Recent ucla items

Deciding to Intervene

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Decisions about intervention into today’s armed conflicts are difficult, dangerous, and politically complicated. There are no safe choices. Amid the climate of urgency and uncertainty in which intervention decision-making occurs, international law serves as a guide by providing rules about the legality of intervention. These rules assert that, except for in cases of self-defense, choices about when and how to intervene are to be made by the United Nations Security Council. What the rules do not provide, however, is effective guidance for the political choices the Council makes, such as how to prioritize among competing norms. When, for example, should the Council uphold the sovereignty-based norm of nonintervention and when should it authorize humanitarian intervention in alignment with the emerging norm of the Responsibility to Protect? Absent such guidance, some hold that international law becomes an after-the fact justification for whatever decision is made or that it has...

From Trauma Identification to Trauma-Focused Mental Health Care for Youth: Provider Factors Shaping Documentation, Referral, and Engagement

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Trauma exposure is prevalent among children and adolescents and is associated with broad and lasting consequences for mental health, development, and functioning. Despite the critical importance of early identification and treatment, many trauma-exposed youth do not receive timely or appropriate care. This dissertation examined the pathways through which trauma-exposed youth move from documentation and assessment to engagement in trauma-focused treatment, with particular attention to the provider factors that shape access and equity across the care continuum. Study 1 used medical record data from a large healthcare system to examine how provider characteristics were associated with mental health documentation, screening, and referrals among trauma-exposed youth. Administration of the Patient Health Questionnaire was associated with greater odds of documenting trauma exposure and psychosocial adversity but was not associated with the documentation of a formal trauma- and...

Using International Dispute Resolution to Address the Compliance Question in International Law

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A fundamental critique of international law is that it fails to ensure compliance and, thus, has limited influence on state behavior. Existing compliance theories consider how interests, norms and legal process impact states. Within the legal process school, theories either narrowly define process as methods that achieve a legal aim or broadly consider diplomatic activities without connecting them to the structural elements of process. Thus, despite the prolific scholarship in this area, understanding of how an international dispute resolution process, such as the Six-Party Talks, influences state behavior, such as North Korea’s actions toward nuclear disarmament, remains limited.

To address this gap, this Article argues for an expanded understanding of legal process theory that considers how and why international dispute resolution affects state behavior. Using an analytical framework that assesses how IDR influences behavioral factors (interests, rights, identity, power)...

Beyond Adjudication: Resolving International Resource Disputes in an Era of Climate Change

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This Article examines the role of international adjudication as a mechanism for resolving international disputes and promoting global peace and security in an era of climate change. The central claim is that adjudication has limitations that make it ineffective as a tool for resolving international resource disputes. The Article argues that adjudication is limited due to source and process challenges and it illustrates this claim by reviewing cases adjudicated by the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration and other international courts and tribunals. Four categories of adjudication limitation emerge: a) cases where the parties refused to submit to adjudication, b) cases where the judicial decision did not address the merits of the dispute, c) cases of noncompliance and d) cases where there was a recurrence of the dispute or conflict. In response, the Article suggests that reliance on adjudication as the primary form of international dispute resolution...

Tips and Tricks for Building a Quantum Computer with $^{133}\mathrm{Ba}^{+}$

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Building a fault-tolerant quantum computer requires more than improving physical hardware in isolation. Hardware-level design choices must be guided by the architecture of the full quantum computer and by the bottlenecks that ultimately limit its performance. The 133Ba+ ion is well suited for this kind of architecture-driven optimization. Its simple nuclear spin structure, with I = 1/2, enables fast, high-fidelity state preparation and measurement (SPAM). We leverage this advantage to demonstrate record SPAM fidelity, along with a state-preparation time more than three orders of magnitude faster than previous record-level SPAM demonstrations. This makes 133Ba+ especially promising as a reusable ancilla qubit for quantum error correction.The long-lived D5/2 state, with τ = 30 s, also makes 133Ba+ uniquely positioned to take advantage of the optical-metastable-ground (OMG) qubit protocol, which enables same-species sympathetic cooling. Within this protocol, we demonstrate a magic...

