The shift from Modernism to Postmodernism had a dramatic impact on different spheres of life, especially on premarital relationships. The Song of songs has been used as basis theory in this study on premarital relationships. The study attempts to lay down guidelines for premarital relationships from the conviction that human relationships are grounded in God's love for man. The perspectives which have became evident are developed and evaluated through the meta-theory. Any study on young people in relationships must consider changes in society due to the fact that young people perform an important seismographic function. This is due to the fact that they are not only deeply affected by these changes but are also acting as indicators for the demands and challenges that changing times has on people and relationships. The lifecycle from late adolescence to early adulthood is studied. Special focus is given to different areas of development in this lifecycle as well as to different relationships young people are involved with. Qualitative interviews have been used to determine the effect of the Postmodernism and the specific lifecycle on young people in premarital relationships. A practice-orientated theoretical framework for pastoral guidance of young people in premarital relationships is drafted. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Pastoral))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

The Glacier Creek volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposit is hosted within Late Triassic, oceanic back-arc or intra-arc, rift-related, bimodal volcanic rocks (Hyd or Tats Group) of the allochthonous Alexander terrane known as the Alexander Triassic Metallogenic Belt (ATMB). The deposit presently consists of four tabular massive sulfide lenses with a resource of 4.75 Mt. at 1.84% Cu, 4.57% Zn, 0.15% Pb, 0.28 g/t Au and 29.07 g/t Ag. A deposit-scale thrust fault offsets stratigraphy along the axial surface of a deposit-scale anticline. The massive sulfide lenses are barite-rich and are divided into 6 main ore-types based on mineral assemblages. There is a large range of sphalerite compositions, with low-Fe sphalerite dominant throughout the lenses and high-Fe sphalerite at the top and bottom of the lenses in pyrrhotite-rich zones. Lenses contain anomalous Sb, Hg and Tl. Gangue minerals include barite, quartz, barian-muscovite, calcite, albite, highly subordinate chlorite and locally hyalophane and celsian. Overlying massive sulfide is a tuffaceous hydrothermal sediment with anomalous REE patterns and local hyalophane. The general footwall to all four lenses is a thick unit of coherent to volcaniclastic feldspar-phyric basalt containing extensive lateral alteration. Four alteration facies are recognized based on mineral assemblages. Mass balance calculations for the footwall indicate general gains of S, Fe, Si and K with coincident loss of Ca, Na and Mg, along with trace element gains of Tl, Sb, Hg, Ba, Zn, Cu, As and loss of Sr with increased alteration intensity. Short wavelength infrared (SWIR) spectroscopy shows a general decrease in Na, K and Al content of muscovite and increase of Fe+Mg and Ba content towards ore. Integrated petrographic, mineral, chemical and sulfur-isotope data suggest a transition during deposit formation, from high-temperature, acidic, reduced hydrothermal fluids mixing with oxidized, SO4-rich seawater, to later cooler, low fO2-fS2 conditions of formation and a lack of SO4 in seawater.

Recent advances in cellular reprogramming have enabled the generation of embryoniclike cells from virtually any cell of the body. These inducible pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are capable of indefinite self-renewal while maintaining the ability to differentiate into all cell types. Nowhere will this technology have a greater impact than in the ability to generate disease and patient-specific cell lines. Here we explore the capacity of human iPSCs reprogrammed from peripheral blood endothelial progenitor cells lines to differentiate into atrial myocytes for the study of patient specific atrial physiology. Methods and Results: Late outgrowth endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) cultured from clinical blood samples provided a robust cell source for genetic reprogramming. Transcriptome analysis hinted that EPCs would be comparatively more amenable to pluripotent reprogramming than the traditional dermal fibroblast. After 6 passages, EPCs were transduced with a doxycycline inducible lentivirus system encoding human transcription factors OCT4, SOX2, KLF4 and Nanog to permit differentiation after removal of doxycycline. The high endogenous expression of key pluripotency transcripts enhanced the ease of iPSC generation as demonstrated by the rapid emergence of typical iPSC colonies. Following removal of doxycycline, genetically reprogrammed EPC-iPSC colonies displayed phenotypic characteristics identical to human embryonic stem cells and expressed high levels of the pluripotent markers SSEA-4, TRA1-60 and TRA1-81. After exposure to conditions known to favor atrial identity, EPC- iPSC differentiating into sheets of beating cardiomyocytes that expressed high levels of several atrial-specific expressed genes (CACNA1H, KCNA5, and MYL4). Conclusions: EPCs provide a stable platform for genetic reprogramming into a pluripotent state using a doxycycline conditional expression system that avoids reexpression of oncogenic/pluripotent factors. Human EPC-derived iPSC can be differentiated into functional cardiomyocytes that express characteristic markers of atrial identity.

<p>This dissertation focuses on a group of 20th and 21st century novelists writing in English - Samuel Beckett, J.M. Coetzee, and Kazuo Ishiguro - whose fiction is populated by figures of disconsolation: characters who resist, evade, or - in the case of Ishiguro's protagonists - assiduously attempt to conform to the constitutive social formations and disciplinary technologies of late modernity, among them, notably, the novel itself. These characters thus question the possibilities and limits of political critique and ethical life within a global modernity. I delineate a history of the disconsolate subject that cuts across the categories of modernist, postmodernist, and postcolonial literatures in order to reveal a different literary genealogy, in which an exilic postcoloniality becomes the paradigmatic sensibility for a global late modernist novel.</p><p>Georg Lukács argued that the transcendental homelessness of modernity is registered most emphatically in the novel, a form he imagined functioning as a surrogate home for rootless modern subjects. The tradition I describe, whose characters trouble the representational technologies of the novel, disrupts an easy identification with the textual realm as home. I borrow from the critic Neil Lazarus the notion of a vital modernist literary practice that persists after the death of modernism, "a writing...that resists the accommodation of what has been canonised as modernism and that does what at least some modernist work has done from the outset: namely, says `no,'; refuses integration, resolution, consolation, comfort; protests and criticises." This is a writing whose project, he suggests, following Adorno, is "disconsolation." With this in mind, I depart from the conception of an emergent cosmopolitan literature and examine instead a global literature of disconsolation, a literature that allegorizes a radically reconfigured global space whose subjects are no longer at home in the familiar world of nation-states. </p><p>A discontentment with the parameters of late modernity was already apparent in the high modernists, many of whom responded by embracing political positions on the radical right or left. However, the catastrophic political experiments of the century led to a sense that attempts to either refine or resist modernity had been exhausted. The works I examine mount critiques of such large-scale nationalist projects as the Irish Free State, the Japanese Empire, or apartheid South Africa - projects that emerged in opposition to a regnant world-system and saw themselves in utopian or liberatory terms. Yet these fictions are unable to affirm more than provisional or imaginary alternatives. A doubly exilic position consequently emerges in these novels, in which a rupture with the nation-state finds no compensation in another form of community such as a global cosmopolitan order. Through their attention to the gaps and fissures opened by the alterity of these disconsolate subjects, these texts function as waiting rooms or holding spaces for a utopianism that is unrealizable in a world of political disillusionment.</p> / Dissertation

Astma yra lėtinė kvėpavimo takų uždegimo liga. Mokslininkai neabejoja, jog 2-o tipo T limfocitai pagalbininkai bei eozinofilinis kvėpavimo takų uždegimas yra astmos patogenezės pagrindas. Tačiau šis mechanizmas ne visuomet gali paaiškinti astmos metu esančio kvėpavimo takų uždegimo bei klinikinių simptomų įvairumą, eigos ypatumus ir net skirtingą atsaką į gydymą. Eksperimentiniai tyrimai su gyvūnais parodė 17-o tipo T limfocitų pagalbininkų (Th17) svarbą alerginės astmos vystymuisi. Todėl šio mokslinio tyrimo tikslas buvo įvertinti Th17 limfocitų vaidmenį sergant alergine astma. Tyrimo metu sergantiesiems alergine astma nustatytas didesnis Th17 limfocitų kiekis periferiniame kraujyje bei didesnė interleukino (IL)-17 koncentracija serume ir indukuotuose skrepliuose, lyginant su sveikais asmenimis. Be to, bronchų provokacija su Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus alergenu sukėlė Th17 limfocitų ir IL-17 kiekio padidėjimą praėjus 7 ir 24 val.po jos, ypatingai ryškų sergantiems alergine astma su ankstyva ir vėlyva bronchų obstrukcija. Atlikto tyrimo rezultatai parodė, kad Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus alergenas sukelia vietinį ir sisteminį Th17 limfocitų imuninį atsaką kuris yra susiję su vėlyvos fazės kvėpavimo takų uždegimu. / Allergic asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways associated with the response of predominant type 2 helper T lymphocytes to an inhaled allergen. However, differences in inflammation and clinical symptoms of this disease not always can be explained by this mechanism. Recent animal model studies have shown the importance of type 17 helper T lymphocytes (Th17) in the development of allergic asthma. The role of these cells in causing allergen-induced airway inflammation as well as systemic inflammatory response in human is still not well defined. Therefore, we investigated the peripheral blood Th17 lymphocyte response to inhaled Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus (D. pteronyssinu) allergen in patients with allergic asthma. The present study has shown that patients with allergic asthma have a higher percentage of peripheral blood Th17 lymphocytes and elevated serum as well as induced sputum interleukin-17 levels compared with healthy subjects. Moreover, all studied allergic asthma patients, especially with early- and late-phase asthmatic reaction, showed an enhanced airway and systemic Th17 lymphocyte response 7 h and 24 h after bronchial challenge. We documented an enhanced local and systemic Th17 lymphocyte response to inhaled D. pteronyssinus in association with late-phase allergen-induced airway inflammation in patients with allergic asthma.

A high-resolution record of organic-walled dinoflagellate cyst production in Guaymas Basin, Gulf of California (Mexico) reveals a complex paleoceanographic history over the last ~40 ka. Guaymas Basin is an excellent location to perform high resolution studies of changes in Late Quaternary climate and paleo-productivity because it is characterized by high primary productivity, high sedimentation rates, and low oxygen bottom waters. These factors contribute to the deposition and preservation of laminated sediments throughout large portions of the core MD02-2515. In this study we document dinoflagellate cyst production at a centennial to millennial scale throughout the Late Quaternary. Based on the cyst assemblages three major dinoflagellate cyst zones, with seven subzones were established. The most dominant dinoflagellate cyst taxa found throughout the core were Brigantedinium spp. and Operculodinium centrocarpum. Dansgaard-Oeschger events 5-8 are inferred in the dinoflagellate cyst records on the basis of increases in warm taxa, such as Spiniferites pachydermus. Preceding and during the Last Glacial Maximum cysts of Polykrikos cf. kofoidii increase in abundance, responding to oceanographic changes in the Gulf of California perhaps caused by a regression in sea-level. Other intervals of interest are the Younger Dryas where cooler conditions are not recorded, and the Holocene which is characterized by the consistent presence of warm water species Stelladinium reidii, Tuberculodinidum vancampoae, Bitectatodinium spongium and an increase in Quinquecuspis concreta. Changes in cyst assemblages, concentrations and species diversity, along with geochemical data reflect major millennial scale climatic and oceanographic changes. / Graduate

