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Mormonism At Oxford And What It Signifies, Stephen O. Smoot

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism is a welcomed addition to the current scholarly discussion surrounding the history, theology, and culture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It should be read and studied by all interested students in Mormonism and signals that the scriptures, theology, and history of the Latter-day Saints are all increasingly being taken seriously in mainstream academia.

“They Were Moved With Compassion” (Alma 27:4; 53:13): Toponymic Wordplay On Zarahemla And Jershon, Matthew L. Bowen

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

As in Hebrew biblical narrative, wordplay on (or play on the meaning of) toponyms, or “place names,” is a discernable feature of Book of Mormon narrative. The text repeatedly juxtaposes the toponym Jershon (“place of inheritance” or “place of possession”) with terms inherit, inheritance, possess, possession, etc. Similarly, the Mulekite personal name Zarahemla (“seed of compassion,” “seed of pity”), which becomes the paramount Nephite toponym as their national capital after the time of Mosiah I, is juxtaposed with the term compassion. Both wordplays occur and recur at crucial points in Nephite/Lamanite history. Moreover, both occur in connection with the migration …

“My People Are Willing”: The Mention Of Aminadab In The Narrative Context Of Helaman 5-6, Matthew L. Bowen

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Aminadab, a Nephite by birth who later dissented to the Lamanites, played a crucial role in the mass conversion of three hundred Lamanites (and eventually many others). At the end of the pericope in which these events are recorded, Mormon states: “And thus we see that the Lord began to pour out his Spirit upon the Lamanites, because of their easiness and willingness to believe in his words” (Helaman 6:36), whereas he “began to withdraw” his Spirit from the Nephites “because of the wickedness and the hardness of their hearts” (Helaman 6:35). The name Aminadab is a Semitic/Hebrew name meaning …

By Divine Design: Best Practices For Family Success And Happiness, Sean Brotherson

BYU Studies

By Divine Design: Best Practices for Family Success and Happiness, edited by Brent L. Top and Michael A. Goodman (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2014)

Transmitting Religion: A Look At Vern L. Bengtson's Families And Faith: How Religion Is Passed Down Across Generations, Loren D. Marks

BYU Studies

Over the past hundred years, social scientists have tended to take one of three approaches with respect to the topic of religion. Approach 1 typically pathologizes and intellectually scorns religious beliefs, practices, and faith communities, although there are now hundreds of empirical studies that link religious involvement with increased mental health, relational health, physical health, and longevity. Approach 2 politely ignores, minimizes, or marginalizes religion. Approach 3 engages in actively studying religion but typically with a cold, arms-length, agnostic-like feel. For nearly thirty years, sociologist Vern Bengtson, the author of Families and Faith,3 practiced this third approach.

Full Issue

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Fawad And Zakeela, Fawad, Zakeela, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Fawad and his wife, Zakeela, have three children. Zakeela was a beautician, and Fawad was a singer in the Baghlan district in Afghanistan. The music he produced was not in accordance with the strict restrictions of the Taliban. They threatened his life and assaulted him many times, so he decided to leave with his family to Kabul. Fawad’s day job was as an FM radio producer; at night, he moonlighted as a singer and musician. He produced music for ceremonies and weddings, often performing for the women’s part, which the Taliban did not accept. Eventually, his life was again threatened, …

Faroosh And Elina, Faroosh, Elina, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Faroosh was a cameraman for a private television program in Afghanistan working on a documentary about the Taliban. When he and his crew were discovered, the Taliban attacked them and he and his wife fled to Turkey, walking 12 hours to get there. Upon arrival the police arrested and harassed them. Turkey was not a safe place. After several suicide bombings in the area, they decided to move on to Greece, where they are in a refugee camp without any progress in their situation. They have no money to move forward and no ability to work and the economic situation …

Folate And Inflammatory Markers Moderate The Association Between Helicobacter Pylori Exposure And Cognitive Function In Us Adults, Bruce L. Brown, Andrew N. Berrett, Shawn D. Gale, Lance D. Erickson, Dawson W. Hedges

Faculty Publications

Background: Helicobacter pylori(H. pylori) infection is associated with cogni-tive deficits in humans, an association potentially mediated or moderated byfolate concentration or inflammation.Materials and

