Lincoln\u27s Speeches Reconsidered

Lincoln\u27s lectures Author calls for a closer critique Abraham Lincoln\u27s words reflect his innate greatness. His personal eloquence eclipses that of modern presidents with teams of speechwriters. The author eschews the obvious question of how someone with only rudimentary schoolin...

The Global Lincoln

Travelling the World with Lincoln A series of international conferences on Abraham Lincoln’s legacy abroad were held in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and India during the commemoration of Lincoln’s bicentennial birth. So far two books have resulted from these conferenc...

We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends

Executive relationships Scholar Applies Aristotelian Framework Measuring against Aristotle\u27s three levels of friendshipùenjoyable friendships, useful friendships, and perfect (or complete friendships)ùauthor David Herbert Donald evaluates the relationships between America\u27s 16th...

Lincoln\u27s Scribe: John Hay Grew In Office Serving A President He Revered

Modern White House staffers are far removed from their original role as passionate anonyms. Today they wield power once reserved for cabinet secretaries. Simultaneously, the number of employees in the White House has expanded from a handful during Lincoln\u27s administration to several hundred. Yet s...

Lincoln\u27s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words

What Abraham Lincoln Wrote and Spoke America\u27s sixteenth president set the standard for presidential composition and it has not been surpassedùeven with the modern advent of the hired hand speechwriter or a speech writing team. Abraham Lincoln wrote the most famous speech in world history,...

The Lincolns in the White House: Four Years That Shattered a Family

The East Wing in Crisis Civil Strife in the Presidential Family The author of a half-dozen popular histories of the Vatican, World War II, the British royalty and the American civil rights movement, Jerrold M. Packard enters the crowded field of Lincoln studies with this book. It...

Repairable Moment-Resisting Steel Buildings

Current seismic design codes ensure life safety for buildings, but structural members may significantly yield or even fail under strong earthquakes. A new design approach is to implement connections that localize the yielding and failure to fuses. A more sophisticated approach is to be able to replace the fuses after the event. The present study was carried out to develop repairable moment-resisting (MR) connections for steel buildings and to investigate their seismic performance through nonlinear finite element analyses (FEA). Two details were proposed using buckling restrained fuses (BRFs) and buckling restrained reinforcement (BRR). Test data was collected from the literature on buckling restrained braces (BRBs) and a conventional steel MR joint, and FE modeling methods were proposed and validated against the test data. Subsequently, FE models were developed for the repairable joints using the validated models. For the repairable alternatives using BRFs, it was found that the displacement capacity was twice of that for the conventional joint. However, the initial stiffness of the BRF repairable joints was 34-44% lower than that for the conventional MR joint. A similar trend was observed for the BRR alternatives. Overall, this pilot analytical study confirmed that both of the proposed repairable details are viable with improved seismic performance. Furthermore, these joints can be quickly repaired after strong earthquakes by replacement BRF or BRR thus the steel building total replacement is prevented

Water and Nutrient Research: In-field and Offsite Strategies—2005/2006 Annual Report

Much of Iowa is characterized by relatively flat, poorly-drained soils which, with extensive artificial subsurface drainage, have became some of the most valuable, productive lands in the state. In 2002, the average land value for the 22-county area making up most of the Des Moines Lobe was $2,436 an acre, and 80.5% of that area was in row-crops (42.9% in corn and 37.6% soybeans). However, this drained land has also become a source of significant NO3 loss because of the changes in land-use and hydrology brought about by tile drainage. While surface runoff is decreased with subsurface drainage (resulting in decreased losses of sediment, ammoniumnitrogen, phosphorus, pesticides and micro-organisms), subsurface flow and leaching losses of NO3 are increased. This is due mostly to an increase in volume and the “short-circuiting” of subsurface flow, but also in part to the increased aeration of organic-rich soils with potentially increased mineralization and formation of NO3 (and less denitrification) in the soil profile. The problem of excess nutrient loads can probably be ameliorated by a combination of in field and off site practices, but the limitations and appropriateness of alternative practices must be understood and outcomes must be measurable. Promising in field practices include nutrient management, drainage management, and alternative cropping systems. Nitrate-removal wetlands are a proven edge-of-field practice for reducing nitrate loads to downstream water bodies and are a particularly promising approach in tile drained landscapes. Strategies are needed that can achieve measurable and predictable reductions in the export of nutrients from tile drained landscapes. The principal objectives of this project are (1) to evaluate the performance of nutrient management, drainage management, and alternative cropping systems with respect to profitability and export of water and nutrients (nitrate-nitrogen and total phosphorus) from tile drained systems and (2) to evaluate the performance of nitrate-removal wetlands in reducing nitrate export from tile drained systems. This annual report describes activities related to objectives 1 and 2 along with outreach activities that were directly related to this project. For objective 1, both crop year 2005 and 2006 are presented

Water and Nutrient Research: In-field and Offsite Strategies—2010 Annual Report

Much of Iowa is characterized by relatively flat, poorly-drained areas which with extensive subsurface drainage, have became some of the most valuable, productive land in the State. However, this drained land has also become a source of significant NO3 loss because of the changes in land-use and hydrology brought about by tile drainage. While surface runoff is decreased with subsurface drainage (resulting in decreased losses of sediment, ammoniumnitrogen, phosphorus, pesticides and micro-organisms), subsurface flow and leaching losses of NO3 are increased. This is due mostly to an increase in volume and the “short-circuiting” of subsurface flow, but also in part to the increased aeration of organic-rich soils with potentially increased mineralization and formation of NO3 (and less denitrification) in the soil profile. The problem of excess nutrient loads can probably be ameliorated by a combination of in field and off site practices, but the limitations and appropriateness of alternative practices must be understood and outcomes must be measurable. Promising in field practices include nutrient management, drainage management, and alternative cropping systems. Nitrate-removal wetlands are a proven edge-of-field practice for reducing nitrate loads to downstream water bodies and are a particularly promising approach in tile drained landscapes. Strategies are needed that can achieve measurable and predictable reductions in the export of nutrients from tile drained landscapes. The principal objectives of this project are (1) to evaluate the performance of nutrient management, drainage management, and alternative cropping systems with respect to profitability and export of water and nutrients (nitrate-nitrogen and total phosphorus) from tile drained systems and (2) to evaluate the performance of nitrate-removal wetlands in reducing nitrate export from tile drained systems. This annual report describes activities related to objectives 1 and 2 along with outreach activities that were directly related to this project. Results for crop year 2010 are described