Uniform Bar Research Articles

Generative artificial intelligence vs. law students: an empirical study on criminal law exam performance

ABSTRACT Claims that GPT-4 can outperform more than 90% of human test-takers in the US Uniform Bar Examination have sparked heated debates about the impact of Generative AI (GenAI) on legal education, academic integrity, and the future of legal practice. Yet GenAI’s capabilities in broader legal examination contexts – including in jurisdictions outside the US – are unclear. This study addresses this gap by evaluating GenAI’s performance against students who took the ‘Criminal Law’ final exam at an Australian law school in Spring 2023. Various AI models and prompt engineering techniques were used to generate 10 distinct answers to the exam question. Five criminal law tutors, unaware of AI involvement, graded a mix of AI-generated and student responses. Then, the tutors were briefed on the AI-generated papers they marked and engaged in reflective semi-structured interviews. The study found that GenAI performed below the student average in questions that required detailed legal and critical analysis. However, all GenAI papers performed better than students in open-ended questions and essay writing tasks. These results provide a benchmark for the capabilities and limitations of GenAI in higher education and provide insights into the potential implications of its application to legal assessments and education, curriculum development, and the future workforce.

Outburst flood events since the Last Glacial Maximum in the Hutiao Gorge of Jinsha River: Geomorphological evidence from eddy gravel bars

Breaching of natural dams in the Hutiao Gorge of the Jinsha River across the Yulong-Haba Mountains is one of the major geomorphological events in the largest river of Asia. Catastrophic flood events have an important influence on the geomorphological evolution of the First Bend of the Yangtze River since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). However, detailed geomorphological evidence, ages, and depositional phases of outburst flooding remain unclear. In this paper, large-scale gravel bars overlying the river terraces and dammed lakes are analyzed within the Daju Basin. The macroscopic geomorphological characteristics of megaflood landforms with large thickness and uniform gravel bars are similar to those of Missoula and Altai megafloods. Morphological analysis shows that eddy gravel bars (EGBs) with rhythmic structure are characterized by a dome-shaped protrusion in the cross section and a gravel mound in the longitudinal section. Each bar with oblique, parallel and massive bedding was analyzed from the horizontal and vertical directions. Three dome-shaped bars clearly show at least three palaeoflood phases. Quartz grain surface macrotextures are mainly V-shaped pits and conchoidal fractures, which exhibits a high-energy environment during the flood. The stratigraphic sequence model of EGBs is dominated by coarse sand and fine gravel rhythmic bedding in high-energy eddy environments and suspended sand deposits in low-energy backwater environments. Such phenomenon reveals megaflood fluctuates, which is also confirmed by geochemical difference. The episode of natural dam break floods triggered by tectonic activity and glacier fluctuation was dated to 20–17 ka during the LGM. Sedimentary pattern of EGBs offers fresh insights into understanding the megaflood geomorphological characteristics of the upper Yangtze River and better identification similar high-energy palaeoflood landforms in the southeast Tibetan Plateau.

Healthcare Violence and the Potential Promises and Harms of Artificial Intelligence.

Currently, the healthcare workplace is one of the most dangerous in the United States. Over a 3-month period in 2022, two nurses were assaulted every hour. Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to prevent workplace violence by developing unique patient insights through accessing almost instantly a patient's medical history, past institutional encounters, and possibly even their social media posts. De-escalating dialog can then be formulated, and hot-button topics avoided. AIs can also monitor patients in waiting areas for potential confrontational behavior.Many have concerns implementing AIs in healthcare. AIs are not expected to be 100% accurate, their performance is not compared with a computer but instead measured against humans. However, AIs are outperforming humans in many tasks. They are especially adept at taking standardized examinations, such as Board Exams, the Uniform Bar Exam, and the SAT and Graduate Record Exam. AIs are also performing diagnosis. Initial reports found that newer models have been observed to equal or outperform physicians in diagnostic accuracy and in the conveyance of empathy.In the area of interdiction, AI robots can both navigate and monitor for confrontational and illegal behavior. A human security agent would then be notified to resolve the situation. Our military is fielding autonomous AI robots to counter potential adversaries. For many, this new arms race has grave implications because of the potential of fielding this same security technology in healthcare and other civil settings.The healthcare delivery sector must determine the future roles of AI in relationship to human workers. AIs should only be used to support a human employee. AIs should not be the primary caregiver and a single human should not be monitoring multiple AIs simultaneously. Similar to not being copyrightable, disinformation produced by AIs should not be afforded 'free speech' protections. Any increase in productivity of an AI will equate with a loss of jobs. We need to ask, If all business sectors utilize AIs, will there be enough paid workers for the purchasing of services and products to keep our economy and society a float?

