Golden Plates Research Articles

Impact of Skin–Electrode Interface on Electrocardiogram Measurements Using Conductive Textile Electrodes

Physicians' understanding of biosignals as measured with medical instruments becomes the foundation of their decisions and diagnoses of patients, as they rely strongly on what the instruments show. Thus, it is critical and very important to ensure that the instruments' recordings exactly reflect what is happening in the patient's body so that the acquired signal is the real one or at least as close to the real in-body signal as possible. This is such an important issue that sometimes physicians use invasive measurements to obtain the real biosignal. Generating an in-body signal from what a measurement device shows is called “signal purification” or “reconstruction” and can be done only when we have adequate information about the interface between the body and the monitoring device. In this paper, first, we present a device that we developed for electrocardiogram (ECG) acquisition and transfer to PC. To evaluate the performance of the device, we use it to measure ECG and apply conductive textile as our ECG electrode. Then, we evaluate ECG signals captured by different electrodes, specifically traditional gel Ag/AgCl and dry golden plate electrodes, and compare the results, allowing us to investigate if ECG measured with the device is proper for applications where no skin preparation is allowed, such as ECG-assisted blood pressure monitoring devices. Next, we propose a method to reconstruct the ECG signal from the signal acquired by our device, with respect to the interface characteristics and their relation to the ECG. The interface in this paper is skin–electrode interface for conductive textiles. In the last stage of this paper, we explore the effects of pressure on skin–electrode interface impedance and its parametrical variation.

History and the Claims of Revelation: Joseph Smith and the Materialization of the Golden Plates

AbstractThe Mormon claim that Joseph Smith discovered ancient golden plates buried in a hillside in upstate New York is too often viewed in simple either/or terms, such that the plates either existed, making Smith the prophet he claimed to be, or did not, making him deceptive or delusional. If we assume that there were no ancient golden plates and at the same that Smith was not a fraud, then the task of historical explanation is more complex. Building on a review of the evidence for the materiality of the plates, the paper uses a series of comparisons — between the golden plates and sacred objects in other religious traditions, between Smith’s claims and claims that psychiatrists define as delusional, and between Smith’s role as a seer and the role of the artist and the physician as skilled perceivers — to generate a greater range of explanatory options. In light of these comparisons, we can view the materialization of the golden plates in naturalistic terms as resulting from an interaction between an individual with unusual abilities, intimate others who recognized and called forth those abilities, and objects that facilitated the creation of both the revelator and the revelation.

HODSONG: A MONASTERY RITUAL FOR A LOCAL WISDOM CEREMONY FOR THE MONK RANKING

The ranking order of monk in Isan, Thailand was influenced mostly from Buddhist believe and practices starting from Lanchang period and this religious believe become the common practices and the tool for local community in strengthening harmony and unity. One of the important religious ceremony calls Hodsong ceremony. The research area covered Maha Sarakham, Roi Et and Kalasin provinces which there are many Monk’s hierarchy ceremony. The research procedure used the qualitative research methodology. Data were collected from related literature and field studies using interviews and focus group discussion from a group of totally 66 informants. The findings were presented by means of a descriptive analysis. This research finds; Hodsong ceremony of Isan people was evidentially found since Dvaravati period, Sukhothai (Lanna), Lan Chang, Ayuthaya, Thonburi and Rattanakosin period. It was approved from different archeological sites such as Prathat Yakhu, Um Yakhu and the other kind of evident as has been recognized as a position or ranking such as Ratchakhru and Lakkham for instance. In addition, there were some equipment that was involved within this ceremony such as the water tube or Honghod were found at Wat Wichunrat and Wat Chiangthong, including different temple in Isan. The Laab or Supannabat (a golden plate used for in scripted manuscript) was rarely found,and most of remains were reproduced. Hodsong ceremony is a religious tradition of Isan people that combined the ritual and believe together. Currently, Local Isan people still practice this ceremony in some communities with the 8 steps of preparation of instruments, Hodsong ornaments the itinerary order of the ceremony the ceremonial location the establishing ritual Baisri setting Sootkhwanbaisri or morale setting consoling and tied arms tradition. In addition, this ceremony involved with believers of direction and occasion from traditional beliefs. Despite, there were some problems such as unqualified monks, insufficient equipment and the ornaments, as well as the unreadiness from the community to continue this practice. The appropriate approach in order to preserve and develop this practice has to deal with the dynamics of community through 8 approaches as follows the benefits to the community the catchment remaining or repairing restoring explicate or develop protection preservation and demarcation and classification or setting rules or regulations for preservation. Therefore, the public administration or government, private sector and community need to have an awareness and conservation to work together urgently. The Hodsong ceremony has a long history and been practiced since Dvaravati period. The contemporary Hodsong ceremony was made into an illegal or alienated tradition of Thai state which effects to the remaining practice of community. Otherwises, the Hodsong ceremony to meet the needs of the harmony and unity of community.

