An Overview of Monstrous Moonshine

The Conway-Norton monstrous moonshine conjecture set off a quest to discover the connection between the Monster and the J-function. The goal of this poster is to give an overview of the components of the conjecture, the conjecture itself, and some of the ideas that led to its solution. Special focus is given to Klein\u27s J-function

The International Student’s Voice: can it make a difference? Enhancing the International Student’s Learning Experience

While Quality Assurance and Enhancement (QA&E) practices and processes have been at the heart of the Higher Education debate across Europe for over 20 years (Harvey and Williams, 2010), Italian universities have only recently (2013) begun to implement (with some resistance) compulsory external QA&E mechanisms (ANVUR)1. Any attempt to enhance the learning experience in HE is welcome, in particular those which promote excellence in teaching, but whether these external processes (ENQA, 2009)2 will have the desired impact remains to be seen (cfr Henard & Roseveare, 2012). Indeed, studies have shown (e.g. Greere & Riley in print, Harvey & Williams, 2010) that even in countries where such mechanisms have long been the norm and external quality processes (QA) have become ritualised, there is little evidence that this has translated into the creation of a quality culture, actively engaging all stakeholders (students, teachers, administrators and quality managers) in promoting quality (QE) (Räsänen, 2013). Indeed, while there have long been calls for the development of a quality culture ‘on the ground’ (EUA, 2006; ENQA, 2009; Vettori, 2012), the literature lacks reports of successful bottom-up practices which result in such a culture.This study will present one such case study. Thanks to the election of an international student on the Student-Teacher Committee at the School of International Studies, a need to address issues specifically regarding international students emerged. As part of the EU funded SPEAQ project (Sharing Practices to Enhance and Assure Quality), a micro-project was thus developed which would engage international students in identifying possible actions and initiatives to address these issues. While the project aimed to enhance the learning experience of International Students throug

Examining a comprehensive developmental sequence throughout the livestock judging experience

The purpose of this study was to determine the self-perceived influence of a livestock judging experience on skills learned and overall usefulness outside of competition at different ages and competitive levels. This study investigated two different areas of the participant's livestock judging experience; skills and stress. Also, this study evaluated participant's personal characteristics in relation to the enjoyment of the judging experience and total benefit of that experience. A qualitative interview protocol was developed for the target audience who were Kentucky 4-H livestock judging participants. With the design of this study and the need for multiple experience levels, specific age and experience parameters were in place. The results of this study were that the livestock judging experience is contributing to the human development of its participants. This experience was shown to influence the development of life and career skills, stress management, and should be continued as a fundamental youth development activity

An Overview of Monstrous Moonshine

The Conway-Norton monstrous moonshine conjecture set off a quest to discover the connection between the Monster and the J-function. The goal of this paper is to give an overview of the components of the conjecture, the conjecture itself, and some of the ideas that led to its solution. Special focus is given to Klein\u27s J-function

Paradoxical Agency: The Ethics of Women\u27s Rhetoric in Shakespeare\u27s Rome

In this project, I address the problems of ethics and agency for women’s speech in Shakepseare’s Roman plays—Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, and Coriolanus—and the narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece. Regardless of their rhetorical skill, virtue, or agency, it seems that the Roman women in these works are doomed to fail: either their lives become unlivable or they lose the people most important to them. This prompts the project’s initiating question: why do Shakespeare’s Roman women speak if their words have no long-term effect? For these characters, rhetorical success in Shakespeare’s Rome is dependent upon a particular combination of rhetorical techniques, but these tactics result in questionable agency and ethics within Rome’s patriarchal system. This project answers whether or not female speech can be both ethical and persuasive by first investigating the roots of ethical speech in Shakespeare’s Rome. Ethical speech arises out of complex social mores that define virtue and propriety for women, but traditionally ethical speech cannot create lasting persuasion. Women who challenge the limits of tradition persuade effectively; however, they do so with tragic consequences. Only Cleopatra, the one woman who speaks outside of Roman influence, successfully defies norms in order to achieve rhetorical success and rewrite her own tragedy. Although men and women in Shakespeare’s Rome face similarly contradictory demands on their rhetoric and civic duty, Roman culture makes exceedingly unfair demands of women’s limited agency: as a result, there is no successful, ethical female rhetoric within this imperfect world, not so long as women attempt to maintain the very society that restrains their agency

Toward More Efficient Organic Solar Cells: A Detailed Study of Loss Pathway and Its Impact on Overall Device Performance in Low‐Offset Organic Solar Cells

Low-offset organic solar cell systems have attracted great interest since nonfullerene acceptors came into the picture. While numerous studies have focused on the charge generation process in these low-offset systems, only a few studies have focused on the details of each loss channel in the charge generation process and their impact on the overall device performance. Here, several nonfullerene acceptors are blended with the same polymer donor to form a series of low-offset organic solar cell systems where significant variation in device performance is observed. Through detailed analyses of loss pathways, it is found that: i) the donor:acceptor interfaces of PM6:Y6 and PM6:TPT10 are close to the optimum energetic condition, ii) energetics at the donor:acceptor interface are the most important factor to the overall device performance, iii) exciton dissociation yield can be field-dependent owing to the sufficiently small energetic offset at the donor:acceptor interface, and iv) the change in substituents in the terminal group of Y-series acceptors in this work mainly affects energetics at the donor:acceptor interface instead of the interface density in the active layer. In general, this work presents a path toward more efficient organic solar cells

The Rhetoric of Homiletics: Preaching, Persuasion, and the Cappadocian Fathers

This dissertation investigates the rhetoric of preaching. The project entails understanding and overcoming pejorative perspectives of rhetoric and limited perspectives of preaching that imbue public discourse, scholarship on homiletics, and historical accounts of preaching and preachers. This dissertation focuses on the fourth-century homilies of the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa). The argument is made that preaching is profoundly rhetorical in nature, both practically and theoretically. Three internal chapters support this argument and construct this dissertation as both a rhetorical history and a rhetorical criticism research project. Chapter One introduces the aims, perspectives, and approaches of the project. Chapter Two presents broad and specific historical context necessary for understanding the rhetorical insights, arguments, and theories advanced in the subsequent chapters. Chapter Three illustrates in fine detail some of the practical implications of acknowledging the rhetorical nature of preaching and preachers. Chapter Four further pursues the theoretical corollary of the argument by establishing the deeply rhetorical origins of the preaching role and form. Chapter Five summarizes the findings, contributions, and limitations of this dissertation and outlines directions for future research. Combined, these chapters comprise a dissertation that is intended to enrich scholars’ and practitioners’ knowledge of the relationship between rhetoric and homiletics