Predicting future sales can bring many advantages to retailers with regards to organizational performance. Using big data to make accurate forecasts can enable retailer to improve their operational performance and profitability substantially by reducing lost sales, inventory levels and labor costs. Previous research within the field of retail forecasting has mostly been dedicated to forecasting on lower time granularities such as weekly and monthly. However, despite the high practicality for retailers, forecasts on higher frequencies have not been properly covered by the current literature. This study aims to investigate how to forecast future sales using high-frequency data for a Swedish pharmacy retail chain. The forecasts are made on a daily and sub-daily time granularity using time series models SARIMA, Holt-Winter’s method and Facebook Prophet. The results show that Facebook Prophet was the most practical model and had the highest forecasting accuracy both on a daily and sub-daily frequency according to the error metrics MAPE, MAE and RMSE. / Att förutsäga framtida försäljning kan medföra många fördelar för detaljis-ter när det gäller organisationens prestanda. Att använda big data för att göra korrekta prognoser kan göra det möjligt för återförsäljare att förbättra sin lönsamhet avsevärt genom att minska förlorad försäljning, lagernivåer och arbetskostnader. Tidigare forskning inom området prognoser inom de-taljhandeln har mestadels ägnat sig åt prognoser på lägre tidsgranulariteter såsom veckovis och månadsvis. Trots att prognoser är mycket praktiska för detaljister så har prognoser på högre frekvenser inte täckts ordentligt av den aktuella litteraturen. Denna masteruppsats syftar till att undersöka hur man kan prognostisera framtida försäljning med hjälp av högfrekvent data för en svensk apotekskedja .Prognoserna görs på en daglig och sub-daglig tidsgranularitet medt idsseriemodellerna SARIMA, Holt-Winters metod och Facebook Prophet. Resultaten visar att Facebook Prophet var den mest praktiska tidsseriemodellen och hade den högsta träffsäkerheten både på en daglig och sub-daglig frekvens enligt felmåtten MAPE, MAE och RMSE.

Playing Jonah's Hand: Poems is a collection of poems with a critical introduction. The introduction consists of two independent essays, both of which examine intersections between poetry and Christian theology. In the first essay I identify the imaginative faculty as the primary source of agency for the speaker in John Donne's "Holy Sonnets." Working upon Barbara Lewalski's assertion that these sonnets represent "the Protestant paradigm of salvation in its stark, dramatic, Pauline terms," I consider the role of the imagination in the spiritual transformation represented within the sequence. Donne foregrounds a Calvinistic theology that posits both humanity's total depravity and God's grace and mercy as the only avenue of transcendence. Whatever agency the speaker exhibits is generated by the exercise of his imagination, which leads him to a recognition of his sinfulness and the necessity of God's grace. In the second essay I investigate the presence of a negative theology within "Lachrimae, or Seven Tears Figured in Seven Passionate Pavans," a sonnet sequence by Geoffrey Hill. In this sequence, Hill demonstrates the possibilities that surface through an integration of negative theology with postmodern theories of language, both of which have been influenced by the philosophical writings of Martin Heidegger. The two inform and transform each other while producing a tension that is productive ground for poetry. The main body of the manuscript includes a collection of poems built upon thematic parallels with the Biblical account of Jonah, acknowledging the character's continued frustration with God in Chapter Four of Jonah, which is commonly forgotten in popular and religious representations of the story. The four sections in the manuscript include poems that struggle to negotiate the tensions between the will of a compelling God and the will of the individual.

