How in Ancient Times They Sacrificed People: Human Immolation in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin with Special Emphasis on Ancient Israel and the Near East

Material remains and textual sources from throughout the Mediterranean World (Greece, North Africa, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant) are examined in order to reconstruct ancient perspectives on the practice of human sacrifice. Chapter one begins the dissertation by presenting a theoretical consideration of what constitutes human immolation, concluding that “human sacrifice is not only the destruction of an individual in an act directed towards a divinity or immaterial entity, but it is more specifically a slaying done with the direct intent of affecting the suprahuman realm.” Based upon this conceptual foundation, the work then moves through the Greek sphere of influence and Phoenician/Punic realm in chapter two to Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, and Syro-Palestine in chapter three to the ancient Israelite traditions in chapter four. It shows that humans, both adults and children, literally or literarily served as sacrificial victims primarily in the areas of warfare, funerary rites, criminal executions, construction projects, purification rituals, and votive expressions.Ph.D.Near Eastern StudiesUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60473/4/tatlock_dissertation.pd

Programming Language Abstractions for Modularly Verified Distributed Systems

Distributed systems are rarely developed as monolithic programs. Instead, like any software, these systems may consist of multiple program components, which are then compiled separately and linked together. Modern systems also incorporate various services interacting with each other and with client applications. However, state-of-the-art verification tools focus predominantly on verifying standalone, closed-world protocols or systems, thus failing to account for the compositional nature of distributed systems. For example, standalone verification has the drawback that when protocols and their optimized implementations evolve, one must re-verify the entire system from scratch, instead of leveraging compositionality to contain the reverification effort. In this paper, we focus on the challenge of modular verification of distributed systems with respect to high-level protocol invariants as well as for low-level implementation safety properties. We argue that the missing link between the two is a programming paradigm that would allow one to reason about both high-level distributed protocols and low-level implementation primitives in a single verification-friendly framework. Such a link would make it possible to reap the benefits from both the vast body of research in distributed computing, focused on modular protocol decomposition and consistency properties, as well as from the recent advances in program verification, enabling construction of provably correct systems implementations. To showcase the modular verification challenges, we present some typical scenarios of decomposition between a distributed protocol and its implementations. We then describe our ongoing research agenda, in which we are attempting to address the outlined problems by providing a typing discipline and a set of domain-specific primitives for specifying, implementing and verifying distributed systems. Our approach, mechanized within a proof assistant, provides the means of decomposition necessary for modular proofs about distributed protocols and systems

Pyrazolyl Methyls Prescribe the Electronic Properties of Iron(II) Tetra(pyrazolyl)lutidine Chloride Complexes

A series of iron(II) chloride complexes of pentadentate ligands related to α,α,α′,α′-tetra(pyrazolyl)-2,6-lutidine, pz4lut, has been prepared to evaluate whether pyrazolyl substitution has any systematic impact on the electronic properties of the complexes. For this purpose, the new tetrakis(3,4,5-trimethylpyrazolyl)lutidine ligand, pz**4lut, was prepared via a CoCl2-catalyzed rearrangement reaction. The equimolar combination of ligand and FeCl2 in methanol gives the appropriate 1:1 complexes [FeCl(pzR4lut)]Cl that are each isolated in the solid state as a hygroscopic solvate. In solution, the iron(II) complexes have been fully characterized by several spectroscopic methods and cyclic voltammetry. In the solid state, the complexes have been characterized by X-ray diffraction, and, in some cases, by Mössbauer spectroscopy. The Mössbauer studies show that the complexes remain high spin to 4 K and exclude spin-state changes as the cause of the surprising solid-state thermochromic properties of the complexes. Non-intuitive results of spectroscopic and structural studies showed that methyl substitution at the 3- and 5- positions of the pyrazolyl rings reduces the ligand field strength through steric effects whereas methyl substitution at the 4-position of the pyrazolyl rings increases the ligand field strength through inductive effects

What Outcomes are Important for Gout Patients? In-Depth Qualitative Research into the Gout Patient Experience to Determine Optimal Endpoints for Evaluating Therapeutic Interventions

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Characterized by sudden onset of severe joint pain, swelling, redness, and tenderness to touch, gout \u27flare ups\u27 have a substantial impact on quality of life (QoL). This research employed a patient-centered approach to explore the symptoms and impacts of gout, and assess the content validity of existing patient-reported outcomes (PROs). METHODS: Qualitative interviews were conducted with 30 US gout patients (non-tophaceous: n = 20, tophaceous: n = 10) and five expert rheumatologists. Each interview included both concept elicitation (CE) questioning to learn about the patient experience and cognitive debriefing to assess the content validity of three PRO instruments (HAQ-DI, GAQ, and TIQ-20). Nine of the patients provided further real-time qualitative data through a smart phone application. All qualitative data were subject to thematic analysis using Atlas.ti. Two patient advisors and three expert clinicians were engaged as advisors at key stages throughout the research. RESULTS: Interview and real-time data identified the same core symptoms and proximal impact concepts. Severe pain (typically in joints of extremities) was described as the cardinal symptom, often accompanied by swelling, redness, heat, sensitivity to touch, and stiffness. Domains of QoL impacted included physical functioning, sleep, daily activities, and work. The PRO instruments were generally well-understood by patients, but each included items with questionable relevance to at least some of the sample, dependent on the specific joints affected. CONCLUSIONS: Gout patients experience severe pain in affected joints, resulting in substantial limitations in physical functioning. Both the HAQ-DI and the TIQ-20 are useful for specific research purposes in the gout population, although modifications are recommended

Analysis of combined static load and low temperature hot corrosion induced cracking in CMSX-4 at 550°C

A CMSX-4 3-point bend specimen was statically loaded under hot corrosion conditions and SEM, (S)TEM and EDX techniques were used to analyse the cracking generated. Sulphur, chlorine, sodium and oxygen were found at the crack tip, and an influence of loading on the corrosion mechanism’s preference to interact with either the γ or γʹ was observed. The microscopy analysis is in support of the corrosive mechanism being a combined stress and electrochemical corrosion linked with low temperature hot corrosion, where crack propagation occurs as a result of localised corrosion enhanced material degradation. High magnification EDX mapping identified W as segregating to the γʹ at room temperature

Novel inhibitors of the calcineurin/NFATc hub - alternatives to CsA and FK506?

The drugs cyclosporine A (CsA) and tacrolimus (FK506) revolutionized organ transplantation. Both compounds are still widely used in the clinic as well as for basic research, even though they have dramatic side effects and modulate other pathways than calcineurin-NFATc, too. To answer the major open question - whether the adverse side effects are secondary to the actions of the drugs on the calcineurin-NFATc pathway - alternative inhibitors were developed. Ideal inhibitors should discriminate between the inhibition of (i) calcineurin and peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerases (PPIases; the matchmaker proteins of CsA and FK506), (ii) calcineurin and the other Ser/Thr protein phosphatases, and (iii) NFATc and other transcription factors. In this review we summarize the current knowledge about novel inhibitors, synthesized or identified in the last decades, and focus on their mode of action, specificity, and biological effects