Nicholas Barry

abstract This article defends luck egalitarianism as an interpretation of the egalitarian ideal against two major criticisms levelled against it by Elizabeth Anderson — that it is trapped in the distributive paradigm, and that it treats the victims of bad option luck too harshly to be considered an egalitarian theory. Against the first criticism, I argue that luck egalitarianism will condemn non‐material inequalities and injustices if an appropriate conception of well‐being is adopted. I demonstrate this by showing how the approach is sensitive to the five faces of oppression developed by Iris Young. Although the second criticism is more troubling, it does not defeat luck egalitarianism, either. I will show that few of the inequalities that arise in the real world result from option luck. Further, if cases do occur, rather than abandoning the theory, the best response is to combine luck egalitarianism with another egalitarian principle that will ensure that the basic needs of all citizens are satisfied. The paper concludes by defending the appeal of the distinction between option luck and brute luck, in light of the preceding discussion.

We dispersed electrochemical etched Si into a colloid of ultrasmall blue luminescent nanoparticles, observable with the naked eye, in room light. We use two-photon near-infrared femtosecond excitation at 780 nm to record the fluctuating time series of the luminescence, and determine the number density, brightness, and size of diffusing fluorescent particles. The luminescence efficiency of particles is high enough such that we are able to detect a single particle, in a focal volume, of 1 pcm3. The measurements yield a particle size of 1 nm, consistent with direct imaging by transmission electron microscopy. They also yield an excitation efficiency under two-photon excitation two to threefold larger than that of fluorescein. Detection of single particles paves the way for their use as labels in biosensing applications. © 2000 American Institute of Physics.

Multiphoton fluorescence microscopy has now become a relatively common tool among biophysicists and biologists. The intrinsic sectioning achievable by multiphoton excitation provides a simple means to excite a small volume inside cells and tissues. Multiphoton microscopes have a simplified optical path in the emission side due to the lack of an emission pinhole, which is necessary with normal confocal microscopes. This article illustrates examples in which this advantage in the simplified optics is exploited to achieve a new type of measurements. First, dual-emission wavelength measurements are used to identify regions of different phase domains in giant vesicles and to perform fluctuation experiments at specific locations in the membrane. Second, we show how dual-wavelength measurements are used in conjunction with scanning fluctuation analysis to measure the changes in the geometry of the domains and the incipient formation of gel domains when the temperature of the giant vesicles is gradually lowered. © 2001 Academic Press.