Digital Commons Network^™

The Lived Liturgical Experience Of Non-Catholic Participants In The Roman Catholic Mass: Tactical Ecumenism In Overlapping Ritual Systems, Sarah Kathleen Johnson

Journal of Global Catholicism

In religiously diverse social contexts, liturgical practices anchored in one reli-

gious tradition often gather diverse communities. In such contexts, it is wise to

assume that people who are not Catholic may be present at any Roman Cath-

olic Mass. This article explores the lived liturgical experience of non-Catholic

Christians who participate routinely in the Roman Catholic Mass through a

mixed-methods study of a religiously diverse treble vocal ensemble that sings

weekly at Mass on a Catholic university campus. It describes how Catholic and

non-Catholic Christian singers interpret practices surrounding the eucharistic

meal in contrasting ways: non-Catholic Christians experience the …

Negotiating Plurality: Korean Catholic Funerals As Lived Religion, Jieun Han

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article examines Korean Catholic funeral rites through the lenses of ritual

guidebooks and lived religion, arguing that Catholic funerary practice in Korea

has emerged through sustained engagement with Confucian and Buddhist tradi-

tions as well as modern nationalism. Focusing on Catholic manuals such as the

Sangjang yesik [Rites for Mourning and Funerals] and related texts, it traces how

officially sanctioned liturgical forms coexist with, accommodate, and reinterpret

indigenous ritual logics surrounding mourning, burial, ancestor veneration, and

care for the dead. Rather than viewing Korean Catholic funerals as a simple

localization of Roman rites, the article conceptualizes them as a …

Editor's Introduction, Brent H. Otto S.J.

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Tolkien's Philological Imagination - On Aelfwine's Spelling, The Ab Language And The Inner Consistency Of Philological Reality, Andrew Higgins

Journal of Tolkien Research

This is a paper that was given and refined at the 2026 Tolkien at Kalamazoo, Tolkien and Leeds and Oxonmoot conferences.

Ai Slop In The Generative Ai Era: Uncovering Hidden Costs For Information Quality, Trust, And Human-Centered Systems, Blenda G. Mutuma

Communications of the IIMA

The rapid proliferation of generative AI tools has fundamentally altered the volume, velocity, and perceived quality of information produced across academic and professional settings (Bommasani et al., 2021; Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence [HAI], 2025). Yet this expansion has introduced a critical and underexamined threat to sustainable information ecosystems: what this paper formally terms AI slop ; defined as AI-generated content that achieves surface-level plausibility while offering limited substantive value, accuracy, or contextual depth. At scale, AI slop degrades information quality and erodes institutional trust (Bender et al., 2021; Weidinger et al., 2021). More critically, it generates what this …

Food, Mind, And Society: Psychosocial Determinants Of Dietary Behaviors Among Medical Students, Saad Ahmed Ali Jadoo, Ruwaida Abbas Ghaeb, Mustafa Ali Mustafa Al-Samarrai, Muhammed Yunus Bektay

Hilla University College Journal For Medical Science

Background: University life grants students greater independence, during which they are prone to behavioral changes, particularly the adoption of unhealthy eating patterns.
Objectives: This study aims to assess dietary habits and examine the psychological and social factors influencing eating behaviors among medical students at the University of Diyala in Iraq.
Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between September 1st and December 31st, 2025, at the College of Medicine, University of Diyala, Iraq. A universal sampling technique using a semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire was employed to collect the data. Based on healthy eating indicators a dietary habits scale (0–12) was …

Toxicity Ahead: Forecasting Conversational Derailment On Github, Mia Mohammad Imran, Robert Zita, Rahat Rizvi Rahman, Preetha Chatterjee, Kostadin Damevski

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Toxic interactions in Open Source Software (OSS) communities reduce contributor engagement and threaten project sustainability. Preventing such toxicity before it emerges requires a clear understanding of how harmful conversations unfold. However, most proactive moderation strategies are manual, requiring significant time and effort from community maintainers. To support more scalable approaches, we curate a dataset of 159 derailed toxic threads and 207 non-toxic threads from GitHub discussions. Our analysis reveals that toxicity can be forecast by tension triggers, sentiment shifts, and specific conversational patterns.We present a novel Large Language Model (LLM)-based framework for predicting conversational derailment on GitHub using a two-step …

How Does Language Learning Work?, Luis Wiley

Fresh Voices: Composition at Cal Poly

No abstract provided.

