Digital Commons Network^™

Litigating Predator Management, John A. Erwin

Utah Law Review

Despite significant gains over the last half-century, predators such as mountain lions, wolves, and bears are in the crosshairs once again. Scientific management, democratic principles, and the holding of wildlife resources in trust for the public are all foundational pillars of the North American Model for Wildlife Conservation, yet state wildlife agencies and legislatures routinely fail to uphold these values where predators are concerned. Many of these tensions were thrust into the public consciousness in 2020 when gray wolves were temporarily delisted under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), resulting in a disastrous wolf hunting season in Wisconsin. States that have …

The Puzzling Persistence Of Nature’S Rights, Sam Bookman

Utah Law Review

The American experience of rights of Nature—the legal recognition of the rights and personhood of natural phenomena—presents a puzzle. On the one hand, no court has ever recognized such rights. Rights of Nature laws are routinely struck down and have proven impossible to enforce. On the other hand, dozens of communities, including municipalities and Native American tribes, continue to enforce them while scholars debate them endlessly. Why do rights of Nature persist?

Through analysis of 119 laws and 32 interviews with rights of Nature activists, I offer the first empirically-grounded answer to this question. Rights of Nature persist because of …

Emerging Contaminants Reveal Flaws In The Safe Drinking Water Act, Julia Abolafia

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Colorado Environmental Law Journal

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Editor's Note, Colorado Environmental Law Journal

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Water Rights In Outer Space: Prior Appropriation And The Final Frontier, Kevin M. Morrow

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Regulating Cultured Meat Labels In The United States, Natalie Mousa

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Assessing Vegetation Changes And Ecosystem Impacts Of Invasive Species In Florida's Water Conservation Area 3a (2004–2024) Using Landsat Data, Gideon Tandoh

Research, Papers & Creative Work

The spread of invasive species is a concrete problem, threatening biodiversity, ecosystem integrity, and the functional status of wetlands. As these species continue to advance, it is crucial to assess their spread as well as management success through the more sophisticated invasive monitoring methodologies. This research examines the change in vegetation communities and the spread of invasive plants in the Water Conservation Area 3A (WCA-3A) using Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers on time series Landsat images. Unlike traditional pixel-based methods, OBIA enhances classification accuracy by incorporating spatial, spectral, and contextual information, enabling precise differentiation between …

The Guardian The Month Of February 2025, Wright State Student Body

The Guardian Student Newspaper

News articles from The Guardian for the Month of February 2025. The Guardian is the official student-run newspaper for Wright State University. It has been published regularly since March of 1965.

Ipulse - February 2025, Lynn University

Student Newspapers

Issues:

• February 2025 - Volume 1
• February 2025 - Volume 2
• February 2025 - Volume 3

On The Books In South Carolina: Mining For Jim Crow Laws, Kate F. Boyd, Vandana Srivastava, Lance Dupre, Christopher Frear, Nitin Gupta, Bobby Donaldson

Faculty and Staff Publications

On the Books in South Carolina: Mining for Jim Crow Laws is a collections-as-data and machine learning project by the University of South Carolina Libraries (USC), sub awarded by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, for the period of May 2022 - December 2024. Following UNC’s steps from their first year of the grant, the USC project created a text corpus of South Carolina state legislature acts passed in the period from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Movement (1868-1968). The USC team then utilized machine learning techniques to …

Analysis Of 26 Studies Of The Impact Of Coconut Oil On Lipid Parameters: Beyond Total And Ldl Cholesterol, Mary T. Newport, Fabian M. Dayrit

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Coconut oil (CNO) is often characterized as an “artery-clogging fat” because it is a predominantly saturated fat that ostensibly raises total cholesterol (TChol) and LDL cholesterol (LDL-C). Whereas previous analyses assessed CNO based on the relative effects on lipid parameters against other fats and oils, this analysis focuses on the effects of CNO itself. Here, we review the literature on CNO and analyze 984 lipid profile data sets from 26 CNO studies conducted over the past 40 years. This analysis shows considerable heterogeneity among CNO studies regarding participant selection, the amount consumed, and the study duration. The analysis reveals that, …

