regulator in the United States, to increase its policing of physical retail stores to protect the shopper from any further harm

Watching Big Brother: A Citizen’s Right to Record Police

Due to growing technological advances and the ubiquity of mobile phones, it has become increasingly common for citizens to use these devices to photograph and record events. Though largely uncontroversial, when used to record public police activity, some citizens have been arrested and charged under state wiretapping r eavesdropping statutes. Over time, various circuit courts have held that this right to record public police actions is a protected activity. Most recently, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision, which held that this act of recording is unprotected, thereby exemplifying how circuit courts are split on the issue. Given the importance and timeliness of this issue, this Note agrees with the majority of circuit courts and argues that recording public police activity receives constitutional protection. Part I discusses the First and Fourth Amendment protections surrounding this right to record police activity, further supplemented by the common law right to acquire information. Part II reviews the current circuit split, providing a brief synopsis of the various cases dealing with this issue. Part III, siding with the majority of circuit courts, argues that the citizen right to record is entitled to constitutional protection and advocates for its legality as a matter of public policy

Complex hyperbolic volume and intersection of boundary divisors in moduli spaces of genus zero curves

We show that the complex hyperbolic metrics defined by Deligne-Mostow and Thurston on ${\mathcal{M}}_{0,n}$ are singular K\"ahler-Einstein metrics when ${\mathcal{M}}_{0,n}$ is embedded in the Deligne-Mumford-Knudsen compactification $\overline{\mathcal{M}}_{0,n}$. As a consequence, we obtain a formula computing the volumes of ${\mathcal{M}}_{0,n}$ with respect to these metrics using intersection of boundary divisors of $\overline{\mathcal{M}}_{0,n}$. In the case of rational weights, following an idea of Y. Kawamata, we show that these metrics actually represent the first Chern class of some line bundles on $\overline{\mathcal{M}}_{0,n}$, from which other formulas computing the same volumes are derived.Comment: Added a new expression of the divisor whose self-intersection computes the volume in Theorem 1.1. Exposition improve

On Some Series Involving Harmonic and Skew-Harmonic Numbers

In this paper, we evaluate in closed form several different series involving the harmonic numbers and skew-harmonic numbers. We consider two classes of series involving these sequences. One class of series involves the product of the $n$th harmonic or skew-harmonic number and a tail. We provide the solution to two open problems concerning these harmonic series with tails from Ovidiu Furdui's book Sharpening Mathematical Analysis Skills. The other class of series is the Hardy series, which involves a logarithm and the Euler-Mascheroni constant being subtracted from the $n$th harmonic number

Dynamics and Control of Non-smooth Systems with Applications to Supercavitating Vehicles

The subject matter of this dissertation relates to the dynamics of non-smooth vehicle systems, and in particular, supercavitating vehicles. These high-speed underwater vehicles are designed to have sustained vaporous or ventilated gas cavities that form over the entire vehicle. In terms of the modeling, the system non-smoothness is caused by the interaction forces generated when the vehicle contacts the cavity. These planing interactions can cause stable and unstable dynamics, some of which could be limit-cycle dynamics. Here, planing forces are considered on the basis of non-cylindrical cavity shapes that include shifts induced by the cavitator angle of attack. Incorporating these realistic physical effects into a vehicle system model generates a unique hydrodynamic non-smoothness that is characterized by non-constant switching boundaries and non-constant switched dynamics. Nonlinear stability analyses are carried out, Hopf bifurcations of equilibrium solutions are identified, and stabilizing control is investigated. Also considered is partially cavitating system dynamics, where active fin forces are used to support the vehicle. Non-steady planing is also considered, which accounts for vehicle motions into the cavity, and this planing provides a damping-like component in the planing force formulation. Modeled with non-steady planing is a physical time delay relating to the fact that the cavity, where planing occurs, is based on the previous cavitator position and orientation data. This delay is found to be stabilizing for certain values of speed. Maneuvering is considered by using inner-loop and outer-loop control schemes. A feedback inner-loop scheme helps reject fast planing instabilities, while a numeric optimal control approach is used to generate outer-loop commands to guide the vehicle through desired maneuvers. The maneuvers are considered for operations with tight body to cavity clearance, and in which planing is prevalent. Simple search algorithms along with a penalty method for handling the constraints are found to work the best due to the complexity of the non-smooth system dynamics

Functional Genomics Profiling of Bladder Urothelial Carcinoma MicroRNAome as a Potential Biomarker.

