The stream of time irresistible : Byzantine civilization in the modern popular imagination

Spanning a 1,123 year period between Late Antiquity and the Italian Renaissance, the Byzantine Empire was the legitimate continuation of the imperium Romanum . Although the main defender of Christianity against the encroachments of Islam in the 8 th - and 9 th -centuries and the bulwark of Western Europe until 1204, knowledge of Byzantine civilization among the general educated public remains vague, prompting the historian John Julius Norwich to refer to a "conspiracy of silence" regarding the teaching of Byzantine history in university curricula. The reasons why the memory of Byzantine civilization has not remained prominent in the popular imagination are complex involving historical, cultural and religious factors. Hellenistic culture, and Roman legal and bureaucratic traditions within the framework of Christianity formed the unique character of Eastern Roman society. One peculiar aspect of the Byzantine religious, mystical world conceptualization which has confounded commentators since the Middle Ages is here termed as non-standard gender practices. Without an understanding of how integral these practices were to the order and functioning of the society, it is impossible to approximate an accurate rendering of Byzantine civilization. In Byzantium, these non-standard gender practices refer specifically to the influence of castrated males or eunuchs, and high-status women in governance and public life. Since Antiquity female presence in society was believed to exert an enervating effect on masculine vigor. With Christianity certain gendered states, sexual behaviors and practices came to be viewed as vitiated with a female anima, and this anima was cast by non-Byzantine chroniclers onto the whole of Byzantine civilization. Much of our current understanding of Byzantine civilization comes from works researched since the late 18 th -century European Enlightenment. Enlightenment intellectuals carried largely antithetical of views of clericalism and held the religiosity of the Byzantines in low regard. With the development of historiography as an academic discipline in the 19 th - and 20 th -centuries, historians have developed a more thorough understanding of Byzantine religious mysticism. This study finds that while the centrality of religion in Byzantine society is now better understood, the subject of non-standard gender practices remains problematic for scholars and colors the perception of Byzantium in the modern popular imagination

The Effects of Cell Density on Cell Growth in a Pure Strain of Mouse Normal Liver Cells

If a suitable culture medium has been devised, and a clone or pure cell line is on hand, the next step in cyto culture is to ascertain the appropriate inoculum size. This is an important factor in the survival and rate of proliferation of cells in vitro. The present work was initiated and carried out with the following objectives in mind: to determine the maximum and minimum inocula of the strain, and to establish an optimum inoculum range; the effect of the inoculum size on the rate of proliferation; the maximum number of cells attainable in 1 ml. of nutrient medium; the effect of the inoculum size on the morphology of the cells; the effect of different concentrations of conditioned medium on inocula below the minimum, and the effect of the conditioned medium on the morphology of the cells. A “pure strain” of normal mouse liver cells was used throughout these experiments. They were cultivated on the glass bottoms of Carrel D-3.5 pyrex glass flasks. Analysis of the results indicate that there is a minimum and a maximum limit between which proliferation of this strain of Liver cells is possible under the existing conditions. These limits were found to be between 105,000 and 1,425,000 cells per ml. Below or above these limits cell proliferation is inconsistent. Advisor: Donald M. Pac

Improving Outcomes for Persons With Aphasia in Advanced Community-Based Treatment Programs

Background and Purpose —Studies have yet to document that community-based aphasia treatment programs routinely produce results comparable or superior to published research protocols. We explore this issue here in an outcome study of individuals with aphasia enrolled in 2 community-based, comparably managed and equipped therapy programs, which use a specially designed computer-based tool that is employed therapeutically in adherence to an extensive, detailed, and formally trained patient care algorithm. Methods —Patients (n=60) were assessed before and after treatment with standardized instruments at both the impairment and the disability levels. Pretreatment and posttreatment means were calculated and compared, with statistical significance of differences established with the use of 1-tailed matched t tests. One-way ANOVAs were used to analyze the comparability of patient performance changes among various subgroups, eg, patients in acute versus chronic stages of aphasia, patients by aphasia diagnostic type at start of care, patients by severity level at start of care, and patients by treatment location. Results —Analysis shows that patients spanned a wide range of aphasia diagnostic types, impairment severity levels at start of care, and times after onset. Patients’ mean performance scores improved significantly in response to treatment in all measures assessed at both the impairment level and the functional communication level. Mean overall improvements ranged from 6.6% to 19.8%, with statistical significance ranging from P =0.0006 to P &lt;0.0001. ANOVAs revealed no significant differences between improvements in patients in the acute versus chronic stages of aphasia, between those at different impairment severity levels at start of care, between those treated at different locations, or, at the functional level, between those with different diagnostic types of aphasia at start of care. Conclusions —–Measures of both language impairment and functional communication can be broadly, positively, and significantly influenced by therapy services that are delivered to persons with aphasia in these community-based programs. The significant improvements are shown to be available to individuals with chronic as well as acute aphasia and independent of diagnostic type of aphasia, impairment severity at start of care, or geographic program location. </jats:p