Digital Commons Network^™

Critical Heavy Metal Contamination In The Tigris River, Baghdad: A Comprehensive Assessment Using The Metal Index (Mi), Talib Kamil Abed, Abass J. Kadhem, Muwafaq Hussein Al-Lami

AUIQ Technical Engineering Science

One of the most important rivers in Iraq is the Tigris River, which serves as the primary source of drinking water and irrigation for agricultural purposes. In recent events, researchers have identified growing concerns about heavy metal contamination in the river. To decide the status of the Tigris River, the metal index (MI) was used in this study. To conduct this study, three locations were chosen along the river, and eight likely harmful heavy metals were examined: iron (Fe), lead (Pb), nickel (Ni), zinc (Zn), chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd), manganese (Mn), and copper (Cu). The results were worrying. The metal …

Enhanced Cuckoo Search-Based Optimization For Single Distributed Generation Placement And Sizing In Radial Distribution Systems, Samson Oladayo Ayanlade, Abdulrasaq Jimoh, Richard Oladayo Olarewaju, Ignatius Kema Okakwu, Israel O. Adejumobi, Joseph B. Samson, Oluwadare A. Adebisi, Oluwadare O. Akinrogunde

Al-Bahir

This paper presents an Enhanced Cuckoo Search Algorithm (ECSA) to optimally place and size Distributed Generation (DG) in radial distribution systems to minimize real power loss within operating constraints. The proposed ECSA has exponentially decaying adaptive Lévy flights, constraint-aware solution repair with dynamic penalty coefficients, and diversity-directed stochastic replacement to enhance search robustness and convergence speed. It was tested with 30 independent runs on the IEEE 33-bus, IEEE 69-bus, and a practical Nigerian 32-bus distribution network. The simulations show that the ECSA lowers the active power loss of the IEEE 33-bus system from 201.58 kW to 102.75 kW (49.03%), and …

A Decade Revealed By Npo Financial Data In A Depopulating Region — Tottori Prefecture, Japan, 2014–2023, Yoshinori Shimosakai

Japanese Society and Culture

This paper examines the quantitative scale, field composition, and financial structure of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in rural regions experiencing population decline and aging at three levels—the nonprofit sector as a whole, policy fields, and individual organizations—and explores their adaptation and sustainability under demographic change. The empirical setting is certified NPO corporations located in Tottori Prefecture. Drawing on publicly available financial data for fiscal years 2014–2023, the study constructs ratio indicators and per-capita indicators and, in particular, depicts recent trends through a two-point comparison between FY2014 and FY2023 together with a description of year-by-year changes. The analysis shows that, although the …

Multi-Objective Optimization Of Waste Incineration For Minimal Carbon Monoxide And Sulfur Dioxide Emission And Rate Maximization: A Case Study Of Mbezi, Mkuranga-Pwani, Tanzania, Grangay M. Nyanghura, Enock W. Nshama

Tanzania Journal of Science

Incineration is widely employed for hazardous waste disposal, but results in harmful flue gas emissions. This study optimizes a double-chamber incineration process to reduce sulfur dioxide (SO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions while maximizing the incineration rate. The effects of waste mass, primary chamber temperature (PT), and secondary chamber temperature (ST) were analyzed using a full factorial design of 27 experiments. ANOVA revealed that mass had the greatest impact on emissions and incineration time, ST had a moderate effect, and PT had little influence. Regression analysis provided models for incineration time, CO, and SO2 emissions. Single-objective optimization using sequential quadratic …

A Taxonomy Of Generative Models With A Focus On Diffusion Models And Denoising Techniques, Aditi Singh, Nikhil Kumar Chatta, Yuvaraj Vagula, Abul Ehtesham, Saket Kumar, Tala Talaei Khoei

