The 'Parekh Report' - national identities with nations and nationalism

‘Multiculturalists’ often advocate national identities. Yet few study the ways in which ‘multiculturalists’ do so and in this article I will help to fill this gap. I will show that the Commission for Multi-Ethnic Britain’s report reflects a previously unnoticed way of thinking about the nature and worth of national identities that the Commission’s chair, and prominent political theorist, Bhikhu Parekh, had been developing since the 1970s. This way of thinking will be shown to avoid the questionable ways in which conservative and liberal nationalists discuss the nature and worth of national identities while offering an alternative way to do so. I will thus show that a report that was once criticised for the way it discussed national identities reflects how ‘multiculturalists’ think about national identities in a distinct and valuable way that has gone unrecognised

Deccan volcanism and K-T boundary signatures

The Deccan Traps in the Indian subcontinent represent one of the most extensive flood basalt provinces in the world. These basalts occur mainly as flat-lying, subaerially erupted tholeiitic lava flows, some of which are traceable for distances of more than 100 km. Offshore drilling and geophysical surveys indicate that a part of the Deccan subsided or was downfaulted to the west beneath the Arabian Sea. The presence of 1 to 5 m thick intertrappean sediments deposited by lakes and rivers indicates periods of quiescence between eruptions. The occurrence of numerous red bole beds among the flows suggests intense weathering of flow tops between eruptive intervals. Although the causative relationship of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) biotic extinctions to Deccan volcanism is debatable, the fact that the main Deccan eruptions straddle the K-T event appears beyond doubt from the recent Ar-40/Ar-39 ages of various Deccan flows. This temporal relationship of the K-T event with Deccan volcanism makes the petrochemical signatures of the entire Deccan sequence (basalt flows, intercalated intertrappean sediments, infratrappean Lameta beds (with dinosaur fossils), and the bole beds) pertinent to studies of the K-T event. The results of ongoing study is presented

A hot X-ray filament associated with A3017 galaxy cluster

Recent simulations and observations have shown large scale filaments in the cosmic web connecting nodes, with accreting materials (baryonic and dark matter) flowing through them. Current high sensitivity observations also show that the propagation of shocks through filaments can heat them up, and make filaments visible between two or more galaxy clusters or around massive clusters, based on optical and/or X-ray observations. We are reporting here the special case of the cluster A3017 associated with a hot filament. The temperature of the filament is 3.4$^{-0.77}_{+1.30}$ ~keV and its length is $\sim$ 1 Mpc. We have analysed its archival {\it Chandra} data and report various properties. We also analysed GMRT 235/610 MHz radio data. Radio observations have revealed symmetric two-sided lobes which fill cavities in the A3017 cluster core region, associated with central AGN. In the radio map, we also noticed a peculiar linear vertical radio structure in the X-ray filament region which might be associated with a cosmic filament shock. This radio structure could be a radio phoenix or old plasma where an old relativistic population is re-accelerated by shock propagation. Finally we put an upper limit on the radio luminosity of the filament region

Synthesis and Characterization of Pharmacologically Active Compounds

Not availabl

When Nice Guys Finish First: The Evolution of Cooperation, The Study of Law, and the Ordering of Legal Regimes

This Note adds to the scholarship in the area of Evolutionary Analysis and the Law (EA). EA is a paradigm that comments on the implications of evolution on the law. EA recognizes that many complex human behaviors that the law seeks to regulate have evolutionary origins that remain relevant today. This Note details how an understanding of the evolutionary basis of cooperation can bring about favorable revisions and reforms in the law. Following a review of the scientific foundation of EA, this Note sets forth the proposition that humans have an evolutionarily developed tendency to cooperate, an idea that contrasts the widely held belief that the evolutionary man is purely self-interested. This Note does, however, observe that the tendency to cooperate is not expressed at all times. This Note then explores the implications of EA on other areas of legal scholarship, such as behavioral law and economics, default rules in partnership law, and efficient mechanisms of trade. This Note concludes by addressing the concerns of EA critics and mapping a path for the future of EA

Theorizing Behavioral Law and Economics: A Defense of Evolutionary Analysis and the Law

Behavioral law and economics (BLE) provides a steady stream of empirical evidence that counters the predictions of law and economics. Despite this research and data, however, many theorists argue that BLE ultimately fails because it posits no underlying theory. This Note argues that perspectives from evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, and the brain sciences can provide the missing motivational theory for BLE\u27s empirical findings. The Note also examines the implications a more consistent and reasoned consideration of evolutionary analysis and the law (EA) has for our legal regime. In theorizing BLE and defending EA, this Note aims to show how evolutionary analysis can supplant law and economics in those instances where the latter\u27s predictions prove false and its incentive structure fails to motivate behavior

