What Makes a Utopia Inconvenient? On the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Realist Orientation to Politics

Contemporary politics is often said to lack utopias. For prevailing understandings of the practical force of political theory, this looks like cause for celebration. As blueprints to apply to political practice, utopias invariably seem too strong or too weak. Through an immanent critique of political realism, I argue that utopian thought, and political theory generally, is better conceived as supplying an orientation to politics. Realists including Bernard Williams and Raymond Geuss explain how utopian programs like universal human rights poorly orient their adherents to politics, but the realists wrongly conclude that utopias and other ideal theories necessarily disorient us. As I show through an analysis of utopian claims made by Michel Foucault, Malcolm X, and John Rawls, utopias today can effectively disrupt entrenched forms of legitimation, foster new forms of political identity, and reveal new possibilities within existing institutions. Utopias are needed to understand the political choices we face today

Must Criticism Be Constructive?

This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 2012, given by philosopher Raymond Geuss

Manipulation of the embryoid body microenvironment to increase cardiomyogenesis

textMyocardial Infarction (MI) is one of the most prevalent and deadliest diseases in the United States. Since the host myocardium becomes irreversibly damaged following MI, current research is focused on identification of novel, less invasive, and more effective treatment options for patients. Cellular cardiomyopathy, in which viable cells are transplanted into the necrotic tissue, has the potential to regenerate and integrate with the host myocardium. Stem cells, specifically pluripotent stem cells such as embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), are ideal candidates for this procedure because they are pluripotent; however, ESCs must be predifferentiated to avoid teratoma formation in vivo. In this dissertation, our goal was improve upon current protocols to direct differentiation of ESCs into cardiomyocytes using an embryoid body (EB) model. We immobilized pro-cardiomyogenic proteins, specifically Sonic Hedgehog (SHH) and Bone Morphogenetic Protein 4 (BMP4) to paramagnetic beads and delivered them in the interior of the EB. While lineage commitment was indiscriminate, the presence of the beads alone appeared to guide differentiation into cardiomyocytes: there were significantly more contracting areas in EBs containing beads than in the presence of SHH or BMP4. To take advantage of this result, we immobilized Arginine-Glycine-Aspartic Acid (RGD) peptides to the beads and magnetized them following incorporation into the EB. Magnetically mediated strain increased the expression of mechanochemical markers, and in combination with BMP4 increased the percentage of cardiomyocytes. Finally, PEGylated fibrin gels were used to investigate the effect of seeding method and fibrinogen concentration on cardiomyocyte behavior and maturation. Cells seeded on top of compliant hydrogels had the most contracting regions compared to stiffer PEGylated fibrin gels, whereas cardiomyocytes seeded within the hydrogels could not remodel the matrix or maintain contractility. As an alternative to 3D culture, we seeded cardiomyocytes within gel layers, which maintained viability as well as contractile activity. We observed that PEGylated fibrin gels can maintain ESC-derived cardiomyocytes; however, the ratio of cardiomyocytes and non-cardiomyocytes should be optimized to maintain contractile phenotypes. Therefore, this dissertation presents novel methods to differentiate ESCs into cardiomyocytes, and subsequently promote their maturation in vitro, for the treatment of MI.Cellular and Molecular Biolog

Big people, little world: The body influences size perception

Previous research has shown that changes to the body can influence the perception of distances in near space (Witt et al, 2005 Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 31 880-888). In this paper, we question whether changes to the body can also influence the perception of extents in extrapersonal space, namely the perception of aperture widths. In experiment 1, broad-shouldered participants visually estimated the size of apertures to be smaller than narrow-shouldered participants. In experiment 2, we questioned whether changes to the body, which included holding a large object, wearing a large object, or simply holding out the arms would influence perceived width. Surprisingly, we found that only when participants\u27 hands were widened was extrapersonal space rescaled. In experiment 3, we explored the boundaries of the effect observed in experiment 2 by asking participants to hold their arms at four different positions in order to determine the arm width at which apertures appeared smaller. We found that arm positions that were larger than the shoulder width made apertures appear smaller. The results suggest that dimensions of the body play a role in the scaling of environmental parameters in extrapersonal space

