Sexuality, Marriage, and Divorce in 1 Corinthians 6:12-7:16

No other social institution can begin to compete with marriage as a subject of ethical concern and reflection on all levels and in all periods of Biblical thought (for example, the opening chapters of Genesis, specific regulatory injunctions in the Torah, the ethical message of the prophets, wisdom literature - both canonical and extracanonical, the Sermon on the Mount, the Tables of Duties in Paul and Peter). Equally important for a study of marriage are the varying patterns of marital and familial life reflected in passing references and allusions in historical accounts (for example, the patriarchal family history, the chronicles of the royal families in Israel, warnings against miscegenation in the prophets, familial relationships in the infancy narratives of Luke and Matthew, numerous references to homes and families in the Gospels and Acts, family greetings in the Pauline Epistles). Of crucial importance for a theological understanding of marriage are the constant references to the typological significance of marriage as a paradigm of the relationship of God and His Messiah with the divine people (for example, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, the kingdom parables of Jesus, Ephesians, Revelation)

The Congregation of Christ-A Charismatic Body

My original assignment was a little vague. I knew I was to deal with the New Testament materials which treat in general with the subject of charismatic gifts. There would be other specialized presentations on specific gifts. It was not until I received a promotional brochure that I was given a formulated subject: “The Lordship of Jesus and Charisma for His Body. This formulation of the subject and the slogan for the conference, Jesus is Lord, suddenly made it quite clear to me how I should approach my topic. There is really only one passage in the New Testament in which the slogan Jesus is Lord is brought into close conjunction with the concept charisma

Visual analytics approach to user-controlled evacuation scheduling

Application of the ideas of visual analytics is a promising approach to supporting decision making, in particular, where the problems have geographic (or spatial) and temporal aspects. Visual analytics may be especially helpful in time-critical applications, which pose hard challenges to decision support. We have designed a suite of tools to support transportation-planning tasks such as emergency evacuation of people from a disaster-affected area. The suite combines a tool for automated scheduling based on a genetic algorithm with visual analytics techniques allowing the user to evaluate tool results and direct its work. A transportation schedule, which is generated by the tool, is a complex construct involving geographical space, time, and heterogeneous objects (people and vehicles) with states and positions varying in time. We apply task-analytical approach to design techniques that could effectively support a human planner in the analysis of this complex information

A population of Langerin-positive dendritic cells in murine Peyer\u27s patches involved in sampling beta-glucan microparticles

Glucan particles (GPs) are 2-4 mum hollow, porous shells composed of 1,3-beta-D-glucan that have been effectively used for oral targeted-delivery of a wide range of payloads, including small molecules, siRNA, DNA, and protein antigens. While it has been demonstrated that the transepithelial transport of GPs is mediated by Peyer\u27s patch M cells, the fate of the GPs once within gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT) is not known. Here we report that fluorescently labeled GPs administered to mice by gavage accumulate in CD11c+ DCs situated in Peyer\u27s patch sub-epithelial dome (SED) regions. GPs appeared in DCs within minutes after gavage and remained within the SED for days afterwards. The co-administration or sequential administration of GPs with differentially labeled GPs or poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) nanoparticles demonstrated that the SED DC subpopulation in question was capable of internalizing particles of different sizes and material compositions. Phenotypic analysis identified the GP-containing DCs as being CD8alpha- and CD11blo/-, suggesting they are the so-called myeloid and/or double negative (DN) subset(s) of PP DCs. A survey of C-type lectin receptors (CLRs) known to be expressed by leukocytes within the intestinal mucosa revealed that GP-containing SED DCs were positive for Langerin (CD207), a CLR with specificity for beta-D-glucan and that has been shown to mediate the internalization of a wide range of microbial pathogens, including bacteria, viruses and fungi. The presence of Langerin+ DCs in the SED as determined by immunofluorescence was confirmed using Langerin E-GFP transgenic mice. In summary, our results demonstrate that following M cell-mediated transepithelial transport, GPs (and other micro/nanoparticles) are sampled by a population of SED DCs distinguished from other Peyer\u27s patch DC subsets by their expression of Langerin. Future studies will be aimed at defining the role of Langerin in antigen sampling and antigen presentation within the context of the GALT

