71 research outputs found
Realism and the language dependence of the external world : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Philosophy at Massey University
This Thesis falls loosely into 2 Parts.
In Part 1 (Chs. 1-4) a certain version of the view generally called "Realism" is put forward. This Realism is a view that can take either of two forms, one weak or soft, the other hard or strong. The first form states that there is an external world, which we experience and which influences language. The second form states that there is an external world, which is mirrored in consciousness and which is also mirrored in language. That is, the contents of consciousness and the contents of language correspond exactly to an absolute external world. This second stronger version (which I call "Metaphysical Realism") is refuted in Chapters 2-4.
Refuting it, however, still leaves us with the first view intact. In the rest of the thesis I argue that this first weaker version of Realism is essentially correct. This is because:
a. Objects do indeed exist. (Ch. 5)
b. At least part of what we do when we say we see X is refer to a genuine experience of X. (Chs 6 & 7)
c. In a certain sense the world is known non-linguistically. (Ch. 8)
The final chapter, Ch. 9, is designed to show how language
influences what might loosely be called the "External World". Hence we end up with a genuine "Realism" which is yet in a sense "language dependent", for this "real world" is formed by language which then reports on the world so formed
Climate Variability in Europe and Africa: a PAGES-PEP III Time Stream II Synthesis
The PEP III Europe-Africa transect extends from the arctic fringes of NW Eurasia to South Africa. It encompasses the presently
temperate sector of mid-latitude Europe, the Mediterranean region, the arid and semi-arid lands of the Sahara, Sahel and the
Arabian Peninsula, and the inter-tropical belt of Africa. The palaeoenvironmental evidence available from these regions, which
has been summarised in earlier chapters of this volume and which collectively spans the last 250,000 years, clearly bears
the stamp of long-term global climate forcing induced by variations in solar insolation. External forcing is ultimately the
reason why the Eurasian continental ice sheets waxed and waned repeatedly during the late Quaternary, and why the southerly
limit of permafrost migrated southwards across mid-latitude Europe, periodically becoming degraded during warmer episodes.
At the same time, pronounced fluctuations in atmospheric and soil moisture have affected the Mediterranean, desert and Sahel
regions, while there is abundant evidence from every sector of the PEP III transect for marked migrations of the principal
vegetation belts, as well as for other major environmental changes, that are also considered to reflect long-term climate
forcing. It is only in the last decade or so, however, that the full complexity of the history of climate changes during the
last interglacial-glacial cycle, and their environmental impacts in continental Europe and Africa, have begun to be recognised.
The discovery of evidence for the abrupt Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) and Heinrich (H) climatic oscillations in Greenland ice-core
(Johnsen et al. 1992) and North Atlantic (Bond et al. 1993) records, have prompted a re-examination of the continental record.
This, together with a number of technical improvements in field and laboratory equipment, greater access to sites in remote
and difficult terrain, diversification in the range of available palaeoecological and geochronological tools, and closer inter-disciplinary
collaboration, have led to a more penetrating examination of the field evidence, which has progressed the science considerably.
We can now see that the stratigraphical record is much more complex than appreciated hitherto, and more detailed and refined
models of past climatic and environmental models are beginning to emerge. There is, for example, a growing body of evidence
which suggests that D-O and H events had significant impacts on the environment of Europe and Africa, as well as on the Mediterranean
Sea
The effect of ring size on the selective carboxylation of cycloalkene oxides
Carbon dioxide utilisation technology can contribute to the reduction of atmospheric CO2 levels both through its sequestration from flue gases and indirectly by relieving pressure on conventional feedstocks in chemical manufacturing. A promising approach is to employ CO2 to produce valuable cyclic carbonates (CCs) in reaction with suitable epoxides. This also has the advantage that carbon dioxide replaces toxic and hazardous reactants such as phosgene. In earlier work we have investigated the synthesis of epoxides from cycloalkenes using supported gold and goldâpalladium nanoparticles as catalysts and oxygen from air as the oxidant under solvent free conditions. A strong dependence of epoxide selectivity on ring size was observed with C5 < C6 < C7 âȘ C8. In this study we extend this work to the investigation of cycloaddition of CO2 to different cycloalkene oxides with the ultimate aim of designing a process in which both epoxidation of an alkene and incorporation of CO2 could be achieved in a single process. However, we have found the opposite trend for the selectivity to carbonates: smaller ring cycloalkene oxides giving the highest carbonate selectivities while large rings do not yield CCs at all. The product distributions suggest that an alternative ring opening of the epoxides to yield alcohols and ketones is preferred under all the experimental conditions explored for larger ring systems. Additionally, the mechanism of the CC synthesis using a quaternary ammonium salt and ZnBr2 as the catalyst system was investigated using DFT methods. The results of the calculations support the experimental findings
Radio continuum observations of Class I protostellar disks in Taurus: constraining the greybody tail at centimetre wavelengths
We present deep 1.8 cm (16 GHz) radio continuum imaging of seven young
stellar objects in the Taurus molecular cloud. These objects have previously
been extensively studied in the sub-mm to NIR range and their SEDs modelled to
provide reliable physical and geometrical parametres.We use this new data to
constrain the properties of the long-wavelength tail of the greybody spectrum,
which is expected to be dominated by emission from large dust grains in the
protostellar disk. We find spectra consistent with the opacity indices expected
for such a population, with an average opacity index of beta = 0.26+/-0.22
indicating grain growth within the disks. We use spectra fitted jointly to
radio and sub-mm data to separate the contributions from thermal dust and radio
emission at 1.8 cm and derive disk masses directly from the cm-wave dust
contribution. We find that disk masses derived from these flux densities under
assumptions consistent with the literature are systematically higher than those
calculated from sub-mm data, and meet the criteria for giant planet formation
in a number of cases.Comment: submitted MNRA
An alternative approach to transfer functions? Testing the performance of a functional trait-based model for testate amoebae
publisher: Elsevier articletitle: An alternative approach to transfer functions? Testing the performance of a functional trait-based model for testate amoebae journaltitle: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2016.12.005 content_type: article copyright: © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V
A joint analysis of AMI and CARMA observations of the recently discovered SZ galaxy cluster system AMI-CL J0300+2613
Saunder
The radio source count at 93.2âGHz from observations of 9C sources using AMI and CARMA
We present results from follow-up observations of a sample of 80 radio sources, originally detected as part of the 15.2-GHz Ninth Cambridge (9C) survey. The observations were carried out, close to simultaneously, at two frequencies: 15.7âGHz, using the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager (AMI) Large Array, and 93.2âGHz, using the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA).
