Colonial Legacy and National Identity:

The island of Taiwan occupies an unusual political position in the world today. Taiwan is viewed primarily in relation to its complicated relationship with the People’s Republic of China. While Taiwan considers itself distinct from the Chinese mainland, with its own constitution and democratically elected leaders, China’s government claims the island is an inalienable part of China and has been for centuries. Taiwan’s history, however, is more complicated and diverse than China allows. Unbeknownst to many, Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945, and it was an era of highly significant change for Taiwan. The Japanese occupation was often difficult and oppressive, but it ultimately led to transformative economic growth and the emergence of a unique Taiwanese identity, setting the stage for Taiwan and Japan’s largely positive current relationship

A Politics of Its Own : Reading Adelaide Procter\u27s Poetry in the Context of the English Woman\u27s Journal

Victorian poet Adelaide Anne Procter, a devout Catholic and a nineteenth-century feminist and social activist, was hugely popular in her lifetime for her devotional and sentimental poetry. However, scholars who have looked closely at her work have recognized that her poetry contains moments of tension that suggest they may be more than they appear on the surface. Such tensions and ironies are often glossed over or misread by readers whose expectations of Christian devotional messaging and domestic sentiment overshadow the contradictions. In this paper, I propose that one of the most effective ways to more fully understand the nuance and complexity of Procter\u27s poetry is to put that poetry back into its original context and read it alongside the periodical articles it was published with. I consider one pair of Procter\u27s poems, Maximus and Optimus, in the context of the specific issues of the English Woman\u27s Journal in which they were published. Though many still view Procter as a purely devotional poet, reading her poetry in its periodical context shows that it interacts with feminist and social activist causes in complex ways. I argue that by inverting gendered hierarchies and rethinking feminine characteristics, Maximus and Optimus subvert some of the unintentionally anti-feminist sentiments expressed in the journal, changing the reader\u27s interpretation of these points of tension by introducing ambiguities that require careful reading to parse.The interaction between Procter\u27s poetry and the EWJ\u27s prose is emblematic of the Victorian feminist movement as a whole. The same tensions, exchanges, and compromises that defined nineteenth-century English feminism can be seen playing out in the interchange of ideas between poetry and prose in the EWJ. Exploring the interactions between Procter\u27s poetry and the prose that surrounds it emphasizes her poetry\u27s refusal to be just one thing. Religious and secular, conventional and surprising, Procter\u27s poetry has a complicated politics that cannot be understood without attending to the print that lived alongside it

Composing in Relation: Rethinking Multimodal Feedback as Rhetorical Design

This qualitative study investigates how writing instructors compose feedback in multimodal digital environments, focusing on the rhetorical and relational dimensions of their design choices. Drawing on social semiotics and multimodal composition theory, the study analyzes feedback artifacts, instructor interviews, and student surveys from six first-year writing courses. Findings reveal that instructors engage in complex feedback design work across communication modes, often without formal training or shared frameworks. Instructors tended to default to text-based habits shaped by genre memory but adapted their strategies in response to communicative breakdowns and student needs. The study identifies three core themes: reliance on print-era conventions, rhetorical problem-solving through modal layering, and ambiguity in feedback interpretation. Despite these challenges, instructors demonstrated creativity and care in their attempts to communicate clearly and relationally. The article calls for a rhetorical framework to support multimodal feedback design, emphasizing the need for pedagogical reflection, professional development, and student co-interpretation. As genAI and platform automation continue to evolve, the findings underscore the importance of feedback as a site of human judgment and presence. The article concludes with recommendations for instructors, writing programs, and institutions to better support feedback as intentional, relational work

