The Renascence of Classical Thought and Form in the Carolingian Period

The political stability established under the rule of Charlemagne (768-814) was conducive to the flourishing of the simultaneous resurgence of art and learning. Inspired by the achievements of the Roman Empire, Charlemagne wished to give his subjects a feeling of spiritual unity, a sense of continuity with the past, and an enhanced intellectual life. The classical intellectual tradition is traced from ancient times to the Carolingian present to demonstrate that classicism was a continuum. The thesis examines the classical tradition in the intellectual life of the Carolingian period, its conscious rejuvenation in the figurative arts, and its manifestation in the imperial architecture of the ninth century. It demonstrates that the Carolingian resurgence of classicism was calculated rather than spontaneous. The widespread enthusiastic interest in classicist! and its fresh interpretation were new, rather than classicism itself

Women Appear to Have the Same Minimum Alveolar Concentration as Men A Retrospective Study

Background: A recent report finds that elderly Japanese women given xenon have a significantly smaller (26% less) MAC (minimum alveolar concentration required to eliminate movement in response to surgical incision in 50% of patients) than Japanese men of the same age. The authors assessed whether this finding applied to other/all anesthetics. Methods: The authors reviewed data obtained previously for 258 patients (127 women and 131 men) anesthetized with desflurane, diethyl ether, halothane, methoxyflurane, sevoflurane, or xenon. Data were normalized to the MAC for the anesthetic as determined by logistic regression (i.e., MAC would equal a value of 1.000.) Results: The MAC for the normalized combined (all) data for women (1.013 ؎ 0.017; mean ؎ SEM) did not differ significantly from the normalized combined data for men (1.005 ؎ 0.009), and neither differed significantly from 1.000. However, a significantly smaller MAC value was found for women in two studies of sevoflurane (subsets of the above studies) given to Japanese patients: 12% in one study and 16% in the other. Conclusions: Overall, no difference in MAC was found for women versus men. Whether women (particularly older Japanese women) have a smaller MAC than men remains to be confirmed by prospective studies