Understanding the mechanisms that generate shared morphologies across closely related taxa is important when identifying distinct evolutionary lineages using morphological characters. Desmognathus salamanders are an ideal group for testing hypotheses concerning the correlation between morphological similarity and genetic exchange within and among nominal species due to a pattern of high discordance between the two. Phylogeographic hypotheses are tested for populations of the D. quadramaculatus species complex throughout southern Appalachia by combining phylogenetic and population genetic methods with geographical information. Phylogenetic and phylogeographic inferences are then assessed in conjunction with morphological characteristics that have traditionally diagnosed taxonomic entities to understand the genetic basis of shared morphology in this complex, and to assess species boundaries. A history of fragmentation followed by range expansion is suggested as a recurrent pattern that has shaped the current population structure within this complex. The current taxonomy is found to unite populations that share similar morphologies due to parallel evolution rather than ancestry. We suggest revisions in taxonomy that will better reflect the evolutionary history of these lineages. Appreciation of the hidden genetic variation and homoplasious morphological variation often present in and among salamander species can foster the implementation of more appropriate methods for detecting and recognizing the complex history of these organisms.

[pt] A presente tese analisa a relação entre religião e políticas educacionais no município de Nova Iguaçu-RJ. Foram utilizados dois modelos de análise de políticas públicas: o Modelo de Ambiguidades e Conflitos e o Modelo de Coalizões de Defesa. Os estudos sobre conservadorismo, influência religiosa na Educação e laicidade foram eixos transversais a esses dois modelos. A metodologia empregada foi uma pesquisa qualitativa, com análise documental (leis, processos, notícias na imprensa, notas oficiais e postagens em redes sociais) e entrevistas semiestruturadas com apoiadores e opositores das políticas estudadas. A análise de conteúdo foi usada para o tratamento dos dados coletados, com o auxílio do software Atlas TI para codificação e análise dos resultados. Foram analisadas três leis municipais: Lei 4576/16 - proíbe a divulgação de material sobre diversidade sexual nas escolas públicas; Lei 4619/16 - autoriza o poder executivo a firmar parcerias para distribuição de Bíblias nas escolas; e Lei 4865/19 - implementa o Ensino Religioso na rede pública municipal. As seguintes conclusões foram alcançadas: foram identificadas duas coalizões no subsistema: uma progressista laica e outra conservadora religiosa; as principais crenças da coalizão conservadora religiosa foram a necessidade da presença da religião e do controle moral conservador na escola; as leis analisadas foram originárias de setores religiosos ou conservadores de direita, tendo apoio público destes e de outros atores religiosos após sua aprovação; as leis apresentaram muitas ambiguidades e foram motivo de conflitos com setores progressistas e laicos, com reações intensas quanto à proibição de material sobre diversidade sexual e à distribuição de Bíblias nas escolas, e inércia quanto ao Ensino Religioso, que não foi priorizado pelos responsáveis por sua implementação. Nenhuma dessas leis foi aplicada na rede pública de ensino, mas serviram para manter em pauta os interesses de grupos conservadores e religiosos no município, constituindo desafios para uma educação plural e laica na atualidade. / [en] This thesis analyzes the relationship between religion and educational policies in the city of Nova Iguaçu-RJ. Two public policy analysis models were mobilized: the Ambiguity and Conflict Model and the Advocacy Coalition Framework. Studies on conservatism, religious influence on education and secularism were transversal axes to these two models. The methodology was a qualitative research, with document analysis (laws, processes, news in the press, official notes and posts on social networks) and semi-structured interviews with supporters and opponents of the studied policies. Content analysis guided the treatment of the collected data. The use of Atlas TI software contributed to coding and analysis of results. Three municipal laws were analyzed: Law 4576/16 - prohibits the dissemination of material on gender diversity in public schools; Law 4619/16 - authorizes the executive branch to establish partnerships for the distribution of Bibles in schools; and Law 4865/19 - Implements Religious Education in the municipal public network. The following conclusions were reached: two coalitions were identified in the subsystem: one progressive secular and the other conservative religious; the main beliefs of the conservative religious coalition were the need for religion and conservative moral control at school; the laws analyzed originated from religious or right-wing conservative sectors, having public support from these and other religious actors after their approval; the laws presented many ambiguities and were the reason for conflicts with progressive and secular sectors, with intense reactions regarding the prohibition of material on gender diversity and regarding the distribution of Bibles in schools, and inert reaction regarding Religious Education, which was not prioritized by the responsible for its implementation; none of these laws were applied in the public school system, but they served to keep the interests of conservative and religious groups in the municipality on the agenda, constituting a challenge to a plural and secular education today.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how conservatism affects a person's perception of everyday details. It is hypothesized that there will be a positive correlation between the participants' conservative ratings and the amount of details from the readings they recall that are also conservative. This will also mean that there will be a negative correlation between the participants scoring higher on the conservatism scale and the amount of liberal details they recall. A similar pattern is expected to be discovered pertaining to participants that identify as more liberal. How is this measured? The participants will be asked to rate the their political views on a scale of 1-6, 1 being extremely liberal, and 6 being extremely conservative. A transcript of a political debate will contain views that are both conservative and liberal. Each view will be backed up by details supporting each of a candidate's policies. The transcript will include minor grammatical errors including punctuation, spelling, and tenses, all of which the participant will be asked to correct. Following this will be a mathematical task which will include converting mixed numbers to improper fractions at the difficulty of a fifth grade level. A memory recall task will then be administered to the participants asking them to recall as many of the details from the debate as possible.

