A Strategy for Identifying and Developing Pastoral Leaders for CityLife Church

The goal of this ministry focus paper was to develop a comprehensive strategy for selecting and developing pastoral leaders for CityLife Church. CityLife has a vision for church multiplication both throughout the city of Melbourne, Australia and, over time, in other cities around the world. It was argued that improved leadership development is one of the vital tasks necessary for the achievement of this vision. This paper begins by painting a picture of the context in which CityLife Church exists. This includes an overview of the wider Pentecostal movement of which the church is a part and a description of the church as it now stands. Following this, theological and biblical reflections are made on the basis for church multiplication, the importance of leaders in this task, a definition of a leader, and on leadership selection and development. The paper concludes with a strategy for the selection and development of leaders for the future vision of CityLife. A detailed leadership development pathway is presented, defining specific levels of leadership. Consideration is given to leadership requirements and how leaders will be developed at each level. Finally, a three-year implementation plan is given. This plan evaluates and assesses the effectiveness of the strategy. The outcome of this ministry focus paper is to see the implementation of this strategy of leadership selection and development result in the emergence of dozens and eventually hundreds of new leaders. These leaders will be essential for the outworking of the vision of CityLife to multiply more congregations. As a result, by God’s grace, there will be a greater advancement of God’s kingdom on the earth. Content Reader: Robert E. Logan, DMi

Are women better than men at multi-tasking?

Background: There seems to be a common belief that women are better in multi-tasking than men, but there is practically no scientific research on this topic. Here, we tested whether women have better multi-tasking skills than men.<p></p> Methods: In Experiment 1, we compared performance of 120 women and 120 men in a computer-based task-switching paradigm. In Experiment 2, we compared a different group of 47 women and 47 men on "paper-and-pencil" multi-tasking tests.<p></p> Results: In Experiment 1, both men and women performed more slowly when two tasks were rapidly interleaved than when the two tasks were performed separately. Importantly, this slow down was significantly larger in the male participants (Cohen’s d = 0.27). In an everyday multi-tasking scenario (Experiment 2), men and women did not differ significantly at solving simple arithmetic problems, searching for restaurants on a map, or answering general knowledge questions on the phone, but women were significantly better at devising strategies for locating a lost key (Cohen’s d = 0.49).<p></p> Conclusions: Women outperform men in these multi-tasking paradigms, but the near lack of empirical studies on gender differences in multitasking should caution against making strong generalisations. Instead, we hope that other researchers will aim to replicate and elaborate on our findings.<p></p&gt

County-Level Extension Programming: Continuity and Change in the Alabama Cooperative Extension System

Production agriculture is no longer a dominant feature of Alabama\u27s rural life. Forestry and natural resource issues have emerged as significant concerns expressed by County Advisory Boards designed to help shape county-level Extension programming in Alabama. Our findings indicate that county-level Extension programming continues to put greater emphasis on traditional agricultural programs than on forestry and natural resources even though County Advisory Boards considered the latter issues to have greater priority. We examine the potential causes for the continued dominance of traditional programs in Alabama and conclude that initiatives to change program priorities are unlikely to begin at the county level

Nantucket Pine Tip Moth (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) Infestation Rates Related to Site and Stand Characteristics in Nacogdoches County, Texas

Twenty-two pine stands with a variety of site and stand characteristics and management strategies were analyzed using discriminant analysis to determine factors which influence Nantucket pine tip moth infestations. A whole-tree sequential sampling scheme designed to estimate absolute infestation rates (±5%) was used. An 8% infestation rate was used as the dividing line between high and low tip moth infestations. A sequential sampling program was used in the field to estimate populations. Absolute infestation rates (P ± 5%), were obtained through random selection of pines for whole-tree sampling. Four equations were developed which gave 91% correct classification of initial data. The discriminating variables included site preparation intensity, pine height, pine age, site index, soil texture at 61 cm depth, depth of A horizon multiplied by soil texture code, and depth of clay