Re-evaluating GPT-4’s bar exam performance

AbstractPerhaps the most widely touted of GPT-4’s at-launch, zero-shot capabilities has been its reported 90th-percentile performance on the Uniform Bar Exam. This paper begins by investigating the methodological challenges in documenting and verifying the 90th-percentile claim, presenting four sets of findings that indicate that OpenAI’s estimates of GPT-4’s UBE percentile are overinflated. First, although GPT-4’s UBE score nears the 90th percentile when examining approximate conversions from February administrations of the Illinois Bar Exam, these estimates are heavily skewed towards repeat test-takers who failed the July administration and score significantly lower than the general test-taking population. Second, data from a recent July administration of the same exam suggests GPT-4’s overall UBE percentile was below the 69th percentile, and $$\sim$$ ∼ 48th percentile on essays. Third, examining official NCBE data and using several conservative statistical assumptions, GPT-4’s performance against first-time test takers is estimated to be $$\sim$$ ∼ 62nd percentile, including $$\sim$$ ∼ 42nd percentile on essays. Fourth, when examining only those who passed the exam (i.e. licensed or license-pending attorneys), GPT-4’s performance is estimated to drop to $$\sim$$ ∼ 48th percentile overall, and $$\sim$$ ∼ 15th percentile on essays. In addition to investigating the validity of the percentile claim, the paper also investigates the validity of GPT-4’s reported scaled UBE score of 298. The paper successfully replicates the MBE score, but highlights several methodological issues in the grading of the MPT + MEE components of the exam, which call into question the validity of the reported essay score. Finally, the paper investigates the effect of different hyperparameter combinations on GPT-4’s MBE performance, finding no significant effect of adjusting temperature settings, and a significant effect of few-shot chain-of-thought prompting over basic zero-shot prompting. Taken together, these findings carry timely insights for the desirability and feasibility of outsourcing legally relevant tasks to AI models, as well as for the importance for AI developers to implement rigorous and transparent capabilities evaluations to help secure safe and trustworthy AI.

GPT-4 passes the bar exam.

In this paper, we experimentally evaluate the zero-shot performance of GPT-4 against prior generations of GPT on the entire uniform bar examination (UBE), including not only the multiple-choice multistate bar examination (MBE), but also the open-ended multistate essay exam (MEE) and multistate performance test (MPT) components. On the MBE, GPT-4 significantly outperforms both human test-takers and prior models, demonstrating a 26% increase over ChatGPT and beating humans in five of seven subject areas. On the MEE and MPT, which have not previously been evaluated by scholars, GPT-4 scores an average of 4.2/6.0 when compared with much lower scores for ChatGPT. Graded across the UBE components, in the manner in which a human test-taker would be, GPT-4 scores approximately 297 points, significantly in excess of the passing threshold for all UBE jurisdictions. These findings document not just the rapid and remarkable advance of large language model performance generally, but also the potential for such models to support the delivery of legal services in society. This article is part of the theme issue 'A complexity science approach to law and governance'.

Evaluating ChatGPT Performance on the Orthopaedic In-Training Examination.

