4,103 research outputs found
An Analysis of the Spectrum of Mars
On a high-dispersion spectrogram of Mars taken at Mount Wilson rotational lines of H_2O near λ 8300 and CO_2 near λ 8700 have been detected. Recent laboratory measurements of line strengths by D. Rank have been used to determine the amounts of H_2O and CO_2 in the atmosphere of Mars: 14 ± 7 Ό precipitable water and 55 ± 20 m atm CO_2. From the absence of O_2 in the Martian spectra, we set an upper limit of 70 cm atm for the O_2 content.
By suitably combining the CO_2 amount with observations by Kuiper and Sinton of the strongly saturated bands in the 2-Ό. region, a surface pressure of 25 ± 15 mb has been derived.
The implications of the results on the composition of the Martian atmosphere are discussed
Unit Interval Editing is Fixed-Parameter Tractable
Given a graph~ and integers , , and~, the unit interval
editing problem asks whether can be transformed into a unit interval graph
by at most vertex deletions, edge deletions, and edge
additions. We give an algorithm solving this problem in time , where , and denote respectively
the numbers of vertices and edges of . Therefore, it is fixed-parameter
tractable parameterized by the total number of allowed operations.
Our algorithm implies the fixed-parameter tractability of the unit interval
edge deletion problem, for which we also present a more efficient algorithm
running in time . Another result is an -time algorithm for the unit interval vertex deletion problem,
significantly improving the algorithm of van 't Hof and Villanger, which runs
in time .Comment: An extended abstract of this paper has appeared in the proceedings of
ICALP 2015. Update: The proof of Lemma 4.2 has been completely rewritten; an
appendix is provided for a brief overview of related graph classe
Impossible worlds
Impossible worlds are representations of impossible things and impossible happenings. They earn their keep in a semantic or metaphysical theory if they do the right theoretical work for us. As it happens, a worlds-based account provides the best philosophical story about semantic content, knowledge and belief states, cognitive significance and cognitive information, and informative deductive reasoning. A worlds-based story may also provide the best semantics for counterfactuals. But to function well, all these accounts need use of impossible and as well as possible worlds. So what are impossible worlds? Graham Priest claims that any of the usual stories about possible worlds can be told about impossible worlds, too. But far from it. I'll argue that impossible worlds cannot be genuine worlds, of the kind proposed by Lewis, McDaniel or Yagisawa. Nor can they be ersatz worlds on the model proposed by Melia or Sider. Constructing impossible worlds, it turns out, requires novel metaphysical resources
Social determinants of content selection in the age of (mis)information
Despite the enthusiastic rhetoric about the so called \emph{collective
intelligence}, conspiracy theories -- e.g. global warming induced by chemtrails
or the link between vaccines and autism -- find on the Web a natural medium for
their dissemination. Users preferentially consume information according to
their system of beliefs and the strife within users of opposite narratives may
result in heated debates. In this work we provide a genuine example of
information consumption from a sample of 1.2 million of Facebook Italian users.
We show by means of a thorough quantitative analysis that information
supporting different worldviews -- i.e. scientific and conspiracist news -- are
consumed in a comparable way by their respective users. Moreover, we measure
the effect of the exposure to 4709 evidently false information (satirical
version of conspiracy theses) and to 4502 debunking memes (information aiming
at contrasting unsubstantiated rumors) of the most polarized users of
conspiracy claims. We find that either contrasting or teasing consumers of
conspiracy narratives increases their probability to interact again with
unsubstantiated rumors.Comment: misinformation, collective narratives, crowd dynamics, information
spreadin
Theories of Reference: What Was the Question?
The new theory of reference has won popularity. However, a number of noted philosophers have also attempted to reply to the critical arguments of Kripke and others, and aimed to vindicate the description theory of reference. Such responses are often based on ingenious novel kinds of descriptions, such as rigidified descriptions, causal descriptions, and metalinguistic descriptions. This prolonged debate raises the doubt whether different parties really have any shared understanding of what the central question of the philosophical theory of reference is: what is the main question to which descriptivism and the causal-historical theory have presented competing answers. One aim of the paper is to clarify this issue. The most influential objections to the new theory of reference are critically reviewed. Special attention is also paid to certain important later advances in the new theory of reference, due to Devitt and others
Rich Situated Attitudes
We outline a novel theory of natural language meaning, Rich
Situated Semantics [RSS], on which the content of sentential utterances
is semantically rich and informationally situated. In virtue of its situatedness,
an utteranceâs rich situated content varies with the informational
situation of the cognitive agent interpreting the utterance. In virtue of its
richness, this content contains information beyond the utteranceâs lexically
encoded information. The agent-dependence of rich situated content
solves a number of problems in semantics and the philosophy of language
(cf. [14, 20, 25]). In particular, since RSS varies the granularity of utterance
contents with the interpreting agentâs informational situation, it
solves the problem of finding suitably fine- or coarse-grained objects for
the content of propositional attitudes. In virtue of this variation, a layman
will reason with more propositions than an expert
Whoâs afraid of the predicate theory of names?
This essay is devoted to an analysis of the semantic significance of a fashionable view of proper names, the Predicate Theory of names (PT), typically developed in the direction of the Metalinguistic Theory of names (MT). According to MT, âsyntactic evidence supports the conclusion that a name such as âKennedyâ is analyzable in terms of the predicate (general term) âindividual named âKennedyââ. This analysis is in turn alleged to support a descriptivist treatment of proper names in designative position, presumably in contrast with theories of names as âdirectly referring rigid designatorsâ. The main aim of this essay is that of questioning the significance of PT and MT as theories of designation: even granting for the argumentâs sake that names are analyzable as (metalinguistic) predicates, their designative occurrences may be interpreted in consonance with the dictates of Direct Referenceâindeed, in consonance with the radically anti-descriptivist version of Direct Reference I call Millianism
The Sigma 13 (10-14) twin in alpha-Al2O3: A model for a general grain boundary
The atomistic structure and energetics of the Sigma 13 (10-14)[1-210]
symmetrical tilt grain boundary in alpha-Al2O3 are studied by first-principles
calculations based on the local-density-functional theory with a mixed-basis
pseudopotential method. Three configurations, stable with respect to
intergranular cleavage, are identified: one Al-terminated glide-mirror twin
boundary, and two O-terminated twin boundaries, with glide-mirror and two-fold
screw-rotation symmetries, respectively. Their relative energetics as a
function of axial grain separation are described, and the local electronic
structure and bonding are analysed. The Al-terminated variant is predicted to
be the most stable one, confirming previous empirical calculations, but in
contrast with high-resolution transmission electron microscopy observations on
high-purity diffusion-bonded bicrystals, which resulted in an O-terminated
structure.
An explanation of this discrepancy is proposed, based on the different
relative energetics of the internal interfaces with respect to the free
surfaces
The Cosmology of Composite Inelastic Dark Matter
Composite dark matter is a natural setting for implementing inelastic dark
matter - the O(100 keV) mass splitting arises from spin-spin interactions of
constituent fermions. In models where the constituents are charged under an
axial U(1) gauge symmetry that also couples to the Standard Model quarks, dark
matter scatters inelastically off Standard Model nuclei and can explain the
DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation signal. This article describes the early Universe
cosmology of a minimal implementation of a composite inelastic dark matter
model where the dark matter is a meson composed of a light and a heavy quark.
The synthesis of the constituent quarks into dark mesons and baryons results in
several qualitatively different configurations of the resulting dark matter
hadrons depending on the relative mass scales in the system.Comment: 31 pages, 4 figures; references added, typos correcte
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