This thesis examines the relationship between two major twentieth century theologians, Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar. It seeks to show how their meeting, resulting in von Balthasar’s seminal study The Theology of Karl Barth, goes on to influence von Balthasar’s theological development throughout his trilogy beginning with The Glory of the Lord, continuing in the Theo-Drama and concluding with the Theo-Logic. In particular it explores the significance of the debate over the ‘analogy of being’ and seeks to show that von Balthasar’s decision to structure his trilogy around the transcendentals of ‘being’, the beautiful, the good and the true, results from his re-affirmation of the role of analogy in light of his debate with Barth. It will also suggest that von Balthasar’s adoption of a ‘theo-dramatic’ approach to God’s saving action and assertion of the role of Church as a ‘theo-dramatic character’ in her own right is prompted by concern over what he alleges to be ‘christological constriction’ and an inadequate doctrine of the Church in Barth. This argument will be conducted in dialogue with other theologians and interpreters of von Balthasar and conclude with a personal reflection on how the issues raised remain relevant today.

This thesis is a sociological study of the current generation of adolescent Quakers. It examines and analyses their beliefs and values; individual and group practice and how the group functions. The research demonstrates that for the adolescent Quaker group belief is unimportant and non-definitional; values are broad and open to individual interpretation, although key shared values have an optional influence on behaviour. Involvement in Quaker activity is extensive, corporate worship is central and internal discipline is strong. I argue that the adolescent Quaker group represents a ‘Community of Intimacy’, a collective grouping which places emphasis on belonging, inter-personal networks secured by friendships, shared values, expression though individual and corporate behaviour, and the separateness of the group from other Quakers and other adolescents. This concept can be related to other groups and represents an original contribution to existing scholarship, providing a new way of describing groups and explaining how they function. The research illustrates that while both the adult and adolescent Quaker groups have sect-like characteristics the sectarian nature of the groups is differently configured. I argue that the failure of the adult group to acknowledge the adolescent group as separate and different results in its cultural, institutional and theological marginalisation.

Having given a fresh historical overview of Pentecostal thought concerning the doctrine of human constitution, and so ascertained the trajectory Pentecostal theology is on concerning this doctrine, this thesis identifies Amos Yong and then Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen as significant voices towards the end and present of the trajectory, with the potential to influence its future direction. The thesis highlights both scholars’ assumption that any dualistic view of human constitution - specifically, understanding the soul as a distinct immaterial (and after death, separable) entity from the body - is theologically and philosophically problematic, and charts their alternative proposal(s) of an emergent monist view of human constitution. Responding to them, the thesis counters their theological and philosophical challenges, and further contends that their emergent monist proposals suffer much greater problems. It then argues for and constructs an enhanced Pentecostal view of human constitution - one more consistent with Pentecostal theological emphases, and also stronger philosophically than Yong’s and Kärkkäinen’s - proposing a new ‘Enspiritable Dualist’ view, by renewing the soul. Through giving it suitable prominence in Pentecostalism’s theology of constitution, and by establishing the centrality of the S/spirit in the new model, the soul is renewed, in turn, redirecting the trajectory’s future.

Taylor is an early example of a divine who wanted to find a way of remaining an orthodox Christian while rejecting the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. Taylor could not see how the term ‘sin’could be correctly applied to anything but an individual’freely-chosen acts. However, he recognised that the reduction of the Christian concept of sin to particular sins constituted the Pelagian heresy. He attempted to avoid it by placing the insight behind the traditional doctrine in the challenge posed to the will by a naturalised version of the Augustinian fallen state, which was nonetheless morally indifferent in itself. The insights and confusions in Taylor’treatment of original sin and his anthropology, notably regarding the human will and its freedom, provide a fruitful basis for a more general consideration of the question of ‘orthodoxy’concerning original sin and the classical Christian doctrine of man.

Congregationalists were a major presence in the ecclesiastical landscape of Edwardian Hampshire. With a number of churches in the major urban centres of Southampton, Portsmouth and Bournemouth, and places of worship in most market towns and many villages they were much in evidence and their activities received extensive coverage in the local press. Their leaders, both clerical and lay, were often prominent figures in the local community as they sought to give expression to their Evangelical convictions tempered with a strong social conscience. From what they had to say about Congregational leadership, identity, doctrine and relations with the wider world and indeed their relative silence on the issue of gender relations, something of the essence of Edwardian Congregationalism emerges. In their discourses various tensions were to the fore, including those between faith and good works; the spiritual and secular impulses at the heart of the institutional principle; and the conflicting priorities of churches and society at large. These reflect the restlessness of the period and point to a possible 'turning of the tide'. They also call into question the suitability of constructs such as 'faith in crisis' or 'faith society' to characterise the church history of the Edwardian era.

