P.Oxy. 840 is a fragment of a lost Gospel that was published by Grenfell & Hunt in 1908. Prima facie P.Oxy. 840 contains a controversy dialogue between Jesus and a high priest regarding purity set within the temple of Jerusalem. The research history shows that the most controversial aspects of P.Oxy. 840 are its historical plausibility, what inter-texts relate to it, how the text is to be reconstructed, and what kind of Christianity lies behind P.Oxy. 840. This dissertation attempts to classify the Christianity of P.Oxy. 840. In the past three trajectories have been proposed in answer to this problem: orthodoxy, Gnosis and Jewish Christianity. This study attempts to answer this research problem by means of a comparative analysis of P.Oxy. 840's inter-texts. A comparative key for analysing texts is designed in accordance with Smith's comparative approach to religions. 22 Representative texts from the three trajectories are compared with P.Oxy. 840 that show comparable theological positions regarding purity and anti-Judaism, and that utilize the same form (chria). The three trajectories, Gnosis, Jewish Christianity and Proto-Orthodoxy are then described as proper taxonomies that can help us classify texts according to their trajectory. The dissertation's classificatory approach understands the various trajectories descriptively in terms of each other, instead of right or wrong (orthodox or heterodox). At the same time the study is informed by a historical conscience, sensitive to the development of theology within the second century. Chapter 4 is the articulation of the author's reading of P.Oxy. 840. Two theological positions emerge: Firstly, P.Oxy. 840 contains strong anti-Jewish polemic, accusing its opponents of lust. Secondly, P.Oxy. 840 motivates the supersession of immersion by baptism ("living water"). Chapter 5 looks at Gnostic inter-texts comparable to P.Oxy. 840. It emerges that Gnostics had the same symbolic understanding of purity as the Proto-Orthodox had. Bovon's idea of a typical Gnostic anti-baptism is undermined. Bovon underestimates the metaphorical reference of "baptism." The similarities between P.Oxy. 840 and the CMC is judged to be circumstantial. Similar logical methodology and a shared literary canon can account for this. Anti-Jewish polemic is not that common in Gnostic literature. Chapter 6 analyses Jewish-Christian inter-texts comparable to P.Oxy. 840. Problems in Kruger's identification of P.Oxy. 840 with the Nazarene community are shown. By looking at Jewish Christian literature it becomes evident that P.Oxy. 840's argumentation is entirely different. P.Oxy. 840 undermines the whole law, while this literature is at pains to uphold it. P.Oxy. 840 appears ignorant of Jewish theology. Chapter 7 examines Proto-Orthodox inter-texts (or at least inter-texts later absorbed by Proto-Orthodoxy) comparable to P.Oxy. 840. Of all the trajectories anti-Judaism plays the biggest role with the Proto-Orthodox. The accusation of Jewish lust becomes characteristic of the emerging Orthodox movement. In the literature of the Proto-Orthodox (both that written by them and that appropriated by them later on) it becomes ever more important to distance oneself from Jewish institutions. Supersessionism becomes an important tool to do this. One of these institutions that is superseded is purificatory immersion by baptism. This idea develops on a trajectory that can be expressed as Q-Mark-John-Hebrews-Barnabas- Justin/P.Oxy. 840. While Justin makes his point through the invention of abstract Christian philosophy, P.Oxy. 840 is an institutional dinosaur that utilizes the chria (attached to the genre of Gospel) to make its point. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / New Testament Studies / PhD / Unrestricted

This study was designed to determine the predictive validity of a police officer selection program and identify the contribution made by each major selection device to the total program. Police officers employed by the Portland Police Bureau who had completed three years of post-probationary employment were randomly assigned to a validation group and a cross-validation group on a two for one basis respectively. Beta weights were computed for the written test, interview and psychological scores in the validation group. The regression formula was then applied to the data in the cross-validation group. A cross-validation R of 0.12 was obtained between the predicted performance criterion scores and the actual performance scores. When the interview variable was removed from the equation the cross-validation R increased to 0.16. Neither validity coefficient reaches statistical significance. Reasons were offered for believing that the low magnitude of the coefficients was attributable to restriction in range in the predictor variables and the unreliability of the criterion variable.

No description available.

