Ancient Audacity---Did Sages Past Subconsciously Speak Of Cellular Dust?

“Would it be too bold to imagine, that in the great length of time, since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind, would it be too bold to imagine, that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which THE GREAT FIRST CAUSE endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations; and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end!

Tunable Spun Fiber Constructs in Biomedicine: Influence of Processing Parameters in the Fibers’ Architecture

Electrospinning and wet-spinning have been recognized as two of the most efficient and promising techniques for producing polymeric fibrous constructs for a wide range of applications, including optics, electronics, food industry and biomedical applications. They have gained considerable attention in the past few decades because of their unique features and tunable architectures that can mimic desirable biological features, responding more effectively to local demands. In this review, various fiber architectures and configurations, varying from monolayer and core-shell fibers to tri-axial, porous, multilayer, side-by-side and helical fibers, are discussed, highlighting the influence of processing parameters in the final constructs. Additionally, the envisaged biomedical purposes for the examined fiber architectures, mainly focused on drug delivery and tissue engineering applications, are explored at great length.

The Julian Romance

The Julian Romance is a work of historical fiction in Syriac. It offers a Christian perspective on the reigns of both Julian and Jovian, who in the text are presented as opposites. As regards Julian, the Romance is essentially a hatchet job, while conversely it glorifies Jovian. The Romance divides into three distinct narratives. The first narrative is short in its surviving form, but must originally have been longer because it concludes with the following words: “The celebration of the faith of Constantine and of his three sons who reigned after him is completed.” The second one I have called the Eusebius Narrative and describes at great length the many unsuccessful attempts of Julian to have Rome’s bishop Eusebius renounce his Christian conviction and become a venerator of the old gods. To that end, but also to be acknowledged as ruler of the entire empire by the city of Rome, Julian visits Rome. The third account, which I have entitled the Jovian Narrative, can be characterized as a narrative of war: war between Julian and the Christians, war between Rome and Persia, and in a sense Jovian’s war against Julian in order to protect Christianity and the Church. It is by far the longest of the three parts of the Romance and celebrates Jovian as the ideal Christian emperor. In this chapter the various narratives are introduced and a comprehensive summary is given of the Jovian Narrative.

ANALYSIS OF YACHT PERFORMANCE UNDER THE IOR RULE: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GEOMETRY AND SPEED POTENTIAL

The International Offshore rule (IOR) provided a handicapping system for racing yacht between 1972 and 1994. During this period great advances in both the materials used in construction and designs specifically to the rule, were made. The popular press discussed, at great length, how loopholes in the rules were exploited to gain a favourable rating. This led to the perception that the exploitation of geometric measurements was leading to boats with poor performance characteristics. This paper aims to address this, firstly through an analysis of the geometric parameters and their evolution through the early part of the IOR era. The paper concludes by undertaking a velocity prediction analysis of a series of boats, a technique that was in its infancy at the time these yachts were designed. The analyses show that the geometric parameters did evolve with time, but not necessarily in line with the understanding behind good performance. Penalties in the rule dictated the direction of design. However, the performance analysis did show that judging yachts based on rated characteristics could lead to misinterpretation, but in general, the performance data aligned reasonably well with assumed performance in specific sailing conditions. The velocity prediction analysis also concluded that the performance of yachts between 1972 and 1981 did increase regardless of the geometric form being dictated by the rules.

Missio hominum guided by an understanding of Ubuntu for missio Dei: Nico Smith’s discovery

Missio hominum as a theological framework within the discipline of missiology in understanding missio Dei still lacks proper exploration. Few attempts have been made by theologians in the past but in different disciplines other than missiology. The exception is the previous studies by Nico Smith who investigated and conceptualised the subject at great length. This article builds on Smith’s perspectives on missio hominum with the aim of providing an in-depth understanding of the subject in an African context. This shall be achieved by juxtaposing missio hominum with an African concept of Ubuntu through a literary analysis. Ubuntu is imperative in understanding the significance of human beings within the Christian mission in fulfilling the purpose of missio Dei.Contribution: This article makes two important contributions in the field of missiology – first, by illustrating through missio hominum that human beings are God’s partners in accomplishing his mission on earth, and second, by illustrating through Ubuntu that human beings should partner with one another for the same purpose.

