60 research outputs found
Facilitating an Ethical Disposition (Hexis) as âCare of the Soulâ in a Unique Ontological Vision of Socratic Education
This essay adopts a Continental philosophical approach to reading Platoâs Socrates in terms of a âthird wayâ that cuts a middle path between doctrinal and esoteric readings of the dialogues. It presents a portrait of Socratic education that is at odds with contemporary views in education and curriculum that view Platoâs Socrates as either the teacher of a truth-finding method or proto-fascist authoritarian. It argues that the crucial issue of attempting to foster an ethical disposition (hexis) is a unique form of education, in terms of âcare of the soul,â that unfolds only within the context of sustained dialectic interrogation. Education is a âdifficultâ process that entails the âturningâ of the soul back to itself in an enlightened form, which is bound up with an ontological relationship of distance to the so-called âtruthâ of the virtues that appear in limited and dissembling ways to Socrates and the interlocutors. Ultimately, it is shown that âcare of the soulâ is grounded in the attunement (a pathos and deinon) that locates the human being in the world in such a way that ânot-knowingâ is the most original way in which our Being-in-the-world unfolds, and to embrace this âdifficultâ truth is to at once set oneself on the arduous but rewarding educative path toward the potential development of an ethical disposition (hexis)
Heideggerâs Socrates: âPure Thinkingâ on Method, Truth, and Learning
This speculative essay develops a unique understanding of Socrates by reading Heidegger in relation to contemporary Platonic scholarship arising from the Continental tradition, which embraces Platoâs Socrates as a non-doctrinal philosopher. The portrait of Heideggerâs Socrates that emerges is related to contemporary education and its drive toward emphasizing an academic focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) at the exclusion of the Liberal Arts, with the goal of showing that other forms of âknowledge,â such as the philosophical âtruthâ emerging from the relationship between the human and the unfolding of Being, while stifled or neglected in STEM curricula, are also crucial to our continued development as human beings. Ultimately, the essay seeks to draw out an authentic vision of paideia by turning to the valuable, albeit limited, writings of Heidegger focused specifically on the historical philosopher Socrates, as opposed to Plato
The chemical composition of nearby young associations: s-process element abundances in AB Doradus, Carina-Near, and Ursa Major
Recently, several studies have shown that young, open clusters are
characterised by a considerable over-abundance in their barium content. In
particular, D'Orazi et al. (2009) reported that in some younger clusters
[Ba/Fe] can reach values as high as ~0.6 dex. The work also identified the
presence of an anti-correlation between [Ba/Fe] and cluster age. For clusters
in the age range ~4.5 Gyr-500 Myr, this is best explained by assuming a higher
contribution from low-mass asymptotic giant branch stars to the Galactic
chemical enrichment. The purpose of this work is to investigate the ubiquity of
the barium over-abundance in young stellar clusters. We analysed
high-resolution spectroscopic data, focusing on the s-process elemental
abundance for three nearby young associations, i.e. AB Doradus, Carina-Near,
and Ursa Major. The clusters have been chosen such that their age spread would
complement the D'Orazi et al. (2009) study. We find that while the s-process
elements Y, Zr, La, and Ce exhibit solar ratios in all three associations, Ba
is over-abundant by ~0.2 dex. Current theoretical models can not reproduce this
abundance pattern, thus we investigate whether this unusually large Ba content
might be related to chromospheric effects. Although no correlation between
[Ba/Fe] and several activity indicators seems to be present, we conclude that
different effects could be at work which may (directly or indirectly) be
related to the presence of hot stellar chromospheres.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
The Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey. IX. Dust-to-gas mass ratio and metallicity gradients in four Virgo spiral galaxies
Using Herschel data from the Open Time Key Project the Herschel Virgo Cluster
Survey (HeViCS), we investigated the relationship between the metallicity
gradients expressed by metal abundances in the gas phase as traced by the
chemical composition of HII regions, and in the solid phase, as traced by the
dust-to-gas mass ratio. We derived the radial gradient of the dust-to-gas mass
ratio for all galaxies observed by HeViCS whose metallicity gradients are
available in the literature. They are all late type Sbc galaxies, namely
NGC4254, NGC4303, NGC4321, and NGC4501. We examined different dependencies on
metallicity of the CO-to-H conversion factor (\xco), used to transform the
CO observations into the amount of molecular hydrogen. We found that in
these galaxies the dust-to-gas mass ratio radial profile is extremely sensitive
to choice of the \xco\ value, since the molecular gas is the dominant component
in the inner parts. We found that for three galaxies of our sample, namely
NGC4254, NGC4321, and NGC4501, the slopes of the oxygen and of the dust-to-gas
radial gradients agree up to 0.6-0.7R using \xco\ values in the
range 1/3-1/2 Galactic \xco. For NGC4303 a lower value of \xco
10 is necessary. We suggest that such low \xco\ values might be due to a
metallicity dependence of \xco (from close to linear for NGC4254, NGC4321, and
NGC4501 to superlinear for NGC4303), especially in the radial regions
R0.6-0.7R where the molecular gas dominates. On the other hand, the
outer regions, where the atomic gas component is dominant, are less affected by
the choice of \xco, and thus we cannot put constraints on its value.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, A&A accepte
Gas Accretion and Star Formation Rates
Cosmological numerical simulations of galaxy evolution show that accretion of
metal-poor gas from the cosmic web drives the star formation in galaxy disks.
