Spatio-Temporal Modelling of Perfusion Cardiovascular MRI

Myocardial perfusion MRI provides valuable insight into how coronary artery and microvascular diseases affect myocardial tissue. Stenosis in a coronary vessel leads to reduced maximum blood flow (MBF), but collaterals may secure the blood supply of the myocardium but with altered tracer kinetics. To date, quantitative analysis of myocardial perfusion MRI has only been performed on a local level, largely ignoring the contextual information inherent in different myocardial segments. This paper proposes to quantify the spatial dependencies between the local kinetics via a Hierarchical Bayesian Model (HBM). In the proposed framework, all local systems are modelled simultaneously along with their dependencies, thus allowing more robust context-driven estimation of local kinetics. Detailed validation on both simulated and patient data is provided

Reply to Comment on: "Are stress-free membranes really 'tensionless'?"

This is a reply to a comment on the paper arXiv:1204.2075 "Are stress-free membranes really tensionless ?" (EPL 95,28008 (2011))

POLICY ASPECTS OF LAND-USE PLANNING IN IRELAND. BROADSHEET No. 22, December 1983

The passage of the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act in 1963 heralded a substantially increased degree of intervention by government into decisions concerning how land is used. We describe the form which this intervention took over the subsequent 20 years and analyse its implications. We do so in three phases. First we present the legislative, administrative and analytic framework, then we discuss some elements of the planning process and finish with some conclusions

Metaspin and dirishonic dark matter

The antisymmetry requirement of rishon bound state wave functions suggests a new rishon quantum number called M spin. From M spin conservation and the Nussinov-Weingarten-Witten theorem we predict the existence of a stable pseudoscalar dirishonic meson, called zeta, that is lighter than the lightest neutrino. Its mass is estimated as m(zeta) = 10^{-9} eV. This particle could make up the major part of cold dark matter in the Universe.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur

Splashing tradition: the use of tradition and church history in recent German baptismal theologies as seen in the views of Th. Schneider, W. Pannenberg, and A. Heinze

This thesis analyses the use of tradition and church history in the baptismal views of the recent German theologians Theodor Schneider (Roman Catholic, born 1930), Wolfhart Pannenberg (Lutheran, 1928-2014), and André Heinze (Baptist, 1961-2013). The differences in the practice and understanding of Baptism among different denominations show that views of Baptism are not only shaped by Scripture but also by external presumptions that can be traced to different understandings of tradition and church history. This thesis, therefore, investigates and evaluates how different views of Baptism in the context of recent German theology use tradition and church history to develop and constitute their position, in order to assess the influence of different views of tradition and church history on baptismal views. To achieve its goal this thesis presents a detailed examination of the selection and usage of explicit references to tradition and (church) history found in each author’s main work on Baptism, as well as an analysis of particular important implicit reflections of the author’s denominational tradition. Generally, it is seen that all three authors value and use tradition in a constructive non-polemic way, while also being critical of tradition as far as possible given their denominational constraints. From the authors’ use of explicit and implicit references to tradition their views of tradition and church history are deduced, which demonstrates the influence of each author’s view of tradition on his baptismal view. This research concludes that even though each author’s understanding of tradition and church history surfaces in their baptismal views, exegetical convergence in method and result, as well as ecumenical progress regarding the understandings of tradition, both alleviate the influence of tradition. This illustrates the importance of the consideration of the understanding of tradition and church history in the ecumenical dialogue about Baptism