This thesis embarks upon a thorough investigation into the relationship between genre and interpretation, using the principle of narrative coherence to provide a methodological basis upon which to build. It argues that the attempt to find a single or even simple hybrid genre for Acts is an academic cul-de-sac that is curtailing effective progress, and advocates instead a model of fluid intertextuality that sees the author make use of many different genres. It then goes on to explore these findings in three separate studies, all of which make use of different intertextual and generic frameworks to interpret the text in new ways. The first study makes use of a device seen in Epic and Tragedy, the second makes use of wider systems of characterisation, particularly of divinely elected heroes, and the third looks at the use of comedy in sections of the narrative. Overall, the conclusion of the thesis is that only a change in methodological basis from history and source to narrative and text will allow biblical studies to make substantial progress in the interpretation of the scriptures.

This dissertation suggests that, while the book of Proverbs is sometimes difficult to interpret and its redaction history is clearly complex, it has much to say on the important area of leadership. To test this hypothesis, it applies four steps as its theoretical framework, and these later become part of the contributions of this study. First, its exploration of leadership in the Ancient Near East (ANE) shows that the ANE offers a good background to leadership in ancient Israel. Second, its survey of the scholarly debates on leadership in Proverbs reveals that the question of how Proverbs fosters leadership has been hugely neglected. The previous discussion has centred on the settings that produced the proverbs and the impact of ANE materials on Proverbs. Third, this enquiry maintains that poetics is an important tool for biblical exegesis and that it can help us to understand the possible meanings of the text. Its contribution lies with the use of exegetical analysis to demonstrate how Proverbs fosters aspects of leadership through the close analysis of poetic devices such as parallelisms, metaphors and imagery. The thesis conducts a detailed exploration of some verses that are judged to contain sayings that are relevant to the theme of leadership in Proverbs, demonstrating their complexity. It proposes a reading strategy of classifying the leadership texts in Proverbs into themes relating to the status, code of conduct, personality, skills and actions of leaders and the community’s response to leaders. Fourth, it critically summarises the results of my exegetical findings in Proverbs and their implications for the biblical scholars surveyed, as well as for contemporary leadership scholars. The thesis concludes with the application of my exegetical findings to one aspect of leadership in Proverbs to Christian leadership in Nigeria.

This doctoral work examines the thesis that mutuality is an effective form of resistive and transformative postcolonial praxis. This thesis is explored through the interpretation of six texts from the Gospel of Mark, read in dialogue with groups of people who have variously experienced poor mental health. When juxtaposed next to biblical scholarship, these reading group interpretations offer emphases and expansions on the roles of identity, agency, and dialogue within the relational dynamics of the Markan characters. Mutuality was found to operate in these texts as a praxis that works within hegemonic power dynamics, that enables other praxes of resistance, and that is transformational of relational dynamics in supplemental ways. Within the milieu of postcolonial criticism, whilst it is not concluded that mutuality leads to the end of hegemonic power, this work finds it to be a biblically informed heuristic for the re-imagining of that power with regards to mental health in 21st century societal contexts.

Recognising the paradigm shift in African biblical studies where the image of a “decontextualized and non-ideological” scientific Bible reader is slowly being replaced with one of a “contextualized and ideological” reader, this research seeks to explore and understand the role of the “ordinary readers” in the development of biblical interpretation in colonial Kenya. It seeks to understand whether the semi-illiterate and illiterate can engage the Bible as capable hermeneuts. The study uses postcolonial criticism to recover and reconstruct the historical encounters of the Agĩkũyũ with the Bible. It reveals that ordinary African readers actively and creatively engaged biblical texts in the moment of colonial transformation using several reading strategies and reading resources. Despite the colonial hegemonic positioning, these Africans hybridised readings from the Bible through retrieval and incorporation of the defunct pre-colonial past; creating interstices that became sites for assimilation, questioning and resistance. The study proposes an African hermeneutic theory that accepts both scholarly readers and the ordinary readers with respect to biblical interpretation as constitutive of a community of readers positioned in a particular sociocultural milieu. It invites the socially engaged scholars to commit to: reading the Bible from the experienced reality of societal margins; reading communally with each other; and to read critically. The metaphor Sokoni (at the marketplace) is proposed as the starting point in which both the “ordinary” readers and scholarly readers can engage the Bible through the language of the African theatre and storytelling.

Perek Helek, the last chapter of Tractate Sanhedrin in the Babylonian Talmud (BT), is unusual in consisting almost entirely of aggadah (non-legal material). The present study is a source and literary analysis of six units ('sugyot') from the chapter, which are almost continuous over ten pages of Talmud. The 'sugyot' relate to specific groups and individuals who, according to the Mishnah, are denied a place in the World to Come. They cover subjects in the books of Genesis, Numbers and Samuel. Comparisons with the Tosefta, Palestinian Talmud and midrashim suggest that the BT is less concerned with the World to Come than Palestinian sources are. Rather, it focuses on the wrong-doing of the groups and individuals and issues of justice and authority. The BT also includes vivid stories which appear to be Babylonian in origin and are often self-mocking. My findings also suggest that the 'sugyot' based on passages in a given biblical book (Genesis or Numbers) have more elements in common than 'sugyot' based on the same mishnah but derived from a different biblical book. In conclusion I discuss the possible implications of my findings for the more general question of how the chapter was edited.