Die Texte des Elijazyklus (1 Kön 17 - 2 Kön 2*) haben im Rahmen der Monotheismusdebatte besondere Aktualität erlangt und neue Fragestellungen hervorgerufen. Antworten auf diese weitreichenden religionsgeschichtlichen Fragen an alttestamentliche Texte sind aber ohne exakte Textanalysen nicht möglich. Ziel dieser Dissertation ist es deshalb, diese unumgängliche Basisarbeit für den Anfang des Elijazyklus 1 Kön 17 und 18 zu leisten, der von jeher der Exegese viel Schwierigkeiten bereitet und kontroverse Debatten nach sich gezogen hat. Diese konzentrieren sich auf das literarische Problem der Textfolge: Sind also diese Einzelüberlieferungen noch erkennbar und literarisch rekonstruierbar, oder liegen sie im traditionsgeschichtlichen Dunkel der Vorgeschichte der Texte verborgen? Diese Fragen der neueren Auslegungsgeschichte stehen auch am Ausgangspunkt dieser Dissertation und bilden ihren forschungsgeschichtlichen Rahmen. In der vorliegenden Studie soll bei diachroner Sichtweise der Texte ihre Primärgestalt herausgearbeitet und sprachanalytisch ausgewertet werden, wobei eine Konzentration auf die Analyse der Schichtung innerhalb der Einzeltexte erfolgt. Abschließend können drei Themenkreise benannt werden, die insgesamt sieben Einheiten kompositionell übergreifen und mögliche Ordnungsprinzipien bei redaktioneller Vereinheitlichung der Texte darstellen. Den eigentlichen Schwerpunkt der Arbeit bildet der zweite analytische Schritt der literaturwissenschaftlichen Methode, die Formkritik. Diese Untersuchung verläuft auf den klassischen vier Ebenen des Grammatikaufbaus von WOLFGANG RICHTER: Analyse der Wortebene, der Wortfügungsebene, der Satzebene und der Textebene. Hier wird das literarische Urteil formanalytisch überprüft und die Schwerpunkte und Ziele der Einzelheiten streng am Sprachbefund bestimmt. Im Gesamtergebnis der Arbeit kann als zusätzlicher Ertrag die Vielfalt des Prophetenbildes in der Textfolge von 1 Kön 17.18 gewonnen und ein kontrastreiches Elijabild beschrieben werden. / The texts of the Elija cycle (1 Kings 17 to 2 Kings 2*) have become especially topical in recent discussions of monotheism; this has resulted in novel theological aims and objectives. But it is impossible to respond to such farreaching historical and religious questions concerning the Old Testament without a meticulous analysis of the Old Testament texts themselves. The aim of the present thesis is therefore to provide this indispensable basis, by an analysis of the incipient Elija cycle, i.e. 1 Kings 17 und 18, texts which have always presented great difficulties to exegesis, and involved much controversial debate. Such queries have concentrated on the the literary problems of this sequence: The question is therefore whether the individual strands of tradition can still be discerned. Can these strands be reconstructed, or have they been irretrievably buried in the obscure prehistory of the text? These queries of recent exegetical history constitute the starting point for the present thesis, also denoting its background in the framework of current research. In a diachronic approach, as a first analytical step, the present study intends to bring out the original shapes of the texts, and evaluate them in a linguistic analysis, concentrating on the layer structure of the individual texts.Three areas of composition are shown to be discernable, which encompass seven textual units and constitute potential principles of organization on which the eventual editor may have based himself to unify the present Old Testament text. The study focusses, however, on the second analytical step, namely the critical evaluation of the literary form proper. The present study follows the classical four grammatical levels distinguished by WOLFGANG RICHTER, pursuing analyses on the level of the word, on the level of the phrase, on the level of the clause viz. the sentence, and on the level of the text. It is in this area that the literary verdict is examined in terms of formal analysis; focal points and detailed aims of the investigation being determined strictly according to the linguistic diagnosis here attained. An additional overall result of the study is the multifaceted image of the prophet, rich in contrasts, as it emerges from the sequence of 1 Kings17-18.

Les Dalā’il al-Khayrāt forment un recueil de prières en l’honneur du Prophète Muhammad, composé par le mystique marocain Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Jazūlī (m. 869/1465) vers le milieu du IXe/XVe siècle. Peu de temps après son apparition au Maroc, le texte s’est répandu au reste du Maghreb avant de connaître un large succès en Orient, plus particulièrement en Turquie. Souvent comparé au Coran en raison de l’ampleur de sa diffusion, le bréviaire semble avoir été pareillement porté en très haute estime à en juger par le soin avec lequel on le copiait et le décorait. Aussi, il revêt la singulière particularité d’être le seul texte religieux possédant des illustrations dans lesquelles est représentée, sous une forme stylisée, la chambre funéraire du Prophète à Médine. Cette étude propose donc de retracer l’élaboration de la tradition manuscrite d’un bréviaire à succès et son évolution depuis le début Xe/XVIe jusqu’à la fin du XIIIe/XIXe siècle. Pour cela, elle se concentre spécifiquement sur la région de l’Afrique du Nord où a débuté la diffusion du livre. En soumettant un corpus d’exemplaires maghrébins inédits à un examen codicologique et à l’étude de leurs décors, cette recherche définit les traits qui signalent la confection de ces ouvrages. A travers l’analyse iconographique et stylistique des peintures, nous sommes en mesure de comprendre la place de l’image sacrée au Maghreb et les liens qu’elle entretient avec l’imagerie orientale des lieux saints du Ḥijāz. Enfin, à la lumière de cette approche multidisciplinaire, confrontée à l’exploitation des sources textuelles, nous parvenons à saisir l’importance que revêt la dévotion au Prophète au Maghreb à l’époque pré-moderne. / The Dalā’il al-Khayrāt is a prayer book dedicated to the Prophet Muhammad. Written by the Moroccan Sufi Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Jazūlī (m. 869/1465) in mid-15th century, it spread to the Islamic West far into South-East Asia and became one of the most successful religious books after the Qur’an. Often compared to the Qur’an because of its extraordinary success, the book seems to have been held in high regard judging by the careful manner in which it was copied and decorated. Moreover, it has the distinctive feature to be the only religious book that contains illustrations. This study proposes to retrace the formation/elaboration of the manuscript tradition of a successful prayer book and its development from the beginning of the 10th/16th century until the end of the 13th/19th century. In order to do so, the study focuses on the region of the Maghrib where the circulation of the book originated. By submitting a corpus of unpublished manuscripts to a codicological analysis and the examination of their decoration, this investigation will define the features that single out the production of these books. Through the iconographical and stylistic study of the paintings, we are able to understand the value of sacred images in North Africa and their relationship to the imagery of pilgrimage places in the Mashriq. Finally, in light of this interdisciplinary approach along with the exploitation of written sources, we succeed in understanding the importance of the devotion of the Prophet in North Africa during the pre-modern period.

