Chains Shall He Break: A Vision for Reconciling Worship

In the Evangelical church, there is a disparity between the worship of the church and a lack of care for the marginalized and oppressed in American society. Though their worship proclaims freedom, chains being broken, and captives set free, the church does little to advocate for the actual poor and disenfranchised. Because of these and other reasons, the American evangelical church has come to resemble something other than both its heritage and the Body of Christ described in Scripture. Instead, it has become a cloistered, segregated, echo chamber for those who agree on orthodoxy to retreat into and sense the warmth of their own beliefs reflected back to them in comfort and security. These disparities can be acutely examined through the worship and liturgy of the church, which forms Evangelicals into individualistic worshipers focused on spiritual renewal over partnering with the Missio Dei in the world.Importantly, the prophet Amos declares that God “hates” and “despises” the worship of the people of Israel because they do not seek the justice of the disenfranchised (Amos 5:21). This project posits that part of repairing this disparity and engaging the white Evangelical church in caring for the marginalized is found in reconciliation theology. Embodiment of worship that is pleasing to God, that which upholds God’s justice and righteousness, requires embodying God’s spiritual process of reconciliation. If the white Evangelical church desires to engage more fully in God’s mission to reconcile all of creation to one another and Godself, then it must reshape its worship to form its people into agents of reconciliation who embody worship in ways that lead to God’s just and righteous Kingdom in society.Therefore, this research will offer a theological framework of worship for the white Evangelical church, by which it may see its historical and current complicity with injustice in American society and participate in the spiritual process of reconciliation mandated in Scripture that justice may truly “roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). To accomplish this, this project will seek to answer the question: How can worship be used to help evangelical churches in America recognize and repent from their complicity with injustice in society and advocate for reconciliation in their local communities

The Cuddle Club

With The Cuddle Club, I intended to make a film that sought to examine intimacy as it relates to the extremes; in the film I subvert expectations of intimacy to make the audience reconsider why we draw our physical boundaries where we do. And while everybody may need a little cuddle every now and then, men have no right to touch women without their express permission. This paper will be an examination of the story behind the story. Of my thoughts on the process of creating my thesis film The Cuddle Club as it pertains to the screenwriting, preproduction, production and postproduction process. There will be a step-by-step analysis of the plot, as well as an introduction explaining how The Cuddle Club came to be. The Appendix will include all of the documents created during the preproduction process

Stochastic Metallic-Glass Cellular Structures Exhibiting Benchmark Strength

By identifying the key characteristic “structural scales” that dictate the resistance of a porous metallic glass against buckling and fracture, stochastic highly porous metallic-glass structures are designed capable of yielding plastically and inheriting the high plastic yield strength of the amorphous metal. The strengths attainable by the present foams appear to equal or exceed those by highly engineered metal foams such as Ti-6Al-4V or ferrous-metal foams at comparable levels of porosity, placing the present metallic-glass foams among the strongest foams known to date

Differences in Motivation and Game Scores between Middle School Students Completing Digital Game-Based Learning Tasks with and without Supports of Autonomy and Structure

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of autonomy and structure support on intrinsic motivation (IM), the facilitators of IM, and game scores during digital game-based learning (DGBL) tasks. The sample included 222 students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade classrooms. Three instruments from the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) were utilized during the study: (a) Perceived Choice; (b) Perceived Competence; and (c) Interest/Enjoyment. A quasi-experimental static-group comparison model research design was used to test the differences in perceived autonomy, perceived competence, interest/enjoyment, and game scores between four groups of middle school students completing online learning games in their social studies classes. One-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) were used to measure the difference in means of the three subscales on the IMI between the groups, and the difference in means in average overall game scores. The IMI was delivered via Google Forms and game scores were collected from the gaming website. The results of the study revealed that facilitators of IM are affected by teacher support prior to completing DGBL tasks, which in turn influences students overall interest and enjoyment. Teacher support or non-support, however, had no effect on game-scores. Upon analysis of the data, the researcher rejected the null hypotheses that there is no statistical difference in perceived choice, perceived competence, and interest/enjoyment between groups receiving varying supports or non-supports from their teachers prior to gameplay. However, the researcher failed to reject the null hypothesis that there is no statistical difference in game-scores amongst these same groups. Further research is needed to determine the ways in which motivation and achievement is fulfilled within the DGBL environment