Correlated neutral B meson decays into CP eigenstates

In the two correlated B meson decay experiment we propose to measure intensities relating CP eigenstate (J/ψKS,L) decays on both sides, which will be measurable in future upgrades of KEK and PEP. As a CP-forbidden transition, we obtain I(J/ψKS,J/ψKS,Δt)∼sin2(2β). We calculate in a model independent way all the possible intensities relating final CP and flavour eigenstate decays. Under CPT-invariance, the asymmetries for processes related by CPΔt vanish for ΔΓ=0 and measure ΔΓ linearly. We notice the impossibility to isolate the sign of cos(2β) without an independent knowledge of the sign of ΔΓ. This exhaustion of the possible golden plate and flavour decays provides new observables which may throw light in our present understanding of CKM physics.

The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America

The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America SARAH BARRINGER GORDON My research into the “Mormon Question” has blurred disciplinary boundaries, demonstrat­ ing that legal history occurs outside the confines of law books, out in the world of popular culture, political cartooning, and sermonizing, and even in outbreaks of violence. This article is designed to illustrate how an entire body of constitutional law was made in opposition to the marital and sexual arrangements of Mormons in the Utah Territory in the nineteenth century. The Mormon Question tied together ques­ tions ofreligion, law, and the perceived sexual enslavement of women in a tantalizing mix. Many Americans in the nineteenth century were intrigued, dismayed, and ultimately per­ suaded that Mormon men were dangerous to the women they married. They also believed that polygamy was a threat to the entire politi­ cal and constitutional system.1 Opponents of polygamy claimed that Mormon plural marriage was, in essence, a political and legal question. They imagined Mormon men, especially, as violent and de­ fiant. A political cartoon from the 1880s, for example, depicted a Mormon atop a platform labeled “polygamy,” shaking his fist at a cow­ ardly Congress, with his wives chained at the neck and labeled like so many cattle. Needless to say, this kind ofattack was painful in the ex­ treme to Mormons, who claimed thatthey were misunderstood by the rest ofthe country.2 The arguments made on both sides of the debate over polygamy were complex and changed over time, and I can only go into a few ofthe many fascinating venues ofthe con­ flict. For the purposes of this article, the key point is that the combatants ranged across gen­ res and into multiple fields ofconflict, forcing our gaze as lawyers out beyond the bounds of doctrine, teaching us once again that constitu­ tional theory and legal doctrine are rich sources of cultural insight: they are the stuff of great stories. This story begins with religious faith. Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly called THE MORMON QUESTION 15 i x t i y r o c a a'. —• -v • w. ■ M» » ii-t' - .«»•' i t‘This 1880s political cartoon from The Judge depicts a Mormon atop a platform labeled “polygamy” (on the supporting pole), shaking his fist at a cowardly Congress. His wives are chained at the neck and labeled like cattle. 16 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY the Mormon Church, in 1830. He was the sect’s Prophet, its firstpresident, and the translator of the “golden plates,” which, he reported, were revealed to him by an angel. He was known in upstate New York as a counterfeiter, fortune­ teller, and treasure hunter.3 And yet Smith’s in­ spiration forever changed his world and drew a following whose faith was severely tested by scorn and persecution. Smith not only pub­ lished the Book of Mormon—a new revela­ tion that placed America at the center of re­ ligious history—but also embraced a concept of ongoing revelation in the “latter days.” The new covenant between God and his servant Joseph Smith assured followers that they were part ofa glorious cosmic plan, which was grad­ ually unfolded for their exaltation and, ulti­ mately, for the salvation ofthe world.4 Mormonism was bom in a society satu­ rated with religious messages. Smith under­ stood that he and his followers were enmeshed in what he called a “war of words” among Christians, and he claimed that his new revela­ tion was the only uncorrupted and truly Chris­ tian Word of God.5 The Mormon Church quickly acquired passionate adherents and equally passionate opponents. Everywhere they went, Mormons excited the enmity of their neighbors. The story is a complex one, and involves charges of violence on both sides, but there can be no doubt that Mormons suffered greatly. In 1838, seventeen men and boys were killed by local residents in what is known as the Mas­ sacre at Haun’s Mill, Missouri. The governorof Missouri called for the expulsion of all Mor­ mons from the state; officials in other states were less explicit, but let Mormons know that they could not rely on state...

