Digital Commons Network^™

Thucydides' Plague, A Narrative Aggressor, Masen J. Williamson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis expands upon the notion that Thucydides’ plague narrative in his History of the Peloponnesian War punctuates his argument for the unique greatness of the Peloponnesian War. Through the plague, Thucydides displays the collapse of Greek society’s standards and practices. He does this by describing a plague which does not conform to 5th century BCE Greek medical ideas. Balance, human art, and divine intervention all fail in their attempts to restore the health of the individual and society. Thucydides portrays the plague as a narrative aggressor whose intent is to topple Athens and its ideals. Lucretius’ plague narrative, because …

Development Of Small-Scale Plutonium Electrorefining In Molten Cacl2, Devin Rappleye, James Mcneese, Richard Torres, Kiel Holliday, Jason R. Jeffries

Faculty Publications

Molten salt extraction and electrorefining of plutonium were successfully conducted with only a 200-g initial charge. Due to this small scale, the electrorefining cell components were redesigned relative to conventional, multi-kg standards. The efficiency and yield of this small-scale process are comparable to those of larger-scale exemplars. Chemical analysis of the plutonium product and the anode heel is presented. The product was 99.8% pure. The anode heel was able to be depleted beyond the expected freezing point without significant impurity carryover.

Telsam-Target Protein Fusions Can Form Diffraction-Quality Crystals Without Direct Inter-Polymer Contacts, Moriah Longhurst

Undergraduate Honors Theses

X-ray diffraction is a robust method for determining the detailed 3D structures of specific proteins. However, this requires the formation of well-ordered protein crystals, a process that is time-consuming, expensive, and only has about a 10-30% success rate. New methods are needed to enable the efficient crystallization of challenging proteins. One such technique is explored here, which utilizes a protein polymer (the sterile alpha motif domain of the human protein translocation Ets leukemia, or TELSAM) as a crystallization chaperone to form a more ordered crystal lattice of target proteins and drive crystallization. This method was successfully used to crystallize, collect …

The Man In The Tree: The Fantastic As A Bridge Between The Ideal And The Real, Weber Griffiths

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the effect of genre on storytelling, specifically the effect of the Fantastic in creating, within narrative, intrinsic meaning. In life and fiction, there exists a gap between what is ideal and what is real, a gap of mortality. Human’s struggle with this gap results in many forms of creation and meaning making. The Fantastic, as defined by literary critic Tzvetan Todorov, seeks to bridge this gap. In this examination, we take Todorov’s literary critique and apply it to four films of modern fantasy, showcasing the language and mechanics of the genre and its effectual way of bridging …

Realium: Building The Future Of Real Estate On The Blockchain, Demitri Haddad

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper discusses the prospective challenges, limitations and opportunities in the real estate sector for blockchain. It outlines the idea of Realium, a financial technology application that aims to assist in the purchase, sale, and legal compliance of real estate assets. For more information see docs.realium.io

Rocky Mountain Bristlecone Pine (Pinus Aristata) Is A Confirmed Host To Mountain Pine Beetle (Dendroctonus Ponderosae), Barbara J. Bentz, E. Matthew Hansen, James C. Vandygriff, S. Sky Stephens, David Soderberg

Western North American Naturalist

Mountain pine beetle (MPB) (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) is a native bark beetle that reproduces in pine (Pinus) species across western North America. High population levels can result in widespread host tree mortality. Over the past 2 decades, MPB has been responsible for pine mortality across millions of forested hectares in the western United States. Although a majority of the pine species found in the western United States are considered hosts to MPB, the host status of Rocky Mountain (RM) bristlecone pine (Pinus aristata) is unclear. We surveyed stands across the range of RM bristlecone pine …

The Communicative Effects Of Anonymity Online: A Natural Language Analysis Of The Faceless, Caleb Johnson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

An ever-increasing number of Americans have an active social media

presence online. As of March 2020, an estimated 79% of Americans were active

monthly users of some sort. Many of these online platforms allow users to

operate anonymously which could potentially lead to shifts in communicative

behavior. I first discuss my compilation process of the Twitter Anonymity

Dataset (TAD), a human-classified dataset of 100,000 Twitter accounts that are

categorized by their level of identifiability to their real-world agent. Next, I

investigate some of the structural differences between the classification levels

and employ a variety of Natural Language Processing models and …

Ladylike In The Extreme: The Propogandism Of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Britain's "African Princess", Megan Orr

