Religion and Morality: The Forgotten Lesson of George Washington\u27s Farewell Address

This paper attempts to show that there is a forgotten lesson of religion and morality found in Washington’s Farewell Address. Like many of the Founders, George Washington believed that a government established as a republic could only stand if the people were virtuous. The works of many modern historians use a traditional two lesson narrative to explain the significance of Washington’s Farewell Address. The lesson is that the nation should be wary of entangling political alliances and the growing spirit of political factions. However, Washington put forth a third lesson that should be included when discussing Washington’s Farwell Address, that virtue could not be maintained in the absence of religion

Resonance Searches with an Updated Top Tagger

The performance of top taggers, for example in resonance searches, can be significantly enhanced through an increased set of variables, with a special focus on final-state radiation. We study the production and the decay of a heavy gauge boson in the upcoming LHC run. For constant signal efficiency, the multivariate analysis achieves an increased background rejection by up to a factor 30 compared to our previous tagger. Based on this study and the documentation in the Appendix we release a new HEPTopTagger2 for the upcoming LHC run. It now includes an optimal choice of the size of the fat jet, N-subjettiness, and different modes of Qjets.Comment: 26 page

Development and application of operational techniques for the inventory and monitoring of resources and uses for the Texas coastal zone. Volume 1: Text

The author has identified the following significant results. Image interpretation and computer-assisted techniques were developed to analyze LANDSAT scenes in support of resource inventory and monitoring requirements for the Texas coastal region. Land cover and land use maps, at a scale of 1:125,000 for the image interpretation product and 1:24,000 for the computer-assisted product, were generated covering four Texas coastal test sites. Classification schemes which parallel national systems were developed for each procedure, including 23 classes for image interpretation technique and 13 classes for the computer-assisted technique. Results indicate that LANDSAT-derived land cover and land use maps can be successfully applied to a variety of planning and management activities on the Texas coast. Computer-derived land/water maps can be used with tide gage data to assess shoreline boundaries for management purposes

Development and application of operational techniques for the inventory and monitoring of resources and uses for the Texas coastal zone. Volume 2: Appendices

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Glass Transition Phenomena Semiannual Status Report

Multiple glass transitions, heat capacities, and equation of state properties of polymer system

Insulation for cryogenic tanks has reduced thickness and weight

Dual seal insulation, consisting of an inner layer of sealed-cell Mylar honeycomb core and an outer helium purge channel of fiber glass reinforced phenolic honeycomb core, is used as a thin, lightweight insulation for external surfaces of cryogenic-propellant tanks

Enhanced Courses Using Teacher-Tested Modules

University faculties are under increasing pressure to do more with less. They are expected to continuously improve educational experiences to more students at less expense. Without help, the increasing demands and decreasing resources may prove too great. Merlot is a project designed to provide quality, online exercises to enhance the learning experience. The materials in Merlot are peer reviewed by both experts in the discipline and users of the materials. Quality of content, potential effectiveness as a teaching tool, and ease of use are the key areas of review process. This paper provides a explanation of Merlot, the peer review process, and examples of Merlot modules in business

Gender and Tenure Issues Relating to Faculty

This paper addresses whether or not gender and/or tenure status can affect a faculty member’s perception of web-based learning materials. Specifically, perceptions about the effectiveness of web-based materials and whether creating these materials affects a faculty member’s chances for promotion and tenure. The survey was conducted in 2002 and again in 2008 to measure perceptions and also to see if perceptions have changed over time. One dimension of creating web-based learning materials is the search for and integration of web resources into the course content. There has been a considerable increase in the array of Internet resources since the 2002 survey and many of them can affect instruction/learning. You Tube was created in 2005 and has already become a virtual guest lecture source with videos including everything from Thomas Friedman presenting lectures on “The World is Flat” to Gordon Moore speaking on his view of the next 40 years of “Moore’s Law.” Many universities have created Second Life sites for arning communities and individual courses. It could be argued that the increase in the availability of such web-based resources would lead to a view of increased impact on instruction/learning and that faculty utilizing such resources and incorporating them into their course materials would be rewarded with greater chances of promotion and tenure. Our analysis shows that, as a whole, there was no statistically significant change in faculty perceptions between 2002 and 2008 on either the effectiveness of Web-based learning materials or the impact that the creation and use of those materials on the tenure process. However, when we categorize faculty by tenure status and gender the perceptions of tenured, male faculty on the effectiveness of Web-based materials did fall significantly