3,795 research outputs found

    A importância moral da dor e do sofrimento animal na ética de Peter Singer

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    Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Ciências Humanas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia, Florianópolis, 2012.O objetivo desta dissertação é defender a importância moral da consideração da dor e do sofrimento de animais não-humanos. Isso se dá através do principio da igual consideração de interesses desenvolvido por Peter Singer. A senciência possibilita os animais a terem interesses, no mínimo, o interesse evitar a dor e o sofrimento. É por essa razão que devem ser incluídos nas decisões morais. São reconstruídas e analisadas as objeções de Peter Harrison, Carl Cohen, R.G. Frey e Lawrence C. Becker direcionadas ao princípio de Singer, e que criticam os pressupostos básicos, quais sejam, a capacidade de sentirem dor/sofrimento e de terem interesses, sobre os quais se fundamenta a inclusão dos animais nas considerações morais. Cada uma dessas objeções é analisada e criticada de modo a demonstrar suas limitações e inconsistências, juntamente com as implicações morais geradas para seres humanos. Na análise dessas críticas, reforça-se a importância e a consideração moral que deve ser conferida à dor e ao sofrimento dos animais. Após essa discussão teórica, é analisado um caso de âmbito prático: a pesquisa científica sobre o câncer humano através do modelo animal. Verifica-se, a partir do princípio de Singer, a imoralidade de tal procedimento realizado em animais sencientes devido à violação de seus interesses. Com isso, a dissertação enfatiza a exigência ética de abolir o uso de animais nessa prática em razão da incapacidade preditiva dos animais, mas principalmente devido à dor e ao sofrimento causado neles e também aos seres humanos, que ficam sujeitos aos erros, prejuízos e sofrimentos originados pelo intenso uso animal nas pesquisas. Nessa conclusão, se constata que a insistência no uso de animais nos experimentos compromete o cientista a preferir usar seres humanos, uma vez que isso gera mais benefícios e resultados mais seguros. A recusa moral ao uso de humanos em pesquisas implica, por outro lado, na recusa moral do uso de animais, ou seja, sua abolição.Abstract : The aim of this dissertation is to defend the moral importance of considering pain and suffering of nonhuman animals. This is achieved through The Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests developed by Peter Singer. The sentience enables nonhuman animals to have interests, at least the interest of avoiding pain and suffering. That is why it should be included in moral decisions. The objections of Peter Harrison, Carl Cohen, RG Frey and Lawrence C. Becker directed to the principle of Singer are reconstructed and analyzed, as they are criticizing the basic assumptions, i.e., the ability to feel pain/suffering and have interests, upon which is based the inclusion of animals in moral considerations. Each of these objections is analyzed and criticized in order to demonstrate their limitations and inconsistencies, simultaneously with its moral implications for humans. In the analysis of these criticisms, it reinforces the moral importance and considerations that should be given to pain and suffering of animals. After this theoretical discussion, a case study of practical scope is analyzed: animal testing for scientific research on human cancer. It is verified from the Singer's principle that such procedures performed on sentient animals are a violation of their interests and, therefore, immoral. Thus, the dissertation emphasizes the ethical demand to abolish the use of nonhuman animals in this practice due to their predictive inability, but mainly due to the pain and suffering caused to them and also to humans, who are subject to errors, injuries and suffering originated by the intense use of nonhuman animals on research. The conclusion verifies that the insistence on the use of nonhuman animals in experiments moves the scientist to prefer using humans in experiments since it generates greater benefit and more reliable results. The moral refusal to using humans in research implies the moral rejection of the use of animals in experiments and consequently, its abolition

    H. B. Barnum, Mary Wilson, and Robert Guillaume

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    Musical Director, H.B. Barnum, Presenter/singer Mary Wilson, and Host Robert Guillaume.https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-0445-hooks-gallery1/1155/thumbnail.jp

    Can reforming global institutions help developing countries share more in the benefits from globalization?