On the strength of columns

The main object of these experiments was to determine how columns behave before collapse under axial loading. The original title of the research was "An investigation into the factors determining the strength of built-up steel struts". The title had to be amended as the testing machines necessitated the use of "model" sections.In mathematical investigations the columns considered are taken as ideal, and therefore materially different from actual columns. To some extent this difference could be attributed to the difference between theoretical assumed conditions of elasticity and those found in actual metals as manufactured. A more important cause of the difference is the varying nature of the end conditions employed. The results of the accurate researches of such men as Tetmajer, Hodgkinson, Christie and Howard, who brought with them not only ripe experience but careful and clear methods of experimenting are a testimony to the difficulty of reconciling theory and experiment.In the enthusiasm generated more than 150 years ago by the work of Euler, mathematical formulae were established with the purpose of making allowance for the imperfections existing in a practical column. So far a 3 the author is aware the subject has been treated only mathematically and no one has approached it experimentally, except to determine the effects of the direct eccentricity of loading. Despite the many minute mathematical investigations made, the comparative accuracy and even the validity of them is still doubtful. The a uthor’s discussions on the "Imperfection tests" show that the only variant of noteworthy consequence is the eccentricity of loading: the other imperfections, unless of a critical magnitude, having practically negligible effects on the ultimate strength of a column.Among the most notable features of the au t h o r ’s work could be considered the collective view of the stress-strain diagrams, thejintroduction of the virtual coefficients of elasticity, the definite divisions of the column graph, quantitative data about "permanent set", "imperfection tests" and the method for the adequate allowance in area due to rivet holes in a built-up piece.The bending formulae determined for long columns represent more accurately most of the experimental results. The yield range,- represented by a straight line law,- has not been definitely formulated. This is due to the fact that the exact values of the critical compressive and the tensile stress determining the range were not known with sufficient accuracy for the materials used by the earlier experimenters. No one, except Robertson, has carried out crushing tests with a view to determine the exact compressive stress-strain relations. It can be stated that the yield range will be represented by an equation of the formp = A + B - Cx2/k , where A - a constant depending on the material. B = a constant depending on the end conditions, C =a reducing factor depending on the end conditions.The behaviour of built-up columns has been the subject of world-wide discussion. The author’s views regarding the "non-homogeneous" action of the columns and the reduction in area for rivet holes are fully described in this Thesis.Though the present investigations embrace only a’”limited part of the vast field of experimental columns, the author feels that similar methods applied to full-sized sections will give results of value to the practical designer. A programme of column tests should include not only tension tests but also crushing tests with a view to determine the primary stress-strain relations. More "rivetreduction" experiments are needed to test the conclusions arrived at for the adequate allowance in area due to rivet holes

Optimizing Natural Walking Usage in VR using Redirected Teleportation

Virtual Reality (VR) has come a long way since its inception and with the recent advancements in technology, high end VR headsets are now commercially available. Although these headsets offer full motion tracking capabilities, locomotion in VR is yet to be fully solved due to space constraints, potential VR sickness and problems with retaining immersion. Teleportation is the most popular locomotion technique in VR as it allows users to safely navigate beyond the confines of the available positional tracking space without inducing VR sickness. It has been argued that the use of teleportation doesn’t facilitate the use of natural walking input which is considered to have a higher presence because teleportation is faster, requires little physical effort and uses limited available tracking space. When a user walks to the edge of the tracking space, he/she must switch to teleportation. When navigating in the same direction, available walking space does not increase, which forces users to remain stationary and continue using teleportation. We present redirected teleportation, a novel locomotion method that increases tracking space usage and natural walking input by subtle reorientation and repositioning of the user. We first analyzed the positional tendencies of the users as they played popular games implementing teleportation and found the utilization of the tracking space to be limited. We then compared redirected teleportation with regular teleportation using a navigation task in three different environments. Analysis of our data show that although redirected walking takes more time, users used significantly fewer teleports and more natural walking input while using more of the available tracking space. The increase in time is largely due to users walking more, which takes more time than using teleportation. Our results provide evidence that redirected teleportation may be a viable approach to increase the usage of natural walking input while decreasing the dependency on teleportation

Learning Latent Representations to Co-Adapt to Humans

When robots interact with humans in homes, roads, or factories the human's behavior often changes in response to the robot. Non-stationary humans are challenging for robot learners: actions the robot has learned to coordinate with the original human may fail after the human adapts to the robot. In this paper we introduce an algorithmic formalism that enables robots (i.e., ego agents) to co-adapt alongside dynamic humans (i.e., other agents) using only the robot's low-level states, actions, and rewards. A core challenge is that humans not only react to the robot's behavior, but the way in which humans react inevitably changes both over time and between users. To deal with this challenge, our insight is that -- instead of building an exact model of the human -- robots can learn and reason over high-level representations of the human's policy and policy dynamics. Applying this insight we develop RILI: Robustly Influencing Latent Intent. RILI first embeds low-level robot observations into predictions of the human's latent strategy and strategy dynamics. Next, RILI harnesses these predictions to select actions that influence the adaptive human towards advantageous, high reward behaviors over repeated interactions. We demonstrate that -- given RILI's measured performance with users sampled from an underlying distribution -- we can probabilistically bound RILI's expected performance across new humans sampled from the same distribution. Our simulated experiments compare RILI to state-of-the-art representation and reinforcement learning baselines, and show that RILI better learns to coordinate with imperfect, noisy, and time-varying agents. Finally, we conduct two user studies where RILI co-adapts alongside actual humans in a game of tag and a tower-building task. See videos of our user studies here: https://youtu.be/WYGO5amDXb

Study of the 93-Nb + 7-Li Reactions with Application to Double Charge Exchange and Possible Production of New Neutron-Rich Nuclei

Supported by the National Science Foundation and Indiana Universit