Mitigating AI Bias with Prompt Augmentation

Large-language-model (“LLM”) outputs are inevitably shaped by assumptions, biases, and attitudes rooted in racism and other systemic inequities embedded in the civil-law tradition. This Equity-in-Justice CLE focuses on helping civil legal service providers recognize and work to eliminate biases in generative AI outputs through equity-centered prompt augmentation and engineering. These small, cost-free interventions re-orient LLMs assistance toward fairness, cultural competency, and client-centered outcomes. Participants leave with an action plan for embedding anti-bias safeguards in everyday research, drafting, and client communication tasks

Maria Firmina dos Reis: The Erasure of an Author and the Recuperation of a Legacy

The very first woman to write a novel in Brazil was Afro-Brazilian: Maria Firmina dos Reis published Ursula in 1859. The novel, published with her own savings, was the first abolitionist piece ever written in the country in which Black enslaved characters were treated as equals to white ones. Tragically, the book disappeared from shelves in Brazil for almost a century. Maria Firmina was not only Afro-Brazilian and a woman, but also from Nordeste, a region that is discriminated against by other parts of Brazil. I believe her erasure in the Brazilian literary canon was not a mere coincidence. Her multiple unprivileged identities “intersected” and contributed to the “memoricide’ of the author. Her unique story, her strong and groundbreaking voice against racism, and her lack of presence in Brazilian libraries, will be analyzed to better understand the structural racism that took place in literary production in Brazil. Additionally, her visual portrayals today will be examined to analyze a possible whitewashing of the author. This research will contribute to the field of Afro-Brazilian literature with further implications to the fields of Latin American studies and Brazilian Cultural Studies. The goal is to analyze the probable political motivations and results of such erasure, and how they relate to Black literature development and marginalization in Brazil over the last two centuries

Nitrogen Addition Additively Boosts Climate-Driven Salsola tragus (Russian Thistle) Invasion Into Southwestern USA Grasslands

Effective management of invasive, non-native plants requires understanding key drivers of invasion, including nitrogen enrichment from atmospheric deposition and agriculture. Long-term studies are essential for capturing complex invasion dynamics yet remain uncommon. We used 22 years of observations and 14 years of nitrogen experiments to examine invasion by Salsola tragus (Russian thistle) into three semi-arid grasslands of central New Mexico. Invasion patterns varied, with rapid expansion in Chihuahuan Desert grassland and the Desert-Plains ecotone but stability in Plains grassland. Under ambient nitrogen, precipitation most strongly correlated with Russian thistle biomass and high native grass biomass was associated with Russian thistle declines. Across four nitrogen experiments, biomass increased 208% with nitrogen addition, with effects varying by year and experiment. In two cases, nitrogen also accelerated invasion rates. Nitrogen effects were not mitigated by climate or community traits. These findings highlight the substantial role of nitrogen in promoting Russian thistle invasion, especially under future eutrophication scenarios

ARABIC INTO MIDDLE ENGLISH: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE WORD KIND

Within the time frame of Middle English, that phase of English language development assigned approximately the years 1100-1500, an influx of some one hundred and eighty Arabic words has been identified. To answer the question of how it was that this significant lexical influence of Arabic took hold in England, so far removed geographically from areas under Islamic governance, many pathways are open to exploration. Grounding this study is the movement of Arabic-speaking tribes north from Arabia in the centuries preceding the Muslim conquest and the post-conquest rise of Arabic as the language of administration. The ultimate dominance of Arabic is attested through two simultaneously unfolding translation movements beginning in the eighth century in the East, one known commonly as the Graeco-Arabic translation movement, the second, less known, but also of major importance, the translation of Christian writings into Arabic by monks in Palestinian desert monastic communities. During the years following the eighth-century Muslim conquest of the major portion of the Iberian Peninsula, expanding opportunities for the movement of Arabic toward Middle English are identified. The transmission of astronomical, mathematical, medical and pharmacological learning from the Islamic East to al-Andalus, in its early stages during the ninth and tenth centuries, is explored along with the implications of language transfer through close encounters between scholars in the Latin West and newly accessible knowledge. In this process, the practice of computistics figures as a salient feature. The study concludes with the crusading experience in the Levant, situated in large part at the intersection of religion and economics. Particular attention is given to the Order of Knights Hospitaller for its potential as an important conveyor of a broad spectrum of Arabic vocabulary into Middle Englis