Justice and Gender in Ministry: Debating Women\u27s Ordination

Much has been written on the question of ordaining women in the Roman Catholic Church. Catholic scholars of all stripes have debated issues such as the biblical sources for a theology of ordination; the relationship between sacramental and non-sacramental ministries; the limits of papal authority and the development of doctrine; and, more recently, the relationship between the elevation of an all-male, celibate clergy and the failure of Catholic bishops to address reported sexual abuse by priests. This essay focuses on the ethical implications of barring women from the priesthood. Although my references are to Catholic or Christian practices primarily, I explore two issues which have the potential to cut across denominational or creedal lines: the morality of sex-specific roles and the symbolic character of ordination

The roles of “old” and “new” media tools and technologies in the facilitation of violent extremism and terrorism

This chapter describes and discusses the roles of media tools and technologies in the facilitation of violent extremism and terrorism. Rather than focusing on how media report on terrorism, we investigate how extremist and terrorist groups and movements themselves have exploited various “traditional” and “new” media tools, from print to digital, outlining the significance that they have had on extremists’ ability to mark territory, intimidate some audiences, connect with other (sympathetic) audiences, radicalize, and even recruit. Underlined is that violent extremists and terrorists of all stripes have, over time, used every means at their disposal to forward their communicative goals. Also worth noting is that ‘old’ media tools are not extinct and while ‘new’ media play a prominent role in contemporary violent extremism and terrorism, ‘old’ tools—everything from murals to magazines—continue to be utilized in tandem with the former

Task-Specific Resistance Training Bedside for an 80-Year-Old Deconditioned Female: A Case Report

Background: The purpose of this case report was to describe the use of task-specific resistance training bedside on an 80-year-old deconditioned female. Case Description: The patient was a retired 80-year-old African-American female seen in a skilled nursing facility who was hospitalized due to defibrillator firing with atrial fibrillation with abdominal pain and Clostridium Difficile. Three weeks prior the patient was hospitalized for a right inguinal hernia repair. Outcomes: The patient was unable to return to her prior level of independence for all functional mobility, yet the patient increased her gait distance, improved her lower extremity strength evidenced by manual muscle testing and decreased the level assistance needed with bed mobility, transfers and gait as measured by the functional independence measure. Discussion: Although this single case report limits generalizability, this case indicates that task-specific resistance training as a method for treatment of deconditioning may benefit other older adults who are confined to their room to complete physical therapy

The Politics of Risk: A Human Rights Paradigm for Children’s Environmental Health Research

A human rights paradigm for environmental health research makes explicit the relationship between poor health and poverty, inequality, and social and political marginalization, and it aims at civic problem solving. In so doing, it incorporates support for community-based, participatory research and takes seriously the social responsibilities of researchers. For these reasons, a human rights approach may be better able than conventional bioethics to address the unique issues that arise in the context of pediatric environmental health research, particularly the place of environmental justice standards in research. At the same time, as illustrated by disagreements over the ethics of research into lead abatement methods, bringing a human rights paradigm to bear in the context of environmental health research requires resolving important tensions at its heart, particularly the inescapable tension between ethical ideals and political realities

Right-wing extremists’ persistent online presence: history and contemporary trends

This policy brief traces how Western right-wing extremists have exploited the power of the internet from early dial-up bulletin board systems to contemporary social media and messaging apps. It demonstrates how the extreme right has been quick to adopt a variety of emerging online tools, not only to connect with the like-minded, but to radicalise some audiences while intimidating others, and ultimately to recruit new members, some of whom have engaged in hate crimes and/or terrorism. Highlighted throughout is the fast pace of change of both the internet and its associated platforms and technologies, on the one hand, and the extreme right, on the other, as well as how these have interacted and evolved over time. Underlined too is the persistence, despite these changes, of rightwing extremists’ online presence, which poses challenges for effectively responding to this activity moving forward

Detection of dispersed radio pulses: a machine learning approach to candidate identification and classification

Searching for extraterrestrial, transient signals in astronomical data sets is an active area of current research. However, machine learning techniques are lacking in the literature concerning single-pulse detection. This paper presents a new, two-stage approach for identifying and classifying dispersed pulse groups (DPGs) in single-pulse search output. The first stage identified DPGs and extracted features to characterize them using a new peak identification algorithm which tracks sloping tendencies around local maxima in plots of signal-to-noise ratio versus dispersion measure. The second stage used supervised machine learning to classify DPGs. We created four benchmark data sets: one unbalanced and three balanced versions using three different imbalance treatments. We empirically evaluated 48 classifiers by training and testing binary and multiclass versions of six machine learning algorithms on each of the four benchmark versions. While each classifier had advantages and disadvantages, all classifiers with imbalance treatments had higher recall values than those with unbalanced data, regardless of the machine learning algorithm used. Based on the benchmarking results, we selected a subset of classifiers to classify the full, unlabelled data set of over 1.5 million DPGs identified in 42 405 observations made by the Green Bank Telescope. Overall, the classifiers using a multiclass ensemble tree learner in combination with two oversampling imbalance treatments were the most efficient; they identified additional known pulsars not in the benchmark data set and provided six potential discoveries, with significantly less false positives than the other classifiers

Senior Recital: JT Butcher, Tuba; Ryan Valdivia, Trumpet; Lauren Cancio, Trumpet; Ryan Burns, Horn; Peyton Gray, Trombone; Maura Nika, Piano; November 3, 2023

Kemp Recital HallNovember 3, 2023Friday Evening8:30 p.m