An Inductive Study of the Principles of Stewardship of Material Goods as Taught in the Four Gospels

A study of the Scriptures, as well as observing the economic structure of society, reveals that money, or its equivalent in the for.m of material goods, is vital to the life of every individual. The problem of wealth is, and has always been, one of the most important ethical problems of the world. Neither religion nor civilization can evade that problem and live. Money, the most common of temporal things, can be used for good or for evil, depending upon the desire and wish of the individual who has possession of it. For this reason it involves uncommon and eternal consequences. No wonder, then, that God has given stewardship so important a place in the training of the human race. It is one of the divine kindergarten methods of developing human life. The grace of giving is God\u27s antidote for human selfishness. It has three distinct angles of relation in which to be viewed: upward, in relation to God; inward, in relation to the Individual; outward, in relation to Society

Change Detection: Paying Attention To Detail Detail

Changes made during a brief visual interruption sometimes go undetected, even when the object undergoing the change is at the center of the observer's interest and spatial attention (Simons & Levin, 1998). This study examined two potentially important attentional variables in change blindness: spatial distribution, manipulated via set size, and detail level, varied by having the change at either the global or local level of a compound letter. Experiment 1 revealed that both types of change were equally detectable in a single item, but that global change was detected more readily when attention was distributed among several items. Variation of target level probability in Experiment 2 showed further that observers could flexibly set the detail level in monitoring both single and multiple items. Sensitivity to change therefore depends not only on the spatial focus of attention; it depends critically on the match between the detail level of the change and the level-readiness of the observer

Game Scoring: Towards a Broader Theory

“Game scoring,” that is, the act of composing music for and through gaming, is distinct from other types of scoring. To begin with, unlike other scoring activities, game scoring depends on — in fact, it arguably is — software programming. The game scorer’s choices are thus first-and-foremost limited by available gaming technology, and the “programmability” of their musical ideas given that technology, at any given historical moment. Moreover, game scores are unique in that they must allow for an unprecedented level of musical flexibility, given the high degree of user interactivity the video game medium enables and encourages. As such, game scoring necessarily constitutes an at least partially aleatoric compositional activity, the final score being determined as much through gameplay as traditional composition. This thesis demonstrates this through case studies of the Nintendo Entertainment System sound hardware configuration, and game scores, including the canonic score for Super Mario Bros. (1985)

Application of nonlinear feedback control theory to supermaneuverable aircraft

Controlled flight at extremely high angles of attack, far exceeding the stall angle, and/or at high angular rates is sometimes referred to as supermaneuvering flight. The objective was to examine methods for design of control laws for aircraft performing supermaneuvers. Since the equations which govern the motion of aircraft during supermaneuvers are nonlinear, this study concentrated on nonlinear control law design procedures. The two nonlinear techniques considered were Nonlinear Quadratic Regulator (NLQR) theory and nonlinear dynamic inversion. A conventional gain scheduled proportional plus integral (P + I) controller was also developed to serve as a baseline design typical of current control laws used in aircraft. A mathematical model of a generic supermaneuverable aircraft was developed from data obtained from the literature. A detailed computer simulation of the aircraft was also developed. This simulation allowed the flying of proposed supermaneuvers and was used to evaluate the performance of the control law designs and to generate linearized models of the aircraft at different flight conditions

Paying attention but not coordinating: Parental care in European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris)

Sexual conflict occurs in biparental species because working together provides shared benefits while incurring individual costs. In birds, coordination of provisioning visits via turn-taking has been proposed as a strategy to mitigate this conflict. However, alternation of visits requires that birds have access to reliable information on their partner’s behaviour. I investigated coordination in the European starling, Sturnus vulgaris, where direct access to information is variable and limited. Using observational data and a short-term mate removal experiment, there was evidence that individuals adjusted their behaviour in response to their partner. Both sexes decreased their provisioning in the hour the partner was removed but returned to pre-experimental levels within 24 hours, which is consistent with “matching” of parental effort, rather than a “compensation” response widely reported in other studies. Despite this, there was no evidence of coordination, both alternation and synchrony of visits did not differ from that expected by chance