Beauty and Loss: Tolkien\u27s Eucatastrophe as a Mandate for the Church

In his writings, Tolkien affirms the presence of loss and longing, beauty and despair and analyzes the function they serve in both the secondary world of Middle-earth and the primary world. This thesis will explore his theories of the eucatastrophe and the dyscatastrophe, and his insistence that the joy and hope which are expressed by the eucatastrophe are dependent upon the dyscatastrophe—the presence of sorrow and despair. This thesis will also examine how Christians’ knowledge of Tolkien’s philosophy can better equip them to cope with the brokenness of a fallen world as well as provide motivation for developing and engaging a secular culture

On the Convergence of Sampling-Based Decomposition Algorithms for Multistage Stochastic Programs

The paper presents a convergence proof for a broad class of sampling algorithms for multistage stochastic linear programs in which the uncertain parameters occur only in the constraint right-hand sides. This class includes SDDP, AND, ReSa, and CUPPS. We show that, under some independence assumptions on the sampling procedure, the algorithms converge with probability

The effect of sterilization on biological, organic geochemical and morphological information in natural samples

The loss of biological, organic geochemical, and morphological science information that may occur should a Mars surface sample be sterilized prior to return to earth is examined. Results of experimental studies are summarized

Enhanced van der Waals interaction at interfaces

Using a recently obtained (general) formula for the interaction energy between an excited and a ground-state atom (Sherkunov Y 2007 Phys. Rev. A 75 012705), we consider the interaction energy between two such atoms near the interface between two media. We demonstrate that under the circumstances of the resonant coupling of the excited atom to the surface polariton mode of a vacuum-medium system the nonretarded atom*-atom interaction energy can be enhanced by (several) orders of magnitude in comparison with the van der Waals interaction energy of the two isolated atoms.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, local-field corrections included and improved presentatio

Experiment K-6-16. Morphological examination of rat testes. The effect of Cosmos 1887 flight on spermatogonial population and testosterone level in rat testes

Testes from rats flown on Cosmos 1887 for twelve and a half days were compared to basal control, synchronous control and vivarium maintained rats. When the mean weights of flight testes, normalized for weight/100 gms, were compared to the vivarium controls they were 6.7 percent lighter. Although the flight testes were lighter than the synchronous, the difference is not significant. Counts of spermatogonial cells from 5 animals in each group revealed a 4 percent decrease in flight compared to vivarium controls. In both cases the t-Test significance was less than 0.02. The serum testosterone levels of all animals (flight, synchronous and vivarium) were significantly below the basal controls

THz Time-Domain Spectroscopy of Human Skin Tissue for In-Body Nanonetworks

Copyright: 2016. IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information

Complete eigenstates of identical qubits arranged in regular polygons

We calculate the energy eigenvalues and eigenstates corresponding to coherent single and multiple excitations of an array of N identical qubits or two-level atoms (TLA's) arranged on the vertices of a regular polygon. We assume only that the coupling occurs via an exchange interaction which depends on the separation between the qubits. We include the interactions between all pairs of qubits, and our results are valid for arbitrary distances relative to the radiation wavelength. To illustrate the usefulness of these states, we plot the distance dependence of the decay rates of the n=2 (biexciton) eigenstates of an array of 4 qubits, and tabulate the biexciton eigenvalues and eigenstates, and absorption frequencies, line widths, and relative intensities for polygons consisting of N=2,...,9 qubits in the long-wavelength limit.Comment: Added a figure showing how these results can be used to compute deviations from "equal collective decoherence" approximation

Muscle ultrastructural changes from exhaustive exercise performed after prolonged restricted activity and retraining in dogs