Reviving The Golden Age: Exploring Will Eisner's Legacy Through The Creation Of A Multiversal Sequential Art Story, Levi Atkins

Theses

Levi Atkins’ thesis explores the legacy of Will Eisner, a foundational figure in comic book history, through the creation of a multiversal sequential art story. The project combines a seven-page black-and-white comic with a scholarly analysis of Eisner’s storytelling techniques, focusing on his public domain characters from the Golden Age of Comics. Atkins examines how Eisner’s innovations—such as dynamic panel design, cinematic pacing, and genre blending—can inspire modern narratives. By reimagining characters like The Flame and Dollman within a multiverse framework, the thesis both honors Eisner’s legacy and demonstrates how historical comic forms can evolve to engage contemporary readers.

Agricultural Resources Conservation Fund (Arcf) 2025 Biennial Report Submitted To The Tennessee General Assembly, Tennessee. Department Of Agriculture.

Agricultural Resources Conservation Fund (ARCF) Biennial Report

No abstract provided.

Living Act 31: Perspectives From Bayfield, Wisconsin, Brian Boyd, Rebecca Boyd, Beth Dahl, Rick Erickson, Cate Williams, Doug Adams

The Rural Educator

In this article, we discuss the teaching of Indigenous land sovereignty, history, and culture, commonly referred to as Act 31, in the School District of Bayfield in Bayfield, Wisconsin. Since the legislative mandate in 1991, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has strongly recommended that Wisconsin students receive instruction related to Act 31 twice in elementary school and once in high school. However, because Act 31 is not strictly enforced, there is uneven implementation throughout the state. At the School District of Bayfield, teaching Act 31 is mainstreamed in the curriculum. Here, five teachers offer their vignette, or story, on …

Frequency-Dependent Assembly Processes Determine The Coexistence And Relative Abundance Of Tropical Plant Species, David M. Defilippis, Joseph A. Lamanna, Stefan A. Schnitzer

Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Testing the extent to which ecological communities are structured by deterministic (niche-based) assembly processes, resulting in predictable species abundance and composition, is a fundamental goal of ecology. Here we use a 10-year dataset of 55,156 lianas comprising 86 species in an old-growth tropical forest in Panama to test whether community assembly is consistent with niche-based assembly processes. We find that species diversity and community composition was maintained because species conformed to four general requirements of coexistence theory: (1) species have negative conspecific frequency-dependent feedback that control their local population size; (2) species have a stronger negative effect on their own …

Making Magic While The Sun Hides, Emma J. Vitallo

Graduate Artistry Projects and Performances

Making Magic While the Sun Hides, Emma Vitallo's MFA Thesis project, examines the intersections of memory, transformation, and the psychological construction of home through photography, handcrafted elements, and stop-motion animation. Centered around a childhood dollhouse built by the artist’s grandfather, the work reimagines this artifact as a surrogate for a demolished family home, using miniature stages populated with toy horses and unicorns to explore themes of familial bonds, nostalgia, and loss. Drawing on influences from Odette England’s archive-based photographic practice, Laurie Simmons’ staged domestic imagery, and Surrealist strategies of the uncanny, the project challenges traditional notions of memory as stable …

Psyx 100s.51: Introduction To Psychology, Katie Smith

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2021-2025

No abstract provided.

