Anatomy of a Rupture: Identity Maintenance in the 1844 Latter-day Saint Reform Sect

Dissent riddled Mormonism almost from the day of its inception. Competing prophets and dissatisfied adherents challenged Joseph Smith’s leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Perhaps the most serious of Smith’s challengers was the dissent of his counselor William Law. In 1844, Law confronted Smith over the implementation of the latter’s doctrinal innovations (particularly plural marriage) and Zion building activities in Nauvoo, Illinois. At the height of the dissent movement, anti-Mormon citizens in the region (some say inflamed by Law’s newspaper the Nauvoo Expositor)assassinated Smith. The assassination caused a religious rupture in Mormonism called the Succession Crisis. This thesis examines identity formation, maintenance, and evolution in Law’s 1844 dissenting group. It argues that several factors, notably estrangement and social networks, were key in forming the group’s identity. As other scholars acknowledge, the group intended on a Mormon reformation. It also argues that a more accurate understanding of the dissent organization is one of an extralegal internal reform body rather than (as current scholarship puts forth) an external separatist church. The reform sect maintained their distinct identity during the closing months of 1844, but evolved into the 1845 Church of Christ that Sidney Rigdon helmed. Lastly, this thesis surveys the reformers’ navigation of a turbulent religious climate and offers some analysis on why those reformers most committed to Mormonism ultimately rested in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

The Spatial and Temporal Distributions and Thermodynamic Characteristics of Tornadoes in Mississippi

The vast majority of severe storm and tornado research is conducted in the natural laboratory of the Great Plains region of the United States. As a result, much of the knowledge and technology applied to storm forecasting is developed in the Great Plains environment. However, it has been shown that there is a maximum of strong and violent tornadoes in the region extending from Arkansas eastward into Alabama. In addition, various researchers have found strong severe storm thermodynamic signatures unique to regions such as the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. This study has analyzed five decades of tornado data for the state of Mississippi. Thermodynamic results indicate that Mississippi has a tornado environment distinctly different than that of the Great Plains. The spatial distribution of the tornado events also indicates that mesoscale processes between the Earth\u27s surface and the lower troposphere may play a significant role in determining the genesis location of violent tornadoes in the historical Delta region of Mississippi. It is anticipated that an understanding of environments unique to Mississippi tornadoes will lead to better forecasts and more comprehensive storm analysis, which will ultimately save lives and property

Viewing a world of disaster through the eyes of faith: The influence of religious worldviews on community adaptation in the context of disaster-related vulnerability in Indonesia

Natural disasters pose a ubiquitous threat to communities around the world. Communities perceive, understand, anticipate, and make meaning of disaster risks through the lens of their worldview. In many regions of the world, religious beliefs and practices contribute to the shaping of worldview, hence affecting the attitudes, decisions, and behaviors of a particular community. This study examines the impact of religiously-derived worldviews on community response and adaptation in the disaster-prone nation of Indonesia. Using data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey Fourth Wave, this study confirms that the religiousness of a worldview makes a difference in community-level action. The average religiosity of individuals in a community impacts the likelihood that tangible measures will be taken by the community to reduce their vulnerability to future disasters. In a community with more religious individuals, the likelihood that adaptive measures will be taken is lower, potentially due to fatalistic attitudes and beliefs regarding the locus of control over disasters and their impacts. The degree of participation in community religious activities does not appear to impact the likelihood of adaptive measures being undertaken by the community. Religiosity exhibits less influence on adaptation than other factors, such as the number of disasters a community has experienced, the occurrence of briefings about disaster preparedness, and the urban-rural location of the community. A disaster adaptation awareness culture, including tangible actions for anticipatory adaptation, is more likely to arise in communities that have experienced disasters and been briefed regarding disaster preparedness. Furthermore, urban communities are more likely than rural communities to take action to prepare for future disasters

Correspondence from M. Call

Correspondence from M. Call regarding absent soldiers from Lincoln Count

Plant community and nutrient development within four estuary restoration sites in Kitsap County, Washington

Estuaries affected by physical barriers, such as culverts, experience reduced hydrological inputs and reduced connectivity resulting in the loss of ecological processes. To address reduction in ecological connectedness, culverts at three sites were removed and replaced with bridges. An observational field study was conducted in Kitsap County, Washington of three sites where culverts were replaced with bridges three, eight, and 13 years ago. Data was collected at a reference site where the estuary contains a culvert. It is hypothesized that estuary restoration will recover plant species, carbon sequestration, and nutrient cycling homogeneity above and below the restoration site. However, the length of time for recovery is not well understood. Soil and plant height was collected from random quadrats. Soil carbon and nitrogen were analyzed using an elemental analyzer and soil macro and micro-nutrients were analyzed using the Mehlich 3 Extraction method. Plant species richness was significantly higher (

