MS-028: Papers of Daniel Chisholm, Co. K 116th PA, Civil War

The Chisholm papers include letters to friends and family members, mostly to his father, where he recounts interesting anecdotes of his war experiences and his thoughts on the Lincoln election and later assassination. There is a list of friends and soldiers who died in the war created by Daniel and his brother Alex, and a journal of Daniel’s which covers the fighting from November 8, 1864 to Lee’s surrender in April 1865. He comments on the action at Hatcher’s Run, Fort Stedman, White Oak Road, and Lynchburg Road Bridge. He also mentions General Humphrey’s taking command of the Second Corps, daily camp life and picketing, and the execution of deserters. Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of their content. More information about our collections can be found on our website http://www.gettysburg.edu/special_collections/collections/.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/findingaidsall/1027/thumbnail.jp

MS-026: Aide-de-Camp to General John E. Wool, Civil War Diary

The Civil War diary depicts a Union staff officer’s day-to-day life throughout the year of 1862. It gives some information on the Merrimac’s naval battles and also the action that took place at South Mountain, Harpers Ferry, and Antietam. Located in the back of the diary are a few addresses of friends/relatives in Troy and his brother Fred’s address in London. Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of their content. More information about our collections can be found on our website http://www.gettysburg.edu/special_collections/collections/.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/findingaidsall/1025/thumbnail.jp

Building-in quality rather than assessing quality afterwards: a technological solution to ensuring computational accuracy in learning materials

[Abstract]: Quality encompasses a very broad range of ideas in learning materials, yet the accuracy of the content is often overlooked as a measure of quality. Various aspects of accuracy are briefly considered, and the issue of computational accuracy is then considered further. When learning materials are produced containing the results of mathematical computations, accuracy is essential: but how can the results of these computations be known to be correct? A solution is to embed the instructions for performing the calculations in the materials, and let the computer calculate the result and place it in the text. In this way, quality is built into the learning materials by design, not evaluated after the event. This is all accomplished using the ideas of literate programming, applied to the learning materials context. A small example demonstrates how remarkably easy the ideas are to apply in practice using the appropriate technology. Given that the technology is available and is easy to use, it would appear imperative that the approach discussed is adopted to improve quality in learning materials containing computational results

MS-027: Michael Moyer Co. C 173rd Pennsylvania, Civil War Diary

The Civil War diary of Michael Moyer contains most of the movements of the 173rd Pennsylvania Regiment, from their enlistment on October 21, 1862 to their abrupt orders to move out of Camp Veile on July 10, 1863. Moyer comments often on the weather, if there was drilling each day, and what letters he wrote or received. Many Sundays he attended a sermon and the regiment undergoes a general inspection. Moyer notes on the four men who died at Camp Veile from typhoid fever during their stay, one was a drummer boy. He also mentions hearing cannonading at Fort Suffolk and Fort Monroe on occasion and receiving news of the fighting in Fredericksburg. Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of their content. More information about our collections can be found on our website http://www.gettysburg.edu/special_collections/collections/.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/findingaidsall/1026/thumbnail.jp

Reflections on diagnosing autism spectrum disorders

Personal reflections on the issue of labelling children as being on the autism spectrum

Evaluation of Tweedie exponential dispersion model densities by Fourier inversion

The Tweedie family of distributions is a family of exponential dispersion models with power variance functions V (μ) = μ^p for p not between (0, 1). These distributions do not generally have density functions that can be written in closed form. However, they have simple moment generating functions, so the densities can be evaluated numerically by Fourier inversion of the characteristic functions. This paper develops numerical methods to make this inversion fast and accurate. Acceleration techniques are used to handle oscillating integrands. A range of analytic results are used to ensure convergent computations and to reduce the complexity of the parameter space. The Fourier inversion method is compared to a series evaluation method and the two methods are found to be complementary in that they perform well in different regions of the parameter space

Experimental archeology and serious games: challenges of inhabiting virtual heritage

Experimental archaeology has long yielded valuable insights into the tools and techniques that featured in past peoples’ relationship with the material world around them. However, experimental archaeology has, hitherto, confined itself to rigid, empirical and quantitative questions. This paper applies principles of experimental archaeology and serious gaming tools in the reconstructions of a British Iron Age Roundhouse. The paper explains a number of experiments conducted to look for quantitative differences in movement in virtual vs material environments using both “virtual” studio reconstruction as well as material reconstruction. The data from these experiments was then analysed to look for differences in movement which could be attributed to artefacts and/or environments. The paper explains the structure of the experiments, how the data was generated, what theories may make sense of the data, what conclusions have been drawn and how serious gaming tools can support the creation of new experimental heritage environments

Evaporation of a thin droplet on a thin substrate with a high thermal resistance

A mathematical model for the quasi-steady evaporation of a thin liquid droplet on a thin substrate that incorporates the dependence of the saturation concentration of vapour at the free surface of the droplet on temperature is used to examine an atypical situation in which the substrate has a high thermal resistance relative to the droplet (i.e. it is highly insulating and/or is thick relative to the droplet). In this situation diffusion of heat through the substrate is the rate-limiting evaporative process and at leading order the local mass flux is spatially uniform, the total evaporation rate is proportional to the surface area of the droplet, and the droplet is uniformly cooled. In particular, the qualitative differences between the predictions of the present model in this situation and those of the widely used 'basic' model in which the saturation concentration is independent of temperature are highlighted

Aerodynamic preliminary analysis system 2. Part 1: Theory

An aerodynamic analysis system based on potential theory at subsonic and/or supersonic speeds and impact type finite element solutions at hypersonic conditions is described. Three dimensional configurations having multiple nonplanar surfaces of arbitrary planform and bodies of noncircular contour may be analyzed. Static, rotary, and control longitudinal and lateral directional characteristics may be generated. The analysis was implemented on a time sharing system in conjunction with an input tablet digitizer and an interactive graphics input/output display and editing terminal to maximize its responsiveness to the preliminary analysis problem. The program provides an efficient analysis for systematically performing various aerodynamic configuration tradeoff and evaluation studies