Roms Perspektive auf befreundete Fürsten

Die in der Forschung lange und noch umstrittene Verwendung des Klientelmodells ist ein geeigneter Ansatz, Roms Perspektive auf die offiziell befreundeten und verbündeten Fürsten auszudrücken, die nach römischer Vorstellung einen Teil des Imperium ausmachten. Viele bisherige Befassungen kreisen um die terminologische Differenzierung zwischen amicitia und clientela; was letztlich selbst mit einer validen Beantwortung der Frage gewonnen wäre, verschweigen sie gleichsam. Daher plädiert dieser Beitrag für eine Entspannung der Debatte und betont den spezifischen heuristischen Wert der Übertragung des Klientelbegriffs auf die Reichspolitik – wie auch die römischen Quellen selbstverständlich auf clientela und verwandte Termini zur Veranschaulichung der Beziehungen zu den reges amici et socii populi Romani zurückgreifen. clientela und amicitia schließen sich mithin nicht aus, sie ergänzen sich als Modelle aufs beste.The use of the clientela model, which for a long time was and indeed still is controversial, is a suitable starting point to show Rome’s perspective on the officially friendly and allied princes who in Roman eyes constituted a part of the Empire. Many previous treatments concern themselves with the terminological differentiation between amicitia and clientela; what would ultimately be gained even if a valid resolution was to be found to the question is let unanswered, as it were. This article therefore pleads for a more relaxed approach to be taken to the debate, emphasizing the specific heuristic value of the transfer of the concept of clientship to imperial politics – just as the Roman sources of course also resort to clientela and related terms to illustrate the relationships to the reges amici et socii populi Romani. Consequently, clientela und amicitia do not exclude each other. They complement each other perfectly as models

For an indeterministic ethics. The emptiness of the rule in dubio pro vita and life cessation decisions

It is generally claimed that there exist exceptional circumstances when taking human life may be approved and when such actions may be justified on moral grounds. Precise guidelines in the medical field for making such decisions concerning patients who are terminally ill or have irreparable injuries incompatible with a bearable life, are difficult to establish. Recommendations that take the particular logical form of a rule, such as "in dubio pro vita", "when in doubt favour life") have been suggested and in some countries incorporated into legal texts (Germany). We claim here that such a rule is of no value since it is open-ended and always allows for doubt, and a decision to employ measures that would support human life could always be argued to be a valid choice. Preservation of this rule could be encouraged, but giving it the force of law may put physicians at risk, as they may be challenged for choosing to terminate life in otherwise ethically and medically uncontroversial circumstances

Selenium-Binding Protein 1 Indicates Myocardial Stress and Risk for Adverse Outcome in Cardiac Surgery

Selenium-binding protein 1 (SELENBP1) is an intracellular protein that has been detected in the circulation in response to myocardial infarction. Hypoxia and cardiac surgery affect selenoprotein expression and selenium (Se) status. For this reason, we decided to analyze circulating SELENBP1 concentrations in patients (n = 75) necessitating cardioplegia and a cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) during the course of the cardiac surgery. Serum samples were collected at seven time-points spanning the full surgical process. SELENBP1 was quantified by a highly sensitive newly developed immunological assay. Serum concentrations of SELENBP1 increased markedly during the intervention and showed a positive association with the duration of ischemia (ρ = 0.6, p < 0.0001). Elevated serum SELENBP1 concentrations at 1 h after arrival at the intensive care unit (post-surgery) were predictive to identify patients at risk of adverse outcome (death, bradycardia or cerebral ischemia, "endpoint 1"; OR 29.9, CI 3.3-268.8, p = 0.00027). Circulating SELENBP1 during intervention (2 min after reperfusion or 15 min after weaning from the CPB) correlated positively with an established marker of myocardial infarction (CK-MB) measured after the intervention (each with ρ = 0.5, p < 0.0001). We concluded that serum concentrations of SELENBP1 were strongly associated with cardiac arrest and the duration of myocardial ischemia already early during surgery, thereby constituting a novel and promising quantitative marker for myocardial hypoxia, with a high potential to improve diagnostics and prediction in combination with the established clinical parameters

Compiler-based Software Power Peak Elimination on Smart Card Systems

RF-powered smart cards are widely used in different application areas today. For smart cards not only performance is an important attribute, but also the power consumed by a given application. The power consumed is heavily depending on the software executed on the system. The power profile, especially the power peaks, of an executed application influence the system stability and security. Flattening the power profile can thus increase the stability and security of a system. In this paper we present an optimization system that allows a reduction of power peaks based on a compiler optimization. The optimizations are done on different levels of the compiler. In the backend of the compiler we present new instruction scheduling algorithms. On the intermediate language level we propose the use of iterative compiling for reducing critical peaks

Mating system variation and assortative mating of sympatric bromeliads (Pitcairnia spp.) endemic to neotropical inselbergs

