The Theology of Rudolf Bultmann and Second-Century Gnosis

In the second chapter of the Prolegomena to his recent study ‘Salvation as History' (Heil als Geschichte) Oscar Cullmann argues for the similarity of Rudolf Bultmann's theology and the gnosis of the second century. Cull-mann works out the comparison starting with both gnosticism and Bultmann's denial of the idea of salvation as history. And if; in the second century, the early church's struggle with gnosticism was really a matter of life and death, is there not, Cullmann asks, in the present theological debate something similar at stake

Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray Nuclei from Individual Magnetized Sources

We investigate the dependence of composition, spectrum and angular distributions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays above 10^19 eV from individual sources on their magnetization. We find that, especially for sources within a few megaparsecs from the observer, observable spectra and composition are severely modified if the source is surrounded by fields of ~ 10^-7 Gauss on scales of a few megaparsecs. Low energy particles diffuse over larger distances during their energy loss time. This leads to considerable hardening of the spectrum up to the energy where the loss distance becomes comparable to the source distance. Magnetized sources thus have very important consequences for observations, even if cosmic rays arrive within a few degrees from the source direction. At the same time, details in spectra and chemical composition may be intrinsically unpredictable because they depend on the unknown magnetic field structure. If primaries are predominantly nuclei of atomic mass A accelerated up to a maximum energy E_max with spectra not much softer than E^-2, secondary protons from photo-disintegration can produce a conspicuous peak in the spectrum at energy ~ E_max/A. A related feature appears in the average mass dependence on energy.Comment: 15 pages, 16 ps figures, published version with minor changes, see http://stacks.iop.org/1475-7516/2004/i=08/a=01

Effectiveness of cardiac resynchronization therapy in heart failure patients with valvular heart disease: comparison with patients affected by ischaemic heart disease or dilated cardiomyopathy. The InSync/InSync ICD Italian Registry

AimsTo analyse the effectiveness of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) in patients with valvular heart disease (a subset not specifically investigated in randomized controlled trials) in comparison with ischaemic heart disease or dilated cardiomyopathy patients.Methods and resultsPatients enrolled in a national registry were evaluated during a median follow-up of 16 months after CRT implant. Patients with valvular heart disease treated with CRT (n = 108) in comparison with ischaemic heart disease (n = 737) and dilated cardiomyopathy (n = 635) patients presented: (i) a higher prevalence of chronic atrial fibrillation, with atrioventricular node ablation performed in around half of the cases; (ii) a similar clinical and echocardiographic profile at baseline; (iii) a similar improvement of LVEF and a similar reduction in ventricular volumes at 6-12 months; (iv) a favourable clinical response at 12 months with an improvement of the clinical composite score similar to that occurring in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and more pronounced than that observed in patients with ischaemic heart disease; (v) a long-term outcome, in term of freedom from death or heart transplantation, similar to patients affected by ischaemic heart disease and basically more severe than that of patients affected by dilated cardiomyopathy.ConclusionIn 'real world' clinical practice, CRT appears to be effective also in patients with valvular heart disease. However, in this group of patients the outcome after CRT does not precisely overlap any of the two other groups of patients, for which much more data are currently available

THIS COLLISIONAL FLOW OF ROTATIONAL AND VIBRATIONAL ENERGY IN THE S1S_{1} STATE OF GLYOXAL VAPOR

Author Institution: Department of Chemistry, Indiana UniversityThe zero-point level, the fundamental of the torsional vibration $v_{1}$ and the overtone of $v_{7}$ have each been selectively excited in the $^{1}A_{u}(S_{1})$ state of glyoxal with various lines from an $Ar^{+}$ laser. The - $0.5 cm^{-1}$ linewidth of the laser pumps only 10-15 rotational levels in each state. The very initial stages of rotational relaxation in the $^{1}A_{u}$ state can be observed in the fluorescence spectra at low (ca. 0.001 Torr) pressure.It is observed in pure glyoxal that rotational and vibrational relaxation have competitive cross sections, and propensity rules are seen for each. The curious vibrational propensity $\Delta\nu_{7} = \pm 2$ after excitation of the overtone is readily apparent. The restriction $\Delta k = 2$ accompanies rotational relaxation. Extensions to other collision partners will be discussed

COLLISION FREE DISSOCIATION OF THE S1 (1Au)S_{1}\;(^{1}A_{u}) ELECTRONIC STATE OF GLYOXAL

Author Institution: Ecole Polytechnique, Laboratoire D'Optique Quantique, Route de Saclay 91120; Department of Chemistry, Indiana UniversityThe 454.5 nm line of an $Ar^{+}$ laser has been used to populate the lowest vibrational level of the $S_{1}\; (^{1}A_{u})$ electronic state of glyoxal. At sample pressures of two mtorr the average excited state molecule undergoes no collisions before relaxing to the ground state. One of the collision free relaxation processes has recently been found to be dissociation. The rate of dissociation has been studied at various pressures and laser intensities. The dissociation has been found to be a unimolecular decay channel of the $S_{1}$ state. The quantum yield of the dissociation process under collision free conditions is about 0.63. The laser line pumps preferentially eight rotational levels. The dissociation rate from several of these explicit levels has been measured. The quantum yield of dissociation appears not to have any strong dependence on the $S_{1}$ rotational level excited