Three-Dimensional Assessment of the Knowledge Production System: Region-City-Organization

Conceptualization of the region as an integral territorial system of knowledge production has formed a widely used research strategy for innovation studies within regional boundaries. Regional level studies are supported by detailed innovation statistics, which is unavailable for smaller administrative-territorial units, such as municipalities or settlements. The development of spatial scientometrics gave impetus for a new round of research on knowledge and innovation geography with a closer approximation in the context of cities and urban agglomerations. The scope of recent research also includes individual organizations that generate new knowledge or innovation. Despite the topic prominence, the entire array of studies is fragmented, and connections between different levels are not established: region – city – organization. Whereas this is critically important for the implementation of an effective innovation policy. In this regard, in this study, we test the hypothesis that the aggregate data obscures a wide variety of knowledge nodes, which are represented by a dominant knowledge centre. In the case of the region, such centres are often the largest cities, and in the case of cities – the largest organizations. The research design is focused on assessing the knowledge production at a multiscale level – organization, city and region, using the method of spatial scientometrics. The example of the Russian Federation illustrates well the territorial and institutional diversity in the distribution of knowledge production centres of different levels due to its great length and complexity of the structure of the national innovation system. This fact determines the high degree of heterogeneity of the Russian innovation space at the interregional, intercity and inter-organizational levels. The research results show a strong correlation between the knowledge profiles of regions and their primary knowledge-generating cities (KGCs). In cases of a strong central-peripheral structure of the regional knowledge production system, the regional profile completely coincides with the profile of its primary KGC. The knowledge capacity of second-tier cities remains hidden. At the city level, the identified trend is exacerbated. The absence of a pronounced leader among knowledge-intensive organizations (KIOs) against organizational diversity leads to a strong blur of the effectiveness of the knowledge production capabilities of a city. The example of Khabarovsk shows that the research profile of a city in a given situation may not repeat the most productive KIO, but, on the contrary, a weak one. Thus, the three-dimensional region-city-organization approach captures local specifics and organizational diversity, encompassing the entire set of elements of a regional knowledge production system. The study concludes with recommendations for a knowledge management policy at a tiered level.

Weather and Natural Catastrophes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Storms, Floods, Fires, Earthquakes, and Pandemics

Ecocriticism and Medieval Natural Catastrophes Literary Evidence? Ecocriticism in the Humanities has alerted us in the last few years to the considerable potentials of building significant bridges between the Sciences (Meteorology, Atmospheric Sciences, Vulcanism, etc.), on the one hand, and Literary and Historical Studies on the other, and to draw insights from both sides of the equation for an increased understanding of universal phenomena of great importance for all human societies.[1] Climate change, for instance, is not something we can understand today by simply looking at samples or data reflecting current conditions, as if our current situation had emerged only in the last fifty or so years. Major changes in our natural environment are mostly the result of long-term forces impacting our material and cultural world, and weather patterns and significant disruptions have had a huge impact on human society throughout time. Nevertheless, we can probably agree that the current situation of our physical conditions have dramatically deteriorated over the last decades because of human-made factors, if we consider the daunting global warming affecting us all right now in the twenty-first century as a result of the Industrial Revolution and the modern consume society which endangers the survival of our world (Anthropocene). Long-term and short-term processes and phenomena must be taken into account when we want to pursue cultural-historical ecocriticism, especially within a medieval context. It has thus become mandatory to examine, for instance, the history of the forest or the history of water through a variety of lenses, one of which can be fruitfully provided by chronicles, especially those dating not only from the twentieth or nineteenth centuries, but also those which shed light on medieval and early modern conditions and events. [2] In fact, medieval approaches to ecocriticism prove to be eye-opening for the latest scientific investigations and can lay the foundation for a better understanding of the relationship between humans and their environment, and this already thousand and more years ago. [3] Both weather and natural catastrophes have always been highly impactful on human history and culture, but it continues to be a huge challenge to establish the concrete correlations, such as between the rise of the Gothic age or the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century with the Medieval Warming Period. A late medieval example, however, might shed some light on this phenomenon, though I will not examine it here at great length. On July 2, 1505, when Martin Luther, the later famous founder of the Protestant Church, returned from his home in Mansfeld to Erfurt, where he was enrolled as a student of law at the university, he was surprised by a major thunderstorm in the hamlet of Stotternheim (a short distance north of Erfurt), which frightened him so deeply that he immediately changed his entire outlook toward life. He begged St. Anne to save him from the lightening, and since that was then the case, he fulfilled his pledge and turned into a monk, joining the Augustinians in Erfurt. As a monk, however, he began to recognize the evils of the Catholic Church and began with his efforts to reform it from within. This study will attempt to bring to light some parallel cases in the early and the high Middle Ages.

