Science’s Harmful Power

The focus of this thesis is to address and acknowledge issues identifying how applied science’s progressive impact can harm people in any society. The advancement of scientific technology can cause detrimental results to the general public. A few examples are dropping of the atomic bomb; prescription medications dispensed to patients before adequate testing studies have been completed; and scientific fraud. The scientific community promotes the scientist based on their research without thoroughly testing the theory or discovery. The scientist will go to extreme lengths to achieve specific results can cause damaging effects on society. Scientists can falsely influence society and gain the public’s trust. The underlying reason behind these issues may emanate from the scientist’s lack of human values when implementing a theory. Does “science” contribute and demonstrate to Western society only as a positive outcome? Do scientists’ discoveries only generate positive results when they are utilizing the effects on the general public? The purpose of this study is to acknowledge society’s perpetual faith in science and scientist’s theory. This thesis will not uncover the truth, because each individual views the “truth” differently. Rather will concentrate on how Western society views the truth and their trust in the scientist, physicians, and scientific community

Forested Wetlands of the Southern United States: A Bibliography

The term forested wetland covers a variety of forest types including mangroves, cypress/tupelo swamps, bottomland hardwoods, pocosins and Carolina bays, flatwoods, and mountain fens. These forests are dominated by woody species that have morphological features, physiological adaptations, and/or reproductive strategies enabling them to achieve maturity and reproduce in an environment where the soils within the rooting zone may be inundated or saturated for various periods during the growing season. Although alluvial floodplains occur along most streams of the United States, they are most extensive in the Atlantic Coastal Plain, Gulf Coastal Plain, and Mississippi Alluvial Plain. Only about half of the original floodplain forests remained by the 1930s, and conversion to agriculture continued at an accelerated pace during the 1960s and 1970s.The purpose of this bibliography is to provide a detailed listing of references for students and researchers of the varied studies conducted in these forest types

Modeling and analyzing the agroecological performance of farms with ECOPATH

Intensive and integrated resource management, where field crops, vegetables, trees, livestock and fish production are combined through efficient reuse of wastes, residues, by-products and external inputs, offers a potential avenue towards a productive and ecologically balanced agriculture. The ECOPATH model software provides important insights into the structure and function of global aquatic ecosystems. The application of the same concept and approach to terrestrial-based culture systems exemplifies a tool which has the potential to improve communication and productivity within research while addressing the issue of sustainable natural resources management.Farming systems, Agricultural ecology, Resource management, Mathemathical models, Monitoring, Modelling

Rock art regionalism and identity: case studies from Trans-Pecos Texas and Mpumalanga Province, South Africa

This work addresses two key issues in current rock art research, the first theoretical, the second exemplary. Researchers often write of rock art regions without according the concept sufficient theoretical consideration. I argue that rock art regions are more usefully defined by the presence and absence of ethnographically informed motifs than by aesthetics. I support my argument by reference to two understudied rock art regions: the Texas Trans-Pecos, USA, and Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. The parallels between the two regions are enlightening: both are cultural ‘crossroads’ with complex histories of migrations, group interactions, and colonial settlements. Both provide archaeological evidence of hunter-gatherer, herder, and farming peoples. Moreover, both regions are adjacent to other, better-known rock art corpuses that have been explicated using ethnographic analogy and other anthropological approaches. Using these heuristic tools, I explain some of the motivations and meanings behind the production and consumption of rock art in the Trans-Pecos and Mpumalanga. I argue that the most effective method for understanding the significance of the motifs – many of which are also found in the neighbouring regions – is to focus on ritualism, embodiment, and shamanistic belief in supernatural potency and a tiered cosmos. In Mpumalanga, I concentrate on images in 49 hunter-gatherer San (Bushman) rock art sites in and around Kruger National Park. In Texas, I investigate interactions between indigenous hunter-gatherer groups and colonizers from Europe, from Mesoamerica, and from the Plains to the north; I focus on 44 rock art sites as manifestations of indigenous ideologies. Because rock art sites are implicated in cultural identity formation, I argue that lack of theoretically informed presentation perpetuates misleading stereotypes of rock art and the indigenous people who made it. I conclude by demonstrating that presentation of rock art can and does change people’s attitudes towards the past

Nitrogen mass balance for spray fields fertilized with liquid swine waste

The swine industry has expanded rapidly in North Carolina over the last two decades. Animals are raised in confined facilities where waste is flushed into open-air lagoons and the liquid phase is land-applied to receiving fields as an organic fertilizer. The post-application fate has not been fully documented. Therefore, on three occasions I experimentally applied liquid swine waste at typical doses (40 to 130 kg N ha-2) to defined plots in an active spray field on a representative North Carolina swine production facility and constructed an N mass balance for a 14 to 18 d period. Most of the N (52%) was assimilated into plants, while surprisingly little (9%) was volatilized. Microbial immobilization accounted for 10% of the applied N, while 12% migrated below the active soil zone (surface 20 cm) and was presumably lost to groundwater. The soil storage term averaged 16%, while the denitrification sink was inconsequential (<1%)

