Ad maiorem Dei gloriam: The Jesuits in Albania

When Pope Francis addressed students, teachers, and parents of the Jesuit schools of Italy and Albania in 2013, he discussed the core and the value of a Jesuit-Catholic education, which in essence follows St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises and the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits in all multifarious activities and apostolates put Jesus in the center, thereby making him the prototype. It was Jesus who had trodden a novel way for the Society of Jesus to follow and that meant to live a meaningful life, live well, and live joyfully among the people they were serving. It was Jesus that invited the path was gratuitously provided. Thus, Jesus became the core of the core of a Jesuit education. Education for the Society of Jesus is the formation that brings about and allows room for growth “developing intelligence, but also an integral formation of all the aspects of your personality.” Jesuit education inspires students to seek for more and live enthusiastically. Moreover, St. Ignatius of Loyola left a distinctive gem in Jesuit education: teaching and learning the virtue of magnanimity, which means educating to “have greatness of mind; … great ideals, the wish to do great things to respond to what God asks of us.” The magnanimity of Jesuit education entails a big heart open to Christ and to the human ideals that correspond to the Gospel. Francis concluded his 2013 speech by blessing the audience saying: “The Lord is always close to you, he picks you up when you fall and impels you to develop and to make ever loftier decisions, ‘con grande ánimo y liberalidad,’ with magnanimity. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.

Multiple Scattering Casimir Force Calculations: Layered and Corrugated Materials, Wedges, and Casimir-Polder Forces

Various applications of the multiple scattering technique to calculating Casimir energy are described. These include the interaction between dilute bodies of various sizes and shapes, temperature dependence, interactions with multilayered and corrugated bodies, and new examples of exactly solvable separable bodies.Comment: 22 pages, 23 figures, submitted to the proceedings for the Casimir 2009 workshop in Yale, August 200

Vibrational properties of inclusion complexes: the case of indomethacin-cyclodextrin

Vibrational properties of inclusion complexes with cyclodextrins are studied by means of Raman spectroscopy and numerical simulation. In particular, Raman spectra of the non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug indomethacin undergo notable changes in the energy range between 1600 and 1700 cm$^{-1}$ when inclusion complexes with cyclodextrins are formed. By using both \emph{ab initio} quantum chemical calculations and molecular dynamics, we studied how to relate such changes to the geometry of the inclusion process, disentangling single-molecule effects, from changes in the solid state structure or dimerization processes.Comment: 14 file figure

Why Collaborate with Close Others When Choosing a College Major?

In spite of increasing research interest in relational aspects of making important life decisions, our knowledge on why, how, and to what effect close others are involved in decision making still is limited. We determined whom our 65 participants (students between 18 and 27 years; 54% women), in general, would like to collaborate with when making life choices that will shape their future identities. We further investigated under which conditions consulting with this generally preferred advisor (PA) was related to satisfaction with a specific real-life choice, namely, choosing a college major. This one-year prospective longitudinal study included repeated assessments as students chose a major, including monthly reports on the persons that had been involved in choosing a major. These were followed by qualitative and quantitative assessments of evaluations of one’s PA as collaborator. Our findings revealed that involvement of one’s PA during major choice was related to greater indecision regarding one’s choice, but not to the PA’s perceived quality. Involvement of the PA further was related to greater choice satisfaction only when the PA was perceived as highly familiar with the student, experienced in collaborating with him or her, and helpful in optimizing decisions. Our findings suggest that close others can be an important resource for making satisfactory life choices that could also be drawn upon in professional counseling contexts