The Doomsday Simulation Argument. Or why isn't the end nigh, and you're not living in a simulation.

According to the Carter-Leslie Doomsday Argument, we should assign a high probability to the hypothesis that the human species will go extinct very soon. The argument is based on the application of Bayes’s theo-rem and a certain indifference principle with respect to the temporal location of our observed birth rank within the totality of birth ranks of all humans who will ever have lived. According to Bostrom’s Simulation Argument, which appeals to a weaker indifference principle than the Doomsday Argument, at least one of the following three propositions must be true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a posthuman stage, (2) it is very unlikely that some posthuman civili-zation will run a significant number of ancestor simula-tions, (3) it is almost sure that we are living in a com-puter simulation. According to my Doomsday Simulation Argument, both of the following propositions must be true: (1) it is almost sure that the human species will not go extinct before reaching a posthuman stage, (2) it is almost sure that we are not living in a computer simulation

Signal Transmission in the Auditory System

Contains table of contents for Section 3, an introduction and reports on six research projects.National Institutes of Health Grant RO1-DC-00194-11National Institutes of Health Grant PO1-DC00119 Sub-Project 1National Institutes of Health Grant F32-DC00073-3National Institutes of Health Contract P01-DC00119National Institutes of Health Grant R01 DC00238National Institutes of Health Grant P01-DC00119National Institutes of Health Grant T32-DC00038National Institutes of Health Contract P01-DC00361National Institutes of Health Grant R01-DC00235National Institutes of Health Contract NO1-DC2240

Signal Transmission in the Auditory System

Contains table of contents for Section 3, an introduction and reports on five research projects.National Institutes of Health Grant R01-DC-00194National Institutes of Health Grant P01-DC-00119Charles S. Draper Laboratory Contract DL-H-496015National Institutes of Health Grant R01 DC00238National Institutes of Health Grant R01-DC02258National Institutes of Health Grant T32-DC00038National Institutes of Health Grant RO1 DC00235National Institutes of Health Grant P01-DC00361National Institutes of Health Contract N01-DC-6-210

Signal Transmission in the Auditory System

Contains table of contents for Section 3, an introduction and reports on seven research projects.National Institutes of Health Grant P01-DC-00119National Institutes of Health Grant R01-DC-00194National Institutes of Health Grant R01 DC00238National Institutes of Health Grant R01-DC02258National Institutes of Health Grant T32-DC00038National Institutes of Health Grant P01-DC00361National Institutes of Health Grant 2RO1 DC00235National Institutes of Health Contract N01-DC2240

Sound-Induced Motions of Individual Cochlear Hair Bundles

We present motions of individual freestanding hair bundles in an isolated cochlea in response to tonal sound stimulation. Motions were measured from images taken by strobing a light source at the tone frequency. The tips and bases of hair bundles moved a comparable amount, but with a phase difference that increased by 180° with frequency, indicating that distributed fluid properties drove hair bundle motion. Hair bundle rotation increased with frequency to a constant value, and underwent >90° of phase change. The frequency at which the phase of rotation relative to deflection of the bundle base was 60° was comparable to the expected best frequency of each hair cell, and varied inversely with the square of bundle height. The sharpness of tuning of individual hair bundles was comparable to that of hair cell receptor potentials at high sound levels. These results indicate that frequency selectivity at high sound levels in this cochlea is purely mechanical, determined by the interaction of hair bundles with the surrounding fluid. The sharper tuning of receptor potentials at lower sound levels is consistent with the presence of a negative damping, but not a negative stiffness, as an active amplifier in hair bundles

Compact air-cooled heat sinks for power-packages

The main findings of a theoretical and experimental work carried out in the development of compact air-cooled heat sinks tailored for spot-cooling of power packages are presented. After formulating the particular cooling task, the thermal issues and practical constraints of a compact heat exchanger design are matched to yield three structures, i.e., microchannel, woven wire screen and porous metal fiber, to be viable candidates, A simplified analytical model is developed to allow performance analyses and optimizations of microchannel and woven wire screen heat sinks operated in impingement mode, Based on the simulation results, five novel heat sinks are fabricated and tested, An experimental setup is built to investigate the effects of heat sink structure, mass-flow rate of air, power dissipation and mounting conditions on heat sink performance. In the measurements the source-gate voltage of the selected MOSFET is used as temperature sensitive electrical parameter (TSEP) to obtain the peak junction temperature. Dissipated base plate and volumetric heat fluxes of 15 W/cm(2) and 5 W/cm(3) are achieved, along with reasonable pressure and pumping power requirements as well as accompanying acoustic noise. Obtained results yield a fivefold enhancement in heat removal capability compared to traditional forced air-cooling schemes

Thyroglobulin level at week 16 of pregnancy is superior to urinary iodine concentration in revealing preconceptual and first trimester iodine supply

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