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    Globalization could significantly expand trade, international investment, and technological advances, but the gains from global integration have been unevenly distributed across and within nations. Greater global interdependence has also brought greater macroeconomic volatility, resulting in several serious financial crises in the second half of the 1990s. The global matrix of Bretton Woods and United Nations institutions that developed starting in the 1940s, formed under a different balance of power, in a world of fixed exchange rates and limited capital mobility. Since the 1960s regional financial institutions have emerged because of the greater autonomy of different regions and the greater financial needs of development. The author reviews different proposals for reform of the international financial institutions and changes in the roles of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. He highlights the implications for developing countries of (1) Policy conditionality. (2) The countercyclical role of multilaterals'lending. (3) Greater lending to middle-income than to low-income developing countries. (3) Access to liquidity at times of crisis. (4) Mechanisms for giving low-income countries a greater voice in IMF and World Bank decisionmaking. The author streses the overlapping responsibilities of the Bretton Woods and regional financial institutions and the need to reassess the allocation of responsibilities and to develop better coordination mechanisms between these institutions. Those designing institutional reform must consider the corporate capabilities of each type of institution. The corporate cultures of global and regional institutions differ. So does the kind of knowledge they generate and disseminate, and so do patterns of interactions with, and mechanisms for representation of, client countries.Finally, the author calls attention to the need to harmonize national and global growth-oriented policies in a way that reduces volatility and promotes social equity.Environmental Economics&Policies,Governance Indicators,Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform

    MF098 Robert Black Recordings of Folksinger George Edwards

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    George Edwards, donated by Robert Black, summer 1989. Accession consists of three tape reels containing songs and ballads sung by George Edwards, a well-known traditional singer of ballads and folksongs from the Catskill Mountain region of New York. The recordings date from 1938-1944 and were made by various people and later compiled by Robert Black of the University of California at Berkeley then sent to Edward D. “Sandy” Ives at the Northeast Archives sometime in the 1960s.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/ne_findingaids/1097/thumbnail.jp

    Biotic modifiers, environmental modulation and species distribution models

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    The ability of species to modulate environmental conditions and resources has long been of interest. In the past three decades the impacts of these biotic modifiers have been investigated as ‘ecosystem engineers’, ‘niche constructors’, ‘facilitators’ and ‘keystone species’. This environmental modulation can vary spatially from extremely local to global, temporally from days to geological time, and taxonomically from a few to a very large number of species. Modulation impacts are pervasive and affect, inter alia, the climate, structural environments, disturbance rates, soils and the atmospheric chemical composition. Biotic modifiers may profoundly transform the projected environmental conditions, and consequently have a significant impact on the predicted occurrence of the focal species in species distribution models (SDMs). This applies especially when these models are projected into different geographical regions or into the future or the past, where these biotic modifiers may be absent, or other biotic modifiers may be present. We show that environmental modulation can be represented in SDMs as additional variables. In some instances it is possible to use the species (e.g. biotic modifiers) in order to reflect the modulation. This would apply particularly to cases where the effect is the result of a single or a small number of species (e.g. elephants transforming woodland to grassland). Where numerous species generate an effect (such as tree species making a forest, or grasses facilitating fire) that modulates the abiotic environment, the effect itself might be a better descriptor for the aggregated action of the numerous species. We refer to this ‘effect’ as the modulator. Much of the information required to incorporate environmental modulation effects in SDMs is already available from remote-sensing data and vegetation models

    beta-Actin messenger RNA localization and protein synthesis augment cell motility

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    In chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEFs), beta-actin mRNA localizes near an actin-rich region of cytoplasm specialized for motility, the lamellipodia. This localization is mediated by isoform-specific 3'-untranslated sequences (zipcodes) and can be inhibited by antizipcode oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) (Kislauskis, E.H., X.-C. Zhu, and R.H. Singer. 1994. J. Cell Biol. 127: 441-451). This inhibition of beta-actin mRNA localization resulted in the disruption of fibroblast polarity and, presumably, cell motility. To investigate the role of beta-actin mRNA in motility, we correlated time-lapse images of moving CEFs with the distribution of beta-actin mRNA in these cells. CEFs with localized beta-actin mRNA moved significantly further over the same time period than did CEFs with nonlocalized mRNA. Antizipcode ODN treatment reduced this cell translocation while control ODN treatments showed no effect. The temporal relationship of beta-actin mRNA localization to cell translocation was investigated using serum addition to serum-deprived cultures. beta-actin mRNA was not localized in serum-deprived cells but became localized within minutes after serum addition (Latham, V.M., E.H. Kislauskis, R.H. Singer, and A.F. Ross. 1994. J. Cell Biol. 126:1211-1219). Cell translocation increased over the next 90 min, and actin synthesis likewise increased. Puromycin reduced this cell translocation and blocked this induction in cytosolic actin content. The serum induction of cell movement was also inhibited by antizipcode ODNs. These observations support the hypothesis that beta-actin mRNA localization and consequent protein synthesis augment cell motility

