Education, Religious Experience, and Conversion : on Pedagogy and the Possibility of Critical Communities of Religious Praxis

Religious experience and conversion, terms associated more with religion than with education, have the potential to transform the way we approach teaching and learning, bringing the transcendental reality of our lives to the fore as we seek to understand the world and ourselves. This thesis will argue for the significance, relevance and use of religious experience as pedagogical category and will suggest that the formation of what I term Critical Communities of Religious Praxis as means of fostering conversion towards religious experience can be an effective means of incorporating both into classroom processes. Critical Communities of Religious Praxis are learning spaces where learners are formed to be critically conscious of their realities so as to be open and aware to more than just the immanent and material. These spaces build upon learners’ communal and familial contexts while encouraging them to reflect and act on the new experiences and perspectives gained. The first chapter introduces religious experience as a philosophical and theological reality, demonstrating that such experiences have a knowledge component while also opening individuals to the possibility of the transcendent and the divine. This is followed in the second chapter with an exposition on conversion and how it can apply to more than just religious contexts. In particular, the attributes of openness and awareness in converted persons and how these are fostered by relationality and action will be looked at. The third chapter describes the Critical Communities of Religious Praxis as a pedagogical system and demonstrates how teaching and learning would take place there. The fourth and final chapter integrates the approaches to describe, with examples, how such learning spaces can be fostered while discussing the religious implications and challenges that one might face in this approach to religious experience and conversion

Network of Econophysicists: a weighted network to investigate the development of Econophysics

The development of Econophysics is studied from the perspective of scientific communication networks. Papers in Econophysics published from 1992 to 2003 are collected. Then a weighted and directed network of scientific communication, including collaboration, citation and personal discussion, is constructed. Its static geometrical properties, including degree distribution, weight distribution, weight per degree, and betweenness centrality, give a nice overall description of the research works. The way we introduced here to measure the weight of connections can be used as a general one to construct weighted network.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure

Enantioselective Inhibition of Human Papillomavirus L1 Pentamer Formation by Chiral-Proline Modified Calix[4]arenes: Targeting the Protein Interface

Although current human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines can protect well against infection, they are effective only for a limited number of subtypes. Coupled with the dilemma that no efficient prescription is currently clinically available for therapy, there is an urgent need to develop new anti-HPV agents. In the present study l- and d-Proline modified calix[4]arenes (Pro- C4 A) were investigated to determine any differences in their effect on the assembly of HPV 16 L1 pentamer (L1-p). The mechanism of action using model peptides was investigated by Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and revealed that the binding was targeting the basic residues at L1 interface. This was also well supported by the trypsin digestion experiments and molecular simulations performed on the full-le ngth L1. The large energy and morphology differences revealed by molecular simulations explain the binding disparity of l- and d-Pro-C4 A to L1, and consequently the selective inhibition of them on L1-p forma- tion. The present study opens a way to develop enantioselec- tive and cost-effective inhibitors for L1-p formation, which might be used as a new kind of anti-HPV agent and could be extended to other viruses based on similar mechanisms

Modeling bursts and heavy tails in human dynamics

Current models of human dynamics, used from risk assessment to communications, assume that human actions are randomly distributed in time and thus well approximated by Poisson processes. We provide direct evidence that for five human activity patterns the timing of individual human actions follow non-Poisson statistics, characterized by bursts of rapidly occurring events separated by long periods of inactivity. We show that the bursty nature of human behavior is a consequence of a decision based queuing process: when individuals execute tasks based on some perceived priority, the timing of the tasks will be heavy tailed, most tasks being rapidly executed, while a few experiencing very long waiting times. We discuss two queueing models that capture human activity. The first model assumes that there are no limitations on the number of tasks an individual can hadle at any time, predicting that the waiting time of the individual tasks follow a heavy tailed distribution with exponent alpha=3/2. The second model imposes limitations on the queue length, resulting in alpha=1. We provide empirical evidence supporting the relevance of these two models to human activity patterns. Finally, we discuss possible extension of the proposed queueing models and outline some future challenges in exploring the statistical mechanisms of human dynamics.Comment: RevTex, 19 pages, 8 figure

Unified derivation of the limit shape for multiplicative ensembles of random integer partitions with equiweighted parts

We derive the limit shape of Young diagrams, associated with growing integer partitions, with respect to multiplicative probability measures underpinned by the generating functions of the form $\mathcal{F}(z)=\prod_{\ell=1}^\infty \mathcal{F}_0(z^\ell)$ (which entails equal weighting among possible parts $\ell\in\mathbb{N}$). Under mild technical assumptions on the function $H_0(u)=\ln(\mathcal{F}_0(u))$, we show that the limit shape $\omega^*(x)$ exists and is given by the equation $y=\gamma^{-1}H_0(\mathrm{e}^{-\gamma x})$, where $\gamma^2=\int_0^1 u^{-1}H_0(u)\,\mathrm{d}u$. The wide class of partition measures covered by this result includes (but is not limited to) representatives of the three meta-types of decomposable combinatorial structures --- assemblies, multisets and selections. Our method is based on the usual randomization and conditioning; to this end, a suitable local limit theorem is proved. The proofs are greatly facilitated by working with the cumulants of sums of the part counts rather than with their moments.Comment: Minor editorial corrections. Published in "Random Structures and Algorithms" (18 Apr 2014, Early View, online), http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rsa.20540/abstrac