Integration Matters: Rethinking the Architecture of International Dispute Resolution

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

International law promotes global peace and security by providing mechanisms for the pacific settlement of international disputes. This Article examines these mechanisms and their place in the architecture of the international dispute resolution (“IDR”) system. The Article identifies three core deficiencies of the IDR system that limit its effectiveness and capacity. First, the international legal system has prioritized the development of adjudication over other forms of dispute resolution; the judicialization of international disputes and the proliferation of courts and tribunals evidence this However, adjudication is limited in its capacity to resolve disputes that involve non-state parties and extra-legal issues. This is concerning because empirical studies show that international conflict is increasingly intra-state, and involves non-state actors and extra-legal issues. Second, states prefer mediation to adjudication as a method for resolving disputes that occur in the context...

Human Rights Racism

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

International human rights law seeks to eliminate racial discrimination in the world through treaties that bind and norms that transform. Yet law’s impact on eradicating racism has not matched its intent. Racism, in all of its forms, remains a massive cause of discrimination, indignity, and lack of equality for millions of people in the world today. This Article investigates why. Applying a critical race theory analysis of the legal history and doctrinal development of race and racism in international law, Professor Spain Bradley identifies law’s historical preference for framing legal protections around the concept of racial discrimination. She further exposes that international law has neither explicitly defined nor prohibited racism. In response, Professor Spain Bradley advances a long-overdue claim: racism should be affirmatively and explicitly recognized as a human rights violation under international law. She argues that addressing racism in the world today requires understanding...

The U.N. Security Council's Duty to Decide

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

When faced with a global crisis within the scope of its mandate, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC or Council) has no obligation to decide whether or not to take action. This Article argues that it should. The UNSC is the only governing body with the legal authority to authorize binding measures necessary to restore peace and security, yet neither the United Nations Charter nor the UNSC’s own rules clarify the extent of its obligations. Unlike courts, the UNSC lacks a procedural rule establishing that it has a duty to decide. Unlike the United States Congress, which accepts its practical duty to declare war, the UNSC lacks consensus about when it must take up a matter. As a result, UNSC members can, and frequently do, defer making decisions in politically difficult cases. The costs of this ambiguity to those who depend on the UNSC for their security are high, making debate about UNSC reform critical and necessary.

In contrast to conventional scholarship addressing...

Cognitive Competence in Executive-Branch Decision Making

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The decisions Presidents and those operating under their authority take determine the course of our nation and the trajectory of our lives. Consequently, understanding who has the power and authority to decide has captured both the attention of legal scholars across a variety of fields for many years and the immediate worry of the public since the 2016 Presidential election. Prevailing interventions look for ways that law can offer procedural and institutional reforms that aim to maintain separation of powers and avoid an authoritarian regime. Yet, these views commonly overlook a fundamental factor and a more human one: the individuals empowered to make choices on behalf of the nation. In governance, sometimes the problem is legal or institutional. But sometimes a person is the problem.

Taking up this view, this Article investigates how legal scholarship can expand its understanding of executive-branch decision making by adapting insights from neuroscience about how human...

Examining the International Judicial Function: International Courts as Dispute Resolvers

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines the judicial function of international courts by considering both what it is and what it ought to be. The article identifies and describes two distinct functions - dispute settlement and peace promotion - and explores the tensions that exist in pursuing these two aims. It then introduces a third way of understanding the international judicial function that respects international courts’ traditional role as dispute settlers while allowing for their more engaged and proactive function as peacemakers. This third approach conceptualizes that the role of international courts is to resolve disputes. Doing so requires understanding courts as entities that exist within the broader system of international dispute resolution made up of many institutions and methods that collectively aim to promote global peace and security. It also demands considering how the judicial function of courts might evolve (e.g. combining judicial settlement with mediation through integrated...

Toward Stable Cortisol Sensing with Indium Oxide Field-Effect Transistors

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This thesis asks a different question than most cortisol-sensing work. It asks not whether cortisol can be detected, but whether the field-effect transistors (FETs) used for detection remain electrically stable over anticipated monitoring periods. Previous work has demonstrated cortisol detection using aptamer-functionalized indium oxide field-effect transistors, but stability over prolonged intervals remains underexplored. Importantly, the surface-preparation steps required before aptamer attachment affect FET electrical stability, and it remains unclear whether this stability is preserved through these steps.This thesis addresses these questions in three stages. The first stage involved a pilot experiment in which bare, untreated In₂O₃ thin-film FETs were exposed to phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), a simple surrogate body fluid. The devices exhibited distinct electrical failure patterns, including increased gate leakage, loss of output saturation, and progressive threshold shifts....