Investigating the Lay and Scientific Norms for Using ‘Explanation’

In the mid-twentieth century, Hempel (1962, 1965) bucked posit ivist ort hodoxy and proposed that explanations have a legitimate role to play in science. Yet, when it came time to offer up a model of explanation, Hempel held fast to the positivist tendency of abstracting both from facts about human psychology and from the specific contents of claims (i.e., in favor of bare logical form). At the broadest level, he proposed that explanations are sets of true statements arranged into formally acceptable arguments. That such arguments count as explanations has, Hempel thought, nothing to do with what anyone thinks or feels; explanations are dissociable, even doubly so, from psychology

Nonlinear site amplification functions for Central and Eastern North America

Site amplification functions are used to modify ground motions from a reference bedrock condition to a surface condition based on the geologic features of the site of interest. Site amplification has been extensively studied and evaluated empirically for seismic regions such as the Western United States where there are abundant ground motion recordings for many sites and earthquake events. In regions of relatively lower or infrequent seismicity, such as Central and Eastern North America (CENA), the lack of ground motion recordings and seismic site properties severely limits the empirical characterization of site amplification. This research uses site response simulations to develop site amplification functions for CENA. The first part of this study is the development of 1,747,278 1-D linear elastic, equivalent linear, and nonlinear site response analyses. Simulations are designed to capture the variability in site conditions in CENA and the uncertainty in soil properties at individual sites. Site profiles are developed for 1,747,278 site response analyses, 582,426 each of linear elastic, equivalent linear and nonlinear 1-D analyses for 70,650 unique site profiles. The database of simulations is the largest of its kind. This study describes the process for generating VS profiles, soil and weathered rock material properties, and ground motions to represent the variability and uncertainty of site conditions in CENA. The second part of this study is the modeling of the site response simulation data with linear and nonlinear site amplification functions for the response spectrum (RS) and Fourier amplitude spectrum (FAS) and a correction factor to convert site amplification from a 3000 m/s CENA hard rock condition to a 760 m/s condition. The modular RS amplification model includes terms for time averaged shear wave velocity in the top 30 m of a site (VS30), site natural period, soil depth, and site nonlinearity which can be coupled with empirically-developed linear empirical amplification models. Including site natural period into the amplification function is shown to greatly improve estimates of site response over models dependent only on VS30. The FAS site amplification model is the first model developed from simulations, and the first to include nonlinear amplification

Interaction of Verticillium Dahliae Kleb. With Trifluralin or Vernolate in Spanish Peanuts (Arachis Hypogaea L.)

Agronom

Increased respiratory symptoms following surgery in children exposed to environmental tobacco smoke

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75635/1/j.1460-9592.2003.01100.x.pd

Forensic Investigation of Cyberstalking Cases using Behavioural Evidence Analysis

Behavioural Evidence Analysis (BEA) is, in theory, useful in developing an understanding of the offender, the victim, the crime scene, and the dynamics of the crime. It can add meaning to the evidence obtained through digital forensic techniques and assist investigators with reconstruction of a crime. There is, however, little empirical research examining the application of BEA to actual criminal cases, particularly cyberstalking cases. This study addresses this gap by examining the utility of BEA for such cases in terms of understanding the behavioural and motivational dimensions of offending, and the way in which digital evidence can be interpreted. It reports on the forensic analysis of 20 cyberstalking cases investigated by Dubai Police in the last five years. Results showed that BEA helps to focus an investigation, enables better understanding and interpretation of victim and offender behaviour, and assists in inferring traits of the offender from available digital evidence. These benefits can help investigators to build a stronger case, reduce time wasted to mistakes, and to exclude suspects wrongly accused in cyberstalking cases