The present work is a new attempt to interpret on the episode in Genesis 18:1-15 by the method of narrative criticism. The general tendency on the narrative had focused on the exemplary act of Abraham’s hospitality interpreting it as his righteousness by the perspective of NT (Heb 13:2) or by the test motive of Greek Myth (the birth of Orion). The retributive theology was considered too much in interpreting the Fellowship narrative (Gn 18:1-15).These interpretations conflict with the narrator’s own theological views: (1) righteousness by faith (Gn 15:6), (2) God’s mercifulness to save Lot (Gn 19:29), and (3) God’s being gracious to make Sarah conceive (Gn 21:1). This study attempts to find out the author’s own interpretative view indicated in the whole Abraham narrative (Gn 11:27-25:11) as well as in the Fellowship Narrative itself (Gn 18:1-15).The present work is an attempt to interpret on the narrative by the method of narrative criticism. This study pays attention to the narrator’s various literary skills: “linking structure with preceding episode” (Gn 18:1a); “Sandwiched structure” of the larger context (Gn 18:1-21:7); Unique Plot Sequence; and Repeated Clue word and phrase (“laugh,” “Sarah,” ”this time next year”). These literary skills are understood to indicate the faithfulness of the Lord who tries to fulfill what he promised. The conclusion of this study overturns the traditional interpretations on the Fellowship Narrative. This work attests that Abraham showed his righteousness not by doing hospitality but by obeying God’s new command of circumcision out of willing heart as he used to obey the Lord’s commands having faith in the promise of the Lord (ch.5.3.2.2). The motive of God’s visit is to have the covenantal fellowship with obedient Abraham (ch. 2.1.6; 2.1.6.1). Abraham’s first moment recognition of deity is attested by interpreting of the technical pair verb, “And he lifted up his eyes and he saw and Lo!” (Gn 18:2a), which depicts prophetic experience of Abraham (ch.3.3). Abraham’s manner for the visitors is relevant to the higher ones (ch.3.3.2.1). The futile human endeavor without having faith is considered as the reason of being delayed of fulfillment of God’s promise (Gn 16). The fulfillment of the promised son was not attained by any human effort, but only by God’s merciful intervention in the Abraham narrative (ch. 4.4.4 and 4.4.5). / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Old Testament Studies / unrestricted

The riveting interplay of industrialization, informalization, and exponential technological growth of recent years has shifted the attention from classical machine learning techniques to more sophisticated deep learning approaches; yet its intrinsic black-box nature has been impeding its widespread adoption in transparency-critical operations. In this rapidly evolving landscape, where the symbiotic relationship between research and practical applications has never been more interwoven, the contribution of this paper is twofold: advancing gradient faithfulness of CAM methods and exploring new frontiers beyond it. In the first part, we theorize three novel gradient-based CAM formulations, aimed at replacing and superseding traditional Grad-CAM-based methods by tackling and addressing the intricately and persistent vanishing and saturating gradient problems. As a consequence, our work introduces novel enhancements to Grad-CAM that reshape the conventional gradient computation by incorporating a customized and adapted technique inspired by the well-established and provably Expected Gradients’ difference-from-reference approach. Our proposed techniques– Expected Grad-CAM, Expected Grad-CAM++and Guided Expected Grad-CAM– as they operate directly on the gradient computation, rather than the recombination of the weighing factors, are designed as a direct and seamless replacement for Grad-CAM and any posterior work built upon it. In the second part, we build on our prior proposition and devise a novel CAM method that produces both high-resolution and class-discriminative explanation without fusing other methods, while addressing the issues of both gradient and CAM methods altogether. Our last and most advanced proposition, Hyper Expected Grad-CAM, challenges the current state and formulation of visual explanation and faithfulness and produces a new type of hybrid saliencies that satisfy the notion of natural encoding and perceived resolution. By rethinking faithfulness and resolution is possible to generate saliencies which are more detailed, localized, and less noisy, but most importantly that are composed of only concepts that are encoded by the layerwise models’ understanding. Both contributions have been quantitatively and qualitatively compared and assessed in a 5 to 10 times larger evaluation study on the ILSVRC2012 dataset against nine of the most recent and performing CAM techniques across six metrics. Expected Grad-CAM outperformed not only the original formulation but also more advanced methods, resulting in the second-best explainer with an Ins-Del score of 0.56. Hyper Expected Grad-CAM provided remarkable results across each quantitative metric, yielding a 0.15 increase in insertion when compared to the highest-scoring explainer PolyCAM, totaling to an Ins-Del score of 0.72.

