14 research outputs found
Stress and stress-coping strategies among evangelical pastors as related to their adversity quotient: Implications to pastoral counseling, training, and development
No full textAbstract onlyThis survey-correlational research aimed to determine the stress and stress-coping strategies among evangelical pastors as related to their adversity quotient, and their implications to pastoral counseling, training, and development. The participants of the study were124 evangelical pastors of International Care Ministry (ICM), who were classified according to sex, civil status, education, income, occupation, and religious affiliation. This study adopted the following data-gathering instruments: Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), Brief COPE, and Adversity Quotient Scale. Frequency counts, percentage analyses, means, ranks, and standard deviations were used in the descriptive data analysis; the t-test for independent samples, and Pearson’s r, were used to analyze the inferential data. Results revealed moderate levels of stress among the participants as a whole, and when classified according to sex, civil status, education, income, occupation, and religious affiliation. The most frequently used adaptive coping strategies were problem-focused approach, emotion focused, and avoidant focused; ranked accordingly in that order. No significant differences existed in the participants’ level of stress, as well as, in stress-coping strategies when classified according to sex, civil status, education, income, and religious affiliation. However, significant differences existed among the participants classified according to occupation. On the other hand, no significant differences existed in the adversity quotients among the participants classified according to sex, civil status, education, income, occupation, and religious affiliation. A moderate positive correlation existed between coping strategies and adversity quotients, indicating that effective coping strategies improves resilience. A nonsignificant correlation existed between stress level and adversity quotient, which seems to indicate that resilience is more dependent on coping than on the intensity of stress. The study recommends that customized pastoral care programs be given to pastors to help them manage stress and improve resilience by adapting coping strategies.Include bibliographical referencesMaster of Arts in Education (Guidance and Counseling
Modeling international diffusion: Inferential benefits and methodological challenges, with an application to international tax competition
No full textAlthough scholars recognize that time-series-cross-section data typically correlate across both time and space, they tend to model temporal dependence directly, often by lags of dependent variables, but to address spatial interdependence solely as a nuisance to be “corrected” by FGLS or to which to be “robust” in standard-error estimation (by PCSE). We explore the inferential benefits and methodological challenges of directly modeling international diffusion, one form of spatial dependence. To this end, we first identify two substantive classes of modern comparative-and-international-political-economy (C&IPE) theoretical models—(context-conditional) open-economy comparative political-economy (CPE) models and international political-economy (IPE) models, which imply diffusion (along with predecessors, closed-economy CPE and orthogonal open-economy CPE)—and then we evaluate the relative performance of three estimators—non-spatial OLS, spatial OLS, and spatial 2SLS—for analyzing empirical models corresponding to these two modern alternative theoretical visions from spatially interdependent data. Finally, we offer a substantive application of the spatial 2SLS approach in what we call a spatial error-correction model of international tax competition. -- Obwohl Wissenschaftler wissen, dass Zeitreihenquerschnittsdaten sowohl über die Zeit als auch über den Raum korreliert sind, neigen sie dazu, die zeitliche Abhängigkeit direkt zu modellieren, z. B. durch Zeitabstände der abhängigen Variablen. Die räumliche Abhängigkeit jedoch wird als ein Ärgernis angesehen, welches durch FGLS ‚korrigiert’ wird oder ‚robust’ gemacht wird in Standard- Abweichungs-Schätzungen (durch PCSE). Wir untersuchen methodologische Herausforderungen und die Nutzen für Schlussfolgerungen aus einer direkten Modellierung internationaler Diffusion als einer Form der räumlichen Abhängigkeit. Zu diesem Zweck identifizieren wir zuerst zwei inhaltliche Hauptklassen theoretischer Modelle der modernen ‚Vergleichenden und Internationalen Politischen Ökonomie“, nämlich Modelle der (kontextbezogenen) Vergleichenden Politischen Ökonomie Offener Volkwirtschaften und Modelle der Internationalen Politischen Ökonomie. Diese bilden Diffusion ab, ebenso wie die Vorläufermodelle der Vergleichenden Politischen Ökonomie geschlossener Volkswirtschaften und gegensätzlich offener Volkswirtschaften. Zweitens bewerten wir die relative Performanz von drei Schätzern – nicht-räumliche OLS, räumliche OLS und räumliche 2SLS. Schließlich wenden wir den Ansatz des räumlichen 2SLS in einem von uns so genannten ‚Spatial Error Correction’-Modell des internationalen Steuerwettbewerbs an.International Tax Competition,Panel Models,Policy Diffusion,Political Economy,Spatial Interdependence
Transportation and Infrastructure, Retail Clustering, and Local Public Finance: Evidence from Wal-Mart's Expansion
