Apuleius and the Esoteric Revival: An Ancient Decadent in Modern Times

This article seeks to excavate a noteworthy source of inspiration for the interlocking decadent and esoteric movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the classical Latin writer Apuleius. Apuleius’ life and works brought together decadent literature, magic, witchcraft and the esoteric strand in pagan religion – the same conjunction that later manifested itself in Britain and France in the late Victorian era. Apuleius is sometimes referred to in the academic literature as an influence on modern decadence and the occult revival, but no sustained study of his role in this regard has yet been produced. This essay will proceed in the following way. First, we will undertake an overview of Apuleius and his novel The Golden Ass. Second, we will locate the position that Apuleius occupied in the literary context of the nineteenth century, with particular reference to the decadent tradition. Third, we will survey his influence on the modern esoteric revival in general. Finally, we will examine specifically his influence on revived goddess-worship

Mechanical Stimulation Controls Canopy Architecture and Improves Volume Utilization Efficiency in Bioregenerative Life-Support Candidate Crops

Thigmomorphogenesis can be utilized to improve volume utilization efficiency in peppers (Capsicum annum cv. California Wonder), a candidate crop for fresh food production in space. The effect occurred primarily through a reduction in average plant height. Reductions in vegetative growth metrics during the juvenile growth phase (growth leading up to and including early anthesis) were not observed during the mature or fruiting phase, with the notable exception of reduced plant height. Early flower production and fruit set was reduced under MS; however, the total edible biomass was not reduced, with MS plants producing fewer but larger fruits. The overall reduction in plant height due to MS (Mechanical Stimulation) was sufficient to realize theoretical improvements in VUE (Volume Use Efficiency) for large vertical farming systems. The reduced heights observed could improve VUE in single tier spaceflight hardware (e.g., Veggie; Massa 2016 (this issue)) in that crops that would not normally fit in these spaceflight systems may be accommodated if MS can be applied. Although the potential for using MS to induce thigmomorphogenic phenotypes has long been appreciated, it is only recently that the growth systems themselves could take advantage of the modified crop architecture associated with MS. It is with this in mind that renewed attention should be given to developing procedures for environmentally modifying crops for spaceflight applications

The Madden Julian Oscillation and its relationship with rainfall in Queensland

The Madden Julian Oscillation is a large-scale atmospheric phenomenon that is generated above the tropical Indian Ocean. It is associated with large convective systems that propagate eastward across the Pacific Ocean. Since it is an atmospheric event limited to the equatorial domain, it was believed that it has little effect on non-tropical regions. However, recent research found correlations between the positioning of the active Madden Julian Oscillation phase along the Equator and rainfall events northeast Australia. The correlations were significant throughout Queensland. The phenomenon is subject to a study by climate scientists at four Australian institutions. It aims to develop a simple predictive tool of rainfall events that are linked with the active phase of the Madden Julian Oscillation and that is applicable throughout Queensland and possible beyond. The outcome of this research is to be linked with agricultural production systems model in order to help Queensland farmers to better time planting and harvesting, as well as scheduling of contractors whose operations might be delayed by rain

Curvature contraction of convex hypersurfaces by nonsmooth speeds

We consider contraction of convex hypersurfaces by convex speeds, homogeneous of degree one in the principal curvatures, that are not necessarily smooth. We show how to approximate such a speed by a sequence of smooth speeds for which behaviour is well known. By obtaining speed and curvature pinching estimates for the flows by the approximating speeds, independent of the smoothing parameter, we may pass to the limit to deduce that the flow by the nonsmooth speed converges to a point in finite time that, under a suitable rescaling, is round in the C² sense, with the convergence being exponential.The research of the second author was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award. The research of the first, third, fourth and fifth authors was supported by Discovery Project grant DP120100097 of the Australian Research Council

Protocol engineering from Estelle specifications

Bibliography: leaves 129-132.The design of efficient, reliable communication protocols has long been an area of active research in computer science and engineering, and will remain so while the technology continues to evolve, and information becomes increasingly distributed. This thesis examines the problem of predicting . the performance of a multi-layered protocol system directly from formal specifications in the ISO specification language Estelle, a general-purpose Pascal-based language with support for concurrent processes in the form of communicating extended finite-state machines. The thesis begins with an overview of protocol engineering, and a discusses the areas of performance evaluation and protocol specification. Important parts of the mathematics of discrete-time semi-Markov processes are presented to assist in understanding the approaches to performance evaluation described later. Not much work has been done to date in the area of performance prediction from specifications. The idea was first mooted by Rudin, who illustrated it with a simple model based on the global state reachability graph of a set of synchronous communicating FSMs. About the same time Kritzinger proposed a closed multiclass queueing model. Both of these approaches are described, and their respective strengths and weaknesses pointed out. Two new methods are then presented. They have been implemented as part of an Estelle-based CASE tool, the Protocol Engineering Workbench (PE!V). In the first approach, we show how discrete-time semi-Markov chain models can be derived from meta-executions of Estelle specifications, and consider ways of using these models predictively. The second approach uses a structure similar to a global-state graph. Many of the limitations of Rudin's approach are overcome, and our technique produces highly accurate performance predictions. The PEW is also described in some detail, and its use in performance evaluation illustrated with some examples. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the new methods, and possible ways of improving them

AplusB: A Web Application for Investigating A + B Designs for Phase I Cancer Clinical Trials.