The mainstream abortion rights debate in the United States, its opposing factions popularly identified as pro-choice and pro-life, is reliant upon identifiable narratives of abortion's value to women and society and, alternately, its harms. This dissertation traces more than one hundred years of evolution of popular rhetoric surrounding the practice of elective termination of pregnancy in the U.S. and identifies the understandings of abortion and the women who have them which are most prominent in our culture today. This dissertation examines the ways in which women who have had abortions invoke the rhetoric of "sympathetic abortion" in making sense of their own experiences. For the pro-choice movement, young, childless women accomplish sympathetic abortions in light of factors like responsible birth control use and the pursuit of empowering life goals, while factors like existing children, previous abortions, and bad clinic experiences contradict this template. The women interviewed for this research discuss ways in which the circumstances surrounding their abortions and their individual approaches to their procedures align their reproductive choices with the sympathetic template or else point to ways in which their experiences fail this standard. Women occasionally transcend the templates of "good" and "bad" abortions and offer new meanings. This dissertation closes with a discussion of the role of women's stories in social movements and the consequences of discourse which ignores abortion experiences that fall short of the contemporary formula story.

Managing diversity in the workplace is a challenging task for supervisors. Supervisors must punish negative behavior consistently, regardless their employees’ demographic characteristics. Some research suggests that negative workplace behaviors committed by lower status group members (e.g., Black people or women) are attributed to more internal factors and penalized more severely compared to higher status group members (e.g., White people or men; Duncan, 1979; Bowles & Gelfand, 2009; Luksyte, et al., 2013). However, recent evidence of pro-Black biases in judgments (Mendes & Koslov, 2013; Zigerell, 2018), challenge the perspective that evaluators are intentionally biased against Black people. If individuals deliberately compensate for pro-White biases by demonstrating pro-Black behaviors as some researchers suggest (Axt, et al., 2016), the negative workplace behaviors of Black employees may be punished less severely than white employees regardless of their gender or the reasons for their transgressions. The present research examined interactions between attribution, employee gender, and employee race when predicting punishment of negative workplace behaviors. In two studies, participants took the role of a supervisor and read descriptions of employees who violated workplace rules. In Study 1 participants read eight descriptions of workplace rule violations, then responded to attribution, punishment type, punishment severity, seriousness of offense, and responsibility measures. In Study 2 participants read eight descriptions of workplace rule violations attributed to internal and external causes and responded to punishment severity, seriousness of offense, and responsibility measures. Race and gender of the employees committing each offense were randomized within each participant so that they each rated all eight combinations of race, gender, and attribution (Study 2). Study 1 found support for the pro-Black bias, participants made more internal attributions for negative behavior committed by women and White employees and punished their negative workplace behaviors more severely. Unlike Study 1, participants in Study 2 did not make punishment decisions based on employee gender or race. Instead, participants punished behaviors based on their causal explanations; behaviors explained with internal causes were punished more severely than behaviors explained with external causes. Focusing on attribution reduced the propensity to discriminate in favor or against employees based on their demographic characteristics. While race and gender can impact punishments for workplace rule violations, learning more information about causal factors may reduce the likelihood of biased decisions.

In June 2022 the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abandoning nearly 50 years of precedent, and removing federal protections for abortion access. In doing so, the Court drew on a lineage of explicit and implicit discourses that have constructed abortions, abortion providers, and pregnant and fetal bodies in ways that make overturning Roe seem inevitable. This thesis takes a reproductive justice perspective while conducting a feminist critical discourse analysis of the majority and concurring opinions in Dobbs. Two main findings stand out. First, the decision relies on originalist constructions of abortions, abortion providers, pregnant people, and fetuses to justify overturning Roe. These constructions have been carefully cultivated within originalist legal theory since at least the 1990s, designed specifically to "erode" federal protections for abortion. Second, the majority and concurring opinions rely on the argument that abortion is akin to racism, and that the Dobbs Court is, accordingly, akin to historically anti-racist Courts such as the Brown v. Board of Education Court. These findings have several implications. First, the institutionalization of originalism is significant since this legal theory is rooted in a history of racism and sexism. Second, the Court relies on a post-racial epistemology to grant themselves racial authority. This allows the Court to police racialized and pregnant bodies while seeming to eschew racist and sexist ideologies. Finally, these findings also have implications for understanding other types of contemporary attacks on civil liberties.

