Questioning the Philosophical Influence of Beauty and Perception in Bramante\u27s Fist Scheme for St Peter\u27s

The association between the architects of the Renaissance and the philosophy of Plato has long been upheld and reiterated. However recent authors such as Alina Payne and Christine Smith have shown this scholarship to be somewhat limited and reactionary. A closer examination of Donato Bramante’s early scheme for the design of the new St. Peter’s basilica demonstrates such limitations of the singular Platonic associations that have been previously made. By studying the philosophical influences that Bramante may have been exposed to throughout his education and early career, a decidedly Aristotelian influence emerges. The design for St. Peter’s, as presented on the Parchment Plan, reveals a continuation of the employment of Aristotelian aesthetics, which are dramatically distinct and oppositional to Platonic aesthetics in the appreciation of human perception

Acid-Catalyzed Condensation of Indole with Cyclic Ketones & Synthesis and Crystallographic Study of 2,6-Dihalobenzonitriles and Isocyanobenzenes

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. June 2017. Major: Chemistry. Advisor: Wayland Noland. 1 computer file (PDF); xxv, 713 pages.I. As an extension of ongoing indole-ketone research, one-pot condensation reactions were performed between indole (1) and cyclic ketones with ring sizes n = 4–12 (2d–l) in the presence of boric, phosphoric, acetic, trifluoroacetic, hydrochloric, and toluene-4-sulfonic acids (Scheme 1). From fastest to slowest, the rate of condensation with indole was n = 6, 4, 5, 7, 12, 8, 11, 10, and 9. In addition to oligomerized indole, seven different types of products were isolated and identified. An eighth type of product was obtained from cyclododecanone, but it was not identified. The optimal catalyst for 2:1 condensation varied by ring size. CF3COOH or HCl were the best catalysts for one-pot preparation of all other products. II. Eleven 2,6-dihalobenzonitriles (204) and six corresponding isocyanobenzenes (209) were prepared (Scheme 2). To minimize radical-derived byproducts, it was important to perform cyanation in the presence of excess NaHCO3. Six nitriles and five isocyanides were analyzed by X-ray diffraction to study substituent effects on cyano-halo short contacts and the resulting ribbon or layer structures. All crystals exhibited such contacts. Polytypism of tribromo analogs 204ca and 209ca; and 2:1 anthracene co-crystals of cyano acids 204bc,cc were observed. Numbering. The introduction and discussion material is separated into two parts. Compound numbering begins at 1 and 201, for Part I and Part II, respectively. Main starting materials, intermediates, and products are given the lowest numbers. Entries in Part III and the appendices are given in numerical order, although Part III is also sorted by type of chemical reaction. Thus, several compounds in Part III are given more than one entry because they were prepared by more than one method

Polymorphisms in Gag spacer peptide 1 confer varying levels of resistance to the HIV- 1maturation inhibitor bevirimat

Background: The maturation inhibitor bevirimat (BVM) potently inhibits human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) replication by blocking capsid-spacer peptide 1 (CA-SP1) cleavage. Recent clinical trials demonstrated that a significant proportion of HIV-1-infected patients do not respond to BVM. A patient’s failure to respond correlated with baseline polymorphisms at SP1 residues 6-8. Results: In this study, we demonstrate that varying levels of BVM resistance are associated with point mutations at these residues. BVM susceptibility was maintained by SP1-Q6A, -Q6H and -T8A mutations. However, an SP1-V7A mutation conferred high-level BVM resistance and SP1-V7M and T8Δ mutations conferred intermediate levels of BVM resistance. Conclusions: Future exploitation of the CA-SP1 cleavage site as an antiretroviral drug target will need to overcome the baseline variability in the SP1 region of Gag.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Social Class Myopia: The Case of Psychology and Labor Unions

This article explores the potential for a research agenda that includes scholarship on working class issues and organized labor. Such an agenda is consistent with the official mission of American Psychological Association—to advance knowledge that benefits society and improves people\u27s lives. I focus on our paucity of interest in the institution that gives the American working class a voice—the labor union. We know that work is one of the central focuses in the lives of most people and that the work experience is deeply implicated in satisfaction with life. The efforts of organized labor to achieve economic fairness and justice, and a healthy workplace environment, are intertwined with multiple corollary consequences that constitute a wide and complex spectrum—from physical job safety and economic security on one end, to the psychological benefits of heightened self-esteem, respect, dignity, empowerment, and affiliation on the other—all related to satisfaction with life. In addition, by advancing and protecting the rights of workers, unions are part of the larger movement for civil rights

P-42 Optimizing MaxEnt to find Gravitational Waves for LIGO

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) Collaboration’s signal processing software, MaxEnt, is computationally expensive. The goal is to change the data from the time domain to the frequency domain in the code and then back again to eliminate the need for large, unwieldy matrix inverses in an effort to optimize the code to improve detection of gravitational waves. This back and forth conversion is expected to greatly increase the speed of the calculation, thus streamlining the process so data can be covered more efficiently