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The empirical study of grace, a relational virtue nestled within the fields of positive psychology and the psychology of religion and spirituality, has had a relatively slow start. Since research on experiences of grace is in the beginning stages, the purpose of the current study was to provide rich, context-based, qualitative data to describe (a) mainline Protestants' experiences of, and beliefs about, grace (e.g., common grace, justifying/saving grace, sanctifying grace, accepting grace), (b) how mainline Protestant Christians experience the interplay between divine grace and forgiveness (i.e., self-forgiveness, other-forgiveness), and (c) how mainline Protestant Christians experience the interplay between divine grace and humility. Interviews were conducted with 28 community adults who were affiliated with a mainline Protestant church. Results indicated that mainline Protestant Christians have varying beliefs about divine grace and how it is related to both the present moment and the afterlife. Divine grace was often defined as, or associated with, other relational virtues (e.g., forgiveness, love), and participants occasionally defined grace as a gift. Divine grace was further described as being instrumental in mainline Protestant Christians' experiences of (a) self-forgiveness, (b) other-forgiveness, (c) acknowledgement of personal weaknesses and limitations, and (d) connecting with others who are different. I conclude by discussing my findings in light of the present literature on divine grace.

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This dissertation analyzes the Christian doctrine of grace in conversation with secular moral philosophy, highlighting its relevance to virtue cultivation within and beyond religious contexts. This is an unusual connection, admittedly, but properly understood, grace addresses key ethical issues such as moral development, moral psychology, moral luck, the limits and structure of human agency, and the importance of social conditions that hinder moral development. Though born in the teachings of ancient people who followed Jesus Christ, and subsequently historically entangled with supernatural varieties of Christian theology, the concept of grace has far wider relevance. By setting it within an existentialist and materialist framework, this dissertation explores the complex interaction between institutional, biological, and psychological factors that influence moral judgment and shape human decision making. The work gives special attention to Paul Tillich’s naturalistic conception of grace as “acceptance,” influenced by Augustinian, Hegelian, and existentialist thought, and proposes grace as a necessary condition for moral growth. In line with Tillich, it suggests that the experience of grace can help manage the estrangement caused by the awareness of life’s finitude and the entrapments of our temporal existence. However, Tillich’s use of symbolic language to describe religious experiences attributed acceptance to a non-agential God without disclosing the ontological or causal nature of the experience of grace, thereby creating a gap between the consequences of acceptance and its concrete facilitation in the absence of divine agency. This dissertation closes that gap by rearticulating grace in existentialist and intersubjective terms, clarifying Tillich’s position and bridging the divide between Christian theology and secular philosophical ethics. Analyzing the historical development of existential philosophy, this dissertation further argues against the view of existentialism as inherently anti-religious or nihilistic, and critiques recent interpretations of Tillich’s work as primarily influenced by Neoplatonic Christian theology, instead reaffirming his existentialist roots and the inspiration he drew from German idealism. In the final chapters, the dissertation explores the concept of intersubjectivity and its decisive role in the emergence of values and moral systems in order to illuminate how grace is extended and received between persons. The dissertation concludes with a case study illustrating the practical import of grace in contemporary ethics, suggesting that gracious interactions can lead to structural changes that positively impact life outcomes. The cumulative argument suggests that traditional supernatural theologies of grace and contemporary moral philosophy may have much more in common than is typically assumed, at least when the concept of grace is reinterpreted through an existentialist lens. / 2027-06-04T00:00:00Z

