An Evaluative Framework for the Improvement of Religious Practice in the Context of Pluralism

Pluralism presents a troubling epistemic problem in that the inability to determine whether or not significant portions of a given religion’s cosmological and metaphysical belief set actually correspond to reality. Within this standstill there seems to be no way to prove yet alone maximize the epistemic rationality of continued religious practice, as each religion will claim to have a unique source of knowledge the others do not. However, if we set aside these unverifiable disputes, there remains an often underemphasized common thread: religions each have a conception of how this world ought to be. These conceptions involve how members of a community ought to relate to each other so as to maximize well-being and minimize suffering. This focus on well-being is a universal aim of living creatures and as such is not the reduction of distinct religions to a shared essence but is instead a common underlying goal. Well-being will of course look different in different contexts, and as such this paper will develop a suitably relativizable yet robust sense of well-being to serve as a manner by which to evaluate religious practice. Thus, practical rationality at least with respect to this-worldly salvation can be maximized. But in order to avoid a relativism about the specific beliefs that get one to the ethical output, an internal coherency constraint will also be applied, secondarily to the ethical metric. This will help to maintain elements of religiosity and felt experience in the face of the changes that will be required by a shift in focus to this-worldly salvation. I will examine Christianity of a Catholic bent in order to look at some of the ways in which a religion’s self conception will have to change significantly with respect to their relation to salvation if it begins to understand itself as but one possible path towards it and if it begins to recognize that other prima facie contradictory religions can be learned from to better accomplish this shared goal. keywords: this-worldy salvation, liberation theology, well-being, pluralism, relativis

Acute Myocardial Infarction: Routine Early Angioplasty after Thrombolysis

Adjunctive percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) performed between 2 and 24 hours after thrombolysis administered to a patient with an ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) appears beneficial and safe. The rationale for routinely following fibrinolysis with PCI is that many patients have a persistent reduction in flow in the infarct-related artery; although fibrinolysis restores patency (TIMI grade 2 or 3) in 80% of infarct-related arteries, normalization of blood flow (TIMI grade 3) is seen in only 50 to 60% of arteries. Adjunctive PCI has been directly compared to a strategy of fibrinolysis and standard care (either PCI for a clinical indication or routine late PCI) in the TRANSFER AMI, GRACIA-1, NORDISTEMI, CARESS-in-AMI, and SIAM III trials, and found to have better outcomes. Based on these results, the 2010 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines recommend routine urgent PCI after successful fibrinolysis within 24 hours (class I recommendation, level of evidence A)

Electro-optic effect of laser photobleaching on viscoelastic properties of chiral liquid crystals

Viscoelastic properties are one of the most fundamental properties of chiral liquid crystals. In general, their determination is not a straightforward task. The main problem is the multitude of physical parameters needed to determine the value of the elasticity and viscosity constants. It is also necessary to consider the character of a respective phase. This problem is particularly important in the case of chiral phases such as ferroelectric and antiferroelectric phases or in the blue phases. There are several experimental methods to measure viscosity and elasticity constants in chiral phases. These methods use various phenomena to detect deformation, e.g., light transmission, polarization current, light modulation, dielectric constant and helix deformation or helix unwinding. Commonly, an external electric field is used to induce deformation, the homogeneity of which inside the cell is essential. This study is focused on the analysis of the effect of laser photobleaching on the electro-optic properties of the antiferroelectric liquid crystal and on the homogeneity of the electric field. The results obtained by confocal microscopy as a function of the cell depth are presented. The influence of the stabilization procedure of the isolated region performed by controlled laser photobleaching on the electro-optic properties has been studied. The observation was conducted using a polarizing microscope, and numerical analysis of two-dimensional colored textures was performed. The obtained results suggest that laser photobleaching can produce an anchoring effect, which has a positive effect on the electro-optic properties of antiferroelectric liquid crystal

Класифікація дорожньо-транспортних подій

Дардас В. М. Класифікація дорожньо-транспортних подій / В. М. Дардас // Правове життя сучасної України : матеріали Міжнар. наук. конф. проф.-викл. та аспірант. складу (м. Одеса, 16-17 травня 2013 р.) / відп. за вип. В. М. Дрьомін ; НУ "ОЮА". Півд. регіон. центр НАПрН України. - Одеса : Фенікс, 2013. - Т. 2. - С. 536-538

