Digital Commons Network^™

Challenges To Swiss Democracy: Neutrality, Napoleon, & Nationalism, Thomas Quinn Marabello

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The year 1291 is considered the birth of Switzerland as we know it. Yet this is not entirely correct, since it was when the Swiss Confederacy was formed. This defensive alliance between some cantons that would expand over time did not mean Switzerland was a unified nation-state. Most of Europe in 1291 was stuck in the Middle Ages with few unified nations existing at the time. 1648 was an important year for Switzerland and the rest of Europe. The Treaty of Westphalia marked the end of the Thirty Years’ War that involved most of the continent over religion and politics. …

A Method Of Reconstructing Historical Destructive Landslides Using Bayesian Inference, Raelynn Wonnacott

Theses and Dissertations

Along with being one of the most populated regions of the world, Indonesia has one of the highest natural disaster rates worldwide. One such natural disaster that Indonesia is particularly prone to are tsunamis. Tsunamis are primarily caused by earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides and debris flows. To effectively allocate resources and create emergency plans we need an understanding of the risk factors of the region. Understanding the source events of destructive tsunamis of the past are critical to understanding the these risk factors. We expand upon previous work focusing on earthquake-generated tsunamis to consider landslide-generated tsunamis. Using Bayesian inference and modern …

Protections And Liabilities: Parental Attributes Of Lynch Victims, Peter Shumway Polhill

Theses and Dissertations

Minimal research has focused on how lynching was not purely an individual-level event but, at times, was a family-level process. Prior research has focused on the economic forces, social factors, and individual level attributes that changed the probability of being lynched. Research studying these topics has identified that marginalization, status, distinctiveness, and the racial threat hypothesis contribute to lynching. However, this research has not studied child victims and how parental level attributes may intersect differently with these theoretical perspectives. Using machine-learning tools, I created census linked data which identifies the families of child lynch victims and other non-victim families in …

Water Waste And Mismanagement In Yemen, Haile Terry

Ballard Brief

The water crisis in Yemen is caused by three main factors: the breakdown of the national government due to a civil war, the increasing prevalence of weaponization of water as a war tactic, and the domination of the agricultural sector by a plant, known as qat (which has no nutritional value or export potential, requiring a disproportionate amount of water year-round). The crisis has led to a number of devastating and life-threatening consequences, including poor WASH practices and the worst cholera outbreak in human history; some of the worst malnutrition rates in the world, particularly in children; and a general …

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Upcoming Events

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

The free exhibit featuring Dead Sea Scroll replicas and artifacts continues to tour the Midwest until 30 August 2000. For the latest information about specific times and locations regarding the following schedule, contact an area stake center or visit the FARMS Web site (from the Free Services or the Member Services page, go to "Dead Sea Scrolls," found under "Links of Interest," and then to "Dead Sea Scrolls Traveling Exhibit").

Travel Across The "Narrow Neck Of Land", Matthew Roper

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

In recent years a number of Book of Mormon scholars have associated the "narrow neck of land" mentioned by Mormon with the Mexican Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Mormon states that it was approximately "a day and a half's journey for a Nephite, on the line Bountiful and the land Desolation, from the east to the west sea" (Alma 22:32). This was the speed "for a Nephite," and presumably a group of people or even a non-Nephite might take longer. Moreover, since Mormon was speaking of a fortified line of defense along which communication would be desirable, the phrase "for a Nephite" …

Cpart Digitizes Archives In Lebanon And Vatican

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

In April 1999 INSIGHTS reported on negotiations between representatives of the Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts (CPART) at Brigham Young University and officials in Beirut, Lebanon, and at the Vatican Apostolic Library in Rome about digitally imaging ancient Syriac manuscripts for inclusion in CD-ROM databases. Since then agreements have been forged and work is under way.

