Defining forgiveness: Christian clergy and general population perspectives.

The lack of any consensual definition of forgiveness is a serious weakness in the research literature (McCullough, Pargament &amp; Thoresen, 2000). As forgiveness is at the core of Christianity, this study returns to the Christian source of the concept to explore the meaning of forgiveness for practicing Christian clergy. Comparisons are made with a general population sample and social science definitions of forgiveness to ensure that a shared meaning of forgiveness is articulated. Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy (N = 209) and a general population sample (N = 159) completed a postal questionnaire about forgiveness. There is agreement on the existence of individual differences in forgiveness. Clergy and the general population perceive reconciliation as necessary for forgiveness while there is no consensus within psychology. The clergy suggests that forgiveness is limitless and that repentance is unnecessary while the general population suggests that there are limits and that repentance is necessary. Psychological definitions do not conceptualize repentance as necessary for forgiveness and the question of limits has not been addressed although within therapy the implicit assumption is that forgiveness is limitless.</p

Dirac cohomology, elliptic representations and endoscopy

The first part (Sections 1-6) of this paper is a survey of some of the recent developments in the theory of Dirac cohomology, especially the relationship of Dirac cohomology with (g,K)-cohomology and nilpotent Lie algebra cohomology; the second part (Sections 7-12) is devoted to understanding the unitary elliptic representations and endoscopic transfer by using the techniques in Dirac cohomology. A few problems and conjectures are proposed for further investigations.Comment: This paper will appear in `Representations of Reductive Groups, in Honor of 60th Birthday of David Vogan', edited by M. Nervins and P. Trapa, published by Springe

jClust: a clustering and visualization toolbox

jClust is a user-friendly application which provides access to a set of widely used clustering and clique finding algorithms. The toolbox allows a range of filtering procedures to be applied and is combined with an advanced implementation of the Medusa interactive visualization module. These implemented algorithms are k-Means, Affinity propagation, Bron–Kerbosch, MULIC, Restricted neighborhood search cluster algorithm, Markov clustering and Spectral clustering, while the supported filtering procedures are haircut, outside–inside, best neighbors and density control operations. The combination of a simple input file format, a set of clustering and filtering algorithms linked together with the visualization tool provides a powerful tool for data analysis and information extraction

Transfer of K-types on local theta lifts of characters and unitary lowest weight modules

In this paper we study representations of the indefinite orthogonal group O(n,m) which are local theta lifts of one dimensional characters or unitary lowest weight modules of the double covers of the symplectic groups. We apply the transfer of K-types on these representations of O(n,m), and we study their effects on the dual pair correspondences. These results provide examples that the theta lifting is compatible with the transfer of K-types. Finally we will use these results to study subquotients of some cohomologically induced modules

Academic language socialisation in high school writing conferences

This study examines multilingual high school writers’ individual talk with their teachers in two advanced English language development classes to observe how such talk shapes linguistically diverse adolescents’ writing. Addressing adolescent writers’ language socialization through microethnographic discourse analysis, the author argues that teachers’ oral responses during writing conferences can either scaffold or deter students’ socialization into valued ways of using academic language for school writing. She suggests what forms of oral response provide scaffolding and what forms might limit multilingual adolescent learners’ academic literacy. Constructive interactions engaged students in dialogue about their writing, and students included content or phrasing from the interaction in their texts. Unhelpful interactions failed to foster students’ language development in observable ways. Although teachers attempted to scaffold ideas and language, they often did not guide students’ discovery of appropriate forms or points. These interactions represent restrictive academic language socialization: while some students did create academic texts, they learned little about academic language use

BAR-PLUS: the Bologna Annotation Resource Plus for functional and structural annotation of protein sequences

We introduce BAR-PLUS (BAR+), a web server for functional and structural annotation of protein sequences. BAR+ is based on a large-scale genome cross comparison and a non-hierarchical clustering procedure characterized by a metric that ensures a reliable transfer of features within clusters. In this version, the method takes advantage of a large-scale pairwise sequence comparison of 13 495 736 protein chains also including 988 complete proteomes. Available sequence annotation is derived from UniProtKB, GO, Pfam and PDB. When PDB templates are present within a cluster (with or without their SCOP classification), profile Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are computed on the basis of sequence to structure alignment and are cluster-associated (Cluster-HMM). Therefrom, a library of 10 858 HMMs is made available for aligning even distantly related sequences for structural modelling. The server also provides pairwise query sequence–structural target alignments computed from the correspondent Cluster-HMM. BAR+ in its present version allows three main categories of annotation: PDB [with or without SCOP (*)] and GO and/or Pfam; PDB (*) without GO and/or Pfam; GO and/or Pfam without PDB (*) and no annotation. Each category can further comprise clusters where GO and Pfam functional annotations are or are not statistically significant. BAR+ is available at http://bar.biocomp.unibo.it/bar2.0

Effects of resistance exercise, collagen ingestion and circulating oestrogen concentration on collagen synthesis in a female athlete: a case report.

