Alien Registration- D\u27Alfonso, Georgina (Portland, Cumberland County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/25769/thumbnail.jp

Virtue’s Web: The Virtue of Empathic Attunement and the Need for a Relational Foundation

This dissertation focuses on two questions. First, is empathy a virtue? Second, if it is, then why is it neglected, even ostracized, in contemporary discourses on virtue? In response to the first question, this dissertation develops and defends a distinction between empathic practices and moral excellence in those practices, which is termed ‘empathic attunement’. This excellence is a virtue not because of its connection to standard altruistic behavior, but because it is a unique way of caring for, respecting, and understanding others’ emotional experiences in response to the need to be emotionally understood and the good of being emotionally understood. This conceptualization of empathic attunement leads to the second question of why empathy is largely absent from virtue ethics. The fault lies partly with the standard dispositionalist framework for virtue, which takes the virtues to be psychological states of agents, rather than relationships agents hold with relevant persons and social structures. Empathic attunement is dependent on reliable empathic connections with others and, therefore, better suited to a conceptualization of virtue that more deeply incorporates these relational ties. Accordingly, a new account of character traits as embodied relational dispositions is explicated and its potential for expansion to other virtues is explored

Confirmation of a cluster of galaxies hidden behind the Galactic bulge using the VVV Survey

Suzaku and Chandra X-ray observations detected a new cluster of galaxies, Suzaku J1759-3450, at a redshift z=0.13. It is located behind the Milky Way, and the high Galactic dust extinction renders it nearly invisible at optical wavelengths. We attempt here to confirm the galaxy cluster with near-infrared imaging observations, and to characterize its central member galaxies. Images from the VVV survey were used to detect candidate member galaxies of Suzaku J1759-3450 within the central region of the cluster, up to 350 kpc from the X-ray peak emission. Color-magnitude and color-color diagrams and morphology criteria allowed us to select the galaxies among the numerous foreground sources. Fifteen candidate cluster members were found very close to a modeled red-sequence at the redshift of the cluster. Five members are extremely bright, and one is possibly a cD galaxy. The asymmetry in the spatial distribution of the galaxies respect to the X-ray peak emission is an indicator of that this cluster is still suffering a virialization process. Our investigation of Suzaku J1759-3450 demonstrates the potential of the VVV Survey to study the hidden population of galaxies in the Zone of Avoidance.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for Publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Biomechanical evaluation of the push-up exercise of the upper extremities from various starting points

The purpose of the present research was to evaluate the push-up exercise of the upper extremities in respect of biomechanics, to compare the muscle function, while changing the position of performance and to examine the torso's inclination during the exercise. The result is that the activation of the muscles, apart from the triceps brachii muscle, does not differentiate significantly in any of the positions. Moreover, the elevating the hands above the feet position is not recommended in protocols where the aim is to improve the muscle force because it displays the lowest mean value of vertical force and a low RFD. On the other hand, the standard push-up position is considered to be the most appropriate when the aim is to improve the triceps brachii muscle's force because it displays the highest RFD and the highest activation of this muscle. Finally, the correct body position during this exercise prevents from incorrect and damaging inclinations of the torso. © JPES

Unravelling the complex mechanisms of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.

There are numerous benefits to elucidating how our environment affects our health: from a greater understanding of adaptation to disease prevention. Evidence shows that stressors we are exposed to during our lifetime might cause disease in our descendants. Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance involves the transmission of 'information' over multiple generations via the gametes independent of the DNA base sequence. Despite extensive research, the epigenetic mechanisms remain unclear. Analysis of model organisms exposed to environmental insults (e.g., diet manipulation, stress, toxin exposure) or carrying mutations in the epigenetic regulatory machinery indicates that inheritance of altered DNA methylation, histone modifications, or non-coding RNAs are key mechanisms. Tracking inherited epigenetic information and its effects for multiple generations is a significant challenge to overcome.G.E.T.B. is supported by a studentship from the Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD programme in Developmental Mechanisms. E.D.W. is a Lister Research Prize fellow and was supported by an Isaac Newton Trust/Wellcome Trust ISSF/University of Cambridge joint research grant.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cbpa.2016.06.00

Neonatal White Matter Maturation Is Associated With Infant Language Development

Background: While neonates have no sophisticated language skills, the neural basis for acquiring this function is assumed to already be present at birth. Receptive language is measurable by 6 months of age and meaningful speech production by 10-18 months of age. Fiber tracts supporting language processing include the corpus callosum (CC), which plays a key role in the hemispheric lateralization of language; the left arcuate fasciculus (AF), which is associated with syntactic processing; and the right AF, which plays a role in prosody and semantics. We examined if neonatal maturation of these fiber tracts is associated with receptive language development at 12 months of age. Methods: Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) was performed in 86 infants at 26.6 ± 12.2 days post-birth. Receptive language was assessed via the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory at 12 months of age. Tract-based fractional anisotropy (FA) was determined using the NA-MIC atlas-based fiber analysis toolkit. Associations between neonatal regional FA, adjusted for gestational age at birth and age at scan, and language development at 12 months of age were tested using ANOVA models. Results: After multiple comparisons correction, higher neonatal FA was positively associated with receptive language at 12 months of age within the genu (p < 0.001), rostrum (p < 0.001), and tapetum (p < 0.001) of the CC and the left fronto-parietal AF (p = 0.008). No significant clusters were found in the right AF. Conclusion: Microstructural development of the CC and the AF in the newborn is associated with receptive language at 12 months of age, demonstrating that interindividual variation in white matter microstructure is relevant for later language development, and indicating that the neural foundation for language processing is laid well ahead of the majority of language acquisition. This suggests that some origins of impaired language development may lie in the intrauterine and potentially neonatal period of life. Understanding how interindividual differences in neonatal brain maturity relate to the acquisition of function, particularly during early development when the brain is in an unparalleled window of plasticity, is key to identifying opportunities for harnessing neuroplasticity in health and disease

