bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Enhancing student performance in African smart cities: a web-based approach through advanced ensemble modeling and genetic feature optimization
Authors: Sahlaoui Hayat , Abdellaoui Alaoui El Arbi , Hessane Abdelaaziz , Agoujil Said , Cédric Koumetio Tekouabou Stéphane , Barebzi Abdellah 
Published: August 2024

Abstract
In the burgeoning landscape of African smart cities, education stands as a cornerstone for sustainable development and unlocking future potential. Accurate student performance prediction holds immense social importance, enabling early intervention, improved learning outcomes, and equitable access to quality education, aligning with sustainable development goals. Traditional models often falter in Africa due to imbalanced datasets and irrelevant features. This research leverages machine learning in Nigerian classrooms to predict underperforming students. Techniques like synthetic minority oversampling, edited nearest neighbors, and the Boruta algorithm for feature selection, alongside genetic algorithms for efficiency, enhance model performance. The ensemble models achieve AUCs of 90–99.7%, effectively separating low-performing and high-performing students. Implemented via Streamlit and Heroku, these models support real-time, data-driven decisions, enhancing early intervention, personalized learning, and informing policy and public service design. This ensures equitable education and a brighter future across Africa. By leveraging ML, this research empowers universities to support struggling students, optimize educational costs, and promote inclusive development, fostering data-driven decision-making and resource allocation optimization. Ultimately, this research paves the way for a future where data empowers education within African smart cities, unlocking the full potential of data-driven solutions and ensuring equitable educational opportunities across the continent.
Newman's Singleness of Purpose
Authors: Dessain C. Stephen 
Published: August 2024

My dear Fathers and Brothers, we have met here to discuss the relevance of Newman to the modern age, and we have prided ourselves, not without reason, that we have come to understand him better than many in the past. We have, however, been in some danger of forgetting what the essential aim of his life was, and what the fundamental lesson it teaches us. Yet these matters were thoroughly understood from the first, and clearly stated at the time of Newman's death, by two writers especially, neither of whom were Catholics.The first biography to appear after Cardinal Newman died was that of R. H. Hutton, of The Spectator. It hailed him as the champion of revealed religion, and showed how this gave his life the wonderful unity which characterized it. Amid the many changes of his career, his one object, to which from the age of sixteen he was entirely devoted, was the promotion of faith in the Christian revelation. Certainly Hutton was right.
Symbolism in the Middle English Religious Lyric
Authors: Varcoe William 
Published: August 2024

Amongst the vast output of new records, usually calling for heavy financial outlay, are various ‘bargain’ discs which sacrifice nothing in the way of performance-polish or recording quality. Indeed, the Decca Ace of Clubs series is usually a jump or two ahead of most of its British counterparts in these matters and especially is this true of orchestral records, always a popular proposition.Ansermet Favourites on ACL 37 is a case in point wherein Ansermet, conducting L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, invests Chabrier's Espana with the abandon which is its just due. To the same composer's Marche Joyeuse the Swiss conductor brings vitality and amply scaled dynamics. Ravel's intriguing Pavane pour une Enfante Defunte, with some really mellifluous horn-playing, and imaginative performances of two ever welcome works by Saint-Saëns—Danse Macabre andLe Rouet d'Omphale —complete this entertaining French concert. The record-jacket carries some informative and lucid programme-notes by Martin Cooper.
A Syon Centenary
Authors: Colledge Eric 
Published: August 2024

In 1861 Syon Abbey at last came back from Portugal to England, having been driven into exile, for the second time, in 1558; and this year in their present home, their third since their return, at South Brent in Devon, the abbess and her sisters can look back with especial thankfulness over their long history of trials and wanderings endured for God's glory and the true faith. And in this year of prayers for the cause of the Forty Martyrs, Syon, which gave one of her sons, the ‘Angel', Blessed Richard Reynolds, to witness with his blood to her constancy, should be in the minds of all Catholics in England as they thank God for his mercies shown to them.It is not surprising that an English house of St Bridget's order should have been founded soon after its approval and her canonization in 13 91, for England had been long renowned for the great devotion in which the Blessed Virgin was here held, and the Bridgettines were and still are very specially dedicated to her.
Reaching Unity by Prayer
Authors: Pepler Conrad 
Published: August 2024

