Religion, Art and Myth-Making: The Halo as an Aesthetic Expression of Ultimate Reality

In recent years there has been an increased interest in questions concerning religion and faith. There have been bestselling books by authors of the so called new-atheist movement, Dawikns, Dennite, Haris and Hitchens, as well as numerous responses given attempting to refute the attacks made on traditional views of religion and faith. Moreover, since September 11th 2001 there has been a heightened awareness of the gulf separating believers and non-believers. Yet, the problem at the heart of this debate often seems to become an inquiry into whether or not religion is good for society rather than a question of the existence of God. This indicates that there may be a new way to look at the question, what is religion? Perhaps we should begin to think of religion as a social thus natural phenomenon; in doing so religion can be understood in aesthetic terms. If it is the case that religion is essentially born from shared relations within a social framework, much in the same mode as aesthetics, then the gulf between believers and non-believers is illusory. Better understanding the dualistic quality of human relationships will likely serve to find common ground within religious dialogues; this involves seeing how both religion and art are modes of myth-making. Historically the aesthetic symbol of the halo has been used by many religions and aesthetic traditions as an expression of enlightenment or reason. Therefore, the halo servers as a fossil of human experience. The intent of this paper is to examine this position through the symbol of the halo and how it has evolved in the Mithraic, Christian and Buddhist traditions

Consensus guidelines for the use and interpretation of angiogenesis assays

The formation of new blood vessels, or angiogenesis, is a complex process that plays important roles in growth and development, tissue and organ regeneration, as well as numerous pathological conditions. Angiogenesis undergoes multiple discrete steps that can be individually evaluated and quantified by a large number of bioassays. These independent assessments hold advantages but also have limitations. This article describes in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro bioassays that are available for the evaluation of angiogenesis and highlights critical aspects that are relevant for their execution and proper interpretation. As such, this collaborative work is the first edition of consensus guidelines on angiogenesis bioassays to serve for current and future reference

Rethinking Phenomenal Intentionality

This dissertation puts forward a critique of the phenomenal intentionality theory (PIT). According to standard accounts of PIT, all genuine intentionality is either identical to or partly grounded in phenomenal consciousness. But in contemporary debates about phenomenal intentionality, relatively little attention is paid to the fundamental question of what exactly it is that we are talking about when we talk about conscious experiences. Indeed, the arguments defended by proponents of PIT rely too heavily on insecure assumptions about the nature of certain mental entities the theory postulates; namely token mental states that instantiate phenomenal properties. I argue that it is a conceptually significant mistake to construe conscious experiences in terms of token mental states that instantiate phenomenal properties because sates and properties lack a temporal shape but conscious experience has a temporal shape. So, in order to adequately capture our phenomenology of temporality, what is needed is a mental ontology of first-personal, subjective, mental events rather than one of states and properties. A second aim of this dissertation is to develop and partially defend a mereological account of phenomenal intentionality, which says that phenomenality and intentionality are related by being mental parts of an agent’s whole, unified, first-personal, subjective, mental event. On this approach, the conditions of satisfaction for an agent’s first-personal, subjective, mental events are the same as the conditions of satisfaction for phenomenal intentionality. I explore the theoretical grounds for why one might accept a mereological account of phenomenal intentionality and conclude that it succeeds in answering the most difficult case that proponents of PIT face—the problem of unconscious thought—exactly where standard versions of PIT fail. Thus, we have prima facie, defeasible evidence in support of a mereological account of phenomenal intentionality This suffices to shift the burden of argument to proponents of PIT who reject a mereological account to demonstrate what is wrong with the view

Studies of oxalate-bridged MM quadruple bonds and their radical cations (M = Mo or W): on the matter of linkage isomers

Electronic structure calculations employing density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) have been carried out on the model complexes {[(HCO2)3M2]2(μ-O2CCO2)}0/+ (M = Mo or W) in D2h symmetry, where the oxalate bridge forms either five- or six-membered rings with the M2 centres; the complexes are hereafter referred to as μ(5,5)0/+ and μ(6,6)0/+, respectively. The calculations predict that the neutral complexes should exist as the μ(5,5) linkage isomer, while the radical cations favour the μ(6,6) isomer by ca. 4–6 kJ mol−1. For the μ(5,5) isomers, the rotational barriers about the oxalate C–C bond have been calculated to be 15.9 and 27.2 kJ mol−1 for M = Mo and W, respectively. For the cationic μ(5,5)+ isomers the barrier is higher, being 36.8 and 50.6 kJ mol−1 for M = Mo and W, respectively. The calculated Raman and visible near-IR spectra for the μ(5,5)0/+ and μ(6,6)0/+ are compared with experimental data obtained for the {[(tBuCO2)3M2]2(μ-O2CCO2)}0/+ complexes, hereafter referred to as M4OXA0/+ (M = Mo or W). The experimental data more closely correlate with that calculated for the μ(5,5)0/+ linkage isomers, and the 13C-NMR spectrum of the mixed metal complex Mo2W2OXA indicates the presence of the 5-membered oxalate-bridged species (JCC = 100 Hz)

Mutations in 2 distinct genetic pathways result in cerebral cavernous malformations in mice

Cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs) are a common type of vascular malformation in the brain that are a major cause of hemorrhagic stroke. This condition has been independently linked to 3 separate genes: Krev1 interaction trapped (KRIT1), Cerebral cavernous malformation 2 (CCM2), and Programmed cell death 10 (PDCD10). Despite the commonality in disease pathology caused by mutations in these 3 genes, we found that the loss of Pdcd10 results in significantly different developmental, cell biological, and signaling phenotypes from those seen in the absence of Ccm2 and Krit1. PDCD10 bound to germinal center kinase III (GCKIII) family members, a subset of serine-threonine kinases, and facilitated lumen formation by endothelial cells both in vivo and in vitro. These findings suggest that CCM may be a common tissue manifestation of distinct mechanistic pathways. Nevertheless, loss of heterozygosity (LOH) for either Pdcd10 or Ccm2 resulted in CCMs in mice. The murine phenotype induced by loss of either protein reproduced all of the key clinical features observed in human patients with CCM, as determined by direct comparison with genotype-specific human surgical specimens. These results suggest that CCM may be more effectively treated by directing therapies based on the underlying genetic mutation rather than treating the condition as a single clinical entity