Sound, Stories, And Psychology: The Perceptions And Motivations Of Audiobook Consumption, Ellice K. Tan

Theses and Dissertations

The demand for audiobooks is higher than ever--and increasing each year, surpassing the growth rate of electronic books, print books, and the US economy overall. Audiobooks have long been used to aid adolescent and struggling readers; however, recent studies have revealed that the majority of audiences consume audiobooks for the purpose of entertainment and relaxation. Despite this, much of the research available on audiobooks still applies to audiobooks as they are used in education. The purpose of this study was to understand the attitudes, opinions, and beliefs of people who love listening to audiobooks. The study was conducted using Q …

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Journal Devoted To Questions Of Ancient Transoceanic Contacts

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

Academia has often ignored controversial evidence of early cultural contact between the Old and New Worlds. Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-Distance Contacts brings attention to rigorous scholarship supporting diffusionist claims while meeting the demands of scholarly and scientific objectivity. Developed by Stephen C. Jett, a geography professor at the University of California, Davis, the interdisciplinary journal offers studies that have been reviewed by a panel of scholars that includes John L. Sorenson, a BYU emeritus professor of anthropology and FARMS associate who has published widely on the subject.

Evidence Surveyed For Book Of Mormon Authenticity, Old World-New World Contacts

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

Two recent magazine articles on topics of interest in Book of Mormon studies are available from FARMS as reprints (see the order form).

The first article, "Mounting Evidence for the Book of Mormon," by Daniel C. Peterson, appeared in the January 2000 issue of the Ensign magazine. The article explains the role of Book of Mormon scholarship, notes the tremendous surge in publications of that kind in recent years, and highlights secondary evidence that supports the book's claim to ancient origins and inspired translation.

To All The World: A Trove Of Book Of Mormon Studies

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

To All the World: The Book of Mormon Articles from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism conveniently gathers 151 informative articles on the Book of Mormon under one cover. This new book from FARMS offers concise, encyclopedic treatments of numerous topics that will enhance understanding and appreciation of the Book of Mormon.

Utah Lake Culture Case, Anna Neumiller

Instructional Psychology and Technology Graduate Student Projects

This project is a take-home box with physical and digital components for families and teachers to use with their students. It is aimed at teaching about Utah Lake, the water cycle within the context of Utah Lake, and the people who have interacted with the lake over time. The box includes information about the cultures and history surrounding Utah Lake, its ecology and environment, its current relevance to surrounding areas, and what locals can do to ensure its protection for the future. The box is geared toward grades 4-7 and correlates with the Utah State Curriculum. As an overarching goal, …

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Forthcoming Publications

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

Abraham in Egypt, by Hugh W. Nibley, second edition, edited by Gary P. Gillum. This book duplicates the original 1981 volume published by Deseret Book but adds chapters from Nibley's "A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price" series that appeared in the Improvement Era from 1968 to 1970. Nibley examines discoveries that have shed light on Abraham and his times and that help confirm the authenticity of the Book of Abraham. Available in spring 2000.

Unsupervised Categorical Clustering On Labor Markets, Matthew James Steffen

Theses and Dissertations

During this "white collar recession,'' there is a flooded labor market of workers. For employers seeking to hire, there is a need to identify potential qualified candidates for each job. The current state of the art is LinkedIn Recruiting or elastic search on Resumes. The current state of the art lacks efficiency and scalability along with an intuitive ranking of candidates. We believe this can be fixed with multi-layer categorical clustering via modularity maximization. To test this, we gathered a dataset that is extensive and representative of the job market. Our data comes from PeopleDataLabs and LinkedIn and is sampled …

The Impact Of Speech Pause On The Perceived Effectiveness And Likability Of A Speaker's Communication, Rebecca Lyman

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine how length and location of speech pausing affects a listeners' perception of likability and communication effectiveness. Furthermore, the end goal of this study is to understand how to better assess atypical speech pause for persons with aphasia (PWA). Speech samples were collected from two neurotypical speakers over the age of 75. The speech samples were the recorded responses of picture description tasks found in the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) and the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE). These speech samples were then modified to include artificial pauses located both within sentence and between …

The Fourth Amendment In A Digital Age: Defining Boundaries In Law Enforcement Surveillance Of The Home, Josh Hoffman, Jared Xia

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

As our country enters a new digital age, emerging technologies have increased the ability of law enforcement to monitor American citizens more closely. The tracking of suspects through thermal imaging, video monitoring, and cell phone GPSs are just a few examples of the unlocked potential now available to investigating authorities. When directed at the home, these technologies allow for unprecedented encroachment of our most intimate sphere of daily life. With this accelerating prevalence of technology in surveillance practices comes the need to reassess what boundaries the Fourth Amendment defines for our privacy. This paper explores the application of the Reasonable …

