An Analysis of Missouri Synod Sermons Based onthe Contentof the New Testament Kerygma

To conduct such a quest we have tried to answer two basic questions, the first of which seeks to determine the content of the Word. What are the elements which the apostles understood to be the content of the message they had to proclaim to the world, and in what relation to one another do these elements constitute the Word as a proclamation

An Integrated Model of Household Flow-of-Funds Allocations

This paper extends the multivariate stock-adjustment model commonly used in empirical studies of portfolio behavior in order to analyze the complete set of flow allocation decisions made by households (including consumption, expenditures on durables and houses, and various financial aggregates). The model is then confronted with quarterly household sector data from the United States Flow of Funds Accounts for the period 1954 to 1975. Besides presenting OLS estimates, we test parameter restrictions suggested by our theoretical structure; the data supports the view that the explanatory power of the model is enhanced by allowing non-zero cross-effects on interest rates and lagged stocks, and by the integration of real and financial decisions. While these results are encouraging, the specification requires a large number of independent variables. This leads, in many cases, to rather poor determination of a number of coefficients. We therefore combine with the data some inexact subjective information about the coefficients, using the Theil-Goldberger mixed estimation technique. The OLS estimates and the mixed estimates are then compared by examining the forecasting accuracy of the model in- and out-of-sample. Overall the model performs very well, and the simulation results confirm that inclusion of prior information is of considerable value for forecasting purposes. Since the publication of William Brainard and James Tobin’s pioneering paper, “Pitfalls in Financial Model Building,” the multivariate stock-adjustment model has been widely used to study dynamic portfolio adjustment. The framework which they developed is especially useful for analyzing a given sector’s allocation of a predetermined aggregate among competing alternatives; when dealing with the household sector most applications (including their own) have specified wealth as a predetermined aggregate which, in turn, was allocated to various assets and liabilities. The purpose of the present paper is to use an extended version of the Pitfalls model to examine in an integrated manner the household sector’s allocation of income to financial and real expenditures for the United States from 1954 to the present. The plan of the paper is as follows. In Section I we outline our basic theoretical framework, explain its motivation, and relate our approach to other recent flow-of-funds models. Then in Section II we describe the data and present ordinary least squares estimates of the model; in addition, we test for the “asset composition effect” which is central to our particular extension of the Pitfalls model. In Section III we use Brainard and Gary Smith’s adaptation of the Theil-Goldberger mixed estimation technique to combine subjective prior information about the coefficients with that embodied in the data. We further examine in Section IV both the model and the value of our a priori beliefs by performing in-sample and out-of-sample dynamic simulations. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section V

Is the Non-Dipole Magnetic Field Random?

Statistical modelling of the Earth's magnetic field B has a long history. In particular, the spherical harmonic coefficients of scalar fields derived from B can be treated as Gaussian random variables. In this paper, we give examples of highly organized fields whose spherical harmonic coefficients pass tests for independent Gaussian random variables. The fact that coefficients at some depth may be usefully summarized as independent samples from a normal distribution need not imply that there really is some physical, random process at that depth. In fact, the field can be extremely structured and still be regarded for some purposes as random. In this paper, we examined the radial magnetic field B(sub r) produced by the core, but the results apply to any scalar field on the core-mantle boundary (CMB) which determines B outside the CMB

The Status of Women in Utah Politics

The Center for American Progress recently released a report titled, “The State of Women in America: A 50-State Analysis of How Women Are Faring Across the Nation.” This September 2013 document ranked Utah last in terms of women being in positions of decision making and leadership. The focus was on both the percentage of women in elected office (state and national levels) and also women holding private sector management positions, but it did not provide the depth needed to fully understand the issue. To provide leaders and residents with more detailed research, four 2014 briefs will be released that compare Utah with national data on the status of women and leadership in politics, education, nonprofit, and business. This first brief will focus on the status of women in Utah politics and will provide data for the following five areas: Congress, Statewide Executive Offices, State Legislatures, Mayors, and Voter Participation. It will conclude with a discussion focused on understanding why more women do not run for public office and offer suggestions on how Utah can move the needle in future years

Identification and characterization of a novel extracellular matrix protein nephronectin that is associated with integrin alpha8beta1 in the embryonic kidney.

