Brewton-Parker College

Both analytic theology (AT) and the theological interpretation of Scripture (TIS) are burgeoning movements within the disciplines of biblical studies and systematic theology.However, one might be strained to find explicit projects that bring both disciplines together.In Analytic Christology and the Theological Interpretation of the New Testament, Thomas McCall aims to do just that.After discussing how both AT and TIS have "taken off" in contemporary theological academia, McCall explains why it would be beneficial to bring both movements together.McCall provides some basic definitions of both AT and TIS in his brief Introduction.Broadly defined, AT is "systematic theology attuned to the skills, resources, and virtues of analytic philosophy" (2). 1 McCall later provides a helpful distinction between what he calls "soft analytic theology" and "hard analytic theology": "Soft analytic theology is simply any theology done with a commitment to the goals of clarity of expression, transparency and rigor of argument, and accountability with respect to broader intellectual standards" (3).He claims that "hard analytic theology . . .does not hesitate to employ specific theories, arguments, or conclusions drawn from mainstream analytic epistemology, logic, metaphysics, esthetics, or moral theory. . . . it takes actual work in analytic philosophy and presses it into service for the sake of doctrinal analysis and formulation" (3).McCall defines TIS broadly as "what happens when biblical scholars and theologians alike read the bible to see what it tells us about God" (1).More specifically, "theological exegesis deals with the Bible as a word about God and from God" (4). 2 TIS, however, is not limited to interpreting the biblical texts according to grammatical-historical or historical-critical methods, though it may benefit greatly from these.But TIS often does move beyond these readings to better discern what Scripture teaches about God.In the following six chapters, McCall brings both AT and TIS into dialogue in order to better contemplate matters Christological.In Chapter 1, McCall brings the tools of AT and TIS to aid in the contemplation of Paul's claim that he has been crucified with Christ and that it is no longer him that lives but Christ that lives in him .What did Paul mean when he claimed this in his letter to the Galatians?More specifically, "But just who is this 'I' who no longer lives?Who is the 'I' who

Abstract This paper aims to explore and critique Wolfhart Pannenberg’s use of semiotic concepts in his understanding and explanation of the church. He defines the church as “the fellowship of individual believers,” and a “sign of the future fellowship of humanity under God’s reign,” i. e. the future Kingdom of God. As he continues to articulate his doctrine of the church, Pannenberg employs semiotic concepts to articulate this notion of the church as a sign of the Kingdom of God. In this paper, I aim to explore Pannenberg’s use of semiotic concepts as they concern his understanding of the church and provide critique and a new way forward of understanding the church as a sign of the Kingdom of God. Though Pannenberg is right to employ semiotic concepts and terminology to expound upon and clarify this concept, he is wrong in the semiotic model of the sign and approach he chooses to employ. In what follows, I first summarize and explicate Pannenberg’s semiotic understanding of the church, and then I provide a critique and corrective of his semiotic preferences with the semiotic work of American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce.

COVID-19, also known as the “novel coronavirus disease 2019,” is a respiratory illness, and the causative pathogen is officially named as “SARS-CoV-2.” Infections with SARS-CoV-2 have now been amplified to a global pandemic—as of April 3, 2020, nearly 1 018 000 cases have been confirmed in more than 195 countries, including more than 300 000 cases within the United States. Public safety guidelines are followed worldwide to stop the spread of COVID-19 and stay healthy. Despite COVID-19 is a respiratory illness with mode of invasion through the respiratory tract, not the gastrointestinal tract, an average food consumer is anxious and concerned about the food safety. Could an individual catch the deadly contagious COVID-19 from groceries brought home from the supermarket—or from the next restaurant takeout order? This brief review elucidates the epidemiology and pathobiological mechanism(s) of SARS-CoV-2 and its implications in food-borne infections, transmission via food surfaces, food processing, and food handling.

This paper presents an effective feature selection method that can be applied to build a computer aided diagnosis system for breast cancer in order to discriminate between healthy, benign and malignant parenchyma. Determining the optimal feature set from a large set of original features is an important preprocessing step which removes irrelevant and redundant features and thus improves computational efficiency, classification accuracy and also simplifies the classifier structure. A modified binary particle swarm optimized feature selection method (MBPSO)has been proposed where k-Nearest Neighbour algorithm with leave-one-out cross validation serves as the fitness function. Digital mammograms obtained from Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram and the mammograms from web accessible mini-MIAS database has been used as the dataset for this experiment. Region of interests from the mammograms are automatically detected and segmented. A total of 117 shape, texture and histogram features are extracted from the ROIs. Significant features are selected using the proposed feature selection method.Classification is performed using feed forward artificial neural networks with back propagation learning. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) and confusion matrix are used to evaluate the performance. Experimental results show that the modified binary PSO feature selection method not only obtains better classification accuracy but also simplifies the classification process as compared to full set of features. The performance of the modified BPSO is found to be at par with other widely used feature selection techniques.

This paper adds five “blocks” (cells) to Ned Block’s 2-by-2 P- and A-Consciousness typology, by converting “phenomenal” and “access” into two orthogonal dimensions of Primary Conscious, and by introducing gradations along each dimension, with P0 (no phenomenal experience), P1 (attenuated phenomenal experience), and P2 (full phenomenal experience); and A0 (no access of mental content to either involuntary or voluntary cognitive/behavioral responses), A1 (access of mental content to involuntary responses), and A2 (access of mental content also to voluntary responses). This leads to a 3x3, 9-block grid, with Phenomenality on the X-axis and Access on the Y-axis. Each combination of P and A is examined for known conscious states. It is concluded that there are no known phenomenal states without at least A1 or A2 access. Neither are there states with A2 access without P2 phenomenality. At the end of the paper, Block’s concept of Reflexive Consciousness is introduced tantalizingly as a third (Z) dimension for consciousness in humans.

I have suggested that the prefrontal cortex constitutes an “executive committee” with five streams coming from posterior cortex and subcortical areas to five pre-frontal executive regions, each of which chairs at least one on-going “sub-committee” and vies with the other executives for taking over central control of conscious attention and willed action. It is through the dynamic interaction of this executive committee that unified conscious experiences and a sense of continuous self-identity are created. There is growing evidence that the amygdala-orbitofrontal brain circuit, in particular, is crucial to impulse control, “knowledge of good and evil,” personality, personhood, and even “how X-me made Y-me do something.” There are striking examples of the ways that orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate “committee members” can stage an insurrection against the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex executive chair.

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Abstract Mentoring may prove to be the decisive intervention with high‐risk entering students and requires thefill resources of the campus and community.

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