Israel's narrative of origins in Genesis one and two from the perspective of René Girard's mimetic theory

This thesis explores the implications of René Girard’s mimetic theory on Genesis 1 and 2 in the Old Testament. It tests the extent to which Genesis 1 and 2 are structured sacrificially or mythically as outlined by Girard. René Girard’s theory is summarized and clarified as to how the theory can be applied to biblical texts. In addition, Girard’s theory is explained in the context of theory-making in late modernity, and critiques of Girard from biblical, anthropological, sociological, and theological perspectives are addressed. A sacrificial structure is explored in Genesis and Exodus that informs the exegesis of Genesis 1 and 2. The critical elements in Girard’s scapegoat mechanism—acquisitive desire leading to rivalry, crisis, and ultimately to an expulsion—are examined in the expulsion of the Hebrews from Egypt (Exodus 1) and the expulsions of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis (Gen 12-21). A particular pattern takes shape that structures the narratives in the Pentateuch. An exegesis of Israel’s narrative of origins in Genesis 1 and 2 follows, incorporating Girard’s theoretical insights with higher critical methods conventionally employed to the Old Testament. The thesis discovers striking parallels with Israel’s narrative of origins. They are indeed sacrificially structured, but they also interrogate that structure and describe an alternative sacrificial response. The sacrifice that Yahweh instigates dismantles the mythical structure even as it moves through the sequence. The thesis concludes with a validation of Girard’s theory and explains how Girard’s theory can be useful to the current exegetical tasks.Biblical and Ancient studiesD. Th. (Old Testament

Short paper: From streaming data to linked data. A case study with bike sharing systems

Current methods and tools that support Linked Data publication have mainly focused so far on static data, without considering the growing amount of streaming data available on the Web. In this paper we describe a case study that involves the publication of static and streaming Linked Data for bike sharing systems and related entities. We describe some of the challenges that we have faced, the solutions that we have explored, the lessons that we have learned, and the opportunities that lie in the future for exploiting Linked Stream Data

An evaluation of the nature and role of the `glory of the Lord' in Ezekiel 1-24

This thesis evaluates the nature and role of `the glory of the Lord,' hwhy-dwbk, in Ezekiel 1-24. The introductory chapter will present the relevance of the topic as well as purview the scope of the thesis and the structure of its presentation. Chapter two lays an interpretive foundation for the glory pericope within a central theme in the book of Ezekiel. The intended impact on the exilic audience is discerned through examining the characteristic features of the hwhy-dwbk in Chapter 3. Chapter four identifies three functions of the hwhy-dwbk . A final function of the hwhy-dwbk is explored in its relationship to `the son of adam' in chapter five. A summary of the hypothesis is provided in chapter 6 along with a conclusion.Biblical and Ancient studiesM. A. (Old Testament

Enhancing Virtual Ontology Based Access over Tabular Data with Morph-CSV

Ontology-Based Data Access (OBDA) has traditionally focused on providing a unified view of heterogeneous datasets, either by materializing integrated data into RDF or by performing on-the fly querying via SPARQL query translation. In the specific case of tabular datasets represented as several CSV or Excel files, query translation approaches have been applied by considering each source as a single table that can be loaded into a relational database management system (RDBMS). Nevertheless, constraints over these tables are not represented; thus, neither consistency among attributes nor indexes over tables are enforced. As a consequence, efficiency of the SPARQL-to-SQL translation process may be affected, as well as the completeness of the answers produced during the evaluation of the generated SQL query. Our work is focused on applying implicit constraints on the OBDA query translation process over tabular data. We propose Morph-CSV, a framework for querying tabular data that exploits information from typical OBDA inputs (e.g., mappings, queries) to enforce constraints that can be used together with any SPARQL-to-SQL OBDA engine. Morph-CSV relies on both a constraint component and a set of constraint operators. For a given set of constraints, the operators are applied to each type of constraint with the aim of enhancing query completeness and performance. We evaluate Morph-CSV in several domains: e-commerce with the BSBM benchmark; transportation with a benchmark using the GTFS dataset from the Madrid subway; and biology with a use case extracted from the Bio2RDF project. We compare and report the performance of two SPARQL-to-SQL OBDA engines, without and with the incorporation of MorphCSV. The observed results suggest that Morph-CSV is able to speed up the total query execution time by up to two orders of magnitude, while it is able to produce all the query answers

