Through the Eyes of the Accused: Applying William L. Benoit’s Image Restoration Theory to Saint Patrick’s Confession

Since 1995, William L Benoit’s “Image Restoration Theory” has been applied in various different contexts. While most applications of this theory have been used to analyze modern day apologia, little work has filtered ancient artifacts through Benoit’s theory. This thesis aims to analyze St. Patrick’s defense rhetoric as seen in his autobiographical letter Confession. Emphasis is first placed on the historical account of the life of Saint Patrick in order to establish a foundation for analysis of Confession. An extensive literature review of “Image Restoration Theory” follows before the application of Benoit’s theory to Confession. The author concludes by describing Patrick’s defense strategies. Special attention is given to Patrick’s main two strategies, mortification and transcendence. Using these two strategies, Patrick defends his ministry and work among the Irish by focusing on his humility and appealing to a higher authority. Future scholars will find this thesis useful in designing approaches to specific ancient and modern apologia

Discrete Multi-Material Selective Laser Sintering (M2 SLS): Development for an Application in Complex Sand Casting Core Arrays

Conventional sand casting processes often take many weeks or months to produce the tooling required for a casting, in particular the fabrication of sand core arrays for hollow features in a casting. SLS is already being applied to produce complex sand core geometries and reduce production times, but a new development of discretely laying down two different materials and removing one after sintering will allow even more complex geometries and drastically decrease the production times of sand cores. Two of the most significant problems in the current use of SLS for sand cores are the mechanical removal of unsintered powder and damage during part breakout. The second discrete material serves as a support medium through the build and fabrication of the sand core and is removed before casting; the sacrificial second material increases green strength and eliminates time consuming post-processing. The development and plan for implementation of the discrete M2 SLS process is presented.Mechanical Engineerin

Senior Recital: Kristin Houston, mezzo-soprano

This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree Bachelor of Music in Performance. Ms. Houston studies jazz voice with Karla Harris.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/2226/thumbnail.jp

Toward 'socially constructive' social constructions of leadership

In their introductory editorial essay for this special issue, David Grant and Gail Fairhurst have done us a great service by valiantly producing a "Sailing Guide" to the Social Construction of Leadership (Fairhurst & Grant, 2010). As with rounding the Capes, this is not a task for the faint of heart. A sailing guide is designed to provide vital knowledge about a particular sea or coast, providing us with charts, warnings about potential hazards and an indication where we might find safe havens in a storm. Their sailing guide does this to great effect as it skilfully "boxes the compass" by revealing all of the potential directions that one might set one‟s sail by if one was sufficiently foolhardy to embark on a cruise of the social construction of leadership

Studies in Astronomical Time Series Analysis. VI. Bayesian Block Representations

This paper addresses the problem of detecting and characterizing local variability in time series and other forms of sequential data. The goal is to identify and characterize statistically significant variations, at the same time suppressing the inevitable corrupting observational errors. We present a simple nonparametric modeling technique and an algorithm implementing it—an improved and generalized version of Bayesian Blocks [Scargle 1998]—that finds the optimal segmentation of the data in the observation interval. The structure of the algorithm allows it to be used in either a real-time trigger mode, or a retrospective mode. Maximum likelihood or marginal posterior functions to measure model fitness are presented for events, binned counts, and measurements at arbitrary times with known error distributions. Problems addressed include those connected with data gaps, variable exposure, extension to piecewise linear and piecewise exponential representations, multi-variate time series data, analysis of variance, data on the circle, other data modes, and dispersed data. Simulations provide evidence that the detection efficiency for weak signals is close to a theoretical asymptotic limit derived by [Arias-Castro, Donoho and Huo 2003]. In the spirit of Reproducible Research [Donoho et al. (2008)] all of the code and data necessary to reproduce all of the figures in this paper are included as auxiliary material

Trumpet Festival of the Southeast: Faculty Jazz Parliament

KSU Faculty Jazz Parliament welcomes featured guest artists Joe Gransden and Rex Richardson for a special performance as part of the 2019 Trumpet Festival of the Southeast. Gransden, an accomplished trumpeter, singer, and bandleader, is renowned for his distinctive style that\u27s earned him a loyal following in Atlanta and worldwide through engaging performances and acclaimed recordings as a soloist and with his 16-piece big band. Rex Richardson stays busy as a headline artist at international classical and jazz festivals and as a soloist with a multitude of orchestras, concert bands, brass bands, and jazz ensembles performing across five continents.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/2157/thumbnail.jp

Studies in Astronomical Time Series Analysis. VI. Bayesian Block Representations

This paper addresses the problem of detecting and characterizing local variability in time series and other forms of sequential data. The goal is to identify and characterize statistically significant variations, at the same time suppressing the inevitable corrupting observational errors. We present a simple nonparametric modeling technique and an algorithm implementing it - an improved and generalized version of Bayesian Blocks (Scargle 1998) - that finds the optimal segmentation of the data in the observation interval. The structure of the algorithm allows it to be used in either a real-time trigger mode, or a retrospective mode. Maximum likelihood or marginal posterior functions to measure model fitness are presented for events, binned counts, and measurements at arbitrary times with known error distributions. Problems addressed include those connected with data gaps, variable exposure, extension to piecewise linear and piecewise exponential representations, multi-variate time series data, analysis of variance, data on the circle, other data modes, and dispersed data. Simulations provide evidence that the detection efficiency for weak signals is close to a theoretical asymptotic limit derived by (Arias-Castro, Donoho and Huo 2003). In the spirit of Reproducible Research (Donoho et al. 2008) all of the code and data necessary to reproduce all of the figures in this paper are included as auxiliary material.Comment: Added some missing script files and updated other ancillary data (code and data files). To be submitted to the Astophysical Journa

A landscape index of ecological integrity to inform landscape conservation

Context: Conservation planning is increasingly using coarse filters based on the idea of conserving nature\u27s stage . One such approach is based on ecosystems and the concept of ecological integrity, although myriad ways exist to measure ecological integrity. Objectives: To describe our ecosystem-based index of ecological integrity (IEI) and its derivative index of ecological impact (ecoIpmact), and illustrate their applications for conservation assessment and planning in the northeastern United States. Methods: We characterized the biophysical setting of the landscape at the 30 m cell resolution using a parsimonious suite of settings variables. Based on these settings variables and mapped ecosystems, we computed a suite of anthropogenic stressor metrics reflecting intactness (i.e., freedom from anthropogenic stressors) and resiliency metrics (i.e., connectivity to similar neighboring ecological settings), quantile-rescaled them by ecosystem and geographic extent, and combined them in a weighted linear model to create IEI. We used the change in IEI over time under a land use scenario to compute ecoImpact. Results: We illustrated the calculation of IEI and ecoImpact to compare the ecological integrity consequences of a 70-year projection of urban growth to an alternative scenario involving securing a network of conservation core areas (reserves) from future development. Conclusions: IEI and ecoImpact offer an effective way to assess ecological integrity across the landscape and examine the potential ecological consequences of alternative land use and land cover scenarios to inform conservation decision making