Method and Meaning: Selections from the Gettysburg College Collection

What is art historical study and how it should be carried out are fundamental questions the exhibition Method and Meaning: Selections from the Gettysburg College Collection intends to answer. This student-curated exhibition is an exciting academic endeavor of seven students of art history majors and minors in the Art History Methods course. The seven student curators are Shannon Callahan, Ashlie Cantele, Maura D’Amico, Xiyang Duan, Devin Garnick, Allison Gross and Emily Zbehlik. As part of the class assignment, this exhibition allows the students to explore various art history methods on individual case studies. The selection of the works in the exhibition reflects a wide array of student research interests including an example of 18th century Chinese jade chime stone, jade and bronze replicas of ancient Chinese bronze vessels, a piece of early 20th century Chinese porcelain, oil paintings by Pennsylvania Impressionist painter Fern Coppedge, prints by Salvador Dalí and by German artist Käthe Kollwitz, and an early 20th century wood block print by Japanese artist Kawase Hasui. [excerpt]https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/artcatalogs/1014/thumbnail.jp

The changing religious composition of Nigeria: causes and implications of demographic divergence

At nearly 170 million inhabitants, Nigeria is Africa's most populous country by twofold and fertility levels remain higher than most other sub-Saharan African nations. Throughout the last several decades, the fertility gap between Christians and Muslims has widened with significant political implications for a nascent democracy. Where the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) survey of 1990 revealed a non-significant difference of 0·3 children, this figure had increased to 2·3 children by 2013. As the total fertility rate (TFR) of Christians decreased significantly from 6·1 to 4·5 children per woman between 1990 and 2013, the TFR of Muslims increased from 6·4 to 6·8 children per woman. The timing of this divergence coincides with the formal institutionalization of Sharia law in 1999. We examine the role of religion on education, contraception and family behaviour. Finally, we touch upon the implications for population growth and the religious composition of Nigeria in the coming decades

Ground state study of simple atoms within a nano-scale box

Ground state energies for confined hydrogen (H) and helium (He) atoms, inside a penetrable/impenetrable compartment have been calculated using Diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) method. Specifically, we have investigated spherical and ellipsoidal encompassing compartments of a few nanometer size. The potential is held fixed at a constant value on the surface of the compartment and beyond. The dependence of ground state energy on the geometrical characteristics of the compartment as well as the potential value on its surface has been thoroughly explored. In addition, we have investigated the cases where the nucleus location is off the geometrical centre of the compartment.Comment: 9 pages, 5 eps figures, Revte

Symbolic-Numeric Algorithms for Computer Analysis of Spheroidal Quantum Dot Models

A computation scheme for solving elliptic boundary value problems with axially symmetric confining potentials using different sets of one-parameter basis functions is presented. The efficiency of the proposed symbolic-numerical algorithms implemented in Maple is shown by examples of spheroidal quantum dot models, for which energy spectra and eigenfunctions versus the spheroid aspect ratio were calculated within the conventional effective mass approximation. Critical values of the aspect ratio, at which the discrete spectrum of models with finite-wall potentials is transformed into a continuous one in strong dimensional quantization regime, were revealed using the exact and adiabatic classifications.Comment: 6 figures, Submitted to Proc. of The 12th International Workshop on Computer Algebra in Scientific Computing (CASC 2010) Tsakhkadzor, Armenia, September 5 - 12, 201

Climate change impacts and mitigation in the developing world: An Integrated Assessment of the Agriculture and Forestry Sectors. Policy Research Working Paper No. WPS 7477

This paper conducts an integrated assessment of climate change impacts and climate mitigation on agricultural commodity markets and food availability in low- and middle-income countries. The analysis uses the partial equilibrium model GLOBIOM to generate scenarios to 2080. The findings show that climate change effects on the agricultural sector will increase progressively over the century. By 2030, the impact of climate change on food consumption is moderate but already twice as large in a world with high inequalities than in a more equal world. In the long run, impacts could be much stronger, with global average calorie losses of 6 percent by 2050 and 14 percent by 2080. A mitigation policy to stabilize climate below 2 degrees C uniformly applied to all regions as a carbon tax would also result in a 6 percent reduction in food availability by 2050 and 12 percent reduction by 2080 compared to the reference scenario. To avoid more severe impacts of climate change mitigation on development than climate change itself, revenue from carbon pricing policies will need to be redistributed appropriately. Overall, the projected effects of climate change and mitigation on agricultural markets raise important issues for food security in the long run, but remain more limited in the medium term horizon of 2030. Thus, there are opportunities for low- and middle- income countries to pursue immediate development needs and thus prepare for later periods when adaptation needs and mitigation efforts will become the greatest

Electronic and structural reconstructions of the polar (111) SrTiO3 surface

Polar surfaces are known to be unstable due to the divergence of the surface electrostatic energy. Here we report on the experimental determination, by grazing incidence x-ray diffraction, of the surface structure of polar Ti-terminated (111) SrTiO3 single crystals. We find that the polar instability of the 1 x 1 surface is solved by a pure electronic reconstruction mechanism, which induces out-of-plane ionic displacements typical of the polar response of SrTiO3 layers to an electron confining potential. On the other hand, the surface instability can be also eliminated by a structural reconstruction driven by a change in the surface stoichiometry, which induces a variety of 3 x 3 (111) SrTiO3 surfaces consisting in an incomplete Ti (surface)-O-2 (subsurface) layer covering the 1 x 1 Ti-terminated (111) SrTiO3 truncated crystal. In both cases, the TiO6 octahedra are characterized by trigonal distortions affecting the structural and the electronic symmetry of several unit cells from the surface. These findings show that the stabilization of the polar (111) SrTiO3 surface can lead to the formation of quasi two-dimensional electron systems characterized by radically different ground states which depend on the surface reconstructions