Sagas and Secularity: The (Re)Construction of Secular Literature in 20th-century Iceland

The study of secularity in Iceland has so far largely been restricted to institutional differentiation, alongside legal aspects of the relationship between the state and the country’s national church. This paper approaches the formation of secularity in the country from a different angle. Adopting a research perspective shaped by both cultural history and sociology of culture, it investigates the role of the Icelandic sagas, and the medieval culture which spawned them, in the development of secularity in Iceland. Instead of looking at the processes through which Christian religion came to be separated from other spheres of society, it probes the discourses legitimising such a separation. It pays special attention to the reception and understanding of the sagas and the medieval culture which produced them, and further asks how they provided a background against which a secular culture could be imagined, both in the past and for the present

Um biskupsembættið

Á umliðnum árum hefur biskupsembættið — eðli þess, hlutverk og tilgangur — í hinni evangelísk-lúthersku kirkju verið talsvert til umræðu á guðfræði- og kirkjulegum vettvangi. Grein þessi er hugsuð sem annars vegar sögulegt og hins vegar guðfræðilegt framlag í þá umræðu. Henni má skipta í tvo meginþætti. Í fyrri hluta greinarinnar má finna sögulegt yfirlit yfir þróun biskupsembættisins frá því á ritunartíma Nýja testamentisins fram á síðmiðaldir. Markmið yfirlitsins er fyrst og fremst að draga það fram hvernig kristnir söfnuðir, samfélög og kirkjur hafa lagað skipulag sitt að ólíkum aðstæðum á grundvelli þeirrar útfærslu á hinu kristna fagnaðarerindi sem þeir byggja trú sína á. Í síðari hluta greinarinnar er farið ofan í saumana á biskupsembættinu eins og það er sett fram í ritum Marteins Lúthers og annarra siðbótarmanna. Samkvæmt þeim er biskupsembættið nátengt prestsembættinu, óháð því veraldarvafstri sem hafði einkennt biskupa þess tíma og biskupinn skilgreindur sem tilsjónarmaður sem tryggir boðun orðsins innan kirkjunnar og veitingu sakramenta.In recent years, there has been considerable discussion, both within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland and the field of academic theology, about the nature, role and purpose of the bishop’s office. The present article is intended as a historical and theological contribution to that discussion. The first part of the article contains a short historical overview of the development of the episcopal office from New Testament times until the Late Middle Ages. Its goal is to highlight how Christian congregations, communities, and churches have adapted their organization to different circumstances based on their understanding of the Christian message. The second part of the article provides a detailed account of the episcopal office as it is set forth in the writings of Martin Luther and other reformers. These writings portray the episcopal office as directly linked to the office of the pastor, distinct from the worldly affairs heavily occupying the bishops of the time, and define the bishop primarily as an overseer or a supervisor whose responsibility was primarily to secure the preaching of the word in the church and the administering of the sacraments.Peer Reviewe

An Aggregate Model of the Flexible Energy Demand of Thermostatically Controlled Loads with Explicit Outdoor Temperature Dependency

In this paper we describe an aggregate model of Thermostatically Controlled Loads (TCLs) for Demand Response (DR) scheduling that, through a new approximation, makes explicit the dependency between the feasible control region and the time series of outdoor temperatures. In turn, the model can easily account for non-constant, stochastic temperatures during the control period, expressing the feasible load control through a set of linear equations and constraints with stochastic parameters. To highlight this feature we present a stochastic optimization formulation for the management of the DR-TCL and compare it with its deterministic counterpart, and with various equivalent models aimed at reducing the complexity of the constraints in the market optimization

Reoperation for bleeding following open heart surgery in Iceland

Neðst á síðunni er hægt að nálgast greinina í heild sinni með því að smella á hlekkinn View/OpenINTRODUCTION: Postoperative bleeding is a common and potentially fatal complication following open heart surgery, studies reporting a reoperation rate for bleeding in the range of 2-6%. Surgical outcome after such reoperations has not been previously studied in Iceland. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In this retrospective study were included all adults that underwent open heart surgery in Iceland during a 6 year period, between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2005. RESULTS: There were 103 reoperations (mean age 68 years, 76% males), but throughout the same 6 year period a total of 1295 open heart procedures were performed, the reoperation-rate being 8%. One third of all patients were on aspirin and 8% on clopidogrel less than 5 days before surgery. The bleeding in the primary operation averaged 1523 ml (range 300-4780) and 3942 ml for the first 24 hours postoperatively. Half of the patients were reoperated on within 2 h and 97% within 24 hours. The patients received on average 16.5 units of packed cells, 15.6 units of plasma and 2.3 sets of thrombocytes. The most common postoperative complication was atrial fibrillation (58.3%), pleural effusion that needed chest tube drainage (24.3%), myocardial infarction (23.3%) and sternal wound infection (11.7%). Median length of stay was 14 days (range 6-85), including 2 days (range 1-38) in ICU. Operative mortality was 15.5% and 1 year crude survival 79.6%. CONCLUSION: Reoperation-rate for bleeding was 8%, which is higher compared to other studies. Bleeding is a serious complication following open heart surgery with high morbidity and significant mortality.Tilgangur: Að kanna tíðni og árangur enduraðgerða vegna blæðinga eftir opnar hjartaaðgerðir á Íslandi á sex ára tímabili. Efniviður og aðferðir: Sjúklingar ≥18 ára sem gengust undir enduraðgerð vegna blæðinga eftir opna hjartaskurðaðgerð á tímabilinu 2000-2005 voru fundnir eftir tveimur aðskildum skrám. Skráðar voru ýmsar breytur, svo sem lyf sjúklings fyrir aðgerð, blóðgjafir, fylgikvillar og legutími. Niðurstöður: Alls voru gerðar 103 enduraðgerðir sem er 8% hjartaaðgerða á tímabilinu. Þriðjungur sjúklinganna var á acetýlsalicýlsýru og átta á klópídógreli síðustu fimm dagana fyrir aðgerð. Meðalblæðing í upphafi enduraðgerðar var 1523 ml og á fyrsta sólarhring 3942 ml (bil 690-10.740 ml). Helmingur sjúklinganna var tekinn í enduraðgerð innan tveggja klukkustunda og voru samtals gefnar 16,5 einingar af rauðkornaþykkni, 15,6 af blóðvökva (plasma) og 2,3 sett af blóðflögum. Helstu fylgikvillar eftir aðgerð voru hjartsláttaróregla, fleiðruvökvi sem þurfti að tæma út, hjartadrep og sýking í bringubeinsskurði. Miðgildi legutíma var 14 dagar (bil 6-85), þar af tveir dagar á gjörgæslu. Alls létust 16 sjúklingar (15,5%) ≤30 daga frá aðgerð en 79,6% sjúklinganna voru á lífi ári eftir aðgerð. Ályktun: Tíðni enduraðgerða vegna blæðinga (8%) er í hærra lagi hér á landi, án þess að skýringin á því sé þekkt. Þetta er hættulegur fylgikvilli sem lengir legutíma, eykur kostnað og getur dregið sjúklinga til dauða. Inngangu

