Digital Commons Network^™

Chimes: November 24, 2025, Calvin University

Chimes

Student Senate welcomes LCS council by Ellery Johnson

Administrators respond to student questions in second academic transition town hall by Ian Tjoelker & Ashley Hammons

Matins: A poetry collection by Professor Otto Selles by McKenna Wilkinson

No Noise November: A spiritual, physical and mental practice by Ella Vanden Berg

Seminary: A "seedbed" for growth by Joe Toly

Calvin's Women's Rugby on the rise by Hendrik Beelen

Furry friends on campus keep watch over students by Ashley Hamons & Maya Oeverman

"You Will Be Like God": On freedom and the fall of Anakin Skywalker by Joe Toly

Shepherding In France: The Ambiguities Of Caring For Nonhuman Animals In The Roya Valley, France, Daina Pupkevičiūtė

Journal of Ecological Anthropology

F

For over half a century, wolves in France were extinct. In the absence of predators, the shepherds became accustomed to leaving the sheep roaming freely in the mountains in relative safety. However, at the end of the 1980s, wolves returned, resulting in many victims, conflicts, and a stark division between those either for or against the wolf or otherwise sometimes framed as those against or for the survival of the mountain pastoralism tradition. This text looks at the caring relationships humans, such as shepherds, villagers, and others, have towards sheep, wolves, and the landscape in the Roya Valley in …

The Influence Of Russian Folklore On Perceptions Of Female Heroism, Mariia V. Subbotina

Heroism Science

This article examines how Russian folklore traditions have shaped cultural perceptions of female heroism. The study addresses the limited attention given to gendered aspects of heroism, particularly “female” models, which are often linked to self-sacrifice and resilience, in contrast to “male” heroism associated with physical strength and risk. As the first stage of a larger project, this research aims to introduce the issue and identify key archetypes of female heroism. Based on an analysis of A.N. Afanasyev’s collection of fairy tales, three central archetypes of active heroines are identified: the Warrior Woman (Marya Morevna), the Wise Maiden/Enchantress (Vasilisa the Beautiful), …

Table Of Contents, Cleveland State Journal Of Law And Health

Journal of Law and Health

No abstract provided.

2025 - The Sixth Annual Fall Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Fall 2025 Symposium of Student Scholars, held in November 2025. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

Fish-Spec: Fast Identification System For Handheld Spectroscopy And Species Classification, Mitchell Sueker, Nicholas Mackinnon, Gregory Bearman, Amanda Tabb, Diane Kim, Rosalee S. Hellberg, Alireza Akhbardeh, Hamid Reza Marateb, Jianwei Qin, Moon Kim, Fartash Vasefi, Hossein Kashani Zadeh

Food Science Faculty Articles and Research

Accurate fish species identification is critical to prevent mislabeling and fraud in the seafood industry. We present a handheld multi-mode point spectroscopy system that combines fluorescence (365 and 395 nm excitation) and reflectance measurements in the visible to near-infrared (∼350–900 nm) and short-wave infrared (∼900–1700 nm) regions for rapid, non-destructive classification of fish fillets. Tissue spectra were acquired at 25 positions on 68 fillets from 11 species, in both frozen and thawed states. Feature-level fusion across all four modes enabled higher classification accuracy than any single mode alone. A global machine-learning model classified all species with 85 ± 2.8 %, …

Forage Mass And Botanical Composition Of Four Annual Forages Grown In A Loblolly Pine Silvopasture In The Mid-South Usa, Christine C. Nieman, Dirk Philipp, Jonathan O.C. Kubesch

Animal Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Annual forages are commonly planted in open pasture in the Mid-South, but there is little information on the productivity of these forages when incorporated into silvopasture. The objective was to evaluate four annual forages adapted to the Mid-South, namely, arrowleaf clover (Trifolium vesiculosum Savi), crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum L.), tetraploid annual ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum L.), and diploid annual ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum L.), in a loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) silvopasture for seasonal forage mass distribution and annual forage accumulation. The forages were tested in a randomized complete block design with three replicates and three harvests per year: Harvest 1 (H1, …

Cover, Cleveland State Journal Of Law And Health

Journal of Law and Health

No abstract provided.

