Oval Bust Portrait of Ulysses S. Grant

The steel engraving depicts a bust portrait of Ulysses S. Grant, Commanding General of the Army and the 18th President of the United States. The engraving is printed in black ink on off-white paper. It appears to have been torn from a bound volume.https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/fvw-prints/1179/thumbnail.jp

Oval Bust Portrait of Ulysses S. Grant

The steel engraving depicts a bust portrait of Ulysses S. Grant, Commanding General of the Army and the 18th President of the United States. The engraving is printed in black ink on off-white paper. It appears to have been torn from a bound volume.https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/fvw-artifacts/1273/thumbnail.jp

A Graduate Composition Recital

List of performers and performances

Frequency References for Gravitational Wave Missions

The mitigation of laser frequency noise is an important aspect of interferometry for LISA-like missions. One portion of the baseline mitigation strategy in LISA is active stabilization utilizing opto-mechanical frequency references. The LISA optical bench is an attractive place to implement such frequency references due to its environmental stability and its access to primary and redundant laser systems. We have made an initial investigation of frequency references constructed using the techniques developed for the LISA and LISA Pathfinder optical benches. Both a Mach-Zehnder interferometer and triangular Fabry-Perot cavity have been successfully bonded to a Zerodur baseplate using the hydroxide bonding method. We will describe the construction of the bench along with preliminary stability results

Governance tools for board members : adapting strategy maps and balanced scorecards for directorial action

The accountability of members of the board of directors of publicly traded companies has increased over years. Corresponding to these developments, there has been an inadequate advancement of tools and frameworks to help directorial functioning. This paper provides an argument for design of the Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Maps made available to the directors as a means of influencing, monitoring, controlling and assisting managerial action. This paper examines how the Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Maps could be modified and used for this purpose. The paper suggests incorporating Balanced Scorecards in the Internal Process perspective, ‘internal’ implying here not just ‘internal to the firm’, but also ‘internal to the inter-organizational system’. We recommend that other such factors be introduced separately under a new ‘perspective’ depending upon what the board wants to emphasize without creating any unwieldy proliferation of measures. Tracking the Strategy Map over time by the board of directors is a way for the board to take responsibility for the firm’s performance. The paper makes a distinction between action variables and monitoring variables. Monitoring variables are further divided on the basis of two considerations: a) whether results have been met or not and b) whether causative factors have met the expected levels of performance or not. Based on directorial responsibilities and accountability, we take another look at how the variables could be specified more completely and accurately with directorial recommendations for executives

Contradictions and Vile Utterances: The Zoroastrian Critique of Judaism in the Shkand Gumanig Wizar

My dissertation examines the critique of Judaism in Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen of the Shkand Gumanig Wizar. The Shkand Gumanig Wizar is a ninth century CE Zoroastrian theological work that contains polemics against Islam, Christianity, and Manichaeism, as well as Judaism. The chapters on Judasim include citations of a Jewish sacred text referred to as the "First Scripture" and critiques of these citations for their contradictory and illogical portrayals of the divine. This dissertation comprises two parts. The first part consists of an introductory chapter, four interpretative essays, and a conclusion. The second part consists of a text and new English translation of Shkand Gumanig Wizar Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen.My first essay presents a new approach to the relation between the citations from the First Scripture in the Shkand Gumanig Wizar and Jewish literature. Previous scholars have tried to identify a single parallel text in the Hebrew Bible or rabbinic literature as the origin for each of citation. Borrowing approaches developed by scholars of the Qur'an and early Islamic literature, I argue that the Shkand Gumanig Wizar's critique draws on a more diverse and, likely, oral network of traditions about the biblical patriarchs and prophets. My second essay contains a close reading of three linked passages concerning angels in Shkand Gumanig Wizar Chapter Fourteen. I argue that the depiction of angels in these passages responds to a widespread Jewish belief in Metatron, an angelic co-regent whose power equals God's,. This essay analyzes the these angelic passages in light of the traces of this belief that can be found in the Babylonian Talmud, Jewish mystical literature, and other texts. My third essay concerns one of the longest citations in the critique of Judaism, a version of the story of the Garden of Eden from the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis. This essay demonstrates that this citation is one of a motif of connected and mutually illuminating garden passages found throughout the apologetic and polemical chapters of the Shkand Gumanig Wizar. I argue that gardens' prominence in the critique of Judaism, and the Shkand Gumanig Wizar as a whole, derives from gardens' symbolic role in Iranian culture.My final essay compares the critique of Judaism in the Shkand Gumanig Wizar to a Zoroastrian anti-Jewish text from another Middle Persian work, the Denkard. Whereas the earlier Denkard depicts Judaism mythically, relating the story of Judaism's creation by an evil demon, the Shkand Gumanig Wizar depicts Judaism textually, as citations from the First Scripture. I argue that the <Shkand Gumanig Wizar's presentation of Judaism as a text is an interpretative key for understanding the Zoroastrian work as a whole

Contradictions and Vile Utterances: The Zoroastrian Critique of Judaism in the Shkand Gumanig Wizar

My dissertation examines the critique of Judaism in Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen of the Shkand Gumanig Wizar. The Shkand Gumanig Wizar is a ninth century CE Zoroastrian theological work that contains polemics against Islam, Christianity, and Manichaeism, as well as Judaism. The chapters on Judasim include citations of a Jewish sacred text referred to as the "First Scripture" and critiques of these citations for their contradictory and illogical portrayals of the divine. This dissertation comprises two parts. The first part consists of an introductory chapter, four interpretative essays, and a conclusion. The second part consists of a text and new English translation of Shkand Gumanig Wizar Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen.My first essay presents a new approach to the relation between the citations from the First Scripture in the Shkand Gumanig Wizar and Jewish literature. Previous scholars have tried to identify a single parallel text in the Hebrew Bible or rabbinic literature as the origin for each of citation. Borrowing approaches developed by scholars of the Qur'an and early Islamic literature, I argue that the Shkand Gumanig Wizar's critique draws on a more diverse and, likely, oral network of traditions about the biblical patriarchs and prophets. My second essay contains a close reading of three linked passages concerning angels in Shkand Gumanig Wizar Chapter Fourteen. I argue that the depiction of angels in these passages responds to a widespread Jewish belief in Metatron, an angelic co-regent whose power equals God's,. This essay analyzes the these angelic passages in light of the traces of this belief that can be found in the Babylonian Talmud, Jewish mystical literature, and other texts. My third essay concerns one of the longest citations in the critique of Judaism, a version of the story of the Garden of Eden from the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis. This essay demonstrates that this citation is one of a motif of connected and mutually illuminating garden passages found throughout the apologetic and polemical chapters of the Shkand Gumanig Wizar. I argue that gardens' prominence in the critique of Judaism, and the Shkand Gumanig Wizar as a whole, derives from gardens' symbolic role in Iranian culture.My final essay compares the critique of Judaism in the Shkand Gumanig Wizar to a Zoroastrian anti-Jewish text from another Middle Persian work, the Denkard. Whereas the earlier Denkard depicts Judaism mythically, relating the story of Judaism's creation by an evil demon, the Shkand Gumanig Wizar depicts Judaism textually, as citations from the First Scripture. I argue that the <Shkand Gumanig Wizar's presentation of Judaism as a text is an interpretative key for understanding the Zoroastrian work as a whole