In phase I cancer clinical trials, the maximum tolerated dose of a new drug is often found by a dose-escalation method known as the A + B design. We have developed an interactive web application, AplusB, which computes and returns exact operating characteristics of A + B trial designs. The application has a graphical user interface (GUI), requires no programming knowledge and is free to access and use on any device that can open an internet browser. A customised report is available for download for each design that contains tabulated operating characteristics and informative plots, which can then be compared with other dose-escalation methods. We present a step-by-step guide on how to use this application and provide several illustrative examples of its capabilities.GMW and APM are supported by the UK Medical Research Council (www.mrc.ac.uk; grant number G0800860). MJS is supported by a European Research Council Advanced Investigator Award: EPIC-Heart (https://erc.europa.eu; grant number 268834), the UK Medical Research Council (grant number MR/L003120/1), the British Heart Foundation (www.bhf.org.uk), and the Cambridge National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre (http://www.cambridge-brc.org.uk). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from PLOS at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0159026

Suppression of nuclear factor-κB activity in macrophages by chylomicron remnants: modulation by the fatty acid composition of the particles

Current evidence indicates that chylomicron remnants (CMR) induce macrophage foam cell formation, an early event in atherosclerosis. Inflammation also plays a part in atherogenesis and the transcription factor nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) has been implicated. In this study, the influence of CMR on the activity of NF-κB in macrophages and its modulation by the fatty acid composition of the particles were investigated using macrophages derived from the human monocyte cell line THP-1 and CMR-like particles (CRLPs). Incubation of THP-1 macrophages with CRLPs caused decreased NF-κB activation and downregulated the expression of phospho-p65–NF-κB and phospho-IκBα (pIκBα). Secretion of the inflammatory cytokines tumour necrosis factor α, interleukin-6 and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, which are under NF-κB transcriptional control, was inhibited and mRNA expression for cyclooxygenase-2, an NF-κB target gene, was reduced. CRLPs enriched in polyunsaturated fatty acids compared with saturated or monounsaturated fatty acids had a markedly greater inhibitory effect on NF-κB binding to DNA and the expression of phospho-p65–NF-κB and pIκB. Lipid loading of macrophages with CRLPs enriched in polyunsaturated fatty acids compared with monounsaturated fatty acids or saturated fatty acids also increased the subsequent rate of cholesterol efflux, an effect which may be linked to the inhibition of NF-κB activity. These findings demonstrate that CMR suppress NF-κB activity in macrophages, and that this effect is modulated by their fatty acid composition. This downregulation of inflammatory processes in macrophages may represent a protective effect of CMR which is enhanced by dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids

Curvature contraction of convex hypersurfaces by nonsmooth speeds

We consider contraction of convex hypersurfaces by convex speeds, homogeneous of degree one in the principal curvatures, that are not necessarily smooth. We show how to approximate such a speed by a sequence of smooth speeds for which behaviour is well known. By obtaining speed and curvature pinching estimates for the flows by the approximating speeds, independent of the smoothing parameter, we may pass to the limit to deduce that the flow by the nonsmooth speed converges to a point in finite time that, under a suitable rescaling, is round in the C^2 sense, with the convergence being exponential

Supersymmetric minisuperspace with non-vanishing fermion number

The Lagrangean of $N=1$ supergravity is dimensionally reduced to one (time-like) dimension assuming spatial homogeneity of any Bianchi type within class A of the classification of Ellis and McCallum. The algebra of the supersymmetry generators, the Lorentz generators, the diffeomorphism generators and the Hamiltonian generator is determined and found to close. In contrast to earlier work, infinitely many physical states with non-vanishing even fermion number are found to exist in these models, indicating that minisuperspace models in supergravity may be just as useful as in pure gravity.Comment: 4 page

Quantum states on supersymmetric minisuperspace with a cosmological constant

Spatially homogeneous models in quantum supergravity with a nonvanishing cosmological constant are studied. A class of exact nontrivial solutions of the supersymmetry and Lorentz constraints is obtained in terms of the Chern-Simons action on the spatially homogeneous 3-manifold, both in Ashketar variables where the solution is explicit up to reality conditions, and, more concretely, in the tetrad-representation, where the solutions are given as integral representations differing only by the contours of integration. In the limit of a vanishing cosmological constant earlier exact solutions for Bianchi type IX models in the tetrad-representation are recovered and additional asymmetric solutions are found.Comment: 14 pages, late