History of the Study of Theology

Traces the study of theology from its beginning until the beginning of the 20th centur

History of the Study of Theology

Traces the study of theology from its beginning until the beginning of the 20th centur

Spherical Harmonic Analysis of the Angular Distribution of Gamma-Ray Bursts

We compute the angular power spectrum C_l of the BATSE 3B catalog, and find no evidence for clustering on any scale. These constraints bridge the entire range from small scales, probing source clustering and repetition, to large scales constraining possible Galactic anisotropies, or those from nearby cosmological large scale structures.Comment: 5 page conf. proceedings, with one figure included. Postscript. More detailed version at http://astro.berkeley.edu/~max/bursts.html (faster from the US), from http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~max/bursts.html (faster from Europe) or from [email protected]

Perspectivas críticas de salud y hegemonía comunicativa: aperturas progresistas, enlaces letales

This essay argues that dominant ideologies and practices of communication, which it refers to as communicability, operate much like the “Hegemonic Medical Model” (Menéndez y Di Pardo, 1996). Hegemonic ideologies envision communication as a linear, unidirectional process in which messages are produced by experts –medical researchers, epidemiologists, etc.–, are circulated by health education specialists and reporters, and received by “the public”. Rather than being mere mechanical processes, spheres of communicability in health –or biocommunicability– constitute a form of governmentality that creates and ranks subjectivities and social locations. The article creates a dialogue with Latin American critical epidemiology and social medicine, particularly with the work of Jaime Breilh and Eduardo Menéndez, comparing how the frameworks proposed by these authors and the one outlined in this article analyze power, social inequality, state institutions, and neoliberal policies. At the same time that critical epidemiologists and practitioners of social medicine can provide important theoretical and political insights for informing research on biocommunicability, they have generally failed to identify and challenge hegemonic ideologies of communication and their effects on public health. The essay thus hopes to show that both epistemological and political facets of critical epidemiology and social medicine can be significantly strengthened by adding “communication” to the set of hegemonic concepts and practices that researchers evaluate critically and seek to transform. Specifically, communicability constitutes an important set of tools for constructing and naturalizing neoliberal ideologies and practices.En este ensayo el autor propone un modelo de las ideologías y prácticas dominantes de comunicación, a las cuales se refiere como comunicabilidad; estas son similares al “Modelo Medico Hegemónico” (Menéndez y Di Pardo, 1996). Las ideologías hegemónicas consideran la comunicación como un proceso lineal y unidireccional, en el cual los mensajes son producidos por expertos –investigadores de la medicina, epidemiólogos, etc.–; puestos en circulación por especialistas en educación para la salud y periodistas; y recibidas o interpretadas por “el publico”. En vez de ser simples procesos mecánicos, las esferas de la comunicabilidad en salud –o biocomunicabilidad– constituyen un tipo de gobernabilidad que crea y jerarquiza formas de subjetividad y ubicaciones sociales. Este articulo establece un diálogo con la investigación latinoamericana de epidemiología crítica y medicina social, sobre todo con el trabajo de Jaime Breilh y Eduardo Menéndez, comparando cómo los modelos propuestos por dichos autores y el que se presenta aquí analizan el poder, la inequidad social, las instituciones gubernamentales y las políticas neoliberales. A pesar de que los investigadores de la epidemiología crítica y la medicina social proporcionan unas sugerencias valiosas para las investigaciones de biocomunicabilidad, no han logrado identificar y reemplazar a las ideologías hegemónicas de comunicación y sus efectos en la salud pública. Este ensayo intenta demostrar que las dimensiones, tanto epistemológicas como políticas, de la epidemiología y la medicina social se podrían fortalecer con un esfuerzo por añadir la “comunicación” al conjunto de conceptos y prácticas hegemónicas, que los investigadores someten a evaluación crítica y que se intentan transformar. Específicamente, la comunicabilidad constituye un juego clave de herramientas para construir y naturalizar las ideologías y prácticas neoliberales

Descubriendo una falla trágica en las políticas revolucionarias de salud: desde las inequidades en salud y comunicación a la justicia comunicativa en salud