It is not difficult to trace in the works of Walter Hilton a direct line of prayer from its inception until it reaches the union of marriage with God. And though for this reason many will be familiar with the plan, it may be convenient to extract the holy Englishman's teaching on the subject from both books of the Scale of Perfection and to combine them here into a single and brief account of an English way of prayer.We may begin with a rather profound definition of prayer as ‘naught else but a stying desire of the heart into God, by with drawing of the heart from all earthly thoughts’ (Scale i, 25, p. 44). This desire rising direct to God himself is indeed the guarantee of true progress in prayer. Indeed it is impossible often to tell from any other sign whether or no one is praying at all. Distractions and dryness flood the spirit to such an extent that it would seem no corner had been left for prayer.
The Liturgy in a Lay Community
Authors: Inrson George 
Published: August 2024

To discover the meaning it is sometimes better to walk round the city like the children of Israel round Jericho than to attack the walls directly with battering rams and force of arms. So we shall be talking about the subject rather than on it, about the growth and effect of the Liturgy in the daily life of a particular lay community and the personal experiences of some of its members.For many years we lived our life together with no accepted religious beliefs and our background was therefore opposed to anything in the nature of a liturgical action—we believed that a gesture or a word which did not spring from our own personal need or experience was a measure of our insincerity and was to be avoided if at all possible.
Our Lady in the Scriptures
Authors: Ginns Reginald 
Published: August 2024

The present article continues the study begun in the May number of The Life Of The Spirit under the title of our Lady in Tradition. In that article there was occasion to remark on the benign and gratifying way in which the great organs of the secular press have reported the events connected with the centenary celebrations of the apparitions of our Lady at Lourdes. But I went on to say that this seemed too good to last, and that the year would not pass without a resurrection of the old threadbare objections to Catholic doctrine and devotion concerning the Mother of God. We have not had long to wait. In a recent review of the new book on Cardinal Newman by the French Oratorian, Père Bouyer, we are treated to such judgments as the following:'It did not take him (Newman) long to realize that in the Roman Church, as he found it, creative theology was dead.
Comment
Authors: Martin Mary 
Published: August 2024

Much has recently been written in the popular press about that vast army of women who live on their own. Following the publication of such articles, a number of these people hotly denied that they are lonely but many others admitted that their loneliness is so great that it is the overwhelming aspect of their lives. Let us hope that no Catholic women were amongst those who made this sad admission: there is certainly no need for them to do so.According to the Oxford Dictionary, to be lonely is to be ‘solitary, isolated, unfrequented, companionless'. What an impossible situation for the practising Catholic! Frequent reception of Holy Communion and a thoughtful pondering over the doctrine of the Indwelling must immediately prevent sucn abysmal loneliness. The woman who lives alone has perhaps more chance than many others to think frequently how the whole of her life is a partnership with Christ.
From Synagogue to Early Christian Assembly: II
Authors: Gutllet J 
Published: August 2024

The primary object of the meetings in the Synagogue was the reading of the Scriptures, yet this was quite a recent innovation, seemingly introduced along with the new institution. In order to realize this better, we must go back to the time of the Temple.In the old days, when Israel had been gathered together in her own land, leading a national life that centred round the Temple in Jerusalem and the big annual festivals held there, the whole People used to go up to the Temple to offer sacrifice. The indissoluble bond between the Temple and the sacrifices made there was indeed one of the basic requirements of the Testament religion.
Bible Reading Made Easy
Authors: Hill Edmund 
Published: August 2024

