Nietzsche and Amor Fati

This paper identifies two central paradoxes threatening the notion of amor fati [love of fate]: it requires us to love a potentially repellent object (as fate entails significant negativity for us) and this, in the knowledge that our love will not modify our fate. Thus such love may seem impossible or pointless. I analyse the distinction between two different sorts of love (eros and agape) and the type of valuation they involve (in the first case, the object is loved because we value it; in the second, we value the object because we love it). I use this as a lens to interpret Nietzsche?s cryptic pronouncements on amor fati and show that while an erotic reading is, up to a point, plausible, an agapic interpretation is preferable both for its own sake and because it allows for a resolution of the paradoxes initially identified. In doing so, I clarify the relation of amor fati to the eternal return on the one hand, and to Nietzsche?s autobiographical remarks about suffering on the other. Finally, I examine a set of objections pertaining both to the sustainability and limits of amor fati, and to its status as an ideal

Review of multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant TB: global perspectives with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a global emergency and is responsible for 1.7 million deaths annually. Widespread global misuse of isoniazid and rifampicin over three decades has resulted in emergence of the ominous spread of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) globally. These difficult to treat resistant forms of TB are increasingly seen in Asia, Eastern Europe, South America and sub-Saharan Africa, disrupting TB and HIV control programmes. We review the latest available global epidemiological and clinical evidence on drug-resistant TB in HIV-infected and uninfected populations, with focus on Africa where data are scanty because of poor diagnostic and reporting facilities. The difficult management and infection control problems posed by drug-resistant TB in HIV-infected patients are discussed. Given the increasing current global trends in MDR-TB, aggressive preventive and management strategies are urgently required to avoid disruption of global TB control efforts. The data suggest that existing interventions, public health systems and TB and HIV programmes must be strengthened significantly. Political and funder commitment is essential to curb the spread of drug-resistant TB

Efficient Analysis of Pattern and Association Rule Mining Approaches

The process of data mining produces various patterns from a given data source. The most recognized data mining tasks are the process of discovering frequent itemsets, frequent sequential patterns, frequent sequential rules and frequent association rules. Numerous efficient algorithms have been proposed to do the above processes. Frequent pattern mining has been a focused topic in data mining research with a good number of references in literature and for that reason an important progress has been made, varying from performant algorithms for frequent itemset mining in transaction databases to complex algorithms, such as sequential pattern mining, structured pattern mining, correlation mining. Association Rule mining (ARM) is one of the utmost current data mining techniques designed to group objects together from large databases aiming to extract the interesting correlation and relation among huge amount of data. In this article, we provide a brief review and analysis of the current status of frequent pattern mining and discuss some promising research directions. Additionally, this paper includes a comparative study between the performance of the described approaches.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1312.4800; and with arXiv:1109.2427 by other author

The effects of positive affective priming on Māori mothers' attributions for children's misbehaviours and appropriate methods of discipline : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

