Hasil untuk "Practical religion. The Christian life"

Kingsley Matope, Davie Mitumbu, Tendai Lucio et al.

Background: The Malawi Disability Program is a congregation-led ministry located in Malawi. At the time of data collection, the program served over 1,548 People with Disabilities (PWD) and caregivers with 757 volunteers. It consists of an adapted worship service called ‘Worship at the Cross’ designed to encourage participation for people with both physical and learning disabilities. In some congregations, the ministry also includes a Home-Based Care Program that directly supports family caregivers of children with disabilities using a community-based rehabilitation model to achieve physical, social, educational, and spiritual goals and provide regular encouragement. The purpose of this program evaluation was to measure the impact of this effort. Methods: Structured interviews and surveys were performed, incorporating input from volunteers, caregivers, PWDs and church leaders at 14 congregational sites in central and southern Malawi. Approximately 10% of PWDs or caregivers of children with disabilities in the selected sites (n=64) and 10% of volunteers (n=80) completed an individual survey, all 14 congregational pastors or church leaders were interviewed, and 47 Home-Based Care Program households agreed to participate in a home assessment. Results: Most caregivers and adult PWD’s (97%) agreed that Worship at the Cross increased their acceptance in the community, and 86% reported community members now treat them like their respective age. With the Home-Based Care Program, 82% of caregivers felt confident performing home-based exercises with their child and 77% stated that their child had improved, noting improvements in mobility, performance of tasks and self-care, social interaction, and understanding. Among volunteers, 98% stated they were now more comfortable sharing their faith and 84% reported praying with children during most home visits. Conclusions: In addition to the physical impact of the Home-based Care Program, there are opportunities to measure mental health outcomes and provide further training for both volunteers and caregivers on how best to provide mental and spiritual support to adults and children with disabilities. Regardless, the results demonstrate the Malawi disability program continues to reach a vulnerable population with the saving news of the Gospel as well as providing physical, emotional, and social support.

Robin Wordsworth, Collin Cherubim, Shannon Nangle et al.

Searching for extraterrestrial life and supporting human life in space are traditionally regarded as separate challenges. However, there are significant benefits to an approach that treats them as different aspects of the same essential inquiry: How can we conceptualize life beyond our home planet?

Jingkang Yang, Shuai Liu, Hongming Guo et al.

We introduce EgoLife, a project to develop an egocentric life assistant that accompanies and enhances personal efficiency through AI-powered wearable glasses. To lay the foundation for this assistant, we conducted a comprehensive data collection study where six participants lived together for one week, continuously recording their daily activities - including discussions, shopping, cooking, socializing, and entertainment - using AI glasses for multimodal egocentric video capture, along with synchronized third-person-view video references. This effort resulted in the EgoLife Dataset, a comprehensive 300-hour egocentric, interpersonal, multiview, and multimodal daily life dataset with intensive annotation. Leveraging this dataset, we introduce EgoLifeQA, a suite of long-context, life-oriented question-answering tasks designed to provide meaningful assistance in daily life by addressing practical questions such as recalling past relevant events, monitoring health habits, and offering personalized recommendations. To address the key technical challenges of (1) developing robust visual-audio models for egocentric data, (2) enabling identity recognition, and (3) facilitating long-context question answering over extensive temporal information, we introduce EgoButler, an integrated system comprising EgoGPT and EgoRAG. EgoGPT is an omni-modal model trained on egocentric datasets, achieving state-of-the-art performance on egocentric video understanding. EgoRAG is a retrieval-based component that supports answering ultra-long-context questions. Our experimental studies verify their working mechanisms and reveal critical factors and bottlenecks, guiding future improvements. By releasing our datasets, models, and benchmarks, we aim to stimulate further research in egocentric AI assistants.

Xiaochong Lan, Jie Feng, Jiahuan Lei et al.

Large language models (LLMs) have exhibited remarkable capabilities and achieved significant breakthroughs across various domains, leading to their widespread adoption in recent years. Building on this progress, we investigate their potential in the realm of local life services. In this study, we establish a comprehensive benchmark and systematically evaluate the performance of diverse LLMs across a wide range of tasks relevant to local life services. To further enhance their effectiveness, we explore two key approaches: model fine-tuning and agent-based workflows. Our findings reveal that even a relatively compact 7B model can attain performance levels comparable to a much larger 72B model, effectively balancing inference cost and model capability. This optimization greatly enhances the feasibility and efficiency of deploying LLMs in real-world online services, making them more practical and accessible for local life applications.

