Desire where it should not be: monks, love and sex

From the beginning of monasticism to our days, monks were always exposed to sexual temptations, either provoked by women or men from outside, or by fellow monks and underage novices from inside the monasteries. A special problem in the Byzantine age was also posed by the presence of eunuchs. While early monastic rules try to suppress homosexual behavior by strict regulations and threats of punishment, intimate relationships among monks are later widely accepted and even institutionalised. From the beginning of monasticism to our days, monks were always exposed to sexual temptations, either provoked by women or men from outside, or by fellow monks and underage novices from inside the monasteries. A special problem in the Byzantine age was also posed by the presence of eunuchs. While early monastic rules try to suppress homosexual behavior by strict regulations and threats of punishment, intimate relationships among monks are later widely accepted and even institutionalised

Constantine’s City: the Early Days of a Christian Capital

In his new city Constantinople, Constantine the Great established an imperial cult with pagan elements prevailing over Christian ones. This can be seen from a number of monuments and buildings, such as the Forum of Constantine with the emperor’s statue on a column, the Capitol, the emperor’s mausoleum, the Mesomphalon, and the temple of the city goddess Tyche

On the rms-radius of the proton

We study the world data on elastic electron-proton scattering in order to determine the proton charge rms-radius. After accounting for the Coulomb distortion and using a parameterization that allows to deal properly with the higher moments we find a radius of 0.895+-0.018 fm, which is significantly larger than the radii used in the past.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys.Lett.

Hadron pair photoproduction within the Veneziano model

We first suppose that low-energy hadron pair photoproduction reactions gamma(*) gamma(*) -> h h-bar are dominated by s-channel resonance contributions. Their normalization is then calculated by their correspondence with the Reggeon term in the Regge parametrization of the gamma h total cross sections. For the case of p p-bar, we make use of the measured gamma p total cross section, and for the case of K+K-, we make use of the corresponding total cross section that is estimated using Regge factorization. For hadrons that have no such data, we can only provide rough estimation based on the additive quark rule. As an effective approach that is convenient and parameter-free, we adopt the Veneziano model in the simplest form. The model is only applicable to the region of low centre-of-mass energy. When the transverse momentum is large, perturbative QCD takes over, whereas in the Regge region, it is known that the Regge pole picture fails in photoproduction. Despite the shortcomings of the model, we find that the parameter-free amplitudes offer a sound description of the data at hand.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figure

A high throughput molecular force assay for protein-DNA interactions.

An accurate and genome-wide characterization of protein–DNA interactions such as transcription factor binding is of utmost importance for modern biology. Powerful screening methods emerged. But the vast majority of these techniques depend on special labels or markers against the ligand of interest and moreover most of them are not suitable for detecting low-affinity binders. In this article a molecular force assay is described based on measuring comparative unbinding forces of biomolecules for the detection of protein–DNA interactions. The measurement of binding or unbinding forces has several unique advantages in biological applications since the interaction between certain molecules and not the mere presence of one of them is detected. No label or marker against the protein is needed and only specifically bound ligands are detected. In addition the force-based assay permits the detection of ligands over a broad range of affinities in a crowded and opaque ambient environment. We demonstrate that the molecular force assay allows highly sensitive and fast detection of protein–DNA interactions. As a proof of principle, binding of the protein EcoRI to its DNA recognition sequence is measured and the corresponding dissociation constant in the sub-nanomolar range is determined. Furthermore, we introduce a new, simplified setup employing FRET pairs on the molecular level and standard epi-fluorescence for readout. Due to these advancements we can now demonstrate that a feature size of a few microns is sufficient for the measurement process. This will open a new paradigm in high-throughput screening with all the advantages of force-based ligand detection. Graphical abstract: A high throughput molecular force assay for protein–DNA interaction

Shear-thinning, Coulomb friction and grain collisions in debris-flow waterfalls: Applications of a 3D phase mixture model with a single calibration parameter and a complex 4-way coupled resolved CFD-DEM approach

Shear-thinning is a common flow-feature of fine sediment suspensions. Mixed with gravel, Coulomb friction drives the energy dissipation between small grains while collisions become more and more important with larger grains. The interaction of the flow with local geometries of the channel can enforce each of these three key features, making the design analysis of channel sections with obstacles a highly back-coupled system. This paper addresses the numerical simulation of debris flow material under extreme flow conditions at planned protection measures. Mixtures with small grain sizes are modelled with a single calibration parameter using the 3D CFD phase mixture software debrisInterMixing and compared with laboratory experiments. To further investigate the scaling of the results, a coupled code of YADE and debrisInterMixingLP is applied accounting for the 4-way coupling to the coarse boulders at the front with resolved CFD-DEM, reaching beyond the possibilities of debris flow experiments