By Name United, By Sex Divided: A Brief Analysis of the Current Crisis Facing the Anglican Communion

The current controversies in relation to homosexuality - which emanated from the western quarters but quickly engulfed the entire Anglican Communion - highlight two significant issues. In our view, the first issue, regarding the 'religious citizenship' of lesbian and gay Christians, is generally a western concern. The second issue pertaining to the prospect of the disintegration of the Anglican Communion, however, needs to be examined within a global context. On the first issue, we argue that, since the contemporary western religious landscape (and society in general) prioritizes the authority of the self rather than that of religious institution/tradition, the traditional religious discourse that marginalizes lesbian and gay Christians is undermined by an increasingly sophisticated reverse discourse. This reverse discourse, equipped with lesbian and gay affirming theology and documentation of lived experiences, also converges with contemporary cultural (secular) discourse of human rights and personal liberty, which values social diversity, including sexual difference. We believe that the social and political currency of the reverse discourse will proliferate, thus eclipsing the traditional discourse that appears increasingly out of step with contemporary western socio-cultural reality. On the second issue, we welcome the heightened significance and relevance of (local) culture and Christianity in the debate. We argue that the decentralization (i.e. de-westernization) of the Anglican Communion should be welcomed, for there are various versions of Christianity, the conception and practice of which are closely informed by local cultures. Thus, to force the production of a unified Anglican response to moral or social issues that are differently defined across cultures may prove counter-productive.Anglican; Belief; Christian; Church; Gay; Homosexuality; Identity; Lesbian; Priest

Examining Healthy Community Design Characteristics and Its Influence on Physical Health

Current trends in obesity rates associated with the community layout constitutes research towards understanding the interaction between the two in order to improve the public\u27s physical health. Successes in healthy community planning studies for the public can be harnessed and implemented within the microcosm of military bases to yield similar results. Four factors were recognized through an in-depth academic literature review that showed positive influence on physical health and physical activity. They are access to green space, highly connected pedestrian and bicycle networks, access to public transportation, and integrated mixed land use. The four healthy planning strategies formed the necessary background to analyze the Healthy Base Initiative survey. A priori data from the Air Force Civil Engineer Center was examined for reliability, validity, and consistency. The results uncovered the fact that the exploratory nature of the Healthy Base Initiative survey was too wide-ranged in its questions leading to an inconclusive and undesirable outcome. The new DoD Healthy Activity Public Planning Investigative survey addresses the issues of the Healthy Base Initiative survey by reducing the most applicable healthy planning factors to the four strategies highlighted from the literature review. The novel survey combines questions pertaining to existing healthy base infrastructure with a validated World Health Organization Global Physical Activity Questionnaire to examine the causal relationship between physical health and environment. Altogether, the significance of this research presents four concise healthy planning strategies for the Air Force Civil Engineer Center and the Department of Defense, as well as a recommendation for a way forward on understanding how to improve base occupant\u27s physical health through healthy community planning

Addressing the Costs and Comity Concerns of International E-Discovery

The volume of electronically stored information (ESI) is expanding rapidly. Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, litigants may request electronic discovery (ediscovery) of many different forms of ESI. In 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the party responding to an e-discovery request presumptively pays all e-discovery costs, including the costs of preserving, producing, and reviewing the requested ESI. Therefore, the rapidly increasing volume of ESI has substantially increased the costs of e-discovery for producing parties. In the 2003 case, Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York established a two-step test that allows a court to shift some of the e-discovery costs from the responding party to the requesting party. Since 2003, many federal district courts and some state courts have followed the two-step Zubulake test for conducting e-discovery in the United States. However, no court has yet established a test for cost-shifting in international e-discovery—conducting e-discovery on ESI located outside the United States. International e-discovery has unique costs and implicates concerns of national sovereignty. This Comment argues that courts should adopt a cost-shifting test for international e-discovery that starts with a comity analysis and then applies Zubulake’s two-step cost-shifting test. Furthermore, courts applying this test should enforce cost-shifting orders through an escrow system whereby the requesting party will deposit some of the shifted costs with the court for later disbursement to the producing party

Comparison of aerodynamic theory and experiment for jet-flap wings

Aerodynamic theory predictions made for a jet flapped wing were compared with experimental data obtained in a fairly extensive series of tests in the Langley V/STOL tunnel. The tests were made on a straight, rectangular wing and investigated two types of jet flap concepts: a pure jet flap with high jet deflection and a wing with blowing at the knee of a plain trailing edge flap. The tests investigated full and partial span blowing for wing aspect ratios of 8.0 and 5.5 and momentum coefficients from 0 to about 4. The total lift, drag, and pitching moment coefficients predicted by the theory were in excellent agreement with experimental values for the pure jet flap, even with the high jet deflection. The pressure coefficients on the wing, and hence the circulation lift coefficients, were underpredicted, however, because of the linearizing assumptions of the planar theory. The lift, drag, and pitching moment coefficients, as well as pressure coefficients, were underpredicted for the wing with blowing over the flap because of the failure of the theory to account for the interaction effect of the high velocity jet passing over the flap

