Developing A Mentoring Relationship for English-Speaking, Korean-American Adventist Pastors

The majority of ESKAA pastors located in North America, including Canada, are associate pastors at immigrant Korean Adventist churches with attached English ministries. Only 50 of 130 Korean-American Adventist churches have ESKAA pastors. The community of ESKAA pastors is small, and their resources are limited. ESKAA pastors struggle in their ministries due to a lack of experience and guidance. To address the challenge, this doctoral project seeks to build mentorships among the pastors so they can help each other. A supportive spiritual mentorship is critical for ESKAA pastors navigating their ministerial duties. This project enables a natural, relational process of sharing information. It also establishes the standards for a multi-layered mentoring process over six-months among the pastors. This project begins by examining both the Korean-American community and this particular immigrant Adventist community. A demographic analysis compares the differing value systems of Korean and American cultures. The section covers the immigrant Adventist community in relation to the ministry background of ESKAA pastors. The review concludes with an evaluation of each group’s strengths and weaknesses. The second section summarizes the biblical and theological foundation for building a mentorship among ESKAA pastors. The discussion covers historical and traditional sources of mentoring leaders, focusing specifically on Augustine and others in the early Church. Additionally, there is discussion on the Adventist tradition. Finally, the section examines mentoring as a means of pastoral formation, a key concept in this project. The concluding portion describes the mentorship pilot program. This initiative explores the following themes: biblical foundation for mentorship, the importance of mentorship, and the benefits of mentoring for the mentor. This pilot program provides content for a future training program to help pastors find their mentors. Thoughtful evaluation is given to the structure, timeline, personnel, and assessment of this proposed program

Developing A Mentoring Relationship for English-Speaking, Korean-American Adventist Pastors

The majority of ESKAA pastors located in North America, including Canada, are associate pastors at immigrant Korean Adventist churches with attached English ministries. Only 50 of 130 Korean-American Adventist churches have ESKAA pastors. The community of ESKAA pastors is small, and their resources are limited. ESKAA pastors struggle in their ministries due to a lack of experience and guidance. To address the challenge, this doctoral project seeks to build mentorships among the pastors so they can help each other. A supportive spiritual mentorship is critical for ESKAA pastors navigating their ministerial duties. This project enables a natural, relational process of sharing information. It also establishes the standards for a multi-layered mentoring process over six-months among the pastors. This project begins by examining both the Korean-American community and this particular immigrant Adventist community. A demographic analysis compares the differing value systems of Korean and American cultures. The section covers the immigrant Adventist community in relation to the ministry background of ESKAA pastors. The review concludes with an evaluation of each group’s strengths and weaknesses. The second section summarizes the biblical and theological foundation for building a mentorship among ESKAA pastors. The discussion covers historical and traditional sources of mentoring leaders, focusing specifically on Augustine and others in the early Church. Additionally, there is discussion on the Adventist tradition. Finally, the section examines mentoring as a means of pastoral formation, a key concept in this project. The concluding portion describes the mentorship pilot program. This initiative explores the following themes: biblical foundation for mentorship, the importance of mentorship, and the benefits of mentoring for the mentor. This pilot program provides content for a future training program to help pastors find their mentors. Thoughtful evaluation is given to the structure, timeline, personnel, and assessment of this proposed program

Frontal top-down signals increase coupling of auditory low-frequency oscillations to continuous speech in human listeners

Humans show a remarkable ability to understand continuous speech even under adverse listening conditions. This ability critically relies on dynamically updated predictions of incoming sensory information, but exactly how top-down predictions improve speech processing is still unclear. Brain oscillations are a likely mechanism for these top-down predictions [1 and 2]. Quasi-rhythmic components in speech are known to entrain low-frequency oscillations in auditory areas [3 and 4], and this entrainment increases with intelligibility [5]. We hypothesize that top-down signals from frontal brain areas causally modulate the phase of brain oscillations in auditory cortex. We use magnetoencephalography (MEG) to monitor brain oscillations in 22 participants during continuous speech perception. We characterize prominent spectral components of speech-brain coupling in auditory cortex and use causal connectivity analysis (transfer entropy) to identify the top-down signals driving this coupling more strongly during intelligible speech than during unintelligible speech. We report three main findings. First, frontal and motor cortices significantly modulate the phase of speech-coupled low-frequency oscillations in auditory cortex, and this effect depends on intelligibility of speech. Second, top-down signals are significantly stronger for left auditory cortex than for right auditory cortex. Third, speech-auditory cortex coupling is enhanced as a function of stronger top-down signals. Together, our results suggest that low-frequency brain oscillations play a role in implementing predictive top-down control during continuous speech perception and that top-down control is largely directed at left auditory cortex. This suggests a close relationship between (left-lateralized) speech production areas and the implementation of top-down control in continuous speech perception

