Logic and/of Truthmaking

The purpose of this paper is to explore the question of how truthmaker theorists ought to think about their subject in relation to logic. Regarding logic and truthmaking, I defend the view that considerations drawn from advances in modal logic have little bearing on the legitimacy of truthmaker theory. To do so, I respond to objections Timothy Williamson has lodged against truthmaker theory. As for the logic of truthmaking, I show how the project of understanding the logical features of the truthmaking relation has led to an apparent impasse. I offer a new perspective on the logic of truthmaking that both explains the problem and offers a way out

Evidencias de secuencias marinas del sector continental en el Parque Provincial y Reserva Forestal “Pereyra Iraola”, noreste de la provincia de Buenos Aires

Durante el Cuaternario tardío los sectores costeros bonaerenses fueron sucesivamente modelados por los efectos de las oscilaciones del nivel del mar, quedando reflejadas dichas variaciones de la línea de costa a través de un conjunto de depósitos y rasgos geomorfológicos que manifiestan la secuencia evolutiva hasta alcanzar la conformación actual. Estos cambios climáticos-ambientales no sólo contribuyeron a estructurar la configuración geográfica actual de las costas, sino también provocaron variaciones en la composición faunística de la Región Pampeana (Aguirre y Fucks 2004). En la presente contribución se dan a conocer los primeros resultados obtenidos a partir del trabajo en afloramientos correspondientes a dos eventos transgresivo-regresivos acontecidos durante el Pleistoceno tardío y I Ioloceno en el Parque Provincial y Reserva Forestal Pereyra Iraola , NE de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (Fig.1). Esta investigación permitirá establecer correlaciones estratigráficas con otras secuencias ubicadas a lo largo del litoral bonaerense y ampliar las interpretaciones paleoambientales desde el Pleistoceno a la actualidad, ya que los estudios referidos a estos aspectos no han sido suficientemente abordados en la wna en estudio. Se realizaron perfiles estratigráficos en los que se relevaron datos para la caracterización y definición de las diferentes unidades identificadas, así como el relevamiento paleofaunístico. A estas observaciones, se les deben sumar las efectuadas a través de perforaciones manuales, mediante el uso de barreno, a fin de constatar la presencia de las unidades estratigráficas y la base de la Fm. Pampeano, definidas para el área de estudio. A partir de esto, puede establecerse para el área de estudio, la presencia de dos ambientes geomorfológicos muy contrastantes, uno de génesis litoral-estuárica y otro netamente continental, puestos en contacto a través de discordancias. En el sector continental se presenta la Fm. Pampeano con los característicos colores castaños y sedimentos limosos, disponiéndose sobre él los depósitos de los eventos ingresivos del Pleistoceno tardío y Holoceno

Probing Spectroscopic Variability of Galaxies & Narrow-Line Active Galactic Nuclei in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Under the unified model for active galactic nuclei (AGNs), narrow-line (Type 2) AGNs are, in fact, broad-line (Type 1) AGNs but each with a heavily obscured accretion disk. We would therefore expect the optical continuum emission from Type 2 AGN to be composed mainly of stellar light and non-variable on the time-scales of months to years. In this work we probe the spectroscopic variability of galaxies and narrow-line AGNs using the multi-epoch data in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 6. The sample contains 18,435 sources for which there exist pairs of spectroscopic observations (with a maximum separation in time of ~700 days) covering a wavelength range of 3900-8900 angstrom. To obtain a reliable repeatability measurement between each spectral pair, we consider a number of techniques for spectrophotometric calibration resulting in an improved spectrophotometric calibration of a factor of two. From these data we find no obvious continuum and emission-line variability in the narrow-line AGNs on average -- the spectroscopic variability of the continuum is 0.07+/-0.26 mag in the g band and, for the emission-line ratios log10([NII]/Halpha) and log10([OIII]/Hbeta), the variability is 0.02+/-0.03 dex and 0.06+/-0.08 dex, respectively. From the continuum variability measurement we set an upper limit on the ratio between the flux of varying spectral component, presumably related to AGN activities, and that of host galaxy to be ~30%. We provide the corresponding upper limits for other spectral classes, including those from the BPT diagram, eClass galaxy classification, stars and quasars.Comment: AJ accepte

Endemic and epidemic human alphavirus infections in eastern Panama: An analysis of population-based cross-sectional surveys

Madariaga virus (MADV) has recently been associated with severe human disease in Panama, where the closely related Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV) also circulates. In June 2017, a fatal MADV infection was confirmed in a community of Darien Province. We conducted a cross-sectional outbreak investigation with human and mosquito collections in July 2017, where sera were tested for alphavirus antibodies and viral RNA. In addition, by applying a catalytic, force-of-infection (FOI) statistical model to two serosurveys from Darien Province in 2012 and 2017, we investigated whether endemic or epidemic alphavirus transmission occurred historically. In 2017, MADV and VEEV IgM seroprevalences were 1.6% and 4.4%, respectively; IgG antibody prevalences were MADV: 13.2%, VEEV: 16.8%, Una virus (UNAV): 16.0%, and Mayaro virus: 1.1%. Active viral circulation was not detected. Evidence of MADV and UNAV infection was found near households, raising questions about its vectors and enzootic transmission cycles. Insomnia was associated withMADVand VEEV infections, depression symptoms were associated with MADV, and dizziness with VEEV and UNAV. Force-of-infection analyses suggest endemic alphavirus transmission historically, with recent increased human exposure to MADV and VEEV in Aruza and Mercadeo, respectively. The lack of additional neurological cases suggests that severe MADV and VEEV infections occur only rarely. Our results indicate that over the past five decades, alphavirus infections have occurred at low levels in eastern Panama, but that MADV and VEEV infections have recently increased-potentially during the past decade. Endemic infections and outbreaks of MADV and VEEV appear to differ spatially in some locations of eastern Panama.National Institute for Health ResearchRevisión por pare

