From Irish Exceptionalism to European Normality?: The New Islamic Presence in the Republic of Ireland, Etudes Irlandaises 39

Due to its colonial past, Ireland has often been described as an exceptional state in Western Europe. The discourse of Irish exceptionalism also suggests a smoother path of integration for Muslim migrants compared to other Western European countries. Apart from providing an overview of Muslim immigration to the Republic of Ireland in the last 20 years, the paper critically engages with the discourse of Irish exceptionalism and discusses how the Ireland’s experience of colonialism shapes current discourses on the new Islamic presence in the Republic of Ireland.Irish Research Counci

Contesting ritual practices in Twelver Shiism : modernism, sectarianism and the politics of self-flagellation (taṭbīr)

Shiis perform a number of rituals on the first 10 days of the Islamic month of Muḥarram to mourn the killing of the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, Husayn, in Karbala in southern Iraq in 680CE. Among the most controversial rituals is the practice of blood-letting self-flagellation (taṭbīr). This article provides a comprehensive discussion of debates around this ritual among prominent Shii clerical figures of the 20th and 21st centuries. While the vast majority of senior clerics is either sympathetic to taṭbīr or retains an indifferent attitude, clerical interventions critical of it are informed by the discursive parameters of Islamic modernism and emphasize the universal moral and socio-political message of Husayn’s revolt. These debates also point at concerns over inter-sectarian relations between Sunnis and Shiis and efforts to discard Shii ritual practices that could antagonize Sunni Muslims. Finally, these debates contain an important political dimension reflecting contestations around Iran’s aim to exercise hegemony over Shii communities across the world. The 1994 fatwa by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic ‘Ali Khamenei (b. 1939) in which he declared taṭbīr prohibited (ḥarām) has hardened existing cleavages between those supporting and those rejecting this practice, as this article illustrates

Verminderung der bFGF-vermittelten Endothelzellproliferation durch nikotininduzierte Reduktion des endothelialen Einwärtsgleichrichter Kaliumstromes

Einwärtsgleichrichter Kaliumkanäle (KIR-Kanäle) steuern mit ihren die Zelle dominierenden Ionenströmen das Ruhepotential der Endothelzellen. Über die Steuerung des Ruhepotentials haben sie auch einen wesentlichen Einfluß auf die intrazelluläre Calciumkonzentration und damit auf viele calciumabhängige Prozesse wie die Steuerung der Zellpermeabilität und die Stickstoffmonoxid- (NO) Produktion. Es stellte sich die Frage, inwieweit dieser Kanal an der durch bFGF induzierten Endothelproliferation beteiligt ist. Von Interessse war auch, ob Nikotin als weitverbreitete Zivilisationsdroge das Verhalten der KIR-Kanäle und als Folge die bFGF-induzierte Zellproliferation stört. Als Modell wurden aus Nabelschnüren gewonnene Endothelzellen (Human Umbilical Cord Veinel Cells) verwendet und das Kanalverhalten mit der patch-clamp-Technik durch whole-cell Messungen ermittelt. Bei den elektrophysiologischen Messungen zeigten sich zwei Subtypen der Zellen. Bei der einen Zellgruppe kam es nach Perfusion mit 100 mmol Barium zum vollständigen Erliegen des Einwärtsstromes bei angelegten negativen Membranspannungen. Die zweite Gruppe zeigte einen Reststrom. Das Gleichgewichtspotential der ersten Zellgruppe lag dicht beim Kaliumgleichgewichtspotential, da diese Zellgruppe offenbar vom KIR-Kanal dominiert wird. Bei der zweiten Gruppe mit einem deutlich niedrigeren Gleichgewichtspotential muß neben den KIR-Strömen von einer großen Zahl weiterer Einwärtsströme ausgegangen werden. Chloridströme dürften in diesem Falle großen Anteil an den Einwärtsströmen haben. In weiteren elektrophysiologischen Messungen wurden lediglich die Zellen der ersten Gruppe untersucht. Die Perfusion der Zellen mit 50 ng/ml bFGF bewirkte einen signifikanten Anstieg des KIR-Stromes (n=18, p<0.01). Bei der simultanen Perfusion mit 50 ng/ml bFGF und 100 mmol Barium kam es zur vollständigen Blockade des KIR-Stromes. Die Perfusion der Zellen mit Nikotin der Konzentration 10-9 bis 10-5 mol/l ergab eine dosisabhängige Reduktion des KIR-Stromes mit einer ED50 von 10-7.2 mol/l Nikotin. Die simultan mit Nikotin der Konzentration 10-5 mol/l und bFGF der Konzentration 50 ng/ml perfundierten Zellen zeigten weiterhin eine signifikante Reduktion des KIR-Stromes (n=8, p<0.01). Im weiteren wurde die Bedeutung der durch bFGF hervorgerufenen Kanalaktivierung auf die Proliferationsrate der Endothelzellen untersucht. Die Zellen wurden mit bFGF und dem spezifischen KIR-Kanalblocker Barium oder bFGF und Nikotin inkubiert. Nach 7 Tagen zeigte sich sowohl bei Bariumkonzentrationen von 50 mmol/l und 100 mmol/l (n=5, p<0.01) als auch bei Nikotinkonzentrationen von 10-6 und 10-5 mol/l (n=8, p<0.01) eine Verminderung der Proliferationsrate. Direkt zytotoxische Effekte durch diese Sustanzen konnten weitestgehend ausgeschlossen werden. Die Messungen zeigen, daß offenbar die Aktivierung des KIR-Kanals ein notwendiger Schritt zur bFGF vermittelten Steigerung der Proliferationsrate ist. Nikotin vermindert in Konzentrationen, wie sie im Serum von Rauchern gefunden werden, die endotheliale Proliferationsrate und damit die Regenerationsfähigkeit geschädigter Gefäße. Zudem dürfte Nikotin auf direktem Wege durch Blockade des KIR-Kanals zu einer Störung der Calciumhaushaltes der Zellen aufgrund der Veränderung des Membranpotentials führen

