This paper provides an explanatory rationale within a theoretical philosophical framework for the Philosophy Plays project as a call to public philosophy, conceived as a way of life and a form of ...communal therapy for the mind. The Philosophy Plays aim is to introduce philosophy to the general public through philosophical presentations by professional philosophers incorporating drama. Like Plato’s dialogues, the Philosophy Plays, that combine dialectic (the philosophical talk) with rhetoric (the drama) seek to engage their public audiences in a realistic and shared lived experience, rendering philosophy a practical and meaningful applied activity for all participants, conceived as a way of life.
Serial femtosecond X-ray crystallography (SFX) using an X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) is a recent advancement in structural biology for solving crystal structures of challenging membrane proteins, ...including G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), which often only produce microcrystals. An XFEL delivers highly intense X-ray pulses of femtosecond duration short enough to enable the collection of single diffraction images before significant radiation damage to crystals sets in. Here we report the deposition of the XFEL data and provide further details on crystallization, XFEL data collection and analysis, structure determination, and the validation of the structural model. The rhodopsin-arrestin crystal structure solved with SFX represents the first near-atomic resolution structure of a GPCR-arrestin complex, provides structural insights into understanding of arrestin-mediated GPCR signaling, and demonstrates the great potential of this SFX-XFEL technology for accelerating crystal structure determination of challenging proteins and protein complexes.
This paper provides a general philosophical groundwork for the theoretical and applied normative evaluation of information generally and digital information specifically in relation to the good life. ...The overall aim of the paper is to address the question of how Information Ethics and computer ethics more generally can be expanded to include more centrally the issue of how and to what extent information relates and contributes to the quality of life or the
good life
, for individuals and for society. To answer that question, the paper explores and provides by way of a theoretical groundwork for further research, the concept of
wisdom
understood as a type of
meta
-
knowledge
as well as a type of
meta
-
virtue
, which can enable one to both know in principle what a good life is and how to successfully apply that knowledge in living such a life in practice. This answer will be based on the main argument presented in this paper that the notion of
wisdom
understood as being at once a
meta
-
epistemological
,
meta
-
axiological
and
meta
-
eudemonic
concept, provides the essential conceptual link between information on the one hand and the good life on the other. If, as we are told, this is the Age of Information, both the theoretical examination and analysis of the question of how information relates to the good life and the provision of an adequate answer to that question are essential for developing a deeper understanding of how to evaluate the theoretical and practical implications and ramifications of information for the good life, for individuals and societies generally.
Serial femtosecond crystallography requires reliable and efficient delivery of fresh crystals across the beam of an X-ray free-electron laser over the course of an experiment. We introduce a ...double-flow focusing nozzle to meet this challenge, with significantly reduced sample consumption, while improving jet stability over previous generations of nozzles. We demonstrate its use to determine the first room-temperature structure of RNA polymerase II at high resolution, revealing new structural details. Moreover, the double-flow focusing nozzles were successfully tested with three other protein samples and the first room temperature structure of an extradiol ring-cleaving dioxygenase was solved by utilizing the improved operation and characteristics of these devices corrected.
This article explores the phenomenon of Internet addiction and its possible amelioration, from both Eastern and Western philosophical perspectives. Internet addiction is caused by the excessive use ...of the Internet and its resulting dependence, having negative effects on human well-being. The ideas of a key ancient Chinese Daoist thinker Zhuangzi 莊子 and his Western contemporaries, the Stoics, as viewed through the world, the things and beings in it, and their relationships, offer insights which may be used to alleviate these effects. The application of and comparison between the two ancient philosophies in addressing the issue of Internet addiction can give us inspiration to confront the challenges of technological enslavement in general and Internet addiction in particular. This is no doubt a help in our pursuit of well-being.
Beginning with the initial premise that as the Internet has a global character, the paper will argue that the normative evaluation of digital information on the Internet necessitates an evaluative ...model that is itself universal and global in character (I agree, therefore, with Gorniak- Kocikowska’s claim that because of its global nature “computer ethics has to be regarded as global ethics”. (Gorniak-Kocikowska, Science and Engineering Ethics,
1996
). The paper will show that information has a dual normative structure that commits all disseminators of information to both epistemological and ethical norms that are in principle universal and thus global in application. Based on this dual normative characterization of information the paper will seek to demonstrate: (1) that information and internet information (
interformation
) specifically, as a process and product of communication, has an inherent normative structure that commits its producers, disseminators, communicators and users, everyone in fact that deals with information, to certain mandatory epistemological and ethical commitments; and (2) that the negligent or purposeful abuse of information in violation of the epistemological and ethical commitments to which its inherent normative structure gives rise is also a violation of universal rights to freedom and wellbeing to which all agents are entitled by virtue of being agents, and in particular informational agents.
The title refers to the question addressed in this paper, namely, to what degree if any technology, including nanotechnologies, in the form of products and processes, is capable of contributing to a ...good life. To answer that question, the paper will develop a meta-normative model whose primary purpose is to determine the essential conditions that any normative theory of the Good Life and Technology (T-GLAT) must adequately address in order to be able to account for, explain and evaluate the Contributive Capability of Technology for a Good Life (CCT-GL). By CCT-GL understand the capability of any technological product or process in its design and/or its use to contribute in some way, if any, to the good life of individuals and society at large. In this paper, the all-embracing term “technology” will be used to refer to both the products and processes of different technologies.
G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) signal primarily through G proteins or arrestins. Arrestin binding to GPCRs blocks G protein interaction and redirects signalling to numerous G-protein-independent ...pathways. Here we report the crystal structure of a constitutively active form of human rhodopsin bound to a pre-activated form of the mouse visual arrestin, determined by serial femtosecond X-ray laser crystallography. Together with extensive biochemical and mutagenesis data, the structure reveals an overall architecture of the rhodopsin-arrestin assembly in which rhodopsin uses distinct structural elements, including transmembrane helix 7 and helix 8, to recruit arrestin. Correspondingly, arrestin adopts the pre-activated conformation, with a ∼20° rotation between the amino and carboxy domains, which opens up a cleft in arrestin to accommodate a short helix formed by the second intracellular loop of rhodopsin. This structure provides a basis for understanding GPCR-mediated arrestin-biased signalling and demonstrates the power of X-ray lasers for advancing the frontiers of structural biology.
Good journalism is based-and to some extent thrives-on a diversity of perspectives from those who supply information and informed opinions to the public. New media journalism is a contemporary ...newsgathering and disseminating method with enormous communication potential because it is an online forum that can connect a great number of diverse contributors and audiences. Citizen journalism-performed on a global level through the Web-is a potential marvel because of its wide reach and range of diversity. This paper offers an examination and philosophical analysis that shows which facets of new media information ethics and epistemology can be reconciled with universal ethical and epistemological principles and which, if any, cannot. To that end, we wish to provide groundwork for the description and critical evaluation of universal ethical and epistemic standards consistent with the phenomenon of new media journalism.
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