No full textThe author examines the role highway infrastructure and local property tax rate variability play in retail agglomeration in Indiana from 1988 through 2003. To account for data errors and the potential endogeneity of taxes and infrastructure on retail agglomeration, he introduces a unique identification strategy that exploits the entrance timing and location of Wal-Mart stores in Indiana. Using a time-series cross-sectional model of Indiana’s 92 counties from 1988 through 2003, he estimates the impact highway infrastructure, property taxes, and big-box competition have in creating regional agglomerations. Among two separate specifications and a full and rural-only set of the data, the author finds considerable agreement in the results. In the full sample, he finds no relationship between property tax rates or highway infrastructure and retail agglomeration. Within the non-metropolitan statistical area (MSA) counties, this relationship is very modest, though it possesses considerable statistical certainty. Highway impacts within the non-MSA counties are significant and positively related to retail agglomeration, with the presence of highways explaining about 10 percent of total agglomeration variability. (JEL R11, R53)Infrastructure; endogeneity; taxation; Wal-Mart
'Pure and undefiled religion': the function of purity language in the Epistle of James
No full textWhereas commentators frequently restrict the categories for purity language in James
to either ritual or metaphorical (and uniformly conclude the language is a metaphor
for personal morality) this is overly restrictive and ignores how purity language was
used in the first-century. Current research of purity language in ancient Israel calls
into question the rigid either/or categorization of purity language in James. Such
descriptions are not only unjustifiably restrictive, but they also fail to account for the
function or meaning of the purity language within the rhetorical goals of the
composition.
The central argument of this investigation is that purity language both articulates and
constructs the composition's worldview and thus serves as an important theme in the
text. Chapter two discusses the different methods of analysis of purity and offers a
taxonomy of purity language. This taxonomy provides a more precise approach to
understanding the function of purity language. Chapter three argues for several
important aspects of the structure and strategy of the text. Specifically the three
interdependent characteristics of 1) an epistolary structure; 2) a coherent rhetorical
argument based on polar oppositions; 3) and the special function of James 1: 2-27 as
an introduction are suggested.
While attuned to the textual issues argued in chapter three, the categories developed in
the taxonomy were applied as a heuristic guide to understand the function of purity
and pollution in chapter four. This analysis demonstrated four specific things: 1)
though purity language occurs relatively infrequently, it is used at crucial points of the
composition (1: 26-27; 3: 6,17; 4: 8); 2) that the use of purity and pollution specifically
functions within the overall strategy of contrasts which leads readers to a decision; 3)
that the majority of the time purity language labeled the world (and by extension those
associated with it) as set against the implicit purity of God; and therefore, 4) the
readers of James must be separate from the impure world ("pure") in order to be
wholehearted in devotion to God ("perfect").
Because the purity of the audience is directly related to their proximity to the world,
chapter five asks what kind of separation is envisioned by the use of purity language.
While purity is indeed boundary language, the cultural stance of James is complex.
The author shows signs of acculturation, yet this acculturation is employed to call the
audience to specific points of separation from surrounding culture, namely separation
from patron-client relationships with the "rich" and use of inappropriate and deceitful
speech. Thus the composition is not calling for sectarian separation from the
surrounding culture, but rather is a complex document demonstrating cultural
accommodation while calling forth specific socio-cultural boundaries between the
readers and the world
\ud Foreign Aid, Child Health, and Health System Development in Tanzania and Uganda, 1995-2009 \ud
No full textAs donors have scaled up efforts to improve health in sub-Saharan African, African countries have diverged sharply in their health performance: Some countries have made rapid progress while others have stagnated. Yet the reasons for these divergences are often not well understood. In this dissertation I present in-depth case studies of two such divergent countries, Tanzania and Uganda, over the 1995-2007 period. Over this period, Tanzania reduced its under-5 mortality rate by 35%, while Uganda’s mortality rate decline was less than half as rapid; between 12% and 15% over virtually the same period. This occurred despite the fact that both countries received similar amounts of foreign aid for health, implemented virtually identical health sector reforms, and saw comparable rates of growth in GDP per capita and similar trends in other socioeconomic indicators. Explanations for such differences often vary by academic discipline. Public health scholars often focus on coverage levels of critical