Baller Judges

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Judges, from the Chief Justice of the United States on down, insist on being viewed as impartial officiants, not combatants, in legal disputes implicating everything from war powers to riparian rights. It is thus not surprising that they, and influential circles of lawyers and policymakers, draw analogies between judges and umpires or between judges and managers.Over time, these characterizations have come under close scrutiny. Critics see umpire judging and managerial judging as descriptively inaccurate, normatively impoverished, or both. But, assuming the critics are right, what’s the alternative? Is there a role for judges — call them Baller Judges — who see themselves as contestants, competitors, and intellectual partisans in the collective project of constitutional governance?This Essay considers the prerogatives and responsibilities of such Baller Judges, how they fit alongside Manager and Umpire Judges, and how they challenge and possibly enrich our larger constitutional...

Exploring the Impacts of Course Reinvention: A Collective Autoethnography

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This study explores the impact of a Redesign Your Course for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion professional development cohort. Participants enrolled in this cohort in the summer term, then implemented their redesigned course in the following fall term. Participants completed periodic reflections and participated in a focus group after teaching their redesigned course. Through collaborative autoethnography, participants analyzed their reflections and a transcript of their focus group, identifying themes across their experiences. Participants reported changes to their redesigned courses as well as to non-redesigned courses. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Structure, Phase Stability, and Transport in Hydrogen-Bearing Magma Oceans

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Sub-Neptune exoplanets are often modeled as rocky interiors surrounded by hydrogen-rich envelopes, but at the pressures and temperatures expected inside these planets, the boundary between rock and atmosphere may not remain sharp. Hydrogen can dissolve into silicate liquids and form supercritical silicate–hydrogen mixtures whose equations of state, conductivities, and phase behavior differ from those of pure end-member materials. This thesis uses first-principles molecular dynamics simulations to quantify the properties of hydrogen-bearing silicate liquids under conditions relevant to sub-Neptune interiors. I first develop a thermodynamically consistent equation of state for supercritical MgSiO3–H2 mixtures and use it to evaluate how these fluids affect planetary density structure and thermal profiles. I then calculate the electrical and thermal conductivities of these mixtures to assess whether hydrogen-bearing silicate liquids could influence magnetic field generation. Finally,...

Politics of Sight/Site: Hypervisibility/Invisibility of Kahuku Training Area and the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Relation to Tourist Destinations

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This thesis examines Kahuku Training Area on Oʻahu and Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauaʻi and the ways in which they are rendered invisible or hypervisible by the tourist destinations in close proximity to or within the bases. Utilizing archival research, mapping technologies like Google and Apple Maps, and YouTube videos, this thesis exposes the messy and hidden entanglements between the U.S. military, state government, and private actors that maintain the settler occupation in Hawaiʻi and imperialist efforts in the Pacific. Grounded by the scholarship of Kanaka ʻŌiwi scholars, this thesis highlights the ongoing resistance towards U.S. military occupation and suggests other methods of opposition through the operationalization of the glitch.

Field strains of the unicellular alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii exhibit multicellular characteristics that shape their interactions

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a unicellular green alga long studied as a biological model system but rarely considered from the perspective of its own ecology, thus epitomizing the disconnection between reductionist biology in the laboratory and life in nature. Here we present insights into its ecology understood from field strains. We examined bacterial communities that coenriched with C. reinhardtii from the field, revealing specific associations. We then compared the biology of C. reinhardtii field strains to laboratory strains, illuminating strain level heterogeneity and adaptations to life in the field vs. laboratory. Field strains exhibited more robust photosynthesis, higher abundances of pherophorin proteins, a propensity for pallmeloid formation, and high cell wall permeability. Finally, we phenotyped cocultures of C. reinhardtii with a coenriched bacterial partner, demonstrating how differences between field and laboratory strains manifest in biotic interactions. Although...

Skin and Brain in Bipolar Disorder: A Review of Dermatologic-Psychotropic Drug Interactions

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Skin and Brain in Bipolar Disorder: A Review of Dermatologic-Psychotropic Drug Interactions

Toward an Auto-Synthesizer: Stress-Aware Selection and Recommendation of Deep Tabular Generative Models

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Deep generative models for tabular data — GANs, variational autoencoders, diffusion models, and LLM-based generators — exhibit highly non-uniform behavior across datasets: the best-performing family depends on distributional stressors such as long-tailed marginals, high-cardinality categoricals, Zipfian imbalance, and small-sample regimes. While automated machine learning resolved the analogous selection problem for supervised learning a decade ago, tabular synthesis still lacks an “Auto-Synthesizer”: its libraries standardize and benchmark generators but leave the question of which model to use to the practitioner, for whom evaluating every candidate — training, sampling, and scoring each under competing objectives of fidelity, privacy, and utility — is prohibitively expensive. This thesis studies intent-conditioned tabular synthesis selection and answers it with a two-system framework. Table-Synthesizers, the generation and measurement substrate, unifies 19 published generators...

