Pragmatism, Pluralism, and the Burdens of Judgment

Robert Talisse and Scott Aikin have argued that substantive versions of value pluralism are incompatible with pragmatism, and that all such versions of pluralism must necessarily collapse into versions of strong metaphysical pluralism. They also argue that any strong version of value pluralism is incompatible with pragmatism’s meliorist commitment and will block the road of inquiry. I defend the compatibility of a version of value pluralism with pragmatism, and offer counterarguments to all of these claims

High velocity clouds in nearby disk galaxies

Clouds of neutral hydrogen in our galaxy with the absolute value of v greater than 100 km/s cover approximately 10 percent of the sky to a limiting column density of 1 x 10(exp 18) cm(exp -2). These high velocity clouds (HVCs) may dominate the kinetic energy of neutral hydrogen in non-circular motion, and are an important though poorly understood component of galactic gas. It has been suggested that the HVCs can be reproduced by a combination of three phenomena: a galactic fountain driven by disk supernovae which would account for most of the HVCs, material tidally torn from the Magellanic Clouds, and an outer arm complex which is associated with the large scale structure of the warped galactic disk. We sought to detect HVCs in external galaxies in order to test the galactic fountain model

An Approach to Onshore Facility Hazard Analysis

PresentationOnshore oil and gas operators face challenging cost efficiency targets while pressing for higher production volumes. Within this tension is a need to reduce planned facility foot prints while maintaining primary focus of personnel and environmental protection. This will be examined in this paper

Panel Discussion: Ethical Issues for Applications of Lucid Dreaming

A panel discussion featuring Joseph Dane, University of Virginia; P. Eric Craig, Center for Existential Studies and Human Services; Morton Schatzman, St. Thomas’ Hospital, London

A Study of Willingness to Participate in the Development of a Global Human Community

The need for the development of a global human community has been outlined in recent literature. This study examined the willingness of individuals to endorse and act upon values embodied in a global community. A sample of U.S. adults was asked to indicate commitment to values embodied in the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, through a formulated message. Participants were also asked of actions they can take to support these values, barriers to such action, and related questions. Results were looked at through different demographic and attitudinal factors. Over half of all participants, regardless of demographic group, were interested in making the commitment encapsulated in our message. There is a strong need to better understand and link actions to the development of a global human community. Better ways to connect people with others who can better support their actions are needed

Micro-resonator soliton generated directly with a diode laser

An external-cavity diode laser is reported with ultralow noise, high power coupled to a fiber, and fast tunability. These characteristics enable the generation of an optical frequency comb in a silica micro-resonator with a single-soliton state. Neither an optical modulator nor an amplifier was used in the experiment. This demonstration greatly simplifies the soliton generation setup and represents a significant step forward to a fully integrated soliton comb system.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

The Purdue Mechanics Freeform Classroom: A New Approach to Engineering Mechanics Education

The [REMOVED] Mechanics Freeform Classroom: A New Approach to Engineering Mechanics EducationMotivated by the need to address the broad spectrum of learning styles embraced by today’sengineering students, a desire to encourage active, peer-to-peer, and self-learning, and a goal ofinteracting with every student despite ever-expanding enrollments, the mechanics faculty at[REMOVED] University have developed the [REMOVED] Mechanics Freeform Classroom(PMFC) -- a new approach to engineering mechanics education. This complete, yet evolving,course system seeks to combine the more successful elements of the traditional classroom, withnew hybrid textbooks, extensive multimedia content, and web2.0 interactive technologies tocreate linked physical and virtual learning environments that not only appeal to students, butmarkedly improve the students’ technical competency in foundational engineering technicalareas.Though some elements of the PMFC have been in development for more than five years, thecurrent amalgamation of educational tools has been implemented for only six semesters. Thisincarnation consists of four core elements: Hybrid Textbooks/Lecture Notes – A key component of the PMFC experience is the hybrid textbook/lecture notes sets, dubbed “lecturebooks”. These hybrid texts are designed to concisely present the students with pertinent background information, highlight fundamental engineering principles and optimal problem solving techniques, and provide an extensive array of practical and relevant examples. The hybrid nature of the document stems from the notion that most factual information is provided in full, while brief and extended examples are provided with ample white space, allowing the student to actively work the problem, with the instructor’s assistance, within a lecture environment. Course Blog – The connective tissue of the PMFC experience is a highly-interactive course blog, which serves as a repository for course information and multimedia and, more importantly, a venue for peer-to-peer and student-to-instructor virtual interaction. Multimedia Content – Though blog-enabled peer-to-peer and student-to-instructor interactions lead to significant out-of-classroom learning, these features are buttressed in the PMFC by a wide array of multimedia content, designed specifically for self-paced factual delivery, and ultimately self-learning. The cornerstone of this multimedia content is the more than 400 instructor-produced videos, which highlight, in a step-by-step fashion, the problem solving approaches required for all of the course’s homework problems and lecture examples, and numerous internally-produced technical videos that relate various course topics to real-world events and engineering systems. Lecture – The most traditional component of the PMFC experience is the classroom lecture. Though lecture format and style can vary dramatically from instructor to instructor, the PMFC model encourages a strong emphasis on engineering fundamentals, highly-interactive and open-ended technical discussions, classroom demonstrations, and the inclusion of extended examples or case studies that parallel world events and/or technical situations that arise in students’ lives.Given this framework, the present work specifically seeks to describe the development andevolution of the [REMOVED] Mechanics Freeform Classroom and its constituent components.Complementing this will be a discussion of preliminary assessment, both formal and anecdotal innature. The results of this assessment not only highlight the group-level efficacy of the approach(as captured through student failure and withdrawal metrics, amongst pertinent others), but alsohighlight improvements in student satisfaction and course perception. Finally, in light of theirimportance in the presence of sustainable curricular change, issues associated with faculty buy-inand material adoption will also be discussed

Kepler-445, Kepler-446 And The Occurrence Of Compact Multiples Orbiting Mid-M Dwarf Stars

We confirm and characterize the exoplanetary systems Kepler-445 and Kepler-446: two mid-M dwarf stars, each with multiple, small, short-period transiting planets. Kepler-445 is a metal-rich ([ Fe/H] = + 0.25 0.10) M4 dwarf with three transiting planets, and Kepler-446 is a metal-poor ([ Fe/H] = -0.30 0.10) M4 dwarf also with three transiting planets. Kepler-445c is similar toGJ 1214b: both in planetary radius and the properties of the host star. The Kepler-446 system is similar to the Kepler-42 system: both are metal-poor with large galactic space velocities and three short-period, likely rocky transiting planets that were initially assigned erroneously large planet-to-star radius ratios. We independently determined stellar parameters from spectroscopy and searched for and fitted the transit light curves for the planets, imposing a strict prior on stellar density in order to remove correlations between the fitted impact parameter and planet-to-star radius ratio for short-duration transits. Combining Kepler-445, Kepler-446, and Kepler-42, and isolating all mid-M dwarf stars observed by Kepler with the precision necessary to detect similar systems, we calculate that 21+ 7 -5 % of mid-M dwarf stars host compact multiples ( multiple planets with periods of less than 10 days) for a wide range of metallicities. We suggest that the inferred planet masses for these systems support highly efficient accretion of protoplanetary disk metals by mid-M dwarf protoplanets.NSF DGE1144152, AST-1005313NASA NAS5-26555NASA Office of Space Science NNX13AC07GAstronom