child health interventions, while political scientists emphasize variation in the quality of governance institutions. I show that coverage of child survival interventions did indeed differ between Tanzania and Uganda, particularly in the area of malaria control, but that the ultimate determinant of these differences can be traced to political economy factors. Specifically, regime maintenance dynamics and the differing composition of political patronage coalitions in the two countries determined the relative success of health sector programming in Tanzania and Uganda. In addition to outcomes such as under-5 mortality, I also analyze the results of broader health system strengthening efforts in Tanzania and Uganda over the 1995-2009 period. To structure this comparison, a new theoretical framework for health system performance is developed and tested, based on previous theory developed by Pritchett and Woolcock (2002) and Fukuyama (2004). The same political economy dynamics that contributed to Tanzania’s stronger performance on child mortality reduction also enabled its greater progress on health system strengthening. Furthermore, Tanzania’s experience demonstrates the potential for “second best” strategies for health system strengthening that can be implemented in conditions of relatively low state capacity.\u
From Visual Poetry to Digital Art: Image-Sound-Text, Convergent Media, and the development of New Media Languages
No full textThis research arises from my practice as a professional artist and my concern with issues of language and communication, particularly, the investigation of ways that arouse emotion and rational thought at once through language. Visual Poetry is a form of expression, which provokes both, and I saw the potential to expand its underlining principles further with the emergence of new technologies. With the digital medium, the main elements of visual and sound poetry: image, sound and text, can now be incorporated into the same piece of work.
The aim of this study is to explore new digital communicative systems that interweave visual, oral and semantic elements of language, to produce new media languages where the pre-linguistic and linguistic maintain their symbiotic identities. This study examines theoretical and artistic concerns emerging from the area in-between, which is created by interlacing image, sound and text in the same artwork.
It addresses the following series of questions:
How to transfer the main concepts from Visual Poetry to Digital Art?
How does computer technology transform image, sound and text to create new media languages?
What is the role of the author, reader, writer, producer in these new interactive textualities of image, sound and text?
How has this affected the new conventions of reading, looking, producing, using and thinking?
What does the digital add to the interactivelexts of Visual Poetry? What new meanings and processes of thinking, understanding and interpretation are appearing?
In which way do new technologies enhance the collaborative nature of practice?
This investigation brings knowledge from other disciplines into the art field and it explores different serniotic models such as the linguistic the visual and the aural. It blurs the barriers between the visual and the linguistic: between different art forms such as fine art, visual poetry and sound art/poetry in a new digital and technological arena. It questions the conventions applied to these critical areas with the aid of the new tools and critical concepts available through digital technology. This study challengest he viewer/listener/userw ith an interface of signsf rom different languages and serniotic systems: the visual (still and moving images), the audible and the linguistic, to participate and explore the multiple possibilities within a work. This investigation seeks to contribute to a new body of knowledge in the
development of the areas of Visual Poetry, Digital Art and the new genre of Electronic Poetry, by creating new, innovative, digital artworks for which, as a new form of expression, critical and analytical conventions are still in the process of development
Adaptations of Hamlet in Different Cultural Contexts: Globalisation, Postmodernism, and Altermodernism
No full textAlthough there has traditionally been a resistance to the study of adaptations, adaptation studies as a subsection of 'intertextuality‘ currently has a significant place in academic debates. Hamlet is "the Mona Lisa of literature" (T.S. Eliot), and has been the subject of constant scrutiny, mythologizing and adaptation. Hamlet has been adapted and appropriated into and by various cultural contexts. Even confining our attention to the same medium as Shakespeare‘s text, there exists an array of theatrical adaptations in languages and cultures as diverse as Persian, Korean, Arabic, German, Russian, and Turkish. Borrowing Ludwig Wittgenstein‘s metaphor of 'family resemblance,‘ I argue the usefulness of his idea, enabling us to examine not simply a small number of common properties among adaptations of Hamlet, but rather to explore the 'complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing‘ (Philosophical Investigations, §66). I further propose subdividing the 'global family‘ of Hamlets from around the world that participate in this/these web-like resemblances into 'local families‘ of adapted Hamlets, to enable better intercultural and cross-cultural studies.
