On binary opposition and binarism: A long-distance dialogue between decolonial critique and the Lotmanian semiotics

While addressing the decolonial critique of Eurocentric modernity and the call for alternative cosmo-visions, this article retraces Juri Lotman’s culturological exploration towards the concept of ternarity [тернарность]: the scrutiny of the so-called binarism is what connects – without overlapping – the two perspectives. This long-distance dialogue will be built starting with the key notion of binary opposition, which will be analysed as a decolonial problem (Part I) and as a culturological problem (Part II). The analysis will focus on two central issues that stem from the either-or logic: the “othering mindset”, and the culture–nature dualism

A preliminary systems-engineering study of an advanced nuclear-electrolytic hydrogen-production facility

An advanced nuclear-electrolytic hydrogen-production facility concept was synthesized at a conceptual level with the objective of minimizing estimated hydrogen-production costs. The concept is a closely-integrated, fully-dedicated (only hydrogen energy is produced) system whose components and subsystems are predicted on ''1985 technology.'' The principal components are: (1) a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) operating a helium-Brayton/ammonia-Rankine binary cycle with a helium reactor-core exit temperature of 980 C, (2) acyclic d-c generators, (3) high-pressure, high-current-density electrolyzers based on solid-polymer electrolyte technology. Based on an assumed 3,000 MWt HTGR the facility is capable of producing 8.7 million std cu m/day of hydrogen at pipeline conditions, 6,900 kPa. Coproduct oxygen is also available at pipeline conditions at one-half this volume. It has further been shown that the incorporation of advanced technology provides an overall efficiency of about 43 percent, as compared with 25 percent for a contemporary nuclear-electric plant powering close-coupled contemporary industrial electrolyzers

A review of selected works by J.S. Bach, Franz Schubert, and Alberto E. Ginastera

Master's Project (M.Mu.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 201

Buying Time – Using Nanotechnologies and Other Emerging Technologies For A Sustainable Future

Abstract: Science and emerging technologies should not be predominantly tasked with furnishing us with more sustainable societies. Continuous short-term technological bail outs without taking into account the longer socio-cultural incubation times required to transition to ‘weakly sustainable’ economies squander valuable resources and time. Emerging technologies need to be deployed strategically to buy time in order to have extended political, social and ethical discussions about the root-causes of unsustainable economies and minimize social disruptions on the path towards global sustainability. Keywords: Nanoscience; nanotechnology; expanded materials design space; dematerialization; sustainability; permanent resource crise

Feasible Form Parameter Design of Complex Ship Hull Form Geometry

This thesis introduces a new methodology for robust form parameter design of complex hull form geometry via constraint programming, automatic differentiation, interval arithmetic, and truncated hierarchical B- splines. To date, there has been no clearly stated methodology for assuring consistency of general (equality and inequality) constraints across an entire geometric form parameter ship hull design space. In contrast, the method to be given here can be used to produce guaranteed narrowing of the design space, such that infeasible portions are eliminated. Furthermore, we can guarantee that any set of form parameters generated by our method will be self consistent. It is for this reason that we use the title feasible form parameter design. In form parameter design, a design space is represented by a tuple of design parameters which are extended in each design space dimension. In this representation, a single feasible design is a consistent set of real valued parameters, one for every component of the design space tuple. Using the methodology to be given here, we pick out designs which consist of consistent parameters, narrowed to any desired precision up to that of the machine, even for equality constraints. Furthermore, the method is developed to enable the generation of complex hull forms using an extension of the basic rules idea to allow for automated generation of rules networks, plus the use of the truncated hierarchical B-splines, a wavelet-adaptive extension of standard B-splines and hierarchical B-splines. The adaptive resolution methods are employed in order to allow an automated program the freedom to generate complex B-spline representations of the geometry in a robust manner across multiple levels of detail. Thus two complementary objectives are pursued: ensuring feasible starting sets of form parameters, and enabling the generation of complex hull form geometry