Kidfluencing: The Exploitation Of Children And Resulting Challenges, Mary Helen Pollard

Creating Change: The Online Journal of Zines about Social Movements

No abstract provided.

Visual Narratives Of Forced Displacement, Schooling, And Re-Settlement Among Refugee And Asylum-Seeking Students In Grand Forks, Nd, Pempho Chinkondenji, Giovanni Whyte

Education, Health & Behavior Studies Faculty Publications

This study examines how school-aged refugee and asylum-seeking students, most of them girls from the "Global South," experience schooling, resettlement, and belonging within the Grand Forks community and the broader U.S. education system. Using a two-phase visual/arts-based participatory design, the research team engaged 34 co-researchers from various countries including Somalia, Afghanistan, Liberia, Burundi, Ecuador, Venezuela, Mexico, and Guinea Conakry. In the first phase, 20 co-researchers aged 14 to 20 took part in a photovoice study, using photography, focus groups, and interviews to document their lived experiences. A subsequent arts-based Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project extended this work through comics, …

Functional Capacity, Participation In Cardiac Rehabilitation, And Perceived Barriers Among Patients With Coronary Artery Disease, Sidra Ashraf, Maryam Shabbir, Ashfaq Ahmad, Naveed Arshad, Aqsa Majeed

Journal of the Hong Kong College of Cardiology

Background: Reduced functional capacity and limited participation in cardiac rehabilitation (CR) adversely affect recovery among patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). This study evaluated functional capacity, CR participation, perceived barriers, and factors associated with reduced functional capacity and CR non-participation among patients with CAD.
Methods: A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 178 clinically stable adults with CAD attending the University of Lahore Teaching Hospital and the University Institute of Physical Therapy clinics, Pakistan, from March to June 2026. Functional capacity was assessed using the Duke Activity Status Index (DASI), and perceived barriers were evaluated using the Cardiac Rehabilitation Barriers …

Teaching Communication And Teamwork Under Pressure: An Experiential Activity Using Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes, Bryan L. Rogers, Cody Logan Chullen, Brian Waterwall

International Journal for Business Education

Background/Introduction/Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present an experiential classroom activity designed to help students develop communication and teamwork skills under conditions of time pressure and information asymmetry.

Methods/Design: This paper presents a teaching activity rather than an empirical study; no research design, sample, instruments, or analytic procedures are reported. The paper describes and contextualizes an experiential learning activity using the cooperative video game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. Drawing on research in experiential learning, cooperative learning, and simulation-based instruction, the paper outlines learning objectives, materials, implementation procedures, observer roles, and structured debriefing strategies suitable for undergraduate and …

Fractured Identities: Military–Civilian Dissonance And The Well-Being Of Women Veterans, Melissa D. Smith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

For many women leaving military service, the path to civilian life involves a fundamental renegotiation of identity. Gender-specific pressures, institutional norms, and fractured belonging compound reintegration, yet the lived experiences of women veterans navigating competing identities remain underexplored. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of women veterans at least 5 years postdischarge who struggled with identity dissonance between their military and civilian identities. The study was informed by reculturation theory. Seven women veterans participated in semistructured interviews, and data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis, revealing five themes: institutions, culture, and unequal …

The Role Of Generative Ai In Secondary School Business Education: Insights From Teachers’ Perceptions, Leonard Busuttil, Emanuel Mizzi

International Journal for Business Education

Background/Introduction/Purpose: Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has entered classrooms more quickly than the evidence base needed to guide its use, and that evidence base remains concentrated in higher education. Comparatively little is known about secondary school business education, a curricular area that brings together accounting, business studies, economics, financial literacy, marketing, and retail, and in which teachers move between subjects whose epistemological and procedural demands differ considerably. Existing studies also tend to treat business education as a single homogeneous domain, or to examine one of its subjects in isolation. This study addresses that gap by examining how secondary school business education …

