Book review: after extinction

What comes after extinction? In After Extinction, editor Richard Grusin brings together contributors to address this question by considering extinction within cultural, artistic, media and biological debates. This is a timely contribution to contemporary discussions regarding the future of our planet, writes Anda Pleniceanu, that will leave readers with a renewed perspective on the relevance of the humanities to understanding our present environmental and humanitarian predicament

Peri Algeos: Pain in Aeschylus and Sophocles

This thesis is an examination of physical pain in ancient tragedy, with the focus on three plays: Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound and Sophocles’ Philoctetes and Trachiniae. The study unfolds the layers of several conceptual systems in order to get closer to the core—pain and its limits in tragedy. The first chapter aims to show that Aristotle’s model for the analysis of tragedy in his classificatory tract, the Poetics, centered on the ill-defined concept of mimesis, is an attempt to tame pain and clean tragedy of its inherent viscerality. The second chapter looks at the dualist solution advanced by Plato and Descartes, while showing that a discourse rooted in dualism alienates pain from tragedy. The third chapter provides axes of analysis for three tragedies where pain plays a central role by using the idea of pain as an experience of the limit and looking at the different ways in which pain splits the subject. The thesis also advances the idea that, for the most part, conceptual frames act as analgesic systems that obstruct the exposure to the experience of intensity in ancient tragedy

Book review: after extinction edited by Richard Grusin

What comes after extinction? In After Extinction, editor Richard Grusin brings together contributors to address this question by considering extinction within cultural, artistic, media and biological debates. This is a timely contribution to contemporary discussions regarding the future of our planet, writes Anda Pleniceanu, that will leave readers with a renewed perspective on the relevance of the humanities to understanding our present environmental and humanitarian predicament. After Extinction. Richard Grusin (ed.). University of Minnesota Press. 2018

You Unseen Cathedrals: A Study of the Conceptual Conditions of Negativity

This dissertation addresses a gap in contemporary negativity studies by examining twentieth-century texts that engage with negativity beyond the subject. Starting with the premise that the concepts of negativity and subjectivity are intertwined, I argue that the predominant tendency in scholarship has been to conceptualize subjectivity as a circular structure that incorporates negativity as its dynamic foundation. However, when negativity is defined in subordination to the subjective circle, its radical features are diminished, resulting in “weak negativity.” In Chapter 1, I exemplify my arguments using the works of Alexandre Kojève, Jean Hyppolite, and Judith Butler. In contrast to weak negativity, radical negativity is a slippery concept that can only be treated obliquely to avoid its incorporation into subjectivity. In the works of Theodor W. Adorno, Roger Caillois, Michel Foucault, Maurice Blanchot, and Manolo Millares, I identify an alternative set of concepts and approaches for tracing a partial definition of radical negativity. In Chapter 2, I show how Adorno employs various techniques in pursuit of non-identity, a correlate of radical negativity, and arrives at the notion of mimesis as a means for conceptualizing radical negativity materially embedded in art. In Chapter 3, I analyze Caillois’s work on mimesis in insects, identifying the notions of worklessness and the outside, as well as the device of the double death, to further outline the conceptual conditions of radical negativity. Foucault’s and Blanchot’s works help steer the discussion of mimesis, along with worklessness, the outside, and double death, back to art and aesthetics grounded in radical negativity. To conclude, I propose that the paintings of Spanish Informalist Manolo Millares can be seen as examples of art that embodies radical negativity without subordinating it to the voracious circularity of the subject

Renal stem cells: fact or science fiction?

The kidney is widely regarded as an organ without regenerative abilities. However, in recent years this dogma has been challenged on the basis of observations of kidney recovery following acute injury, and the identification of renal populations that demonstrate stem cell characteristics in various species. It is currently speculated that the human kidney can regenerate in some contexts, but the mechanisms of renal regeneration remain poorly understood. Numerous controversies surround the potency, behaviour and origins of the cell types that are proposed to perform kidney regeneration. The present review explores the current understanding of renal stem cells and kidney regeneration events, and examines the future challenges in using these insights to create new clinical treatments for kidney disease

Biologically active new Fe(II), Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II) complexes of N-(2-thienylmethylene)methanamine

Iron(II), cobalt(II), nickel (II), copper (II), zinc(II) and cadmium(II) complexes of the type ML2Cl2, where M is a metal and L is the Schiff base N-(2-thienylmethylene)methanamine (TNAM) formed by the condensation of 2-thiophenecarboxaldehyde and methylamine, were prepared and characterized by elemental analysis as well as magnetic and spectroscopic measurements. The elemental analyses suggest the stoichiometry to be 1:2 (metal:ligand). Magnetic susceptibility data coupled with electronic, ESR and Mössbauer spectra suggest a distorted octahedral structure for the Fe(II), Co(II) and Ni(II) complexes, a square-planar geometry for the Cu(II) compound and a tetrahedral geometry for the Zn(II) and Cd(II) complexes. The infrared and NMR spectra of the complexes agree with co-ordination to the central metal atom through nitrogen and sulphur atoms. Conductance measurements suggest the non-electrolytic nature of the complexes, except for the Cu(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II) complexes, which are 1:2 electrolytes. The Schiff base and its metal chelates were screened for their biological activity against Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the metal chelates were found to possess better antibacterial activity than that of the uncomplexed Schiff base

Mixing Cells for Vascularized Kidney Regeneration

The worldwide rise in prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) demands innovative bio-medical solutions for millions of kidney patients. Kidney regenerative medicine aims to replenish tissue which is lost due to a common pathological pathway of fibrosis/inflammation and rejuvenate remaining tissue to maintain sufficient kidney function. To this end, cellular therapy strategies devised so far utilize kidney tissue-forming cells (KTFCs) from various cell sources, fetal, adult, and pluripotent stem-cells (PSCs). However, to increase engraftment and potency of the transplanted cells in a harsh hypoxic diseased environment, it is of importance to co-transplant KTFCs with vessel forming cells (VFCs). VFCs, consisting of endothelial cells (ECs) and mesenchymal stem-cells (MSCs), synergize to generate stable blood vessels, facilitating the vascularization of self-organizing KTFCs into renovascular units. In this paper, we review the different sources of KTFCs and VFCs which can be mixed, and report recent advances made in the field of kidney regeneration with emphasis on generation of vascularized kidney tissue by cell transplantation

Spectrophotometric determination of Ru(III) using rhodanine

1019-1020A simple and direct spectrophotometric method using 2-thion-thiazolid-4-one has been developed for determination of Ru (III).Molar absorptivity and Sandell' s sensitivity are calculated to be 6.5555×103 L mol-1 cm-1 and 0.0154 μg cm-2 respectively. The effect of various parameters including time, pH and volume of reagent has been studied. The Beer's law is obeyed over the range 0.202-6.873 μg of Ru(III). The method has been applied for the determination of Ru(III) in various synthetic and real samples

Stuides on a Pb2+-selective electrode with a macrocyclic liquid membrane. Potentiometric determination of Pb2+ ions

This paper presents experimental and theoretical data regarding the design, characterization and analytical applications of a non-expensive, liquid-membrane ion-selective electrode for Pb2+ ions. The membrane is a solution of the active complex formed by Pb2+ ions with dibenzo-18-crown-6-ionophore (DB-[18]-C-6) extracted in propylene carbonate (PC). The sucessful application of the developed electrode for the determination of Pb2+ ions in aqueos solution samples by direct potentiometry and potentiometric titration is presented. For the presented analytical results, there are insignificant systematic errors between the direct potentiometric method with the developed ion-selective electrode and atomic absorption spectrometry