The spirituality of marriage after the second Vatican Council

Theological reflection on a spirituality of marriage needs “confidential conversations with those who [are] immediately affected, that is to say, with committed married couples.” This prevents reflecting theologians from idealizing marriage as well as from being divorced from the reality of everyday marital life. The following reflections made by the author of this paper, who as a religious priest follows a celibate life, have been nourished by many conversations with married couples. The personal reflections of married faithful in the light of faith are a genuine source of moral knowledge; and supplement reflections on an abstract essence or nature.peer-reviewe

List of Iowa Clover Insects and Observations on Some of Them

The following list of Iowa clover insects comprises those species enumerated by Profs. J. A. Lintner and C. M. Weed as clover feeders which are known to occur in the State with such additions as personal observation or accepted authority will permit. All insects listed occur in the collections of the Iowa Agricultural College, and the notes in connection with any individual insect refer only to its occurrence on clover

Precipitation Sensitivity to Surface Heat Fluxes over North America in Reanalysis and Model Data

A new methodology for assessing the impact of surface heat fluxes on precipitation is applied to data from the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) and to output from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory’s Atmospheric Model 2.1 (AM2.1). The method assesses the sensitivity of afternoon convective rainfall frequency and intensity to the late-morning partitioning of latent and sensible heating, quantified in terms of evaporative fraction (EF). Over North America, both NARR and AM2.1 indicate sensitivity of convective rainfall triggering to EF but no appreciable influence of EF on convective rainfall amounts. Functional relationships between the triggering feedback strength (TFS) metric and mean EF demonstrate the occurrence of stronger coupling for mean EF in the range of 0.6 to 0.8. To leading order, AM2.1 exhibits spatial distributions and seasonality of the EF impact on triggering resembling those seen in NARR: rainfall probability increases with higher EF over the eastern United States and Mexico and peaks in Northern Hemisphere summer. Over those regions, the impact of EF variability on afternoon rainfall triggering in summer can explain up to 50% of seasonal rainfall variability. However, the AM2.1 metrics also exhibit some features not present in NARR, for example, strong coupling extending northwestward from the central Great Plains into Canada. Sources of disagreement may include model hydroclimatic biases that affect the mean patterns and variability of surface flux partitioning, with EF variability typically much lower in NARR. Finally, the authors also discuss the consistency of their results with other assessments of land–precipitation coupling obtained from different methodologies

The Political Economy of Myanmar's Transition

This is an Author's Original Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form, the Version of Record, has been published in the JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY ASIA, 07 Feb 2013, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00472336.2013.764143.Since holding elections in 2010, Myanmar has transitioned from a direct military dictatorship to a formally democratic system and has embarked on a period of rapid economic reform. After two decades of military rule, the pace of change has startled almost everyone and led to a great deal of cautious optimism. To make sense of the transition and assess the case for optimism, this article explores the political economy of Myanmar's dual transition from state socialism to capitalism and from dictatorship to democracy. It analyses changes within Myanmar society from a critical political economy perspective in order to both situate these developments within broader regional trends and to evaluate the country's current trajectory. In particular, the emergence of state-mediated capitalism and politico-business complexes in Myanmar's borderlands are emphasised. These dynamics, which have empowered a narrow oligarchy, are less likely to be undone by the reform process than to fundamentally shape the contours of reform. Consequently, Myanmar's future may not be unlike those of other Southeast Asian states that have experienced similar developmental trajectories

Limited functional conservation of a global regulator among related bacterial genera: Lrp in Escherichia, Proteus and Vibrio

Abstract Background Bacterial genome sequences are being determined rapidly, but few species are physiologically well characterized. Predicting regulation from genome sequences usually involves extrapolation from better-studied bacteria, using the hypothesis that a conserved regulator, conserved target gene, and predicted regulator-binding site in the target promoter imply conserved regulation between the two species. However many compared organisms are ecologically and physiologically diverse, and the limits of extrapolation have not been well tested. In E. coli K-12 the leucine-responsive regulatory protein (Lrp) affects expression of ~400 genes. Proteus mirabilis and Vibrio cholerae have highly-conserved lrp orthologs (98% and 92% identity to E. coli lrp). The functional equivalence of Lrp from these related species was assessed. Results Heterologous Lrp regulated gltB, livK and lrp transcriptional fusions in an E. coli background in the same general way as the native Lrp, though with significant differences in extent. Microarray analysis of these strains revealed that the heterologous Lrp proteins significantly influence only about half of the genes affected by native Lrp. In P. mirabilis, heterologous Lrp restored swarming, though with some pattern differences. P. mirabilis produced substantially more Lrp than E. coli or V. cholerae under some conditions. Lrp regulation of target gene orthologs differed among the three native hosts. Strikingly, while Lrp negatively regulates its own gene in E. coli, and was shown to do so even more strongly in P. mirabilis, Lrp appears to activate its own gene in V. cholerae. Conclusion The overall similarity of regulatory effects of the Lrp orthologs supports the use of extrapolation between related strains for general purposes. However this study also revealed intrinsic differences even between orthologous regulators sharing \u3e90% overall identity, and 100% identity for the DNA-binding helix-turn-helix motif, as well as differences in the amounts of those regulators. These results suggest that predicting regulation of specific target genes based on genome sequence comparisons alone should be done on a conservative basis

