Digital Commons Network^™

Pornography Use: Consequences And Cures, Paul James Birch

Marriage and Families

No abstract provided.

Teaching The Poetry Of Latter-Day Saint Scripture, Roger G. Baker

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

An Interview With John L. Sorenson, Journal Of Book Of Mormon Studies

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

Editors of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies interview renowned Book of Mormon scholar John L. Sorenson to discuss his experience in doing Book of Mormon research for more than fifty years. Sorensen tells of becoming interested in the Book of Mormon and in Mesoamerican anthropology and archaeology. He also articulates how to be a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while conducting objective and scholarly research on the Book of Mormon. Sorenson explains how this approach has helped people throughout the world better understand the Book of Mormon and how it will continue …

Women In The Book Of Mormon, Camille Williams

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

Feminist readers, particularly, have argued that biblical writing is sexist because the majority of the text was written by men who seem to place little significance on the role of women. This observation has become a serious concern among some because it calls into question the nature of God: does this supposedly perfect being love men and women equally? This study delves into the text of the Book of Mormon and its female characters to suggest that women were not considered lower than men in Book of Mormon times; likewise, women are not considered lower than men in the Church …

What's In A Name? Irreantum, Paul Y. Hoskisson, Brian M. Hauglid, John Gee

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

The Book of Mormon was written in a language that was grounded in Hebrew and Egyptian; the people of the Book of Mormon most likely spoke this same language. It is interesting, then, that the Book of Mormon authors periodically included definitions for certain terms that they used in their writing, as if their audience did not understand them. This technique, known as a gloss, suggests that those terms may not have been a part of that ancient language. In an attempt to uncover the true origin of such words, this article dissects the Book of Mormon term Irreantum and …

Quetzalcoatl, The Maya Maize God, And Jesus Christ, Diane E. Wirth

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

Many scholars suggest that Quetzalcoatl of Mesoamerica (also known as the Feathered Serpent), the Maya Maize God, and Jesus Christ could all be the same being. By looking at ancient Mayan writings such as the Popol Vuh, this theory is further explored and developed. These ancient writings include several stories that coincide with the stories of Jesus Christ in the Bible, such as the creation and the resurrection. The role that both Quetzalcoatl and the Maize God played in bringing maize to humankind is comparable to Christ’s role in bringing the bread of life to humankind. Furthermore, Quetzalcoatl is said …

Contributors, Journal Of Book Of Mormon Studies

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

No abstract provided.

Journal Of Book Of Mormon Studies Volume 11 Issue 1, Neal A. Maxwell Institute For Religious Scholarship

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

The Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to promoting understanding of the history, meaning, and significance of the scriptures and other sacred texts revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Painting Out The Messiah: The Theologies Of Dissidents, John L. Clark

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

Despite the establishment of Christ’s church in the New World by the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi, many dissenters during its thousand-year history attempted to thwart the church and preach alternative theologies. This article first discusses the doctrine that Nephi taught to his people concerning Jesus Christ. Historical context then provides further understanding of the society in which Nephi and his descendants lived. Having come from Jerusalem in the Old World, the Nephites were still accustomed to the law of Moses, which certainly would have influenced their view of a Messiah. This, along with the political circumstances of the Nephite …

What’S In A Word? Tender And Chaste And Delicate Feelings Are Pleasing To The Lord, Cynthia L. Hallen

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

The word tender is used repeatedly throughout the Book of Mormon, but the modern connotations of the term may skew readers’ understanding of what Book of Mormon authors intended to convey when employing it in their writing. By examining the etymology of tender and the etymologies of similar words, readers can better comprehend the intended meaning of the ancient Book of Mormon authors.

A Reader's Library, Martin H. Raish, C. Gary Bennett

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

Two critics evaluate the book By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New World Religion. Raish opines that Givens’s book effectively explains why a person might accept the Book of Mormon and facilitates a reader’s desire to better understand the Book of Mormon. Bennett adds that Givens approaches his discussion of the Book of Mormon as a scholar, resulting in a more accepting readership. Givens also studies the Book of Mormon with respect to its role in promoting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a worldwide religion.