Patrick Ling

Although the valuation of life contingent assets has been thoroughly investigated under the framework of mathematical statistics, little financial economics research pays attention to the pricing of these assets in a non-arbitrage, complete market. In this paper, we first revisit the Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing (FTAP) and the short proof of it. Then we point out that discounted asset price is a martingale only when dividends are zero under all random states of the world, using a simple proof based on pricing kernel. Next, we apply Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing (FTAP) to find valuation formula for life contingent assets including life insurance policies and life contingent annuities. Last but not least, we state the assumption of static portfolio in a dynamic economy, and clarify the FTAP that accommodates the valuation of a portfolio of life contingent policies.

Ryan Boukrouche, Markus Janson

Teegarden's Star is one of the most promising targets for the first observations of LIFE, as a non-transiting rocky planet with similar bulk properties to the Earth, and a relatively quiescent M-dwarf host star. We use LIFEsim, a software developed by the ETH LIFE team, along with thermal emission maps obtained from a suite of three-dimensional global climate model (GCM) simulations, to explore the sensitivity of LIFE to the observation geometry. We find that 3 days of observation in broadband would be enough to disentangle the hemispheres of the planet with a 1σ or 3σ confidence level with a baseline or optimistic scenario respectively. Doing the same for a fast-rotator in the habitable zone of a G-class star would be prohibitively challenging. Given enough observation time, the sensitivity of LIFE may allow some spatial resolution of Teegarden's Star b to be achieved, which may directly link to the presence of water clouds and therefore an active hydrology.

Reiji Suzuki, Takaya Arita

We propose a model for the evolutionary ecology of words as one attempt to extend evolutionary game theory and agent-based models by utilizing the rich linguistic expressions of Large Language Models (LLMs). Our model enables the emergence and evolution of diverse and infinite options for interactions among agents. Within the population, each agent possesses a short word (or phrase) generated by an LLM and moves within a spatial environment. When agents become adjacent, the outcome of their interaction is determined by the LLM based on the relationship between their words, with the loser's word being replaced by the winner's. Word mutations, also based on LLM outputs, may occur. We conducted preliminary experiments assuming that ``strong animal species" would survive. The results showed that from an initial population consisting of well-known species, many species emerged both gradually and in a punctuated equilibrium manner. Each trial demonstrated the unique evolution of diverse populations, with one type of large species becoming dominant, such as terrestrial animals, marine life, or extinct species, which were ecologically specialized and adapted ones across diverse extreme habitats. We also conducted a long-term experiment with a large population, demonstrating the emergence and coexistence of diverse species.

Yaning Zhao, Christian Deppe

The one-day workshop, held prior to the "ZIF Workshop on Information Theory and Related Fields", provided an excellent opportunity for in-depth discussions on several topics within the field of post-Shannon theory. The agenda covered deterministic and randomized identification, focusing on various methods and algorithms for identifying data or signals deterministically and through randomized processes. It explored the theoretical foundations and practical applications of these techniques. The session on resources for increasing identification capacity examined the different resources and strategies that can be utilized to boost the capacity for identifying information. This included discussions on both hardware and software solutions, as well as innovative approaches to resource allocation and optimization. Participants delved into common randomness generation, essential for various cryptographic protocols and communication systems. The session highlighted recent advancements and practical implementations of common randomness in secure communications. The workshop concluded with a detailed look at the development and practical deployment of identification codes. Experts shared insights on code construction techniques, implementation challenges, and real-world applications in various communication systems. We extend our thanks to the esteemed speakers for their valuable contributions: Caspar von Lengerke, Wafa Labidi, Ilya Vorobyev, Johannes Rosenberger, Jonathan Huffmann, and Pau Colomer. Their presentations and insights significantly enriched the workshop. Additionally, we are grateful to all the participants whose active engagement, constructive comments, and stimulating discussions made the event a success. Your involvement was crucial in fostering a collaborative and intellectually vibrant environment.

