Foundationalism, Representationalism, and Truth: The Debate Between Haack and Rorty

This thesis defends Rorty’s neo-pragmatism from the criticism of fellow pragmatist Susan Haack. Rortian neo-pragmatism threatens to undermine Haack’s own theory of justification, foundherentism, which Haack argues is superior to foundationalism and coherentism. Haack claims that Rorty, first, has no good arguments against epistemology and, second, proffers an unappealing alternative. I suggest that Rorty does have a good argument against epistemology, and that that argument is exemplified by a closer look at Haack’s notion of “ratification”. Ratification becomes a self-imposed standard which Haack is unable to achieve. Understanding the motivations which cause Haack to pursue ratification requires an investigation of truth. I explicate in some detail Rorty’s conception of truth and contrast it with Haack’s interpretation of his position. I develop this reading by marrying Rorty’s earlier and later discussions on the matter, and conclude by suggesting ways to develop Rorty’s approach further. The result is a minimal account of truth that avoids the pitfalls of Haack’s reading, and an approach to epistemology that bypasses the need for ratification and the worries of the epistemological sceptic.«br /

Planning for Crime Prevention

Crime and the fear of crime are issues high in public concern and on political agendas in most developed countries. This book takes these issues and relates them to the contribution that urban planners and participative planning processes can make in response to these problems. Its focus is thus on the extent to which crime opportunities can be prevented or reduced through the design, planning and management of the built environment. The perspective of the book is transatlantic and comparative, not only because ideas and inspiration in this and many other fields increasingly move between countries but also because there is a great deal of relevant theoretical material and practice in both the USA and the UK which has not previously been pulled together in this systemic manner

Planning for Crime Prevention

Crime and the fear of crime are issues high in public concern and on political agendas in most developed countries. This book takes these issues and relates them to the contribution that urban planners and participative planning processes can make in response to these problems. Its focus is thus on the extent to which crime opportunities can be prevented or reduced through the design, planning and management of the built environment. The perspective of the book is transatlantic and comparative, not only because ideas and inspiration in this and many other fields increasingly move between countries but also because there is a great deal of relevant theoretical material and practice in both the USA and the UK which has not previously been pulled together in this systemic manner

Resisting student labeling in this era of testing

We examined perspectives that prospective elementary teachers (PTs) noticed their mentor teachers held with regards to classifying students by achievement or behavior. Many PTs noticed deficit mathematical discourse and expressed concern about how that could lead students to develop negative views of themselves

Epidrug mediated re-expression of miRNA targeting the HMGA transcripts in pituitary cells

Transgenic mice overexpressing the high mobility group A (HMGA) genes, Hmga1 or Hmga2 develop pituitary tumours and their overexpression is also a frequent finding in human pituitary adenomas. In some cases, increased expression of HMGA2 but not that of HMGA1 is consequent to genetic perturbations. However, recent studies show that down-regulation of microRNA (miRNA), that contemporaneously target the HMGA1 and HMGA2 transcripts, are associated with their overexpression. In a cohort of primary pituitary adenoma we determine the impact of epigenetic modifications on the expression of HMGA-targeting miRNA. For these miRNAs, chromatin immunoprecipitations showed that transcript down-regulation is correlated with histone tail modifications associated with condensed silenced genes. The functional impact of epigenetic modification on miRNA expression was determined in the rodent pituitary cell line, GH3. In these cells, histone tail, miRNA-associated, modifications were similar to those apparent in human adenoma and likely account for their repression. Indeed, challenge of GH3 cells with the epidrugs, zebularine and TSA, led to enrichment of the histone modification, H3K9Ac, associated with active genes, and depletion of the modification, H3K27me3, associated with silent genes and re-expression of HMGA-targeting miRNA. Moreover, epidrugs challenges were also associated with a concomitant decrease in hmga1 transcript and protein levels and concurrent increase in bmp-4 expression. These findings show that the inverse relationship between HMGA expression and targeting miRNA is reversible through epidrug interventions. In addition to showing a mechanistic link between epigenetic modifications and miRNA expression these findings underscore their potential as therapeutic targets in this and other diseases

Advances in Applying Computer-Aided Drug Design for Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Huntington's disease are incurable and affect millions of people worldwide. The development of treatments for this unmet clinical need is a major global research challenge. Computer-aided drug design (CADD) methods minimize the huge number of ligands that could be screened in biological assays, reducing the cost, time, and effort required to develop new drugs. In this review, we provide an introduction to CADD and examine the progress in applying CADD and other molecular docking studies to NDs. We provide an updated overview of potential therapeutic targets for various NDs and discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of these tools