Christian culture and Germanic tradition in Old English literature : a syncretic approach to reconciling faith and culture.

Many conservative or 'traditional' Christians today contend that some modern churches, in an effort to engage with contemporary culture, adapt the values and practices of the secular world to too great a degree in order to seem relevant to contemporary audiences. We do, however, live in a particular place and time, one defined by a multitude of interlocking cultural contexts, and a degree of application or contextualization of Christian scripture, theology, and worship style may be inevitable to promote a greater understanding or awareness of faith. This thesis proposes that this debate constitutes a particularly significant point of intersection between Old English literature and today's culture. Many Old English texts engage Anglo-Saxon culture by combining a Germanic heroic vernacular tradition with the Christian tradition. This thesis analyzes the strategies by which Old English authors engage in syncretism, and it discusses its implications for and effects on Anglo-Saxon readers. Special attention is paid to the ways in which Anglo-Saxon writers voice, integrate, and fuse their religious ideas with the specific culture around them in order to demonstrate that the syncretic practices of the first English Christians, in a culture still filled with pre-Christian beliefs, practices, and images, anticipate (and might in fact have something to contribute to) the responses, equally syncretic but expressed using different materials, of contemporary Christian authors to an increasingly post-Christian cultural milieu

There Is No Such Word As Can

The poems within There Is No Such Word As Can trouble themselves with the seemingly impossible task of interacting with a generational incapacity for conviction, or any sort of variable of truth outside of the traditional means of understanding. How does one align oneself with any sort of truth without dogma, for instance? How does one choose from the infinite possibilities provided to generations raised under the shadow of deconstruction? The answer may come in the form of reimagining what an answer could actually be. The poems presented in this collection eschew any sort of conviction by undercutting themselves so consistently that their questions inevitably become their own kind of answer. This is a work in ambivalence. This is a work in “fence-sitting.” The poems seem to interact with the history of their creation within the procedural space of their own becoming. A variety of rural vernacular is often times juxtaposed with academic, theoretical-based language, for instance, as a way to explore what is understood and what is misunderstood. The conclusion these poems seem to come to is that these two terms are often interchangeable. Where you sit depends on where you stand. Often times, these poems address realities that they themselves have created, where time, space, communication, and understanding are altered in an attempt to establish a new sort of perspective. The inevitable failure and shortcomings within this collection, then, are the product of the poems own becoming, their own reality. The failure to comprehend one’s own identity, to fix oneself to any sort of truth, therefore, happens within the poems’ reality—a failed experiment to skew the real to possibly see the real as it actually could be. There Is No Such Word As Can articulates the answers that a lot of people outside of the author’s own generation may not have the stomach to swallow. That is, sometimes not knowing is actually more worthwhile than actually knowing. And that the difference between the two is something that is worth considering. At least here in these poems, anyway

Pediatric Cardiac Devices: Recent Progress and Remaining Problems

Pediatric cardiology is a field that largely relies on translation of innovation in its adult counterpart in order to improve patient outcomes and introduce new technology to the field. Few FDA-approved pediatric cardiac devices are available for clinical use, thus leading to widespread off-label use within the field. Nonetheless, adaption of devices and technology from the adult field has proven to improve patient outcomes and overall wellness. However, the diversity of congenital heart disease, in terms of basic anatomy and treatment response, continues to complicate results. The combination of diversity of anatomy and small population size make it difficult for identifying control populations on which to test new devices, thus limiting the amount of safety and efficacy data that can be gathered. With little guidance and long-term data due to off-label use and poor reporting infrastructure, physicians are often left to devise solutions on a case-by-case basis. While surgery continues to be a mainstay of pediatric cardiology, transcatheter approaches to treating congenital heart disease have continued to gain momentum. With increasing data and multiplying device options, physicians have various options for approaching congenital heart disease. More recently, the creation of large databases such as Pediatric Interagency Registry for Mechanical Circulatory Support (PediMACS) has made evaluating the safety and efficacy of pediatric cardiac devices more realistic. In this review, various approaches to surgical and device treatment of congenital heart diseases and conditions will be explored in order to shed light on the current status of pediatric cardiac devices

