The Justice and Goodness of Hell

The paper considers the objections to Christianity raised by David Lewis, which accuse Christians of immorality on the grounds of their worshipping a monstrous being who punishes finite evils by the infinite punishment of hell. It distinguishes between the objection that God is a monster because such punishment would be unjust, and the objection that even if damnation is just, God is a monster because he wills or allows the dreadful evil of hell by creating beings that can be justly damned. It asserts that Aquinas’s defence of the traditional Christian doctrine of hell provides an answer to this objection. The traditional doctrine is that those who die having committed serious sins for which they have not repented will be punished by endless mental and physical suffering in hell. Aquinas argues that the endless punishment of the damned is just because the damned endlessly and freely choose evil, and that it is good because the punishment of impenitent sinners, while bad for the sinners, is good absolutely speaking. The basis for his claim that the damned freely choose evil forever is his understanding of practical reason as ultimately motivated by a choice of a particular kind of life to live, and his view that all motivations that are independent of practical reason have a physical basis. The basis for his claim that the punishment of the damned is a good thing absolutely considered is his teleological view of good and evil. The paper defends these bases and their application to the question of damnation

A nomograph for the rapid solution of the Arrhenius equation

There are presently no calculational aids for the rapid computation of the Arrhenius parameters of the chemical reaction rate equations. Two nomographs for solving the Arrhenius equation for the relative reaction rate constants at different temperatures, and for computing activation energies and frequency factors are presented. Several graphs and tables of the relative reaction rate constant as a function of activation energy and temperature are also presented. The nomographs, graphs and tables can be used, singly or combined, in lieu of numerical calculation for the solution for Arrhenius parameters, or the computation of rate constants. A computer program included in the paper may be modified to obtain many more sets of data than are presented here

Antinucleus Production at RHIC

Light antinuclei may be formed in relativistic heavy ion collisions via final state coalescence of antinucleons. The yields of antinuclei are sensitive to primordial antinucleon production, the volume of the system at kinetic freeze-out, and space-momentum correlations among antinucleons at freeze-out. We report here preliminary STAR results on antideuteron and antihelion production in 130A GeV Au+Au collisions. These results are examined in a coalescence framework to elucidate the space-time structure of the antinucleon source.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, talk given at Quark Matter 200

Resonance Studies at STAR

We report on the observed signals of ${K^{\star0}(892)}\to\pi K$ and $\phi(1020)\to K^{+}K^{-}$ using the mixed-event method with powerful statistics from the large acceptance and highly efficient STAR TPC. Preliminary results from the first observation of such states from the year-one STAR data in $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130$ GeV Au-Au collisions are presented. The $K^{\star0}/h^{-}$ ratios with an assumed $K^{\star0}$ $p_{T}$ inverse slope of 300MeV are compatible with that from pp at ISR. For 14% central Au+Au collisions, we observe $K^{\star0}/h^{-}=0.060\pm0.007(stat)$ and $\bar{K^{\star0}}/h^{-}=0.058\pm0.007(stat)$. We show that $\bar{\Lambda}/\Lambda=0.77\pm0.07(stat)$ from this method is consistent with the measurement via decay topology.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Quark Matter 2001, contributed talk; typos of K*/h- numbers in abstract fixe

Observations on the Effect of Hydrocortisone and Prednisolone on Cases of Acute Myocardial Infarction, with Particular Reference to the Effect on Conduction Disturbance

Abstract Not Provided

Measurements of Photon and Neutral Pion Production in Heavy Ion Collisions at RHIC

Inclusive transverse momentum spectra of photons and neutral pions about mid-rapidity are presented for Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN} = 130 GeV. Photon pair conversions have been reconstructed from charged tracks measured with the central Time Projection Chamber (TPC) of STAR. Contributions of the pi^0 -> \gamma\gamma decay in the inclusive photon spectra have been studied. It was found that this contribution begins to decrease at a transverse momentum of 1.65 GeV/c in the top 11% most central centrality class.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, contribution to the Proceedings of Quark Matter 2002, Nantes, France, July 18-24, 200

Resonance Production in STAR

The recent results from resonance production in central Au+Au and p+p collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} =$ 200 GeV from the STAR experiment at RHIC are presented and discussed.Comment: 7 pages, proceedings 19th Winter Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics, Breckenridge, Colorado, USA, February 8-15, 200

Correlations, Fluctuations, and Flow Measurements from the STAR Experiment

New measurements of short-range and long-range two-particle correlations, azimuthal anisotropy, and event-by-event fluctuations from the STAR experiment for sqrt{s_{NN}}= 130 and 200 GeV Au+Au collisions are summarized. Striking evidence is presented for large, non-statistical fluctuations in mean transverse momentum. Descriptions of the data in terms of phenomenological source function models are also presented.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, Conference proceedin

Host Cellular Response to Multiple Stressors Using a Chicken in vitro Model

Heat stress (HS) is a major environmental stressor to chickens because chickens lack sufficient physical ability to mitigate heat. One of the potential results of heat stress is the “leaky gut syndrome”, which allows gut bacteria to escape into the host and release toxins including lipopolysaccharide (LPS). To model the chicken immune response to bacteria toxins under heat stress, a chicken macrophage-like cell line, HD11, was subjected to HS, LPS, or HS + LPS treatments. Expression of a gene panel of heat shock proteins, stress-related molecules, signaling molecules, and immune response molecules were measured and analyzed at 4 time points across the 3 conditions. As expected, heat shock proteins and immune response molecules increased in expression during HS and LPS challenge, respectively. Treatment of HS + LPS increased the expression of these responsive genes even more than either treatment alone. This suggests that heat stress proteins not only mitigate heat stress, but also trigger a higher level of immune response in chickens