Yoehan Oh, Jacinda Tran, Theodore Kim

We examine the life and legacy of pioneering Vietnamese computer scientist Bùi Tuong Phong, whose shading and lighting models turned 50 last year. We trace the trajectory of his life through Vietnam, France, and the United States, and its intersections with global conflicts. Crucially, we present definitive evidence that his name has been cited incorrectly over the last five decades. His family name is Bùi Tuong, not Phong. By presenting these facts at SIGGRAPH, we hope to collect more information about his life, and ensure that his name is remembered correctly in the future. Correction: An earlier version of the article speculated his family name was Bùi. We have since received definitive confirmation that his family name was Bùi Tuong. We have amended the text accordingly.

Łukasz Plata

W niniejszym artykule autor podjął refleksję nad narzędziami nowej ewangelizacji Kościoła w Polsce. Na wstępie doprecyzował pojęcie nowej ewangelizacji i nakreślił różnice terminologiczne związane z tą problematyką. Wskazał na zewnętrzne i wewnętrzne uwarunkowania, w jakich sytuuje się Kościół w Polsce oraz określił adresatów, do których trzeba dotrzeć z orędziem ewangelicznym. Uwzględniając zawarte w artykule faktory, przedstawił narzędzia nowej ewangelizacji, które w dynamicznie zmieniającej się rzeczywistości są wykorzystywane w Kościele w Polsce.

I.D. Mothoagae

The Setswana language is one of the Southern African languages that was “reduced” into a written language through the translation of Christian literature by the London Missionary Society. The introduction of the Setswana spelling book in 1826 epitomised the vernacularisation and standardisation of Setswana. In 1826, Robert Moffat also translated the first Setswana catechism. Rev. William Brown’s Catechism served as a source text. He also added the third chapter of the Gospel of John and the Lord’s Prayer. This paper focuses on the second section of the 1826 Setswana catechism, namely the third chapter of John’s Gospel. It is argued that translation does not happen in a vacuum; rather, it also has the ideological intentions of the translator. Through the translated texts, Moffat performs a technology of power by eroding, dislocating, and disassociating the Batswana from their epistemic and spiritual heritage. The paper applies a decolonial lens to analyse the theme of conversion (metanoia) in the Gospel of John, as translated by Moffat.

McCullen Sandora, Vladimir Airapetian, Luke Barnes et al.

If the origin of life is rare and sensitive to the local conditions at the site of its emergence, then, using the principle of mediocrity within a multiverse framework, we may expect to find ourselves in a universe that is better than usual at creating these necessary conditions. We use this reasoning to investigate several origin of life scenarios to determine whether they are compatible with the multiverse, including the prebiotic soup scenario, hydrothermal vents, delivery of prebiotic material from impacts, and panspermia. We find that most of these scenarios induce a preference toward weaker-gravity universes, and that panspermia and scenarios involving solar radiation or large impacts as a disequilibrium source are disfavored. Additionally, we show that several hypothesized habitability criteria which are disfavored when the origin of life is not taken into account become compatible with the multiverse, and that the emergence of life and emergence of intelligence cannot both be sensitive to disequilibrium production conditions.

Fikret Basic, Claudia Rosina Laube, Patrick Stratznig et al.

Battery management systems (BMS) are becoming increasingly important in the modern age, where clean energy awareness is getting more prominent. They are responsible for controlling large battery packs in modern electric vehicles. However, conventional solutions rely only on a wired design, which adds manufacturing cost and complexity. Recent research has considered wireless solutions for the BMS. However, it is still challenging to develop a solution that considers both the active in-vehicle and the external second-life applications. The battery passport initiative aims to keep track of the batteries, both during active and inactive use cases. There is a need to provide a secure design while considering energy and cost-efficient solutions. We aim to fill this gap by proposing a wireless solution based on near-field communication (NFC) that extends previous work and provides a unified architecture for both use cases. To provide protection against common wireless threats, an advanced security analysis is performed, as well as a system design analysis for the wake-up process that reduces the daily power consumption of the stored battery packs from milli- to microwatts.

