The case for politics: a cross-generic study of Cicero's arguments for political engagement

This dissertation argues that in two different genres, oratory and political philosophy, Cicero presents to the Roman elite a variety of possible motives for pursuing a political career, and advances his vision of legitimate political engagement. It challenges recent interpretations, first, by demonstrating how Ciceronian forensic rhetoric transcends judicial goals in pursuit of broader cultural and political aims (Chapter 1); second, by demonstrating that Cicero’s political philosophy advances a new form of elite engagement, informed by Greek ethical philosophy and contemplative pursuits (Chapters 2-4); and, third, by demonstrating that Cicero viewed philosophy as essential for rhetoric, not due to its instrumental value but as an ethical grounding for both personal behavior and public oratory (Chapter 4). The first chapter argues that in the Pro Sestio, Cicero uses the prospect of civic glory to motivate his listeners to defend the republic. The second chapter, in contrast, shows how Cicero’s first dialogue on political philosophy, the De Re Publica, downplays the motive of civic glory in favor of less mercenary motives drawn from Greek ethical philosophy, especially the attraction of virtue as its own reward. Cicero attempts to persuade his potentially resistant Roman audience, however, by adopting an initial pose of hostility towards philosophy and by putting philosophical ideas in the mouths of his Roman dialogical personae. The third chapter, on the Somnium Scipionis, argues that Cicero concludes the De Re Publica by employing the authority of Scipio to inspire his audience to study cosmology in order to acquire knowledge of the motives, ends, and means of political engagement; Scipio qualifies Laelius’s earlier argument about virtue, reevaluating it as a means to an eternal reward based on Platonic eschatology. The fourth chapter shows that in De Legibus 1, the character Marcus Cicero mounts two arguments for natural law in two different styles, one aimed at Atticus the intellectual and the other at Quintus the politician, suggesting two chief segments of his potential reading audience. Marcus concludes with an inspiring speech intended to show Atticus that philosophy demands engagement in politics and to convince Quintus that philosophic knowledge gives public oratory ethical grounding

Access and Use of Electronic Information Resources Among Medical Students in University of Port Harcourt Library

This paper investigated access and use of electronic information resources among medical students in University of Port Harcourt Library. The study adopted a correlational survey research design. Questionnaire was used as instruments for data collection. The population of the study was made up of all the medical students in University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, totaling five hundred and forty two (542), and one hundred  and eight(108) were selected as sample and used for the study, three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the data collected. The null hypotheses formulated was rejected suggesting that there is significant relationship between Access and  Use of Electronic Information Resources among medical students in University of Port Harcourt. The study revealed that most of the medical students lack the ability to access and use these electronic information resources. The study recommends trainings and orientation for students on the use and access of relevant electronic information resources which will boost their retrieval skills. Keywords: access, information, resources, electronic, utilization DOI: 10.7176/IKM/9-4-08 Publication date: April 30th 201

Mentoring: A Tool for Career Development in Academic Libraries

Every organisation have new intake of junior staff and senior staff to achieve a common organizational goals. The new intakes need to be shown what it takes to have a successful career. The senior (mentors), need to assist, direct and counsel the junior (mentees) working under them to grow and advance in the job. Mentoring is a tool in career development and advancement of library staff it gives individuals the opportunity to be mentored in order to develop their career and makes them feel like they are valued by the organization. This makes the mentees to be more involved in the job for effective and efficient performance .This study examines the roles of mentors and mentees, on how mentors promote and improve mentees job performance for career development and advancement. The study also focus on the approaches to mentorship. In conclusion mentors need the right environment to carry on their role of mentoring to the mentees on both research writing and their job duties to achieve the desired goals of the library.Mentoring increases confidence and motivation of librarians and help in the career development advancement within the library. It was recommended among others that mentoring tools should be well defined fit in handling mentees for attainment of optimal educational and objectives aimed at learner,s behavioural change .Mentoring programme that are very specific to the needs especially to the career development needs should be put in place

Reliability of a 2-Bout exercise test on a Wattbike cycle ergometer

Purpose: To determine the intraday and interday reliability of a 2 × 4-min performance test on a cycle ergometer (Wattbike) separated by 30 min of passive recovery (2 × 4MMP). Methods: Twelve highly trained cyclists (mean ± SD; age = 20 ± 2 y, predicted VO2max = 59.0 ± 3.6 mL · kg–1 · min–1) completed six 2 × 4MMP cycling tests on a Wattbike ergometer separated by 7 d. Mean power was measured to determine intraday (test 1 [T1] to test 2 [T2]) and interday reliability (weeks 1–6) over the repeated trials. Results: The mean intraday reliabilities of the 2 × 4MMP test, as expressed by the typical error of measurement (TEM, W) and coefficient of variation (CV, %) over the 6 wk, were 10.0 W (95% confidence limits [CL] 8.2–11.8), and 2.6% (95%CL 2.1–3.1), respectively. The mean interday reliability TEM and CV for T1 over the 6 wk were 10.4 W (95%CL 8.7–13.3) and 2.7% (95%CL 2.3–3.5), respectively, and 11.7 W (95%CL 9.8–15.1) and 3.0% (95%CL 2.5–3.9) for T2. Conclusion: The testing protocol performed on a Wattbike cycle ergometer in the current study is reproducible in highly trained cyclists. The high intraday and interday reliability make it a reliable method for monitoring cycling performance and for investigating factors that affect performance in cycling events

Lactobacillus fermentum (PCC®) supplementation and gastrointestinal and respiratory-tract illness symptoms: a randomised control trial in athletes

