The Theology of Christian Joy in the Works of Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680)

This study examines Goodwin’s theology of joy in the experience of the Christian. The structure roughly follows the divisions set out in Of the Creatures (probably written in the mid-1650’s), considering first the joy of the uncreated order, that is, the joy of God both in his essential unity, and within the relationships of the Trinity, and then the joy of the created order, in the lives of angels and human beings. The study argues that Goodwin sees God’s joy as eternal, being based on both his ‘intrinsecal’ and ‘extrinsecal’ life. That is, God rejoices in who he is and in what he does. The study will demonstrate that Goodwin considered all true joy as being fundamentally derived from God’s joy, and that true Christian joy is known only to the degree in which God, in Christ, is revealed to the saint. The study will argue that Goodwin understands the saint to be on a journey of progression from nature, to grace, and on to glory which is characterised by increasingly clear visions of God; initially seeing God by faith in Christ, then seeing God in the actual presence of Christ, and ultimately in sharing the view of God that Christ himself has. The study shows that Goodwin has some distinct views when expositing Ephesians 1:13, leading to an understanding of the sealing of the Spirit that throws some light on the immediate experience of joy in the Holy Spirit. The study will conclude that while Goodwin is notable in the clarity of his description of the increasing joy of the saint, he is entirely consistent with the Augustinian-Calvinist view of joy which, in Goodwins’ words, is simply that ‘God, known and enjoyed; is the supreme happiness of Man in all Conditions...

On the Fossil Foraminifera of Malta and Gozo

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V.—Notes on Some Sarsden Stones

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II.—Contributions to Fossil Crustacea

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Changes in initial COPD treatment choice over time and factors influencing prescribing decisions in UK primary care : a real-world study

Acknowledgements Samantha Holmes (CircleScience, an Ashfield Company, part of UDG Healthcare plc) and Paul Hutchin (contracted to CircleScience, an Ashfield Company, part of UDG Healthcare plc) provided medical writing assistance. Funding The study was funded by Novartis Pharma AG (Basel, Switzerland).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Management of COPD in the UK primary-care setting : an analysis of real-life prescribing patterns

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

High-brightness Beamline for X-ray Spectroscopy at the Advanced Light Source

Beamline 9.3.1 at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) is a windowless beamline, covering the 1-6 keV photon-energy range, designed to achieve the goals of high energy resolution, high flux, and high brightness at the sample. When completed later this year, it will be the first ALS monochromatic hard-x-ray beamline, and its brightness will be an order-of-magnitude higher than presently available in this energy range. In addition, it will provide flux and resolution comparable to any other beamline now in operation. To achieve these goals, two technical improvements, relative to existing x-ray beamlines, were incorporated. First, a somewhat novel optical design for x rays, in which matched toroidal mirrors are positioned before and after the double-crystal monochromator, was adopted. This configuration allows for high resolution by passing a collimated beam through the monochromator, and for high brightness by focusing the ALS source on the sample with unit magnification. Second, a new “Cowan type” double-crystal monochromator based on the design used at NSLS beamline X-24A was developed. The measured mechanical precision of this new monochromator shows significant improvement over existing designs, without using positional feedback available with piezoelectric devices. Such precision is essential because of the high brightness of the radiation and the long distance (12 m) from the source (sample) to the collimating (focusing) mirror. This combination of features will provide a bright, high resolution, and stable x-ray beam for use in the x-ray spectroscopy program at the ALS

Evidence for similarity in symptoms and mechanism: The extra‐pulmonary symptoms of severe asthma and the polysymptomatic presentation of fibromyalgia

Background Asthma is a disease of the lung and a systemic disease. Functional disorders are associated with multiple systemic abnormalities that have been explained by complexity models. The aim was to test the similarity in type and aetiology between the extra‐pulmonary symptoms of severe asthma and the symptoms of fibromyalgia. Methods One Hundred patients recruited from a specialist severe asthma clinic and 1751 people reporting different functional disorder diagnoses recruited via the internet completed the same 60‐item questionnaire. Symptom patterns were compared between groups using a new measure, the symptom pattern similarity index where 0 = no relationship, 1 = identical patterns between groups. Results Severe asthma patients report numerous extra‐pulmonary symptoms. The similarity index between the symptom pattern of the asthma patients with other groups was irritable bowel syndrome = 0.54, chronic fatigue syndrome = 0.69, and fibromyalgia = 0.75. The index between fibromyalgia and asthma patients with the most and least frequent extra‐pulmonary symptoms was 0.81 and 0.55 respectively. Conclusions Patients with severe asthma have numerous extra‐pulmonary symptoms similar in type and pattern to the symptoms of fibromyalgia. The similarity of the symptom pattern between asthma and fibromyalgia increases as the number of extra‐pulmonary symptoms increases as predicted by network theory and previously shown to be the case with other functional disorders. These findings support the hypothesis that functional disorders and extra‐pulmonary asthma symptoms have a common complexity or network aetiology. Evidence based behavioural interventions for fibromyalgia may be helpful for patients with severe asthma reporting extra‐pulmonary symptoms

The inevitable drift to triple therapy in COPD : an analysis of prescribing pathways in the UK

Acknowledgments The analyses reported in this study were funded by Novartis Pharma AG (Basel, Switzerland) and were conducted by Research in Real-Life Ltd (Cambridge, UK), an independent company. The authors also thank David Bergin, Danielle Corbett, and Vivek Khanna (professional medical writers; Novartis) for assistance in the preparation of this paper. Writing support was funded by Novartis Pharma AG.Peer reviewedPublisher PD