Though bladder urothelial carcinoma is the most common form of bladder cancer, advances in its diagnosis and treatment have been modest in the past few decades. To evaluate miRNAs as putative disease markers for bladder urothelial carcinoma, this study develops a process to identify dysregulated miRNAs in cancer patients and potentially stratify patients based on the association of their microRNAome phenotype to genomic alterations. Using RNA sequencing data for 409 patients from the Cancer Genome Atlas, we examined miRNA differential expression between cancer and normal tissues and associated differentially expressed miRNAs with patient survival and clinical variables. We then correlated miRNA expressions with genomic alterations using the Wilcoxon test and REVEALER. We found a panel of six miRNAs dysregulated in bladder cancer and exhibited correlations to patient survival. We also performed differential expression analysis and clinical variable correlations to identify miRNAs associated with tobacco smoking, the most important risk factor for bladder cancer. Two miRNAs, miR-323a and miR-431, were differentially expressed in smoking patients compared to nonsmoking patients and were associated with primary tumor size. Functional studies of these miRNAs and the genomic features we identified for potential stratification may reveal underlying mechanisms of bladder cancer carcinogenesis and further diagnosis and treatment methods for urothelial bladder carcinoma

The General Context of a dynamic agricultural sector in the Red River Delta

224pThis chapter presents the status of the agricultural sector in the Red River Delta in Vietnam. The sociopolitical environment and development policies are outlined. Thai Binh's development priorities are discussed. The contrasts in the natural environment of the Red River Delta are presented (climate, soil types and agroecological units). The importance of the hydraulic system in the Delta's agriculture is discussed. The intensive vegetable production, dominated by rice cultivation is described. The livestock production, with emphasis on the booming pork commodity chain, is dealt with. An overview of the pig production subsector is given. The pig producers and their various breeding systems are outlined. The husbandry of other animals are discussed (poultry, ruminants and fish). Changes in the integrated production systems are discussed

The E3P Diagnostic Project : An Introduction about Sustainable Pig Production in Vietnam

224pThis chapter describes the current status of Thai Binh province in Vietnam and its agricultural development plans for 2010. The environmental and economic impacts of pig production are discussed. The various stakeholders and their active involvement in agricultural production are analysed. In addition, an innovative approach to sustainable development of animal produce commodity chains in northern Vietnam, is described. The 12-month E3P Project (Environmental Protection and Pig Production) was aimed to establish baseline work for designing and implementing a geographical information system. A large proportion of unknown factors concerning the issue of effluents in the province was studied at the farm, communal and district, and on a scientific levels. These unknown factors justify the regional diagnosis presented by the E3P Project

Variation of Hodge structure and enumerating tilings of surfaces by triangles and squares

Let $S$ be a connected closed oriented surface of genus $g$. Given a triangulation (resp. quadrangulation) of $S$, define the index of each of its vertices to be the number of edges originating from this vertex minus $6$ (resp. minus $4$). Call the set of integers recording the non-zero indices the profile of the triangulation (resp. quadrangulation). If $\kappa$ is a profile for triangulations (resp. quadrangulations) of $S$, for any $m\in \mathbb{Z}_{>0}$, denote by $\mathscr{T}(\kappa,m)$ (resp. $\mathscr{Q}(\kappa,m)$) the set of (equivalence classes of) triangulations (resp. quadrangulations) with profile $\kappa$ which contain at most $m$ triangles (resp. squares). In this paper, we will show that if $\kappa$ is a profile for triangulations (resp. for quadrangulations) of $S$ such that none of the indices in $\kappa$ is divisible by $6$ (resp. by $4$), then $\mathscr{T}(\kappa,m)\sim c_3(\kappa)m^{2g+|\kappa|-2}$ (resp. $\mathscr{Q}(\kappa,m) \sim c_4(\kappa)m^{2g+|\kappa|-2}$), where $c_3(\kappa) \in \mathbb{Q}\cdot(\sqrt{3}\pi)^{2g+|\kappa|-2}$ and $c_4(\kappa)\in \mathbb{Q}\cdot\pi^{2g+|\kappa|-2}$. The key ingredient of the proof is a result of J. Koll\'ar on the link between the curvature of the Hogde metric on vector subbundles of a variation of Hodge structure over algebraic varieties, and Chern classes of their extensions. By the same method, we also obtain the rationality (up to some power of $\pi$) of the Masur-Veech volume of arithmetic affine submanifolds of translation surfaces that are transverse to the kernel foliation.Comment: 24 pages, to appear in Journal de l'Ecole Polytechnique: Math\'ematique