Model-independent constraints on leptoquarks from rareμandτlepton processes

We perform a model-independent analysis so as to constrain the leptoquark (LQ) models from negative searches for $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{\ensuremath{\mu}}e\ensuremath{\gamma},$ $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{\ensuremath{\mu}}3e$ decays (and analogous processes in the $\ensuremath{\tau}$ sector), and coherent $\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{-}e$ conversion in nuclei. We considerably improve some constraints obtained by analyses known in the literature, analyses which we show have by far underestimated the LQ contributions to the $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{\ensuremath{\mu}}3e.$ In particular we find that the coherent $\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{-}e$ conversion in nuclei mediated by the photon-conversion mechanism and the $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{\ensuremath{\mu}}3e$ decay are golden plates where the flavor-changing leptoquark couplings, involving the second and third quark generations, can be strongly constrained. This is due to the fact that these processes get the enhancements by large $\mathrm{log}{(m}_{q}^{2}{/m}_{\mathrm{LQ}}^{2})$ terms which are induced by the so-called ``photon-penguin'' diagrams. These enhancements, which produce a mild Glashow-Iliopoulos-Maiani (GIM) suppression in the amplitudes, have not been taken into account in the previous analyses. We show that the $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{\ensuremath{\mu}}e\ensuremath{\gamma}$ decay can set weaker constraints on the LQ models and this is because its amplitude is strongly GIM suppressed by the terms of order ${O(m}_{q}^{2}{/m}_{\mathrm{LQ}}^{2}).$ We also present the results for the corresponding constraints in the \ensuremath{\tau} sector. Finally, the prospects of the future muon experiments for the improvement of the present bounds are analyzed and discussed.

Joseph Smith’s Receipt of the Plates and the Israelite Feast of Trumpets

Abstract Joseph Smith received the golden plates on the Israelite Day of Remembrance (or Rosh ha-Shanah). Biblical references and interpretation by Jewish sages through the centuries set this day as the day God would remember his covenants with Israel to bring them back from exile. Also called the Feast of Trumpets, on this day ritual trumpet blasts signify the issuance of revelation and a call for Israel to gather for God’s word of redemption. Set at the time of Israel’s final agricultural harvest, the day also symbolizes the Lord’s final harvest of souls. Furthermore, it initiates the completion of the Lord’s time periods, the Days of Awe, and signifies the last time to prepare for final judgment and the Messianic Age. The coming forth of the Book of Mormon is literally fulfilling such prophecies of the day.

Recent Writing on Utah and the Mormons

When, in 1842, Henry Caswall wrote The City of the Mormons, he stated in his preface that his book was “presented to the Christian public with a deep sense, on the author's part, of the iniquity of an imposture which, under the name of religion, is spreading extensively in America and Great Britain”. A few years later, probably in 1850, John Bowes wrote a pamphlet to show that Mormonism was simply a swindle to put money into the pockets of the Church's leaders. His title was Mormonism Exposed, in its swindling and licentious abominations, refuted in its principles and in the claims of its head, the modern Mohammed, Joseph Smith, who is proved to have been a deceiver end no prophet of God; and his chapter, based on the reports of two apostates, on the simple Temple ceremonies of washing, anointing, passwords, grips, oaths, and enacting of the Creation story, was uncompromisingly headed “Orgies”. As late as 1902, in a preface which contrasted his own factual approach with earlier polemic, William A. Linn's Story of the Mormons included the words, “If the fraudulent character of the alleged revelation to Smith of the golden plates can be established, the foundation of the whole Church crumbles”; and Linn went on to devote a quarter of a very long book to the attempt. In 1957, however, in a lecture in the University of Utah, published as ‘The Mormons in American History’ (Bulletin of the University of Utah, Vol. 48, Ho, 11), William Mulder expressed what is nowadays a far more common view than any of those quoted above. “In its New England origins”, he said, “its Utopian experiments and reforms, its westward drive, and its early expansion to Europe resulting in a great programme of immigration and settlement, nineteenth-century Mormonism expressed prominent traits and tendencies that were already shaping American society. It was not simply a colourful reflection of the times; it was a dynamic reworking of the diverse elements of American culture.”