The idiosyncratic pattern of Russian corporate dividend policy during its formative era

© 2018 The Authors Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2018 CIRIEC In general, the dividend payout pattern for Russian corporations during their formative period from 1998 to 2006 was seemingly independent of company earnings, size, growth opportunities and capital structure, as such firm policies appear not to conform to any of the main extant dividend payout theories. The only exception we find is that of utility firms, which were inclined to pay consistent dividends. Utility firms tended to be partly owned by the state and were subject to price regulation. Consequently, they may have had limited investment prospects. Our findings suggest that dividend payout policies in non-market economies may be driven by non-traditional determinants, such as the state's overall industrial strategy

Evaluating Greek equity funds using data envelopment analysis

This study assesses the relative performance of Greek equity funds employing a non-parametric method, specifically Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Using an original sample of cost and operational attributes we explore the e¤ect of each variable on funds' operational efficiency for an oligopolistic and bank-dominated fund industry. Our results have significant implications for the investors' fund selection process since we are able to identify potential sources of inefficiencies for the funds. The most striking result is that the percentage of assets under management affects performance negatively, a conclusion which may be related to the structure of the domestic stock market. Furthermore, we provide evidence against the notion of funds' mean-variance efficiency

Wake response to an ocean-feedback mechanism: Madeira Island case study

This discussion focused on the numerical study of a wake episode. The Weather Research and Forecasting model was used in a downscale mode. The current literature focuses the discussion on the adiabatic dynamics of atmospheric wakes. Changes in mountain height and consequently on its relation to the atmospheric inversion layer should explain the shift in wake regimes: from a 'strong-wake' to a 'weak-wake' scenario. Nevertheless, changes in SST variability can also induce similar regime shifts. Increase in evaporation, contributes to increase convection and thus to an uplift of the stratified atmospheric layer, above the critical height, with subsequent internal gravity wave activity.Comment: Under review proces

A dynamical framework for the origin of the diagonal South Pacific and South Atlantic convergence zones

The South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) and South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ) are diagonal bands of precipitation that extend from the equator southeastward into the Southern Hemisphere over the western Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, respectively. With mean precipitation rates over 5 mm day−1, they are a major component of the tropical and global climate in austral summer. However, their basic formation mechanism is not fully understood. Here, a conceptual framework for the diagonal convergence zones is developed, based on calculations of the vorticity budget from reanalysis and Rossby wave theory. Wave trains propagate eastward along the Southern Hemisphere subtropical jet, with initially quasi-circular vorticity centres. In the zonally sheared environment on the equatorward flank of the jet, these vorticity centres become elongated and develop a northwest-southeast tilt. Ray tracing diagnostics in a non-divergent, barotropic Rossby wave framework then explain the observed equatorward propagation of these diagonal vorticity structures toward the westerly ducts over the equatorial Pacific and Atlantic. The baroclinic component of these circulations leads to destabilisation and ascent ahead of the cyclonic vorticity anomaly in the wave, triggering deep convection because of the high sea surface temperatures in this region. Latent heat release then forces additional ascent and strong upper-tropospheric divergence, with an associated anticyclonic vorticity tendency. A vorticity budget shows that this cancels out the advective cyclonic vorticity tendency in the wave train over the SPCZ, and dissipates the wave within a day. The mean SPCZ is consequently comprised of the sum of these pulses of diagonal bands of precipitation. Similar mechanisms also operate in the SACZ. However, the vorticity anomalies in the wave trains are stronger, and the precipitation and negative feedback from the divergence and anticyclonic vorticity tendency are weaker, resulting in continued propagation of the wave and a more diffuse diagonal convergence zone