Nietzsche: Dionysian-Apollonian Lord of the Dance

Friedrich Nietzsche introduced his philological study of the Ancient Greek\u27s Apollonian and Dionysian duality in his first book, The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music, in 1872. His interpretation of the two Greek gods underpinned his philosophy of the will to power, the Übermensch, and eternal recurrence throughout his career. I contend that Nietzsche\u27s philosophy would have a modicum of merit as a metaphor for Greek culture and the German society in which he lived if his underlying assumption about atheism was correct. However, his explicit rejection of Christianity led to a fatal flaw in his reasoning because the Christian God\u27s existence can be rationally defended as the inference to the best explanation in an Apollonian manner. Yet, Christians also experience a Dionysian life-affirming existential encounter with the Living God. Jesus declared, I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. Nietzsche proclaimed that he would only believe in a God who can dance. Christianity is both a rational system of beliefs and an exciting encounter with God. Jesus is the Lord of the Dance

Recurring themes in Gulf Arabic dramatic television

textAs citizens of the Arabian Gulf states struggle to maintain identity and heritage in a swarm of economic boom and social modernization and mobilization, they are bombarded with media messages which conflict with the essential tenets of modernization and development: individualism, economic independence, freedom of expression, and elevated social status for women. The largely popular Gulf Arabic television miniseries genre is an important vehicle for those conflicting media messages, presenting stereotypical and simplistic representations of family life, the divide between good and evil, and prescribed gender dichotomies. Those messages which idealize traditionalism and conservative belief systems are crafted and informed by those who dominate the media apparatus in the Arabian Gulf: the ruling, male, Muslim, hegemonic elite. The miniseries genre keeps audiences glued to the television in the month of Ramadan, a time at which Muslims throughout the world are at a heightened sense of religiosity and devotion to family and are thus more susceptible to the persuasion of media messages related to religion, faith, virtues, and morals. This research examines the themes of patriarchy, gender dichotomies, family values, and the omnipresence of Islam in the genre and the relationship of all of these themes to the value and belief systems of the ruling hegemonic elite and audience members alike. The research is based on a data pool which includes 152 episodes, totaling roughly 101.5 televised hours. The data also include the results of a survey about audience interaction and interpretation of the genre. The survey is comprised of 35 questions to which 56 participants responded. It discusses the implications of the messages contained within the genre and communicated through the aforementioned themes, and examines the potential for them to influence audience members’ outlook on society as seen through the lens of relevant media theories.Middle Eastern Studie

A Kantian View of Transgenderism

The recent popularity of sex reassignment surgery is logically untenable and immoral when understood in the light of Kantian philosophy. From a Kantian perspective of synthetic a priori judgments, I argue that a biological male cannot rationally claim to “feel like a woman inside.” As a male, any female is part of the noumenal world and cannot be known apart from perception. The statement “I feel like a woman inside” assumes all women feel the same on the inside. Kant’s explanation of the noumenal and phenomenal excludes the possibility of knowing that all women or men feel the same inside because it is impossible to know the noumenal world or the thing in itself. I argue that Kant’s moral principle of universality would conclude sex reassignment surgery would lead to contradictions and absurdities. If all men everywhere universally had the operation to look like their perception of a female, the end of the human race would soon follow; therefore, a Kantian would conclude sexual reassignment surgery is immoral

Resisting the Sound of Muzak : Alienating effects in conceptual progressive music

This study was to showed how popular music is used to create passive consumers driven by a need for instant gratification, rather than objective, active listeners. It then discusses how conceptual progressive music , demonstrated my Porcupine Tree and Pink Floyd rebels against this mass culture nature

Molten pool modeling, microstructure and grain refinement in Ti-alloys

It is known that titanium alloys are widely used in a variety of industries such as aerospace, automotive and biomedical. Good corrosion resistance and the high strength/weight ratio are among the properties that have made these alloys attractive for abovementioned industries. Although these alloys have been extensively investigated for the past decades, the growing demand, the high cost and the recent development of additive manufacturing techniques require better understanding of these alloys as well as the existing relationship between composition, processing and properties. The approach here is to model the molten pool dynamics, created during additive manufacturing processing of titanium alloys, via Comsol Multiphysics to assess key aspects such as grain growth direction and cooling rates. The Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS™), was used to produce a set of specimens to evaluate microstructure and grain refinement in the Ti-W system. The computational results indicate the importance of are the fluid dynamics variables (e.g. Marangoni and buoyance effects) and the preferential grain growth in the \u3c001\u3edirection. A compositionally graded titanium binary system (Ti-xW specimen (0≤x≤30 wt%) was used to evaluate the influence of composition on grain refinement by applying the Easton & St. John model that shows how the grain refinement is mainly governed by the nucleant particles mechanism. In addition, a set of nine Ti-6wt%W specimens were deposited using LENS™ with different laser energy densities and the results shows how the energy density is proportional to the grain size due to two effects. The first effect is that as the energy density increases, the potential availability of nucleant particles can be reduced. Second the energy density (represented by power in the model) is inversely proportional to the cooling rate which confirms the proportionality between grain size and energy density

Keys to academic success for under-represented minority young investigators: recommendations from the Research in Academic Pediatrics Initiative on Diversity (RAPID) National Advisory Committee.