Federated Block Coordinate Descent Scheme for Learning Global and Personalized Models

In federated learning, models are learned from users' data that are held private in their edge devices, by aggregating them in the service provider's "cloud" to obtain a global model. Such global model is of great commercial value in, e.g., improving the customers' experience. In this paper we focus on two possible areas of improvement of the state of the art. First, we take the difference between user habits into account and propose a quadratic penalty-based formulation, for efficient learning of the global model that allows to personalize local models. Second, we address the latency issue associated with the heterogeneous training time on edge devices, by exploiting a hierarchical structure modeling communication not only between the cloud and edge devices, but also within the cloud. Specifically, we devise a tailored block coordinate descent-based computation scheme, accompanied with communication protocols for both the synchronous and asynchronous cloud settings. We characterize the theoretical convergence rate of the algorithm, and provide a variant that performs empirically better. We also prove that the asynchronous protocol, inspired by multi-agent consensus technique, has the potential for large gains in latency compared to a synchronous setting when the edge-device updates are intermittent. Finally, experimental results are provided that corroborate not only the theory, but also show that the system leads to faster convergence for personalized models on the edge devices, compared to the state of the art.Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures. Codes available at this url {https://github.com/REIYANG/FedBCD}. To appear in AAAI 202

Продукты ограниченного протеолиза: подходы к обнаружению и диагностические возможности в оценке тяжести патологии при эндогенной интоксикации

ПРОДУКТЫ ОГРАНИЧЕННОГО ПРОТЕОЛИЗАПРОТЕИНАЗО-ИНГИБИТОРНАЯ СИСТЕМАОТРАВЛЕНИЕ /ДИАГН /ОСЛЭНДОГЕННАЯ ИНТОКСИКАЦИЯ /ДИАГН /ОСЛСРЕДНЕМОЛЕКУЛЯРНАЯ ПЕПТИДНАЯ ФРАКЦИЯПАТОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ПРОЦЕССЫЛАБОРАТОРНЫЕ МЕТОДЫ И ПРОЦЕДУРЫБЕЛКОВО-ПЕПТИДНЫЕ КОМПОНЕНТ

Vitrification versus controlled-rate freezing in cryopreservation of human ovarian tissue

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A comparative study of disorders of gut–brain interaction in Western Europe and Asia based on the Rome foundation global epidemiology study

Functional constipation; Functional dyspepsia; Functional gastrointestinal disordersEstreñimiento funcional; Dispepsia funcional; Trastornos gastrointestinales funcionalesRestrenyiment funcional; Dispèpsia funcional; Trastorns gastrointestinals funcionalsObjective Many studies have been published on disorders of the gut–brain interaction (DGBI) in Asia and Western Europe, but no previous study has directly assessed the difference between the two regions. The aim was to compare the prevalence of DGBI in Asia and Western Europe. Methods We used data collected in a population-based Internet survey, the Rome Foundation Global Epidemiology Study, from countries in Western Europe (Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) and Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore). We assessed DGBI diagnoses (Rome IV Adult Diagnostic Questionnaire), anxiety/depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-4, PHQ-4), non-GI somatic symptoms (PHQ-12), and access to and personal costs of doctor visits. Results The study included 9487 subjects in Asia and 16,314 in Western Europe. Overall, 38.0% had at least one DGBI; younger age, female sex, and higher scores on PHQ4 and PHQ12 were all associated with DGBI. The prevalence of having at least one DGBI was higher in Western Europe than in Asia (39.1% vs 36.1%, OR 1.14 [95% CI 1.08–1.20]). This difference was also observed for DGBI by anatomical regions, most prominently esophageal DGBI (OR 1.67 [1.48–1.88]). After adjustment, the difference in DGBI prevalence diminished and psychological (PHQ-4) and non-GI somatic symptoms (PHQ-12) had the greatest effect on the odds ratio estimates. Conclusion The prevalence of DGBI is generally higher in Western Europe compared to Asia. A considerable portion of the observed difference in prevalence rates seems to be explained by more severe psychological and non-GI somatic symptoms in Western Europe