St. Symeon the New Theologian and Western Dissident Movements

The trial at Orleans in 1022 of a group of aristocratic clergy, who included the confessor of Queen Constance of France, and their followers on the charge of heresy is the most fully reported among the group of heresy trials which were conducted in the Western Church during the first half of the eleventh century. Although the alleged heretics of Orleans are usually considered a part of a wider pattern of Western religious dissent, the charges brought against them differ considerably from those levelled against the other groups brought to trial in that period. The heterodox beliefs with which the canons of Orleans were charged bear a strong resemblance to the teachings of the Byzantine abbot, St. Symeon the New Theologian, who died in 1022. St. Symeon taught that it was possible for a Christian to experience the vision of God in this life if he or she received ascetic guidance from a spiritual director, who need not be a priest. In the late tenth and early eleventh centuries a significant number of Orthodox monks visited northern Europe, including Orleans, and some of them settled there. It is therefore possible that the Canons of Orleans who were put on trial had been trained in the tradition of St. Symeon by one of those Orthodox monks who were familiar with it. St. Symeon was part of the Hesychast tradition in the Byzantine Church. Even so, his emphasis on the supremacy of personal religious experience at the expense of the corporate worship of the institutional Church was strongly criticised by some of his contemporaries. A study of his writings shows that he was, in fact, completely Orthodox in faith and practice and that these criticisms were ill-judged. Nevertheless, if, as we have suggested, the Canons of Orleans had tried to live in accordance with his teachings, the hostile reactions of the Western hierarchy would be comprehensible. For there was no tradition of Hesychasm in the spirituality of the Western Church, and the fact that the dissidents at Orleans saw little value in observing the rituals of the established Church would have alarmed conventional churchmen

Pion-nucleon scattering inside the Mandelstam triangle

We study the third order pion-nucleon scattering amplitude obtained from heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory inside the Mandelstam triangle. We reconstruct the pion-nucleon amplitude in the unphysical region by use of dispersion relations and determine the pertinent low-energy constants by a fit to this amplitude. A detailed comparison with values obtained from phase shift analysis is given. Our analysis leads to a pion-nucleon sigma-term of sigma(0) = 40 MeV based on the Karlsruhe partial wave analysis. We have repeated the same procedure using the latest solution of the VPI group and find a much larger value for sigma(0).Comment: 17 pp, LaTeX2e, 4 fig

The Nucleon Sigma Term from Threshold Parameters

A new sum rule determines the nucleon sigma term by the \pi N elastic scattering threshold parameters alone. This "threshold" value of \sigma(2\mu^2) provides an independent check of existing values obtained from global dispersive analyses, and also provides a realistic error assignment. Employing a recent analysis of low energy (T_\pi < 100 MeV) \pi N data our sum rule implies \sigma(2\mu^2) = 71\pm 9 MeV.Comment: Additional explanations and references, changes in notation, small numerical changes. 11 pages, Revtex, uses epsf.sty, 1 postscript figure. Version to be published in Physics Letters

Unitarity Constraints on effective interaction in πN\pi N scattering

Positivity constraints are derived on pion-nucleon scattering amplitudes and their even-order derivatives inside the Mandelstam Triangle with the help of dispersion relations. Fairly interesting constraints are obtained on some of the low energy constants, by a combination of the chiral perturbation theory for heavy baryons and existing fitting results from available pion-nucleon phase shifts at intermediate energies.Comment: version to appear in Phys. Lett. B. 6 page

Towards an understanding of isospin violation in pion-nucleon scattering

We investigate isospin breaking in low-energy pion-nucleon scattering in the framework of chiral perturbation theory. This work extends the systematic analysis of [1] to the energy range above threshold. Various relations, which identically vanish in the limit of isospin symmetry, are used to quantify isospin breaking effects. We study the energy dependence of the S- and P-wave projections of these ratios and find dramatic effects in the S-waves of those two relations which are given in terms of isoscalar quantities only. This effect drops rather quickly with growing center-of-mass energy.Comment: 12 pp, REVTeX, 8 figs, FZJ-IKP(TH)-2000-2

Impact of Maternal Physical Activity and Infant Feeding Practices on Infant Weight Gain and Adiposity