SparsePak: A Formatted Fiber Field-Unit for The WIYN Telescope Bench Spectrograph. II. On-Sky Performance

We present a performance analysis of SparsePak and the WIYN Bench Spectrograph for precision studies of stellar and ionized gas kinematics of external galaxies. We focus on spectrograph configurations with echelle and low-order gratings yielding spectral resolutions of ~10000 between 500-900nm. These configurations are of general relevance to the spectrograph performance. Benchmarks include spectral resolution, sampling, vignetting, scattered light, and an estimate of the system absolute throughput. Comparisons are made to other, existing, fiber feeds on the WIYN Bench Spectrograph. Vignetting and relative throughput are found to agree with a geometric model of the optical system. An aperture-correction protocol for spectrophotometric standard-star calibrations has been established using independent WIYN imaging data and the unique capabilities of the SparsePak fiber array. The WIYN point-spread-function is well-fit by a Moffat profile with a constant power-law outer slope of index -4.4. We use SparsePak commissioning data to debunk a long-standing myth concerning sky-subtraction with fibers: By properly treating the multi-fiber data as a ``long-slit'' it is possible to achieve precision sky subtraction with a signal-to-noise performance as good or better than conventional long-slit spectroscopy. No beam-switching is required, and hence the method is efficient. Finally, we give several examples of science measurements which SparsePak now makes routine. These include H$\alpha$ velocity fields of low surface-brightness disks, gas and stellar velocity-fields of nearly face-on disks, and stellar absorption-line profiles of galaxy disks at spectral resolutions of ~24,000.Comment: To appear in ApJSupp (Feb 2005); 19 pages text; 7 tables; 27 figures (embedded); high-resolution version at http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~mab/publications/spkII_pre.pd

Spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) blocks autophagic Tau degradation <i>in vitro</i> and <i>in vivo</i>

Spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) plays a major role in inflammation and in adaptive immune responses and could therefore contribute to the neuroinflammation observed in various neurodegenerative diseases. Indeed, previously we have reported that SYK also regulates amyloid β (Aβ) production and hyperphosphorylation of Tau protein involved in these diseases. Moreover, SYK hyperactivation occurs in a subset of activated microglia, in dystrophic neurites surrounding Aβ deposits, and in neurons affected by Tau pathology both in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and in AD mouse models. SYK activation increases Tau phosphorylation and accumulation, suggesting that SYK could be an attractive target for treating AD. However, the mechanism by which SYK affects Tau pathology is not clear. In this study, using cell biology and biochemical approaches, along with immuno -precipitation and -blotting, RT-qPCR, and ELISA assays, we found that SYK inhibition increases autophagic Tau degradation without impacting Tau production. Using neuronlike SH-SY5Y cells, we demonstrate that SYK acts upstream of the mTOR pathway and that pharmacological inhibition or knockdown of SYK decreases mTOR pathway activation and increases autophagic Tau degradation. Interestingly, chronic SYK inhibition in a tauopathy mouse model profoundly reduced Tau accumulation, neuroinflammation, neuronal and synaptic loss and also reversed defective autophagy. Our results further suggest that the SYK up-regulation observed in the brains of individuals with AD contributes to defective autophagic clearance leading to the accumulation of pathogenic Tau species. These findings further highlight SYK as a therapeutic target for the treatment of tauopathies and other neurodegenerative proteinopathies associated with defective autophagic clearance

Evidence for divergent selection between the molecular forms of Anopheles gambiae: role of predation

The molecular forms of Anopheles gambiae are undergoing speciation. They are characterized by a strong assortative mating and they display partial habitat segregation. The M form is mostly found in flooded/irrigated areas whereas the S form dominates in the surrounding areas, but the ecological factors that shape this habitat segregation are not known. Resource competition has been demonstrated between species undergoing divergent selection, but resource competition is not the only factor that can lead to divergence. In a field experiment using transplantation of first instar larvae, we evaluated the role of larval predators in mediating habitat segregation between the forms. We found a significant difference in the ability of the molecular forms to exploit the different larval sites conditioned on the presence of predators. In absence of predation, the molecular forms outcompeted each other in their respective natural habitats however, the developmental success of the M form was significantly higher than that of the S form in both habitats under predator pressure. Our results provide the first empirical evidence for specific adaptive differences between the molecular forms and stress the role of larval predation as one of the mechanisms contributing to their divergence.https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-8-

