Proverbs 31-01: why is the woman of valour of Proverbs 31:10-31 so hard to find?

This dissertation focuses on Proverbs 31:10-31, the poem about the eset hayil, the co-called ‘woman of valour’. Chapter one will use Reception Theory to show how scholarship on Proverbs, especially discussions about the school/royal court or folk/clan origin of Israelite wisdom, has influenced the interpretation of Proverbs, creating a pre-understanding or research paradigm within which researchers think. I will show how specific interpretations of Proverbs 31:10-31 as part of a hermeneutical framework or inspired by a particular social setting have been influenced by this research paradigm. Chapter two will begin with a literary analysis, discussing the structure and content of Proverbs 31:10-31 and translation difficulties. A more focused word study will pick out key words and ideas in the poem, including military, industry, and action language, in an attempt to reconstruct the horizons of expectations (as understood in Reception Theory) of the original author. From this, I will identify specific motifs and images used by the poem, considering how they are used here and whether they are used similarly here as elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible—that is, whether they reaffirm an established literary motif or image, or go against other uses, challenging the horizons of expectation. Chapter three, perhaps the most speculative part of the project, will undertake an intertextual analysis of the poem, in conversation with the book of Ruth. These texts share a number of similarities, including their focus on women who work for the benefit of home and family, who are both identified as an eset hayil and praised in the gates of the city for their documented deeds. This will build up to an analysis of the term eset hayil itself, to determine whether we should change our understanding of the term from a person to something more akin to a title or accolade someone earns. This would transform the overall function of 31:10-31 from advice literature for the male elite to a song of praise

Bismuth-Based Nanoparticles as Photocatalytic Materials

Bismuth-based nanoparticles are a unique category of materials that possess interesting properties such as excellent chemical, electrical, optical and catalytic activities among others. The application of bismuth-based nanoparticles as photocatalytic materials has caught the interest of the scientific community in recent times due to these unique properties. Consequently, a number of data have been generated in relation to the photocatalytic application of these nanoparticles. This chapter intends to organise and provide the recently generated information on the use of bismuth-based nanoparticles in photocatalytic degradation processes. A detailed discussion is provided on bismuth-based nanoparticles including bismuth chalcogenides, bismuth vanadate, bismuth oxyhalides and other bismuth-related nanoparticles. Attention was also paid to the modification of these nanoparticles to improve their photocatalytic activities. The application of the modified nanoparticles in various photocatalytic processes with emphasis on water treatment, waste gas treatment, hydrogen production and air purification has also been thoroughly discussed

White-handed gibbons discriminate context-specific songs compositions

This research project has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust (Research Leadership Award F/00268/AP), the European Research Council (grant number FP7; PRILANG GA283871) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (310030_185324).White-handed gibbons produce loud and acoustically complex songs when interacting with their neighbours or when encountering predators. In both contexts, songs are assembled from a small number of units although their composition differs in context-specific ways. Here, we investigated whether wild gibbons could infer the ‘meaning’ when hearing exemplars recorded in both contexts (i.e. ‘duet songs’ vs. ‘predator songs’). We carried out a playback experiment by which we simulated the presence of a neighbouring group producing either its duet or a predator song in order to compare subjects’ vocal and locomotor responses. When hearing a recording of a duet song, subjects reliably responded with their own duet song, which sometimes elicited further duet songs in adjacent groups. When hearing a recording of a predator song, however, subjects typically remained silent, apart from one of six groups which replied with its own predator song. Moreover, in two of six trials, playbacks of predator songs elicited predator song replies in non-adjacent groups. Finally, all groups showed strong anti-predator behaviour to predator songs but never to duet songs. We concluded that white-handed gibbons discriminated between the two song types and were able to infer meaning from them. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of the current debate on the evolutionary origins of syntax.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Global intravascular and local hyperoxia contrast phase-based blood oxygenation measurements