We investigated the effects of resistance exercise (RE), hydrolysed collagen (HC) ingestion and circulating oestrogen concentration on collagen synthesis in a naturally menstruating female CrossFit athlete. In a double-blind, randomised cross-over design, the participant (36 years; height 1.61 m; mass 82.6 kg) consumed 0 or 30 g HC prior to performing back-squat RE when endogenous circulating oestrogen concentration was low (onset of menses, OM) and high (late follicular phase, LF) during two consecutive menstrual cycles. Ten 5-mL blood samples were collected during each of the four interventions to analyse concentrations of serum 17β-oestradiol, and biomarkers of type I collagen turnover, that is serum procollagen type I N-terminal propeptide (PINP, a biomarker of collagen synthesis) and plasma β-isomerised C-terminal telopeptide of type I collagen (β-CTX, a biomarker of collagen breakdown), as well as the serum concentration of 18 collagen amino acids. 17β-Oestradiol concentration was 5-fold higher at LF (891 ± 116 pmol L−1) than OM (180 ± 13 pmol L−1). The PINP concentration × time area under the curve (AUC) was higher in the 30 g HC OM intervention (201 μg L−1 h) than the 30 g HC LF (144 μg L−1 h), 0 g HC OM (151 μg L−1 h) and 0 g HC LF (122 μg L−1 h) interventions. β-CTX concentration decreased 1.4-fold from pre-RE to 6 h post-RE in all interventions. Thus, high circulating oestrogen concentration was associated with lower collagen synthesis following RE in this female athlete. Ingesting 30 g HC, however, augmented the collagen synthesis response at LF and particularly at OM. Highlights: What is the central question of this study? Does resistance exercise-induced collagen synthesis vary according to circulating oestrogen concentration in a naturally menstruating female athlete, and if so, does hydrolysed collagen ingestion have any impact? What is the main finding and its importance? Exercise-induced collagen synthesis was low when circulating oestrogen concentration was high and vice versa. However, ingesting 30 g hydrolysed collagen prior to exercise reduced the negative effect of oestrogen on collagen synthesis. As high circulating oestrogen has been associated with greater injury risk in females, supplementing exercise with hydrolysed collagen may help protect these tissues from injury

A survey of partial differential equations in geometric design

YesComputer aided geometric design is an area where the improvement of surface generation techniques is an everlasting demand since faster and more accurate geometric models are required. Traditional methods for generating surfaces were initially mainly based upon interpolation algorithms. Recently, partial differential equations (PDE) were introduced as a valuable tool for geometric modelling since they offer a number of features from which these areas can benefit. This work summarises the uses given to PDE surfaces as a surface generation technique togethe

Ecological divergence and evolutionary transition of resprouting types in Banksia attenuata

Resprouting is a key functional trait that allows plants to survive diverse disturbances. The fitness benefits associated with resprouting include a rapid return to adult growth, early flowering, and setting seed. The resprouting responses observed following fire are varied, as are the ecological outcomes. Understanding the ecological divergence and evolutionary pathways of different resprouting types and how the environment and genetics interact to drive such morphological evolution represents an important, but under-studied, topic. In the present study, microsatellite markers and microevolutionary approaches were used to better understand: (1) whether genetic differentiation is related to morphological divergence among resprouting types and if so, whether there are any specific genetic variations associated with morphological divergence and (2) the evolutionary pathway of the transitions between two resprouting types in Banksia attenuata (epicormic resprouting from aerial stems or branch; resprouting from a underground lignotuber). The results revealed an association between population genetic differentiation and the morphological divergence of postfire resprouting types in B. attenuata. A microsatellite allele has been shown to be associated with epicormic populations. Approximate Bayesian Computation analysis revealed a likely evolutionary transition from epicormic to lignotuberous resprouting in B. attenuata. It is concluded that the postfire resprouting type in B. attenuata is likely determined by the fire's characteristics. The differentiated expression of postfire resprouting types in different environments is likely a consequence of local genetic adaptation. The capacity to shift the postfire resprouting type to adapt to diverse fire regimes is most likely the key factor explaining why B. attenuata is the most widespread member of the Banksia genus