Ablation of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation using a second‐generation cryoballoon catheter or contact‐force sensing radiofrequency ablation catheter: A comparison of costs and long‐term clinical outcomes

IntroductionAlthough noninferiority of cryoballoon ablation (CBA) and radiofrequency catheter ablation for antral pulmonary vein isolation (APVI) has been reported in patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF), it is not clear whether contact force sensing (CF‐RFA) and CBA with the second‐generation catheter have similar procedural costs and long‐term outcomes. The objective of this study is to compare the long‐term efficacy and cost implications of CBA and CF‐RFA in patients with PAF.Methods and resultsA first APVI was performed in 146 consecutive patients (age: 63 ± 10 years, men: 95 [65%], left atrial diameter: 42 ± 6 mm) with PAF using CBA (71) or CF‐RFA (75). Clinical outcomes and procedural costs were compared. The mean procedure time was significantly shorter with CBA than with CF‐RFA (98 ± 39 vs. 158 ± 47 minutes, P < 0.0001). Despite a higher equipment cost in the CBA than the CF‐RFA group, the total procedure cost was similar between the two groups (P = 0.26), primarily driven by a shorter procedure duration that resulted in a lower anesthesia cost. At 25 ± 5 months after a single ablation procedure, 51 patients (72%) in the CBA, and 55 patients (73%) in the CF‐RFA groups remained free from atrial arrhythmias without antiarrhythmic drug therapy (P = 0.84).ConclusionsThe procedure duration was approximately 60 minutes shorter with CBA than CF‐RFA. The procedural costs were similar with both approaches. At 2 years after a single procedure, CBA and CF‐RFA have similar single‐procedure efficacies of 72–73%.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142442/1/jce13378_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142442/2/jce13378.pd

Adherence to cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia : an updated systematic review

This article discusses information extracted from 53 studies that have measured adherence to cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia. There has been an increase in more complex and less biased methods for assessing adherence that move beyond simply asking the patients whether they have adhered to the intervention or not. There is a need for a consensus around how to measure adherence, if clinicians want to arrive at an estimate of optimal adherence. Heterogeneity of studies, particularly in the way adherence is operationalized, prohibited conclusions about the relationship between adherence and outcome, as well as about predictors of adherence

B-cell diversity decreases in old age and is correlated with poor health status

Older people suffer from a decline in immune system, which affects their ability to respond to infections and to raise efficient responses to vaccines. Effective and specific antibodies in responses from older individuals are decreased in favour of non-specific antibody production. We investigated the B-cell repertoire in DNA samples from peripheral blood of individuals aged 86–94 years, and a control group aged 19–54 years, using spectratype analysis of the IGHV complementarity determining region (CDR)3. We found that a proportion of older individuals had a dramatic collapse in their B-cell repertoire diversity. Sequencing of polymerase chain reaction products from a selection of samples indicated that this loss of diversity was characterized by clonal expansions of B cells in vivo. Statistical analysis of the spectratypes enabled objective comparisons and showed that loss of diversity correlated very strongly with the general health status of the individuals; a distorted spectratype can be used to predict frailty. Correlations with survival and vitamin B12 status were also seen. We conclude that B-cell diversity can decrease dramatically with age and may have important implications for the immune health of older people. B-cell immune frailty is also a marker of general frailty

Construction of the Literature Graph in Semantic Scholar

We describe a deployed scalable system for organizing published scientific literature into a heterogeneous graph to facilitate algorithmic manipulation and discovery. The resulting literature graph consists of more than 280M nodes, representing papers, authors, entities and various interactions between them (e.g., authorships, citations, entity mentions). We reduce literature graph construction into familiar NLP tasks (e.g., entity extraction and linking), point out research challenges due to differences from standard formulations of these tasks, and report empirical results for each task. The methods described in this paper are used to enable semantic features in www.semanticscholar.orgComment: To appear in NAACL 2018 industry trac