A culture of convenience? obsidian source selection in Yellowstone National Park

Obsidian was a prized tool stone heavily exploited in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem throughout the pre-contact period. Fifteen geochemically distinct sources in this area were utilized on a regular basis consistently through time. A large dataset of sourced obsidian artifacts currently exists but has rarely been applied to specific archaeological problems for Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. This thesis provides a comprehensive list of obsidian sources important to the archaeology of Yellowstone and analyzes spatial and temporal trends of obsidian source selection. This study examines diagnostic tools produced by people during the Archaic period, focusing on the McKean complex (~5500-3000 BP) and Pelican Lake phase (3000-1600 BP). The potential for a cultural preference for obsidian source selection is discussed by applying landscape theory and ethnographic evidence to the examination of archaeological data. A pattern of obsidian source exploitation as seen at the Osprey Beach site (representing the Cody Complex) has led to the development of a proposed annual round, typically applied to the entire pre-contact period in the Park. This large annual round, however, is determined to be unlikely and unnecessary by this author. Alternative “local rounds” to this model are proposed and supported by the evidence. A clear preference for the Obsidian Cliff source (a National Historic Landmark) located in the northern end of the Park is shown in these results. This preference can be interpreted in both economic and cultural terms. Otherwise, no purely cultural preference for an obsidian source is supported. The exploitation of certain obsidian sources did not change significantly between the McKean and Pelican Lake cultures. However, a significantly different pattern of exploitation is seen when analyzed by geographical area. The results of this research suggest a more localized pattern of obsidian exploitation than previously thought, impacting interpretations of seasonality and travel routes in the Yellowstone area

The Impact of COVID-19 on Restaurant Workers

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit many business sectors hard, none more so than the hospitality industry. Restaurant employees were already known to report high levels of depression and anxiety, as well as alcohol and drug use. How has the pandemic contributed to these problems? In the first study of its kind, Dr. Diego Bufquin, Dr. Jeong-Yeol Park and Dr. Robin Back from UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management, along with two collaborators, examine the relationships between restaurant employees’ work status, mental health, substance use, and career turnover intentions during the pandemic

The Wine Tourist: Motivations, Satisfaction and Behavioral Outcomes

What inspires someone to visit a winery? And why do they go back? Three professors from the Rosen College of Hospitality Management have been considering these questions with a particular focus on the world-renowned winery, Marques de Riscal, in Spain. Dr. Robin Beck, Dr. Diego Bufquin, and Dr. Jeon-Yeol Park examined customer revisit intentions, previous visits, motivation to visit, customer satisfaction levels, and the geographic proximity of a destination to their home

Esophageal Cancer in a Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia Patient

The final, published version of this article is available at http://www.karger.com/?doi=10.1159/000505832 A grant from the One-University Open Access Fund at the University of Kansas was used to defray the author's publication fees in this Open Access journal. The Open Access Fund, administered by librarians from the KU, KU Law, and KUMC libraries, is made possible by contributions from the offices of KU Provost, KU Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Studies, and KUMC Vice Chancellor for Research. For more information about the Open Access Fund, please see http://library.kumc.edu/authors-fund.xml.Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) is a disorder characterized by vascular manifestations including mucocutaneous and visceral telangiectasias and arteriovenous malformations. Herein we present the case of a relatively young patient with HHT with an incidentally discovered locally advanced esophageal cancer on endoscopic screening and pathologically complete response after neoadjuvant chemoradiation. This case highlights an unusual tumor response to chemoradiation in locally advanced esophageal cancer, and the surveillance care of HHT patients

Probabilistic Fatigue Life Updating for Railway Bridges Based on Local Inspection and Repair

Railway bridges are exposed to repeated train loads, which may cause fatigue failure. As critical links in a transportation network, railway bridges are expected to survive for a target period of time, but sometimes they fail earlier than expected. To guarantee the target bridge life, bridge maintenance activities such as local inspection and repair should be undertaken properly. However, this is a challenging task because there are various sources of uncertainty associated with aging bridges, train loads, environmental conditions, and maintenance work. Therefore, to perform optimal risk-based maintenance of railway bridges, it is essential to estimate the probabilistic fatigue life of a railway bridge and update the life information based on the results of local inspections and repair. Recently, a system reliability approach was proposed to evaluate the fatigue failure risk of structural systems and update the prior risk information in various inspection scenarios. However, this approach can handle only a constant-amplitude load and has limitations in considering a cyclic load with varying amplitude levels, which is the major loading pattern generated by train traffic. In addition, it is not feasible to update the prior risk information after bridges are repaired. In this research, the system reliability approach is further developed so that it can handle a varying-amplitude load and update the system-level risk of fatigue failure for railway bridges after inspection and repair. The proposed method is applied to a numerical example of an in-service railway bridge, and the effects of inspection and repair on the probabilistic fatigue life are discussed.ope