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Diffusion models have emerged as a powerful class of generative models, demonstrating impressive results across visual domains such as image and video synthesis. This survey provides a comprehensive taxonomy of generative models, with a particular focus on diffusion models and their applications in enhancing visual fidelity for text-to-image and text-to-video generation. We discuss the theoretical foundations of diffusion models, including their formulation through stochastic differential equations, and analyze the forward noising and reverse denoising processes that enable stable training and high-quality generation. The survey further categorizes diffusion architectures, including pixel-space and latent-space models, and examines their design choices, training strategies, …

Bemerge Pop Ups: Social Media Meets Sustainable Fashion, Owen Mehring, Kyla Echols, Avery Edelbrock

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Our research into the online clothing shopping industry has revealed an opportunity to mobilize the strengths of online shopping to build an in-person community. One company we researched, Poshmark, a social, peer-to-peer resale app, uses the strengths of social media to create an online community-based secondhand clothing market. However, one of the largest problems facing society today is the ease of replacing human connection with screen time in today’s world. Online shopping provides convenience, variety, and a larger reach than traditional stores do. However, the human element is often lost. Our company seeks to take the goal of Poshmark to …

Review Of Climate Security, Elsa Barron

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Environment In Conflict: Implications And Pathways, Hogr Tarkhani

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Bio-Based Textiles: From Waste To Runway, Leah L. Mella Mrs., Laziza S. Shamansurova, Kory Lynn Abramowitz Ms

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Have you ever wondered what it’s like wearing fabric made from orange peels? What about mushrooms? Sustainable bio textiles are defined as “a broad category of fabrics made from renewable, natural biomass—including plants, animals, algae, or bacteria.” The purpose of this study is to explore various bio based textiles such as orange peel fabric, algae fabric, and bacterial cellulose fabric. Given that the world is currently experiencing a severe climate crisis driven by pollution and carbon emissions, we need sustainable solutions now more than ever. To prevent further damage to our planet, we need to adopt more sustainable practices, and …

Circular Textiles: How You Can Bamboo It, Corley Ballard, Sophie Ellyson, Hannah Berg, Brennan Werner

SPARK Symposium Presentations

“Circular Fashion” and “sustainability” are loosely thrown around in today’s culture, both online and in-person, but circular fashion goes far beyond common sustainability practices. It is a completely waste-free, closed-loop system of textile production and manufacturing. This presentation will focus on circular fashion, a system of reusing and recycling textiles to eliminate waste. We will take a look at its place in the fashion industry and how it interacts within the world of textile production, and give clarity on what we can do about it. We are exploring sustainability, manufacturing, and the processes by which fibers are recycled or blended. …

The Bg News March 18, 2026, Bowling Green State University

BG News (Student Newspaper)

The BGSU campus student newspaper. March 18, 2026. Volume 105-Issue 21.

The Migrant As A Pilgrim: Decolonising Identity And Belonging, Susan Nemec

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This paper responds to pilgrimage scholar George Greenia’s assertion that meaningful intersections exist between pilgrimage and various forms of displacement, such as migration or involuntary exile due to famine, war, or political unrest. Greenia proposes that vulnerable, displaced individuals might find shelter, both conceptually and emotionally, within the framing of pilgrimage. By extending concepts of pilgrimage, it can be understood as a deliberate and intentional journey, simultaneously emphasising the transformative potential inherent in migratory movement. By adopting a working definition of pilgrimage as ‘any form of travel that is intentional, purposeful, or transformative,’ the paper considers how migrancy, particularly within …

Community-Led Climate Vulnerability Assessment In Alviso, Ca, Addie Chappelle, Grace Falci, Gigi Jones, Alex Crouse

Environmental Studies and Sciences Senior Capstone

Located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay, Alviso is a historically underrepresented community facing disproportionate impacts of climate change. San José has directly contributed to Alviso’s infrastructure instability, particularly after its controversial 1967 annexation, which excluded Alviso residents from municipal planning processes. Alviso currently ranks in the upper quartile statewide for environmental burden with high exposure to hazardous waste, linguistic isolation, impaired waterways, and solid waste facilities. Our study produced a Community-Led Climate Vulnerability Assessment that centers resident knowledge and integrates it with environmental data to support equitable climate planning. We used a participatory, co-production research approach that …

