Discipline and Development: Structures of discipline in Ontario education and the struggle for the soul

In Ontario, and in Canada, a culture of acquisition is influential in many aspects of society. This culture is pervasive enough to distort social values so that institutions and individuals come to accept the culture of acquisition and to make formal policies that in effect serve to foster and advance the values of that culture. The values of the culture of acquisition are material and often monetary in nature and hinder the process of self-actualization. The schooling system in Ontario is not immune from this influence. Education policy reflects the influence of the culture of acquisition and the rhetoric used to justify it demonstrates a kind of blindness to the long term effects of its influence on students, teachers and society. In this work, it is assumed that the process of self actualization is a naturally innate capacity, revealed in the work of Maslow and Neill, essential to healthy socialization. Education, as a social-political activity, serves to both build and maintain cultural values. Teachers are in a position, still, to give their students the critical thinking skills needed to evaluate cultural influences which may harm or help them in their process of becoming and so can give them the ability to choose paths that lead away from the culture of acquisition and toward self-actualization within the balance of the soul

Differentiable Compliant Contact Primitives for Estimation and Model Predictive Control

Control techniques like MPC can realize contact-rich manipulation which exploits dynamic information, maintaining friction limits and safety constraints. However, contact geometry and dynamics are required to be known. This information is often extracted from CAD, limiting scalability and the ability to handle tasks with varying geometry. To reduce the need for a priori models, we propose a framework for estimating contact models online based on torque and position measurements. To do this, compliant contact models are used, connected in parallel to model multi-point contact and constraints such as a hinge. They are parameterized to be differentiable with respect to all of their parameters (rest position, stiffness, contact location), allowing the coupled robot/environment dynamics to be linearized or efficiently used in gradient-based optimization. These models are then applied for: offline gradient-based parameter fitting, online estimation via an extended Kalman filter, and online gradient-based MPC. The proposed approach is validated on two robots, showing the efficacy of sensorless contact estimation and the effects of online estimation on MPC performance.Comment: Submitted ICRA24. Video available at https://youtu.be/CuCTcmn3H-o Code available at https://gitlab.cc-asp.fraunhofer.de/hanikevi/contact_mp

East Asian Festival : SUNY Brockport, Spring 1991 : Proceedings, Lecture Series Presented by Asian Studies Faculty.

Includes papers by The College at Brockport faculty member Oh-Kon Cho (Dept. of Theatre), emerita Kazumi Nakano (Dept. of Mathematics), and former faculty member Sue Kenworthy (Dept. of Educational Administration).https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/bookshelf/1288/thumbnail.jp

A GABAergic projection from the centromedial nuclei of the amygdala to ventromedial prefrontal cortex modulates reward behavior

The neural circuitry underlying mammalian reward behaviors involves several distinct nuclei throughout the brain. It is widely accepted that the midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons are critical for the reward-related behaviors. Recent studies have shown that the centromedial nucleus of the amygdala (CeMA) has a distinct role in regulating reward-related behaviors. However, the CeMA and ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) interaction in reward regulation remains poorly understood. Here, we identify and dissect a GABAergic projection that originates in the CeMA and terminates in the vmPFC (VGat-Cre(CeMA-vmPFC)) using viral-vector-mediated, cell-type-specific optogenetic techniques in mice. Pathway-specific optogenetic activation of the VGat-Cre(CeMA-vmPFC) circuit in awake, behaving animals produced a positive, reward-like phenotype in real-time place preference and increased locomotor activity in open-field testing. In sucrose operant conditioning, the photoactivation of these terminals increased nose-poking effort with no effect on licking behavior and robustly facilitated the extinction of operant behavior. However, photoactivation of these terminals did not induce self-stimulation in the absence of an external reward. The results described here suggest that the VGat-Cre(CeMA-vmPFC) projection acts to modulate existing reward-related behaviors. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Many studies have shown that the interactions between the centromedial nucleus of the amygdala (CeMA) and ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) have critical roles for emotional regulation. However, most studies have associated this circuit with fear and anxiety behaviors and emphasized top-down processing from vmPFC to CeMA. Here, we provide new evidence for bottom-up CeMA to vmPFC influence on reward-related behaviors. Although previous work implicated the CeMA in incentive salience, our results isolate the investigation to a specific CeMA GABAergic projection to the vmPFC. This long-range GABAergic interaction between amygdala and frontal cortex adds a new dimension to the complex regulation of reward-related behaviors