This study presents the results of an analysis of three Late Neolithic pottery assemblages from Wadi Ziqlab, northern Jordan. These sites were occupied during the 6th millennium BC (calibrated) and are therefore contemporary with sites in other parts of the southern Levant that are attributed to the Wadi Rabah culture. The assemblages are analyzed from a stylistic perspective, broadly defined, which includes an examination of technological style in addition to a more traditional examination of vessel form and surface treatment. Different stages in the pottery production sequence are investigated using a range of analytical techniques, including thin-section petrography and xeroradiography. While there are some similarities between the assemblages, there are also some noticeable differences. The results of the pottery analysis are used to explore the nature of community in the context of the Late Neolithic. A critique of more traditional archaeological approaches to prehistoric communities leads to a re-conceptualization of community that combines interactional and ideational perspectives. Similarities in pottery among the sites, especially technological similarities, suggest that pottery producers may have comprised a dispersed community of practice. At the same time, pottery may have also been a symbolic marker of community boundaries. Differences in pottery among the sites, including surface treatment, may reflect the flexibility of these boundaries as different parts of the dispersed community negotiated their place in it. The presence of variation among contemporary pottery assemblages in a localized area suggests that social organization during the 6th millennium may have been more complex than is normally assumed for the Late Neolithic in the southern Levant. A dispersed community, with its members spread throughout the wadi, would require a sufficiently complex and flexible system of relationships to maintain it. Failing to acknowledge this has contributed to the difficulties archaeologists have encountered when trying to understand the culture-history of the 6th millennium BC in and east of the Jordan Valley.

This is a study of a Roman legal document of unknown date and debated origin conventionally known as the Edictum Theoderici (ET). Comprised of 154 edicta, or provisions, in addition to a prologue and epilogue, the ET is a significant but largely overlooked document for understanding the institutions of Roman law, legal administration and society in the West from the fourth to early sixth century. The purpose is to situate the text within its proper historical and legal context, to understand better the processes involved in the creation of new law in the post-Roman world, as well as to appreciate how the various social, political and cultural changes associated with the end of the classical world and the beginning of the Middle Ages manifested themselves in the domain of Roman law. It is argued here that the ET was produced by a group of unknown Roman jurisprudents working under the instructions of the Ostrogothic king Theoderic the Great (493-526), and was intended as a guide for settling disputes between the Roman and Ostrogothic inhabitants of Italy. A study of its contents in relation to earlier Roman law and legal custom preserved in imperial decrees and juristic commentaries offers a revealing glimpse into how, and to what extent, Roman law survived and evolved in Italy following the decline and eventual collapse of imperial authority in the region. Such an examination also challenges long-held assumptions as to just how peaceful, prosperous and Roman-like Theoderic’s Italy really was.

Event-related potentials were recorded as subjects were presented with pairs of words, one word at a time, to examine the electrocortical manifestations of association formation and the effect of intra-list semantic similarity. Two types of lists were presented: Same – all pairs belonged to the same semantic category; Different – all pairs belonged to a different semantic category. Subjects were told to memorize the pairs for a following paired associate recall test. Recall was better for the Different than Same lists. Subsequent recall was predicted by the amplitudes of a potential lasting throughout the epoch and the P555 to each word of a pair (likely reflecting state- and item-related encoding activity, respectively), as well as a late positive wave that occurred after the offset of the second word, which is thought to reflect association formation. A larger N425 was elicited by pairs in the Different than Same lists, likely reflecting semantic integration.

The initial concern of this thesis is to understand the historical conditions that conditioned the two writers (Akyigitzade Musa and Mehmed Cavid) who had written on economic issues in the late Ottoman era, in addition to display their perception of state in their essential works. Thus, in order to locate these two writers in a historical time-frame and to explore the understanding and the reality of the Ottoman state at the end of the nineteenth century, the thesis is dealing with the major issues of the Ottoman modernisation history in a concise sense, and it is aiming at disposing the righteous stead and the importance of these two writers in the Ottoman economics literature, while giving an overall review of Ottoman economic perspectives in terms of their relationship with Western economic thought. Finally, the thesis tackles the personalities and biographies of these writers in order to expose the social conditions that determined the thinking of these writers, and lay out the anatomy of the state as conceptualised by them on the basis of their original texts. So, following the ascertainment of these structures, their impact over the work and the life of these two writers is being considered. Thus, it is an attempt to provide an explanation of the physical and mental conditions that structured the writings and their perception of the state.