‘People buy the Bible in such quantities as to make it a best-seller. But they do not read it very much and they understand it less’. So says Fr N. J. McEleney, c.s.p., general editor of the Pamphlet Bible Series, which is being published by the Paulist Press, New York, at 75 cents a number. The series is the most effective thing that has yet appeared to help ordinary people of general education to read the Bible and understand what they read. A short notice of the first four pamphlets appeared in Life of the Spirit in May 1960. Up to the present (January 1961) twelve pamphlets have appeared, bringing the series up to the book of Judges. No. 1 is an introduction to the Pentateuch; then follow two each for Genesis and Exodus, one for Leviticus, two each for Numbers and Deuteronomy, one each for Josue and Judges.They help the ordinary reader first of all by their covers, which are bright, light, and modern. “Whether their general décor meets with your artistic approval or not, there is no doubt that it catches your eye and arouses interest.
The Person and the Place—II: At Old St Julian's
Authors: Webb Geoffrey 
Published: August 2024

The weeping and wailing of Margery Kempe are so un-English a phenomenon, that it is no wonder if many of her fellow pilgrims reviled her as a hypocrite, a Lollard, and a ‘right wicked woman’. It seems never to have occurred to her that most people went on pilgrimage in a somewhat holiday mood, and that therefore her pious table talk was, for them, entirely out of place, to say nothing of her habit of falling down and crying ‘wonder loud’ for compassion of Jesus. With foreigners she usually fared much better, simply because they did not understand the purport of her cries. They would make sympathetic remarks about hot weather and indigestion.Both at home and abroad, however, Margery had her consolations. There were always the ‘ghostly men who loved and favoured her’, particularly when she cried. ‘Worshipful clerks, both archbishops and bishops, doctors of divinity and bachelors also’, encouraged her to believe that she was led by the Holy Ghost and by no evil spirit, and the list of these is certainly impressive.
Devotion to Mary in the Spiritual Life
Authors: Corr M. 
Published: August 2024

It is a common theme in Marian theology that our Lady's motherhood of men means that in some way we are born of her when we are born into the life of grace. What that means exactly no one knows; there is divergence of opinions about the closeness of Mary's work in our souls to the work of the Holy Ghost. Evidently our Lady does not save us; to what extent God has chosen to associate her with himself in this divine work is not yet known, and perhaps never will be till we see it all in retrospect, in heaven.Our Lady is our spiritual mother. Here we are on safe ground. If we ponder on that fact, work out its implications, act on it, we shall be sure of ‘thinking with the Church sentire cum Ecclesia. Our earthly mothers give us life, earthly life, though they do not create our souls. Mary gives us spiritual life—she is called Mediatrix of all graces but she does not give us grace as from herself, for it is God's own gift.
The Monastic Ideal
Authors: Sillem Dom Aelred 
Published: August 2024

The theme of the whole conference is the Common Life of Christians; the theme of this paper is the Monastic Ideal of the Common Life. The monastic life exists in two forms, the eremitical and the cenobitical. It would be interesting to show how the common life of Christians is realised also in the eremitical monastic life, but for several reasons this paper will consider only the Christian common life as it is envisaged in cenobitical monasticism. And in the West, the Rule of St Benedict remains the norm of cenobitical monastic life, so that the monastic ideal described will be that of the Rule of St Benedict.Even with this limitation of scope, the subject is not an easy one to treat. During the 1,400 years of Benedictine history, and also in contemporary monastic life, the ideal of the Rule has been realised in a great variety of ways.
St Thomas and the Word of God
Authors: Potter Roland 
Published: August 2024

This Word of life which was from the beginning, which we have heard and seen with our own eyes, have gazed upon and our very hands have handled—this it is which we proclaim unto you… .’ (1 John, 1, 1.) With burning love and earnestness St John speaks of that knowledge and first-hand contact with the Lord Jesus which was his privilege. And now he can use these same words of the great Saint and Doctor St Thomas Aquinas. For he too loved our Lord, constantly and above all else, and by long familiarity with the things of God and long gazing upon the truths of God was enabled supremely to proclaim to thousands of others the saving truths of God.But let us start, as St Thomas would surely start, with the Word of God; and meditate not on St Thomas and the Word of God, but on ‘The Word of God and St Thomas'.
The ‘Our Father’: A Retreat
Authors: Steuart R. H. J. 
Published: August 2024

