Kantian Philosophy and ‘Linguistic Kantianism’

The expression “linguistic Kantianism” is widely used to refer to ideas about thought and cognition being determined by language — a conception characteristic of 20th century analytic philosophy. In this article, I conduct a comparative analysis of Kant’s philosophy and views falling under the umbrella expression “linguistic Kantianism.” First, I show that “linguistic Kantianism” usually presupposes a relativistic conception that is alien to Kant’s philosophy. Second, I analyse Kant’s treatment of linguistic determinism and the place of his ideas in the 18th century intellectual milieu and provide an overview of relevant contemporary literature. Third, I show that authentic Kantianism and “linguistic Kantianism” belong to two different types of transcendentalism, to which I respectively refer as the “transcendentalism of the subject” and the “transcendentalism of the medium.” The transcendentalism of the subject assigns a central role to the faculties of the cognising subject. The transcendentalism of the medium assigns the role of an “active” element neither to the external world nor to the faculties of the cognising subject, but to something in between — language, in the case of “linguistic Kantianism.” I conclude that the expression “linguistic Kantianism” can be misleading when it comes to the origins of this theory. It would be more appropriate to refer to this theory by the expression “linguistic transcendentalism,” thus avoiding an incorrect reference to Kant

Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter, Matter-Antimatter Separation, and the QCD Phase Transition

The Universe may contain sufficiently small size matter-antimatter domains at temperatures of a few hundred MeV, without violating the success of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. We demonstrate that this possibility enhances the keV scale sterile neutrino production and may lead to its abundance consistent with the observable energy density of dark matter (DM). We suggest that the separation of matter and antimatter, creating temporarily macroscopic domains occupied by hadronic matter and quark-gluon plasma with an excess of baryons over anti-baryons and vice versa largely exceeding the average baryon and lepton asymmetries of the Universe, may appear because of the first-order QCD phase transition. Although the lattice studies provided a piece of evidence in favour of a smooth crossover between the hadronic and quark-gluon phases at high temperatures and zero chemical potential for baryonic number, we argue that these simulations might not rule out relatively weekly first-order phase transition. We discuss several scenarios of matter-antimatter separation at the QCD phase transition and the production of DM sterile neutrinos in each of them. One of the possibilities requires the presence of lepton asymmetry of the Universe, which can be smaller than that needed for the DM correct abundance in the homogeneous case.Comment: 38 pages, 6 figure

Control Synthesis for Marine Vessels in Case of Limited Disturbances

In view of rapid development of computer technology digital systems of automatic control are installed on the modern marine vessels for performance of various manoeuvres at optimal trajectories taking into account features of the ship and active disturbances. In this connection, great number of problems that deal with construction of automatic control systems, such as minimizing the fulfillment time of the maneuver, searching for the optimal trajectory, the suppression of various types of exogenous disturbances like wind and rough sea, arises. In the work, the problem of suppression of exogenous disturbances acting on a marine vessel, about which we have no information except its boundedness, is considered. The problem of searching of the controller as a static state feedback is the basis of offered approach. The system MATLAB-Simulink is accepted as the basic tool of the computer support. An example of modeling control system for the carrier is presented

The applicability of Raman spectroscopy for estimation of interfaces thickness in the AlN/GaN superlattices

AbstractPolar optical phonons in quaternary nitride-based superlattices have been investigated in the framework of the dielectric continuum model. In the considered systems, the superlattice period consisted of two main GaN and AlN layers and two interstitial Al0.5Ga0.5N layers. Such a structure simulates binary superlattices with diffuse interfaces. The presence of the finite thickness interface layers was shown to give rise to appearance of several low-intensity additional phonon modes active in Raman scattering; frequency splitting of such modes is sensitive to relative thickness of intermediate layers. The fundamental Raman-intense polar phonon modes were also stated to be independent on the interface thickness, and these modes were very sensitive to the main layer thicknesses

Essays on Residential Sorting, School Quality, Crime, and Income Mobility

This dissertation is composed of three chapters. The first chapter demonstrates that local improvements in school quality and crime are not always beneficial to the households that reside there, once equilibrium effects are taken into account. The model of residential location choice presented here takes into account the endogenous adjustments of neighborhood composition, housing prices, school quality and crime. The estimation uses data from the American Community Survey and detailed data on local school quality and crime in the greater San Francisco area for the years 2009-2013. Results show that household sorting reinforces exogenous improvements in school quality and crime and that the effects of these improvements can be detrimental to the residents. Lower-income, less educated households are particularly likely to be adversely affected. The second chapter provides estimates of the relationship between school quality and student body composition, taking into account the selection of students into different schools. The model of residential location choice presented in this chapter shows how characteristics of nearby locations can be used to control for household residential location decisions. The two-step estimation procedure uses data from the California Department of Education on the academic performance of California Schools for 2011 and the American Community Survey data on the characteristics of residential locations. The results show significant differences between the effects of student body composition on students of different races, and at worst- and best-performing schools. The third chapter presents estimates of the distribution of intergenerational income mobility and local characteristics in the United States. The flexible characterization of the distribution takes into account potentially different effects of local characteristics at different locations in the distribution. The data cover most counties in the United States and include demographic, social and economic variables. Results show that while measures of segregation and inequality are highly correlated with income mobility, their effects become negligible when other variables are controlled for. In contrast, economic variables, such as the size of the middle class and the share of workers in manufacturing, have a stronger effect on income mobility, even after other location characteristics are taken into account