Seneca’s philosophical predecessors and contemporaries

This new and important introduction to Seneca provides a systematic and concise presentation of this author’s philosophical works and his tragedies. It provides handbook style surveys of each genuine or attributed work, giving dates and brief descriptions, and taking into account the most important philosophical and philological issues. In addition, they provide accounts of the major steps in the history of their later influence. The cultural background of the texts and the most important problem areas within the philosophic and tragic corpus of Seneca are dealt with in separate essays

Is God a mindless vegetable? Cudworth on stoic theolog

In the late sixteenth century a number of influential writers claimed Stoicism to be compatible with Christianity but by the mid eighteenth century, Stoicism had come to be associated with atheism. What happened during the course of the reception of Stoicism in the intervening period? While it remains unclear who was the first person to call the Stoics atheists, there is no doubt that the most philosophically sustained analysis of Stoic theology during this period is to be found in Ralph Cudworth's True Intellectual System of the Universe, published in 1678. Cudworth's aim in this work is to catalogue and then attack all existing forms of atheism and one of the four principal forms of atheism he identifies he calls ‘Stoical’. However, in Cudworth's complex taxonomy of different forms of theism and atheism, Stoicism appears twice, first as a form of atheism but also as a form of imperfect theism. The aim of this study is to examine Cudworth's claims about Stoic theology, assessing their fairness, but also placing them within the wider context of the early modern reception of Stoicism

Microstructure modelling of hot deformation of Al–1%Mg alloy

This study presents the application of the finite elementmethod and intelligent systems techniques to the prediction of microstructural mapping for aluminium alloys. Here, the material within each finite element is defined using a hybrid model. The hybrid model is based on neuro-fuzzy and physically based components and it has been combined with the finite element technique. The model simulates the evolution of the internal state variables (i.e. dislocation density, subgrain size and subgrain boundary misorientation) and their effect on the recrystallisation behaviour of the stock. This paper presents the theory behind the model development, the integration between the numerical techniques, and the application of the technique to a hot rolling operation using aluminium, 1 wt% magnesium alloy. Furthermore, experimental data from plane strain compression (PSC) tests and rolling are used to validate the modelling outcome. The results show that the recrystallisation kinetics agree well with the experimental results for different annealing times. This hybrid approach has proved to be more accurate than conventional methods using empirical equations

Methods of Tail Dependence Estimation

Characterization and quantification of climate extremes and their dependencies are fundamental to the studying of natural hazards. This chapter reviews various parametric and nonparametric tail dependence coefficient estimators. The tail dependence coefficient describes the dependence (degree of association) between concurrent extremes at different locations. Accurate and reliable knowledge of the spatial characteristics of extremes can help improve the existing methods of modeling the occurrence probabilities of extreme events. This chapter will review these methods and use two case studies to demonstrate the application of tail dependence analysis

Hegelian Spirits in Sellarsian Bottles

Though Wilfrid Sellars portrayed himself as a latter-day Kantian, I argue here that he was at least as much a Hegelian. Several themes Sellars shares with Hegel are investigated: the sociality and normativity of the intentional, categorial change, the rejection of the given, and especially their denial of an unknowable thing-in-itself. They are also united by an emphasis on the unity of things—the belief that things do ‘‘hang together.’’ Hegel’s unity is idealist; Sellars’ is physicalist; the differences are substantial, but so are the resonances

New approach for modelling strain induced precipitation of Nb(C,N) in HSLA steels during multipass hot deformation in austenite

A new model for strain induced precipitation of Nb(C,N) is developed from the existing model for single pass hot deformation. This new model can be extended to multipass deformation to explain the microstructural evolution during the hot deformation of Nb supersaturated high strength low alloy (HSLA) steels. The key feature of this model is the microband geometry employed, which leads to determination of the local solute concentration at microbands, and hence the potential for carbonitride precipitation on the microbands. The model also validates the need for concurrent growth and coarsening processes, even at the early stages of precipitation. The evolution of the precipitate radius, number density and volume fraction are compared with the experimental results obtained from thin foil TEM micrographs on Fe-30 wt-%Ni alloys ( that are austenitic at room temperature and are similar to HSLA steels in deformation behaviour) subjected to deformation by plane strain compression. The model predictions are in good agreement with experimental results

Dynamic decoherence control of a solid-state nuclear-quadrupole qubit

We report on the application of a dynamic decoherence control pulse sequence on a nuclear-quadrupole transition in Pr3+∶Y2SiO5. Process tomography is used to analyze the effect of the pulse sequence. The pulse sequence was found to increase the decoherence time of the transition to over 30 seconds. Although the decoherence time was significantly increased, the population terms were found to rapidly decay on the application of the pulse sequence. The increase of this decay rate is attributed to inhomogeneity in the ensemble. Methods to circumvent this limit are discussed

Experimental demonstration of quantum state tomography and qubit-qubit interactions for rare-earth-ion based solid state qubits

We report on the implementation of quantum state tomography for an ensemble of Eu$^{3+}$ dopant ions in a \YSO crystal. The tomography was applied to a qubit based on one of the ion's optical transitions. The qubit was manipulated using optical pulses and measurements were made by observing the optical free induction in a phase sensitive manner. Fidelities of $>90$% for the combined preparation and measurement process were achieved. Interactions between the ions due to the change in the ions' permanent electric dipole moment when excited optically were also measured. In light of these results, the ability to do multi-qubit quantum computation using this system is discussed

Evolutionary computing for metals properties modelling

This is a post print version of the article, the official published version can be obtained from the link below.During the last decade Genetic Programming (GP) has emerged as an efficient methodology for teaching computers how to program themselves. This paper presents research work which utilizes GP for developing mathematical equations for the response surfaces that have been generated using hybrid modelling techniques for predicting the properties of materials under hot deformation. Collected data from the literature and experimental work on aluminium are utilized as the initial training data for the GP to develop the mathematical models under different deformation conditions and compositions.Financial support from the UK EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) under grant number GR/R70514/01 was used in this study