Effective Field Theories: A Philosophical Appraisal

The word “effective” has become the standard label attached to scientific theories these days. An effective theory allows us to make accurate predictions about a physical system at a certain (energy, length) scale while being largely ignorant of the details at more fundamental levels. One does not need to know anything about the deeper, quantum structure of water molecules to describe the macroscopic behaviour of waves or water in a glass. Although effective descriptions so broadly construed have been part of research in physics since the earliest stages of modern science, it is particle physics that has most clearly relied on and brought to the fore some of the most interesting and admittedly puzzling aspects of this way of looking at theories. Indeed, the effective field theory (EFT) program in QFT has established itself as the most natural way to understand renormalisation and dissipate initial reservations about the status of these techniques by treating higher-order processes as contributions suppressed at lower energy scales. QFT is thus treated as the “effective” framework par excellence with the decoupling of scales constituting its permeating tenet. The goal of this project is to attempt a philosophical appraisal of EFTs as currently used in high energy physics as well as assess the possibility that the whole program eventually breaks down, i.e. fails to apply when certain preconditions do not hold. Accordingly, the dissertation is logically divided into two parts with the first two chapters dedicated to discussion of the relation between EFTs and traditional questions in the philosophy of science concerning the structure of scientific theories, the formulation and defence of scientific realism as well as its connection to possible ontological readings of EFTs. The second part constitutes an analysis of two well-known problems that have been accorded the status of crises in the physics literature: the hierarchy problem and the cosmological constant problem. Our main focus will be to uncover those assumptions responsible for undermining the validity of the EFT techniques in their respective context. In light of this analysis, we will ultimately lean towards a more cautionary or “reserved” approach to EFTs

