The Benefits and Concerns of Veganism in Women\u27s Health

There are many health benefits of consuming a vegan diet. It is associated with a decreased incidence of obesity, cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes, and a variety of cancers. Despite its numerous benefits, there are several concerns for consumers of a vegan diet, including nutrient deficiency and cardiovascular risk associated with consumption of coconut oil. However, many nutrients of highest concern, such as calcium and protein, are not needed in as high amounts as is commonly believed and recommended. Moreover, it is possible for vegans to obtain adequate nutrition with proper education despite restriction of animal products. Coconut oil consumption as part of a plant-based diet is not associated with the development of cardiovascular disease despite its high saturated fatty acid content. Overall, a vegan diet is an effective mode of treatment and prevention for chronic diseases, and women across the lifespan can obtain adequate nutrition while consuming a plant-based diet

The Moral Foundations of Ethical Leadership

Hester and Killian stress that principled leadership does not necessarily require discarding past practices; rather, they emphasize the importance of using what is good about the past, eliminating self-interest, and injecting passion into contemporary, valuesbased leadership. Passion, as used by the authors in this sense, refers to neither rage nor anger; rather, it is an excitement and enthusiasm that comes from leading with vision, integrity, and respect for others. Subsequently, when such passion is coupled with moral purpose, the idea of serving others, and building and sustaining relationships, the organization will inevitably experience positive growth — one person at a time

Morality Without Borders: A Vision of Humanity as Community

Identity politics is on the rise, and not only in America, but throughout the world. It is an inherent nationalism, and when unbridled and unchecked, unleashes an exclusive ethic into society appealing, not to an expansive moral ought, but one that is narrow and provincial, condemning and vilifying. The fact of national diversity and the imprint of dissimilar value orientations often cause fear and insecurity among groups and sub-groups who are apt to condense their value-orientation vis-à-vis their national or cultural identity, promoting ethical relativism and neglecting core human values. With a diminishing of religion’s consecrated and sanctified moral vision, many are falling upon an idealized version of national identity to set the parameters of their moral horizon. This is often expressed as a “moral superiority” implying the dominance of certain traditions and customs over those of others. We must be reminded that autocracy, national or religious, can be a tool of anyone seeking moral supremacy. Looking back, history teaches that putting up constrictive, dogmatic borders is morally destructive, fencing out those with different views and stifling dialogue and civility within and without. Obviously, putting up ideological boundaries is apt to enclose those who profess a restrictive and/or superior ethic to unproductive and morality corrosive values. Being ethnocentric and tribal seems natural as there is a desire to protect our most cherished beliefs claiming moral superiority. Values are what define us; they are the substance of whom we are and reveal our commitments and convictions and their assumed authority. But our values can also limit our moral acuity, narrowing moral focus and diminishing its energy, unseeking of the commonalities that bind humanity to humanity. Clearly, it’s time to change this truncated narrative from an exclusive ethic to a morality without borders, exemplified as humanity as community. Authoritarianism, displaying autocratic and anti-egalitarian values, is repressive and results in a limited and often amoral view of others. This we are witnessing today from all corners of the political spectrum, and not only in America, but elsewhere as well. For advancing a vision of the morally possible, an inclusive and expansive moral “ought” is needed, but terribly difficult to achieve or even articulate given the fact of cultural diversity, but we try. As Thomas Donaldson (1996, p.52) has noted, “We all learn ethics in the context of our particular cultures, and the power in the principles is deeply tied to the way in which they are expressed. Internationally accepted lists of moral principles, such as the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, draw on many cultural and religious traditions. As philosopher Michael Walzer (1983) has noted, ‘There is no 2 Esperanto (an artificial language devised in 1887 as an international medium of communication, based on roots from the chief European languages) of global ethics.’” We simply express our view of a global ethic as a “moral human ecology” supportive of an unrestrained moral vision drawing both humanity and the environment into its definitive natural fiber. How often we write in abstractions and generalities forgetting the people about whom we talk. Their needs and the inhumanity heaped upon them are seldom noticed. There is some distance between us and others, but with empathy and care and an unrestrictive vision of others, this fissure can be closed. Differing customs and traditions require our reconsideration and respect. What we expose is an ethic of diversity-seeking those basic and common values grounded in the idea of “humanity” itself. Given the present-day discombobulation of value, especially moral value, as witnessed in present-day politics, nuclear proliferation, human exploitation and misery in Central America, and continuous war in both Africa and the Middle East, “morality without borders” presents a guiding metaphor beckoning our attention. “Humanity as Community” marks its location for it is a global imperative. Its possibilities are endless as it can become a beacon of hope in a divided world. But don’t expect miracles; this will be a slow and evolutionary process as we naturally hold our values close, seldom unleashing them for public scrutiny. Philosophically, more than words are needed and more than well-crafted arguments are required for human rights, understood as moral rights, to be judiciously spread around the world. Commitment, respect, planning, and action are also required. For those who are leaders in human rights proliferation as well as ordinary people whose voices need to be heard, this is an enabling vision. It acknowledges the essence of humanity as moral and does not contradict what the religiously oriented call the “sacredness of human life.” It also acknowledges the principles foundational to human rights, such as fairness and justice, decency and responsibility, and the importance of human dignity, integrity, nurture, and care. Not mere generalities, these values are drawn from personal and collective experience and an unhampered propensity to care for others. To say they are innate (Haidt, 2012, p. 31) is perhaps an overreach, but to recognize their human importance is not. As ethicist Kurt Baier pointed out in 1971 (p. 810), morality looks at the world from the point of view of everyone, that “…to be moral…is to recognize that others too, have a right to a worthwhile life.

