Digital Commons Network^™

Ultimate Concern And Finitude: Schelling’S Philosophy Of Religion And Paul Tillich’S Systematic Theology, Michael Vater

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

This paper explores Paul Tillich’s use of the Friedrich Schelling’s philosophy in his explorations of the relevance of historical forms of Christian belief to contemporary culture, where human experience is marked by anxiety and guilt, and where the search for ultimate meanings seems to dead-end in meaninglessness. For Tillich as for Schelling, religion points to metaphysics. The only literal or nonsymbolic truth about God is that God is the affirmation of being over against the possibility of nonbeing, a divine Yes that is an overcoming of a prior No or self-inclusion. The ambiguity of existence as current human beings experience …

Ultimate Concern And Finitude: Schelling’S Philosophy Of Religion And Paul Tillich’S Systematic Theology, Michael Vater

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

This paper explores Paul Tillich’s use of the Friedrich Schelling’s philosophy in his explorations of the relevance of historical forms of Christian belief to contemporary culture, where human experience is marked by anxiety and guilt, and where the search for ultimate meanings seems to dead-end in meaninglessness. For Tillich as for Schelling, religion points to metaphysics. The only literal or nonsymbolic truth about God is that God is the affirmation of being over against the possibility of nonbeing, a divine Yes that is an overcoming of a prior No or self-inclusion. The ambiguity of existence as current human beings experience …

Fracking Health Care: How To Safely De-Medicalize America And Recover Trapped Value For Its People, William M. Sage

Faculty Scholarship

The wealth trapped within American health care is simultaneously a tragedy and a miracle. It is a tragedy because stagnating wages, widening disparities in income, ballooning deficits, and stunted investments in education and social services make such medical profligacy shameful. It is a miracle because it still exists, whereas other U.S. economic resources of similar magnitude have already been dissipated by global market forces without addressing any of the aforementioned failings – indeed, sometimes having contributed to them. It therefore can be released and used.

It is time to “frack the health care system” and innovate the de-medicalization of America. …

Triangulating Public Meaning: Corpus Linguistics, Immersion, And The Constitutional Record, Lawrence B. Solum

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay contributes to the development of an originalist methodology by making the case for an approach that employs three distinct methods, each of which serves as a basis for confirming or questioning the results reached by the other two. This approach will be called the Method of Triangulation. The three component techniques are as follows:

(1) The Method of Corpus Linguistics: The method of corpus linguistics employs large-scale data sets (corpora) that provide evidence of linguistic practice.

(2) The Originalist Method of Immersion: The method of immersion requires researchers to immerse themselves in the linguistic and conceptual world of …

Kant After Kant: The Indispensible Philosopher, Michael Vater

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Twenty-First Century Climate Change And Submerged Aquatic Vegetation In A Temperate Estuary: The Case Of Chesapeake Bay, Thomas M. Arnold, Richard C. Zimmerman, Katharina A.M. Engelhardt, J. Court Stevenson

OES Faculty Publications

Introduction: The Chesapeake Bay was once renowned for expansive meadows of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). However, only 10% of the original meadows survive. Future restoration effortswill be complicated by accelerating climate change, including physiological stressors such as a predicted mean temperature increase of 2-6°C and a 50-160% increase in CO2 concentrations.

Outcomes: As the Chesapeake Bay begins to exhibit characteristics of a subtropical estuary, summer heat waves will become more frequent and severe. Warming alone would eventually eliminate eelgrass (Zostera marina) from the region. It will favor native heat-tolerant species such as widgeon grass (Ruppia maritima) while facilitating colonization by …

Upper Water Structure And Mixed Layer Depth In Tropical Waters: The Seats Station In The Northern South China Sea, Jen-Hua Tai, George T. F. Wong, Xiaoju Pan

OES Faculty Publications

The variability of the upper water hydrographic structure, the efficacy of the different schemes for estimating the mixed layer depth (MLD), the inter-comparability estimation of the MLDs and diurnal and intra-annual MLD climatology in the tropical waters in the northern South China Sea were accessed in 702 depth-profiles of potential temperature (θ) and salinity collected in 64 cruises between 17.5 and 18.5°N and 115.3 and 116.3°E from 1997 to 2013. The hydrographic structure may be subdivided into three principal types: the classical type, with quasi-isopycnal surface mixed layer followed by an abrupt increase in the depth-gradient in θ and potential …

The Rcep And Intellectual Property Normsetting In The Asia-Pacific, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

Commissioned for the CEIPI-ICTSD Series on Global Perspectives and Challenges for the Intellectual Property System, this article examines the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) with a focus on the intellectual property norms it seeks to develop. It begins by briefly discussing the partnership’s historical origins and ongoing negotiations. It then examines the latest leaked draft of the RCEP intellectual property chapter, highlighting the key provisions concerning copyright and related rights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets and undisclosed information, and intellectual property enforcement. This article concludes by exploring three scenarios concerning the future of this chapter--namely, the lack of an intellectual property …

