Augustine’s Paradigm ’ab exterioribus ad interiora, ab inferioribus ad superiora’ in the Western and Eastern Christian Mysticism

I argue that St. Augustine of Hippo was the first in the history of Christian spirituality who expressed a key tendency of Christian mysticism, which implies a gradual intellectual ascent of the human soul to God, consisting of the three main stages: external, internal, and supernal. In this ascent a Christian mystic proceeds from the knowledge of external beings to self-knowledge, and from his inner self to direct mystical contemplation of God. Similar doctrines may be found in the writings of the Greek Fathers. Although there are many similarities in the overall doctrine and in particular details between them, it does not imply the direct impact of Augustine’s theological thought on the Greek Fathers but rather the influence of the Neoplatonic philosophy on both Western and Eastern Christianity, in particular, of Plotinus’ theory of intellectual cognition

Envelope tomography of long-period variable stars: I. The Schwarzschild mechanism and the Balmer emission lines

This paper is the first one in a series devoted to the study of the dynamics of the atmospheres of long-period variable stars. Results from a two-month-long monitoring of the Mira variables RT Cyg and X Oph around maximum light with the ELODIE spectrograph at the Haute-Provence Observatory are presented. The monitoring covers phases 0.80 to 1.16 for RT Cyg and phases 0.83 to 1.04 for X Oph. The cross-correlation profile of the spectrum of RT Cyg with a K0 III mask confirms that the absorption lines of RT Cyg in the optical domain appear double around maximum light. No line doubling was found in the optical spectrum of X Oph around maximum light, indicating that this feature is not common to all long-period variables. This paper also presents the application to RT Cyg of a new tomographic technique deriving the velocity field across the atmosphere by cross-correlating the optical spectrum with numerical masks constructed from synthetic spectra and probing layers of increasing depths. This technique reveals that both the temporal evolution of the line doubling, and its variation with depth in the atmosphere of RT Cyg, are consistent with the ``Schwarzschild scenario''. This scenario relates the temporal evolution of the red and blue peaks of the double absorption lines to the progression of a shock wave in the atmosphere. The temporal evolution of the Balmer Halpha, H beta, Hgamma and Hdelta emission lines around maximum light is also presented for RT Cyg and X Oph. The velocity variations of Halpha and of the absorption lines are discussed in the framework of two competing models for the formation of Balmer emission lines in long-period variable stars.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, Latex, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics main journal. Also available at http://www-astro.ulb.ac.be/Html/ps.htm

Adventist Culture in the USSR

Any religion, including Christianity, is not only a system of beliefs and doctrines, but also patterns of behavior that make up a certain culture of its followers. The degree of development of religious culture and involvement in it largely determines the self-identification of members of communities of various denominations. It can be expressed through the following markers: everyday behavior, the presence of specific vocabulary, the formation of oral, musical, visual and written creativity of a particular religious movement. This is true of Seventh-day Adventist culture as well. Statement of the Problem However, to date there is no full-fledged study on Adventist culture in the USSR. The lack of a description of the written and oral underground culture of the Seventh-day Adventist does not allow us to reasonably substantiate the deep cultural traditions of the Seventh-day Adventists in Russia, which creates difficulties in raising the status of the church in society, its popularization, prevents the disclosure of the Adventist identity and the rooting of the young generation of Adventists in the Adventist religious tradition. In addition, the lack of knowledge of Adventist culture in the USSR actually does not allow us to speak of it as a religious and cultural phenomenon. If such a phenomenon is supposed, then it is necessary to define it in the context of humanitarian and social knowledge. -- Purpose and Objectives of the Study Purpose is to identify the main features of the Adventist culture in the USSR. The goal substantiates the main objectives of the study: - Identify the main features of everyday Adventist culture in the USSR - Identify the main features of Adventist literature in the USSR - Identify the main features of Adventist musical creativity in the USSR - Identify the main features of Adventist poetic creativity in the USSR. -- Theoretical and practical significance The study will provide an opportunity to identify the main characteristics of Adventist culture, to determine its place in the context of unofficial Soviet culture. A number of new sources will be introduced into scientific circulation, as well as new samples of documentary and fiction literature, poetic and musical creativity of the Seventh-day Adventist Church will be described. The dissertation materials will be useful to members of the Seventh-day Adventist church, historians, religious scholars, culturologists, art historians, teachers of relevant disciplines in higher educational institutions, as well as to everyone who is interested in the spiritual and material and cultural heritage of the countries of the former USSR. The study also will reveal the deep cultural traditions of the Seventh-day Adventists in Russia, raise the status of the church, popularize it, will contribute to the disclosure of the Adventist identity and the rooting of the young generation of the Seventh-day Adventist in the Adventist confessional field

Statistic data simulation at estimation of biological system state

It has been shown by the method of statistic data simulation that using samples of small volume characterizing reference state of biological systems results in overstatement of difficulty degree of state integral estimation. It was stated that using asymptotic integral estimations obtained at unlimited increase of modeling reference sample volume is effective as integral estimation of biological system stat

Forced Running Endurance Is Influenced by Gene(s) on Mouse Chromosome 10

Acknowledgments The authors wish to acknowledge technical assistance from Mrs. Indrė Libnickienė and intellectual input from Dr. David A. Blizard. This research was funded by the European Social Fund under the Global Grant measure. Grant VP1-3.1-ŠMM-07-K-02-057 was awarded to AL.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Imidazole aldoximes effective in assisting butyrylcholinesterase catalysis of organophosphate detoxification.

Intoxication by organophosphate (OP) nerve agents and pesticides should be addressed by efficient, quickly deployable countermeasures such as antidotes reactivating acetylcholinesterase or scavenging the parent OP. We present here synthesis and initial in vitro characterization of 14 imidazole aldoximes and their structural refinement into three efficient reactivators of human butyrylcholinesterase (hBChE) inhibited covalently by nerve agent OPs, sarin, cyclosarin, VX, and the OP pesticide metabolite, paraoxon. Rapid reactivation of OP-hBChE conjugates by uncharged and nonprotonated tertiary imidazole aldoximes allows the design of a new OP countermeasure by conversion of hBChE from a stoichiometric to catalytic OP bioscavenger with the prospect of oral bioavailability and central nervous system penetration. The enhanced in vitro reactivation efficacy determined for tertiary imidazole aldoximes compared to that of their quaternary N-methyl imidazolium analogues is attributed to ion pairing of the cationic imidazolium with Asp 70, altering a reactive alignment of the aldoxime with the phosphorus in the OP-hBChE conjugate

Crystal nucleation and cluster-growth kinetics in a model glass under shear

Crystal nucleation and growth processes induced by an externally applied shear strain in a model metallic glass are studied by means of nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, in a range of temperatures. We observe that the nucleation-growth process takes place after a transient, induction regime. The critical cluster size and the lag-time associated with this induction period are determined from a mean first-passage time analysis. The laws that describe the cluster growth process are studied as a function of temperature and strain rate. A theoretical model for crystallization kinetics that includes the time dependence for nucleation and cluster growth is developed within the framework of the Kolmogorov-Johnson-Mehl-Avrami scenario and is compared with the molecular dynamics data. Scalings for the cluster growth laws and for the crystallization kinetics are also proposed and tested. The observed nucleation rates are found to display a nonmonotonic strain rate dependency