The epithelial-mesenchymal interactions required for kidney organogenesis are disrupted in mice lacking the integrin alpha8beta1. None of this integrin's known ligands, however, appears to account for this phenotype. To identify a more relevant ligand, a soluble integrin alpha8beta1 heterodimer fused to alkaline phosphatase (AP) has been used to probe blots and cDNA libraries. In newborn mouse kidney extracts, alpha8beta1-AP detects a novel ligand of 70-90 kD. This protein, named nephronectin, is an extracellular matrix protein with five EGF-like repeats, a mucin region containing a RGD sequence, and a COOH-terminal MAM domain. Integrin alpha8beta1 and several additional RGD-binding integrins bind nephronectin. Nephronectin mRNA is expressed in the ureteric bud epithelium, whereas alpha8beta1 is expressed in the metanephric mesenchyme. Nephronectin is localized in the extracellular matrix in the same distribution as the ligand detected by alpha8beta1-AP and forms a complex with alpha8beta1 in vivo. Thus, these results strongly suggest that nephronectin is a relevant ligand mediating alpha8beta1 function in the kidney. Nephronectin is expressed at numerous sites outside the kidney, so it may also have wider roles in development. The approaches used here should be generally useful for characterizing the interactions of novel extracellular matrix proteins identified through genomic sequencing projects

The Status of Women Leaders in Utah Education

In September of 2013, the Center for American Progress released a report titled“ The State of Women in America: A 50- State Analysis of How Women Are Faring Across the Nation.” The report ranked Utah last of all 50 states in terms of women holding positions of decision making and leadership. Because the focus was solely on the percentage of women in elected office and private sector management positions, we determined that a more detailed look at the status of women and leadership in various sectors within the state would be useful. This is the third of four 2014 briefs, and it focuses on the status of women leaders in Utah education (higher and public K–12). The previous briefs highlighted data on women in Utah politics and nonprofit organizations, and the remaining one will focus on business. Each compares Utah data with national data and reviews applicable literature

The Status of Women Leaders in Utah Businesses

In September 2013, the Center for American Progress released a report titled“ The State of Women in America: A 50- State Analysis of How Women Are Faring Across the Nation.” This report ranks Utah last of all 50 states in terms of women being in positions of decision making and leadership. Although the focus is solely on the percentage of women in elected office and private sector management positions, we feel that a more detailed look on the status of women in leadership in various sectors within the state is useful. This is the last of four 2014 briefs, each of which compares national data with Utah data and provides a pertinent literature review. The first three briefs provide data on women leaders in Utah politics, nonprofit organizations, and higher and public education institutions. This final brief focuses on the status of women leaders in Utah businesses. More specifically, it provides data regarding the gender of top company leaders (e.g., CEO, president, or lead manager) and the corporate board chair and members. But first, details about the Utah study we conducted is highlighted

Expected Inflation and The Sacrifice Ratio

Using inflation forecasts from the OECD Economic Outlook as proxy measures of inflation expectations, we examine the impact of inflation expectations on the sacrifice ratio for 20 OECD countries. The regression analysis considers four different empirical models of the determinants of the sacrifice ratio typically found in the existing literature. The impact of the level of inflation expectations is negative and significant, implying that a higher level of expected inflation is associated with lower sacrifice ratios. This result is consistent with the theoretical role of nominal wage and price rigidities in that reductions in wage and price stickiness diminish the tradeoffs between disinflations and output losses. Interaction effects indicate that higher levels of expected inflation allow policymakers to pursue ‘cold turkey’ inflation reductions even more aggressively. The effect of the change in inflation expectations is negative and significant, implying that faster adjusting inflation expectations are associated with lower sacrifice ratios