Adoption: exploring a neglected doctrine of salvation

Advances in the study of the Christian doctrine of Adoption have provided new insights into its biblical foundation and systematic function as an organising metaphor of salvation. Despite a historical neglect and misunderstanding of the subject, contemporary debates now arise regarding Paul’s cultural source behind his metaphor of adoption, or huiothesia; whether humanity is created with an original relationship of sonship to God prior to the fall; and whether Christ himself was “adopted" by the Father at his resurrection, in order to make believers’ adoption possible. Given that Christian believers often identify as “sons” or “daughters" of God in their spiritual identity, these doctrinal issues become crucial in our understanding of what grounds our spiritual-familial identity, and demand investigation into how adoption functions as an organising framework of salvation and faith using the language and context of family. Through conducting a critical survey of existing knowledge on the doctrine of adoption, this paper assesses its historical development as a doctrinal concept, considers the cultural background of Paul’s huiothesia metaphor, and explores adoption in a systematic manner, considering its cosmological, soteriological, and eschatological implications. Further it will consider how adoption qualifies as a soteriological concept, and reflect on its place in a Reformed understanding of the ordered experience of salvation, or ordo salutis. In doing so, it presents the case for a synthetic, Roman-Jewish source behind Paul’s concept of huiothesia; argues in favour of the constitutive sonship of created humanity and for the concept of the qualitative, obedient-sonship of Christ, against the concept of his resurrection-adoption to make believers’ adoption possible; and, finally, it presents adoption as a distinct and valuable organising concept of salvation, by showing how it possesses crucial soteriological markers, and suggests a union-with-Christ centric model of the ordo salutis with adoption as a primary benefit of salvation

VLSI single-chip (255,223) Reed-Solomon encoder with interleaver

The invention relates to a concatenated Reed-Solomon/convolutional encoding system consisting of a Reed-Solomon outer code and a convolutional inner code for downlink telemetry in space missions, and more particularly to a Reed-Solomon encoder with programmable interleaving of the information symbols and code correction symbols to combat error bursts in the Viterbi decoder

Training programs and implementation process of positive youth development programs

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Advances in adolescent research in the Chinese culture: Reflections and future research directions

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General Education Learning Outcomes and Demographic Correlates in University Students in Hong Kong

Although there are studies showing that higher education would benefit university students, empirical research that comprehensively assesses student general education learning outcomes and related demographic correlates based on longitudinal data is minimal, especially in the Chinese context. To address the research gaps, the present study was conducted to investigate learning outcomes amongst university students in one university in Hong Kong based on a four-year longitudinal design (N = 460). Four dimensions of student general education learning outcomes were measured, including effective reasoning and problem solving, leadership, moral character, and integration of learning. Results suggested a U-shaped pattern of student learning outcomes for most dimensions, with no improvement or even a decrement in the second year and a steady growth thereafter. While family background did not affect student development, gender showed a significant moderating effect on students’ development in two dimensions (i.e., effective reasoning and problem solving, and integration of learning). These findings suggest that students benefit from general education-embedded university study in multiple dimensions, especially after the first year of transition period. Practical implications of the findings and future research directions were also discussed

Development of a Condition Monitoring System for an Articulated Wave Energy Converter

ESREL 2016: European Safety and Reliability Conference 2016, Glasgow, UK, 25-29 September, 2016This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher.Condition monitoring systems (CMS) in renewable energy devices allow for the detection of oncoming faults, providing data to undertake pre-emptive maintenance. By defining a systems functional re-quirements and identifying of critical failure modes, proactive maintenance strategies to be produced. The lack of operational data in the marine energy industry, and lack of consensus in operating principles between devic-es, means that a non-standardised CMS package is available for wave energy converters (WECs). In this study a Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is undertaken in order to identify the critical failure modes of an articulated WEC, measurement priorities are identified and a set of monitoring solutions provided. Installing a CMS provides the framework for collecting quality component reliability data, however further development is required for building a proactive maintenance strategy and for continuous reliability improvement

Control and Instrumentation Topologies for an Integrated Wave Energy Array

SubmittedControl and Instrumentation (C&I) systems provide the framework for monitoring critical data streams and implementing control functions during the operation of a wave energy converter. However, cost and power constraints of wave energy converters present a challenge in designing a C&I architecture that is appropriate for the application. This study describes the design of a C&I system for an integrated wave en-ergy array. A specification is first developed by defining operational requirements and design principles, measurement and control priorities are then identified, incorporating a failure mode and effects analysis. Available instrumentation options in the industry are reviewed and C&I topologies are presented. A distribut-ed control system is proposed for the Albatern WaveNET Array, allowing for the implementation of control and protection strategies and condition monitoring. Improved C&I allows for the reduction of unplanned maintenance, maximising device availability for energy production.The author would like to thank the industrial and academic supervisors, in addition to many industrial representatives whom provided valuable input to this paper. The support of the ETI and RCUK Energy Programme funding for IDCORE (EP/J500847/1) is gratefully acknowledged

Lessons Learned from 3 Years of Failure: Validating an FMEA with Historical Failure Data

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from EWTEC via the link in this record.Device reliability is often considered essential to the performance of a wave energy converter. Developers may undertake a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) as a design process to evaluate the high priority failure modes of a prototype to approximate device reliability. However, failures identified by this process are typically predicted, and often lack validation from actual marine operations history. In view of this, an FMEA undertaken for the Albatern Squid 6 Series Wave Energy Converter (WEC) has been validated using historical failure rate and marine operations data. Results indicate that a high volume of major structural and hydraulic failures occurred in the initial stages of deployment, whilst minor electrical and instrumentation failures occurred towards the latter. A notable observation is that human driven failures constituted a much larger portion of failure occurrences than the FMEA predicted. As a general observation, the retrospective analysis of failure rate requires consistent data recording procedures, especially given the introduction of new innovations, which may cause a resurgence of early-stage faults. Lessons learned in the operation of a redundant, modular and accessible array are discussed in the view of designing devices that are not immune, but resilient to failure.The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the ETI and RCUK Energy Programme funding for IDCORE (EP/J500847/1), and the support of Wave Energy Scotland during the installation and commissioning of the Mingary Bay wave array

Positive Youth Development, Life Satisfaction and Problem Behaviour Among Chinese Adolescents in Hong Kong: A Replication

The purpose of this replication study was to examine the relationships among life satisfaction, positive youth development and problem behaviour. The respondents were 7,151 Chinese Secondary 2 (Grade 8) students (3,707 boys and 3,014 girls) recruited from 44 schools in Hong Kong. Validated assessment tools measuring positive youth development, life satisfaction and problem behaviour were used. As predicted, positive youth development was positively correlated with life satisfaction, and positive youth development and life satisfaction were negatively correlated with adolescent problem behaviour. Based on a series of structural equation models, the present findings replicated the previous findings that adolescents with a higher level of positive youth development were more satisfied with life and had lesser problem behaviour, with higher level of life satisfaction and lower level of problem behaviour mutually influencing each other. These replicated findings provide a further advance in the literature on positive youth development, particularly in the Chinese context. Implications for future research and intervention were discussed