William Tecumseh Sherman In The Service Of My Country: A Life

The Continuing Relevance of William Sherman When William Sherman was yet a cadet at West Point, he proudly declared himself in the service of my country (161). James McDonough chronicles this journey of service that brought Sherman from humble cadet to full general in William Tecumseh Sherman...

Marching With Sherman: Through Georgia and the Carolinas With the 154th New York

A Ground Up Perspective of Sherman’s March to the Sea Marching with Sherman: Through Georgia and the Carolinas with the 154th New York by Mark Dunkelman is the latest addition to the literature on this decisive Civil War campaign. Previously, Joseph Glatthar, in his 1985 The ...

Factors That Influence College Faculty to Adopt Digital Technologies in Their Practice

College faculty in Ontario are using a variety of digital technologies, at differing levels, in their teaching and learning practices. College administrators are looking to faculty to help meet the challenges associated with increasing enrolment and the need to deliver curriculum to a diverse student population with a range of learning needs who have unlimited access to information and communication channels through the World Wide Web. This research provides some understanding of specific motivating factors that have led many in community college faculty to adopt digital and Web technologies into their teaching and learning practices as well as those factors that may lead other college faculty to adopt similar technologies into their practices. Data collection was undertaken using a mixed-method approach in an effort to fully realize and categorize the factors necessary in a faculty decision to adopt digital technologies into their teaching practice. Findings indicate that digital technologies are employed by faculty in some cases only to achieve efficiency in communication and administrative tasks favouring traditional teaching methods in their classrooms. Others are exploring and experimenting in exciting new ways with digital technologies in an effort to enhance the learning experience for their students in and out of their classrooms. Many factors have also emerged that should be considered by college administrators when attempting to motivate faculty to adopt digital technologies when assigning workload, providing support and training, as well as by faculty deciding on the overall approach to teaching and learning, all of which carry with them financial and cultural implications

Rebellion, Reconstruction, and Redemption, 1861-1893: The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, Volume 2

An Impressive Case Study of the Rise and Fall of a Biracial Society in Civil War and Reconstruction South Carolina Rebellion, Reconstruction, and Redemption, 1861-1893 is the second of three volumes on the history of Beaufort County, South Carolina. It is a history that authors Ste...

Trailing Clouds of Glory: Zachary Taylor\u27s Mexican War Campaign and His Emerging Civil Leaders

Looking at the Pre-Civil War Proving Ground Readers have benefited from several recent treatments of the Mexican War, including A Gallant Little Army (2007), Timothy Johnson’s well-received chronicle of Winfield Scott’s Mexico City Campaign. However, if the Mexican War has been ...

Lincoln\u27s Man in Liverpool: Consul Dudley and the Legal Battle to Stop Confederate Warships

Foreign Diplomacy and the War Against the Confederate Navy Although most Americans consider the Civil War to have been largely a struggle between Union and Confederate land armies on American soil, the war certainly had a significant global component. Various authors have explored both br...

Higher education choice-making in the United States: freedom, inequality, legitimation

This paper examines how the process of making higher education choices in the United States – whether to enter higher education, attend a particular college, or follow a particular route – reproduces and legitimates social inequality. The paper’s central thesis is that a societal regime of many choices – while widely seen as serving individual freedom and producing social well-being – actually builds on and extends societal inequality but in a way that obscures that process of social reproduction to virtually all who participate in that regime. As the paper argues, the provision of many choices produces social inequality. People often make choices that do not serve their interests as well as they might wish, particularly if students are faced with many choices and do not have adequate information. Secondly, the incidence of those suboptimal choices is not random but is socially stratified. It is higher for less advantaged people, and societal factors – such as the unequal distribution of economic resources, unequal provision of good information, and unequal exposure to discrimination – play a crucial role in producing those socially stratified suboptimal choices. Finally, the provision of many choices legitimates social inequality. The more one thinks in terms of choices the more one tends to blame the unfortunate, including oneself, for their circumstances. Seemingly offered many choices in life, both the winners and losers in society come to feel that much of the inequality they experience is due to their own actions and therefore is legitimate. The paper concludes by offering various prescriptions for reducing the socially stratifying consequences and ideological impacts of a high-choice regime. In making these arguments, this paper draws on the research literature in sociology of education, behavioral economics, and social psychology of inequality

