College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University
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Review of This is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt is Shaping the Twenty-First Century
Get PDFThis book is must reading for peace educators, scholars, social activists and citizen groups. It belongs in public libraries and in nonviolent training programs. And it belongs in the hands of local, national and global policy makers. Normally, such a recommendation would be placed at the end of a review as part of a summation and conclusion. But for this book, this reviewer is placing the recommendation first for emphasis. Despite some questions about omissions, and suggestions for improvement, this work deserves much praise
Africa Faith and Justice Network and the Damages of Land Grabbing: The Case of the Brewaniase Community, Ghana
Get PDFThis essay discusses the procurement of farmland around the town of Brewaniase in the Volta Region of Ghana by the New York based agribusiness Herakles Farm (HF). The essay highlights some of the repercussions of land grabbing by foreign corporations that seek only profit and do not fulfill promises made to locals who lease their land for a better life. It provides information on the efforts of Africa Faith & Justice Network (AFJN), a faith-based Washington DC non-governmental organization, to enable the local communities to avert land grabs and its damages. The essay aims to help African communities and individuals critically evaluate the gains and losses associated with land grabbing so as to prevent them falling into the same quagmire as the Brewaniase community. It offers a broad perspective on issues of land grabbing and encourages wise investment in land
Food insecurity and barriers for CSB/SJU students
No full textFood insecurity affects college students\u27 mental health, physical health, and academic performance. Existing research suggest that minority and first-generation students, whom CSB/SJU is enrolling in larger numbers, are at high risk to be food insecure. Most research regarding food insecurity on college campuses focuses on large universities. Little is known regarding the impact of food insecurity at liberal-arts colleges. The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of food insecurity among CSB/SJU students and which factors lead to increased risk for student food insecurity. Results of our Spring 2018 study are presented
What can Buddhist Artistic Traditions Learn from Christian Iconography
Get PDFThe three images included come from the author’s year-long residency at the Collegeville Institute
The effects of guided imagery as mental practice during the learning of a novel psychomotor skill
Get PDFPrevious research has shown that mental imagery is beneficial for individuals in improving performance, increasing confidence, and decreasing anxiety, among many other benefits. The purpose of my research study was to test if mental imagery is successful in creating these benefits for college students while learning a new psychomotor skill. Participants were first introduced to an athletic taping skill by viewing a two-minute video. After the video, they completed five minutes of physical practice of the skill, took an anxiety and confidence inventory, and completed a pre-test of the skill during which they were timed and scored. They were then randomly assigned to one of two groups: one group listened to a guided imagery audio that guided them through the steps of the athletic taping skill, while the second group viewed a PowerPoint presentation that listed the steps of the athletic taping skill. Next, participants from both groups took the anxiety and confidence inventory again and completed a post test of the elbow taping skill during which they were timed and scored. I predicted that participants in the imagery group would have both greater decreases in anxiety scores and greater decreases in time to complete the skill than those in the PowerPoint group. I also predicted that those in the imagery group would have greater increases in self-confidence and performance scores than the Power Point group. The results of my study did not provide support for my original hypotheses. However, significant differences were found for cognitive anxiety levels between the genders
Reducing Memory Access Latencies using Data Compression in Sparse, Iterative Linear Solvers
Get PDFSolving large, sparse systems of linear equations plays a significant role in certain scientific computations, such as approximating the solutions of partial differential equations. However, solvers for these types of problems usually spend most of their time fetching data from main memory. In an effort to improve the performance of these solvers, this work explores using data compression to reduce the amount of data that needs to be fetched from main memory. Some compression methods were found that improve the performance of the solver and problem found in the HPCG benchmark, with an increase in floating point operations per second of up to 84\%. These results indicate that, if similar improvements can be made with other linear systems, compression could improve the performance of real-world solvers
Introduction: Saint John\u27s Through the Years
Get PDFCapturing life at SJU from its inception on the shores of Lake Sagatagan, Saint John’s Through the Years is a fascinating collection of photographs documenting early campus scenes from the 1880s through the 1960s, including SJU athletics, student life, historic aerial photography and more, all from the extensive Saint John’s archives