Religious Meaning in T.S. Eliot\u27s Plays

Critics of Eliot often deal with his religious themes, but not with sympathy. In general, it seems that they are not at ease with Eliot\u27s religious views; so the tendency has been not to give them a careful, objective treatment. The purpose of my study of the plays is to attempt such an unbiased examination, to keep in view precisely what Eliot dues say and the religious meanings that are clearly implied. Whether Eliot\u27s ideas as they stand may be compatible or incompatible with the current thought climate is not, after all, the most important thing. He is a serious theological writer, sensitive and deep, and his plays deserve to be given a careful, straightforward reading, one that will make his major intentions clear. A number of critics, of course, do offer incisive comment on various matters, but a balanced, whole view of religious content in the\u27main plays seems to be needed. I have hoped at least to make a start toward such an important project

Beyond the Prediction Paradigm: Challenges for AI in the Struggle Against Organized Crime

In the future, audiological rehabilitation of adults with hearing loss will be more available, personalized and thorough due to the possibilities offered by the internet. By using the internet as a platform it is also possible to perform the process of rehabilitation in a cost-effective way. With tailored online rehabilitation programs containing topics such as communication strategies, hearing tactics and how to handle hearing aids it might be possible to foster behavioral changes that will positively affect hearing aid users. Four studies were carried out in this thesis. The first study investigated internet usage among adults with hearing loss. In the second study the administration format, online vs. paper- and pencil, of four standardized questionnaires was evaluated. Finally two randomized controlled trials were performed evaluating the efficacy of online rehabilitation programs including professional guidance by an audiologist. The programs lasted over five weeks and were designed for experienced adult hearing-aid users. The effects of the online programs were compared with the effects of a control group. It can be concluded that the use of computers and the internet overall is at least at the same level for people with hearing loss as for the general age-matched population in Sweden. Furthermore, for three of the four included questionnaires, the participants’ scores remained the same across formats. It is however recommended that the administration format remain consistent across assessment points. Finally, results from the two concluding intervention studies provide preliminary evidence that the internet can be used to deliver education and rehabilitation to experienced hearing aid users who report residual hearing problems and that their problems are reduced by the intervention; however the content and design of the online rehabilitation program requires further investigation

Experiências e conhecimentos produzidos na luta social : "Una historia que tiene que ver con el curso de la Vía Láctea"

Desde a ascensão do sistema capitalista a sociedade vem sendo condenada a modelos de desenvolvimento e estilos de vida caracterizados pelo aumento da produtividade e maximização do lucro, tornando-se insustentável e exigindo mudanças profundas na sua estrutura. Tais mudanças exigem uma desconstrução dos valores sociais e uma ruptura do modelo econômico vigente para que seja possível a construção de uma nova concepção de desenvolvimento, que resulte em uma sociedade social e ecologicamente justa, igualitária e que seja ela própria sujeita de seu próprio destino. O Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra propõem uma educação que se contrapõem ao modelo clássico de ensino que reflete e reforça as estruturas e as relações desiguais da sociedade além da cultura que as legitima. Estudar o MST como sujeito educativo político e suas práticas pedagógicas, dentro e fora da escola, é uma forma de compreender como a cultura, como modo de vida, do Movimento pode servir de exemplo na concepção de uma nova sociedade mais humana e justa

PEGylated DOTA-AHA-based Gd(III) chelates – A relaxometric study

Three PEGylated derivatives of 1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1-((6-amino)hexanoic)-4,7,10-triacetic acid) (DOTA-AHA) with different molecular weights were prepared and characterized. Their Gd(III) chelates were studied in aqueous solution using variable-temperature 1H nuclear magnetic relaxation dispersion (NMRD) and 17ONMR spectroscopy in view of the determination of their relaxivity and the parameters that govern it. The relaxivity varied from 5.1 to 6.5 mM-1.s-1 (37 ºC and 60 MHz) with the increasing molecular weight of the PEG chain, being slightly higher than that of the parent chelate Gd(DOTA-AHA), due to a small contribution of a slow global rotation of the complexes. A variable temperature 1H NMR study of several Ln(III) chelates of DOTA-A(PEG750)HA allowed the determination of the isomeric M/m ratio (M = square antiprismatic isomer and m = twisted square antiprismatic isomer, the latter presenting a much faster water exchange) which for the Gd(III) chelate was estimated in circa 1:0.2, very close to that of [Gd(DOTA)]-. This explains why the PEGylated Gd(III) chelate has a water rate exchange similar to that of [Gd(DOTA)]-. The predominance of the M isomer is a consequence of the bulky PEG moiety which does not favor the stabilization of the m isomer in sterically crowded systems at the substituent site, contrary to what happens with less packed asymmetrical DOTA-type chelates with substitution in one of the four acetate C(α) atoms.The authors thank the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT–Portugal) for financial support through the NMR Portuguese network (Bruker 400 Avance III-Univ Minho); FCT and FEDER (European Fund for Regional Development)-COMPETE/QREN/EU for financial support through the research unity PEst-C/QUI/UI686/2013 and the PhD grant attributed to André Fontes (SFRH/BD/63676/2009) also financed by the POPH and FSE