Methods: We used the National Health and Nutrition Exami-nation Survey (NHANES) datasets to examine whether folate concentrationor inflammation mediates or moderates the relationship betweenH. pyloriand cognitive function. Models were performed using linear, Poisson, andzero-inflated Poisson regression, and we performed separate analyses forgroups aged 20–59 and 60–90 years with sample sizes ranging from 700 to1700.Results:We did not find evidence of mediation in either age group. In the20- to 59-year group, interactions betweenH. pyloriand ferritin (pvaluesranging from .004 to …

No Association Between Current Depression And Latent Toxoplasmosis In Adults, Bruce L. Brown, Shawn D. Gale, Andrew N. Berrett, Lance D. Erickson, Dawson W. Hedges

Faculty Publications

Changes in behaviour and cognition have been associated with latent infection from the apicomplexan protozoan Toxoplasma gondii (Nicolle et Manceaux, 1908) in both animal and human studies. Further, neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia have also been associated with latent toxoplasmosis. Previously, we found no association between T. gondii immunoglobulin G antibody (IgG) seropositivity and depression in human adults between the ages of 20 and 39 years (n = 1 846) in a sample representative of the United States collected by the Centers for Disease Control as part of a National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from three datasets collected …

No Association Between Latent Toxoplasmosis And Multiple Body Measures In U.S. Adults, Bruce L. Brown, Andrew N. Berrett, Shawn D. Gale, Lance D. Erickson, Dawson W. Hedges

Faculty Publications

Toxoplasma gondii (Nicolle et Manceaux, 1908) is an intracellular parasite that can cause ongoing latent infection persisting for the duration of a non-definitive host's life. Affecting approximately one-third of the world's population, latent toxoplasmosis has been associated with neuropsychological outcomes and a previous report suggested an association between latent toxoplasmosis and adult height. Given the large number of people with latent toxoplasmosis and its potential associations with human height, we sought to better understand the association between latent toxoplasmosis and human morphology by evaluating seropositivity for T. gondii and multiple body measures reported in the National Health and Nutrition Examination …

What Mediates The Relationship Between Religious Service Attendance And Aspects Of Well-Being?, Scott A. Baldwin, Patrick R. Steffen, Kevin S. Masters

Faculty Publications

Religious service attendance predicts increased well-being across a number of studies. It is not clear, however, whether this relationship is due to religious factors such as intrinsic religiosity or due to nonreligious factors such as social support or socially desirable responding. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between religious service attendance and well-being while simultaneously examining intrinsic religiosity, social support, and socially desirable responding as potential mediators of the relationship. A sample of 855 participants (71 % female, average age 19.5) completed questionnaires assessing religiosity, social support, socially desirable responding, and well-being. Path models were …

Late Fremont Cultural Identities And Borderland Processes, Michael T. Searcy, Richard K. Talbot

Faculty Publications

he spread of maize farming across the American Southwest reached its northernmost extent west of the Rockies by the first or second centuries ad (James Allison, personal communication, 2014; Allison 2014), in the area encompassing the Colorado Plateau north of the Colorado River and the eastern portion of the Great Basin. he practitioners of farming in this area, the Fremont, generally resemble other Southwest farmers in material culture, social structure, settlement, and land use. hey are markedly different from contemporaneous hunter- gatherers to the west, north, and east in these same characteristics and in general economic strategy. Changing paradigms have …

In The Pursuit Of Happiness All Family Leisure Is Not Equal, Karen K. Melton, Ramon Zabriskie

Faculty Publications

In the context of family leisure, individuals are more likely to achieve happiness when recreating with their families in predictable activities and in familiar environments. This hypothesis was tested by comparing three models predicting individual happiness. The three models were grounded in distinct frameworks of family leisure incongruity: (a) the null model – all family leisure is equal; (b) activity incongruity model – familiar versus unfamiliar family activities; and (c) location incongruity model – indoor-home, outdoor-home, community, and beyond the community. Analyses used a sample of 1502 individuals in 751 families from the U.K. Models were assessed using multi-level modelling. …

The Value Of Connections In Turbulent Times: Evidence From The United States, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, Amir Kermani, James Kwak, Todd Mitton

Faculty Publications

The announcement of Timothy Geithner as nominee for Treasury Secretary in November 2008 produced a cumulative abnormal return for financial firms with which he had a prior connection. This return was about 6% after the first full day of trading and about 12% after ten trading days. There were subsequently abnormal negative returns for connected firms when news broke that Geithner’s confirmation might be derailed by tax issues. Personal connections to top executive branch officials can matter greatly even in a country with strong overall institutions, at least during a time of acute financial crisis and heightened policy discretion.