Disentangling The Separate And Intersecting Pathways Of Carbon And Nitrogen Response To Overlapping Drivers

Anthropogenic activities have drastically altered atmospheric composition — leading to unprecedented disturbances that might push ecosystems across thresholds where important ecosystem services, such as clean water and healthy soils are at risk. Such disturbances include increased heavy precipitation, rain on snow events, and longer-term shifts in rain composition and precipitation amount. Catchment response to such perturbations is widely variable, indicating that specific catchment characteristics may govern the resistance and resilience of the system. Forested catchments in the northeastern, U.S. have reported increasing dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations in streams, and links to shifts in drivers—such as precipitation chemistry, season, and event hydrology—have been proposed. While DOC response to overlapping disturbances is well-studied, changes in dissolved nitrogen (N) species and shifts in stoichiometry have not been investigated as thoroughly, presenting an important knowledge gap. My objective was to investigate the connection between superimposed disturbances, catchment dynamics, and differential stream response of carbon (C) and N in acid impacted soils. I used Sleepers River Research Watershed (SRRW) as a testbed because it has experienced significant shifts in precipitation dynamics and acid deposition, and long-term stream discharge and chemistry records are available. To investigate the connection between overlapping disturbances, catchment soil dynamics, and differential stream response, we combined analyses of these records to with newly collected data from soil core experiments.I used Seasonal Kendall tests to quantify C and N trends in long-term datasets and compared results to processes in soil core experiments. To investigate how shifts in solution chemistry impact the liberation of C and N, I simulated hydrologic flushing events on soils from SRRW using flushing treatments of varied pH and ionic strength—which represent acid-deposition and reduced-acid deposition conditions. I found significant seasonal variability in both concentration-discharge behavior and soil effluent, indicating that seasonal hydrologic conditions and biological activity are principal drivers of C and N mobility and liberation at catchment scale. DOC and the dissolved organic fraction of N (DON) were coupled by season and landscape position, whereas inorganic N (DIN) was largely decoupled. Changes in soil solution were significant for all species during the winter, highlighting the importance of snowpack for processing and mobilizing materials. This research highlights the complex, coupled, and intersecting pathways of C and N which influence catchment response to disturbance. With these results, I investigated the relevance with respect to ecosystem resistance and resilience, and their significance to the possible trajectory of these disturbances in the future. I conclude that specific catchment characteristics at SRRW such as naturally buffered soils, may make the watershed more resistant to climate extremes

Websogo: A global ontology for describing web sources

Based on the limitations raised by existing approaches in the context of the Semantic Web, we propose a formalism, Web Sources Global Ontology (WebSOGO), a data meta-model for the description of Web sources in terms of content, query-processing capabilities, service and navigation information. WebSOGO is formalized in the Object-Oriented paradigm using the Unified Modeling Language (UML). We also describe WebSOGO-S, a multi-layered system that will allow agents to discover, execute and compose Web sources through queries against a WebSOGO catalog of source ontologies. The UML specification of WebSOGO has been mapped to the Object-Relational (OR) model in Oracle; we define an Oracle cartridge with a list of types and methods that allow the specification of SQL queries against the WebSOGO catalog. By using the JDBC and ODBC drivers provided by Oracle, any agent or application will be able to contact WebSOGO-S

AVANTE: An architecture of CORBA components and XML Metadata for Web Based Instruction

Most current solutions for Web Based Instruction (WBI) use a centralized management model and a proprietary internal representation. The AVANTE Architecture is a WBI environment assembled using CORBA distributed components, implementing core services such as course management, user authentication, collaborative work, database access, presentation, and others. The AVANTE components conform to a 4-tiered model, with Client, Presentation, Management, and Low-Level Services component sublayers. Emergent XML standards for WBI describe all metadata definitions. Components at the Management layer manipulate JDBC-SQL data from the Low- Level Services Layer, and combine it with corresponding XML Schemas, instantiating course objects as new XML descriptions and component services. A filter-mapping service in the Presentation layer produces the dynamic HTML web pages needed for user interaction, processing these XML descriptions by applying one or more previously defined XSL stylesheets. A similar mechanism implements interface customization and remote service administration. The developed WBI system was deployed with open source software. Adding CORBA components easily achieves on-demand scalability. Future services include auditing, adaptive interfaces, grading, content development, and integration with existing systems