A Strategy for Collaborative Leadership at Mt. Sinai Seventh-day Adventist Church in Orlando, Florida

Problem Organized as a Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1899, Mt. Sinai was the first Adventist Church for people of color in Orlando. Although Mt. Sinai gave birth to several other churches in the Central Florida area, Mt. Sinai lost its ability to build a successive and collaborative leadership, giving way to conflict and dysfunction. Clashes arose between African American and Caribbean cultures related to leadership, worship, and doctrinal interpretations. Methodology The church was asked to help identify areas of concern related to types of conflict, conflict management, and conflict resolution as identified by the project proposal. The church was asked to offer input on what outcomes they would expect to see followed by the formation of focus groups which was the method of study for this project. The focus groups were formed through a collaborative effort with the pastor and local church leaders. Six focus groups of diverse persons were selected. Nine to twelve persons were proposed to comprise the focus groups. All persons within the groups were eighteen or more years of age. Each person was a member of the Mt. Sinai Seventh-day Adventist Church who attended not less than two Sabbaths per month. They had an acceptable history of involvement in some phase of the church’s ministry and mission. Group participants were asked to have a history with Mt. Sinai of at least one full year. Factors such as age, gender, marital status, positions served, education, longevity in membership, prior membership from another Adventist church, culture and ethnicity, leadership experience, and spiritual inclinations such as conservative, progressive, or liberal were used to help create diversity in the focus group composition. The focus groups were asked to assess predetermined subjects related to the identified needs and issues of Mt. Sinai. When specific areas or concerns were identified, selected presenters and discussion facilitators were asked to share knowledge, methods and learning on how to recognize, classify, form resolution strategies and approach the implementation of such strategies for resolution and growth. These instructional presentations were made at least twice monthly for six to eight months. The focus groups met at least twice monthly. The remaining four to six months were to demonstrate and test learning associated with the instruction and facilitation presented to the focus groups. At the end of the focus period, assessments were made of what issues were identified, what instruction and learning, what methods and techniques were used to implement learning and how that learning would be achieved and measured. The focus groups proposed recommendations to the church for how it could successfully make adaptations and changes that would create leadership strategies desired by the congregation. The project was limited to Mt. Sinai Seventh-day Adventist Church and as such, is intended only to demonstrate what may or may not result from the work done in this project. Results A new organizational structure designed to correlate compatible ministries into relevant leadership teams was implemented. An administrative elder was added to help coordinate the collective ministries. More engagement of leaders in planning and implementation produced collaboration and empowerment thus broadening participation and ownership. Leaders were not only given more opportunity to lead, but were also given opportunity to risk failure and thus to gain practical experience. Conclusion The project demonstrated that collaborative engagement by a broader base of informed leaders created empowerment and lessened conflict. It was further demonstrated that a wider implementation of these strategies would assure leadership growth and provide better potential for more productive successive leadership