An Essay On Trailblazing With Service Animals Langer, Pilot, Bowie, And Izzie: Preserving Non-Partisan Public Health And The Law, Gary C. Norman

Journal of Law and Health

A direct correlation exists among humans, their animals, and human health and wellness. This article will focus concisely on law students with disabilities and lawyers with disabilities and how they can be empowered to be trailblazers while remaining healthy and well. Salutogenic Model should be optimized by lawyers with disabilities working at the intersection of animal law, disability law, and public health law. Service animals have positive and salubrious impacts upon their handlers in several ways, including psychosocial health and wellbeing. The Grand Architect (or in my Cherokee tradition, "great spirit") continuously partners me with complicated but magnificent dog partners …

Madagascar's Urban Lemur Meat Trade, Cortni Borgerson, Be Noel Razafindrapaoly, Be Jean Rodolph Rasolofoniaina

Department of Anthropology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

As the world's most endangered mammals, lemurs are key to understanding how humans and wildlife can sustainably coexist. We present the first national assessment of the urban lemur meat trade. We interviewed 2600 participants across 17 cities to determine its scale, target species, distribution, and drivers. We reveal a considerable trade, with thousands of threatened lemurs sold annually. This trade is largely hidden, with 95% of sales occurring directly between suppliers and a trusted clientele, and targets some of the nation's most endangered species, often during critical breeding seasons. While entrepreneurial peri-urban suppliers are lured by a dependable economic opportunity, …

Computer Simulation Of Zonal Adaptive Optics And Assessment Of Its Effectiveness Using Solar Images, Huda Shaker Ali, Raaid Nawfee Hassan

Baghdad Science Journal

Distortions in astronomical images caused by Earth’s turbulent atmosphere can be corrected using Adaptive Optics (AO). A Zonal-AO computer simulation approach for the correction of wavefront distortions in long-range astronomical observations, including those for solar prominences is presented. The primary task is to test the performance of AO system with solar image data. The distorted PSFs (point spread functions) and wavefronts caused by atmospheric turbulence are generated in the simulation, after that measured as well as corrected. The results of analyzing the impact of deformable mirror (DM) actuator stroke on both Strehl ratio as well as root-mean-square error (RMSE) show …

Harnessing Hyperspectral Imaging And Deep Learning For Terrestrial Habitat Mapping In Arid Landscapes: A Case Study In Saudi Arabia, Ali Elgendy, Hesham Morgan, Brandon Tran, Rejoice Thomas, Tamer Ismail, Yehya Kh. Shehadeh, Ahmed Elgharib, Ahmed Abdullah Al-Dughairi, Ali El Muburak, Khaled Allam Harhash, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Arid ecosystems remain under-mapped at actionable scales despite their ecological importance. Decision makers lack reliable, high-resolution habitat maps in drylands to prioritize protection and target restoration. This research integrates spaceborne hyperspectral imaging from the Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) with deep learning semantic segmentation models to produce an updated level of habitat classification based on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for part of the Imam Turki bin Abdullah Royal Reserve, Saudi Arabia. Using ground control points and the full EnMAP spectral cube without band selection, U-Net and DeepLabV3+ architectures were each implemented with VGG19 and ResNet-101 …

Newsletter, November 2025, Cedar Oaks Guild

Cedar Oaks Guild Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Blackeyed Susan Establishment And Injury Following Application Of Common Roadsides Herbicides, Rachel C. Woody-Pumford, Matt Bertucci, Mike D. Richardson, Dirk Phillip, Hannah E. Wright-Smith

Horticulture Faculty Publications and Presentations

Limited herbicide options are available for selective weed management in roadside native plantings. Thus, this field study evaluated blackeyed Susan's (Rudbeckia hirta L.) tolerance to four postemergence (POST) herbicides-quinclorac, florpyrauxifen-benzyl, clopyralid, and metsulfuron-during prairie establishment in Fayetteville, AR, across two growing seasons in 2022 and 2023. Blackeyed Susan was assessed for plant incidence, bloom count, and visible injury. In 2022, no reduction in blackeyed Susan blooms was detected in response to POST herbicides; however, peak bloom counts occurred 1 week after treatment (WAT) and ranged from 1.1 to 1.6 blooms per ft2. In 2023, at 10 WAT, blackeyed Susan plants …

Divergent Prefrontal Cortex Circuits Regulate Cued Food Seeking Under Distinct Metabolic Or Emotional States, Xu O Zhang, Guillermo Aquino-Miranda, Claire E Cho, Yongzhe Wang, Duy Hoang Ha, Nikita Elinson-Watson, Allen Dong, Caleb Kemere, Fabricio H Do-Monte