Inverse functionalism and the individuation of powers

In the pure powers ontology (PPO), basic physical properties have wholly dispositional essences. PPO has clear advantages over categoricalist ontologies, which suffer from familiar epistemological and metaphysical problems. However, opponents argue that because it contains no qualitative properties, PPO lacks the resources to individuate powers, and generates a regress. The challenge for those who take such arguments seriously is to introduce qualitative properties without reintroducing the problems that PPO was meant to solve. In this paper, I distinguish the core claim of PPO: (i) basic physical properties have dispositional essences, from a hitherto unnoticed assumption: (ii) the dispositional essences of basic physical properties exclusively involve type-causal relations to other basic physical properties. I reject (ii), making room for a structuralist ontology in which all basic physical properties are pure powers, individuated by their places in a causal structure that includes not only other powers, but also physically realized qualitative properties such as shapes, patterns and structures. Such qualities individuate pure powers in the way that non-mental input and output properties individuate realized mental properties in functionalist theories of mind, except that here it is basic physical powers that are individuated by relations to realized non-powers. I distinguish one Platonic and two Aristotelian version of this theory, and argue that the Aristotelian versions require that grounding is not always a relative fundamentality relation, because the powers ground the qualities that individuate them. I argue that symmetric grounding is the best way to make sense of the relational individuation common to all structuralist ontologies, and is therefore no additional commitment of the one proposed here

Viral Protein Fragmentation May Broaden T-Cell Responses to HIV Vaccines

High mutation rates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) allows escape from T cell recognition preventing development of effective T cell vaccines. Vaccines that induce diverse T cell immune responses would help overcome this problem. Using SIV gag as a model vaccine, we investigated two approaches to increase the breadth of the CD8 T cell response. Namely, fusion of vaccine genes to ubiquitin to target the proteasome and increase levels of MHC class I peptide complexes and gene fragmentation to overcome competition between epitopes for presentation and recognition.three vaccines were compared: full-length unmodified SIV-mac239 gag, full-length gag fused at the N-terminus to ubiquitin and 7 gag fragments of equal size spanning the whole of gag with ubiquitin-fused to the N-terminus of each fragment. Genes were cloned into a replication defective adenovirus vector and immunogenicity assessed in an in vitro human priming system. The breadth of the CD8 T cell response, defined by the number of distinct epitopes, was assessed by IFN-γ-ELISPOT and memory phenotype and cytokine production evaluated by flow cytometry. We observed an increase of two- to six-fold in the number of epitopes recognised in the ubiquitin-fused fragments compared to the ubiquitin-fused full-length gag. In contrast, although proteasomal targeting was achieved, there was a marked reduction in the number of epitopes recognised in the ubiquitin-fused full-length gag compared to the full-length unmodified gene, but there were no differences in the number of epitope responses induced by non-ubiquitinated full-length gag and the ubiquitin-fused mini genes. Fragmentation and ubiquitination did not affect T cell memory differentiation and polyfunctionality, though most responses were directed against the Ad5 vector.Fragmentation but not fusion with ubiquitin increases the breadth of the CD8 T vaccine response against SIV-mac239 gag. Thus gene fragmentation of HIV vaccines may maximise responses

Insertion of Vaccinia Virus C7L Host Range Gene into NYVAC-B Genome Potentiates Immune Responses against HIV-1 Antigens

Background: The highly attenuated vaccinia virus strain NYVAC expressing HIV-1 components has been evaluated as a vaccine candidate in preclinical and clinical trials with encouraging results. We have previously described that the presence of C7L in the NYVAC genome prevents the induction of apoptosis and renders the vector capable of replication in human and murine cell lines while maintaining an attenuated phenotype in mice. Methodology/Principal Findings: In an effort to improve the immunogenicity of NYVAC, we have developed a novel poxvirus vector by inserting the VACV host-range C7L gene into the genome of NYVAC-B, a recombinant virus that expresses four HIV-1 antigens from clade B (Env, Gag, Pol and Nef) (referred as NYVAC-B-C7L). In the present study, we have compared the in vitro and in vivo behavior of NYVAC-B and NYVAC-B-C7L. In cultured cells, NYVAC-B-C7L expresses higher levels of heterologous antigen than NYVAC-B as determined by Western blot and fluorescent-activated cell sorting to score Gag expressing cells. In a DNA prime/poxvirus boost approach with BALB/c mice, both recombinants elicited robust, broad and multifunctional antigen-specific T-cell responses to the HIV-1 immunogens expressed from the vectors. However, the use of NYVAC-B-C7L as booster significantly enhanced the magnitude of the T cell responses, and induced a more balanced cellular immune response to the HIV-1 antigens in comparison to that elicited in animals boosted with NYVAC-B. Conclusions/Significance: These findings demonstrate the possibility to enhance the immunogenicity of the highl