Temporal Answer Set Programming

[Abstract] Commonsense temporal reasoning is full of situations that require drawing default conclusions, since we rarely have all the information available. Unfortunately, most modal temporal logics cannot accommodate default reasoning, since they typically deal with a monotonic inference relation. On the other hand, non-monotonic approaches are very expensive and their treatment of time is not so well delimited and studied as in modal logic. Temporal Equilibrium Logic (TEL) is the first non-monotonic temporal logic which fully covers the syntax of some standard modal temporal approach without requiring further constructions. TEL shares the syntax of Linear-time Temporal Logic (LTL) (first proposed by Arthur Prior and later extended by Hans Kamp) which has become one of the simplest, most used and best known temporal logics in Theoretical Computer Science. Although TEL had been already defined, few results were known about its fundamental properties and nothing at all on potential computational methods that could be applied for practical purposes. This situation unfavourably contrasted with the huge body of knowledge available for LTL, both in well-known formal properties and in computing methods with practical implementations. In this thesis we have mostly filled this gap, following a research program that has systematically analysed different essential properties of TEL and, simultaneously, built computational tools for its practical application. As an overall, this thesis collects a corpus of results that constitutes a significant breakthrough in the knowledge about TEL.[Resumen] El razonamiento temporal del sentido común está lleno de situaciones que requieren suponer conclusiones por defecto, puesto que raramente contamos con toda la información disponible. Lamentablemente, la mayoría de lógicas modales temporales no permiten modelar este tipo de razonamiento por defecto debido a que, típicamente, se definen por medio de relaciones de inferencia monótonas. Por el contrario, las aproximaciones no monótonas existentes son típicamente muy costosas pero su manejo del tiempo no está tan bien delimitado como en lógica modal. Temporal Equilibrium Logic (TEL) es la primera lógica temporal no monótona que cubre totalmente la sintaxis de alguna de las lógicas modales tradicionales sin requerir el uso de más construcciones. TEL comparte la sintaxis de Linear-time Temporal Logic (LTL) (formalismo propuesto por Arthur Prior y posteriormente extendido por Hans Kamp), que es una de las lógicas más simples, utilizadas y mejor conocidas en Teoría de la Computación. Aunque TEL había sido definido, muy pocas propiedades eran conocidas, lo que contrastaba con el vasto conocimiento de LTL que está presente en el estado del arte. En esta tesis hemos estudiado diferentes aspectos de TEL, una novedosa combinación de lógica modal temporal y un formalismo no monótono. A grandes rasgos, esta tesis recoge un conjunto de resultados, tanto desde el punto de vista teórico como práctico, que constituye un gran avance en lo relativo al conocimiento sobre TEL.[Resumo] O razoamento do sentido común aplicado ao caso temporal está cheo de situacións que requiren supoñer conclusións por defecto, posto que raramente contamos con toda a información dispoñible. Lamentablemente a maioría de lóxicas modais temporáis non permiten modelar este tipo de razoamento por defecto debido a que, típicamente, están definidas por medio de relacións de inferencia monótonas. Pola contra, as aproximacións non monótonas existentes son moi costosos e o seu tratamento do tempo non está ben tan delimitado nin estudiado como nas lóxicas modais. Temporal Equilibrium Logic (TEL) é a primeira aproximación non monótona que cubre totalmente a sintaxe dalgunha das lóxicas modais traidicionáis sen requerir o uso de máis construccións. TEL comparte a sintaxe de Lineartime Temporal Logic (LTL) (formalismo proposto por Arthur Prior e extendido posteriormente por Hans Kamp), que é considerada unha das lóxicas modais máis simples, utilizadas e coñecidas dentro da Teoría da Computación. Aínda que TEL xa fora definido previamente, moi poucas das súas propiedades eran coñecidas, dato que contrasta co vasto coñecemento de LTL existente no estado da arte. Nesta tese, estudiamos diferentes aspectos de TEL, unha novidosa combinación de lóxica modal temporal e un formalimo non monótono. A grandes rasgos, esta tese recolle un conxunto de resultados, tanto dende o punto de vista teórico como práctico, que constitúe un gran avance no relativo ó coñecemento sobre o formalismo TEL

Computational models of ontology evolution in legal reasoning

This thesis analyses the problem of creating computational models of ontology evolution in legal reasoning. Ontology evolution is the process of change that happens to a theory as it is used by agents within a domain. In the legal domain these theories are the laws that define acceptable behaviours and the meta-legal theories that govern the application of the laws. We survey the background subjects required to understand the problem and the relevant literature within AI and Law. We argue that context and commonsense are necessary features of a model of ontology evolution in legal reasoning; and propose a model of legal reasoning based upon creating a discourse context. We conclude by arguing that there is a distinction between prescriptive and descriptive models of ontology evolution; with a prescriptive model being a social and philosophical problem, rather than a technical one, and a descriptive model being an AI-complete problem