Premise of the study: The mating system is an important component of the complex set of reproductive isolation barriers causing plant speciation. However, empirical evidence showing that the mating system may promote reproductive isolation in co-occurring species is limited. The mechanisms by which the mating system can act as a reproductive isolation barrier are also largely unknown. Methods: Here we studied progeny arrays genotyped with microsatellites and patterns of stigma–anther separation (herkogamy) to understand the role of mating system shifts in promoting reproductive isolation between two hybridizing taxa with porous genomes, Pitcairnia albiflos and P. staminea (Bromeliaceae). Key results: In P. staminea, we detected increased selfing and reduced herkogamy in one sympatric relative to two allopatric populations, consistent with mating system shifts in sympatry acting to maintain the species integrity of P. staminea when in contact with P. albiflos. Conclusions: Mating system variation is a result of several factors acting simultaneously in these populations. We report mating system shifts as one possible reproductive barrier between these species, acting in addition to numerous other prezygotic (i.e., flower phenology and pollination syndromes) and postzygotic barriers (Bateson–Dobzhansky–Muller genetic incompatibilities)

A Waveform Relaxation Solver for Transient Simulation of Large-Scale Nonlinearly Loaded Shielding Structures

This article introduces an algorithm for transient simulation of electromagnetic structures loaded by lumped nonlinear devices. The reference application is energy-selective shielding, which adopts clipping devices uniformly spread along shield apertures to achieve a shielding effectiveness that increases with the power of the incident field, thereby blocking high-power interference while allowing low-power communication. Transient simulation of such structures poses a number of challenges, related to their large-scale and low-loss nature. In this work, we propose a waveform relaxation (WR) scheme based on decoupling the linear electromagnetic structure from its nonlinear terminations. In a preprocessing stage, the electromagnetic subsystem is characterized in the frequency domain and converted into a behavioral rational macromodel. Transient simulation is performed by refining estimates of the port signals through iterations. The proposed scheme combines a time partitioning approach with an inexact Newton–Krylov solver. This combination provides fast convergence also in those cases where standard WR schemes fail due to a strong mismatch at the decoupling sections. Numerical results on several test cases of increasing complexity with up to 1024 ports show that the proposed approach proves as reliable as HSPICE in terms of accuracy, with a speedup ranging from one to three orders of magnitude

A Multi-Stage Adaptive Sampling Scheme for Passivity Characterization of Large-Scale Macromodels

This paper proposes a hierarchical adaptive sampling scheme for passivity characterization of large-scale linear lumped macromodels. Here, large-scale is intended both in terms of dynamic order and especially number of input/output ports. Standard passivity characterization approaches based on spectral properties of associated Hamiltonian matrices are either inefficient or non-applicable for large-scale models, due to an excessive computational cost. This paper builds on existing adaptive sampling methods and proposes a hybrid multi-stage algorithm that is able to detect the passivity violations with limited computing resources. Results from extensive testing demonstrate a major reduction in computational requirements with respect to competing approaches.Comment: Submitted to the IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technolog

Iteration Dependent Waveform Relaxation for Hybrid Field Nonlinear Circuit Problems

This article presents a novel waveform relaxation scheme to solve electromagnetically large structures loaded with lumped linear and nonlinear elements. The scheme partitions the problem into a linear electromagnetic structure and a possibly nonlinear lumped circuit, which are coupled using Thévenin interfaces across the steps of an iterative waveform relaxation scheme. The main novel contribution is an adaptive selection of the decoupling resistances used as port references to define incident and reflected scattering signals, whose time-domain samples are refined through iterations. The decoupling resistances are updated through iterations, with the main objective of improving convergence speed and ultimately runtime. The resulting scheme is self-adapting to terminations exploiting high dynamic range in their impedance profiles and is able to provide a suboptimal convergence rate. Three-dimensional shielding structures loaded with nonlinear elements are employed as numerical examples to demonstrate the proposed method

Low-Intensity Electromagnetic Millimeter Waves for Pain Therapy

Millimeter wave therapy (MWT), a non-invasive complementary therapeutic technique is claimed to possess analgesic properties. We reviewed the clinical studies describing the pain-relief effect of MWT. Medline-based search according to review criteria and evaluation of methodological quality of the retrieved studies was performed. Of 13 studies, 9 of them were randomized controlled trials (RCTs), only three studies yielded more than 3 points on the Oxford scale of methodological quality of RCTs. MWT was reported to be effective in the treatment of headache, arthritic, neuropathic and acute postoperative pain. The rapid onset of pain relief during MWT lasting hours to days after, remote to the site of exposure (acupuncture points), was the most characteristic feature in MWT application for pain relief. The most commonly used parameters of MWT were the MW frequencies between 30 and 70 GHz and power density up to 10 mW cm(−2). The promising results from pilot case series studies and small-size RCTs for analgesic/hypoalgesic effects of MWT should be verified in large-scale RCTs on the effectiveness of this treatment method