Modelling And Short Term Forecasting Of Photochemical Pollution By Soft Computing Techniques, G. Finzi, Giuseppe Nunnari, M. Volta

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In this paper, two different approaches, namely of neuro-fuzzy and fuzzy types, are considered for modelling photochemical pollution in two different areas. One of the main aims of the considered approaches is the possibility to extract knowledge from historical time-series thus allowing a deeper understanding of the physical phenomena involved. The city of Brescia is located in the Po Valley in Northern Italy and is characterised by high industrial, urban and traffic emissions and continental climate. The Siracusa industrial area is located in the eastern coast of Sicily, with a climate typical of Southern Mediterranean areas.

“Behold The Condescension Of God” A Scriptural Perspective On Three Nativity Scenes, Doris R. Dant, Richard G. Oman

BYU Studies

In the midst of the Christmas season's commercialization, frenzied preparations, and parties, families worldwide set aside time to arrange a nativity scene on a mantelpiece or table. More than any other traditional Christmas object, these nativity sets bid us heed the message of Christ's birth. What the nativities specifically say differs with the endless variations played out by their creators and those who arrange the scenes, but certain scriptural themes are common. To show how some of these themes are presented by nativity scenes, this article will analyze three world-class nativities created by Latter-day Saint Gerd Sjökvist, Harrison Begay Jr., …

Desyre – Decision Support System For Rehabilitation Of Contaminated Sites: Objectives And Structure, A. Critto, S. Giove, N. Nadal, M. Samiolo, C. Carlon, S. Silvoni, S. Foramiti, Antonio Marcomini

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The rehabilitation of contaminated sites is a complex process encompassing technological, environmental, socio-economic aspects. These aspects show close spatial and temporal inter-relations. Moreover, mega-sites (hundreds of hectares wide) require properly designed Decision Support Systems (DSS). In this work, a DEcision Support sYstem for the REqualification of contaminated sites (DESYRE) is proposed for the identification of the most effective rehabilitation interventions. The DSS is based on a Geographic Information System (GIS) framework and integrates environmental and technological databases, risk assessment models, and multi criteria procedures. It is composed of five modules: (1) characterisation, (2) risk, (3) socio-economical and (4) technological analysis, …

Uncertainty Management In Complex Models: The Nusap Method, Jeroen Van Der Sluijs, James Risbey, S.C. Quintana, Jerry Ravetz

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A novel approach to uncertainty assessment, known as the NUSAP method (Numeral Unit Spread Assessment Pedigree) was applied to assess qualitative and quantitative uncertainties in the TIMER energy model, part of RIVMs IMAGE Model. The TIMER model is a system dynamics energy model that has been used, for instance, in the development of the new IPCC baseline scenarios (SRES). For our analysis we have used the IMAGE B1 scenario as case study. We used two complementary tools to assess uncertainty: (1) The Morris algorithm for global sensitivity analysis and (2) a NUSAP expert elicitation workshop, which assessed different aspects of …

Ecosystem As A Text: Semantic Analysis Of The Global Vegetation Pattern, Yuri Svirezhev

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Let us consider a text, which is written by Russian language. At the first level of reception we know only a number of letters. Then the information per one letter I1=5bits. At the second level of perception we take into account the frequencies of letters then I2=4.35bits. At the next levels, when we take into account double, triple, etc. correlations, we get I3=3.5bits, I4=3bits, etc. Then the redundancy of information at each level, Ri=1-Ii/I1, is equal to R1=0, R2=0.13, R3=0.3, R4=0.4, etc. By defining the cost of information as a degree of non-redundancy, Ci=1/(1-Ri) we get C1=1 C2=1.15, C3=1.43, C4=1.67, …

Latter-Day Saint Writings On Christ And The New Testament—2002 Supplement, Byu Studies

BYU Studies

In the longstanding tradition of bibliographic publications generated by BYU Studies, the following bibliography lists the books and articles on the New Testament and early Christianity published by Latter-day Saint authors or in Latter-day Saint publications, mainly from 1994 to 2002. This compilation was assembled by Nicolas W. Thompson and Victoria F. Johnson under the mentoring of John W. Welch, assisted by Anastasia M. Sutherland, Aaron C. Cummings, Maurianne Dunn, and Kelli Skinner. This 2002 supplement follows guidelines similar to those set forth in the preface of the previous New Testament bibliography published by Welch and Daniel B. McKinlay …

Machine-Learned Contexts For Linguistic Operations In German Sentence Realization, Eric K. Ringger, Simon Corston-Oliver, Michael Gamon, Robert Moore

