Evil, feminism and a philosophy of transformation

Rather than offering another ‘solution’ to the problem of evil, in the form of, say, a theodicy, the discussion of this chapter is situated within an ethical framework concerned with unmasking the enactment and perpetuation of ‘structural evils’ on the political and social levels. Indebted to the insights of feminist philosophers such as Michèle Le Doeuff, but also Hannah Arendt’s analysis of evil, the novelist Muriel Spark, and Pierre Bourdieu’s work on social suffering, the chapter seeks, not to justify the ways of God, but to critique and transform unjust structures, and to pave the way for alternatives that might best support human flourishing. This necessitates attempting to identify and understand the sources of human wickedness—social and individual—while contending that, ultimately, the only appropriate response to evil and suffering is to commit to a reorientation of the self towards others and the world

Electrodynamics of a Magnet Moving through a Conducting Pipe

The popular demonstration involving a permanent magnet falling through a conducting pipe is treated as an axially symmetric boundary value problem. Specifically, Maxwell's equations are solved for an axially symmetric magnet moving coaxially inside an infinitely long, conducting cylindrical shell of arbitrary thickness at nonrelativistic speeds. Analytic solutions for the fields are developed and used to derive the resulting drag force acting on the magnet in integral form. This treatment represents a significant improvement over existing models which idealize the problem as a point dipole moving slowly inside a pipe of negligible thickness. It also provides a rigorous study of eddy currents under a broad range of conditions, and can be used for precision magnetic braking applications. The case of a uniformly magnetized cylindrical magnet is considered in detail, and a comprehensive analytical and numerical study of the properties of the drag force is presented for this geometry. Various limiting cases of interest involving the shape and speed of the magnet and the full range of conductivity and magnetic behavior of the pipe material are investigated and corresponding asymptotic formulas are developed.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures; computer program posted to http://www.csus.edu/indiv/p/partovimh/magpipedrag.nb Submitted to the Canadian Journal of Physic

Philosophy of Religion: A Critical Introduction

For over twenty years, Beverley Clack and Brian R. Clack’s distinctive and thought-provoking introduction to the philosophy of religion has been of enormous value to students and scholars, providing an approach to the subject that is bold and refreshingly alternative. This revised and updated edition retains the accessibility which makes the book popular, while furthering its distinctive argument regarding the human dimension of religion. The central emphasis of the philosophy of religion – the concept of God, and the arguments for and against God’s existence – is reflected in thorough analyses, while alternative approaches to traditional philosophical theism are explored. The treatments of both the miraculous and immortality have been revised and expanded, and the concluding chapter updates the investigation of how philosophy of religion might be conducted in an age defined by religious terrorism. Clear, systematic and highly critical, the third edition of The Philosophy of Religion will continue to be essential reading for students and scholars of this fascinating and important subject.--Provided by publisher

Mean shear flows generated by nonlinear resonant Alfven waves

In the context of resonant absorption, nonlinearity has two different manifestations. The first is the reduction in amplitude of perturbations around the resonant point (wave energy absorption). The second is the generation of mean shear flows outside the dissipative layer surrounding the resonant point. Ruderman et al. [Phys. Plasmas 4, 75 (1997)] studied both these effects at the slow resonance in isotropic plasmas. Clack et al. [Astron. Astrophys. 494}, 317 (2009)] investigated nonlinearity at the Alfven resonance, however, they did not include the generation of mean shear flow. In this present paper, we investigate the mean shear flow, analytically, and study its properties. We find that the flow generated is parallel to the magnetic surfaces and has a characteristic velocity proportional to $\epsilon^{1/2}$, where $\epsilon$ is the dimensionless amplitude of perturbations far away from the resonance. This is, qualitatively, similar to the flow generated at the slow resonance. The jumps in the derivatives of the parallel and perpendicular components of mean shear flow across the dissipative layer are derived. We estimate the generated mean shear flow to be of the order of $10{\rm kms}^{-1}$ in both the solar upper chromosphere and solar corona, however, this value strongly depends on the choice of boundary conditions. It is proposed that the generated mean shear flow can produce a Kelvin--Helmholtz instability at the dissipative layer which can create turbulent motions. This instability would be an additional effect, as a Kelvin--Helmholtz instability may already exist due to the velocity field of the resonant Alfven waves. This flow can also be superimposed onto existing large scale motions in the solar upper atmosphere.Comment: 11 page

