12,826 research outputs found
The reduction of metaphysics and the play of violence in the poetry of Wallace Stevens
No full textPhDThe thesis demonstrates how Wallace Stevens' poetry utilises pre-Socratic philosophy in overcoming post-Kantian dislocation from the 'thing-in-itself'. I initially consider Stevens’ poetry in terms of Hans-Georg Gadamer's ontological conception of the 'play' of art, an interactive existence overlooked by Kant. Through the ‘play’ of Stevens’ poems the reading audience are implicated in their reduction to being. The origin of this conception leads Gadamer back to Parmenides who Stevens had read. I argue that Stevens’ poetry ‘plays’ its audience into an ontological ground in an effort to show that his ‘reduction of metaphysics’ is not dry philosophical imposition, but is enacted by our encounter with the poems themselves. Through an analysis of how the language and form of Stevens’ poems attempt to reduce mind and world to concepts that parallel Parmenides’ poetic sense of being, and Heraclitus’ notion of becoming, the thesis uncovers the ground in which Stevens attempts a reconnection with the ‘thing-in-itself’. It is through the experience of reconnecting to an ontological centre, which his poetry presents as the human project, that Stevens’ poetry also presents itself as a means of replacing religion.From here we turn to Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida for an exposition of how such a reduction reduces the ‘Other’ to ‘otherness’ and their worry that this reduction legitimates violence within the thought of Martin Heidegger and Parmenides. From this I make a case for how such reductions are connected to what I refer to as 'the play of violence' in Stevens' poetry, and to refer this violence back to the mythology Stevens' poetry shares with certain pre-Socratics and with Greek tragedy. This shows how such mythic rhythms are apparent within the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Heidegger and Gadamer, and how these rhythms release a poetic understanding of the violence of a ‘reduction of metaphysics’
Inescapable choice: Wallace Stevens's new Romanticism and English romantic poetry
No full textThe aim of this thesis is to investigate how Stevens creates a new Romanticism. It argues that Stevens demonstrates a double view of Romanticism as having positive and negative aspects and it relates discussion of this double view to the development of his poetry and theories of poetry. Stevens shares with the Romantics the belief that through the power of imagination the problem of dualism - especially the split between art and existential reality - can be solved. Prom Stevens's perspective, thinking about what should be respected and what should be corrected in Romanticism provides grounds for the creation of his own new Romanticism. In chapters one and two, by examining the conflict between imagination and reality in the works of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats, I explore the intertextual relations between Stevens and the Romantics from a perspective informed by the implications of Stevens's work and thought. In chapters three and four, focusing on Stevens's treatment of the relation between imagination and reality, I examine the nuanced differences between his work and that of the Romantics. Chapter five provides a prologue to 'Notes toward a Supreme Fiction', the culmination of Stevens's concern with imagination and reality. In the final chapter I examine how Stevens's new Romanticism, especially its emphasis on the imagination's activity, is concretised in 'Notes toward a Supreme Fiction'. I also explore how the later development of his sense of reality affects his poetic creativity. By examining the influence of the Romantics on Stevens and his response to them, the nature of his poetry can be more accurately understood. Throughout the thesis, I engage, as appropriate, with the work of many critics who have written on Stevens. It is my hope that my own approach gives a folly considered and detailed account of a topic often addressed more briefly by other commentators
Abantiades zonatriticum Moore & Beaver & Velasco-Castrillón & Stevens 2020, sp. nov.