There is currently little direct information on the 90-GHz-band source count for S âČ 1âJy. However, we have used the measured 15.7-to-93.2-GHz spectral-index distribution and 9C source count to predict the differential source count at 93.2âGHz as 26 ± 4(S/Jy)^(â2.15)âJy^(â1) sr^(â1); our projection is estimated to be most accurate for 10 âČ S âČ 100 mJy.
Our estimated differential count is more than twice the 90-GHz prediction made by Waldram et al.; we believe that this discrepancy is because the measured 43-GHz flux densities used in making their prediction were too low. Similarly, our prediction is significantly higher than that of Sadler et al. at 95âGHz. Since our spectral-index distribution is similar to the 20-to-95-GHz distribution measured by Sadler et al. and used in making their prediction, we believe that the difference is almost entirely attributable to the dissimilarity in the lower frequency counts used in making the estimates
Advances in Pediatric Neurovirology
Viral infections of the pediatric central nervous system (CNS) encompass a broad spectrum of both perinatally and postnatally acquired diseases with potentially devastating effects on the developing brain. In children, viral infections have been associated with chronic encephalopathy, encephalitis, demyelinating disease, tumors, and epilepsy. Older diagnostic techniques of biopsy, viral culture, electron microscopy, gel-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and viral titer quantification are being replaced with more rapid, sensitive, and specific real-time and microarray-based PCR technologies. Advances in neuroimaging technologies have provided for earlier recognition of CNS injury without elucidation of specific viral etiology. Although the mainstay therapy of many pediatric neurovirologic diseases, aside from HIV, includes intravenous acyclovir, much work is being done to develop novel antiviral immunotherapies aimed at both treating and preventing pediatric CNS viral disease
AMI-LA radio continuum observations of Spitzer c2d small clouds and cores: Serpens region
We present deep radio continuum observations of the cores identified as
deeply embedded young stellar objects in the Serpens molecular cloud by the
Spitzer c2d programme at a wavelength of 1.8cm with the Arcminute Microkelvin
Imager Large Array (AMI-LA). These observations have a resolution of ~30arcsec
and an average sensitivity of 19microJy/beam. The targets are predominantly
Class I sources, and we find the detection rate for Class I objects in this
sample to be low (18%) compared to that of Class 0 objects (67%), consistent
with previous works. For detected objects we examine correlations of radio
luminosity with bolometric luminosity and envelope mass and find that these
data support correlations found by previous samples, but do not show any
indiction of the evolutionary divide hinted at by similar data from the Perseus
molecular cloud when comparing radio luminosity with envelope mass. We conclude
that envelope mass provides a better indicator for radio luminosity than
bolometric luminosity, based on the distribution of deviations from the two
correlations. Combining these new data with archival 3.6cm flux densities we
also examine the spectral indices of these objects and find an average spectral
index of 0.53+/-1.14, consistent with the canonical value for a partially
optically thick spherical or collimated stellar wind. However, we caution that
possible inter-epoch variability limits the usefulness of this value, and such
variability is supported by our identification of a possible flare in the radio
history of Serpens SMM 1.Comment: accepted MNRA
Pollen, biomarker and stable isotope evidence of late Quaternary environmental change at Lake McKenzie, southeast Queensland
Unravelling links between climate change and vegetation response during the Quaternary is important if the climateâenvironment interactions of modern systems are to be fully understood. Using a sediment core from Lake McKenzie, Fraser Island, we reconstruct changes in the lake ecosystem and surrounding vegetation over the last ca. 36.9 cal kyr. Evidence is drawn from multiple sources, including pollen, micro-charcoal, biomarker and stable isotope (C and N) analyses, and is used to gain a better understanding of the nature and timing of past ecological changes that have occurred at the site. The glacial period of the record, from ca. 36.9 to 18.3 cal kyr BP, is characterised by an increased abundance of plants of the aquatic and littoral zone, indicating lower lake water levels. High abundance of biomarkers and microfossils of the colonial green alga Botryococcus occurred at this time and included large variation in individual botryococcene d13C values. A slowing or ceasing of sediment accumulation occurred during the time period from ca. 18.3 to 14.0 cal kyr BP. By around 14.0 cal kyr BP fire activity in the area was reduced, as was abundance of littoral plants and terrestrial herbs, suggesting wetter conditions from that time. The Lake McKenzie pollen record conforms to existing records from Fraser Island by containing evidence of a period of reduced effective precipitation that commenced in the mid-Holocene
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