BackgroundAlthough Latinos, African-Americans, and American Indians/Alaska Natives comprise 34% of Americans, these under-represented minorities (URMs) account for only 7% of US medical-school faculty. Even when URMs become faculty, they face many substantial challenges to success. Little has been published, however, on keys to academic success for URM young faculty investigators.MethodsThe Research in Academic Pediatrics Initiative on Diversity (RAPID) goal is to enhance the professional advancement of URM junior faculty pursuing research careers in general academic pediatrics. One important RAPID component is the annual mentoring/career-development conference, which targets URM residents, fellows, and junior faculty, and has included 62 URM participants since its 2013 inception. A conference highlight is the panel discussion on keys to academic success for URM young investigators, conducted by the RAPID National Advisory Committee, a diverse group of leading senior researchers. The article aim was to provide a guide to academic success for URM young investigators using the 2018 RAPID Conference panel discussion. A modified Delphi technique was used to provide a systematic approach to obtaining answers to six key questions using an expert panel: the single most important key to success for URM young investigators; ensuring optimal mentorship; how to respond when patients/families say, "I don't want you to see my child because you are ____"; best strategies for maximizing funding success; how to balance serving on time-consuming committees with enough time to advance research/career objectives; and the single thing you wish someone had told you which would have substantially enhanced your success early on.Results/conclusionsThis is the first published practical guide on keys to academic success for URM young investigators. Identified keys to success included having multiple mentors, writing prolifically, being tenaciously persistent, having mentors who are invested in you, dealing with families who do not want you to care for their child because of your race/ethnicity by seeking to understand the reasons and debriefing with colleagues, seeking non-traditional funding streams, balancing committee work with having enough time to advance one's research and career by using these opportunities to generate scholarly products, and asking for all needed resources when negotiating for new jobs

System Modeling of Brain-Neuromuscular Functions for Developing Brain-Computer Interface

Brain-computer interface (BCI) has been developed for the purpose of bypassing the spinal cord and peripheral nervous system to communicate or control a remote device. Prospective designs have claimed to be able to assist people with severe disabilities or apply to the practice of neurorehabilitation. Nonetheless, due to the complicated and unpredictable nature of such systems, the feasibility and reliability of available BCIs remain to be fully explored. In this study, we applied system identification techniques for black-box modeling, attempting to find the most appropriate BCI system model

Magnetic Induction Wand Design for Novel Penile Prosthesis​

Uronext LLC designed a novel penile prosthesis made of the shape change alloy nitinol for men who suffer from erectile dysfunction. The optimal way to induce the shape change in the prosthesis is by applying heat through induction heating. Existing induction heaters are too heavy and too powerful to safely and effectively heat the Uronext implanted penile prosthesis. An induction heating wand was made to combat this issue and provide a more appropriate induction heating device. A test bench was designed to test the effectiveness of the wand on the prosthesis

Glucose self-monitoring: Think twice for type 2 patients

Stop routinely recommending blood glucose self-monitoring for patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes. Self-monitoring does not improve glycemic control for patients who are not taking insulin, and it increases the risk of depression. Stength of recommendation: B: Single well-done randomized controlled trial (RCT)

Mitochondrial Inheritance in Phytopathogenic Fungi—Everything Is Known, or Is It?

Mitochondria are important organelles in eukaryotes that provide energy for cellular processes. Their function is highly conserved and depends on the expression of nuclear encoded genes and genes encoded in the organellar genome. Mitochondrial DNA replication is independent of the replication control of nuclear DNA and as such, mitochondria may behave as selfish elements, so they need to be controlled, maintained and reliably inherited to progeny. Phytopathogenic fungi meet with special environmental challenges within the plant host that might depend on and influence mitochondrial functions and services. We find that this topic is basically unexplored in the literature, so this review largely depends on work published in other systems. In trying to answer elemental questions on mitochondrial functioning, we aim to introduce the aspect of mitochondrial functions and services to the study of plant-microbe-interactions and stimulate phytopathologists to consider research on this important organelle in their future projects