Este artículo analiza una contradicción enfrentada por los gobiernos de izquierda de América Latina en sus esfuerzos por transformar la salud en un derecho social fundamental. Las políticas y prácticas que confrontan las desigualdades en salud, en general, no llegan a dirigirse a las inequidades en salud y comunicación; las distribuciones jerárquicas de los derechos dan forma al conocimiento legítimo en salud. El artículo presenta un análisis etnográfico sobre la epidemia de una enfermedad misteriosa –identificada clínicamente como rabia trasmitida por murciélagos– en la selva del Delta Amacuro en Venezuela, en 2007-2008, centrado en cómo los padres y las madres que perdieron entre 1 y 3 hijos e hijas lidian con inequidades agudas en salud y comunicación en entornos clínicos, investigaciones epidemiológicas, trabajo con sanadores/as, la cobertura de las noticias, las políticas de salud y la comunicación en salud. A partir de demandas por parte de los y las residentes de la selva por una justicia comunicativa en salud, el análisis utiliza la noción de autoatención propuesta por Menéndez para explorar cómo la labor en salud y comunicación se coproduce con la labor de cuidado.This article analyzes a contradiction facing efforts by left-leaning governments in Latin America to transform health into a fundamental social right. Policies and practices that confront health inequities generally fail to address health/communicative inequities, hierarchical distributions of rights to shape what counts as legitimate knowledge of health. This ethnographic analysis focuses on an epidemic of a mysterious disease – identified clinically as bat-transmitted rabies – in the Delta Amacuro rainforest of Venezuela in 2007-2008, tracing how parents who lost 1-3 children faced acute health/ communicative inequities in clinical settings, epidemiological investigations, work with healers, news coverage, health policy, and health communication. Taking as a point of departure rainforest residents’ demands for communicative justice in health, the analysis draws on Menéndez’s notion of autoatención in exploring how health/communicative labor is co-produced with the labor of care

Ecologies of evidence in a mysterious epidemic

An epidemic in a Venezuelan rainforest in 2007-2008 killed 38 children and young adults, puzzling clinicians, epidemiologists, and healers alike for over a year. This essay traces the way each contribution to knowledge production formed part of a larger ecology of evidence. Focusing on how the parents' knowledge was exploited and denigrated by clinicians, epidemiologists, and healers alike points to the health/communicative inequities—grossly unequal distributions of access to the production and circulation of evidence—that structured ecologies of evidence in ways that thwarted diagnosis. Recruiting a nurse, a healer, a physician, and an anthropologist, two indigenous leaders launched an investigation that juxtaposed parents' narratives, vernacular healing, epidemiology, and clinical medicine, resulting in a clinical diagnosis of bat-transmitted rabies. This case suggests that perspectives in global health will fail to become fully critical unless they attend to health/communicative inequities, how they structure ecologies of evidence, and strategies for transforming them

Improved limits on gamma ray burst repetition

We tighten previous upper limits on gamma ray burst repetition by analyzing the angular power spectrum of the BATSE 3B catalog of 1122 bursts. At 95% confidence, we find that no more than 2% of all observed bursts can be labeled as repeaters, even if no sources are observed to repeat more than once. If a fraction f of all observed bursts can be labeled as repeaters that are observed to burst v times each, then all models with (v-1)f>0.05 are ruled out at 99% confidence, as compared to the best previous 99% limit (v-1)f>0.27. At 95% confidence, our new limit is (v-1)f>0.02. Thus even a cluster of 6 events from a single source would have caused excess power above that present in the 3B catalog. We conclude that the current BATSE data are consistent with no repetition of classical gamma ray bursts, and that any repeater model is severely constrained by the near perfect isotropy of their angular distribution.Comment: 18 pages, with 2 figures included. Postscript. Submitted to ApJL. Latest version at http://astro.berkeley.edu/~max/repeaters.html (faster from the US), from http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~max/repeaters.html (faster from Europe) or from [email protected]

Fiscal Federalism and Resource Control Agitations: Implications for Nigeria's Socio-Economic Development

The issue of fiscal federalism and the management of the country's resources has been a complex one among the federating multi-ethnic nations within the Nigerian federation. Several conceptual and theoretical analysis expounds the way economies can be managed in a bid to abridge developmental crisis. The crux of Nigeria’s problem lies in her federating arrangement started in 1954 till date which has culminated in poor fiscal arrangement, disparity in the sharing of resources among the local, state and federal government, minority domination, and agitation for resource control. Based on the above, this paper seeks to critically review the challenges of fiscal federalism and resource control in Nigeria. It argues that if the fundamental issue of resource control is not pragmatically addressed by the Nigeria state the problem could trigger another phase of insurgency in the Niger Delta, with grave implications for the nation’s economy. Keywords: Fiscal Federalism, Resource Control, Socio-Economic