Real Potential

There\u27s a student in my philosophy class who has real potential. I might express this thought in any of the following ways: She is potentially a philosopher ; She is a potential philosopher ; She has the potential to be a philosopher. The first way uses a cognate of potential as an adverb to modify is. The second ways uses potential as an adjective to modify philosopher. However, the third way uses potential as a noun to refer to something that the student has. What kind of thing is this potential? One worry about even asking this question is that this nominalization of the adjective potential suggests a metaphysical picture that is an artifact of language. This is even more strongly suggested by the less ambiguous nominalization potentiality. Once we have the term potentiality, we have a new kind of entity to countenance, and questions about its nature arise. One might argue, just because we use the word potentiality, we should not think that it refers to a thing that someone can have. There is something disingenuous about such an argument. It proceeds as if the adverbial and adjectival uses of potential are unproblematic, and questions only arise with the nominalization. But it is not obvious what it means to potentially be something, or what it means to be a potential something. To say that someone is potentially a philosopher is to talk about a way of being that falls short of actuality. And a potential philosopher is not a kind of philosopher at all. So what is it? Each of the three above formulations is a modal claim. If there is anything philosophical puzzling about a potentiality claim, it is not going to go away by translating it into an equivalent modal claim. In this chapter I defend the existence of potentialities against anti-realist arguments, and make a proposal as to their nature. The proposal, in short, is that potentialities are properties, specifically dispositions, though more needs to be said about properties and dispositions. I will do this in Part I. In Part II, I will address two lines of argument against potentialities: that they are reducible, and that they are causally inert

Estudo anatômico da parede anterior do abdome em cadáver e hérnia de Spiegel

OBJETIVO: Tentar correlacionar a hérnia de Spiegel com eventuais alterações anatômicas da parede anterolateral do abdome. Abordar as particularidades do estudo anatômico em cadáver, com destaque aos músculos oblíquo interno, transverso abdominal, aponeurose de Spiegel, linha semilunar e ao aparecimento de hérnias de Spiegel. MÉTODO: A parede anterolateral do abdome foi dissecada em 31 cadáveres frescos do Departamento de Patologia da Santa Casa de Misericórdia de São Paulo, sendo realizada nos dois primeiros cadáveres a dissecção unilateral e nos 29 restantes o estudo bilateral da parede abdominal, completando 60 dissecções. Considerando que operamos no Hospital São Luiz Gonzaga, da Irmandade da Santa Casa de Misericórdia de São Paulo, 13 doentes com 14 hérnias de Spiegel, pudemos correlacionar os elementos clínicos aos estudos anatômicos em cadáver. RESULTADOS: Defeitos encontrados nos músculos e aponeuroses: Oblíquo externo: 4/60 (6,6%) - Oblíquo interno: 6/60 (10%) - Transverso abdominal: 14/60 (23,3%). Disposição dos músculos em forma de feixes de fibras: Oblíquo interno: 10/60 (16,6%) - Transverso abdominal: 12/60 (20%). CONCLUSÕES: As variações anatômicas e os defeitos encontrados, durante as dissecções do oblíquo interno e transverso abdominal, não se acompanharam de hérnias de Spiegel no cadáver, já a gordura pré-peritoneal, dissecando as fibras da aponeurose de Spiegel e oblíquo interno, foi encontrada nas operações e nas dissecções, podendo representar uma relação entre os defeitos musculoaponeuróticos da parede anterolateral do abdome e a hérnia de Spiegel

Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome.

The human genome holds an extraordinary trove of information about human development, physiology, medicine and evolution. Here we report the results of an international collaboration to produce and make freely available a draft sequence of the human genome. We also present an initial analysis of the data, describing some of the insights that can be gleaned from the sequence

Heteromeric Solute Carriers: Function, Structure, Pathology and Pharmacology

Solute carriers form one of three major superfamilies of membrane transporters in humans, and include uniporters, exchangers and symporters. Following several decades of molecular characterisation, multiple solute carriers that form obligatory heteromers with unrelated subunits are emerging as a distinctive principle of membrane transporter assembly. Here we comprehensively review experimentally established heteromeric solute carriers: SLC3-SLC7 amino acid exchangers, SLC16 monocarboxylate/H+ symporters and basigin/embigin, SLC4A1 (AE1) and glycophorin A exchanger, SLC51 heteromer Ost α-Ost β uniporter, and SLC6 heteromeric symporters. The review covers the history of the heteromer discovery, transporter physiology, structure, disease associations and pharmacology - all with a focus on the heteromeric assembly. The cellular locations, requirements for complex formation, and the functional role of dimerization are extensively detailed, including analysis of the first complete heteromer structures, the SLC7-SLC3 family transporters LAT1-4F2hc, b0,+AT-rBAT and the SLC6 family heteromer B0AT1-ACE2. We present a systematic analysis of the structural and functional aspects of heteromeric solute carriers and conclude with common principles of their functional roles and structural architecture