Is Dialogue Hazardous to Ecumenism?

(Excerpt) If we distinguish between bad dialogue and gOod dialogue, then, yes, bad dialogue is indeed hazardous to ecumenism. But good dialogue, by contrast, is the very soul of ecumenism. In what follows I would like to go so far as to propose that good dialogue may even be, like Word and Sacraments, a mark of the Church, what the tradition calls a nota ecclesiae. Goodness knows, there is still plenty of bad dialogue around, often palmed off as good, even by professional ecumenists and theologians. But there are also signs of good dialogue, maybe not overwhelming signs, but frequent enough and recent enough to be promising. So recent are the instances I have in mind that I\u27m tempted to refer to bad dialogue as the old way of dialoguing and good dialogue as a new way of dialoguing

Is there a Jordan geometry underlying quantum physics?

There have been several propositions for a geometric and essentially non-linear formulation of quantum mechanics. From a purely mathematical point of view, the point of view of Jordan algebra theory might give new strength to such approaches: there is a ``Jordan geometry'' belonging to the Jordan part of the algebra of observables, in the same way as Lie groups belong to the Lie part. Both the Lie geometry and the Jordan geometry are well-adapted to describe certain features of quantum theory. We concentrate here on the mathematical description of the Jordan geometry and raise some questions concerning possible relations with foundational issues of quantum theory.Comment: 30 page

Estate Planning for the Man with a Business

One of the most challenging situations in the estate planning field is presented by an individual who owns all or a substantial part of a business, be it a corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship. The problem is how to transfer the business interest to the objects of the owner\u27s bounty with as little reduction in capital and loss of income as possible. Under our present tax structure, without careful estate planning, or perhaps even with it, the death of a founder or chief executive of a closely held business is apt to destroy or greatly reduce its value. While this is especially true of professional or other personal service enterprises, it is also true of businesses such as manufacturing concerns, where capital is a major factor and where, accordingly, it might be expected that the value of the business would be capable of being transferred over to the heirs of the deceased owner. The heavy bite of death taxes, federal and state, and the other “costs of dying” represent a major threat to a family fortune founded on a closely held business

The Complete Centurion

Any day now should bring with it a crop of good jokes about that prolific benefactor of our age, the dialog. The wonder is that the jokes have not appeared sooner, considering how quick men normally are to record their thanks for such a boon in their humor-the way they once did, remember, for GI Joe or for their pastors or for the soup kitchens or, in the days of great piety, for God

Oxygen-related traps in pentacene thin films: Energetic position and implications for transistor performance

We studied the influence of oxygen on the electronic trap states in a pentacene thin film. This was done by carrying out gated four-terminal measurements on thin-film transistors as a function of temperature and without ever exposing the samples to ambient air. Photooxidation of pentacene is shown to lead to a peak of trap states centered at 0.28 eV from the mobility edge, with trap densities of the order of 10(18) cm(-3). These trap states need to be occupied at first and cause a reduction in the number of free carriers, i.e. a consistent shift of the density of free holes as a function of gate voltage. Moreover, the exposure to oxygen reduces the mobility of the charge carriers above the mobility edge. We correlate the change of these transport parameters with the change of the essential device parameters, i.e. subthreshold performance and effective field-effect mobility. This study supports the assumption of a mobility edge for charge transport, and contributes to a detailed understanding of an important degradation mechanism of organic field-effect transistors. Deep traps in an organic field-effect transistor reduce the effective field-effect mobility by reducing the number of free carriers and their mobility above the mobility edge.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Intrinsic Josephson junctions in the iron-based multi-band superconductor (V2Sr4O6)Fe2As2

In layered superconductors, Josephson junctions may be formed within the unit cell due to sufficiently low interlayer coupling. These intrinsic Josephson junction (iJJ) systems have attracted considerable interest for their application potential in quantum computing as well as efficient sources of THz radiation, closing the famous "THz gap". So far, iJJ have been demonstrated in single-band, copper-based high-Tc superconductors, mainly in Ba-Sr-Ca-Cu-O. Here we report clear experimental evidence for iJJ behavior in the iron-based superconductor (V2Sr4O6)Fe2As2. The intrinsic junctions are identified by periodic oscillations of the flux flow voltage upon increasing a well aligned in-plane magnetic field. The periodicity is well explained by commensurability effects between the Josephson vortex lattice and the crystal structure, which is a hallmark signature of Josephson vortices confined into iJJ stacks. This finding adds (V2Sr4O6)Fe2As2 as the first iron-based, multi-band superconductor to the copper-based iJJ materials of interest for Josephson junction applications, and in particular novel devices based on multi-band Josephson coupling may be realized.Comment: Accepted in Nature Physic

Anisotropic Creep Damage Modeling of Single Crystal Superalloys

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We Make Up the Rules as We Go Along: Improvisation as an Essential Aspect of Human Practices?

AbstractThe article presents the conceptual groundwork for an understanding of the essentially improvisational dimension of human rationality. It aims to clarify how we should think about important concepts pertinent to central aspects of human practices, namely, the concepts of improvisation, normativity, habit, and freedom. In order to understand the sense in which human practices are essentially improvisational, it is first necessary to criticize misconceptions about improvisation as lack of preparation and creatio ex nihilo. Second, it is necessary to solve the theoretical problems that derive from misunderstandings concerning the notions of normativity, habit, and freedom – misunderstandings that revolve around the idea that rationality is a form that is developed out of itself and thus works in a way similar to algorithms. One can only make sense of normativity, habit, and freedom if one understands that they all involve conflictual relationships with the world and with others, which in turn enables one to adequately take into account their constitutive connection to improvisation, properly understood. In outlining these conceptual connections, we want to prepare the foundations for an explanation of rational practices as improvisational practices. The article concludes by stating that human rational life is improvisatory because the conditions of human practice arise out of practice itself