California has experienced an unusually dry past two decades punctuated by three intense multi-year droughts from 2007-2010, 2012-2015, and 2020-2022. A portion of the water lost during these two decades is due to intense groundwater overdraft of the Central Valley Aquifer. This groundwater overdraft has led to poroelastic compaction of the aquifer system and subsidence of the land surface. Water mass loss also causes elastic deformation of the solid Earth, an opposite and smaller amplitude response than the poroelastic deformation of aquifer systems. These mass changes can disturb the regional stress field, which may influence earthquake activity. Both the elastic and poroelastic deformation responses can be observed using satellite-based geodetic tools including Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) station displacements and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR). In this dissertation, I model aquifer-system compaction at depth using InSAR-based vertical land motion during the 2007-2010 drought and evaluate hazards related to Earth fissures, tensional cracks that form at the edges of subsidence zones. Next, I forward-calculate the predicted elastic deformation response to groundwater mass loss over the same period and calculate crustal stress change to evaluate what, if any, impact this has on seismicity in California. In addition to modeling deformation caused by water storage change, I also introduce a new method to jointly invert elastic vertical displacements at GNSS stations with water storage anomalies from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) to solve for water storage changes from 2003-2016 over California. Finally, I expand on this joint inversion framework to include poroelastic deformation measured using InSAR over the Central Valley aquifer-system to solve for a change in water storage and groundwater storage over water years 2020-2021, the most recent drought period in California. / Doctor of Philosophy / Changes in the hydrologic system can have wide-reaching societal, geopolitical, economic, ecological, and agricultural impacts. Proper water management, particularly in places that have water scarcity concerns due to overuse, water pollution, or recurrent drought conditions, is essential to ensure this resource is available to future generations. Current projections of climate change scenarios point to more intense and frequent extreme hydroclimate events. With accelerating population growth in many urban centers across the world, measuring water storage changes has never been more important to ensure resiliency of our cities, energy sector, and agricultural systems. Furthermore, water storage changes deform the Earth, which may create or alter geophysical hazards such as subsidence, the development of Earth fissures, and seismicity. Today, a multitude of space-based geodetic tools allow us to monitor changes in the Earth system, including changes in terrestrial water content and associated deformation, with higher spatial and temporal resolution than ever before. These datasets have provided an unprecedented understanding of hydroclimatic hazards and have resolved constraints arising from sparse and infrequent in-situ measurements. Here, I use space-based geodetic tools and geophysical models to measure water storage fluctuations, deformation, and evaluate associated hazards in California, a region that has experienced an unprecedented nearly continuous two-decades long drought. In general, I find that 21st century droughts have caused significant water storage loss, especially groundwater storage loss, in California, which has exacerbated some geophysical hazards including land subsidence and Earth fissure hazards.

The purpose of this project is to investigate the historical and theological origins of the doctrine of Original Grace and test its viability within Stone-Campbell soteriology. Chapter 1 seeks to provide an exhaustive literature review of those works of the proponents of Original Grace in which they discuss the doctrine in order to demonstrate the place of Original Grace within each tradition, and to make specific connections from the ideas of each writer to their respective theological, philosophical, and historical influences. Chapter 2 explores the exegetical basis for the doctrine of Original Grace. The bulk of attention is given to Romans 5:12-21, as the principal passage cited in discussions of the subject, and to the exegesis of Jack Cottrell, who displays the most current and developed version of the doctrine of Original Grace. I seek, primarily, to delve deeply into the text to gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which the doctrine of Original Grace has been extracted from this text, explore the most detailed textual justification that has been provided for the doctrine, and ultimately determine what is at stake in the unique reading of the text that brings out Original Grace. Secondarily, I seek to assess whether the Original Grace interpretation of the passage is successful on its own terms. Chapter 3 aims to make a significant contribution to Stone-Campbell Movement theology, and also contribute to wider contemporary theological conversations from within the Stone-Campbell Movement. Specifically, I seek to discover how the doctrine of Original Grace fares in conversation with other accounts of grace and salvation, both as a potential contribution, and by running the gauntlet of critique within that conversation. The chapter makes this contribution by discussing the theological and practical implications of Original Grace, identifying and analyzing both the doctrine’s theological strengths and weaknesses, describing and evaluating the theological contribution of the doctrine of Original Grace in regard to the three most critical exegetical issues, and assessing the viability of Original Grace as part of the traditional and contemporary Stone-Campbell soteriological system.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Ashland Theological Seminary, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 273-278).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Ashland Theological Seminary, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 273-278).