Student Works

While visiting an African kingdom in 1851, British naval captain Frederick Forbes rescued a five year-old girl from a sacrificial ritual, brought her to England, and presented the girl to Queen Victoria. Her Majesty was taken with the girl and made her a ward of the Crown. Christened Sarah Forbes Bonetta, she was raised in the public eye and bestowed the endearing moniker of “Britain’s African Princess”. A seemingly heartwarming tale, Bonetta’s life played out as an experiment that became Victorian Britain’s ultimate propaganda. Her African history, distinct features, and intelligence were ubiquitously highlighted. This living testament to the “civilizing” …

Exploring The Louisiana Purchase And Its Borderlands: The Lewis And Clark, Hunter And Dunbar, Zebulon Pike, And Freeman And Custis Expeditions In Perspective [Part 2], Jay H. Buckley

Faculty Publications

Simply conducting expeditions was not enough to define the boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase. To be useful, the knowledge of Louisiana that Jefferson’s and Wilkinson’s soldiers and scientists gained from observation and inquiry needed to be interpreted and published. Jefferson’s “Message from the President” delivered to Congress on February 19, 1806, made some of their findings available to the public for the first time. His report informed the world that the Lewis and Clark and Hunter-Dunbar expeditions had collected a wealth of scientific information. It contained Lewis and Clark’s interim report written during the winter of 1804-1805, information documenting Hunter …

Open Access And Academic Freedom: Teasing Out Some Important Nuances, Rick Anderson

Faculty Publications

Discussion of the ways in which Open Access (OA) and academic freedom interact is fraught for a number of reasons, not least of which is the unwillingness of some participants in the discussion to acknowledge that OA might have any implications for academic freedom at all. Thus, any treatment of such implications must begin with foundational questions. Most basic among them are: first, what do we mean when we say ‘open access’; second, what do we mean when we say ‘academic freedom’? The answers to these questions are not as obvious as one might expect (or hope), but when they …

Lack Of Female Representation In Peace Processes In The Mena Region, Mckenna Swindle

Ballard Brief

Peace negotiations are used throughout the world to resolve interstate conflict and have been heralded as the most effective way to address armed conflict between countries. However, in the MENA region, women have sparsely been included in most peace processes. The cultural attitudes toward women in the region and their minor representation in both the political and workplace spheres hinder their involvement in these processes. Without women's inclusion. it is likely that the process of negotiation will be stalled, the agreements will be less effectively implemented, and the provisions will be less inclusive of women and other minority groups. Local …

Indigenous Adult Illiteracy In The Andean Region Of South America, Alexa Ballard

Ballard Brief

Indigenous adult illiteracy is often prevalent in poorer, less economically stable regions, such as the Andean Region of South America, specifically Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. The issue stems from several factors, such as language discrepancies, high dropout rates, and lack of access to quality education. Consequently, illiterate indigenous adults are more likely to suffer from poor health and low-quality employment. Women are more likely to suffer domestic violence and discrimination, and in general, illiteracy for both men and women contributes to decreased civic engagement and economic stability. Several programs currently exist to help illiterate individuals in the Andean Region, such …

Danish Cedar Falls, Carrie Eilderts

The Bridge

In 1855, Frederick Petersen’s family became the first Danish immigrants on record to settle in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The Petersens came from the Schleswig area on the Danish/German border, and in 1860, Christian Petersen came to Cedar Falls, also from Schleswig. More Danish families moved to Cedar Falls from Pine River, Wisconsin in 1866, and the next year Danes began arriving directly from their homeland after enduring a long journey by ship and train. By the early 1870s, Danes were settling in Cedar Falls in large numbers. By 1871, three hundred Danes called the city home, making up about ten …

Watch Your Language: How A School District's Failure To Provide Meaningful Communication Has Impacted Students During The Pandemic, Amy Leipziger