Effects of Pore Walls and Randomness on Phase Transitions in Porous Media

We study spin models within the mean field approximation to elucidate the topology of the phase diagrams of systems modeling the liquid-vapor transition and the separation of He$^3$--He$^4$ mixtures in periodic porous media. These topologies are found to be identical to those of the corresponding random field and random anisotropy spin systems with a bimodal distribution of the randomness. Our results suggest that the presence of walls (periodic or otherwise) are a key factor determining the nature of the phase diagram in porous media.Comment: REVTeX, 11 eps figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Effect of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Surveillance Programmes on Overall Survival in a Mixed Cirrhotic UK Population: A Prospective, Longitudinal Cohort Study

Introduction: Surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is recommended by national and international guidelines. However, there are no trial data on whether surveillance improves clinical outcomes in a UK cirrhosis population of mixed aetiology. Our aim was to determine the impact of, and adherence to, surveillance on overall survival. Methods: We prospectively collected data on consecutive patients diagnosed with HCC between January 2009 and December 2015 at two large UK centres. We assessed outcomes depending on whether they had been entered into an HCC surveillance programme, and if they had adhered to that. Results: Out of 985 patients diagnosed with HCC in this study, 40.0% had been enrolled in a surveillance programme. Of these, 76.6% were adherent with surveillance and 24.4% were not. Adherence to surveillance was significantly associated with improved overall survival, even when accounting for lead-time bias using different approaches (HR for 270 days lead-time adjustment 0.64, 0.53 to 0.76, p 0.001). Conclusions: When adjusted for lead-time bias, HCC surveillance is associated with improved overall survival; however, the beneficial effect of surveillance on survival was lower than reported in studies that did not account fully for lead-time bias

Facile preparation of palygorskite/chitin nanofibers hybrids nanomaterial with remarkable adsorption capacity

A novel hybrid nanomaterials comprising of palygorskite (PAL) and chitin nanofibers (ChNFs) was successfully synthesized via simple, green and cost effective technology/method and for the first time used in adsorption process. Shrimp sourced chitin is a biopolymer endowed with amino and hydroxyl groups suited for adsorption of metals while PAL is hydrophilic, cheap and eco-friendly material. The hybridization of PAL and ChNFs was achieved under the collision and shear force of ball mill. Morphological analysis showed that ChNFs were attached on PAL leading to enhanced stability of the hybrid dispersion. PAL/ChNFs was used as an adsorbent for Pb(II) ion metal removal. The hybrid adsorbent showed a remarkable adsorption capacity (qe) of 53.7 mg g−1 and removal efficiency of 92.9%. This water dispersible PAL/ChNFs holds great potential in different water treatment related applications that require materials with high hydrophilicity, anti-fouling, biocompatibility, adsorption as well as mechanical properties

MitoQ improves mitochondrial dysfunction in heart failure induced by pressure overload.

Heart failure remains a major public-health problem with an increase in the number of patients worsening from this disease. Despite current medical therapy, the condition still has a poor prognosis. Heart failure is complex but mitochondrial dysfunction seems to be an important target to improve cardiac function directly. Our goal was to analyze the effects of MitoQ (100 µM in drinking water) on the development and progression of heart failure induced by pressure overload after 14 weeks. The main findings are that pressure overload-induced heart failure in rats decreased cardiac function in vivo that was not altered by MitoQ. However, we observed a reduction in right ventricular hypertrophy and lung congestion in heart failure animals treated with MitoQ. Heart failure also decreased total mitochondrial protein content, mitochondrial membrane potential in the intermyofibrillar mitochondria. MitoQ restored membrane potential in IFM but did not restore mitochondrial protein content. These alterations are associated with the impairment of basal and stimulated mitochondrial respiration in IFM and SSM induced by heart failure. Moreover, MitoQ restored mitochondrial respiration in heart failure induced by pressure overload. We also detected higher levels of hydrogen peroxide production in heart failure and MitoQ restored the increase in ROS production. MitoQ was also able to improve mitochondrial calcium retention capacity, mainly in the SSM whereas in the IFM we observed a small alteration. In summary, MitoQ improves mitochondrial dysfunction in heart failure induced by pressure overload, by decreasing hydrogen peroxide formation, improving mitochondrial respiration and improving mPTP opening