Solanum dulcamara's response to eggs of an insect herbivore comprises ovicidal hydrogen peroxide production

Plants can respond to insect oviposition, but little is known about which responses directly target the insect eggs and how. Here, we reveal a mechanism by which the bittersweet nightshade Solanum dulcamara kills the eggs of a generalist noctuid herbivore. The plant responded at the site of oviposition by Spodoptera exigua with formation of neoplasms and chlorotic tissue, accumulation of reactive oxygen species and induction of defence genes and proteins. Transcriptome analysis revealed that these responses were reflected in the transcriptional reprogramming of the egg-laden leaf. The plant-mediated egg mortality on S. dulcamara was not present on a genotype lacking chlorotic leaf tissue at the oviposition sites on which the eggs are exposed to less hydrogen peroxide. As exposure to hydrogen peroxide increased egg mortality, while catalase supplementation prevented the plants from killing the eggs, our results suggest that reactive oxygen species formation directly acts as an ovicidal plant response of S. dulcamara

Selected aspects of motivation for parenthood

Úkolem práce je identifikovat některé - především ty nejfrekventovanější - motivy k rodičovství. Tyto motivy jsou pak rozděleny do skupin a analyzová- ny. Vzhledem k trendům posledních desetiletí, kdy byl zaznamenán pokles porodnosti a rodičovství je často odkládáno na pozdější věk, se práce snaží postihnout změny ve významu jednotlivých motivů ve srovnání s minulostí. První část práce je členěna do šesti kapitol. První kapitola obsahuje vy- mezení pojmu motivace, druhá se věnuje stručnému historickému exkurzu do podob rodiny, charakteru rodičovství a postavení dětí, přičemž již v této části jsou nastíněny některé aspekty motivace k rodičovství. Součástí této kapitoly je i diskuse vývoje rodičovství a souvisejících otázek v posledních desetiletích. Další kapitoly se věnují samotným skupinám aspektů rodičov- ské motivace, a to aspektům biologickým, ekonomickým, sociálním, emoci- onálním a nezařazeným. Druhá část práce je návrh výzkumu. Výzkum se věnuje proměnám mo- tivace k rodičovství v průběhu té části života, kdy se mnoho lidí stává ro- diči. Návrh výzkumu předpokládá opakované oslovování početné skupiny respondentů a následnou statistickou analýzu získaných dat. Klíčová slova: motivace, rodina, rodičovstvíThe aim of the thesis is to identify some of the motives for parenthood - especially the most frequent ones. These motives are divided into groups and analysed. With respect to the trends in last decades, where the decrease in birth rates has been reported and parenthood is often being postponed, the thesis aims to cover changes in importance of the motives in comparison to the past. The first part of the thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter con- tains definition of the term motivation, the second one deals with a brief overview of family forms, nature of parenthood and position of children in the past, whereas in this part some aspects of motivation for parenthood are already introduced. A part of this chapter is also a discussion of parenthood development and related topics in last decades. The next chapters deal with groups of aspects of motivation for parenthood, i.e. the biological, econo- mic, social, emotional and miscellaneous ones. The second part is a research proposal. The proposed research deals with changes in motivation for parenthood during the part of life in which many people become parents. The research proposal counts with addressing a lar- ge group of respondents and subsequent statistical analysis of the received data. Keywords: motivation, family, parenthoodDepartment of PsychologyKatedra psychologieFaculty of ArtsFilozofická fakult

Criminal Punishment of the Social Parasitism in Czechoslovakia during the years 1957 - 1990

Ústav hospodářských a sociálních dějinInstitute of Economic and Social HistoryFaculty of ArtsFilozofická fakult