BACKGROUND Probiotics purportedly reduce symptoms of gastrointestinal and upper respiratory-tract illness by modulating commensal microflora. Preventing and reducing symptoms of respiratory and gastrointestinal illness are the primary reason that dietary supplementation with probiotics are becoming increasingly popular with healthy active individuals. There is a paucity of data regarding the effectiveness of probiotics in this cohort. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a probiotic on faecal microbiology, self-reported illness symptoms and immunity in healthy well trained individuals. METHODS Competitive cyclists (64 males and 35 females; age 35 ± 9 and 36 ± 9 y, VO2max 56 ± 6 and 52 ± 6 ml.kg-1.min-1, mean ± SD) were randomised to either probiotic (minimum 1 × 109 Lactobacillus fermentum (PCC®) per day) or placebo treatment for 11 weeks in a double-blind, randomised, controlled trial. The outcome measures were faecal L. fermentum counts, self-reported symptoms of illness and serum cytokines. RESULTS Lactobacillus numbers increased 7.7-fold (90% confidence limits 2.1- to 28-fold) more in males on the probiotic, while there was an unclear 2.2-fold (0.2- to 18-fold) increase in females taking the probiotic. The number and duration of mild gastrointestinal symptoms were ~2-fold greater in the probiotic group. However, there was a substantial 0.7 (0.2 to 1.2) of a scale step reduction in the severity of gastrointestinal illness at the mean training load in males, which became more pronounced as training load increased. The load (duration×severity) of lower respiratory illness symptoms was less by a factor of 0.31 (99%CI; 0.07 to 0.96) in males taking the probiotic compared with placebo but increased by a factor of 2.2 (0.41 to 27) in females. Differences in use of cold and flu medication mirrored these symptoms. The observed effects on URTI had too much uncertainty for a decisive outcome. There were clear reductions in the magnitude of acute exercise-induced changes in some cytokines. CONCLUSION L. fermentum may be a useful nutritional adjunct for healthy exercising males. However, uncertainty in the effects of supplementation on URTI and on symptoms in females needs to be resolved. TRIAL REGISTRATION The trial was registered in the Australia and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12611000006943).The study was funded by Christian Hansen A/S, Probiomics and the Australian Institute of Sport

A potential setup for perturbative confinement

A few years ago, 't Hooft suggested a way to discuss confinement in a perturbative fashion. The original idea was put forward in the Coulomb gauge at tree level. In recent years, the concept of a nonperturbative short distance linear potential also attracted phenomenological attention. Motivated by these observations, we discuss how a perturbative framework, leading to a linear piece in the potential, can be developed in a manifestly gauge and Lorentz invariant manner, which moreover enjoys the property of being renormalizable to all orders. We provide an effective action framework to discuss the dynamical realization of the proposed scenario in Yang-Mills gauge theory.Comment: 11 pages. To appear in Physics Letters

The local symmetries of M-theory and their formulation in generalised geometry

In the doubled field theory approach to string theory, the T-duality group is promoted to a manifest symmetry at the expense of replacing ordinary Riemannian geometry with generalised geometry on a doubled space. The local symmetries are then given by a generalised Lie derivative and its associated algebra. This paper constructs an analogous structure for M-theory. A crucial by-product of this is the derivation of the physical section condition for M-theory formulated in an extended space.Comment: 20 pages, v2: Author Name corrected, v3: typos correcte

Quantitative Study of Geological Target Spotting with the use of Eye Tracking

In this paper we describe the use of eye tracking to quantitatively evaluate and analyse the variations in data interpretation performed by various geoscientists, measuring this against their ability to spot geological targets. We also describe an approach to evaluate the impact data preprocessing (i.e. enhancement) has on one's ability to perform the interpretation task. We adapted a mobile eye tracker to enable it to accurately map the point of gaze to the actual image coordinate instead of the forward facing eye tracker camera allowing the user to move their head as they view. Several visual interpretation tasks were performed by six geoscientists and the results are described in this paper

Demographic Variables and Stress Management Among Cataloguers in University Libraries in Cross Rivers State

This study investigated demographic variables and stress management among cataloguers in university libraries in Cross Rivers State. It was undertaken as a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study was 25 professional and para-professional librarians (i.e. UNICAL = 12, CRUTECH 9 and A.T.U = 4). The sample size was also 25 using the census sampling technique. The researcher used the whole population as sample because, it was small. The instrument titled “Demographic Variables and Stress Management among Cataloguers Questionnaire (DVSMCQ) was used to elicit information from the respondents. The instrument was validated by experts in the field of study. Reliability test was by test- retest method using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) which yielded reliability coefficient of 0.78 meaning that, the instrument was reliable, consistent and good for this study. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research questions while the t-test was used to test the hypotheses. The findings revealed that there is a significant difference between the independent variable (age, gender, marital status and academic qualification) and dependent variable (stress management) among cataloguers. In conclusion, females are more stressed in the job when compared with their male counterparts. It was recommended among others that cataloguers should develop positive job attitude to work and not wait until accreditation, before doing their job in order to avoid stress. Keywords: Demographic, Variables, Stress Management, Cataloguers, Libraries DOI: 10.7176/IKM/9-9-01 Publication date:October 31st 201

Duality Invariant Actions and Generalised Geometry

We construct the non-linear realisation of the semi-direct product of E(11) and its first fundamental representation at lowest order and appropriate to spacetime dimensions four to seven. This leads to a non-linear realisation of the duality groups and introduces fields that depend on a generalised space which possess a generalised vielbein. We focus on the part of the generalised space on which the duality groups alone act and construct an invariant action.Comment: 59 pages (typos fixed and added comments