This Side Of The Grave: Navigating The Quaker Plainness Testimony In London And Philadelphia In The Eighteenth Century

For observant members of the Society of Friends in greater London and Philadelphia during the eighteenth century, navigating the Quaker plainness testimony involved material culture choices that might be viewed by non-Quakers as concealing motives of frugality or blurring class lines or as violating standards of decency and propriety. This was particularly true of coffins, which were carried through the streets from home to burial ground followed by family and friends. On this public stage, Quaker coffin choices satisfied the requirements for plainness while at the same time they demonstrated family values and fulfilled societal expectations

The League of Women Voters of Greater Omaha, 1920-1995

Most people know the League of Women Voters for its election-related activities; however, the League of Women Voters of Greater Omaha is also a recognized force in shaping public policy and in promoting citizen participation at all levels of government. In addition to voter registration activities and preparing voters\u27 guides, League members also study important civic issues and give the public the information they need in deciding questions requiring potential political action. Six months before the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, the National League of Woman Voters was launched as an independent organization. The Omaha League was formed six months later in August, 1920. From the beginning, the League of Women Voters served primarily as a voters\u27 organization and secondarily as a women\u27s organization. Since 1920 the League of Women Voters of Greater Omaha has pursued the same general objectives, changing and adapting its action according to the needs and demands of the times. As the late twentieth century brought great changes in women\u27s activities, particularly in the workplace, the League has supported these efforts and changed its structure and procedures. Despite the significance of the Omaha League, there has never been a history written on this organization. This thesis, prepared to mark the Seventy-Fifth anniversary of the League of Women Voters of Greater Omaha, is a general history of the organization from its roots in the suffrage movement to the issues facing it today

On the Cover: Snow Dune

Artist’s Statement: Snow Dune is from a series of work that I created during 2014-2015. This image was captured in the dunes at Duxbury Beach after a snowstorm. I am inspired to create artwork that shows the beauty of the constantly changing beach environments. While I was creating this artwork, I overlapped multiple images using a Holga medium format camera with 120 Kodak Porta color film. When I overlap my images, this creates a depth in the image that cannot be captured in a single image. The images together create a sense of commotion, causing the viewer to take time to discover what has been created in the image. By overlapping my images, I change how the beach environment appears for my viewer

One Time-traveling Bit is as Good as Logarithmically Many

We consider computation in the presence of closed timelike curves (CTCs), as proposed by Deutsch. We focus on the case in which the CTCs carry classical bits (as opposed to qubits). Previously, Aaronson and Watrous showed that computation with polynomially many CTC bits is equivalent in power to PSPACE. On the other hand, Say and Yakaryilmaz showed that computation with just 1 classical CTC bit gives the power of "postselection", thereby upgrading classical randomized computation (BPP) to the complexity class BPP_path and standard quantum computation (BQP) to the complexity class PP. It is natural to ask whether increasing the number of CTC bits from 1 to 2 (or 3, 4, etc.) leads to increased computational power. We show that the answer is no: randomized computation with logarithmically many CTC bits (i.e., polynomially many CTC states) is equivalent to BPP_path. (Similarly, quantum computation augmented with logarithmically many classical CTC bits is equivalent to PP.) Spoilsports with no interest in time travel may view our results as concerning the robustness of the class BPP_path and the computational complexity of sampling from an implicitly defined Markov chain

Water quality in the Wingecarribee Shire, NSW

This paper reports on a water quality monitoring program carried out for Wingecarribee Shire Council between March 2002 and July 2004 by University of Wollongong staff and students. Initially 40 sites were sampled on four occasions over three months in a pilot program leading to the selection of sites and parameters for a two year program of monthly monitoring. A range of chemical, physical and biological parameters was measured including nutrients and faecal coliform bacteria on samples collected over the 26 approximately monthly sampling trips. Chlorophyll a, phaeophyton and blue-green algae were also determined over a shorter period. The sampling period included the particularly hot and dry spell September 2002 - January 2003 and a return to less extreme conditions after February 2003. The range of nutrient and coliform data is reported with discussion of the effects of rainfall patterns on nutrients and on faecal coliform counts at the various sites. Small creek sites showed significant changes to nutrient regimes in the long dry spell, whereas the same effect was not apparent in larger river sites. Very wide ranges of faecal coliform counts were found, especially at small creek sites in farmland. Excepting extreme results, generally elevated coliform counts were found when rainfall occurred 0-3 days immediately prior to sampling. Generally lower counts were found in drier weather. The Shire has already implemented some measures to improve water quality in response to this program

An Analysis of Data Management Plans in University of Illinois National Science Foundation Grant Proposals

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Library conducted an analysis of 1,260 Data Management Plans (DMPs) submitted in National Science Foundation (NSF) proposals from July 2011 through November 2013. Each DMP was assigned controlled vocabulary and keyword terms which summarized the proposed data management mechanisms for storing and sharing data. A database composed of the proposal’s title, PI (Principal Investigator), PI’s department and college, NSF grant number, funded status, assigned DMP vocabulary, and keyword terms was constructed. As of May 2014, a total of 298 of these UIUC proposals had been funded by the NSF. Our analysis of this sample revealed no significant statistical differences in proposed data storage and reuse venues between funded and unfunded proposals. However, there was a statistically higher frequency of use of the campus institutional repository and disciplinary repositories in proposals submitted after October 2012