Doing Less With More: A First-Principles Exploration Of The Suitability Of Agentic Computing Over Alternative Architectural Choices, Ritvik Garimella, Biplav Srivastava, Amit Sheth

Publications

There is growing interest in automating business activities with Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) due to latter's seeming ease of use. Never has it been easier, or costlier, to do less with more. However, little is known about when agents are preferable to established alternatives such as local computation, Representational State Transfer (REST), the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and the Model Context Protocol (MCP), particularly when development speed, performance, and operational cost are considered. We investigate this question using a controlled mathematical task that compares seven methods on a benchmark of 1,000 arithmetic expressions where semantics of operator precedence has …

Finding A Voice In Uk Academic Psychiatry: Perceived Barriers And Facilitators To Engagement Among Indian International Medical Graduates, Madeleine Dale, Magdalini Moraitou, Deepika Sharma, Sridevi Sira Mahalingappa, Shweta Mittal, Vatsal Zapadia, Paraskevi Triantafyllopoulou, Samuel J. Tromans, Dinesh Bhugra, Rohit Shankar

Peninsula Medical School

BackgroundAcademic psychiatry in the UK is in a precarious situation with diminished academic to clinical posts. There has been a growing reduction in psychiatrists engaged in academia in the last 25 years. This has coincided with increased growth of International Medical Graduates (IMG) working in UK psychiatry. IMGs may face unique barriers to involvement in research, which may contribute to the academic gap. IMGs from India form the largest minoritised ethnic group among UK psychiatrists. This study explores interest in and perceived barriers and facilitators to academic engagement among IMGs of Indian origin working in psychiatry in the UK.MethodsA questionnaire …

Omoiyari In The Performance Of American Learners Of Japanese: An Analysis Of Second Culture Compilation And Pragmatic Transfer, Shizuka Fukuo

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines omoiyari (consideration for others) as a Japanese cultural theme by examining how it is enacted by native Japanese speakers and American learners of Japanese during an invitation scenario. L2 learners' incorporation of the target culture's linguistic and behavioral norms is essential to fully participate in ways that read as natural in that culture. However, relatively little research has examined the extent to which L2 learners are able to enact culturally embedded norms in L2 interaction. Furthermore, little attention has been paid to explaining the cultural theme of omoiyari as it is enacted in an invitation role-play provides …

Developing A Deep Learning-Based Artificial Intelligence System For Detecting Scientific Misinformation On Digital Platforms, Shorouq Al-Awawdeh, Ayah Al- Jafari

Middle East Journal of Communication Studies

Objectives: This study develops and evaluates an Arabic scientific misinformation detection system by fine-tuning AraBERT-base-v2. It examines the effects of early stopping and input sequence length on model performance, interprets selected linguistic characteristics associated with misleading content, and discusses the limitations of using machine-translated data.

Methodology: The study adopted a mixed-methods design, employing a systematic integration of quantitative and qualitative approaches, supported by an interpretive qualitative reading. The initial database consisted of 23,546 records, including 123 Arabic articles collected from the Akeed, Sheek, and Taqeen platforms, and 23,423 foreign-language records drawn from the GossipCop and PolitiFact collections within FakeNewsNet. After …

Policy Discourse On A Three-Term Presidency Ahead Of The 2024 Elections: A Narrative Policy Framework Analysis, Ahmad Syukri, Ridho Al-Hamdi

Jurnal Politik

This study examines competing narratives surrounding the proposal to extend the presidential term limit to three terms in the period leading up to the 2024 General Election, using the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF). The study employed a qualitative case study design based on 136 news articles published by five national online media outlets between January 2022 and April 2024. The unit of analysis was direct quotations from policy actors that addressed the three-term presidential discourse. Data were analyzed using NVivo 12 Plus through deductive and inductive coding based on four NPF elements: setting, characters, plot, and the moral of the …

Reclaiming Instructional Leadership: Using Evidence-Based Tools And Conversations To Change Classroom Practice, Lyndsay Britt, Matthew Militello

Journal of Organizational & Educational Leadership

Instructional leadership is the most influential lever principals and supervisors have to improve teaching and learning, yet managerial demands often limit sustained classroom engagement. This qualitative participatory action research study explores how leaders can reclaim instructional leadership by embedding focused observation tools and instructional conversations into routine supervision without adding time burdens. 

