Musselman Display Case

The Gettysburg College campus without the influence of the Musselman family would be a very different place. The Musselman name is not one that can be easily overlooked on campus, as numerous buildings are named after the famous apple processing family located in Biglerville, Pa. Yet without the generosity of the Musselman and the Emma G. Musselman foundation, the college would not only be lacking Musselman Stadium, Musselman Hall, and Musselman Library, but also the Bream Wright Hauser Field House, and thousands of dollars in scholarships awarded to students over the past several years. The Musselmans have undoubtedly left a strong imprint on the college and the greater community, and their charity has touched a countless number of people. Within the Musselman Library there is a display case devoted to the family, without whom the library itself would cease to exist. Inside this display, there are several photographs exploring the history and legacy of this remarkable family, and paying tribute to those who have brought so much to Gettysburg College. [excerpt] Course Information: Course Title: HIST 300: Historical Method Academic Term: Spring 2006 Course Instructor: Dr. Michael J. Birkner \u2772 Hidden in Plain Sight is a collection of student papers on objects that are hidden in plain sight around the Gettysburg College campus. Topics range from the Glatfelter Hall gargoyles to the statue of Eisenhower and from historical markers to athletic accomplishments. You can download the paper in pdf format and click View Photo to see the image in greater detail.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/hiddenpapers/1028/thumbnail.jp

Objective probability and quantum fuzziness

This paper offers a critique of the Bayesian interpretation of quantum mechanics with particular focus on a paper by Caves, Fuchs, and Schack containing a critique of the "objective preparations view" or OPV. It also aims to carry the discussion beyond the hardened positions of Bayesians and proponents of the OPV. Several claims made by Caves et al. are rebutted, including the claim that different pure states may legitimately be assigned to the same system at the same time, and the claim that the quantum nature of a preparation device cannot legitimately be ignored. Both Bayesians and proponents of the OPV regard the time dependence of a quantum state as the continuous dependence on time of an evolving state of some kind. This leads to a false dilemma: quantum states are either objective states of nature or subjective states of belief. In reality they are neither. The present paper views the aforesaid dependence as a dependence on the time of the measurement to whose possible outcomes the quantum state serves to assign probabilities. This makes it possible to recognize the full implications of the only testable feature of the theory, viz., the probabilities it assigns to measurement outcomes...Comment: 21 pages, no graphics, inspired by "Subjective probability and quantum certainty" (quant-ph/0608190 v2

A control analysis perspective on Katz centrality

Methods for efficiently controlling dynamics propagated on networks are usually based on identifying the most influential nodes. Knowledge of these nodes can be used for the targeted control of dynamics such as epidemics, or for modifying biochemical pathways relating to diseases. Similarly they are valuable for identifying points of failure to increase network resilience in, for example, social support networks and logistics networks. Many measures, often termed `centrality', have been constructed to achieve these aims. Here we consider Katz centrality and provide a new interpretation as a steady-state solution to continuous-time dynamics. This enables us to implement a sensitivity analysis which is similar to metabolic control analysis used in the analysis of biochemical pathways. The results yield a centrality which quantifies, for each node, the net impact of its absence from the network. It also has the desirable property of requiring a node with a high centrality to play a central role in propagating the dynamics of the system by having the capacity to both receive flux from others and then to pass it on. This new perspective on Katz centrality is important for a more comprehensive analysis of directed networks

The Sudan of the Three Niles: The Funj Chronicle

P. M. Holt\u27s The Sudan of the Three Niles is an annotated translation of the Funj Chronicle, a history of the Funj sultanate (1504–1821) based at Sennar, along the Blue Nile, and of the Turco-Egyptian regime that succeeded it at Khartoum. Along with the Tabaqat of Wad Dayf Allah (a biographical dictionary of Sudanese Muslim holy men compiled in the late 18th century), the Funj Chronicle is the most important Arabic source on the northern riverain Sudan in the Funj era, a period in which Islam was spreading widely and the region was developing its pronounced Arab–Islamic identity

Mover and Shaker: Grace Mary Crowfoot, Intimate Conversations, and Sudanese History

The Rationale for This StudyAt the fourth annual conference of African studies in France (4èmes Rencontres des Études Africaines en France [REAF]), which revolved around the broad theme of “Cosmopolitical Africas” (Afriques cosmopolitiques), several panellists considered “traces of intimacy” in African history regarding individuals and their modes of oral, literary, and artistic expression. Drawing inspiration from many scholars, including Stoler (2002), who wrote about “cross-racial” relationships in Southeast Asian colonial systems,Goffman (1959), whose sociological analysis of face-to-face “interaction rituals” is now a classic, and more, their aim was to consider close, and often idiosyncratic, exchanges –intimate encounters–in making history. I presented this study on Sudan at this conference and in this context, focusing on Grace Mary Crowfoot, a British polymath and superwoman of her era, and assessing the impact of her informal interactions with Sudanese men and women during the early twentieth century. As I tell it here, her story forms part of a collection of short biographical studies I have begun writing about figures whose lives in Sudan and Egypt transcended national and regional boundaries while producing global entanglements