Subhajit Sarkar

In the search for life in the Universe, exoplanets represent numerous natural experiments in planet formation, evolution, and the emergence of life. This raises the fascinating prospect of evaluating cosmic life on a statistical basis. One key statistic is the occurrence rate of life-bearing worlds, $f_{\rm L}$, the 'frequency of life' term in the famous Drake Equation. Measuring $f_{\rm L}$ would give profound insight into how common life is and may help to constrain origin-of-life theories. I propose $f_{\rm L}$ as the goal for the DRAKE mission (Dedicated Research for Advancing Knowledge of Exobiology): a transit spectroscopy survey of M-dwarf habitable zone terrestrial planets. I investigate how the uncertainty on the observed value of $f_{\rm L}$ scales with sample size. I determine that sampling error dominates over observational error and that the uncertainty is a function of the observed $f_{\rm L}$ value. I show that even small sample sizes can provide significant constraints on $f_{\rm L}$, boding well for the transit spectroscopy approach. I perform a feasibility study of the DRAKE mission using a nominal instrument design and mission plan. Due to low observing efficiencies, DRAKE may need to be incorporated into a wider-ranging deep-space or lunar observatory. A 50-planet survey could constrain $f_{\rm L}$ to $\leq$ 0.06 (at 95% confidence) if the sample $f_{\rm L}$ = 0, or 0.03-0.2 if the sample $f_{\rm L}$ = 0.1. This can be achieved (on average) in 10 years using a 17-m telescope with an unrestricted field-of-regard. DRAKE is a viable approach to attempting the first experimental measurement of $f_{\rm L}$.

Sofia Persson, Ann-Christine Andersson, Annmargreth Kvarnefors et al.

Abstract Background Pursuing the vision ‘for a good life in an attractive region,’ the Region Jönköping County (RJC) in Sweden oversees public health and health-care services for its 360 000 residents. For more than three decades, RJC has applied ‘quality as strategy,’ which has included increasing involvement of patients, family and friends and citizens. This practice has evolved, coinciding with the growing recognition of co-production as a fundamental feature in health-care services. This study views co-production as an umbrella term including different methods, initiatives and organizational levels. When learning about co-production in health-care services, it can be helpful to approach it as a dynamic and reflective process. Objective This study aims to describe the examples of key developmental steps toward co-production as a system property and to highlight ‘lessons learned’ from a Swedish health system’s journey. Method This qualitative descriptive study draws on interviews with key stakeholders and on documents, such as local policy documents, project reports, meeting protocols and presentations. Co-production initiatives were defined as strategies, projects, quality improvement (QI) programs or other efforts, which included persons with patient experience and/or their next of kin (PPE). We used directed manifest content analysis to identify initiatives, timelines and methods and inductive conventional content analysis to capture lessons learned over time. Results The directed content analyses identified 22 co-production initiatives from 1997 until today. Methods and approaches to facilitate co-production included development of personas, storytelling, person-centered care approaches, various co-design methods, QI interventions, harnessing of PPEs in different staff roles, and PPE-driven improvement and networks. The lessons learned included the following aspects of co-production: relations and structure; micro-, meso- and macro-level approaches; attitudes and roles; drivers for development; diversity; facilitating change; new perspectives on current work; consequences; uncertainties; theories and outcomes; and regulations and frames. Conclusions Co-production evolved as an increasingly significant aspect of services in the RJC health system. The initiatives examined in this study provide a broad overview and understanding of some of the RJC co-production journey, illustrating a health system’s approach to co-production within a context of long-standing application of QI and microsystem theories. The main lessons include the constancy of direction, the strategy for improvement, engaged leaders, continuous learning and development from practical experience, and the importance of relationships with national and international experts in the pursuit of system-wide health-care co-production.

Cornelia van Deventer, Bill Domeris

The Gospel of John contains various memorable metaphors, drawing on the lived realities of its audience to encapsulate the depths of its Christology and central message. Seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of the gospel is the metaphor of (life-giving) water, offered by Jesus and ultimately provided by him. A related metaphor is that of new birth, signifying the changed allegiance and ethos of those who come to believe. Finally, the new creation imagery with its Edenic setting and Jesus breathing Spirit-life into his disciples illustrates something of the effect of an encounter with the life-giving God. Drawing on Cognitive Metaphor Theory, this paper demonstrates that imagery of birth, water, and new life can work together to create a metanarrative. The analysis follows the ramifications of this imagery in its literary context, its rhetorical function in the narrative, and the way in which the metaphors of birth, water, and life potentially work together to produce a larger picture that ministers to those who carry the realities of giving, nurturing, and sustaining life in their bodies. From the prologue and its birth-giving God, through the birth from above promised to Nicodemus, the living water promised to a Samaritan woman, and the Holy Spirit as living water flowing from the innermost being, the narrative flows seamlessly to the cross where the life-giving blood and water flow from the side of Jesus and into the resurrection dimension of a new creation.