Five-mode quasilinear model of nonlinear dynamics of extended system

Distributed systems are widely used in practice. These are cosmic ligaments in the near-Earth space with a length of tens of kilometers. They approximate reinforced concrete piles in the soil when calculating the stress-strain state and assessing the technical condition; pipelines both in air and in liquid, underwater towed systems. Known underwater airlift systems of great length for the extraction of minerals (nodules) from the ocean floor with a length of 5-10 km. To solve the problems of the dynamics of such systems in various environments, the well-known mathematical models are not quite correct from the point of view of taking into account the variety of wave processes. It determines the need to build refined wave models. A new quasilinear mathematical model, which describes the nonlinear four-mode dynamics of the distributed system in the spatially inhomogeneous field of mass and surface forces, has been obtained. It is described by a nonlinear system of twelve first-order partial differential equations. For it, the principles of ultimate and hyperbolicity are fulfilled. Together with the boundary and initial conditions, it can be used to describe dynamics and statics of geometrically and physically nonlinear rod elements, piles in the ground, crane equipment ropes, mine lifts, aerial cableways, towed systems in liquid and gas flow, etc. For two-mode spatial reduction of the model, the theorem about correctness of Cauchy problem has been considered. As a result of the calculations, the earlier assumptions about the movement of the cable along its initial configuration were changed as the length of the cable changed. It has been found out that this assumption is only true for the initial transition participant. It is also established that at a given tachogram in the configuration of the towed line, there is a point of inflection, which shifts from top to bottom when lifting it. It can be a factor in the looping, contributing to the breakage of the cable system during towing.

Who Cares? ―The COVID-19 Pandemic, Global Heating and the Future of Humanity1

The COVID-19 pandemic has engendered unprecedented drastic and costly measures to obviate the threat. Will something similar happen in relation to global heating? No, this is not likely. Mainly this has to do with a difference in the nature of collective action. Nation states protect their respective populations against the virus. With regard to global heating, we are facing the tragedy of the commons. No global government assumes responsibility for our common future. However, there may be another and further explanation lurking behind political inaction: many people, including our politicians, think that it does not matter if humanity goes extinct. It does matter, however. Strangely enough, the view that it matters is questioned by many important philosophers in the past and in the present, and it is hence controversial. Yet, it should be our common-sense stance to the problem. It is of the utmost importance that there will be sentient happy life on the globe for an indefinite time. Theoretically speaking, in order to recognize this, we need to accept some “total” view, implying what has been called the repugnant conclusion. Practically speaking, we should go to great length to rescue our human civilisation, even if this means that, for a while, we must endure all sorts of hardships such as a global enlightened despotism, or worse—a situation of life boat ethics.

Consistent ultra-long DNA sequencing with automated slow pipetting

Background Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ instruments can sequence reads of great length. Long reads improve sequence assemblies by unambiguously spanning repetitive elements of the genome. Sequencing reads of significant length requires the preservation of long DNA template molecules through library preparation by pipetting reagents as slowly as possible to minimize shearing. This process is time-consuming and inconsistent at preserving read length as even small changes in volumetric flow rate can result in template shearing. Results We have designed SNAILS (Slow Nucleic Acid Instrument for Long Sequences), a 3D-printable instrument that automates slow pipetting of reagents used in long read library preparation for Oxford Nanopore sequencing. Across six sequencing libraries, SNAILS preserved more reads exceeding 100 kilobases in length and increased its libraries’ average read length over manual slow pipetting. Conclusions SNAILS is a low-cost, easily deployable solution for improving sequencing projects that require reads of significant length. By automating the slow pipetting of library preparation reagents, SNAILS increases the consistency and throughput of long read Nanopore sequencing.