Language, Subjectivity and the Agon: A Comparative Study of Nietzsche and Lyotard

Political Philosophy and Ethic

Football banning orders: analysing their use in court

In the months prior to the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, the government funded a number of targeted policing operations aimed at securing Football Banning Orders against known or suspected football hooligans. This article is based on court observations and associated interviews carried out in early 2006 in and around Manchester. It evaluates the application process, the legal tests applied and the quality of the evidence relied on by courts when determining whether the imposition of a Football Banning Order is neces-sary to prevent future football-related disorder being committed by the respondent. In particular, the analysis focuses on whether the use of a civil procedure can continue to be justified in the light of the punitive length of and conditions attached to these Orders, whether the correct standard of proof is being applied by the court at all stages of the application and whether policing tactics are focused too narrowly on the securing of Football Banning Orders

Wireless local area network planning: an overview

When planning a wireless local area network, there are design issues that need to be considered. In this paper, the fundamentals of planning a wireless local area network are introduced and discussed to highlight the requirements involved. Network constraints, as their relevance to wireless network design is investigated. The paper concludes with an overview of wireless network planning solutions including commercial and free software, and an introduction to the author’s research

Observations of Parametric Fluorescence and Oscillation in the Infrared

Measurements of infrared optical parametric fluorescence are reported for the first time. Using a pump wavelength of 1.064 µ in LiNbO_3 , observations of the fluorescence power, bandwidth, and angular dependence at 1.63 µ are in good agreement with a plane-wave theory. The operating characteristics of two pulsed, internal, doubly resonant parametric oscillators are also reported and compared with predictions of the fluorescence measurements. With measured thresholds on the order of 400–700 W, the two oscillators provided nearly continuous tuning from 1.51 µ to 3.55 µ with average powers of 6 mW and peak powers of 600 W. These powers represent available pump conversion efficiencies of 10% and 50%, respectively. Oscillating bandwidths were only 10% of the fluorescence bandwidth and ranged from 1.7 cm^(-1) to 45 cm^(-1), depending on the output wavelength. Longitudinal mode structure and multiple pulsing of the oscillators were observed

Rise time of pulsed parametric oscillators

General relations are derived that describe the rise time of the output power of parametric oscillators driven by a time-dependent pump. Both singly resonant and doubly resonant oscillators are discussed. Results of computer calculations using a Gaussian time envelope for the pump pulse are presented and, in the case of the doubly resonant oscillator, are compared to predictions of a steady-state analysis. Agreement between calculated rise times and published values is good

[Review of the book Disagreement by Brian Frances]

Review of the book Disagreement by Bryan Frances. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014

Haemodynamic responses to heat stress and hypohydration in resting and exercising humans: Implications for the regulation of skeletal muscle blood flow

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Heat stress-induced hyperthermia and exercise-induced hypohydration are associated with marked alterations in limb and systemic haemodynamics in humans. However, the mechanisms underlying these alterations their effects on muscle blood flow are not well understood. The present thesis examined whether whole body and local heat stresses increased limb skin and muscle blood flow (Study 1) and whether hypohydration and hyperthermia compromised leg muscle, skin and systemic haemodynamics (Study 2). The effects of heat stress and combined hypohydration and hyperthermia were examined at rest and during mild small muscle mass exercise in humans. The results from Study 1 suggested that heat stress was accompanied by vasodilation in both skeletal muscle and skin vasculatures. Therefore in line with concomitant elevations in blood flow, skeletal muscle and skin vasodilation contribute to increases in leg blood flow and vascular conductance with whole body heat stress. Furthermore, increases in leg muscle and skin blood flow with isolated elevations in leg tissue temperature accounted for at least one half of the total increase in leg blood flow with whole body heat stress. Enhanced leg blood flow owed to a net vasodilation as explained by an elevation in vasodilator activity that exceeded increases in vasoconstrictor activity. This phenomenon was closely related to increases in muscle temperature and intravascular adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The results from Study 2 demonstrated that mild and moderate hypohydration and hyperthermia do not compromise leg muscle and skin blood flow or cardiac output at rest or during mild exercise in humans. Furthermore, acute rehydration did not alter leg muscle and skin blood flow or cardiac output compared to hypohydration and hyperthermia despite large alterations in blood volume and haematological variables and the restoration of core temperature. Taken together, the findings of this thesis indicate that: 1) heat stress induces vasodilation in both skeletal muscle and cutaneous vasculature, 2) elevations in muscle temperature and intravascular ATP play a role in heat stress- and exercise-induced hyperaemia, and 3) moderate hypohydrationinduced hypovolemia and haemoconcentration and rehydration-induced hypervolaemia and haemodilution do not alter leg blood flow or cardiac output at rest and during low intensity exercise in humans when a large cardiovascular reserve is available

Distinguishing WV Quine and Donald Davidson

Given W.V. Quine’s and Donald Davidson’s extensive agreement about much of the philosophy of language and mind, and the obvious methodological parallels between Quine’s radical translation and Davidson’s radical interpretation, many—including Quine and Davidson—are puzzled by their occasional disagreements. I argue for the importance of attending to these disagreements, not just because doing so deepens our understanding of these influential thinkers, but because they are in fact the shadows thrown from two distinct conceptions of philosophical inquiry: Quine’s “naturalism” and what I call Davidson’s “humanism.” The clash between Quine and Davidson thus provides valuable insight into the history of analytic naturalism and its malcontents

Logic and Intelligibility

All inquirers must have a grasp of implication and contradiction which they employ to structure their investigations. Logical ability is thus some kind of prerequisite for cognition. My dissertation scrutinizes this relationship and argues that different ways of understanding it underlie a deep debate about naturalism and the objectivity of our knowledge. Frege’s dismissal of logical aliens as mad exposes his conviction that logical ability is exhibited in our practice of demonstrative reasoning, and is a constitutive necessary condition for cognition. By denying the existence of an independent standard for objective truth that a codification of inferential principles must meet, Frege avoids logical “sociologism” (under which the validity of inferential principles is identified with their agreement with our practice). Quine objects to ascribing a “pre-logical mentality” in radical translation, but only because doing so would represent one’s interlocutor as affirming something one finds obviously false. Under his naturalism, the logician is guided by usefulness to ongoing empirical inquiry, not the search for the constitutive prerequisites of thinking. I argue that the properly-understood naturalist excises various skeptical attacks from epistemology. Davidson recovers a privileged status for logic as central in the theories of truth that are necessary to interpret another as—and also to be—a cognizer. Under his humanism, it is only through interpreting others that one can grasp the objective/subjective contrast and acquire beliefs that are properly about the world. We do not exhibit our grasp of objective truth by engaging in a practice informed by logic, but by interpreting others who are engaged with, and through, us in such a practice. Despite initial appearances, naturalism and humanism are not incompatible positions. After examining Quine’s “sectarian” and Davidson’s “ecumenical” attitude to the truth of empirically equivalent theories, I endorse ecumenism about their metaphilosophical disagreement. By renouncing a proprietary attitude to truth, this particular form of tolerance avoids the fragmentation of philosophy into distinct, yet totalizing, and hence warring, programs