Digital Commons Network^™

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Gospel As Taught By Nephite Prophets, Noel B. Reynolds

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

The Book of Mormon uses the terms gospel and doctrine to refer to the way by which individuals come to Christ. Three Book of Mormon passages in particular (2 Nephi 31:2-32:6; 3 Nephi 11:23-39; 3 Nephi 27:13-21) define the gospel of Jesus Christ, each in a six-point formula. This formula states that if people will (1) believe in Christ, (2) repent of their sins, and (3) submit to baptism in water as a witness of their willingness to take his name upon themselves and keep his commandments, he will (4) pour out his Spirit upon them and cleanse them of …

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Exciting Research In An Easily Readable Form

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Every student should have a copy of the newly completed Rediscovering the Book of Mormon. It is the kind of book that F.A.R.M.S. subscribers have been asking for: exciting new discoveries about the Book of Mormon made by LDS scholars, presented in a form accessible to all readers. No special background is required to appreciate these twenty-three brief essays-just a desire to rediscover the value of the Book of Mormon by learning new things about it.

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Little-Known Magazine Defended The Mormon Point Of View

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

In 1904 an English professor at BYU, Nels Lars Nelson, began publishing a little-known magazine entitled The Mormon Point of View. Although his valiant effort was sustained only for four issues, Nelson was able to write and publish several eloquent and insightful articles.

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

No abstract provided.

New Bibliographies Help Answer Questions About Animals And Metals In The Book Of Mormon

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

The Book of Mormon mentions animals and metals that do not seem to fit into the conventional scholarly view of animals and metals in the New World. Two new study aids prepared by John L. Sorenson and available through F.A.R.M.S. provide information that will help students of the Book of Mormon examine and perhaps resolve these problems.

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Farms Brown Bag Seminar Presents On-Going Research

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Approximately twice each month during the Fall and Winter Semesters at BYU, the Foundation sponsors informal brown bag lectures in which BYU faculty and others discuss their research on topics related to the Book of Mormon. All members of the BYU community and other interested persons are invited to attend, free of charge.

Byu Today Publishes Article On Critical Text Project

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

The May 1992 issue of BYU Today carried a very good summary of the project that Royal Skousen, professor of English at BYU, is conducting to produce a critical text of the Book of Mormon. The main purposes of this project are to establish the original English language text of the Book of Mormon, to the extent that it can be discovered, and to determine the history of the text-in particular, the changes that the text has undergone, both editorial and accidental.

Review Does It Again--Offers Careful Analyses, And Pulls No Punches

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

F.A.RMS. has published the fourth volume of its annual Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, edited by Daniel C. Peterson.

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Reader Notes An Expression That Is Unique To Nephi

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Richard Rust, professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whose research has been published by F.A.R.M.S. in the past, has noticed phraseology that is unique to individual Book of Mormon prophets. He writes to F.A.R.M.S. that the phrase "my soul delighteth" appears to be unique to Nephi. It is a beautiful expression, which Nephi uses ten times: for example, "my soul delighteth in the scriptures" (2 Nephi 4:15); "my soul delighteth in the things of the Lord" (2 Nephi 4:16); "my soul delighteth in proving unto my people the truth of the coming of Christ" …

Welch Takes Leave Of Absence

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

A leave of absence from the F.A.R.M.S. board of directors for John W. Welch has been approved during the time that he serves as the editor of BYU Studies. Welch was the founding president of F.A.R.M.S. and has served on its board of directors throughout the life of the foundation. His contributions to the success of the foundation's efforts have been considerable and essential.

Books Focus On Ancient Mesoamerican Civilizations

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

New editions of two books, available at a discount from F.A.R.M.S., provide a scholarly yet readable introduction to civilization in the area where most of the events of the Book of Mormon probably took place. Both books were written by Michael D. Coe, Professor of Anthropology at Yale University. Although not written from an LDS perspective, these books provide the serious student of the Book of Mormon some very valuable background information. Both books also contain a large number of excellent photographs, maps, and line drawings, which make them not only informative to read but a pleasure to browse.

Former Farms Worker Honored

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

On March 7, DeeAnn Hofer was crowned Ms. Wheelchair Utah. Because of her fine contributions to the foundation, F.A.R.M.S. was pleased to be one of her sponsors in this competition.

