Hungarian Historical Hysteria

This paper analyzes the deployment of Hungary\u27s historical memory of national movements by Viktor Orban and FIDESZ. This deployment is designed to cement Orban\u27s authoritarian grip over Hungary, as historical threats to Hungarian nationalism are invoked to legitimize Orban\u27s goal of an illiberal democracy

Analysis of Orbital Elements and Atmospheric Activity to Ascertain Possible Presence of an Ion Propulsion Capability Aboard Salyut 7/Cosmos 1686

The purpose of this study was to analyze solar and geomagnetic activity in concert with orbital element data for the Soviet space station Salyut 7 as a means toward a determination of the possible use of an ion propulsion source aboard Salyut 7 and the Cosmos 1686 module to which it was docked. Solar activity was represented by sunspot number and 10.7-cm solar radio flux, and geomagnetic activity was represented by the general activity indices kp and Ap. The effects of atmospheric activity were examined both by direct comparison with orbital data, and by using solar and geomagnetic data as inputs to an atmospheric density model. For cases where neither atmospheric activity nor known maneuvers could explain changes in an orbital parameter, the feasibility of an ion propulsion source being the cause was examined. Because the orbital element data sets were taken at inconsistent time intervals, direct comparison with the atmospheric data was difficult. However, despite this limitation, the analysis suggests that the use of ion propulsion was possible during the period 6 May to 25 June 1986

How To Have A Christ-Centered Youth Ministry In A Small Church Using Mentoring, Missions And Meetings

Problem As of 2005, there was only one Seventh-day Adventist church within the Pennsylvania Conference that was providing consistent youth ministry. Many of the churches have seemed to have had difficulty finding individuals who have both the experience and the necessary training to lead a local church youth program. Due to the absence of local church youth ministry, the needs of the youth are being unmet and many are leaving the church. Method The method used to address this problem began in 2005. Training sessions were provided to potential leaders within the churches in the Pennsylvania Conference. There were five major training session weekends in which the foundational youth ministry elements of mentoring, missions, and meetings were used to help the local leaders develop a youth ministry at their church. In addition to these training sessions, the local leaders were given the opportunity to be mentored by the youth director for a period of one year. This project will evaluate the effectiveness of this local church youth leader development program. Eight youth leadership teams that were established as a result of this program filled out a twelve-question questionnaire that was used to retrieve date and measure results. Results The results showed the positive effect that this youth leader development program had on individuals from local churches who had a desire to have youth ministry in their church. Attendance from the training sessions showed that ten out of twelve churches that sent individuals to these trainings now have sustained local church youth ministries. Data received from the questionnaires revealed that many of the youth ministries are utilizing the areas of mentoring, missions, and meetings as foundational elements of their programs. The questionnaires also revealed that many of the youth ministries have not yet implemented all three foundations into their youth ministries. Conclusions This youth leader development paradigm is an effective program in developing youth leaders for the local small church who are capable in developing and sustaining a youth ministry program. The success of this program lies in more than just implementing programming based in mentoring, missions, and meetings. The training sessions and mentoring by the youth director empowered the adults to initiate a youth ministry program based in relationships

“The Great Speckled Bird”- Early Country Music and the Popularization of Non-Secular Song

Perhaps no melody in the country music canon has been as widely recognized and borrowed from as that of the song “The Great Speckled Bird.” This significant song has become resonant and representative of both country music culture and religious culture of the Protestant South. Through this historiographical study, I have traced the influences that helped shape “The Great Speckled Bird” and in so doing have illustrated distinct movements that led to popularizing the non-secular song through commercial country music. The composer’s use of sentimentality, neo- traditionalism, and religious ideas made it appealing to a rural southern culture struggling with the social, racial, and economic changes of the early twentieth century. As I develop and explore the diverse influences that helped to shape “The Great Speckled Bird,” I will illustrate the interconnectedness of country music culture and the wider popular and religious cultures of the white Protestant South

