The World Council of Churches

The World Council of Churches represents the confluence of previous ecumenical movements. The two most important streams of activity that merged in this broader and deeper endeavor are the Faith and Order Movement (Conference) and the Life and Work Conference. Each of these deserves our attention

The Lutheran World Federation

In the years immediately after World War I, tentative attempts were made to establish contact for purposes of fellowship and understanding between European, North American, Asian, and other Lutheran bodies in the world. The first real meeting of representatives of Lutheran churches throughout the world took place in 1923 at Eisenach, Germany. Here 160 delegates from twenty-two nations met August 19-24, 1923, in order to explore and express their unity of faith and spiritual kinship. The way for this gathering and all that followed from it was prepared by the General Evangelical Lutheran Conference, which, although at first confined to Germany, was even before 1900 extended to Scandinavia. The Eisenach delegates decided there was need for a world organization and created the Lutheran World Convention. In Eisenach in 1923 an organization was effected under the name of the Lutheran World Convention, uniting Lutherans on the doctrinal basis of the Holy Scriptures, the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, and Luther\u27s Shorter Catechism. They accepted the doctrinal statement which is now paragraph one in the constitution of the Lutheran World Federation

Editorial

In this issue of the CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY our authors demonstrate insight into the events and persons that animated the century of the Reformation in Europe, including Britain, the centuries since then, and into our needs today

The Realism of Hope: The Feast of the Resurrection and the Transformation of the Present Reality

Some of the great festivals that Christians (in our country) celebrate appeal to us, some do not. In a way we respond to some of them, but others estrange us: we do not know what to do with them. Many people obviously feel that Christmas has value for them. Regardless of what they think about it, they nevertheless have the feeling that God comes close to them again and that in His nearness they find human warmth. The Totensonntag (Sunday of repentance and prayer, last in the Trinity season) affects people who mourn their dead. We can even understand Good Friday. When we see and hear how One who is forsaken by God dies on the cross, we sense that this death might have similarity to our fate

Probing the A1 to L10 Transformation in FeCuPt Using the First Order Reversal Curve Method

The A1- L10 phase transformation has been investigated in (001) FeCuPt thin films prepared by atomic-scale multilayer sputtering and rapid thermal annealing (RTA). Traditional x-ray diffraction is not always applicable in generating a true order parameter, due to non-ideal crystallinity of the A1 phase. Using the first-order reversal curve (FORC) method, the A1 and L10 phases are deconvoluted into two distinct features in the FORC distribution, whose relative intensities change with the RTA temperature. The L10 ordering takes place via a nucleation-and-growth mode. A magnetization-based phase fraction is extracted, providing a quantitative measure of the L10 phase homogeneity.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, 4 page supplementary material (4 figures

Modulation Invariant Bilinear T(1) Theorem

We prove a T(1) theorem for bilinear singular integral operators (trilinear forms) with a one-dimensional modulation symmetry

Global food security and food riots – an agent-based modelling approach

Due to negative consequences of climate change for agriculture and food production shocks affecting different areas of the world, the past two decades saw the conditions of global food security increasingly worsen. This has resulted in negative consequences for the world economy, partly causing international food price spikes and social upheavals. In this paper we present statistical findings along with a preliminary version of an original agent-based model called the Dawe Global Security Model that simulates the global food market and the political fragility of countries. The model simulates the effects of food insecurity on international food prices and how these, coupled with national political fragility and international food trade can, in turn, increase the probability of food riots in countries. The agents in the model are the 213 countries of the world whose characteristics reflect empirical data and the international trade of food is also simulated based on real trade partnerships and data. The model has been informed, calibrated and validated using real data and the results of these procedures are presented in the paper. To further test the model we also present the model’s forecasts for the near future in terms of food prices and incidence of food riots. The Dawe Global Security Model can be used to test scenarios on the evolution of shocks to global food production and analyse consequences for food riots. Further developments of the model can include national responses to food crises to investigate how countries can influence the spread of global food crises

Wave modes of collective vortex gyration in dipolar-coupled-dot-array magnonic crystals

Lattice vibration modes are collective excitations in periodic arrays of atoms or molecules. These modes determine novel transport properties in solid crystals. Analogously, in periodical arrangements of magnetic vortex-state disks, collective vortex motions have been predicted. Here, we experimentally observe wave modes of collective vortex gyration in one-dimensional (1D) periodic arrays of magnetic disks using time-resolved scanning transmission x-ray microscopy. The observed modes are interpreted based on micromagnetic simulation and numerical calculation of coupled Thiele equations. Dispersion of the modes is found to be strongly affected by both vortex polarization and chirality ordering, as revealed by the explicit analytical form of 1D infinite arrays. A thorough understanding thereof is fundamental both for lattice vibrations and vortex dynamics, which we demonstrate for 1D magnonic crystals. Such magnetic disk arrays with vortex-state ordering, referred to as magnetic metastructure, offer potential implementation into information processing devices.open8

Resonant amplification of vortex-core oscillations by coherent magnetic-field pulses

Vortex structures in soft magnetic nanodisks are highly attractive due to their scientific beauty and potential technological applications. Here, we experimentally demonstrated the resonant amplification of vortex oscillations by application of simple coherent field pulses tuned to optimal width and time intervals. In order to investigate vortex excitations on the sub-ns time scale, we employed state-of-the-art time-resolved full-field soft X-ray microscopy of 70 ps temporal and 25 nm lateral resolution. We found that, due to the resonant enhancement of the vortex gyration motion, the signal input power can be significantly reduced to similar to 1 Oe in field strength, while increasing signal gains, by increasing the number of the optimal field pulses. We identified the origin of this behavior as the forced resonant amplification of vortex gyration. This work represents an important milestone towards the potential implementation of vortex oscillations in future magnetic vortex devices.open4