F.A.R.M.S. Conference On "The Olive And Jacob 5" A Success

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

More than 300 people attended the F.A.R.M.S. conference on ''The Olive and Jacob 5," held on Saturday, March 21. The nineteen presenters approached Jacob 5 from a variety of perspectives----cultural, economic, literary, historical, and theological. Comments from the audience indicated that they found this fifth annual F.A.R.M.S. Book of Mormon Lecture extremely helpful in understanding the background and meaning of the allegory of the olive tree.

Changes In Rna Expression Of Hut78 Cells Resulting From The Hiv-1 Viral Protein R R77q Mutation, Joshua S. Ramsey

Theses and Dissertations

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) is the causative virus for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). AIDS is characterized by chronic inflammation and reduction of CD4+ T-cells in the blood. This leads to the patient becoming immunocompromised and much more susceptible to disease in general. Different phenotypes in the progression of AIDS have been observed in patients in either progressing to AIDS faster as a Rapid Progressor (RP), or slower as a Long-Term Non-Progressor (LTNP). Researching elements that result in the LTNP phenotype is of interest as it has the potential to offer alternative treatments and therapies to those suffering from …

"Unraveling Shame": Therapy Experiences Of Religious Sexual Minority College Students, Audrey Louise Parker

Theses and Dissertations

Sexual minority adolescents and adults experience higher rates of psychological risk factors and mental health disorders than their straight peers. As theorized by the minority stress model, this increased distress may be related to both external stressors (including discrimination and violence) and internal stressors (concealment, expectation of rejection, and internalized homonegativity). For some sexual minority individuals who also hold religious beliefs, conflict between their sexual orientation and religious beliefs may act as another stressor. Sexual minority adolescents and adults present to therapy at higher rates than their straight counterparts, and clients seeking help with religious and sexual conflict make up …

Creating An Inclusive Metadata Policy, Nicole Lewis, Jeremy Myntti

Faculty Publications

The BYU Library is creating an Inclusive Metadata Policy for metadata creators to use when creating and remediating descriptions to be more inclusive. Accompanying the policy is a companion document with recommendations and examples, including links to many external resources. In addition to working with stakeholders in the library to develop the policy, we consulted with the University’s Office of Belonging. This presentation describes the process we used to undertake the creation of the library policy and recommendations document.

Dnssec Meets The Frontend: Usability Study Of Dnssec Status Indicator In Browser, Tyler Karren

Theses and Dissertations

DNSSEC ensures the integrity of DNS data. DNSSEC however is not visible to the end user. We designed a DNSSEC status indicator tool that shows the DNSSEC validation statuses of the host being visited in the Web browser. We then conducted a usability study to evaluate the tool, gathering user behavior and feedback from 30 participants. The usability study revealed that users were able to make security conscious decisions based on context of the task, but the tool struggled to communicate that it was sharing the status of the validity of the name-to-IP-address resolution of visited websites. We hope that …

Physiological Arousal, Attentiveness, Emotion, And Word Retrieval In Aphasia: Effects And Relationships, Tyson G. Harmon, Angela Johnson, Vivian Ward, Shawn Nissen

Faculty Publications

Purpose: To (a) compare physiological arousal and attentiveness during a confrontational naming task between participants with aphasia and a control group across four conditions that varied according to emotionality of presented stimuli and (b) explore relationships among physiological arousal, attentiveness, perceived arousal, and naming performance. We hypothesized that participants with aphasia would show lower levels of arousal and attentiveness than control participants and that emotional conditions would lead to increased physiological arousal and attentiveness.

Method: Eight participants with aphasia and 15 control participants completed a confrontational naming task under positive, negative, and neutral conditions and rated their perceived arousal after …

Telling Stories In Noise: The Impact Of Background Noises On Spoken Language For People With Aphasia, Tyson G. Harmon, Brenna Scadden Nelson, Christopher Dromey, Kirsten Dixon Clawson

Faculty Publications

Purpose: Determine how different background noise conditions affect the spoken language of participants with aphasia during a story retell task.