Artificial intelligence (AI) holds potential in improving medical education and healthcare delivery. ChatGPT is a state-of-the-art natural language processing AI model which has shown impressive capabilities, scoring in the top percentiles on numerous standardized examinations, including the Uniform Bar Exam and Scholastic Aptitude Test. The goal of this study was to evaluate ChatGPT performance on the Orthopaedic In-Training Examination (OITE), an assessment of medical knowledge for orthopedic residents. OITE 2020, 2021, and 2022 questions without images were inputted into ChatGPT version 3.5 and version 4 (GPT-4) with zero prompting. The performance of ChatGPT was evaluated as a percentage of correct responses and compared with the national average of orthopedic surgery residents at each postgraduate year (PGY) level. ChatGPT was asked to provide a source for its answer, which was categorized as being a journal article, book, or website, and if the source could be verified. Impact factor for the journal cited was also recorded. ChatGPT answered 196 of 360 answers correctly (54.3%), corresponding to a PGY-1 level. ChatGPT cited a verifiable source in 47.2% of questions, with an average median journal impact factor of 5.4. GPT-4 answered 265 of 360 questions correctly (73.6%), corresponding to the average performance of a PGY-5 and exceeding the corresponding passing score for the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery Part I Examination of 67%. GPT-4 cited a verifiable source in 87.9% of questions, with an average median journal impact factor of 5.2. ChatGPT performed above the average PGY-1 level and GPT-4 performed better than the average PGY-5 level, showing major improvement. Further investigation is needed to determine how successive versions of ChatGPT would perform and how to optimize this technology to improve medical education. AI has the potential to aid in medical education and healthcare delivery.

The Effect of the Uniform Bar Examination on Admissions, Diversity, Affordability, and Employment Across Law Schools in the United States

The Uniform Bar Examination (UBE) is a multijurisdictional test that law students can use to gain admission to the bar in 37 states and territories. Despite this near-universal applicability and the potential of UBE to affect law schools’ admissions, diversity, affordability, and employment outcomes, no research to date has examined the impacts of UBE. Equipped with a novel data set that we make available to future researchers, we apply a difference-in-differences design to estimate these impacts by exploiting variation in UBE adoption timing across states. We find early evidence to suggest that law schools in UBE states benefited by receiving more applications and having higher overall enrollments after UBE adoption.

Nonsmooth modal analysis of a varying cross-sectional area bar in unilateral contact

Nonsmooth modes of vibration allow for identification of resonant behaviours and attendant vibratory frequencies in structures prone to unilateral contact conditions on the boundary. The prominent approach for finding nonsmooth modes of vibration entails finding continua of periodic solutions to the system in question. In this paper, nonsmooth modes of a one-dimensional bar of varying cross-sectional area prone to unilateral contact with a rigid obstacle are determined. While numerical and analytical techniques were previously proposed, they were limited to constant cross section bar and could not be applied on the varying area bar for which the classical d’Alembert solution no longer exists. In this article, nonsmooth modal analysis of the varying area bar is performed via a novel treatment of the Signorini conditions within the finite element framework: the nodal boundary method. The nodal boundary method solves the Signorini problem by switching between two sets of shape functions describing either (1) inactive contact motion (motion away from the rigid obstacle) or (2) active contact motion (bar in contact with the rigid obstacle). In the proposed nodal boundary method, the motion of the contacting node does not participate in the resulting governing Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE). Instead, its motion is prescribed by the boundary conditions and is dictated by the motion of internal nodes. The nodal boundary method results in a discontinuous ODE in the internal nodes which can be solved both analytically and via numerical techniques. Solutions obtained by the nodal boundary method exhibit several advantages over existing numerical techniques: no chattering at contact, no penetration of the rigid obstacle, and existence of periodic solutions. Specifically, these periodic solutions are readily detectable via the shooting method with sequential continuation. The nodal boundary method is used successfully for the nonsmooth modal analysis of different models of the varying area bar. Besides, application of the nodal boundary method for nonsmooth modal analysis of the uniform area cantilever bar in Dirichlet or Robin boundary conditions is also demonstrated for comparison with existing literature.

Proposal of Parameter Range that Offered Optimal Performance in the Coastal Morphodynamic Model (XBeach) Through GLUE

The process-based XBeach model has numerous empirical parameters because of insufficient understanding of hydrodynamics and sediment transport on the nearshore; hence, it is necessary to calibrate parameters to apply to various study areas and wave conditions. Therefore, the calibration process of parameters is essential for the improvement of model performance. Generally, the trial-and-error method is widely used; however, this method is passive and limited to various and comprehensive parameter ranges. In this study, the Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) method was used to estimate the optimal range of three parameters (gamma, facua, and gamma2) using morphological field data collected in Maengbang beach during the four typhoons that struck from September to October 2019. The model performance and optimal range of empirical parameters were evaluated using Brier Skill Score (BSS) along with the baseline profiles, sensitivity, and likelihood density analysis of BSS in the GLUE tools. Accordingly, the optimal parameter combinations were derived when facua was less than 0.15 and simulated well the shifting shape, from crescentic sand bar to alongshore uniform sand bars in the surf zone of Maengbang beach after storm impact. However, the erosion and accretion patterns nearby in the surf zone and shoreline remain challenges in the XBeach model.

