Toward a Mediating Understanding of Tongues: A Historical and Exegetical Examination of Early Literature

Studies regarding pneumatology and charismata have maintained distinctions largely due to previously held presuppositions. Christians have debated Luke’s and Paul’s usage of specific words and have taken diametrically opposite positions on this issue. This study will not attempt to answer the question of the legitimacy of spiritual gifts; we must, rather, begin from a proper understanding of words and concepts, thus allowing God’s Word to change us if we are to be mindful of our obedience toward Him. This study will examine the historic meaning of the word and concept of tongues in order to better gauge Luke’s and Paul’s—and thus God’s—meaning for proper obedience. The issue under examination is a question of meaning: does the original meaning of tongues include only the miraculous endowment to speak an unlearned language, or only something related to the modern phenomenon of glossolalia, or an admixture of both? An examination of meaning includes an examination of historically contemporary authors, both biblical and extrabiblical. There are a variety of ways that ancient authors recognized different tongues phenomena, but for the modern Christian, it is finally important to understand what Luke and Paul meant. While it is true that Cessationists are correct to understand Luke’s use as that of a miraculously endowed foreign language, Paul and the Corinthians likely embraced a broader semantic range of this phenomenon

Quasi Empirical Likelihood Estimation of Moment Condition Models

In this paper, I develop a quasi empirical likelihood estimator that has good finite-sample properties when there are many moment conditions. I show that the quasi empirical likelihood estimator, which uses semiparametric efficient estimation, is an approximation to the empirical likelihood estimator, which has been shown to have good statistical properties. The quasi empirical likelihood estimator is a consistent estimator and has a normal asymptotic distribution. As with the full-blown empirical likelihood estimator, the quasi empirical likelihood estimator reduces finite-sample bias, but is much simpler to compute than the empirical likelihood estimator. Monte Carlo experiments and a quick validation exercise confirm my theoretical resultsGMM, empirical likelihood, finite-sample bias, instrumental variables

Did Computer Technology Diffuse Quickly?: Best and Average Practice in Mainframe Computers, 1968-1983

An economy benefits from advances in technical frontiers only when new technology comes into general use. This paper measures the diffusion of computing equipment at a time when computing technology underwent dramatic technical improvement. These data shed light on the long lag between advances in computing technology and advances in economic performance of users. There is little evidence that long lags were produced by the 'slow diffusion' of new technology embodied in new hardware. 'Average practice' in computing advanced as rapidly as 'best practice,' lagging it by a maximum of 6 to 7 years.

Optical realization of the dissipative quantum oscillator

An optical realization of the damped quantum oscillator, based on transverse light dynamics in an optical resonator with slowly-moving mirrors, is theoretically suggested. The optical resonator setting provides a simple implementation of the time-dependent Caldirola-Kanai Hamiltonian of the dissipative quantum oscillator, and enables to visualize the effects of damped oscillations in the classical (ray optics) limit and wave packet collapse in the quantum (wave optics) regime.Comment: The article is dedicated to Professor Orazio Svelto on the occasion of his 80th birthday. To appear in Optics Letter

Orbital Optimization in the Active Space Decomposition Model

We report the derivation and implementation of orbital optimization algorithms for the active space decomposition (ASD) model, which are extensions of complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF) and its occupation-restricted variants in the conventional multiconfiguration electronic-structure theory. Orbital rotations between active subspaces are included in the optimization, which allows us to unambiguously partition the active space into subspaces, enabling application of ASD to electron and exciton dynamics in covalently linked chromophores. One- and two-particle reduced density matrices, which are required for evaluation of orbital gradient and approximate Hessian elements, are computed from the intermediate tensors in the ASD energy evaluation. Numerical results on 4-(2-naphthylmethyl)-benzaldehyde and [3$_6$]cyclophane and model Hamiltonian analyses of triplet energy transfer processes in the Closs systems are presented. Furthermore model Hamiltonians for hole and electron transfer processes in anti-[2.2](1,4)pentacenophane are studied using an occupation-restricted variant

EXOGENOUS PRODUCTION SHOCKS AND TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY AMONG TRADITIONAL IVORIEN RICE FARMERS

This paper uses a unique panel data set and data envelopment analysis (DEA) to obtain estimates of technical efficiency for 492 traditional rice plots in Côte d'Ivoire. The objective of this paper is to explore the importance of explicitly controlling for exogenous shocks to production in technical efficiency estimation. We show how omission of such variables in highly stochastic production environments can lead to serious inferential errors, with potentially significant policy implications. Conventional DEA estimation of a production frontier, followed by second-stage Tobit estimation of the correlates of plot- level technical efficiency, suggest widespread and substantial inefficiency related to crop fragmentation and seed varieties. However, when one controls for unobserved groupwise cross-sectional and intertemporal heterogeneity and introduces measurable exogenous shocks into the second-stage estimation, managerial characteristics become jointly insignificant and state-conditional technical efficiency becomes nearly universal. The implication is that conventional technical efficiency estimates that refute the classic Schultzian "poor but efficient" hypothesis may be incorrect because they ignore farmers' vulnerability to adverse states of nature against which they cannot insure.Africa (Sub-Saharan), Ivory Coast, production frontiers, agricultural productivity, rice., Crop Production/Industries, Productivity Analysis, O12, Q12, D2,