13,301 research outputs found
The art of being human : a project for general philosophy of science
Throughout the medieval and modern periods, in various sacred and secular guises, the unification of all forms of knowledge under the rubric of ‘science’ has been taken as the prerogative of humanity as a species. However, as our sense of species privilege has been called increasingly into question, so too has the very salience of ‘humanity’ and ‘science’ as general categories, let alone ones that might bear some essential relationship to each other. After showing how the ascendant Stanford School in the philosophy of science has contributed to this joint demystification of ‘humanity’ and ‘science’, I proceed on a more positive note to a conceptual framework for making sense of science as the art of being human. My understanding of ‘science’ is indebted to the red thread that runs from Christian theology through the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment to the Humboldtian revival of the university as the site for the synthesis of knowledge as the culmination of self-development. Especially salient to this idea is science‘s epistemic capacity to manage modality (i.e. to determine the conditions under which possibilities can be actualised) and its political capacity to organize humanity into projects of universal concern. However, the challenge facing such an ideal in the twentyfirst century is that the predicate ‘human’ may be projected in three quite distinct ways, governed by what I call ‘ecological’, ‘biomedical’ and ‘cybernetic’ interests. Which one of these future humanities would claim today’s humans as proper ancestors and could these futures co-habit the same world thus become two important questions that general philosophy of science will need to address in the coming years
Support of ASTP/KOSMOS fundulus embryo development experiment
Results from the Kosmos Biosatellite 782 flight are presented. Experiments with fish hatchlings are discussed along with postflight observation and testing. The preparation of fertilized eggs for the experiments is described
Neutrino Mass Hierarchy and Stepwise Spectral Swapping of Supernova Neutrino Flavors
We examine a phenomenon recently predicted by numerical simulations of
supernova neutrino flavor evolution: the swapping of supernova and
energy spectra below (above) energy \EC for the normal
(inverted) neutrino mass hierarchy. We present the results of large-scale
numerical calculations which show that in the normal neutrino mass hierarchy
case, \EC decreases as the assumed
effective vacuum mixing angle () is decreased.
However, these calculations also indicate that \EC is essentially independent
of the vacuum mixing angle in the inverted neutrino mass hierarchy case. With a
good neutrino signal from a future Galactic supernova, the above results could
be used to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy even if is too
small to be detected in terrestrial neutrino oscillation experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Version accepted by PR
Flavor Evolution of the Neutronization Neutrino Burst from an O-Ne-Mg Core-Collapse Supernova
We present results of 3-neutrino flavor evolution simulations for the
neutronization burst from an O-Ne-Mg core-collapse supernova. We find that
nonlinear neutrino self-coupling engineers a single spectral feature of
stepwise conversion in the inverted neutrino mass hierarchy case and in the
normal mass hierarchy case, a superposition of two such features corresponding
to the vacuum neutrino mass-squared differences associated with solar and
atmospheric neutrino oscillations. These neutrino spectral features offer a
unique potential probe of the conditions in the supernova environment and may
allow us to distinguish between O-Ne-Mg and Fe core-collapse supernovae.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Version accepted by PR
Neutrino-Neutrino Scattering and Matter-Enhanced Neutrino Flavor Transformation in Supernovae
We examine matter-enhanced neutrino flavor transformation
() in the region above the neutrino
sphere in Type II supernovae. Our treatment explicitly includes contributions
to the neutrino-propagation Hamiltonian from neutrino-neutrino forward
scattering. A proper inclusion of these contributions shows that they have a
completely negligible effect on the range of - vacuum
mass-squared difference, , and vacuum mixing angle, , or
equivalently , required for enhanced supernova shock re-heating.
