The works of Besa, from a MS in the British Museum (Or.8810): edited with translation and commentary

The portion of the Sahidic MS, BM Or.8810, containing Besa's writings is part of a parchment codex probably dating from the 8th century. The edition of it, together with a translation, forms the main part of the thesis. The MS contains epistles by Besa admonishing and exhorting his monks and nuns. Fragments of other writings by Besa are extant, most of which are unpublished. A study of them, and of BM Or.8810, has yielded material for an appraisal of the life and work of Besa and has thrown light on an important section of Coptic monasticism of the 5th century. Besa was a monk under Shenoute who appointed him to b his successor as abbot of the White Monastery (about 451 A.D.). Throughout his life, Besa continued to be strongly influenced by Shenoute's example, and by the Bible, and by his respect for monastic tradition. His essentially mild and peace-loving character was moulded by his high sense of duty towards God and his charges, enabling him to carry out his task of governing the monastery.From BM Or.8810 it can be seen how prominent a place Biblical quotations and allusions occupy in Besa's writings. An investigation of their text provides material for the study of the Sahidic Bible. Besa's use of the Bible is always subordinated to the subject-matter of his epistles. Besa’s writings, though not theological treatises, give some idea of his religious beliefs. His preoccupation with ethical teaching causes him to emphasise God's Judgment and lays him open to the charge of having neglected the importance of Christ's redemptive work.Of monastic life in Besa's day, his writings tell something of the ideal of fellowship, the vow, the renunciation of property, separation from the world, organisation, discipline, moral standards, work, the monks' charitable ministrations to laymen, religious exercises, and worship

Nonproductive Events in Ring-Closing Metathesis Using Ruthenium Catalysts

The relative TONs of productive and nonproductive metathesis reactions of diethyl diallylmalonate are compared for eight different ruthenium-based catalysts. Nonproductive cross metathesis is proposed to involve a chain-carrying ruthenium methylidene. A second more-challenging substrate (dimethyl allylmethylallylmalonate) that forms a trisubstituted olefin product is used to further delineate the effect of catalyst structure on the relative efficiencies of these processes. A steric model is proposed to explain the observed trends

Effects of NHC-Backbone Substitution on Efficiency in Ruthenium-Based Olefin Metathesis

series of ruthenium olefin metathesis catalysts bearing N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands with varying degrees of backbone and N-aryl substitution have been prepared. These complexes show greater resistance to decomposition through C−H activation of the N-aryl group, resulting in increased catalyst lifetimes. This work has utilized robotic technology to examine the activity and stability of each catalyst in metathesis, providing insights into the relationship between ligand architecture and enhanced efficiency. The development of this robotic methodology has also shown that, under optimized conditions, catalyst loadings as low as 25 ppm can lead to 100% conversion in the ring-closing metathesis of diethyl diallylmalonate

Dynamic rotor mode in antiferromagnetic nanoparticles

We present experimental, numerical, and theoretical evidence for a new mode of antiferromagnetic dynamics in nanoparticles. Elastic neutron scattering experiments on 8 nm particles of hematite display a loss of diffraction intensity with temperature, the intensity vanishing around 150 K. However, the signal from inelastic neutron scattering remains above that temperature, indicating a magnetic system in constant motion. In addition, the precession frequency of the inelastic magnetic signal shows an increase above 100 K. Numerical Langevin simulations of spin dynamics reproduce all measured neutron data and reveal that thermally activated spin canting gives rise to a new type of coherent magnetic precession mode. This "rotor" mode can be seen as a high-temperature version of superparamagnetism and is driven by exchange interactions between the two magnetic sublattices. The frequency of the rotor mode behaves in fair agreement with a simple analytical model, based on a high temperature approximation of the generally accepted Hamiltonian of the system. The extracted model parameters, as the magnetic interaction and the axial anisotropy, are in excellent agreement with results from Mossbauer spectroscopy

Pathways of Understanding: the Interactions of Humanity and Global Environmental Change

How humans, interacting within social systems, affect and are affected by global change is explored. Recognizing the impact human activities have on the environment and responding to the need to document the interactions among human activities, the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) commissioned a group of 12 scientists to develop a framework illustrating the key human systems that contribute to global change. This framework, called the Social Process Diagram, will help natural and social scientists, educators, resource managers and policy makers envision and analyze how human systems interact among themselves and with the natural system. The Social Process Diagram consists of the following blocks that constitute the Diagram's structural framework: (1) fund of knowledge and experience; (2) preferences and expectations; (3) factors of production and technology; (4) population and social structure; (5) economic systems; (6) political systems and institutions; and (7) global scale environmental processes. To demonstrate potential ways the Diagram can be used, this document includes 3 hypothetical scenarios of global change issues: global warming and sea level rise; the environmental impact of human population migration; and energy and the environment. These scenarios demonstrate the Diagram's usefulness for visualizing specific processes that might be studied to evaluate a particular global change issues. The scenario also shows that interesting and unanticipated questions may emerge as links are explored between categories on the Diagram

Atom-photon entanglement generation and distribution

We extend an earlier model by Law {\it et al.} \cite{law} for a cavity QED based single-photon-gun to atom-photon entanglement generation and distribution. We illuminate the importance of a small critical atom number on the fidelity of the proposed operation in the strong coupling limit. Our result points to a promisingly high purity and efficiency using currently available cavity QED parameters, and sheds new light on constructing quantum computing and communication devices with trapped atoms and high Q optical cavities.Comment: 7 fig

Tunneling through nanosystems: Combining broadening with many-particle states

We suggest a new approach for transport through finite systems based on the Liouville equation. By working in a basis of many-particle states for the finite system, Coulomb interactions are taken fully into account and correlated transitions by up to two different contact states are included. This latter extends standard rate equation models by including level-broadening effects. The main result of the paper is a general expression for the elements of the density matrix of the finite size system, which can be applied whenever the eigenstates and the couplings to the leads are known. The approach works for arbitrary bias and for temperatures above the Kondo temperature. We apply the approach to standard models and good agreement with other methods in their respective regime of validity is found.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures included to tex

Microscopic theory of quantum-transport phenomena in mesoscopic systems: A Monte Carlo approach

A theoretical investigation of quantum-transport phenomena in mesoscopic systems is presented. In particular, a generalization to ``open systems'' of the well-known semiconductor Bloch equations is proposed. The presence of spatial boundary conditions manifest itself through self-energy corrections and additional source terms in the kinetic equations, whose form is suitable for a solution via a generalized Monte Carlo simulation. The proposed approach is applied to the study of quantum-transport phenomena in double-barrier structures as well as in superlattices, showing a strong interplay between phase coherence and relaxation.Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev. Let