Digital Commons Network^™

Portrayals Of The Pharisees And The Sadducees In The Qumran Texts And Josephus, Kenneth Atkinson

Faculty Publications

The accuracy of Josephus's portrayals of the three major schools of Jewish thought, namely the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, continues to be the subject of scholarly debate. A related issue is whether he accurately portrayed the relationships between theses haireseis and the Hasmoneans. This paper uses a variety of Qumran texts often ignored in Josephus studies to suggest that Josephus correctly described political and religious alliances between the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the members of the Hasmonean royal family.

Atomic Disorder Induced Modification Of Magnetization In Mncrval, Juliana Herran, Rishabh Dalal, Paul Gray, Parashu Kharel, Pavel Lukashev

Faculty Publications

We have investigated the physical mechanism behind magnetization reduction in a potential spingapless semiconducting compound MnCrVAl by analyzing various atomic disorder schemes. In particular, we show that depending on the degree of disorder, exchanging atomic positions between Mn/Cr and V/Al leads to reduced total magnetization due to either spin flip, or vanishing spin magnetic moments. The latter is attributed to the itinerant character of magnetism in Cr-, Mn-, and V-containing Heusler alloys, and to the frustration of antiferromagnetic exchange interactions, and is accompanied by a tetragonal distortion, but such distortion alone (i.e., in a fully ordered crystal, with no atomic …

Spirituality And Contemporary Higher Education, Michael D. Waggoner

Faculty Publications

Though religion played a central role in the founding of U.S. higher education, over the centuries, its influence was diluted by competing secular emphases. In recent decades, religion has seen a resurgence in academic and co-curricular attention on campuses. In addition, a spirituality not based on religion has gained increasing attention. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the phenomenon of spirituality in contemporary higher education. The author discusses the recent appearance of spiritualty on campus, relates what research says about the potential benefits of and challenges in addressing spirituality in higher education, and examines some …

Plant Size And Competitive Dynamics Along Nutrient Gradients, Deborah E. Goldberg, Jason P. Martina, Kenneth J. Elgersma, William S. Currie

Faculty Publications

Resource competition theory in plants has focused largely on resource acquisition traits that are independent of size, such as traits of individual leaves or roots or proportional allocation to different functions. However, plants also differ in maximum potential size, which could outweigh differences in module-level traits. We used a community ecosystem model called mondrian to investigate whether larger size inevitably increases competitive ability and how size interacts with nitrogen supply. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that bigger is better, we found that invader success and competitive ability are unimodal functions of maximum potential size, such that plants that are too …

Effectiveness Of Cattail (Typha Spp.) Management Techniques Depends On Exogenous Nitrogen Inputs, Kenneth J. Elgersma, Jason P. Martina, Deborah E. Goldberg, William S. Currie

Faculty Publications

Wetlands occupy a position in the landscape that makes them vulnerable to the effects of current land use and the legacies of past land use. Many wetlands in agricultural regions like the North American Midwest are strongly affected by elevated nutrient inputs as well as high rates of invasion by the hybrid cattail Typha × glauca. These two stressors also exacerbate each other: increased nutrients increase invasion success, and invasions increase nutrient retention and nutrient loads in the wetland. This interaction could create a positive feedback that would inhibit efforts to manage and control invasions, but little is known …

Faculty And Student Perceptions Of Cheating, Anita M. Gordon, Helen C. Harton, Emma Welch

Faculty Publications

Students and faculty at a mid-sized masters comprehensive university completed a survey regarding their perceptions of student cheating and other academic misbehavior. A total of 656 student surveys (22%) and 303 faculty surveys (35%) were analyzed to determine the perceived prevalence of cheating across campus, which behaviors are considered cheating, and how wrong they are perceived to be. Results demonstrated less consensus among faculty than expected on which misbehaviors violate the academic ethics policy as well as considerable variation in the perceived frequency that the policy violations occur, for both students and faculty. Increased education about plagiarism and cheating is …

Phylogenetic Patterns And The Adaptive Evolution Of Osmoregulation In Fiddler Crabs (Brachyura, Uca), Samuel Coelho Faria, Diogo Borges Provete, Carl Leo Thurman, John Campbell Mcnamara

Faculty Publications

Salinity is the primary driver of osmoregulatory evolution in decapods, and may have influenced their diversification into different osmotic niches. In semi-terrestrial crabs, hyperosmoregulatory ability favors sojourns into burrows and dilute media, and provides a safeguard against hemolymph dilution; hypo-osmoregulatory ability underlies emersion capability and a life more removed from water sources. However, most comparative studies have neglected the roles of the phylogenetic and environmental components of inter-specific physiological variation, hindering evaluation of phylogenetic patterns and the adaptive nature of osmoregulatory evolution. Semi-terrestrial fiddler crabs (Uca) inhabit fresh to hyper-saline waters, with species from the Americas occupying higher …

