Realism in the Philosophy of Orestes A. Brownson

Thesis (Ph.D)--Boston UniversityThe primary purpose of this dissertation is to explicate and assess the realistic elements in the philosophical position of Orestes A. Brownson. From a critical viewpoint, Brownson disavows one of the main trends of modern philosophy from Descartes onward. His fundamental conviction is that there are three chief factors which have vitiated the great bulk of modern philosophy: first, the tendency to treat the question of method before that of principles; second, relative to method itself, the tendency to employ what Brownson labels the method of "exclusive psychology;" third, the consequent tendency of such a method toward an epistemological idealism, according to which the idea or mental representation is the direct and immediate object of conscious awareness. While Brownson disavows the general trend of modern philosophy, his attack, more specifically, is directed against Descartes, regarded as the major representative of the method of "exclusive psychology", and against Locke taken as representative of the sensistic approach in philosophy. Finally, he directs his attack upon the German philosophers in general, and Kant in particular, although he does accept in substance at least, the Kantian thesis that there are certain pre-empirical elements in the knowledge situation. However, Brownson's claim is that though pre-empirical they none the less have an objective status. In the last analysis, Brownson's rejection of the positions of the aforementioned philosophers is due to his conviction that their respective positions logically, if not psychologically, culminate in skepticism. [TRUNCATED

Integration of Satellite-Derived Cloud Phase, Cloud Top Height, and Liquid Water Path into an Operational Aircraft Icing Nowcasting System

Operational products used by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to alert pilots of hazardous icing provide nowcast and short-term forecast estimates of the potential for the presence of supercooled liquid water and supercooled large droplets. The Current Icing Product (CIP) system employs basic satellite-derived information, including a cloud mask and cloud top temperature estimates, together with multiple other data sources to produce a gridded, three-dimensional, hourly depiction of icing probability and severity. Advanced satellite-derived cloud products developed at the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) provide a more detailed description of cloud properties (primarily at cloud top) compared to the basic satellite-derived information used currently in CIP. Cloud hydrometeor phase, liquid water path, cloud effective temperature, and cloud top height as estimated by the LaRC algorithms are into the CIP fuzzy logic scheme and a confidence value is determined. Examples of CIP products before and after the integration of the LaRC satellite-derived products will be presented at the conference

Synthetic Compound Libraries Displayed on the Surface of Encoded Bacteriophage

AbstractWe describe a technology for attaching libraries of synthetic compounds to coat proteins of bacteriophage particles such that the identity of the chemical structure is encoded in the genome of the phage, analogous to peptides displayed on phage surfaces by conventional phage-display techniques. This format allows a library of synthetic compounds to be screened very efficiently as a single pool. Encoded phage serve as extremely robust reporters of the presence of each compound, providing exquisite sensitivity for identification of active compounds engaged in complex biological processes such as receptor-mediated endocytosis and transcytosis. To evaluate this approach, we constructed a library of 980 analogs of folic acid displayed on T7 phage, and demonstrated rapid identification of compounds that bind to folate receptor and direct endocytosis of associated phage particles into cells that express the targeted receptor

Assessment of cochlear synaptopathy by electrocochleography to low frequencies in a preclinical model and human subjects

Cochlear synaptopathy is the loss of synapses between the inner hair cells and the auditory nerve despite survival of sensory hair cells. The findings of extensive cochlear synaptopathy in animals after moderate noise exposures challenged the long-held view that hair cells are the cochlear elements most sensitive to insults that lead to hearing loss. However, cochlear synaptopathy has been difficult to identify in humans. We applied novel algorithms to determine hair cell and neural contributions to electrocochleographic (ECochG) recordings from the round window of animal and human subjects. Gerbils with normal hearing provided training and test sets for a deep learning algorithm to detect the presence of neural responses to low frequency sounds, and an analytic model was used to quantify the proportion of neural and hair cell contributions to the ECochG response. The capacity to detect cochlear synaptopathy was validated in normal hearing and noise-exposed animals by using neurotoxins to reduce or eliminate the neural contributions. When the analytical methods were applied to human surgical subjects with access to the round window, the neural contribution resembled the partial cochlear synaptopathy present after neurotoxin application in animals. This result demonstrates the presence of viable hair cells not connected to auditory nerve fibers in human subjects with substantial hearing loss and indicates that efforts to regenerate nerve fibers may find a ready cochlear substrate for innervation and resumption of function