Law enforcement needs simulation practice tailored to de-escalation skills. Law enforcement officers spend most of their training time practicing how to use force appropriately and very little time practicing how to avoid using force. There is little research into the best ways for law enforcement to reduce their use of force and the best ways to provide training to individuals to coach them to avoid using force. There are many training programs promoting de-escalation techniques, but there is little research into the effectiveness of these programs beyond the ability of individuals to perform the skills that are trained. There is little to show that using these skills reduces crime, reduces the need for incarceration, reduces the level of violence, or improves the communities where they are used. The scope of this project addresses a small part of this gap by examining different ways simulators can be used to provide practice in the skills that are taught. This dissertation contributes to the field of simulation by demonstrating how virtual reality can address deficits in law enforcement training. It does so by studying which techniques are most appropriate in some scenarios and how to better train officers to use them. This project looks at different ways of allowing police officers to practice de-escalation skills to see if these have any bearing on an officer's approach to de-escalation and if the officer responds positively to the practice. This research does not attempt to take the next step of measuring the use of these skills outside the training environment. The results indicate active-duty officers have a positive response to any attempt to practice or promote de-escalation and are especially positive about the potential for training in realistic, situationally appropriate virtual environments.

No description available.

As in many countries, burglary is a very serious crime in Turkey. Scientific methods and techniques are needed to solve complex burglary cases. This study is completed in the Bursa Police context since they classified many crime data conducive to scientific studies under a project called BEMTAP. The main purpose of this study is to examine the factors influencing the commission of burglaries, using an epid-criminological perspective. It can be argued that factors leading to the commission of a crime are important for formulating preventive strategies in the community. In this study, the contributing factors are categorized into three main groups of predictors, by adapting a disease triangle in epidemiology: opportunity factors (agent), offender factors (host), and environmental factors. Criminal method (technique) and time of burglary are conceived as the opportunity factors. Four personal or host characteristics of offender factors are age, gender, marital status, and education level. Distance between the home addresses of burglars and target houses and distance between target houses and police stations are examined as environmental factors. This epid-criminology perspective is thought as a basic framework for integrating two theories: routine activity theory and rational choice theory. Two hypotheses, using agent, host, and environmental factors as predictors, were proposed to test their relationships with the frequency of burglaries committed and with the likelihood of committing repeated burglaries. In measuring the relative influence of the predictor variables on the number of burglaries and on repeated burglaries, two different models were constructed and validated. For the first model of predictors of crime against property (burglary), Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analysis was performed. For the second model, a logistic model of the predictors of repeated burglaries was used and analyzed. The results show that offender factors are more influential than opportunity and environmental factors in explaining the variability in frequency of burglaries committed and the likelihood to commit repeated burglaries. In conclusion, the best way to reduce burglary rate is to focus on offender factors. Dealing with opportunity factors and environmental factors would also contribute to a decreased burglary rate.

As a result of high media attention surrounding school shootings in recent years, it may appear that American public schools are becoming dangerous places (Schildkraut & Elsass, 2016; Elsass, Schildkraut, & Stafford, 2016; Toppo, 2013). Though schools remain to be one of the safest locations for children, various safety measures are discussed and implemented in schools to combat this perceived problem and ensure the safety of school campuses. Discussions of best safety practices spikes directly following a school shooting event from relevant parties, such as school administration, law enforcement agencies, parents, and students, (Crawford & Burns, 2015; Chrusciel, Wolfe, Hansen, Rojek, & Kaminski, 2014) but little existing literature focuses on teachers, more specifically how safe teachers perceive schools to be with regard to gun violence and school shootings. This study seeks to build upon the small body of literature that currently exists on teachers' perceptions of safety and hopes to introduce new opportunities for research in the future. This study is comprised of 212 teachers throughout Central Florida. The results of this research show that while teachers overall feel very safe teaching at their schools, there are areas they believe can be improved upon. Of the safety measures used to prevent and reduce gun violence at schools, program-based safety measures and School Resource Officers make these teachers feel the safest. These perceptions of safety do not vary from one Central Florida county to the next, as most teachers are largely in agreement as to what measures make them feel safe. It was also revealed that most teachers in the sample are also unsupportive of legislation that would allow classroom teachers to carry firearms on school campuses.