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Flexibly adjusting food-seeking behaviour in response to food-associated cues and internal states is crucial for animals' survival. However, the neural mechanisms that modulate cued food-seeking behaviour during varying metabolic (i.e., hungry vs. satiated) and emotional (i.e., safe vs. threatened) states remain elusive. Here, we show that the encoding of metabolic or threat states in projection-defined neurons in the prelimbic cortex (PL) mediates cued food-seeking responses in rats. Using microendoscopic imaging, we demonstrate that neural population dynamics in PL consistently represent food cues, task-relevant behaviours, and internal state changes by recruiting distinct subsets of cue-responsive neurons at each state. Single-unit recording …

Impact Of Fear Cost And Time Lag On The Dynamics Of An Ecological System Of Two Competing Predators And One Prey, Arkan Nawzad Mustafa

Baghdad Science Journal

The aim of this paper is to discover the impact of the fear of predators in prey and time lag corresponding to the gestation period on the dynamics of a food web model including two competing predator species and one prey species. Existence, non-negativity and boundedness of the model solutions are examined. An attractive region for the model is found. The permanence of the model, under certain conditions is proved. The criteria for the existence of all biologically feasible equilibrium points of the proposed model are determined. Locally asymptotically stability as well as globally stability of the model equilibrium points …

Enhanced Photocatalytic Degradation Of Water Pollutants Using Au/Cds: Tio2 Films Nanocomposites Under Ultra Violet-Visible Irradiation, Zainab K. Mohammed, Souad G. Khalil, Mahdi M. Mutter

Baghdad Science Journal

In this work, Au/ CdS: TiO₂ film nanocomposites were prepared and deposited on a glass substrate for photocatalytic application. First, sol-gel dip coating thin films of CdS: TiO₂ were synthesized. Next, the plasma sputtering technique was used to deposit Au on the CdS: TiO₂ thin films. Composite CdS: TiO₂ ratios were (1:1, 1:0.25, and 1:0.5). The produced films were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements, atomic force microscopy (AFM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and UV-visible spectroscopy. With the addition of TiO₂, the energy band gap, as measured by UV-visible spectroscopy, decreased from …

New Local Function In Grill Topological Spaces, Alyasaa Jassim Bidaiwi, R. B. Esmaeel

Baghdad Science Journal

This Paper introduces a new local function φ_Sζ*in a Grill topological space (X˙, ζ,τ) by using a semi open set, which is a superset of the local function φ_ζ. Additionally, two equivalent operators, Ψs and Γ_Sthat define topology τ_Sζ, were devised based on φ_Sζ*, along with the presentation of various characteristics and properties of φ_Sζ* and the two equivalent operators, Ψ_s and Γ_S. Additionally, newly created sets with weakly open properties (φ_{Sζ …}

Radiation Levels And Hazard Indices In Soil Samples From Fuel Stations In Anbar Province, Iraq, Bahaa Ahmed Samir, Anmar Dherar Kosaj

Baghdad Science Journal

In this research, measurements and calculations were conducted to determine the activity and radiation hazard indices of radioactive nuclides in 43 petrol stations across Anbar Province, using the high-purity germanium detector (HPGe) at the Radiation Protection Center in Baghdad Province. The highest specific activity was reported for uranium-238 at 64.90 ± 11.00 Bq/kg, while thorium-232 was 32.80 ± 6.00 Bq/kg. Cesium-137 had a specific activity of 12.90 ± 0.60 Bq/kg, and potassium-40 was present at 753.00 ± 49.00 Bq/kg. The lowest specific activity values for uranium-238 were 0.20 ± 0.70 Bq/kg, and for thorium-232, it was 2.00 ± 0.40 Bq/kg. …

The Dynamic Of A Three Species Food Chain Model Under The Influence Of Fear And Wind, Kaherah Ibrahim Hadib, Hiba Abdullah Ibrahim

Baghdad Science Journal

This work suggests a system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) containing a three-species food chain model incorporating wind and fear effects. The properties of the solution, like positivity and bound-ness, were investigated. All equilibrium points (biologically feasible) have been obtained, and the local stability of these equilibriums has been carried out. The global stability outcomes on the equilibrium points under specific restrictions have been established. Also, the persistence restrictions have been investigated. By utilizing Sotomayor’s theorem, the local bifurcation of the suggested model has been inspected. Furthermore, numerical analysis was carried out to ensure the theoretical results obtained by utilizing …

