Salvaging Pascal’s Wager

Many think that Pascal’s Wager is a hopeless failure. A primary reason for this is because a number of challenging objections have been raised to the wager, including the “many gods” objection and the “mixed strategy” objection. We argue that both objections are formal, but not substantive, problems for the wager, and that they both fail for the same reason. We then respond to additional objections to the wager. We show how a version of Pascalian reasoning succeeds, giving us a reason to pay special attention to the infinite consequences of our actions

Transient Analysis for Music and Moving Images: Consideration for Television Advertising

In audiovisual composition, coupling montage moving images with music is common practice. Interpretation of the effect on an audioviewer's consequent interpretation of the composition is discursive and unquantified. Meth-odology for evaluating the audiovisual multimodal inter-activity is proposed, developing an analysis procedure via the study of modality interdependent transient structures, explained as forming the foundation of perception via the concept of Basic Exposure response to the stimulus. The research has implications for analysis of all audiovisual media, with practical implications in television advertis-ing as a discrete typology of target driven audiovisual presentation. Examples from contemporary advertising are used to explore typical transient interaction patterns and the consequences of which are discussed from the practical viewpoint of the audiovisual composer

Unique Quantum Stress Fields

We have recently developed a geometric formulation of the stress field for an interacting quantum system within the local density approximation (LDA) of density functional theory (DFT). We obtain a stress field which is invariant with respect to choice of energy density. In this paper, we explicitly demonstrate this uniqueness by deriving the stress field for different energy densities. We also explain why particular energy densities give expressions for the stress field that are more tractable than others, thereby lending themselves more easily to first-principles calculations.Comment: To appear in Proceedings for Fundamental Physics of Ferroelectrics (2001

Audiovisual synchrony: Cross-modal transient structure and tempo

What are the considerations of the composer when designing music to accompany a visual? Music is purposefully included within audiovisual products with considered reason; motivic, thematic, emotive, semantic or otherwise. Ultimately, music is employed to affect an audiovieweri, yet the consequences of this multi-modal interaction lacks clarity. Investigating cross-modal interaction at the level of basic exposure to audiovisual works provides a foundation in understanding the audioviewer's percept. The moving image and music are intrinsically temporal and consequently carry rhythmic potential. In the context of concurrent non-literal music (often referred to as ‘background’ or ‘non-digetic’ music) and moving images, our unified perception of the presentation is structured upon the interpretation of intrinsic audiovisual rhythms. Such rhythms are constructed via the periodic structure of transients within their individual modalities, and crucially cross-modally as auditory and visual transient patterns interact. Multimodal integration studies have shown that synchronous audiovisual stimuli will bind, creating a unified percept functioning to increase the 'transientness' of such events. Dynamic attending theory understands that attention is subject to internalised oscillations, following peaks and troughs to create an oscillation of attentional magnitude cycles. The potential for auditory rhythmic manipulation to influence the unified audiovisual percept is engaging

Production costs and net margins for Welsh organic milk, beef and lamb

In 2006, Organic Centre Wales continued to survey organic dairy, beef and sheep enterprises to establish benchmark production costs and net margins. This report compares the OCW results for 2004/5 and 2005/6 with results published by the Welsh Farm Business Survey (FBS, 2006, 2007)

Evaluating international economic policy with the Federal Reserve's global model

FRB/Global is a large-scale macroeconomic model developed and maintained by the Board's staff. This article provides a historical perspective on the development of the model, gives an overview of its structure, and highlights its dynamic properties with three simulation experiments: a reduction in U.S. government purchases; a depreciation of the U.S. dollar; and an increase in the price of oil exported by OPEC. The article illustrates other uses of FRB/Global by examining the spillover effects of fiscal and monetary policy under alternative European monetary policy regimes.Econometric models ; Economic policy

The Interface of Work to Family Conflict and Racioethnic Identification: An Analysis of Hispanic Business Professionals

This article examines work to family conflict for Hispanic Business Professionals with varied levels of Hispanic identity. Based on this study of 971 Hispanics from across the United States, results show that level of Hispanic identity moderates the relationship between work to family conflict and job satisfaction. The authors posit that identification with a culture of collectivism may attenuate the negative impact of work to family conflict on job satisfaction, enabling Hispanic professionals to view work as a way of supporting the family and contributing to the greater good of the groups to which they belong