Binuclear DOTA-based Gd(III) chelates: revisiting a straightforward strategy for relaxivity improvement

The need for MRI contrast agents with improved relaxivity maintains the development of new Gd(III) chelates an intensive and demanding field of research. In this work we introduce the new dimeric chelators bis(DOTA-AHA)adipate and bis(DOTA-AHA)1,3-phenyldiacetate (L2 = bis(1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1-((6-amino)hexanoic)-4,7,10-triacetic acid)adipate and L3 = bis(1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1-((6-amino)hexanoic)-4,7,10-triacetic acid)1,3-phenyldiacetate, respectively), based on the bifunctional ligand DOTA-AHA (L1 = 1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1-((6-amino)hexanoic)-4,7,10-triacetic acid). Their Gd(III) chelates were studied by variable temperature 1H NMRD and 17O NMR spectroscopy in order to measure the relaxivity and the parameters that govern it. The exchange of inner-sphere water from the monomer GdL1 and from the two binuclear chelates Gd2L2 and Gd2L3 is very similar (298kex ≈ 6.5 x106 s-1) and slightly faster than on [Gd(DOTA)H2O]- (298kex = 4.1 x 106 s-1). All three compounds form weakly bound aggregates with equilibrium constants 298K of 2.9, 15.6 and 14.6 for GdL1, Gd2L2 and Gd2L3, respectively. Even if the aggregates contain only 10 to 15% of the total amount of Gd(III) ions a marked increase in relaxivity between 30 and 100 MHz is observed. Furthermore the distance between the two Gd(III) centers in the binuclear compounds has been determined by double electron-electron resonance (DEER) experiments and by molecular modelling studies affording comparable distances. The linkers between the chelating moieties allow Gd(III)-Gd(III) distances of circa 3.0 nm for completely stretched linker conformation and ≤ 1.9 nm for the conformation with the metal centers at closer distance. These metal to metal distances by themselves cannot explain the considerably long tumbling times of chelates in solution. Only a model consistent with some level of aggregation for the binuclear chelates in aqueous solution could satisfactorily explain our results.The authors thank the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT–Portugal) for financial support through the NMR Portuguese network (Bruker 400 Avance III-Univ Minho); FCT and FEDER (European Fund for Regional Development)- COMPETE/QREN/EU for financial support through the research unity PEstC/QUI/UI686/2013 and the PhD grant attributed to André Fontes (SFRH/BD/63676/2009) also financed by the POPH and FSE. SK and LH thank the Swiss National Science Foundation for financial support.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Diversity and Neocolonialism in Big Data Research. Avoiding extractivism while struggling with paternalism.

The extractive logic of Big Data-driven technology and knowledge production has raised serious concerns. While most criticism initially focused on the impacts on Western societies, attention is now increasingly turning to the consequences for communities in the Global South. To date, debates have focused on private-sector activities. In this article, we start from the conviction that publicly funded knowledge and technology production must also be scrutinized for their potential neocolonial entanglements. To this end, we analyze the dynamics of collaboration in an European Union-funded research project that collects data for developing a social platform focused on diversity. The project includes pilot sites in China, Denmark, the United Kingdom, India, Italy, Mexico, Mongolia, and Paraguay. We present the experience at four field sites and reflect on the project’s initial conception, our collaboration, challenges, progress, and results. We then analyze the different experiences in comparison. We conclude that while we have succeeded in finding viable strategies to avoid contributing to the dynamics of unilateral data extraction as one side of the neocolonial circle, it has been infinitely more difficult to break through the much more subtle but no less powerful mechanisms of paternalism that we find to be prevalent in data-driven North–South relations. These mechanisms, however, can be identified as the other side of the neocolonial circle.</p

