Theurgy in Dionysius the Areopagite

The present chapter aims at offering insights into Dionysius the Areopagite’s notion of theurgy, both with respect to the metaphysical principles that connect with “θεουργία” and the particular sacramental reality that emerges from it. Pavlos argues that despite the linguistic affinities and terminological appropriations - whether Iamblichean or Proclean - Dionysius’ premises on the matter remain radically different from that of Neoplatonism, both in terms of the sacramental tradition he recapitulates and the wider Christian metaphysical contours he adheres to. Of central importance in the argument is the striking fact that, throughout the Corpus Dionysiacum, “theurgy” is a term exclusively used by the author to refer to the works of Christ in His earthly historical presence, and to the whole divine providential, creative, sustaining, and divinising activity and work of God. Consequently, if for Dionysius a “theurgist” (θεουργός) could not be any human being, but only Christ Himself, the God-Man, Dionysian theurgy aims at the deification of man, which is nothing other than Christ-likeness

Matter wave coupling of spatially separated and unequally pumped polariton condensates

Spatial quantum coherence between two separated driven-dissipative polariton condensates created non-resonantly and with a different occupation is studied. We identify the regions where the condensates remain coherent with the phase difference continuously changing with the pumping imbalance and the regions where each condensate acquires its own chemical potential with phase differences exhibiting time-dependent oscillations. We show that in the mutual coherence limit the coupling consists of two competing contributions: a symmetric Heisenberg exchange and the Dzyloshinskii-Moriya asymmetric interactions that enable a continuous tuning of the phase relation across the dyad and derive analytic expressions for these types of interactions. The introduction of non-equal pumping increases the complexity of the type of the problems that can be solved by polariton condensates arranged in a graph configuration. If equally pumped polaritons condensates arrange their phases to solve the constrained quadratic minimisation problem with a real symmetric matrix, the non-equally pumped condensates solve that problem for a general Hermitian matrix.Comment: 3 figures, 16 page

Spatial Interdependencies of FDI Locations: A Lessening of the Tyranny of Distance?

Recent theoretical approaches stress the importance of complex integration strategies of multinationals and the interdependence between locations. Up till now little has been done to incorporate the potential cross-country dependencies into the empirical analysis of the determinants and the structure of foreign direct investment. By utilizing a panel data set that consists of real FDI stocks for 476 country pairs for the years 1994-2004 and a distance weighted spatial matrix, we find significant third country effects. Interestingly, the bilateral variables seem to be in concordance with the notion of horizontally motivated FDI while the spatial third country effects seem to comply with the notion of vertical FDI and production fragmentation. While bilateral variables seem to dominate location decisions the results confirm the existence and importance of international interdependence.Foreign Direct Investment; Spatial Econometrics; Panel Data

Flow distortion measurements in convoluted aero engine intakes

The unsteady flowfields generated by convoluted aero engine intakes are major sources of instabilities that can compromise the performance of the downstream turbomachinery components. Hence, there exists a need for high spatial and temporal resolution measurements that will allow a greater understanding of the aerodynamics. Stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry is capable of providing such fidelity but its application has been limited previously as the optical access through cylindrical ducts for air flow measurements constitutes a notable pitfall for this type of measurements. This paper presents a suite of S-PIV measurements and flow field analysis in terms of snapshot, statistical and time-averaged measurements for two S-duct configurations across a range of inlet Mach numbers. The flow assessments comprise effects of inlet Mach number and S-duct centerline offset distance. Overall, the work demonstrates the feasibility of using S-PIV techniques for determining the complex flow field at the exit of convoluted intakes with at least two orders of magnitude higher spatial resolution than the traditional pressure rake measurements allow. Analysis of the conventional distortion descriptors quantifies the dependency upon the S-duct configuration and highlights that the more aggressive duct generates twice the levels of swirl distortion than the low offset one. The analysis also shows a weak dependency of the distortion descriptor magnitude upon the inlet Mach number across the entire range of Mach numbers tested. A statistical assessment of the unsteady distortion history over the data acquisition time highlights the dominant swirl patterns of the two configurations. Such an advancement in measurement capability enables a significantly more substantial steady and unsteady flow analyses and highlights the benefits of synchronous high resolution three component velocity measurements to unlock the aerodynamics of complex engine-intake systems

Signature of a universal statistical description for drift-wave plasma turbulence

This Letter provides a theoretical interpretation of numerically generated probability density functions (PDFs) of intermittent plasma transport events. Specifically, nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations of ion-temperature-gradient turbulence produce time series of heat flux which exhibit manifestly non-Gaussian PDFs with enhanced tails. It is demonstrated that, after the removal of autocorrelations, the numerical PDFs can be matched with predictions from a fluid theoretical setup, based on the instanton method. This result points to a universality in the modeling of intermittent stochastic process, offering predictive capability.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure