Angle-integrated measurements of the 26Al (d, n)27Si reaction cross section: a probe of spectroscopic factors and astrophysical resonance strengths

Measurements of angle-integrated cross sections to discrete states in 27Si have been performed studying the 26Al (d, n) reaction in inverse kinematics by tagging states by their characteristic $\gamma$ -decays using the GRETINA array. Transfer reaction theory has been applied to derive spectroscopic factors for strong single-particle states below the proton threshold, and astrophysical resonances in the 26Al (p,$\gamma$) 27Si reaction. Comparisons are made between predictions of the shell model and known characteristics of the resonances. Overall very good agreement is obtained, indicating this method can be used to make estimates of resonance strengths for key reactions currently largely unconstrained by experiment

The Role of Radioactivities in Astrophysics

I present both a history of radioactivity in astrophysics and an introduction to the major applications of radioactive abundances to astronomy

The comparative toxicity to soil invertebrates of natural chemicals and their synthetic analogues

The introduction of Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH), requires companies to register and risk assess all substances produced or imported in volumes of >1 tonne per year. Extrapolation methods which use existing data for estimating the effects of chemicals are attractive to industry, and comparative data are therefore increasingly in demand. Data on natural toxic chemicals could be used for extrapolation methods such as read-across. To test this hypothesis, the toxicity of natural chemicals and their synthetic analogues were compared using standardised toxicity tests. Two chemical pairs: the napthoquinones, juglone (natural) and 1,4-naphthoquinone (synthetic); and anthraquinones, emodin (natural) and quinizarin (synthetic) were chosen, and their comparative effects on the survival and reproduction of collembolans, earthworms, enchytraeids and predatory mites were assessed. Differences in sensitivity between the species were observed with the predatory mite (Hypoaspis aculeifer) showing the least sensitivity. Within the chemical pairs, toxicity to lethal and sub-lethal endpoints was very similar for the four invertebrate species. The exception was earthworm reproduction, which showed differential sensitivity to the chemicals in both naphthoquinone and anthraquinone pairs. Differences in toxicity identified in the present study may be related to degree of exposure and/or subtle differences in the mode of toxic action for the chemicals and species tested. It may be possible to predict differences by identifying functional groups which infer increased or decreased toxicity in one or other chemical. The development of such techniques would enable the use of read-across from natural to synthetic chemicals for a wider group of compounds

Daily energy expenditure in free-living children: comparison of heart- rate monitoring with the doubly labeled water (2H2(18)O) method

Total energy expenditure (TEE) was measured simultaneously in 36 free- living children aged 7, 9, 12, and 15 y over 10-15 d by the doubly labeled water (DLW) method and for 2-3 separate days by heart-rate (HR) monitoring. The 95% confidence limits of agreement (mean difference +/- 2SD) were -1.99 to +1.44 MJ/d. HR TEE discrepancies ranged from -16.7% to +18.8% with 23 values lying within +/- 10% of DLW TEE estimates. Boys and girls spent 462 +/- 108 and 318 +/- 120 min/d, respectively, in total physical activity (P less than 0.01). Time spent in moderate and vigorous physical activity (MVPA) was 68 +/- 37 min/d by younger children (7-9 y) and 34 +/- 24 min/d by older children (12-15 y) (P less than 0.001). Younger boys engaged in MVPA (91 +/- 33 min/d) and vigorous physical activity (VPA) (35 +/- 15 min/d) significantly longer than younger girls (MVPA, 39 +/- 16 min/d, P less than 0.001; VPA, 10 +/- 4 min/d, P less than 0.01) as did older boys (MVPA, 52 +/- 21 min/d; VPA, 30 +/- 18 min/d) compared with older girls (MVPA, 15 +/- 10 min/d; VPA, 8 +/- 5 min/d). HR monitoring provides a close estimation of the TEE of population groups and objective assessment of associated patterns of physical activity

