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- Research
- Open Access
Exponential stability of fractional stochastic differential equations with distributed delay
- Li Tan1Email author
© Tan; licensee Springer. 2014
- Received: 20 September 2014
- Accepted: 4 December 2014
- Published: 18 December 2014
Equations driven by fractional Brownian motion are attracting more and more attention. This paper considers fractional stochastic differential equations with distributed delay. With the variation-of-constants formula, an explicit expression and asymptotic behavior of the solution are provided, sufficient conditions are derived to guarantee the p th moment exponential stability and almost surely exponential stability.
- fractional Brownian motion
- variation-of-constants formula
- exponential stability
- distributed delay
1 Introduction
Fractional Brownian motion (fBm) was first studied in 1940 by Kolmogorov [1], who defined it in a Hilbert space and named it a Wiener helix. Until 1968, Mandelbrot and Van Ness [2] provided the stochastic integral representation of fBm in terms of a standard Brownian motion, the name fBm was then introduced. As an extension of classic Brownian motion, fBm can give a better description to model natural situations like the temperature at a specific place as a function of time and so on [3]. Because of their extensive applications in finance, economics, biology, etc., fBm is attracting more and more attention.
For , the fBm is exactly the standard Brownian motion without memory. For , it is usually divided into two cases, and . The case for is called a long memory process, while is called a short memory process.
It is known that fBm shares something with Brownian motion, but the critical difference is that the increments of fBm are dependent while that of Brownian motion are independent. Therefore, fBm is neither a Markov process, nor a semimartingale, and the theories of stochastic differential equations (SDEs) driven by standard Brownian motion are invalid in the case of fBm. Recently, there are some studies on existence, uniqueness, and stability of the solutions for fractional SDEs. Ferrante and Rovira [4] proved the existence and uniqueness for a stochastic delay differential equation driven by a fractional Brownian motion with Hurst parameter . Ferrante and Rovira [5] gave a proof of the existence and uniqueness for stochastic delay differential equations with hereditary drift driven by a fractional Brownian motion with Hurst parameter . Caraballo et al. [6] investigated the existence, uniqueness, and exponential asymptotic behavior of mild solutions to stochastic delay evolution equations perturbed by a fractional Brownian motion with Hurst parameter . Based on the research of [6], Boufoussi and Hajji [7] gave a proof of the existence and uniqueness of mild solutions for a neutral stochastic differential equation with finite delay, driven by a fractional Brownian motion in a Hilbert space. Dung [8] gave a sufficient condition for the exponential asymptotic behavior of solutions of a general class of linear fractional SDEs with time-varying delays. However, to the best of our knowledge, fractional SDEs with distributed delay have not been considered till now. In this paper, SDEs driven by an fBm with distributed delay will be introduced and asymptotic behavior of the solution will be analyzed.
is a standard Brownian motion, Γ represents the gamma function, and is the Hurst parameter. There are also several other stochastic integral representations for fBm [3].
is called the Riemann-Liouville fractional integral. There is a relation between the Riemann-Liouville fractional Brownian motion (RLfBm) and fBm [9]. Considering that the process has absolutely continuous trajectories, it suffices to consider the term instead of [10], thus, will be denoted by along our paper.
This paper is organized as follows: In Section 2, the explicit form of solution to the retarded SDE with an fBm is given. In Section 3, asymptotic behavior of the solution is provided, and sufficient conditions are derived to guarantee the p th moment exponential stability and almost surely exponential stability.
2 Preliminary and explicit solution
with the initial value , , where is a RLfBm with Hurst parameter , is a finite signed measure defined on .
Before we introduce the explicit representation of (2.1), we first present a lemma that is useful in later parts.
Lemma 2.1 [13]
where . Furthermore, converges to in uniformly with respect to when .
where is the fundamental solution of (2.2) with initial value and , .
with the initial value and , .
Let , the representation of is obvious. □
3 Exponential behavior
The following two theorems provide the p th moment exponential stability and almost sure exponential stability of the solutions to (2.1).
where .
where . This completes the proof. □
where .
The desired conclusion is satisfied with . □
Remark 3.1 This provides a method to ensure the exponential stability of SDEs driven by an fBm, and it can be generalized to fractional SDEs of neutral type.
Author's contributions
The author carried out the proof and conceived of the study. The author read and approved the final manuscript.
The author is very grateful to the editor and the anonymous referees for their insightful and constructive comments and suggestions, which have led to an improved version of this paper. The author also thanks the NNSF (71371193) for support.
Authors' Affiliations
- Kolmogorov AN: Wienersche Spiralen und einige andere interessante Kurven im Hilbertschen Raum. C. R. (Dokl.) Acad. Sci. URSS 1940, 26: 115-118.MathSciNetMATHGoogle Scholar
- Mandelbrot BB, Van Ness JW: Fractional Brownian motions, fractional noises and applications. SIAM Rev. 1968, 10: 422-437. 10.1137/1010093MathSciNetView ArticleMATHGoogle Scholar
- Biagini F, Hu YZ, Øksendal B, Zhang TS: Stochastic Calculus for Fractional Brownian Motion and Applications. Springer, London; 2008.View ArticleMATHGoogle Scholar
- Ferrante M, Rovira C:Stochastic delay differential equations driven by fractional Brownian motion with Hurst parameter . Bernoulli 2006, 12: 85-100.MathSciNetMATHGoogle Scholar
- Ferrante M, Rovira C: Convergence of delay differential equations driven by fractional Brownian motion. J. Evol. Equ. 2010, 10: 761-783. 10.1007/s00028-010-0069-8MathSciNetView ArticleMATHGoogle Scholar
- Caraballo T, Garrido-Atienza MJ, Taniguchi T: The existence and exponential behavior of solutions to stochastic delay evolution equations with a fractional Brownian motion. Nonlinear Anal. 2011, 74: 3671-3684. 10.1016/j.na.2011.02.047MathSciNetView ArticleMATHGoogle Scholar
- Boufoussi B, Hajji S: Neutral stochastic functional differential equations driven by a fractional Brownian motion in a Hilbert space. Stat. Probab. Lett. 2012, 82: 1549-1558. 10.1016/j.spl.2012.04.013MathSciNetView ArticleMATHGoogle Scholar
- Dung N: Asymptotic behavior of linear fractional stochastic differential equations with time-varying delays. Commun. Nonlinear Sci. Numer. Simul. 2014, 19: 1-7. 10.1016/j.cnsns.2013.06.004MathSciNetView ArticleGoogle Scholar
- Lim SC, Sithi VM: Asymptotic properties of the fractional Brownian motion of Riemann-Liouville type. Phys. Lett. A 1995, 206: 311-317. 10.1016/0375-9601(95)00627-FMathSciNetView ArticleMATHGoogle Scholar
- Alòs E, Mazet O, Nualart D: Stochastic calculus with respect to fractional Brownian motion with Hurst parameter lesser than 1/2. Stoch. Process. Appl. 2000, 6: 121-139.View ArticleMathSciNetMATHGoogle Scholar
- arXiv:1308.2018
- Hale JK: Theory of Functional Differential Equations. Springer, Berlin; 1977.View ArticleMATHGoogle Scholar
- Thao TH: An approximate approach to fractional analysis for finance. Nonlinear Anal. 2006, 7: 124-132. 10.1016/j.nonrwa.2004.08.012MathSciNetView ArticleMATHGoogle Scholar
This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.


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Check one more item off the list. Yesterday I completed my first HALF MARATHON. That's right shout it from the rooftops people. I did it. And after all my anxiety I DID IT WELL! Yes I am proud. My official time 2:42:17. My goal had been 2:45 so there ya go. My brother Len did the run with me. He ran every step of the way with me and we finished together. It was awesome. It was the Arkon Roadrunner Marathon in Akron, Ohio. As we ran I reflected on how far I have come in the last year. One year ago I could not run for 30 seconds at a time. That is where I started. Run for 30 seconds and then walk. And then work myself up to running for 1 minute and then walk. And then run for 1 entire song. And then walk…..And then I did my first 5K. And then my first 10K. And now my first Half Marathon. I am proud to say that we did not walk one time. We kept going one foot in front of the other. That has always been my goal NO WALKING. And I did it. It was exciting and emotional and just fun. I could not believe how well I paced myself. I paid close attention to my hear rate and tried to not exceed my peak. My breathing was perfect I could talk without to much trouble and I felt GREAT. I felt way better than on my training runs. I also ran the entire thing with no music. I had my ipod on and headphones in all set but I never turned it on at all. I wanted to be "in" the moment. I wanted to hear everything around me. Other runners talking, the sound of my own breathing. The echos of feet hitting the pavement. The thick adrenaline in the air. My raggedy breathing as I was getting up the last hills in the 11th mile….it was a 5% grade. The digging way down the not stopping. I wanted to hear all of that. I did not want to lose myself in the music this time. This time, my first time, I wanted to be there 100%. I know that there will be more goals in the future and I know I will always be looking for my PR's now. But this time on September 25,2010 will always be at the very top of my accomplishments. I worked really hard for it. And now I have the medal to prove it! YAY! YAY! YAY!
