William of Occam

It is now that the second period of the Middle Ages sets in. It is known as the Age of Revival. The Age of Revival begins with the opening of the eleventh century and ends with the discovery of the New World. During all this time civilization was making slow but sure advances; social order was gradually triumphing over feudal anarchy, and governments were becoming more regular. The last part of the period especially was marked by a great intellectual revival, a movement known as the Renaissance, or ‘New Birth\u27, by improvements, inventions, and discoveries which greatly stirred men\u27s minds and awakened them as from a sleep

Complete O(v^2) corrections to the static interquark potential from SU(3) gauge theory

For the first time, we determine the complete spin- and momentum-dependent order v^2 corrections to the static interquark potential from simulations of QCD in the valence quark approximation at inverse lattice spacings of 2-3 GeV. A new flavor dependent correction to the central potential is found. We report a 1/r^2 contribution to the long range spin-orbit potential V_1'. The other spin-dependent potentials turn out to be short ranged and can be well understood by means of perturbation theory. The momentum-dependent potentials qualitatively agree with minimal area law expectations. In view of spectrum calculations, we discuss the matching of the effective nonrelativistic theory to QCD as well as renormalization of lattice results. In a first survey of the resulting bottomonia and charmonia spectra we reproduce the experimental levels within average errors of 12.5 MeV and 22 MeV, respectively.Comment: 54 pages REVTeX with 24 encapsuled ps figure

Distinct hemodynamic and gastric effects of human CGRP I and II in man

The human calcitonin gene-related peptides I and II (or alpha and beta) (CGRP I and II) are encoded by two different genes, but they have 34 of the 37 amino acid residues in common. Human CGRP I more potently stimulated blood flow through the skin and carotid artery (p less than 0.01), and the heart rate (p less than 0.05), and plasma renin activity and aldosterone secretion than human CGRP II (p less than 0.02). Inhibition of pentagastrin-stimulated gastric acid output, on the other hand, was only obtained with CGRP II. The separate effects of human CGRP I and II on the cardiovascular and gastric systems are presumably mediated by different receptors or receptor pathways recognized by the two closely related neuropeptides

Possible renoprotection by vitamin D in chronic renal disease: beyond mineral metabolism

Vitamin D is typically viewed as a key player in the regulation of calcium and phosphate levels and the control of bone metabolism; however, growing evidence suggests that vitamin D deficiency may also have an important role in the progressive loss of renal function. Vitamin D deficiency is particularly frequent in patients with chronic kidney disease, in whom it is associated with increased mortality. Studies indicate that treatment with vitamin D analogues reduces proteinuria, suppresses the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), and exerts anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects. These pleiotropic effects render vitamin D a potentially interesting treatment modality for renoprotection in patients with chronic kidney disease. Whether vitamin D has clinically relevant renoprotective effects in addition to RAAS blockade is currently under investigation