Framework for primary care organizations: the importance of a structural domain

Purpose. Conceptual frameworks for primary care have evolved over the last 40 years, yet little attention has been paid to the environmental, structural and organizational factors that facilitate or moderate service delivery. Since primary care is now of more interest to policy makers, it is important that they have a comprehensive and balanced conceptual framework to facilitate their understanding and appreciation. We present a conceptual framework for primary care originally developed to guide the measurement of the performance of primary care organizations within the context of a large mixed-method evaluation of four types of models of primary care in Ontario, Canada. Methods. The framework was developed following an iterative process that combined expert consultation and group meet-ings with a narrative review of existing frameworks, as well as trends in health management and organizational theory. Results. Our conceptual framework for primary care has two domains: structural and performance. The structural domain describes the health care system, practice context and organization of the practice in which any primary care organization operates. The performance domain includes features of health care service delivery and technical quality of clinical care. Conclusion. As primary care evolves through demonstration projects and reformed delivery models, it is important to evalu-ate its structural and organizational features as these are likely to have a significant impact on performance

Finding Water Scarcity Amid Abundance Using Human–Natural System Models

Water scarcity afflicts societies worldwide. Anticipating water shortages is vital because of water’s indispensable role in social-ecological systems. But the challenge is daunting due to heterogeneity, feedbacks, and water’s spatial-temporal sequencing throughout such systems. Regional system models with sufficient detail can help address this challenge. In our study, a detailed coupled human–natural system model of one such region identifies how climate change and socioeconomic growth will alter the availability and use of water in coming decades. Results demonstrate how water scarcity varies greatly across small distances and brief time periods, even in basins where water may be relatively abundant overall. Some of these results were unexpected and may appear counterintuitive to some observers. Key determinants of water scarcity are found to be the cost of transporting and storing water, society’s institutions that circumscribe human choices, and the opportunity cost of water when alternative uses compete

Ambulatory Systolic Blood Pressure and Obesity are Independently Associated with Left Ventricular Hypertrophic Remodeling in Children

Background: Children with obesity have hypertrophic cardiac remodeling. Hypertension is common in pediatric obesity, and may independently contribute to hypertrophy. We hypothesized that both the degree of obesity and ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) would independently associate with measures of hypertrophic cardiac remodeling in children. Methods: Children, aged 8–17 years, prospectively underwent cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) and ABP monitoring. Left ventricular (LV) mass indexed to height2.7(LVMI), myocardial thickness and end-diastolic volume were quantified from a 3D LV model reconstructed from cine balanced steady state free precession images. Categories of remodeling were determined based on cutoff values for LVMI and mass/volume. Principal component analysis was used to define a “hypertrophy score” to study the continuous relationship between concentric hypertrophy and ABP. Results: Seventy-two children were recruited, and 68 of those (37 healthy weight and 31 obese/overweight) completed both CMR and ABP monitoring. Obese/overweight children had increased LVMI (27 ± 4 vs 22 ± 3 g/m2.7, p \u3c 0.001), myocardial thickness (5.6 ± 0.9 vs 4.9 ± 0.7 mm, p \u3c 0.001), mass/volume (0.69 ± 0.1 vs 0.61 ± 0.06, p \u3c 0.001), and hypertrophy score (1.1 ± 2.2 vs −0.96 ± 1.1, p \u3c 0.001). Thirty-five percent of obese/overweight children had concentric hypertrophy. Ambulatory hypertension was observed in 26% of the obese/overweight children and none of the controls while masked hypertension was observed in 32% of the obese/overweight children and 16% of the controls. Univariate linear regression showed that BMI z-score, systolic BP (24 h, day and night), and systolic load correlated with LVMI, thickness, mass/volume and hypertrophy score, while 24 h and nighttime diastolic BP and load also correlated with thickness and mass/volume. Multivariate analysis showed body mass index z-score and systolic blood pressure were both independently associated with left ventricular mass index (β=0.54 [p \u3c 0.001] and 0.22 [p = 0.03]), thickness (β=0.34 [p \u3c 0.001] and 0.26 [p = 0.001]) and hypertrophy score (β=0.47 and 0.36, both p \u3c 0.001). Conclusions: In children, both the degree of obesity and ambulatory blood pressures are independently associated with measures of cardiac hypertrophic remodeling, however the correlations were generally stronger for the degree of obesity. This suggests that interventions targeted at weight loss or obesity-associated co-morbidities including hypertension may be effective in reversing or preventing cardiac remodeling in obese children