This study investigates the ideational direction of conservatism in the Swedish student milieu from 1980 until 2022. By a descriptive ideational analysis, shifts in the view of the state, welfare and whether culture, tradition and coexistence in a society should be based on a cultural, national, or ethnic community is investigated. The development is structured by the use of three categories: liberal conservatism, social conservatism and ethno- conservatism. The latter is developed by the author in order to incorporate ethnic unity and monoculturalism into a conservative discourse. A relevant category since questions of borders, stability and migration have increased in political relevance in the last decades. The case for the study consists of Föreningen Heimdal. A student association that aims to spread “reform-friendly conservatism”. Material for the study consists mainly of the association's magazine’s articles and interviews with five former presidents. The period under investigation resulted in five different ideological epochs: 1980-1984 (liberal with liberal conservative elements), 1994-1989 (social con- servative), 1989-2004 (liberal conservative), 2004-2011 (social conservative with liberal conservative elements) and 2011-2022 (social conservative with ethno-conservative elements). A shift has occurred where students emphasize social cohesion and national security from a previous support for the market and an inclusive value community.

This dissertation considers sites of religious broadcast designed for and used by Protestant television evangelists in the postwar United States. It interrogates both the transformation of ritual space as it relates to and is infused by broadcast media, and the architectural and infrastructural adaptations that conditioned such spaces as a result of this mediation. These ritual sites, either retrofitted to accommodate television or designed explicitly for its technology between the late 1950s and the early 1980s, emerged in a period marked both by the ascendance of television broadcasting and by the increasing cultural and political visibility of conservative Protestantism in the United States. While the architecture of television evangelistic practice has also evolved in ways that parallel, and often complicate, changes in mainstream ecclesiastical architecture in the twentieth century, the protagonists of this narrative do not fall into two better-documented genealogies—neither the history of denominationally specific church consulting and the practical guidance penned in its support, nor accounts of high architectural, often academic, reflection on sacred space. Instead, the architecture of these often culturally marginal practices has been critically segregated from much other religious and spiritual construction, despite its effective proliferation across the American landscape to this very day. The wake of this bias leaves resultant lacunae in scholarly and critical attention, which this dissertation works in part to fill. In beginning to account for this history, I examine a variety of evangelical spaces—mostly worship spaces, but also broadcast stations, hospitals, and university campuses—and draw upon their archival and textual traces. Primary case studies in California, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Virginia are framed by questions of style and typology, examined alongside contemporary theories and criticisms of mass mediation, and located in relation to histories of mediated healing practices and apocalyptic thinking. This specific ritual architecture, which the dissertation terms televangelical space, not only negotiated between received ideas of the sacred and newer discourses around twentieth-century media, building practices, and community structures, but also raised the issue of conservative Christianity’s fundamental relationship to the modern world. It traced a basic ambivalence about the relationship between the contemporary and the sacred, and about the relationship between religious practice and the technological realities and cultural habits of an increasingly mediated and increasingly atomized present. I suggest that the historical materialization of this negotiation generated both new kinds of ecclesiastical architecture and spatial effects that transcended its walls. Rather than insist on the relevance of the spaces of broadcast religion according to a rubric of aesthetic value, this project examines them for what they can reveal both about architecture for and with media and about the transformation of spirituality and community under new forms of mediation.