Examining the Bar Exam: An Empirical Analysis of Racial Bias in the Uniform Bar Examination

The legal profession is among the least diverse in the United States. Given continuing issues of systemic racism, the central position that the justice system occupies in society, and the vital role that lawyers play in that system, it is incumbent upon legal professionals to identify and remedy the causes of this lack of diversity. This Article seeks to understand how the bar examination—the final hurdle to entering the profession— contributes to this dearth of diversity. Using publicly available data, we analyze whether the ethnic makeup of a law school’s entering class correlates to the school’s first-time bar passage rates on the Uniform Bar Examination (UBE). We find that higher proportions of Black and Hispanic students in a law school’s entering class are associated with lower first-time bar passage rates for that school in its reported UBE jurisdictions three years later. This effect persists after controlling for other potentially causal factors like undergraduate grade-point average (UGPA), law school admission test (LSAT) score, geographic region, or law school tier. Moreover, the results are statistically robust at a p-value of 0.01 (indicating just a 1% chance that the results are due to random variation in the data). Because these are school-level results, they may not fully account for relevant factors identifiable only in student-level data. As a result, we argue that follow-up study using data relating to individual students is necessary to fully understand why the UBE produces racially and ethnically disparate results.

The approximate solution of the elastic torsion problem of uniform bar with arbitrary cross-section

The approximate solution of the elastic torsion problem of uniform bar with arbitrary cross-section

Numerical Analysis of Corrosion Reinforcements in Fibrous Concrete Beams

Abstract This paper offers a finite element method (FEM) to simulate the behavior of steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) beams with corrosion of the longitudinal reinforcement using the ABAQUS package. This work was undertaken with the concrete damaged plasticity model (CDP). The expansion of corrosion product was utilized to represent the steel-concrete boundary to study the behavior of SFRC beams. Three beams with three volume fractions of steel fiber (0.8 %, 1.2 %, and 1.8 %) and three reinforced concrete (RC) beams with and without stirrups were created and tested under four-point loading to assess the shear capacity of beams. Corrosion of rebars at one of the RC beams that does not contain shear reinforcements will be studied. The crack patterns and load deflections of these beams were compared with experimental results found by the authors. The conclusions of this analysis will be valuable in considering the structural behavior of SFRC structures with uniform steel bar corrosion using FEM. Analytical results showed that the suggested model is qualified in better simulation and in accuracy of numerical and experimental results. The differences between analytical and experimental results were less than 8 % for load carrying capacity and 14 % for deflection; these differences are also satisfactory within the limits of the engineering conclusion.

Actuation and dynamic mechanical characteristics of a core free flat dielectric electro-active polymer soft actuator

Various complex shapes of dielectric electro-active polymer (DEAP) actuator have been promoted for several types of applications. In this study, the actuation and mechanical dynamics characteristics of a new core free flat DEAP soft actuator were investigated. This actuator was developed by Danfoss PolyPower. DC voltage of up to 2000 V was supplied for identifying the actuation characteristics of the actuator and compare with the existing formula. The operational frequency of the actuator was determined by dynamic testing. Then, the soft actuator has been modelled as a uniform bar rigidly fixed at one end and attached to mass at another end. Results from the theoretical model were compared with the experimental results. It was found that the deformation of the current actuator was quadratic proportional to the voltage supplied. It was found that experimental results and theory were not in good agreement for low and high voltage with average percentage error are 104% and 20.7%, respectively. The resonance frequency of the actuator was near 14 Hz. Mass of load added, inhomogeneity and initial tension significantly affected the resonance frequency of the soft actuator. The experimental results were consistent with the theoretical model at zero load. However, due to inhomogeneity, the frequency response function’s plot underlines a poor prediction where the theoretical calculation was far from experimental results as values of load increasing with the average percentage error 15.7%. Hence, it shows the proposed analytical procedure not suitable to provide accurate natural frequency for the DEAP soft actuator.

