Lex Orandi, Lex Operandi: The Relationship of Worship and Work in the Early Church

(Excerpt) We are all familiar with the famous dictum of Prosper of Aquitaine, who in the fifth century coined the axiom, lex orandi, lex credendi. I propose a variation on this principle by suggesting lex orandi, lex operandi, the law of prayer gives birth to the law of works, and my test case will be the early church before Gregory the Great. To take each of these themes separately would be a simple task. We are all familiar with early Christian treatises on worship and the histories of worship. We also possess numerous commentaries on early Christian attitudes toward society and the evidence of faith resulting in actions in and towards the world

The Gospel in the Medieval Church

A curious phenomenon of Protestant and Lutheran historiography since the 17th century has been a studied neglect of the millennium labeled by Renaissance scholars as the Middle Ages. One reason for this indifference lies in the popular notion that the Reformation was preceded by a thousand years of sub-Christian superstition during which the strong Pauline accent of justification by grace through faith on account of Christ was almost totally ignored. By coloring these centuries dark, the reformers tend to stand in bolder relief as heroic men of God who appeared to correct long-standing abuses in the church. The more sharply the contrast is drawn, the more heroic the reformers appear

Origen\u27s Doctrine of God as Relected in De Principiis

Although Origen\u27s theology in the narrow, sense can hardly be called a synthesis of Christian dogma in the third century, yet an appreciation of him as a systematician requires an acquaintance with the theology of his predecessors. De Principiis did not evolve spontaneously from the mind of this great Alexandrian, but consciously or unconsciously drew upon the speculations and the formulations of the Fathers. For this reason a section has been included giving in very brief detail the theological atmosphere of the century preceding Origen, ending with his great North African contemporary, Tertullian

Relativistic many-body calculations of electric-dipole matrix elements, lifetimes and polarizabilities in rubidium

Electric-dipole matrix elements for ns-n'p, nd-n'p, and 6d-4f transitions in Rb are calculated using a relativistic all-order method. A third-order calculation is also carried out for these matrix elements to evaluate the importance of the high-order many-body perturbation theory contributions. The all-order matrix elements are used to evaluate lifetimes of ns and np levels with n=6, 7, 8 and nd levels with n=4, 5, 6 for comparison with experiment and to provide benchmark values for these lifetimes. The dynamic polarizabilities are calculated for ns states of rubidium. The resulting lifetime and polarizability values are compared with available theory and experiment.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

Optimizing the fast Rydberg quantum gate

The fast phase gate scheme, in which the qubits are atoms confined in sites of an optical lattice, and gate operations are mediated by excitation of Rydberg states, was proposed by Jaksch et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 2208 (2000). A potential source of decoherence in this system derives from motional heating, which occurs if the ground and Rydberg states of the atom move in different optical lattice potentials. We propose to minimize this effect by choosing the lattice photon frequency \omega so that the ground and Rydberg states have the same frequency-dependent polarizability \alpha(omega). The results are presented for the case of Rb.Comment: 5 pages, submitted to PR

Towards Better Integration of Surrogate Models and Optimizers

Surrogate-Assisted Evolutionary Algorithms (SAEAs) have been proven to be very effective in solving (synthetic and real-world) computationally expensive optimization problems with a limited number of function evaluations. The two main components of SAEAs are: the surrogate model and the evolutionary optimizer, both of which use parameters to control their respective behavior. These parameters are likely to interact closely, and hence the exploitation of any such relationships may lead to the design of an enhanced SAEA. In this chapter, as a first step, we focus on Kriging and the Efficient Global Optimization (EGO) framework. We discuss potentially profitable ways of a better integration of model and optimizer. Furthermore, we investigate in depth how different parameters of the model and the optimizer impact optimization results. In particular, we determine whether there are any interactions between these parameters, and how the problem characteristics impact optimization results. In the experimental study, we use the popular Black-Box Optimization Benchmarking (BBOB) testbed. Interestingly, the analysis finds no evidence for significant interactions between model and optimizer parameters, but independently their performance has a significant interaction with the objective function. Based on our results, we make recommendations on how best to configure EGO

Whole Genome Sequencing Reveals Local Transmission Patterns of Mycobacterium bovis in Sympatric Cattle and Badger Populations

Whole genome sequencing (WGS) technology holds great promise as a tool for the forensic epidemiology of bacterial pathogens. It is likely to be particularly useful for studying the transmission dynamics of an observed epidemic involving a largely unsampled ‘reservoir' host, as for bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in British and Irish cattle and badgers. BTB is caused by Mycobacterium bovis, a member of the M. tuberculosis complex that also includes the aetiological agent for human TB. In this study, we identified a spatio-temporally linked group of 26 cattle and 4 badgers infected with the same Variable Number Tandem Repeat (VNTR) type of M. bovis. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) between sequences identified differences that were consistent with bacterial lineages being persistent on or near farms for several years, despite multiple clear whole herd tests in the interim. Comparing WGS data to mathematical models showed good correlations between genetic divergence and spatial distance, but poor correspondence to the network of cattle movements or within-herd contacts. Badger isolates showed between zero and four SNP differences from the nearest cattle isolate, providing evidence for recent transmissions between the two hosts. This is the first direct genetic evidence of M. bovis persistence on farms over multiple outbreaks with a continued, ongoing interaction with local badgers. However, despite unprecedented resolution, directionality of transmission cannot be inferred at this stage. Despite the often notoriously long timescales between time of infection and time of sampling for TB, our results suggest that WGS data alone can provide insights into TB epidemiology even where detailed contact data are not available, and that more extensive sampling and analysis will allow for quantification of the extent and direction of transmission between cattle and badgers

Exponential growth, high prevalence of SARS-CoV-2, and vaccine effectiveness associated with the Delta variant

SARS-CoV-2 infections were rising during early summer 2021 in many countries associated with the Delta variant. We assessed RT-PCR swab-positivity in the REal-time Assessment of Community Transmission-1 (REACT-1) study in England. We observed sustained exponential growth with average doubling time (June-July 2021) of 25 days driven by complete replacement of Alpha variant by Delta, and by high prevalence at younger less-vaccinated ages. Unvaccinated people were three times more likely than double-vaccinated people to test positive. However, after adjusting for age and other variables, vaccine effectiveness for double-vaccinated people was estimated at between ~50% and ~60% during this period in England. Increased social mixing in the presence of Delta had the potential to generate sustained growth in infections, even at high levels of vaccination

Genomic assessment of quarantine measures to prevent SARS-CoV-2 importation and transmission

Mitigation of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from international travel is a priority. We evaluated the effectiveness of travellers being required to quarantine for 14-days on return to England in Summer 2020. We identified 4,207 travel-related SARS-CoV-2 cases and their contacts, and identified 827 associated SARS-CoV-2 genomes. Overall, quarantine was associated with a lower rate of contacts, and the impact of quarantine was greatest in the 16–20 age-group. 186 SARS-CoV-2 genomes were sufficiently unique to identify travel-related clusters. Fewer genomically-linked cases were observed for index cases who returned from countries with quarantine requirement compared to countries with no quarantine requirement. This difference was explained by fewer importation events per identified genome for these cases, as opposed to fewer onward contacts per case. Overall, our study demonstrates that a 14-day quarantine period reduces, but does not completely eliminate, the onward transmission of imported cases, mainly by dissuading travel to countries with a quarantine requirement