Of course I will post the professional photos from race day as soon as they are available. These were just taken from my phone. Of course we ran off at 5:30am with dead batteries in our camera. Oh well!

subset: commoncrawl


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Incoming ASBMB President Suzanne Pfeffer discusses one of her top goals for the next two years: addressing the needs of the society's youngest members. (Titled "Your ASBMB" in print version.)
It is a special honor and a privilege to begin my term as president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Our outgoing president, Greg Petsko, deserves an enormous thank you from all of us— for guiding the society so ably and for making us feel that we really are a part of ASBMB by writing such engaging, thought-provoking and humorous columns. He has been a terrific role model, and his shoes will be impossible to fill. Luckily, for all of us, Greg will continue to serve as an officer of the society for an additional year, in the role of past-president. I am especially grateful that I will be able to rely on his wise counsel during my term.
I hold a special place for ASBMB in my scientific heart. I had the privilege of starting my life as a biochemist while still an undergraduate student, first during a brief summer stint with Don Lightfoot at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and then returning to my undergraduate University of California, Berkeley, campus and the lab of Mike Chamberlin, where I worked on Escherichia coli RNA polymerase for two years. My project culminated in a first author paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. At the time, several of the Berkeley faculty members were JBC editorial board members, and I remember asking Clint Ballou for guidance on how to prepare a figure on a day when Chamberlin wasn't around. Teasing me, he took out a giant pair of scissors as if to slice my artwork— I almost died. This was, of course, at a time when figures were drawn by hand— computers were not yet tools at every desk. Publishing that first paper in JBC and receiving those reprints with my name in print for the first time made me feel like an ASBMB member for life. Being elected president is thus a special honor for me, and I will do my best to serve you, our members, during my term.
In preparation for my presidency, the past year has included my participation in many of our society's committee meetings. This has provided me with a chance to learn first-hand about many of the important activities in which ASBMB is currently involved. Thanks to the work of all of our committees, under the guidance of the council leadership and outstanding staff, ASBMB is in very good shape.
Under the watchful eye of Merle Olson, our finance committee has done a wonderful job of shepherding the society's reserve funds that have now recovered to pre-economic downturn levels. These funds support all of our activities, including staffing and production of our journals, as well as enabling the Undergraduate Affiliate Network Committee, Minority Affairs and Education and Professional Development Committees (UANC led by Neena Grover, MAC led by Craig Cameron and EPD by Ellis Bell followed by Peter Kennelly) to offer 316 travel or child care fellowships for students, postdocs and faculty to attend our 2010 annual meeting. Thanks to all of the members of these committees for excellent program contributions during the meeting in Anaheim.
The Public Affairs Advisory Committee, led by Bill Merrick, has dedicated itself to forging new relationships with members of U.S. Congress, as well as with representatives of all of the institutes at the National Institutes of Health and with key program directors at the National Science Foundation. The committee's main focus this year has been to work to ensure the continued prioritization of investigator-initiated research. Peter Farnham, our director of public affairs, joined this past year by Kyle Brown, our science policy fellow, have led the charge and guided the committee's activities with great leadership and enthusiasm.
Herbert Tabor, editor of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Ralph Bradshaw and Al Burlingame, co-editors of Molecular and Cellular Proteomics and Ed Dennis and Joe Witztum, co-editors of the Journal of Lipid Research, are doing wonderful jobs of overseeing their publications. Indeed, all of the editors and editorial board members deserve our thanks for their dedicated service to the society and the scientific community overall. The Publications Committee, under Toni Antalis, has provided guidance to JBC, MCP and JLR and has helped to adjudicate ethical issues that arise from time to time. Thanks to the ASBMB council, starting this month, ASBMB members will be eligible for page charge and color figure discounts, and JBC no longer requires a fee to submit manuscripts. This, together with the excellent quality of the review process, should encourage our members to continue to support our society publications. ASBMB publishes these journals to serve you, our members. We have been leaders in the use of electronic publishing and will continue to excel in the electronic journal world. (Check out one of our most recent additions— the ability to rotate three-dimensional images with just the click of a mouse in our journal article PDFs.)
The 2010 program chairs and the ASBMB Meetings Committee (chaired by Joan Conaway) deserve hearty congratulations for assembling an incredibly successful annual meeting in Anaheim. And, during 2010, ASBMB will sponsor four small meetings, the majority of talks for which will come from submitted abstracts. This means that more students and postdoctoral fellows will have a chance to speak, and the sessions will not be dominated by the same names that always seem to appear on speaker lists that we all peruse in popular science journals. Thanks to Ali Shilatifard for overseeing the Small Meetings Subcommittee. And, finally, the Nominations Committee assembled an excellent slate of candidates to lead the society moving forward.
Just because the ASBMB is doing well doesn't mean that we can't do even better. One of my top goals for the next two years is to try to address the needs of our youngest members. Graduate student representatives polled from 50 different biochemistry departments all indicated strong enthusiasm about the possibility of ASBMB sponsoring local meetings for students and postdoctoral fellows. These meetings would offer an opportunity for participants to share their research in the form of short talks and posters and also would include panel discussions on topics including career options and how to apply for jobs, be it an academic, industrial or legal setting or a consulting or teaching position. We already have started to plan two regional pilot workshops— one at Rutgers University and one at Northwestern Medical School, with Raleigh-Durham and Seattle to follow soon after. I will keep you posted on our progress and would love to hear from you if you would like our help in creating and sponsoring a one-day ASBMB graduate student/postdoc event in your city.
We also hope to include more mentoring events during the annual meeting. I will return to the question of graduate training in a future column. We need to be thinking about whether our current curricula adequately train students to work on a genome-wide and/or systems-wide level— should we be teaching students to handle large data sets and make full use of statistics? Can they program in MATLAB? Are we helping them learn to identify the most important scientific questions rather than just how to carry out the next experiment? And, are we providing them with leadership skills that will carry over into the jobs they likely are to assume, including biotech, teaching, law and advocacy? ASBMB will try to facilitate discussion of these critical issues and ways to address them in the months to come.
So, why should you be an ASBMB member and support this society? ASBMB is devoted to promoting the discipline of biochemistry and molecular biology. This means using all of our resources to expand and improve scientific training and mentorship at all levels, to provide venues for our members to share their findings— whether in person, print or online— and to establish important contacts to facilitate scientific exchange and collaboration. Our society works hard to fight for research dollars for its members and to keep them informed about science policy matters that will affect them both as scientists and as citizens. ASBMB can help bring us together to make our science better and to keep it collegial in the true Merriam-Webster sense of that word, "…marked by camaraderie among colleagues." So, thank you for your continued support, and please don't hesitate to let me know what you think will make us even better.
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Since the first night Officer Mick Huon met Mary J Sinclair down at the Convict Inn, fiery sparks of passion have flown between the two of them.
After stealing one kiss from her, Mick decides
it's best if he keeps his distance from Mary J, mainly due to his steadily rising affection for her that was stirred up from one brief tender moment they shared.
What Mick hadn't counted on was for Mary J to seduce him.
The woman has a fire within her that sets him ablaze with primal lust. To tame a stubborn redhead like Mary J, Mick will have to pull out all the stops if he's planning on enticing her into his bed.
But when Mary J's dark past collides with the present, it stirs up more trouble than they were both prepared for.
Can Mick conquer Mary J's past in time or
will he end up losing her forever?
Holly Shepherd is gearing up to leave New York for a yearlong transfer to the London office. So the last thing she needs is to indulge in her dark desires for her coworker Travis Kane.
That won't stop Travis. He's a persistent man, one who never gives up on what he wants, and what he desires most of all is her.
One night he whispers his dark promise to her,
that he will make her his in every conceivable way by the end of the night.
Taking a gamble, Holly loses her tightly held
inhibitions. Just once she wants to know what it would be like to spend one night in his arms and in his bed.
What Holly didn't expect, however, was that one night of unadulterated bliss could turn into many nights.
Now days from leaving the country, Holly must make a choice. If she chooses incorrectly, then she runs the risk of not only breaking her heart but Travis's heart as well.
New to the town of Kingston, Chloe Watson is still trying to shake off the 'new girl in town' tag. So the very last thing she needs is a run in with the local cops for reckless driving. Ugh!
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After all, Chloe's life is more important to him than anything else in the world, including his own life. But will one mistake end up destroying their one chance at finding love in each other's arms?


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Nintendo Wii U Gets Launch Date, Pricing, and TVii Entertainment Features
2012 hadn't been a kind year to the upcoming Nintendo Wii U console – bad press was abundant, with concerns about hardware capabilities, the battery life of the GamePad controller, the possibility of a frame rate dip when using that GamePad controller, and whether or not Nintendo would actually learn to Internet.
Considering that the Wii U was promised as a 2012 release, Nintendo needed some positive momentum for their new console in a big way. Fortunately for the long-standing video game titan, they got it at their presentation in New York yesterday.
Just as a reminder, the big changes in store for the Wii U are a significant hardware update that should bring graphics capabilities at least up to par with, if not past, what the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 can do, and a new GamePad controller. Only a maximum of two GamePad controllers can be used at a time – otherwise, the Wii U will still be using Wiimotes (although, as we found out yesterday, those will need to be the more recent Wiimote Plus controllers, not the older ones – whether or not the Wii Motion Plus accessory will be compatible with the Wii U is unconfirmed). That GamePad is a 6.2" touchscreen tablet with dual joysticks and all the buttons and D-pads you would expect on a video game controller. The GamePad will open up a lot of new ways to interact with games, and of course, it'll serve a different function for each game (it can serve as interactive map, a HUD, a menu screen – anything video game designers can imagine).
Here's what we learned yesterday – the Wii U will drop on November 18th. The basic version will retail for about $300, while the deluxe set will go for $350. The basic version will have 8 GB of storage, a sensor bar, and an HDMI cable. The deluxe set will include 32 GB of storage, a console stand, a charging stand for the GamePad, a copy of Nintendo Land (roughly, the Wii Sports of the Wii U – a theme park of sorts with mini-games related to classic Nintendo franchises), and access to a promotional discount program for the digital store. Wii U games will sell for $60, and while the official launch day lineup is unconfirmed, Reggie Fils-Aime declared during the presentation that it would be the strongest launch lineup for any Nintendo console, for whatever that's worth. Wiimote Plus controllers will still retail for $40.
Nintendo did show that it has been learning a little about Internet services, introducing something called Nintendo TVii that took many by surprise with how impressive the service looks. TVii looks like it will match Xbox Live in terms of functionality, except it will be free. TVii is an app that runs on the GamePad. The app pulls content from all kinds of online services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, and puts it all in one place. Each member of the family can create their own account, and receive personalized recommendations based on all of their viewing habits, regardless of source. Better yet, TVii can pull content from DVR and live television and put it on screen – it's basically a one-stop place for all of your entertainment needs, in the most complete sense – possibly even more complete than Xbox Live (though that could change when SmartGlass hits). There will also be a social networking component, which will allow Miis to become friends, share recommendations, and comment on shows and movies in real-time. Connecting to Facebook and Twitter will also be possible.
Nintendo's other big problem from the Wii (which, despite a historically successful start, crashed into a brick wall a couple years ago and hasn't recovered since) was the lack of quality third-party games. That changes with the Wii U. Marquee titles like Assassin's Creed III, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Mass Effect 3, and a new untitled project from the makers of the popular JRPG Xenoblade are all heading to the Wii U – games that would have almost certainly never appeared on the Wii. Classic Nintendo is on its way, too, with an impressive looking New Super Mario Bros. U and Pikmin 3 confirmed. And, in what came as a major surprise to pretty much anyone with a vested interest in the franchise, Bayonetta 2 was announced and confirmed as a Wii U exclusive. We got to spend some hands-on time with these games yesterday, and were quite impressed with how much fun we were having with games like Nintendo Land and New Super Mario Bros. U. After playing these games, we're starting to understand how the GamePad adds another fun way to interact with games - at-least when implemented properly
Questions about the new console remain, but Nintendo can rest assured that they'll be able to cruise into November 18th with a little positive momentum, something that was badly lacking before yesterday. We'll still need to see that launch lineup, and Nintendo still desperately needs to display that online multiplayer won't be a disaster again, but the Wii U has probably never looked as promising as it does right now.
Nintendo Wii U Gets Launch Date, Pricing, and TVii Entertainment Features was first posted on September 14, 2012 at 4:41 am.
© 2012 Chip Chick
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Norvell Europe Launches At Olympia Beauty Show
Olympia Beauty is celebrating its 12th year and promises to be bigger and better than ever. To help celebrate, The London Room will be launching Norvell,
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Set some time aside to pop in and see Brandon Cardinal, Vice President of Norvell Sales and Marketing in America, live on stage at 11am and 2pm where there will be live tanning demos and a chance to experience Novell University as a spray tan student.
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Date: Sunday 2nd October 2016 10am -6pm
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Resources »Eapr »East Asian Pastoral Review 2005 »Volume 42 2005 Number 4 »Is There A Paradigm Shift In Liberation Theology
By Jose Maria Vigil, C.M.F.
Starting from the acknowledgment of the 'crisis' of the theology of liberation, the author focuses first in the mediations and elements of the theology of liberation (socio-analytical, type of reasoning, imaginario, subjects, praxical mediation) and points out what a change of paradigm could mean. The second part of the problem deals with the perspective of systematic theology, interpreting the concept of paradigm as reading of Christianity (doctrinal-theoretical, moralist, ontological-metaphysical readings...). The author asserts that the essential elements of the central paradigm of the theology of liberation are: a historical-eschatological reading of Christianity, the reign-focus and the option for justice; he says these are valid elements, and changes should only focus on smaller paradigms.
I will begin with a description of the external crisis affecting Liberation Theology, then examine it from within to see the changes that are shaking the ground of liberation theology, paying special attention to the theological dogma involved in it.
The External Crisis Facing Liberation Theology
In the first place, there is a fall in the production of materials on liberation theology (LT). Theologians are writing very little, meeting very little and with fewer people. When they do meet, they say nothing in public. All that is heard is their silence. Neoliberalism and globalization, which are enemies of the poor and are in full upswing, are not being discussed today by theologians the same way they discussed the enemies of the poor in the past (military dictatorship and capitalism at that time).
Together with the silence of theologians is the silence of the many courses, workshops, and formation seminars on current reality and theological renewal that were held only a few years ago and have now disappeared. There are also examples of theological content being toned down, with authors avoiding the issues that provoked the greatest amount of criticism.
Instead of concentrating on the theologians, other analysts have focused on the grassroots base of LT, the base Christian communities, saying that they are in recession, that maybe they are too elitist and have not managed to embed themselves in the social fabric.
Others say that LT's language is no longer appropriate for today. It is no longer pertinent to talk about imperialism, revolution, or the poor as historic subjects. LT supported an imaginary social revolution that has been overcome.
Finally, there are others who say LT's silence is not only understandable, but that it is the most coherent approach because it is not the time to denounce or make prophetic proclamations. It is time for a sapiential silence that speaks to daily life not with words but with actions. "It is not a time for prophecy but for wisdom," they say.
If we transcend the external symptoms mentioned above, we can enter into LT's internal situation and undertake a detailed examination of the changes we are feeling in the world today.
Changes at the Level of Mediations
Socio–Analytical Mediation: Societal Utopia
LT never had its own model of society, an ideological socio–political recipe that was proposed as necessary for society. What it did and does have is a Christian utopia that serves as a guide to move history forward. Nevertheless, many of those people who felt inspired by LT or sympathized with it were politically involved in liberation strategies coming from the left wing and at the time interpreted this as a concrete practice within the spirit of LT without recognizing the sometimes blurred borders between ideological mediations (necessarily changing according to the socio–political context) and theological positions (permanent). This led some people to the conclusion that the crisis within certain ideologies also meant a crisis in the theological positions closest to them. In each case, the crisis in the societal model inspired by socialism is inevitably reflected in LT, but this is in its practical references not in its principles.1
As we move ahead and keep up with the pulse of today's world, we will be creating, although not perceptibly, the references to the new mediations of the utopia that are on the horizon, and which will have to follow another globalization defined by the resistance and struggle against the principal sign of our time: neoliberalism.
Socio–Analytical Mediation: Analytic Appraisal of Today's Society
For some time we have been hearing that the social sciences are in crisis. The dependence theory was abandoned, but it has not been easy to substitute it with another theory and the vacuum that this produced will continue in some way. In addition, the neoliberal analytic strategies have gained ground and hegemony.
Without any secure analytical instrument we have been forced to see reality from the perspective of contradictory analyses. It is easy for us to start doubting and to end up thinking, along with the neoliberal economists, that the poverty in poor nations is not due to exploitation. Our era is one in which people are somewhat sceptical about the possibility of eliminating poverty. From simple economic mechanisms we begin to believe that poverty is inevitable and because it is inevitable it cannot be morally perverse. There is no need for prophetic critiques, but for a silent form of welfare. All of this can be presented before us as evidence from social analysis, something that is simply scientific, above all forms of ideology.
But the main question in social analysis is neither strictly scientific nor theological. Today, it is ridiculous—and unnecessary, to maintain that there are neutral sciences. Any choice of a tool for social analysis depends on a fundamental ethical and political option, and in this sense leads to a theological option as well.
From the option for the poor (which also guides us when we choose the scientific instrument to be used in social analysis) we cannot accept that the terrible inequality that exists in the world today is not ethically perverse, regardless of the mutations that technology has introduced to the production process, the spectacular economic growth of the dragons of Southeast Asia, or the complexity of our reality. We recognize that there are substantial changes in some areas, but our perception is that basic structural problems continue to exist (qualitatively) and have even worsened (quantitatively) in their most troubling aspects.
We have greater reasons based on more important evidence that are of greater weight than the supposed scientific certainties. We cannot accept the idolatry of neoliberal economic scientific criteria, as in the past we have refused to accept the idolatry of the scientific certainties of Marxism. In the face of scientific reasons of this kind, we have utopian reasons that are more powerful (God, justice, compassion, the universal destiny of the earth's goods, the centrality of the person, the non–absolute character of private property...).
We reject a theology of the inevitable, a culture of desperation, the idea that there is no way out and that we have arrived at the end of history.2
We are not against development, but want another development, another model, based on human ethical values. We do not want a development model designed with profit as the supreme value (as God). We prefer, for example, a development model which creates more jobs instead of offering higher profits. And we know that what we are told is impossible is not so in reality, but only in terms of the current environment that demands a level of confidence in order to attract investment capital.
When we end up thinking that this level of profit is natural, or that the high level of inequality in our world is not ethically repugnant, we have introduced into our analysis the neoliberal scientific reality created from the interest of capital that is not concerned for the affliction of my people (cf. Am 6:6) and has no feeling for the fate of the majority. Adopting this analysis is not only scientific or socio–analytic, but ethical and, by extension, moral and theological.3
It is true that some processes of economic transformation, specially as a result of technological advances, can result in an apparent independence of the productive processes in relation to the exploitation of raw materials and manual labor, which previously was the principal contribution of the Third World to world economies. But we should never forget the historic roots that allowed this transformation to happen, which are not eliminated by the simple acquisition of technology that will supposedly emancipate the productive process from socio–labor concerns.
An uneven distribution of wealth, which continues to grow, as acute as that which exists in the world today is unjust, even in the hypothetical case that there does not exist a causal relationship between the two. A rich man who is just cannot stand next to a poor man: This is what we are told in the parable of Lazarus and what Matthew insinuated (cf. Mt 25:31).
At the Level of the Logic Employed: A Symbolic Reason
People have been insisting for some time that we move from the dominance of the rational mediation (modern and critical) used by LT to a symbolic logic. Maybe because of its own idiosyncrasies, and the historical context with which it has been in constant dialogue, LT has given special relevance to socio-economic–political aspects (supported by its passion for justice4), which has reinforced the use of this kind of logic. And maybe because of all of this—without it having been historically avoidable—and maybe even because of a lack of time, it was not possible to establish a fruitful dialogue with grassroots culture, which has another rationality.
The modern sensitivity to cultural issues, which is taking on force in the Church and in theology, has made us discover that it is necessary to broaden our mediation and pay attention to the symbolic in theology, at the epistemological level, and even more so pastorally and pedagogically.
Although this intuition, small but growing, is presented at times as though it were a rupture, confusing theology with pastoral and pedagogic work, it is not really an alternative current, but an alternative that has been added, broadened, strengthened, and defined. The negative aspect has not been that logical mediation used by LT, but that it was used unilaterally. In relation to everything else, it would not only be absurd, but also impossible to attempt to create a blank slate of everything that has been created and start from zero with a supposed symbolic reasoning taken from a different cultural universe. In any case, this promising intuition is still a risk in that consciously or unconsciously it could reorient LT to be more cultural and less liberating.
At the Level of the New Imaginary
The world of the imaginary is not exclusive to theology but pertains to all human existence. Every culture, every society, every era, every hour in history has its own imagination. And the imaginary of one time fades and is replaced, by eras, societies, and the hours in history pass. It is evident that LT precisely because it is a theology that comes from life, society, and history, and is incarnated in the here and now—is generous with references to reality and social imagery. These references put a date on the texts, which are not written on the margins of history and for all eternity. The abstract theologies, the classics as well as the current writings, are those without any reference to the reality. They are on the margin of the signs of the times, based on a speculative laboratory that is distant from life and history and goes beyond reality.
When the imaginary evolves, grows, changes, is given other feelings, collapses, the LT texts are going to reflect this imbalance. Its references, out of context at the current time, will remain minutes of the commitment this theology had to reality and its time. When time goes by only a superficial glance will confuse the permanent theological context of a text with the references to the reality at the time it was written. Only the theologies that do not make reference to reality are free from this problem.
If today's imagery has profoundly changed with the events of the past few years, it is logical that these changes will be reflected in the texts of the last decade. It is the price that LT has to pay—and willingly—for the privilege of being a theology incarnated and for life. Evidently, the new LT creations, faithful to the permanent charism of the incarnation of this theology, should frame its references in the new imagery that is evolving, and should contribute to its creation, but it cannot stop being a living theology full of practical and theoretical references.
At the Level of Widening Subjects, Perspectives, and New Fields
Years ago, even before the historic changes which we have just discussed, there was talk of emerging subjects: principally indigenous peoples, blacks, and women.
In LT's first years (it is worth remembering that it is still a very young form of theology) all of these subjects fell under the perspective of socio–economic poverty. It certainly highlighted that women were "doubly oppressed"5 as women and poor, and that indigenous people and blacks were "the poorest of the poor."6This was true, but it was not the full truth. It is not only that indigenous peoples, blacks, and women are oppressed and even suffer multiple oppression, but that they are the other, they are different, and, as such, have something special to contribute.
There is a broadening of the perspective on two fronts. First, there is a broadening of the perspective of oppression, which is not only socio–economic but also ethnic, cultural, gender–based, etc. Second, theology is enriched by incorporating other perspectives: anthropological, cultural, gender (which cannot be done fully without the participation of these subjects). New fields make themselves present in LT with force: cultures, inculturation, women, feminism, theology of the body, indigenous theology, dialogue with pre–Colombian and African religions, ecology, etc. This broadening of the perspective inevitably redefines the future of LT in its different branches.
We also need to mention here what we discussed earlier in relation to symbolic reason: It is not about an alternative option but an additional option, not only in relation to the past but also what is new. It is a broadening of the concept of subjects and a strengthening of the oppression–liberation concept, which will not only be considered from the economic perspective and will produce new statements. There should be no confusion between this broadening and strengthening of LT with its dissolving into a feminist, indigenous, black, or ecological theology (although they are liberating). These new statements do not give us an excuse not to pay attention to the classical perspective (of economic poverty), which has not only lost ground, but poverty has increased both qualitatively and quantitatively.
At the Level of Praxis: The Liberation Strategy
The militants of the past decade said (at the level of praxis both within and outside LT) that the strategy for liberation was the individual emancipation of one country after another from the capitalist system by taking power. It was the domino theory: If Nicaragua won, El Salvador would win, Guatemala would follow. A few years ago, the domino theory worked but in the opposite way, contrary to what these militants had hoped. In today's world, which is so different, that global strategy is no longer viable.
It is obvious that a liberation strategy cannot pursue the emancipation of a country or take power through arms, but must create a new power through civil society (Richard 1995:59-67), from within. Strategies and paths different from those of only a few years ago need to be followed to achieve the same goal of liberation. Some actions that were revolutionary are considered reformist today and vice versa. Objectives that were a priority in the last decades are today considered secondary or have disappeared. The paradigm (if we understand this word as the historic liberation strategy) has certainly changed. But if a liberation strategy has disappeared another needs to be found, and if it is not possible to find it then it has to be invented. What has broken down is the model for a liberation strategy, not liberation itself.
Only naive people toss out the baby with the bath water. And only through this naiveté can one confuse the breakdown of a strategy with the breakdown of the utopia of liberation, of the Kingdom! The strategy was only a simple method of achieving this utopia. There are people who, when they do not see a way out (or do not want to see it), do not see the need for a way out. There are people who cannot see a clear strategy for liberation today, so they do not see the need for a historic praxis of transformation, despite the fact that there is more need for this today than before.
Are There Changes at the Level of Systematic Theology?
For the past few years people have been talking about a paradigm shift, even in LT. By talking about a paradigm shift they are adopting an image from the world of science. It is said that there are two moments in science (mainly from Kuhn 1962 and Popper 1959). The first is a time of stability, of homogenous growth: people research, discover, create new aspects and issues, and the results are added to the body of accumulated science without questioning the general concept, the global framework to which everything subscribes. But there are other times when the scientists perceive that something is wrong at the foundation, that they cannot continue a simple linear development, but that the global ordering of things needs to be changed. These are times of paradigm shift.
Apart from the concrete epistemological terminology, the use of the concept paradigm is not precise, but is very flexible, metaphoric or analogical. People talk about a paradigm shift for almost everything, referring as much to a change in the model of society as to changes in the imaginary, logic and the liberation strategy.
Paradigms go beyond the diversity of spiritual currents, go deeper than the peculiarities of each school of theology, are above mere changes in context to which one or another theology may feel affinity. Different schools can move within the same paradigm. A theological paradigm, in the strong sense of the word, is found for us at the level of the important interpretations of Christianity, what are called the interpretation of Christianity. We want to refer concretely to the most profound level of systematic theology, although we do not deny that paradigms can be discussed at more superficial levels.
The Interpretations of Christianity as Theological Paradigms
We are going to limit the discussion to the best-known interpretations.
● There is a doctrinal–theoretic interpretation, or reading, of Christianity. In this interpretation God is perceived as the truth who has come to reveal Godself to us and our answer in faith to God implies, above everything else, an intellectual acceptance of the truths revealed by God and given to the Church. This means living in the faith of the Church, from which we are separated by heresy or heterodoxies. This interpretation has been prevalent in the Church not only during the time of the Inquisition but in many other times when being or not being Christian has been consistent with accepting certain truths considered to be the depository of the faith (orthodoxy).
● There is a moralist reading, which conceives the history of salvation as a moral test that God has given to humanity, which is between grace and sin, and leads us to a final prize or punishment in relation to the merits or sins we have accumulated. More than anything else Christian life is a moral test, which does not stem from a real mission in history or an essential task. This world is simply a chance to see what we deserve, and once it is over the final destiny will either be fire or we will pass on to eternal life, the only truth that matters, which has little continuity to what we have lived in our personal identity (hetero-salvation).
● There is a ontological–metaphysical interpretation that places salvation on a separate higher plane, which is measured sacramentally. Salvation is supernatural and is played out in a life of grace. We participate in this through the Mass and a spiritual life (sacraments, prayer), which is central to Christian living. Real truth is found in the supernatural and salvation is achieved by participating in this other true world, compared to which our world is a shadow and transitory. In this other world, which is outside of history, the Christian mission finds its reference point in this interpretation of Christianity.
● There is a historic reading: Reality is conceived as the history of salvation and, simultaneously, as the salvation of history. It is a history that moves linearly, although with ups and downs, toward a goal. God has a dream, and has proposed a utopia to human beings, making this their task in history. The Christian mission does not separate us from history, but places us in it. Eschatology and the incarnation are not opposites, but come together: We will get to the future world by turning the present into the future. The person who escapes from this world is not more eschatological than the person who moves it forward (towards the eschaton). The ground of this history is the only path we have to reach the heaven of the future. Salvation is made in history.
● These interpretations are not only found in Christianity but in religions in general. Furthermore, within each religion, including Christianity, we need to recognize the different interpretations. It should be stated that while no interpretation is completely false they cannot be arbitrarily interchanged. Today, it is clear that of all the readings, the historical is that which is least an interpretation and the closest to the life lived by Jesus.
● In each of these readings God is experienced in a different way and the reality of salvation and the mission given human beings is conceived differently. In each of these interpretations there are also linear, homogeneous, and additional developments. Moving from one interpretation to another implies a rupture, a global restructuring, a paradigm shift. The different readings of Christianity are paradigms in the strongest sense of the word. When we talk about the crisis in LT we should refer to its underlying paradigm. What is its interpretation, its paradigm?
● Evidently, LT corresponds to the historic interpretation of Christianity. The strongest opposition it has faced and faces comes from readings that are profoundly a-historic. The paradigm crisis or conflict is not new: the conflict that LT provoked from the beginning has to do with its paradigm coming into contact with the paradigms of other theologies. It is not about minor differences or different schools of thought, but a global diversity, a different paradigm.7 It is quite possible that some of the people who say we need to move ahead and change the paradigm are doing nothing more than trying to return to an old paradigm.
Toward LT's Central Paradigm
Leaving this point here, we can move a little further into LT's paradigm to see if there really is a need for a paradigm shift within this theology.
In the 1950s, there was a famous debate in the pages of the Dieu Vivantmagazine. Those were the critical years after World War II, and the debate was about the attitude of Christians in the modern world. The debate divided participants into two categories: the eschatologists and the incarnationists. The first group, among whom were found Jean Daniélou and Hans Urs von Balthasar, were in favor of a Church that gave witness to the transcendentalness of the spirit and the need to abandon the things of this world. The second group, which included Marie-Dominique Chenu, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and the movement of worker–priests, insisted on the need for a Church incarnated in reality that could give witness to an historic commitment. The two poles, perceived as opposites in the debate, were eschatology and incarnation.
The eschatologists highlighted the exclusive primacy of the spiritual, abandoning all historic commitments that could take away from the spiritual and the transcendental. In their opinion, human action is nothing more than an occasion that deserves to be rewarded in eternal life, but does not have a saving value in itself. Eternal life is strictly a gift from God, and our world and our actions are destined for the fire when the parusia arrives. Salvation will be a pure gift from God in a complete rupture (heterosalvation) from what we lived in this world.
The incarnationists, on the contrary, placed their emphasis on historic commitment, in the incarnation, in being present in this world. In their opinion, human action itself has a saving value, our historic actions are already salvific (homosalvation).
The debate was not entirely new. The terms had been proposed theologically at other times in history, but in our century they were proposed within the framework of the relations between eschatology and history. A solution to the debate would not arrive until the Second Vatican Council. The Council brought the debate to a close with probably the most ingenious solution to the problem: the synthesis solution.
If eschatology and history had also been seen as opposite dimensions, Vatican II not only found them compatible but submerged within each other. The debate had been seen as a dilemma: move toward the transcendental that is not part of this world or opt for the immanence that forgets trans-historic transcendentalism (eschatology or incarnation). The Council discovered synthesis. This was possible given the transformations that had recently taken place in the insights into eschatology.8 If being eschatological before meant having to be separate from the world and paying no attention to history, in the reformulation of eschatology it was discovered that incarnation in history was the best path to arrive at eschatology: the more eschatological, the more historical. The people who have the least interest in history are not the most eschatological, the most eschatological are the people who fervently try to reach their eschaton, the Kingdom. The greatest eschatological sign became the strongest historical commitment. The new proposals between eschatology and history reflected in the Council opened the door to the recuperation of the historical interpretation of Christianity.
How Did LT Arise in this Context? With What Paradigm?
At the foundation was a rediscovery of the historic eschatological character of Jesus' message that had started at the beginning of the century and had remained within the walls of the European universities. The return of the historic Jesus brought the reformulation of the direct relationship between eschatology and history to the forefront. In this context, the rediscovery of the Kingdom as theipsissima verba lesu and as the absolute center of Jesus' preaching (ipsissima intentio lesu) allowed for the rediscovery of the centrality of the Kingdom as a Christological basis for the historical interpretation of Christianity. The inevitable perception of a preference—even theological—for the poor led to the rest. As such, LT rose with a paradigm whose essential elements are:
● The historic-eschatological interpretation of Christianity, which includes the primacy of a praxis for historical transformation, integration (not dualism), the oneness of history, transcendency in the immanence.
● The centrality of the Kingdom: the theological and practical recuperation of the absolute character Jesus gave to the Kingdom. Following Jesus in his own faith.
● The option for justice, for those who suffer injustice, with an emphasis on placing ourselves in the social place of the victims of injustice.
This is the major paradigm of LT, its theological-systematic skeleton. Within this framework there can be diverse schools of thought, currents, and ways of acting, but if they fit within this model they are part of LT. There can be positions that are more committed and those that are contemplative; some can carry out the historic transformation through socio-political action and others through more symbolic actions: some may adopt a language or imagery that is more militant-utopian and others may adopt the disenchanted realism of our times. But if they have the essential elements of this paradigm, they are essential LT. And if they lack any of these essential elements they are not LT, although they might call themselves that.
If we wanted to express the paradigm in one word it would be Kingdom. This would be LT's paradigm because, in reality, it is the paradigm of Jesus. While we have an historical reading of reality, with the Kingdom of God as the omnicentric utopia and we are on the side of the poor, we are within LT.
A Paradigm Shift in LT?
At the level of systematic theology, we need to ask ourselves if there is a paradigm shift in LT.
While still respecting the vision others have of Christianity, LT has developed in its still short history such a conviction that it could be said that it has imposed upon itself from within an internal force that is tenacious enough to see what is invisible (cf. Heb 11:27). LT has not focused on something lateral: a particular devotion, concrete sacrament, dimension, facet, or element. It is a theology of universal Christianity, and what is profoundly human, we would say. It has not developed by taking steps outside, but within, moving towards the Christian mystery. It is a theology centered on the central, of the mission of Jesus, his message, cause, passion, and utopia—the Kingdom!
When a theology has achieved an experience this profound, which has been sealed with martyrs, it has passed the point of no return. The question is: What does it carry with it, something optional or something inadmissible? Is it possible to stop believing in something that has carried away the soul? Can someone move to the periphery after having touched the center?
There are many interpretations of Christianity. We cannot say that the historic interpretation is one among others, interchangeable, but that for us it is the closest to Jesus. The historic reading has revealed itself as the least interpretable and is the closest to what is revealed in Jesus. Is the adoption of this interpretation optional or no? Can we change this element of the paradigm?
LT places the centrality of the Kingdom at the peak of theological principles. Although in practice it has not been adopted by too many people, it has become irresistible even to LT's enemies. Everyone accepts the language of the Kingdom and the option for the poor, although this does not mean that they change their old concepts. Is it possible to abandon the centrality of the Kingdom for other paradigms?
The option for the poor has been the most important event in the Christian churches since the Protestant Reform. It marks a separation of the waters. For those who took the step out of a profound faith conviction, having experienced the theological foundation of the option for the poor, how can we improve this paradigm without betraying the blood of the martyrs and the suffering face of Christ9 who made them think about the poor?
From the perspective of systematic theology, it is easy to note that these profound levels do not move in the modern world's winds of change, no matter how strong they appear to be. Is it possible that the so–called end of history will lead us to abandon the historic interpretation of our faith, which is closest to the vision of the Son of God? Will financial globalization and the supposed triumph of neoliberalism make obsolete our efforts to put the passion of our lives in the utopia of the Kingdom preached by Jesus? Will the collapse of socialism in the East make the option for the poor no longer valuable? What others have said about the option for the poor we also say about the LT global paradigm: "it is a firm and irrevocable option"10 and there is no turning back. We can (and must) update whatever is necessary in the field of theological mediations, but the paradigm is something that gives us the feeling of permanence.
