Second Corinthians: St. Paul’s political displacement from Corinth and his rhetoric of return

St. Paul’s tumultuous intermediate visit and subsequent absence is now commonplace in Corinthian research. Yet, little progress has been made in identifying the form of social interaction involved in this event and thus its impact upon the interpretation of 2 Corinthians. What form of antique social interaction best describes a situation in which a leader exits a community in response to communal hostility only to face a series of judgments including the erasure of his political legitimacy and withdrawal of support, all of which is found in a letter, 2 Corinthians, that aims to achieve Paul’s reconciliation with and return to his ἐκκλησία in Corinth? This thesis, employing a relevance-theoretic orientation, seeks to locate the macro-exigencies of strife and absence and the macro-aims of reconciliation and return within the ancient Mediterranean world in order to become familiar with the phenomena attendant to such exigencies and aims, for which is supplied the etic descriptor, political displacement. Sensitivity to the phenomena attendant to reconciliation and return and consistent with the exigencies of strife and absence indicates that Paul’s intermediate visit and subsequent absence functioned as an identifiable occasion of political displacement, a conclusion which supplies considerable explanatory power. Guided by relevance- theoretic principles, this thesis inquires as to what persuasive strategies Paul employed in light of an updated socio-historical background. That background material supplies a highly relevant contextual parameter for the interpretation of three narratives of apostolic ordeal (2 Cor 1:8–11; 2:12–13, 7:5–16; 11:30–33) and Paul’s final appeal for an amicable return (13:1–10). I conclude that one path by which Paul aimed to overturn the judgments emerging from the intermediate visit involved the appropriation of displacement tropes interwoven with Paul’s Christological logic. In this way, Paul aimed both to reverse the judgments against him emerging from the intermediate visit and undermine the evaluative structure of his detractors who viewed him as impotent, illegitimate, and displaced

Director: An Interpreter for Rule-based Programs

Programs interacting with users via natural language interfaces generally require more sophisticated control structures than those needed by programs interacting with users through less flexible mechanisms. This paper describes our development of Director, an interpreter (inference engine) for rule-based programs. Providing an efficient combination of forward and backward chaining, heuristic and user control of inference, and ready access to portions of its internal structure, Director facilitates the construction of systems with natural language interfaces as well as other rule-based systems in which queries are expensive

Meta-analysis using individual participant data: one-stage and two-stage approaches, and why they may differ.

Meta-analysis using individual participant data (IPD) obtains and synthesises the raw, participant-level data from a set of relevant studies. The IPD approach is becoming an increasingly popular tool as an alternative to traditional aggregate data meta-analysis, especially as it avoids reliance on published results and provides an opportunity to investigate individual-level interactions, such as treatment-effect modifiers. There are two statistical approaches for conducting an IPD meta-analysis: one-stage and two-stage. The one-stage approach analyses the IPD from all studies simultaneously, for example, in a hierarchical regression model with random effects. The two-stage approach derives aggregate data (such as effect estimates) in each study separately and then combines these in a traditional meta-analysis model. There have been numerous comparisons of the one-stage and two-stage approaches via theoretical consideration, simulation and empirical examples, yet there remains confusion regarding when each approach should be adopted, and indeed why they may differ. In this tutorial paper, we outline the key statistical methods for one-stage and two-stage IPD meta-analyses, and provide 10 key reasons why they may produce different summary results. We explain that most differences arise because of different modelling assumptions, rather than the choice of one-stage or two-stage itself. We illustrate the concepts with recently published IPD meta-analyses, summarise key statistical software and provide recommendations for future IPD meta-analyses. © 2016 The Authors. Statistics in Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Major League Baseball and Drugs: Fight the Problem or the Player?

The drug abuse issue is one of the most emotionally charged and important questions facing sports and society today

Doctoral supervision in virtual spaces: A review of research of web-based tools to develop collaborative supervision

Supervision of doctoral students needs to be improved to increase completion rates, reduce attrition rates (estimated to be at 25% or more) and improve quality of research. The current literature review aimed to explore the contribution that technology can make to higher degree research supervision. The articles selected included empirical studies that sought to improve supervision through the use of technology. The literature search focused on technology, supervision and pedagogical supervision, and supervisor–supervisee relationships. Eighteen empirical articles, including Web 2.0 settings, were examined in relation to whether web-based tools could influence the training of doctoral students, be effective in supporting students, and reduce the breakdowns in supervisory relationships. With a few exceptions, these studies showed that Web 2.0 tools enabled greater dialogue and interaction between the student and supervisor rather than a passive viewing of content. They created virtual spaces that combined technology and pedagogy into a process where research projects could be developed in a more collegial and collaborative way. It appeared that combining technology with pedagogy translated into more innovative ways to undertake supervision, particularly participatory supervision. The need for digital pedagogies that facilitate multidimensional changes in higher degree supervision was identified for future research

Writing the unreadable untext: a collaborative autoethnography of #rhizo14

No abstract available