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Figuring out What Works: Reviewing the Advantages, Disadvantages, and Effectiveness of Passive Enhanced Weathering Settings and Feedstocks
No full textEnhanced weathering is a negative emissions technology that converts CO2 and a natural or industrial feedstock (i.e., a material used for enhanced weathering) into bicarbonate, alkalinity, dissolved Ca/Mg, and/or carbonate minerals. Despite the need to deploy enhanced weathering at scale, policymakers still lack sufficient information to maximize its potential. Using a multidisciplinary literature review, I describe the mechanisms and controlling factors of enhanced weathering, along with some of the socio-environmental tradeoffs (e.g., costs, leachates, co-benefits) of three proposed enhanced weathering feedstocks (mine materials, calcined MgO, and concrete) and three proposed enhanced weathering settings (urban, marginal, and agricultural lands). Using this information, I link these feedstocks to each setting in a way that maximizes enhanced weathering’s effectiveness/co-benefits and minimizes its potential harm. I recommend basalt tailings for agricultural and marginal enhanced weathering due to its agricultural benefits and potential for poverty reduction. I do not recommend MgO as the principal feedstock for any setting discussed. Finally, I recommend concrete for urban enhanced weathering due to its low cost and high urban availability
The Family Plan or Lack Thereof: A Cultural Study of Post-One-Child Policy China
No full textDespite China abolishing the one-child policy in 2016, the effects are still felt today. There are profound social and economic impacts on the country, particularly in the domain of relationships. Due to the policy lasting 36 years, the impacts are widely studied. However, the two-child and three-child policies were recently implemented and therefore are under-researched. I explore the change in family policies\u27 influence on the younger generation\u27s attitudes toward relationships, marriage, and family planning. I conducted qualitative interviews with students attending universities in Beijing. Many are more concerned with their education, careers, and financial stability than with the traditional value of marrying and starting a family early. Some factors that have affected this shift of conventional norms are globalization, gender expectations, and economic burdens. Young women are experiencing greater freedom under the new policy. However, it has led to unforeseen consequences. I integrate the interview information with existing research to provide new perspectives on China’s evolving societal ideals. This paper argues that the transition from the one-child policy to the two- and three-child policies has not been sufficient as younger generations increasingly prioritize autonomy, career goals, and self-fulfillment over traditional family obligations
The Sensuality of Suffering: Love in Julian of Norwich and James Baldwin
No full textIn response to a question about whether or not he believes in God, James Baldwin responded, “I’m not a believer in any sense which would make sense to any church, and any church would obviously throw me out. I believe–what do I believe? I believe in…I believe in love.” He explores this idea in depth in his seminal text on religion and the Black American experience, The Fire Next Time. Julian of Norwich, a medieval mystic, wrote an account of her showings from God, titled Revelations of Divine Love. She describes God as “almighty, all wisdom and all love.” Both authors are concerned with the nature of experience, articulated as sensuality. This understanding of embodied experience empowers an understanding of love as transformative, honest, painful, and challenging. This definition of love requires an interrogation of the relationship between love and suffering as agents of sensuality, an interrogation that both Julian and Baldwin take up with deep reverence for the human condition. This paper identifies both love and suffering as universal aspects of the human condition, and explores their connected, sensual nature. This nature requires them to exist in tandem with one another in humanity. Despite conflicting ideas about religion, Julian of Norwich and James Baldwin both understand the sensuality of experience, exemplified in love and suffering, to be what defines the human condition and enables union with the divine. Understanding the nature of this connection through the work of Julian and Baldwin allows us to see both love and suffering as divine experiences that allow humans to understand the truth of the human condition
Gender Identity and Gender Incongruence in Children: A Review of Measurement and Data Collection Practices
No full textIt is common for children to experience gender incongruence–a misalignment of sex assigned at birth and gender identity–through many stages of their identity development. Sometimes, gender incongruence elicits discomfort or distress known as gender dysphoria, which may occur as early as ages 2 and 3. Gender dysphoria may develop from sex differentiation disorders like Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, or from a multitude of psychological factors like changes in environment, awareness of others’ identities or due to developmental processes. In order to study gender incongruence in children, researchers typically pick participants who are already enrolled in gender clinics or schools in the area. Often, gender identity in children is measured through interviews or questionnaires. It is evident from the literature that sometimes, the participants, whether they are the parents of children experiencing gender incongruence or the children themselves, are tasked with answering questions through various measurement practices. Although these practices have been used continuously, gendered language and outdated sources have caused inconsistencies in measurement, which may influence participants’ responses. Recommendations for future research include researchers justifying their measurement practices and re-writing interview questions and questionnaires to better align with definitions and concepts of gender that are prominent in the language of today
OV-BiTE: Using an Oncolytic Virus to Enhance the Efficacy of T-Cell-Attracting Bispecific Monoclonal Antibodies in Treating Cold Solid Tumors
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Making AI Make Sense: Biological Normativity as a Criterion for Intelligence
No full textOver a more than 50 year history, a similar critique of artificial intelligence (AI) and mind design has been raised again and again. While the presentation of this critique has varied in topic and emphasis, each presentation constellates around the idea that AI is incapable of certain behaviors essential to intelligence. These behaviors have to do with finding significance in its own activity, its environment, and its interlocutors. Despite the prevalence of these critiques, they have not been felt strongly in the engineering projects behind AI. I argue that this is because these objections are often based on intuitions, and very rarely include actionable suggestions. To overcome these roadblocks, I turn to the work of Gilbert Simondon. Simondon argues that the activity of meaning-making is grounded in the biological projects of the organism—such as metabolism and maintaining homeostasis—and that psychological activity emerges from the meanings established in this project. To endow an AI with the ability to make sense of its situation, then, research in mind design should prioritize replicating the self organizing activity of biological organisms. This will necessitate looking to regions of the brain often neglected in mind design research: the subcortical structures in general in general and the limbic system in particular
Diamonds in the Rough: Counting Diamonds in Tournaments
No full textA tournament is a directed graph in which there is a distinct edge between every pair of vertices (i.e., a complete directed graph). Recent work by Boussairi et al demonstrates that the number of diamonds within a tournament casts light on the determinant of the tournament. We explore the main result of this work and present our formulae for counting diamonds and generalized diamonds in various types of tournaments.
We also discuss observations of the number of generalized diamonds in 8-tournaments. Lastly, we investigate the automorphism group of generalized diamonds
RuBisC-No! Designing Protein-Cage-Based Metabolons to Move Synthetic Carbon Fixation Systems in vivo
No full textDynamin-Related Proteins in Apicoplast and Mitochondrial Fission During Plasmodium falciparum Replication
No full textMalaria, caused by the parasite Plasmodium falciparum, remains a critical global health threat, particularly in regions with limited access to healthcare. This paper investigates the role of dynamin-related proteins in the replication of P. falciparum, focusing on the division of two essential organelles: the mitochondria and the apicoplast. The apicoplast, a non-photosynthetic relic of a chloroplast acquired through secondary endosymbiosis, plays a vital role in parasite metabolism and must be accurately divided and inherited by daughter cells during schizogony. Drawing on current research, I explore how the mitochondria and apicoplast undergo membrane fission and argue that their close association during replication is important for proper division. I propose that this proximity enables both organelles to coordinate division through the shared use of the same dynamin protein, Dyn2, thereby ensuring organelle inheritance and parasite survival