BYU Education & Law Journal

This article examines some of the obstacles that LEP parents have experienced with the NYCDOE during the pandemic, the impact these obstacles have had on their children’s education, and whether the NYCDOE’s refusal to provide language access amounts to a denial of a sound basic education under state constitutional law.12 I chose to focus primarily on New York City because it boasts the nation’s largest school system, with nearly 1.1 million students, and is comprised of 1,876 schools.13 A large share of these students have significant language needs. In New York state, forty-six percent of children in low-income families have …

Indiana's Uniform School System, The Right To Literacy, And Remote Learning In A Pandemic, Jesse Smith

BYU Education & Law Journal

The COVID pandemic has undoubtedly exposed new challenges in education. However, the reality is that it has also exposed pre-existing, underlying systemic problems, and exacerbated them to the point that the only responsible thing to do would be to deal with them in earnest. For curricular fees, specifically, permitting schools to charge fees for technology and require their use to access the classroom is running counter to the statutory permissive scheme Indiana has in place, likely past the point of being constitutional. Indiana has shown a willingness in the past to demonstrate that, at least for education, there really is …

Invasion Of School Children's Privacy: Teachers Need To Be Put In Timeout, John D. Janicek, Joseph H. Hanks

BYU Education & Law Journal

This article makes the argument that such social media posts constitute a serious invasion of a child’s privacy right, and that the responsibility for enforcement should fall on schools and school districts. However, since such enforcement is currently lacking, this article argues that potential remedies may exist within the framework of federal law. And if local education authorities continue to fail to address the problem, the article argues that a legislative approach might be called for, at the state, or even federal, level.

Student Privacy In The Digital Age, Susan G. Archambault

BYU Education & Law Journal

Students and teachers need to understand what rules govern their digital experience in terms of data being collected from the systems and software they use. Students have a tendency to share personal information online, and are largely unconcerned about third-party access to their data.30 Furthermore, they may feel pressured to waive privacy rights in order to participate in classroom activities requiring the use of educational technology tools.31 The recent COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated this problem. In fact, The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) and National Education Association (NEA) recently released new recommendations for the use of video conferencing platforms …

The Legal College Admissions Scandal: How The Wealthy Purchase College Admission To The Nation's Elite, Private Universities Through Donations, Gabrielle Wilson

BYU Education & Law Journal

This Article targets the issue of purchasing admissions to elite, private universities through legal, albeit manipulative donations. It will identify the harms purchasing admissions poses to the higher education system, as well as offer an analysis of some of the potential legal remedies to the issues. While the legal community tends to favor bright-line rules and perfect solutions, this Article does not aim to provide a magic potion that would act as a cure-all. Rather, this Article calls upon the legal community to recognize an issue afflicting higher education and to assert that a legal solution is not impossible. As …

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Review: Clyde A. Milner Ii And Brian Q. Cannon, Eds. Reconstruction And Mormon America. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 2019., Joshua Paddison

Mormon Studies Review

“Reconstruction seems to be getting bigger and bigger all the time,” observes Rachel St. John in her contribution to Reconstruction and Mormon America, a new collection of essays edited by Clyde A. Milner II and Brian Q. Cannon. Indeed, over the past two decades historians have steadily expanded the parameters of “Reconstruction,” both spatially and temporally. Traditionally used to describe the US government’s physical and political reconstruction of the former Confederacy during the years 1865 to 1877, scholars have now created a hemispheric vision of Reconstruction that stretches back in time to the US-Mexico War and forward in time to …

Global Mormonism In Political Context, Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp

Mormon Studies Review

In 1976 Ezra Taft Benson, a long-standing member of the Quorum of
the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
delivered a fireside address at Brigham Young University in Utah. Benson,
born in Whitney, Idaho, and raised as a farmer in the heart of
Mormon country, represented the conservative wing of his religious
community. He had also spent much of his life working for the LDS
Church and traveling throughout the world, so he had a keen understanding
of the challenges of spreading his religious message in international
contexts. His talk that evening was unequivocal: America …

Variety And Complexity In The Witnesses To The Book Of Mormon, Daniel C. Peterson

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

This paper examines the testimonies of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon— not only the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses, but many others who experienced and testified of the reality of the Book of Mormon plates. Together, these testimonies offer impressive support for the claims of Joseph Smith regarding the Book of Mormon and, thus, the Restoration. The variety and complexity of their collective testimony makes finding a single, alternative, non-divine explanation for the witness experiences challenging, indeed.

