The badness of death and the goodness of life

Abstract This chapter, which examines the goodness of life and the badness of death, also analyzes what people lose by dying and explains the principle of the constant-length additively separable theories. It suggests that when people die, what they lose is the rest of their life, and suggests that the badness of this loss or death can be measured by how good the life was.</jats:p

Instrumental reasoning

Like all reasoning, practical reasoning is a process that takes a person from some of her existing mental states to a new mental state. Theoretical reasoning concludes in a belief; practical reasoning in an intention. This paper concentrates on instrumental reasoning, a species of practical reasoning in general. It argues that instrumental reasoning is correct if the content of the reasoning is a valid derivation, just as theoretical reasoning is correct if its content is a valid derivation. It also argues that neither theoretical nor practical reasoning gives a reason for its conclusion. If a piece of reasoning is correct, it concludes in a state - a belief or an intention - that is rationally required by the states it is derived from, but rationally requiring a conclusion is not the same as giving a reason for it

BOOK REVIEW Visual Thinking Strategies in Montessori Environments

Using almost 30 years of research, the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector (NCMPS) and Philip Yenawine present the case for visual thinking strategies (VTS) as an opportunity to apply these strategies in the Montessori learning environment by centering engagement with art. The overall goal of VTS is to provide an accessible transformative learning experience through an open-ended discussion of visual art that increases a student’s literacy, language, and critical thinking skills

BOOK REVIEW Visual Thinking Strategies in Montessori Environments

Using almost 30 years of research, the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector (NCMPS) and Philip Yenawine present the case for visual thinking strategies (VTS) as an opportunity to apply these strategies in the Montessori learning environment by centering engagement with art. The overall goal of VTS is to provide an accessible transformative learning experience through an open-ended discussion of visual art that increases a student’s literacy, language, and critical thinking skills

Narratives of Diversity in the Corporate Boardroom: What Corporate Insiders Say About Why Diversity Matters

Over the last generation, the concept of diversity has become commonplace and taken-for-granted in discourses ranging from law to education to business. In higher education, for example, it is hard to imagine a faculty job search or a student admissions discussion that was not heavily laden with talk of diversity, in the sense of the representative inclusion of women and racial and ethnic minorities in a group or organization. In this paper we present the results of an interview-based study of the discourse of diversity in a particular business setting: the corporate boardroom. Our principal observation is that—thirty-one years after the Supreme Court’s Bakke decision introduced the term into public discourse--corporate insiders appear not to have arrived at a master narrative to explain the pursuit of diversity on boards of directors. Instead, their accounts stress a variety of factors and feature few concrete examples

Dangerous Categories: Narratives of Corporate Board Diversity

In this article, we report the results of a series of interviews with corporate directors about racial, ethnic, and gender diversity on corporate boards. On the one hand, our respondents were clear and nearly uniform in their statements that board diversity was an important goal worth pursuing. Yet when asked to provide examples or anecdotes illustrating why board diversity matters, many subjects acknowledged difficulty in illustrating theory with reference to practice. This expressed reluctance to come to specific terms with general claims about the value of director diversity inspired our title phrase: dangerous categories. That is, while diversity evokes universal acclaim in the abstract, our respondents’ narratives demonstrate that it is an elusive and even dangerous subject to talk about concretely. So we are left with narratives that simultaneously extol difference and express embarrassment with it.This expressed reluctance to come to specific terms with general claims about the value of director diversity inspired our title phrase: dangerous categories. That is, while diversity evokes universal acclaim in the abstract, our respondents’ narratives demonstrate that it is an elusive and even dangerous subject to talk about concretely. So we are left with narratives that simultaneously extol difference and express embarrassment with it

Stress management and organisation development : effects of transcendental meditation on psychological, physiological, and organisational variables at the worksite

Bibliography: p. 348-363.This study evaluated the effectiveness of a stress reduction intervention (SRI) offered to employees at one worksite where 80 were employed. 41 Volunteers (aged 21-65) participated in Transcendental Meditation (TM), and 18 (aged 19-46) in Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR). Two groups did not attend the SRI. These were 11 non-volunteers for the SRI (aged 25-58) who served as on-site controls, while 16 outside attendees (aged 27-44) of a personal productivity workshop served as offsite controls. All subjects completed a standardised stress symptoms questionnaire (SCL-90-R) before and after the SRI. On-site subjects also had blood pressure, heart and breath rates measured by a trained nurse and completed a company climate questionnaire-before and after the SRI. Structured interviews were conducted at three year followup. An hypothesis that test groups would show significant reductions in psychological stress symptoms was supported at 6-week (TM p<0,0001, PMR p<0,001) and 5,5 month followup (p<0,0002, paired-t). TM groups showed significant reductions in blood pressure at 5,5 month followup (p<0,05). Overall company climate showed improvement at 6 weeks which tended to reverse at 5,5 months, following retrenchment of 10 staff. Psychological and physiological variables were found to be positively correlated. Non-volunteer on-site controls appeared to benefit almost as much as those who received training, whereas off-site controls did not. Company effectiveness improved over three years following the intervention though causality was not addressed

