Aeropropulsion Technology (APT). Task 23 - Stator Seal Cavity Flow Investigation

The focus of NASA Contract NAS3-25950 Task 23 was to numerically investigate the flow through an axial compressor inner-banded stator seal cavity. The Allison/NASA developed ADPAC code was used to obtain all flow predictions. Flow through a labyrinth stator seal cavity of a high-speed compressor was modeled by coupling the cavity flow path and the main flow path of the compressor. A grid resolution study was performed to guarantee adequate grid spacing was used. Both unsteady rotor-stator-rotor interactions and steady-state isolated blade calculations were performed with and without the seal cavity present. A parameterized seal cavity study of the high-speed stator seal cavity collected a series of solutions for geometric variations. The parameter list included seal tooth gap, cavity depth, wheel speed, radial mismatch of hub flowpath, axial trench gap, hub corner treatments, and land edge treatments. Solution data presented includes radial and pitchwise distributions of flow variables and particle traces describing the flow character

"Engaging with birth stories in pregnancy: a hermeneutic phenomenological study of women's experiences across two generations"

BACKGROUND: The birth story has been widely understood as a crucial source of knowledge about childbirth. What has not been reported is the effect that birth stories may have on primigravid women's understandings of birth. Findings are presented from a qualitative study exploring how two generations of women came to understand birth in the milieu of other's stories. The prior assumption was that birth stories must surely have a positive or negative influence on listeners, steering them towards either medical or midwifery-led models of care. METHODS: A Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenological approach was used. Twenty UK participants were purposively selected and interviewed. Findings from the initial sample of 10 women who were pregnant in 2012 indicated that virtual media was a primary source of birth stories. This led to recruitment of a second sample of 10 women who gave birth in the 1970s-1980s, to determine whether they were more able to translate information into knowledge via stories told through personal contact and not through virtual technologies RESULTS: Findings revealed the experience of 'being-in-the-world' of birth and of stories in that world. From a Heideggerian perspective, the birth story was constructed through 'idle talk' (the taken for granted assumptions of things, which come into being through language). Both oral stories and those told through technology were described as the 'modern birth story'. The first theme 'Stories are difficult like that', examines the birth story as problematic and considers how stories shape meaning. The second 'It's a generational thing', considers how women from two generations came to understand what their experience might be. The third 'Birth in the twilight of certainty,' examines women's experience of Being in a system of birth as constructed, portrayed and sustained in the stories being shared. CONCLUSIONS: The women pregnant in 2012 framed their expectations in the language of choice, whilst the women who birthed in the 1970s-1980s framed their experience in the language of safety. For both, however, the world of birth was the same; saturated with, and only legitimised by the birth of a healthy baby. Rather than creating meaningful understanding, the 'idle talk' of birth made both cohorts fearful of leaving the relative comfort of the 'system', and of claiming an alternative birth

Education, knowledge, and symbolic form

This article aims to introduce Ernst Cassirer, and his philosophy of symbolic form, to education studies, and, in doing so, to challenge the widespread but deeply flawed views of knowledge and so-called knowledge-based education that have shaped recent education policy in England. After sketching the current educational landscape, and then some of the main lines of flight in Cassirer’s work, time is given to a comparison with Heidegger—a more familiar figure by far in Anglophone philosophy than Cassirer, and who contributed to the displacement of Cassirer—in order to illustrate more clearly Cassirer’s original contribution, in particular to the relationship between knowledge and time. Cassirer’s view of knowledge stands in marked and critical contrast to that which has shaped recent educational reform in England, as he sees knowledge as a productive and expressive matter, and repudiates what I call the ‘building-blocks’ picture of knowledge and the hierarchisation of subject areas

The social, cosmopolitanism and beyond

First, this article will outline the metaphysics of ‘the social’ that implicitly and explicitly connects the work of lassical and contemporary cosmopolitan sociologists as different as Durkheim, Weber, Beck and Luhmann. In a second step, I will show that the cosmopolitan outlook of classical sociology is driven by exclusive differences. In understanding human affairs, both classical sociology and contemporary cosmopolitan sociology reflect a very modernist outlook of epistemological, conceptual, methodological and disciplinary rigour that separates the cultural sphere from the natural objects of concern. I will suggest that classical sociology – in order to be cosmopolitan – is forced (1) to exclude non-social and non-human objects as part of its conceptual and methodological rigour, and (2) consequently and methodologically to rule out the non-social and the non-human. Cosmopolitan sociology imagines ‘the social’ as a global, universal explanatory device to conceive and describe the non-social and non-human. In a third and final step the article draws upon the work of the French sociologist Gabriel Tarde and offers a possible alternative to the modernist social and cultural other-logics of social sciences. It argues for a inclusive conception of ‘the social’ that gives the non-social and non-human a cosmopolitan voice as well