No full text2. Abantiades zonatriticum Moore & Beaver sp. nov. Figs 3 (a) and (b), 7(b), 8(b), 9(b), 10(b), 11(c) and (d).Published as part of Moore, Michael D., Beaver, Ethan P., Velasco-Castrillón, Alejandro & Stevens, Mark I., 2020, Four new tri-forked species of the Australian genus Abantiades Herrich-Schäffer (Lepidoptera: Hepialidae) from the " dark obscura clade ", pp. 115-141 in Zootaxa 4801 (1) on page 122, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4801.1.5, http://zenodo.org/record/389813
The past, present, and future
No full textMechanical circulatory and respiratory support (MCRS) therapies are now an established feature of modern medicine. Substantial progress has been made in the MCRS field during the last decade, much of it built upon pioneering work carried out since the 1950s. Increasingly, international registries are recording a rapid expansion in the number of patients supported with MCRS devices and in the number of centers capable of providing these interventions. Improved technologies now offer hope to patients who even recently would have died of their illnesses. Work continues to develop newer, more sophisticated devices that limit the adverse effects and improve performance. In this chapter, we look forward to identify areas which will be important in the future of MCRS. In doing so, we consider both the technological and organizational factors that will influence the continued development of the field
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Session 1B: Financing: Not Your Typical Session
No full textMany new business owners are being told by the traditional sources that there's no money to be had for starting a clean energy business or financing clean energy projects. Our response is that folks are not being creative enough. This session will look at some traditional and non-traditional ways of getting financing for green businesses. Moderator: Abi Barrow, Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center Panel: a. Using finance to shape your green business - Carter Wall b. Financing to make your businesss green - Michael Lehan c. Tax implications and credits for green businesses - Colleen Berndt d. New financing programs for green businesses - Chales Dubuc e. Investing for clean tech - Bic Stevens and Jay Fisk
On the Michael addition of water to C = C bonds
No full text?-Hydroxy carbonyl compounds are an important class of compounds often found as a common structural motif in natural products. Although the molecules themselves look rather simple, their synthesis can be challenging. Water addition to conjugated C = C bonds opens up a straightforward route for the preparation of ?-hydroxy carbonyl compounds. Moreover, water addition to C = C bonds benefits a lot from its simplicity and excellent atom economy. However, the enantioselective addition of water to ?,?-unsaturated carbonyl (Michael) acceptors still represents a chemically very challenging reaction, due to the poor nucleophilicity of water and its small size, which make regio- and stereoinduction difficult. Equally, the often unfavorable equilibrium of water-addition reactions remains to be solved. In contrast, enzymes such as fumarase, malease, citraconase, aconitase, and enoyl-CoA hydratase have been successfully used on industrial scale, and their excellent (enantio-) selectivities are highly valued. Unfortunately, most hydratases are part of the primary metabolism where perfect substrate specificity is required. This very high substrate selectivity severely limits their practical applicability in organic synthesis. Thus, a straightforward approach with broad applicability still had not been described. The aim of the research presented in this thesis was to take up this challenge and dedicated to the search for a Michael hydratase with a more relaxed substrate specificity for the preparation of important ?-hydroxy carbonyl compounds. The stereospecificity of enzyme-catalysed reactions has been a fruitful source of information about the mechanisms of enzyme catalysis and vice versa; the application of stereospecifically labelled substrates allows for studying the course of the reaction. It offers a very promising opportunity to comprehensively understand the precise mechanistic and kinetic details of even the most complex enzymatic reactions. Thus Chapter 1 provides unifying ideas for stereochemistry of the enzymatic water addition to C = C bonds. This enhances our understanding of the chemistry of water addition to C = C bonds, and further allows us to find more hydratases from natural sources or obtained via protein engineering. In Chapter 2, a direct, enantioselective Michael addition of water in water to prepare important ?-hydroxy carbonyl compounds using whole cells of Rhodococcus strains is described. Good yields and excellent enantioselectivities were achieved with this method. This opens up an entirely new approach for the preparation of important ?-hydroxy carbonyl compounds. Deuterium labelling studies demonstrate that a Michael hydratase catalyzes the water addition exclusively with anti-stereochemistry, which belongs to the family members of hydratases: oleate hydratase, fumarase, malease, aconitase and type II dehydroquinase with a preference for the anti-addition; whereas, type I dehydroquinase, enoyl-CoA hydratase and artificial hydratase exclusive prefer for the syn-addition, as discussed in Chapter 1. The biocatalytic reaction system was carefully optimized for gram-scale synthesis, resulting in good conversions and excellent enantioselectivities. Under the optimized conditions, whole cells could be reused for 4 cycles without significant loss of activity while maintaining up to 90% ee. Since whole cells from Rhodococcus strains were used to catalyse the Michael addition of water in water to a series of ?,?