The Underrepresentation of Women in Prestigious Ethics Journals

It has been widely reported that women are underrepresented in academic philosophy as faculty and students. This article investigates whether this representation may also occur in the domain of journal article publishing. Our study looked at whether women authors were underrepresented as authors in elite ethics journals — Ethics, Philosophy & Public Affairs, the Journal of Political Philosophy, and the Journal of Moral Philosophy — between 2004-2014, relative to the proportion of women employed in academic ethics (broadly construed). We found that women are indeed underrepresented overall in prestigious ethics journal publishing. Though this is not our focus, we discuss possible causes for this finding, such as top ethics journals’ tendency not to publish much feminist philosophy; the impact of women’s lesser professional status or rank within philosophy on their prospects for, and success in, journal publishing; and the review process itself, which may disadvantage or discourage women authors — perhaps especially when their gender, rank, and affiliation are known to the editor or reviewer, or if their work is explicitly feminist. We discuss possible avenues for future research on the "woman problem" in philosophy, noting how our study relates to existing research on this issue

Cheminformatic Discovery And Characterization Of Copperdependent Bacterial Inhibitors

Deaths due to antibiotic-resistant bacteria are predicted to exceed 10 million per year by 2050, endangering our ability to conduct fundamental medical procedures such as immunosuppressive therapy or even basic surgery. Unfortunately, we are largely falling behind in the evolutionary arms race against common pathogens. Not only are we in sore need of new antibiotics, we also evidently need altogether new approaches to drug discovery itself, as our familiar avenues are increasingly failing to meet demands. In this dissertation, we describe a promising new source of antibacterials: copper-dependent inhibitors (CDIs), compounds that exert significant antibiotic activity only in the presence of physiological concentrations of copper ions. Herein, we explore the potential of CDIs as a novel class of antibiotics. Using Mycobacterium tuberculosis as a model organism, we characterized the activity of one CDI, disulfiram, finding that it primarily killed its target through copper poisoning. We speculated that it operated as a “Trojan Horse,” bypassing M. tuberculosis’ normal copper homeostatic machinery and destroying the cell from within. This contrasts with most traditional antibiotics, which generally exert a “one drug, one target” effect that can be easily countered with a single mutation in the target enzyme. Given that we could induce the striking antibacterial effects simply by modulating the media concentration of copper, rather than requiring directed synthesis efforts, we hypothesized that such activities may lie unseen within standard chemical libraries. To provide proof-of-principle for this hypothesis, we pioneered a unique combinatorial screen against Staphylococcus aureus to identify copper-dependent inhibitors in a small pilot assay, eventually developing a lead series, termed the NNSN compounds. Finally, we deployed this assay on an industrial high-throughput screening platform, resulting in hundreds of confirmed hit molecules. Subsequent cheminformatic analyses extracted ten unique hit clusters, all of which were unknown to possess antistaphylococcal activity. Thus, we have demonstrated that CDIs provide an encouraging new form of antibiotic discovery, readily uncovering new antibacterials in previously exhausted screening libraries

Improving Letter and Word Recognition Using a Multisensory Approach

The effects of multisensory instruction upon the letter and sight word recognition and reading of five and six year old students were investigated during this study. A total of ten kindergarten and first grade students, identified as in need of extra reading support, were assigned to control and experimental groups. Five students were assigned to each group. Students in the control group learned and practiced identifying letters and reading sight words using their visual and auditory modalities. Students in the experimental group used their. visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile modalities to identify and read letters and sight words. Students were assessed on their recognition of letter names through Marie Clay\u27s Letter Identification task. Sight words were assessed using a teacher made word recognition assessment based on sixteen sight words from Dolch Sight Words List I. Informal oral interview questions were coupled with anecdotal records to triangulate the data gathering by the researcher. Upon completion of four weeks of instruction, each group was assessed for a second time on their recognition of letter names and sight word reading. Results of this study yielded the finding that students instructed through multisensory activities not only improved their number of sight words and letters, but also expressed more pleasurable recounts of the lessons experienced. The discrepancy between the control and experimental group is elaborated on in the discussion portion. Furthermore, in an effort to benefit future classrooms, practical implications are discussed and topics for further research are also stated. Anyone who thinks there is one right way to teach reading, has never worked with two children (Ford, 2005

