Christ the Communicator and Educator

This article investigates how Christ communicated with others, which resulted in His disciples establishing the early Christian church as a religious movement which eventually established a separate religion from Judaism, although greatly based upon it. Christ employed various forms of communication in teaching and preaching about the Kingdom of God. While on the opposite end the social setting, the religious leaders of Christ’s day employed various forms of communication to oppose the teachings of Christ and deny that He was the Son of God. Though the religious leaders were of the belief that they had ultimately won by having Christ crucified, it must have been disappointing for them to see Christianity starting as a movement and becoming an organisation with no bounds. The theoretical framework for this study is on Shannon Weaver Model of Communication and Cooperative Learning Theory. The Shannon Weaver Model of Communication because Christ is often seen as the sender and His audience the receiver and they in turn sent him feedback; the Cooperative Learning theory because although Christ taught large audiences, He also taught small groups of people. One specific small group was His twelve disciples which he mentored over a period of three and a half years. Although Christ taught many individuals, it was these twelve that were recognised as His Apostles. Jesus assessed His audiences and communicated with each group or individual so as to make the greatest impact on them. He spoke only truths and imparted His messages in a vibrant and dynamic fashion and considered relevance. This study method employed was desktop research using inter alia, a wide range of electronic and other relevant sources such as academic journals. The conclusion is that Jesus Christ’s possessed excellent communication and teaching strategies when dealing with His intended audiences

The forms of communication employed by the Protestant Reformers and especially Luther and Calvin

October 31, 2017 was 500 years since Martin Luther had his ninety-five thesis nailed on the Roman Catholic Church door. What seemed to be just issues a clergy had with regards to his displeasure within the church, had eventually reshaped the history of Christianity. Luther and the other protestant reformers did not want to cause a breakaway from the Roman Catholic Church but to make known areas which they felt conflicted with their interpretation of the Bible. The aim of the study is to test validity of Klopper’s theory of optimisation of human communication (TOHC) in comparison to how Protestant reformation, communication developed when they were in the movement phase to when they saw themselves in the organisational stage. Klopper’s theory of optimisation of human communication (TOHC) is used as the theoretical framework for this study. During the movement phase of the reformation, basic forms of communication was used and as it developed into different Christian organisations, many different forms of communications were used

Framework programmable platform for the advanced software development workstation. Integration mechanism design document

The Framework Programmable Software Development Platform (FPP) is a project aimed at combining effective tool and data integration mechanisms with a model of the software development process in an intelligent integrated software development environment. Guided by this model, this system development framework will take advantage of an integrated operating environment to automate effectively the management of the software development process so that costly mistakes during the development phase can be eliminated

Boston Hospitality Review: Spring 2017

Table of contents: A Fragment of the Past: The System of Hotel Front Office Racks By Peter Szende and Pooja Reddy -- Changes in the Hospitality Industry: New Paradigms, Frames, and Perspectives By Mike Oshins -- Comparing apples and oranges? Examining the impacts of Airbnb on hotel performance in Boston By Tarik Dogru, Makarand Mody, and Courtney Suess -- Hospitality Healthscapes: The New Standard for Making Hospitals More Hospitable By Courtney Suess, Makarand Mody -- Hotel Brand Websites, OTA’s, Meta Search and Wholesalers: A Distribution Dilemma within the Industry By Nick Cohen -- What do guests value most in Airbnb accommodations? An application of the hedonic pricing approach By Tarik Dogru and Osman PekinA Fragment of the Past: The System of Hotel Front Office Racks By Peter Szende and Pooja Reddy -- Changes in the Hospitality Industry: New Paradigms, Frames, and Perspectives By Mike Oshins -- Comparing apples and oranges? Examining the impacts of Airbnb on hotel performance in Boston By Tarik Dogru, Makarand Mody, and Courtney Suess -- Hospitality Healthscapes: The New Standard for Making Hospitals More Hospitable By Courtney Suess, Makarand Mody -- Hotel Brand Websites, OTA’s, Meta Search and Wholesalers: A Distribution Dilemma within the Industry By Nick Cohen -- What do guests value most in Airbnb accommodations? An application of the hedonic pricing approach By Tarik Dogru and Osman Peki

Effect of providing near glasses on productivity among rural Indian tea workers with presbyopia (PROSPER) a randomised trial

