Blessing for the nations and the curse of the law: Paul’s citation of genesis and deuteronomy in gal 3.8-10

This thesis is an interpretation of Paul's citation of Genesis and Deuteronomy in Gal 3.8-10. The promise to Abraham to bless all nations and the curse of the covenant are sun/eyed in the Jewish scripture. We argue that blessing for the nations is an important part of God's covenant purpose for Abraham's descendants from the start and that the curse is consistently connected with the motifs of failure to do all the law and of the abandonment of the Lord for other gods. This thesis then identifies and analyzes the various strands of the postbiblical Jewish literature that cite the promise of blessing for the nations and the curse of the covenant. An interpretation of Gal 3.8-10 is argued, in which the importance for Paul's argument of blessing for the nations and the curse on those who are disloyal to the Lord is stressed. Paul's call to preach the gospel to the gentiles and his defense of the truth of the gospel provide the context for the connection between the gospel and the promise to Abraham of blessing for the nations in Gal 3.8, a blessing which has always been God's purpose for Abraham's descendants. The interpretation of Gal 3.10 then builds on this insight. Those who are of works of the law are identified as the troublemakers who have preached another gospel to the Galatians and thereby they have been disloyal to God and his purpose for Abraham's descendants. Paul cites Deut 27.26 to support this assertion that they have been disloyal to God and therefore are under the curse. This interpretation of Gal 3.8-10 is supported by other traces of the same perspective on the gospel and the curse in Galatians

Psychosocial Aspects of Physical Activity and Fitness In Special-Population, Minority Middle School Children

Special-population research predicting physical activity (PA) and fitness with minority middle school children from at-risk environments is rare. Hence, the purpose of our investigation was to evaluate the ability of important social cognitive and environment-based measures to predict PA and fitness with children with developmental delay, cognitive, and emotional impairments. Children (N = 89, ages 11-15) completed questionnaires assessing social cognitive and environment-based constructs, self report PA, and completed fitness testing. Correlational results supported some hypotheses. The descriptive and correlational results also indicated commonalities with similar research on non special-population minority middle school children from at-risk environments

Learning to Efficiently Plan Robust Frictional Multi-Object Grasps

We consider a decluttering problem where multiple rigid convex polygonal objects rest in randomly placed positions and orientations on a planar surface and must be efficiently transported to a packing box using both single and multi-object grasps. Prior work considered frictionless multi-object grasping. In this paper, we introduce friction to increase picks per hour. We train a neural network using real examples to plan robust multi-object grasps. In physical experiments, we find a 13.7% increase in success rate, a 1.6x increase in picks per hour, and a 6.3x decrease in grasp planning time compared to prior work on multi-object grasping. Compared to single object grasping, we find a 3.1x increase in picks per hour

The Teenager's Problem: Efficient Garment Decluttering With Grasp Optimization

This paper addresses the ''Teenager's Problem'': efficiently removing scattered garments from a planar surface. As grasping and transporting individual garments is highly inefficient, we propose analytical policies to select grasp locations for multiple garments using an overhead camera. Two classes of methods are considered: depth-based, which use overhead depth data to find efficient grasps, and segment-based, which use segmentation on the RGB overhead image (without requiring any depth data); grasp efficiency is measured by Objects per Transport, which denotes the average number of objects removed per trip to the laundry basket. Experiments suggest that both depth- and segment-based methods easily reduce Objects per Transport (OpT) by $20\%$; furthermore, these approaches complement each other, with combined hybrid methods yielding improvements of $34\%$. Finally, a method employing consolidation (with segmentation) is considered, which manipulates the garments on the work surface to increase OpT; this yields an improvement of $67\%$ over the baseline, though at a cost of additional physical actions

Three-Dimensional Grain Boundary Spectroscopy in Transparent High Power Ceramic Laser Materials

Using confocal Raman and fluorescence spectroscopic imaging in 3-dimensions, we show direct evidence for Nd3+-Nd3+ interactions across grain boundaries (GBs) in Nd3+:YAG laser ceramics. It is clearly shown that Nd3+ segregation takes place at GBs leading to self-fluorescence quenching which affects a volume fraction as high as 20%. In addition, we show a clear trend of increasing spatial inhomogeneities in Nd3+ concentration when the doping levels exceeds 3 at%, which is not detected by standard spectrometry techniques. These results could point the way to further improvements in what is already an impressive class of ceramic laser materials.Comment: 8 pages including Figures. submitted to Optics Express (Nov 07

From moral fictionalism to moral realism: An essay in moral metaphysics

Moral fictionalism is the view that everyday moral judgments involve, or else ought to involve, a sort of pretense. In this dissertation, I argue that both descriptive and prescriptive forms of moral fictionalism are unwarranted. Since prescriptive moral fictionalists are typically also error theorists, I contend that error theorists are better off abolishing moral language than trying to salvage it via fictionalism. I then argue that standard versions of the argument from queerness fail to establish error theory. In the final chapter, I argue that a more powerful version of the queerness argument falters in the face of a new form of moral realism that I call the proper-function theory of morality.

Evaluation of Landscape Models for Wolverines in the Interier Northwest, United States of America

The wolverine (Gulo gulo) is an uncommon, wide-ranging carnivore of conservation con- cern. We evaluated performance of landscape models for wolverines within their historical range at 2 scales in the interior Northwest based on recent observations (n = 421) from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. At the sub-basin scale, simple overlays of habitat and road-density classes were effective in predicting observations of wolverines. At the watershed scale, we used a Bayesian belief network model to provide spatially explicit estimates of relative habitat capability. The model has 3 inputs: amount of habitat, human population density, and road density. At both scales, the best models revealed strong cor- respondence between means of predicted counts of wolverines and means of observed counts (P \u3c 0.001). Our results can be used to guide regional conservation planning for this elusive animal

c-Jun Is Essential for Organization of the Epidermal Leading Edge

AbstractThe migration of epithelial layers requires specific and coordinated organization of the cells at the leading edge of the sheet. Mice that are conditionally deleted for the c-jun protooncogene in epidermis are born at expected frequencies, but with open eyes and with defects in epidermal wound healing. Keratinocytes lacking c-Jun are unable to migrate or elongate properly in culture at the border of scratch assays. Histological analyses in vitro and in vivo demonstrate an inability to activate EGF receptor at the leading edge of wounds, and we demonstrate that this can be rescued by supplementation with conditioned medium or the EGF receptor ligand HB-EGF. Lack of c-Jun prevents EGF-induced expression of HB-EGF, indicating that c-jun controls formation of the epidermal leading edge through its control of an EGF receptor autocrine loop