Method: Participants included 11 adults with mild to moderate aphasia and 11 age- and gender-matched controls. Participants retold stories in a silent baseline and five background noise conditions (conversation, monologue, phone call, cocktail, pink noise). Dependent measures of speech acoustics (fundamental frequency, mean intensity), speech fluency (speech rate, disfluent words), and language production (correct information units, lexical errors, lexical diversity, and cohesive utterances) were compared between groups and across conditions.

Results: Background noise resulted in higher fundamental frequency (F_{0 …}

A Grounded Theory Of Relational Masculinity In Brazil, Douglas M. Wendt

Theses and Dissertations

Many societal problems in Brazil, including sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and fatherlessness, are said to be related to hegemonic masculine development, commonly known as toxic masculinity. Very little research has been conducted in Marriage and Family Therapy and related fields that explores masculinity in the context of family systems and within relational frameworks. Current research in this area focuses largely on the negative aspects of traditional masculinity that reinforce narrow stereotypes rather than highlight possibilities of relationally healthy masculine development. The aim of this study was to develop a constructivist grounded theory of relational masculinity in Brazil by interviewing …

Could Our Universe Have Been Initiated Intentionally: An Epistemological Framework, Dan Broadbent

Faculty Publications

The possibility that our universe was initiated intentionally is a compelling philosophical and scientific question that can be evaluated probabilistically based on four primary considerations: fine-tuning in our universe, hypotheses about the multiverse, the likelihood that intelligent life may be able to initiate a universe, and the possibility that we live in a simulation. This paper offers an equation analogous to the noteworthy Drake equation that is intended to be used as a structured thought experiment to help identify factors related to the initiation of our universe and to facilitate examining each in terms of what we know, do not …

Task Distillation: Transforming Reinforcement Learning Into Supervised Learning, Connor Wilhelm

Theses and Dissertations

Recent work in dataset distillation focuses on distilling supervised classification datasets into smaller, synthetic supervised datasets in order to reduce per-model costs of training, to provide interpretability, and to anonymize data. Distillation and its benefits can be extended to a wider array of tasks. We propose a generalization of dataset distillation, which we call task distillation. Using techniques similar to those used in dataset distillation, any learning task can be distilled into a compressed synthetic task. Task distillation allows for transmodal distillations, where a task of one modality is distilled into a synthetic task of another modality, allowing a more …

Utilizing Student Workers For Digital Commons Projects, Ellen Amatangelo, Elizabeth Parret

Faculty Publications

This lightning talk was presented by the Scholarly Communications Coordinator and the Scholarly Communications Student Supervisor from Brigham Young University at the Digital Commons North American Conference 2023. It provides an overview of how student workers at the BYU Library are involved in Digital Commons projects and discusses the types of projects and processes that students work on, including an outline of student supervisor responsibilities. The purpose of the presentation is to get other Digital Commons administrators excited about expanding the possibilities of their repositories by collaborating with student workers.

Neutronic Analysis Of The Byu Molten Salt Micro Reactor, Collin Bradford, Edward Mercado, Braden Clayton, Lagrande Gunnell, Andrew Larsen, Matthew Memmott

Faculty Publications

Background: With the rising need for reliable and clean energy, researchers at Brigham Young University created a molten salt microreactor (MSMR) concept to help meet the world’s growing energy demands. The MSMR is rated at 45 MWth and is uniquely capable of passively dissipating all decay heat using conduction only.

Methods: This work presents the results of the simulated neutronic behavior of the MSMR using the Monte Carlo neutronics code OpenMC with the ENDF/B-VII.1 cross-section library at steady state conditions. The specific characteristics discussed in this work are: keff, power profile, axial and radial peak power factors, Doppler coefficient of …

Facial Motion Augmented Identity Verification With Deep Neural Networks, Zheng Sun

Theses and Dissertations

Identity verification is ubiquitous in our daily life. By verifying the user's identity, the authorization process grants the privilege to access resources or facilities or perform certain tasks. The traditional and most prevalent authentication method is the personal identification number (PIN) or password. While these knowledge-based credentials could be lost or stolen, human biometric-based verification technologies have become popular alternatives in recent years. Nowadays, more people are used to unlocking their smartphones using their fingerprint or face instead of the conventional passcode. However, these biometric approaches have their weaknesses. For example, fingerprints could be easily fabricated, and a photo or …