Following the Principles: Case Studies in Operations Other than War, 1945-1999

In the post-World War II-era, operations other than war (OOTW) were the types of conflict most commonly faced by the United States. This term for what had previously been called by such names as small wars and low intensity conflict was incorporated in the Army’s capstone manual, Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, in 1993. Field Manual 100-5 also listed objective, unity of effort, legitimacy, perseverance, restraint, and security as the six principles of OOTW. An analysis of eight OOTWs that occurred between 1945 and 1999 indicates that the balanced application of these principles is a reliable predicator of the operation’s outcome and that there is a relationship among several of the principles themselves. These findings suggest the principles of OOTW are a useful planning tool for military commanders and staffs

A Dipeptidyl Aminopeptidase–like Protein Remodels Gating Charge Dynamics in Kv4.2 Channels

Dipeptidyl aminopeptidase–like proteins (DPLPs) interact with Kv4 channels and thereby induce a profound remodeling of activation and inactivation gating. DPLPs are constitutive components of the neuronal Kv4 channel complex, and recent observations have suggested the critical functional role of the single transmembrane segment of these proteins (Zagha, E., A. Ozaita, S.Y. Chang, M.S. Nadal, U. Lin, M.J. Saganich, T. McCormack, K.O. Akinsanya, S.Y. Qi, and B. Rudy. 2005. J. Biol. Chem. 280:18853–18861). However, the underlying mechanism of action is unknown. We hypothesized that a unique interaction between the Kv4.2 channel and a DPLP found in brain (DPPX-S) may remodel the channel's voltage-sensing domain. To test this hypothesis, we implemented a robust experimental system to measure Kv4.2 gating currents and study gating charge dynamics in the absence and presence of DPPX-S. The results demonstrated that coexpression of Kv4.2 and DPPX-S causes a −26 mV parallel shift in the gating charge-voltage (Q-V) relationship. This shift is associated with faster outward movements of the gating charge over a broad range of relevant membrane potentials and accelerated gating charge return upon repolarization. In sharp contrast, DPPX-S had no effect on gating charge movements of the Shaker B Kv channel. We propose that DPPX-S destabilizes resting and intermediate states in the voltage-dependent activation pathway, which promotes the outward gating charge movement. The remodeling of gating charge dynamics may involve specific protein–protein interactions of the DPPX-S's transmembrane segment with the voltage-sensing and pore domains of the Kv4.2 channel. This mechanism may determine the characteristic fast operation of neuronal Kv4 channels in the subthreshold range of membrane potentials

Student Choice in Higher Education—Reducing or Reproducing Social Inequalities?

A hallmark of recent higher education policy in developed economies is the move towards quasi-markets involving greater student choice and provider competition, underpinned by cost-sharing policies. This paper examines the idealizations and illusions of student choice and marketization in higher education policy in England, although the overall conclusions have relevance for other countries whose higher education systems are shaped by neoliberal thinking. First, it charts the evolution of the student-choice rationale through an analysis of government commissioned reports, white papers, and legislation, focusing on policy rhetoric and the purported benefits of increasing student choice and provider competition. Second, the paper tests the predictions advanced by the student-choice rationale—increased and wider access, improved institutional quality, and greater provider responsiveness to the labour market—and finds them largely not met. Finally, the paper explores how conceptual deficiencies in the student-choice model explain why the idealization of student choice has largely proved illusionary. Government officials have narrowly conceptualized students as rational calculators primarily weighing the economic costs and benefits of higher education and the relative quality of institutions and programs. There is little awareness that student choices are shaped by several other factors as well and that these vary considerably by social background. The paper concludes that students’ choices are socially constrained and stratified, reproducing and legitimating social inequality