The Goddess: Myths of the Great Mother

The Goddess is all around us: Her face is reflected in the burgeoning new growth of every ensuing spring; her power is evident in the miracle of conception and childbirth and in the newborn’s cry as it searches for the nurturing breast; we glimpse her in the alluring beauty of youth, in the incredible power of sexual attraction, in the affection of family gatherings, and in the gentle caring of loved ones as they leave the mortal world. The Goddess is with us in the everyday miracles of life, growth, and death which always have surrounded us and always will, and this ubiquity speaks to the enduring presence and changing masks of the universal power people have always recognized in their lives. Such power is the Goddess, at least in part, and through its workings we may occasionally catch a glimpse of the divine.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1094/thumbnail.jp

Gods, Heroes, & Kings: The Battle for Mythic Britain

The islands of Britain have been a crossroads of gods, heroes, and kings-those of flesh as well as those of myth-for thousands of years. Successive waves of invasion brought distinctive legends, rites, and beliefs. The ancient Celts displaced earlier indigenous peoples, only to find themselves displaced in turn by the Romans, who then abandoned the islands to Germanic tribes, a people themselves nearly overcome in time by an influx of Scandinavians. With each wave of invaders came a battle for the mythic mind of the Isles as the newcomer\u27s belief system met with the existing systems of gods, legends, and myths.In Gods, Heroes, and Kings, medievalist Christopher Fee and veteran myth scholar David Leeming unearth the layers of the British Isles\u27 unique folkloric tradition to discover how this body of seemingly disparate tales developed. The authors find a virtual battlefield of myths in which pagan and Judeo-Christian beliefs fought for dominance, and classical, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, and Celtic narrative threads became tangled together. The resulting body of legends became a strange but coherent hybrid, so that by the time Chaucer wrote The Wife of Bath\u27s Tale in the fourteenth century, a Christian theme of redemption fought for prominence with a tripartite Celtic goddess and the Arthurian legends of Sir Gawain-itself a hybrid mythology.Without a guide, the corpus of British mythology can seem impenetrable. Taking advantage of the latest research, Fee and Leeming employ a unique comparative approach to map the origins and development of one of the richest folkloric traditions. Copiously illustrated with excerpts in translation from the original sources,Gods, Heroes, and Kings provides a fascinating and accessible new perspective on the history of British mythology. [From the publisher]https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1066/thumbnail.jp

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Harmonic Superspaces in Low Dimensions

Harmonic superspaces for spacetimes of dimension $d\leq 3$ are constructed. Some applications are given.Comment: 16, kcl-th-94-15. Two further references have been added (12 and 13) and a few typographical errors have been correcte

Bisphosphonates alter trabecular bone collagen cross-linking and isomerization in beagle dog vertebra

Changes in organic matrix may contribute to the anti-fracture efficacy of anti-remodeling agents. Following one year of treatment in beagle dogs, bisphosphonates alter the organic matrix of vertebral trabecular bone, while raloxifene had no effect. These results show that pharmacological suppression of turnover alters the organic matrix component of bone. INTRODUCTION: The collagen matrix contributes significantly to a bone's fracture resistance yet the effects of anti-remodeling agents on collagen properties are unclear. The goal of this study was to assess changes in collagen cross-linking and isomerization following anti-remodeling treatment. METHODS: Skeletally mature female beagles were treated for one year with oral doses of vehicle (VEH), risedronate (RIS; 3 doses), alendronate (ALN; 3 doses), or raloxifene (RAL; 2 doses). The middle dose of RIS and ALN and the lower dose of RAL approximate doses used for treatment of post menopausal osteoporosis. Vertebral trabecular bone matrix was assessed for collagen isomerization (ratio of alpha/beta C-telopeptide [CTX]), enzymatic (pyridinoline [PYD] and deoxypyridinoline [DPD]), and non-enzymatic (pentosidine [PEN]) cross-links. RESULTS: All doses of both RIS and ALN increased PEN (+34-58%) and the ratio of PYD/DPD (+14-26%), and decreased the ratio of alpha/beta CTX (-29-56%) compared to VEH. RAL did not alter any collagen parameters. Bone turnover rate was significantly correlated to PEN (R = -0.664), alpha/beta CTX (R = 0.586), and PYD/DPD (R = -0.470). CONCLUSIONS: Bisphosphonate treatment significantly alters properties of bone collagen suggesting a contribution of the organic matrix to the anti-fracture efficacy of this drug class.The authors thank Dr. Keith Condon, Diana Jacob, Mary Hooser, and Lauren Waugh for histological preparation. This work was supported by NIH Grants AR047838 and AR007581 and research grants from The Alliance for Better Bone Health (Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals and sanofi-aventis), and Lilly Research Laboratories, as well as an unrestricted grant from Eli Lilly to INSERM. Merck and Co. kindly provided the alendronate. This investigation utilized an animal facility constructed with support from Research Facilities Improvement Program Grant Number C06 RR10601-01 from the National Center for Research Resources, National Institutes of Health