Unfortunately, the observational support for this theoretical prediction is
still indirect, and modeling and analysis are required to identify hints as
actual signs of star-formation feeding from metal-poor gas accretion. Thus, a
meticulous interpretation of the observations is crucial, and this
observational review begins with a simple theoretical description of the
physical process and the key ingredients it involves, including the properties
of the accreted gas and of the star-formation that it induces. A number of
observations pointing out the connection between metal-poor gas accretion and
star-formation are analyzed, specifically, the short gas consumption time-scale
compared to the age of the stellar populations, the fundamental metallicity
relationship, the relationship between disk morphology and gas metallicity, the
existence of metallicity drops in starbursts of star-forming galaxies, the
so-called G dwarf problem, the existence of a minimum metallicity for the
star-forming gas in the local universe, the origin of the alpha-enhanced gas
forming stars in the local universe, the metallicity of the quiescent BCDs, and
the direct measurements of gas accretion onto galaxies. A final section
discusses intrinsic difficulties to obtain direct observational evidence, and
points out alternative observational pathways to further consolidate the
current ideas.Comment: Invited review to appear in Gas Accretion onto Galaxies, Astrophysics
and Space Science Library, eds. A. J. Fox & R. Dav\'e, to be published by
Springe
Prevalence of primary biliary cirrhosis in adults referring hospital for annual health check-up in Southern China
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is an autoimmune liver disease characterized by the presence of anti-mitocondrial autoantibodies (AMA) which has an essential role also for diagnosis. In addition, also some anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) have been shown to be highly specific PBC. The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of PBC among the adults referring hospital for annual health check-up in Southern China by screening sera for PBC-specific autoantibodies.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>AMA and ANA were screened in 8,126 adults (mean age 44 ± 15 years, 48% females) by indirect immunofluorenscence (IIF). Positive sera were tested by ELISA/immunoblotting for AMA-M2, anti-sp100 and anti-gp210. A diagnosis of PBC was re-assessed six months after the initial testing.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Out of 8,126 individuals 35 were positive for AMA and 79 positive for ANA. Nineteen, 4, and 3 of the subjects positive for AMA and/or ANA showed reactivity for AMA-M2, anti-sp100 or gp210, respectively, further tested with ELISA/immunoblotting. Fourteen in the 39 individuals positive for AMA at IIF, AMA-M2, anti-gp210, or anti-sp100 had abnormal cholestatic liver functional indices. One definite and 3 probable PBC diagnosis could be made in 4 cases including 3 females and 1 male after half a year.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We found a point prevalence rate of PBC among Southern Chinese adults attending for yearly health check-up of 492 cases per million (95% CI, 128 to 1,093) and 1,558 cases per million (95% CI, 294 to 3,815) for women over 40, a finding similar to prevalence reported in other geographical areas.</p
Genome modeling system: A knowledge management platform for genomics
In this work, we present the Genome Modeling System (GMS), an analysis information management system capable of executing automated genome analysis pipelines at a massive scale. The GMS framework provides detailed tracking of samples and data coupled with reliable and repeatable analysis pipelines. The GMS also serves as a platform for bioinformatics development, allowing a large team to collaborate on data analysis, or an individual researcher to leverage the work of others effectively within its data management system. Rather than separating ad-hoc analysis from rigorous, reproducible pipelines, the GMS promotes systematic integration between the two. As a demonstration of the GMS, we performed an integrated analysis of whole genome, exome and transcriptome sequencing data from a breast cancer cell line (HCC1395) and matched lymphoblastoid line (HCC1395BL). These data are available for users to test the software, complete tutorials and develop novel GMS pipeline configurations. The GMS is available at https://github.com/genome/gms