AbstractThe measurement of venous cerebral blood oxygenation (Yv) has potential applications in the study of patient groups where oxygen extraction and/or metabolism are compromised. It is also useful for fMRI studies to assess the stimulus-induced changes in Yv, particularly since basal Yv partially accounts for inter-subject variation in the haemodynamic response to a stimulus. A range of MRI-based methods of measuring Yv have been developed recently. Here, we use a method based on the change in phase in the MR image arising from the field perturbation caused by deoxygenated haemoglobin in veins. We build on the existing phase based approach (Method I), where Yv is measured in a large vein (such as the superior sagittal sinus) based on the field shift inside the vein with assumptions as to the vein's shape and orientation. We demonstrate two novel modifications which address limitations of this method. The first modification (Method II), maps the actual form of the vein, rather than assume a given shape and orientation. The second modification (Method III) uses the intra and perivascular phase change in response to a known change in Yv on hyperoxia to measure normoxic Yv in smaller veins. Method III can be applied to veins whose shape, size and orientation are not accurately known, thus allowing more localised measures of venous oxygenation. Results demonstrate that the use of an overly fine spatial filter caused an overestimation in Yv for Method I, whilst the measurement of Yv using Method II was less sensitive to this bias, giving Yv=0.62±0.03. Method III was applied to mapping of Yv in local veins across the brain, yielding a distribution of values with a mode of Yv=0.661±0.008

A spatial analysis of tuberculosis related mortality in South Africa

BACKGROUND : South Africa, with an estimated annual tuberculosis (TB) incidence of 360,000 cases in 2019, remains one of the countries with the largest burden of TB in the world. The identification of highly burdened TB areas could support public health policy planners to optimally target resources and TB control and prevention interventions. OBJECTIVE : To investigate the spatial epidemiology and distribution of TB mortality in South Africa in 2010 and its association with area-level poverty and HIV burden. METHODS : The study analysed a total of 776,176 TB deaths for the period 2005–2015. Local and global and spatial clustering of TB death rates were investigated by Global and Local Moran’s Indices methods (Moran’s I). The spatial regression analysis was employed to assess the effect of poverty and HIV on TB mortality rates. RESULTS : There was a significant decrease in TB mortality rate, from 179 per 100,000 population in 2005 to 60 per 100,000 population in 2015. The annual TB mortality rate was higher among males (161.5 per 100,000 male population; (95% confidence interval (CI) 132.9, 190.0) than among females (123.2 per 100,000 female population; (95% CI 95.6, 150.8)). The 35–44 age group experienced higher TB mortality rates, regardless of gender and time. Hot spot clusters of TB mortality were found in the South-Eastern parts of the country, whereas cold spot clusters were largely in the north-eastern parts. Tuberculosis death rates were positively associated with poverty, as measured by the South African Multidimension Poverty Index (SAMPI) as well TB death rates in the neighbouring districts. CONCLUSION : The findings of this study revealed a statistically significant decrease in TB deaths and a disproportionate distribution of TB deaths among certain areas and population groups in South Africa. The existence of the identified inequalities in the burden of TB deaths calls for targeted public health interventions, policies, and resources to be directed towards the most vulnerable populations in South Africa.The South African Medical Research Council-National Health Scholars Programme and The Auckland University of Technology, Faculty of Health and Environment Sciences, Doctoral fees scholarship funding, New Zealand.https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerpham2022Statistic

Calibrated BOLD using direct measurement of changes in venous oxygenation

Calibration of the BOLD signal is potentially of great value in providing a closer measure of the underlying changes in brain function related to neuronal activity than the BOLD signal alone, but current approaches rely on an assumed relationship between cerebral blood volume (CBV) and cerebral blood flow (CBF). This is poorly characterised in humans and does not reflect the predominantly venous nature of BOLD contrast, whilst this relationship may vary across brain regions and depend on the structure of the local vascular bed. This work demonstrates a new approach to BOLD calibration which does not require an assumption about the relationship between cerebral blood volume and cerebral blood flow. This method involves repeating the same stimulus both at normoxia and hyperoxia, using hyperoxic BOLD contrast to estimate the relative changes in venous blood oxygenation and venous CBV. To do this the effect of hyperoxia on venous blood oxygenation has to be calculated, which requires an estimate of basal oxygen extraction fraction, and this can be estimated from the phase as an alternative to using a literature estimate. Additional measurement of the relative change in CBF, combined with the blood oxygenation change can be used to calculate the relative change in CMRO2 due to the stimulus. CMRO2 changes of 18 ± 8% in response to a motor task were measured without requiring the assumption of a CBV/CBF coupling relationship, and are in agreement with previous approaches

A new stump-toed frog from the transitional forests of NW Madagascar (Anura, Microhylidae, Cophylinae, Stumpffia)

Volume: 933Start Page: 139-16