The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern Philosophy

This volume presents the papers delivered during the Fall 1999 lecture series of the School of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America. It originates from the wish to trace across the centuries the continuous presence of the five intellectual virtues set forth by Aristotle in book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics. All speakers were asked to consider their author\u2019s position as regards the concepts of art, prudence, science, wisdom, understanding, and look for reactions to Aristotle\u2019s original understanding of them. Of course, this was a very specific question, and although the speakers were encouraged to consider this issue, they were not necessitated to do so. It was rather suggested they looked into the general issue of the impact of Aristotle on the philosophers they were familiar with, namely Zabarella, Galilei, Su\ue1rez, Semery, Leibniz, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Gadamer. For the sake of precision, the scope of the volume was limited to modern philosophy, i.e., to the period that begins with the Renaissance and ends with the twentieth century. It is true that many representative philosophers are considered in the volume, but just as many are missing. On the other side, the inclusion of Hellenistic or early and late medieval philosophy would have made a thorough reconstruction of the impact of Aristotle\u2019s intellectual virtues a sheer impossibility. Obviously, the restriction of the diachronic scope does not bring with itself a claim at completeness. Finally, it needs be recognized that it was not only and not simply Aristotle that influenced modern philosophy. The impact the contributors have written about is rather the impact of a tradition, the tradition Renaissance Aristotelianism, which was first molded by Aldo Manuzio\u2019s edition of Aristotle\u2019s Opera (Venice, 1495-98), found its standing in the monumental edition of the Giunti with Averroes\u2019 commentary (Venice, 1550-52), and reached its blossoming by means of the European diffusion of the Paduan School. It has never been obvious to deal with Aristotle, and Sir Anthony Kenny\u2019s recent essays on Aristotelianism, the volume on the questions \u201cwhose Aristotle? whose Aristotelianism?\u201d edited by R. W. Sharples, and the volume on the impact of the Paduan School on early modern philosophy edited by Gregorio Piaia prove that. Aristotle is both the most praised and the most condemned philosopher of all times. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Ernst Cassirer described the shift that took place from sixteenth to seventeenth-century philosophy as a shift from the concept of substance to the concept of relation. As long as the concept of substance and the idea that a property is predicated of an individual subject maintained scientific primacy, Aristotelianism was in great demand and was able to defeat threatening alternatives such as Ramism; but as soon as Descartes established the convenience of expressing all scientific problems in terms of function, i.e., in terms of the relation of two or more ideas or bodies in space and time, Aristotelianism began an inexorable descent. By the middle of the eighteenth century, Aristotelianism virtually disappeared from university curricula and from scientific publications all over Europe. This did not mean, however, that Aristotle was forgotten. Kant kept referring to Aristotle all of his life, and the sections dedicated to Aristotle in Hegel\u2019s Lectures on the History of Philosophy prepared the Aristotle Renaissance of the early nineteenth century, which was made possible by Immanuel Becker\u2019s edition of the Opera (Berlin, 1831-36). Finally, that Aristotle experienced a further Renaissance all over the twentieth century was due to Leo XIII\u2019s proclamation of Thomism as the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the encyclical letter Aeterni Patris of August 4, 1879; and it was also due to the reappraisal of his philosophy that began with Werner Jaeger and ended with Gadamer. This volume is about the history of a tradition, the tradition of Renaissance and modern Aristotelianism. It does not aim at replacing any of the existing works that have been dedicated to the whole or to parts of the history of Aristotelianism. It aims, however, at tracing the impact of Aristotelianism on modern philosophy in the form of a clear line that goes through the writings of the philosophers of the Western tradition. Each paper of this volume provides an original contribution in as far as it illuminates the role played by Aristotelianism as one of the sources, if not as the dominant one, of one individual philosopher. Often, to deal with Aristotle or Aristotelianism meant to take a stance concerning an issue that was discussed in one\u2019s own age\u2014this was the case, e.g., for Kant when he looked into a new understanding of the concepts of art, prudence, science, wisdom, and understanding. However, one should not look into this volume for an exposition of the history of the five concepts that constitute Aristotle\u2019s theory of the intellectual virtues. No individual contributor has pursued this object. What they have rather tried to reconstruct, and what they have accomplished all together is a thoughtful discussion of a problem that crosses the ages and is always actual, namely the problem whether one may consider Aristotle\u2019s list of five intellectual virtues to be complete, and, if not, by means of what other virtues it might be completed