Emotionally Charged Aesthetic Experience

Abstract In traditional aesthetics, the typical characteristic of aesthetic experience is said to be pure disinterested beauty. However, the discussion based on this notion is burdened with the philosophical background assumptions of German idealism. In his Art as Experience John Dewey challenged the classical philosophical tradition and presented the key ideas for developing a new concept of aesthetic experience. In order to understand his pragmatist notion of aesthetic experience it is necessary to discuss a number of topics concerning pragmatist the challenge to classical philosophy. The philosophical naturalism of pragmatism questions the traditional distinction between the changing empirical world and the mind-independent real world as an object of genuine knowledge. There is only one world and we are in it. Dewey’s naturalism is, however, in important respects different from the main trend in contemporary naturalism. Further, the pragmatist conception of experience must be clearly distinguished from the traditional notion of experience as sense experience. Action and practice are modes of experiencing and understanding the world. The third topic concerns the naturalistic denial of any immaterial substances. The mind is necessarily embodied, but this is not enough to remove the classical dichotomy between internal and external. A fourth questionable dichotomy in classical philosophy is related to this: the sharp distinction between reason and experience. The pragmatist notion of meaning undermines this dualism. This notion of meaning also serves as a basis for understanding Dewey’s comments on the meanings typical in art. Finally, the emotionally expressive power of art requires an explanation. A discussion of all these points helps to clarify the character of the pragmatist notion of aesthetic experience developed below.Peer reviewe

The Exomars Climate Sounder (EMCS) Investigation

The ExoMars Climate Sounder (EMCS) investigation is developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Principal Investigator J. T. Schofield) in collaboration with an international scientific team from France, the United Kingdom and the USA. EMCS plans to map daily, global, pole-to-pole profiles of temperature, dust, water and CO2 ices, and water vapor from the proposed 2016 ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (EMTGO). These profiles are to be assimilated into Mars General Circulation Models (MGCMs) to generate global, interpolated fields of measured and derived parameters such as wind

Meteoric Metal Chemistry in the Martian Atmosphere

Recent measurements by the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument on NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission show that a persistent layer of Mg⁺ ions occurs around 90 km in the Martian atmosphere but that neutral Mg atoms are not detectable. These observations can be satisfactorily modeled with a global meteoric ablation rate of 0.06 t sol⁻¹, out of a cosmic dust input of 2.7 ± 1.6 t sol⁻¹. The absence of detectable Mg at 90 km requires that at least 50% of the ablating Mg atoms ionize through hyperthermal collisions with CO₂ molecules. Dissociative recombination of MgO⁺.(CO₂)n cluster ions with electrons to produce MgCO₃ directly, rather than MgO, also avoids a buildup of Mg to detectable levels. The meteoric injection rate of Mg, Fe, and other metals—constrained by the IUVS measurements—enables the production rate of metal carbonate molecules (principally MgCO₃ and FeCO₃) to be determined. These molecules have very large electric dipole moments (11.6 and 9.2 Debye, respectively) and thus form clusters with up to six H₂O molecules at temperatures below 150 K. These clusters should then coagulate efficiently, building up metal carbonate‐rich ice particles which can act as nucleating particles for the formation of CO₂‐ice clouds. Observable mesospheric clouds are predicted to occur between 65 and 80 km at temperatures below 95 K and above 85 km at temperatures about 5 K colder

Impacts of Cosmic Dust on Planetary Atmospheres and Surfaces

Recent advances in interplanetary dust modelling provide much improved estimates of the fluxes of cosmic dust particles into planetary (and lunar) atmospheres throughout the solar system. Combining the dust particle size and velocity distributions with new chemical ablation models enables the injection rates of individual elements to be predicted as a function of location and time. This information is essential for understanding a variety of atmospheric impacts, including: the formation of layers of metal atoms and ions; meteoric smoke particles and ice cloud nucleation; perturbations to atmospheric gas-phase chemistry; and the effects of the surface deposition of micrometeorites and cosmic spherules. There is discussion of impacts on all the planets, as well as on Pluto, Triton and Titan

Is Symptomatic Long QT Syndrome Associated with Depression in Women and Men?

We examined whether long QT syndrome (LQTS) mutation carrier status or symptomatic LQTS are associated with depression, and whether there are sex differences in these potential relationships. The sample comprised 782 participants (252 men). Of the 369 genetically defined LQTS mutation carriers, 169 were symptomatic and 200 were asymptomatic. The control group consisted of 413 unaffected relatives. Depression was assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II). No association was found for LQTS mutation carrier status with depression. The multinomial logistic regression showed that LQTS mutation carrier men with arrhythmic events scored higher on depression compared with the control group, even when adjusting for age, beta-blockers, antidepressants, and social support (OR = 1.09, 95 % CI [1.02, 1.15], p = .007). The binary logistic regression comparing symptomatic and asymptomatic LQTS mutation carriers showed that symptomatic LQTS was associated with depression in men (OR = 1.10, 95 % CI [1.03, 1.19], p = .009). The results were unchanged when additionally adjusted for education. These findings suggest that symptomatic LQTS is associated with depression in men but not in women. Overall, however, depression is more frequent in women than men. Thus, regular screening for depression in LQTS mutation carriers and their unaffected family members can be important.Peer reviewe

The Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS) of Three Spectrometers for the ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter

The Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS) package is an element of the Russian contribution to the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) mission. ACS consists of three separate infrared spectrometers, sharing common mechanical, electrical, and thermal interfaces. This ensemble of spectrometers has been designed and developed in response to the Trace Gas Orbiter mission objectives that specifically address the requirement of high sensitivity instruments to enable the unambiguous detection of trace gases of potential geophysical or biological interest. For this reason, ACS embarks a set of instruments achieving simultaneously very high accuracy (ppt level), very high resolving power (>10,000) and large spectral coverage (0.7 to 17 μm—the visible to thermal infrared range). The near-infrared (NIR) channel is a versatile spectrometer covering the 0.7–1.6 μm spectral range with a resolving power of ∼20,000. NIR employs the combination of an echelle grating with an AOTF (Acousto-Optical Tunable Filter) as diffraction order selector. This channel will be mainly operated in solar occultation and nadir, and can also perform limb observations. The scientific goals of NIR are the measurements of water vapor, aerosols, and dayside or night side airglows. The mid-infrared (MIR) channel is a cross-dispersion echelle instrument dedicated to solar occultation measurements in the 2.2–4.4 μm range. MIR achieves a resolving power of >50,000. It has been designed to accomplish the most sensitive measurements ever of the trace gases present in the Martian atmosphere. The thermal-infrared channel (TIRVIM) is a 2-inch double pendulum Fourier-transform spectrometer encompassing the spectral range of 1.7–17 μm with apodized resolution varying from 0.2 to 1.3 cm−1. TIRVIM is primarily dedicated to profiling temperature from the surface up to ∼60 km and to monitor aerosol abundance in nadir. TIRVIM also has a limb and solar occultation capability. The technical concept of the instrument, its accommodation on the spacecraft, the optical designs as well as some of the calibrations, and the expected performances for its three channels are described

Prostate cancer risk among users of digoxin and other antiarrhythmic drugs in the Finnish Prostate Cancer Screening Trial

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