Teaching Public Policy Drafting In Law School: One Professor's Approach, Lisa A. Rich

Faculty Scholarship

This article provides an overview of the Drafting for Public Policy course offered at the Texas A&M University School of Law. The article addresses the theoretical and pedagogical underpinnings of the course, including how such a course easily encompasses the teaching of cultural context and awareness, as well as professional identity, and encourages students to engage deeply in the policymaking process. It also explores the continued relevance of the work of Harold D. Lasswell, as well as that of Myres McDougal and Anthony Kronman. These works, from 1943 and 1993 respectively, resonate now because they called on law schools to …

Cytoprotective Activated Protein C Averts Nlrp3 Inflammasome–Induced Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury Via Mtorc1 Inhibition, Sumra Nazir, Ihsan Gadi, Moh'd Mohanad Al-Dabet, Ahmed Elwakiel, Shrey Kohli, Sanchita Ghosh, Jayakumar Manoharan, Satish Ranjan, Fabian Bock, Ruediger C. Braun-Dullaeus, Charles T. Esmon, Tobias B. Huber, Eric Camerer, Chris Dockendorff, John H. Griffin, Berend Isermann, Khurrum Shahzad

Chemistry Faculty Research and Publications

Cytoprotection by activated protein C (aPC) after ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) is associated with apoptosis inhibition. However, IRI is hallmarked by inflammation, and hence, cell-death forms disjunct from immunologically silent apoptosis are, in theory, more likely to be relevant. Because pyroptosis (ie, cell death resulting from inflammasome activation) is typically observed in IRI, we speculated that aPC ameliorates IRI by inhibiting inflammasome activation. Here we analyzed the impact of aPC on inflammasome activity in myocardial and renal IRIs. aPC treatment before or after myocardial IRI reduced infarct size and Nlrp3 inflammasome activation in mice. Kinetic in vivo analyses revealed that Nlrp3 …

Active Site Structures Of Cyp11a1 In The Presence Of Its Physiological Substrates And Alterations Upon Binding Of Adrenodoxin, Qianhong Zhu, Piotr J. Mak, Robert C. Tuckey, James R. Kincaid

Chemistry Faculty Research and Publications

The rate-limiting step in the steroid synthesis pathway is catalyzed by CYP11A1 through three sequential reactions. The first two steps involve hydroxylations at positions 22 and 20, generating 20(R),22(R)-dihydroxycholesterol (20R,22R-DiOHCH), with the third stage leading to a C20–C22 bond cleavage, forming pregnenolone. This work provides detailed information about the active site structure of CYP11A1 in the resting state and substrate-bound ferric forms as well as the CO-ligated adducts. In addition, high-quality resonance Raman spectra are reported for the dioxygen complexes, providing new insight into the status of Fe–O–O fragments encountered during the …

Eh, You Māhū? An Analysis Of American Cultural Imperialism In Hawai’I Through The Lens Of Gender And Sexuality, Kaylilani Minami

CMC Senior Theses

"Eh, You Māhū? An Analysis of American Cultural Imperialism in Hawai’i through the Lens of Gender and Sexuality" explores the impact of American settler colonialism on Native Hawaiian culture. This thesis magnifies the gender liminal identity of māhū to understand the intricacies of gender and sexuality as it relates to cultural formation.

Broadly, this thesis is a historical analysis of the impact Western colonization has on indigenous cultures. Specifically, this analysis starts from the introduction of haole foreigners to Hawai’i in 1778 and extends to the present-day American occupation of the Hawaiian nation. By analyzing the ways American cultural imperialism …

Salary Inequality In The Nba: Changing Returns To Skill Or Wider Skill Distributions?, Jonah F. Breslow

CMC Senior Theses

In this paper, I examine trends in salary inequality from the 1985-86 NBA season to the 2015-16 NBA season. Income and wealth inequality have been extremely important issues recently, which motivated me to analyze inequality in the NBA. I investigated if salary inequality trends in the NBA can be explained by either returns to skill or widening skill distributions. I used Pareto exponents to measure inequality levels and tested to see if the levels changed over the sample. Then, I estimated league-wide returns to skill. I found that returns to skill have not significantly changed, but variance in skill has …

Molecular Modeling Of Novel Tryptamine Analogs With Antibiotic Potential Through Their Inhibition Of Tryptophan Synthase, Jared Schattenkerk

CMC Senior Theses

The growing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a global health crisis that threatens the effectiveness of antibiotics in medical treatment. Increases in the number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and a drop in the pharmaceutical development of novel antibiotics have combined to form a situation that is rapidly increasing the likelihood of a post-antibiotic era. The development of antibiotics with novel enzymatic targets is critical to stall this growing crisis. In silico methods of molecular modeling and drug design were utilized in the development of novel tryptamine analogs as potential antibiotics through their inhibition of the bacterial enzyme tryptophan synthase. Following the …