Justifying an Adequate Response to the Vulnerable Other

Is it possible to justify requiring that I respond adequately to the other’s vulnerability? I contend that insofar as I value my own personal identity it is consistent to respond adequately to the vulnerability of the other. Part one provides a break down of vulnerability in terms of its fundamental indeterminacy. Part two illustrates how the ability to respond either adequately or inadequately to the other’s vulnerability is implied by the fundamental co-constitution of personal identity. I understand myself as a self only insofar as I stand in relation to other selves that see me as a self. If the relationship between recognition and identity also holds for the other, my response to her vulnerability founds her identity as well. In part three the relationship developed in part two is employed to justify the obligation to respond adequately to the vulnerable other. If I value my own personal identity, then I require an adequate response from others, because that response plays an integral role in the foundation of my personal identity. The other cannot respond adequately to my vulnerability unless her own identity is assured. Only if I respond adequately to the vulnerability of the other will she be in a position to assure my identity. Therefore, I ought to respond adequately to the vulnerability of others if for no other reason than it puts the other in a position where she can assure the personal identity that I value

Time dependent transitions with time-space noncommutativity & its implications in Quantum Optics

We study the time dependent transitions of quantum forced harmonic oscillator (QFHO) in noncommutative \mathds{R}^{1,1} perturbatively to linear order in the noncommutativity $\theta$. We show that the Poisson distribution gets modified, and that the vacuum state evolves into a "squeezed" state rather than a coherent state. The time evolutions of uncertainties in position and momentum in vacuum are also studied and imply interesting consequences for modeling nonlinear phenomena in quantum optics.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Juliette: A model of sexual consent

The ‘yes means yes’ model of sexual consent and the political and ethical commitments that underpin this model have three fundamental disadvantages. This position unfairly polices the sexual expression of participants; it demands an unreasonably high standard for defining sexual interaction as consensual; and by denying the body’s capacity for expressing sexual consent this model allows perpetrators of sexual violence to define consent. I argue that a critical examination of Marquis de Sade’s novel Juliette can provide the basis for a model of sexual consent that avoids these problems by refraining from pre-judging the means by which consent is communicated

Geomorphology of the Kaikoura area

The major physiographic units in the Kaikoura area are the Peninsula Block, Beach Ridges and Raised Beaches, Hard Rock Areas and the Alluvial Fans. Erosion of the Seaward Kaikoura Mountains and the transfer of the debris to the sea by fan streams have contributed to coastline pro gradation so that a former offshore island, now called the Kaikoura Peninsula, has been joined to the mainland. On the piedmont alluvial plain between the mountains and the sea Otiran Glacial Stage and Holocene fan deposits have covered up older fan surfaces. Stillstands during the tectonic uplift of the Peninsula Block when marine processes cut shore platforms and also higher stands of interglacial sea levels in the Late Pleistocene have contributed to the development of erosion surfaces. Along the coast beach ridges and raised beaches have developed during post-glacial times

Transport properties of anisotropically expanding quark-gluon plasma within a quasi-particle model

The bulk and shear viscosities ($\eta$ and $\zeta$) have been studied for quark-gluon-plasma produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions within semi-classical transport theory, in a recently proposed quasi-particle model of (2+1)-flavor lattice QCD equation of state. These transport parameters have been found to be highly sensitive to the interactions present in hot QCD. Contributions to the transport coefficients from both the gluonic sector and the matter sector have been investigated. The matter sector is found to be significantly dominating over the gluonic sector, in both the cases of $\eta$ and $\zeta$. The temperature dependences of the quantities, $\zeta/{\mathcal S}$, and $\zeta/\eta$ indicate a sharply rising trend for the $\zeta$, closer to the QCD transition temperature. Both $\eta$, and $\zeta$ are shown to be equally significant for the temperatures that are accessible in the relativistic heavy ion collision experiments, and hence play crucial role while investigating the properties of the quark-gluon plasma.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, two column, revtex4-1, v3: version accepted for publication in Physical Review

Does Government Expenditure on Education Promote Economic Growth? An Econometric Analysis

Education being an important component of human capital has always attracted the interests of economists, researchers and policy makers. Governments across the globe in general and in India in particular are trying to improve the human capital by pumping more investments in education. But the issue that whether improved level of education resulting from more education spending can promote economic growth is still controversial. Some economists and researchers have supported the bi-directional relation between these two variables, while it has also been suggested that it is the economic growth that stimulates governments spend more on education, not the other way. Considering this research issue, the present paper uses linear and non-linear Granger Causality methods to determine the causal relationship between education spending and economic growth in India for the period 1951-2009. The findings of this paper indicate that economic growth affects the level of government spending on education irrespective of any lag effects, but investments in education also tend to influence economic growth after some time-lag. The results are particularly useful in theoretical and empirical research by economists, regulators and policy makers

Undecidability in macroeconomics

In this paper we study the difficulty of solving problems in economics. For this purpose, we adopt the notion of undecidability from recursion theory. We show that certain problems in economics are undecidable, i.e., cannot be solved by a Turing Machine, a device that is at least as powerful as any computational device that can be constructed. In particular, we prove that even in finite closed economies subject to a variable initial condition, in which a social planner knows the behavior of every agent in the economy, certain important social planning problems are undecidable. Thus, it may be impossible to make effective policy decisions. Philosophically, this result formally brings into question the Rational Expectations Hypothesis which assumes that each agent is able to determine what it should do if it wishes to maximize its utility. We show that even when an optimal rational forecast exists for each agency (based on the information currently available to it), agents may lack the ability to make these forecasts. For example, Lucas describes economic models as 'mechanical, artificial world(s), populated by ... interacting robots'. Since any mechanical robot can be at most as computationally powerful as a Turing Machine, such economies are vulnerable to the phenomenon of undecidability