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This article shows how Christmas in schools and public service media for children (PSM) involves negotiation and renewal of Christian cultural heritage. Across the studied cases from Norway and Denmark, we find that the institutions involved seek to realize community. However, community is approached differently in different settings. It is either understood restoratively as a process in which children, including immigrant children, become part of an existing societal community, or constructively as establishing an inclusive community across cultural and religious divides. A major finding is that activities associated with Christianity such as school services are framed in a language of ‘museumification’ and not as part of a living religious practice with the capacity to change and transform. Whereas Islam is positioned as a ‘religious other’, Christianity understood as culture facilitates creative heritage making, establishing community across religious divides. Contrary to political rhetoric, Christian cultural heritage in schools and PSM is by and large not dominated by a safeguarding nationalistic discourse. Rather, traditions and activities related to Christianity are negotiated and appropriated for the benefit of an inclusive community. A premise for making this succeed in schools and PSM is to negotiate Christian cultural heritage as culture, not as religion.

In this article, we present a newly established corpus of 11,955 sermon manuscripts written by pastors in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Denmark (ELCD) in 2011-2016. We argue that this corpus provides a resource for studying how pastors within the same religious institution attend to general themes in church and society, respond to contemporary events, and represent social worlds. The aim of the article is twofold. 1) To present and discuss our approach to acquire and assemble the sermons corpus. This approach entailed sampling sermons directly from Danish pastors, and cleaning the corpus and annotating it with metadata manually. 2) To demonstrate the research potential of the corpus through a case study on gender representations in the sermons. We find that male and female pastors differ in their use of fundamental linguistic components, namely gendered pronouns and associated verbs. This affects how they assign agency to male and female characters in the corpus, and indicate that male and female pastors shape the social worlds in sermons in quite different ways. This case study therefore illustrates just one of the ways in which corpus-based research of Danish sermons may provide novel insights in the field of religion and society.

Anmeldelse af: Bent Flemming Nielsen, På den første dag. Kirkens liturgi. Oldtid og Middelalder, Eksistensen 2017, 440 s., kr. 299.

English abstract: This article analyzes two examples of new processions in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Denmark, observed in the context of Halloween Services and Baby Hymn Singing activities. These two cases are analyzed from theoretical perspectives that connect approaches from sociology of religion within the study of contemporary religion (McGuire 2002; Ammerman 2016) with history of religion perspectives on the understanding and development of religious rituals (Bellah 1964; Rappaport 1999). Based on this analysis, the article discusses how to understand these re-emerging processions in a contemporary context and argues for a greater focus on the religious didactic dimensions of processions. Dansk resume: Denne artikel analyserer to eksempler på nye processioner i den danske folkekirke observeret i forbindelse med Halloween-gudstjeneste og babysalmesang. Disse to cases analyseres ud fra teoretiske perspektiver der forbinder religionssociologiske tilgange til samtidsreligion (McGuire 2002; Ammerman 2016) med religionshistoriske perspektiver på udviklingen af religiøse ritualer (Bellah 1964; Rappaport 1999). På baggrund af denne analyse diskuterer artiklen, hvordan man kan forstå disse genopdukkede processioner i en nutidig sammenhæng, og der argumenteres for et større fokus på de religionsdidaktiske dimensioner i processioner.

BackgroundThe brain is a major site of microRNA (miRNA) gene expression, but the spatial expression patterns of miRNAs within the brain have not yet been fully covered.Methodology/principal findingsWe have characterized the regional expression profiles of miRNAs in five distinct regions of the adult rat brain: amygdala, cerebellum, hippocampus, hypothalamus and substantia nigra. Microarray profiling uncovered 48 miRNAs displaying more than three-fold enrichment between two or more brain regions. Notably, we found reciprocal expression profiles for a subset of the miRNAs predominantly found (> ten times) in either the cerebellum (miR-206 and miR-497) or the forebrain regions (miR-132, miR-212, miR-221 and miR-222).Conclusions/significanceThe results indicate that some miRNAs could be important for area-specific functions in the brain. Our data, combined with previous studies in mice, provides additional guidance for future investigations of miRNA functions in the brain.

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Background: Recent preclinical and clinical studies in the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer Disease (AD) focus on antibody based radioligands and therapeutics by targeting amyloid‐β (Aβ).1 So far, imaging brain targets with bispecific antibodies (using transferrin receptor protein1 as shuttling mechanism) has only been investigated using 124I.2 The disadvantages of 124I limit drastically its clinical potential.3 Therefore, 89Zr is suggested as more suitable positron emitter for labelling of antibodies4, especially in combination with DFO*, the next generation chelator candidate for clinical 89Zr‐immuno‐PET.5 In this study, we evaluated [89Zr]Zr‐DFO*‐NCS labeled bispecific Abeta‐mAb‐scFab8D3 and its mutated analogue Abeta‐mAb‐scFab8D3 T1/2 with faster pharmacokinetics for Aβ imaging and targeting in a preclinical Alzheimer mouse model. Method: Abeta‐mAb‐scFab8D3 ± T1/2 and the nonspecific isotype control B12‐mAb‐scFab8D3 ± T1/2 were modified with DFO*‐NCS, and subsequently radiolabeled with 89Zr.6 The radiolabeled biologicals (1 mg/kg) were intravenously injected in APP/PS1 transgenic mice as well as in littermates which served as controls (n=5 per group). Blood pharmacokinetics were determined up to 3 (T1/2) or 7 days post injection (p.i.). PET/CT and PET/MRI scans were acquired for 1h at different time points. Result: The PET images showed a clear brain uptake for the bispecific Abeta‐mAb‐scFab8D3 ± T1/2 in APP/PS1 mice, while the corresponding B12‐mAb‐scFab8D3 ± T1/2 in APP/PS1 mice, as well as Abeta‐mAb‐scFab8D3 ± T1/2 in the littermates showed no specific uptake. Abeta‐mAb‐scFab8D3 demonstrated 2‐fold higher brain uptake (2% ID/g) than Abeta‐mAb‐scFab8D3 T1/2 (1% ID/g). Conclusion: 89Zr‐DFO*‐immuno‐PET revealed high and specific uptake of the bispecific Abeta‐mAb‐scFab8D3 in the brain. In this context, we demonstrated that slow kinetics of the biologicals contribute to improve Aβ targeting. The new bispecific Abeta‐mAb‐scFab8D3 looks very promising and supports further development toward companion and complementary diagnostics for AD. References: 1. Selkoe, D. J. Nature Reviews Neurology 15, 365–366 (2019). 2. Sehlin, D. et al. Nat. Commun. 7, 10759 (2016). 3. Verel, I. et al. Cancer Biother. Radiopharm. 18, 655–661 (2003). 4. O'Brien, H. A. J. Radioimmunoimaging Radioimmunother. 17, (1983). 5. Chomet, M. et al. Eur. J. Nucl. Med. Mol. Imaging 1–14 (2020). doi:10.1007/s00259‐020‐05002‐7. 6. Vugts, D. J. et al. Eur. J. Nucl. Med. Mol. Imaging 44, 286–295 (2017). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Politica: Tidsskrift for Politisk Videnskab is the property of Politica: Tidsskrift for Politisk Videnskab and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)