Organisms and Objectifications: A Historical-Materialist Inquiry into the “Human and Animal”

In order to respond to the problem addressed by this volume, I must reformulate its title, “Defining the Human and Animal”, by replacing the conjunctive 'and' with 'as'. Because this essay is based on the not too far-fetched assumption that Homo sapiens is an animal species, it addresses the question of defining the human as animal. To do so, it takes its cue from an offhand, never systematically elaborated statement by Karl Marx that, by taking the body seriously, situates human beings in the animal world, namely: “The first fact to be established for historical theory is human corporeal organization” (and fully in keeping with Marx’s—and Darwin’s—logic, that the same is true for the history of all species). The way in which any organism, humans included, negotiates, inhabits, and transforms its world is inextricably linked to its corporeal organization. Accordingly, rather than attempt to define the human and animal, my concern is with the question of the relation between an organism’s corporeal organization and the history of its ‘objectifications’, that is, how each organism, Homo sapiens included, makes worlds in its own bodily image. This historical-materialist inquiry into the ‘Human as Animal’ will therefore be developed in two parts. This essay will first outline historical materialism as a corporeal turn by situating it in relation to the mainstream of the Western philosophical tradition and to Darwin’s materialist conception of natural history. Then, through an elaboration of the concept of Vergegenständlichung/objectification, it will consider history as world-making – a labor common to all organisms, but certainly unique in Homo sapiens

HAZMAT VI: The Evolution of Extreme Ultraviolet Radiation Emitted from Early M Star

Quantifying the evolution of stellar extreme ultraviolet (EUV, 100 -- 1000 $\overset{\circ}{A}$) emission is critical for assessing the evolution of planetary atmospheres and the habitability of M dwarf systems. Previous studies from the HAbitable Zones and M dwarf Activity across Time (HAZMAT) program showed the far- and near-UV (FUV, NUV) emission from M stars at various stages of a stellar lifetime through photometric measurements from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX). The results revealed increased levels of short-wavelength emission that remain elevated for hundreds of millions of years. The trend for EUV flux as a function of age could not be determined empirically because absorption by the interstellar medium prevents access to the EUV wavelengths for the vast majority of stars. In this paper, we model the evolution of EUV flux from early M stars to address this observational gap. We present synthetic spectra spanning EUV to infrared wavelengths of 0.4 $\pm$ 0.05 M$_{\odot}$ stars at five distinct ages between 10 and 5000 Myr, computed with the PHOENIX atmosphere code and guided by the GALEX photometry. We model a range of EUV fluxes spanning two orders of magnitude, consistent with the observed spread in X-ray, FUV, and NUV flux at each epoch. Our results show that the stellar EUV emission from young M stars is 100 times stronger than field age M stars, and decreases as t$^{-1}$ after remaining constant for a few hundred million years. This decline stems from changes in the chromospheric temperature structure, which steadily shifts outward with time. Our models reconstruct the full spectrally and temporally resolved history of an M star's UV radiation, including the unobservable EUV radiation, which drives planetary atmospheric escape, directly impacting a planet's potential for habitability.Comment: 23 pages, 15 figures, accepted to Ap

The Last of the Finite Loop Amplitudes in QCD

We use on-shell recursion relations to determine the one-loop QCD scattering amplitudes with a massless external quark pair and an arbitrary number (n-2) of positive-helicity gluons. These amplitudes are the last of the unknown infrared- and ultraviolet-finite loop amplitudes of QCD. The recursion relations are similar to ones applied at tree level, but contain new non-trivial features corresponding to poles present for complex momentum arguments but absent for real momenta. We present the relations and the compact solutions to them, valid for all n. We also present compact forms for the previously-computed one-loop n-gluon amplitudes with a single negative helicity and the rest positive helicity.Comment: 45 pages, revtex, 7 figures, v2 minor correction

One-Loop n-Point Helicity Amplitudes in (Self-Dual) Gravity

We present an ansatz for all one-loop amplitudes in pure Einstein gravity for which the n external gravitons have the same outgoing helicity. These loop amplitudes, which are rational functions of the momenta, also arise in the quantization of self-dual gravity in four-dimensional Minkowski space. Our ansatz agrees with explicit computations via D-dimensional unitarity cuts for n less than or equal to 6. It also has the expected analytic behavior, for all n, as a graviton becomes soft, and as two momenta become collinear. The gravity results are closely related to analogous amplitudes in (self-dual) Yang-Mills theory.Comment: Latex2e, 13 pages with 2 encapsulated figures. Minor corrections mad

