Leadership Strategies to Cultural Transition at Message of Peace Church

The goal of this Ministry Focus Paper is to formulate strategies of cultural adaptation that will guide the leadership and membership of Message of Peace Church, currently a Portuguese-speaking congregation, to transition to a multiethnic church with English as its primary language of worship. Message of Peace is an ethnic church primarily of Brazilian immigrants in South San Francisco. It began ministering to the Portuguese people in San Jose, but with the decrease of Portuguese immigration and increase of the Brazilian immigration in the 1990s, the church moved north and became mostly Brazilian. With the changes to immigration laws after September 11th, and the improvement of the Brazilian economy, immigration to the US has slowed and many will return to Brazil. The ones who remain have children who are English speaking. To assure its survival and its growth the church needs to adapt to a different reality. The study is divided in three parts. Part One describes both the local congregation and the local community surrounding Message of Peace. It also describes the needs of the new generation, made up of children of the immigrants who were born here or came very young, and were schooled in the US. This new generation will become the future of the church and its leadership. This section also describes the church’s organization structure including leadership patterns. Part Two examines the literature on cultural adaptation, makes a comparison with two multiethnic churches and provides a theology of ministry and cultural adaptation required for such a transition. The study concludes with a description of a five-year plan to transition Message of Peace and it serves as a model for other ethnic churches that may transition to a multiethnic church with English as the primary language of worship. Content Reader: Oscar García-Johnson, Ph

Actinopterygii, Characiformes, Characidae: Ectrepopterus uruguayensis (Fowler, 1943): New record for Argentina

Ectrepopterus uruguayensis Fowler was recently redescribed, with occurrence in lower tributaries of Río de la Plata and lower Río Uruguay, Uruguay. Herein its occurrence is extended and confirmed to Argentina, arroyo El Molino, in Uruguay Department, Entre Ríos Province, Uruguay drainage.Fil: Miquelarena, Amalia Maria. Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Departamento Científico Zoología Vertebrados; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Carvalho, Fernando R.. Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho; Brasi

Actinopterygii, Characiformes, Characidae: <i>Ectrepopterus uruguayensis</i> (Fowler, 1943): New record for Argentina

The monotypic genus Ectrepopterus Fowler was recently resurrected by Malabarba et al. (2012) for Megalamphodus uruguayensis Fowler, a small-sized fish (up to 47.4 mm SL) which habit the Uruguayan drainages (figure 7 of Malabarba et al. 2012). Diagnostic characters for genus include: i) an incomplete foramen in posterior region of metapterygoid, that serves as passage for the ramus mandibularis of the trigeminus nerve, bordered posteriorly by the hyomandibula and forming an incomplete arch; ii) pectoral-fin rays bearing hooks; iii) posterior margin of second infraorbital posteroventrally oblique and second infraorbital ventrally bordering anterior region of third infraorbital; iv) fourth infraorbital more developed longitudinally than dorsoventrally; v) ascending process of premaxilla reaching just anterior end of nasal, vi) and lateral line interrupted (Malabarba et al. 2012).Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

Detecção de Faces em Imagens baseada na Identificação da Pele e dos Olhos

Uma das principais áreas de desenvolvimento do domínio da Visão Computacional é a da detecção de faces em imagens. Das várias metodologias existentes nesta área, apresentam-se duas neste artigo: uma baseada na detecção de zonas de pele e uma segunda baseada num modelo protótipo deformável para detecção dos olhos e extracção das suas características. A detecção de zonas de pele permite segmentar imagens de faces considerando regiões nas quais os valores dos seus pixéis, em termos de probabilidade, se assemelham aos exibidos pela pele. No entanto, como esta metodologia não produz informação suficiente para concluir um processo de detecção de faces em imagens com elevada confiança, usa-se em complemento um modelo protótipo deformável para os olhos, que adequadamente posicionado próximo de pequenas regiões detectadas no interior dos segmentos previamente identificados como associados a pele, permite detectar a presença dos olhos e consequentemente validar ou não a existência de uma face. Este artigo apresenta a descrição das referidas metodologias e de alguns resultados experimentais obtidos a partir de implementações desenvolvidas em Matlab

The use of new digital information and communication technologies in psychological counseling during the CoViD-19 pandemic

