That Solitary Individual - The Biblical Joshua as Kierkegaard\u27s \u27Knight of Faith\u27 and Nietzsche\u27s \u27Man of Power\u27

Both existential philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche occupy opposite ends of the religious spectrum. While Kierkegaard saw faith as the highest revelation of human existence, Nietzsche decreed it the root of European society\u27s qualms. Both philosophers rejected utilitarian notions of society as the highest form of man and espoused the importance of the individual. Each philosopher developed his own archetype for the ideal man; Kierkegaard dubbed his man the \u27knight of faith,\u27 Nietzsche named his the \u27man of power.\u27 Although these frameworks initially appear irreconcilable, the biblical character of Joshua fills both roles, expanding each and challenging Nietzsche\u27s claim that man can never be strong while trusting in God

Coffins and Pancakes: Eschatological Experiences in the Brothers Karamazov

This paper investigates the roles of perspective, community, and memory in shaping experience in the lives of the characters of The Brothers Karamazov. Eschatology, in Christian theology, refers to the study of the end times and the ultimate destination of humankind. Dostoevsky elicits an eschatologically blurred vision of the present and the future, where characters experience the realities of heaven and hell in their present life. This paper examines these experiences, analyzing the circumstances, implications, and meaning of these events in the characters’ lives

Nothing of Ourselves : Agriculture and Community in St. John de Crèvecoeur, Susan Fenimore Cooper, and Henry Beston

In this study of three agricultural narratives, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur\u27s Letters from an American Farmer (1782), Susan Fenimore Cooper\u27s Rural Hours (1850), and Henry Beston\u27s Northern Farm: A Chronicle of Maine (1948), I utilize a number of approaches, including ecocritical criticism and theory, as well as agricultural history, to investigate how the American agricultural imagination portrays the overlapping ecological and cultural spaces of farming communities. These narratives approach the natural world through neither an entirely anthropocentric nor ecocentric perspective, but through a nuanced and refreshing viewpoint of environmental and communal interaction and reciprocity. In these chapters I argue that agricultural writers transcend the rift in environmental writing between the observer and the observed by analyzing spaces that do not exist at a distance from social manipulation, but those that are utilized by, and subsequently sustain human culture. Agriculture embodies a cultural endeavor that exists within the environment to perpetuate human communities. Those concerned with issues of contemporary food sustainability would do well to look at how American writers of the past have oriented themselves not as simply consumers of conscionable products, or as isolated outcasts, but as active community members that recognize communal vitality as the first step towards facilitating ecological health through sustainable food systems

Mathematical and Numerical Modeling of Inflammation

When the body is attacked by a bacterial infection, it initiates a series of events designed to eradicate the infection while causing minimal damage to the body. Our goal is to investigate the defenses of the organ walls to the spread of infection. To do this we have chosen to model a volume of the body that includes the organ wall, the lumen outside of it and the blood and tissue within it. We have also taken into account the varied responses of the body, and our model includes many interacting agents that are part of the infection and defense processes, including the agents that attempt to prevent the infection from breaching the organ wall. The mathematical model is based on a system of nonlinear transient partial differential equations. The numerical model is based on cell-centered finite differences in space and implicit Euler in time. The model is implemented in MATLAB, and has many visualization options to better see the progression of the infection. It is hoped that this model will help in better understanding the failure of the body’s defenses in such situations as Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC), and eventually lead to the development of a method of prevention

Mathematical and Numerical Modeling of Inflammation

When the body is attacked by a bacterial infection, it initiates a series of events designed to eradicate the infection while causing minimal damage to the body. Our goal is to investigate the defenses of the organ walls to the spread of infection. To do this we have chosen to model a volume of the body that includes the organ wall, the lumen outside of it and the blood and tissue within it. We have also taken into account the varied responses of the body, and our model includes many interacting agents that are part of the infection and defense processes, including the agents that attempt to prevent the infection from breaching the organ wall. The mathematical model is based on a system of nonlinear transient partial differential equations. The numerical model is based on cell-centered finite differences in space and implicit Euler in time. The model is implemented in MATLAB, and has many visualization options to better see the progression of the infection. It is hoped that this model will help in better understanding the failure of the body’s defenses in such situations as Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC), and eventually lead to the development of a method of prevention

Threshold effects in positron scattering from isoelectronic series of atoms and molecules

The observation of features, often referred to as "Wigner cusps" in a scattering cross section at the opening of a new scattering channel has been widely reported in electron scattering, and has been attributed to strong coupling between the two scattering channels. Recently a series of cusps were observed in positron scattering from the noble gases [A. C. L. Jones, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 073201 (2010)10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.073201]. In this case, the strong opening of the positronium formation cross section resulted in a cusplike feature, or bump, in the total elastic scattering cross section. The positronium formation channel is typically the largest partial scattering cross section in the region of the electronic excitation and ionization thresholds in most atoms and molecules, and it is plausible that similar features may exist in other atomic and molecular species. We have undertaken measurements of the isoelectronic targets of helium - H2, and neon - H2O, NH3, and CH4, in an effort to better understand the mechanisms leading to these threshold features

Transcriptional repression by ApiAP2 factors is central to chronic toxoplasmosis

Tachyzoite to bradyzoite development in Toxoplasma is marked by major changes in gene expression resulting in a parasite that expresses a new repertoire of surface antigens hidden inside a modified parasitophorous vacuole called the tissue cyst. The factors that control this important life cycle transition are not well understood. Here we describe an important transcriptional repressor mechanism controlling bradyzoite differentiation that operates in the tachyzoite stage. The ApiAP2 factor, AP2IV-4, is a nuclear factor dynamically expressed in late S phase through mitosis/cytokinesis of the tachyzoite cell cycle. Remarkably, deletion of the AP2IV-4 locus resulted in the expression of a subset of bradyzoite-specific proteins in replicating tachyzoites that included tissue cyst wall components BPK1, MCP4, CST1 and the surface antigen SRS9. In the murine animal model, the mis-timing of bradyzoite antigens in tachyzoites lacking AP2IV-4 caused a potent inflammatory monocyte immune response that effectively eliminated this parasite and prevented tissue cyst formation in mouse brain tissue. Altogether, these results indicate that suppression of bradyzoite antigens by AP2IV-4 during acute infection is required for Toxoplasma to successfully establish a chronic infection in the immune-competent host