A new heart to know the lord : rhetorical analysis of Jeremiah 21-24

The purpose of the present study is an application of rhetorical analysis to the interpretation of Jeremiah 21-24. Chapter 1 reviews previous studies of the book of Jeremiah in modern scholarship. This thesis claims that there is a need for text-centered and holistic approaches to the interpretation of the book. Chapter 2 proposes that rhetorical analysis will be fruitful as a new hermeneutical method in Jeremiah research. It explains the application of classical rhetorical theory in modern biblical studies. The thesis claims that the application of rhetorical theory helps explain the structure of Jeremiah 21-24, and also the prophetic techniques of persuasion which are used. Chapters 3-7 are the heart of the thesis. Jeremiah 21-24 are divided according to the principle of rhetorical arrangement into five units: Prologue, Proposition, Confirmation, Refutation, and Epilogue. These divisions will be treated in turn in chapters 3-7, which conduct a detailed analysis of Jeremiah 21-24 through a close reading of the text. The argument of Jeremiah 21-24 is that God's salvation plan requires the exile of Judah; the experience of exile will help the people's future understanding of the covenant. The thesis demonstrates that Jeremiah's rhetorical techniques of persuasion are an effective method of communication to address the argument to the audience of Jeremiah 21-24. The rhetorical techniques build up a persuasive argument that the traditional institutions of Israel (the Davidic dynasty, Jerusalem, the land) must be destroyed before there can be a new beginning. God's future plan is for a community that knows him because he has given them a heart to do so. This thesis concludes that Jeremiah 21-24 is a coherent persuasive discourse, which aims to convince its audience that the experience of exile is a necessary condition for the renewed covenant. The contribution of this thesis is in its application of rhetorical theory to Jeremiah 21-24. This theory applies both to the arrangement of the text as a whole, and to the language used in it

Precision genome engineering with programmable DNA-nicking enzymes

Zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) are powerful tools of genome engineering but are limited by their inevitable reliance on error-prone nonhomologous end-joining (NHEJ) repair of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), which gives rise to randomly generated, unwanted small insertions or deletions (indels) at both on-target and off-target sites. Here, we present programmable DNA-nicking enzymes (nickases) that produce single-strand breaks (SSBs) or nicks, instead of DSBs, which are repaired by error-free homologous recombination (HR) rather than mutagenic NHEJ. Unlike their corresponding nucleases, zinc finger nickases allow site-specific genome modifications only at the on-target site, without the induction of unwanted indels. We propose that programmable nickases will be of broad utility in research, medicine, and biotechnology, enabling precision genome engineering in any cell or organism.

A STUDY ON THE LONG-TERM MONITORING OF SPORTS ACTIVITIES

INTRODUCTION: Lots of studies to analyze and classify human movement patterns using various sensors have been carried out (Mathie, 2004; Allen, 2006) because accurate information of body activity is required to provide promotion of health and health plan. Thus this study was conducted to study the classification and monitoring of various sports activities in real-time environment using single waist mounted tri-axial accelerometer

Antiretroviral Genotypic Resistance Mutations in HIV-1 Infected Korean Patients with Virologic Failure

Resistance assays are useful in guiding decisions for patients experiencing virologic failure (VF) during highly-active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). We investigated antiretroviral resistance mutations in 41 Korean human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infected patients with VF and observed immunologic/virologic response 6 months after HAART regimen change. Mean HAART duration prior to resistance assay was 45.3±27.5 months and commonly prescribed HAART regimens were zidovudine/lamivudine/nelfinavir (22.0%) and zidovudine/lamivudine/efavirenz (19.5%). Forty patients (97.6%) revealed intermediate to high-level resistance to equal or more than 2 antiretroviral drugs among prescribed HAART regimen. M184V/I mutation was observed in 36 patients (87.7%) followed by T215Y/F (41.5%) and M46I/L (34%). Six months after resistance assay and HAART regimen change, median CD4+ T cell count increased from 168 cells/µL (interquartile range [IQR], 62-253) to 276 cells/µL (IQR, 153-381) and log viral load decreased from 4.65 copies/mL (IQR, 4.18-5.00) to 1.91 copies/mL (IQR, 1.10-3.60) (P<0.001 for both values). The number of patients who accomplished viral load <400 copies/mL was 26 (63.4%) at 6 months follow-up. In conclusion, many Korean HIV-1 infected patients with VF are harboring strains with multiple resistance mutations and immunologic/virologic parameters are improved significantly after genotypic resistance assay and HAART regimen change

DNA microarrays on a dendron-modified surface improve significantly the detection of single nucleotide variations in the p53 gene

Selectivity and sensitivity in the detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are among most important attributes to determine the performance of DNA microarrays. We previously reported the generation of a novel mesospaced surface prepared by applying dendron molecules on the solid surface. DNA microarrays that were fabricated on the dendron-modified surface exhibited outstanding performance for the detection of single nucleotide variation in the synthetic oligonucleotide DNA. DNA microarrays on the dendron-modified surface were subjected to the detection of single nucleotide variations in the exons 5–8 of the p53 gene in genomic DNAs from cancer cell lines. DNA microarrays on the dendron-modified surface clearly discriminated single nucleotide variations in hotspot codons with high selectivity and sensitivity. The ratio between the fluorescence intensity of perfectly matched duplexes and that of single nucleotide mismatched duplexes was >5–100 without sacrificing signal intensity. Our results showed that the outstanding performance of DNA microarrays fabricated on the dendron-modified surface is strongly related to novel properties of the dendron molecule, which has the conical structure allowing mesospacing between the capture probes. Our microarrays on the dendron-modified surface can reduce the steric hindrance not only between the solid surface and target DNA, but also among immobilized capture probes enabling the hybridization process on the surface to be very effective. Our DNA microarrays on the dendron-modified surface could be applied to various analyses that require accurate detection of SNPs