Andersonville’s Providence Spring

This post is part of a series featuring behind-the-scenes dispatches from our Pohanka Interns on the front lines of history this summer as interpreters, archivists, and preservationists. See here for the introduction to the series. At Andersonville National Historic Site there is not much left of what was here in 1864 when this site operated as a prison, aside from the earthworks, which now have pleasant green grass growing on them. The petrified stumps of the original stockade do still remain in the ground, but otherwise the park is a quaint pretty scene of rolling hills with tall grass. The only visible indication of the horrors that prisoners suffered here is in the cemetery. The headstones of the prisoners have no space between them, they are placed exactly where the prisoners were buried shoulder to shoulder in trenches, 13,000 of them side by side. Most of the stones have names on them but about 400 do not. This is something distinctive about Andersonville, the fact that so many of those who died here are known. This is thanks to a paroled prisoner, Dorace Atwater, and the secret list of the dead he kept when working in the hospital and the dead house. But sadly, this list was destroyed in a fire that consumed Atwater’s home in the early 20th century. Visitors frequently ask whether the museum has the Atwater list, but the best we can do is direct them to a book in the bookstore that has a portion of the list. [excerpt

Exact Solution for the Protected TEM edge mode in a PTD-Symmetric Parallel-Plate Waveguide

A Parity Time-reversal Dual (PTD) symmetric structure constituted by a Perfectly-Electric-Perfectly magnetic (PEC-PMC) parallel plate waveguide (PPW) is analyzed. This waveguide supports unimodal transverse electromagnetic (TEM) edge mode propagation protected against back-scattering from a certain class of deformations and defects. The TEM solution is found in analytical form by using three different methods, namely conformal mapping, mode-matching, and Fourier-transform methods. It is shown through numerical simulations that the mode propagation is robust with respect to deformations such as 90{\deg} bends and discontinuity such as transition to free-space. Implementation of the PMC boundary conditions via both a bed of nails and a mushroom structure is also successfully investigated

SOLVING FIRE DEPARTMENT STATION LOCATION PROBLEM USING MODIFIED BINARY GENETIC ALGORITHM: A CASE STUDY OF SAMSUN IN TURKEY

Fire and traffic accident are the most common problem in our daily lives. Fire department location for the purpose of easy response and recovery is a significant problem today. The best location of a fire department station determines the rate of recovery of many injured people after traffic accident, fire outbreak, and so on. In this paper, we considered the best location of fire stations. In addition, we also considered where the station is setup. Surveying problem is modeled as a mixed integer programming. It is solved by modified binary genetic algorithm, coding with GAMS. Modified binary GA is different from known GA with respect to binary decision variables. Due to this problem, initial value of the objective function was obtained from known GA. Then finally, the best result was achieved from binary GA

SOLVING FIRE DEPARTMENT STATION LOCATION PROBLEM USING MODIFIED BINARY GENETIC ALGORITHM: A CASE STUDY OF SAMSUN IN TURKEY

Fire and traffic accident are the most common problem in our daily lives. Fire department location for the purpose of easy response and recovery is a significant problem today. The best location of a fire department station determines the rate of recovery of many injured people after traffic accident, fire outbreak, and so on. In this paper, we considered the best location of fire stations. In addition, we also considered where the station is setup. Surveying problem is modeled as a mixed integer programming. It is solved by modified binary genetic algorithm, coding with GAMS. Modified binary GA is different from known GA with respect to binary decision variables. Due to this problem, initial value of the objective function was obtained from known GA. Then finally, the best result was achieved from binary GA

A Cross-Country Empirical Analysis of the Porter Hypothesis in the Chemical Industry