Heidegger on creativity: From boredom to re-engagement with the world

Experimental psychologists have discussed whether boredom can help us become more creative. At first blush, this would seem to be rather unlikely. When we are bored, we are disengaged; we cannot be bothered and nothing seems worthwhile; we have no interest in the world around us. Such a condition, surely, is not conducive to creativity (Haager et al. 2018). Yet some psychologists disagree (Gasper and Middlewood 2014). Boredom, they explain, breaks down entrenched routines and thought-patterns and provides us with an opportunity to think again and anew. Respondents in “approach-oriented states” such as boredom engage in more “associative thought” than those in “avoidance-oriented affective states.” This is how boredom comes to encourage “the quest for meaning and exploration” (Gasper and Middlewood 2014, pp. 53–55...2-s2.0-8508440789

Improving teaching: Enhancing ways of being university teachers

My aim in this paper is to theorize my teaching in a course for experienced university teachers, in a context of increased attention to such courses. My focus in the course is transforming and enhancing ways of being university teachers, through integrating knowing, acting and being. In other words, epistemology is not seen as an end in itself, but rather it is in the service of ontology. In the paper, I explore and illustrate how this focus on ontology is enacted in the course

"Meaning" as a sociological concept: A review of the modeling, mapping, and simulation of the communication of knowledge and meaning

The development of discursive knowledge presumes the communication of meaning as analytically different from the communication of information. Knowledge can then be considered as a meaning which makes a difference. Whereas the communication of information is studied in the information sciences and scientometrics, the communication of meaning has been central to Luhmann's attempts to make the theory of autopoiesis relevant for sociology. Analytical techniques such as semantic maps and the simulation of anticipatory systems enable us to operationalize the distinctions which Luhmann proposed as relevant to the elaboration of Husserl's "horizons of meaning" in empirical research: interactions among communications, the organization of meaning in instantiations, and the self-organization of interhuman communication in terms of symbolically generalized media such as truth, love, and power. Horizons of meaning, however, remain uncertain orders of expectations, and one should caution against reification from the meta-biological perspective of systems theory

Association of Trace Element Levels with Outcomes in Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients.

The primary objective of this study was to compare the plasma levels of copper, selenium, and zinc between critically ill COVID-19 patients and less severe COVID-19 patients. The secondary objective was to investigate the association of these trace element levels with adverse outcomes, including the duration of mechanical ventilation, occurrence of septic shock, and mortality in critically ill COVID-19 patients. All COVID-19 patients admitted to the ICU of the Geneva University Hospitals between 9 March 2020 and 19 May 2020 were included in the study. Plasma levels of copper, selenium and zinc were measured on admission to the ICU and compared with levels measured in COVID-19 patients hospitalized on the ward and in non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients. To analyze the association of trace elements with clinical outcomes, multivariate linear and logistic regressions were performed. Patients in the ICU had significantly lower levels of selenium and zinc and higher levels of copper compared to COVID-19 patients hospitalized on the ward and in non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients. In ICU patients, lower zinc levels tended to be associated with more septic shock and increased mortality compared to those with higher zinc levels (p = 0.07 for both). Having lower copper or selenium levels was associated with a longer time under mechanical ventilation (p = 0.01 and 0.04, respectively). These associations remained significant in multivariate analyses (p = 0.03 for copper and p = 0.04 for selenium). These data support the need for interventional studies to assess the potential benefit of zinc, copper and selenium supplementation in severe COVID-19 patients

Dialectic tensions in the financial markets: a longitudinal study of pre- and post-crisis regulatory technology

This article presents the findings from a longitudinal research study on regulatory technology in the UK financial services industry. The financial crisis with serious corporate and mutual fund scandals raised the profile of compliance as governmental bodies, institutional and private investors introduced a ‘tsunami’ of financial regulations. Adopting a multi-level analysis, this study examines how regulatory technology was used by financial firms to meet their compliance obligations, pre- and post-crisis. Empirical data collected over 12 years examine the deployment of an investment management system in eight financial firms. Interviews with public regulatory bodies, financial institutions and technology providers reveal a culture of compliance with increased transparency, surveillance and accountability. Findings show that dialectic tensions arise as the pursuit of transparency, surveillance and accountability in compliance mandates is simultaneously rationalized, facilitated and obscured by regulatory technology. Responding to these challenges, regulatory bodies continue to impose revised compliance mandates on financial firms to force them to adapt their financial technologies in an ever-changing multi-jurisdictional regulatory landscape

Ego-Splitting and the Transcendental Subject. Kant’s Original Insight and Husserl’s Reappraisal

In this paper, I contend that there are at least two essential traits that commonly define being an I: self-identity and self-consciousness. I argue that they bear quite an odd relation to each other in the sense that self-consciousness seems to jeopardize self-identity. My main concern is to elucidate this issue within the range of the transcendental philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl. In the first section, I shall briefly consider Kant’s own rendition of the problem of the Egosplitting. My reading of the Kantian texts reveals that Kant himself was aware of this phenomenon but eventually deems it an unexplainable fact. The second part of the paper tackles the same problematic from the standpoint of Husserlian phenomenology. What Husserl’s extensive analyses on this topic bring to light is that the phenomenon of the Ego-splitting constitutes the bedrock not only of his thought but also of every philosophy that works within the framework of transcendental thinking