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This is a study of three literary sources from the late fourth and early fifth centuries CE that depict the rise of monasticism, the anonymous History of the Monks of Egypt, the History of the Monks of Syria by Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Sozomen's Church History. Although each of these texts conveys what Peter Brown has termed the "myth of the desert," i.e. a portrayal of monks as being part of ano
We consider the perturbation of an electric potential due to an insulating inclusion with corners. This perturbation is known to admit a multipole expansion whose coeffcients are linear combinations of generalized polarization tensors. We define new geometric factors of a simple planar domain in terms of a conformal mapping associated with the domain. The geometric factors share properties of the
Background: The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of patients who suffer from acute cutaneous leishmaniasis in Iran, focusing on quality of life. Methods: The study was conducted at two different sites in Iran in 2010-2011. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with six men and six women parasitologically confirmed acute cutaneous leishmaniasis. Interviews were recorded, tra
Those who are single in rural China are almost exclusively men. The presence of excess men in the population combines with internal migration and women's quest for upward social mobility through marriage to explain this phenomenon. The DefiChine survey sheds light on the situation of single men in three rural districts of Shaanxi. One of its findings is that, although the shortage of women does cr
BACKGROUND: It has previously been shown that the morphology of the P-wave neither depends on atrial size in healthy subjects with physiologically enlarged atria nor on the physiological anatomical variation in transverse orientation of the left atrium. The present study aimed to investigate if different pressures in the left and right atrium are associated with different P-wave morphologies.METHO
INTRODUCTION: Idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder related to α-synuclein misfolding and aggregation. For this reason, it belongs to the family of 'synucleinopathies', which also includes some other neurological diseases. Although imaging and ancillary investigations may be helpful in the diagnostic workup, the diagnosis of PD mostly relies on the clinici
Drawing on international and national research and examples from Swedish miracle-tales from the Middle Ages, the author discusses the symbiosis as well as the tensions implicit in the canonization processes. It was a matter of reconciling God and secular law, faith and evidence, trust and scepticism, spirituality and materiality. The author argues that faith in miracles probably was not blind, nei
In this article, Giorgio Agamben's essay Pilate and Jesus and in particular its notion of suspension as stalemate is treated as an important contribution to an ongoing exegetical conversation about the theological valence and event of John 18:28.19:41. In Agamben's essay, the suspension created by the dialogue between the Christ and the "Vicar of Caesar" demonstrates a peculiar stalemate of immane
The M17 leucine aminopeptidase of the intraerythrocytic stages of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum (PfLAP) plays a role in releasing amino acids from host hemoglobin that are used for parasite protein synthesis, growth, and development. This enzyme represents a target at which new antimalarials could be designed since metalloaminopeptidase inhibitors prevent the growth of the parasites i
Structural studies of membrane proteins remain a great experimental challenge. Functional reconstitution into artificial nanoscale bilayer disc carriers that mimic the native bilayer environment allows the handling of membrane proteins in solution. This enables the use of small-angle scattering techniques for fast and reliable structural analysis. The difficulty with this approach is that the carr
Phosphatidylcholine (PC) is a major component of eukaryotic cell membranes and one of the most commonly used phospholipids for reconstitution of membrane proteins into carrier systems such as lipid vesicles, micelles and nanodiscs. Selectively deuterated versions of this lipid have many applications, especially in structural studies using techniques such as NMR, neutron reflectivity and small-angl
Here, we bind the sodium dependent amino acid transporter on nitrilotriacetic acid/polyethylene glycol functionalized gold sensors in detergents and perform a detergent-lipid exchange with phosphatidylcholine. We characterize the LeuT structure in the adsorbed film by magnetic contrast neutron reflection using the predicted model from molecular dynamic simulations.
Cysteine is an important amino acid in the redox defense of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, primarily as a building block of mycothiol. Genetic studies have implicated de novo cysteine biosynthesis in pathogen survival in infected macrophages, in particular for persistent M. tuberculosis. Here, we report on the identification and characterization of potent inhibitors of CysM, a critical enzyme in cyst
Atherosclerosis and its clinical consequences are the leading cause of death in the western hemisphere. While many studies throughout the last decades have aimed at understanding the disease, the clinical markers in use today still fail to accurately predict the risks. The role of the current main clinical indicator, low density lipoprotein (LDL), in depositing fat to the vessel wall is believed t
Cholesterol is an essential component of mammalian membranes and is known to induce a series of physicochemical changes in the lipid bilayer. Such changes include the formation of liquid-ordered phases with an increased thickness and a configurational order as compared to liquid-disordered phases. For saturated lipid membranes, cholesterol molecules localize close to the lipid head group-tail inte
Deuteration of biomolecules has a major impact on both quality and scope of neutron scattering experiments. Cholesterol is a major component of mammalian cells, where it plays a critical role in membrane permeability, rigidity and dynamics, and contributes to specific membrane structures such as lipid rafts. Cholesterol is the main cargo in low and high-density lipoprotein complexes (i.e. LDL, HDL
Lipoproteins play a key role in the onset and development of atherosclerosis, the formation of lipid plaques at blood vessel walls. The plaque formation, as well as subsequent calcification, involves not only endothelial cells but also connective tissue, and is closely related to a wide range of cardiovascular syndromes, that together constitute the number one cause of death in the Western World.
Structural studies of integral membrane proteins (IMPs) are challenging, as many of them are inactive or insoluble in the absence of a lipid environment. Here, we describe an approach making use of fractionally deuterium labeled "stealth carrier" nanodiscs that are effectively invisible to low-resolution neutron diffraction and enable structural studies of IMPs in a lipidic native-like solution en
Nanodiscs are self-assembled ∼10 nm particles composed of lipid bilayer patches, stabilized by helical amphipathic belt proteins. The size, monodispersity and well-defined structure make the nanodiscs a popular model for the biological cell membrane, especially for structural and functional studies of membrane proteins. The structures and properties of nanodiscs made of zwitterionic lipids are wel