Predicting breastfeeding in women living in areas of economic hardship : explanatory role of the theory of planned behaviour

This study employed the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and additional variables (descriptive norm, moral norm, self-identity) to investigate the factors underlying breastfeeding intention and subsequent breastfeeding at four time points (during hospital stay, at hospital discharge, 10 days postpartum and 6 weeks postpartum) in a sample of women selected from defined areas of economic hardship (N = 248). A model containing the TPB, additional variables and demographic factors provided a good prediction of both intention (R-2 = 0.72; attitude, perceived behavioural control, moral norm and self-identity significant predictors) and behaviour - breastfeeding at birth (88.6% correctly classified; household deprivation, intention, attitude significant), at discharge from hospital (87.3% correctly classified; intention, attitude significant), 10 days after discharge (83.1% correctly classified; education, intention, attitude, descriptive norm significant) and 6 weeks after discharge (78.0% correctly classified; age, household deprivation, ethnicity, moral norm significant). Implications for interventions are discussed, such as the potential usefulness of targeting descriptive norms, moral norms and perceived behavioural control (PBC) when attempting to increase breastfeeding uptake

One Engineer and a Dog: Technological Change and Social Restructuring in Alabama\u27s Pulp and Paper Industry

We apply a commodity systems analysis to examine a series of changes that are transforming Alabama\u27s pulp and paper industry. Alabama is a critical area for investigation because it lies at the heart of North America\u27s principle pulp and paper production zone. Industry restructuring is a complex process involving the reorganization of capital and corporate ownership, as well as changes in technologies, which affect the labor process. For example, a recent spate of corporate mergers has resulted in concentration of mill ownership and has accelerated the prevalence of sub-contracting. Indeed, the expansion of sub-contracting into new realms raises the fundamental question of what constitutes a core activity in this capital-intensive industry. The consolidation process has not proceeded in a unidirectional manner, however. For example, some corporations have expanded investments in forest land, while other firms have actively sought to divest themselves of direct ownership of such land, freeing capital for investment elsewhere. Placing Alabama mills in a broader regional context, we examine a set of environmental and economic pressures within the commodity system that have led to these changes

Chemotropic guidance facilitates axonal regeneration and synapse formation after spinal cord injury.

A principal objective of spinal cord injury (SCI) research is the restoration of axonal connectivity to denervated targets. We tested the hypothesis that chemotropic mechanisms would guide regenerating spinal cord axons to appropriate brainstem targets. We subjected rats to cervical level 1 (C1) lesions and combinatorial treatments to elicit axonal bridging into and beyond lesion sites. Lentiviral vectors expressing neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) were then injected into an appropriate brainstem target, the nucleus gracilis, and an inappropriate target, the reticular formation. NT-3 expression in the correct target led to reinnervation of the nucleus gracilis in a dose-related fashion, whereas NT-3 expression in the reticular formation led to mistargeting of regenerating axons. Axons regenerating into the nucleus gracilis formed axodendritic synapses containing rounded vesicles, reflective of pre-injury synaptic architecture. Thus, we report for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, the reinnervation of brainstem targets after SCI and an essential role for chemotropic axon guidance in target selection

Direct CFD Predictions of Low Frequency Sounds Generated by a Helicopter Main Rotor

The use of CFD to directly predict helicopter main rotor noise is shown to be quite promising as an alternative mean for low frequency source noise evaluation. Results using existing state-of-the-art grid structures and finite-difference schemes demonstrated that small perturbation pressures, associated with acoustics radiation, can be extracted with some degree of fidelity. Accuracy of the predictions are demonstrated via comparing to predictions from conventional acoustic analogy-based models, and with measurements obtained from wind tunnel and flight tests for the MD-902 helicopter at several operating conditions. Findings show that the direct CFD approach is quite successfully in yielding low frequency results due to thickness and steady loading noise mechanisms. Mid-to-high frequency contents, due to blade-vortex interactions, are not predicted due to CFD modeling and grid constraints