The Ursinus Weekly, October 3, 1949

First epistle to the freshmen • Fords to be rivals in home grid clash • Hockey drills start; Frick leads squad • Harriers condition for championships • Bruin eleven yields 21-0 as Drexel breaks streak • Greek prof begins seventeenth season as soccer mentor • Interdorm program set; includes tennis, football • Bears elect leader for grid campaign • Bakermen prepare for season opener • From the sidelines • Kunz, Nicholls go continental • Ursinus star shines in summer theater • Editorial: Senior to frosh • Six assume posts on Ursinus faculty • Forums to include verse and opinions on Arctic, Far East • Teachers j.g. begin trial flights soon • Y to present plans at rally Wednesday • Greenies view Ursinus under bands and bangs • School registers 974 as enrollment drops • WSGA begins duties as committees plan future coed events • Bruin brainmen hit dean\u27s squad 79-29 after 16-week fray • New prexy outlines semester schedule for musical groups • Campus store introduces new hours, coffee machine • President entertains at banquet • Juniors set freshman breakfasthttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1572/thumbnail.jp

Digital twin of an urban-integrated hydroponic farm

AbstractThis paper presents the development process of a digital twin of a unique hydroponic underground farm in London, Growing Underground (GU). Growing 12x more per unit area than traditional greenhouse farming in the UK, the farm also consumes 4x more energy per unit area. Key to the ongoing operational success of this farm and similar enterprises is finding ways to minimize the energy use while maximizing crop growth by maintaining optimal growing conditions. As such, it belongs to the class of Controlled Environment Agriculture, where indoor environments are carefully controlled to maximize crop growth by using artificial lighting and smart heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems. We tracked changing environmental conditions and crop growth across 89 different variables, through a wireless sensor network and unstructured manual records, and combined all the data into a database. We show how the digital twin can provide enhanced outputs for a bespoke site like GU, by creating inferred data fields, and show the limitations of data collection in a commercial environment. For example, we find that lighting is the dominant environmental factor for temperature and thus crop growth in this farm, and that the effects of external temperature and ventilation are confounded. We combine information learned from historical data interpretation to create a bespoke temperature forecasting model (root mean squared error &lt; 1.3°C), using a dynamic linear model with a data-centric lighting component. Finally, we present how the forecasting model can be integrated into the digital twin to provide feedback to the farmers for decision-making assistance.</jats:p

Dietary influence on systolic and diastolic blood pressure in the TwinsUK cohort

Nutrition plays a key role in blood pressure (BP) regulation. Here, we examine associations between nutrient intakes and BP in a large predominantly female population-based cohort. We assessed the correlation between 45 nutrients (from food frequency questionnaires) and systolic BP/diastolic BP (SBP/DBP) in 3889 individuals from TwinsUK not on hypertensive treatments and replicated in an independent subset of monozygotic twins discordant for nutrient intake (17–242 pairs). Results from both analyses were meta-analysed. For significant nutrients, we calculated heritability using structural equation modelling. We identified and replicated 15 nutrients associated with SBP, 9 also being associated with DBP, adjusting for covariates and multiple testing. 14 of those had a heritable component (h2: 27.1–57.6%). Strong associations with SBP were observed for riboflavin (Beta(SE) = −1.49(0.38), P = 1.00 × 10−4) and tryptophan (−0.31(0.01), P = 5 × 10−4), while with DBP for alcohol (0.05(0.07), P = 1.00 × 10−4) and lactose (−0.05(0.0), P = 1.3 × 10−3). Two multivariable nutrient scores, combining independently SBP/DBP-associated nutrients, explained 22% of the variance in SBP and 13.6% of the variance in DBP. Moreover, bivariate heritability analysis suggested that nutrients and BP share some genetic influences. We confirm current understanding and extend the panel of dietary nutrients implicated in BP regulation underscoring the value of nutrient focused dietary research in preventing and managing hypertension

Reconstructing ‘the Alcoholic’: Recovering from Alcohol Addiction and the Stigma this Entails

Public perception of alcohol addiction is frequently negative, whilst an important part of recovery is the construction of a positive sense of self. In order to explore how this might be achieved, we investigated how those who self-identify as in recovery from alcohol problems view themselves and their difficulties with alcohol and how they make sense of others’ responses to their addiction. Semi-structured interviews with six individuals who had been in recovery between 5 and 35 years and in contact with Alcoholics Anonymous were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The participants were acutely aware of stigmatising images of ‘alcoholics’ and described having struggled with a considerable dilemma in accepting this identity themselves. However, to some extent they were able to resist stigma by conceiving of an ‘aware alcoholic self’ which was divorced from their previously unaware self and formed the basis for a new more knowing and valued identity