Superhero Movies, and Politics: The Moral Obligations of Filmmakers According to Virtue Ethics

Superhero films have rarely included political messages within their central narratives, but the filmmakers developing them have a moral obligation to do so. This obligation stems from virtue ethics, which demands that moral actors work to cultivate virtuous qualities within themselves, such as self-reflection and honesty. Developing a superhero film then becomes a process of moral reflection for filmmakers as they consider what are the virtues a truly moral person would need to embody. Because superheroes have the capacity to serve as moral role models, these films also become a means for promoting moral reflection in audience members. Politics is how we determine what is best for members of a given society, and therefore any political commentary included by filmmakers is a natural extension of any moral commentary they are engaging in

Studying and Supporting Writing in Student Organizations as a High-Impact Practice

Institutions of postsecondary education, and the field of writing across the curriculum and in the disciplines (WAC/WID) in particular, need to do more to trouble learning paradigms that employ writing only in service to particular disciplines, only in traditional learning environments, and only in particular languages, or in service to an overly narrow or generalized idea of who students are, where they\u27re going, and what they need to get there. In relating a cross-section of a larger effort to study and support writing as a high-impact practice in a student chapter of an international nonprofit humanitarian engineering student organization, I will demonstrate that WAC/WID can and should empower students to use writing in student organizations, especially those that align with the four learning outcomes deemed essential by the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America\u27s Promise, as a means of integrating into and interrogating their social and political realities, and reshaping postsecondary education to better meet their needs and goals as individual learners and as citizens in a deliberative democracy

Interim progress report on a study of the utility of data obtainable from otoliths to management of Humpback Chub (Gila cypha) in the Grand Canyon

Daily growth increments of otoliths of fishes have been useful in many fishery applications since they have been demonstrated to provide a precise method of ageing individuals and reconstructing individual growth and, possibly, movement or habitat histories. These techniques have not been previously applied to humpback chub, but are believed to have considerable potential for providing knowledge of this difficult to sample and little-understood species. Large temperature and water quality gradients apparently traversed by individuals of this species in the Grand Canyon are of a magnitude likely to produce structural and/or chemical signals in the crystalline calcareous otoliths. If so, since otoliths grow by accretion of daily increments (much like trees develop yearly growth rings), and are stable structures, which unlike scales, are not susceptible to reabsorption except in the most extreme conditions, they retain a structural and chemical chronology of habitats occupied. If the relationships of ambient physical and chemical conditions to otolith structure and composition can be described, a chronology of habitat occupancy and growth for individuals could theoretically be reconstructed with daily precision. Such reconstructions of growth rates, birth dates, movement histories, and possibly, birth place (based on chemistry at otolith formation or during early life), could provide extremely valuable life-history information regarding timing of spawning, cohort recruitment, mortality rates, and data on other population parameters critical for management of this endangered species. The feasibility of using otoliths and opercles of humpback chub for age estimation of individuals has been preliminarily investigated by examining otoliths and opercles from a total of 47 juvenile (ages 0 through 1 +)and 43 adult (estimated ages 2- 23) specimens collected in the Little Colorado River (71 specimens) and mainstream Colorado River (19 specimens) at various places in the Grand Canyon between 1988 and 1992. Studies are continuing, and at this point, due to both sample size and numerous other limitations, and ongoing refinements of techniques, conclusions made here are highly preliminary. Structures prepared and examined included opercles of 35 specimens, one asteriscus from each of 47 specimens and a lapillus from each of 56 specimens. Seventeen specimens were evaluated using all three calcareous structures (lapillus, asteriscus and opercle). The sagitta was also examined, but found to be unsuitable for ageing purposes due to its long, delicate form and irregular increments after the larval/juvenile stage. Additional lapilli have been removed from other available specimens, and a complete inventory of specimens available for further study of calcified structures is provided. Studies of micro-spatial variation in chemical composition of selected lapilli is in progress, using the highly accurate proton probe at the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. This method of analysis shows great promise of overcoming what has been indicated in recent literature to be significant inaccuracies of other techniques (Energy Dispersive X-ray diffraction and Wave Length dispersive X-ray diffraction) used in many of the published studies of microspatial elemental analysis of otoliths.Arizona Game and Fish DepartmentIntegrative Biolog

Prevention of damage to delicate connectors during mounting of heavy engines for testing

Air-bearing-pad principle, combined with monitoring system of the air-bearing force, prevents damage between electrical and mechanical connectors joining a large engine system to the test stand during remote mating. Pad provides a cushion between engine and test stand

Guidance System Component Correlation Testing and Studies Semiannual Status Report, 1 May - 31 Oct. 1965

Gyroscopic drift and Markov process research in inertial guidance system components stud

Stereochemistry of Polypeptide Conformation in Coarse Grained Analysis

The conformations available to polypeptides are determined by the interatomic forces acting on the peptide units, whereby backbone torsion angles are restricted as described by the Ramachandran plot. Although typical proteins are composed predominantly from {\alpha}-helices and {\beta}-sheets, they nevertheless adopt diverse tertiary structure, each folded as dictated by its unique amino-acid sequence. Despite such uniqueness, however, the functioning of many proteins involves changes between quite different conformations. The study of large-scale conformational changes, particularly in large systems, is facilitated by a coarse-grained representation such as provided by virtually bonded C{\alpha} atoms. We have developed a virtual atom molecular mechanics (VAMM) force field to describe conformational dynamics in proteins and a VAMM-based algorithm for computing conformational transition pathways. Here we describe the stereochemical analysis of proteins in this coarse-grained representation, comparing the relevant plots in coarse-grained conformational space to the corresponding Ramachandran plots, having contoured each at levels determined statistically from residues in a large database. The distributions shown for an all-{\alpha} protein, two all-{\beta} proteins and one {\alpha}+{\beta} protein serve to relate the coarse-grained distributions to the familiar Ramachandran plot.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, Postprint of book chapter submitted to the Biomolecular Forms and Functions, M. Bansal and N. Srinivasan, Eds. copyright (2013) [copyright World Scientific Publishing Company