The New England Origins of Mormonism

JT is a curious fact that the vast literature on Mormonism tends to treat the subject as everything but a religion. Until the twentieth century the issue was so incendiary that nonMormon publications were usually either polemics written or preached by Protestant ministers or sensational exposes by people who claimed to have penetrated Brigham Young's iron curtain. But if the Woodruff Manifesto made polygamy and thus Mormonism an academic matter for most Americans, succeeding historians were not to profit by the less emotional perspective. Scholars grew indignant over Brigham Young's dictatorship and the criminal docility of a people who could not see the proper line between church and state. Joseph Smith's pretentious visions seemed absurd to an enlightened people. There was a blossoming of analyses proving him an epileptic, a paranoiac, or an imposter. Scholars amassed data proving that The Book of Mormon could not have been written in any other place than Northeastern United States between 1815 and 1835. But most of the energy went into asserting or refuting the Spaulding-Rigdon theory of the origin of the golden plates.

Handsome Lake and the Great Revival in the West

THE western marches of the state of New York in the early years of the nineteenth century produced two great religious prophets whose followers are now joined in evangelical combat.' It was in the little back-country town of Palmyra, near Rochester, that Joseph Smith in 1819 first saw angels in a dream, and later revealed that he had found the golden plates which became the Book of Mormon. And it was in western New York too, a decade earlier, that an Iroquois Indian who had seen angels in a dream preached the Gaiwiio or Good Word of a new religion to his followers. These two cults, among the several which sprang up in that remote and forested part of the state, have separately grown great and spread. The Mormons removed to Utah in the middle part of the last century, while the adherents of Gaiwiio remained on their reservations. But today the two religions have once more met, though not in amity. Mormon missionaries in the last few years have been returning from Utah to the New York State reservations, and are bending every effort to convert the people of the longhouse to Mormon Christianity. The adherents of Gaiwiio strive to extend their faith to nominally Christian Indians. Within this generation we shall see whether Mormonism can replace Gaiw'iio on the reservations, or whether the Indian religion will successfully resist its competitor, and so preserve its status as the indigenous faith of western New York.

Migration of English Mormons to America

IT is a little-noted fact that after its formative years the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints drew most of its converts not from its native America but from the slums and downtrodden peasantry of Europe. Mormonism in its youth was a poor man's religion and made its appeal to the underprivileged classes. Joseph Smith, jr., the founder of the Church, and his successor, Brigham Young, were themselves of humble station, and their able lieutenants were drawn from the poor, so that it is only natural that they and their novel faith appealed to their own kind. Mormonism is, economically speaking, a way of life and a gospel of practical daily living. And from the beginning the Church emphasized that both a new way of salvation and greater financial security awaited those who embraced the gospel of the last dispensation. The foreign missionary program of the Mormon Church dates from the year I835, when the Prophet Joseph Smith told his followers in Kirtland, Ohio, that an assembly of twelve men had been assigned the important task of supervising missionary operations. He then called upon the three witnesses to the golden plates' to bless and anoint these men and set them apart as apostles. On the evening of February 27, I835, the Prophet gave the newly created Quorum of Apostles instructions regarding the modus operandi to be followed in the missionary field. At every meeting place, he said, one or more persons must be appointed to record the minutes of the meeting. This procedure would enable the Apostles to be consistent in points of doctrine, and the records they kept would be of great future value. The Prophet then concluded meaningfully: