Theological Themes in Origen’s First Homily on Psalm 76 (77) and Their Subsequent Reception

The collection of Origen’s presumably last works, the 29 homilies on the Psalms, was recently discovered and published in 2015. In the homily on Psa 76:1-9, we can find threads of the theology of spirituality intertwined with more systematic speculations. The sanctifying action of the Logos comes here to the fore. God-Logos enables the Christian to sacrifice himself fully with his mind, tongue and all his senses. The Word, which has been living for ages in the womb of the Father, educates the human word, liable to agitation, to silence. Origen looks for a cure in afflictions. He finds it in the image of hands outstretched to God and in constant reminding of Him. The Psalmist ponders “the ancient days” and “the eonic years” and asks if God can reject man forever (Psa 76:6–8). In his commentary, Origen seems to refer to his speculations from much earlier years, known from the work On First Principles, in which he expressed views on the preexistence of rational beings, preceding the present world, and the multiple transformation of worlds. Are these speculative threads still present in his last work? The article tries to explain Origen’s statements and understand them properly.

Corollaries and multiple extensions of Gessel and Stanton hypergeometric summation formulas

We find some new simple hypergeometric formulas in the footsteps of the important article by Gessel and Stanton. These are multiple reduction formulas, multiple summation formulas, as well as multiple transformation formulas for special Kampé de Fériet functions and Appell functions. The hypergeometric summation formulas have special function arguments in Q and parameter values in N or C. The proofs use Pfaff-Kummer transformation, Euler transformation, or an improved form of Slater reversion.

Structure-phase states and properties of rail tread surface at long-term operation

Using the methods of modern physical material science the investigations of structure-phase states and properties at different depth from tread surface of differentially quenched rails at extremely long-term operation (passed tonnage 1411 mln t) are carried out. The hardness decrease from 37.1 to 35.8 HRC at the depth 2 and 10 mm and microhardness from 1481 to 1210 MPa, respectively is revealed. The established multiple transformation of tread surface structure concludes in: fracture of lamellar pearlite structure and subgrain structure formation of submicronsizes (100-150 nm); precipitation of carbide phase nanoparticles (30-55 nm)along the boundaries and in the volume ofsubgrains; growth of microdistorsions and α-Fe crystal lattice parameter; growth of scalar and excess dislocation density. The suggestions about the possible reasons of observable regularities are made.

Nikolai Leskov in the aspect of translation: language game and phraseology

The continuing interest in the artistic word reveals all the new aspects of the study of the writers’ language, the methods of usage of the linguistic units in their works. This article brings together in one focus several problems: the study of the language creativity of N.S. Leskov, manifested in the creation of unforgettable speech portraits of characters, who, in search of expressiveness, realize their creative abilities, using already known words and expressions or creating the new ones. Occasional expressions, used to achieve maximum expressiveness and intensity of the transmitted value, can be read in the same text in different ways. The multiple transformation of stable expressions is especially typical for the writer, therefore it is difficult not only to interpret the author’s phraseology in Leskov’s works, but also to translate. The Czech translators using the principle of functional similarity try to keep ways of usage of the units created by the author and to inform the reader of expressivity, emotional sounding and esthetic functions of the original.

Multivariate grey gradient incidence model and its application

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to overcome the shortcomings of existing multivariate grey incidence models that cannot analyze the similarity of behavior matrixes. Design/methodology/approach First, the feasibility of using gradient to measure the similarity of continuous functions is analyzed theoretically and intuitively. Then, a grey incidence degree is constructed for multivariable continuous functions. The model employs the gradient to measure the local similarity, as incidence coefficient function, of two functions, and combines local similarity into global similarity, as grey incidence degree by double integral. Third, the gradient incidence degree model for behavior matrix is proposed by discretizing the continuous models. Furthermore, the properties and satisfaction of grey incidence atom of the proposed model are research, respectively. Finally, a financial case is studied to examine the validity of the model. Findings The proposed model satisfies properties of invariance under mean value transformation, multiple transformation and linear transformation, which proves it is a model constructed from similarity perspective. Meanwhile, the case study shows that proposed model performs effectively. Practical implications The method proposed in the paper could be used in financial multivariable time series clustering, personalized recommendation in e-commerce, etc., when the behavior matrixes need to be analyzed from trend similarity perspective. Originality/value It will promote the accuracy of multivariate grey incidence model.