The protein import apparatus of chloroplasts

Routing of cytosolically synthesized precursor proteins into chloroplasts is a specific process which involves a multitude of soluble and membrane components. In this review we wil1 focus on early events of the translocation pathway of nuclear coded plastidic precursor proteins and compare import routes for polypeptide of the outer chloroplast envelope to that of internal chloroplast compartments. A number of proteins housed in the chloroplast envelopes have been implied to be involved in the translocation process, but so far a certain function has not been assigned to any of these proteins. The only exception could be an envelope localized hsc 70 homologue which could retain the import competence of a precursor protein in transit into the organelle

Fatal affairs - conjugational transfer of a dinoflagellate-killing plasmid between marine Rhodobacterales

The roseobacter group of marine bacteria is characterized by a mosaic distribution of ecologically important phenotypes. These are often encoded on mobile extrachromosomal replicons. So far, conjugation had only been experimentally proven between the two model organisms Phaeobacter inhibens and Dinoroseobacter shibae. Here, we show that two large natural RepABC-type plasmids from D. shibae can be transferred into representatives of all known major Rhodobacterales lineages. Complete genome sequencing of the newly established Phaeobacter inhibens transconjugants confirmed their genomic integrity. The conjugated plasmids were stably maintained as single copy number replicons in the genuine as well as the new host. Co-cultivation of Phaeobacter inhibens and the transconjugants with the dinoflagellate Prorocentrum minimum demonstrated that Phaeobacter inhibens is a probiotic strain that improves the yield and stability of the dinoflagellate culture. The transconjugant carrying the 191 kb plasmid, but not the 126 kb sister plasmid, killed the dinoflagellate in co-culture

Uncertainty of CERES-maize calibration under different irrigation strategies using pest optimization algorithm

© 2019 by the authors. An important but rarely studied aspect of crop modeling is the uncertainty associated with model calibration and its effect on model prediction. Biomass and grain yield data from a four-year maize experiment (2008–2011) with six irrigation treatments were divided into subsets by either treatments (Calibration-by-Treatment) or years (Calibration-by-Year). These subsets were then used to calibrate crop cultivar parameters in CERES (Crop Environment Resource Synthesis)-Maize implemented within RZWQM2 (Root Zone Water Quality Model 2) using the automatic Parameter ESTimation (PEST) algorithm to explore model calibration uncertainties. After calibration for each subset, PEST also generated 300 cultivar parameter sets by assuming a normal distribution of each parameter within their reported values in the literature, using the Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) method. The parameter sets that produced similar goodness of fit (11–164 depending on subset used for calibration) were then used to predict all the treatments and years of the entire dataset. Our results showed that the selection of calibration datasets greatly affected the calibrated crop parameters and their uncertainty, as well as prediction uncertainty of grain yield and biomass. The high variability in model prediction of grain yield and biomass among the six (Calibration-by-Treatment) or the four (Calibration-by-Year) scenarios indicated that parameter uncertainty should be considered in calibrating CERES-Maize with grain yield and biomass data from different irrigation treatments, and model predictions should be provided with confidence intervals

Entanglement of dark electron-nuclear spin defects in diamond

A promising approach for multi-qubit quantum registers is to use optically addressable spins to control multiple dark electron-spin defects in the environment. While recent experiments have observed signatures of coherent interactions with such dark spins, it is an open challenge to realize the individual control required for quantum information processing. Here we demonstrate the initialisation, control and entanglement of individual dark spins associated to multiple P1 centers, which are part of a spin bath surrounding a nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond. We realize projective measurements to prepare the multiple degrees of freedom of P1 centers - their Jahn-Teller axis, nuclear spin and charge state - and exploit these to selectively access multiple P1s in the bath. We develop control and single-shot readout of the nuclear and electron spin, and use this to demonstrate an entangled state of two P1 centers. These results provide a proof-of-principle towards using dark electron-nuclear spin defects as qubits for quantum sensing, computation and networks