All the President's Spies: Private-Public Intelligence Partnerships in the War on Terror

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Commentators who have examined the Executive's post-September 11 practice of persuading corporations to enter into informal and, at times, unlawful intelligence-gathering partnerships have largely viewed the participating firms as co-conspirators, unwitting pawns, or coerced captives of the Executive-and understandably so. After all, participating corporations have been instrumental in enabling U.S. intelligence officials to conduct domestic surveillance and intelligence activities outside of the congressionally imposed framework of court orders and subpoenas, and also outside of the ambit of inter-branch oversight. Yet despite their track record as enablers, corporations are uniquely positioned to help rein in the currently unregulated practices.

This Article analyzes corporate-government agreements and provides the rationale and blueprint for shifting the principal locus of compliance with existing laws (and oversight obligations) from the intelligence officials to...

Developmental Pathways of Early-Life Adversity: Behavioral, Physiological, and Life-History Consequences in Wild White-Faced Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus imitator)

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Early-life adversity (ELA) is hypothesized to shape adult phenotypes and fitness outcomes through developmental effects on physiological and behavioral systems, yet evidence from wild, long-lived primates remains limited. This dissertation investigates the relationships among ELA, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis regulation, behavioral phenotypes, and life-history outcomes in white-faced capuchin monkeys (Cebus imitator) at Lomas Barbudal Biological Reserve in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, using over three decades of longitudinal data from the Lomas Barbudal Monkey Project.Chapter 1 examines ELA effects on female mortality and reproductive trajectories across three developmental windows. Prenatal exposure to alpha male replacement increased mortality risk by 75%, while psychosocial adversity (alpha male replacements, maternal loss) accelerated reproductive timing among females who survived to the core reproductive period. Chapter 2 evaluates whether boldness and aggression...

We Are Still Here: The Power of Community in Challenging Times

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Higher education is facing unprecedented instability, marked by declining enrollment, political attacks on institutional values, and a surge of legislation aimed at dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. While some recent legal decisions offer limited relief, widespread pre‑emptive compliance has already eroded DEI structures and displaced professionals committed to this work, leaving underrepresented students without essential support. This article reflects on these national shifts through the work of the Washington Center for Improving Undergraduate Education, a small public‑service center dedicated to equity‑driven educational development. In the wake of the 2025 executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, the Center’s free virtual workshops, such as “Rhetorical Grammar: Anti-racist Approaches to College Writing," have drawn educators from across the country seeking community and refuge. Their participation demonstrates the resilience...

Searching for that REAL Love: A Black Feminist Exploration of Dark-Skinned Black Women’s Experiences on Post-2020 Finding Love Reality TV

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

From Love is Blind to every iteration of Love Island, Finding Love reality television is a ubiquitous and ever-expanding genre of televisual entertainment in a post-2020 world. None is more polarizing and captivating than the hit reality show Love Island USA. Love Island USA presents a veneer of a color-blind multiculturalist paradise that promises to be a free market for love, uninhabited by the social order of the world which it mimics. However, the presence of dark-skinned Black women presents a foil to this ruse. Audiences witness how dark-skinned Black women—who are seeking partnership and/or notoriety on these shows—face sanctioned and stylized embarrassment, degradation, or harassment. This maltreatment is then utilized as entertainment, thus increasing the show’s popularity and profitability. This project analyzes seasons 6 and 7 of Love Island USA to question how misogynoir and anti-blackness influence how production constructs narratives about these dark-skinned Black...

An Enduring, Evolving Separation of Powers

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This Article sets forth the theory of an enduring, evolving separation of powers, one that checks and balances state power in whatever form that power happens to take. It shows how this constitutional commitment was first renewed and refashioned in the 1930s and 1940s, wherein the construction of a secondary regime of administrative checks and balances triangulated regulatory power among politically appointed agency leaders, an independent civil service, and a vibrant and pluralistic civil society. And it supplies the legal precedent, corrective blueprint, and normative imperative for subsequent generations (including ours) to reaffirm that commitment whenever new threats to limited, rivalrous government arise.