For all the rest, affirmantis est probare: he who affirms the need for a paradigm shift has to prove it. They would have to show a new kind of relationship between eschatology and history, but for theological reasons not because of socio–economic or cultural arguments. They would have to propose something that can overcome the centrality of the Kingdom and with proof in hand not just vague discussions about cultural post modernity. They would have to show that the option for the poor does not have a theological foundation, but not watering it down so that this preferential option becomes a preferential love for the poor. While this does not happen, the strength of LT's essential elements will remain intact. Maintaining the pertinence of each discourse within its plane and its limits, without mixing or confusing them, is a sane measure of theological cleanliness. We cannot ignore that, in the difficult and tense psycho–social context that has worn us down in the past few years, there is a temptation to cover up psychological issues with theological reasoning: tiredness, social and ecclesiastic pressures, what is fashionable, fleeing from conflict, social depression.11
Finally, we need to prevent suspicion. All paradigms, like understanding in general, have an interest. This stems from the hermeneutic structure of understanding and it is impossible to avoid. All paradigms are functional for a social interest. This is true for LT's paradigm as it is for the most substantial in the Bible itself. Those who have other interests prefer other paradigms that are functional for them. A paradigm shift? What new paradigm? A paradigm that functions for what interests? Has God changed God's interests? What theological reasons does God have for a paradigm shift? Are we the ones who are changing our interests (that is, are we shifting paradigms for theological reasons)?
In conclusion: We are going to abide by Jesus' paradigm, the Kingdom. Within this paradigm we can find all the minor changes and accommodations we find necessary to make.
* This article was originally published in Spanish as "¿Cambio de Paradigma en la teología de la liberación?" The English translation was published in LADOC 28/5 (Sept.-Oct. 1997), 1-13.
1. "Some believed that the fall of socialism would bring about the disintegration of LT. But socialism was never an essential element of LT. All its arguments remain valid and are independent of the destiny of socialist societies" (Comblin 1996:352).
2. Before the reasons of Fukuyama and companions, we have greater reasons not to accept an 'end of history' which would mean the failure of human society and of the utopia proposed by God, and, hence, would mean the failure itself of God. Is it not clear that the thesis of the 'end of history' is not only ideological or sociological, but at the same time, and by implication, also religious and theological?
3. Elsewhere we have expounded the theological character of mediations that traditionally were presented as purely socio-analytical, scientific, or autonomous with respect to faith (Cf. Casaldáliga and Vigil 1994).
4. The concern for justice, however, is neither a product of enlightened reason (neither of the first nor of the second enlightenment), nor of western culture, as some would seem to think. It comes to us from the Bible and from the very origins of the people of Israel. It could perhaps be the other way around: whatever concern for justice western culture, in general, and enlightened reason, in particular, have, definitely comes from the influence of their Christian roots.
5. Puebla # 1134
6. Puebla # 34
7. Even if LT did not recognize itself in the description the Vatican InstructionLibertatis Nuntius gave it (precisely because LT was perceived from another paradigm), the Instruction was correct in affirming that LT brings with it a different kind of hermeneutics that is global and totalizing in character (cf X, 2ff). Hermeneutics means interpretation, rereading, and a new reading. The Paradigm of LT implies, indeed, a profoundly different hermeneutics.
8. There has been a shift from a static, dualistic, and a-historical eschatology towards a dynamic, integrated, and historical eschatology. Cf. Vigil 1994; 1995:106-17.
9. Puebla # 31-39; Santo Domingo # 178-79.
10. John Paul II, Discourse to the Curia, December 21, 1984; Discourse at the 4th CELAM Meeting in Santo Domingo, 1979, # 16.
11. José María Vigil, Aunque es de noche. Hipótesis psicosociológicas sobre la hora espiritual de América Latina en los 90 (Though it's night: Psycho-sociological hypotheses about the spiritual hour of Latin America in the Nineties), Managua: Editorial Envío, 2nd edition, 1996. Also published in Mexico: CRT, Bogotá: Verbo Divino, and São Paulo: Paulus.
Casaldáliga, Pedo and José María Vigil
1994 Liberating Spirituality: A Spirituality of Liberation (Tunbridge Wells: Burns & Oates); in the USA, Political Holiness (Maryknoll: Orbis Books).
Comblin, José
1996 Cristãos rumo ao ano 2000 (Christians towards the year 2000), São Paulo: Paulus.
Kuhn, Thomas
1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2nd rev. ed. 1970).
Popper, Karl
1959 The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson).
Richard, Pablo
1995 "Caos o esperanza. Fundamentos y alternativas para el siglo XXI,"Diakonia (Managua) 74 (June).
Vigil, José María
1995 Vida Religiosa (Madrid) 79 (15 Marzo).
1994 "¿Parábola o Hipérbole? Para una reinterpretación teológica e histórica de la vida religiosa," Claretianum (Rome) 34.


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May 1st, an old European pagan day that brings to end a night specially aligned to communicate with the spirits and power of nature, and whose daybreak heralds the spring.
The sun shone in all its glory, its first rays having triumphantly reached the mountain peak. One of these days I will join that early sun ray up there on the peak of the mountain, for its morning celebration.
May 2nd. The sun, passing the mountain peak, goes onward where I can only follow it with my eyes, its rays however beckoning me to the water where they dance and shimmer.


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Mutually opposed histories are common in the Balkans – what is called occupation in one book, is liberation in the other.
By taking examples from schools in Kosovo and Serbia, this report demonstrates existing differences in history teaching and some of the ongoing efforts to overcome those problems, such us Joint History Project.
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- Telephone:
- 01869 277976
Key factsPrint summary
STILL UNDER MAIN DEALER WARRANTY! , Service history, Excellent bodywork, Interior - Excellent Condition, Silver, www.kwgosscarsales.co.uk TO VIEW OUR FULL STOCK LIST!, £11,995
This car comes with
Metallic Paint, Panoramic Sunroof - Electric One Touch with Safety Function, Satellite Navigation with European Mapping, 7in Touchscreen, Cruise Control, Dual Automatic Air Conditioning with Ioniser, Heated Front and Outer Rear Seats, Reversing Camera System and Reversing Sensors, 18in Alloy Wheels with Locking Wheel Nuts, Advanced Anti-Theft Alarm System, All-Round Electric Windows (with Drivers Auto Up/Down Function), Black Leather Seats, Bluetooth with Voice Recognition and Music Streaming, Hill-Start Assist Control (HAC), RDS Radio/CD Audio with MP3 Disc Compatibility, Rain Sensing Front Wipers, Tinted Glass, Privacy Glass (Rear Windows and Tailgate), Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS)
- 201809170567659
- 2015
- 65
- £11,995
- 1200
- 66,000
- Cars
- JIkMgdwli5c=
Vehicle summary
|Body style
|Engine size
|1995 cc
|Fuel type
|Number of doors
|Number of seats
|Gearbox type
|CO2 emissions
|156 g/km
|Insurance group
|Standard manufacturer's warranty (miles)
|No details available
|Standard manufacturer's warranty (years)
|3 years
|Standard paintwork guarantee
|5 years
Performance & economy
|Fuel consumption (urban)
|40.4 mpg
|Fuel consumption (extra urban)
|52.3 mpg
|Fuel consumption (combined)
|47.1 mpg
|0 - 60 mph
|10.9 seconds
|Top speed
|112 mph
|Engine power
|134 bhp
|Engine torque
|236.03 lbs/ft
|1645 mm
|Height inclusive of roof rails
|No details available
|4440 mm
|2640 mm
|1855 mm
|Width including mirrors
|No details available
|Fuel tank capacity
|58 litres
|Minimum kerb weight
|1600 kg
|Interior features
|Exterior features
|Auto-Dimming Rear-View Mirror
|Rear Spoiler
|Outdoor Temperature Display
|Electrically Adjustable, Heated and Folding Door Mirrors with LED Indicators
|Front Centre Console 12V Power Socket and Luggage Area 12V Power Socket
|Front Wiper De-Icer
|4.2in Supervision Cluster with LCD TFT Colour Display
|Full-Size Alloy Spare Wheel
|Tinted Glass, Privacy Glass (Rear Windows and Tailgate)
|Roof Rails
|Dual Automatic Air Conditioning with Ioniser
|Headlight Washers
|Digital Clock
|18in Alloy Wheels with Locking Wheel Nuts
|Black Leather Seats
|Panoramic Sunroof - Electric One Touch with Safety Function
|Drivers Seat Height Adjuster
|Cornering Lights
|Leather Trimmed Gearshift
|Sunvisors with Vanity Mirrors and Ticket Holder
|Trip Computer
|7in Touchscreen
|Rain Sensing Front Wipers
|Front and Rear Centre Armrests
|7 Speaker Infinity Premium Sound System with Subwoofer
|All-Round Electric Windows (with Drivers Auto Up/Down Function)
|Bluetooth with Voice Recognition and Music Streaming
|USB and AUX Ports for Connection of an Audio Media Device
|60:40 Split Folding 2nd Row Seats
|Cruise Control
|Cup Holders
|Heated Front and Outer Rear Seats
|Tilt and Telescopic Steering Wheel Adjustment
|Satellite Navigation with European Mapping
|Drivers Seat Lumbar Support
|Leather Trimmed Steering Wheel
|Steering Wheel Mounted Controls
|RDS Radio/CD Audio with MP3 Disc Compatibility
|External Amplifier
|Door Deadlocks
|Third Brake Light
|Front Active Headrests, All-Round Height Adjustable Head Rests
|Child Safety Rear Door Locks
|Hill-Start Assist Control (HAC)
|Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS)
|Remote Central Door Locking with Fold-Away Key
|Twin Passengers Airbag with Airbag Cut-Off Switch
|Centre Rear Seat Belt
|Advanced Anti-Theft Alarm System
|ISOFIX Child Seat Top Tethers & Anchor Fixings
|Reversing Camera System and Reversing Sensors
|Advanced Anti-Theft Immobiliser System
|Front Fog Lights
|Electronic Stability Control (ESC) with Downhill Brake Control (DBC) and Trailer Stability Assist (TSA)
|Twin Drivers Airbag
|Xenon Headlights with Automatic Levelling, LED Daytime Running Lights
|Automatic Headlight Control
|Power-Assisted Steering with Flex Steer (Normal, Comfort & Sport Modes)
|Twin Side Airbags (Front) and Twin Curtain Airbags with Roll-Over Sensor
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Agency: Tulare County Resource Management Agency – Planning Division
Project: Orosi Rock Surface Mining Operation Amendment to Permit
Contact: Hector Guerra Sr., Chief, Environmental Planning, Tulare County Resource Management Agency – Planning Division - 559.624.7000
VRPA was responsible for the development of the Noise Study Report for the Orosi Rock Surface Mining Operation in Tulare County. The current operation is producing 100,000 to 200,000 tons of finished product annually and proposed to increase to 800,000 tons annually. It also proposes to increase annual truck trips from 11,000 to 44,000, yet maintaining its current daily and hourly truck trip limitation of 200 trips (daily) and 20 trips (per hour), which is identified in Condition 28 of the Project's current Conditions of Approval.