Ireland

This is the post-refereed, pre-print version of an article in Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, 6, pp. 317-333 published by Brill, 2014.This article discusses the Muslim presence in Ireland

Brian Bocking: Making the Study of Religions

Writing an academic biography of Brian Bocking is a formidable task for various reasons: first, there is the anticipation of a witty, self-ironic comment from him mocking the whole exercise itself and his own person at the same time: “Has my obituary already been written?” is the kind of comment one would expect from him. Second, there has always been something intimidating about Brian’s physical and intellectual stature. Third, in a professional context, Brian has always been very discreet about his private life, first and foremost about his own religious convictions. Brian has been part of a generation of Study of Religions scholars who clearly separate their religious beliefs or unbeliefs which they hold in private from their professional engagement in the academic study of religions

The Thickness of Graphs without K5-Minors

The thickness problem on graphs is NP-hard and only few results concerning this graph invariant are known. Using decomposition theorems of Wagner and Truemper, we show that the thickness of graphs without K5-minors is less than or equal to two. Therefore, the thickness of this class of graphs can be determined with a planarity testing algorithm in linear time

Baroreflex Coupling Assessed by Cross-Compression Entropy

Estimating interactions between physiological systems is an important challenge in modern biomedical research. Here, we explore a new concept for quantifying information common in two time series by cross-compressibility. Cross-compression entropy (CCE) exploits the ZIP data compression algorithm extended to bivariate data analysis. First, time series are transformed into symbol vectors. Symbols of the target time series are coded by the symbols of the source series. Uncoupled and linearly coupled surrogates were derived from cardiovascular recordings of 36 healthy controls obtained during rest to demonstrate suitability of this method for assessing physiological coupling. CCE at rest was compared to that of isometric handgrip exercise. Finally, spontaneous baroreflex interaction assessed by CCEBRS was compared between 21 patients suffering from acute schizophrenia and 21 matched controls. The CCEBRS of original time series was significantly higher than in uncoupled surrogates in 89% of the subjects and higher than in linearly coupled surrogates in 47% of the subjects. Handgrip exercise led to sympathetic activation and vagal inhibition accompanied by reduced baroreflex sensitivity. CCEBRS decreased from 0.553 ± 0.030 at rest to 0.514 ± 0.035 during exercise (p &lt; 0.001). In acute schizophrenia, heart rate, and blood pressure were elevated. Heart rate variability indicated a change of sympathovagal balance. The CCEBRS of patients with schizophrenia was reduced compared to healthy controls (0.546 ± 0.042 vs. 0.507 ± 0.046, p &lt; 0.01) and revealed a decrease of blood pressure influence on heart rate in patients with schizophrenia. Our results indicate that CCE is suitable for the investigation of linear and non-linear coupling in cardiovascular time series. CCE can quantify causal interactions in short, noisy and non-stationary physiological time series

Approximation Algorithms for Scheduling with Reservations

We study the problem of non-preemptively scheduling n independent sequential jobs on a system of m identical parallel machines in the presence of reservations. This setting is practically relevant because for various reasons, some machines may not be available during specified time intervals. The objective is to minimize the makespan Cmax, which is the maximum completion time. The general case of the problem is inapproximable unless P = NP; hence we study a suitable strongly NP-hard restriction, namely the case where at least one machine is always available. For this setting we contribute approximation schemes, complemeted by inapproximability results. The approach is based on algorithms for multiple subset sum problems; our technique yields a PTAS which is best possible in the sense that an FPTAS is ruled out unless P = NP. The PTAS presented here is the rst one for the problem under consideration; so far, not even for well-know special cases approximation schemes have been proposed. Furthermore we derive a low cost algorithm with a vonstant approximation ratio and discuss FPTAes for special cases as well as the complexity of the problem if m is part of the input

The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS Methodology in Order to Map and Assess the Religious Diversity of a Whole Country

Religious diversity is often captured in “mapping studies” that use mostly qualitative methods in order to map and assess the religious communities in a given area. While these studies are useful, they often present weaknesses in that they treat only limited geographic regions, provide limited possibilities for comparing across religious groups and cannot test theories. In this article, we show how a census and a quantitative national congregations study (NCS) methodology can be combined in order to map and assess the religious diversity of a whole country (Switzerland), overcoming the problems mentioned above. We outline the methodological steps and selected results concerning organizational, geographic, structural, and cultural diversity