Language in a world of plurality:the tree, the bot and the octopus teacher

Abstract. Language has been considered proof of human exceptionalism in the Western European culture since the Enlightenment era. As a result, a rigid hierarchy placing human on the top emerged. Due to human’s capacity to rationalize thought and materialize it using language as a tool, it entitled itself to possess and dispose of anything deemed as less- or non-human. Once the fixed idea of language is destabilized, its accuracy as a tool fit enough to represent the world and human thought comes into question. Once language, a pillar of Humanism, is damaged, the collapse of human exceptionalism is imminent. Post-humanism and ontological pluralism are offering the grounds for exploring a paradigm without the hierarchy. A flattened reality in which the relationships between ways of being are far more complex than mere hierarchies, food chains, or concentric circles. They are entangled, mangled. They are plugging-in and unplugging in an assemblage. For inquiring into an assemblage, tools such as qualitative methodologies, representational logic and data become useless. Meanwhile, post-qualitative inquiries do not pretend to ascend the ultimate, pure knowledge or truth but simply offer a brief, incomplete glimpse into the assemblage. The results of such destabilizations consist of more care and attention being offered to negotiating language and languaging, empty spaces and howls, communication outside the higher senses of sight and hearing. In education, it translates into alternative teachers and teachings. The learners are entangled into an assemblage with which they are inter-acting by forming relationships. They are learning to co-live with rather than to make sense of the ways of being

Reduction and fusion in grade IV L5-S1 spondylolisthesis: Case presentation

Grade IV spondylolisthesis in Meyerding classification is a special pathology given the particular anatomy, biomechanics, clinical presentation or surgical options.The clinical presentation may include a vertebral instability syndrome with various degrees of presentation but also radicular syndromes and caudaequina syndrome.Surgical treatment is a difficult attempt, and the available techniques are subject to controversy. The objectives of surgery are decompression of the neural elements, lumbar spine alignment, lordosys correction, with a normal disc space, and calibration of neural foramina. The gold standard is represented by reduction and fusion, but as an alternative option is “in situ” fixation, if the first attempt failed

Naturtejo Geopark’s educational programs for schools: an apprenticeship in the field

El Geopark Naturtejo, desde 2006, miembro de las Redes Europea (REG) y Global de Geoparks (RGG) de la UNESCO se localiza en la zona central de Portugal, limitado al Este por la frontera con España. Ocupa un territorio de 4.617 km2, que abarca seis municipios. El año lectivo 2007/2008 lanzó un Proyecto Educativo destinado a alumnos de las escuelas del Geopark, de las restantes portuguesas y con potencial de aplicación para extranjeras. Este proyecto se desarrolla en tres etapas. En la primera fueron creados y divulgados dos tipos de Programas Educativos, “La escuela va al Geopark” y “El Geopark va a la escuela”, destinados principalmente al 3o Ciclo de Enseñanza Básica (12-15 años). En la segunda etapa del Proyecto serán elaborados más recursos pedagógicos y se aumentará el número de propuestas de salidas de campo con el fin de incluir más puntos de interés geológico. En la tercera etapa se desarrollarán los Programas Educativos específicos para los restantes Ciclos de las Enseñanzas Básica, Secundaria y Superior, así como los respectivos recursos pedagógicos. La filosofía inherente a la concepción del Programa “La escuela va al Geopark” le confiere grandes potencialidades para ser implementado en el contexto Ibérico. Sin embargo, los programas podrán ser aplicados, con las debidas adaptaciones por otros Geoparques de las Redes Europea y Global de la UNESCO y de Parques Naturales que incluyan puntos de interés geológico.A member of both the EGN and the UNESCO’s GGN since 2006, Naturtejo Geopark is located in cen- tral Portugal, near the eastern Portuguese-Spanish border. The Geopark comprises a 4617 km2 territory composed by six municipalities. An Educational Program has been released during the school year of 2007/2008 aiming students who attend schools in the Geopark’s territory, other nationwide schools and even the ones abroad. This Project is being developed in three stages. Two types of Educational Pro- grams have been set up and promoted during the first stage. They are “School meets the Geopark” and “The Geopark goes to School” mainly addressed to students from the ages of 12 to 15. In the second sta- ge of the Project more pedagogic resources will be elaborated and the number of suggestions for field trips are increasing in order to include more geosites. Specific educational programs for other students (primary to graduate studies) will be developed during the third stage as well as the subsequent pedago- gic resources. The conception idea behind the Program “School meets the Geopark” also provides a ran-ge of potentialities for its implementation in the Iberian context. Those programs will can be used in other Geoparks, and as well in Natural Parks with geosites

