Towards a pedagogy of forgiveness: lessons from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

This study explores forgiveness as human behaviors as opposed to an emotional response following perceived wrongdoing. Focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the purpose of this study is to critically investigate the concepts of forgiveness through philosophical, religious, historical, and practical lenses as understood by those who are intimately involved in the conflict’s resolution. The aim is to determine how the application of forgiving behaviors may be effective in creating and sustaining moral relations and social justice consciousness whether or not an offense has occurred. Forgiving behaviors are defined as those human capacities, such as empathy, sympathy, love, benevolence, and trust, that are referenced as ethics of forgiveness, and are determined to be essential to humanitarian practices among local and global communities. Through a qualitative case study methodology, testimonies by twelve participants (four Israelis, four Palestinians, and four Americans) provide insight into the deeply embedded conflict and share their views on the role that forgiveness and ethics of forgiveness play in its resolution. Four research questions frame the study as a whole and are the basis of the participant interview questions, which are reported and analyzed in Chapters IV and V. Additionally, five challenges to forgiveness have been identified and explored that contribute to its effectiveness in conflict resolution. The greatest challenge is the military occupation of Palestinian territories by the Israeli government that purposefully denies basic human rights and daily living needs such as water and electricity to Palestinian people. As well, the taking of Palestinian land to build Israeli settlements results in displacement of Palestinian families into refugee camps and the increased building of a constructed wall further divides Palestinian territories and Israel. This study also includes description of efforts by participants and others to bring resolution to the conflict. Key findings offer possibilities for change based on the necessity for practices of ethics of forgiveness which reflect humanitarian interactions among perceived enemies. The environment that can best create these practices is the educational setting, thus a pedagogy of forgiveness is highlighted as providing hope for conflict resolution and demand for human, moral treatment of all people

Smashing the monuments and saving the pedestals : Washington Allston and Edgar Allan Poe's mandate for the American artist

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of the artist in nineteenth-century America as it was conceived by Washington Allston and Edgar Allan Poe. Washington Allston was the first American painter and Edgar Allan Poe the first American poet to define their aesthetic theories and practice in an attempt to fashion a more definitive and prominent role for the American artist. Allston's and Poe's contributions as artists and aesthetic theorists are significant in that both men seek to construct a mandate for the artist in an American environment void of both a native tradition and the necessary resources to promote and sustain American art and artists. In an effort to overcome these obstacles, Allston and Poe find themselves attempting to reconcile a number of paradoxes in their mandates: questions of the artist as elitist or democrat, the artist as aesthete or instructor and the artist as advocate of the traditional or the original. These were all issues confronted and reconciled in their mandates. For Allston and Poe the reconciliation of these paradoxes is, in turn, the similarity of their visions

The Pineland School, Mrs. Mollie Jones, and the Progressive Roots of Salemburg, North Carolina

The Salem School,later The Pineland School,in Salemburg, NC not only became a successful and well-respected institution, but also saw from its administrative ranks the launch of a series of activists, both in the social and political spheres, who would go on to have an impact locally, statewide, and even nationally. The Pineland School nurtured the spirit of Progressivism and became an epicenter of activism and reform. Co-principal Mrs. W. J. (Mollie) Jones, affectionately known by her students as “ Miss Mollie,” was a veritable progressive force for the school as well as on a county, state and national level, spearheading numerous reform, health, suffrage, community, and education related projects. Mollie Jones’ tenure as co-principal, then later as president, of the school lasted almost forty-five years until her death in 1945. This paper examines the history of both the school and Mollie Jones and how the two were closely intertwined

The Effects Of Normal, Decreased, Masked And Abnormal Auditory Cues On The Performance Of Skilled And Highly Skilled Racquetball Players

The purpose of the investigation was to determine the effects of normal, decreased, masked and abnormal auditory cues on the performance of skilled and highly skilled racquetball players

Integral transform solution of random coupled parabolic partial differential models

