The Last Acceptable Prejudice

People assume that without religion there would be no reason to act “morally.” However, this notion is simply false. The world got along fine before the advent of Christianity; moral philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle lived hundreds of years before Christ, and to this day their writings are held in the highest esteem for their moral principles. Jamie Kelly is a sophomore English major and a writing and rhetoric minor. He enjoys candlelit dinners, dancing by the light of the stars, and demonstrative pronouns. Jamie hopes to go to law school and one day rule the world

If They\u27d Only Move Old Ireland Over Here

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/2891/thumbnail.jp

Evidence for the Potential Use of Polyphenols and their Derivatives in Moderating Allergic Immune Responses

Polyphenols are naturally occurring compounds that are found within numerous plant sources. They have a wide variety of structures and functions and have potential clinical uses in multiple disease states. Emerging studies involving polyphenols have demonstrated their antioxidative properties, as well as reduced risks of cardiovascular diseases and certain types of cancer. Due to these discoveries, there has been a marked increase in research related to the chemical properties of polyphenols and their potential uses in prevention of common acquired and inherited disease states. This article focuses on the effects that some polyphenolic compounds exert on immune function in regard to the induction and clinical manifestations of the allergic response and how supplementation with polyphenol-enriched apple extracts may alter the approach to treating atopic dermatitis and food allergies. Currently, due to the lack of large clinical trials detailing efficacy and safety data for these compounds when used to alter immune system responses to allergens, there are no strong recommendations for their use as prevention or acute treatment strategies for allergies

A categorical framework for the quantum harmonic oscillator

This paper describes how the structure of the state space of the quantum harmonic oscillator can be described by an adjunction of categories, that encodes the raising and lowering operators into a commutative comonoid. The formulation is an entirely general one in which Hilbert spaces play no special role. Generalised coherent states arise through the hom-set isomorphisms defining the adjunction, and we prove that they are eigenstates of the lowering operators. Surprisingly, generalised exponentials also emerge naturally in this setting, and we demonstrate that coherent states are produced by the exponential of a raising morphism acting on the zero-particle state. Finally, we examine all of these constructions in a suitable category of Hilbert spaces, and find that they reproduce the conventional mathematical structures.Comment: 44 pages, many figure

Libertarian paternalism, utilitarianism, and justice

In a number of recent publications, Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler have argued for a novel approach to the design of public policy. Their proposal has received a great deal of attention, both within academic circles and the public at large. Drawing upon evidence from behavioral economics and empirical psychology, the authors attempt to demonstrate that the conventional antagonism between libertarians and paternalists within political theory dissolves in conditions that obtain widely in public decision-making. Where free choice and the promotion of individual welfare can coexist, the authors believe that designers of public policy ought to be libertarian paternalists. In this paper I criticize their proposal on grounds that the authors are unable to sufficiently motivate the paternalistic element of their approach. I argue that the empirical evidence cited by the authors is capable of supporting a number of competing approaches, including what I call libertarian utilitarianism and libertarian justice. Since the evidence that the authors draw upon does not provide us any grounds for selecting between these rival approaches, I conclude that Sunstein and Thaler are unable to provide us with a convincing guide for the design of public policy. In order to show that this is the case, I consider three arguments in favor of libertarian paternalism, and find each lacking. I end with some comments about what we can properly conclude on the basis of Sunstein and Thaler’s arguments