Can Authority be Sustained while Balancing Accessibility and Formality?

Economics has developed into a quantitative discipline that makes extensive use of mathematical and statistical concepts. When writing a dictionary for economics undergraduates it has to be recognised that many users will not have sufficient training in mathematics to benefi t from formal definitions of mathematical and statistical concepts. In fact, it is more than likely that the user will want the dictionary to provide an accessible version of a definition that avoids mathematical notation. Providing a verbal description of a mathematical concept has the risk that the outcome is both verbose (compared to a definition using appropriate mathematical symbols) and imprecise. For the author of a dictionary this raises the question of how to resolve this conflict between accessibility and formal correctness. We use a range of examples from the Oxford Dictionary of Economics to illustrate this conflict and to assess the extent to which a non-formal definition can be viewed as authoritative

Ecological theory predicts ecosystem stressor interactions in freshwater communities, but highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the additive null model

Understanding and predicting how multiple co-occurring environmental stressors combine to affect biodiversity and ecosystem services is an on-going grand challenge for ecology. So far progress has been made through accumulating large numbers of smaller-scale individual studies that are then investigated by meta-analyses to look for general patterns. In particular there has been an interest in checking for so-called ecological surprises where stressors interact in a synergistic manner. Recent reviews suggest that such synergisms do not dominate, but few other generalities have emerged. This lack of general prediction and understanding may be due in part to a dearth of ecological theory that can generate clear hypotheses and predictions to tested against empirical data. Here we close this gap by analysing food web models based upon classical ecological theory and comparing their predictions to a large (546 interactions) dataset for the effects of pairs of stressors on freshwater communities, using trophic- and population-level metrics of abundance, density, and biomass as responses. We find excellent overall agreement between the stochastic version of our models and the experimental data, and both conclude additive stressor interactions are the most frequent, but that meta-analyses report antagonistic summary interaction classes. Additionally, we show that the statistical tests used to classify the interactions are very sensitive to sampling variation. It is therefore likely that current weak sampling and low sample sizes are masking many non-additive stressor interactions, which our theory predicts to dominate when sampling variation is removed. This leads us to suspect ecological surprises may be more common than currently reported. Our results highlight the value of developing theory in tandem with empirical tests, and the need to examine the robustness of statistical machinery, especially the widely-used null models, before we can draw strong conclusions about how environmental drivers combine

Environmental justice in coastal systems: perspectives from communities confronting change

Life in the Pacific is characterised by interconnected, fast and slow socio-ecological change. These changes inevitably involve navigating questions of justice, as they shift who benefits from, owns, and governs resources, and whose claims and rights are recognized. Thus, greater understanding of perceptions of environmental justice within communities will be crucial to support fair adaptation. We contend that an environmental justice approach offers a theoretical foundation to help illuminate key concerns and trade-offs as communities navigate global change. Here, we apply an empirical environmental justice lens to the use and customary management of coastal resources in Papua New Guinea. Through two case studies, we examine perceptions of distributional, procedural and recognitional justice. We find similarities and differences. There were common concerns about the injustice of unequal fishing pressure and destructive methods, but in one case, concerns about people’s material needs overrode concerns about non-compliance and unequal costs. In the other case, deliberative decision-making served as a platform for not only negotiating and re-defining the distribution of costs and benefits, but also airing grievances, thereby strengthening recognition of different people’s values and concerns. In addition, we find that as coastal developing communities face increasing social and environmental changes, the procedures for governing resources and thus the means to make fair decisions about distribution, is inextricably connected to recognitional aspects of justice, such as respect, that can confer or undermine legitimacy. The heterogeneity of justice criteria in our cases emphasizes the need to elicit and understand plural justice perceptions in different contexts

Entanglement of distant atoms by projective measurement: The role of detection efficiency

We assess proposals for entangling two distant atoms by measurement of emitted photons, analyzing how their performance depends on the photon detection efficiency. We consider schemes based on measurement of one or two photons and compare them in terms of the probability to obtain the detection event and of the conditional fidelity with which the desired entangled state is created. Based on an unravelling of the master equation, we quantify the parameter regimes in which one or the other scheme is more efficient, including the possible combination of the one-photon scheme with state purification. In general, protocols based on one-photon detection are more efficient in set-ups characterized by low photon detection efficiency, while at larger values two-photon protocols are preferable. We give numerical examples based on current experiments.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure