The spiritual guide in late antiquity and the middle ages: a comparative study

This thesis analyses the idea of the spiritual guide in the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The guides are found in both human/earthly and divine/celestial forms and are treated in the following sequence: living, deceased masters, angels, a higher self and a personified active intellect. The chapters thus follow a logical sequence from the concrete to the abstract. In terms of methodology, this comparative study identifies an exemplum or model present in the mystical traditions of these three religions within a specific historical and geographical context. I argue that the spiritual guide is experiential and, therefore, is manifest in different forms and through my analysis I prove how and why these forms are manifest in one tradition rather than in another. As all these guides, save the living spiritual guide, are both immanent and transcendent they can be contacted through various mental and physical practices. Therefore, comparisons with Hindu and Buddhist meditation and yoga have been included where relevant. Examples from the lives and works of the Desert Fathers, Byzantine monastics, and the Franciscan St. Bonaventure illustrate the human spiritual guide in the Christian tradition. Sources from the various strands of Judaism - orthodox rabbinical, mystical, ethical and pietistic represent the Jewish spiritual guide. In Islam, the living guide is especially well documented in the lives and works of two mystics: ibn 'Arabī and Rūmī. For the deceased spiritual guide, I have compared and contrasted the imam of the Shī'a, the sheikh of the Naqshbandi Sufis, the Gnostic Christ and the 'Rabbi from Beyond' in the Kabbalah. The significant angelic guides: - Metatron, the angel as Kavod and Shekinah, the angelic Christ and the angel Sophia - are drawn from diverse sources. These are the Enoch books, the Hekhalot literature, the Zohar and Hasidic literature, the Gnostic scriptures and Byzantine art; and the poetry/poetic prose of ibn 'Arabī and Rūzbehān. The Arabs were instrumental in introducing the idea of the spiritual guide as the higher self and the active intellect in their translations, such as al-Bīrūnī and al-Kindī, and their interpretations of Indian and Greek philosophy. In historical terms, the Muslim conquest of Indian and Central Asia, Spain and the Maghreb provided the crossroads for the interchange of ideas and the meeting place for Islamic and Jewish mysticism. Examples of the higher self, visualised in yoga, are, therefore, found in the works of Rubrā, ibn 'Arabī and Abulafia. The active intellect, arising from a misrepresentation of Aristotle's De Anima 3 (5), appears as an external spiritual guide in Islamic and Jewish mysticism, through Avicenna and others, but was rejected by Christian Medieval Scholastics. One such was Thomas Aquinas, who insisted that the active intellect formed a unity with the other powers within the soul. The spiritual guide is, therefore, an important theme in the study of mysticism, which I have traced in many sources extant in different languages and disciplines and, in its various forms, it both united and divided religious traditions

The bZIP Transcription Factor PERIANTHIA: A Multifunctional Hub for Meristem Control

As sessile organisms, plants are exposed to extreme variations in environmental conditions over the course of their lives. Since plants grow and initiate new organs continuously, they have to modulate the underlying developmental program accordingly to cope with this challenge. At the heart of this extraordinary developmental plasticity are pluripotent stem cells, which are maintained during the entire life-cycle of the plant and that are embedded within dynamic stem cell niches. While the complex regulatory principles of plant stem cell control under artificial constant growth conditions begin to emerge, virtually nothing is known about how this circuit adapts to variations in the environment. In addition to the local feedback system constituted by the homeodomain transcription factor WUSCHEL (WUS) and the CLAVATA signaling cascade in the center of the shoot apical meristem (SAM), the bZIP transcription factor PERIANTHIA (PAN) not only has a broader expression domain in SAM and flowers, but also carries out more diverse functions in meristem maintenance: pan mutants show alterations in environmental response, shoot meristem size, floral organ number, and exhibit severe defects in termination of floral stem cells in an environment dependent fashion. Genetic and genomic analyses indicate that PAN interacts with a plethora of developmental pathways including light, plant hormone, and meristem control systems, suggesting that PAN is as an important regulatory node in the network of plant stem cell control

CAP-reform and the provision of non-commodity outputs in Brandenburg

This paper presents an attempt to model the response of selected farms to decoupled direct payments and the associated impact on the provision of a defined set of non-commodity outputs (NCO’s) using a combined modelling approach consisting of the AgriPoliS and MODAM models. AgriPoliS focuses on the socio-economic dimension of multifunctionality at the individual farm and regional levels and explicitly models heterogeneous farms (in size, location and efficiency) within a competitive and dynamic environment. The linear-programming model MODAM allows a detailed representation of production processes and their impact on the environmental dimension of multifunctionality at the farm level. We simulate the impact of a uniform area payment and a fully decoupled single farm payment. Our case study region is the district Ostprignitz-Ruppin in Brandenburg. Results show that the decoupling schemes create a trade-off between the NCO’s and that adjustment reactions differ between farms depending on their legal form, size, and production.decoupling, multifunctionality, non-commodity outputs, modelling, simulation, policy analysis, ecological indicators, Agricultural and Food Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Bank Documentation - The Standard Terms Governing Current Accounts in Singapore: The Customer's Duty of Care, the Unauthorised Debit and the Allocation of Risk

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Changing the Interface of Family and Consumer Sciences at Florida International University

The need to change the interface of the Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) Program at Florida International University (FlU) has evolved because of changes in our family structure, culture, resources, educational reform, new knowledge in basic disciplines and applied research

Readers\u27 Speakout

Dear Ms. Howe: Your Women\u27s Studies Newsletter\u27s report on feminism in Germany is interesting (Vol VII, No. 1, Winter 1979), but I have some problems with Ms. Zagarell\u27s report. Although one questions in certain quarters what men have to say, one may not question as readily my devotion to research on feminism in Germany. I have problems especially with the last paragraph\u27s assertions (p. 26). Although some see Emma and Courage as excellent sources of information on the German women\u27s movement, they are not so on German women\u27s lives, or the other points asserted. The journals may indeed be a revolutionary statement, but even at a total circulation rate of 300,000 per month, they would hardly have things to say about, or to, more than a miniscule percentage of the German female population. One should ask some of the other 90 percent of Germany\u27s women how well they feel represented

Die Verteilung von Care und Karriere bei Vätern: Reproduktionsarbeit als Ungleichheitsdimension zwischen Männern?

Die Verknüpfung der Ungleichheitsdimensionen Geschlecht und Care-Verpflichtungen bedeutet für Frauen in Organisationen eine doppelte Benachteiligung. In dem Maße, wie es auch von Vätern als erstrebenswert angesehen wird, Lebensziele im Bereich von Karriere und Familie verwirklichen zu können, beginnen auch Care-Verpflichtungen als Ungleichheitsdimension für Männer Wirkung zu zeigen.Der Beitrag analysiert, wie Care-Verpflichtungen zu potentiellen Karrierehindernissen und zu einer Benachteiligungsdimension für Väter werden (können), welche Mechanismen der Fremd- und Selbstselektion hier wirksam werden, welche Wahrnehmungs- und Bewertungsschemata innerhalb und außerhalb von Organisationen dem zugrunde liegen und wie diese Prozesse mit Geschlechterungleichheiten und ‑konstruktionen im sozialen Raum verknüpft sind. Er stützt sich auf Daten und Ergebnisse aus dem Forschungsprojekt „Arbeitsorganisationen und väterliche Lebensführung“ (SFB 882). Die Ergebnisse zeigen, wie Väter mit (impliziten) Verfügbarkeitserwartungen ihrer Arbeitsorganisation konfrontiert sind, die sie – ähnlich wie Mütter – antizipieren. Die regelmäßige und sichtbare Benachteiligung von Frauen mit Care-Verpflichtungen im Unternehmensalltag wird von ihnen als mögliche Konsequenz einer eigenen aktiven Familienorientierung wahrgenommen. Väter können (noch) nicht auf etablierte Wege der Verknüpfung von Karriere und Familie zurückgreifen und sind daher unsicher im Hinblick auf die Folgen ihrer Entscheidung – zumal sie auf Grund ihres stärker ausgeprägten Selbstbilds als Familienernährer für drohende Karrierenachteile verwundbarer sind. Die Bandbreite der väterlichen Reaktionen auf wahr genommene Verfügbarkeitswartungen reicht von der Zurücknahme ihrer Karriereorientierung zugunsten ihrer Care-Orientierung bis hin zur „Delegation“ der familiären Sorge an die Partnerin, um sich für eine Karriere „freistellen“ zu lassen. Die „Sphäre“ Familie kontaminiert somit auch „männliche“ Karrieren: Familienorientierung als aktive Beteiligung an Care schließt auch Väter potentiell aus der Sphäre hegemonialer Männlichkeit (Connell) aus. Dabei entstehen graduelle Differenzen zwischen den Vätern entlang der Dimension Care. Die Wirkungen dieser selektiven Prozesse verstärken sich mit steigender Hierarchiestufe.Obgleich sie nicht zwingend an ein Geschlecht gebunden sind, tragen symbolische Grenzziehungen entlang der Care-Dimension zu einer Vertiefung von Geschlechterungleichheit in Organisationen bei, da sie die Zuschreibung von Familien- und Karriereorientierung entlang traditioneller Arbeitsteilung in den karriererelevanten (und daher sichtbaren) Positionen fortführen. Familienfreundliche Personalpolitik agiert keineswegs geschlechtsneutral, sondern sie kann alte Ungleichheiten zwischen Vätern und Müttern reproduzieren, solange sie nicht in gleicher Weise auch Väter adressiert. Gleichzeitig bringt sie neue Ungleichheiten zwischen Vätern mit Care-Orientierung und Vätern mit Karriereorientierung hervor

Trousse d’outils pour des bibliothèques à l’écoute de la communauté

La trousse offre une orientation théorique et pratique à tous les stades de la démarche de planification des services de bibliothèque, depuis le développement d\u27une compréhension de la communauté et la détermination de ses besoins jusqu\u27à l\u27élaboration des politiques, la planification des services, le service quotidien aux clients, la formation du personnel et l\u27évaluation de la bibliothèque. En plus d\u27être une ressource fort utile aux administrateurs et aux bibliothécaires qui travaillent avec des communautés socialement exclues, le contenu de la trousse d\u27outils devrait également s\u27avérer utile à tout membre du personnel qui cherche à développer une pratique axée sur la communauté, quels que soient les groupes sociaux ou socio- économiques qu\u27il sert le plus directement

Heterozygous OT-I mice reveal that antigen-specific CD8+ T cells shift from apoptotic to necrotic killers in the elderly

Numerous alterations in CD8+ T cells contribute to impaired immune responses in elderly individuals. However, the discrimination between cell-intrinsic dysfunctions and microenvironmental changes is challenging. TCR transgenic OT-I mice are utilized to investigate CD8+ T-cell immunity, but their immunodeficient phenotype hampers their use especially in aging. Here, we demonstrate that using a heterozygous OT-I model minimizes the current limitations and provides a valuable tool to assess antigen-specific T-cell responses even at old age. We analyzed phenotypic and functional characteristics of CD8+ T cells from OT-I +/+ and OT-I +/− mice to prove the applicability of the heterozygous system. Our data reveal that OVA-activated CD8+ T cells from adult OT-I +/− mice proliferate, differentiate, and exert cytolytic activity equally to their homozygous counterparts. Moreover, common age-related alterations in CD8+ T cells, including naive T-cell deterioration and decreased proliferative capacity, also occur in elderly OT-I +/− mice, indicating the wide range of applications for in vivo and in vitro aging studies. We used the OT-I +/− model to investigate cell-intrinsic alterations affecting the cytotoxic behavior of aged CD8+ T cells after antigen-specific in vitro activation. Time-resolved analysis of antigen-directed target cell lysis confirmed previous observations that the cytotoxic capacity of CD8+ T cells increases with age. Surprisingly, detailed single cell analysis revealed that transcriptional upregulation of perforin in aged CD8+ T cells shifts the mode of target cell death from granzymemediated apoptosis to rapid induction of necrosis. This unexpected capability might be beneficial or detrimental for the aging host and requires detailed evaluation