An economic analysis of the councils of the United Nations

This thesis consists of three pieces of research focussed on the Councils of the United Nations, predominantly the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). We consider three broad questions: which countries typically get on to the UNSC in its current form; which countries ought to get on to the UNSC; and how well might proposed changes to the UNSC steer it towards such ideals. In order to address the latter two questions it is sensible to begin by investigating how the current system works and if there are any particular characteristics which influence the chances of a country being elected to the UNSC. In Chapter 2 we develop a model to test the significance of a country’s characteristics on their probability of election to the UNSC. Chapter 3 then starts by developing a set of theoretical tests which can be applied to council voting systems, such as the selection of UNSC members from the UN General Assembly. The tests score a voting system based on how well the distribution of power in the council meets the power one would expect under a system where country representatives cast their vote in the council based on the outcomes of country or regional-level referendums. We then apply this, using the implied probabilities of election which are a consequence of the results of Chapter 2, to the UNSC election process. We then finish by applying the tests of Chapter 3, which consider how equitable a proposal is, together with a further test of procedural efficiency, to each of the proposed reforms to the UNSC election process

Representations of Time in Late-Medieval Music

The late-medieval style that is characterized by complexity of rhythm, notation, and pitch is commonly referred to as the ars subtilior, the “more subtle art,” a term coined by Ursula Günther in 1963. Along with its stylistic attributes, the scope of this repertory has been defined chronologically and geographically, associated with Southern France and Northern Italy during the period c. 1380–1420. In recent years, scholars such as David Catalunya, David Fallows, Karl Kügle, Jason Stoessel, Anne Stone, and Anna Zayaruznaya have argued that the so-called ars subtilior style should be expanded to incorporate a wider chronological and geographical purview. Responding to this work, this dissertation offers a solution to the problems associated with the ars subtilior style by presenting a “conceptual genealogy” (Dutilh Novaes) of complex notations. Eschewing the chronological and geographical boundaries that are typically ascribed to the ars subtilior, as well as the term itself, this dissertation interrogates the ideas that underscore late-medieval notationally complex repertory. In doing so, it argues that a consideration of the constituent ideas of music-theoretical and practical representations of time in notation can provide glimpses into the mental habits of past people. These habits can reveal that notational systems that appear complex or unintelligible to a modern eye may have posed few challenges to a medieval reader. Chapter 1 provides historical background to the late-medieval notations discussed throughout the dissertation. Problematizing the idea that there was a strict dichotomy between “atomistic” and “divisibilist” theorizations of continua of musical time in early–mid fourteenth-century theory, it suggests that the plurality of ways of theorizing continua of musical time in this period provided a conceptual background to the notationally and rhythmically intricate repertory that would be written down in the decades to come. Chapters 2 and 3 provide the first in-depth consideration of the work of the Italian theorist Johannes Vetulus de Anagnia, author of Liber de musica, whose treatise is translated into English in an appendix to the dissertation. Providing a new interpretation of Vetulus’s hierarchies of musical time, Chapter 2 illustrates that Vetulus synthesizes and exhausts a number of fourteenth-century music-theoretical systems. It argues that he provides a primarily speculative theory of music that nevertheless contends with some of the problems of the representation of musical time that would be explored in practice using complex notations. Chapter 3 expands on this work by discussing the theological and philosophical grounding of Vetulus’s theory. Revealing his mystical project to use music to describe a world in which all parts of reality were interconnected, it provides evidence for hitherto unknown connections between Vetulus’s work and that of Augustine of Hippo, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and Ramon Llull. The final two chapters provide analyses of complex repertory. Chapter 4 argues that reading complex notations entails a distinct pattern of looking that prioritizes the observation of longer spans of notation. When such a reading habit is put into practice, some notations that appear inscrutable to a modern analyst arguably facilitate ease of reading. Detailing a new, emic understanding of mensuration, Chapter 5 provides evidence that medieval notations were at times chosen that could instruct musicians to count temporal units that were thought, but not uttered aloud. Through this, it argues that some late-medieval notationally complex repertory that has historically been described as “music for the eyes” may also productively be considered “music for the mind.