Challenges of Pastoral Leaders: Maintaining Resilience While Contemplating Transitioning out of Ministry

Abstract This study was based upon 40 years of observation of pastoral leaders who faced challenges that tested their resilience to remain in or transition out of full-time ministry. Those who were fortunate to navigate their way through these challenges were resilient in ministry or were able to move forward by becoming bivocational. Some went back to school and got secular degrees and sought jobs outside of their calling. While facing career identity challenges, pastors feared their ministerial skills were less viable in a secular context and were reluctant to make a transition. This study aimed to understand their resilience while having few alternatives regarding their gifts outside of their calling. The conceptual framework used for this study was role theory. The research was a qualitative case study that consisted of the interview. The study’s data collection consisted of interviews conducted using a phone and an MP3 digital voice recorder and then transferred to a laptop computer. The sample included African American ministers of Churches of Christ affiliated with the Florida State and Southeastern Regional Lectureships, whose focus was leadership development and church growth learning opportunities. The researcher used an open coding system and a thematic analysis in the study’s research procedure. Through the study, the researcher uncovered concerns about the lack of leadership and identified a lack of respect for ministers, which revealed a significant challenge to ministry resilience. There was a realized deficiency in role recognition and pastoral support. Each minister emphasized the importance of leadership development as essential to ministry to prevent hardship and create competence within the church. The ministers stated a deficiency in resolving conflict; they recognized and expressed the lack of support and the significance of spiritual support needed to sustain them in ministry. They described experiencing a crippling effect on making progress as a leader. There was disparity when comparing the church leaders’ salaries to secular leaders. Finally, the study demonstrated a need for comprehensive help for those ministers struggling with the desire to seek secular careers or remain in full-time ministry. Keywords: burnout, calling, pastoral resilience, role conflict, role theory, self-care, support groups or system, transition, well-bein

Evacuated Enclosure Mounted Acoustic Actuator and Passive Attenuator

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77190/1/AIAA-2002-1355-680.pd

The good guys win : Ronald Reagan, fiction, and the transformation of national security

The dissertation examines how Ronald Reagan made use of fiction in developing his world view and grand strategy. It argues his use of narrative played an essential role in shaping his vision and in how he communicated with the American public. In particular, the works of Tom Clancy, westerns, and science-fiction novels provided synthetic experiences and creative space that helped Reagan contextualize information and imagine the near-future. Fiction also helped Reagan develop empathy for peoples behind the Iron Curtain leading to a nuanced policy that clearly distinguished the people from their government. The creativity and imagination of Reagan’s vision caused him to break with orthodox conservative positions and hastened the end of the Cold War. The dissertation will also examine how Reagan’s use of fiction proved damaging in the developing world as his narrow reading reinforced tropes and stereotypes leading to ineffective policies that contributed to great suffering in Latin America, South Africa, and the Middle East. The dissertation argues that policy makers read a broad amount of fiction from diverse sources and actively seek to incorporate it into their strategies.Histor

Grating integrated single mode microring laser

Microring and microdisk lasers are potential candidates for small footprint, low threshold in-plane integrated lasers; however, they exhibit multimode lasing spectra and bistability. Here, we theoretically propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel approach for achieving single mode lasing in microring lasers. Our approach is based on increasing the radiation loss of all but one of the resonant modes of microring resonators by integrating second order gratings on the microrings’ waveguide. We present single mode operation of electrically pumped semiconductor microring lasers whose lasing modes are lithographically selected via the second order grating. We also show that adding the grating does not increase the lasing threshold current significantly

Winter-to-summer precipitation phasing in southwestern North America : a multicentury perspective from paleoclimatic model-data comparisons

