The Logic of Being: An Evaluation of Arguments for God\u27s Existence

The existence of God and the scholarly debates concerning it have dominated Western philosophy for roughly a millennia and a half with no verifiable conclusions being reached. Rather than throwing another “logical” justification for the existence of higher powers into the ring, the research and analysis I have undertaken concerns itself with the premise that there is no logical argument for the existence of God that will satisfy the debate. This dismissal is accompanied by an in-depth deconstruction of the work of Kurt Gödel, a logician and mathematician credited with the publication of the Incompleteness Theorems. The use of the First Incompleteness Theorem (in summary, the First Incomplete Theorem states that no consistent system of axioms is capable of proving all those axioms true) will be utilized in the critique of scholarly arguments for the existence of God; namely, those of Saint Anselm, Rene Descartes, William Craig Lane, and Alvin Plantinga. I argue that Gödel’s theorem, despite being purely mathematical and logical in nature, can be re-interpreted and co-opted into theological discussions while maintaining its intellectual integrity. The application of this theorem to religious philosophy will then be used to dismiss logical attempts at justification of the existence of God. It must be made clear that this dismissal of the logical existence of God is not a dismissal of the possible dismissal of God; rather, this rejection of logic and acceptance of the absurd, as philosopher Soren Kierkegaard would argue as well, is necessary for faith in God

ERAS Protocol for Lower Extremity Orthopedic Procedures

The demand for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and total hip arthroplasty (THA) will continue to rise as life expectancy increases. Coupling increased age with the increased prevalence of both obesity and osteoarthritis, the need for total joint arthroplasties is likely to increase (Oseka & Pecka, 2018). The frequency of arthroplasty procedures and the associated recovery period lead to heavy economic demands felt by most healthcare systems (Stowers et al., 2016). To address this burden, enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocols have been implemented at institutions and are designed to improve patient outcomes while simultaneously limiting cost and reducing readmission rates after surgery (Kaye et al., 2019a). Objectives of this quality improvement project were to research prevailing evidence-based literature on ERAS protocols, develop a facility specific protocol, and introduce the customized THA and TKA ERAS protocol to members of the perioperative team. Results of the post-implementation knowledge assessment demonstrated nurse anesthetists had a strong understanding of ERAS. Participants also indicated that the customized ERAS protocol would be implemented into practice. Obtaining surgeon and other perioperative staff buy-in to the protocol may further enhance patient safety and perioperative experience and reduce economic burden through decreased length of stay and postoperative complications

Elderly, Detained, and Justice-Involved: The Most Incarcerated Generation

The “graying” of the United States prison system is a well-documented phenomenon that describes the aging of the population currently held in U.S. state and federal prisons. This is generally attributed to the large number of individuals who are aging in place in prisons around the country due to long sentences and restrictive parole practices. Less well-known or well-characterized is the fact that the U.S.’s justice-involved population outside of prisons is also “graying”—that the demographics of people who are being arrested, jail detained, transferred to prisons on new criminal convictions, and monitored under community surveillance programs are also changing to include a higher proportion of seniors. This article will use the relevant literature and data from jurisdictions around the country to begin to quantify and describe this aging, justice-involved population. It puts forward the hypothesis that there is a generational cohort of individuals, the “Most Incarcerated Generation,” who entered early adulthood during the period of mass incarceration’s expansion, and who have remained justice-involved even as they age into elderhood. This population is not being effectively diverted from contact with the criminal legal system or reintegrated effectively into the community upon release from correctional facilities. As these individuals age and acquire an increasing burden of health issues and age-related impairment, their needs become more complex and they are chronically underserved by the institutional circuit (jails, prisons, shelters, hospitals) where they are most concentrated. This article also proposes potential interventions that system leaders and policy makers might pursue to better meet the needs of this vulnerable population, and to prevent their spending their final years incarcerated

Functional structure from dynamic clustering of spike train data

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112959/1/12868_2008_Article_841.pd

Banner News

https://openspace.dmacc.edu/banner_news/1287/thumbnail.jp

Following in the Wake of Anger: When Not Discriminating Is Discriminating

Does seeing a scowling face change your impression of the next person you see? Does this depend on the race of the two people? Across four studies, White participants evaluated neutrally expressive White males as less threatening when they followed angry (relative to neutral) White faces; Black males were not judged as less threatening following angry Black faces. This lack of threat-anchored contrast for Black male faces is not attributable to a general tendency for White targets to homogenize Black males—neutral Black targets following smiling Black faces were contrasted away from them and seen as less friendly—and emerged only for perceivers low in motivation to respond without prejudice (i.e., for those relatively comfortable responding prejudicially). This research provides novel evidence for the overperception of threat in Black males

I only have eyes for you: Ovulation redirects attention (but not memory) to attractive men

A number of studies have found a disjunction between women’s attention to, and memory for, handsome men. Although women pay initial attention to handsome men, they do not remember those men later. The present study examines how ovulation might differentially affect these attentional and memory processes. We found that women near ovulation increased their visual attention to attractive men. However, this increased visual attention did not translate into better memory. Discussion focuses on possible explanations, in the context of an emerging body of findings on disjunctions between attention to, and memory for, other people.National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) (R01MH064734

Whitefield News

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Gene disruption by structural mutations drives selection in US rice breeding over the last century.

The genetic basis of general plant vigor is of major interest to food producers, yet the trait is recalcitrant to genetic mapping because of the number of loci involved, their small effects, and linkage. Observations of heterosis in many crops suggests that recessive, malfunctioning versions of genes are a major cause of poor performance, yet we have little information on the mutational spectrum underlying these disruptions. To address this question, we generated a long-read assembly of a tropical japonica rice (Oryza sativa) variety, Carolina Gold, which allowed us to identify structural mutations (>50 bp) and orient them with respect to their ancestral state using the outgroup, Oryza glaberrima. Supporting prior work, we find substantial genome expansion in the sativa branch. While transposable elements (TEs) account for the largest share of size variation, the majority of events are not directly TE-mediated. Tandem duplications are the most common source of insertions and are highly enriched among 50-200bp mutations. To explore the relative impact of various mutational classes on crop fitness, we then track these structural events over the last century of US rice improvement using 101 resequenced varieties. Within this material, a pattern of temporary hybridization between medium and long-grain varieties was followed by recent divergence. During this long-term selection, structural mutations that impact gene exons have been removed at a greater rate than intronic indels and single-nucleotide mutations. These results support the use of ab initio estimates of mutational burden, based on structural data, as an orthogonal predictor in genomic selection

Signal Detection on the Battlefield: Priming Self-Protection vs. Revenge-Mindedness Differentially Modulates the Detection of Enemies and Allies

Detecting signs that someone is a member of a hostile outgroup can depend on very subtle cues. How do ecology-relevant motivational states affect such detections? This research investigated the detection of briefly-presented enemy (versus friend) insignias after participants were primed to be self-protective or revenge-minded. Despite being told to ignore the objectively nondiagnostic cues of ethnicity (Arab vs. Western/European), gender, and facial expressions of the targets, both priming manipulations enhanced biases to see Arab males as enemies. They also reduced the ability to detect ingroup enemies, even when these faces displayed angry expressions. These motivations had very different effects on accuracy, however, with self-protection enhancing overall accuracy and revenge-mindedness reducing it. These methods demonstrate the importance of considering how signal detection tasks that occur in motivationally-charged environments depart from results obtained in conventionally motivationally-inert laboratory settings.National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) (Grant MH64734)U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (Grant W74V8H-05-K-0003)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant BCS-0642873