Efficient formulation of the periodic corrections in Brouwer's gravity solution

The periodic terms of Brouwer's gravity solution are reconstructed in a nonsingular set of variables which are derived from the well-known polar-nodal variables. This change does not affect the essence of the solution, which still keeps all the benefits of the action-angle variables approach, and yields two major improvements. Namely, the periodic corrections of Brouwer's solution are now valid for any eccentricity below one and any inclination except the critical inclination, and, besides, are significantly simpler than the nonsingular corrections in Lydanne's reformulation of Brouwer's theory.Comment: 19 page

THE PROBLEM OF SOVEREIGNTY, INTERNATIONAL LAW, AND INTELLECTUAL CONSCIENCE

The concept of sovereignty is a recurring and controversial theme in international law, and it has a long history in western philosophy. The traditionally favored concept of sovereignty proves problematic in the context of international law. International law’s own claims to sovereignty, which are premised on traditional concept of sovereignty, undermine individual nations’ claims to sovereignty. These problems are attributable to deep-seated flaws in the traditional concept of sovereignty. A viable alternative concept of sovereignty can be derived from key concepts in Friedrich Nietzsche’s views on human reason and epistemology. The essay begins by considering the problem of sovereignty from the ancient philosophical perspective inherent in the fundamental assumptions and ideas of Plato’s political philosophy and epistemology. It then considers the contemporary problem of sovereignty in the context of international law by examining Louis Henkin’s formulation of and approach to it in his essay That S-Word: Sovereignty, and Globalization, and Human Rights, Etc. Finally, the essay articulates Nietzsche’s views on intellectual conscience, discusses their merits and advantages when used in dealing the problem of sovereignty in the context of international law, and proposes a solution to this problem that draws on the philosophies of Nietzsche, Novalis, Kant and Plato. The essay illustrates the relevance and advantages of this solution by examining the issue of states’ reservations to international treaties and conventions

Taking Risks Behind the Veil of Ignorance

A natural view in distributive ethics is that everyone's interests matter, but the interests of the relatively worse off matter more than the interests of the relatively better off. I provide a new argument for this view. The argument takes as its starting point the proposal, due to Harsanyi and Rawls, that facts about distributive ethics are discerned from individual preferences in the "original position." I draw on recent work in decision theory, along with an intuitive principle about risk-taking, to derive the view

Does increasing communication through virtual learning environments enhance student perceptions of lecturers?

The current study was conducted in an effort to examine whether increased levels of communication using visual learning environments (VLEs) alters student perceptions of lecturers. Eighty-six MSc students in Computing Science participated by using She and Fisher’s (2002) Teacher Communication Behavior Questionnaire (TCBQ). In addition to using the questionnaire, data from the electronic class site were used to make assessments about the quality and quantity of communication. Two types of classrooms were evaluated: a) a control condition in which the lecturer did not alter any communication aspect of the module, and b) the experimental condition in which the lecturer posted weekly discussion topics. Significant differences were found by cultural background and gender of the students. The bulletin board postings in the experimental condition were more heavily content-based than the control condition ones. The consistency in discussion topic of the experimental condition postings, both bulletin board and email, were more fluid than in the control condition

Short-axis-mode rotation of a free rigid body by perturbation series

A simple rearrangement of the torque free motion Hamiltonian shapes it as a perturbation problem for bodies rotating close to the principal axis of maximum inertia, independently of their triaxiality. The complete reduction of the main part of this Hamiltonian via the Hamilton-Jacobi equation provides the action-angle variables that ease the construction of a perturbation solution by Lie transforms. The lowest orders of the transformation equations of the perturbation solution are checked to agree with Kinoshita's corresponding expansions for the exact solution of the free rigid body problem. For approximately axisymmetric bodies rotating close to the principal axis of maximum inertia, the common case of major solar system bodies, the new approach is advantageous over classical expansions based on a small triaxiality parameter.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figure, to be presented in 2013 AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialist Conference, Hilton Head, South Carolina, August 11 - 15, 201

The slav reception of Gregory of Nyssa’s works: an overview of early slavonic translations

Although a lot has been written about the "translatio" of Byzantine Christianity in the mediaeval Slavia orthodoxa, advancing a critical assessment of the Slav reception of the Greek Fathers remains a precarious undertaking. Although the mere listing of patristic texts in Slavonic translation obviously falls short of the demands of the subject, a notion of the corpus of translated texts is called for. The modest aim of the present article, which deals with the reception of Gregory of Nyssa among the orthodox Slavs, is first and foremost to establish the nature and range of the material reception of his writings by means of an overview of Old Slavonic translations of his works and of substantiated traces of influence of his writings on Slavonic texts, from the time of the Moravian mission (863) throughout the Slav Middle Ages