Balancing Research, Teaching, Clinical Work, And Family: Nine Suggestions For Young Professionals, Elizabeth K. Lefler

Faculty Publications

Balancing multiple professional roles and a family can be demanding. The current paper is a non-evidence based list of informal, anecdotal suggestions for professionals who strive to balance multiple work roles with the demands of raising young children. It is important to note I make no claims that this is an evidence-based method for achieving optimal work-family balance. Rather, I was invited to this conference to discuss my own experiences balancing work and family; this paper reflects that non-scientific aim, and includes a list of nine suggestions that I hope will be helpful to some. I am a licensed clinical …

Is High Folic Acid Intake A Risk Factor For Autism?—A Review, Darrell Wiens, M. Catherine Desoto

Faculty Publications

Folate is required for metabolic processes and neural development. Insuring its adequate levels for pregnant women through supplementation of grain-based foods with synthetic folic acid (FA) in order to prevent neural tube defects has been an ongoing public health initiative. However, because women are advised to take multivitamins containing FA before and throughout pregnancy, the supplementation together with natural dietary folates has led to a demographic with high and rising serum levels of unmetabolized FA. This raises concerns about the detrimental effects of high serum synthetic FA, including a rise in risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Some recent studies …

The Role Of Working Memory Among Non-Traditional Foreign Language Students, Gabriela Olivares-Cuhat, Michelle H. Ploof

Faculty Publications

Over the last 40 years, a growing number of nontraditional students have joined the ranks of higher education. However, due to a number of internal and external factors, these students face multiple social, economic, and academic challenges that may limit their success in postsecondary education. The focus of this article is to examine the implications of these challenges on the learning of a foreign language (FL), and more specifically on the role played by working memory (WM) with nontraditional FL learners. To this end, research studies in the fields of psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology and neuroscience are reviewed and their findings …

Effect Of Fe Substitution On The Structural, Magnetic And Electron-Transport Properties Of Half-Metallic Co2tisi, Y. Yin, J. Waybright, P. Kharel, I. Tutic, J. Herran, P. Lukashev, S. Valloppilly, D. J. Sellmyer

Faculty Publications

The structural, magnetic and electron-transport properties of Co₂Ti_1-xFe_xSi (x = 0, 0.25, 0.5) ribbons prepared by arc-melting and melt-spinning were investigated. The rapidly quenched Co₂Ti_0.5Fe_0.5Si crystallized in the cubic L2₁ structure whereas Co₂Ti_0.75Fe_0.25Si and Co₂TiFe₀Si showed various degrees of B2-type disorder. At room temperature, all the samples are ferromagnetic, and the Curie temperature increased from 360 K for Co₂TiSi to about 800 K for Co₂Ti_0.5Fe_0.5Si. The measured magnetization also …

The Impact Of Education On Legislative Responsiveness In Three Field Experiments, Jayme Neiman

Faculty Publications

Three field experiments were used to investigate whether a constituent’s education level influences state legislators’ responsiveness to their request for assistance. Legislators were sent emails that were randomly varied as to the education level of the writer. Results indicate that communication from constituents with lower education levels receive fewer replies. Two potential explanations for the variation in legislative response are explored—political party and the legislator’s own education level. Analysis suggests that neither of these variables account for the response differential to the email manipulations.

What Rhyme Tells Us About The Status Of Homogeneous Diphthongs In Spanish, Juan Carlos Castillo

Faculty Publications

This article addresses the status of homogeneous diphthongs in Spanish (those formed of two high vocoids, usually spelled iu or ui) to try to determine which vocoid acts as the syllable nucleus and which is the glide. It has generally been assumed that the order is glide-vowel (rising-like diphthong) but with little factual substantiation. A study of examples of rhyme from different ages in Spanish poetry and theatre in verse confirms the strong tendency for these diphthongs to act as rising-like.

Predicting Genome Terminus Sequences Of Bacillus Cereus-Group Bacteriophage Using Next Generation Sequencing Data, Cheng-Han Chung, Michael H. Walter, Luobin Yang, Shu-Chuan (Grace) Chen, Vern Winston, Michael A. Thomas

Faculty Publications

Background: Most tailed bacteriophages (phages) feature linear dsDNA genomes. Characterizing novel phages requires an understanding of complete genome sequences, including the definition of genome physical ends.

Result: We sequenced 48 Bacillus cereus phage isolates and analyzed Next-generation sequencing (NGS) data to resolve the genome configuration of these novel phages. Most assembled contigs featured reads that mapped to both contig ends and formed circularized contigs. Independent assemblies of 31 nearly identical I48-like Bacillus phage isolates allowed us to observe that the assembly programs tended to produce random cleavage on circularized contigs. However, currently available assemblers were not capable of …