There Is No Special Problem About Scientific Representation

In recent years, philosophers of science have devoted considerable attention to questions about scientific models, and particularly to the issue of how models can represent the world. We propose that scientific representation is best understood as a special case of a more general notion of representation, and that the relatively well worked-out and plausible philosophical theories of the latter are directly applicable to the scientific special case. Construing scientific representation in this way makes the so-called ``problem of scientific representation'' look much less interesting than it has seemed to many, and also suggests that some of the (hotly contested) debates in the literature are concerned with non-issues

Are there some things it is morally wrong to make-believe? An examination of imaginative resistance as a measure of the morality of pretence

This paper discusses the morality of make-believing deviant moral truths within the context of fictional narratives (e.g. make-believing that the killing of innocent people is a morally good thing to do). By examining popular explanations of imaginative resistance (one’s unwillingness to imagine certain fictitious content), the paper assesses the extent to which reasons for our unwillingness to entertain certain forms of pretence might constitute a form of moral wisdom, and so offer insight into what a normative approach to make-believe might look like (qua a sufficient condition for moral proscription). The paper concludes that while imaginative resistance may provide a psychological measure of what some may find insensitive or tasteless within the realm of pretence, it does not have the resources to be co-opted as a suitable measure of moral wisdom, and therefore cannot be used to guide, morally, what we should or should not be willing to make-believe

The Folklore of Sorting Algorithms

The objective of this paper is to review the folklore knowledge seen in research work devoted on synthesis, optimization, and effectiveness of various sorting algorithms. We will examine sorting algorithms in the folklore lines and try to discover the tradeoffs between folklore and theorems. Finally, the folklore knowledge on complexity values of the sorting algorithms will be considered, verified and subsequently converged in to theorems

Spin-the-bottle Sort and Annealing Sort: Oblivious Sorting via Round-robin Random Comparisons

We study sorting algorithms based on randomized round-robin comparisons. Specifically, we study Spin-the-bottle sort, where comparisons are unrestricted, and Annealing sort, where comparisons are restricted to a distance bounded by a \emph{temperature} parameter. Both algorithms are simple, randomized, data-oblivious sorting algorithms, which are useful in privacy-preserving computations, but, as we show, Annealing sort is much more efficient. We show that there is an input permutation that causes Spin-the-bottle sort to require $\Omega(n^2\log n)$ expected time in order to succeed, and that in $O(n^2\log n)$ time this algorithm succeeds with high probability for any input. We also show there is an implementation of Annealing sort that runs in $O(n\log n)$ time and succeeds with very high probability.Comment: Full version of a paper appearing in ANALCO 2011, in conjunction with SODA 201

Spartan Daily, April 23, 1936

Volume 24, Issue 119https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/2447/thumbnail.jp

“It came, over and over, down to this: What made someone a mother?”: Motherhood, Race and Class in Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere and its TV Adaptation

Traballo Fin de Grao en Lingua e Literatura Inglesas. Curso 2020-2021As most mothers would agree, motherhood is unique, life-altering experience, which does not come with an instruction manual. Neither time, nor experience or pre-existing social conventions can determine what makes someone a person fit for the role of a mother. The aim of this dissertation is, precisely, to debunk the aforementioned factors that have been established to determine a woman’s fitness as a mother as depicted in Celeste Ng’s novel Little Fires Everywhere published in 2017 and its TV adaptation, the limited series of the same name developed by Liz Tigelaar, which premiered in the streaming service Hulu in 2018. This dissertation will study the different ways in which women experience motherhood in the novel and the TV series; some characters have become mothers in the traditional manner (such as the character of Helena Richardson) and others have resorted to more unconventional methods such as adoption (as illustrated in the McCullogh family) and surrogacy (depicted in Mia Warren). In addition, this analysis will bring into question what role do class circumstances as well as race considerations have in the development of the experience of motherhood in Ng’s novel and Tigerlaar’s TV serie