Environmental persuasion and Roman Catholic Church interior design after Vatican Council II, 1963-present: A case study of Notre Dame Chapel, Omaha, Nebraska

For an environment to produce a change in attitude, or at least begin that transformation, it is necessary to view it as part of the communication/persuasion process. Environments both reflect communication and modulate it, channel it, control it, facilitate it, or even inhibit it (Rapoport, 1982). Environmental meaning is often expressed through signs, materials, colors, forms, sizes, furnishings, landscaping, maintenance, and even in some instances, by people themselves (Bachelard, 1969; Blomeyer, 1979; Cralik, 1976). Therefore, spatial meanings or messages can be conveyed by walls or other sharp breaks, or by transitions (Reed, 1974). Thus, environment can produce a sense of belonging (Brebner, 1982) which adds to the comfort felt in the milieu. All people seem to share a need for comfort in their environment, but it is significant that people seem to define comfort or belonging according to perceptual filters that are definitely their own (Broadbent, Bunt, and Jencks [Eds.J, 1980)

Public Approval for State Government Institutions

There are a number of state level institutions designed to limit the impact of special interests on government or to facilitate citizen participation in government. These include legislative term limits, ballot initiatives, governors' line item veto power and public funding for legislative and gubernatorial candidates. While most of these state government institutions are fairly common around the United States, relatively little is known about Americans' opinion of them. This policy note explores Americans' views on these features as well as the relationship between survey respondents' partisanship and their approval of these state government institutions. To assess the public's attitudes on these political institutions, researchers at the Harry S Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri conducted a national survey of 1,000 adults. The survey was administered as part of the 2007 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), a 10,000 person survey conducted through the collaborative efforts of a consortium of universities. The 2007 CCES was administered in November 2007 by Polimetrix, an Internet survey firm located in Palo Alto, California.Includes bibliographical reference

Convergence science in the Anthropocene: Navigating the known and unknown

Rapidly changing ecological and social systems currently pose significant societal challenges. Navigating the complexity of social-ecological change requires ap- proaches able to cope with, and potentially solve, both foreseen and unforeseen societal challenges. The emergent field of convergence addresses the intricacies of such challenges, and is thus relevant to a broad range of interdisciplinary issues. This paper suggests a way to conceptualize convergence research. It discusses how it relates to two major societal challenges (adaptation, transformation), and to the generation of policy-relevant science. It also points out limitations to the further development of convergence research

Naturalists, connoissuers and classicists: collecting and patronage as female practice in Britain, 1715-1825

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)This thesis reevaluates the role that women played in the collection and patronage of natural history, fine arts and antiquities in the long eighteenth century. While most scholarship that addresses early modern collecting and patronage operates within an androcentric framework, this project fills a historiographical gap by focusing its analyses on the experiences, activities, contributions, and achievements of female figures. Primary documentation provides evidence of a highly sophisticated, invested and functional network of enthusiastic and experienced female collectors and patrons who participated in activities that were at once parallel to that of their male peers and yet retained a distinctly feminine character. Influenced by prevailing intellectual movements and aesthetic trends, women throughout the period studied, accumulated, and commissioned items of scientific, artistic, and antiquarian value. Their meaningful engagement with naturalists, explorers, artists, statesmen, and colleagues is at the center of this study which situates female collectors and patrons within a wider socio-cultural context and confirms the broader historical significance of their work. In this way, this thesis may be understood as a restoration of women to their central place in the history of collecting and patronage and as a more complete historicization of the corresponding culture between the years 1715 and 1825

Resume Essentials for the Academic Librarian

published or submitted for publicatio

COMPARING FUNCTIONAL DATA ANALYSIS AND HYSTERESIS LOOPS WHEN TESTING TREATMENTS FOR REDUCING HEAT STRESS IN DAIRY COWS

Various techniques are commonly used to reduce heat stress, including sprayers and misters, shading, and changes in feed. Oftentimes studies are performed where researchers do not control the times when animals use shading or other means available to reduce heat stress, making it hard to test differences between treatments. Two methods are used on data from a study where Holstein cows were given free access to weight activated “cow showers.” Functional data analysis can be used to model body temperature as a function of time and environmental variables such as the Heat Load Index. Differences between treatment groups can be tested using a Functional Bayesian MCMC model. Alternatively hysteresis loops, such as the ellipse, formed by a plot of air temperature or the Heat Load Index against body temperature over the course of a day can be estimated and their parameters used to test differences between cows with access to showers and cows without. Results from an R package hysteresis, which can estimate these loops and their parameters are illustrated. Functional data analysis allows for looser assumptions regarding the body temperature curve and the ability to look for differences between groups at specific time points, while hysteresis loops give the ability to look at heat stress over the course of a day holistically in terms of parameters such as amplitude, lag, internal heat load and central values