America\u27s Dutch Identity: The Dutch, New Netherland, and the Struggle for Freedom of Religion

This paper explores the history of New Netherland in light of the Dutch struggle for identity during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Dutch originally belonged to the Holy Roman Empire as a Spanish territory, and were staunchly Catholic. However, with the coming of the Protestant Reformation, things began to change. With the Reformation came a revolution against their rulers, and also a religious diversity previously unheard of in Europe. This struggle carried over into the borders of America with the Dutch establishment of New Netherland. New Netherland was the experiment of religious freedom in practice for the Dutch. The colony became home to a wide variety of religious dissenters that found no resting place in Europe. The Dutch Reformed Church struggled for its autonomy against the increasing religious pluralism, and the latter eventually won out before the English took over New Netherland, renaming it New York and New Jersey after dividing the land. The pluralism present in New York and New Jersey helped set the tone for religious freedom in America today

\u27All Men are Created Equal\u27: A Study of the Implications of Christianity on Slavery from the Reformation to the Nineteenth Century

Graduate Textual or Investigativ

Cast Off the Yoke of Tyranny!: The Influence of the Reformation upon the Enlightenment and World Revolution

This paper explores the connection between the Protestant Reformation and the Revolutions in America and France during the eighteenth century. When the Reformation started, with it came a strong opposition to absolutism and other forms of perceived tyranny. Over time, this culminated in both the American and French Revolutions. An oft-neglected subject in the history of these events, however, is the influence of the Reformation upon Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke. Locke lived in seventeenth-century England at a time when the Geneva Bible outdid the King James Bible in popularity. The Geneva Bible contained marginal notes that promoted the deposition of tyrannical monarchs. The author begins with tracing revolutionary events since the Lutheran Reformation in Germany, including the Peasants’ Revolt and eventually the English Civil War, and finally the American and French Revolutions. Rather than show the Reformation and the Enlightenment as two distinct streams leading to the river of the Revolutions, the author shows that the Reformation, Enlightenment and the Revolutions all come from one stream, with its head at the Reformation

Radicals in the Revolution: The Persecution of Christians During the Revolutionary War

This paper explores the plight of radical Christians in Pennsylvania during the American Revolution. Pennsylvania, up until the American Revolution, was governed by Quakers, and home to people of many denominational backgrounds, including various Anabaptist sects, such as the Amish, Mennonites, and Brethren. Both Quakers and Anabaptists adhered to the most conservative interpretation of Jesus’s teachings on not resisting an evil person (Matthew 5:38-42) and the swearing of oaths (Matthew 5:33-37). When Protestant revolutionaries took over the Pennsylvania government during the War, they required all residents of Pennsylvania to take an oath of allegiance to the Colony. The Quakers and Anabaptists, because of their conscientious objection to the War and to swearing oaths, refused to do so. The revolutionaries, as a result, treated them as if they were the worst of traitors. The irony, however, is that religious freedom was one of the causes for which they fought. As a supplement, it further explores how conscientious objectors were treated in future wars, in order to show that events such as this set a precedent for the way America has interpreted religious freedom. In order to truly study history, both sides of a given issue must be examined, whether they be positive or negative

A knowledge-based geometry repair system for robust parametric CAD models

In modern multi-objective design optimization (MDO) an effective geometry engine is becoming an essential tool and its performance has a significant impact on the entire MDO process. Building a parametric geometry requires difficult compromises between the conflicting goals of robustness and flexibility. This article presents a method of improving the robustness of parametric geometry models by capturing and modeling engineering knowledge with a support vector regression surrogate, and deploying it automatically for the search of a more robust design alternative while trying to maintain the original design intent. Design engineers are given the opportunity to choose from a range of optimized designs that balance the ‘health’ of the repaired geometry and the original design intent. The prototype system is tested on a 2D intake design repair example and shows the potential to reduce the reliance on human design experts in the conceptual design phase and improve the stability of the optimization cycle. It also helps speed up the design process by reducing the time and computational power that could be wasted on flawed geometries or frequent human intervention

Totems

In modern multi-objective design optimization (MDO) an effective geometry engine is becoming an essential tool and its performance has a significant impact on the entire MDO process. Building a parametric geometry requires difficult compromises between the conflicting goals of robustness and flexibility. This article presents a method of improving the robustness of parametric geometry models by capturing and modeling engineering knowledge with a support vector regression surrogate, and deploying it automatically for the search of a more robust design alternative while trying to maintain the original design intent. Design engineers are given the opportunity to choose from a range of optimized designs that balance the ‘health’ of the repaired geometry and the original design intent. The prototype system is tested on a 2D intake design repair example and shows the potential to reduce the reliance on human design experts in the conceptual design phase and improve the stability of the optimization cycle. It also helps speed up the design process by reducing the time and computational power that could be wasted on flawed geometries or frequent human intervention