Back in Formation: Presenting the 2018-2019 CWI Fellows

With the new academic year off to a racing start, the Civil War Institute Fellows are back and ready to muster in. Veterans, Ryan Bilger ’19, Savannah Labbe ’19, Jonathan Tracey ’19, and Zachary Wesley ’20 will be joined by new recruits, James Goodman ’20, Elizabeth Hobbs ’21, Benjamin Hutchison ’21, Benjamin Roy ’21, Cameron Sauers ’21, and Isaac Shoop ’21. Everyone is eager to begin working on their new projects and sharing history with all of you. [excerpt

Plane curves with prescribed triple points: a toric approach

We will use toric degenerations of the projective plane ${{\mathbb{P}}^ 2}$ to give a new proof of the triple points interpolation problems in the projective plane. We also give a complete list of toric surfaces that are useful as components in this degeneration

Topologies for intermediate logics

We investigate the problem of characterizing the classes of Grothendieck toposes whose internal logic satisfies a given assertion in the theory of Heyting algebras, and introduce natural analogues of the double negation and De Morgan topologies on an elementary topos for a wide class of intermediate logics.Comment: 21 page

Finding Meaning in the Flag: Rebel Flag

I’m sure that as fans of history, at some point in your pursuit of knowledge, you have either read or heard the phrase “language is key”. This is something my professors have harped on, class after class, explaining that the way we talk about things shapes the way they are viewed. This lesson holds true for the Union perspective of the Confederate flag during the war. In all the documents written by Northerners that I looked over for this post, I did not come across a single mention of the “Confederate flag.” This was because the flag was pretty consistently, and intentionally, known as the “rebel flag.” This term was used for each subsequent version of the flag, showing that each of the flags had the same meaning for Northerners, regardless of the changing design

SEKURITISASI OLEH PEMERINTAH SELANDIA BARU DALAM MERESPONS ANCAMAN COVID-19

New Zealand is one of the countries with the best response to COVID-19. Upon entry of the virus on February 28, 2020, the New Zealand government immediately responded by implementing a precautionary approach, namely restrictions on international flights from countries that still do not have an adequate health system and have not taken any action to tackle the dangers of the spread on COVID-19. The response that was also taken by the New Zealand government was by continuously conducting campaigns about COVID-19 using securitization theory. Thus, this study aims to describe the securitization process of the New Zealand government in suppressing the number of COVID-19 which will be emphasized on the speech act of the securitizing actor, namely the government. This research uses the library research method to collect relevant data/ Data was also obtained from the New Zealand government's press conferences. The results showed that New Zealand has securitized prior the entry of COVID-19 into the country. Speech acts are carried out by conveying that COVID-19 is transmitting quickly and request that people trust the decisions made by the government. Approximately 83 percent of New Zealanders trust the government. For this reason, the government has the ability to act by implementing extraordinary measures

Suicidal journeys: attempted suicide as geographies of intended death

In geography, a conversation around suicide survivors and their suicidal journeys has yet to happen. The current prioritisation of suicide as end points marked on maps and patterns of death in space and regions has obscured the lived experience of adults who attempt suicide and do not die. In an effort to reduce this invisibility, evidence derived from in-depth interviews with adults (18 years and over reported as missing) who freely delivered narratives of their attempts is employed to understand the complex spatiality of suicide in retrospect. Situating suicide survivors as knowledgeable about their feelings, beliefs and experiences, the paper encounters testimonies of intended death via a focus on spatialised journeys: physical routes, pathways and places of attempted suicide. Discussing these particular journeys as socio-spatial process represents the potential for geographical scholars to rework geographies of dying and (attempted) death as an active practice

Continuing care groups: long term treatment of substance use disorders

Master's Project (M.Ed.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2014Substance use disorders are chronic diseases that affect individuals, families, and communities. These illnesses frequently require several courses of treatment to achieve abstinence. Inpatient chemical dependency treatment, followed by continuing care, increases abstinence rates regardless of the interventions used within the continuing care program. The largest barrier to successful continuing care programs appears to be patients' attendance and participation. This project aims to create a continuing care program that focuses on increasing patients' attendance adherence in order to support them through their first year of recovery

The amelioration of the impact of physical fatigue on cognitive performance by phytochemicals : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand

Fatigue is common in everyday life. It is experienced as either cognitive or physical fatigue, both of which are intertwined. Researchers are interested in investigating the ability of phytochemical supplementation to improve cognitive performance by diminishing the effects of physical fatigue. The results thus far have been highly inconsistent (Brisswalter & Arcelin, 1997). The present study examined the effects of phytochemical supplementation utilising a daily dose of 240 mg of blackcurrant extract, a berry fruit high in phytochemicals but under-researched compared to other berry fruits, such as blueberries. Fifty healthy participants completed two 3-hour trials, the first during Week 1 and the second 6 weeks later. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to the blackcurrant supplement group, the supplement being consumed each day over the 6-week period. Each trial consisted of five cognitive tests followed by a tailored HIIT cycle test. The purpose of the HIIT was to induce physical fatigue and took less than 10 min overall. Cognitive tasks and mood questionnaires were completed pre and post consumption of the supplement at both Week 1 and Week 6. Participants received the blackcurrant supplement 1 hour before post task measurements were completed. Analyses demonstrated that the blackcurrant supplementation had no influence on cognitive performance. However, it is questionable as to whether the degree of physical fatigue induced was sufficient to negatively influence cognitive performance, even though previous studies had found it to be so. Overall, it was concluded that blackcurrant supplementation taken across 6 weeks did not facilitate cognitive performance after physical fatigue. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed, including ways for future research to move forward

50 Years After the War on Poverty: Successes Should Inspire the Next Bold Steps for Poor Children

Safety net programs emerging from the War on Poverty and later antipoverty efforts such as Head Start, Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), among others have reduced poverty, and strengthened longer-term outcomes for poor children, leading to better health and greater economic success into adulthood. Unfortunately, despite the strong positive effect of these public programs, the poverty rate is still too high, particularly among America’s next generation of children and young adults. Struggling with economic insecurity is now a typical experience for America’s next generation, with the overwhelming majority of low-income households with children consisting of at least one working adult. For many families, work is not enough to keep them out of poverty, especially due to decades of shrinking wages, lack of affordable child care, and too few opportunities to move up to a better job with higher wages. Even with modest assistance from public programs, millions of families still struggle with economic insecurity. We need to build on the success of the War on Poverty and target the new problems created by the low-wage labor market