Education as event: a conversation with John D. Caputo by T. Wilson Dickinson

This interview with John D. Caputo conducted by T. Wilson Dickinson discusses the implications of the event for the philosophy of education. It addresses various aporias the event poses for academic standards, protocols of writing, teaching as formation or transformation, the post-secular, the new technologies, the old versus the new asceticism in the face of the environmental crisis

Hermeneutics as the Recovery of Man

The point of the present essay will be to thematize the project of recovery, to probe and unfold it, and to defend its role in an adequately conceived hermeneutics. I will argue as follows. There are two philosophies of recovery or retrieval which feed into the hermeneutic strategy of Being and Time — the Kierkegaardian notion of existential repetition and the phenomenological return to beginnings in Husserl. In Being and Time, Heidegger demonstrates that these two versions of retrieval are of a piece, that they represent as it were twin circles. I will show that the one circle existential repetition - belongs to what Kierkegaard calls the foundering of metaphysics, while Husserlian phenomenology, as Derrida shows so well, remains under the spell of the metaphysics of presence. I will argue that Kierkegaardian repetition controls and decisively modifies the phenomenological element in Being and Time, and hence that the hermeneutics which is at work in this book has broken with metaphysics. After Heidegger, hermeneutics means a recovery of origins, a return to the more primordial, which has nothing to do with the nostalgia for presence but on the contrary everything to do with what Kierkegaard calls the courage for repetition. Finally, without pretending to know what Derrida in the long run wants to say, and fully cognizant that I may be deconstructed on the spot, I want to conclude that Derrida\u27s critique of Heideggerian hermeneutics is misled by the Husserlian element in Being and Time. It is a mistake, I will contend, to make the critique of presence into a critique of the whole project of retrieval, and hence a mistake to think that hermeneutics is a matter of the free play of signs — even as it is a mistake for Rorty to think that hermeneutics has to do merely with keeping the lines of communication open between the diverse language games

A Novel Aspartyl Proteinase from Apocrine Epithelia and Breast Tumors

Abstract GCDFP-15 (gross cysticdisease fluid protein,15 kDa) is a secretory marker of apocrine differentiation in breast carcinoma. In human breast cancer cell lines, gene expression is regulated by hormones, including androgens and prolactin. The protein is also known under different names in different body fluids such as gp17 in seminal plasma. GCDFP-15/gp17 is a ligand of CD4 and is a potent inhibitor of T-cell apoptosis induced by sequential CD4/T-cell receptor triggering. We now report that GCDFP-15/gp17 is a protease exhibiting structural properties relating it to the aspartyl proteinase superfamily. Unexpectedly, GCDFP-15/gp17 appears to be related to the retroviral members rather than to the known cellular members of this class. Site-specific mutagenesis of Asp22 (predicted to be catalytically important for the active site) and pepstatin A inhibition confirmed that the protein is an aspartic-type protease. We also show that, among the substrates tested, GCDFP-15/gp17 is specific for fibronectin. The study of GCDFP-15/gp17-mediated proteolysis may provide a handle to understand phenomena as diverse as mammary tumor progression and fertilization

Designing Plasmonic Sensors to Detect Refractive Index Changes in Palladium

University of Minnesota M.S.Mat.S.E. thesis.August 2017. Major: Material Science and Engineering. Advisor: Vivian Ferry. 1 computer file (PDF); 85 pages.This thesis describes the design and self-assembly of Au nanoparticles to detect hydrogenation in palladium nanoparticles. These gold nanoparticles have a collective oscillation of conduction electrons at a resonant frequency known as a plasmon resonance. At this resonance, a large electric field enhancement occurs that induces a significant increase in scattering intensity. The plasmon resonance frequency is highly dependent on the refractive index of the surrounding medium. Therefore, any change in refractive index of the surrounding will result in a change in peak scattering wavelength. This sensitivity is utilized by dimerizing a palladium nanoparticle with a gold plasmonic nanoparticle. Upon hydrogenation of the palladium, the peak scattering intensity of the plasmonic nanoparticle will shift, effectively acting as a sensor. This thesis describes design considerations when creating a plasmonic sensor. We suggest that the largest change in peak scattering wavelength will likely occur at a wavelength that exhibits the largest refractive index difference between palladium and palladium hydride. Further, we demonstrate an electrostatic self-assembly technique using silicated Au nanorods with Pd nanocubes that showed moderate success. To experimentally investigate the plasmonic resonance location, preliminary dark-field spectroscopy measurements on single gold nanorods were taken. We also describe potential future work opportunities for improvement of self-assembly process and alternative characterization techniques for improved refractive index data

Looking Under a Better Lamppost: MeV-scale Dark Matter Candidates

The era of precision cosmology has revealed that about 85% of the matter in the universe is dark matter. Two well-motivated candidates are weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and weakly interacting sub-eV particles (WISPs) (e.g. axions). Both WIMPs and WISPs possess distinct {\gamma}-ray signatures. Over the last decade, data taken between 50 MeV to >300 GeV by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) have provided stringent constraints on both classes of dark matter models. Thus far, there are no conclusive detections. However, there is an intriguing {\gamma}-ray excess associated with the Galactic center that could be explained by WIMP annihilation. At lower energies, the poor angular resolution of the Fermi-LAT makes source identification challenging, inhibiting our ability to more sensitively probe both the Galactic center excess, as well as lower-mass WIMP and WISP models. Additionally, targeted WISP searches (e.g., those probing supernovae and blazars) would greatly benefit from enhanced energy resolution and polarization measurements in the MeV range. To address these issues, a new telescope that is optimized for MeV observations is needed. Such an instrument would allow us to explore new areas of dark matter parameter space and provide unprecedented access to its particle nature.Comment: White paper submitted to Astro2020 (Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey) on behalf of a subset of the AMEGO tea

STUDIES ON THE OXIDATION-REDUCTION POTENTIALS OF HEME PROTEINS. II. CARBOXYPEPTIDASE DIGESTS OF HUMAN HEMOGLOBIN.

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Dynamic stretching is effective as static stretching at increasing flexibility

This study examined the effect of dynamic and static (standard) stretching on hamstring flexibility. Twenty-five female volleyball players were randomly assigned to dynamic (n = 12) and standard (n = 13) stretching groups. The experimental group trained with repetitive dynamic stretching exercises, while the standard modality group trained with static stretching exercises. The stretching interventions were equivalent in the time at stretch and were performed three days a week for four weeks. Both stretching groups showed significant improvements (P < .001) in range of motion (ROM) during the intervention. However, no difference in gains in the range of motion between stretching groups was observed. It was concluded that both dynamic stretching and standard stretching are effective at increasing ROM