Measurement And Outcomes Of Identity Communication In Virtual Teams, Susan A. Brown, Sherry M. B. Thatcher, David W. Wilson

Faculty Publications

Virtual teams play an important role in the modern economy, and many organizations struggle to overcome the weaknesses inherent in technologymediated work. Drawing from a strong empirical foundation for identity-related outcomes in nonmediated settings, we propose that perceived virtual identity communication accuracy positively impacts virtual team trust and performance. We further propose that capabilities of the communication medium can either support or hinder perceived virtual identity communication accuracy. In three studies with a cumulative sample of N=410, this research-in-progress paper reports on the first phase of a two-phase study. We develop survey scales for a medium’s identity communication capabilities and …

Application Of Expectancy Violations Theory To Communication With And Judgments About Embodied Agents During A Decision-Making Task, Judee K. Burgoon, Joseph Bonito, Paul Benjamin Lowry, Sean Humphreys, Gregory D. Moody, James Gaskin, Justin Giboney

Faculty Publications

Because users treat embodied agents (EAs) as social actors, users hold expectations about human-to-EA communication (HtEAC) similar to those in human-to-human communication. This study extends Expectancy Violations Theory (EVT) to examine how different forms of interfaces that confirm or violate user expectations affect the communication process, social judgments, ability to influence, and accuracy of recall associated with HtEAC. Positive violations of expectancy are acts or characteristics of the EA that are unexpected but evaluated favorably by the human partner. Results suggest that when the EA deviates from expectations, effects on the HtEAC process and related outcomes can be more pronounced. …

Comparing The Publication Process In Accounting, Economics, Finance, Management, Marketing, Psychology, And The Natural Sciences, David A. Wood

Faculty Publications

I present two types of data about the publication and review process in the accounting, economics, finance, management, marketing, psychology, and natural science disciplines. First, I collect all articles published in 2012 in top tier journals of these disciplines and compare the articles based on word counts, figures and tables included in each article, the time it took to be published, citations, the number of co-authors, and submission fees. I then survey academics in each discipline. Survey questions were designed to evaluate overall perceptions of the review process; changes in the review process in the last 5 years; opinions about …

What Is Organizational History: Toward A Creative Synthesis Of History And Organization Studies, Paul C. Godfrey, John Hassard, Ellen S. O'Connor, Michael Rowlinson, Martin Ruef

Faculty Publications

As a synthesis of organization theory and historiography, the field of organizational history is mature enough to contribute to wider theoretical and historiographical debates and is sufficiently developed for a theoretical consideration of its subject matter. In this introduction to the Special Topic Forum on History and Organization Studies, we take up the question, “What is organizational history?” and consider three distinct arguments that we believe frame the next phase of development for historical work within organization studies. First, we argue that following the “historic turn,” organizational history has developed as a subfield of organization studies that takes seriously the …

Time-Chunking And Hyper-Refocusing In A Digitally-Enabled Workplace: Six Forms Of Knowledge Workers, James E. Gaskin, Tanner Skousen

Faculty Publications

Until the turn of the millennium, switching tasks required moving locations or reconfiguring physical workspaces. However, contemporary digital tools and workspaces allow knowledge workers to perform an increasingly diverse set of tasks, with an increasingly extending arm of influence, all from the same physical location without any physical reconfigurations or traversing of physical space. Along with this increased ambidexterity comes an increase in the quantity and frequency of demands on the time of knowledge workers. This digitalization of work now tethers their ability to perform largely to their ability to intensely focus in small chunks, and then “hyperjump” that focus …

Seeing Harry Potter As An At-Risk Student: Critical Literacy, Cultural Capital, And The Wizarding World, Dawan Coombs, Jon Ostenson, Whitney Sommerville

Faculty Publications

Despite his celebrity status in the wizard community, Harry’s lack of familiarity with its culture, language, social structures, and institutions constantly causes him to question his competence and magical potential. Although most muggle teens will never deal with the challenges Harry confronts as he tries to sort out Quidditch from Slytherin and Hufflepuff on his first visit to Diagon Alley, they can empathize with Harry’s attempts to acculturate into the social, academic, and political norms of a very unfamiliar world. Many students in secondary schools exist on the margins because of disconnects between their own cultures, languages, and social practices …

"Let The Beauty Of The Lord Our God Be Upon Us": The Importance Of An Aesthetic In The Ritualized Visualizations Of The Israelite Cult, Dan Belnap, Daniel L. Belnap

