71 research outputs found
The Polarizing Impact of Science Literacy and Numeracy on Perceived Climate Change Risks
Seeming public apathy over climate change is often attributed to a deficit in comprehension. The public knows too little science, it is claimed, to understand the evidence or avoid being misled. Widespread limits on technical reasoning aggravate the problem by forcing citizens to use unreliable cognitive heuristics to assess risk. An empirical study found no support for this position. Members of the public with the highest degrees of science literacy and technical reasoning capacity were not the most concerned about climate change. Rather, they were the ones among whom cultural polarization was greatest. This result suggests that public divisions over climate change stem not from the public’s incomprehension of science but from a distinctive conflict of interest: between the personal interest individuals have in forming beliefs in line with those held by others with whom they share close ties and the collective one they all share in making use of the best available science to promote common welfare
Comparison of two non-primitive methods for path integral simulations: Higher-order corrections vs. an effective propagator approach
Two methods are compared that are used in path integral simulations. Both
methods aim to achieve faster convergence to the quantum limit than the
so-called primitive algorithm (PA). One method, originally proposed by
Takahashi and Imada, is based on a higher-order approximation (HOA) of the
quantum mechanical density operator. The other method is based upon an
effective propagator (EPr). This propagator is constructed such that it
produces correctly one and two-particle imaginary time correlation functions in
the limit of small densities even for finite Trotter numbers P. We discuss the
conceptual differences between both methods and compare the convergence rate of
both approaches. While the HOA method converges faster than the EPr approach,
EPr gives surprisingly good estimates of thermal quantities already for P = 1.
Despite a significant improvement with respect to PA, neither HOA nor EPr
overcomes the need to increase P linearly with inverse temperature. We also
derive the proper estimator for radial distribution functions for HOA based
path integral simulations.Comment: 17 pages, latex, 6 postscript figure
Graphene transistors are insensitive to pH changes in solution
We observe very small gate-voltage shifts in the transfer characteristic of
as-prepared graphene field-effect transistors (GFETs) when the pH of the buffer
is changed. This observation is in strong contrast to Si-based ion-sensitive
FETs. The low gate-shift of a GFET can be further reduced if the graphene
surface is covered with a hydrophobic fluorobenzene layer. If a thin Al-oxide
layer is applied instead, the opposite happens. This suggests that clean
graphene does not sense the chemical potential of protons. A GFET can therefore
be used as a reference electrode in an aqueous electrolyte. Our finding sheds
light on the large variety of pH-induced gate shifts that have been published
for GFETs in the recent literature
Securing Our Economic Future
The American economy is in the midst of a wrenching crisis, one caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and aggravated further by a series of climate-driven natural disasters. While the economy has made some steps towards recovery, the pandemic has laid bare the reality that too many Americans are unable to meet many of their urgent and basic needs. At the same time, it has become painfully clear that American society is not equipped to deal with the risks emerging from our changing climate. This book is a contribution towards policy options for addressing these challenges. Although it was largely written before the pandemic crises beset our country, the analyses, diagnoses, and prescriptions contained within all shed new light on the underlying fragilities that have since been exposed. The volume is composed of nine commissioned chapters and is divided into three sections, covering the 'Economics of the American Middle Class'; the 'Geographic Disparities in Economic Opportunity'; and the 'Geopolitics of the Climate and Energy Challenge and the US Policy Response.' Part I focuses on the economic wellbeing of the American middle class and the chapters in this section evaluate the prevailing narrative of its decline. The chapters in part II investigate the large variation in income and economic opportunities across places, and include a specific policy proposal for emergency rental assistance. Part III is devoted to the global climate crisis. The chapters in this final section emphasize the mounting social and economic costs of inaction and discuss potential policy approaches for tackling the climate challenge
How Common is Common Human Reason?:The Plurality of Moral Perspectives and Kant’s Ethics
In his practical philosophy, Kant aims to systematize and ground a conception of morality that every human being already in some form is supposedly committed to in virtue of her common human reason. While Kantians especially in the last few years have explicitly acknowledged the central role of common human reason for a correct understanding of Kant’s ethics, there has been very little detailed critical discussion of the very notion of a common human reason as Kant envisages it. Sticker critically discusses in what ways Kant is committed to the notion that there are certain rational insights and rational capacities that all humans share, and thus investigates critically how Kant thinks moral normativity appears to the common human being, the rational agent who did not enjoy special education or philosophical training
Lending Crowdfunding : Principles and Market Development
publishedVersio
Queer Touch Between Holy Women: Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Birgitta of Sweden, and the Visitation
Under embargo until: 2021-12-17This essay takes a new approach to the well-known meeting between two late-medieval English visionary women, Margery Kempe and the anchoress Julian of Norwich, as described in The Book of Margery Kempe. In this analysis their conversation subtly evokes a long history of women concentrating their subversive power through intimate, spiritual exchange, a history reaching back to the Biblical Visitation scene and expressed in its medieval artistic and literary instantiations. A queer reading illuminates the way that such female same-sex relationships challenge patriarchal systems by offering a privileged access to God outside clerical supervision. By examining Margery and Julian’s encounter, Luke’s Visitation passage, its depiction in a late-medieval Book of Hours, and comparing two different Middle English translations of a Visitation vision in Birgitta of Sweden’s Revelations, the full transgressive effect of queer touch between women—or even its unspoken possibility—emerges.acceptedVersio
Anti-Cancer Effect of HIV-1 Viral Protein R on Doxorubicin Resistant Neuroblastoma
Several unique biological features of HIV-1 Vpr make it a potentially powerful agent for anti-cancer therapy. First, Vpr inhibits cell proliferation by induction of cell cycle G2 arrest. Second, it induces apoptosis through multiple mechanisms, which could be significant as it may be able to overcome apoptotic resistance exhibited by many cancerous cells, and, finally, Vpr selectively kills fast growing cells in a p53-independent manner. To demonstrate the potential utility of Vpr as an anti-cancer agent, we carried out proof-of-concept studies in vitro and in vivo. Results of our preliminary studies demonstrated that Vpr induces cell cycle G2 arrest and apoptosis in a variety of cancer types. Moreover, the same Vpr effects could also be detected in some cancer cells that are resistant to anti-cancer drugs such as doxorubicin (DOX). To further illustrate the potential value of Vpr in tumor growth inhibition, we adopted a DOX-resistant neuroblastoma model by injecting SK-N-SH cells into C57BL/6N and C57BL/6J-scid/scid mice. We hypothesized that Vpr is able to block cell proliferation and induce apoptosis regardless of the drug resistance status of the tumors. Indeed, production of Vpr via adenoviral delivery to neuroblastoma cells caused G2 arrest and apoptosis in both drug naïve and DOX-resistant cells. In addition, pre-infection or intratumoral injection of vpr-expressing adenoviral particles into neuroblastoma tumors in SCID mice markedly inhibited tumor growth. Therefore, Vpr could possibly be used as a supplemental viral therapeutic agent for selective inhibition of tumor growth in anti-cancer therapy especially when other therapies stop working
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