1,415 research outputs found
World mission opportunities for Lutherans today
Mission responsibilities must be reconsidered to focus on the future as churches discuss merger and its eschatological dimensions. Renewal in other churches may be stimulated as they examine models suggested by merging churches. In spite of divergent views among Protestant and within the Lutheran family itself concerning an understanding of mission, there exists several convergent convictions. Mission is: inherent in the Gospel; evangelization as center; witness; forever; crossing of frontiers (geographical, economic, sociological, scientific, religious); for every country; responsibility of whole church; giving and receiving; facilitated by specialists; not triumphalistic; in need of more influence from Lutheran theological heritage; is God\u27s. Various strategies and cooperative efforts of engaging in mission should be planned after consideration of past commitments, experience and identity of church. A global perspective and two-way character should be maintained. God uses the church as an instrument for his mission
Clones with finitely many relative R-classes
For each clone C on a set A there is an associated equivalence relation
analogous to Green's R-relation, which relates two operations on A iff each one
is a substitution instance of the other using operations from C. We study the
clones for which there are only finitely many relative R-classes.Comment: 41 pages; proofs improved, examples adde
Photo-absorption spectra of small hydrogenated silicon clusters using the time-dependent density functional theory
We present a systematic study of the photo-absorption spectra of various
SiH clusters (n=1-10, m=1-14) using the time-dependent density
functional theory (TDDFT). The method uses a real-time, real-space
implementation of TDDFT involving full propagation of the time dependent
Kohn-Sham equations. Our results for SiH and SiH show good
agreement with the earlier calculations and experimental data. We find that for
small clusters (n<7) the photo-absorption spectrum is atomic-like while for the
larger clusters it shows bulk-like behaviour. We study the photo-absorption
spectra of silicon clusters as a function of hydrogenation. For single
hydrogenation, we find that in general, the absorption optical gap decreases
and as the number of silicon atoms increase the effect of a single hydrogen
atom on the optical gap diminishes. For further hydrogenation the optical gap
increases and for the fully hydrogenated clusters the optical gap is larger
compared to corresponding pure silicon clusters.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
On the effect of variable identification on the essential arity of functions
We show that every function of several variables on a finite set of k
elements with n>k essential variables has a variable identification minor with
at least n-k essential variables. This is a generalization of a theorem of
Salomaa on the essential variables of Boolean functions. We also strengthen
Salomaa's theorem by characterizing all the Boolean functions f having a
variable identification minor that has just one essential variable less than f.Comment: 10 page
Individual tree biomass equations or biomass expansion factors for assessment of carbon stock changes in living biomass - A comparative study
AbstractSignatory countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its supplementary Kyoto Protocol (KP) are obliged to report greenhouse gas emissions and removals. Changes in the carbon stock of living biomass should be reported using either the default or stock change methods of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) under the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry sector. Traditionally, volume estimates are used as a forestry measures. Changes in living biomass may be assessed by first estimating the change in the volume of stem wood and then converting this volume to whole tree biomass using biomass expansion factors (BEFs). However, this conversion is often non-trivial because the proportion of stem wood increases with tree size at the expense of branches, foliage, stump and roots. Therefore, BEFs typically vary over time and their use may result in biased estimates. The objective of this study was to evaluate differences between biomass estimates obtained using biomass equations and BEFs with particular focus on uncertainty analysis. Assuming that the development of tree fractions in different ways can be handled by individual biomass equations, BEFs for standing stock were shown to overestimate the biomass sink capacity (Sweden). Although estimates for BEFs derived for changes in stock were found to be unbiased, the estimated BEFs varied substantially over time (0.85â1.22ton CO2/m3). However, to some extent this variation may be due to random sampling errors rather than actual changes. The highest accuracy was obtained for estimates based on biomass equations for different tree fractions, applied to data from the Swedish National Forest Inventory using a permanent sample design (estimated change in stock 1990â2005: 420million tons CO2, with a standard error amounting to 26.7million tons CO2) Many countries have adopted such a design combined with the stock change method for reporting carbon stock changes under the UNFCCC/KP
Complexity Analysis of Iterative Basis Transformations Applied to Event-Based Signals
This paper introduces an event-based methodology to perform arbitrary linear basis transformations that encompass a broad range of practically important signal transforms, such as the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and the discrete wavelet transform (DWT). We present a complexity analysis of the proposed method, and show that the amount of required multiply-and-accumulate operations is reduced in comparison to frame-based method in natural video sequences, when the required temporal resolution is high enough. Experimental results on natural video sequences acquired by the asynchronous time-based neuromorphic image sensor (ATIS) are provided to support the feasibility of the method, and to illustrate the gain in computation resources
Rab17, a novel small GTPase, is specific for epithelial cells and is induced during cell polarization
The rab subfamily of small GTPases has been demonstrated to play an important role in the regulation of membrane traffic in eukaryotic cells. Compared with nonpolarized cells, epithelial cells have distinct apical and basolateral transport pathways which need to be separately regulated. This raises the question whether epithelial cells require specific rab proteins. However, all rab proteins identified so far were found to be equally expressed in polarized and nonpolarized cells. Here we report the identification of rab17, the first epithelial cell-specific small GTPase. Northern blot analysis on various mouse organs revealed that the rab17 mRNA is present in kidney, liver, and intestine but not in organs lacking epithelial cells nor in fibroblasts. To determine whether rab17 is specific for epithelial cells we studied its expression in the developing kidney. We found that rab17 is absent from the mesenchymal precursors but is induced upon their differentiation into epithelial cells. In situ hybridization studies on the embryonic kidney and intestine revealed that rab17 is restricted to epithelial cells. By immunofluorescence and immunoelectron microscopy on kidney sections, rab17 was localized to the basolateral plasma membrane and to apical tubules. Rab proteins associated with two distinct compartments have been found to regulate transport between them. Therefore, our data suggest that rab17 might be involved in transcellular transport
Estimation of optimal number of gates in dual gated ÂčâžF-FDG cardiac PET
Gating of positron emission tomography images has been shown to reduce the motion effects, especially when imaging small targets, such as coronary plaques. However, the selection of optimal number of gates for gating remains a challenge. Selecting too high number of gates results in a loss of signal-to-noise ratio, while too low number of gates does remove only part of the motion. Here, we introduce a respiratory-cardiac motion model to determine the optimal number of respiratory and cardiac gates. We evaluate the model using a realistic heart phantom and data from 12 cardiac patients (47â77 years, 64.5 on average). To demonstrate the benefits of our model, we compared it with an existing respiratory model. Based on our study, the optimal number of gates was determined to be five respiratory and four cardiac gates in the phantom and patient studies. In the phantom study, the diameter of the most active hot spot was reduced by 24% in the dual gated images compared to non-gated images. In the patient study, the thickness of myocardium wall was reduced on average by 21%. In conclusion, the motion model can be used for estimating the optimal number of respiratory and cardiac gates for dual gating
Burmese amber fossils bridge the gap in the Cretaceous record of polypod ferns
publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Burmese amber fossils bridge the gap in the Cretaceous record of polypod ferns journaltitle: Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ppees.2016.01.003 content_type: article copyright: Copyright © 2016 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.Copyright © 2016 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved. This document is the authors' final accepted version of the journal article. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it
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