Jet fuel based high pressure solid oxide fuel cell system

A power system for an aircraft includes a solid oxide fuel cell system which generates electric power for the aircraft and an exhaust stream; and a heat exchanger for transferring heat from the exhaust stream of the solid oxide fuel cell to a heat requiring system or component of the aircraft. The heat can be transferred to fuel for the primary engine of the aircraft. Further, the same fuel can be used to power both the primary engine and the SOFC. A heat exchanger is positioned to cool reformate before feeding to the fuel cell. SOFC exhaust is treated and used as inerting gas. Finally, oxidant to the SOFC can be obtained from the aircraft cabin, or exterior, or both

Jet Fuel Based High Pressure Solid Oxide Fuel Cell System

A power system for an aircraft includes a solid oxide fuel cell system which generates electric power for the aircraft and an exhaust stream; and a heat exchanger for transferring heat from the exhaust stream of the solid oxide fuel cell to a heat requiring system or component of the aircraft. The heat can be transferred to fuel for the primary engine of the aircraft. Further, the same fuel can be used to power both the primary engine and the SOFC. A heat exchanger is positioned to cool reformate before feeding to the fuel cell. SOFC exhaust is treated and used as inerting gas. Finally, oxidant to the SOFC can be obtained from the aircraft cabin, or exterior, or both

Introducing innovative technologies in higher education: An experience in using geographic information systems for the teaching‐learning process

In today's world, new technologies are being used for the teaching‐learning process in the classroom. Their use to support learning can provide significant advantages for the teaching‐learning process and have potential benefits for students, as many of these technologies are a part of the work life of many current professions. The aim of this study is to analyse the use of innovative technologies for engineering and science education after examining the data obtained from students in their learning process and experiences. The study has been focused on computational geographic information systems, which allow access to and management of large volumes of information and data, and on the assessment of this tool as a basis for a suitable methodology to enhance the teaching‐learning process, taking into account the great social impact of big data. The results allow identifying the main advantages, opportunities, and drawbacks of using these technological tools for educational purposes. Finally, a set of initiatives has been proposed to complement the teaching activity and to improve user experience in the educational field.This study was supported by the Spanish Research Agency and the European Regional Development Fund under project CloudDriver4Industry TIN2017‐89266‐R

Deep phenotyping of cardiac function in heart transplant patients using cardiovascular systems models

Heart transplant patients are followed with periodic right heart catheterizations (RHCs) to identify post-transplant complications and guide treatment. Post-transplant positive outcomes are associated with a steady reduction of right ventricular and pulmonary arterial pressures, toward normal levels of right-side pressure (about 20mmHg) measured by RHC. This study shows more information about patient progression is obtained by combining standard RHC measures with mechanistic computational cardiovascular systems models. This study shows: to understand how cardiovascular system models can be used to represent a patient's cardiovascular state, and to use these models to track post-transplant recovery and outcome. To obtain reliable parameter estimates comparable within and across datasets, we use sensitivity analysis, parameter subset selection, and optimization to determine patient specific mechanistic parameter that can be reliably extracted from the RHC data. Patient-specific models are identified for ten patients from their first post-transplant RHC and longitudinal analysis is done for five patients. Results of sensitivity analysis and subset selection show we can reliably estimate seven non-measurable quantities including ventricular diastolic relaxation, systemic resistance, pulmonary venous elastance, pulmonary resistance, pulmonary arterial elastance, pulmonary valve resistance and systemic arterial elastance. Changes in parameters and predicted cardiovascular function post-transplant are used to evaluate cardiovascular state during recovery in five patients. Of these five patients, only one patient showed inconsistent trends during recovery in ventricular pressure-volume relationships and power output. At a four-year recovery time point this patient exhibited biventricular failure along with graft dysfunction while the remaining four exhibited no cardiovascular complications.Comment: 53 Pages (including supplement), 9 figures in manuscript, 9 figures in supplemen