Interaction of DNA with groove binding ligands

Synthetic molecules that target the major groove in a sequence-selective way are a major goal in molecular medicine. Recently a major step has been taken toward achieving this goal: a novel cylinder has been developed that binds strongly into the major groove of DNA. Experimental techniques have provided some information regarding the binding strength and preferred binding sites of the cylinder on DNA. From all the experimental data it is clear that the parent cylinder binds in the major groove and is able to induce dramatic conformational changes in the DNA; these are unprecedented effects with synthetic DNA binders. However, gaining molecular level information in such a macromolecular system is challenging. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations can provide information at the molecular level that is complementary to experiment and therefore are an ideal way to get a better understanding of this system. In this work we present the results of various MD simulations designed to probe the DNA-cylinder system. We have studied the effect of using CHARMM22 and CHARMM27 as the force-field for the simulations. Results showed that uncomplexed DNA simulated with CHARMM22 was less stable in the B-form than the comparable strand of DNA simulated with CHARMM27. Investigations into the effects of the cylinders charge and shape are also reported. Multi-nanosecond simulations were performed using two related synthetic cylinders, one with two Fe(II) metal centers and the other with two Cu(I) centers, and DNA. Finally the role of DNA within the system was investigated by performing a series of simulations of the cylinders with d(ATATATATATAT)2, d(CGCGCGCGCGCG)2 and d(CGCGCATATACG). Simulations with these DNA strands has only produced one system (CCu2+ with d(ATATATATATAT)) where the cylinder causes a conformational change in the DNA

THE ANTICOAGULANT AND ANTILYMPHOMA PROPERTIES OF ARSENIC AZOPROTEINS : I. ANTICOAGULANT EFFECTS OF ARSENIC AZOPROTEINS IN VIVO AND IN VITRO: COMPARISON OF ARSENICALS AS ANTICOAGULANTS AND AS ANTILYMPHOMA AGENTS: MOLECULAR STRUCTURE IN RELATION TO ANTICOAGULANT AND ANTILYMPHOMA PROPERTIES

Experiments given in this paper have shown that 4-arsonophenylazoproteins possess marked anticoagulant activity both in vivo and in vitro. Mice and rabbits given moderate amounts of the arsenic azoprotein, for example, often bled to death from injuries that proved trivial in control animals, and their blood remained liquid during many hours' postmortem even when left in contact with transected tissues, fibrinolysis having no part in the outcome. So, too, the addition of minute amounts of 4-arsonophenylazoprotein to plasma procured from citrated rabbit or human blood greatly prolonged the time required for clotting after recalcification. Other arsenic-containing compounds,—for example, those in which arsenic See PDF for Structure was joined to amino acids or peptides through the azo linkage, or to proteins through couplings other than the azo linkage,—were largely devoid of anticoagulant and antilymphoma effects. The findings as a whole show clearly that the structural requirements for anticoagulant and antilymphoma effects are: (a) possession of negatively charged arsonic or arsinoso groups, (b) large molecular size (protein), and (c) linkage of arsenic-containing groups to protein through the azo bond. Two acidic azoproteins that were devoid of arsenic,—namely 4-carboxyphenylazoprotein and 4-sulfonophenylazoprotein,—were also found to have marked anticoagulant effects in vitro, but they had no inhibitory action against cells of Lymphoma 6C3HED in vivo, even when they were given to mice in maximum tolerated amounts. The essential part played by arsenic in the antilymphoma activity of arsenic azoproteins was further emphasized by the action of dimercaprol (BAL) in preventing the antilymphoma effects of 4-arsonophenylazoprotein on Lymphoma 6C3HED cells in vivo. In an associated paper the anticoagulant and antilymphoma effects of 4-arsonophenylazoproteins are studied further, and consideration is given to the ways in which these effects may be brought about