Joseph Smith Junior, founder of the Mormon faith, presented himself to America and the world as a prophet with the same powers as the widely known prophetic figures of the Bible. Like Moses and Elijah, he made God's will known to humankind. Before assuming this role, Smith had used divining rods and then seer stones to find underground water, buried treasure, lost items, and stray livestock. This thesis charts Joseph Smith's progression from rodsman to seer to prophet. For the most part, I present Joseph Smith's divinatory development as he himself experienced it. Dowsing with a rod, seeing things in stones, and receiving heavenly revelations were as real to Smith as harvesting wheat. In order to understand his progression from rodsman to seer to prophet, one must first understand his worldview. The mental universe of early American water witches and village seers forms one of the historical and cultural contexts in which Joseph Smith developed his divinatory abilities.

The primary purpose of this thesis is to offer an approach to building a culture of leadership based on the Prophet Muhammad's teaching of love in Islamic schools. Since people are strongly motivated by values they deeply adhere to, the paradigms used as rationale for this study embody views of leaders as motivators and values transformation as their main task. The thesis holds the view that the Prophet Muhammad's teaching of love needs to be cultivated in an Islamic school community. The thesis presents discussion on transrational values as the contributing factor to this view, and the main argument centres on the discussions of the Prophet Muhammad's teaching of love and its applications in developing a culture of leadership in Islamic schools.

The "self-disclosures" in Jeremiah, including not only the so-called "confessions" but also other first person material which seems to express the prophet's inner feelings, are examined in a detailed, exegetical fashion with careful attention to-both the ancient versions and the subsequent history of exegesis. Special attention is given to the works of Rashi and Kimchi. Three basic questions are asked: 1) What do the "self-disclosures" represent? 2) To what degree can the "self-disclosures" be said to portray the historical Jeremiah? 3) Why are the "self-disclosures" included in the corpus of Jeremianic literature? These questions are approached by examining the relevant passages against the backdrop of the prophetic orthodoxy of the late 7th century B. C., which is seen to consist of commonly held notions of the role, message, and perhaps even temperament of the prophet within the current socio-religious framework. This orthodoxy is viewed as having initially defined Jeremiah's understanding of the prophetic office. But in the "self-disclosures" Jeremiah wrestles with the other side of his experience as a prophet, the painful and mysterious side, and attempts to forge a new understanding of the prophetic vocation. In the end, the fundamental element of the prophetic vocation for Jeremiah is seen as the "Word of the Lord." The prophet's conviction that he had been entrusted with the powerful, efficacious "Word" became the touchstone of both his vocational self-understanding and his authentication against the false prophets who represented prophetic orthodoxy. And the "Word" was ultimately the source of his suffering. All of these elements may be seen in the call-narrative which is examined in detail as the introduction to the entire book. The closing chapter of the thesis takes a closer look at the theological kerygma of the "self-disclosures," particularly in relation to the problem of suffering.

This thesis represents the result of a close study of the early Arabic sources concerning the long and violent conflict between Muhammad and the three Jewish tribes of Medina: the B. Qaynuqa, B. al-Nadir and B. Qurayzah. It is discovered that in his actions against these tribes the Prophet was not acting from a simple anti-Jewish bias but in order to protect himself and his community from these potentially very dangerous centers of opposition. Thus the elimination of the Jewish tribes from the oasis is the result of Muhammad's efforts to break up centers of opposition and thereby make secure his own community. In his long struggle with the Jewish tribes Muhammad skillfully isolated the three tribes--from each other as well as from their Arab allies-- and eliminated their dangerous presence one by one, beginning with the weakest of the three tribes. The justifications set forth by Muhammad for actions against the Jews are almost without exception political in nature (although the Jewish opposition was primarily religious in nature), and redress was usually called for under the traditional tribal law. On the rare occasions when the tribal law would not support his actions, Muhammad used revelation as justification.

Zugl.: Erfurt, Univ., Diss., 2007.

Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies / D. Th. (Old testament)