2. Openings

‘Openings’ examines the openings of short stories, which move swiftly to introduce subject, event, and motivation, using techniques of speech, viewpoint, description, situation, and timing. Awareness that closure and resolution have been built into the conception of the story from its start brings an expectation of great economy in plotting and characterization. Classic short stories of the 19th century favoured a third-person narrator in order to create the impression of a window onto life. The strategy cultivates the illusion of knowledge, reaching into the interior of characters as well as seeing their appearance. First-person narrators also pose an interesting perspective as they offer authentic psychological exploration of character.

Polynomial duality-symmetric lagrangians for free p-forms

We explore the properties of polynomial Lagrangians for chiral p-forms previously proposed by the last named author, and in particular, provide a self-contained treatment of the symmetries and equations of motion that shows a great economy and simplicity of this formalism. We further use analogous techniques to construct polynomial democratic Lagrangians for general p-forms where electric and magnetic potentials appear on equal footing as explicit dynamical variables. Due to our reliance on the differential form notation, the construction is compact and universally valid for forms of all ranks, in any number of dimensions.

The Era of the Dragon

The upcoming decades are expected to be marked by the rise and consolidation of the People's Republic of China, PRC, as the world's first economy, dethroning the U.S. and altering global economic geopolitics. The Dragon Age will mark the 21st century, with all the consequences that can come from it. This chapter analyzes the changes that are already underway and that prepare China to be the world's great economy. The departure point will be the examination of China's economic situation. Following, the authors move on to analyzing the Belt and Road Investment, the Chinese mega investment that aims to connect China to Europe inspired by the ancient Silk Road, making a geoeconomic analysis of the main world markets and how China has long prepared this economic rise and implicates a political and military ascension statement.

Scotus versus Aquinas on Instrumental Causality

The medieval notion of instrumental cause is not limited to what we call today “instruments” or “tools.” It extends way beyond the realm of technology and includes natural entities, for instance, the accidents by which a substance acts on another substance, sensible species in the air acting on a visual faculty, sacraments, bodily organs, and sometimes creatures with respect to God’s action. In all these cases, instrumental causes, like secondary causes in general, are subordinated to a principal cause and contribute to its action and effects. However, the manner in which they do so makes them different from regular secondary causes, and the specifics are not easy to pinpoint. At the occasion of discussions about creation ex nihilo and sacraments, John Duns Scotus challenges Thomas Aquinas’s theory of instrumental causality. Whereas Aquinas does not strongly distinguish between artifacts and natural agents, and postulates a complex superposition of layers of causation, Scotus offers a novel view that clearly separates artificial instrumentality and natural instrumentality, and in both cases explains causation with great economy. Scotus’s in-depth discussion has far-reaching implications. It completely transforms the understanding of instrumental causality in general.

Stewarding Water in the Great Economy

This article uses the Christian metaphor of stewardship to address the growing and unprecedented crisis of fresh water scarcity. Stewardship provides a way of naming a theological vision of responsibility for what is not our own. At the same time the metaphor resonates with non-theological accounts of responsibility, allowing a common framework for Christians and non-Christians to engage together in local and global problem solving. Faithful stewardship requires the use of prudence to discern the hierarchy of goods served by water, as well as the means by which the distribution and availability of water can be managed justly for the sake of the flourishing of creation. The article also addresses the potential dangers of the stewardship metaphor and suggests that stewardship is best understood as the wise tending of a little economy within what Wendell Berry calls the “Great Economy,” or the kingdom of God.

Posterity or Prosperity?

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, prosperity theologies have simultaneously received a warm reception by some and a critical cold shoulder by others. With emotive responses provoked on both sides, what cannot be ignored is the influence prosperity thinking has, and will have, on the global church. Yet, little to no attention has been devoted to the intersection between prosperity theology and the issues surrounding the ecological crisis, such as climate change, environmental degradation, human greed, and wanton consumerism. Does such an intersection exist? This article explores this question by contrasting prosperity theology’s divine economy and agrarianism’s great economy. In sum, it suggests that the uncritical reception of prosperity teachings—though they speak pointedly to real, felt human needs—can ultimately create ecologically harmful, if not anti-ecological, modes of thinking and living within its adherents.

Cause Analysis of Round Thread Connection Dropout

Dropout may be happen to round thread connection by main reasons of design and process of product, material’s property, make-up torque or make-up position, field operation problems etc.. Casing’s property has get a high improvement with the development over the past decade in China. But the number of connection dropout accident didn’t declined obviously. These lead to great economy loss and safety hazard had taken place. Research on a round thread connection pullout case was carried out combining relative theorys with tests. Macroscopic analysis and dimension measurement and material’s physical and chemical properties were checked for casings and couplings. Thread inspection and full-scale tests were done for casing simples that are same lot with dropout. Comprehensive analysis was carried out on these results. The results showed that dropout failure was ascribe to two main causes. One is make-up location cann’t reach standard location at field end, and the other is incorrect holding position on coupling in the course of making up.

Reuse of effluent from dyeing polyester fibers by thermal fixation using acid-based colors

This paper presents the viability study of water reuse in the seat belt webbing dyeing process, reaching a great economy in the water consumption since the textile operation uses a great amount of water. To achieve this goal, it was tested several products during the effluent treatment that contains biodegradable characteristics and greater efficiency to remove color, also attending to effective legislation and low cost expectation. Using these new products, water consumption was reduced approximately 59% in a month and effluent treatment around 30%. Based on these initial results, is expected to have a payback in approximately five months.