    Zellie De Lussan

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    Late 19th CenturyPortrait of the opera singer Zellie De Lussan, on Little Rhody cut Plug tobacco insert card1 photographic print on Tobacco card

    Felicia Baranco

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    Late 19th CenturyHead and shoulders portrait of the actress and singer Felicia Baranco, on Little Rhody cut Plug tobacco insert card1 photographic print on Tobacco card

    Development and Application of Ultrastructural in Situ Hybridization to Visualize the Spatial Organization of mRNA: a Dissertation

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    It has been well documented that mRNA is associated with the cytoskeleton, and that this relationship is involved in translation and mRNA sorting. The molecular components involved in the attachment of mRNA to the cytoskeleton are only poorly understood. The objective of this thesis was to directly visualize the interaction of mRNA with the cytoskeleton, with sufficient resolution to identify the filament systems and structures involved. This work required the development of novel in situ hybridization methods for use with electron microscopy. This allowed resolution to visualize single mRNA molecules and individual filaments. The development of a silver enhancement methodology for both the light and electron microscopic detection of biotinated oligo-dT probes permitted a synoptic view of the intracellular distribution of poly(A) mRNA. At the light microscope, the distribution of poly(A) mRNA did not resemble the individual distribution patterns of microfilaments, intermediate filaments or microtubules. Ultrastructural examination revealed that poly(A) mRNA was not uniformly distributed along cytoskeletal filaments, but clustered at their intersections. The composition of these mRNA containing structures was investigated by both morphologic and in situ hybridization analysis using antibodies to cytoskeletal proteins. In thin sections, polysomes were observed attached to both microfilaments and intermediate filaments. To permit the simultaneous detection of oligo-dT hybridization and specific cytoskeletal proteins, a double labelling method using colloidal gold conjugated antibodies was developed. The majority of poly(A) mRNA was associated with the actin cytoskeleton, with 72% of the hybridization localized within 5nm of a labelled microfilament. Within the actin cytoskeleton, poly(A) mRNA was localized to intersections of orthogonal networks. Greater than 50% of poly(A) colocalized with the actin crosslinking proteins, filamin and α-actinin, but not vinculin. A significant amount of poly(A) mRNA was found to be associated with intermediate filaments. The double label gold analysis demonstrated that 33% of the hybridization signal localized within 5nm of labelled vimentin filaments. Prior disorganization of the actin cytoskeleton using cytochalasin did not disrupt the association of mRNA with vimentin. These observations are consistent with our morphologic results of polysome-intermediate filament associations, and indicate that microfilaments are not the only filament system to which mRNA is bound. Furthermore, a small amount of hybridization signal (12%) consistently was observed along microtubules, providing an additional cytoskeletal network to distribute mRNA. To further characterize the spatial organization of mRNA within the cytoskeleton, ultrastructural methods were developed to directly visualize individual mRNA molecules. First, oligonucleotide probes chemically modified with a single hapten and directly conjugated primary reagents were used to permit detection of an individual hybridized probe molecule by a single gold particle. Second, biotin and digoxigenin labelled oligonucleotide probes were used to simultaneously visualize the intermolecular and intramolecular relationships of two nucleic acid sequences. Third, reverse transcriptase was used to extend hybridized primers in situ which permitted visualization of the poly(A) sequence concomittant with the conformation of an mRNA molecule. These methods have permitted analysis of how single mRNA molecules may be positioned with respect to each other within the cytoskeleton. The ultrastructural visualization of mRNA within its structural environment has demonstrated heterogeneous interactions with the cytoskeleton. Future work will be needed to further characterize the mechanism of mRNA attachment. The proteins which bridge nucleic acid sequences to specific intersections can be identified. It will be interesting to learn how the identified mRNA-cytoskeletal interactions might be involved in the regulation of both mRNA translation and intracellular location. Lastly, and perhaps the most challenging goal, is to investigate whether the identified mRNA-cytoskeletal interactions are used by the cell to influence its own shape, polarity and architecture.Cell Biolog
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