Timeless Poetry, Xuning Li

Theses

Timeless Poetry reimagines classical Chinese poetry through contemporary digital tools, transforming ancient verse into immersive visual experiences. Using Cinema 4D and Blender for 3D modeling and ink-wash–inspired rendering, the project reconstructs poetic landscapes as cinematic-style environments that invite viewers to encounter traditional imagery through modern visual language. Postcards—chosen for their nostalgic and emotional resonance—serve as both a physical anchor and an interactive trigger: when scanned, each card reveals an AR visuals that reveal the scene in motion. This hybrid design bridges past and present, showing how technology can enhance, rather than replace, cultural heritage by offering new entry points for …

Economic Convergence, Intragenerational Economic Mobility, And Inequality In A Native Amazonian Small-Scale Society Of Indigenous People In Bolivia, Ricardo Godoy, Jonathan Bauchet, Victoria Reyes-Garcia, Eduardo A. Undurraga

Department of Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

Adult intragenerational mobility reflects society’s ability to reward effort and tame society-wide inequality. In developed economies, mobility is modest and correlates negatively with economic inequality. Little is known quantitatively from direct observations about long-term intragenerational mobility in small-scale societies of the Global South. To assess the external validity of findings about patterns of intragenerational mobility from developed economies, we use a yearly survey panel dataset (2002–2010) of adults from a society of native Amazonians (Tsimane’) in Bolivia practicing farming, fishing, hunting, and plant gathering. We estimate (a) convergence rates (or the speed of catch up) of adults in the bottom …

Renewal Of The Mind: Forgiveness Through The Lens Of Christian Faith And Neuroscience, Khelen Walsh

University Honors Theses

Within Christian theology, forgiveness is a foundational concept that is often understood as a divine command, a spiritual practice, and a path toward reconciliation and personal growth. Recent neuroscientific research further supports this viewpoint, providing data that shows forgiveness engages neural systems responsible for emotional regulation, empathy, moral reasoning, and perspective-taking. Through neuroplasticity, repeated acts of forgiveness reshape the brain, strengthen connections between prefrontal and limbic regions, reduce amygdala reactivity, and enhance emotional stability and cognitive flexibility. Although forgiveness offers many benefits, modern culture frequently distorts its meaning, framing it as a sign of weakness, gullibility, or a form of …

Sara Ryan, Sara R. Ryan

Virginia Poets Database: A Literary and Educational Resource

No abstract provided.

Spicomellus The Jurassic Enigma, Bryan Nam

Osmosis Magazine

Imagine stepping into a time machine and messing with the controls until you find someplace interesting to go. Your destination? Morocco, 165 million years ago. You arrive and look around at vast floodplains stretching far across the horizon; flat land cut through by mighty rivers. In the distance, you see something, a creature unlike any you’ve ever seen before. It looks straight out of a sci-fi movie. It seems almost like a reptilian tank, with huge spikes on its neck and hips. The dinosaur looks towards you, then turns away to look for food. You have just come face to …

Synthetic Biology: Could You Donate Yourself A New Kidney?, Charlie Lanning

Osmosis Magazine

Currently in the United States, there are over 100,000 Americans stuck on the national transplant waiting list for lifesaving surgery. Eighty-six percent of them need kidney transplants (Organ Donation Statistics, 2025). However, only 27,000 kidney transplants take place every year. This shortage, along with other factors such as lack of public awareness, donor health complications, and financial disincentives, results in around 4,000 deaths every year (Soltani-Nia, 2024). While organizations such as the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and the National Kidney Registry have helped increase the number of transplants through public advocacy and the voucher program, emerging technologies such as …

Osmosis.

Osmosis Magazine

Science Magazine

Masses, Platforms, And The New Data Domination: Repressive Desublimation Revisited, Raymond L.M. Lee

Fast Capitalism

The world now resembles a mosaic of platforms orchestrating subjective responses to myriad digital stimuli in everyday communication and conduct. People appear to find fulfillment mainly through intense engagement with platforms that thrive on data produced by online entanglements. This is a world society of data domination where power is derived from high-tech interconnectivity, focused on an interplay between technological innovations and mass distraction. Platforms are seen as digital monopolies banking on mass online participation for data extraction and control. In that sense, they foster new forms of desublimation that Herbert Marcuse would have regarded as a re-flowering of repressive …

Psychology, Philosophy, And The Practice Of Politics, Shimon Edelman

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

“This Is The New Normal?” Restoring Or Restricting Democracy Today In America, Timothy W. Luke

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.