[pt] Esta tese é fruto de uma análise hermenêutica crítica dos fundamentos da Teologia Moral elaborada por Bernhard Häring que, por suas características e propostas, recebe aqui o nome de Moral do Diálogo. A Teologia Moral é uma ciência prática e, por esta razão, é significativo ressaltar que a construção teórica do Autor tem como sustentação o cotidiano de sua existência, a narrativa de uma longa e fecunda vida, que soube fazer do Diálogo uma experiência acolhida, construída e transmitida. Nele, vida e obra se fundem e se confundem, para mostrar que o Diálogo é um caminho ético necessário para a vida da humanidade e que, por isto, deve ser proposto a todas as pessoas como a novidade que está presente nas entranhas do ethos cristão, como a referência de uma religião monoteísta trinitária que o assume e o realiza na própria fonte. Assim sendo, o Diálogo não pode também deixar de ser assumido pela Igreja de Jesus Cristo, como um compromisso ético-moral capaz de fazer dela um sinal fecundo e promissor do Reino de Deus. O que se pode dizer é que a Moral do Diálogo, à luz da Lei do Espírito que dá vida em Cristo, traz elementos novos e imprescindíveis para a reconfiguração dos fundamentos da moral cristã e torna-se uma boa notícia para o mundo atual. As conseqüências que daí decorrem já se fazem sentir. A moral especial, ao tratar das questões relacionadas à vida cotidiana dos homens e das mulheres deste tempo, já o faz numa perspectiva renovada. A liberdade e a fidelidade criativas são os pressupostos indispensáveis para a formação de pessoas responsáveis e sadias que, em parceria, desejam buscar uma vida plena de sentido. A Igreja de Jesus Cristo não se encontra fora desta perspectiva renovadora. O acolhimento de sinceras e sadias posturas relacionais, que garantem o Diálogo como mediação necessária para a re- elaboração de um modo de ser cristão, mais fraterno e solidário, é um caminho de grande fecundidade. Este caminho nos convida a olhar para dentro e para fora de nós mesmos, na recuperação de uma unidade que se abre para o acolhimento das enriquecedoras diferenças. Esta não é uma visão ingenuamente otimista. Existem desafios a serem vencidos, mas estes não matam a esperança e é ela que nos permite perceber que, apesar de todas as dificuldades, o projeto já é vencedor por si mesmo. Os alcances hermenêuticos da Moral do Diálogo são reais e mostram que muitos autores brasileiros e latinoamericanos beberam desta fonte para a elaboração de uma Moral interpelada pelas situações vividas no Terceiro Mundo, que pedem, de modo especial, um Diálogo frutuoso em favor da solidariedade que garanta a dignidade de toda vida humana. / [en] This thesis is the fruit of an interpretative critical analysis of the bases of Moral Theology elaborated by Bernhard Häring which, due to is characteristics and proposals, is here given the name Morals of Dialogue. Moral Theology is a pratical science and, because of this it is important to emphasize that the theoretical construction of the author has as its foundation his day-to-day existence, the story of a long and productive life, in wich he perceived how to make Dialogue a welcome experience, which he built on and transmitted to others. In it, his life and his work are fused and confused, to show that Dialogue is an ethical course necessary for the life of humanity and that it should therefore be recommended to all people as the novelty that is present at the heart of the Christian ethos, as the reference of a trinitarian monotheistic religion which accepts it and carries it out at source. This being so, Dialogue could not fail to be also accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ as an ethical-moral commitment capable of making it a fertile and promissing sign of the Kingdom of God. What we can say is that the Morals of Dialogue, in the light of the Law of the Spirit which gives life in Christ, brings indispensible new elements for the reconfiguration of the bases of Christian morals, which is good news for todays world. The consequences of this are already being felt. The special morals for dealing with questions related to the day-to-day life of men and women of these days already does so in a renewed perspective. Creative freedom and faithfulness are necessary pressuppositions for the development of responsible, healthy people who, in partnership, wish to seek a life full of meaning. The Church of Jesus Christ is not beyond this perspective of renewal. The ready adoption of sincere and healthy attitudes in relationships, which guarantee Dialogue as a necessary mediation for the re-elaboration of a Christian way of life which is more fraternal and solidary, is an extremely productive course. This course invites us to look inside and outside ourselves, in the recuperation of a unit which is open to welcome enriching differences. This is not a naïvely optimistic vision. There are challenges to be overcome, but these do not douse our hope, and it is this hope that enables us to realize that, despite all the difficulties, the project is in itself a victorious one. The interpretative reaches of the Morals of Dialogue are real and show that many Brasilian and Latin American authors have drunk from this well to elaborate morals which are interpellated by the situations experienced in the Third Word, which demande especially a fruitful dialogue on behalf of the solidarity which garantees the dignity of all human life.

This qualitative study was done in Livingstone, Zambia, and used focus group discussions to investigate the reasons that youths aged 15 to 24 years see as justifying, or compelling, their non-use of recommended methods for prevention of sexual transmission of HIV. It focused on four methods, namely abstinence, condom use, voluntary counseling and testing, and mutual faithfulness. The study found that non-adherence to HIV preventative methods is linked to variables in the process of adolescent growth and development, to contextual variables in society, to characteristics of products and services associated with these HIV preventative methods, and to disease characteristics of HIV itself. A key conclusion of this study is that to improve the effectiveness of HIV prevention programs among the youths it is essential that factors that hinder adherence to preventative methods are recognized and addressed. / Social Work / M.A.(Social Work)

This qualitative study was done in Livingstone, Zambia, and used focus group discussions to investigate the reasons that youths aged 15 to 24 years see as justifying, or compelling, their non-use of recommended methods for prevention of sexual transmission of HIV. It focused on four methods, namely abstinence, condom use, voluntary counseling and testing, and mutual faithfulness. The study found that non-adherence to HIV preventative methods is linked to variables in the process of adolescent growth and development, to contextual variables in society, to characteristics of products and services associated with these HIV preventative methods, and to disease characteristics of HIV itself. A key conclusion of this study is that to improve the effectiveness of HIV prevention programs among the youths it is essential that factors that hinder adherence to preventative methods are recognized and addressed. / Social Work / M.A.(Social Work)