Wind-Tunnel Investigation of an Advanced General Aviation Canard Configuration

Wind-tunnel tests of a model of an advanced canard configuration designed for general aviation were conducted in the Langley 30- by 60-Foot Tunnel. The objective of the tests was to determine the aerodynamic stability and control characteristics of the configuration for a large range of angles of attack and sideslip at several power conditions. Analysis of the aerodynamic data indicates significant effects of power and of center-of-gravity location. For forward center-of-gravity locations, the configuration had extremely stall-resistant stability and control characteristics. For aft center-of-gravity locations and high-power conditions, the combined effects of increased pitch control and reduced longitudinal stability overpowered the stall resistance provided by the canard, which led to a high-angle-of-attack, deep-stall trim condition. Other aspects of the aerodynamic characteristics studied include the following: flow-visualization study, effect of negative angles of attack, lateral-directional characteristics, and comparison of the stall characteristics with another canard configuration

Workplace violence towards nurses in Hong Kong : prevalence and correlates

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Volcanic deformation and degassing:the role of volatile exsolution and magma compressibility

Integrating multi-parameter observations of volcanic processes is crucial for volcano monitoring. Qualitative models demonstrate that combining observations of volcanic deformation, gas emissions, and other parameters enhances the detection of volcanic unrest and provide insights into the magma plumbing system. Despite the progress made in this field, quantitative models that link these observations are still lacking. Thermodynamic models have been used to constrain the characteristics of magma properties and its plumbing system. In this thesis, I develop models based on melt inclusion data and thermodynamics to reconstruct magma properties such as compressibility, and investigate how magmatic volatile content and magma storage conditions influence observations of volcanic deformation and SO2 degassing.By comparing mafic systems in arc and ocean island settings, I provide evidence for the lack of deformation observed during water-rich arc eruptions. In contrast, despite having low magmatic volatile content, ocean island eruptions have high SO2 emissions due to their high diffusivity, which results in co-eruptive degassing. By comparing model predictions and observations, I show that all magmatic systems experience a certain degree of outgassing prior to an eruption, consistent with current conceptual models of transcrustal magmatic systems. Additionally, integrating time series of deformation, degassing, and extrusion flux can reveal the evolution of magma properties. Using this framework, I provide evidence for the increase in bulk magma compressibility following the removal of the degassed magma during the 2004 eruption of Mount St. Helens. This study contributes to the better understanding of the effects of magmatic volatile content and pre-eruptive gas segregation on the physicochemical properties of magma, and provides a framework for modelling magma properties that can be applied to global volcano monitoring.</div

Topological Excitations in Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensates

We investigate the properties of skyrmion in the ferromagnetic state of spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates by means of the mean-field theory and show that the size of skyrmion is fixed to the order of the healing length. It is shown that the interaction between two skyrmions with oppositely rotating spin textures is attractive when their separation is large, following a unique power-law behavior with a power of -7/2.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

The Particulate Methane Monooxygenase from Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath) Is a Novel Copper-containing Three-subunit Enzyme: isolation and charactization

The particulate methane monooxygenase (pMMO) is known to be very difficult to study mainly due to its unusual activity instability in vitro. By cultivating Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath) under methane stress conditions and high copper levels in the growth medium, membranes highly enriched in the pMMO with exceptionally stable activity can be isolated from these cells. Purified and active pMMO can be subsequently obtained from these membrane preparations using protocols in which an excess of reductants and anaerobic conditions were maintained during membrane solubilization by dodecyl beta-D-maltoside and purification by chromatography. The pMMO was found to be the major constituent in these membranes, constituting 60-80% of total membrane proteins. The dominant species of the pMMO was found to consist of three subunits, alpha, beta, and gamma, with an apparent molecular mass of 45, 26, and 23 kDa, respectively. A second species of the pMMO, a proteolytically processed version of the enzyme, was found to be composed of three subunits, alpha', beta, and gamma, with an apparent molecular mass of 35, 26, and 23 kDa, respectively. The alpha and alpha' subunits from these two forms of the pMMO contain identical N-terminal sequences. The gamma subunit, however, exhibits variation in its N-terminal sequence. The pMMO is a copper-containing protein only and shows a requirement for Cu(I) ions. Approximately 12-15 Cu ions per 94-kDa monomeric unit were observed. The pMMO is sensitive to dioxygen tension. On the basis of dioxygen sensitivity, three kinetically distinct forms of the enzyme can be distinguished. A slow but air-stable form, which is converted into a "pulsed" state upon direct exposure to atmospheric oxygen pressure, is considered as type I pMMO. This form was the subject of our pMMO isolation effort. Other forms (types II and III) are deactivated to various extents upon exposure to atmospheric dioxygen pressure. Under inactivating conditions, these unstable forms release protons to the buffer (~10 H+/94-kDa monomeric unit) and eventually become completely inactive