Plato's Conception of Divination

I take one of the goals of Plato’s dialogues is to stake out a territory for philosophy. In order to do this, Plato evaluates and critiques other, more established, disciplines like rhetoric, the sophistic movement, poetry, and finally, divination. The last, in particular, has been neglected even though it arises in nearly all stages of Plato’s writing. Accordingly, in my dissertation, I interrogate the ways in which Plato embodies Greek norms about divination, but I also investigate how he transforms it, once he subject it to philosophical evaluation. Plato never denies the authenticity of divination, but he does curtail its scope. He considers it a craft, but he also claims that the best seers are those who are divinely inspired. I analyze this puzzle, together with connection between divination and madness. Finally, I examine whether Plato's distinction between technical and possession divination is too polarizing. My principal evidence is Diotima in Plato's Symposium; she is a superlative seer who discursively engages with Socrates about the nature of Eros, even though she should not be able to do so according to Plato's own distinction. In the end, I hope that this dissertation underscores the increasingly accepted contention of Plato's pervasive religiosity

Some Plain Talk About Airlines and Regulations

ANY regulatory framework influencing something as vast and important as this country\u27s scheduled airline system should be the subject of continuing review. Even a good regulatory framework can be improved through intelligent reassessment, and there are some significant modifications that can and should be made in light of the economic impact of regulation of the airlines. Yet, any discussion of such regulation or the merits of attempts to modify the existing regulatory framework through legislative proposal cannot be viewed entirely in the abstract. Rather, emphasis must carefully be directed toward the results of the actual or anticipated regulatory changes on the various aspects of our national life, including factors which certainly extend beyond the scope of the economic spectrum. Such an examination necessarily includes analysis and comparison on many levels and would literally be capable of absorbing voluminous works. Instead, I feel that it is time for some plain talk about airlines and regulation

Impulse distributions in dense granular flows: signatures of large-scale spatial structures

In this paper we report the results of simulations of a 2D gravity driven, dissipative granular flow through a hopper system. Measurements of impulse distributions P(I) on the simulated system show flow-velocity-invariant behavior of the distribution for impulses larger than the average impulse . For small impulses, however, P(I) decreases significantly with flow velocity, a phenomenon which can be attributed exclusively to collisions between grains undergoing frequent collisions. Visualizations of the system also show that these frequently colliding particles tend to form increasingly large linear clusters as the flow velocity decreases. A model is proposed for the form of P(I), given distributions of cluster size and velocity, which accurately predicts the observed form of the distribution. Thus the impulse distribution provides some insight into the formation and properties of these ``dynamic'' force chains.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Achieving Asynchronous Speedup While Preserving Synchronous Semantics: An Implementation of Instructional Footprinting in Linda

Linda is a coordination language designed to support process creation and inter-process communication within conventional computational languages. Although the Linda paradigm touts architectural and language independence, it often suffers performance penalties, particularly on local area network platforms. Instructional Footprinting is an optimization technique with the primary goal of enhancing the execution speed of Linda programs. The two main aspects of Instructional Footprinting are instructional decomposition and code motion. This paper addresses the semantic issues encountered when the Linda primitives, IN and RD, are decomposed and moved past other Linda operations. Formal semantics are given as well as results showing significant speedup (as high as 64%) when Instructional Footprinting is used

\u3ci\u3eArcola malloi\u3c/i\u3e (Pastrana), the alligatorweed stemborer, a new synonym of \u3ci\u3eMacrorrhinia endonephele\u3c/i\u3e (Hampson) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae: Phycitinae)

Arcola malloi (Pastrana, 1961) is a junior subjective synonym of Macrorrhinia endonephele (Hampson, 1918) syn. nov. (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae). The species is a biological control agent introduced in United States and Australia to control alligatorweed, Alternanthera philoxeroides (Mart.) Griseb. (Amaranthaceae). The synonymy is recognized by comparison of type specimens, genitalic dissections, and DNA COI barcoding. Vogtia Pastrana, 1961 syn. nov. and Arcola Shaffer, 1995 syn. nov. are synonymized with Macrorrhinia Ragonot, 1887. Macror­rhinia megajuxta (Neunzig and Goodson, 1992) comb. nov. is transferred from Ocala Hulst, 1892. Lectotypes are designated for Divitiaca ochrella Barnes and McDunnough, 1913, and Divitiaca simulella Barnes and Mc­Dunnough, 1913

Comparison of Unix Communication Facilities Used In Linda

This report presents the results of an investigative effort that focuses on a first step toward providing a distributed framework for Linda system processes. In particular, we discuss the restructuring of the kernel "process" to support Tuple Space access through UNIX socket calls, rather than through shared memory primitives based on semaphore usage. A description of the restructured system and the rationale for such restructuring is presented first. Most intriguing, however, are the latter sections that discuss the ramifications and insights gained from our particular approach to system redesign, i.e., the unnecessary serialization of Tuple Space access, redundant memory copies, being victimized by the UNIX scheduler

Using satellites to investigate the sensitivity of longwave downward radiation to water vapor at high elevations

Many studies suggest that high-elevation regions may be among the most sensitive to future climate change. However, in situ observations in these often remote locations are too sparse to determine the feedbacks responsible for enhanced warming rates. One of these feedbacks is associated with the sensitivity of longwave downward radiation (LDR) to changes in water vapor, with the sensitivity being particularly large in many high-elevation regions where the average water vapor is often low. We show that satellite retrievals from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) can be used to expand the current ground-based observational database and that the monthly averaged clear-sky satellite estimates of humidity and LDR are in good agreement with the well-instrumented Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies ground-based site in the southwestern Colorado Rocky Mountains. The relationship between MODIS-retrieved precipitable water vapor and surface specific humidity across the contiguous United States was found to be similar to that previously found for the Alps. More important, we show that satellites capture the nonlinear relationship between LDR and water vapor and confirm that LDR is especially sensitive to changes in water vapor at high elevations in several midlatitude mountain ranges. Because the global population depends on adequate fresh water, much of which has its source in high mountains, it is critically important to understand how climate will change there. We demonstrate that satellites can be used to investigate these feedbacks in high-elevation regions where the coverage of surface-based observations is insufficient to do so

Identifying Mode Confusion in Recorded Aircraft Data

In recent decades, commercial aviation accidents have occurred due to human-machine interaction (HMI) problems known as “mode confusion.” This is caused, in some cases, by a lack of understanding of onboard systems by pilots. Large amounts of Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) data are available, analysis of which could assist in identification of safety risks in daily operations. Through analysis of pilot reactions and recorded aircraft data, methods to detect mode confusion are developed to improve aviation safety. This study was conducted by inducing mode confusion into a flight simulation scenario and analyzing aircraft data to detect emerging patterns. Three distinct Instrument Landing System approaches were flown by participants unaware of experiment details. Differences between these approaches force the pilot to capture the glideslope from above using automation. The results indicate that pilots reacted to the mode confusion by providing control input which opposed the goal of the automation. This reaction was a response to the divergence between pilot intent and automation intent. Further experimentation is needed to determine a general, universally accepted data marker for the occurrence of mode confusion. Ultimately, this outcome will assist the aviation community in addressing drawbacks of modern automation