Deep narrow band imagery of the diffuse ISM in M33

Very deep narrow band images were obtained for several fields in the local group spiral galaxy M33 using a wide field reimaging Charge Coupled Device (CCD) camera on the 1.5 m telescope at Palomar Observatory. The reimaging system uses a 306 mm collimator and a 58 mm camera lens to put a 16 minute by 16 minute field onto a Texas Instruments 800 x 800 pixel CCD at a resolution of 1.2 arcseconds pixel (-1). The overall system is f/1.65. Images were obtained in the light of H alpha (S II) lambda lambda 6717, 6731, (O III) lambda 5007, and line-free continuum bands 100A wide, centered at 6450A and 5100A. Assuming a distance of 600 kpc to M33 (Humphreys 1980, Ap. J., 241, 587), this corresponds to a linear scale of 3.5 pc pixel (-1), and a field size of 2.8 kpc x 2.8 kpc. Researchers discuss the H alpha imagery of a field centered approx. equal to 8 minutes NE of the nucleus, including the supergiant HII region complex NGC 604. Two 2000 second H alpha images and two 300 second red continuum images were obtained of two slightly offset fields. The fields were offset to allow for discrimination between real emission and possible artifacts in the images. All images were resampled to align them with one of the H alpha frames. The continuum images were normalized to the line images using the results of aperture photometry on a grid of stars in the field, then the rescaled continuum data were directly subtracted from the line data

Living absence:the strange geographies of missing people

In this paper ‘missing people’ gain an unstable presence through their (restaged) testimonies recounting individual occupations of material urban public space during the lived practice of absence. We explore ‘missing experience’ with reference to homeless geographies, and as constituted by paradoxical spatialities in which people are both absent and present. We seek to understand such urban geographies of absence through diverse voices of missing people, who discuss their embodiment of unusual rhythmic occupations of the city. We conclude by considering how a new politics of missing people might take account of such voices in ways to think further about rights-to-be-absent in the city

The interstellar halo of spiral galaxies: NGC 891

Researchers have detected the Warm Ionized Medium (WIM) phase in the galaxy NGC 891. They found that the radial distribution of the WIM follows the molecular or young star distribution - an expected dependence. The amount of the WIM in this galaxy exceeds that in our Galaxy. The major surprize is the large thickness of the WIM phase - about 9 kpc instead 3 kpc as in our Galaxy. Clearly, this is the most significant result of the observations. The presence of low ionization gas at high z as well as at large galactocentric radii (where young stars are rare) is an important clue to the origin of the halo and observations such as the one reported here provide important data on this crucial question. In particular, the ionization of gas at high absolute z implies that either the UV photons manage to escape from the disk of the galaxy or that the extragalactic UV background plays an important role. The bulk of the WIM in spiral galaxies is a result of star-formation activity and thus these results can be understood by invoking a high star formation rate in NGC 891. Only the concerted action of supernovae can get the gas to the large z-heights as is observed in this galaxy. Support for this view comes from our detection of many worms i.e., bits and pieces of supershells in the form of kilo-parsec long vertical filaments. Researchers also saw a 600-pc size supershell located nearly one kpc above the plane of the galaxy

Hunters and Gatherers of the Rio Grande Plain and the Lower Coast of Texas

This paper summarizes the prehistoric cultural manifestations found on the Rio Grande Plain of Texas. The primary goal in this paper is to briefly outline the major prehistoric cultural traditions on the Rio Grande Plain. These traditions represent ecological adaptive responses made by the prehistoric inhabitants, and are reflected in the archaeology and ethnology of the area

Early Human Occupations in South Central and Southwestern Texas: Preliminary Papers on the Baker Cave and St. Mary\u27s Hall Sites

During July, 1976, a field team from The University of Texas at San Antonio conducted limited excavations at Baker Cave in Val Verde County, southwestern Texas. The site is located on Phillip\u27s Canyon within the Devil\u27s River drainage. The work was funded by the Center for Field Research, the Texas Archaeological Foundation, and the UTSA Center for Archaeological Research. During. June and July 1977, The University of Texas at San Antonio Archaeological Field Course conducted excavations at the St. Mary\u27s Hall site (41 BX 229), in San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas. The site was officially recorded in 1973. However, prior to that time, during 1972, a house was built on the southern portion of the site, an area lying outside the boundaries of the St. Mary\u27s Hall property (a private girls\u27 school). During the clearing and construction phase, extensive pothunting destroyed the southern portion of the site. Fortunately, the collection (including numerous Golondrina, Angostura and Plainview points) was kept intact and has since been analyzed. Because of the total destruction of the southern section of the site, the then newly-formed Southern Texas Archaeological Association (STAA) decided to undertake test excavations to learn something about the St. Mary\u27s Hall sector

Papers on Paleo-Indian Archaeology in Texas: I

This third number in the Center\u27s Special Report series contains two papers dealing with Paleo-Indian archaeology in Texas. Two additional papers dealing with this topic have recently been submitted. One involves a detailed review of the Plainview-Golondrina typological problem (authored by Thomas C. Kelly), and a second (written by Jules A. Jaquier), describing the bifacial implements from the Johnston-Heller site (41VT15)