In this thesis I analyse seven theatrical adaptations of Hamlet in Turkish, Russian, Arabic and Persian cultural contexts, from the perspectives of postmodernism, globalisation and altermodernism. I also scrutinise the Persian family of Hamlet in the light of 'intertextuality‘. Given that each adaptation per se brings together 'self‘ and 'other‘ at the same time, I go on to coin two new terms: homointertextuality and heterointertextuality, in order to explore fully the various connections of the adaptations of Hamlet in Iran with the 'cultural self‘ (Persian culture) and the 'cultural other‘ (Anglophone culture)
A necessary fiction: The ritualisation of stakeholder practices in New Zealand cinema
No full textThis thesis argues that stability of the concept ‘national cinema’ is located in the discursive positioning of individual films in such a way that they are connected to a national ‘common ground’, one which is ritually accessed via engagement with media such as cinema. This positioning, however, is not quantifiable and may not be identified as arising from any particular production practice, dimension of popularity, theme, style, characteristic of production personnel, and so on. By synthesising the work of several theorists and applying this synthesis to a selection of films, a framework of ideas (around the ritualised ‘flagging’ of the national via the expression of stakeholder interests) is applied to cinema in New Zealand. In particular, an ideoscape is ultimately mapped as a result of applying this framework of ideas. The normative assumptions of national cinema are examined in this way and found to be lacking despite the weight that the term ‘national cinema’ continues to have
Blurring the Lines? International Humanitarian Non-Governmental Organisations and the Military use of Aid and Development in Afghanistan
No full textThis thesis explores the theory that International Humanitarian Non-governmental Organisations (IHNGOs) have increasingly become part of the world-ordering security agenda of developed western states since the end of the Cold War. It argues that the adoption of humanitarian aid and development activities by intervening military forces in Afghanistan, criticised by IHNGOs for blurring the boundaries between humanitarian and military actors, is a symptom of, rather than the central reason for, reduced humanitarian space in Afghanistan. This study contends that the central issue is the wider integration of political, military and humanitarian action into the process of state-building as a way to pacify areas of conflict and instability that otherwise present potential security threats to the developed world. This has become even more pronounced with the aims of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) since 2001.
The merging of humanitarian aid and development with security in the pursuit of stable states has occurred as an international response to the humanitarian crises and intra-state wars since the end of the Cold War. Military involvement of this kind is typified in Afghanistan by Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) that combine security and development action. During the 1990s humanitarianism also underwent a metamorphosis as concern about the role aid could have in fuelling conflict and a desire to ameliorate the underlying causes of poverty and conflict led many aid agencies to adopt a new vision of humanitarianism that had political and social goals beyond those of just meeting the immediate needs of populations in crisis. Another feature of humanitarian interventions of the 1990s was the ambitious expectations placed upon IHNGOs and intervening military forces from the international community to manage or resolve these crises without a corresponding level of long-term political, economic and military commitment. These issues are also present in post-2001 Afghanistan where IHNGOs initially supported an international intervention and a new government which has since been faced with a growing insurgency. Consequently, involvement with state-building, governance, rights and development have placed IHNGOs at odds with the insurgents.
A case study approach is used to examine five major IHNGOs and how they fit into the context of the international state-building project in post-2001 Afghanistan. The central finding of this study is that the integration of humanitarian aid and development into state-building as a means to enhance international security has seriously compromised the claims to the principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence central to the concept of humanitarian space and consequently the security of the IHNGOs in the ongoing Afghanistan conflict.
To overcome these problems this study suggests that IHNGOs should place their humanitarian aid activity under a separate umbrella organisation that operates under the neutral, impartial and independent principles adhered to by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the organisation in this study that has managed to maintain some acceptance and dialogue with all parties to conflict
Common, low-frequency, rare, and ultra-rare coding variants contribute to COVID-19 severity
No full textThe combined impact of common and rare exonic variants in COVID-19 host genetics is currently insufficiently understood. Here, common and rare variants from whole-exome sequencing data of about 4000 SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals were used to define an interpretable machine-learning model for predicting COVID-19 severity. First, variants were converted into separate sets of Boolean features, depending on the absence or the presence of variants in each gene. An ensemble of LASSO logistic regression models was used to identify the most informative Boolean features with respect to the genetic bases of severity. The Boolean features selected by these logistic models were combined into an Integrated PolyGenic Score that offers a synthetic and interpretable index for describing the contribution of host genetics in COVID-19 severity, as demonstrated through testing in several independent cohorts. Selected features belong to ultra-rare, rare, low-frequency, and common variants, including those in linkage disequilibrium with known GWAS loci. Noteworthily, around one quarter of the selected genes are sex-specific. Pathway analysis of the selected genes associated with COVID-19 severity reflected the multi-organ nature of the disease. The proposed model might provide useful information for developing diagnostics and therapeutics, while also being able to guide bedside disease management. © 2021, The Author(s)
