Simulation of Preference Information in an Interactive Reference Point‐Based Method for the Bi‐Objective Inventory Routing Problem

In the research area of multiple criteria decision making, very few publications exist that explicitly design the simulation of a decision maker (DM) in an interactive approach. For this reason, we outline some methods widely used in the literature to identify common assumptions of simulating the DM's responses and the required input preference information. Our paper aims at covering the identified gap by introducing experimental concepts. Such concepts are used for theoretical analyses of a combined search‐and‐decision‐making procedure. Simulating the DM is a fruitful idea because the algorithm can be tested without integrating a human decision maker. Finally, we conduct experiments based on the proposed settings for a multiobjective inventory routing problem, which is a relevant and challenging logistic problem. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Old Fears Die Hard: Return of Public Speaking Fear in a Virtual Reality Procedure

Exposure-based therapy is an effective treatment for social anxiety, but some patients relapse. We used a novel virtual reality procedure to examine spontaneous recovery (i.e., a return of fear over time) and fear renewal (i.e., the return of fear after a context switch) in individuals with fear of public speaking. On Day 1, 32 participants received exposure training before a virtual audience. On Day 8, participants completed a spontaneous recovery phase, followed by a fear renewal test, in which they gave a presentation in front of a new (context switch) or the same audience (no context switch). After exposure, participants exhibited a lower heart rate, subjective distress, negative valence, and arousal. One week later, participants showed spontaneous recovery of heart rate, and the context switch group showed renewal of subjective distress, negative valence, and arousal. Future studies can use this procedure to test interventions aimed at improving long-term exposure effects in individuals with public speaking fear.     

Ecumenism as Encounter

This article is a personal testimony of the encounter between Orthodox and Anglican traditions in the 20th and the 21st centuries. It offers an overview of more than 40 years of experience in ecumenical work with Orthodox churches, beginning with an experience of Orthodoxy in Serbia in 1974 and a meeting with Fr Justin Popovi?. It continues with an account of the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius, which has enabled Anglicans to meet and worship with Orthodox. It concludes with a discussion of the ways in which these relationships matured after the fall of communism with the creation of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge as an example of shared theological education. The article also highlights how traditions from the East of spiritual fatherhood, the Jesus Prayer, and icons have become familiar parts of Anglican church life.     

Mission and reconciliation from a Christian-Muslim relations perspective

The encounter between Islam and Christianity in the mission field has created shocks that have left indelible scars across the ages. These two religions, which have never hidden their missionary intentions, have at times engaged in the struggle for supremacy on the religious chessboard, not hesitating to encroach on each other. This state of affairs has led to frustrations and conflicts between the two religious systems that the passage of time has not been able to erase. Various organizations have attempted to bring Christians and Muslims together, among these the Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa. Reconciliation is possible. Although the path to reconciliation is still long, one who has already travelled on it gives us signs of hope. Only God can clear the path to effective reconciliation. This, however, must be combined with a new understanding of mission in both religious systems as well as a commitment on the part of both to embark on a new dynamic.     

“Liturgy emerges from a wound”

Serious academic reflection and scholarship on the Fresh Expressions of Church (FXoC) movement in the United Kingdom is developing significantly, but there exists almost no such work in South Africa. What has been produced deals with scholars reflecting on their experiences of Fresh Expressions in the United Kingdom (Ian Nell and Rudolph Grobler, “An Exploration of Fresh Expressions as Missional Church: Some Practical-Theological Perspectives,” NGTT DEEL 55:3–4 (2017), 747–68). This is an unfortunate situation. While there has been a generous response by many churches, there has been little interest, by and large, from the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA). FXoC is, then, an under-researched entity in South Africa. This article, part of a larger study, seeks to ask questions about how liturgy might develop from below in a new ecclesial community of marginalized people.     

National Context,Parental Socialization,and the Varying Relationship Between Religious Belief and Practice

Parents are crucial agents of religious socialization, but the broader social environment is also influential. A key question is whether parents are more or less influential when their religious beliefs and practices are not shared by people around them. Current thinking on the issue has largely been shaped by Kelley and De Graaf, who argued that parental religious socialization matters most in secular countries. We maintain that that conclusion is mistaken: levels of parental and national religiosity are both important, but their effects are largely independent of each other. Kelley and De Graaf's findings rely on the assumption that religious belief and practice are different expressions of the same underlying phenomenon (religiosity) and vary in the same way across time and space. These measures are not equivalent, however. In relatively religious societies, belief in God is widespread even among those who do not attend services, whereas in societies where religious involvement is low, nonchurchgoers tend to be nonbelievers.     

Ensemble coding of facial identity is not refined by experience: Evidence from other-race and inverted faces

The ability to recognize identity despite within-person variability in appearance is likely a face-specific skill and shaped by experience. Ensemble coding – the automatic extraction of the average of a stimulus array – has been proposed as a mechanism underlying face learning (allowing one to recognize novel instances of a newly learned face). We investigated whether ensemble encoding, like face learning and recognition, is refined by experience by testing participants with upright own-race faces and two categories of faces with which they lacked experience: other-race faces (Experiment 1) and inverted faces (Experiment 2). Participants viewed four images of an unfamiliar identity and then were asked whether a test image of that same identity had been in the study array. Each test image was a matching exemplar (from the array), matching average (the average of the images in the array), non-matching exemplar (a novel image of the same identity), or non-matching average (an average of four different images of the same identity). Adults showed comparable ensemble coding for all three categories (i.e., reported that matching averages had been present more than non-matching averages), providing evidence that this early stage of face learning is not shaped by face-specific experience.     

Are high levels of religiosity inconsistent with a high valuation of science? Evidence from the United States,China and Iran

We asked whether high levels of religiosity are inconsistent with a high valuation of science. We explored this possibility in three countries that diverge markedly in the relation between the state and religion. Parents in the United States (n = 126), China (n = 234) and Iran (n = 77) completed a survey about their personal and parental stance towards science. The relation between religiosity and the valuation of science varied sharply by country. In the U.S. sample, greater religiosity was associated with a lower valuation of science. A similar but weaker negative relation was found in the Chinese sample. Parents in the Iranian sample, by contrast, valued science highly, despite high levels of religiosity. Given the small size of our United States and Iranian samples, and the non-probabilistic nature of our samples in general, we caution readers not to generalise our findings beyond the current samples. Despite this caveat, these findings qualify the assumption that religiosity is inconsistent with the valuation of science and highlight the role of sociocultural context in shaping adults' perception of the relation between religion and science.