A Homily on Romans 10:14-15

In my studies within the course of Technology in Ministry, I was encouraged to use and promote the use of technology as a valuable means to proclaim the Good News to people where they are. In the “spirit” of Vatican II, the Church reaches out to her sons and daughters, especially the young, in an effort to make practical use of technology. Social media specifically comes into question when considering the use of high-tech communication to proclaim the Word. If we hold that the beauty of the feet of those who bring good news to the world from village to village is always a matter of significant value through the ages, how about the beauty of the hands and eyes of those who proclaim the Gospel of God through the use of this now ubiquitous technology? Can we indeed go so far as to state that the internet might be a divine gift, a means by which evangelization is made somehow more efficient and effective in the modern world

A COEXCEEDANCE APPROACH ON FINANCIAL CONTAGION

The paper sheds light on financial contagion within the Euro Area and Asia, and contagion from the Euro Area to Asia during two recent crises: the global financial crisis and European sovereign debt crisis. Applying the multinomial logit regression model, the paper investigates how the macro-finance variables affect the coincidence of extreme negative returns (coexceedances). In addition, I apply both original constant threshold i.e. 5% percentile of unconditional distribution of daily stock returns and Value-at-Risk to estimate extreme negative returns. These approaches offer a similar pattern. The empirical findings reveal that, in the Euro Area and Asia, the probability of the occurrence of coexceedances is strongly explained by the idiosyncratic risks: the changes in exchange rates, the regional stock market volatility, and global shocks: the changes in the U.S. long-term interest rates, the TED spread. The global volatility index is only significant to explain the likelihood of coexceedances in the Euro Area, not in Asia. These analyses lead to the conclusion that contagion in Asia is more important than in the Euro Area. Another important finding indicates the existence of contagion from the Euro Area to Asia. That is, the probability of coexceedances in Asia is predictable and depends on the number of joint occurrence of extreme return shocks in the Euro Area

AS IDEIAS EDUCACIONAIS DE CONFÚCIO: CONTEÚDO E VALORES

Since ancient times, thinkers have always emphasized the role of education in improving people and improving society. Confucius (551-479 BC) named Qiu, self-titled Trong Ni was a famous philosopher, politician, and educator in ancient China. Confucius's ancestor was a person from the Song state who moved to the country of Lu. He was born in the country of Lu - where many cultural heritages of the Zhou Dynasty are preserved. Confucius is one of the important delegates who laid the foundation for education in the world in general and in China in particular. For the first time in history, education was promoted and spread widely among the people. To promote his education effectively, Confucius built a rich system of teaching methods and an ideal model in society. With those outstanding features, Confucius's educational thought has contributed valuable experiences to the treasure of human educational theory in general and the history of ancient Chinese education in particular.Desde a antiguidade, os pensadores sempre enfatizaram o papel da educação na melhoria das pessoas e na melhoria da sociedade. Confúcio (551-479 aC) chamado Qiu, autointitulado Trong Ni, foi um famoso filósofo, político e educador na China antiga. O ancestral de Confúcio foi uma pessoa do estado Song que se mudou para o país de Lu. Ele nasceu no país de Lu – onde muitas heranças culturais da Dinastia Zhou são preservadas. Confúcio é um dos delegados importantes que lançou as bases para a educação no mundo em geral e na China em particular. Pela primeira vez na história, a educação foi promovida e difundida amplamente entre o povo. Para promover eficazmente a sua educação, Confúcio construiu um rico sistema de métodos de ensino e um modelo ideal de sociedade. Com essas características notáveis, o pensamento educacional de Confúcio contribuiu com experiências valiosas para o tesouro da teoria educacional humana em geral e para a história da educação chinesa antiga em particular

Vietnam’s Accession to the World Trade Organization: Economic Projections to 2020

This study presents a set of assessments of the long term economic effects of Vietnam’s accession to the WTO. Generally speaking, our results indicate that Vietnam would benefit from accelerating its participation in more open multilateralism. However, it is also clear from our analysis that these benefits will remain modest in the absence of comprehensive and complementary domestic economic reforms. Passive external liberalization, even when coupled with determined domestic reform, is inferior to WTO participation combined with negotiated market access and other activist multilateral agreements. Finally, our analysis shows that capital insufficiency is a very serious constraint on Vietnamese economic growth and diversification. Capital market reform can play an essential role in dynamic and sustained economic development for the country.Vietnam, WTO, Trade

Design and Fabrication of Fiber-Optic Nanoprobes for Optical Sensing

This paper describes the design and fabrication of fiber-optic nanoprobes developed for optical detection in single living cells. It is critical to fabricate probes with well-controlled nanoapertures for optimized spatial resolution and optical transmission. The detection sensitivity of fiber-optic nanoprobe depends mainly on the extremely small excitation volume that is determined by the aperture sizes and penetration depths. We investigate the angle dependence of the aperture in shadow evaporation of the metal coating onto the tip wall. It was found that nanoaperture diameters of approximately 50 nm can be achieved using a 25° tilt angle. On the other hand, the aperture size is sensitive to the subtle change of the metal evaporation angle and could be blocked by irregular metal grains. Through focused ion beam (FIB) milling, optical nanoprobes with well-defined aperture size as small as 200 nm can be obtained. Finally, we illustrate the use of the nanoprobes by detecting a fluorescent species, benzo[a]pyrene tetrol (BPT), in single living cells. A quantitative estimation of the numbers of BPT molecules detected using fiber-optic nanoprobes for BPT solutions shows that the limit of detection was approximately 100 molecules