BACKGROUND: Presbyopia, age-related decline in near vision, is the most common cause of vision impairment globally, but no trials have assessed its workplace effects. We aimed to study the effect of near glasses on the productivity of tea workers with presbyopia.METHODS: This randomised trial was done in tea pickers aged 40 years or older in Assam, India, with unaided near visual acuity (NVA) lower than 6/12 in both eyes, correctable to 6/7·5 with near glasses; unaided distance vision 6/7·5 or greater; and no eye disease. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive free glasses optimising NVA at working distance (cost including delivery US$10·20 per person), either immediately (intervention group) or at closeout (control group). Participants were stratified by age, sex, and productivity. The primary outcome (investigator-masked) was the difference between groups in the change in mean daily weight of tea picked (productivity), between the 4-week baseline period (June, 2017) and the 11-week evaluation period (July 24, 2017, to Oct 7, 2017). Workers' income was tied to their productivity. Compliance with study glasses was assessed at seven unannounced visits. Results were analysed on an intention-to-treat basis. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT03228199.FINDINGS: Between July 3, 2017, and July 15, 2017, 1297 (48·1%) of 2699 permanent workers met the age criteria and consented for eye examinations. 751 (57·9%) fulfilled vision criteria and were randomly assigned to the intervention (n=376) or control (n=375) groups. Groups did not differ substantially in baseline characteristics. No participants owned glasses at baseline, 707 (94·1%) received the allocated intervention, and all were followed up and analysed. Between the baseline and evaluation periods, mean productivity in the intervention group increased from 25·0 kg per day to 34·8 kg per day (an increase of 9·84 kg per day), a significantly higher increase than in the control group (from 26·0 kg per day to 30·6 kg per day; an increase of 4·59 kg per day), corresponding to a between-group difference of 5·25 kg per day (95% CI 4·50-5·99; 21·7% relative productivity increase; effect size 1·01 [95% CI 0·86-1·16]; p&lt;0·0001). Intervention-group compliance with study glasses reached 84·5% by closeout. Regression model predictors of greater productivity increase included intervention group membership (5·25 kg per day [95% CI 4·60-5·91], p&lt;0·0001) and, among intervention participants, older age (p=0·039) and better compliance with the intervention (p&lt;0·0001).INTERPRETATION: A substantial productivity increase was achieved in this rural cohort by providing glasses to correct presbyopia, with little cost and high intervention uptake.FUNDING: Clearly.</p

Experiences in firmware development for a CubeSat instrument payload

Recent advancements in gamma-ray detector technology have brought new opportunities to study gamma-ray bursts and other high-energy phenomena. However, there is a lack of dissemination on the development methods, tools and techniques used in the production of instrument flight firmware. This is understandable as firmware for spacecraft payloads may be proprietary or exceptionally hardware specific and so is not always published. However, this leaves a gap in the knowledge for CubeSat teams, especially those consisting of university students who may be building a custom spacecraft payload with limited initial experience. The Gamma-Ray Module (GMOD) on-board EIRSAT-1, a 2U CubeSat in the 2nd European Space Agency Fly Your Satellite! programme, is one such instrument. GMOD features a 25x25x40mm Scionix CeBr3 scintillator, coupled to an array of 16 (4x4) JSeries OnSemiconductor MicroFJ-60035-TSV silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) with readout provided by the SIPHRA IDE3380 application specific integrated circuit. The instrument is supported by the Gamma-Ray Module motherboard which controls and configures the instrument, providing regulated voltage and current sources as well as generating time tagged event packets and a temporary on-board flash storage. At the core of this system is the Texas Instruments MSP430FR5994 microcontroller. A custom firmware was produced for the instrument by the EIRSAT-1 team over numerous cycles of testing and development to reliably perform the long duration tasks of readout, storage and transfer of time tagged event data to the EIRSAT-1 on-board computer. Recognising the value of sharing our experiences and pitfalls on firmware development with the wider CubeSat community, this paper will provide an introduction to GMOD, with focus primarily on the development approach of the firmware. The development, testing, version control, essential tools and an overview of how the resources provided by the device manufacturer were used will be examined, such that the lessons learned may be extended to other payloads from student-led mission

Polygenic Resilience Modulates the Penetrance of Parkinson Disease Genetic Risk Factors

peer reviewedObjective: The aim of the current study is to understand why some individuals avoid developing Parkinson disease (PD) despite being at relatively high genetic risk, using the largest datasets of individual-level genetic data available. Methods: We calculated polygenic risk score to identify controls and matched PD cases with the highest burden of genetic risk for PD in the discovery cohort (International Parkinson's Disease Genomics Consortium, 7,204 PD cases and 9,412 controls) and validation cohorts (Comprehensive Unbiased Risk Factor Assessment for Genetics and Environment in Parkinson's Disease, 8,968 cases and 7,598 controls; UK Biobank, 2,639 PD cases and 14,301 controls; Accelerating Medicines Partnership–Parkinson's Disease Initiative, 2,248 cases and 2,817 controls). A genome-wide association study meta-analysis was performed on these individuals to understand genetic variation associated with resistance to disease. We further constructed a polygenic resilience score, and performed multimarker analysis of genomic annotation (MAGMA) gene-based analyses and functional enrichment analyses. Results: A higher polygenic resilience score was associated with a lower risk for PD (β = −0.054, standard error [SE] = 0.022, p = 0.013). Although no single locus reached genome-wide significance, MAGMA gene-based analyses nominated TBCA as a putative gene. Furthermore, we estimated the narrow-sense heritability associated with resilience to PD (h2 = 0.081, SE = 0.035, p = 0.0003). Subsequent functional enrichment analysis highlighted histone methylation as a potential pathway harboring resilience alleles that could mitigate the effects of PD risk loci. Interpretation: The present study represents a novel and comprehensive assessment of heritable genetic variation contributing to PD resistance. We show that a genetic resilience score can modify the penetrance of PD genetic risk factors and therefore protect individuals carrying a high-risk genetic burden from developing PD. ANN NEUROL 202