Know Thy Staff: An Interview with an ILL Specialist

When undergraduates, graduate students or faculty members conduct research, they may encounter articles or books that our University or OhioLINK does not have access to. Stumped researchers then turn to Chris Tangeman and his researching and database navigating skills

Sulpicius Severus and Martin of Tours: defending a mentor, securing a saint

Martin of Tours has become one of the most famous saints of Western Christendom, yet his life was shrouded in controversy. Martin’s initial fame in Aquitaine came from the circulation of Sulpicius Severus’ writings in the early fifth century. A pupil of the holy man and lawyer from Aquitaine, Severus used his pen to protect Martin’s sanctity from attacks by critics such as Ithacius and other members of the clergy. This thesis will use the three works of Severus, the Vita Martini, Chronicorum, and Dialogus to argue that Severus used a rhetorical strategy throughout his Martinian writings to secure Martin’s sanctity and legitimacy as a bishop. Through the successful defense that these documents presented, Martin’s sanctity has survived the test of time, despite the fact that his life and Severus’ writings about him have been a source of scholastic debate. This thesis consists of five chapters followed by a conclusion. Chapter One will place Martin and Severus in their historical context and introduce the historiography of the Martinian works. Chapter Two will explore criticisms of both Martin’s life as a soldier and of his lack of the educational and social background prevalent in his fellow bishops. Chapter Three will then explore the early struggles that came from reconciling the responsibilities of the ascetic lifestyle with the communal responsibilities as a bishop. Chapter Four will investigate the criticism over Martin’s involvement with Priscillian of Avila, a rebuke which Severus fully engages in a strong defensive posture to protect Martin’s reputation from accusations of heresy. Next, Chapter Five will treat charges of hypocrisy contemporary critics brought against Martin. This thesis will not simply highlight these four criticisms that Severus attempted to resolve, but will also explore why these critiques are present in the hagiography and the rhetorical defense used by Severus to secure Martin’s sanctity

The Turn from Radicalism: Self-Regulation of the American Labor Movement, 1909-1919

The American Labor Movement of the first decade of the twentieth century was a host to radical labor union organizers and diverse schools of radical thought. By 1919, however, the Movement had shifted away from radicalism toward more pragmatic cooperation between owners and workers. This thesis uses the national organ of the American Flint Glass Workers\u27 Union to recount this same radicalism and traces its disappearance from the Labor Movement during and after American involvement in the First World War. Using events recorded in The American Flint, it argues that the workers themselves, motivated by patriotic zeal or self-preservation, purged their own ranks of radical elements. This thesis takes a step toward providing a more nuanced understanding of the American Labor Movement as it entered a crucial moment in its history, one that is described as the “ lean years” or the “collapse of organized labor” in America

Into the vault of the saints: the exterior crypts of Saint-Denis in Paris and Saint-Germain in Auxerre

Historians have held the Carolingian rule of Western Europe as a brief strike of light against the dark backdrop of the Medieval period. In this period two structures emerged for the first time in church architecture: the westwork and the exterior crypt. These two structures did not follow models found in Early Christian architecture: they accommodated functions specific to developments and needs that emerged in the context of the Carolingian Empire. Although both hold many opportunities for scholarship, the exterior crypt offers significant insights into developments at the heart of Carolingian liturgy, society, and architectural design. Two of these exterior crypts—those at the abbeys of Saint-Denis in Paris and Saint-Germain in Auxerre—provide the framework for the examination of other exterior crypts that emerged during this period. This thesis will explore these two crypt forms and the functions and references they express

An information-theoretic approach to the gravitational-wave burst detection problem

The observational era of gravitational-wave astronomy began in the Fall of 2015 with the detection of GW150914. One potential type of detectable gravitational wave is short-duration gravitational-wave bursts, whose waveforms can be difficult to predict. We present the framework for a new detection algorithm for such burst events -- \textit{oLIB} -- that can be used in low-latency to identify gravitational-wave transients independently of other search algorithms. This algorithm consists of 1) an excess-power event generator based on the Q-transform -- \textit{Omicron} --, 2) coincidence of these events across a detector network, and 3) an analysis of the coincident events using a Markov chain Monte Carlo Bayesian evidence calculator -- \textit{LALInferenceBurst}. These steps compress the full data streams into a set of Bayes factors for each event; through this process, we use elements from information theory to minimize the amount of information regarding the signal-versus-noise hypothesis that is lost. We optimally extract this information using a likelihood-ratio test to estimate a detection significance for each event. Using representative archival LIGO data, we show that the algorithm can detect gravitational-wave burst events of astrophysical strength in realistic instrumental noise across different burst waveform morphologies. We also demonstrate that the combination of Bayes factors by means of a likelihood-ratio test can improve the detection efficiency of a gravitational-wave burst search. Finally, we show that oLIB's performance is robust against the choice of gravitational-wave populations used to model the likelihood-ratio test likelihoods

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F22RS SGR No. 1 (Allen Hall Murals)

To Urge and Request Louisiana State University paint a new representation of Student Life over the Mural in Allen Hall depicting segregation and people of color picking cotto

Prevalence of Dyskinesia and OFF by 30-Minute Intervals Through the Day and Assessment of Daily Episodes of Dyskinesia and OFF: Novel Analyses of Diary Data from Gocovri Pivotal Trials.

BACKGROUND: Parkinson\u27s disease (PD) patients using levodopa commonly develop dyskinesia and OFF episodes that reduce quality of life. OBJECTIVE: Evaluate prevalence of troublesome dyskinesia and OFF through the day, assessed by 30-minute intervals, as well as the mean number and duration of troublesome dyskinesia and OFF episodes, transitions between PD states, and effects of Gocovri® (amantadine) extended release capsules on these episodes. METHODS: Evaluate diary data from pooled Gocovri phase 3, placebo-controlled trials-analyzed for 17 hours following wake-up-at baseline and week 12. RESULTS: Diaries were evaluable for 162 patients. At baseline, 67% of patients woke up OFF, with prevalence decreasing to 13% at 2 hours and then remaining relatively steady at ∼12% (range, 6-17%) across half-hour intervals thereafter. Troublesome dyskinesia prevalence rose steadily from 5% to 24% over the first 2 hours, then fluctuated between 20% and 44% through the rest of the waking day. At baseline, patients experienced a mean of 3.0 daily episodes of troublesome dyskinesia (average duration 2.0 hours each), and 2.2 daily episodes of OFF (average duration 1.1 hour each). At week 12, Gocovri-treated patients showed greater reductions than placebo in troublesome dyskinesia and OFF episodes per day (treatment difference: -1.0 episodes and -0.4 episodes, respectively) and average episode duration (treatment difference: -0.6 hours and -0.3 hours, respectively). Mean duration of individual episodes of ON without troublesome dyskinesia (Good ON) increased by 5.0 hours for Gocovri, compared with 2.0 hours for placebo. Patients taking Gocovri experienced 2.2 fewer transitions between states than patients taking placebo. CONCLUSIONS: Troublesome dyskinesia and OFF occurred in the morning and throughout the waking day. Gocovri-treated patients experienced fewer, shorter episodes of both troublesome dyskinesia and OFF, thereby increasing the duration of continuous Good ON episodes and reducing the frequency of transitions between motor states