This thesis discusses the Threefold Blessing: salvation, financial prosperity, and healing as a contextual hope in the Korean Pentecostal context. Ironically, hope always begins in hopeless situations and it will not function as a hope unless it is renewed in the new context. No one hopes for the hope that already has been achieved. As hope is contradictory to current difficulties, it can be hope to those who are suffering from the current lack, deficiency and hardship. The Threefold Blessing was the most urgent and eager hope for desperate Koreans in the post Korean context. As the Threefold Blessing was contradictory to the socio-economic and political situations of Korea after the War, it could be hope to Koreans. In fact, the Threefold Blessing successfully contextualized into the Korean context and has deeply lodged into Korean Pentecostals’ life. However, as today’s Korean contexts changed, it is questionable if the Threefold Blessing can continuously give hope to contemporary Koreans. Thus, the Threefold Blessing has to be reinterpreted and recontextualized into today’s Korean Pentecostal context theologically. If the old Threefold Blessing emphasized spiritual, physical and prosperous life of individuals, the new Threefold Blessing has to be understood in wider theological perspectives, including social and ecological matters. Throughout this thesis, I will review the contextualization of the Threefold Blessing in the Korean context as a Pentecostal hope and suggest the ways of its recontextualization for present and future Korean Pentecostals with theological interaction with Jürgen Moltmann’s theology of hope.

Nous étudions ici le comportement non-linéaire d’un photoconducteur utilisé pour l’échantillonnage hyperfréquence. L’absorption optique dans ces photoconducteurs est optimisée grâce à l’utilisation d’une cavité résonante. Nous avons tout d’abord procédé à un travail de caractérisation de photoconducteurs avec différentes propriétés géométriques (diamètre, épaisseur de cavité) et matériau, (temps de vie des porteurs) pour en extraire l’influence de ces paramètres sur les performances en échantillonnage. Nous avons ensuite développé un modèle optoélectronique basé sur la caractéristique courant-tension et le modèle empirique de dérive des porteurs de charge de Canali avec une approche quasi-statique. Ce modèle nous a permis d’isoler certaines caractéristiques du photoconducteur susceptibles d’être la source des harmoniques. Une nouvelle structure de photoconducteur a été développée dans l’objectif de pallier à ces imperfections. Les résultats expérimentaux montrent une symétrisation de la caractéristique courant-tension et une réduction de plus de 20 dB des harmoniques d’ordre paire qui y est associée. Une réduction notable de la capacité est également réalisée ce qui augmente la fréquence de coupure du composant. / This thesis aims to study the nonlinear behavior of a photoconductor used as a microwave sampler. These photoconductors optimize the optical absorption thanks to a Fabry-Pérot resonant cavity. We first carried out a characterization work of photoconductors with different geometrical properties (diameter, cavity thickness) and material (carriers lifetime) to extract the influence of these parameters on the sampling performance. We then developed an optoelectronic model based on the current-voltage characteristic and the empirical Canali’s charge carriers drift model with a quasi-static approach. This model allowed us to isolate some characteristics of the photoconductor that could be the source of the harmonics. A new photoconductor structure has been developed in order to overcome these imperfections. The results of measurements show a symmetry of the current-voltage characteristic which results in a reduction of 20 dB of the even-order harmonics. A significant reduction in the capacity is also achieved which increases the cut-off frequency of these devices.

The effect of genetically modified crop plants on the microbiology of the rhizosphere was investigated using the single-gene Bt cotton as a case study. The project compared the rhizosphere microbiota of four Ingard® 1cotton plant varieties that were closely matched with their non-GM parental strains. The plants were grown in three different Australian soils, ie, a vertisol from a cotton-growing region, and two soils, a fine sandy loam and a red sand from South Australia that had not been exposed to cotton. At the time of the commencement of the project, the only commercially available genetically modified plants were cotton and carnations. The cotton industry in Australia is worth $1.5b annually, and care of the soil and the dynamics of its living microbial consortia needs to be understood for optimum management to enable agricultural sustainability. The general outline of the thesis incorporated four main sections: 1. Experimental setup and analysis of the soils and plants to be used, quantification of the Cry1A(c) plant-produced Bt protein, and its persistence in the soil environment. 2. Measurement of the selected microbial populations of bacteria, fungi, AMfungi, protozoans and nematodes, by counting and estimation by dilution and most-probable number methods. 3. Assessment of selected metabolic pathways to determine the effects on the soil microbial community by chemical and other biochemical methods 4. An overall analysis between different group ratios of expression of each of the variables tested, and the summary of the risk analysis and conclusion. The outcome of this work was the acquisition of scientific data to produce an environmental impact report. The findings of this study showed that generally the microbial populations and the products of major metabolic pathways correlated more closely within the non-GM and GM plant rhizospheres of the paired trials than those of separate trials, indicating that soil and plant cultivar had a stronger environmental effect. The results obtained from the paired trials did not show that there were consistent effects on the rhizosphere soil microbiota that could be attributed to the presence of the Cry1A(c) Bt plant protein on the selected strains of cotton plants. The results from the tests of the paired trials correlate highly with previously published work that the risk factors of genetically modified cotton plants on the microbiology of the rhizosphere soil were found be negligible and not consistent across trials. 1 ® Monsanto Co. St Louis, MO.