In the Our Father we have not merely a plan for addressing God, a formula of prayer, but a command: ‘Thus shalt thou pray'. Prayer is the expression of our attitude towards God. Our Lord says, ‘This is the way you've got to ask God for things—this is the way you've got to think of God and address him; the way I wish you to approach him.'Take the Lord's Prayer in that sense. ‘What is God to you?’ says our Lord; and he begins ‘Father'.St Thomas says that we are entitled to take as intended for us every meaning of our Lord's words and actions which they will legitimately bear. Therefore we must take God as an ideal Father. ‘I am your Father, I want you to think of me as your Father; and not merely to think of me but to know that I am your Father.’ Look at a little child and his father; he receives all he has and is from his parents, but quite soon goes on independently of them.
Langland’s Way to Unity
Authors: Pepler Conrad 
Published: August 2024

Langland’s outlook is really centred in the doctrine of the Mystical Body, though he nowhere employs the term itself. He conceives of the Church and her members in this living corporate way. From the very fact of to the Incarnation, all mankind has become related to God in common brotherhood, even those outside the Church.But my nature shall move me to be merciful to man For we are brethren of one blood though not in baptism together are words of our Lord at the harrowing of hell (Passus XVIII, 397-8). Men are not only blood brethren because they bear the same nature with the same human blood coursing through their veins, but also because they have been bought by the outpouring of that blood made precious in union with the divinity:“They are my blood brethren”, said Piers, ‘for God bought all men”. (Passus VI, 212; cf. XVIII, 348 sqq.)
Son of Man
Authors: Cary-Elwes  
Published: August 2024

Of all the titles of Jesus this is the most mysterious, yet also it was the one most used by him, the title of his predilection.Christ is called Son of Mary; and that is not difficult to understand. She gave him as much as any mother ever gives her child, his body, his features, temperament maybe. Mary must have given all these, for there was no human father. Thus Nestorius was indeed wrong-headed when he refused her the title of Mother of God. We do not say of our mothers ‘That is the mother of Charles’s body’, but ‘that is Charles’s mother’, i.e., the person Charles; so Mary is the mother of the Person Christ, and the Person is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.Son of David, likewise we can understand; though even this is not simple, for he was not so by direct male descent. Still, he was sufficiently descended by blood through Mary, and far more deeply so by inheriting the kingdom; and yet again, not the kingdom of the earthly Jerusalem, but that of the spiritual Jerusalem.
Agnus Dei
Authors: Cary Elwes  
Published: August 2024

Fray Louis of Leon has already treated of this title, but his book is little known and less read—more’s the pity—and I have felt justified in treating of it for that reason.We know that it is a title of Christ because St John the Baptist gave it him when they met, for the first time in early manhood, on the banks of Jordan. It may seem strange that St. John, when pointing out ‘him that was to come to his followers, should from all his titles choose this one: ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ (John i, 29.) Why did St John think ‘the Lamb’ the title most fitted for the occasion? We can but surmise, yet such surmise may give us insight into the meaning of this title, even if we cannot be sure that all was present to the mind of St John himself or of his hearers.There was an ancient story told of the father of their race, Abraham, that one day there was demanded of him a sign of real belief in his God and in his God’s promises. It took the form of God telling Abraham to kill his only son Isaac in sacrifice.
Psalm 41
Authors: Rolle Richard 
Published: August 2024