[EN] Random coupled parabolic partial differential models are solved numerically using random cosine Fourier transform together with non-Gaussian random numerical integration that captures the highly oscillatory behaviour of the involved integrands. Sufficient condition of spectral type imposed on the random matrices of the system is given so that the approximated stochastic process solution and its statistical moments are numerically convergent. Numerical experiments illustrate the results.Spanish Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO); Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI); Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER UE), Grant/Award Number: MTM2017-89664-PCasabán Bartual, MC.; Company Rossi, R.; Egorova, VN.; Jódar Sánchez, LA. (2020). Integral transform solution of random coupled parabolic partial differential models. Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences. 43(14):8223-8236. https://doi.org/10.1002/mma.6492S822382364314Bäck, J., Nobile, F., Tamellini, L., & Tempone, R. (2010). Stochastic Spectral Galerkin and Collocation Methods for PDEs with Random Coefficients: A Numerical Comparison. Spectral and High Order Methods for Partial Differential Equations, 43-62. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-15337-2_3Bachmayr, M., Cohen, A., & Migliorati, G. (2016). Sparse polynomial approximation of parametric elliptic PDEs. Part I: affine coefficients. ESAIM: Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Analysis, 51(1), 321-339. doi:10.1051/m2an/2016045Ernst, O. G., Sprungk, B., & Tamellini, L. (2018). Convergence of Sparse Collocation for Functions of Countably Many Gaussian Random Variables (with Application to Elliptic PDEs). SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis, 56(2), 877-905. doi:10.1137/17m1123079Sheng, D., & Axelsson, K. (1995). Uncoupling of coupled flows in soil—a finite element method. International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, 19(8), 537-553. doi:10.1002/nag.1610190804Mitchell, J. K. (1991). Conduction phenomena: from theory to geotechnical practice. Géotechnique, 41(3), 299-340. doi:10.1680/geot.1991.41.3.299Das, P. K. (1991). Optical Signal Processing. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-74962-9Ashkenazy, Y. (2017). Energy transfer of surface wind-induced currents to the deep ocean via resonance with the Coriolis force. Journal of Marine Systems, 167, 93-104. doi:10.1016/j.jmarsys.2016.11.019Hodgkin, A. L., & Huxley, A. F. (1952). A quantitative description of membrane current and its application to conduction and excitation in nerve. The Journal of Physiology, 117(4), 500-544. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1952.sp004764Galiano, G. (2012). On a cross-diffusion population model deduced from mutation and splitting of a single species. Computers & Mathematics with Applications, 64(6), 1927-1936. doi:10.1016/j.camwa.2012.03.045Casabán, M. C., Company, R., & Jódar, L. (2019). Numerical solutions of random mean square Fisher‐KPP models with advection. Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences, 43(14), 8015-8031. doi:10.1002/mma.5942Casabán, M. C., Company, R., & Jódar, L. (2019). Numerical Integral Transform Methods for Random Hyperbolic Models with a Finite Degree of Randomness. Mathematics, 7(9), 853. doi:10.3390/math7090853Shampine, L. F. (2008). Vectorized adaptive quadrature in MATLAB. Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, 211(2), 131-140. doi:10.1016/j.cam.2006.11.021Iserles, A. (2004). On the numerical quadrature of highly-oscillating integrals I: Fourier transforms. IMA Journal of Numerical Analysis, 24(3), 365-391. doi:10.1093/imanum/24.3.365Ma, J., & Liu, H. (2018). On the Convolution Quadrature Rule for Integral Transforms with Oscillatory Bessel Kernels. Symmetry, 10(7), 239. doi:10.3390/sym10070239Jódar, L., & Goberna, D. (1996). Exact and analytic numerical solution of coupled diffusion problems in a semi-infinite medium. Computers & Mathematics with Applications, 31(9), 17-24. doi:10.1016/0898-1221(96)00038-7Jódar, L., & Goberna, D. (1998). A matrix D’Alembert formula for coupled wave initial value problems. Computers & Mathematics with Applications, 35(9), 1-15. doi:10.1016/s0898-1221(98)00052-2Ostrowski, A. M. (1959). A QUANTITATIVE FORMULATION OF SYLVESTER’S LAW OF INERTIA. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 45(5), 740-744. doi:10.1073/pnas.45.5.740Ashkenazy, Y., Gildor, H., & Bel, G. (2015). The effect of stochastic wind on the infinite depth Ekman layer model. EPL (Europhysics Letters), 111(3), 39001. doi:10.1209/0295-5075/111/3900

Validating MOSPA questionnaire for measuring physical activity in Pakistani women

BACKGROUND: Precise measurements of activity at a population level are important for monitoring trends and evaluating health promotion strategies. Few studies have assessed the measurement of physical activity in developing countries. The aim of this study was to validate the MOSPA (Monica Optional Study of Physical Activity) questionnaire which was developed for the WHO-Monitoring trends and determinants of cardiovasculr disease (MONICA) study sites. METHODS: The MOSPA questionnaire assesses energy expendtiture (EE) related to physical activity (employment, household work, transportation, and leisure time) over a one year period. This questionnaire has been described in the manuscript as the long term (LT) questionnaire. An adapted short term (ST) 5 day questionnaire was developed to assess convergent validity. Questionnaire data were compared with physical activity EE estimates from a Caltrac accelerometer and with body composition measures (height, weight and bioelectrical impedance) in 50 women from the Aga Khan University (AKU) hospital antenatal clinics, Pakistan. Other forms of EE i.e. resting EE and thermic effect of food were not assessd in this study. RESULTS: Subjects were aged 26 ± 3.8 years and were 16.1 ± 6.7 weeks pregnant. Their average weight was 58.8 ± 10.7 Kg. The average EE/day assessed by the Caltrac accelerometer, was 224 kcal and by MOSPA LT questionnaire it was 404 kcal. The questionnaires and Caltrac data were reasonably well correlated: r = 0.51 and r = 0.60 (P < 0.01) for LT and ST questionnaires respectively. Energy expenditure from questionnaire data was not correlated with body composition measures. CONCLUSION: The MOSPA questionnaire is useful in assessing physical activity levels in a sedentary population over a one year period

