Can enlightenment be traced to specific neural correlates, cognition, or behavior? No, and (a qualified) Yes

The field of contemplative science is rapidly growing and integrating into the basic neurosciences, psychology, clinical sciences, and society-at-large. Yet the majority of current research in the contemplative sciences has been divorced from the soteriological context from which these meditative practices originate and has focused instead on clinical applications with goals of stress reduction and psychotherapeutic health. In the existing research on health outcomes of mindfulness-based clinical interventions, for example, there have been almost no attempts to scientifically investigate the goal of enlightenment. This is a serious oversight, given that such profound transformation across ethical, perceptual, emotional, and cognitive domains are taken to be the natural outcome and principle aim of mindfulness practice in the traditional Buddhist contexts from which these practices are derived. If short-term interventions as short as a few sessions are now beginning to produce neuroplastic changes, it may be that even in secular contexts, practitioners are already developing states and traits that are associated with progress toward enlightenment. In order to carefully assess the potential effects of meditative interventions it is of singular importance to ask whether enlightenment can be traced to specific neural correlates, cognition, or behavior

Local density of diffeomorphisms with large centralizers

Given any compact manifold M, we construct a non-empty open subset O of the space of C^1-diffeomorphisms of M and a dense subset D of O such that the centralizer of every diffeomorphism in D is uncountable, hence non-trivial

Siza in Space and Time

This book places Siza within the context of the Modern Movement, isolated principles of which were found to have been continued into the present; his seemingly close relation between the earlier pioneers of the early 1920's and 1930's is discussed, their spirit of humanism being akin to his and Aalto's, transposed into the commercialism of the 1980's. A section on Portugal places the architect within his context, limiting the historical discussion to the 'Plain Style' which occured during the 16th to the early 18th centuries, as well as to the rise of modernism which took place in the 1920's -1940's. Two specific examples of his works are examined: his banks at Oliveira de Azemeis and at Vila do Conde. His oeuvre and design method is then compared to a known master, Aalto, who has been isolated due to comparable positions within the rise of modernism, and similar positions related to site considerations. The differences are also discussed, Aalto being used as a method of comparison. The book ends with an interview which hopes to confirm or deny the hypotheses put forward by this work

Brunella's Local Alternative

Trabajamos con una versión local de una conjetura propuesta por M. Brunella que dice que si se tiene una foliación holomorfa singular de codimensión uno F en el espacio proyectivo complejo de dimensión tres CP(3), entonces o bien F admite una superficie algebraica invariante o cada hoja de F es unión de curvas algebraicas. Hemos considerado foliaciones holomorfas singulares de codimensión uno en (C^3,0) que no admiten germen de superficie analítica invariante. Pedimos a estas foliaciones que no produzcan singularidades de tipo silla-nodo en su desingularización y que admitan una reducción de singularidades con algunas condiciones no restrictivas. El resultado principal de la tesis dice que una foliación con estas propiedades cumple una de las siguientes alternativas: a) existe un entorno de origen tal que cada hoje de F en este entorno contiene un germen de curva analítica invariante; b) existe una curva analítica del conjunto singular de la foliación que es genéricamente dicrítica o genéricamente nodalDepartamento de Algebra, Geometría y Topologí

Radiocarbon - a unique tracer of global carbon cycle dynamics

Climate on earth strongly depends on the radiative balance of its atmosphere, and, thus, on the abundance of the radiatively active greenhouse gases. Largely due to human activities since the Industrial Revolution, the atmospheric burden of many greenhouse gases has increased dramatically. Direct measurements during the last decades and analysis of ancient air trapped in ice from polar regions allow to quantify the change of these trace gas concentrations in the atmosphere. From a presumably "undisturbed" pre-industrial situation several hundred years ago until today, the CO2 mixing ratio increased by almost 30%. In the last decades this increase was nearly exponential, leading to a global mean CO2 mixing ratio of almost 370 ppm by the turn of the millenium. The atmospheric abundance of CO2 the main greenhouse gas containing carbon, is strongly controlled by exchange with the organic and inorganic carbon reservoirs. The world oceans are definitely the most important carbon reservoir, with a buffering capacity for atmospheric CO2 largest on time scales of centuries and longer. In contrast, the buffering capacity of the terrestrial biosphere is largest on shorter time scales from decades to centuries. Although today equally important, the role of the terrestrial biosphere as a sink of anthropogenic CO2 emissions is still poorly understood. Any prediction of future climate strongly relies on an accurate knowledge of the greenhouse gas concentrations in the present day atmosphere, and of their development in the future. This implies the need to quantitatively understand their natural geophysical and biochemical cycles including the important perturbations by man's impact. In attempting to disentangle the complexity of these cycles, Radiocarbon observations have played a crucial role as an experimental tool enlightening the spatial and temporal variability of carbon sources and sinks. Studies of the “undisturbed” natural carbon cycle profit from the radioactive decay of 14C in using it as a dating tracer, e.g. to determine the turnover time of soil organic matter or to study internal mixing rates of the global oceans. Moreover, the anthropogenic disturbance of 14C through atmospheric bomb tests has served as an invaluable tracer to get insight into the global carbon cycle on the decadal time scale

Revision of the stratospheric bomb 14CO2 inventory

About 4900 values of 14CO2 activity have been measured on stratospheric air samples collected between 1953 and 1975 when the major nuclear weapon tests injected large amounts of 14C into the atmosphere. However, the validity of these data published in the Health and Safety Laboratory reports where repeatedly criticized and their relevance is thus usually denied in model studies tracing the global carbon cycle with bomb 14CO2. To oppose this criticism, we perform here a comprehensive analysis of the measurements and calculate stratospheric bomb 14CO2 inventories for the period in question. We find out that the recognized weakness of the survey do not justify a general discrimination against the 14CO2 observations. Our 14CO2 inventories determined using numerical methods to interpolate the observations widely confirm more "hand-made" results from a former study from Telegadas (1971) except in the northern poleward stratosphere. We are also able to clear away the reasons commonly advanced to call into question the stratospheric bomb 14CO2 inventories by up to 20%. These findings rehabilitate the most extensive data set of stratospheric 14CO2 observations and establish them, together with our corresponding bomb 14CO2 inventories, as a valuable observational constraint which should be seriously accounted for in global carbon cycle models and in other studies relying on an accurate simulation of air mass transport in the atmosphere