Gaia-ESO Survey: INTRIGOSS - A New Library of High-resolution Synthetic Spectra
We present a high resolution synthetic spectral library, INTRIGOSS, designed
for studying FGK stars. The library is based on atmosphere models computed with
specified individual element abundances via ATLAS12 code. Normalized SPectra
(NSP) and surface Flux SPectra (FSP), in the 4830-5400 A, wavelength range,
were computed with the SPECTRUM code. INTRIGOSS uses the solar composition by
Grevesse et al. 2007 and four [alpha/Fe] abundance ratios and consists of
15,232 spectra. The synthetic spectra are computed with astrophysical gf-values
derived by comparing synthetic predictions with a very high SNR solar spectrum
and the UVES-U580 spectra of five cool giants. The validity of the NSPs is
assessed by using the UVES-U580 spectra of 2212 stars observed in the framework
of the Gaia-ESO Survey and characterized by homogeneous and accurate
atmospheric parameter values and by detailed chemical compositions. The greater
accuracy of NSPs with respect to spectra from the AMBRE, GES_Grid, PHOENIX,
C14, and B17 synthetic spectral libraries is demonstrated by evaluating the
consistency of the predictions of the different libraries for the UVES-U580
sample stars. The validity of the FSPs is checked by comparing their prediction
with both observed spectral energy distribution and spectral indices. The
comparison of FSPs with SEDs derived from ELODIE, INDO--U.S., and MILES
libraries indicates that the former reproduce the observed flux distributions
within a few percent and without any systematic trend. The good agreement
between observational and synthetic Lick/SDSS indices shows that the predicted
blanketing of FSPs well reproduces the observed one, thus confirming the
reliability of INTRIGOSS FSPs
Radial distribution of dust, stars, gas, and star-formation rate in DustPedia face-on galaxies
Aims. The purpose of this work is the characterization of the radial distribution of dust, stars, gas, and star-formation rate (SFR) in a sub-sample of 18 face-on spiral galaxies extracted from the DustPedia sample.
Methods. This study is performed by exploiting the multi-wavelength DustPedia database, from ultraviolet (UV) to sub-millimeter bands, in addition to molecular (12CO) and atomic (Hi) gas maps and metallicity abundance information available in the literature. We fitted the surface-brightness profiles of the tracers of dust and stars, the mass surface-density profiles of dust, stars, molecular gas, and total gas, and the SFR surface-density profiles with an exponential curve and derived their scale-lengths. We also developed a method to solve for the CO-to-H2 conversion factor (αCO) per galaxy by using dust- and gas-mass profiles.
Results. Although each galaxy has its own peculiar behavior, we identified a common trend of the exponential scale-lengths versus wavelength. On average, the scale-lengths normalized to the B-band 25 mag/arcsec2 radius decrease from UV to 70 ÎŒm, from 0.4 to 0.2, and then increase back up to ~0.3 at 500 microns. The main result is that, on average, the dust-mass surface-density scale-length is about 1.8 times the stellar one derived from IRAC data and the 3.6 ÎŒm surface brightness, and close to that in the UV. We found a mild dependence of the scale-lengths on the Hubble stage T: the scale-lengths of the Herschel bands and the 3.6 ÎŒm scale-length tend to increase from earlier to later types, the scale-length at 70 ÎŒm tends to be smaller than that at longer sub-mm wavelength with ratios between longer sub-mm wavelengths and 70 ÎŒm that decrease with increasing T. The scale-length ratio of SFR and stars shows a weak increasing trend towards later types. Our αCO determinations are in the range (0.3â9) Mâ pc-2 (K km s-1)-1, almost invariant by using a fixed dust-to-gas ratio mass (DGR) or a DGR depending on metallicity gradient
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