Liturgical hermeneutics: interpreting liturgical rites in performance.

This thesis applies the resources of philosophical hermeneutics, especially as represented in the work of Paul Ricoeur and Hans-Georg Gadamer, to the project of interpreting liturgy as simultaneously text and performance. The result is a new field, defined as liturgical hermeneutics. The research breaks away from attempts to find objective meaning in liturgy. Through readings of Church of England forms of the eucharist, baptism and burial it argues that meaning happens when worshippers appropriate the promise of the Kingdom of God which liturgical rites propose. Such acts of appropriation occur when worshippers find themselves in a threshold position with respect to the Kingdom. From here, they can make their own the promises enshrined in the biblical tradition and transmitted through liturgical action, by an act of faith. The result is a reconfiguration of the worshipper's subjectivity, or a new mode-of-being-in- the-world, conditioned by his or her claim to citizenship of the Kingdom. The notion of liturgy as a practice raises the questions of intentionality and repeatability in ritual. I have pursued these topics with reference, initially, to J.L. Austin’s theory of speech acts. The deficiencies in Austin's theory, especially as treated by Jacques Derrida, can be shown to address particular instances in liturgy. In the end, it has proved more profitable to use Derrida's own discussion of the written performative in order to demonstrate the way in which liturgical proposals are taken up by their recipients. The techniques of analysis applied in the thesis show that liturgy shares the conventions of secular language. The last chapter extends this recognition to demonstrate that liturgy also has an investment in other concerns of secular life. With special reference to the discourses of ethics and politics, it proposes that liturgy itself is capable of standing as a paradigm for secular cultural practices

Exploring and Explaining Consumer Competition: A Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding the Phenomenon

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the phenomenon of “consumer competition.” The overarching objective is to help researchers and marketing practitioners understand how the phenomenon is created, how consumers experience competition, and to begin to inspect its effects. Consumer competition is defined as the active processes of striving against others for the acquisition of a consumption object. To date, this phenomenon has been under-researched, despite its prevalence in many marketing and consumer-related domains. An extensive literature synthesis provides the foundation for understanding competition and competitiveness in general from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Based on the synthesis of literature and respective theory, this research contends that a scarcity effect contributes to consumer competition. It also contends that competitive situations may be purposely created by retailers, who may or may not understand its benefits and/or consequences to the people involved. This dissertation examines the phenomenon in two manners. First, an exploratory study seeks to enrich our understanding of how consumers experience competition in a retail setting. Employing the grounded theory method, researching participants engaged in a competitive shopping context offers insight into the meaning of competition, the motivation for competing, the experiential components of competing, and the outcome of participating in a competitive shopping situation. Second, an experiment tests the influence of scarcity messages on consumers’ perceptions of a competitive purchase situation and the related purchase interest. The results of the research are multi-faceted. It provides managerial insight into an effect of scarcity not yet examined: perceptions regarding the competitive nature of a purchase situation. This is an important distinction given the influence of perceptions on behavior. It also provides insight to enrich our understanding of how consumers engage in competitive shopping behavior and how they reflect on competitive situations in the retail domain

Comparación de las actitudes e intenciones en relación a la sostenibilidad entre generaciones y género: una perspectiva de los consumidores de Estados Unidos

[EN] As firms increasingly focus on corporate sustainability initiatives and offer more sustainability-related products, there is a need to continually assess consumer attitudes towards and involvement in sustainable consumption. Additionally, there is a need to determine if some consumer characteristics may typify how they think, feel, and behave towards sustainability initiatives. Based on an online sample of 1,250 U.S. consumers, this present research utilizes a cross-sectional design to examine whether generational cohort and gender help explain variations in how consumers react to the notion of sustainability. This research is also focused on sustainability in the food and grocery industry. The find ings suggest that attitudes towards sustainability and the degree to which consumers feel sustainability is important is more positive for younger consumers and women. The Baby Boomer generation is less interested in sustainable consumption and less likely to be persuaded by sustainability claims. The main limitations of this study are that data were collected only through self-reporting from consumers in the United States. For marketers promoting sustainability-related products, this data should help them better understand segments of the U.S. market and develop more successful promotional initiatives. Knowing the nuances of how generational cohorts think about sustainability and how they may consider it when making purchase decisions should motivate marketers to utilize these differences when creating their marketing mix. Though some marketers are moving away from gender-based promotional tactics, the findings also suggest that gender segmentation could still be useful when it comes to sustainability-related products.[ES] A medida que las empresas se centran cada vez más en iniciativas relacionadas con la sostenibilidad corporativa y ofrecen más productos relacionados con la sostenibilidad, es necesario evaluar continuamente las actitudes de los consumidores hacia el consumo sostenible y su implicación en él. Además, es necesario determinar si algunas características de los consumidores pueden tipificar su forma de pensar, sentir y comportarse ante iniciativas en materia de sostenibilidad. A partir de una muestra online de 1.250 consumidores de Estados Unidos, la presente investigación utiliza un diseño de sección transversal para examinar si la cohorte generacional y el género ayudan a explicar las variaciones en la forma en que los consumidores reaccionan ante la noción de sostenibilidad. Esta investigación también se centra en la sostenibilidad en la industria alimentaria y de comestibles. Los resultados sugieren que las actitudes hacia la sostenibilidad y el grado en que los consumidores consideran que ésta es importante son más positivos para los consumidores más jóvenes y las mujeres. La generación del Baby Boomer está menos interesada en el consumo sostenible y es menos probable que se deje convencer por las afirmaciones de sostenibilidad. Las principales limitaciones de este estudio residen en que los datos se recogieron únicamente a través de declaraciones de los propios consumidores en Estados Unidos. Para los comercializadores que promueven productos relacionados con la sostenibilidad, estos datos deberían ayudarles a entender mejor los segmentos del mercado estadounidense y a desarrollar iniciativas promocionales más exitosas. Conocer los aspectos de la forma de pensar de las cohortes generacionales sobre la sostenibilidad y cómo pueden tenerla en cuenta a la hora de tomar decisiones de compra debería motivar a los profesionales del marketing a utilizar estas diferencias a la hora de crear su marketing mix. Aunque algunos vendedores se están alejando de las tácticas promocionales basadas en el género, los resultados también sugieren que la segmentación por género podría seguir siendo útil cuando se trata de productos relacionados con la sostenibilidad.This research was supported by generous funding provided by the Haile College of Business at Northern Kentucky University. The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions for improving this manuscript