Using Community Learning Exchange methodology, four teachers and a principal engaged in a 14-month community of practice at a rural Title I early college high school. Through three inquiry cycles, the study examined how evidence-based tools and data-informed dialogue shaped teaching and leadership practices.

Findings revealed two outcomes …

Leadership In Context: Examining School District Demographic And Socioeconomic Factors To Predict Superintendent Salary, Samuel F. Fancera, Lorena Valer, Ashley Mungiello

Journal of Organizational & Educational Leadership

This study examines how district‑level demographic and socioeconomic factors predict superintendent base salaries in New Jersey through the lens of context‑responsive leadership theory. Using secondary data from 529 school districts, the analysis investigates whether student racial and ethnic composition and district socioeconomic status relate to salary outcomes. Correlation and multiple regression results show that all student demographic variables along with district socioeconomic status, significantly predict superintendent salary, with the proportion of White students accounting for the largest share of explained variance. Findings reveal persistent inequities. Superintendents serving high‑poverty, diverse districts tend to earn lower salaries despite facing more complex leadership …

Multi-Turn Evaluation Of Language Models Using Private Information Games, Jacob Eisenstein, Jonathan Berant, Adam Fisch, Mirella Lapata, Fantine Huot

Defensive Publications Series

Evaluating the capability of language models to conduct multi-turn interactions presents significant challenges. Current evaluation frameworks rely on arbitrary text sharding or user simulators, which introduce unwanted noise and require complex behavioral modeling. A methodology for evaluating multi-turn interactions through collaborative private information games is disclosed. Private information, such as images or structured data, is provided to participants. This information is essential for task completion but difficult to efficiently convert into text. A shared understanding must be collaboratively built by the participants through constrained linguistic communication. A fixed communication budget is allocated, and the number of permitted conversation turns is …

Designing Classifact: Towards A Transparent And Secure Platform For Stakeholder-In-The-Loop Data Annotation, Philippine Waisvisz

Communications of the IIMA

AI systems depend on human judgment, yet many annotation workflows are either designed for data-science specialists or managed through external commercial platforms. The first approach may demand more technical skills than relevant stakeholders possess. The second can require organizations to transfer data, expertise, and governance to an outside provider. Both can limit the involvement of people who understand what data means in its real-world context. Human-in-the-loop approaches introduce human judgment. Stakeholder-in-the-loop annotation focuses on selecting and organizing people whose contextual knowledge fits the AI application.

This paper presents Classifact, a transparent and secure platform for stakeholder-in-the-loop data annotation and validation. …

A Transformer-Based Approach With Data Augmentation For Multilabel Emotional Context Detection, Mohsin Hasan Hussein, Marem H. Abdulabas, Azha Talal Mohammed Ali, Homam Aziz Ghazi

Al-Bahir

Emotion identification in texts is becoming increasingly difficult because of the wide variety of ways emotions are represented. This study uses a fine-tuned Robustly Optimized Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers Approach

(RoBERTa) to offer a Transformer-based model for identifying multilabel emotional context in textual data. To balance emotion categories and enhance the model's capacity for generalization, data augmentation is applied on two different datasets: Semantic Evaluation and Cross-lingual Emotion Dataset (SemEval and XED) English corpus. This stage is considered one of the most important steps in preprocessing as it greatly helps to improve the results. The RoBERTa model was then …

Hajj Pilgrimage And Spatial Behaviour In Sacred Space, Zuhriddin Juraev, Young-Jin Ahn, Ji-Yeong Gu