Gold nanoparticles functionalised with stable, fast water exchanging Gd3+ chelates as high relaxivity contrast agents for MRI

Gold nanoparticles functionalized with Gd3+ chelates displaying fast water exchange, superb pH stability and inertness towards transmetalation with Zn2+ have been prepared and characterized as a new high relaxivity (29 mM-1s-1, 30 MHz, 25 ºC) Contrast Agent potentially safe for in vivo MRI applications. The Lipari-Szabo treatment for internal rotation was used to evaluate the effect of linker flexibility on the relaxivity of the gold nanoparticles. The relaxivity is limited by chelate flexibility. The effect of fast water exchange on the relaxivity of gold nanoparticles functionalized with Gd3+ chelates is also addressed in this communication.Fundação para a Ciência e TecnologiaProjecto PTDC/QUI/70063/2006PhD grant SFRH/BD/63994/2008 to Miguel FerreiraRede Nacional de RMN REDE/1517/RMN/2005 for the acquisition of the Varian VNMRS 600 NMR spectrometer in Coimbra and the Bruker Avance-3 400 Plus in BragaB. Mousavi and L. Helm acknowledge financial support by the Swiss National Science Foundation.COST D38 Actio

Gold nanoparticles functionalised with fast water exchanging Gd3+ chelates: linker effects on the relaxivity.

This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C4DT03210AThe relaxivity displayed by Gd(3+) chelates immobilized onto gold nanoparticles is the result of the complex interplay between the nanoparticle size, the water exchange rate and the chelate structure. In this work we study the effect of the length of ω-thioalkyl linkers, anchoring fast water exchanging Gd(3+) chelates onto gold nanoparticles, on the relaxivity of the immobilized chelates. Gold nanoparticles functionalized with Gd(3+) chelates of mercaptoundecanoyl and lipoyl amide conjugates of the DO3A-N-(α-amino)propionate chelator were prepared and studied as potential CA for MRI. High relaxivities per chelate, of the order of magnitude 28-38 mM(-1) s(-1) (30 MHz, 25 °C), were attained thanks to simultaneous optimization of the rotational correlation time and of the water exchange rate. Fast local rotational motions of the immobilized chelates around connecting linkers (internal flexibility) still limit the attainable relaxivity. The degree of internal flexibility of the immobilized chelates seems not to be correlated with the length of the connecting linkers. Biodistribution and MRI studies in mice suggest that the in vivo behavior of the gold nanoparticles was determined mainly by size. Small nanoparticles (HD = 3.9 nm) undergo fast renal clearance and avoidance of the RES organs while larger nanoparticles (HD = 4.8 nm) undergo predominantly hepatobiliary excretion. High relaxivities, allied to chelate and nanoparticle stability and fast renal clearance in vivo suggest that functionalized gold nanoparticles hold great potential for further investigation as MRI contrast agents. This study contributes to a better understanding of the effect of linker length on the relaxivity of gold nanoparticles functionalized with Gd(3+) complexes. It is a relevant contribution towards "design rules" for nanostructures functionalized with Gd(3+) chelates as Contrast Agents for MRI and multimodal imaging.This work was financially supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal: PhD grant SFRH/BD/63994/2009 to Miguel Ferreira and Sabbatical Grant SFRH/BSAB/1328/2013 to José Martins at Bath University, UK; and Rede Nacional de NMR (REDE/1517/RMN/2005) for the acquisition of the Varian VNMRS 600 NMR spectrometer in Coimbra. T.B.R. was supported by a Marie Curie Fellowship (FP/- PEOPLE-2009-IEF 254380) and an EMBO Fellowship (ALTF 1145-2009). Financial support from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spain, projects SAF2011-23622 (S.C.) and CTQ2010-20960-C02-02 (P.L.-L.), and Comunidad de Madrid, Spain, project S2010/BMD-2349 (S.C. and P.L.-L), is also acknowledged. B. Mousavi and L. Helm acknowledge financial support by the Swiss National Science Foundation. This work was carried out in the frame of the COST D38 Action “Metal Based Systems for Molecular Imaging” and COST TD1004 Action “Theranostics Imaging and Therapy”