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Your cover letter and resume are perhaps some of the most important documents you will ever produce. What you say, how you present it, and whether it is grammatically correct will all have an influence on a potential employer's decision to interview you.
First, your cover letter, or letter of intent, will determine if a potential employer will even read your resume. Think of the cover letter as the gate to your future. The cover letter is the first document the prospective employer will read, and it will have significant impact over whether an interview is granted at all.
Your cover letter and resume are perhaps some of the most important documents you will ever produce.If your cover letter has appeal and is professionally prepared, the prospective employer will move on to your resume. This is where your unique skills and abilities must shine.
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We will ensure your cover letter is formatted in the correct style for a business letter, is grammatically correct, and conveys an appealing and confident picture of you, the applicant.
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Let After Words Proofreading Services open the gate to your future. Click here to submit your document today!


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The 4 star Red Cow Moran Hotel in Clondalkin, Dublin
HOLY COW, when did this become so good?
Everyone knows the 4 star Red Cow Moran Hotel on the Naas Road in Clondalkin. It's a landmark. The gateway between Dublin city and every other part of Ireland. It's been there forever and it's as reassuring as a welcome home sign.
You know the Red Cow Moran Hotel, but you might not know that we've changed. Completely.
Jump for James's
On June 2nd 2019 to mark the 3rd anniversary of his near-fatal brain injury, Red Cow Moran Hotel CEO, Tom Moran will abseil the 9 storey extension at the Red Cow Moran Hotel.
Tom's goal is to help the hospital that helped him. His aim is to raise €200k to build a dedicated Brain Disease Resource & Research Centre at St. James's Hospital.
Fun family day with entertainment from 12pm.
What happened here?
We have totally transformed your favourite 4 star hotel in Dublin and the Red Cow Moran Hotel is better than ever.
We've added a stunning nine storey extension, with gorgeous guestrooms, bespoke apartments, a gym, new dining options, 21 event, entertainment and conference spaces, including an 800-seat suite – it's like a little world of its own here. You're going to absolutely love what we've done with the place.
Well, we've still got the best location at the edge of the city where the M50 meets the N7 Naas Road in Clondalkin. You can still get to any part of the city or the country from here as well as Dublin City Centre, Dublin Airport and Heuston and Connolly train stations.
We've still got that great atmosphere and the incredibly friendly staff. And we've still got those little quirks that made you love the Red Cow Moran Hotel in the first place.
Yes, we've got room for you
The new nine storey extension brings our number of guestrooms up to 315, including suites with sweeping views across Dublin, family suites, executive and deluxe rooms, superior Witner Garden rooms and 4 bespoke apartments, all beautifully finished with elegant touches and subtle nods here and there to, well, to the cow.
Time to eat
When it's time to eat you're truly blessed. The Red Cow Moran Hotel a choice of restaurants and bars, some of which you've never seen before.
Like Tom's Table, a brand-new concept for us and one we can't wait to introduce you to. There's also The Link Lounge with Coffee Dock & Wine Bar, the Red Cow Inn and Cocktail Bar along with a programme of world-class entertainment.
Have you herd?
We're still THE place for conferences, events and weddings in Dublin – Is there anyone in Ireland who doesn't know where we are and how to get here?


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Business Transformation
TIAG's business transformation (BT) group has a superior record of designing, leading and implementing highly successful organizational transformations. TIAG's professionals are known for their unmatched collaborative methodology garnering us the opportunity to work with such extraordinary organizations as the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and throughout the Military Health System of the Department of Defense.
Our BT experts are not only seasoned business professionals, but have best of breed tools in their satchel such as Lean Six Sigma masters & black belts, Balance Scorecard, and Business Genetics. Their expertise and leadership strengths enable the careful guidance of the organization and stakeholders throughout the process from road map, to adoption, to dashboard metric measurements, to continuous process improvement methods.
Business transformations are powerful game-changers that align an organization with leadership's vision and goals, and position the organization for tomorrow's challenges. TIAG's BT team is valued for its expertise and ownership of every transformational endeavor.
Ask how our Acumulus™ services can transform and modernize your business processes to align with your leadership's vision and organizational goals.
Results Delivered
U.S. Air Force Medical Operations Agency (AFMOA)
The United States Air Force chose TIAG for a systems process improvement project to drive change and improve care delivery across the USAF medical logistics enterprise. Supporting the Air Force Medical Operations Agency (AFMOA) Medical Logistics Division, TIAG is implementing innovative IT solutions, optimizing process reengineering and integrating best practices for patient-centered care, while achieving significant cost-savings for the Air Force Medical Service.
U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC)
Supporting the defense health community's billion-dollar military medical research and development enterprise, TIAG established functional requirements for USAMRMC's Research Management Enterprise Capability (RMEC) to empower USAMRMC's transformation to a genuine research management structure. Delivering enterprise solutions to advance medical research and product development, TIAG leads business transformation and process reengineering efforts, applying a strategic, management science approach fused with insightful business intelligence and data-driven decision-making. Demonstrating the tremendous value of data analytics as a core component of the RMEC solution, TIAG also applied data analytics to the RMEC financial execution requirements.
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (OUSDP)
During a two-year period, following a Secretary of Defense mandate, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy structurally re-organized and transformed from a Cold War organization to a more agile, adaptive one. TIAG developed a new business model to meet Policy leadership's vision. Performing a gap analysis, TIAG led the transformation and modernization of Policy's business processes. Information technology improvements included a dashboard to inform evidence-based decisions, and a formal governance process that provides shared decision-making on issues affecting the organization.
Military Health System (MHS) Clinical Portfolio Management Board (CPMB)
While supporting the Military Health System Clinical Portfolio Management Board (CPMB), TIAG developed strategy and business transformation processes focused on streamlining acquisition-related requirements decisions on future systems and the overall transformed business processes.
US Army Medical Information Technology Center (USAMITC)
U.S. Army Medical Information Technology Center (USAMITC) is responsible for developing and maintaining a worldwide information management and information technology (IM/IT) system for the DoD, Army Medical Command, and other government entities. To ensure that USAMITC met the quality standards expected of a service provider, TIAG led the way for the USAMITC Architecture branch to achieve ISO 9001:2008 certification, the "gold standard" in quality management.


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Alaric is a lecturer in the School of English, University of Leeds.
Ph.D. (2001-4) on 'The Meanings of Elf and Elves in Medieval England', Department of English Language, University of Glasgow (2003-4 at Department of English, University of Helsinki). Funded by the AHRB (now AHRC), supplemented in 2003-4 by SOCRATES.
M.Phil. (taught) (2000-1) in Medieval Studies, Glasgow Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Distinction.
B.A. (1997-2000) in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic. Magdalene College, Cambridge. Part I: 1st; part II: 2/1.
Secondary education (1991-97) at Aylesbury Grammar School, including A-levels in Latin, History and English.
Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (2008-11), University of Leeds.
Lecturer in Medieval English Literature, School of English, University of Leeds (2007-).
Research fellow, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (2005-7).
Publications and teachingFor Alaric's publications (and free-access texts thereof) see publications. For details of Alaric's teaching, supervising and examining, present and past, see teaching.