Traumatic lumbar Spondylolisthesis: Case Report

Only few cases of traumatic spondylolisthesis (from the cranial to lumbosacral joint) have been reported to date. Recovery of neurological function is dependent on the time of decompression and stabilization. We highlight the paramount importance that the time past between injury and surgical decompression have on neurological recovery and implant durability. Authors present the case of a 26 years old patient who suffered a motor crash 10 days ago before admission in our institution for cauda equina syndrome (L5 level). He also presented abdominal trauma with left kidney contusion, spleen contusion, thoracic contusion and left fibular fracture. X-ray and MRI examinations of the lumbosacral spine revealed grade 3 of spondylolistesis (60% anterior dislocation L5 - S1, intervertebral disc and posterior ligaments laceration, severe compression of the dural sac and dural laceration with CSF leakage through the posterior muscular mass). Surgery performed 14 days after the injury consisted in a posterior approach with L5 laminectomy, dural decompression and duroplasty with fascia lata, segmental reduction and stabilization with transpedicular screws, L5-S1 discectomy and anterior intervertebral grafting with two tricortical iliac crest grafts. Posterior lumbar interbody fusion was carried out using titanium screws (Solas system). Decompression, reduction with L5, S1 pedicular screw fixation, L5 – S1 disc excision and anterior intervertebral grafting with two tricortical iliac crest grafts is an appropriate surgical technique wich offer a good stabilization and fine functional recovering

On Optimal Coverage of a Tree with Multiple Robots

We study the algorithmic problem of optimally covering a tree with $k$ mobile robots. The tree is known to all robots, and our goal is to assign a walk to each robot in such a way that the union of these walks covers the whole tree. We assume that the edges have the same length, and that traveling along an edge takes a unit of time. Two objective functions are considered: the cover time and the cover length. The cover time is the maximum time a robot needs to finish its assigned walk and the cover length is the sum of the lengths of all the walks. We also consider a variant in which the robots must rendezvous periodically at the same vertex in at most a certain number of moves. We show that the problem is different for the two cost functions. For the cover time minimization problem, we prove that the problem is NP-hard when $k$ is part of the input, regardless of whether periodic rendezvous are required or not. For the cover length minimization problem, we show that it can be solved in polynomial time when periodic rendezvous are not required, and it is NP-hard otherwise

Strong Pinning in High Temperature Superconductors

Detailed measurements of the critical current density jc of YBa2Cu3O7 films grown by pulsed laser deposition reveal the increase of jc as function of the filmthickness. Both this thickness dependence and the field dependence of the critical current are consistently described using a generalization of the theory of strong pinning of Ovchinnikov and Ivlev [Phys. Rev. B 43, 8024 (1991)]. From the model, we deduce values of the defect density (10^21 m^-3) and the elementary pinning force, which are in good agreement with the generally accepted values for Y2O3-inclusions. In the absence of clear evidence that the critical current is determined by linear defects or modulations of the film thickness, our model provides an alternative explanation for the rather universal field dependence of the critical current density found in YBa2Cu3O7 films deposited by different methods.Comment: 11 pages; 8 Figures; Published Phys. Rev. B 66, 024523 (2002

Surgical management of symptomatic spinal cord and intracerebral cavernomas in a multiple cavernomas case

Multiple cavernous malformations are associated with familial cases and are present in 10-20% of all cavernoma cases. 5% of cavernomas are located intramedullary and of these only 10% present multiple cavernomas. With the availability of echo gradient MRI the cases of multiple cavernomas are diagnosed earlier and it is not rare that it uncovers multiple cavernomas in cases where only a single lesion can be identified on regular MRI sequences. We present the case of a 55 years old woman presented with a two years history of mild backache, followed by progressive lower legs motor deficit and urinary retention. The spine MRI showed an intramedullary T2/3 lesion and the cerebral MRI established the diagnosis of multiple cavernomas. One year after the intramedullary cavernoma was operated with success, she developed generalized seizures and a new cerebral MRI showed bleeding and volume growth of one right temporal pole cavernoma. The cerebral lesion was resected successfully and the patient was discharged free of seizures. This familial type multiple cavernomas cases should be screened and followed with repeated brain and spine MRI’s every year

Bioengineering bacterial encapsulin nanocompartments as targeted drug delivery system

The development of Drug Delivery Systems (DDS) has led to increasingly efficient therapies for the treatment and detection of various diseases. DDS use a range of nanoscale delivery platforms produced from polymeric of inorganic materials, such as micelles, and metal and polymeric nanoparticles, but their variant chemical composition make alterations to their size, shape, or structures inherently complex. Genetically encoded protein nanocages are highly promising DDS candidates because of their modular composition, ease of recombinant production in a range of hosts, control over assembly and loading of cargo molecules and biodegradability. One example of naturally occurring nanocompartments are encapsulins, recently discovered bacterial organelles that have been shown to be reprogrammable as nanobioreactors and vaccine candidates. Here we report the design and application of a targeted DDS platform based on the Thermotoga maritima encapsulin reprogrammed to display an antibody mimic protein called Designed Ankyrin repeat protein (DARPin) on the outer surface and to encapsulate a cytotoxic payload. The DARPin9.29 chosen in this study specifically binds to human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) on breast cancer cells, as demonstrated in an in vitro cell culture model. The encapsulin-based DDS is assembled in one step in vivo by co-expressing the encapsulin-DARPin9.29 fusion protein with an engineered flavin-binding protein mini-singlet oxygen generator (MiniSOG), from a single plasmid in Escherichia coli. Purified encapsulin-DARPin_miniSOG nanocompartments bind specifically to HER2 positive breast cancer cells and trigger apoptosis, indicating that the system is functional and specific. The DDS is modular and has the potential to form the basis of a multi-receptor targeted system by utilising the DARPin screening libraries, allowing use of new DARPins of known specificities, and through the proven flexibility of the encapsulin cargo loading mechanism, allowing selection of cargo proteins of choice