-unsaturated carbonyl compounds, and when the work presented in Chapter 2 started, no genomic information of Rhodococcus strains was publically available, we sequenced and annotated the strain R. rhodochrous ATCC 17895. This is described in Chapter 3 together with features of the R. rhodochrous ATCC 17895. It is a Gram-positive aerobic bacterium with a rod-like morphology. The 6,869,887 bp long genome contains 6,609 protein-coding genes and 53 RNA genes. Our study suggests the Michael hydratase has not been described before. In the work presented in Chapter 2, we found that most ?-hydroxy ketones are not commercially available or commercially expensive as we mentioned in the first paragraph, which made the stereoselectivity determination of Michael addition products difficult. Indeed, many seemingly simple molecules have to be prepared via multi-step syntheses, in particular so if they are optically active. Therefore a straightforward approach to enantiomerically enriched (R)- and (S)-3-hydroxycyclopentanone was established by kinetic resolution in Chapter 4. This methodology allows us to prepare more ?-hydroxy carbonyl compounds structurally closely related to 3-hydroxycyclopentanone. The isolated chiral alcohols were used to determine the stereochemistry of the Michael addition of water in Chapter 2, saving us a lot of laboratory work. Moreover, unexpected stereoselective reduction of conjugated C = C bonds was discovered during studies on the enantioselective Michael addition of water. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the whole cells of R. rhodochrous ATCC 17895 reduced ?,?-unsaturated cyclic ketones into the corresponding ketones as initially undesired side reaction for the addition of water to C = C bonds. Therefore, ene-reductase activity was also investigated in Chapter 5. A series of substrates, including activated ketones, aldehydes, amines and nitro-compounds were screened for ene-reductase activity using whole cells of R. rhodochrous ATCC 17895. This showed that R. rhodochrous is a very promising catalyst for the reduction of C = C bonds and harbours ene-reductases. Indeed, looking for the annotated ene reductase from the genome of R. rhodochrous ATCC 17895 as described in Chapter 3, three candidates were observed and were classified as ene-reductases by amino acid sequence alignment with the known Old Yellow Enzymes (OYEs). Thus, the putative ene-reductase genes from R. rhodochrous ATCC 17895 were heterologously overexpressed in Escherichia coli and one of the encoded proteins was purified and characterized for their biocatalytic and biochemical properties. Based on these accomplishments it can be concluded that we have discovered a new Michael hydratase and three new ene reductases from Rhodococcus strains. Genome sequence and annotation of strain R. rhodochrous ATCC 17895 has been done, offering an excellent opportunity for the discovering novel enzymes, for instance, the Michael hydratase and S-selective ene reductase. The important chiral ?-hydroxy carbonyl compounds can be prepared by kinetic resolution of racemic alcohols using lipases or the direct enantioselective Michael addition of water using whole cells of Rhodococcus strains. The isolated products from kinetic resolution were readily used for the stereochemistry determination of Michael addition of water in water, completes the story of water addition to C = C bonds.BiotechnologyApplied Science
Must the Bearer of a Right Have the Concept of That to Which He Has a Right?
No full textStevens critiques what he calls the "conceptual possession
requirement" as defined by Michael Tooley in his article, "Abortion and
infanticide,
Acute effects of C-peptide on gastric emptying in longstanding type 1 diabetes
No full textThe original publication is available at www.springerlink.comGastric emptying (GE)of a solid (100 g beef) and liquid(150 ml 10 % dextrose) meal wasmeasured in eight patients withtype 1 diabetes during intravenousinfusion of C-peptide (6pmol/kg/min) or isotonic saline. C-peptidehad no effect on either solid orliquid GE.Julie E. Stevens, Antonietta Russo, Carol A. Delaney, Peter J. Collins, Michael Horowitz, Karen L. Jone
William Stevens (1732-1807): Lay activism in late Eighteenth-Century Anglican high churchmanship
No full textSet within the context of a neglected history of lay involvement in High Churchmanship, this thesis argues that William Stevens (1732-1807)—a High Church layman with a successful commercial career—brought to the Church of England not only his piety and theological learning, but his wealth and business acumen. Combined with extensive social links to some of that Church’s most distinguished High Church figures, Stevens exhibited throughout his life an influential example of High Church ‘lay activism’ that was central to the achievements and effectiveness of High Churchmanship during the latter half of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth.
In this thesis, Stevens’s lay activism is divided into two sub-themes: ‘theological activism’ and ‘ecclesiastical activism’. Theological activism was represented primarily by Stevens’s role as a theologian or ‘lay divine’, a characteristic that resulted in numerous publications that engaged in contemporary intellectual debate. Ecclesiastical activism, on the other hand, represented Stevens’s more practical contributions to Church and society, especially his role as a philanthropist and office holder in a number of Church of England societies. Together, Stevens’s intellectual and practical achievements provide further justification of the revisionist claim that eighteenth-century Anglican High Churchmanship was an active ecclesiastical tradition. Additionally, however, Stevens’s life challenges conventional assumptions about the High Church tradition—especially its tendency to emphasise the lives and experiences of clerics. Stevens, it is argued, though a layman, was one of the influential High Churchmen of his age
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