As the hart yearneth to the wells of waters, so my soul yearneth to thee, God.This psalm is of all perfect men that are burning widi the flame of Goo S love, and pass into contemplative life. And therefore it is sung in the office for die dead; for then have they that they yearned [for], that Is the sight of God. Therefore saith he, as the hart that has eaten the adder, greatly yearns to come to the wells of waters for to drink and wax young again, so when vices and uncleanness are destroyed in me, my soul desires with burning yearning to come to thee, God.
Religious Obedience
Authors: Magrath Oswin 
Published: August 2024

Religious obedience differs from ordinary obedience by being vowed. The vow is an act of worship of God, and dedicates the controlling faculty in man to him, and so the whole of the future life is under the vow. The power to choose is subjected and consecrated to God and his ministers, so that everything done thereafter in execution of the vow has the value and merit of the virtue of religion as well as of obedience.As in the case of the virtue, there is a difference between the subjective and the objective extension of the vow. It is generally agreed among theologians, and is usually expressed in the constitutions of religious institutes, that there is only objective obligation under the vow when a proper precept binding under sin is given, and commonly only when the Vow is expressly invoked in the precept, in a more or less fixed formula.
The Exercise of the Presence of God in Prayer
Authors: Catherinet F. M. 
Published: August 2024

The most important truth for our interior life is an ever more exact knowledge of the God who dwells in us. His goodness, his providence, his justice, and all his attributes seem to grow beneath our gaze, when we consider them in the light of the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption; now we know these only by revelation.But we receive the greatest light from our knowledge of the Blessed Trinity. There is but one true God. This God who is in us entirely is the God one in nature and three in Persons. This assertion confounds us. This living Trinity, which we are accustomed to represent in I know not what distant heaven where he unveils his splendour for the angels and saints, this adorable Trinity is in us, it lives in us. In me. at this moment, as at all the other instants of my life, God the Father in knowing himself begets his Son and gives to him his whole divine nature so as to make him his equal, consubstantial with himself.
Austerity And Reality In Diet
Authors: Badenoch A. G. 
Published: August 2024

Father Gerald Vann, o.p., in an article in a 1951 Blackfriars accused the modern world of flight into phantasy and counselled a return to reality. The Editor, in a later number, suggested forming some sort of Blackfriars Group, where questions so raised might be discussed in the light of what many of us are calling the Dominican Way. The Editor of The Life Of The spirit has been suggesting for some time that I should write something on diet, and especially fasting.Can I, no philosopher, put all these three indications together and write on that one aspect of reality to which I give most of my study, nutrition?We may phantasise a good deal about many practical matters and get away with it, but the fundamental things of nature pay a quick dividend, in good coin or bad, according to how we deal with their crude reality.
First Graces of the Proficient
Authors: Pepler Conrad 
Published: August 2024

The period of ‘great business', described by Rolle in the Incendium Amoris as the purgative way to ‘sweetest rest', has passed, and the obscurity of the night of the senses leads the soul on to this more secure life in Christ. The hermit was perfectly aware of the difficulties of the first period and the progress the devout man had to make to reach this sweetness. For some the progress is rapid and often accompanied by special graces from God.They that are sickerly ordained to holiness in the beginning of their turning, for dread of God, forsake sins and worldly vanities: and then they set their flesh under strait penance, afterwards setting Christ's love before all other, and feeling a delight in heavenly sweetness in devotion of mind they profit mickle.
The Character of a Missionary
Authors: Magrath Oswin 
Published: August 2024

A correct view about the purpose of the Missions must determine the qualities needed in a missionary. The first requisite is adaptability: he has to form new Christians, and has to adjust himself to a new and foreign outlook and way of life. While the development of communications and health services has rendered the possession of exceptionally strong bodily qualities generally unnecessary to-day, and the variety and extent of mission work gives an opportunity for almost all kinds of talents and types of mind, there are certain general qualities which are still necessary for all engaged in mission work.Pope Pius XI stressed especially the dangers of nationalism among missionaries, and these are obvious, though nowadays such tendencies are less than formerly. Yet they are not entirely gone, and Pope Pius XII urges the missionary to make of his Mission a second fatherland, an adaptation not possible to some characters.