A billion tons per year of genetically modified corn residues are soil incorporated having both direct and indirect effects on the belowground environment, soil carbon (C) sequestration, and nutrient cycling. If Bt genetic modification has non-target effects on corn stover structural/non-structural carbohydrate and nitrogen (N) concentrations, then the degradation rate of Bt-corn stover may be different than that of non-Bt isolines, possibly influencing soil C storage and N mineralization. Thus, this research focused primarily on the comparison of C and N mineralization of corn stover in soil as affected by Bt-trait, plant portion, water-availability and HFC-trait; and secondarily on the existence of Bt-related variations in the chemical structure of corn residues that might affect the degradation rate of stover in soil and consequently the soil C and N dynamics. A laboratory experiment was conducted under non-limiting N conditions with stover of Bt/non-Bt isogenic pairs of two varieties, a ?high fermentable corn? (HFC) line harvested at Snook, Texas and a non-HFC corn line harvested at the irrigated field of Snook and the non-irrigated field of College Station, Texas. The stover was partitioned into three plant portions, incorporated into a Weswood soil and incubated during 223 days. Results showed that the differences observed in the degradation in soil of Bt vs. non-Bt corn stover were dependent on environmental conditions (irrigated vs. non-irrigated settings) and hybrid variety (HFC vs. non-HFC hybrid lines). The structural composition of corn plants was affected by the Bt-trait, HFC-trait, irrigation and their interactions. Variations in the biomass fractions of the initial stover of Bt and non-Bt hybrids had minimum to non-impact on soil C and N concentrations measured at the end of the 223-day incubation period. Lignin concentration was affected by a Bt-trait*variety interaction. There were no significant differences in lignin concentration between non-Bt/Bt-corn derived stovers of the non-HFC variety irrespective of irrigation regime but Bt-hybrids of the HFC variety contained more than twice as much lignin as the non-Bt isogenic plants. The effects of higher lignin concentration on C mineralization rate appeared to be offset by an increased lignin degradability inherent in HFC-trait. Overall, results indicated that the cultivation of Bt-modified maize lines is not likely to have significant effects on soil C or N dynamics compared with the cropping of non-Bt hybrids.

A billion tons per year of genetically modified corn residues are soil incorporated having both direct and indirect effects on the belowground environment, soil carbon (C) sequestration, and nutrient cycling. If Bt genetic modification has non-target effects on corn stover structural/non-structural carbohydrate and nitrogen (N) concentrations, then the degradation rate of Bt-corn stover may be different than that of non-Bt isolines, possibly influencing soil C storage and N mineralization. Thus, this research focused primarily on the comparison of C and N mineralization of corn stover in soil as affected by Bt-trait, plant portion, water-availability and HFC-trait; and secondarily on the existence of Bt-related variations in the chemical structure of corn residues that might affect the degradation rate of stover in soil and consequently the soil C and N dynamics. A laboratory experiment was conducted under non-limiting N conditions with stover of Bt/non-Bt isogenic pairs of two varieties, a ?high fermentable corn? (HFC) line harvested at Snook, Texas and a non-HFC corn line harvested at the irrigated field of Snook and the non-irrigated field of College Station, Texas. The stover was partitioned into three plant portions, incorporated into a Weswood soil and incubated during 223 days. Results showed that the differences observed in the degradation in soil of Bt vs. non-Bt corn stover were dependent on environmental conditions (irrigated vs. non-irrigated settings) and hybrid variety (HFC vs. non-HFC hybrid lines). The structural composition of corn plants was affected by the Bt-trait, HFC-trait, irrigation and their interactions. Variations in the biomass fractions of the initial stover of Bt and non-Bt hybrids had minimum to non-impact on soil C and N concentrations measured at the end of the 223-day incubation period. Lignin concentration was affected by a Bt-trait*variety interaction. There were no significant differences in lignin concentration between non-Bt/Bt-corn derived stovers of the non-HFC variety irrespective of irrigation regime but Bt-hybrids of the HFC variety contained more than twice as much lignin as the non-Bt isogenic plants. The effects of higher lignin concentration on C mineralization rate appeared to be offset by an increased lignin degradability inherent in HFC-trait. Overall, results indicated that the cultivation of Bt-modified maize lines is not likely to have significant effects on soil C or N dynamics compared with the cropping of non-Bt hybrids.