Luxurious Surfaces: Chinese Decorative Arts from the 15th to the Early 20th Century

Luxurious Surfaces: Chinese Decorative Arts from the Fifteenth to the Early Twentieth Century is a highly anticipated exhibition that highlights student learning in the art history program. The curators, William Caterham ’20, Ashley Jeffords ’20, Merlyn Maldonado Lopez ’22, Sarah Paul ’22, James Raphaelson ’21, Megan Reimer ’22, Shannon Zeltmann ’21 and Tianrun Zhao ’20, are students enrolled in the Art History Method class in Fall 2019. The exhibition examines the quintessential characteristics and the meaning of Chinese decorative arts embedded in the luxurious surfaces of sixteen carefully selected works from Gettysburg College’s Asian Art Collection.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/artcatalogs/1032/thumbnail.jp

Up in the Air: A Global Estimate of Non-Violent Drone Use 2009-2015

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, has increased dramatically in recent years. While most attention has gone to military drone use, commercial drones have gained widespread popularity, with uses ranging from leisure activities by hobbyists to humanitarian aid and disaster relief support by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and activist groups. This use has been hard to quantify and regulate. In an effort to better understand the rapid growth of non-weaponized drone, this report analyzes cases of worldwide drone use reported during a six-year period (2009-2015). Utilizing a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, we engage two distinct research questions: (1) what is the nature of civilian drone use over time, and (2) what regulatory responses exist to use at the international, state, and sub-state levels. This six-year window generated more than 15,000 news items for analysis, and resulted in a dataset of 1,145 unique uses. The findings are in line with popular reports: drone usage has grown significantly. New platforms in civilian hands are challenging the status quo response of both regulators and human rights groups. While ethical considerations make direct comparisons nearly useless, non-military use has eclipsed military use. This reality poses fresh challenges to national governments, local municipalities, businesses, and individual actors.https://digital.sandiego.edu/gdl2016report/1000/thumbnail.jp

Reliability of diurnal salivary cortisol metrics: A meta-analysis and investigation in two independent samples

Stress-induced dysregulation of diurnal cortisol is a cornerstone of stress-disease theories; however, observed associations between cortisol, stress, and health have been inconsistent. The reliability of diurnal cortisol features may contribute to these equivocal findings. Our meta-analysis (5 diurnal features from 11 studies; total participant n = 3307) and investigation (15 diurnal cortisol features) in 2 independent studies (St. Louis Personality and Aging Network [SPAN] Study, n = 147, ages 61–73; Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation [MLSRA] Study, n = 90, age 37) revealed large variability in the day-to-day test-retest reliability of diurnal features derived from salivary cortisol data (i.e., ICC = 0.00–0.75). Collectively, these data indicate that some commonly used diurnal cortisol features have poor reliability that is insufficient for individual differences research (e.g., cortisol awakening response) while others (e.g., area under the curve with respect to ground) have fair-to-good reliability that could support reliable identification of associations in well-powered studies