"Children of the Silent Majority: Nixon, New Politics, and the Youth Vote, 1968-1972" investigates the emergence of young Americans as a major force in national politics, arguing that the 1968 generation constrained the conservative realignment that Richard Nixon envisioned but also revitalized the Republican Party after the voting age fell to eighteen. Despite the widespread assumption that the vast cadre of young voters casting ballots for the first time in 1972 would tilt the electorate to the Democratic Party, this dissertation reveals that the Nixon administration targeted and mobilized young Americans not aligned with the left--people Nixon's staff called the "sons and daughters of the silent majority." Nixon cultivated his own youth cadre, Young Voters for the President (YVP). Carefully targeting non-students and campus conservatives to join this 400,000 member organization, YVP leaders employed both grassroots organization and modern Madison Avenue advertising techniques to pry increasingly independent young voters from previous Democratic strongholds such as urban, ethnic enclaves and the Sunbelt. In addition, when the politics of youth--the ways Americans, young and old, thought about young people and youth issues--presented a barrier to Nixon's law-and-order conservative policies on problems such as marijuana and campus disorders, Nixon acquiesced on issues such as the draft and environmental protection. This youth-friendly approach allowed his administration to attract and recruit young voters. This study also explores how youth politics fueled the development of image politics during the1970s, compelling campaigns to embrace new techniques that emphasized targeted polling, television and candidates' personal characteristics over party loyalty. Attracting young voters necessitated a more image savvy campaign, giving Nixon's in-house advertising agency of high-powered executives, the November Group, a central role in campaign strategy. Young voters also supplied the campaign with public relations opportunities to counter Nixon's detractors in the media who relished his "youth problem." This study contributes to the scholarship on the Nixon presidency and the political history of the Republican "New Majority" in the 1960s and 1970s by uncovering the decisive role of young voters and youth issues in those pivotal years.

This dissertation offers an intimate view into the emotional life of a queer teacher while she lived and taught middle school in a conservative rural Northern Californian community during the years 2020 to 2022. Acknowledging the emotional weight felt by many educators as they confront challenges in and outside of their academic curricula, this study offers a framework for recording, examining, and analyzing the wobble moments (emotionally difficult events) experienced by teachers in ways that may relieve some of their associated tension and stress. Through reflections on teacher journal entries, this autoethnographic study demonstrates how emotion, dialogic, and queer theories may be used to rethink and reconfigure the narratives of our emotional experiences. The author argues that by engaging in emotional dialogue, teachers may gain new insight on and deepen their relationships to their practice and profession, as well as to their students and colleagues. Ultimately, it is in her analysis of these relationships that the author finds solace and lightens some the emotional weight of teaching.

The bias implied by conservatism in accounting and its impact on information risk in equity markets is the subject of considerable debate. On one hand, opponents of conservatism believe that any kind of biased information is actually misinformation and thus increases uncertainty. Perhaps most prominent among opponents of conservatism is the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The FASB contends that accounting information should be neutral—free from bias; a bias in favor of reporting either good or bad news is inconsistent with representational faithfulness and neutrality. On the other hand, proponents of conservatism point to incentives of management to manipulate financial statements by exaggerating apparent good news and/or hiding apparent bad news. Proponents argue that the bias implied by conservatism is necessary to offset the asymmetric reporting incentives of the firm’s management, and in so doing, conservatism allegedly improves information quality and reduces information risk. Finally, results of at least one recent study do not favor either position, suggesting that conservatism has no effect on information quality in equity market. This study finds that the bias implied by conservatism (bias in favor of reporting bad news) increases information risk in equity markets and consequently the cost of equity capital. Findings further indicate that sufficiently aggressive bias also increases information risk. That is, the market’s most aggressive firms, those reporting with a bias opposite that implied by conservatism, can reduce information risk by moving toward more neutral, unbiased reporting. Furthermore, the general effects of biased reporting (increased information risk) are consistent across all levels of information asymmetry among equity investors. These findings are interpreted as supporting the position of the FASB that biased accounting information increases information risk.

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