Cognitive Enhancement: Treating or Cheating?

In this article I provide an overview of the moral and medical questions surrounding the use of cognitive enhancers. This discussion will be framed in light of 4 key considerations: (1) is there a difference between therapy and enhancement? (2) How safe are these interventions? (3) Is the use of nootropics cheating? (4) Would enhancers create a further divide of social inequality where only the very wealthy have access to them

Renormalization group analysis of turbulence

The objective is to understand and extend a recent theory of turbulence based on dynamic renormalization group (RNG) techniques. The application of RNG methods to hydrodynamic turbulence was explored most extensively by Yakhot and Orszag (1986). An eddy viscosity was calculated which was consistent with the Kolmogorov inertial range by systematic elimination of the small scales in the flow. Further, assumed smallness of the nonlinear terms in the redefined equations for the large scales results in predictions for important flow constants such as the Kolmogorov constant. It is emphasized that no adjustable parameters are needed. The parameterization of the small scales in a self-consistent manner has important implications for sub-grid modeling

Local and Nonlocal Dispersive Turbulence

We consider the evolution of a family of 2D dispersive turbulence models. The members of this family involve the nonlinear advection of a dynamically active scalar field, the locality of the streamfunction-scalar relation is denoted by $\alpha$, with smaller $\alpha$ implying increased locality. The dispersive nature arises via a linear term whose strength is characterized by a parameter $\epsilon$. Setting $0 < \epsilon \le 1$, we investigate the interplay of advection and dispersion for differing degrees of locality. Specifically, we study the forward (inverse) transfer of enstrophy (energy) under large-scale (small-scale) random forcing. Straightforward arguments suggest that for small $\alpha$ the scalar field should consist of progressively larger eddies, while for large $\alpha$ the scalar field is expected to have a filamentary structure resulting from a stretch and fold mechanism. Confirming this, we proceed to forced/dissipative dispersive numerical experiments under weakly non-local to local conditions. For $\epsilon \sim 1$, there is quantitative agreement between non-dispersive estimates and observed slopes in the inverse energy transfer regime. On the other hand, forward enstrophy transfer regime always yields slopes that are significantly steeper than the corresponding non-dispersive estimate. Additional simulations show the scaling in the inverse regime to be sensitive to the strength of the dispersive term : specifically, as $\epsilon$ decreases, the inertial-range shortens and we also observe that the slope of the power-law decreases. On the other hand, for the same range of $\epsilon$ values, the forward regime scaling is fairly universal.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures. Significantly revised with additional result

Growth or decline in the Church of England during the decade of Evangelism: did the Churchmanship of the Bishop matter?

The Decade of Evangelism occupied the attention of the Church of England throughout the 1990s. The present study employs the statistics routinely published by the Church of England in order to assess two matters: the extent to which these statistics suggest that the 43 individual dioceses finished the decade in a stronger or weaker position than they had entered it and the extent to which, according to these statistics, the performance of dioceses led by bishops shaped in the Evangelical tradition differed from the performance of dioceses led by bishops shaped in the Catholic tradition. The data demonstrated that the majority of dioceses were performing less effectively at the end of the decade than at the beginning, in terms of a range of membership statistics, and that the rate of decline varied considerably from one diocese to another. The only exception to the trend was provided by the diocese of London, which experienced some growth. The data also demonstrated that little depended on the churchmanship of the diocesan bishop in shaping diocesan outcomes on the performance indicators employed in the study

Welsh language adaptation of the short-form Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised (JEPQR-S)

A sample of 780 pupils attending year four, five, and six classes in Welsh medium primary schools completed a Welsh translation of the short-form Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised. The findings support the satisfactory nature of the psychometric properties of the three ten-item scales designed to measure extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism, together with the ten-item lie scale