Ozone Pollution Reduction Partially Offsets The Negative Impact Of Climate Change Mitigation Efforts On Global Hunger, Shujuan Xia, Tomoko Hasegawa, Thanapat Jansakoo, Daniel Mason-D’Croz, Kazuaki Tsuchiya, Shinichiro Fujimori, Maksym Chepeliev, Marta Kozicka, Abhijeet Mishra, Willem-Jan Van Zeist, Xin Zhao, Thijs De Lange, Thais Diniz Oliveira, Jonathan C. Doelman, Matthew Gibson, Petr Havlík, Mario Herrero, Ipsita Kumar, Yuki Ochi, Timothy B. Sulser, Marina Sundiang, Kiyoshi Takahashi, Jun’Ya Takakura, Keith Wiebe

Department of Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

Studies warning of the potential negative effects of climate mitigation on food security through the competing use of land for bioenergy and afforestation have overlooked the impact of reduced ozone and its potential enhancement of crop yields. Here we use six global agro-economic models to compare the impacts of climate change with climate mitigation policy and ozone reduction on agriculture. We find that ozone reduction could reduce the negative impact of a 1.5 °C-consistent climate change mitigation policy on global hunger by 15% in 2050. Sub-Saharan Africa and India, where hunger is most severe, account for 56% of this global …

Using Nuisance Law To Advance Food Safety, Timothy D. Lytton

Denver Law Review

This Essay proposes a novel approach to the most urgent food safety problem currently facing U.S. consumers: fresh produce contaminated with virulent microbial pathogens. Despite extensive regulation, growers have been unable to rid their fields of toxic bacteria, and processors have been unsuccessful in sanitizing tainted produce before it reaches store shelves. As a result, tainted produce sickens millions of consumers every year. An emerging consensus is calling for new efforts to address one source of the problem. Nearby cattle operations produce manure that contains harmful pathogens. When this manure escapes from grazing fields or feed lots—for example, via stormwater …

Vol. 102, No. 3: Full Issue, Denver Law Review

Denver Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constraints To Adopting Locally Based Innovation Systems In Adapting To Climate Change Impacts In Serengeti District, Tanzania, Donald Mwiturubani

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Smallholder farmers in rural Tanzania depend mainly on rain-fed agriculture, which makes them vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This paper is based on a study conducted in Burunga and Musati villages in Serengeti District, Tanzania. The study employed a mixed methods approach; combining qualitative and quantitative methods. It involved 154 participants and employed household surveys, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions as data collection methods. The findings suggest that smallholder farmers in the study area are aware of climate change and do, indeed, develop, adopt, and use locally-based innovation systems that avert or minimise its impacts. Smallholder …

Ecomusicological Representation Of Climate Change And Environmental Sustainability In Selected Bongo Fleva Lyrics In Tanzania, Auson N. Wincheslaus

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

This article critically explores how Bongo Fleva’s lyrics engage with environmental themes; and the interrelationship between nature and culture in the context of the Anthropocene. The data were purposively sampled from YouTube via content analysis, from which 50 Bongo Fleva songs were listened to, and only 10 environmentally-themed songs were analysed. Then, the selected songs were subjected to transcription (from oral to written form), translation (from Kiswahili into English), and close reading and textual analysis. The close reading of the selected songs focused on the employed aesthetic and rhetorical strategies, such as anthropomorphism, symbolism, antithesis, apocalyptic tones, solastalgia, rhetorical questions, …

Ecosystem-Based Flood Disaster Risk Reduction In The Little Ruaha River Basin, In The Southern Highlands Of Tanzania, Mawazo Ghambi, Tiemo Romward Haule

