Thomas (St. Thomas) is a private, Catholic university in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 1885 as a Catholic seminary, it is named after Thomas Aquinas, the medieval Catholic theologian and philosopher who is the patron saint of students. As of fall 2021, St. Thomas enrolls nearly 9,347 students, making it Minnesota's largest private, nonprofit university.
This article argues that S & oslash;ren Kierkegaard and Charles Dickens each identified and responded to the same social problem, called "leveling," or the suppression of the individual in an inert post-revolutionary age. Kierkegaard analyzes the spiritual dangers of this abstracting force in Two Ages (1846), while Dickens in Bleak House (1852-1853) dramatizes a dialectic between mass society and the individual, which both exposes the empty reflections of a leveled society and, in Esther's narration, intimates an escape route. In addition to glossing a conceptual history of "leveling," this article advances a model for Victorian realism that disavows psychological interiority to guard instead the inmost self against reductive social abstraction.
Hydrogels are highly preferred for wound dressing applications due to their biocompatibility, biodegradability, high water retention capacity, and similarity to extracellular matrix (ECM). In the present study, a novel hydrogel for wound management has been developed by incorporating Couroupita guianensis flower extract (CGFE) into a polymer composite of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), chitosan (CS), and collagen hydrolysate (CA). The metabolite profile of CGFE, as identified through the GC–MS/MS, has demonstrated its potential for wound healing. Here, two bioactive compounds, such as 2-amino-5-methylbenzoic acid and 2-hydroxy-3-O-tigloyl-6-O-acetylswietenolide, with antimicrobial and antioxidant properties, have been identified from the CGFE. The hydrogels were subjected to characterisation by UV–visible spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), along with its functional validation through cytotoxicity and scratch wound assays. The hydrodynamic properties of the hydrogels have also been observed to be supportive for its potential for wound-healing applications. By the FE-SEM analysis, the prepared hydrogel was found to have a highly porous structure, which could facilitate the fluid and gas exchange. The developed hydrogel exhibited a significant inhibitory effect (20.6 ± 0.94 mm) against the multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Further, cytotoxicity assay demonstrated 92.14
The raw material, graphite powder, was processed by means of the modified Hummers’ method to yield graphene oxide (GO). The rare-earth yttrium (Y) ion was added to it in controlled concentrations to get Y–GO nanocomposites. The morphology of the samples was studied using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses. Analysis of the TEM and SEM images revealed agglomerated nanoclusters of yttrium along with rolled sheets of graphene and wrinkled surface morphology for the samples. The structural analysis was done using X-ray diffraction studies (XRD) and compared with the standard data. The electron diffraction rings were indexed using selected area electron diffraction (SAED) with the help of CrysTBox software. The weight and atomic percentages of individual chemical constituents in the composites were analyzed using energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy. The confocal Raman spectra of the samples provide helpful information on their optical band transitions. The UV–Vis reflectance spectral analysis supports the findings of the Raman studies. Additionally, DC electrical conductivity studies of the samples in the low-temperature region indicate their semiconducting nature, and the Arrhenius plots were used to determine their activation enthalpies. A comparative study of Mott variable range hopping (VRH) and its modified version, Efros–Shklovskii VRH, was applied in the low-temperature region to study the charge carrier transport properties of the samples.
Gelidiella acerosa, a tropical marine red alga, is abundantly found in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) synthesized from G. acerosa were characterized by UV spectrophotometry, FTIR, XRD and SEM with EDX. After 24 h of exposure, the G. acerosa-AgNPs demonstrated significant mosquito larvicidal effects on 4th instar larvae of the mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus, with LC50 and LC90 values of 26.95 μg mL-1 and 38.27 μg mL-1, respectively. The G. acerosa-AgNPs also exhibited substantial activity against Anopheles stephensi larvae. Similarly, G. acerosa-AgNPs caused high mortality in Aedes aegypti larvae, with LC50 and LC90 values of 39.34 μg mL-1 and 73.01 μg mL-1 respectively. Additionally, the aqueous extract of G. acerosa exerted potent larvicidal activity against An. stephensi, with LC50 and LC90 values of 47.04 μg mL-1 and 134.65 μg mL-1, followed by values of 63.12 μg mL-1 and 132.78 μg mL-1 in Ae. aegypti and 87.41 μg mL-1 and 177.39 μg mL-1 in Cx. quinquefasciatus. Histopathological analysis of the NPs-treated larvae revealed disorganized and significantly damaged tissue layers. The 24 h mortality test on Artemia salina nauplii indicated dose-dependent toxicity, with an LC50 value of 187.68 μg mL-1, suggesting medium toxicity of the NPs. These findings indicate that AgNPs synthesized from G. acerosa could be promising for the formulation of mosquito control agent in future.