Chemical sourcing of prehistoric ceramics from Mesoamerica

Abstract only availableFor over 3000 years the Basin of Mexico has been a cultural core of Mesoamerica—the location of Teotihuacán, the Aztec capital, and modern Mexico City. Despite the region's enduring prominence, little is known about early interactions between its different cultures. This project investigates ceramic exchange in the Basin of Mexico during the Formative Period (1200-500 BC) by chemically sourcing ceramics from four sites in the northeastern corridor, the Teotihuacán Valley. Instrument Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) was used to determine the elemental compositions of 105 pottery sherds. The concentrations of 33 elements were detected and ceramics were grouped according to elemental compositions. When the differences between groups were greater than differences within groups, the pottery within a group was assumed to have the same provenance. Thus the study determined the proportion of locally made pottery and identified samples that appear to be imports.U.S. Dept. of Energy Innovations in Nuclear Infrastructure and Education Summer MURR Undergraduate Research Scholarshi

Coronavirus Papain-like Proteases Negatively Regulate Antiviral Innate Immune Response through Disruption of STING-Mediated Signaling

Viruses have evolved elaborate mechanisms to evade or inactivate the complex system of sensors and signaling molecules that make up the host innate immune response. Here we show that human coronavirus (HCoV) NL63 and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) CoV papain-like proteases (PLP) antagonize innate immune signaling mediated by STING (stimulator of interferon genes, also known as MITA/ERIS/MYPS). STING resides in the endoplasmic reticulum and upon activation, forms dimers which assemble with MAVS, TBK-1 and IKKε, leading to IRF-3 activation and subsequent induction of interferon (IFN). We found that expression of the membrane anchored PLP domain from human HCoV-NL63 (PLP2-TM) or SARS-CoV (PLpro-TM) inhibits STING-mediated activation of IRF-3 nuclear translocation and induction of IRF-3 dependent promoters. Both catalytically active and inactive forms of CoV PLPs co-immunoprecipitated with STING, and viral replicase proteins co-localize with STING in HCoV-NL63-infected cells. Ectopic expression of catalytically active PLP2-TM blocks STING dimer formation and negatively regulates assembly of STING-MAVS-TBK1/IKKε complexes required for activation of IRF-3. STING dimerization was also substantially reduced in cells infected with SARS-CoV. Furthermore, the level of ubiquitinated forms of STING, RIG-I, TBK1 and IRF-3 are reduced in cells expressing wild type or catalytic mutants of PLP2-TM, likely contributing to disruption of signaling required for IFN induction. These results describe a new mechanism used by CoVs in which CoV PLPs negatively regulate antiviral defenses by disrupting the STING-mediated IFN induction

C. L. Downing, Salvation from Cinema: The Medium is the Message. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2016. Pp. viii, 196. Pb. £33.99. ISBN 978-1-138-91394-3

Review of this book on theology and film for Modern Believing

Expanding the diversity of mycobacteriophages: insights into genome architecture and evolution.

Mycobacteriophages are viruses that infect mycobacterial hosts such as Mycobacterium smegmatis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. All mycobacteriophages characterized to date are dsDNA tailed phages, and have either siphoviral or myoviral morphotypes. However, their genetic diversity is considerable, and although sixty-two genomes have been sequenced and comparatively analyzed, these likely represent only a small portion of the diversity of the mycobacteriophage population at large. Here we report the isolation, sequencing and comparative genomic analysis of 18 new mycobacteriophages isolated from geographically distinct locations within the United States. Although no clear correlation between location and genome type can be discerned, these genomes expand our knowledge of mycobacteriophage diversity and enhance our understanding of the roles of mobile elements in viral evolution. Expansion of the number of mycobacteriophages grouped within Cluster A provides insights into the basis of immune specificity in these temperate phages, and we also describe a novel example of apparent immunity theft. The isolation and genomic analysis of bacteriophages by freshman college students provides an example of an authentic research experience for novice scientists

Evaluating the Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Mutation D614G on Transmissibility and Pathogenicity.

Global dispersal and increasing frequency of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein variant D614G are suggestive of a selective advantage but may also be due to a random founder effect. We investigate the hypothesis for positive selection of spike D614G in the United Kingdom using more than 25,000 whole genome SARS-CoV-2 sequences. Despite the availability of a large dataset, well represented by both spike 614 variants, not all approaches showed a conclusive signal of positive selection. Population genetic analysis indicates that 614G increases in frequency relative to 614D in a manner consistent with a selective advantage. We do not find any indication that patients infected with the spike 614G variant have higher COVID-19 mortality or clinical severity, but 614G is associated with higher viral load and younger age of patients. Significant differences in growth and size of 614G phylogenetic clusters indicate a need for continued study of this variant