Paweł Rabczyński

Nowym impulsem do wielorakiej działalności na rzecz pojednania i jedności chrześcijan jest ogłoszone 4 grudnia 2020 r. przez Papieską Radę ds. Popierania Jedności Chrześcijan vademecum ekumeniczne dla biskupów. Dokument liczący około 50 stron, został zatytułowany Biskup i jedność chrześcijan. Vademecum ekumeniczne. Publikacja skierowana jest do biskupów diecezjalnych i ma charakter praktycznego przewodnika w promowaniu ekumenizmu w ich posłudze. Zawarte w dokumencie wskazania dotyczą wszystkich katolików, ponieważ umiejscawiają działania na rzecz jedności chrześcijan w całości posłannictwa Kościoła, zarówno w jego strukturze, jak i w sposobach urzeczywistniania zleconej przez Jezusa Chrystusa misji. Vademecum nie zawiera treści nowych, jednak należy docenić jego wagę i jego znaczenie, ponieważ systematyzuje ono i porządkuje treści obecne już w nauczaniu Magisterium Ecclesiae oraz wyprowadza z nich praktyczne wskazania dla biskupów. Mają oni być pierwszymi promotorami ekumenizmu w swoich diecezjach i w tym duchu powinni kształtować postawę wiernych. Biskupi nie mogą postrzegać działania na rzecz jedności chrześcijan jako opcjonalnego wymiaru swojej posługi, lecz powinni uważać je za swój obowiązek i powinność.

Svend C. Svendsen

We revisit the fundamental problem of I/O-efficiently computing $r$-way separators on planar graphs. An $r$-way separator divides a planar graph with $N$ vertices into $O(r)$ regions of size $O(N/r)$ and $O(\sqrt {Nr})$ boundary vertices in total, where boundary vertices are vertices that are adjacent to more than one region. Such separators are used in I/O-efficient solutions to many fundamental problems on planar graphs such as breadth-first search, finding single-source shortest paths, topological sorting, and finding strongly connected components. Our main result is an I/O-efficient sampling-based algorithm that, given a Koebe-embedding of a graph with $N$ vertices and a parameter $r$, computes an $r$-way separator for the graph under certain assumptions on the size of internal memory. Computing a Koebe-embedding of a planar graph is difficult in practice and no known I/O-efficient algorithm currently exists. Therefore, we show how our algorithm can be generalized and applied directly to Delaunay triangulations without relying on a Koebe-embedding. This adaptation can produce many boundary vertices in the worst-case, however, to our knowledge our result is the first to be implemented in practice due to the many non-trivial and complex techniques used in previous results. Furthermore, we show that our algorithm performs well on real-world data and that the number of boundary vertices is small in practice. Motivated by applications in geometric information systems, we show how our algorithm for Delaunay triangulations can be applied to compute the flow accumulation over a terrain, which models how much water flows over the vertices of a terrain. When given an $r$-way separator, our implementation of the algorithm outperforms traditional sweep-line-based algorithms on the publicly available digital elevation model of Denmark.

S. Hoezee

The global pandemic of COVID-19 across the year 2020 afforded pastors everywhere an opportunity to engage in some critical reflection on their homiletic practices. The dual challenges of no longer being able to preach to a physically present congregation and of preaching during a time of significant fear, stress, and sorrow revealed to many preachers aspects of preaching of which they had not previously been aware. This article suggests that some of what was discovered during this unusual season provides correctives for the way in which homiletics and preaching have been practised in many places and that some of these correctives should endure in the preaching life of the church long after the pandemic has passed.

Amir Siraj, Abraham Loeb

Recently, phosphine was discovered in the atmosphere of Venus as a potential biosignature. This raises the question: if Venusian life exists, could it be related to terrestrial life? Based on the known rate of meteoroid impacts on Earth, we show that at least $\sim 6 \times 10^5$ asteroids have grazed Earth's atmosphere without being significantly heated and later impacted Venus, and a similar number have grazed Venus's atmosphere and later impacted the Earth, both within a period of $\sim 10^5$ years during which microbes could survive in space. Although the abundance of terrestrial life in the upper atmosphere is unknown, these planet-grazing shepherds could have potentially been capable of transferring microbial life between the atmospheres of Earth and Venus. As a result, the origin of possible Venusian life may be fundamentally indistinguishable from that of terrestrial life.