This paper examines whether there is evidence to support or refute the Porter Hypothesis on a high polluting industry through analyzing the effect of environmental stringency on innovation in the chemical industry. Taking data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), we use country-level data from 2003-2015, to analyze how a country’s number of Class C chemical patents is affected by their Environmental Policy Stringency (EPS) Index. Using a fixed effect model, we controlled for differences in GDP, exports, investment in research and development, market competitiveness and participation in the industry. The initial results of this regression found that as a country’s EPS Index changes by one unit, we would expect a decrease in about 45 patents in a year at the 99 percent significance level. These findings support our hypothesis that there is evidence against the strong form of the Porter Hypothesis. This suggests policies aimed at reaching environmental goals may need to create flexibility to stimulate innovation. This could be through creating more opportunities for innovation through government funded grants or creating incentives for private investment in research and development. However, this research could be enhanced by more country observations and industry level data

The British Conceptualization of Belgium, 1914

The complicated political agendas surrounding the various nations’ decisions to enter World War I have led to an ongoing debate about the war’s actual cause. This research project will investigate the effect that Germany’s invasion of Belgium had on Great Britain’s decision to enter the war. I will use the Hansard transcripts of debates in the British Parliament to investigate the extent to which the defense of Belgian neutrality was involved in the pre-war deliberations. A comparison between the transcripts from 28 June to 3 August and those from 4 August will illustrate the change, if one exists, or the continuity in the war declaration debate among the members of Parliament in response to the German invasion. These findings will either verify or disprove the claim, made by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith in his address to Parliament on 6 August 1914 and perpetuated in wartime propaganda, that the British entered the war on behalf of Belgian defense

Gender and self-selection among engineering students

Gender and graduation rates of first time engineering college students have been analyzed as a function of academic and demographic variables in order to investigate the hypothesis that an advantage to women with respect to student success might be attributed to their socioeconomic advantages as a student population. The authors present descriptive, graphical, and model-based evidence to support their ideas about gender and self-selection driven by socioeconomic phenomena that leave a disproportionate number of women out of higher education, but create a group of female students more likely than their male counterparts to succeed

Sexual Orientation, Substance Misuse, and Sexual Misconduct at a Conservative Christian University

College students in general tend to have high rates of substance use and abuse. Sexual minority college students show high rates of substance use and abuse. These findings are consistent across studies of sexual minority students and their relation to substances. Sexual minority populations are also more at-risk for becoming victims of sexual harassment and assault. Minority stress theory hypothesizes that LGBTQ+students at Christian universities may face heightened stigmatization or alienation, perhaps because of Christian norms/beliefs supporting heterosexual orientation

Active Charge Balancing for Cardiac Stimulation

Worldwide, there are about 3 million people who have pacemakers, with 10,000 new implantations of ICD’s each month. [heart.org] Due to the gravity and importance of the function that ICD’s provide, these devices must be extremely reliable and highly effective. However, because of the high tolerances of IC manufacturing, stimulation circuits for pacemakers may be slightly unmatched and over time, may have a net DC charge applied to the tissues in the heart. Extra charge pumped into body tissues is dangerous for the patient’s health; the pH of the tissue can be raised and corrosion of the stimulating electrodes may occur. This project entails the study and design of methods that allow balanced stimulation of cardiac tissue. Due to the expense of manufacturing integrated circuits, this project aims only to have representative simulations of our circuit solutions. By using dynamic current matching, we hope to cancel out the DC charge inadvertently applied to the heart in a cost effective manner

“A Singing Army is a Fighting Army”: American Soldiers’ Songs and the Training Camp Experience in World War I

This paper analyzes the impact of the camp music program on American participants in World War I. First, it describes the formation and purpose of the Commission on Training Camp Activities (CTCA). This was a commission developed within the War Department in 1917 that was tasked with raising and maintaining troop morale by organizing constructive recreational activities, such as the music division. Second, this paper explores the soldiers’ experiences with song and how they accepted the practice of singing and used it as a form of expression. This paper argues that the CTCA effectively utilized singing to increase unit cohesion and maintain troop morale, while the soldiers, in turn, validated the music program through their adoption of song as form of expression