Holy Within and Without: Zhang Zai’s Teachings of Confucius’s Two Natures

Stated most baldly, my argument is that the Neo-Confucianism of the Song era, particularly as elucidated by Zhang Zai (1020-1078), has far more to do with Western theology than with Western philosophy. Considerations not just of the pattern of thought or the philological methods used, but also in how the canon was approached seem more akin to the kind of hermeneutical approaches found in Western theological discourse. In Chinese discourse, however, God himself is missing, so the question of “holiness” takes on a more secular aspect. Or rather, instead of having some form of divine dispensation from above, as one might in the West, it is a matter of elevating secular man (here: Confucius or his disciples). However, this “making holy” requires some strenuous efforts at reinterpretation, and it is Zhang Zai’s moves in this direction that form the core of my paper

Impact of glucuronide interferences on therapeutic drug monitoring of posaconazole by tandem mass spectrometry

Background: Posaconazole is a novel antifungal drug for oral application intended especially for therapy of invasive mycoses. Due to variable gastrointestinal absorption, adverse side effects, and suspected drug-drug interactions, therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of posaconazole is recommended. Method: A fast ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method for quantification of posaconazole with a run-time <3 min was developed and compared to a LC-MS/MS method and HPLC method with fluorescence detection. Results: During evaluation of UPLC-MS/MS, two earlier eluting peaks were observed in the MRM trace of posaconazole. This was only seen in patient samples, but not in spiked calibrator samples. Comparison with LC-MS/MS disclosed a significant bias with higher concentrations measured by LC-MS/MS, while UPLC-MS/MS showed excellent agreement with the commercially available HPLC method. In the LC-MS/MS procedure, comparably wide and left side shifted peaks were noticed. This could be ascribed to in-source fragmentation of conjugate metabolites during electrospray ionisation. Precursor and product ion scans confirmed the assumption that the additional compounds are posaconazole glucuronides. Reducing the cone voltage led to disappearance of the glucuronide peaks. Slight modification of the LC-MS/MS method enabled separation of the main interference, leading to significantly reduced deviation. Conclusions: These results highlight the necessity to reliably eliminate interference from labile drug metabolites for correct TDM results, either by sufficient separation or selective MS conditions. The presented UPLC-MS/MS method provides a reliable and fast assay for TDM of posaconazole. Clin Chem Lab Med 2010; 48:1723-31

Where do bicyclists interact with other road users?: Delineating potential risk zones in HD-maps.

International crash statistics indicate a decrease of bicycle crashes, but at a slower pace compared to total crash numbers. The share of crashes with involved cyclists is above the modal share (see [1] for an overview). Depending on sources, types of analyses, and geographic regions, crash statistics suggest high rates of singlebike crashes and crashes between cyclists and other vulnerable road users (VRUs) [2], while cars are opponents in more than half of all fatal crashes in the European Union [3]. The design of th.e road environment is of particular relevance for crash risks. A study from London found three times higher injury odds for cyclists at intersections [4]. Connected and automated vehicles (CAV) are frequently said to increase the safety level in road traffic since they are less prone to human errors [5]. This might hold true in transport systems with little complexity, such as highways [6]. However, when it comes to complex situations in multimodal systems with multiple interactions between different road users, such as intersections in urban environments, existing solutions are not sufficient yet in terms of protecting VRUs. ... In order to contribute to the safety of VRUs in the interplay with CAVs in current systems, we propose a geospatial model, which delineates potential interaction risk zones from high definition (HD) maps and enriching these zones with additional information. These enriched risk zones are then provided as standardized OGC web service, which can be integrated in V2X systems. With this, we contribute to the visibility, and thus the safety of VRUs in connected transport systems. From a methodological point of view, the proposed model is a first step in integrating spatial context and semantic information explicitly into V2X communication. [From: Introduction

Latticepathology and Symmetric Functions (Extended Abstract)

In this article, we revisit and extend a list of formulas based on lattice path surgery: cut-and-paste methods, factorizations, the kernel method, etc. For this purpose, we focus on the natural model of directed lattice paths (also called generalized Dyck paths). We introduce the notion of prime walks, which appear to be the key structure to get natural decompositions of excursions, meanders, bridges, directly leading to the associated context-free grammars. This allows us to give bijective proofs of bivariate versions of Spitzer/Sparre Andersen/Wiener - Hopf formulas, thus capturing joint distributions. We also show that each of the fundamental families of symmetric polynomials corresponds to a lattice path generating function, and that these symmetric polynomials are accordingly needed to express the asymptotic enumeration of these paths and some parameters of limit laws. En passant, we give two other small results which have their own interest for folklore conjectures of lattice paths (non-analyticity of the small roots in the kernel method, and universal positivity of the variability condition occurring in many Gaussian limit law schemes)

Potential of EPUB3 for Digital Textbooks in Higher Education

The e-book market is currently in a strong upswing. This research study deals with the question which practical uses the e-book format EPUB3 offers for (higher) education. By means of a didactic content analysis, a range of interactive exercise types were developed as a result of conversations with teachers. For this purpose, a didactic and technical concept has been developed. Different kinds of exercises were prototypically implemented in an e-book. Finally, a brief overview reflects the present state of the current e-book readers. A subsequent discussion illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of the format. In summary, it can be remarked that EPUB3 is suitable for a variety of different exercises and that it is able to serve as a basic format for forthcoming digital textbooks. Furthermore the openness of EPUB3 will assist Open Learning and Teaching in a meaningful way.Comment: Conference, 13 page

Heap . . . Hop! Heap Is Also Vulnerable

International audienceSeveral logical attacks against Java based smart card have been published recently. Most of them are based on the hypothesis that the type verification was not performed, thus allowing to obtain dynamically a type confusion. To mitigate such attacks, typed stack have been introduced on recent smart card. We propose here a new attack path for performing a type confusion even in presence of a typed stack. Then we propose using a Fault Tree Analysis a way to design efficiently counter measure in a top down approach. These counter measures are then evaluated on a Java Card virtual machin