The English Sailor as Compared with the Landsman: Beliefs, Folklore & Religion, 1570-1625 and Beyond

My research aims to construct the world of a subculture in early modern England that has drifted through history without a sizable splash of real examination. What I found quickly turned into a sociological cross-examination between these two archetypes of the English villager and a man inside the maritime community. Questions arouse that brought about the age old debate of nature versus nurture. The English mariner held on to an exotic school of superstitions that were sometimes older than Christianity. Through the many journals and historical writings I read, one thing eventually became clear: the English sailor was defined by his experiences at sea and what happened on shore was only secondary. The maritime community holds on to its defining characteristics throughout much of history, but makes subtle accommodations reflecting the context of the year’s collective conscience. This study is the only work that takes an equal look at a sailor’s Protestant faith during Reformation, as well as the folklore, mythology and superstitions that were not mutually exclusive to him

The Influence of Activated Short-term Mating Goals on Men’s and Women’s Domain-specific Mating Self-efficacy

Men and women are motivated to identify and procure mating opportunities that would best facilitate the survival and long-term reproductive success of their offspring. In the current study, we hypothesized that when primed with mating interest, men and women would report greater self-efficacy in behavioral domains that would be attractive to the opposite sex. Men and women were randomly assigned to a mating or control prime condition, then completed a self-efficacy scale tapping into behaviors related to physical attractiveness enhancement, dominance, and status; participants also completed a scale assessing their level of intrasexual competitiveness. It was predicted that men primed with mating would report greater self-efficacy in the domains of dominance and status compared to men in the control condition. Women, on the other hand, were expected to report greater self-efficacy in the domain of physical attractiveness enhancement compared to women in the control prime condition. The effects of the mating prime on self-efficacy enhancement were expected to be especially pronounced for those higher in dispositional intrasexual competitiveness. This study found partial support for study hypotheses. Women primed with mating reported greater attractiveness self-efficacy than those in the control prime condition. Additionally, men and women higher in intrasexual competitiveness reported higher mating self-efficacy in the domains of dominance and attractiveness. Surprisingly, women primed with mating reported elevated self-efficacy in the domain of status acquisition compared to women in the control prime condition. Men, regardless of condition, reported higher mating self-efficacy across domains relative to women

Rediscovering Antitrust\u27s Lost Values

This Article traces Congress’s consistent balancing and blending of social, political, moral, and economic values and objectives over the course of nearly 120 years of antitrust legislation. As a starting point, a plethora of outstanding and insightful scholarship analyzing Congress’s objectives in passing the Sherman, Clayton, and FTC Acts already exists. Less studied, however, has been Congress’s more recent legislation, including the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (HSR Act), and the National Cooperative Production Amendments of 1993 and 2004, to the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984 (NCRPA). By analyzing the legislative histories of such antitrust legislation in detail, the author seeks to show that Congress has never identified any single economic value such as consumer welfare or allocative efficiency, as the sole guiding lodestar for American antitrust. Rather, since 1890, Congress has successfully sought to blend and balance a complex set of social, political, moral, and economic ideals, values, and objectives in our antitrust laws. The author believes that it is time to deal with the real social, political, moral, and economic values conflicts in antitrust, instead of relying on neoconservative economic proxies that unilaterally declare the values debates to be scientifically and theoretically resolved. Based on nearly 120 years of legislative history, the author concludes that we need to return to an antitrust regulatory system that better reflects Congress’s dynamic historical balancing and blending of multiple fundamental American social, political, moral, and economic values. To do so, we must begin rediscovering antitrust’s lost values, and recommence our historic pursuit of an ethical, moral, and fair free-enterprise system truly devoted to the long-term economic and social welfare of all Americans

Localized Soil Management in Fertilizer Injection Zone to Reduce Nitrate Leaching

Nitrogen fertilization of row crops in humid regions can result in leaching of NO3, which represents an inefficient use of resources and may result in environmental degradation. A localized compaction and doming (LCD) fertilizer injector was developed to alter the physical properties of soil surrounding knife-injected N. Injection by LCD includes smearing macropores below the injection slot, formation of a localized compacted soil layer over the injected N, and formation of a surface dome to cover the compacted soil layer and the fertilizer band. The LCD injector was tested, along with a conventional knife injector (without a covering disk), to evaluate its effect on leaching by determining NO3 and Br tracer redistribution after NO3 fertilizer injection. Chemical distributions were determined by intensive soil sampling to 0.8 m below the soil surface. In a second experiment, corn (Zea mays L.) yield response to both N injectors was evaluated. Four fertilization rates (67, 112, 157, and 202 kg N ha−1 of UAN [urea-ammonium nitrate]) were used to define yield response. During seasons when rainfall was below average, neither NO3 redistribution nor crop yield showed a response to fertilizer injection technique. During a growing season with above-average rainfall, 26 kg ha−1 more NO3 and 25 kg ha−1 more Br remained in the top 0.8 m of soil when LCD.injected. LCD injection increased crop yield approximately 0.48 Mg ha−1 over injection by the conventional knife method during an above-average rainfall season, indicating that one-fifth of the conventional knife-applied N was lost prior to crop uptake during the wet year. These findings suggest that the LCD injector may be effective at reducing leaching losses during growing seasons when rainfall is abundant

Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of Soil-Surface Carbon Dioxide Emissions in Bioenergy Corn Rotations and Reconstructed Prairies

The interest in bioenergy crops has raised questions as to the potential of management strategies to preserve soil C pools and soil quality. Since soil-surface CO2 effluxes are a major fate of soil C, knowledge of CO2 efflux’s spatial and temporal trends among bioenergy crops will facilitate advances in research on improving terrestrial C-cycle models as well as decision support tools for policy and land-management. Our objective was to evaluate spatial and temporal dynamics of soil-surface CO2 effluxes in bioenergy-based corn (Zea mays L.) and reconstructed prairie systems. Systems evaluated included continuous corn (harvested for grain and 50% of the corn stover) with and without a cover crop, mixed prairies (harvested for aboveground biomass) with and without N fertilization, and corn–soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] rotations harvested for grain. Soil-surface CO2 effluxes, soil temperature, and soil water contents were monitored weekly from July 2008 to September 2011 and hourly during portions of 2010 and 2011. Annual soil-surface CO2 effluxes were greater in prairies than row crops and are attributed to greater plant root respiration. Soil-surface CO2 effluxes spatially varied among intra-crop management zones only for continuous corn with stover removal. However, the cover crop reduced CO2 efflux spatial variability 70% of the time as compared to stover removal without a cover crop. Spatial variability of effluxes was not explained by soil physical properties or conditions. Temperature-induced diurnal fluctuations of CO2 effluxes were not evident during apparent soil–water redistribution. Further research on the mechanisms behind this process is needed followed by incorporation of mechanisms into CO2efflux models

Method to increase N-use efficiency and reduce leaching

A tool bar for placement of a band of fertilizer in soil has a vertical knife with a horizontal blade thereon to create an inverted T-shaped slot in the soil. A band of fertilizer is placed in the bottom of the slot through a tube on the knife. A first coulter fills the slot with soil and compacts the soil above the band. A second coulter forms a mound of soil over the compacted soil and creates an elongated furrow in the soil above and laterally removed from the band. The method of placement of a band of fertilizer in soil sequentially moves the soil and creates the band as accomplished by the foregoing structure