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 120 (2015): 8052–8064, doi:10.1002/2015JD023085.The phasing of winter-to-summer precipitation anomalies in the North American monsoon (NAM) region 2 (113.25°W–107.75°W, 30°N–35.25°N—NAM2) of southwestern North America is analyzed in fully coupled simulations of the Last Millennium and compared to tree ring reconstructed winter and summer precipitation variability. The models simulate periods with in-phase seasonal precipitation anomalies, but the strength of this relationship is variable on multidecadal time scales, behavior that is also exhibited by the reconstructions. The models, however, are unable to simulate periods with consistently out-of-phase winter-to-summer precipitation anomalies as observed in the latter part of the instrumental interval. The periods with predominantly in-phase winter-to-summer precipitation anomalies in the models are significant against randomness, and while this result is suggestive of a potential for dual-season drought on interannual and longer time scales, models do not consistently exhibit the persistent dual-season drought seen in the dendroclimatic reconstructions. These collective findings indicate that model-derived drought risk assessments may underestimate the potential for dual-season drought in 21st century projections of hydroclimate in the American Southwest and parts of Mexico.NOAA. Grant Number: NA11OAR4310166, NSF. Grant Number: AGS-12432042016-02-1

Spatial Variability of Manganese Oxide in Two Soilscapes: Upland-Lowland, and Riparian Buffer-Wetland Boundary- Wetland

Background: This research project describes the development of a quantitative measurement methodology to determine the concentration of manganese oxide (MnOx) in two soilscape positions (Upland- Lowland and Riparian Buffer-Wetland Boundary-Wetland). Methods: A reaction between the MnOx in the soil sample and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was initiated to determine the level of MnOx reactivity in the soil sample. Data was collected from four sites on Soilscape 1 (Upland, Lowland, and two sites between the Uplands and Lowlands); within each site, five soil profile depths and three sample replicates were measured which comprised a total of 60 samples. Additionally, data was collected from three sites on Soilscape 2 (Riparian Buffer-Wetland Boundary-Wetland), within each site, three soil profile depths and three sample replicates were measured which comprised a total of 27 samples. Measurements were collected and revalidated to assess the accuracy of the measurement protocol. Results: Analysis of data collected from the surface layers in Soilscape 1 indicated that the Lowland (Site 4) had the highest level of MnOx followed by Site 3 with the lowest value occurring at Site 2. A follow up, revalidation study of three of the four sites from the surface layers on Soilscape 1 indicated that the Lowland (Site 4) had the highest level followed by the Midslope (Site 3) with the lowest value occurring at the Upland (Site 1). Therefore, the revalidation study results matched two of the three sites from the initial study. Correspondingly, the data collected from the three sites from the surface layers on Soilscape 2 indicated that the Wetland Boundary had the highest level followed by Riparian Buffer with the lowest value occurring at Wetland. The revalidation study results matched the initial study for each of the three sites from the surface layers on Soilscape 2, which indicated that the Wetland Boundary had the highest level followed by the Riparian Buffer with the lowest value occurring at the Wetland. Conclusion: The results of this study can be used to easily determine the spatial variability o f MnOx levels in soilscapes that range from Upland-Lowland and Riparian Buffer- Wetland Boundary-Wetland, and the movement of soluble MnOx ions within soilscapes by mass flow and/or diffusion processes. In soils with adequate levels of MnOx ions, the use of this methodology can assist in the delineation of the wetland boundary, which has both an economic and land-use importance to society, because of the importance of the ecological functions of wetland ecosystems

Exponential Qubit Reduction in Optimization for Financial Transaction Settlement

We extend the qubit-efficient encoding presented in [Tan et al., Quantum 5, 454 (2021)] and apply it to instances of the financial transaction settlement problem constructed from data provided by a regulated financial exchange. Our methods are directly applicable to any QUBO problem with linear inequality constraints. Our extension of previously proposed methods consists of a simplification in varying the number of qubits used to encode correlations as well as a new class of variational circuits which incorporate symmetries, thereby reducing sampling overhead, improving numerical stability and recovering the expression of the cost objective as a Hermitian observable. We also propose optimality-preserving methods to reduce variance in real-world data and substitute continuous slack variables. We benchmark our methods against standard QAOA for problems consisting of 16 transactions and obtain competitive results. Our newly proposed variational ansatz performs best overall. We demonstrate tackling problems with 128 transactions on real quantum hardware, exceeding previous results bounded by NISQ hardware by almost two orders of magnitude.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure