Origin and Originality of John Calvin’s “Harmony of the Law”, the Expository Project on Exodus-Deuteronomy (1559-1563)

John Calvin’s plan to study Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy in the form of a Harmony on the Last Four Books of Moses was conceived in the weekly Bible studies of the joint ministers of Geneva. A surviving manuscript of Calvin’s introductory exposition to the series, studied here for the first time since the 16th century, reveals intriguing details on the conception and execution of this plan. It also sheds light on the history of the congrégations, this fascinating example of concentration on the Bible in Geneva, on the co-operation of the ministers, and on Calvin’s role as the moderator of the Company of Pastors. The origin of the Harmony idea is an adaptation of the Gospel Harmonies. Calvin’s approach is highly original in the history of exegesis. The text of the congrégation points to Calvin’s reading of the commentary of the Lutheran Martin Borrhaus and, possibly, of Johannes Brenz’ commentary on Exodus

The ‘consensus genevensis’ revisited

In the weekly Bible study meetings on Fridays in Geneva, called les congrégations, biblical books were expounded in lectio continua. On one occasion the doctrine of divine election was presented over against the intervention of Jerome Bolsec. The ministers of Geneva presented their internal consensus on predestination and sought the approval of the Swiss churches. This paper argues on historical, literary and material grounds that not Calvin’s book De aeterna praedestinatione Dei of early 1552, but the Congrégation sur l’élection éternelle de Dieu of 18 December 1551, should be identified as the ‘Consensus Genevensis’. The doctrine of predestination was not a particularity of John Calvin’s, but a point of teaching the Scriptures, shared by the Genevan ministers

Respiratory and systematic humoral and cellular immune response of pigs to a heterosubtypic influenza A virus infection

The level of heterosubtypic immunity (Het-I) and the immune mechanisms stimulated by a heterosubtypic influenza virus infection were investigated in pigs. Pigs are natural hosts for influenza virus and, like humans, they host both subtypes H1N1 and H3N2. Marked Het-I was observed when pigs were infected with H1N1 and subsequently challenged with H3N2. After challenge with H3N2, pigs infected earlier with H1N1 did not develop fever and showed reduced virus excretion compared with non-immune control pigs. In addition, virus transmission to unchallenged group-mates could be shown by virus isolation in the non-immune control group but not in the group infected previously with H1N1. Pigs infected previously with homologous H3N2 virus were protected completely. After challenge with H3N2, pigs infected previously with H1N1 showed a considerable increase in serum IgG titre to the conserved extracellular domain of M2 but not to the conserved nucleoprotein. These results suggest that antibodies against external conserved epitopes can have an important role in broad-spectrum immunity. After primary infection with both H1N1 and H3N2, a long-lived increase was observed in the percentage of CD8 T cells in the lungs and in the lymphoproliferation response in the blood. Upon challenge with H3N2, pigs infected previously with H1N1 again showed an increase in the percentage of CD8 T cells in the lungs, whereas pigs infected previously with H3N2 did not, suggesting that CD8 T cells also have a role in Het-I. To confer broad-spectrum immunity, future vaccines should induce antibodies and CD8 T cells against conserved antigens

On superembedding approach to type IIB 7-branes

In search for a dynamical description of Q7-branes, which were known as solutions of supergravity equations and then conjectured to be dynamical objects of type IIB string theory, we study the superembedding description of 7-branes in curved type IIB supergravity superspace. With quite minimal and natural assumptions we have found that there is no place for Q7-branes as dynamical branes in superembedding approach. Our study might give implications for the old-standing problem of the covariant and supersymmetric description of multiple Dp-brane systems.Comment: LaTeX, 40 pages, no figures. V2: 44 pages, misprints corrected, minor cosmetic changes, improvements and extensions of discussion, in particular in the parts devoted to derivation of D7-brane equations of motion (Sec. 3) and in Secs. 4.2; appendices E,F added, footnote on page 30 extended, conclusions remain the same. V3. More misprints correcte

On the covariance of the Dirac-Born-Infeld-Myers action

A covariant version of the non-abelian Dirac-Born-Infeld-Myers action is presented. The non-abelian degrees of freedom are incorporated by adjoining to the (bosonic) worldvolume of the brane a number of anticommuting fermionic directions corresponding to boundary fermions in the string picture. The proposed action treats these variables as classical but can be given a matrix interpretation if a suitable quantisation prescription is adopted. After gauge-fixing and quantisation of the fermions, the action is shown to be in agreement with the Myers action derived from T-duality. It is also shown that the requirement of covariance in the above sense leads to a modified WZ term which also agrees with the one proposed by Myers.Comment: 18 pages. Minor alterations to the text; references adde

Perceived stress as mediator for longitudinal effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on wellbeing of parents and children

Dealing with a COVID-19 lockdown may have negative effects on children, but at the same time might facilitate parent-child bonding. Perceived stress may influence the direction of these effects. Using a longitudinal twin design, we investigated how perceived stress influenced lockdown induced changes in wellbeing of parents and children. A total of 106 parents and 151 children (10-13-year-olds) filled in questionnaires during lockdown and data were combined with data of previous years. We report a significant increase in parental negative feelings (anxiety, depression, hostility and interpersonal sensitivity). Longitudinal child measures showed a gradual decrease in internalizing and externalizing behavior, which seemed decelerated by the COVID-19 lockdown. Changes in parental negative feelings and children's externalizing behavior were mediated by perceived stress: higher scores prior to the lockdown were related to more stress during the lockdown, which in turn was associated with an increase in parental negative feelings and children's' externalizing behavior. Perceived stress in parents and children was associated with negative coping strategies. Additionally, children's stress levels were influenced by prior and current parental overreactivity. These results suggest that children in families with negative coping strategies and (a history of) parental overreactivity might be at risk for negative consequences of the lockdown.Pathways through Adolescenc

Methods for global sensitivity analysis in life cycle assessment

Industrial Ecolog