Sense, existence and justice, or, how to live in a secular world?

It has been taken for granted that in western modernity we are dealing with a secularised world, an atheistic world where religion is no longer reigning the public sphere. In other words: a world where sense lies outside the world towards a world where sense is situated within it. If we follow the line of thought French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy sets out in his books The Sense of the World and Dis-closure, we have to think world not as what has its sense within itself, but as what is sense itself. To live in a secular world, means to live in a world which is sense, a world that has become responsible for itself but never closes in itself. Nancy, thereby inspired by Martin Heidegger, claims that in a secularised world it is no longer a question of whether the world has sense, but that the world is sense. If we want to be atheists today, Nancy concludes, we no longer have to do with the question, “why is there something in general?” but with the answer, “there is something, and that alone makes sense

Effect of transmitter position on the torque generation of a magnetic resonance based motoring system

Strongly coupled magnetic resonance is most often used to transfer electrical power from a transmitter to a resonant receiver coil to supply devices over an air gap. In this work, the induced current in two receiver coils (stator and rotor) is used to generate torque on the rotor coil. The effect of the transmitter position relative to the stator and rotor receiver coils on the torque generation is studied in detail, both in simulation and experimentally. Results show a 36% to 37% gain in peak torque when properly varying the stator orientation for a given transmitter distance

Effect of somatotropin on changes in milk-production and composition during coliform mastitis in periparturient cows.

The potential protective and therapeutic effects of bST during coliform mastitis in periparturient cows were evaluated. In a first study, 19 cows, classified as moderate or severe responders based on the respiratory burst activity of blood neutrophils, were treated with recombinant bST or vehicle 48 h after intramammary inoculation of Escherichia coli. Clinical status and changes in milk production and composition were compared in the four groups. In a second study, 8 cows received bST or vehicle 7 d before bacterial challenge. During mastitis, losses in milk production and compositional changes were most pronounced in infected glands and in severe responders. Milk production of bST cows recovered better than that of placebo cows. Recovery of milk components was accelerated in severe responders treated with bST, but not in moderate responders. Pretreatment of severe responders with bST enhanced milk production before infection, protected the mammary glands from excessive loss of milk during the subsequently induced coliform mastitis, and accelerated normalization of milk composition. In conclusion, the beneficial effects of bST upon normalization of milk production and composition in periparturient cows suffering from coliform mastitis seem to be restricted to the severe responders. In severe responders that had been treated with bST, changes observed during mastitis resembled those in moderate responders treated with the placebo

Breed evalueren: omgaan met verschil in zijn en in leren

Breed evalueren daagt ons uit op diverse vlakken. Het brengt ons terug naar twee kernvragen: waartoe dient ons onderwijs, en wat zijn de functies van evaluatie binnen onderwijs? Daarna volgt de zoektocht naar hoe je breed evalueren concreet maakt: op een rijke, gevarieerde en kwaliteitsvolle manier het leerproces en de leerprestaties van leerlingen in kaart brengen, liefst samen met de leerling en andere betrokkenen. Hoe meten we daarbij wat heel moeilijk te meten valt? Hoe gaan we op een faire manier om met de verschillen tussen leerlingen en met de norm die leerlingen moeten halen? Tot slot rijst ook de vraag welke plaats de klassieke toets als evaluatievorm inneemt binnen breed evalueren

Repetition

This text examines some of the difficulties arising from any attempt to conceive of repetition. These difficulties are explored through a brief commentary on a proposition concerning the unrepeatability of thought that Johann Georg Hamann introduces in his correspondence — on two occasions

Resistance

The term ‘resistance’, as it appears in the writings of Walter Benjamin, marks the attempt to think a politics that emerges out of a certain experience of history and time. This entry shows that Widerstand is conceived here principally as a resistance against the course of a catastrophic history — a desire for time to cease its flow and come to a standstill