Faculty Publications

We show that it is possible to learn the contexts for linguistic operations which map a semantic representation to a surface syntactic tree in sentence realization with high accuracy. We cast the problem of learning the contexts for the linguistic operations as classification tasks, and apply straightforward machine learning techniques, such as decision tree learning. The training data consist of linguistic features extracted from syntactic and semantic representations produced by a linguistic analysis system. The target features are extracted from links to surface syntax trees. Our evidence consists of four examples from the German sentence realization system code-named Amalgam: case …

Nl-Soar And Lg-Soar: Ongoing Work, Deryle W. Lonsdale

Faculty Publications

Goals:

Expand Soar knowledge and explore possible uses on-campus

Provide and support an NL capability to the Soar research community

Toolkits, resources, knowledge repositories

Carry out research into the cognitive modeling of linguistic performance

Improving Speech Recognition Learning Through Lazy Training, Tony R. Martinez, Michael E. Rimer, D. Randall Wilson

Faculty Publications

Multi-layer backpropagation, like most learning algorithms that can create complex decision surfaces, is prone to overfitting. We present a novel approach, called lazy training, for reducing the overfit in multiple-layer networks. Lazy training consistently reduces generalization error of optimized neural networks by more than half on a large OCR dataset and on several real world problems from the UCI machine learning database repository. Here, lazy training is shown to be effective in a multi-layered adaptive learning system, reducing the error of an optimized backpropagation network in a speech recognition system by 50.0% on the TIDIGITS corpus.

Legal Theory And The Rule Of Law, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

In "Legal Theory and the Rule of Law" Noel Reynolds maintains that the rule of law can be understood as a set of conditions that rational actors would impose on any authority they would create to act in their stead in creating and administering legally binding rules. The authority and obligation associated with law derive from this fundamental convention, and the principles of the rule of law are the conditions of that agreement, which become thereby governing principles to which legislatures, judges, and enforcement agencies can be held in their official actions. These generally recognized standards are inherent in this …

Mphs New Zealand Trip: Daily Diary, April 16-28, 2002

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

Tuesday, 16 April

We left Honolulu at 12:30 a.m., 5 long hours after leaving Laie. At some point the 6 ½-hour flight to Nadi we crossed the International Dateline and lost a day, arriving at Nadi at 5:30 a.m. on April 16th.

Full Issue

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

No abstract provided.

Singular And Plural Address In The Scriptures, James R. Rasband

BYU Studies

Steeped in post-Enlightenment philosophy with its primary focus on the individual, modern readers may unwittingly assume that the Lord likewise is focused solely on individuals when he promises blessings or assigns responsibilities. Although the scriptures contain many instances where the Lord speaks to individuals separately, he also speaks to the Church or his people collectively. It is not always easy to distinguish between these two modes of address, especially because the English pronoun you can be either singular or plural. However, awareness of this linguistic issue can improve our reading of the scriptures, at times revising our understanding substantially.

World Civlization Identified With Five Epochs Of History, William Mcgaughey

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

A Comparison Of Coalescent Estimation Software, Kristen Piggott Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations

Coalescent theory is a method often used by population geneticists in order to make inferences about evolutionary parameters. The coalescent is a stochastic model that approximates ancestral relationships among genes. An understanding of the coalescent pattern of a sample of sequences, along with some knowledge of the mutations that have occurred, provides information about the evolutionary forces that have acted on the population. Processes such as migration, recombination, variable population size, or natural selection are the forces that affect the genealogies and lead to genetic variability in a sample. Coalescent theory provides a statistical description of the variability in the …

New Appointments, Yale University

Journal of East Asian Libraries

No abstract provided.

Historical Paradigms In Conflict: The Nauvoo Period Revisited, Glen M. Cooper

Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011

Review of Cultures in Conflict: A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois (1995), edited by John E. Hallwas and Roger D. Launius

Journal Of Book Of Mormon Studies Volume 11 Issue 2, Neal A. Maxwell Institute For Religious Scholarship

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

The Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to promoting understanding of the history, meaning, and significance of the scriptures and other sacred texts revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith.

History Of The Critical Text Project O The Book Of Mormon, Royal Skousen

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

Royal Skousen details the history of the critical text project of the Book of Mormon. He describes that project, including his work with both the original manuscript and the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon. After six years of pursuing this venture, Skousen was asked by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to temporarily resign as a professor at Brigham Young University and focus primarily on the project. Skousen agreed, and for the following seven years he continued his work on the Book of Mormon text, often collaborating with the Church Scriptures Committee. In this article, Skousen …