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The Light Within: Quakerism, Naturalism and the Biblical Corpus
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to engage and critique the manner in which the Christian Naturalist Karl E. Peters engages with the biblical text as seen in his 2022 work Christian Naturalism. This paper will argue that Peters' handling of the biblical text is founding wanting, both on a historical critical and moral level. To remedy this, this paper proposes that Peters' Christian naturalism should integrate the insights of Quakerism in the way in which they relate to the scriptures, specifically, the manner in which Quakers elevate the inner light over and above the Bible. It will then be argued that the Christian Naturalist should align themselves closer to the liberal Quaker tradition given that the tradition has many other features which a Christian Naturalist would find congenial.Author's Origina
NIH Public Access Policy Key Requirements Graphic
No full textNIH Public Access Policy Key Requirements
The Policy applies to any Author Accepted Manuscript resulting from NIH funding that has been accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025. This replaces the 2008 Policy.
FREE COMPLIANCE
Authors do not have to pay a fee to comply with the Policy. See the NIH’s Supplemental Guidance on Publication Costs. https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-048.html
AUTHOR ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
The Policy applies to the Author Accepted Manuscript, or author’s final version that has been accepted for publication in a journal that meets NIH’s criteria.
PUBMED CENTRAL
Authors must submit the Author Accepted Manuscript to PubMedCentral
NO EMBARGO
Author Accepted Manuscripts deposited in PubMed Central must be made publicly available no later than the article’s official date of publication, eliminating the previous 12-month embargo.Version of Recor
Break Glass: Structural Safeguards For Social Media
No full textAs of early 2025, the challenges of social media governance are back in the headlines. Some countries are embracing an ‘anything goes’ approach, emphasizing freedom of speech and the absence of censorship. Other countries are doubling down on protections to minimize online harm and offensive content. While each country sorts out its own path for the near future, the importance of this decision is not in any doubt. Social media channels are a hugely powerful force driving many societal outcomes, which we have witnessed repeatedly over the past decade. Social media has been instrumental in connecting family and friends, sharing art, rescuing lost loved ones, forming new high-growth businesses, informing people, globalizing culture, enabling bullying of children, deepening partisan divides, influencing electoral outcomes, causing riots, toppling governments, enabling criminals and fomenting genocide. It’s a mixed record, to say the least.
Social media is now the planet’s most prevalent method for sharing information. As of 2024, more than 5 billion users spend an average of 2 hours and 23 minutes per day on these platforms (more time than with traditional TV or any other form of media). In the next two years, social commerce—the process of selling products directly on social media platforms or within social-first commerce marketplaces—is projected to surge to $1.2 trillion, making it the 17th largest economy in the world.
Despite many social benefits, this rapidly expanding ecosystem is fertile ground for misinformation, hate speech, fraud, varied harms to youth and many other issues. The rise of AI generated content, and AI-powered human-like agents are further amplifying these risks. In response, some governments have taken measures to combat online harm, typically by requiring platforms to take protective measures. As an initial 'stop-gap' approach, these requirements have helped reduce harm, but have not been entirely successful. The regulatory approach has several shortcomings such as:
Empowering any regulator to (directly or indirectly) dictate acceptable speech raises the specter of government censorship.
Platforms use varied thresholds for harm, and define harmful content differently than regulators do, creating legal and operational disputes.
Placing the onus on platforms fails to adequately account for the responsibility of the individual - both creators and consumers - in enabling harm.
Ensuring online safety imposes significant costs on platforms which inadvertently reinforces platform monopolies as only the largest networks can afford compliance.
Can we do better? How can we allow free information while limiting harms? How should we balance conflicting rights such as freedom of speech, privacy and personal safety and security? How should we better protect youth? What expectations can we reasonably put on platforms, regulators, content producers or consumers? How can we decide any of this in a fractured global regulatory environment, where governments take significantly different views on these issues, yet information flows are globalized?
In our view, the technological changes coming demand not just incremental changes to oversight, but a bold reimagination of our online safeguards. Instead of tightening the regulatory grip on social media (or taking a hands-off approach!) we need a smarter solution—one that focuses on improving the experiences of users themselves, and lets them ultimately manage the boundaries of their online experience.Version of Recor
Why are gonorrhea diagnoses declining in the US?
