Defense of Rawls: Response to Brock

Cosmopolitans like Gillian Brock, Charles Beitz, and Thomas Pogge argue that the principles of justice selected and arranged in lexical priority in Rawls’ first original position would—and should for the same reasons as in the first—also be selected in the second original position. After all, the argument goes, what reasons other than morally arbitrary ones do we have for selecting a second set of principles? A different, though undoubtedly related, point of contention is the cosmopolitan charge (most famously, made by Pogge) that Rawls fails to consider the unfavorable conditions that owe themselves to global factors. Perhaps there was a time when interconnectedness and interdependency between states was not a factor; but in the current global order, this certainly is not the case. While this paper will address other related cosmopolitan concerns mentioned in Brock’s work, it is these two points that are perhaps the two biggest threats to the Rawlsian project and, as such, it is these two points that will be the primary focus of this paper

Marxism and psychoanalysis

https://stars.library.ucf.edu/prism/1582/thumbnail.jp

Scattering of non-uniform incident fields by long cylinders

Copyright University of BremenWe investigate experimentally far-field scattering from cylinders with illumination non-uniform along the axis of the cylinder. Scattered intensity as a function of angle in two orthogonal directions is examined. Variation along the scattering angle is found to be little affected by the illumination profile. However, variation in the transverse direction follows closely the Fourier transform of the illumination pattern and reproduces the angular distribution of the incident wave. These finding apply to circular as well as hexagonal cross-section cylinders

Cloud chamber laboratory investigations into scattering properties of hollow ice particles

Copyright 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.This is an open access article under the CC-BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Date of Acceptance: 16/02/2015Measurements are presented of the phase function, P11, and asymmetry parameter, g, of five ice clouds created in a laboratory cloud chamber. At −7 °C, two clouds were created: one comprised entirely of solid columns, and one comprised entirely of hollow columns. Similarly at −15 °C, two clouds were created: one consisting of solid plates and one consisting of hollow plates. At −30 °C, only hollow particles could be created within the constraints of the experiment. The resulting cloud at −30 °C contained short hollow columns and thick hollow plates. During the course of each experiment, the cloud properties were monitored using a Cloud Particle Imager (CPI). In addition to this, ice crystal replicas were created using formvar resin. By examining the replicas under an optical microscope, two different internal structures were identified. The internal and external facets were measured and used to create geometric particle models with realistic internal structures. Theoretical results were calculated using both Ray Tracing (RT) and Ray Tracing with Diffraction on Facets (RTDF). Experimental and theoretical results are compared to assess the impact of internal structure on P11 and g and the applicability of RT and RTDF for hollow columns.Peer reviewe

Level of smartness and technology readiness of bicycle technologies affecting cycling safety: A review of literature

Unlike motor-vehicle transport, the implementation of lnformation and Communications Technologies (ICT) and Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) in cycling has not been comprehensively investigated [1]. Cycling offers several benefits both to society and the environment and is one of the most sustainable and green transportation modes [2]. Many people worldwide have been switching to bicycles during the last decades, and this has increased even more due to the Covid pandemic [3]. Furthermore, the number of people who ride an e-bike is also rising [ 4]. Thus, the number of cyclists is increasing and, in turn, the number of cycling accidents is increasing too. For instance, in the Netherlands, one of the most cycling-friendly countries, 31 % of all road fatalities in 2019 were cyclists (203 fatalities), while in 2020, it was 37% (229 fatalities). One-third of these fatalities were e-bike users [5]. Despite the constantly evolving landscape of cycling and electric bike adoption, applications of new technologies in bicycles are still immature. In recent years, academic research on new technologies related to cyclists' comfort and safety is growing [6, 7, 8]. Furthermore, many studies focus on technologies affecting cyclists' road safety; however, it is unclear what type of technologies are implemented for bicycles. To the best of the authors' knowledge, a comprehensive review of such studies is lacking. Additionally, a clear definition of a 'smart bike'- a concept gaining popularity nowadays, is missing in the literature. To address this gap, the objective of this paper is two fold: 1) to review the state-of-the-art technologies implemented in bicycles to improve cyclists' safety, and 2) to propose an original classification for the levels of smartness of newly emerging 'smart bikes'

A coupled cloud physics–radiation parameterization of the bulk optical properties of cirrus and its impact on the Met Office unified model global atmosphere 5.0 configuration

A new coupled cloud physics–radiation parameterization of the bulk optical properties of ice clouds is presented. The parameterization is consistent with assumptions in the cloud physics scheme regarding particle size distributions (PSDs) and mass–dimensional relationships. The parameterization is based on a weighted ice crystal habit mixture model, and its bulk optical properties are parameterized as simple functions of wavelength and ice water content (IWC). This approach directly couples IWC to the bulk optical properties, negating the need for diagnosed variables, such as the ice crystal effective dimension. The parameterization is implemented into the Met Office Unified Model Global Atmosphere 5.0 (GA5) configuration. The GA5 configuration is used to simulate the annual 20-yr shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) fluxes at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), as well as the temperature structure of the atmosphere, under various microphysical assumptions. The coupled parameterization is directly compared against the current operational radiation parameterization, while maintaining the same cloud physics assumptions. In this experiment, the impacts of the two parameterizations on the SW and LW radiative effects at TOA are also investigated and compared against observations. The 20-yr simulations are compared against the latest observations of the atmospheric temperature and radiative fluxes at TOA. The comparisons demonstrate that the choice of PSD and the assumed ice crystal shape distribution are as important as each other. Moreover, the consistent radiation parameterization removes a long-standing tropical troposphere cold temperature bias but slightly warms the southern midlatitudes by about 0.5 K