Innocence Lost: Simulation Scenarios: Prospects and Consequences

Those who believe suitably programmed computers could enjoy conscious experience of the sort we enjoy must accept the possibility that their own experience is being generated as part of a computerized simulation. It would be a mistake to dismiss this is just one more radical sceptical possibility: for as Bostrom has recently noted, if advances in computer technology were to continue at close to present rates, there would be a strong probability that we are each living in a computer simulation. The first part of this paper is devoted to broadening the scope of the argument: even if computers cannot sustain consciousness (as many dualists and materialists believe), there may still be a strong likelihood that we are living simulated lives. The implications of this result are the focus of the second part of the paper. The topics discussed include: the Doomsday argument, scepticism, the different modes of virtual life, transcendental idealism, the Problem of Evil, and simulation ethics

Role of Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators in the Treatment of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is an important cardiovascular disease with sudden cardiac death as the most devastating presentation. Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) are the optimal therapy for prevention of sudden death from ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation of any cause. While there is no controversy with implanting ICDs in patients who have already survived a cardiac arrest, identifying high-risk patients for primary prevention in this disease remains a challenge. Implanting ICDs in patients with HCM is an important clinical consideration since many individuals could achieve normal or near-normal lifespans with this protection

Expanding the range of chromatic dispersion monitoring with two-photon absorption in semiconductors

Chromatic dispersion monitoring based on two-photon absorption (TPA) in semiconductors is very attractive because it does not need any high speed electronic devices (Inui, 2002). However, at present the dispersion monitoring range is limited to half of the Talbot dispersion which is defined as DTalbot = T2c/lambda2 (Wielandy, 2004), T is the period of the signal pulse sequence. In this work we propose a scheme to expand this monitoring range

Technical service as a marketing tool for industrial goods

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston Universit

Purification and characterisation of putative protein allergens from the seeds of the castor oil plant, "Ricinus communis"

The identification, purification and characterisation of putative castor bean allergens has been achieved together with some studies on the synthesis of castor bean cDNA undertaken as a prerequisite to the isolation of allergen cDNA clones. At least four proteins have been identified which bind immunoglobulin E from the pooled sera of ten patients allergic to castor beans (CB pool). The apparent molecular weights of these proteins are 10,000, 34,000, 48,000 and 50.000. On the basis of their ability to elicit an IgE response these proteins are considered to be putative castor bean allergens. The 10 kDa putative allergen has been identified as the large subunit of a heterodimeric 2S storage albumin purified in the course of this study. The putative 2S allergen has been shown to be identical to a castor bean 2S albumin previously purified and sequenced by Li and coworkers (Li et al.. 1977; Sharief and Li, 1982). In consequence, the putative 2S allergen has been called Li's protein. Li's protein has been shown to be a trypsin inhibitor. Li's protein may be encoded by a multigene family and is initially translated as a 32.5 kDa precursor, almost three times the mass of the mature protein (11 kDa) as determined by amino acid sequencing. IgE from the CB pool specifically binds to two components of the complex crystalloid group of storage proteins. The 34 kDa subunits of these crystalloid proteins may be the putative 34 kDa allergen. The binding of IgE from the CB pool by components of the crystalloid complex may be the result of a cross-reaction with IgE raised against the 2S allergen. The putative crystalloid allergens have been substantially purified by ion-exchange chromatography. The feasibility of using chromatofocusing to rigorously purify the putative crystalloid allergens and to separate the individual polypeptides has been investigated. The SI nuclease method was found to be preferable to the RNAse H method for the synthesis of castor bean cDNA. The 48 kDa and 50 kDa putative castor bean allergens have not been identified

Losing control:the case for emergent software systems using autonomous assembly, perception and learning

Architectural self-organisation, in which different configurations of software modules are dynamically assembled based on the current context, has been shown to be an effective way for software to self-optimise over time. Current approaches to this rely heavily on human-led definitions: models, policies and processes to control how self-organisation works. We present the case for a paradigm shift to fully emergent computer software which places the burden of understanding entirely into the hands of software itself. These systems are autonomously assembled at runtime from discovered constituent parts and their internal health and external deployment environment continually monitored. An online, unsupervised learning system then uses runtime adaptation to explore alternative system assemblies and locate optimal solutions. Based on our experience to date, we define the problem space of emergent software, and we present a working case study of an emergent web server. Our results demonstrate two aspects of the problem space for this case study: that different assemblies of behaviour are optimal in different deployment environment conditions; and that these assemblies can be autonomously learned from generalised perception data while the system is online

GTO thyristor and bipolar transistor cascode switches

The switching performance of both the bipolar transistor and gate turn-off thyristor is improved when used in a cascode switch configuration. `Snubberless' turn-off occurs without second breakdown and the technique results in shorter saturation delay times, faster current fall and higher operational sustaining voltages than obtained with conventional switching techniques. Improved switching performance is traded for increased drive circuit complexity and an increased on-state power loss associated with two series connected power semiconductor switches. The circuit techniques features and performance of two 720 V DC, 320 A cascode switches are presented. The bipolar transistor cascode switch is tested up to 100 kHz, whereas tail current power loss limits the GTO thyristor cascode switch to 16 kH

Influence of cavity lifetime on high-finesse microcavity two-photon absorption photodetectors

For optical pulse incidence as compared with continuous-wave incidence, the enhancement of two-photon absorption inside a high-finesse planar microcavity is reduced, the pulse inside the cavity and the cavity spectrum are broadened. The analysis shows that for transform-limited pulse incidence, the true pulsewidth and the cavity frequency resolution can be estimated if the cavity lifetime or the cavity bandwidth has been obtained from the reflection or transmission spectrum of the cavit