Ο Διάλογος του Κόπτη θεολόγου Al-­Ṣafī ibn al-­ʿAssāl (;-1253/75) με το Ισλάμ

Αντικείμενο της παρούσας διατριβής είναι ο διάλογος του Κόπτη θεολόγου Al­-Ṣafī ibn al­-ʿAssāl (;-1253/75) με το Ισλάμ. Δεν πρόκειται για έναν άμεσο διάλογο, αλλά αφορά πολεμικά έργα κατά του Χριστιανισμού τεσσάρων μουσουλμάνων λογίων, τα οποία εγράφησαν μεταξύ 8ου και 13ου αιώνα και τις απαντήσεις που δίνει σε αυτά τα πολεμικά έργα ο Κόπτης θεολόγος al-­Ṣafī, αργότερα, τον 13ο αι. Έτσι, το παρόν πόνημα εκθέτει και εξετάζει τα αντιρρητικά κατά του Χριστιανισμού επιχειρήματα των μουσουλμάνων λογίων και παράλληλα προβάλλει τα ανάλογα αντεπιχειρήματα του Κόπτη θεολόγου al-­Ṣafī κατά του Ισλάμ. Η εργασία κινείται σε ένα πλαίσιο αντιπαραβολής, προβάλλοντας αμφότερες τις πλευρές των επιχειρημάτων. O al­-Ṣafī υπήρξε εμβληματική προσωπικότητα της Κοπτικής θεολογίας του 13ου αι., ο οποίος μεταξύ άλλων, καταπιάστηκε με την απολογητική κατά του Ισλάμ. Οι μουσουλμάνοι λόγιοι, οι οποίοι ασκούν κριτική στον Χριστιανισμό και στους οποίους απαντά ο al­-Ṣafī είναι, ο (πρώην χριστιανός) ιατρός και φιλόσοφος ʿAlī ibn Sahl Rabban al-Ṭabarī (περ. 780¬-860), ο ποιητής και μουταζιλίτης λόγιος Al-Nāshiʾ al-Akbar (;-906), ο φιλόσοφος και θεολόγος Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1149/50-1209) και τέλος, ο λόγιος δικαστής Taqī al-Dīn al-Jaʿfarī (1185-1270). Τα θέματα που αποτελούν αντικείμενο αυτής της αντιπαραθέσεως και τα οποία πραγματεύεται η εν λόγω εργασία, είναι τα εξής: α) το δόγμα περί Αγίας Τριάδος, β) το πρόσωπο του Ιησού Χριστού, γ) η σωτηρία του κόσμου, δ) η αξιοπιστία της Αγίας Γραφής και ε) η προφητική ιδιότητα του Μωάμεθ και κατά πόσο ο τελευταίος προφητεύεται μέσα στη Βίβλο. Από την έρευνα διαπιστώθηκε, ότι η κύρια βάση, πάνω, στην οποία στήριξαν την επιχειρηματολογία τους, τόσο οι μουσουλμάνοι συγγραφείς, όσο και ο Κόπτης θεολόγος al-­Ṣafī, ήταν η Βίβλος. Η επιχειρηματολογία τους, στηρίχθηκε επί τη βάσει της Αγίας Γραφής. Πέραν της Βίβλου, οι εν λόγω συγγραφείς κατέφυγαν, επίσης και σε φιλοσοφικά και λογικά επιχειρήματα, προκειμένου να υποστηρίξουν τις θεολογικές τους θέσεις. Ταυτόχρονα δεν παρέλειψαν να χρησιμοποιήσουν και ευκαιριακά και το Κοράνιο, συνήθως, όμως, επικουρικά.The object of the present dissertation is the dialogue of the Copt theologian Al­-Ṣafī ibn al­ʿAssāl (-1253/75) with Islam. This is not about a direct dialogue, but it's about four Muslim Scholar's controversial writings against Christian faith, that were written between the 8th and 13th century and the answers given relating these writings by the Copt theologian al-­Ṣafī, later on in the 13th century. So this presentation is exposing and examining the negative arguments of the Muslim Scholars against Christian faith and at the same time puts forward proportionally the arguments of the theologian al­-Ṣafī against Islam. This project is moving around a frame of comparison, showing off both sides of the arguments. Al­-Ṣafī ibn al­ʿAssāl has been a symbol as a personality of the Coptic Theology in the 13th century, who was one among others, undertaking with apologetics against Islam. These are the Muslim Scholars criticizing Christian faith, that al­-Ṣafī responded to. (An ex Christian) physician and philosopher ʿAlī ibn Sahl Rabban al-Ṭabarī (ar. 780-860), the poet and Muʾtazili scholar Al-Nāshiʾ al-Akbar (;-906) the philosopher and theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1149/50-1209) and finally the scholar judge Taqī al-Dīn al-Jaʿfarī (1185-1270). The topics included as an object of this contrast and being dealt with by this work, are: a) the Holy Trinity Doctrine, b) Jesus Christ as a person, c) the Salvation of the world, d) the credibility of the Holy Bible, and e) Mohamed's capacity as a Prophet and whether he is considered as that in the Bible. From this research it was found out that the main base on which the Muslim writers as well as the Copt Theologian al-­Ṣafī supported their argumentation, was the Bible. It was supported on the basis of the Holy Bible. Apart from the Bible, those writers turned to philosophical and logical arguments as well, so that they could support their theological position. At the same time they didn't fail to use the Qurʾan with every chance as an additional aid

Towards personalized services in the healthcare domain

Healthcare services are designed for enabling the provision of medical care to the patient. The traditional healthcare services are based on the doctor-centric paradigm. Essentially, they enable healthcare providers to assess patients’ health status based on information derived from medical examination and information stored in patient’s electronic Medical Health Records (eMHRs) [1]. Hence, it is crucial for patient’s health data to be digitalized and organized in such a way allowing their exploitation by the healthcare provider at a later point of time [2]. The doctor-centric healthcare services enhance healthcare providers’ diagnosing skills and enable them to give patients accurate treatment directions aiming to their earlier and safer de-hospitalization

FCLAB:An EEGLAB module for performing functional connectivity analysis on single-subject EEG data

Functional connectivity (FC) analysis constitutes a fundamental neuroscientific approach that has been extensively used for the investigation of brain's connectivity and activation patterns. To that end, several software tools have been developed. This paper presents FCLAB, the only EEGLAB-based plugin, which is able to work with EEG signals in order to estimate and visualize brain functional connectivity networks based on a variety of similarity measures as well as run a complete graph analysis procedure followed by a detailed visualization of the ensuing local and global measures distribution. FCLAB entails optimization procedures for the implementation of the connectivity structures and is the result of long-term research in EEG functional connectivity. The computed functional connectivity measures have been carefully selected to reflect the state-of-art in the field. Future work focuses on extending the platform for multi-subject analysis in order to enable the implementation of statistical analysis tools

