Unanswered Prayers: A Study of Apologia for God in the Matter of Prayer

Many Christian writers and thinkers take up the vexing issue of unanswered prayer and thereby use various rhetorical strategies to address the intersection of pertinent teaching about prayer, and the disjunctive, problematic life experiences concerning the experience of unanswered prayer. Our investigation uses the ancient rhetorical genre of apologia as a lens to better understand the tactics and stances taken up by those who seek to guide members of faith communities toward reconciliation between perceived biblical teaching and actual life experiences concerning unanswered prayer. Our study incorporates an analysis of both the formal and conceptual strategies utilized by rhetors who seek to repair, or account for, breaches in lived-faith and understood teaching by religious communities through investigation of representative contemporary rhetors who address prayer

Unanswered Prayers: A Study of Apologia for God in the Matter of Prayer

Many Christian writers and thinkers take up the vexing issue of unanswered prayer and thereby use various rhetorical strategies to address the intersection of pertinent teaching about prayer, and the disjunctive, problematic life experiences concerning the experience of unanswered pray-er. Our investigation uses the ancient rhetorical genre of apologia as a lens to better understand the tactics and stances taken up by those who seek to guide members of faith communities toward reconciliation between perceived biblical teaching and actual life experiences concerning unan-swered prayer. Our study incorporates an analysis of both the formal and conceptual strategies utilized by rhetors who seek to repair, or account for, breaches in lived-faith and understood teaching by religious communities through investigation of representative contemporary rhetors who address prayer

Construcción de la mentira sobrenatural en «La dama duende» y «El galán fantasma»

En La dama duende y El galán fantasma se presenta a los protagonistas de un modo en que los otros personajes pueden pensar que se trata de seres sobrenaturales, no como un engaño intencional, sino como resultado de las circunstancias en que éstos deben operar. En este texto se explora cómo confluyen los elementos espectaculares, dramáticos e indiciales para provocar este error en la percepción que se tiene de estos personajes, que se convierte en motor de acciones y enredos.In Calderon’s La dama duende and El galán fantasma the main characters are presented in way that might lead other characters to believe that they are supernatural beings. This is not done as an intentional trick but, rather, as the result of the circumstances in which they must operate. This paper explores how the performance and dramatic elements, as well as cultural references, come together and cause this error in the perception of these characters, which becomes the propelling force of actions and entanglements

Use of Simulation Methods of Wave Processes for Non-Destructive Testing of Concrete Products of Different Geometrical Size

Theoretical and experimental research of electrical responses under pulsed mechanical excitation of different size concrete products was carried out. Comparison of calculated and experimental data shows very close agreement. The obtained results will help to develop new opportunities to improve the method of non-destructive testing of concrete by creating a bank of calculated electrical responses from products of different geometrical arrangement and elastic response and using them as standard samples for defectiveness evaluation of products according to previously established criteria

Use of Reactive Phosphate Rock for Pastures on the Southern Tablelands of NSW, Australia

A comparison was made of pasture production from phosphate fertilisers, including superphosphate, reactive phosphate rocks (RPRs) and a non-reactive phosphate rock at two sites on the Southern tablelands of NSW, Australia. Production from all phosphate rocks was low in the first year at both sites, but RPRs were similar to superphosphate by the fourth year. Production from RPRs was low in a dry year which is consistent with the requirement for moist acid soils for effective release of P from RPRs. Performance of RPRs was better at the site which was moister and had higher summer rainfall

The Relationship Between the Parameters of the Electric and the Acoustic Signal with the Destruction of Concrete Under Cyclic Freeze-Thaw

The paper presents the research results of the effect of formation crack process on the parameters of the electric and acoustic response to impact excitation. The physical basis of mechanoelectric transformations is described. It was found that with increasing number of freeze-thaw cycles observed increase of the attenuation coefficient of energy of the electric and acoustic response by a linear relationship. Differences in the dynamics of change of attenuation coefficient of energy of the electric and acoustic response associated with differences in formation and registration of electric and acoustic response

Generalizing movements with information-theoretic stochastic optimal control

Stochastic optimal control is typically used to plan a movement for a specific situation. Although most stochastic optimal control methods fail to generalize this movement plan to a new situation without replanning, a stochastic optimal control method is presented that allows reuse of the obtained policy in a new situation, as the policy is more robust to slight deviations from the initial movement plan. To improve the robustness of the policy, we employ information-theoretic policy updates that explicitly operate on trajectory distributions instead of single trajectories. To ensure a stable and smooth policy update, the ”distance” is limited between the trajectory distributions of the old and the new control policies. The introduced bound offers a closed-form solution for the resulting policy and extends results from recent developments in stochastic optimal control. In contrast to many standard stochastic optimal control algorithms, the current approach can directly infer the system dynamics from data points, and hence can also be used for model-based reinforcement learning. This paper represents an extension of the paper by Lioutikov et al. (“Sample-Based Information-Theoretic Stochastic Optimal Control,” Proceedings of 2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, 2014, pp. 3896–3902). In addition to revisiting the content, an extensive theoretical comparison is presented of the approach with related work, additional aspects of the implementation are discussed, and further evaluations are introduced

Innovations for Improving Courtroom Communications and Views from Appellate Courts

Symposium: Improving Communications In the Courtroo

Innovations for Improving Courtroom Communications and Views from Appellate Courts

Symposium: Improving Communications In the Courtroo