Dark-matter electric and magnetic dipole moments

We consider the consequences of a neutral dark-matter particle with a nonzero electric and/or magnetic dipole moment. Theoretical constraints, as well as constraints from direct searches, precision tests of the standard-model, the cosmic microwave background and matter power spectra, and cosmic gamma rays, are included. We find that a relatively light particle with mass between an MeV and a few GeV and an electric or magnetic dipole as large as ~3 x 10 to the -16 e cm (roughly 1.6 x 10 to the -5 μB) satisfies all experimental and observational bounds. Some of the remaining parameter space may be probed with forthcoming more sensitive direct searches and with the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope

The Influence of Magnetic Field Geometry on the Evolution of Black Hole Accretion Flows: Similar Disks, Drastically Different Jets

Because the magneto-rotational instability is capable of exponentially amplifying weak preexisting magnetic fields, it might be hoped that the character of the magnetic field in accretion disks is independent of the nature of the seed field. However, the divergence-free nature of magnetic fields in highly conducting fluids ensures that their large-scale topology is preserved, no matter how greatly the field intensity is changed. By performing global two-dimensional and three-dimensional general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic disk simulations with several different topologies for the initial magnetic field, we explore the degree to which the character of the flows around black holes depends on the initial topology. We find that while the qualitative properties of the accretion flow are nearly independent of field topology, jet-launching is very sensitive to it: a sense of vertical field consistent for at least an inner disk inflow time is essential to the support of strong jets.Comment: 42 pages; 17 figures; Accepted for publication in ApJ (some new discussion and 2 new figures

Modelling understorey dynamics in temperate forests under global change : challenges and perspectives

The understorey harbours a substantial part of vascular plant diversity in temperate forests and plays an important functional role, affecting ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling and overstorey regeneration. Global change, however, is putting these understorey communities on trajectories of change, potentially altering and reducing their functioning in the future. Developing mitigation strategies to safeguard the diversity and functioning of temperate forests in the future is challenging and requires improved predictive capacity. Process-based models that predict understorey community composition over time, based on first principles of ecology, have the potential to guide mitigation endeavours but such approaches are rare. Here, we review fourteen understorey modelling approaches that have been proposed during the last three decades. We evaluate their inclusion of mechanisms that are required to predict the impact of global change on understorey communities. We conclude that none of the currently existing models fully accounts for all processes that we deem important based on empirical and experimental evidence. Based on this review, we contend new models are needed to project the complex impacts of global change on forest understoreys. Plant functional traits should be central to such future model developments, as they drive community assembly processes and provide valuable information on the functioning of the understorey. Given the important role of the overstorey, a coupling of understorey models to overstorey models will be essential to predict the impact of global change on understorey composition and structure, and how it will affect the functioning of temperate forests in the future

Scattering, Damping, and Acoustic Oscillations: Simulating the Structure of Dark Matter Halos with Relativistic Force Carriers

We demonstrate that self-interacting dark matter models with interactions mediated by light particles can have significant deviations in the matter power-spectrum and detailed structure of galactic halos when compared to a standard cold dark matter scenario. While these deviations can take the form of suppression of small scale structure that are in some ways similar to that of warm dark matter, the self-interacting models have a much wider range of possible phenomenology. A long-range force in the dark matter can introduce multiple scales to the initial power spectrum, in the form of dark acoustic oscillations and an exponential cut-off in the power spectrum. Using simulations we show that the impact of these scales can remain observationally relevant up to the present day. Furthermore, the self-interaction can continue to modify the small-scale structure of the dark matter halos, reducing their central densities and creating a dark matter core. The resulting phenomenology is unique to this type of models.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figure

How what you believe about democracy influences how you vote

While the concept of democracy often means different things to different people, are there elements which people can agree or disagree on? Judd R. Thornton and Kris Dunn examine the relationship between people’s beliefs about democracy and how they vote. They find that while most people believe that free elections and protecting civil rights are essential to democracy, Democrats are more likely to believe that redistribution and unemployment security are essential parts of democracy, while Republicans are not