Other Experience and Activities
- Grant capture:
- £20,531 for 'Constructing crisis: Icelandic cultural responses to the 2008 financial crisis' (Leverhulme Trust, 2013-14).
- £2,445 for 'Sigrgarðs saga frækna: the manuscript tradition' (British Academy, 2009).
- £4,000 project funding + £1,000 honorarium, Leeds University Teaching Fellowship (University of Leeds, 2009).
- €2,110 for Hel-Lex II conferences on English historical lexis, Department of English, University of Helsinki (Finnish Academy, 2005).
- Keynotes etc.:
- The autumn 2011 Beck Lectures in Icelandic Literature and Culture at the University of Victoria
- Recent positions of responsibility (scholarly):
- Editor, Leeds Studies in English (2009-; editoral board member 2007-).
- Editorial assistant for Viking and Medieval Scandinavia (2008-).
- Council member of the Viking Society for Northern Research (2009-11).
- Vice-chair of the Finnish Society for Celtic Studies (2006-8).
- Recent positions of responsibility (administrative):
- School of English, University of Leeds: single honours year tutor, level 2, 2007-10; library committee 2007-9; staff-student forum 2007-10; IT rep. 2008-; learning and teaching committee 2008-; department development team 2009-10; MA English Literature co-ordinator (2009-); fire warden (2012-); director of personal tutoring (2012-).
- Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds: learning and teaching committee (2007-); language committee (2008-10); external audit committee (2010); International Medieval Congress standing committee (2010-); IMS steering committee (2011-).
- University of Helsinki: member of committees for workplace wellbeing (Research Unit for Variation, Contact and Change in English, 2006-7); events (Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, 2005-7); assessing student feedback forms and plagiarism (Department of English, 2004).
- Glasgow Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies: executive committee 2000-5 (originally as a student representative).
- IT: Alaric is an advocate of the use of information technology in teaching and research, with a can-do attitude to acquiring new skills in this area.
- Alaric provides scans and webspace to http://www.septentrionalia.net (2006-).
- For Alaric's contributions to Wikipedia, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Alarichall.
- In 2006-7 Alaric piloted the use of the online learning environment MOODLE for the University of Helsinki.
- In 2004-5, Alaric led a team for the complete redesign of the peer-reviewed postgraduate e-journal eSharp (though note that the site was revised again in late 2007). This included implementing designs and training colleagues in web-weaving.
- In 2006-7, Alaric redesigned and maintained the website of the Finnish Society for Celtic Studies; in 2001-3 and 2004-5, he designed and maintained the website of the Glasgow Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
- Conference organisation:
- Session organiser for Leeds International Medieval Congress 2010 ('Riddarasögur: Icelandic Romances'); 2009 ('Reassessing Early Medieval Charms'); 2008 ('Reassessing Early Medieval Charms'); 2006 ('Public Spaces and Public Faces', two sessions); 2005 ('Thoughts on Thinking: Cognition in the Medieval West'); 2003 ('Medieval X-Files: From Pagan to Christian in Romance'). Member of organising team and webmaster for sessions on 'Doing Interdisciplinarity' 2004.
- Member of organising committee for VIII Symposium of Societas Celtologica Nordica, Helsinki 2006.
- Member of organising committees for Hel-Lex conferences on English historical lexis, Department of English, University of Helsinki.
Alaric's favourite non-academic pastime is playing Latin American and African percussion. Back in the good old days he also used to call for ceilidhs. In Helsinki he played with Johnny Badapple, in Glasgow with Unkle Bob, and in Cambridge with the Cambridge University Ceilidh Band (and various peripherally related projects, including a brief but groovy band with Harriet Earis), and the Brazilian Samba group Arco Iris. These days, Alaric's also spending quite a lot of time messing about learning things like Swedish, French and Icelandic.


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Scotch Watch IV - Talisker 10
Friday, August 25, 2006
Hello, and welcome back to what I may someday refer to as "the beginning of the end" while addressing a group of like-minded strangers*.
But that's not for us to worry about now. Now, we're concerning ourselves with the next episode of Scotch Watch, wherein the author tries his hand at a fine Skye single malt.
I'd been eyeing various bottles and boxes in various shoppes for too long, and I'm not afraid to tell you it took me so long to decide on a box that I managed to finish most of the rest of my single malt stock (everyone say, "hiiiiii Miiiiiike"). I'd been told to check out the Balvenie Doublewood (thanks Jenny), Laphroaig (thanks Kenny), and someone out there told me to check out the Glenkinchie. (I may be wrong about that, but admittedly, it's a challenge to keep on top of all the Glens.)
Staring at the rack labelled "Single Malts" in my (new) local liquor store, it was a tossup between this bottle, a Glenkinchie, and a Macallan 10 year old -- I can hear the Uncle-in-Law telling me I should have picked the Macallan. I actually flipped a coin which picked the Glenkinchie, but the description on the box turned me away for some reason and I chose the Talisker. I think I thought it might be a little too peaty for the only bottle I would have in my cupboard for a while. So coin be damned, Talisker won out.
The Malt: Talisker 10 year old
The Price: $60 CAD
The Taster: Yours Truly
The Box
The Bottle
The Dram
The Taste
The Swish
The Heat!
a quickr pickr post
As you can probably tell, I wasn't quite prepared to delve back into the peaty-ness of good Highland Single Malts. The Balvenie and Cragganmore were smooth and fruity by comparison. That's not so say this malt isn't enjoyable. In fact, I've since learned that Talisker 10 has won six IWSC trophies for "Scotch under 12 years old". I guess that makes it some sort of Scotch tween. Either way, it can't be that bad.
To sum up: Smoky, peaty, and with good heat. I won't try to comment on any of the after-tastes, since neither my vocabulary or my nose are equipped for such things, but I'll say that this was probably a good bottle to buy before jumping into the Laphroaig or the Lagavulin.
All in all, I think I'd give this a 6 out of 10.
And as always, the telephone lines are open for your recommendations. Can ScotchCon be far off?
*bloggers, alcoholics...whatever.
Tags: scotch, talisker, review
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Posted bythemikestand at 9:37 PM
Labels: scotch
6 stepped up to the mike:
- Megan said... 9:32 AM, August 26, 2006
Ugh. I can't even drink it. Bad college experience. We went on a tour of Scotland (years later) and visited a distillery or two. Had to give my free tastings to my dad, who very much appreciated it.
- Christine said... 8:38 PM, August 26, 2006
i'll be staying tuned, as the husband is always looking for a good dram of scotch to hold/drink.
- jenny said... 9:23 AM, August 28, 2006
Hmm. I'm just not a fan of the super smoky scotches - maybe I should try the Cragganmore?
And I'm all for ScotchCon, although it doesn't have quite the ring that TequilaCon does. But I'm pushing for Toronto in '08, so who knows...?
- themikestand said... 11:42 AM, August 28, 2006
megan: Ironically, when I visited Scotland in the mid 90s, I wasn't the scotch fan I am now. Clearly I didn't get the most out of those experiences back then.
Christine: Come east. Tell Bob to bring a bottle and we'll get soused over a night of taste testing (and wife-repelling).
jenny: I'm not sure I can really differentiate between smoky and peaty... You and I would be prime candidates for one of those hand-held scotch tastings where they tell you what you're tasting and you nod sympathetically and try to (re-)program your taste buds.
I think I'll try something milder next time (something between Cragganmore and Arran, the latter looking very watery). Cragganmore I found VERY good. Highly recommended.
- Anonymous said... 12:38 AM, November 24, 2006
Talisker is a pretty big malt - if you're not a big fan, or if your pallet is not well developed (yet) you might find something like The Balvenie Doublewood, or my personal favorite, Aberlour A'Bunadh. The A'Bundadh is sweet and sherryish (like most good Speyside scotches) but has a lot of complexity - much more than a Cragganmore. Think sweet, fruity, malty, a little hint of orange and zero peat. It's also cask strength, so you're better off to water it a bit (think .25 oz per shot). If you are looking for an "entry-level" peaty scotch, I'd try the Highland Park 12 year old. It has a hint of phenol, like the Talisker, and a bit of smoke, but it really tastes of honey, grassy, nutty and spicy with a smoky, sultry finish. It's one of my favorites too...
- themikestand said... 9:01 AM, November 24, 2006
anonymous: While I'm happy to take your recommendations (the Doublewood is on my wish list, but Highland Park and Aberlour was not), I'm saddened that you didn't leave your contact information (i.e. blog, website, whatever you're doing with your scotch knowledge) -- but such is life, I guess. When I try out my next new bottle, I'll give a nod to anonymous commenters.
Also, I think that I should have aimed a little more age in the Talisker and it might have made a difference.


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Related Costumes
Fairy Tale and Storybook Costumes for Boys
Fairy Tale Costumes
for Boys
Snips and snails ... and Fairy Tales? Hmmm - classic storybook costumes maybe not at the top of the list for the older boys, but they are awfully cute for the little ones or as part of a family Halloween costume theme.
Boys too old to be dressed up as Raggedy Andy, or Prince Charming but not quite old enough for teen/ adult costumes might find costumes like Shrek, Captain Hook, Wizard of Oz characters, or Peter from the Chronicles of Narnia to be more their style.