Search results for "magic"
showing 10 items of 160 documents
Introduction: Using Placebo Research to Explore Belief and Healing in Late Antiquity
2021
Abstract This special issue explores belief and healing in Late Antiquity, through insight and terminology developed in modern placebo research. My introduction outlines the history of placebo research and its use in historical studies of medicine and healing. It has helped historians pose new questions to their sources and discuss them in light of modern medical research. Most studies analyse various descriptions or records of symptoms or diagnoses, but some researchers also extend their work to include social or anthropological studies of healing. Summarizing insights from such efforts in medical research and the history of medicine, I propose a selection of questions and perspectives fro…
Contemporary Money Magic: Taboos and Prescriptions (on Latvian Material)
2018
In the article, the magic of money in contemporary Latvian urban practices is analyzed. The money magic aims at money making. Field work showed that these practices are popular today among different generations in Latvia. Respondents know well taboos and prescriptions about money and use them in order to make money or to prevent loosing them. The collected material represents that Latvian narratives and practices are very similar to other regions of post-Soviet space. The interviews in Russian and Latvian taken in the frames of field research were supplemented by texts of traditional folklore, gathered on the territory of Latvia in 19th–20th centuries. Examples of Internet folklore also ill…
Systematic Modulation of the Supramolecular Gelation Properties of Bile Acid Alkyl Amides
2018
The self-assembly properties of nine low-molecular-weight gelators (LMWGs) based on bile acid alkyl amides were studied in detail. Based on the results, the number of hydroxyl groups attached to the steroidal backbone plays a major role in the gelation, although the nature of the aliphatic side chain also modulates the gelation abilities. Of the 50 gel systems studied, 35 are based on lithocholic acid and 15 on cholic acid derivatives. The deoxycholic acid derivatives did not form any gels. The gelation occurred primarily in aromatic solvents and the gels manifested typical fibrous or spherical morphologies. The 13C cross-polarized magic angle spinning (CPMAS) NMR spectra measured on the cr…
Walter Greiner, a Pioneer in Super Heavy Element Research Historical Remarks and New Experimental Developments
2020
With his theoretical work Walter Greiner pioneered super-heavy element research. He motivated the young scientists and actively shaped the profile of the Gesellschaft fur SchwerIonenforschung, GSI, Darmstadt. We are happy that still during his lifetime we at GSI could prove some of his predictions: Fusion with magic nuclei and super heavy elements, the nuclear species existing only by shell stabilization. With the discovery of oganesson, Z = 118, the heaviest element known today, we have come to the end of super heavy-element production by the fusion of magic nuclei. In-flight separation and new experimental developments including Walter Greiner’s new ideas for SHE synthesis will be discuss…
Molecular dynamics near the glass transition
1993
Solid state 13C NMR spectroscopy has been applied to investigate the time scale and the geometry of rotational motions near the glass transition of the low-molar-mass van der Waals glass former 1,3,5-tri-α-naphthylbenzene (T g = 342 K). Two-dimensional 13C exchange spectra were taken between 347 and 372 K. With the principal values of the 13C chemical shift tensors determined from 13C CP/MAS spectra and static one-dimensional 13C spectra, the two-dimensional spectra are interpreted according to the isotropic rotational diffusional model to yield mean correlation times τ0 in the range 10 ms ˇ- τ0 ˇ- 50 s, and a log-Gaussian distribution of correlation times with a width of 1·5 decades. The m…
Solid-State NMR, X-ray Diffraction, and Thermoanalytical Studies Towards the Identification, Isolation, and Structural Characterization of Polymorphs…
2009
Combined solid-state NMR, powder, and single crystal X-ray diffraction, as well as thermoanalytical studies were performed towards the identification, isolation, and structural characterization of ...
Mean-field theory for superconductivity in twisted bilayer graphene
2018
Recent experiments show how a bilayer graphene twisted around a certain magic angle becomes superconducting as it is doped into a region with approximate flat bands. We investigate the mean-field $s$-wave superconducting state in such a system and show how the state evolves as the twist angle is tuned, and as a function of the doping level. We argue that part of the experimental findings could well be understood to result from an attractive electron--electron interaction mediated by electron--phonon coupling, but the flat-band nature of the excitation spectrum makes also superconductivity quite unusual. For example, as the flat-band states are highly localized around certain spots in the st…
FILOLOGIA GERMANICA – GERMANIC PHILOLOGY Supplemento 2 - 2021. Incantesimi e formule magiche nella tradizione manoscritta germanica medievale / Charm…
2021
The volume collects contributions devoted to charms and magical formulas of the medieval Germanic tradition, studied in the light of the relationship with the manuscript context that handed them down and the historical-cultural milieu of which they are produced. The approach to charms and magical formulas of the Germanic world has developed on an evolutionary path that has from time to time favoured perspectives of different scientific categories, and has been faced on philological, linguistic, semantic-pragmatic, semiotic and historical-literary basis. The essays gathered in the volume offer different examples – but at the same time linked by some themes and a common purpose – of the magic…
Effects of nucleotide binding to LmrA: A combined MAS-NMR and solution NMR study
2015
ABC transporters are fascinating examples of fine-tuned molecular machines that use the energy from ATP hydrolysis to translocate a multitude of substrates across biological membranes. While structural details have emerged on many members of this large protein superfamily, a number of functional details are still under debate. High resolution structures yield valuable insights into protein function, but it is the combination of structural, functional and dynamic insights that facilitates a complete understanding of the workings of their complex molecular mechanisms. NMR is a technique well-suited to investigate proteins in atomic resolution while taking their dynamic properties into account…
Non-negative blind source separation techniques for tumor tissue typing using HR-MAS signals.
2010
Given High Resolution Magic Angle Spinning (HR-MAS) signals from several glioblastoma tumor subjects, the goal is to differentiate between tumor tissue types by separating the different sources that contribute to the profile of each spectrum. Blind source separation techniques are applied for obtaining characteristic profiles for necrosis, high cellular tumor and border tumor tissue, and providing the contribution (abundance) of each tumor tissue to the profile of the spectra. The problem is formulated as a non-negative source separation problem. We illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods and we analyze to which extent the dimension of the input space could influence the perfor…