That Which You Have Translated, Which You Have Retained, Clifford P. Jones

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

I propose that our current Words of Mormon in the Book of Mormon was originally a second chapter of the book of Mosiah following an initial chapter that was part of the lost 116 pages. When Joseph Smith gave the first 116 pages to Martin Harris, he may have retained a segment of the original manuscript that contained our Words of Mormon, consistent with the Lord’s reference “that which you have translated, which you have retained” (D&C 10:41). A comprehensive review of contextual information indicates that the chapter we call Words of Mormon may actually be the first part of …

The Word Of The Lord As A Metonym For Christ, Loren Spendlove

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

The word of the Lord and the word of God are common expressions in the Bible. Frequently, these phrases refer to the written or spoken covenantal words of God to his people as given through the prophets. However, exegetical study of these expressions has revealed that they also serve as metonyms, or substitutions for the name of God himself. In this paper I explore these metonymous usages of the Word of the Lord and the Word of God as stand-ins for Christ in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon.

The Book Of Mormon’S Complex Finite Cause Syntax, Stanford Carmack

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

This paper describes and compares the Book of Mormon’s 12 instances of complex finite cause syntax, the structure exemplified by the language of Ether 9:33: “the Lord did cause the serpents that they should pursue them no more.” This is not King James language or currently known to be pseudo-archaic language (language used by modern authors seeking to imitate biblical or related archaic language), but it does occur in earlier English, almost entirely before the year 1700. In the Book of Mormon, the syntax is always expressed with the modal auxiliary verbs should and shall. Twenty-five original examples of this …

Full Issue

Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Mormons And Politics In New Zealand, Peter Lineham

Mormon Studies Review

In the contemporary world, the long tail of colonialism has left deep discomfort within the Protestant missionary movement. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints often reflects the position of traditional Protestants, for in so many ways the Utah-based church sought to impose its very White and colonial values on its non-White and non-American converts. It did not easily evade the charge of aiding and abetting American political goals in foreign places. But if this was the intent of the Latter-day Saint missionary movement, it could be subverted by the peculiarity of particular contexts. New Zealand was such a …

Provincializing Secularism: On Protohomonationalism And Its Counterpossibilities, Tisa Wenger

Mormon Studies Review

This is a book you will want to sit with, think with, mull over, and then read over again. It was not until my second reading that I saw the double entendre of the title—Make Yourselves Gods—and how well it captures the layers of Coviello’s analysis. The phrase is first of all a quote from Joseph Smith, and it signals the expansive ambitions for divinization that early Mormons embraced with a prophetic fervor that culminated in the practice of polygamy. Despite the patriarchal order that came to define polygamy, Coviello argues, early Mormon women too reached for the embodied ecstasies—prophecy, …

Review: Etga Ugur. Faith And Politics In The Public Sphere: The Gülen Movement And The Mormon Church. Syracuse, Ny: Syracuse University Press, 2019., Jean-François Mayer

Mormon Studies Review

When I accepted the invitation to review this book, published in a valuable series on Religion and Politics of which I had enjoyed reading several volumes, I assumed that it was a study of interactions between the Gülen movement (also known as Hizmet [service], emphasizing the social service projects for which the movement is well known) and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—something that I found intriguing, since I could not conceive how such a topic might deserve a full volume. I realized my mistake as soon as I started to read it. No sensational revelations about hidden …

Review: Candy Moulton. The Mormon Handcart Migration: “Tounge Nor Pen Can Never Tell The Sorrow.” Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 2019., Megan Ann Stanton

Mormon Studies Review

After surviving the overland trail as a member of the Martin Handcart Company, Heber McBride asserted, “tounge nor pen can never tell the sorrow and suffering” (81). At the age of thirteen, he and his adolescent sister Janetta had tended to their ailing parents and younger siblings while moving the family’s handcart themselves. They buried their father during their journey and, together with other members of the ill-fated Martin and Willie Handcart Companies, they faced life-threatening weather and starvation. Indeed, at least one-seventh of the Willie and one-fifth of the Martin handcart migrants perished during their 1856 treks.