Political Perfectionism and Aesthetic Experience

Many people share the belief that the state can lend support to the arts and the natural environment for their cultural and aesthetic qualities. However, the question remains open as to what justifies this support. This question hinges on whether the state must be neutral in reference to judgment of values. The political anti-perfectionist positions of Rawls and Dworkin are inadequate to justify this kind of state support because the funding of art necessarily involves a judgment of value in two ways. First, the fact that the state funds any art requires that, in general, art is valuable. Second, determining which art to fund, since presumably the state cannot fund all art, requires making a value judgment about which art is worth funding. Thus, in order to justify art\u27s funding, a theory of the state must allow judgments of value. Even if we have a theory of the state that allows the state to act on judgments of value, this alone does not prove that art is the kind of thing that the state should support. Why should the state care specifically about art? I argue that aesthetic experience is the most fundamental purpose of art and that aesthetic experience is a basic human good. The state exists for the common good of its citizens. Thus it has a vested interest in things that lead to the citizens\u27 well-being, like aesthetic experience. And this is what justifies the state in supporting the arts. To illustrate how this works on a practical level, I show how art is funded in the United States, while also pointing out ways that it could be funded differently depending on circumstances

Critical speed estimated by statistically appropriate fitting procedures.

Intensity domains are recommended when prescribing exercise. The distinction between heavy and severe domains is made by the critical speed (CS), therefore requiring a mathematically accurate estimation of CS. The different model variants (distance versus time, running speed versus time, time versus running speed, and distance versus running speed) are mathematically equivalent. Nevertheless, error minimization along the correct axis is important to estimate CS and the distance that can be run above CS (d'). We hypothesized that comparing statistically appropriate fitting procedures, which minimize the error along the axis corresponding to the properly identified dependent variable, should provide similar estimations of CS and d' but that different estimations should be obtained when comparing statistically appropriate and inappropriate fitting procedure. Sixteen male runners performed a maximal incremental aerobic test and four exhaustive runs at 90, 100, 110, and 120% of their peak speed on a treadmill. Several fitting procedures (a combination of a two-parameter model variant and regression analysis: weighted least square) were used to estimate CS and d'. Systematic biases (P < 0.001) were observed between each pair of fitting procedures for CS and d', even when comparing two statistically appropriate fitting procedures, though negligible, thus corroborating the hypothesis. The differences suggest that a statistically appropriate fitting procedure should be chosen beforehand by the researcher. This is also important for coaches that need to prescribe training sessions to their athletes based on exercise intensity, and their choice should be maintained over the running seasons

The Role of Packing, Dispersion, Electrostatics, and Solvation in High‐Affinity Complexes of Cucurbit[ n ]urils with Uncharged Polar Guests

The rationalization of non-covalent binding trends is both of fundamental interest and provides new design concepts for biomimetic molecular systems. Cucurbit[n]urils (CBn) are known for a long time as the strongest synthetic binders for a wide range of (bio)organic compounds in water. However, their host-guest binding mechanism remains ambiguous despite their symmetric and simple macrocyclic structure and the wealth of literature reports. We herein report experimental thermodynamic binding parameters (ΔG, ΔH, TΔS) for CB7 and CB8 with a set of hydroxylated adamantanes, di-, and triamantanes as uncharged, rigid, and spherical/ellipsoidal guests. Binding geometries and binding energy decomposition were obtained from high-level theory computations. This study reveals that neither London dispersion interactions, nor electronic energies or entropic factors are decisive, selectivity-controlling factors for CBn complexes. In contrast, peculiar host-related solvation effects were identified as the major factor for rationalizing the unique behavior and record-affinity characteristics of cucurbit[n]urils

Enhanced Formation of Nanometric Titanium Cones by Incorporation of Titanium, Tungsten and/or Iron in a Helium Ion Beam

Surface patterning of bio-compatible titanium (Ti) shows a growing interest in the medical field. The engineering of material surfaces can achieve bactericidal properties and osteointegration improvements in order to develop medical implants. Spikes-like surface morphologies have already demonstrated the development of promising bactericidal properties. A barely new method to produce nanometric-sized cones on titanium consists of helium (He) ion irradiation using low energies ( 100 eV) and temperatures comprised between 0.25 T/T 0.5 (with T being the melting temperature of the material). Ti, iron (Fe) and/or tungsten (W) were incorporated in a He beam, and their amounts were quantified using X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). The He ion energy was varied from 70 and 120 eV, the surface temperatures from 571 to 651 K for fluences approximately equal to 1024 m−2. After irradiation, the surface morphology was characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Focused Ion Beam (FIB). This study demonstrated the capability for irradiated Ti surfaces to form cones with tunable density, aspect ratio, and heights with the incorporation of Ti, Fe and/or W in a He ion. Additionally, the growth rate of the cones was enhanced by about 30 times in comparison to pure He irradiation as a function of the chosen materials introduced in the He beam

Qualitative modelling and analysis of regulations in multi-cellular systems using Petri nets and topological collections

In this paper, we aim at modelling and analyzing the regulation processes in multi-cellular biological systems, in particular tissues. The modelling framework is based on interconnected logical regulatory networks a la Rene Thomas equipped with information about their spatial relationships. The semantics of such models is expressed through colored Petri nets to implement regulation rules, combined with topological collections to implement the spatial information. Some constraints are put on the the representation of spatial information in order to preserve the possibility of an enumerative and exhaustive state space exploration. This paper presents the modelling framework, its semantics, as well as a prototype implementation that allowed preliminary experimentation on some applications.Comment: In Proceedings MeCBIC 2010, arXiv:1011.005