Enhancement, Authenticity, and Social Acceptance in the Age of Individualism

Public attitudes concerning cognitive enhancements are significant for a number of reasons. They tell us about how socially acceptable these emerging technologies are considered to be, but they also provide a window into the ethical reasons that are likely to get traction in the ongoing debates about them. We thus see Conrad et al’s project of empirically investigating the effect of metaphors and context in shaping attitudes about cognitive enhancements as both interesting and important. We sketch what we suspect is a central theme that runs through these public attitudes, but that Conrad el al’s paper elides. We were disappointed that they did not more directly explore the efficacy of frames and metaphors associated with the values of authenticity and self-expression. This seems like a missed opportunity. Based on the premise that individualistic values enjoy centrality in Western and especially North American culture (e.g. Taylor 1989), we hypothesize that metaphors and frames informed by those values will be especially effective in shaping public attitudes. That is, when various kinds of novel enhancement are described as allowing people to more fully express themselves, or as helping people overcome obstacles to being authentic and true to their inner sense of themselves, those enhancements will be considered justified, and their use more likely to be viewed as socially acceptable by the public. We support our contention by drawing on work by Elliott (2004, 2011, c.f. Kadlac 2018), and discuss how this study, and others modeled on it, might shed light on our hypothesis

A self-consistent Hartree-Fock approach for interacting bosons in optical lattices

A theoretical study of interacting bosons in a periodic optical lattice is presented. Instead of the commonly used tight-binding approach (applicable near the Mott insulating regime of the phase diagram), the present work starts from the exact single-particle states of bosons in a cubic optical lattice, satisfying the Mathieu equation, an approach that can be particularly useful at large boson fillings. The effects of short-range interactions are incorporated using a self-consistent Hartree-Fock approximation, and predictions for experimental observables such as the superfluid transition temperature, condensate fraction, and boson momentum distribution are presented.Comment: 12 pages, 15 figure file

Involvement of Park and Recreation Professionals in Pedestrian Plans

Professionals from many different disciplines are finding innovative ways to work together to increase physical activity to help create healthier communities. One process that can provide a focal point for promoting physical activity by park and recreation professionals, land use and transportation planners, public health practitioners, and other stakeholders is the development and implementation of pedestrian plans. A pedestrian plan is a public document that lays out a community’s vision for future pedestrian activity, identifies the actions required to realize that vision, ties actions to funding sources, and describes implementation and use. The purpose of this study was to explore whether park and recreation professionals were involved in creating pedestrian plans and how park and recreation elements were represented in these plans. To answer this, we identified, collected, and conducted a content analysis of all pedestrian plans in North Carolina. Among the 41 regional, county, and municipal pedestrian plans, park and recreation professionals were mentioned in the plan 56% of the time. Seventy-one percent (n=29) had a vision statement; however, among those only five vision statements mentioned parks or recreation. In all five cases, when a plan contained a vision statement that mentioned parks or recreation, there was a park and recreation member involved in the development of the plan. A higher percent of plans with a park and recreation professional involved were more likely to list parks in their land use analysis (74% vs. 67%). Park master plans were mentioned in the pedestrian plans 29% of the time; however, a lower percent of plans with a park and recreational professional involved mentioned a park master plan (26% vs. 33%). Given the potential importance of pedestrian plans in creating connections for pedestrians, park and recreation professionals are encouraged to become involved in the pedestrian planning process if they are not already. Parks can offer opportunities for residents of diverse ages and cultures to come together to socialize and engage in health-promoting activities. Integrating a park and recreation perspective into a more comprehensive planning process can enhance access to parks, inform programs, support multiple community goals, facilitate efficient use of resources, and promote partnerships for greater sustainabilit

Induced p-wave superfluidity in strongly interacting imbalanced Fermi gases

The induced interaction among the majority spin species, due to the presence of the minority species, is computed for the case of a population-imbalanced resonantly-interacting Fermi gas. It is shown that this interaction leads to an instability, at low temperatures, of the recently observed polaron Fermi liquid phase of strongly imbalanced Fermi gases to a p-wave superfluid state. We find that the associated transition temperature, while quite small in the weakly interacting BCS regime, is experimentally accessible in the strongly interacting unitary regime.Comment: Published versio

Planning for Pedestrians and Bicyclists in North Carolina.

Over the past decade, as obesity has continued to rise among both youth and adults, interest has grown in developing policies to promote community environments that support healthy lifestyles.1 A broad range of local, regional, state, and federal policies under the rubrics of active living, smart growth, and sustainable development share the underlying assumption that they can help people make healthier choices. From a transportation planning perspective, the benefits of pedestrian and bicycle plans resulting from the building of infrastructure to support pedestrian and bicycle travel include improved health (for example, through increased levels of physical activity and reduced obesity), a better environment (for example, through lower carbon emissions), and a stronger economy (for example, through lower fuel bills). However, until more recently, the health benefits have not been specifically explored

Urban Containment Policies and Physical Activity A Time–Series Analysis of Metropolitan Areas, 1990–2002

Background: Urban containment policies attempt to manage the location, character, and timing of growth to support a variety of goals such as compact development, preservation of greenspace, and efficient use of infrastructure. Despite prior research evaluating the effects of urban containment policies on land use, housing, and transportation outcomes, the public health implications of these policies remain unexplored. This ecologic study examines relationships among urban containment policies, state adoption of growthmanagement legislation, and population levels of leisure and transportation-related physical activity in 63 large metropolitan statistical areas from 1990 to 2002. Methods: Multiple data sources were combined, including surveys of urban containment policies, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the U.S. Census of Population, the National Resources Inventory, and the Texas Transportation Institute Urban Mobility Study. Mixed models were used to examine whether urban containment policies and state adoption of growth-management legislation were associated with population levels of leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) and walking/bicycling to work over time. Results: Strong urban containment policies were associated with higher population levels of LTPA and walking/bicycling to work during the study period. Additionally, residents of states with legislation mandating urban growth boundaries reported significantly more minutes of LTPA/week compared to residents of states without such policies. Weak urban containment policies showed inconsistent relationships with physical activity. Conclusions: This study provides preliminary evidence that strong urban containment policies are associated with higher population levels of LTPA and active commuting. Future research should examine potential synergies among state, metropolitan, and local policy processes that may strengthen these relationship

Parody (of Celebrities, in Advertising), Parity (between Advertising and Other Types of Commercial Speech), and (the Property Right of) Publicity - A Substantive and Procedural Path - Through Glitz, Wit, Rap, Suds, and Ink - To a Balanced Constitutional and Common Law Vindication of Each

In 1992\u27s highly controversial White v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused to create a parody exception to the common law right of publicity for a parodic advertisement. Almost all of the early legal commentary on White criticized the Ninth Circuit for not having created such an exception, most of it urging an emulation of federal statutory copyright law\u27s fair use exception. In 1993\u27s Cardtoons v. Major League Baseball Players Ass\u27n, the Northern District Court of Oklahoma similarly refused to create a parody exception to the right of publicity for an actual, for-sale parodic product. In 1993\u27s subsequent Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., the Supreme Court accepted a fair use, parody defense to a copyright infringement claim for a for-sale parodic product. In 1994, because of Campbell, the Oklahoma District Court reconsidered Cardtoons and created a parody exception to the right of publicity but, distinguishing White, explicitly excluded advertising from the scope of such an exception. The Baseball Players\u27 appeal of the Cardtoons reconsideration is pending before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Tenth Circuit, or any other court considering the scope of a parody exception to the right of publicity in the future, should consider both the language in and logic behind extended obiter dicta in the Supreme Court\u27s 1993 City of Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, Inc. decision regarding parity between the First Amendment protection to be accorded advertising as a form of commercial speech and other types of speech. Parodic advertising should be accorded as much First Amendment free speech protection under any parody exception to the common law right of publicity as that given to any other type of commercial speech. Moreover, parodic advertising should not be peremptorily excluded from the scope of such an exception merely because it is advertising

Enhanced reverse saturable absorption and optical limiting in heavy-atom-substituted phthalocyanines

The reverse saturable absorption and the optical-limiting response of metal phthalocyanines can be enhanced by use of the heavy-atom effect. Phthalocyanines containing heavy-metal atoms, such as In, Sn, and Pb, show a nearly factor-of-2 enhancement in the ratio of effective excited-state to ground-state absorption cross sections compared with those containing lighter atoms, such as Al and Si. In an f/8 optical geometry, homogeneous solutions of heavy-metal phthalocyanines, at 30% linear transmission, limit 8-ns 532-nm laser pulses to ≤ 3 µJ the energy for 50% probability of eye damage) for incident energies as high as 800 µJ