The Impact Of Gender On The Acceptance Of Surveillance Technology, Jody Messick

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

A classic dilemma facing governments and citizens alike is the trade-off between privacy and security. This concept is found in the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which implies that citizens have a right to be protected against “unreasonable searches and seizures by the government” (FindLaw 2019). The technological revolution, and its implications for privacy, has complicated the nature of this right. Different types of data require different approaches to the privacy versus security tradeoff. A 2003 panel by Wright et. al asks how “sensor data,” data that is collected through technology that tracks a user’s online or real-world movements, should be approached, …

On Civilizational Strategic Studies, Stephen T. Satkiewicz

Comparative Civilizations Review

Given the on-going crises around the world, especially the current war in Ukraine, it has become imperative to analyze the strategic interests of the major geopolitical players in the world. Samuel P. Huntington formulated his controversial “Clash of Civilizations” thesis almost thirty years ago, but this topic has received a resurgence of interest due to Christopher Coker’s research on “civilizational states.” Coker takes this concept a bit further by arguing that different geopolitical actors disagree on how the world should be ordered.

Now is perhaps the most opportune time to examine the relevance of civilizations as well as civilizational theory …

Full Issue

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

Local Partisan Agreement And Trust, Mike Pulsipher, Kelsey Eyre

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

Americans are more distrusting than ever. On every metric, there has been a noticeable and substantial decline in trust of government, media, and business. This important trend has received a lot of academic and press attention and has been identified in nearly every state and every demographic. Curiously, despite decades of falling crime, fraud, and corruption, Americans are also less trusting in each other. While changes in trust for government, media, and business have looked quite different for Democrats and Republicans, partisans have shown similar declining trends in general trust.

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Benefits Of Subscription

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

Regular Subscription ($25 per year)

• The / NSIGHTS newsletter, twelve times per year

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Friend-Raiser

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

People you know might like to receive this newsletter. You are our best means of letting others know about the services that the Foundation can provide, and it is a big help to all if you can send us the names of your friends who you think might be interested in the work of the Foundation. We will send them an introductory packet describing FARMS and extending an invitation to subscribe.

Farms And Byu Participate In The 1999 Aar And Sbl Annual Meetings In Boston

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

Since 1995 FARMS representatives have attended the joint annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). AAR and SBL are longstanding learned societies with members from colleges, universities, seminaries, and other academic institutions in the U.S. and abroad. Each year they jointly hold their annual meetings, which constitute the largest gathering of religion scholars in the world, offering sessions on subjects ranging from the history of Christianity and the study of Islam to biblical texts and their ancient contexts.

New Book On Book Of Mormon Geography Provides Maps, Helpful Explanations

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

As Mormon edited the Book of Mormon, he must have had a map in his mind of the places and physical features that were the setting for the events described in that book. In Mormon's Map, a new book from FARMS, John L. Sorenson attempts to reconstruct that mental map" Mormon's Map"-using information in the Book of Mormon text.

Farms Through The Years, Part 3: A Conversation With Daniel Peterson And Daniel Oswald

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

When did you first become involved with FARMS? Peterson: In the late 1970s and early 80s, Stephen Ricks and I and, a little bit later, Bill Hamblin and I began to talk about the need for an organization like FARMS. We didn't realize that Jack Welch was already launching the Foundation. My actual involvement with FARMS began on a very low level while I was a doctoral student in California, and then accelerated rapidly when I became a member of the BYU faculty in the fall of 1985.

Coming And Going To Zion: Conceptualizing Emigrant Motives Of British Latter-Day Saints, 1840-60, Samuel Benson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines the push- and pull-factors that caused Latter-day Saint converts to emigrate from the U.K. between 1840 and 1860. A close reading of firsthand accounts written by 50 emigrants suggests that temporal and spiritual motives are deeply intertwined in the minds of early Mormon emigrants, and distinguishing between the nature of these factors is difficult. Several patterns emerge in the study of these accounts: first, economic factors were intertwined with millenarian belief; second, the allure of charismatic authority (prophets) or communication with God was influential; third, the doctrine of “gathering” was central to their decision-making, though the focus …