A comparative analysis of <i>berith</i> and the sacrament of baptism and how they contributed to the inquisition

In 1391 Spanish Jews were forcibly converted to Catholic Christianity, and Portuguese Jews suffered the same fate in 1497. Jewish law rendered involuntary converts as anusim and voluntary converts as meshumadim. Christians without Jewish ancestry called them by various names, New Christians, alboraique, xuetas, and marranos, to name a few. In the fifteenth century, Catholic clerical authorities debated whether the New Christians were indeed Christians, albeit coerced. Canonic law rendered the sacrament of baptism as irrevocable. As such, any belief or practice not in accordance with Catholic doctrine was tantamount to heresy. Consequently, the Inquisition sought to rid the Church of the “Judaizing heresy.” On the one hand, the Sinaitic covenant (berith) considered anusim as Jews, even though there were Christians. This paper analyzes Jewish law and canonic law on respective religious identities. It includes an examination of rabbinic texts and rabbinic responsa, and an examination of the sacrament of Christian baptism. Both religious traditions fought for the souls of the anusim, characterizing what Victor Turner calls liminality and communitas

Nação legal consciousness and its contribution to the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic debate on slavery and the slave trade

In the seventeenth century, some conversos living throughout Western Europe, who had been either trained in the School of Salamanca or influenced by it, came to the Dutch Republic in search of religious freedom, where they reverted to the open practice of the Jewish tradition. A select few of them became scholars of rabbinic jurisprudence, while retaining their knowledge of Christian theology. As residents and foreigners in the Dutch Republic, rabbis and philosophers synthesized Greek philosophy, Iberian Roman law, rabbinic reasoning, and Jewish and Christian philosophy, in light of the socioeconomic context of the Dutch Republic, to produce literature on behalf of reverted Jews. At the bedrock of Nação legal consciousness lies the jurisprudence of the Nação in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. The main focus of this research project is on the pressing issue: How did the Nação in seventeenth-century Amsterdam contribute to the legal-political discussions of ius naturae et gentium in the Amsterdam-Dutch Republic debate on slavery and the slave trade? While many have undertaken research on the development of the ius naturae et gentium, the contribution of the Sephardim in Amsterdam is insufficiently researched. The aim of this dissertation is to add to the discussion by examining the seventeenth-century Portuguese Hebrew Nation in the Dutch Republic and its colonies, whose ideas of servitus, dominium and libertas were central to the justification of the Dutch Atlantic slave trade, as participants in, and contributors to the law of nature and nations. The goal is to reveal how the Nação in seventeenth-century Amsterdam participates in and contributes to the thinking, reasoning, and arguing about slavery and the slave trade, via the language, concepts, and notions of the time, which was dominated by the language of ius naturae et gentium

Wake Measurements and Loss Evaluation in a Controlled Diffusion Compressor Cascade

The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/1.2929120The results of two component laser-Doppler velocimeter (LDV) surveys made in the near wake (to one fifth chord) of a controlled diffusion (CD) compressor blade in a large-scale cascade wind tunnel are reported. The measurements were made at three positive incidence angles from near design to angles thought to approach stall. Comparisons were made with calibrated pressure probe and hot-wire wake measurements and good agreement was found. The flow was found to be fully attached at the trailing edge at all incidence angles and the wake profiles were found to be highly skewed. Despite the precision obtained in the wake velocity profiles, the blade loss could not be evaluated accurately without measurements of the pressure field. The blade trailing edge surface pressures and velocity profiles were found to be consistent with downstream pressure probe measurements of loss, allowing conclusions to be drawn concerning the design of the trailing edge

Evaluating the effects of PIRAC nitrogen-diffusion treatments on the mechanical performance of Ti-6Al-4V alloy

The authors would like to thank the European Regional Development Fund (Malta) for research equipment funded through the application of the project “Developing an Interdisciplinary Material Testing and Rapid Prototyping R&D Facility (Ref. no. 012)”. The authors are also greatly indebted to MATERAþ/ERA-NET Plus for funding support for this research (Project ESM-1935).Powder Immersion Reaction Assisted Coating (PIRAC) is a relatively simple nitrogen diffusion based process which has been proposed as a technique capable of considerable improvements in the tribological performance of ceramics and metals alike; however, the necessary exposure of the substrate material to high temperatures for several hours may have an adverse effect on the bulk properties of materials such as titanium alloys. The effect of PIRAC treatments on the bulk metallography and mechanical properties of Ti–6Al–4V has been studied. Following PIRAC nitrogen-diffusion treatment, studies using X-ray diffraction and cross-sectional microscopy have shown evidence of the formation of a thin (1.4 mm) TiN/Ti2N layer, together with the presence of some Ti3Al intermetallic phase. Semi- logarithmic S–N plots show a deleterious effect after PIRAC treatment in terms of material cyclic fatigue strength, particularly at higher treatment temperatures. Samples processed at 800 1C for 4 h however exhibit better fatigue performance than others treated at lower temperatures for longer nitriding times. Fractographic inspection has shown that fatigue cracks originate at (or near) the surface for the untreated Ti-alloy and from the subsurface regions following diffusion treatment, owing to the build-up of compressive stresses in the latter, which hinder crack propagation.peer-reviewe

