Prophet of Perspective: Thomas K. McCraw

Thomas K. McCraw is justly admired as a consummate prose stylist, a talented editor, a perceptive historian of the United States, and an inspiring teacher whose mastery of the biographical form led to a string of elegantly written prize-winning publications that are widely read and often taught. The publication one month before McCraw’s death in November 2012 of his last book, The Founders and Finance, provides the occasion for this essay, which contends that McCraw also deserves to be remembered as a founder of two thriving academic subfields—policy history and the history of capitalism—despite the fact that he trained relatively few history PhD students, and rarely appeared in public during the final years of his life as the result of a debilitating illness that greatly limited his mobility

The surface features and soil pattern of the Hamilton basin

The Holocene history of the Hamilton basin and development of the soil pattern are closely related. The basin was partly filled by the large alluvial fan of the Waikato River which partly buried a hilly, ash-covered landscape. The normal depositional pattern of fans is recognisable (apex of coarse sediments; middle part with ridges of coarse sediments and swales with fine sediments; toe of fine sediments) but has been modified by changing river courses during fan building. Each of these courses was flanked by levees which dammed valleys and embayments and blocked drainage to form lakes. The lakes were the sources of the present day peat bogs. The properties of the soils developed on the wide range of parent materials and landforms in the basin are summarised

New Zealand foreign policy under the Clark government: High tide of liberal internationalism

The foreign policy of the current New Zealand government has strongly reflected the Labour Party’s Liberal Internationalist ideology. Indeed, it is probable that this government has been the most Liberal Internationalist of all New Zealand Labour governments. The government of Prime Minister Helen Clark has placed considerable emphasis on the promotion of human rights internationally; it has strongly supported the role of the United Nations; it has championed nuclear disarmament and restructured the New Zealand armed forces to prioritize peacekeeping; and it has vigorously promoted free trade. Like all New Zealand governments, however, the Clark government’s foreign policy has not always reflected its ideological predisposition, although the exceptions have been relatively few so far

The age of quaternary surfaces at Waihi Beach

The Waihi Beach surfaces were originally mapped and correlated with European surfaces of similar altitude by Kear and Waterhouse (1961). Exposures along the edges of the surfaces indicate that they are covered with volcanic ashes, the younger of which are of known age. It is the sub-ash surface which should be used for height correlations, and it is the most seaward ash-covered part of the surface which is preferred as the reference point for altitude studies. The heights of the surfaces may not correlate with positions of sea-level at the ages indicated by the ash beds

Modeling intra-annual variation in coral extension rate using multiproxy geochemical records from Pacific corals

The relationship between coral growth and environmental parameters is not straightforward, and few studies have explored intra-annual changes in extension rate. Variations in the magnitude and timing of intra-annual extension could be influenced by various environmental parameters such as sea surface temperature (SST), light and nutrient availability, turbidity or salinity stress, as well as by inter-annual climate variations such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In this study we use SST proxy data from Porites spp. corals to model intra-annual growth using an iterative numerical model comparing growth and temperature sine functions to measured Sr/Ca data to find the best combination of intra-annual variation in both variables. This approach converts sampling distance within cores into time, providing a framework that allows us to quantify how extension rate varies both within and between years. The model was applied to coral records spanning both the tropical Pacific (Australia to the Galapagos) and the past 400 years (Little Ice Age to present). To validate model results, modern coral data are compared with observational temperature and ENSO records. In this project, we focused on testing the idea that intra-annual SST is a dominant control on the timing of intra-annual coral extension. Results indicate that maximum coral extension in the West Pacific typically occurs during the periods of warmest SST, and in the East Pacific dominantly in periods of cooler SST. These records also indicate that multiple exogenous factors influence skeletal extension in these dynamic equatorial settings, particularly in the context of ENSO. Growth recovered from these records offers a picture of how extension rate and environment interact in the Equatorial Pacific. This modeling approach has the potential to improve seasonally resolved coral records of climate, and for understanding the relationship between coral calcification and climate change by comparing changes in intra-annual extension patterns over time

The Right to Republish Libel: Neutral Reportage and the Reasonable Reader

This Article argues for a reconsideration and redefinition of the neutral reportage privilege. First, even if we accept Gertz\u27s disapproval of newsworthiness as a criterion for First Amendment protection, a closer look at the neutral reportage privilege reveals that, contrary to what many courts and commentators have said, newsworthiness is not a necessary element of the privilege. Gertz is thus inapplicable. Second, the more serious problems with the neutral reportage privilege arise from its advocates\u27 failure to define what constitutes neutrality -- in other words, to define what conduct by the reporter should legitimately give rise to immunity from libel actions

Nowhere is Nowhere

People often speak of rural Western Oklahoma as the middle of nowhere

The Sustainability of Funding for Dual Credit Programs an Analysis of the State Governance Structure and Funding Models\u27 Impact on Tuition Revenue from 2013-2016

The purpose of the study was to assess the sustainability of dual credit programs from 2013-2016 across U.S. public community and junior colleges and the effect of 2 funding variables associated with these course offerings. The literature postulated that dual credit programs have continued to grow in demand since their origin with no indication of decreasing in the near future. The researcher chose 2 funding mechanisms to associate with dual credit enrollment: governance structure of the state and the state funding model as it pertains to dual credit enrollment. Tuition revenue totals were extracted from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System for each fall semester from 2013-2016. This data set included 48 states in the U.S. The only non-reporting states were Alaska, Delaware, and The District of Columbia. This study uses a quantitative approach to determine if state governance structure and state funding model had an impact on tuition revenue. The statistics computed included an Independent Samples T-test. In summary, the analysis did support the research hypothesis in that there was statistically significant differences based on the governance structure of the state for the years of 2013 and 2014, but not years 2015 and 2016. The analysis did not support the research hypothesis in that there were no statistically significant differences based on the state funding model in tuition revenue derived from enrollment. Limitations in the current study that may have influenced the outcome of the analysis and recommendations for further studies are discussed

Impact of ethanol on regulated cell death Crithidia Fasciculata

Given the early divergence of trypanosomatids in evolution and absence of genes central to “classical” cell death pathways, induction, and mechanisms of regulated cell death in these species will shed light on origin of these processes. The early divergence of eukaryotic cells can be observed with the Trypanosomatids taxa (Green, 2015) Crithidia fasciculata is a trypanosomatid, mosquito parasite. We explored sensitivity of Crithidia to ethanol (≤20%) on cell death and externalization of phosphatidylserine (PS) using propidium iodide (PI) and annexin V-FITC (AV). While 20% ethanol killed cells necrotically (PI+ /AV+), 9% ethanol resulted elicited nonlethal, PS externalization in a subset (2%) of the population (PI- /AV+). To elucidate the mechanism of this cell death-like phenotype, alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH) and aldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDH) were inhibited. I hypothesized inhibition of (ALDH) with disulfiram will increase proportion of stressed, alive cells (PI-/AV+) because of (ALDH) is used to process acetaldehyde with the enzyme (ALDH) that produces acetate that is used in many metabolic processes. While disulfiram yielded an increase in this subset of cells, effects of inhibition were ethanol independent. In contrast, the (ADH) inhibitor 4- methyl pyrazole caused necrosis. The different patterns of cellular death can be observed by the different staining. These results suggest cell death pathways are sensitive to fermentation products produced by trypanosomatids and that early evolution of “classical,” cell death pathways could have been driven by responses to sublethal stress