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Ecosystem-based approach that integrates floods and environmental risk management is believed to reduce flood disaster risk while providing socio-economic and environmental benefits to floodplain occupants. This study examined the socio-economic and environmental benefits of the ecosystem-based approach in managing flood disaster risk in the Little Ruaha River Basin in the southern highlands of Tanzania. The study involved 157 participants and employed the mixed research design to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Semi-structured interviews, in-depth interviews, direct field observation and Focus Group Discussions were used to collect primary data, whereas documentary review was used to collect secondary data. Findings revealed that …

Resilience Among Smallholder Irish Potato Farmers To The Impacts Of Climate Variability In Wanging’Ombe District, Tanzania, Timotheo Bilary Ngalaga, Digna Wolfram Mlengule, Jackson Raymond Sawe

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

This paper examines smallholder farmers’ adaptation strategies to climate variability, and their resilience in enhancing their capacity to adopt. The data was collected from 98 heads of households using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The methods of data collection included household surveys, focus group discussions (FGDs), in-depth interviews, and document review. The quantitative data were analysed using the IBM SPSS (Version 23), while the qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings indicate that 69.4% of respondents reported a decrease in rainfall, while 89.8% reported an increase and fluctuations in temperature over the past 29 years. Moreover, the findings …

Climate Change Vulnerability And Adaptation Pathways: Stakeholders’ Synergies In Building Climate Resilience In The Semi-Arid Area Of Central Tanzania, Helena Elias Myeya

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

This article examines the perceived effect of climate change on cereal crop production and the responses of various stakeholders aimed at enhancing the resilience of smallholder farmers in semi-arid areas of central Tanzania. A total of 366 household heads, 28 participants in focus group discussions (FGDs), and 8 key informants from Bahi and Kongwa districts in Dodoma, Tanzania, were involved in this study. Both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered through a structured interview schedule, FGDs, in-depth interviews, and documentary reviews. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to analyse quantitative and qualitative data, respectively. The findings indicate that smallholder …

The Sortee Guidelines For Data And Code Quality Control In Ecology And Evolutionary Biology, Joel L. Pick, Bethany J. Allen, Benedicte Bachelot, Kevin R. Bairos-Novak, Jack A. Brand, Barbara Class, Tad Dallas, Pietro B. D'Amelio, Erola Fenollosa, Esteban Fernández-Juricic, Dylan G. Gomes, Matthew J. Grainger, Thomas Guillemaud, John Christian, Ruby Krasnow, Malgorzata Lagisz, Sebastian Lequime, Daniel S. Maynard, Shinichi Nakagawa, Rose E. O'Dea, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

Open data and code are crucial to increasing transparency and reproducibility, and in building trust in scientific research. However, despite an increasing number of journals in ecology and evolutionary biology mandating for data and code to be archived alongside published articles, the amount and quality of archived data and code, and subsequent reproducibility of results, has remained worryingly low. As a result, a handful of journals have recruited dedicated data editors, whose role is to help authors increase the overall quality of archived data and code. There is, however, a general lack of consensus around what a data editor should …

The Human Rights Fulcrum: Using Environmental Rights As Leverage For Change, Rebecca Bratspies

Pace International Law Review

“Give me a lever long enough and a firm place on which to stand and I will move the earth." That is how Archimedes famously described the power of levers and the possibility they create for moving something that otherwise seems immovable. His point was that with the use of distance, a fulcrum, and a lever, nothing is really immovable. This same characterization has been applied to human rights law, and its attempts to disrupt patterns of structural dispossession, discrimination and oppression that bedevil human society. Indeed, the metaphor that human rights are a lever for change is relatively common …

Spartan Daily, March 11, 2026, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2026

Volume 166, Issue 21

On Edible Food Recovery: Integration Of Local Agriculture Into Santa Clara County Food Recovery Networks, Anna Keenan, Caitlin Delamora, Jenna Martinez, Vansh Malik

