Letter, William Cullen Bryant to O. A. Nesmith, September 3, 1868

This letter, dated September 3, 1868, is written from William Cullen Bryant, an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post, to his lawyer, O. A. Nesmith. This note was found tipped into volume three, between pages 258-259 of Abraham Lincoln : A History by John G. Nicolay and John Hay.https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/fvw-manuscripts-nicolay-and-hay-documents/1021/thumbnail.jp

The Valley of the Genesee: from Picturesque America, or the land we live in

The Valley of the Genesee is a short essay, part of the two-volume set entitled Picturesque America, edited by the famous poet William Cullen Bryant and including engravings by famous nineteenth-century landscape painters such as John Frederick Kensett, James McDougal Hart and William Hamilton Gibson. The Valley of the Genesee features illustrations by John Douglas Woodward, one of several artists commissioned for his work on the Picturesque America series. “There is said to be a mountain-peak in Potter County, Pennsylvania, standing upon which the observer may mark the fountain-head of two rivers. Though flowing through adjacent gorges, their courses are soon divided, the one tending southward, while the other marks out a winding way to the harbor at Charlotte, there losing itself in the waters of Lake Ontario.” So begins the essay on The Valley of the Genesee, a short description and guide to the river, landscape and history of the Genesee River Valley. The river, originating from northern Pennsylvania and flowing northward into Lake Ontario at Rochester, New York, is described as not particularly beautiful, until it is, “…the falls at Portage are reached that the river asserts its claim to recognition as one of the most beautiful and picturesque of all our Eastern streams. This recognition of the beauty of Genesee River waterfalls (located in both Livingston and Monroe Counties) is also the recognition of the power which the Genesee River generates, the essay concisely describing the historical significance of Rochester’s use of the Genesee River for harnessing hydro-power to run the many mills and factories located along the banks of the Genesee River at the Upper Falls, giving rise to Rochester’s nickname of “Flour City. The essay also traces the physical route of the Genesee River from its source, to the falls south of Mount Morris, through the gorges of what is now Letchworth State Park, and northward to the mouth at Rochester, emptying into one of the Great Lakes, Lake Ontario. The essay also details the history of the region, including the history of the Seneca and Iroquois, the mills of Rochester and the settling of the towns along the way. (summary written by Katherine Pitcher)https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/historical-reprints/1007/thumbnail.jp

Cultivating Forgiveness and Compassion Through a Mindfulness-based Program for Teachers: Results from Two Field Interventions

The aim of this research was to determine if a mindfulness-training (MT) program for teachers cultivated habits of mind (e.g., mindfulness, emotion regulation, compassion and forgiveness) conducive to effective teaching. Data were gathered in two randomized control trials. Results from pre- to post-test and follow-up showed that MT was associated with increases in mindfulness, efficacy for regulating emotion on the job, and the tendency to forgive others. Linguistic analyses revealed that teachers who underwent MT expressed more positive affect when discussing their most challenging student than those in the waitlist control group. Results warrant further investigation using behavioral-, observational-, and third-person measures of these habits of mind in the target individual

Cultivating Forgiveness and Compassion Through a Mindfulness-based Program for Teachers: Results from Two Field Interventions

The aim of this research was to determine if a mindfulness-training (MT) program for teachers cultivated habits of mind (e.g., mindfulness, emotion regulation, compassion and forgiveness) conducive to effective teaching. Data were gathered in two randomized control trials. Results from pre- to post-test and follow-up showed that MT was associated with increases in mindfulness, efficacy for regulating emotion on the job, and the tendency to forgive others. Linguistic analyses revealed that teachers who underwent MT expressed more positive affect when discussing their most challenging student than those in the waitlist control group. Results warrant further investigation using behavioral-, observational-, and third-person measures of these habits of mind in the target individual

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects

Picturesque America or The land we live in : a delineation by pen and pencil of the mountains, rivers, lakes ... and other picturesque features of our country

Copia digital. Madrid : Ministerio de Cultura. Subdirección General de Coordinación Bibliotecaria, 201