European regulators' views on a wearable-derived performance measurement of Ambulation for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy regulatory trials

Abstract Development of novel therapies for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) are driving the need for more efficient ways of detecting changes in disease- progression in DMD [1] . However, medicines' approval must be based on outcome measures that are acceptable from a regulatory perspective. In this article, European regulators provide an update on the recent regulatory consideration of a new endpoint (Stride Velocity 95th Centile (SV95C)) that could be used in therapeutic DMD trials. This new endpoint aims to quantify a patient's ambulation directly, reliably and continuously in a home environment with a wearable device

Provision of Personalized Ubiquitous Healthcare Services over NGN Using Always Best Connected Service Provider

This paper presents a personalized middleware for mobile eHealth (mHealth) services for use in the Ubiquitous Consumer Wireless World (UCWW). The middleware was developed based on the ISO/IEEE 11073 personal health data (PHD) standards. It works as a multi-agent system (MAS) to provide intelligent collection of physiological data from medical sensors attached to human body, and subsequent sending of gathered data to a log data node by utilizing the Always Best Connected and best Served (ABC&S) communication paradigm. A number of design issues associated with the middleware implementation are outlined

Seasonal Toxicity Observed with Amphipods (Eohaustorius estuarius) at Paleta Creek, San Diego Bay, USA

To assess potential impacts on receiving systems, associated with storm water contaminants, laboratory 10‐d amphipod (Eohaustorius estuarius) survival toxicity tests were performed using intact sediment cores collected from Paleta Creek (San Diego Bay, CA, USA) on 5 occasions between 2015 and 2017. The approach included deposition‐associated sediment particles collected from sediment traps placed at each of 4 locations during the 2015 to 2016 wet seasons. The bioassays demonstrated wet season toxicity, especially closest to the creek mouth, and greater mortality associated with particles deposited in the wet season compared with dry season samples. Grain size analysis of sediment trap material indicated coarser sediment at the mouth of the creek and finer sediment in the outer depositional areas. Contaminant concentrations of metals (Cd, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, and Zn) and organic compounds (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs], polychlorinated biphenyls [PCBs], and pesticides) were quantified to assess possible causes of toxicity. Contaminant concentrations were determined in the top 5 cm of sediment and porewater (using passive samplers). Whereas metals, PAHs, and PCBs were rarely detected at sufficient concentrations to elicit a response, pyrethroid pesticides were highly correlated with amphipod toxicity. Summing individual pyrethroid constituents using a toxic unit approach suggested that toxicity to E. estuarius could be associated with pyrethroids. This unique test design allowed delineation of spatial and temporal differences in toxicity, suggesting that storm water discharge from Paleta Creek may be the source of seasonal toxicity. Environ Toxicol Chem 2019;39:229–239. © 2019 SETACPeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/152638/1/etc4619_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/152638/2/etc4619.pd

Patient-specific computational modeling of subendothelial LDL accumulation in a stenosed right coronary artery: effect of hemodynamic and biological factors

Patient-specific computational modeling of subendothelial LDL accumulation in a stenosed right coronary artery: effect of hemodynamic and biological factors. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 304: H1455-H1470, 2013. First published March 15, 2013; doi:10.1152/ajpheart.00539.2012.-Atherosclerosis is a systemic disease with local manifestations. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) accumulation in the subendothelial layer is one of the hallmarks of atherosclerosis onset and ignites plaque development and progression. Blood flow-induced endothelial shear stress (ESS) is causally related to the heterogenic distribution of atherosclerotic lesions and critically affects LDL deposition in the vessel wall. In this work we modeled blood flow and LDL transport in the coronary arterial wall and investigated the influence of several hemodynamic and biological factors that may regulate LDL accumulation. We used a three-dimensional model of a stenosed right coronary artery reconstructed from angiographic and intravascular ultrasound patient data. We also reconstructed a second model after restoring the patency of the stenosed lumen to its nondiseased state to assess the effect of the stenosis on LDL accumulation