Long-Term Agricultural Management Reduces Abundance And Alters Community Structure Of Ground Beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae), Cynthia M. Fiser, Nathan L. Haan, Douglas A. Landis

Entomology Faculty Publications

Carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) are beneficial predators and bioindicators of ground-dwelling arthropod diversity in agricultural landscapes. We studied changes in community composition, activity density, and diversity of carabids in a long-term agroecosystem study spanning 30 years in the US Midwest. We contrasted carabid community metrics measured by pitfall trap sampling in two conservation-oriented treatments in a corn-soybean-wheat rotation. One treatment uses conventional practices but with reduced agrochemical inputs (Reduced Input), while the other has no synthetic inputs (Biologically Based). Since a 1994–95 study on the same site, in 2019 overall carabid activity density had declined a minimum of 58–76 % …

Nrf2/Cyclooxygenase 2 Signaling In Cr(Vi)-Induced Carcinogenesis, Lei Zhao, Yi-Fang Wang, Andrea Adamcakova-Dodd, Peter Thorne, Ranakul Islam, Ke Jian Liu, Fei Chen, Jia Luo, Ling-Zhi Liu

Kimmel Cancer Center Faculty Papers

Long-term exposure to hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] has been linked to lung cancer, and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is a well-known inflammatory factor. However, the role and mechanism of COX-2 in Cr(VI)-induced carcinogenesis are not clear yet. To address this question, we employed a mouse model exposed to Cr(VI) through intranasal instillation of particulate zinc chromate (ZnCrO4) for 12 weeks. Metabolomics and RNA-seq assays revealed enhanced activity of the arachidonic acid (AA)/eicosanoid metabolism pathway in lung tissues from mice exposed to Cr(VI). COX-2, the key enzyme of the AA/eicosanoid pathway, was significantly upre- gulated in Cr(VI)-exposed lung tissues, as well as in the …

Decriminalization Matters: Lgbtq Transnational Litigation Networks And Movement Lawyering In The Global South, Ayodeji Kamau Perrin

Faculty Scholarship

In the last decade, a distinct sociolegal phenomenon has been sweeping across the Global South—the judicial decriminalization of same-sex sexual conduct. On the other hand, progress on LGBTQ rights has occurred in parallel to transnational countermobilization and backlash against LGBTQ rights. Yet, neither the phenomenon of judicial decriminalization nor the countermobilization and backlash to decriminalization has attracted the attention that these phenomena deserve from doctrinal legal scholars, comparative and international law scholars, or legal mobilization scholars.

In this paper, I help to remedy this oversight by making three contributions to legal mobilization scholarship and to international law and relations scholarship. …

Volumetric Subdivision And The Architectures Of Property, Douglas C. Harris

All Faculty Publications

Henry Smith’s influential architectural or modular theory of property places things, defined by the right to exclude, at its core. Property as “The Law of Things” relies on an exclusionary strategy, augmented with governance strategies that delineate particular rights of use, to define owned things and to enable their uses. This Article considers that claim and Smith’s call for multi-dimensional theorizing that accounts for property in “the real world” and “in real life” through an analysis of the increasingly common practice of volumetric subdivision to produce three-dimensional property. Focussing on the statutory frameworks in the Canadian province of British Columbia, …

Extended Reality For Alternative Dispute Resolution, Ryan Gallagher

Journal of Dispute Resolution

“What is real? How do you define ‘real’? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” As technology continues to advance, its effects will be felt in all aspects of our lives, and the world of Alternative Dispute Resolution (“ADR”) will be no different. Dispute resolution processes must adapt to the needs of their users. These users are increasingly in different parts of the world as the global economy expands. Inevitably, globalization leads to more conflicts that require resolution. Technology …

Dean's Research Newsletter, February 2025, Neil W. Schluger

SOM Dean's Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Single-Nuclei Sequencing Reveals A Robust Corticospinal Response To Nearby Axotomy But Overall Insensitivity To Spinal Injury, Zimei Wang, Manojkumar Kumaran, Elizabeth Bastel, Sofia Testor-Cabrera, Zac Beine, Alicia Alvarez Ribelles, Pantelis Tsoulfas, Ishwariya Venkatesh, Murray G. Blackmore