Enzymes as Feed Additive to Aid in Responses Against Eimeria Species in Coccidia-Vaccinated Broilers Fed Corn-Soybean Meal Diets with Different Protein Levels

This research aimed to evaluate the effects of adding a combination of exogenous enzymes to starter diets varying in protein content and fed to broilers vaccinated at day of hatch with live oocysts and then challenged with mixed Eimeria spp. Five hundred four 1-d-old male Cobb-500 chickens were distributed in 72 cages. The design consisted of 12 treatments. Three anticoccidial control programs [ionophore (IO), coccidian vaccine (COV), and coccidia-vaccine + enzymes (COV + EC)] were evaluated under 3 CP levels (19, 21, and 23%), and 3 unmedicated-uninfected (UU) negative controls were included for each one of the protein levels. All chickens except those in unmedicated-uninfected negative controls were infected at 17 d of age with a mixed oral inoculum of Eimeria acervulina, Eimeria maxima, and Eimeria tenella. Live performance, lesion scores, oocyst counts, and samples for gut microflora profiles were evaluated 7 d postinfection. Ileal digestibility of amino acids (IDAA) was determined 8 d postinfection. Microbial communities (MC) were analyzed by G + C%, microbial numbers were counted by flow cytometry, and IgA concentrations were measured by ELISA. The lowest CP diets had poorer (P ≤ 0.001) BW gain and feed conversion ratio in the preinfection period. Coccidia-vaccinated broilers had lower performance than the ones fed ionophore diets during pre- and postchallenge periods. Intestinal lesion scores were affected (P ≤ 0.05) by anticoccidial control programs, but responses changed according to gut section. Feed additives or vaccination had no effect (P ≥ 0.05) on IDAA, and diets with 23% CP had the lowest (P ≤ 0.001) IDAA. Coccidial infection had no effect on MC numbers in the ileum but reduced MC numbers in ceca and suppressed ileal IgA production. The COV + EC treatment modulated MC during mixed coccidiosis infection but did not significantly improve chicken performance. Results indicated that feed enzymes may be used to modulate the gut microflora of cocci-vaccinated broiler chickens

Bulk Band Gaps in Divalent Hexaborides

Complementary angle-resolved photoemission and bulk-sensitive k-resolved resonant inelastic x-ray scattering of divalent hexaborides reveal a >1 eV X-point gap between the valence and conduction bands, in contradiction to the band overlap assumed in several models of their novel ferromagnetism. This semiconducting gap implies that carriers detected in transport measurements arise from defects, and the measured location of the bulk Fermi level at the bottom of the conduction band implicates boron vacancies as the origin of the excess electrons. The measured band structure and X-point gap in CaB_6 additionally provide a stringent test case for proper inclusion of many-body effects in quasi-particle band calculations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; new RIXS analysis; accepted for publication in PR

Comparative Carcinogenicity for Mouse-Skin of Smoke Condensates Prepared from Cigarettes Made from the Same Tobacco Cured by Two Processes

Bright tobacco grown in Mexico was either flue-cured and redried (FC) or air-cured and bulk-fermented (AC). Both FC and AC were made into cigarettes standardized for draw resistance. FC and AC cigarettes were smoked under similar conditions in a smoking machine (one 2-second 25 ml. puff per minute down to a 20 mm. butt length). Condensates were kept at 0-4° C. until applied to the skin of mice

Cancer and ageing in mice and men.

In an experiment involving 950 mice with a normal lifespan of 2-3 years, in laboratory conditions, regular benzpyrene application to the skin was started at 10, 25, 40 or 55 weeks of age. The incidence rate of malignant epithelial tumours among the survivors in each group increased steeply with time. This increase was associated directly with duration of exposure but, given duration, was independent of age at the start of exposure, as were the growth rates of already established tumours. In our experiment, although age per se was irrelevant, the cancer incidence rate increased approximately as a power of the duration of exposure to benzpyrene. This shows that the observed approximate power-law increase of most human adult cancer incidence rates with age could exist merely because age equals duration of exposure to background and spontaneous carcinogenic stimuli. Thus, no intrinsic effects of ageing (such as failing immunological surveillance or age related hormonal changes) whatever need to postulated to explain the vast increases in old age of the incidence rates of such human cancers. This result can greatly simplify speculation about mechanisms of carcinogenesis