Faculty Publications

I n recent years, there has been a growing understanding that ritual and ritual environments are not only platforms for symbolic understanding but also structures that have physiological effect as well.1 The physiological effects on the senses, whether consciously perceived or not, add to the overall religious experience. If this is the case, the aesthetics, or the recognition of the sensual effects, is also important. With that in mind, I’d like to suggest that a visual aesthetic played a role in the Israelite cultic experience. More specifically, that a pleasing visual aesthetic as demonstrated in the presentation of color and …

Reliability Generalization Of The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure- Revised (Meim-R), Timothy B. Smith, Hayley Marie Herrington, Erin Feinauer, Derek Griner

Faculty Publications

Individuals’ strength of ethnic identity has been linked with multiple positive indicators, including academic achievement and overall psychological well-being. The measure researchers use most often to assess ethnic identity, the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM), underwent substantial revision in 2007. To inform scholars investigating ethnic identity, a reliability generalization analysis was performed on data from the revised version (MEIM–R) and compared with data from the original MEIM. Random-effects weighted models evaluated internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha). Reliability coefficients for the MEIM–R averaged α = .88 across 37 samples, a statistically significant increase over the average of α = .84 for …

The Unique Influences Of Parental Divorce And Parental Conflict On Emerging Adults In Romantic Relationships, Scott R. Braithwaite, Reed A. Doxey, Krista Dowdle, Frank D. Fincham

Faculty Publications

Parental divorce and parental conflict influence children across multiple domains, including risk of divorce in their own marriages. However, parental conflict and divorce, both separately and the interaction between the two, have not often been studied in premarital relationships, especially when considering possible mechanisms mediating these effects. In a large sample of emerging adults (N = 353), we show that when the most plausible mediating mechanisms are simultaneously considered, only relational commitment mediates the influence of parental conflict on outcomes. Parental conflict in the absence of divorce was associated with less commitment and, in turn, less relationship satisfaction and stability …

The Impact Of Faculty Status And Gender On Employee Well-Being In Academic Libraries, Quinn Galbraith, Leanna Fry, Melissa Garrison

Faculty Publications

This study measures job satisfaction, personal fulfillment, work/life balance, and stress levels of male and female librarians. Researchers surveyed 719 librarians at ARL institutions that either offer faculty status and tenure or offer neither. Females at libraries offering faculty status indicated poor work/life balance and high levels of stress compared to male colleagues and female librarians without faculty status; however, their reported job satisfaction was similar. Possible implications of the results are discussed.

Contents

The Bridge

No abstract provided.

My Grandfather: Soren Lorentz Lassen, Karen Lassen

The Bridge

Fifty-five years aft er my grandfather’s death in 1934, my two brothers and I gathered at his gravesite in Sault Ste. Marie near the Great Lakes. For the fi rst time, Soren Lassen was being honored by a family that he never knew. Although he had died long ago, his gravestone had only recently been put in place. I pulled the scissors I had brought out of my purse and carefully cut back the crabgrass that was already creeping across the new stone. Stepping back, I read it aloud:

Svend Lawrence

(Soren Lassen)

1864-1934

My Father, The Christmas Doctor, And The Danish Nurse Who Saved His Life, Tom Weber

The Bridge

My father, Dr. John Peter Weber, was born to German immigrants in Creston, Iowa in 1888. At the age of eleven he realized he wanted to become a doctor. After finishing the eighth grade in 1904, sixteen-year-old John rode the rails to Montana to help lay railroad tracks, intending to save his wages in order to continue his education. Treated brutally by his foreman, he left the railroad construction job and traveled to Portland, Oregon, searching for work in the lumber industry. The young man from Iowa fell victim to a pickpocket on the streets of Portland. All his savings …

Danish Midsummer: My Bodtker Grant From Dahs, Kelsi Vanada

The Bridge

Though many Americans can trace their family history back to their European ancestors, I have met very few people outside of my own family who have maintained relationships with the branches of their families still living in Europe. I have always been proud of the fact that I know many of my family members living in Denmark today. These ties between the Danish and American sides of my family are strengthened every time one of us travels to visit relatives in the other country, so I am extremely grateful that the Danish American Heritage Society (DAHS) awarded me an Edith …

A Danish Lad In America, Fred Delcomyn

The Bridge

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” So said L.P. Hartley in The Go-Between (1953). Looking back on myself as a young immigrant child in Detroit at mid-century, the phrase seems especially apt. In my past I was quite literally in a foreign country.