The effect of exhaustive treadmill exercise on ultrastructural changes in the quadriceps femoris muscle was studied in 7 normal, healthy dogs, before and after restricted activity (RA), and following a subsequent 2 month treadmill exercise retraining period for the 5 mo group. Mean time to exhaustion in the 2 mo group decreased from 177 + or - 22 min before to 90 + or - 32 min after RA. Retraining increased tolerance to 219 + or - 73 min; 24 pct. above the before RA and 143 pct. above the after RA time. After RA exhaustion time in the 5 mo group was 25 and 45 min. Before RA, pre-exercise muscle structure was normal and post exercise there was only slight swelling of mitochondria. After RA, pre-exercise, numerous glycogen granules and lipid droplets appeared in the muscle fibers, mitochondria were smaller, and sarcoplasmic reticulum channels widened; post exercise these changes were accentuated and some areas were devoid of glycogen, and there was fiber degradation. After 5 mo RA pre-exercise there were more pronounced changes; mitochondria were very small and dense, there were many lipid droplets, myofibrils were often separated, and the fibers appeared edematous and degenerating; post exercise the sarcoplasmic reticulum was swollen, no glycogen was present, and there was marked swelling and deformation of mitochondria. After retraining, both pre-exercise and post exercise there was still evidence of fiber degeneration. Thus, susceptibility of active skeletal muscle structures and subcellular elements, e.g., mitochondria, to the action of damaging factors occurring during exhaustive exercise is enhanced considerably by prolonged disuse

The F-box protein Cdc4/Fbxw7 is a novel regulator of neural crest development in Xenopus laevis.

BACKGROUND: The neural crest is a unique population of cells that arise in the vertebrate ectoderm at the neural plate border after which they migrate extensively throughout the embryo, giving rise to a wide range of derivatives. A number of proteins involved in neural crest development have dynamic expression patterns, and it is becoming clear that ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation is partly responsible for this. RESULTS: Here we demonstrate a novel role for the F-box protein Cdc4/Fbxw7 in neural crest development. Two isoforms of Xenopus laevis Cdc4 were identified, and designated xCdc4alpha and xCdc4beta. These are highly conserved with vertebrate Cdc4 orthologs, and the Xenopus proteins are functionally equivalent in terms of their ability to degrade Cyclin E, an established vertebrate Cdc4 target. Blocking xCdc4 function specifically inhibited neural crest development at an early stage, prior to expression of c-Myc, Snail2 and Snail. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrate that Cdc4, an ubiquitin E3 ligase subunit previously identified as targeting primarily cell cycle regulators for proteolysis, has additional roles in control of formation of the neural crest. Hence, we identify Cdc4 as a protein with separable but complementary functions in control of cell proliferation and differentiation

Model based automated cycling ergometer

Laboratory testing of cyclists is currently undertaken using turbo trainers or cycle ergometers. The benefits of laboratory testing are the ability to measure performance: (i) more accurately and repeatedly and (ii) under controlled conditions enabling, for example, video analysis to determine joint-specific power production or enable novel instrumentation to be applied to the bicycle, for example, to measure seat interface pressure. Influence of the bicycle fit on torque production have been presented by Irriberri et al(2008) and Peveler et al(2007). Market leading bicycle ergometer manufacturers, such as Lode and Monark, provide feedback on performance metrics including cadence and force measurement. However, neither ergometer provides real time adaptation of bicycle fit to the resolution (i.e. < mm precision) required by elite athletes or allows adjustments to position whilst cycling under simulated road / track conditions. The objective of the research presented in this paper is to demonstrate and provide initial validation results for a novel, fully automated cycle ergometer that incorporates faster, repeatable and more accurate adjustments to bicycle geometry. The ergometer also allows the cyclist to use their preferred handlebars and saddle to accommodate the different cycling disciplines, e.g. track, road, mountain and BMX. The ergometer enables fitting adjustments to be controlled whilst cycling and aims to reduce initial set-up times for different athletes to about 30 seconds as opposed to 30 minutes (required by the end-users current ergometer instantiations). Instrumented cranks have been fitted to monitor the torque and force generated by the crank movements in 2-axes through 360 degrees of crank motion. The ergometer can be coupled (via a user selectable clutch mechanism) to an AC servo motor within the drive chain which supports the application of models of bicycle performance to the ergometer to enable torque versus position versus speed profiles as derived from road and / or track. trials to be readily mapped into the laboratory environmen