The Divine Call of the Christian Minister

Why could Paul tell Timothy, If a man desire the office of a bishop he desireth a good work ? There must be a very good reason why he mentions this office as especially desirable in preference to other honorable vocations. Indeed, he did have a good reason, for Paul is not here voicing his own personal opinion, but he is writing what the Holy Spirit prompted him to say. It is God himself who is here speaking. It is He who shows us in in His Word why this office is of such great value and consequently to be desired

The Lausanne Theses on the Ministry and the Sacraments (1547-1548)

In 1547-1548, a conflict arose within Bern’s territories over the sacraments and the power of the ministry. The Calvinist position taken by Pierre Viret and the ministers and professors in Lausanne clashed with the Zwinglian teachings dominant in Bern and supported by André Zébédée in Lausanne. At the center of the debate in spring 1548 was a collection of theses debated in Lausanne. These theses, previously believed to be lost, are published here for the first time. They reveal that the controversy in Lausanne started earlier than previously thought, that they were written over the course of several months rather than all at once, and that the author of the theses was not Viret but Lausanne theology professor Jean Ribit. Moreover, we learn for the first time the content of the ten theses condemned in Bern as contrary to the 1528 Bern Disputation. The Lausanne professors defended these theses and were supported by Simon Sulzer, Beat Gering, and Konrad Schmid, who all were expelled from Bern as a result

Cluster Analysis and Topoclimate Modeling to Examine Bristlecone Pine Tree-ring Growth Signals in the Great Basin, USA

Tree rings have long been used to make inferences about the environmental factors that influence tree growth. Great Basin bristlecone pine is a long-lived species and valuable dendroclimatic resource, but often with mixed growth signals; in many cases, not all trees at one location are limited by the same environmental variable. Past work has identified an elevational threshold below the upper treeline above which trees are limited by temperature, and below which trees tend to be moisture limited. This study identifies a similar threshold in terms of temperature instead of elevation through fine-scale topoclimatic modeling, which uses a suite of topographic and temperature-sensor data to predict temperatures across landscapes. We sampled trees near the upper limit of growth at four high-elevation locations in the Great Basin region, USA, and used cluster analysis to find dual-signal patterns in radial growth. We observed dual-signal patterns in ring widths at two of those sites, with the signals mimicking temperature and precipitation patterns. Trees in temperature-sensitive clusters grew in colder areas, while moisture-sensitive cluster trees grew in warmer areas. We found thresholds between temperatureand moisture-sensitivity ranging from 7.4 °C to 8°C growing season mean temperature. Our findings allow for a better physiological understanding of bristlecone pine growth, and seek to improve the accuracy of climate reconstructions

Fine-scale Modeling of Bristlecone Pine Treeline Position in the Great Basin, USA

Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) and foxtail pine (Pinus balfouriana) are valuable paleoclimate resources due to their longevity and climatic sensitivity of their annually-resolved rings. Treeline research has shown that growing season temperatures limit tree growth at and just below the upper treeline. In the Great Basin, the presence of precisely dated remnant wood above modern treeline shows that the treeline ecotone shifts at centennial timescales tracking long-term changes in climate; in some areas during the Holocene climatic optimum treeline was 100 meters higher than at present. Regional treeline position models built exclusively from climate data may identify characteristics specific to Great Basin treelines and inform future physiological studies, providing a measure of climate sensitivity specific to bristlecone and foxtail pine treelines. This study implements a topoclimatic analysis—using topographic variables to explain patterns in surface temperatures across diverse mountainous terrain—to model the treeline position of three semi-arid bristlecone and/or foxtail pine treelines in the Great Basin as a function of growing season length and mean temperature calculated from in situ measurements. Results indicate: (1) the treeline sites used in this study are similar to other treelines globally, and require a growing season length of between 147–153 days and average temperature ranging from 5.5°C–7.2°C, (2) site-specific treeline position models may be improved through topoclimatic analysis and (3) treeline position in the Great Basin is likely out of equilibrium with the current climate, indicating a possible future upslope shift in treeline position

FGF receptor genes and breast cancer susceptibility: results from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium

Background:Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies in women. Genome-wide association studies have identified FGFR2 as a breast cancer susceptibility gene. Common variation in other fibroblast growth factor (FGF) receptors might also modify risk. We tested this hypothesis by studying genotyped single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and imputed SNPs in FGFR1, FGFR3, FGFR4 and FGFRL1 in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium. Methods:Data were combined from 49 studies, including 53 835 cases and 50 156 controls, of which 89 050 (46 450 cases and 42 600 controls) were of European ancestry, 12 893 (6269 cases and 6624 controls) of Asian and 2048 (1116 cases and 932 controls) of African ancestry. Associations with risk of breast cancer, overall and by disease sub-type, were assessed using unconditional logistic regression. Results:Little evidence of association with breast cancer risk was observed for SNPs in the FGF receptor genes. The strongest evidence in European women was for rs743682 in FGFR3; the estimated per-allele odds ratio was 1.05 (95 confidence interval=1.02-1.09, P=0.0020), which is substantially lower than that observed for SNPs in FGFR2. Conclusion:Our results suggest that common variants in the other FGF receptors are not associated with risk of breast cancer to the degree observed for FGFR2. © 2014 Cancer Research UK

Plotting the motivation of student volunteers in sports-based outreach work in the North East of England

This paper examines the evolution of student volunteers’ motivation during their participation in a sports-based outreach project and how their experiences during the programme serve to influence their commitment and retention to it. The Sport Universities North East England (SUNEE) project is a university-led community outreach initiative that provides the region's student volunteers with vast opportunities to gain both experience and qualifications as sports coaches, mentors and leaders by working with a range of hard-to-reach groups. This work draws on qualitative data generated from semi-structured interviews (n = 40) and describes a sequence of motivational transitions undergone by student volunteers over the course of their involvement in the project. In order to illustrate this, the paper applies the socio-psychological framework of Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to not only index the type of motivations that compel students to volunteer on the SUNEE project, but to also track motivational adaptation and reveal the features occurring within the project, which serve to either facilitate volunteer motivation or retention (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000). By using the example of the SUNEE project, this research demonstrates how students’ motivation to volunteer changes from the extrinsic (i.e., instrumental reasons such as enhancing one's employability profile) to the intrinsic (i.e., enjoying the experience) motivations the longer the person has taken part in the project. The findings demonstrate the utility of the SDT as a framework with which to understand student motivation to volunteer within a university-led sports-based community outreach setting. The theoretical contributions of the study to the literature on student volunteering are outlined, and implications are drawn for practice and future research

Evaluating cloud deployment scenarios based on security and privacy requirements

Migrating organisational services, data and application on the Cloud is an important strategic decision for organisations due to the large number of benefits introduced by the usage of cloud computing, such as cost reduction and on demand resources. Despite, however, of the many benefits, there are challenges and risks for cloud adaption related to (amongst others) data leakage, insecure APIs, and shared technology vulnerabilities. These challenges need to be understood and analysed in the context of an organisation relevant cloud computing deployment models. Although, the literature provides a large number of references to works that consider cloud computing security issues, no work has been provided, to our knowledge, which supports the elicitation of security and privacy requirements and the selection of an appropriate cloud deployment model based on such requirements. This work contributes towards this gap. In particular, we propose a requirements engineering framework to support the elicitation of security and privacy requirements and the selection of an appropriate deployment model based on the elicited requirements. Our framework provides a modelling language that builds on concepts from requirements, security, privacy and cloud engineering and a systematic process. We use a real case study, based on the Greek National Gazette, to demonstrate the applicability of our work