Biomedical Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

The ability of neurons to sense and respond to damage is crucial for maintaining homeostasis and facilitating nervous system repair. For some cell types, notably dorsal root ganglia and retinal ganglion cells, extensive profiling has uncovered a significant transcriptional response to axon injury, which influences survival and regenerative outcomes. In contrast, the injury responses of most supraspinal cell types, which display limited regeneration after spinal damage, remain mostly unknown. In this study, we used single-nuclei sequencing in adult male and female mice to profile the transcriptional responses of diverse supraspinal cell types to spinal injury. Surprisingly, thoracic spinal injury induced …

Beyond Privity Of Blood: Intestacy And Charity, Adam J. Hirsch

UC Law Journal

When an individual dies without leaving a will, the law of intestacy functions to distribute the decedent’s estate to a surviving spouse and/or close blood relatives. Yet, this default regime fails to account for the possibility that some individuals wish to allocate part of their estates to charity. Drawing on empirical evidence, including data presented here for the first time, this Article advocates building a charitable component into intestacy in those cases where majorities of decedents prefer to establish estate plans transcending traditional heirs. Evidence suggests that this majority preference arises in four situations: (1) where the decedent was extremely …

Introduction To The Special Issue On Verification And Validation Of Source And Propagation Models For Underwater Sounda), Kathleen J. Vigness-Raposa, Klaus Lucke, Michael A. Ainslie, Michele B. Halvorsen, Christ A. F. De Jong, Stanley J. Labak, Martin Siderius

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This joint Special Issue of JASA and JASA Express Letters focuses on underwater sound source and propagation modelling, both of ambient sound as well as sources of relevance to possible effects of sound on aquatic life, and corresponding acoustical metrics. Combining information on the sound field with information on a dose-effect relationship enables estimation of the potential effects. The Special Issue presents a collection of eighteen articles on the following topics: (1) verification of source and propagation models, (2) validation of source and propagation models, and (3) bioacoustical metrics for assessment of the risk of environmental effects. This special issue …

Comparing Smart City Data Protection Approaches: Digital Consent And The Accountability Framework In Singapore, Wenxi Zhang, Sharanya M Shanmugam, J.G. Allen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Traditionally, there has been heavy reliance on formal notice and consent models for data protection regimes. However, consent (in particular digital consent) is rarely extended meaningfully in practice, due to behavioural factors including data subjects’ limited cognitive capacity, rational apathy, and dependency on the digital infrastructure around them. Synthesizing legal perspectives with insights drawn from the behavioural and social sciences, this article analyzes the consent problem in the smart city context, where it is exacerbated due to prevailing issues such as economic disincentives for ensuring meaningful consent, since essential urban infrastructure is often provided by private companies. Recognizing the shortcomings …

Marine Protected Species Identification Guide 2025, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Fisheries Occasional Publications

The Western Australian aquatic environment is home to a number of species that are protected under international agreements and national or state legislation. Many of these species occur in areas where fishing takes place, sometimes resulting in interactions between fishers and protected species. An interaction is considered to be any physical contact between a person, fishing vessel or fishing gear and a protected species, including captures, entanglements and collisions.

This guide has been developed to help you identify some common marine protected species in Western Australia that you may encounter while fishing.

It has been divided into 5 sections:

• …

Coverage Matters: Identifying And Mitigating Sampling Frame Issues In Recreational Fishing Surveys, Steve Taylor, Annica De Groote, Kieran Hyder, Jon Volstad, B W. Hartill, J Foster, R Andrews, Karina L. Ryan

Fisheries Research Articles

Surveys play an integral part in monitoring and maintaining sustainable recreational fisheries. For any probabilistic survey, the selection of a sampling frame (e.g., list of individuals or fishers) is an important decision because it influences the ability to provide unbiased estimates of recreational catch and effort. Undercoverage occurs when units of the target population (i.e., the population of interest) are missing from the frame population. This error can undermine the reliability of research advice generated from survey estimates. In this review, we: (i) define six sampling frame configurations that are commonly applied in probabilistic recreational fishing surveys; (ii) synthesise how …