A Meta-Analysis of the Existing Knowledge of Immunoreactivity against Hepatitis C Virus (HCV)

Approximately 3% of the world population is infected by HCV, which represents a major global health challenge. Almost 400 different scientific reports present immunological data related to T cell and antibody epitopes derived from HCV literature. Analysis of all HCV-related epitope hosted in the Immune Epitope Database (IEDB), a repository of freely accessible immune epitope data, revealed more than 1500 and 1900 distinct T cell and antibody epitopes, respectively. The inventory of all data revealed specific trends in terms of the host and the HCV genotypes from which sequences were derived. Upon further analysis we found that this large number of epitopes reflects overlapping structures, and homologous sequences derived from different HCV isolates. To access and visualize this information we developed a novel strategy that assembles large sets of epitope data, maps them onto reference genomes and displays the frequency of positive responses. Compilation of the HCV immune reactivity from hundreds of different studies, revealed a complex and thorough picture of HCV immune epitope data to date. The results pinpoint areas of more intense reactivity or research activities at the level of antibody, CD4 and CD8 responses for each of the individual HCV proteins. In general, the areas targeted by the different effector immune functions were distinct and antibody reactivity was positively correlated with hydrophilicity, while T cell reactivity correlated with hydrophobicity. At the sequence level, epitopes frequently recognized by both T cell and B cell correlated with low variability, and our analysis thus highlighted areas of potential interest for practical applications. The human reactivity was further analyzed to pinpoint differential patterns of reactivity associated with acute versus chronic infection, to reveal the apparent impact of glycosylation on T cell, but not antibody responses, and to highlight a paucity of studies involved antibody epitopes associated with virus neutralization

Modeling the optical constants of solids using acceptance-probability-controlled simulated annealing with an adaptive move generation procedure

The acceptance-probability-controlled simulated annealing with an adaptive move generation procedure, an optimization technique derived from the simulated annealing algorithm, is presented. The adaptive move generation procedure was compared against the random move generation procedure on seven multiminima test functions, as well as on the synthetic data, resembling the optical constants of a metal. In all cases the algorithm proved to have faster convergence and superior escaping from local minima. This algorithm was then applied to fit the model dielectric function to data for platinum and aluminum

Breast cancer metastasis to the bone: mechanisms of bone loss

Breast cancer frequently metastasizes to the skeleton, interrupting the normal bone remodeling process and causing bone degradation. Osteolytic lesions are the end result of osteoclast activity; however, osteoclast differentiation and activation are mediated by osteoblast production of RANKL (receptor activator for NFκB ligand) and several osteoclastogenic cytokines. Osteoblasts themselves are negatively affected by cancer cells as evidenced by an increase in apoptosis and a decrease in proteins required for new bone formation. Thus, bone loss is due to both increased activation of osteoclasts and suppression of osteoblasts. This review summarizes the current understanding of the osteolytic mechanisms of bone metastases, including a discussion of current therapies

Predicting In Vivo Efficacy of Potential Restenosis Therapies by Cell Culture Studies: Species-Dependent Susceptibility of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells

Although drug-eluting stents (DES) are successfully utilized for restenosis therapy, the development of local and systemic therapeutic means including nanoparticles (NP) continues. Lack of correlation between in vitro and in vivo studies is one of the major drawbacks in developing new drug delivery systems. The present study was designed to examine the applicability of the arterial explant outgrowth model, and of smooth muscle cells (SMC) cultures for prescreening of possible drugs. Elucidation of different species sensitivity (rat, rabbit, porcine and human) to diverse drugs (tyrphostins, heparin and bisphsophonates) and a delivery system (nanoparticles) could provide a valuable screening tool for further in vivo studies. The anticipated sensitivity ranking from the explant outgrowth model and SMC mitotic rates (porcine>rat>>rabbit>human) do not correlate with the observed relative sensitivity of those animals to antiproliferative therapy in restenosis models (rat≥rabbit>porcine>human). Similarly, the inhibitory profile of the various antirestenotic drugs in SMC cultures (rabbit>porcine>rat>>human) do not correlate with animal studies, the rabbit- and porcine-derived SMC being highly sensitive. The validity of in vitro culture studies for the screening of controlled release delivery systems such as nanoparticles is limited. It is suggested that prescreening studies of possible drug candidates for restenosis therapy should include both SMC cell cultures of rat and human, appropriately designed with a suitable serum

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition)

In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. For example, a key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process versus those that measure fl ux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process including the amount and rate of cargo sequestered and degraded). In particular, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation must be differentiated from stimuli that increase autophagic activity, defi ned as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (inmost higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium ) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the fi eld understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. It is worth emphasizing here that lysosomal digestion is a stage of autophagy and evaluating its competence is a crucial part of the evaluation of autophagic flux, or complete autophagy. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. Along these lines, because of the potential for pleiotropic effects due to blocking autophagy through genetic manipulation it is imperative to delete or knock down more than one autophagy-related gene. In addition, some individual Atg proteins, or groups of proteins, are involved in other cellular pathways so not all Atg proteins can be used as a specific marker for an autophagic process. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field