This study is a test-retest experimental design which sets out to determine if Māori mothers, exposure to emotive (positive) photographs of Māori people (children interacting with adults) would influence their attributions and disciplinary responses for child misbehaviour in a positive direction. I also hypothesised that the exposure to Māori visual icons or objects might have a similar but lesser affect. The participants were a group of 48 mothers of Māori descent living in the Porirua and Wellington areas. I recruited by approaching the principal from a local primary school and my previous employer, by attending a parent group, and by using a snowballing strategy. Cultural identity was assessed using a "Lifestyle Questionnaire" and results showed that the majority of participants were well integrated into both Māori and mainstream New Zealand culture. Participants were randomly divided into four equal groups of 12 participants. Each group was shown different sets of photographs that served as the emotional primes (i.e., Māori people. non-Māori people, Māori objects and non-Māori objects). The two experiment groups viewed the Māori people or Māori objects photographs. Conversely, the two control groups viewed the non-Māori people or non-Māori objects photographs. The participants undertook a pre-testing exercise prior to viewing the photographs, followed by a post-testing exercise. The pre-testing and post-testing exercises consisted of parent-child scenarios based on child misbehaviours where the child could be blamed for the misbehaviour, and ambiguous behaviours where the child could not be clearly blamed for the misbehaviour. Participants used 4-point Likert scales to rate their causal attributions for the parent-child scenarios and their likely disciplinary responses. The data were statistically analysed using a mixed between-within subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA). Most of the results were not statistically significant, apart from two of the positive causal attributions. Child misbehaviour scenarios showed a significant main effect for pre-test and post-test scores, with all groups being more forgiving or excusing the child when clearly the child was to blame. Ambiguous behaviour scenarios showed a significant interaction between Māori and non-Māori groups' pre-test and post-test scores (i.e., Māori groups were more forgiving or excusing the child and non-Māori groups were less forgiving or excusing the child). The majority of participants' scores showed their disciplinary responses were less harsh at pre-test and post-test. The most likely responses were talking to their child, followed by child apologises and then telling off. The least likely responses were smacking; next in order were doing nothing and ignoring. This study provided some insight into Māori mothers' causal attributions and disciplinary responses. Recommendations for future research, limitations and positive features are presented

Interaction of quasilocal harmonic modes and boson peak in glasses

The direct proportionality relation between the boson peak maximum in glasses, $\omega_b$, and the Ioffe-Regel crossover frequency for phonons, $\omega_d$, is established. For several investigated materials $\omega_b = (1.5\pm 0.1)\omega_d$. At the frequency $\omega_d$ the mean free path of the phonons $l$ becomes equal to their wavelength because of strong resonant scattering on quasilocal harmonic oscillators. Above this frequency phonons cease to exist. We prove that the established correlation between $\omega_b$ and $\omega_d$ holds in the general case and is a direct consequence of bilinear coupling of quasilocal oscillators with the strain field.Comment: RevTex, 4 pages, 1 figur

Adaptive MCMC with online relabeling

When targeting a distribution that is artificially invariant under some permutations, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms face the label-switching problem, rendering marginal inference particularly cumbersome. Such a situation arises, for example, in the Bayesian analysis of finite mixture models. Adaptive MCMC algorithms such as adaptive Metropolis (AM), which self-calibrates its proposal distribution using an online estimate of the covariance matrix of the target, are no exception. To address the label-switching issue, relabeling algorithms associate a permutation to each MCMC sample, trying to obtain reasonable marginals. In the case of adaptive Metropolis (Bernoulli 7 (2001) 223-242), an online relabeling strategy is required. This paper is devoted to the AMOR algorithm, a provably consistent variant of AM that can cope with the label-switching problem. The idea is to nest relabeling steps within the MCMC algorithm based on the estimation of a single covariance matrix that is used both for adapting the covariance of the proposal distribution in the Metropolis algorithm step and for online relabeling. We compare the behavior of AMOR to similar relabeling methods. In the case of compactly supported target distributions, we prove a strong law of large numbers for AMOR and its ergodicity. These are the first results on the consistency of an online relabeling algorithm to our knowledge. The proof underlines latent relations between relabeling and vector quantization.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.3150/13-BEJ578 in the Bernoulli (http://isi.cbs.nl/bernoulli/) by the International Statistical Institute/Bernoulli Society (http://isi.cbs.nl/BS/bshome.htm

Sources of real exchange rate volatility and international financial integration: A dynamic GMM panel data approach

The aim of this paper is to provide some new empirical evidence on the determinants of volatility of real exchange rates in emerging countries, focusing on the role of international financial integration in particular. A reduced-form model is estimated using the GMM method for dynamic panels over the period 1979-2004 for a sample of 39 developing countries grouped into three regions (Latin America, Asia and MENA). Our findings suggest that different types of shocks (external, real and monetary) can account for volatility of real exchange rates in emerging economies, with international financial integration being a major driving force. Therefore, financial liberalisation and integration should be pursued only gradually in emerging countries