Improving Letter and Word Recognition Using a Multisensory Approach

The effects of multisensory instruction upon the letter and sight word recognition and reading of five and six year old students were investigated during this study. A total of ten kindergarten and first grade students, identified as in need of extra reading support, were assigned to control and experimental groups. Five students were assigned to each group. Students in the control group learned and practiced identifying letters and reading sight words using their visual and auditory modalities. Students in the experimental group used their. visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile modalities to identify and read letters and sight words. Students were assessed on their recognition of letter names through Marie Clay's Letter Identification task. Sight words were assessed using a teacher made word recognition assessment based on sixteen sight words from Dolch Sight Words List I. Informal oral interview questions were coupled with anecdotal records to triangulate the data gathering by the researcher. Upon completion of four weeks of instruction, each group was assessed for a second time on their recognition of letter names and sight word reading. Results of this study yielded the finding that students instructed through multisensory activities not only improved their number of sight words and letters, but also expressed more pleasurable recounts of the lessons experienced. The discrepancy between the control and experimental group is elaborated on in the discussion portion. Furthermore, in an effort to benefit future classrooms, practical implications are discussed and topics for further research are also stated. "Anyone who thinks there is one right way to teach reading, has never worked with two children" (Ford, 2005)SUNY BrockportEducation and Human DevelopmentMaster of Science in Education (MSEd)Education and Human Development Master's These

Quantum isometry groups of symmetric groups

We identify the quantum isometry groups of spectral triples built on the symmetric groups with length functions arising from the nearest-neighbor transpositions as generators. It turns out that they are isomorphic to certain "doubling" of the group algebras of the respective symmetric groups. We discuss the doubling procedure in the context of regular multiplier Hopf algebras. In the last section we study the dependence of the isometry group of S_n on the choice of generators in the case n=3. We show that two different choices of generators lead to non-isomorphic quantum isometry groups which exhaust the list of non-commutative non-cocommutative semisimple Hopf algebras of dimension 12. This provides non-commutative geometric interpretation of these Hopf algebras.Comment: LaTeX, 18 pages, some computation simplified, typos correcte

Acute SIV Infection in Sooty Mangabey Monkeys Is Characterized by Rapid Virus Clearance from Lymph Nodes and Absence of Productive Infection in Germinal Centers

Lymphoid tissue immunopathology is a characteristic feature of chronic HIV/SIV infection in AIDS-susceptible species, but is absent in SIV-infected natural hosts. To investigate factors contributing to this difference, we compared germinal center development and SIV RNA distribution in peripheral lymph nodes during primary SIV infection of the natural host sooty mangabey and the non-natural host pig-tailed macaque. Although SIV-infected cells were detected in the lymph node of both species at two weeks post infection, they were confined to the lymph node paracortex in immune-competent mangabeys but were seen in both the paracortex and the germinal center of SIV-infected macaques. By six weeks post infection, SIV-infected cells were no longer detected in the lymph node of sooty mangabeys. The difference in localization and rate of disappearance of SIV-infected cells between the two species was associated with trapping of cell-free virus on follicular dendritic cells and higher numbers of germinal center CD4+ T lymphocytes in macaques post SIV infection. Our data suggests that fundamental differences in the germinal center microenvironment prevent productive SIV infection within the lymph node germinal centers of natural hosts contributing to sustained immune competency

THE TREE DON’T CARE WHAT THE LITTLE BIRD SINGS: THE AMERICAN PUBLIC OPINION AND EDWARD SNOWDEN

By making Americans aware of a secret government surveillance program targeting their electronic communications, Edward Snowden intended to kickstart a public debate on the nature of democratic governance. His intentions are likely to hit a wall of indifference. Why? The answer may lie in the American political culture