When neutrino background effects are included, we find that -process
nucleosynthesis from neutrino-heated supernova ejecta remains a sensitive probe
of the mixing between a light and a with a
cosmologically significant mass. Neutrino-neutrino scattering contributions are
found to have a generally small effect on the
parameter region probed by -process nucleosynthesis. We point out that the
nonlinear effects of the neutrino background extend the range of sensitivity of
-process nucleosynthesis to smaller values of .Comment: 38 pages, tex, DOE/ER/40561-150-INT94-00-6
Dark matter sterile neutrinos in stellar collapse: alteration of energy/lepton number transport and a mechanism for supernova explosion enhancement
We investigate matter-enhanced Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein (MSW)
active-sterile neutrino conversion in the
channel in the collapse of the iron core of a pre-supernova star. For values of
sterile neutrino rest mass and vacuum mixing angle
(specifically, ) which include those required for viable sterile neutrino
dark matter, our one-zone in-fall phase collapse calculations show a
significant reduction in core lepton fraction. This would result in a smaller
homologous core and therefore a smaller initial shock energy, disfavoring
successful shock re-heating and the prospects for an explosion. However, these
calculations also suggest that the MSW resonance energy can exhibit a minimum
located between the center and surface of the core. In turn, this suggests a
post-core-bounce mechanism to enhance neutrino transport and neutrino
luminosities at the core surface and thereby augment shock re-heating: (1)
scattering-induced or coherent MSW conversion occurs deep in
the core, at the first MSW resonance, where energies are large ( MeV); (2) the high energy stream outward at near light speed; (3)
they deposit their energy when they encounter the second MSW resonance
just below the proto-neutron star surface.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure
Expressing uncertainty in security analytics research: a demonstration of Bayesian analysis applied to binary classification problems
A common application of security analytics is binary classification problems, which are typically assessed using measures derived from signal detection theory, such as accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. However, these measures fail to incorporate the uncertainty inherent to many contexts into the results. We propose that the types of binary classification problems studied by security researchers can be described based on the level of uncertainty present in the data. We demonstrate the use of Bayes data analysis in security contexts with varying levels of uncertainty and conclude that Bayesian analysis is particularly relevant in applications characterized by high uncertainty. We discuss how to apply similar analyses to other information security research
Coherent Development of Neutrino Flavor in the Supernova Environment
We calculate coherent neutrino and antineutrino flavor transformation in the
supernova environment, for the first time including a self-consistent treatment
of forward scattering-induced coupling and entanglement of intersecting
neutrino/antineutrino trajectories. For the atmospheric neutrino mass-squared
difference we find that in the normal (inverted) mass hierarchy the more
tangentially-propagating (radially-propagating) neutrinos and antineutrinos can
initiate collective, simultaneous medium-enhanced flavor conversion of these
particles across broad ranges of energy and propagation direction. Accompanying
alterations in neutrino/antineutrino energy spectra and/or fluxes could affect
supernova nucleosynthesis and the expected neutrino signal.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
CO abundances in a protostellar cloud: freeze-out and desorption in the envelope and outflow of L483
CO isotopes are able to probe the different components in protostellar
clouds. These components, core, envelope and outflow have distinct physical
conditions and sometimes more than one component contributes to the observed
line profile. In this study we determine how CO isotope abundances are altered
by the physical conditions in the different components. We use a 3D molecular
line transport code to simulate the emission of four CO isotopomers, 12CO
J=2-1, 13CO J=2-1, C18O J=2-1 and C17O J=2-1 from the Class 0/1 object L483,
which contains a cold quiescent core, an infalling envelope and a clear
outflow. Our models replicate JCMT (James Clerk Maxwell Telescope) line
observations with the inclusion of freeze-out, a density profile and infall.
Our model profiles of 12CO and 13CO have a large linewidth due to a high
velocity jet. These profiles replicate the process of more abundant material
being susceptible to a jet. C18O and C17O do not display such a large linewidth
as they trace denser quiescent material deep in the cloud.Comment: 9 figures, 13 pages, 2 table
Controlling the exchange interaction using the spin-flip transition of antiferromagnetic spins in NiFe / -FeO
We report studies of exchange bias and coercivity in ferromagnetic
NiFe layers coupled to antiferromagnetic (AF) (0001),
(110), and (112) -FeO layers. We show that AF
spin configurations which permit spin-flop coupling give rise to a strong
uniaxial anisotropy and hence a large coercivity, and that by annealing in
magnetic fields parallel to specific directions in the AF we can control either
coercivity or exchange bias. In particular, we show for the first time that a
reversible temperature-induced spin reorientation in the AF can be used to
control the exchange interaction.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
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