The use of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) has enabled many professionals to continue to provide their services during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little is known about the adoption of ICTs by psychologists and the impact of such technologies on their practice. This study aimed to explore psychologists’ practices related with the use of ICTs before and during the COVID-19 lockdown, to identify the main changes that the pandemic has brought and the impact that such changes have had on their practice with clients, and also identify the factors that potentially have affected such changes. The Portuguese Psychologists Association announced the study, and 108 psychologists responded to an online survey during the mandatory lockdown. The results showed that these professionals continued to provide their services due to having adopted ICTs. Comparing with face-to-face interventions, psychologists recognized that additional precautions/knowledge were needed to use such technologies. Despite the challenges identified, they described the experience with the use of ICTs as positive, meeting clients’ adherence, and yielding positive results. Psychologists with the most years of professional experience maintained their services the most, but those with average experience showed the most favorable attitudes toward the use of technologies and web-based interventionsThis research was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through R&D Units funding (UIDB/05210/2020), and through a doctoral grant (SFRH/BD/138723/2018) awarded to Andreia Geraldo.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The self-energy of a charged particle in the presence of a topological defect distribution

In this work we study a charged particle in the presence of both a continuous distribution of disclinations and a continuous distribution of edge dislocations in the framework of the geometrical theory of defects. We obtain the self-energy for a single charge both in the internal and external regions of either distribution. For both distributions the result outside the defect distribution is the self-energy that a single charge experiments in the presence of a single defect.Comment: 12 pages, Revtex4, two figures,to appear in Int. Joun. Mod. Phys.

Equilibration of Isolated Systems: investigating the role of coarse-graining on the initial state magnetization

Many theoretical and experimental results show that even isolated quantum systems evolving unitarily may equilibrate, since the evolution of some observables may be around an equilibrium value with negligible fluctuations most of the time. There are rigorous theorems giving the conditions for such equilibration to happen. In particular, initial states prepared with a lack of resolution in the energy will equilibrate. We investigate how equilibration may be affected by a lack of resolution, or coarse-graining, in the magnetization of the initial state. In particular, for a chaotic spin chain and using exact diagonalization, we show that an initial state with a coarse, not well-defined magnetization in the z direction show a greater tendency to equilibrate when compared with an initial state with well-defined magnetization. And this tendency will depend on the degree of coarse-graining. We also analyze the time for the system to reach equilibrium, showing good agreement with theoretical estimates and with some evidence that less resolution leads to faster equilibration. Our study highlights the crucial role of initial state preparation in the equilibration dynamics of quantum systems and provides new insights into the fundamental nature of equilibration in closed systems

Genomic and evolutionary comparisons of diazotrophic and pathogenic bacteria of the order Rhizobiales

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Species belonging to the Rhizobiales are intriguing and extensively researched for including both bacteria with the ability to fix nitrogen when in symbiosis with leguminous plants and pathogenic bacteria to animals and plants. Similarities between the strategies adopted by pathogenic and symbiotic Rhizobiales have been described, as well as high variability related to events of horizontal gene transfer. Although it is well known that chromosomal rearrangements, mutations and horizontal gene transfer influence the dynamics of bacterial genomes, in Rhizobiales, the scenario that determine pathogenic or symbiotic lifestyle are not clear and there are very few studies of comparative genomic between these classes of prokaryotic microorganisms trying to delineate the evolutionary characterization of symbiosis and pathogenesis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Non-symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria and bacteria involved in bioremediation closer to symbionts and pathogens in study may assist in the origin and ancestry genes and the gene flow occurring in Rhizobiales. The genomic comparisons of 19 species of Rhizobiales, including nitrogen-fixing, bioremediators and pathogens resulted in 33 common clusters to biological nitrogen fixation and pathogenesis, 15 clusters exclusive to all nitrogen-fixing bacteria and bacteria involved in bioremediation, 13 clusters found in only some nitrogen-fixing and bioremediation bacteria, 01 cluster exclusive to some symbionts, and 01 cluster found only in some pathogens analyzed. In BBH performed to all strains studied, 77 common genes were obtained, 17 of which were related to biological nitrogen fixation and pathogenesis. Phylogenetic reconstructions for Fix, Nif, Nod, Vir, and Trb showed possible horizontal gene transfer events, grouping species of different phenotypes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The presence of symbiotic and virulence genes in both pathogens and symbionts does not seem to be the only determinant factor for lifestyle evolution in these microorganisms, although they may act in common stages of host infection. The phylogenetic analysis for many distinct operons involved in these processes emphasizes the relevance of horizontal gene transfer events in the symbiotic and pathogenic similarity.</p