In modern mobile wireless communication, Base Stations (BS) are the most important equipment to build up the mobile network. One of the key elements in BS is the RF filter, which plays a key role to secure the coverage and reliability of the BS. Especially, at Transmitter (Tx) side, the filter must have a high capability to handle the power sent from Power Amplifier (PA) to antenna in any circumstances to ensure the coverage demand. Otherwise, the breakdown will be encountered, setting the power flow in the BS system in an abnormal manner that, finally can lead to the shut down of BS or destroy the system permanently. In this project, three methods using two simulation tools to predict the power handling capability of the RF/microwave resonator which is the elementary component in the BS’s filter are proposed. Power handling tests of selected configurations corresponding to the simulations are implemented as well. In the next stage, the results from the prediction and measurement are compared. Finally, the conclusions of correlation between the prediction and measurement of microwave resonator power handling will be derived.

This dissertation, by employing the work of Slavoj Žižek in his engagement with the Apostle Paul, argues that Paul, in Romans 6-8, understands sin as a lie grounding the Subject outside of Christ and salvation as an exposure and displacement of this lie as one is joined to the body of Christ. In this understanding salvation may be seen primarily in terms of an overcoming of alienation from God, neighbour and self through participation in the Trinity (adoption by the Father through the Son by means of the Spirit), which stands in contrast to the sinful Subject who in his inner alienation and his alienation from God and others is oriented by a deceitful death dealing desire that would find life in the law rather than in God. The specific theological significance of Žižek (along with his predecessors Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan) is his demonstration of the pervasive and systemic nature of this lie (chapter 1) and its description as he finds it in Romans 7 (chapter 2). The general significance this account might have for theology is to frame the concept of sin as a deception (reifying the self) with its own logic, dynamic, and structure, similar to the Subject of psychoanalysis, and salvation, in turn, can be understood as the place and means from which the Subject of sin and its destructive nature are understood and displaced by new life in Christ (chapter 3). Sin and salvation, under this notion, are not forensic categories but have to do with the lived reality of identity, of being either a Subject oriented to death or to life.

This thesis sets out to investigate the relationship between the ‘classical apocalypse’ and the contemporary apocalypse as portrayed by the films A Clockwork Orange (1971), Apocalypse Now (1979) and Crash (1995). The ‘classical apocalypse’ is a literary genre which supplies a rich and vivid imagery where the image takes precedence over the narrative. At the centre of the ‘classical apocalypse’ is the image, and this thesis explores it the imagery of apocalypse can be translated from its traditional literary form to the visual form of film. The apocalypse is a revealing of that which has been concealed and which lies in the future of humankind at the end of time. In the postmodern era with the absence of meaning, apocalypse and God, the apocalypse has become a nihilistic repetition and the revealing has become feared since it might be a revealing of nothing. These contemporary depictions of the end, I would argue, help the apocalypse to come into its own in a postmodern setting, and the medium of film offers a possibility to further emphasise the visuality and potent imagery of the end, expressing the concerns of the apocalypse fully. As such they provide a ‘sense of an ending’ and an apocalyptic sentiment which is an unnerving and evasive as the ‘classical apocalypse’. These films revisit as well as revamp and rehearse the imagery of the Biblical apocalypse, becoming a-theological statements if not on the Bible, on the state of society and the apocalypse.

No / Abstract: Avoiding collision among contending customer premise equipments (CPEs) attempting to associate with a base station (BS), the only available solution in IEEE 802.22 standard is binary exponential random backoff process in which the contending CPEs retransmit their association requests. The number of attempts the CPEs sends their requests to the BS are fixed in IEEE 802.22 network. This paper presents a mathematical framework for helping the BS in determining at which attempt the majority of the CPEs become the part of wireless regional area network (WRAN) from a particular number of contending CPEs at a given initial contention window size.

Since the concept of business intelligence (BI) was introduced in the late 1980s, many organizations have implemented BI to improve performance but not all BI initiatives have been successful. Practitioners and academicians have discussed the reasons for success and failure, yet, a consistent picture about how to achieve BI success has not yet emerged. The purpose of this dissertation is to help fill the gap in research and provide a better understanding of BI success by examining the impact of BI capabilities on BI success, in the presence of different decision environments. The decision environment is a composition of the decision types and the way the required information is processed to aid in decision making. BI capabilities are defined as critical functionalities that help an organization improve its performance, and they are examined in terms of organizational and technological capabilities. An online survey is used to obtain the data and partial least squares path modeling (PLS) is used for analysis. The results of this dissertation suggest that all technological capabilities as well as one of the organizational capabilities, flexibility, significantly impact BI success. Results also indicate that the moderating effect of decision environment is significant for quantitative data quality. These findings provide richer insight in the role of the decision environment in BI success and a framework with which future research on the relationship between BI capabilities and BI success can be conducted. Findings may also contribute to practice by presenting information for managers and users of BI to consider about their decision environment in assessing BI success.