Path Planning and Control for Vertical Takeoff and Landing Aircraft

One of the challenging problems of unmanned aerial vehicles (uav) is controlling vertical takeoff and landing (vtol) aircraft. Vtol aircraft can take off and land without landing strips while retain the efficiency of fixed-wing airplanes for long range flight. Unfortunately, the transition from takeoff and forward flight, and from forward flight to landing, is an extremely difficult control problem. Most current controllers for transition switch between flight regimes based solely on airspeed. The trajectory for such switching transitions is a straight vertical ascension followed by a straight forward startup flight; it does not allow for the development of more complex trajectories. In this thesis, a generalized trajectory tracking controller is developed for a 2d quadplane dynamic model. This controller runs continuously between hover and forward flight, but switches from using an optimization algorithm. Using this controller, the quadplane can follow a degree 3 b-spline trajectory during hover, transition, and fixed-wing flight modes. In addition to the controller, several related areas are also explored and developed. An aerodynamic coefficient estimator was developed for a fixed-wing vehicle. This estimator may help estimate the aerodynamic model of the quadplane vtol, which will assist future hardware implementation. A b-spline library was developed for efficiently generating trajectories for all uavs. This library stores sampled basis functions in lookup tables to maximize generation efficiency. A variation of the rapidly exploring random trees (rrt) algorithm was developed for planning a path through obstacle-laden environments. This variation finds a series of obstacle-free regions known as safe flight corridors (sfcs) and optimizes a b-spline path through those regions. Finally, a quadplane is simulated to follow a trajectory generated by modified rrt algorithm, using the controller developed in the first section

Interactive Effects of Salinity and Glyphosate on Wetland Soil Microbial Communities

Wetland soil microbes play an important role in maintaining ecosystem health by cycling nutrients, breaking down organic matter, and maintaining water quality. Herbicide exposure has been shown to alter the genetic composition and functional potential of soil microbial communities, including shifts in microbial nutrient cycling processes [1]. Two of the most prominent environmental stressors in Utah’s wetlands are excessive salinity and herbicide exposure. Increased salinity can change how herbicides move and persist in water, which may influence their ecological effects [2]. While each stressor has been studied independently, little is known about their combined effects on soil microbial community structure and function. Understanding these interactions is essential for predicting wetland ecosystem responses to environmental change and management practices.https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/library_studentposters_2026/1027/thumbnail.jp

Observations of Lewis\u27s Woodpeckers (\u3cem\u3eMelanerpes lewis\u3c/em\u3e) foraging on stream-dwelling benthic invertebrates

Lewis’s Woodpeckers (Melanerpes lewis) are opportunistic foragers well known for their propensity to capture insects in flight. Here, I describe observations of a group of woodpeckers actively foraging on aquatic invertebrates along a cobble bar on the upper Rogue River, Oregon. Standing on exposed cobbles and probing the shallow water flowing among the cobbles, the birds were observed capturing and consuming invertebrate prey. There was an abundant and diverse assemblage of invertebrates inhabiting this shallow water habitat, and snails and large stonefly nymphs were identified as among the taxa being consumed.Los pájaros carpinteros de Lewis (Melanerpes lewis) actúan como forrajeadores oportunistas conocidos por su propensión a capturar insectos en vuelo. Aquí describo observaciones de un grupo de carpinteros que forrajeaba activamente sobre invertebrados acuáticos a lo largo de una barra de cantos rodados en el tramo superior del río Rogue, Oregón. Las aves se posaban sobre los cantos expuestos y exploraban el agua somera que fluía entre ellos; durante este comportamiento capturaban y consumían presas invertebradas. En este hábitat de aguas poco profundas habitaba un conjunto abundante y diverso de invertebrados, y entre los taxones consumidos identifiqué caracoles y ninfas grandes de plecópteros

Join us This Fall

Join former Washington Post chief classical music critic Anne Midgette and Composer, Music Critic and Professor Greg Sandow for a lively conversation about the myth of “park and bark.” In the 21st century, audiences have been led to believe that we’ve seen a renaissance of acting in opera, and that singers of the past tended to stand still on stage and simply power out their music: the so-called “park and bark.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Midgette and Sandow offer a look at the true history of “singing actors,” acting singers, and how opera singers have long moved people with their acting through their bodies as well as their voices

JBS Board Meeting in Washington DC Leads to New Marketing Project

Board members of JBS-USA, plus special guest Maija Budow, enjoyed a weekend in Washington, D.C., March 9-12, 2024, mixing Society business with musical and culinary pleasure. On arriving, we joined the Saturday evening revelers to enjoy a feast at Il Piatto, a stylish Italian restaurant near our Club Quarters Hotel. Following the Sunday board meeting, we had a late, delightful brunch at the historic Tabard Inn, operating as an inn and restaurant since 1922 in historic Dupont Circle, and offering sumptuous French and Southern cuisine