Is it time to forget science? Reflections on singular science and its history

The name history of science refl ects a set of assumptions about what science is. Among them is the claim that science is a singular thing, a potentially unifi ed group of disciplines that share a common identity. Long promoted by scientists and philosophers on the basis of a supposedly universal scientifi c method, this claim now looks very embattled. I trace its development from the early nineteenth century and the growth of the positivist movement to its various manifestations in the twentieth century. Recently, some historians have called for the term science to be relinquished, and for adoption of a more relaxed pluralism. Yet the complex legacy of the notion of singular science cannot be so easily abandoned

Review of: Robert Mitchell, Experimental Life: Vitalism in Romantic Science and Literature

Review by Jan Golinski (University of New Hampshire) of Robert Mitchell, Experimental Life: Vitalism in Romantic Science and Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. Pp. 309. ISBN 9781421410883

Factorization method for second order functional equations

We apply general difference calculus in order to obtain solutions to the functional equations of the second order. We show that factorization method can be successfully applied to the functional case. This method is equivariant under the change of variables. Some examples of applications are presented.Comment: 22 pages, examples and new section added, several correction

Effect of Tyvek porosity rates on burst testing of flexible medical device pouches

The rapid growth of use of single use packages by medical device industry has had a great impact on the packaging industry. Materials used in these pacakages must be able to protect the product, withstand sterilization cycles, aid in easy opening, and be easy to identify. One such material used in this industry is Tyvek. This study will evaluate the effect of Tyvek porosity variations on burst test results. Two lots of Tyvek, a low porosity and a high porosity, were chosen and tested for porosity using a gurley densometer. This material was then constructed into pouches and burst tested. The data was analyzed statistically, and conclusions relating to the impact of porosity variation on the burst test results were drawn based on this data

Voluntary Payments in Music: The Future of Creative Economies?

Voluntary payment platforms, such as Bandcamp and Patreon, arenotable because they challenge both the traditional music industry model, inwhich fans must pay for music in order to obtain access to it, and theassumption within classical economics that humans are purely self-interested,rational actors. Here, fan behavior on Bandcamp is analyzed in three studies:a quantitative comparison of Bandcamp and non-Bandcamp users, a qualitative and quantitative examination of how Bandcamp users assign valueto music and artists, and a quantitative analysis of Bandcamp transactions.Through this, we gain an understanding of Bandcamp users’ motivations forusing the platform to support artists as well as the factors that drive differentlevels of financial support. Furthermore, we establish the potential for voluntarypayments to scale to more artists and fans, as well as the limitations to scaling,if they were to be adopted more widely by the music industry and integratedinto the streaming ecosystem

Qualitative Short-Time (ST) Dynamical Systems Analysis of Changes in Smoke Patterns with Applications to other ST dynamical Systems in Nature

The smoking of a cigarette is an obvious metaphor for the observation of qualitative short-time (ST) dynamical patterns in life as a function of heat, diffusion, and the eventual death of a system of molecules (i.e., see laws of thermodynamics [4]), which includes particles that make up common ingredients in a cigarette, including nicotine, tobacco, and the associated artificial chemicals used to deliver these materials into the blood stream. I use the basic materials associated with smoking a cigarette as a framework for exploring qualitative patterns observed in ST dynamical systems. The actual process of smoking a cigarette was used to test the following hypotheses: (1) Do the patterns of change over time of smoking a cigarette from start to finish demonstrate ST dynamical patterns that can be analyzed with simple time series (TS) analysis tools? (2) Does the qualitative ST dynamical behavior generated from smoking a cigarette follow a predictable pattern? Next, I place my qualitative observations within a quantitative framework. Lastly, I use results obtained from hypotheses (1) and (2) to propose how change over time in qualitative ST dynamical behavior of the simple act of smoking a cigarette can be applied to other experiments, especially experiments examining the qualitative and quantitative ST dynamics of patterns observed in naturally occurring systems