Stress and Displacement Analysis of Uniform Bar

Stress and Displacement Analysis of Uniform Bar

Stability of a hybrid system with tip load damped

In this article, we studied the stabilization of a hybrid system formed by a homogeneous and isotropic uniform bar clamped at the left end while the other is rigidly attached to a tip load damped. We prove that the C0-semigroup associated with this model has stability strong but not uniformly and decays polynomially at a rate of t−1/2. Finally, if we modify the homogeneity of a subpart of the end clamped of the bar through a thermoelastic inclusion, we achieve the uniform stability for the C0-semigroup associated with this new model. Such subpart is made of thermoelastic material different from its complementary but with an equal cross section.

Prominent interference peaks in the dephasing Anderson model

The Anderson model with decoherence features a temporal evolution from localized eigenstates to a uniform spatial distribution bar any interference features. We discuss the growth and decay of pronounced interference peaks on transient time-scales and develop an analytic understanding for the emergence of these peaks.

Improving Bar Success: Curricular Changes at University of North Carolina School of Law

As more and more states transition to the Uniform Bar Exam as their state licensing exam, law schools throughout the country continue to examine ways to improve the academic and professional success of their students. This article discusses some of the curricular changes that the University of North Carolina School of Law has implemented to promote the academic and professional success of its students. These curricular changes have given students opportunities to practice and enhance their legal writing, analytical, and test-taking skills, and they have produced positive bar exam results for the law school and a positive experience for the students.

New Analysis Based on Unit Body Balance and Its Particle Balance Problem - The Basic Contradiction and New Analysis of Current Elasticity Theory

This paper discovered a new concept that the unit balance and particle balance are not equivalent. Based on the research of tensile of uniform section bar, it indicated that the normal stress <img width="17" height="20" src="http://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/229/2291258/image001.png" /> and shear stress <img width="16" height="20" src="http://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/229/2291258/image002.png" /> on oblique section can only make sure partly body balance while not every particles. The value of <img width="17" height="20" src="http://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/229/2291258/image001.png" /> and <img width="16" height="20" src="http://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/229/2291258/image002.png" /> is less than the equilibrium stress of particles. Besides, the particle balance stress is <img width="19" height="20" src="http://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/229/2291258/image003.png" /> times of the unit balance stress in the state of pure extension. The extreme stress is not the principal stress of cell body but the balance stress of particle. Using this formula, the problem existed for 350 years that the stretch-shear act on a bar is easer destroyed relate to the compress-shear acted can be explained perfectly. What’s more, this theory has also been validated in the Damage Mechanics National Key Laboratory of Tsinghua University. The error between this theory and actual is only 1%, while based on three and fourth strength theory, the errors are 14.2%, 18.2% respectively. It’s also the root cause of large bridge collapse.

BROUWER’S FAN THEOREM AND CONVEXITY

AbstractIn the framework of Bishop’s constructive mathematics we introduce co-convexity as a property of subsets B of ${\left\{ {0,1} \right\}^{\rm{*}}}$, the set of finite binary sequences, and prove that co-convex bars are uniform. Moreover, we establish a canonical correspondence between detachable subsets B of ${\left\{ {0,1} \right\}^{\rm{*}}}$ and uniformly continuous functions f defined on the unit interval such that B is a bar if and only if the corresponding function f is positive-valued, B is a uniform bar if and only if f has positive infimum, and B is co-convex if and only if f satisfies a weak convexity condition.

An exact dynamic stiffness matrix for a beam incorporating Rayleigh–Love and Timoshenko theories

An exact dynamic stiffness matrix for a beam is developed by integrating the Rayleigh–Love theory for longitudinal vibration into the Timoshenko theory for bending vibration. In the formulation, the Rayleigh–Love theory accounted for the transverse inertia in longitudinal vibration whereas the Timoshenko beam theory accounted for the effects of shear deformation and rotating inertia in bending vibration. The dynamic stiffness matrix is developed by solving the governing differential equations of motion in free vibration of a Rayleigh–Love bar and a Timoshenko beam and then imposing the boundary conditions for displacements and forces. Next the two dynamic stiffness theories are combined using a unified notation. The ensuing dynamic stiffness matrix is subsequently used for free vibration analysis of uniform and stepped bars as well as frameworks through the application of the Wittrick–Williams algorithm as solution technique. Illustrative examples are given to demonstrate the usefulness of the theory and some of the computed results are compared with published ones. The paper closes with some concluding remarks.