Increasing evidence supports the contribution of intrauterine environmental exposures on obesity risk in offspring. Few studies have included maternal and infant lifestyle factors. Our objective was to study the impact of maternal physical activity, infant feeding, and screen time on offspring weight gain and adiposity. In a prospective cohort study, 246 mothers underwent testing during pregnancy to assess glucose tolerance status and insulin sensitivity. Anthropometry and questionnaires on physical activity, infant feeding, and screen time were completed. Multiple-linear regression was performed to examine the impact of maternal and infant factors on infant weight gain and weight-for-length z-score at 1 year. Infant weight outcomes were negatively predicted by maternal pregravid vigorous/sport index and exclusive breastfeeding duration. After adjustment, each unit increase in maternal pregravid vigorous/sport index decreased infant weight gain by 218.6 g (t=2.44, P=0.016) and weight-for-length z-score by 0.20 (t=2.17, P=0.031). Each month of exclusive breastfeeding reduced infant weight gain by 116.4 g (t=3.97, P<0.001) and weight-for-length z-score by 0.08 (t=2.59, P=0.01). Maternal pregravid physical activity and exclusive breastfeeding duration are associated with weight gain and adiposity as early as 1 year of age

Plasmid-based lacZalpha assay for DNA polymerase fidelity: application to archaeal family-B DNA polymerase

The preparation of a gapped pUC18 derivative, containing the lacZalpha reporter gene in the single-stranded region, is described. Gapping is achieved by flanking the lacZalpha gene with sites for two related nicking endonucleases, enabling the excision of either the coding or non-coding strand. However, the excised strand remains annealed to the plasmid through non-covalent Watson-Crick base-pairing; its removal, therefore, requires a heat-cool cycle in the presence of an exactly complementary competitor DNA. The gapped plasmids can be used to assess DNA polymerase fidelity using in vitro replication, followed by transformation into Escherichia coli and scoring the blue/white colony ratio. Results found with plasmids are similar to the well established method based on gapped M13, in terms of background ( approximately 0.08% in both cases) and the mutation frequencies observed with a number of DNA polymerases, providing validation for this straightforward and technically uncomplicated approach. Several error prone variants of the archaeal family-B DNA polymerase from Pyrococcus furiosus have been investigated, illuminating the potential of the method

Transfusion Rates in Emergency General Surgery: High but Modifiable

Background: Transfusion of red blood cells (RBC) increases morbidity and mortality, and emergency general surgery (EGS) cases have increased risk for transfusion and complication given case complexity and patient acuity. Transfusion reduction strategies and blood-conservation technology have been developed to decrease transfusions. This study explores whether transfusion rates in EGS have decreased as these new strategies have been implemented. Methods: This is a retrospective review of the American College of Surgeons\u27 National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) data from three academic medical centers. Operations performed by general surgeons on adults (aged ≥18 years) were selected. Data were analyzed from two periods: 2011-2013 and 2014-2016. Cases were grouped by the first four digits of the primary procedure Current Procedural Terminology code. Transfusion was defined as any RBC transfusion during or within 72 hours following the operation. Composite morbidity was defined as any NSQIP complication within 30 days following the operation. Results: Overall general surgery transfusion rates decreased from 6.4% to 4.8% from period 1 to period 2 (emergent: 16.6%–11.5%; non-emergent 4.9%–3.7%; Fisher’s exact p values \u3c 0.001). Among patients transfused, the number of units received decreased slightly (median 2 U (IQR 2–3) to median 2 U (IQR 1–3), Mann-Whitney U test p = 0.005). Morbidity decreased (overall: 13.8%–12.3%, p = 0.001; emergent: 26.3%–20.6%, p \u3c 0.001) while mortality did not change. Discussion: Rates of RBC transfusion decreased in both emergent and non-emergent cases. Efforts to reduce transfusion may have been successful in the EGS population. Morbidity improved over the time periods while mortality was unchanged. Level of Evidence: Level III

Cosmological Particle Creation in the Presence of Lorentz Violation

In recent years, the effects of Lorentz symmetry breaking in cosmology has attracted considerable amount of attention. In cosmological context several topics can be affected by Lorentz violation,e.g., inflationary scenario, CMB, dark energy problem and barryogenesis. In this paper we consider the cosmological particle creation due to Lorentz violation (LV). We consider an exactly solvable model for finding the spectral properties of particle creation in an expanding space-time exhibiting Lorentz violation. In this model we calculate the spectrum and its variations with respect to the rate and the amount of space-time expansion.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, To appear in Physics Letters