Stability, Entrapment and Variant Formation of Salmonella Genomic Island 1

<div><h3>Background</h3><p>The <em>Salmonella</em> genomic island 1 (SGI1) is a 42.4 kb integrative mobilizable element containing several antibiotic resistance determinants embedded in a complex integron segment In104. The numerous SGI1 variants identified so far, differ mainly in this segment and the explanations of their emergence were mostly based on comparative structure analyses. Here we provide experimental studies on the stability, entrapment and variant formation of this peculiar gene cluster originally found in <em>S</em>. Typhimurium.</p> <h3>Methodology/Principal Findings</h3><p>Segregation and conjugation tests and various molecular techniques were used to detect the emerging SGI1 variants in <em>Salmonella</em> populations of 17 <em>Salmonella enterica</em> serovar Typhimurium DT104 isolates from Hungary. The SGI1s in these isolates proved to be fully competent in excision, conjugal transfer by the IncA/C helper plasmid R55, and integration into the <em>E. coli</em> chromosome. A trap vector has been constructed and successfully applied to capture the island on a plasmid. Monitoring of segregation of SGI1 indicated high stability of the island. SGI1-free segregants did not accumulate during long-term propagation, but several SGI1 variants could be obtained. Most of them appeared to be identical to SGI1-B and SGI1-C, but two new variants caused by deletions via a short-homology-dependent recombination process have also been detected. We have also noticed that the presence of the conjugation helper plasmid increased the formation of these deletion variants considerably.</p> <h3>Conclusions/Significance</h3><p>Despite that excision of SGI1 from the chromosome was proven in SGI1⁺<em>Salmonella</em> populations, its complete loss could not be observed. On the other hand, we demonstrated that several variants, among them two newly identified ones, arose with detectable frequencies in these populations in a short timescale and their formation was promoted by the helper plasmid. This reflects that IncA/C helper plasmids are not only involved in the horizontal spreading of SGI1, but may also contribute to its evolution.</p> </div

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

High-Throughput Screen for Identifying Small Molecules That Target Fungal Zinc Homeostasis

Resistance to traditional antifungal drugs has increased significantly over the past three decades, making identification of novel antifungal agents and new targets an emerging priority. Based on the extraordinary zinc requirement of several fungal pathogens and their well-established sensitivity to zinc deprivation, we developed an efficient cell-based screen to identify new antifungal drugs that target the zinc homeostasis machinery. The screen is based on the zinc-regulated transcription factor Zap1 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which regulates transcription of genes like the high-affinity zinc transporter ZRT1. We generated a genetically modified strain of S. cerevisae that reports intracellular zinc deficiency by placing the coding sequence of green fluorescent protein (GFP) under the control of the Zap1-regulated ZRT1 promoter. After showing that the GFP fluorescence signal correlates with low intracellular zinc concentrations in this strain, a protocol was developed for screening small-molecule libraries for compounds that induce Zap1-dependent GFP expression. Comparison of control compounds and known modulators of metal metabolism from the library reveals a robust screen (Z′ = 0.74) and validates this approach to the discovery of new classes of antifungal compounds that interfere with the intracellular zinc homeostasis. Given that growth of many pathogenic organisms is significantly impaired by zinc limitation; these results identify new types of antifungal drugs that target critical nutrient acquisition pathways

Histo-Blood Group Gene Polymorphisms as Potential Genetic Modifiers of Infection and Cystic Fibrosis Lung Disease Severity

The pulmonary phenotype in cystic fibrosis (CF) is variable; thus, environmental and genetic factors likely contribute to clinical heterogeneity. We hypothesized that genetically determined ABO histo-blood group antigen (ABH) differences in glycosylation may lead to differences in microbial binding by airway mucus, and thus predispose to early lung infection and more severe lung disease in a subset of patients with CF. infection in the severe or mild groups. Multivariate analyses of other clinical phenotypes, including gender, asthma, and meconium ileus demonstrated no differences between groups based on ABH type. infection, nor was there any association with other clinical phenotypes in a group of 808 patients homozygous for the ΔF508 mutation