Submitted by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2015-10-14T12:57:03Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Jéssica Cristina dos Santos - 2015.pdf: 1711392 bytes, checksum: d1eea60511eac5a148136f47fc2cfe24 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2015-10-14T12:59:48Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Jéssica Cristina dos Santos - 2015.pdf: 1711392 bytes, checksum: d1eea60511eac5a148136f47fc2cfe24 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-10-14T12:59:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Jéssica Cristina dos Santos - 2015.pdf: 1711392 bytes, checksum: d1eea60511eac5a148136f47fc2cfe24 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-02-27 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Promastigote forms of Leishmania (V.) braziliensis can be mantained in vitro for use in research. The bovine fetal serum (BFS) is an important component in several culture medium, however, its composition varies from batch to batch. This work aims to evaluate the performance of different BFS batches for preparation of Leishmania (V.) braziliensis culture media, comparing information supplied by different known techniques. PPS6m and CSA7c leishmanias strains were from samples obtained from American Tegumentary Leishmaniasis (ATL) patients and five different batches of BFS were tested in Grace’s medium. The parasite growth curve was evaluated by a daily hemocitometer counting, the metabolism was evaluated by the parasite’s ability to metabolize 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT), the percentage of promastigote metacyclic forms was quantified by an agglutination test using Bauhinia purpuera (BPL) lectin and the ability to promote mice lesions evaluated by a weekly measurement of lesions. The biochemical components of the BFS batches was also performed. It was observed that two or more passages in culture were necessary to identify bad batches of BFS by the growth curve analysis, while the metabolic analysis showed that an inadequate BFS batch of provided a metabolic rate higher or equal to the best BFS batch. A lower percentage of metaciclic forms of PPS6m strain was observed in one of the media, however, the percentage of metacyclic promastigotes was similar among all the CSA7c culture media, independently of the parasite number. Besides, the stationary phase parasite’s ability to cause lesions in BALB/c mice did not depend on the SBF batch present in the cultures. Data reveals that the best method to select good culture serum is to observe the growth curve for two or more passages, besides this, bad SBF batches are able to produce parasites with the same ability to infect mice. / Formas promastigotas de Leishmania (V.) braziliensis podem ser mantidas in vitro para utilização em diversos estudos. O soro bovino fetal (SBF) é um componente importante em vários meios de cultura, no entanto, a sua constituição varia em diferentes lotes. Este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar o desempenho de diferentes lotes de SBF no preparo de meio para cultura de Leishmania (V.) braziliensis, comparando as informações fornecidas por diferentes técnicas conhecidas. Foram utilizadas as cepas PPS6m e CSA7c de leishmânias obtidas de pacientes com leishmaniose tegumentar americana e foram testados cinco diferentes lotes de SBF em meio de Grace. A curva de crescimento dos parasitos no meio foi avaliada por contagem diária em hematocitômetro, o metabolismo avaliado pela capacidade do parasito em metabolizar o 3-(4,5-dimetilazol-2i)-2,5-difenil brometo de tetrazólio (MTT), a porcentagem de formas promastigotas metacíclicas quantificada pelo ensaio de aglutinação com lectina de Bauhinia purpurea (BPL) e a capacidade de produzir lesão em camundongos avaliada pelo acompanhamento semanal das lesões. Foi também realizada a dosagem dos constituintes bioquímicos dos diferentes lotes de SBF. Observou-se que são necessárias duas ou mais passagens dos parasitos em cultura para que sejam discriminados lotes de SBF ruins pelo acompanhamento da curva de crescimento enquanto a análise do metabolismo mostrou que um lote de SBF inadequado para cultura proporcionou um metabolismo maior ou igual que o melhor lote de SBF. Observou-se uma menor porcentagem de formas promastigotas metacíclicas geradas durante o cultivo da cepa PPS6m em um dos meios, porém, a porcentagem de metacíclicas foi semelhante para todos os meios de cultura de CSA7c, independente do número de parasitos obtido ao final da cultura. Além disto, a capacidade de parasitos em fase estacionária de cultura causarem lesões em camundongos BALB/c não dependeu do lote de soro presentes nas culturas. Os dados revelam que o melhor método para selecionar um bom soro para cultura é o acompanhamento da curva de crescimento por dois ou mais repiques, além disto, lotes ruins para a manutenção de leishmânia são capazes de gerar parasitos com a mesma capacidade de infectar camundongos.

This study explored the life and work of the late Grace Murray Hopper, Rear Admiral United States Naval Reserve. The study emphasized Hopper's contributions to computer science and computer science education, including her philosophy of teaching and learning, and her pedagogical legacy for today's teachers and scholars of computer science and computer science education.