The Qualities of Qualia

This essay is a defence of the traditional notion of qualia - as properties of consciousness that are ineffable, intrinsic, private and immediately apprehensible - against the eliminative attempts of Daniel Dennett in the influential article "Quining Qualia." It is suggested that a thorough exploration of the concept is an appropriate starting point for future explanations of qualia, and the essay ends with some possible explanations of the four traditional properties

The Limits of Thought and the Mind-Body Problem

This paper gives an account of Colin McGinn's essay: "Can We Solve the Mind-Body Problem?". McGinn's answer to his own essay title is that the problem is forever beyond us due to the particular nature of our cognitive abilities.The present author offers a number of criticisms of the arguments which support this conclusion

Revealing User Behaviour on the World-Wide Web

This paper presents the results of a qualitative study of user behaviour on the World-Wide Web. Eight participants were filmed whilst performing user-defined tasks and then asked to review the video-taped session during prompted recall. This data forms the basis for a series of descriptions of user behaviour and the postulation of a number of underlying cognitive mechanisms. Our results indicate that people: lack ready made search strategies, prefer alternatives that are visible, immediately available and familiar, choose the path of least resistance, exhibit social forms of behaviour, engage in parallel activities, object to misleadingly presented information, have trouble orienting, are late in using appropriate strategies, are sensitive to matters of time, and are emotionally involved in the activity. The paper ends with a discussion of how these results can contribute to our understanding of hypermedia

Using the Crab Nebula as a high precision calibrator for Cosmic Microwave Background polarimeters

The polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) provides a plethora of information about the early universe. Most notably, gravitational waves from the Inflationary epoch (the leading explanation of the origin of the universe) create a unique CMB polarization $B$-mode signal. An unambiguous detection of the inflationary $B$-mode signal would be a window into the physics of the universe as it was $10^{-36}$ seconds after the Big Bang, at energy scales many orders of magnitude larger than what the LHC can produce. However, there are several instrumental and astrophysical sources that can obfuscate the inflationary $B$-mode signal. One of the most difficult parameters to calibrate for CMB telescopes is the absolute orientation of the antenna's polarization sensitive axis. A miscalibration of the polarization orientation rotates the much brighter $E$-mode signal, producing a false $B$-mode signal. The current best uncertainty on polarization orientation in the CMB community is $0.5^\circ$, set from extrapolating IRAM measurements of the Crab Nebula supernova remnant at 90 GHz to 150 GHz, where the CMB signals peak. This accuracy is not sufficient to convincingly detect $B$-modes predicted by currently allowable models of Inflation. We suggest to precisely measure the Crab Nebula's polarization, which can be calibrated absolutely to $0.1^\circ$ from measurements of the polarized emission of Mars, and use these data to calibrate current and upcoming CMB experiments. In addition to inflationary $B$-modes, more precise calibration will allow us to better constrain the sum of the neutrino masses and set limits on exotic physics such as parity violation through cosmic polarization rotation.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur

Transportation as a barrier to access to care in Bangor and the surrounding Penobscot County area

The focus of this project was to assess issue with transportation as a potential barrier to accessing health care in Bangor, Maine. This pilot project involved interviews with community members and providers, as well as evaluated the needs in terms of transportation for accessing primary care. Research regarding this need was conducted through anonymous patient surveys, conducted by the author, and was used to guide the recommendations for future interventions that would address transportation issues in Bangor and the Penobscot County area.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1215/thumbnail.jp

Stabilization of grid frequency through dynamic demand control

Frequency stability in electricity networks is essential to the maintenance of supply quality and security. This paper investigates whether a degree of built-in frequency stability could be provided by incorporating dynamic demand control into certain consumer appliances. Such devices would monitor system frequency (a universally available indicator of supply-demand imbalance) and switch the appliance on or off accordingly, striking a compromise between the needs of the appliance and the grid. A simplified computer model of a power grid was created incorporating aggregate generator inertia, governor action and load-frequency dependence plus refrigerators with dynamic demand controllers. Simulation modelling studies were carried out to investigate the system's response to a sudden loss of generation, and to fluctuating wind power. The studies indicated a significant delay in frequency-fall and a reduced dependence on rapidly deployable backup generation

Quantum Smectic and Supersolid Order in Helium Films and Vortex Arrays

A flux liquid can condense into a smectic crystal in a pure layered superconductor with the magnetic field oriented nearly parallel to the layers. Similar order can arise in low temperature $^4$He films with a highly anisotropic periodic substrate potential. If the smectic order is commensurate with the layering, this periodic array is {\sl stable} to quenched random point--like disorder. By tilting and adjusting the magnitude of the applied field, both incommensurate and tilted smectic and crystalline phases are found for vortex arrays. Related variations are possible by changing the chemical potential in the helium system. We discuss transport near the second order smectic freezing transition, and show that permeation modes in superconductors lead to a small non--zero resistivity and a large but finite tilt modulus in the smectic crystal. In helium films, the theory predicts a nonzero superfluid density and propagating third sound modes, showing that the quantum smectic is always simultaneously crystalline and superfluid.Comment: 18 pages, REVTeX. A complete postscript version with figures is available on the WWW at http://www.itp.ucsb.edu/~balents/