Understanding the T cell immune response in SARS coronavirus infection

10.1038/emi.2012.26Emerging Microbes and Infections1Article number e23, 6 page

A note on the geometric phase in adiabatic approximation

The adiabatic theorem shows that the instantaneous eigenstate is a good approximation of the exact solution for a quantum system in adiabatic evolution. One may therefore expect that the geometric phase calculated by using the eigenstate should be also a good approximation of exact geometric phase. However, we find that the former phase may differ appreciably from the latter if the evolution time is large enough.Comment: 11 pages, no figure, modified and Journal-ref adde

Reductively degradable polyester-based block copolymers prepared by facile polycondensation and ATRP: synthesis, degradation, and aqueous micellization

Well-defined reductively degradable amphiphilic block copolymers having disulfide linkages positioned repeatedly on hydrophobic chains, thus exhibiting fast degradation, were prepared by a combination of polycondensation and ATRP. The new method consists of three synthetic steps including, (1) polycondensation of commercially available diols and diacids through carbodiimide coupling or high temperature processes to synthesize degradable polyesters with disulfides labeled on the main chain at regular intervals (ssPES–OH), (2) bromination of ssPES–OH to ssPES–Br, and (3) ATRP for chain extension of ssPES–Br with water-soluble polymethacrylate, yielding ssPES-b-polymethacrylate block copolymers (ssABPs). The reductive cleavage of disulfide linkages in reducing conditions resulted in the degradation of ssPES homopolymers; their degradation rate was significantly enhanced with the increasing amounts of disulfide linkages in ssPES–OH and reducing agents. For ATRP, gel permeation chromatography and 1H-NMR results confirmed the synthesis of well-defined ssABPs and revealed that polymerizations were well controlled. Because of their amphiphilic nature, ssABPs self-assembled in water toward the formation of core/shell micelles consisting of a hydrophobic ssPES core surrounded with polymethacrylate coronas. The effects of the corona's chain length on thermal properties and micellization in water of well-defined ssABPs were examined. Moreover, reductive (or thiol-responsive) degradation of ssABP-based micelles enabled fast release of encapsulated model drugs. Cell culture experiments confirmed nontoxicity and biocompatibility of well-defined ssABPs as effect candidates for targeted delivery applications

Can viscous fiber lower glycemic markers in type 2 diabetes?

Review of: Jovanovski E, Khayyat R, Zurbau A, et al. Should viscous fiber supplements be considered in diabetes control? Results from a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Diabetes Care. 2019;42:755-766. Published correction appears in Diabetes Care. 2019;42:1604.Can viscous fiber lower glycemic markers in type 2 diabetes? The first meta-analysis to focus on viscous dietary fiber in T2D suggests a potential role for this supplement in improving glycemic control. PRACTICE CHANGER: Unless contraindicated, recommend viscous fiber supplementation to your patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), in addition to the usual evidence-based standards of care, to improve markers of glycemic control. STRENGTH OF RECOMMENDATION: C: Based on a meta-analysis and systematic review of 28 randomized controlled trials, without discussion of patient-oriented outcomes.Erica S. Meisenheimer, MD, MA; Bob Marshall, MD, MPH, MISM, FAAFP, FAMIA; Samuel M. Tiglao, DO, FAAFP; Tyler S. Rogers, MD; David C. Bury, DO, FAAFP; Michael M. Dickman, DO, FAAFP; Robert C. Oh, MD, MPH, FAAFP (Family Medicine Residency, Madigan Army Medical Center, Joint Base Lewis- McChord, WA)Includes bibliographical reference