Artisans in the North Carolina Backcountry

During the quarter of a century before the thirteen colonies became a nation, the northwest quadrant of North Carolina had just begun to attract permanent settlers. This seemingly primitive area may not appear to be a likely source for attractive pottery and ornate silverware and furniture, much less for an audience to appreciate these refinements. Yet such crafts were not confined to urban centers, and artisans, like other colonists, were striving to create better lives for themselves as well as to practice their trades. As Johanna Miller Lewis shows in this pivotal study of colonial history and material culture, the growing population of Rowan County required not only blacksmiths, saddlers, and tanners but also a great variety of skilled craftsmen to help raise the standard of living. Rowan County\u27s rapid expansion was in part the result of the planned settlements of the Moravian Church. Because the Moravians maintained careful records, historians have previously credited church artisans with greater skill and more economic awareness than non-church craftsmen. Through meticulous attention to court and private records, deeds, wills, and other sources, Lewis reveals the Moravian failure to keep up with the pace of development occurring elsewhere in the county. Challenging the traditional belief that southern backcountry life was primitive, Lewis shows that many artisans held public office and wielded power in the public sphere. She also examines women weavers and spinsters as an integral part of the population. All artisans—Moravian and non-Moravian, male and female—helped the local market economy expand to include coastal and trans-Atlantic trade. Lewis\u27s book contributes meaningfully to the debate over self-sufficiency and capitalism in rural America. Johanna Miller Lewis is assistant professor of history and assistant coordinator of the public history program at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Miller\u27s book provides fresh insight into the workings of consumer culture and the market economy in a region of colonial America we are beginning to understand better. —Arkansas Historical Quarterly A shrewd and insightful book that overturns previous misconceptions about the absence of artisans in the backcountry, settlers \u27self-sufficiency,\u27 and the growth of capitalism in agrarian America. —Jeffrey J. Crow Breaks new ground on several scores. —Journal of American History Lewis has broadened our perception of backcountry life by providing a great deal of useful information on a previously neglected topic. —Journal of Appalachian Studies Weds several themes in the historiography of colonial America by examining artisans on the colonial North Carolina frontier and by infusing these men and women into the emerging frontier market to investigate self-sufficiency and capitalism in rural America. —Labor Historyhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/1128/thumbnail.jp

The Power of Ethnicity: the Preservation of Scots -Irish Culture in the Eighteenth-Century American Backcountry.

The character of the Scots-Irish has been shrouded in myth almost from the moment the first Ulster immigrants disembarked at Philadelphia in the 1710s. Contemporaries condemned the Scots-Irish as lazy, illiterate, uncouth, and violent. Later hagiographers, however, praised them as ruggedly individualistic, liberty-loving people who brought civilization to the American wilderness. Recent historians have done little to advance this debate. While re-stating these simplistic stereotypes, modern scholars have failed to ground their arguments in extensive analyses of primary sources. While numerous monographs studying other ethnic and cultural groups in colonial America have appeared over the last thirty years, none as been published on the Scots-Irish. My dissertation fills this gap in the historiography of colonial America. By comparing the cultural maturation of Scots-Irish communities in the Pennsylvania and North Carolina backcountries from 1715 to 1775, this study describes the growth and preservation of a unique Scots-Irish ethnic identity. Following the methods of ethnohistorians, it examines Scots-Irish economic, social, religious, and political values, attitudes, and behavior as a means of examining the continued strength of the group\u27s unique self-image. The Scots-Irish in the eighteenth-century American backcountry illustrate the continuing power of ethnicity better than any other group of people. Although the novel conditions of the American frontier partially undermined Scots-Irish ethnic uniformity and distinctiveness, the settlers struggled to re-create as much of the identity and culture that they had known in northern Ireland as possible. In both colonies, Ulster immigrants preserved their unique institutions, traditions, and beliefs; observed strict ethnic exclusivity in their economic, social, and religious lives; and clashed with other ethnic groups in politics and social affairs. On the eve of the Revolution, ethnicity continued to determine many of the Scots-Irish immigrants\u27 actions in western Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Their sense of themselves as a distinct people within the diverse eighteenth-century American backcountry remained very powerful. They still identified themselves as Scots-Irishmen or Irishmen more than Britons, Americans, Pennsylvanians, or North Carolinians

Detecting the Presence of Total Coliforms and E. coli in Private Well-Water in South Western Pennsylvania

Rural private well-water quality and quantity is a global concern. It is currently a significant concern in Pennsylvania because there are no uniform statewide regulations for well construction. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of E. coli and coliforms in private well-water from a small community in Butler County, Pennsylvania. E. coli and coliforms were detected in water samples using EPA standard methods 9222 G. and 9222 B. Well construction, topography and distance from pollution sources (e.g. septic systems), chemical parameters, soil type, and time of year were factors considered in regard to fecal contamination. E. coli and coliform prevalence was 3.7% and 6.8%, respectively, for the 29 wells tested. Combinations of factors are believed to be responsible for fecal contamination of well water in this study. Overall, certain well construction criteria should be met in order to minimize risk to water quality