Employee Stock Options Or Tax Nightmares

In the past several years, many companies, especially in the high-tech, have used incentive stock options as effective means of attracting and maintaining highly qualified employees. With properly designed employees stock options, companies have been able to compensate highly paid executives with a little or no cash out flow.  Accepting stock options in lieu of cash compensation has allowed employees to postpone tax on their compensations and to convert the ordinary income to the capital gain income through a later exercise and the sales of their stock options. These benefits can be achieved, if companies set up the stock options properly and employees apply them correctly. Otherwise, employees may get stuck in incentive stock option tax traps depending on the type of stock options. One tax trap related to the Incentive Stock Option (ISO) is a danger of an Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). The tax trap related to Nonqualified Stock Option (NQSO) is the possibility of a phantom profit. This profit, even though the stock may not have been sold yet by the employees, must be reported by employer to the Internal Revenue Service through employees’ W-2 form in the year the options are granted or exercised, depending on the prevailing situation.  Employees, who exercise this type of options and keep the purchased stocks, may risk watching the stock price decline but still having to pay taxes based on their paper profit

Tower Foundations Bearing Above Weak Soils

A 13-level reinforced concrete structure was constructed on Marco Island in southwest Florida. The tower is located 200 feet from the Gulf of Mexico and has plan area dimensions of 115 by 170 feet. The field testing revealed the site was mantled with a 17-foot thick layer of firm sand. The sand stratum was underlain by a compressible 9-foot thick layer of silty sand which had an average SPT N-value of less than 2. Various methods of engineering analyses estimated total tower settlements to range from 1 to 8 inches. Actual measured settlement following the application of dead load was about 1 3/4 inches. An engineering inspection following construction revealed diagonal shear wall cracks

Chimpanzee coordination and potential communication in a two-touchscreen turn-taking game

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the question of whether and how groups of nonhuman primates coordinate their behaviors for mutual benefit. On the one hand, it has been shown that chimpanzees in the wild and in captivity can solve various coordination problems. On the other hand, evidence of communication in the context of coordination problems is scarce. Here, we investigated how pairs of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) solved a problem of dynamically coordinating their actions for achieving a joint goal. We presented five pairs of chimpanzees with a turn-taking coordination game, where the task was to send a virtual target from one computer display to another using two touch-screens. During the joint practice of the game some subjects exhibited spontaneous gesturing. To address the question whether these gestures were produced to sustain coordination, we introduced a joint test condition in which we simulated a coordination break-down scenario: subjects appeared either unwilling or unable to return the target to their partner. The frequency of gesturing was significantly higher in these test trials than in the regular trials. Our results suggest that at least in some contexts chimpanzees can exhibit communicative behaviors to sustain coordination in joint action

Reaching around barriers: the performance of the great apes and 3–5-year-old children

Inhibitory control has been suggested as a key predictive measure of problem-solving skills in human and nonhuman animals. However, there has yet to be a direct comparison of the inhibitory skills of the nonhuman apes and their development in human children. We compared the inhibitory skills of all great ape species, including 3–5-year-old children in a detour-reaching task, which required subjects to avoid reaching directly for food and instead use an indirect reaching method to successfully obtain the food. We tested 22 chimpanzees, 18 bonobos, 18 orangutans, 6 gorillas and 42 children. Our sample included chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans housed in zoos (N = 27) and others housed in sanctuaries in their native habitats (N = 37). Overall, orangutans were the most skilful apes, including human children. As expected older children outperformed younger children. Sanctuary chimpanzees and bonobos outperformed their zoo counterparts whereas there was no difference between the two orangutan samples. Most zoo chimpanzees and bonobos failed to solve the original task, but improved their performance with additional training, although the training method determined to a considerable extent the level of success that the apes achieved in a transfer phase. In general, the performance of the older children was far from perfect and comparable to some of the nonhuman apes tested

Chimpanzees do not take into account what others can hear in a competitive situation

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) know what others can and cannot see in a competitive situation. Does this reflect a general understanding the perceptions of others? In a study by Hare et al. (2000) pairs of chimpanzees competed over two pieces of food. Subordinate individuals preferred to approach food that was behind a barrier that the dominant could not see, suggesting that chimpanzees can take the visual perspective of others. We extended this paradigm to the auditory modality to investigate whether chimpanzees are sensitive to whether a competitor can hear food rewards being hidden. Results suggested that the chimpanzees did not take what the competitor had heard into account, despite being able to locate the hiding place themselves by the noise