Environmental Studies and Sciences Senior Capstone

Santa Clara County (SCC) produces over 50 million pounds of surplus food, yet 31% percent of county residents are reported to be at risk of food insecurity, lacking reliable access to proper, affordable nutrition. Additionally, SCC produces approximately 40,000 tons of food waste annually. Food waste decomposes in landfills, producing greenhouse gas emissions, posing a pressing public health and environmental issue. California’s food waste law (SB 1383) addresses this challenge. We aimed to provide actionable insights that enable local farmers to donate more surplus produce, identifying ways to divert food loss from local farms to recovered food hubs, turning potential …

Modeling And Analysis Of Thermoelectric Atmospheric Water Generation In The Economic City Of Iraq, Ammar Al-Tajer, Wissam Alawee, Hayder Dhahad, Zakaria Omara

Engineering and Technology Journal

Atmospheric Water Generation assumes substantial significance as an innovative remedy for addressing water scarcity and augmenting water resilience. This technology facilitates water extraction directly from the atmosphere, presenting a sustainable and decentralized approach to water supply. The investigation into the feasibility of attaining the dew point temperature for a heatsink operating in the climatic conditions of Basra was conducted using Fluent 22.1 software. The minimum dew point temperature under extreme conditions was determined to be 10.52℃. A thermoelectric device was a primary component in cooling the moisture-laden air to produce water from atmospheric air. Simulations were executed using two complementary …

Environmental Investigation Of Bahar Al-Najaf Region Using Sentinel-2 Images, Mustafa Al-Helaly, Imzahim Alwan, Amjed Al-Hameedawi

Engineering and Technology Journal

This study aims to shed light on the indicators of environmental change and environmental impact assessment during the past five years in a representative area of the western part of Iraq (BAHAR-ALNAJAF). This is to understand the leading causes that led to the environmental changes from (2016 to 2020) due to the change in land cover in the study area. The paper refers to an environmental study for the study area using satellite data within the software environment (ArcGIS) and the application of remote sensing from two aspects: Ecological indices retrieval and the monitoring environment for land cover. Remote sensing …

Monitoring Soil Degradation In The Mesopotamian Plain Using Gis And Remote Sensing Techniques, Abdulrazak Ziboon, Muthanna Albayati, Fadhaa Dalhel

Engineering and Technology Journal

In the present work , various remote sensing techniques have been used to investigate soil degradation in Iraq (The Mesopotamian plain) for the period (1976 - 2021) using different research and data like satellite image such as (Landsat 1-5 MSS 1976 , Landsat 4-5 TM C1 Level-1 1996, Landsat 8 2016 and sentinel-2 2021 ) , using different Program and software (ENVI 5.3 which extract data from image satellite by using TCT , EMI and NDVI indicators , Eras image 2015 use to subset area of interest ,layer stack and merge resolution , Arc GIS 10.7 use to make database …

The Collaborative Development Of Core Vocabulary In International English-Medium Early Childhood Teacher Education, Muhammad Qureshi, Kay Gallagher, Michael Bowles, Jenny Eppard

All Works

This paper serves as a guide for the development of contextually relevant word lists and word guides for English-medium early childhood teacher education programs internationally. Such resources are particularly important for English-medium programs in higher education settings where English is typically a second or foreign language for students, and where limited vocabulary knowledge can curtail learning. In the context of an undergraduate early childhood teacher education program at an English-medium university in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a rapidly modernizing Gulf state with a new interest in early childhood education, language, and content teachers co-developed word lists for Arabic-speaking students …

Opportunities, Challenges, And Conspicuous Absences: An Integrative Review Of The Social Work Literature On Artificial Intelligence, Michael J. Massey, Ian G. Williams, Grace C. Polistina, Eathan A. Breaux

Publications and Research

INTRODUCTION: Social work discourse regarding artificial intelligence (AI) in practice, research, and education has proliferated over the last 5 years, reflecting both excitement over its potential and ambivalence about its ethical challenges. However, the extent to which social work is fully engaging with the structure of AI and its enormous impacts on the environment, labour, and distribution of power remains unclear.

METHODS: An integrative review of social work literature from 2020–2024 was conducted to address two research questions: 1) What is the nature of the social work discourse related to AI? 2) To what extent is the discourse …