Scaling ansatz, four zero Yukawa textures and large θ13\theta_{13}

We investigate 'Scaling ansatz' in the neutrino sector within the framework of type I seesaw mechanism with diagonal charged lepton and right handed Majorana neutrino mass matrices ($M_R$). We also assume four zero texture of Dirac neutrino mass matrices ($m_D$) which severely constrain the phenomenological outcomes of such scheme. Scaling ansatz and the present neutrino data allow only Six such matrices out of 126 four zero Yukawa matrices. In this scheme, in order to generate large $\theta_{13}$ we break scaling ansatz in $m_D$ through a perturbation parameter and we also show our breaking scheme is radiatively stable. We further investigate CP violation and baryogenesis via leptogenesis in those surviving textures.Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Traditional society in north west Fiji and its political development : constructing a history through the use of oral and written accounts, archaeological and linguistic evidence

The first aim of my research project is to determine from oral accounts I recorded over a period of some fifty years, how Fijians especially in western areas of Fiji currently understand and explain (a) the origins, characteristics, development and interactions of the social and political divisions of late pre-colonial traditional Fijian society, and (b) the general principles of traditional land tenure. The second aim is to assess the reasoning, consistency and, where possible, the historical accuracy of such understandings. The period on which my project concentrates is the two centuries or so immediately prior to Cession. Under the Deed of Cession a number of the major chiefs of Fiji had offered to cede Fiji to Queen Victoria; and after the offer had been accepted, Fiji became a British Crown Colony on lOth October 1874. The traditional Fijian society and system of land tenure with which the project is particularly concerned is referred to in this dissertation as "pre-colonial" or "pre-Cession" Fijian society. For the sake of chronological convenience, pre-colonial Fijian society has been divided into "late prehistoric" and "protohistoric" periods. "Proto-historic" refers to the century ending at Cession in 187 4 and beginning with the arrival of the first outsiders to have significant interaction with Fijians. Other studies of Fijian traditional social structure have generally concentrated on areas in the eastern parts of Viti Levu and in other parts of Fiji to the east of the main island (the so-called Na Tu i Cake). Partly for this reason and partly because I have been familiar with the area since 1951, my investigations culminating in this dissertation have concentrated on the relatively little known west (the Yasayasa vakaRa). It is hoped that the outcome of my project will now enable people to endorse the more easily the line with which I introduce Chapter 1, "But westward look, the land is bright." Research into pre-colonial Fijian society began incidentally when I was an officer of the Colonial Service in the Fiji District Administration and in the Fijian Administration in the 1950s and 1960s. My experience and general investigations while a member of these two Administrations served as a background to my later formal research conducted directly in relation to this project. When I returned to carry out the latter research in the 1990s, I endeavoured to operate through both these Administrations as well as through the currently recognised socio-political units or polities

Clause structure in Fijian

Fiji is a group of islands lying to the west of the New Hebrides, the Solomons and other Melanesian areas, and to the east of Tonga and other Polynesian areas. The island of Rotuma , to which mention is made later in this introduction, lies to the north of the group. Although regarded as part of Fiji since it was ceded to the British Crown in 1881, Rotuma has its own distinct language and people. Fiji is called 'Viti' by the Fijians who refer to themselves as 'iTaukei' or owners. Fiji had been a British Crown Colony since 1876, and it retained this status during most of the period while field work for this study was being carried out. In then became an independent Dominion within the Commonwealth as from 10 October 1970

Broadband impedance-matched electromagnetic structured ferrite composite in the megahertz range

Copyright © 2014 AIP PublishingA high refractive-index structured ferrite composite is designed to experimentally demonstrate broadband impedance matching to free-space. It consists of an array of ferrite cubes that are anisotropically spaced, thereby allowing for independent control of the effective complex permeability and permittivity. Despite having a refractive index of 9.5, the array gives less than 1% reflection and over 90% transmission of normally incident radiation up to 70 MHz for one of the orthogonal linear polarisations lying in a symmetry plane of the array. This result presents a route to the design of MHz-frequency ferrite composites with bespoke electromagnetic parameters for antenna miniaturisation.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)DSTLQUEST programm