This commitment to an enduring, evolving separation of powers helps explain our past and our present — and it readies us for the future. First, reframing the administrative state through the lens of an enduring, evolving separation of powers provides a more seamless...

Reflections on Practice: Inclusive STEM Education through Student-Faculty-Staff Learning Communities

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introductory STEM courses often produce persistent gaps in student outcomes, particularly for students from marginalized backgrounds. This article describes the STEM Equity Learning Community (SELC) Project, a year-long professional development experience that brought together instructors, students, institutional researchers, and staff to examine equity in STEM courses. Using disaggregated course-level data—including the Systemic Advantage Index and grade anomaly reports—teams identified long-standing patterns of inequity and explored how structural factors, rather than student deficits, shape academic outcomes. The STEM Equity Learning Community (SELC) Project created a supportive environment for instructors to reflect on their practices, confront deficit-based assumptions, and collaborate across roles to develop equity-minded teaching strategies. By connecting data analysis with facilitated reflection, participants built a shared sense of responsibility for change and a deeper...

The Fitness and Life-History Consequences of Early Life Adversity in a Wild Mammal: A Cumulative Impacts Approach

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Early-life adversity (ELA) can shape survival, reproduction, and fitness long after development, yet wild animals typically encounter multiple ecological, social, and parental challenges whose cumulative consequences remain difficult to quantify. This dissertation develops and applies a cumulative adversity framework to determine how the total burden of ELA affects fitness and life-history outcomes in free-living female yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer). Using more than six decades of longitudinal data, I constructed cumulative adversity indices (CAIs) spanning ecological, demographic, and maternal exposures before sexual maturity and evaluated their relationships with survival, lifetime reproductive success, annual breeding probability, and reproductive onset decisions. Cumulative adversity predicted lower pup survival and shorter adult lifespan, whereas indices that allowed favorable conditions to offset adverse experiences performed poorly. Greater adversity was...

A Conversation with Three Directors of Centers for Teaching and Learning

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In this conversation, three directors of Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs) reflect on how shifting political pressures and institutional responses are reshaping diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work in higher education. While formal structures, language, and participation have changed, the core pedagogical commitments to inclusive teaching persist. The discussion highlights the evolving leadership role of CTLs and their leaders in navigating institutional ambiguity, supporting faculty, and sustaining equity-focused practices during times of constraint.

Becoming a More Inclusive Instructor: Reflections on Students’ Perspectives

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In this reflective piece, we describe how we made meaning following a community read of students' perspectives on inclusive teaching practices. Designed to engage instructors in critical reflection on their teaching across the four lenses described by Brookfield (1995), the initiative supported our ongoing instructional journeys. We include our individual and collective reflections as well as recommendations to highlight our new understandings.

HVSR Database and Application for Site Response Prediction in California

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Microtremor-based horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratios (mHVSR) are derived from Fourier Amplitude Spectra of ambient ground motions and can reveal site features such as resonances or lack thereof. Despite this promise, mHVSR curves have not previously found significant engineering application, likely because: (1) mHVSR data have not been available in sufficient quantities to support ground motion model development and (2) difficulties linking mHVSR parameters to site response. This research addresses both needs by enhancing mHVSR data availability and developing mHVSR-conditioned site response models for California sites. I extended and improved the available mHVSR data by temporarily deploying seismometers at sites of interest (often locations of permanent accelerometers) and downloading data from permanent broadband seismometers. At California vertical array sites, mHVSR curves were measured in expanding concentric circles and used to characterize spatial heterogeneity. In...

Letter from the Editors

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This piece introduces the second issue of the Journal of Diversity and Equity in Educational Development (JDEED). The editors reflect on the normalization of institutional and political pressures that have reshaped the work of educational developers and argue that diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) and antiracism remain foundational to educational development practice. Positioning JDEED as a scholarly space for critical reflection, lived experience, creative inquiry, and empirical research, we reaffirm the importance of naming and advancing DEI and antiracism within the field. We conclude by introducing the contributions in this issue, which collectively explore topics such as faculty learning, pedagogical transformation, community, leadership, and institutional approaches to fostering more equitable teaching and learning environments.

Indirect Liability for Copyright Infringement: An Economic Perspective