"Provincia Armenia" in the light of the epigraphic evidence

One very prominent context of the Pre-Christian history of Armenia of course lies with its relations with the great neighbouring empires of Parthia and Rome. These relations were mainly the result of Armenia’s geopolitical location between the two empires, its natural resources and its control of strategic long-distance routes. From a Roman point of view, Armenia certainly was the most important geopolitical concern in the East. Roman-Armenian relations therefore are a vast and complex subject, and their history extends over many centuries. In the years between 114 and 117 AD these relations assumed an extraordinary albeit short-lived condition when the kingdom of Greater Armenia became a Roman province. The present contribution reviews the Roman inscriptions that can be dated to this period, as well as the historical evidence they provide for the history of Greater Armenia as a Roman province

Looking beyond endotoxin: a comparative study of pyrogen retention by ultrafilters used for the preparation of sterile dialyis fluid

Sterile single-use ultrafilters are used in dialysis for the preparation of the substitution fluid given to patients undergoing dialysis treatments with high convective fluid removal. The retention of pyrogenic agents by the ultrafilters is crucial to avoiding inflammatory responses. The performance of a new single-use ultrafilter (NUF) with a positively charged flat sheet membrane of relatively small membrane area and large pore size was compared to a reference ultrafilter (RUF) with a hollow fiber membrane. Filter performance was tested with various pyrogen-contaminated dialysis fluids by direct pyrogen quantification and by measuring inflammatory responses in cell-based bioassays. The NUF completely retained oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN), whereas the RUF was fully permeable. Both filters tended to decrease biological activity of DNA in filtered bacterial lysates. The NUF reduced lipopolysaccharides (LPS) and LPS-induced biological activity by 100%, whereas the RUF produced filtrates with low but detectable levels of LPS in most cases. Peptidoglycans (PGN) were fully retained both by the NUF and the RUF. The new ultrafilter retained biologically active ODN, which has not yet been described for any other device used in dialysis, and it showed better or equal retention of LPS and PGN even with a smaller membrane surface and larger pore size

Atmospheric Aerosol Particle Formation : Aircraft-Based Mass Spectrometric Measurements of Gaseous and Ionic Aerosol Precursors

The condensational growth of aerosol particles and the formation of fresh, nanometer-sized particles depend primarily upon the presence of H2SO4. Atmospheric ions produced by cosmic rays can initialize the formation of clusterions, which subsequently may grow by mutual coagulation and condensation of H2SO4 and H2O. In the present work, measurements of the H2SO4 precursor SO2 and atmospheric clusterions were performed using an ion trap chemical ionisation mass spectrometer (IT-CIMS) and a quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS). The ion molecule reaction to determine atmospheric SO2 was calibrated isotopically. So problems arising from wall losses and ion hydration are circumvented in an elegant manner. The modified IT-CIMS was integrated into the German research aircraft Falcon and successfully employed during the international aircraft campaign ITOP (International Transport of Ozone and Precursors). During another aircraft campaign, CONTRACE (Convective Transport of Trace Gases), the QMS aboard the Falcon detected atmospheric clusterions. Significant correlations between detected small particles and clusterions were found. During ITOP a plume of strongly enhanced SO2 concentrations in the lower most stratosphere was observed, that originated from North America by overshooting deep convection. Model simulations based on the SO2 data indicate that the measured particles can be explained by binary nucleation and growth (condensation and coagulation) of H2SO4 and H2O

Elektrochemische Untersuchung der Wechselwirkung zwischen alkylverknüpften Ferrocenoyl-Einheiten und ihrer Abstandsabhängigkeit

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Synthese und Charakterisierung von Bis- und Tris-Ferrocen-Verbindungen. Das Ziel in dieser Dissertation ist die Verstärkung der Interaktion zwischen den Eisen-Zentren von verbrückten Ferrocen-Einheiten. Hierzu wurden das Sol-vent, Leitsalz, der Abstand zwischen den Eisen-Zentren variiert und acht Verbindungen unter-sucht. In der Arbeit wird gezeigt, dass die Interaktion mit abnehmendem Abstand zwischen den Eisen-Zentren zunimmt. Des Weiteren wird dargelegt, wie das Leitsalz die Interaktion zwischen der oxidierten und der neutralen Einheit während des Redox-Vorgangs beeinflusst. Außerdem wird in dieser Arbeit der Einfluss des Elektrodenmaterials auf das Substrat disku-tiert. Die Zunahme der Interaktion mit Abnahme des Abstands bzw. Leitsalzwechsels wird ausführlich graphisch dargestellt. Für die Untersuchung der Verbindungen wurden die Metho-den cyclische Voltammetrie, Differenzial Puls Voltammetrie und Chronoamperometrie, sowie NMR-, Massen-Spektroskopie und Elementaranalyse verwendet

An altar to the healer gods and the Genius of luppiter Dolichenus

Avtor korigira in komentira posvetilno besedilo iz 2. stoletja na žrtveniku iz Prizrena (hranjenem v muzeju v Skopju), ki ga je objavil N. Vulič v Spomeniku 71 (1931) n. 322, in ki se v prevodu glasi: Asklepiju, [Telesforu in Higiji]. So[------ ] Sums (Sirec?), Heraklitov sin, je rade volje izpolnil zaobljubo Večnemu Geniju Jupitra Dolihenskega, bogu svoje domovine, in Geniju kohorte. Boštva, ki jim je žrtvenik posvečen, so prikazana v reliefu (glej sliko). Najdišče leži v območju, kjer se stikajo meje rimskih provinc Dalmacije, Mezije, Epira in Maekdonije, mimo vodi cesta, ki prihaja iz severne Mezije (npr. iz mesta Municipium Dardanorum), in pelje do magistrale Via Egnatia (do mesta Lychnidos-Pitola.). Pokrajina je gorata — Prizren leži za hrbtom Šar Planine (Scardus mons) — in bogata; ogrožali so jo latrones. Promet so varovali benéficiarii in prejkone tudi neka pomožna kohorta, ki jo tekst neprecizno omenja, najbrž cohors 1 Aurelia Dardanorum. Neprecizno jo omenja najbrž zato, ker je bil žrtvenik prejkone postavljen v svetišču samem, ki je pripadalo kohorti. Vojak, ki ga je posvetil, je doslej prvi poznani vojak iz Komagene, ki je počastil zaščitnika svoje dežele. Tudi Večni Genij Jupitra Dolihenskega se tu prvič omenja