On the Puzzle of Petitionary Prayer: Response to Daniel and Frances Howard-Snyder

I respond to Daniel and Frances Howard-Snyder’s criticisms of my arguments in another place for the conclusion that human supplicants would have little responsibility (if any) for the result of answered petitionary prayer, and criticize their defense of the claim that God would have good reasons for creating an institution of petitionary prayer

Craig on the Grounding Objection to Middle Knowledge

Recently William L. Craig has argued that the so-called Grounding Objection against Molinist theories of providence can be answered. I show that despite Craig\u27s clever arguments to the contrary, the Grounding Objection has not been answered, so it still represents a serious obstacle to the acceptance of Molinism

Scan Time Goals with Analysis of Scan Times from Aquatic Facilities

This paper aims to understand the challenges associated with establishing a time goal for scanning a lifeguard’s area of responsibility and identifying critical incidents requiring a response. It analyzed the results of 289 lifeguard inspections from aquatic facilities with management emphasis on scanning. The scanning summaries from the inspections cover 15,737 lifeguard observations where lifeguards were trained using two different scanning goals: 1) scan their area of responsibility within 15 s with an emphasis on using visual recognition signals to identify an incident and 2) recognize victims within 10 seconds in their area of responsibility. Analysis showed an average scan time of 22.65 s with 41.86% within 0-15 s and 37.03% within 16-30 s. The 10 s goal averaged 25.96 s and the 15 s goal has an average 21.96 s scan time. The weak implication was that if guards were trained using the goal of a scan taking 15 s or less, there was a reasonable chance that a large percentage of their scans will be at 30 s or less. Additional research is needed to discover whether there are other goals or methods that might produce even more effective scanning and times

Development of In-Water-Intervention (IWI) In a Lifeguard Protocol With Analysis of Rescue History

This paper discusses the development and effectiveness of a protocol for lifeguards in enclosed aquatic facilities with special emphasis on scanning, rapid rescue, and applying a resuscitation procedure in the water immediately after contacting a drowning victim. We call this set of procedures In-The-Water-Intervention (IWI). Testing showed abdominal thrusts (ATs) adapted for the protocol were the most effective IWI that could reliably be performed in deep water by 16-18 year-old lifeguards. Data analysis was done on a waterpark attendance of 63,800,000 with 56,000 rescues and 32 respiratory failures including four deaths. This paper concludes that this lifeguard protocol is effective for the environment described in this study. The lifeguard protocol’s fatality rate (0.0063 per 100K) is 1.09% of the year 2000 CDC fatality rate for all US pools. Only IWI was required to restore spontaneous respiration in 14 (43.75%) of the 32 cases involving loss of spontaneous respiration. In an additional 2 (6.25%) of the 32 cases involving loss of spontaneous respiration, ATs delivered out of the water were all that was required to restore spontaneous respiration