Jesus and purity : an ongoing debate

The importance of purity legislation and the "separateness" that it implied within Second Temple Judaism confirms the significance of the renewed interest in purity issues in "historical Jesus" research. The relevance of John the Baptist's "baptism" is less clear than at first appears. But that Jesus himself shared at least some purity priorities is implied by Mark 1.44 and by his "cleansing of the Temple". Yet he also sat loose to the purity "halakhoth" regarding clean and unclean and table-fellowship, which suggests that Jesus did not regard such concerns as central to the definition of Israel and its practice

Understanding jumping to conclusions in patients with persecutory delusions: working memory and intolerance of uncertainty

Background. Persecutory delusions are a key psychotic experience. A reasoning style known as ‘jumping to conclusions’ (JTC) – limited information gathering before reaching certainty in decision making – has been identified as a contributory factor in the occurrence of delusions. The cognitive processes that underpin JTC need to be determined in order to develop effective interventions for delusions. In the current study two alternative perspectives were tested: that JTC partially results from impairment in information-processing capabilities and that JTC is a motivated strategy to avoid uncertainty.Method. A group of 123 patients with persistent persecutory delusions completed assessments of JTC (the 60:40 beads task), IQ, working memory, intolerance of uncertainty, and psychiatric symptoms. Patients showing JTC were compared with patients not showing JTC.Results. A total of 30 (24%) patients with delusions showed JTC. There were no differences between patients who did and did not jump to conclusions in overall psychopathology. Patients who jumped to conclusions had poorer working memory performance, lower IQ, lower intolerance of uncertainty and lower levels of worry.Working memory and worry independently predicted the presence of JTC.Conclusions. Hasty decision making in patients with delusions may partly arise from difficulties in keeping information in mind. Interventions for JTC are likely to benefit from addressing working memory performance, while in vivo techniques for patients with delusions will benefit from limiting the demands on working memory. The study provides little evidence for a contribution to JTC from top down motivational beliefs about uncertainty

LU Factorization of Non-standard Forms and Direct Multiresolution Solvers

AbstractIn this paper we introduce the multiresolution LU factorization of non-standard forms (NS-forms) and develop fastdirect multiresolutionmethods for solving systems of linear algebraic equations arising in elliptic problems.The NS-form has been shown to provide a sparse representation for a wide class of operators, including those arising in strictly elliptic problems. For example, Green's functions of such operators (which are ordinarily represented by dense matrices, e.g., of sizeNbyN) may be represented by −log ϵ·Ncoefficients, where ϵ is the desired accuracy.The NS-form is not an ordinary[fn9] matrix representation and the usual operations such as multiplication of a vector by the NS-form are different from the standard matrix–vector multiplication. We show that (up to a fixed but arbitrary accuracy) the sparsity of the LU factorization is maintained on any finite number of scales for self-adjoint strictly elliptic operators and their inverses. Moreover, the condition number of matrices for which we compute the usual LU factorization at different scales isO(1). The direct multiresolution solver presents, therefore, an alternative to a multigrid approach and may be interpreted as a multigrid method with a single V-cycle.For self-adjoint strictly elliptic operators the multiresolution LU factorization requires onlyO((−log ϵ)2·N) operations. Combined withO(N) procedures of multiresolution forward and back substitutions, it yields a fast direct multiresolution solver. We also describe direct methods for solving matrix equations and demonstrate how to construct the inverse inO(N) operations (up to a fixed but arbitrary accuracy). We present several numerical examples which illustrate the algorithms developed in the paper. Finally, we outline several directions for generalization of our algorithms. In particular, we note that the multidimensional versions of the multiresolution LU factorization maintain sparsity, unlike the usual LU factorization

Emotional dysfunction in schizophrenia spectrum psychosis: the role of illness perceptions

Background. Assessing illness perceptions has been useful in a range of medical disorders. This study of people with a recent relapse of their psychosis examines the relationship between illness perception, their emotional responses and their attitudes to medication.Method. One hundred patients diagnosed with a non-affective psychotic disorder were assessed within 3 months of relapse. Measures included insight, self-reported. illness perceptions, medication adherence, depression, self-esteem and anxiety.Results. Illness perceptions about psychosis explained 46, 36 and 34% of the variance in depression, anxiety and self-esteem respectively. However, self-reported medication adherence was more strongly associated with a measure of insight.Conclusions. Negative illness perceptions in psychosis are clearly related to depression, anxiety and self-esteem. These in turn have been linked to symptom maintenance and recurrence. Clinical interventions that foster appraisals of recovery rather than of chronicity and severity may therefore improve emotional well-being in people with psychosis. It might be better to address adherence to medication through direct attempts at helping them understand their need for treatment

Network formation of tissue cells via preferential attraction to elongated structures

Vascular and non-vascular cells often form an interconnected network in vitro, similar to the early vascular bed of warm blooded embryos. Our time-lapse recordings show that the network forms by extending sprouts, i.e., multicellular linear segments. To explain the emergence of such structures, we propose a simple model of preferential attraction to stretched cells. Numerical simulations reveal that the model evolves into a quasi-stationary pattern containing linear segments, which interconnect above the critical volume fraction of 0.2. In the quasi-stationary state the generation of new branches offset the coarsening driven by surface tension. In agreement with empirical data, the characteristic size of the resulting polygonal pattern is density-independent within a wide range of volume fractions

36 degree step size of proton-driven c-ring rotation in FoF1-ATP synthase

Synthesis of the biological "energy currency molecule" adenosine triphosphate ATP is accomplished by FoF1-ATP synthase. In the plasma membrane of Escherichia coli, proton-driven rotation of a ring of 10 c subunits in the Fo motor powers catalysis in the F1 motor. While F1 uses 120 degree stepping, Fo models predict a step-by-step rotation of c subunits 36 degree at a time, which is here demonstrated by single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur

Troubles with Bayesianism: An introduction to the psychological immune system

A Bayesian mind is, at its core, a rational mind. Bayesianism is thus well-suited to predict and explain mental processes that best exemplify our ability to be rational. However, evidence from belief acquisition and change appears to show that we do not acquire and update information in a Bayesian way. Instead, the principles of belief acquisition and updating seem grounded in maintaining a psychological immune system rather than in approximating a Bayesian processor

The application of active controls technology to a generic hypersonic aircraft configuration

Analytical methods are described for the prediction of aerothermoelastic stability of hypersonic aircraft including active control systems. Thermal loads due to aerodynamic heating were applied to the finite element model of the aircraft structure and the thermal effects on flutter were determined. An iterative static aeroelastic trim analysis procedure was developed including thermal effects. And active control technology was assessed for flutter suppression, ride quality improvement, and gust load alleviation to overcome any potential adverse aeroelastic stability or response problems due to aerodynamic heating. A generic hypersonic aircraft configuration was selected which incorporates wing flaps, ailerons, and all moveable fins to be used for active control purposes. The active control system would use onboard sensors in a feedback loop through the aircraft flight control computers to move the surfaces for improved structural dynamic response as the aircraft encounters atmospheric turbulence