Effects of Lithotripter Fields on Biological Tissues

Abstract: Biological effects resulting from exposure to lithotripter fields include hemorrhage in soft tissues, such as the kidney, lung and intestine, the production of premature cardiac contractions, malformations in the chicken embryo and killing of Drosophila larvae, Pulsed ultrasound can produce similar bioeffects at comparable pressure thresholds. Tissues that contain gas bodies, either naturally or after the addition of ultrasound contrast agents, are particularly susceptible to damage from low ampfitude Iithotripter fields. Lung and intestine contain gas naturally and are hemorrhaged by exposure to lithotripter fields on the order of 1 MPa. After the introduction of an ultrasound contrast agent into the vasculature, many organs and tissues, such as the bladder, kidney, fat, muscle and mesentery, show extensive hemorrhage after exposure to Iithotripter pressures less than 2 MPa. Tissues near developing bone are also selectively susceptible to damage from exposure to low amplitude lithotripter fields. The thresholds for hemorrhage in tissues near developing bone, such as the fetal head, limbs and ribs, are all less than 1 ma for exposures with a piezoelectric Iithotripter. Cavitation and purely mechanical forces have been investigated as possible mechanisms for these biological effects of Iithotripter fields

Does Hand-Dominance Matter in Non-Standard Visuomotor Transformations?

Previous nonstandard visuomotor transformation studies using variations of eye-hand coupling and decoupling tasks focused on dominant hand use. The present study expanded this work by including the non-dominant hand. Twenty-four right-hand dominant adults (M = 21 yrs.; 12 females) slid their index finger along a vertical or horizontal touchscreen to move a cursor that was always displayed in the vertical plane. In four different action-perception conditions, the finger and cursor moved either in the same plane and direction or in the other plane and/or opposite direction. Performance differed between the hands only for movement trajectory related variables but not for endpoint related measures. Across conditions the initial direction error was larger when performing with the non-dominant hand (p \u3c 0.001). A significant hand × cursor direction × cursor plane interaction for path length (p \u3c 0.05) revealed longer movement trajectories for the non-dominant hand compared to the dominant hand in conditions with none or one level of eye-hand decoupling, and similar hand performance when movements were made in the horizontal plane with reversed cursor direction, i.e., two eye-hand decoupling levels. Our findings suggest a non-dominant hand overall eye-hand coordination deficit for spatial planning and an inversely related deficit to the eye-hand decoupling level for trajectory execution

Boost your brain: a simple 100% normobaric oxygen treatment improves human motor learning processes

Introduction: Human motor learning processes are a fundamental part of our daily lives and can be adversely affected by neurologic conditions. Motor learning largely depends on successfully integrating cognitive and motor-related sensory information, and a simple, easily accessible treatment that could enhance such processes would be exciting and clinically impactful. Normobaric 100% oxygen treatment (NbOxTr) is often used as a first-line intervention to improve survival rates of brain cells in neurological trauma, and recent work indicates that improvements in elements crucial for cognitive-motor-related functions can occur during NbOxTr. However, whether NbOxTr can enhance the motor learning processes of healthy human brains is unknown. Here, we investigated whether a brief NbOxTr administered via nasal cannula improves motor learning processes during a visuomotor adaptation task where participants adapt to a visual distortion between visual feedback and hand movements. Methods: 40 healthy young adults (M = 21 years) were randomly assigned to a NbOxTr (N = 20; 100% oxygen) or air (N = 20; regular air) group and went through four typical visuomotor adaptation phases (Baseline, Adaptation, After-Effect, Refresher). Gas treatment (flow rate 5 L/min) was only administered during the Adaptation phase of the visuomotor experiment, in both groups. Results: The NbOxTr provided during the Adaptation phase led to significantly faster and about 30% improved learning (p \u3c 0.05). Notably, these motor learning improvements consolidated into the subsequent experiment phases, i.e., after the gas treatment was terminated (p \u3c 0.05). Discussion: We conclude that this simple and brief NbOxTr dramatically improved fundamental human motor learning processes and may provide promising potential for neurorehabilitation and skill-learning approaches. Further studies should investigate whether similar improvements exist in elderly and neurologically impaired individuals, other motor learning tasks, and also long-lasting effects