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This study examines the behavioural and spatial dynamics of the Hajj pilgrimage through the conceptual lens of behavioural geography, focusing on how sacred space, ritual choreography, and communal experiences shape religious engagement. Centred on the Kaaba and surrounding pilgrimage sites, this study explores how ritual practices such as Tawaf, Sa’i, and standing at Arafat construct immersive and affective experiences for pilgrims. Drawing on an interpretive analysis of visual and textual sources, the study argues that sacred space operates not only as a physical setting but also as a symbolic framework that mediates spiritual transformation and social cohesion. It also highlights …

The Reasons And Motivations For Unsafe Pilgrimage During Covid-19: Analysis Of Shiite Experiences Of Pilgrimage In The Last Days Of Safar In Iran, Hamdollah Sojasi Qeidari, Fahimeh Jafari

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Unsafe pilgrimage is defined a religious journey that may have life risks. From the outbreak of COVID-19, for instance, many people were infected and died, but despite the severe conditions all over the world including Iran, one of the most famous and biggest pilgrimage events was held in Mashhad, Iran. This study tries to explore the causes and motivations of unsafe pilgrimage over the period when COVID-19 was a threat. To do the research, ethnographic method for collecting the data and Colaizzi’s interpretive phenomenological method for analysing the experience of 38 pilgrims doing foot-pilgrimage were used. The results show that …

A Deep Culture Approach: Insights From Cultural Psychology For Intercultural Education, Joseph Shaules, Ishita Ray

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

This paper proposes a “deep culture” approach to intercultural education grounded in insights from cultural psychology. It argues that foreign experiences are psychologically challenging and that insights from cultural psychology and related fields can help learners better navigate foreign experiences. It contrasts how culture and cultural learning are conceptualized in intercultural education and cultural psychology. It presents key psychological insights that are useful in intercultural education, including: an embodied view of culture; predictive processing; dual-processing models of cognition; Oz moments (culture bumps); cultural variation in various psychological domains; the cognitive processes related to empathy; and cognitive bias and ethnocentrism. Examples …

More Than Just Blocks: Supporting Development Through Block Play In Early Childhood, Stephanie Szanter, Carrie L. Ota

Spark! Innovations in Early Childhood Education: A Research-to-Practice Journal for Educators

Block play is much more than a classroom center; it is a place where children explore ideas, solve problems, communicate, and work together in meaningful ways. This article examines how block play supports children’s social-emotional, cognitive, physical, and language development through hands-on experiences that feel natural and engaging. Using classroom examples and current research, the article highlights how block play changes over time, how teachers can thoughtfully support and extend children’s thinking, and how simple adjustments to materials and setup can deepen learning. Rather than requiring elaborate activities, strong block play environments grow from careful observation, responsiveness, and an understanding …

When Children Cook: Food Experiences As Inquiry, Identity, And Learning, Marian S. Castillo, Carrie L. Ota

Spark! Innovations in Early Childhood Education: A Research-to-Practice Journal for Educators

This article explores the transformative potential of integrating cooking experiences into early childhood classrooms, arguing that food preparation offers much more than a simple activity. By drawing on classroom narratives such as shared meal preparation and spontaneous scientific inquiry this piece illustrates how cooking serves as a catalyst for wonder, problem-solving, and collaboration. It highlights how food-based activities naturally bridge home and school environments, fostering a sense of belonging and cultural identity among young learners. Grounded in developmentally appropriate practice, this article examines the teacher’s role in facilitating these experiences, emphasizing the importance of responsive planning, observation, and valuing the …

More Than Storytime: Intentional Read-Alouds For Literacy Instruction And Formative Observation, Shelia Tate

Spark! Innovations in Early Childhood Education: A Research-to-Practice Journal for Educators

Read-alouds have long been valued in early childhood classrooms for promoting engagement, enjoyment, and a love of reading. When intentionally planned, they can also reinforce foundational literacy skills and provide formative information about student understanding. This article examines how early childhood educators can move read-alouds beyond a familiar classroom routine by connecting them to specific literacy objectives and using student responses to guide subsequent instruction. The IPAQ process (Intentional Choice, Preplanning the Focus, Anticipating Misconceptions, and Questioning and Responses for Formative Observation) provides a practical framework for planning purposeful read-alouds. Classroom examples illustrate how teachers can use planned interactions and …