No full textAfter a decade of rising cases, the US CDC reported a decline in the rate of gonorrhea diagnoses for two years in a row in 2022 and 2023, especially among young adults. Primary and secondary syphilis rates also declined, yet chlamydia remains steady and STI diagnoses around the world continue to rise. Although declining gonorrhea diagnoses are encouraging, the reasons for the reductions remain unclear. Here, we enumerate potential drivers, the evidence that argues for or against each one, and the data needed to clarify their roles.Author's Origina
FL* theory of the pseudogap in the cuprates I. Mean-field theory using ancillas
No full textPhysicsAuthor's Origina
Investigating the Effect of Quran Recitation on the Stress Levels of American Muslim Healthcare Students: A Pilot Study
No full textThis study explores the effect of Quran recitation on the stress levels of pre-
medical, pre-dental, and medical students and medical residents. The study used a
randomized, waitlist-controlled, repeated-measures design over 4 weeks. Participants’
stress levels were tested at baseline, at the end of week 2, and at the end of week 4. The
participants were recruited from all over the United States using social media pages and
groups that were frequented by the intended audience. Due to the online nature of the
study, time restrictions, and challenges with recruiting and retaining participants, the final
sample size turned out to be much smaller than intended. The study showed that daily
recitation of Surah Rahman resulted in a significant reduction in stress levels post-
intervention. The stress levels lowered from moderate to low on average for both groups.
Although none of the other tests reached statistical significance, most likely
because of the low participation, the trends in results showed a potential impact of Quran
recitation on the stress levels of the participants. Religiosity seemed to have a positive
correlation with a decrease in stress. Recitation of Surah Rahman showed a dose-
dependent reduction in stress levels. A majority of the participants reported that the
recitation of the Qur'an during the 2 weeks of assigned reading felt personally
meaningful; however, this did not translate into a greater reduction of stress. The study
contributes to the growing body of literature on the relationship between faith and
psychological well-being, with specific implications for the underserved Muslim
American healthcare students population. While the study had several limitations, it
offers practical insights into how religious practices can help support Muslim Americans
in high-pressure academic settings.Extension Studie
Commemoration as Culture Dukhrana and Shahra Rituals in Assyrian Tradition
No full textVersion of Recor
Extending STM Capabilities: Multi-Frequency Lock-In Amplification for Closed-Cycle STM and Tip-Controlled Lattice Distortions in WTe₂
No full textScanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is a versatile tool that provides sub-nanometer topographic information, gives access to the electronic structure by measuring the local density of states, and enables local modification of the atomic structure.
This thesis contains research results on two distinct topics related to STM's abilities.
The first part illustrates STM results on the local modification of the lattice structure in the ferroelectric and Weyl semimetal WTe.
Lattice distortions are created using current pulses by an STM tip, leading to in-plane shifts of surface atoms similar in magnitude to previously reported ferroelectric switching in WTe.
In addition, we observe out-of-plane rearrangements of Te atoms, potentially suggesting local perturbations of the Jahn-Teller distortion.
These distortions are accompanied by changes in the local density of states, indicating modifications to the electronic structure.
The lattice distortions extend over nanometer-scale regions and can be repositioned or erased.
This work demonstrates the potential for reversibly tuning the electronic structure of WTe on the nanometer scale.
The second part focuses on improvements to a closed-cycle cryostat STM system using an emerging measurement technique called multi-channel lock-in amplification (MCLA).
The scarcity of helium and the increasing cost of liquid helium production motivate the adoption of closed-cycle cryostats.
However, the elevated vibrational noise levels of such cooling systems limit their usability with STM.
This work illustrates the adoption of the MCLA technique to improve the performance of a closed-cycle STM system.
We developed an open-source MCLA that acquires 72 harmonics. Our implementation is built on an off-the-shelf field-programmable gate array (FPGA) development board, making it affordable and customizable.
The use of MCLA enables a twelve-fold reduction in measurement time, allowing to perform quasiparticle interference mapping, which has not previously been reported for STM systems operated with closed-cycle cryostats.Physic