Book Review: Julius Rocca (ed.) Teleology In The Ancient World: Philosophical And Medical Approaches (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017) xv+331 pp. £75.00, ISBN 9781107036635

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Let's Work This Out: Is Work A Basic Human Good?

In this paper, I explore the axiological status of work. I engage with a number of prominent natural law theorists who consider it a basic human good and explain why their arguments fail. In the process, I put forward a novel argument against the very possibility of work being considered a basic good. I conclude that whilst work may be very important to us psychologically and instrumentally it should not be considered a basic human good

Book review: The Nature of Human Persons: Metaphysics and Bioethics

Review of 'The Nature of Human Persons: Metaphysics and Bioethics' By Jason T. Eberl. Pp. xvi+405. Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press. 2020. £62.00. ISBN: 978-0-268-10773-

Elective abandonment: a male counterpart to abortion

Two of the most influential arguments in favour of the permissibility of abortion were put forward in the latter half of the twentieth century by Judith Jarvis Thomson and Mary Anne Warren. The implications of these arguments for unwilling putative fathers have largely not been considered. Some have argued that Thomson's defence of abortion might allow a man under certain circumstances to terminate his parental responsibilities and rights. To my knowledge, nobody has considered the implications of Warren's argument for men. I will consider the implications of both arguments for men. I will argue that if they are successful defences of abortion then they are also successful in justifying a male counterpart to abortion which I label ‘elective abandonment’. I will not be defending or attacking these arguments as defences of abortion, but will defend the claim that they apply as well to elective abandonment as they do to abortion

No It Isn't: A Response To Law On Evil Pleasure

In this paper, I engage with Law’s (2008) paper ‘Evil Pleasure Is Good For You!’ I argue that, although his criticism of hedonistic utilitarianism may hold some weight, his analysis of the goodness of pleasure is overly simplistic. I highlight some troubling results which would follow from his analysis and then outline a new account which then remedies these problems. Ultimately, I distinguish between Law’s ‘evil pleasures’ and, what I call, ‘virtuous pleasures’ and show how we can accept the goodness of virtuous pleasures without being obliged to say that evil pleasures are also good for us

Structural disorder in (Bi,M)2(Fe,Mn,Bi)2O6+x (M = Na or K) pyrochlores seen from reverse Monte Carlo analysis of neutron total scattering

The average structures of the polycrystalline pyrochlores (Na0.60Bi1.40)(Fe1.06Mn0.17Bi0.77)O6.87 and (K0.24Bi1.51)(Fe1.07Mn0.15Bi0.78)O6.86 can be refined through Rietveld refinement against Bragg scattering data using cubic space group Fd3 ̅m, with off-centred 96h and 32e positions describing the A2Oʹ network. Investigation of their local structures through neutron total scattering confirms the extent of disorder within these materials, and furthermore shows significant deviation from the average structure, which is not accounted for through analysis of Bragg data alone. Reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) analysis with a 6 × 6 × 6 supercell was used to model accurately this local disorder, revealing ellipsoidal distributions for A-site potassium, distinctly different to the hollow torus-shaped distributions for the sodium and bismuth cations. It is shown through bond valence sum analysis that whilst these atomic displacements allow for the steric preferences of Bi3+, they are also necessary to satisfy the valence of both the bismuth and the alkali metals on the A sites. Analysis of the final RMC configuration showed the BO6 octahedra for the separate B site metals to be more regular (O–B–O ≈ 90°) than those in the Rietveld model (O–B–O ≈ 85/95°) which describes an average of the three different environments

Тепловой баланс помещения с электрической кабельной системой отопления

Solvothermal oxidation of metallic gallium in monoethanolamine for 72 h at 240 °C yields a crystalline sample of γ-Ga₂O₃ (∼30 nm crystallites). While Rietveld refinement (cubic spinel structure, <i>Fd</i>3̅<i>m</i>; <i>a</i> = 8.23760(9) Å) reveals that Ga occupies two pairs of octahedral and tetrahedral sites (ideal spinel and nonspinel), it provides no information about their local distribution, which cannot be statistical owing to the short Ga–Ga contacts produced if neighboring ideal spinel and nonspinel sites are simultaneously occupied. To create an atomistic model to reconcile this situation, a 6 × 6 × 6 supercell of the crystal structure is constructed and refined against neutron total scattering data using a reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) approach. This accounts well for the local as well as long-range structure and reveals significant local distortion in the octahedral sites that resembles the structure of thermodynamically stable β-Ga₂O₃. ⁷¹Ga solid-state NMR results reveal a octahedral:tetrahedral Ga ratio that is consistent with the model obtained from RMC. Nanocrystalline samples of γ-Ga₂O₃ are produced by either a short solvothermal reaction (240 °C for 11 h in diethanolamine; ∼15 nm crystallites) or by precipitation from an ethanolic solution of gallium nitrate (∼5 nm crystallites). For these samples, the Bragg scattering profile is broadened by their smaller crystallite size, consistent with transmission electron microscopy results, and analysis of the relative Bragg peak intensities provides evidence that a greater proportion of tetrahedral versus octahedral sites are filled. In contrast, neutron total scattering shows the same average Ga–O distance with decreasing particle size, consistent with ⁷¹Ga solid-state NMR results that indicate that all samples contain the same overall proportion of octahedral:tetrahedral Ga. It is postulated that increased occupation of tetrahedral sites within the smaller crystallites is balanced by an increased proportion of octahedral surface Ga sites, owing to termination by bound solvent or hydroxide

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead