Life, Logic, and the Pursuit of Purity

In the *Science of Logic*, Hegel states unequivocally that the category of “life” is a strictly logical, or pure, form of thinking. His treatment of actual life – i.e., that which empirically constitutes nature – arises first in his *Philosophy of Nature* when the logic is applied under the conditions of space and time. Nevertheless, many commentators find Hegel’s development of this category as a purely logical one especially difficult to accept. Indeed, they find this development only comprehensible as long as one simultaneously assumes that Hegel breaks his promise to let the logic do the leading. However, if Hegel were to in fact allow the logical development to be led by biological analogies at this point, problems would ensue. Not only would it contradict his own speculative method, which should secure the necessity of the categories, but it would also endanger the ontological generality of the category of life itself. Beyond undermining his method and the logical integrity of the category, however, I will argue that such a reading makes the transition to the next category of “cognition” unintelligible and problematic. My aim in the first part of this paper is to argue how logical life can be read as a pure category. I then argue in the second part how my reconstruction makes the transition to cognition intelligible without resorting to profane or supernatural interpretations

A Simple Bayesian Method for Improved Analysis of Quasi-2D Scattering Data

A new method is presented for the analysis of small angle neutron scattering data from quasi-2D systems such as flux lattices, Skyrmion lattices, and aligned liquid crystals. A significant increase in signal to noise ratio, and a natural application of the Lorentz factor can be achieved by taking advantage of the knowledge that all relevant scattering is centered on a plane in reciprocal space. The Bayesian form ensures that missing information is treated in a controlled way and can be subsequently included in the analysis. A simple algorithm based on Gaussian probability assumptions is provided which provides very satisfactory results. Finally, it is argued that a generalised model-independent Bayesian data analysis method would be highly advantageous for the processing of neutron and x-ray scattering data

Skeptical Scrutiny Of Plenary Power: Judicial and Executive Branch Decision Making in Miller v Albright

In 1996, just a few months after the United States successfully urged the Supreme Court in United States v. Virginia to invalidate as sex-discriminatory the male-only admissions policy at the Virginia Military Institute, the District of Columbia Circuit in Miller v. Albright upheld a federal law that used an express, sex-based distinction. Section 309(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) makes it harder for male U.S. citizens than for female citizens to convey their citizenship to their children if those children were born abroad out of wedlock and the other parent was not a U.S. citizen. Notwithstanding the United States\u27 position in Virginia that sex-based classifications are virtually always unconstitutional, the government defended Section 309(a) in the Supreme Court. As the government saw it, Miller involved a claim by an alien abroad, so the Constitution did not apply or, at most, the Court should review the claim with extraordinary deference to the political branches. If deferential review applied, rather than Virginia\u27s skeptical scrutiny, the government believed that the Court should uphold the statute. When review was granted, the case seemed to present an opportunity for the Court to revisit the larger issue it had addressed two decades earlier in Fiallo v Bell: how to reconcile heightened, “skeptical” scrutiny of sex-based classifications with diminished scrutiny of immigration and naturalization measures in a case that seemed to call for both. The Court in Fiallo had sustained a sex-based classification in an INA provision closely analogous to Section 309(a), but dealing with eligibility for permanent resident status rather than citizenship. Fiallo treated Congress\u27s plenary power over immigration as categorically trumping the otherwise heightened level of scrutiny applicable to sex-based classifications. But virtually the entire body of modern constitutional law on sex discrimination developed after Fiallo. The Court decided Fiallo in 1977, close on the heels of its 1976 decision in Craig v Boren, the first case in which it applied intermediate constitutional scrutiny to a sex-based classification. The two ensuing decades of sex discrimination decisions strengthened and clarified the equal protection standard. The court of appeals in Miller had upheld the statute under Fiallo over a dissent arguing that the Supreme Court should reconsider Fiallo in light of the intervening sex discrimination jurisprudence. The government\u27s brief in opposition to certiorari characterized Miller as squarely governed by Fiallo, so the Supreme Court\u27s decision to grant review so soon after Virginia suggested that Fiallo might be headed for the dustbin. Instead, the Court issued a decision on nonjusticiability grounds that was so fractured and narrow as to seem almost meaningless. But there is, on closer examination, much that is surprising and significant about Miller. The case provides an opportunity for re-examining the nature and justifications for the plenary power doctrine. The authors begin by analyzing Section 309(a) and explaining why they believe those Justices who concluded that the statute unconstitutionally discriminates based on sex are clearly right. They argue that judicial deference under the plenary power doctrine is an institutionally rather than substantively based doctrine. The authors then look at Miller\u27s implications for the future of the plenary power doctrine. Finally, they discuss the implications for government lawyers of our sex discrimination and plenary power analyses. That discussion has two parts: First, the authors argue that the underenforced-norms reading of the plenary power cases suggests that the political branches should not use deferential, rational-basis review in conducting their own constitutional review of immigration, nationality, or citizenship measures, but should apply full-fledged constitutional norms. Second, they argue that, after Miller, the courts lack adequate justifications for the plenary power doctrine—at least in the absence of a new, substantive rationale for diminished protection of individual rights—in jus sanguinis citizenship cases like Miller, and, indeed, lack grounds for relying on it in immigration and nationality cases generally

Pinpointing the massive black hole in the Galactic Center with gravitationally lensed stars

A new statistical method for pinpointing the massive black hole (BH) in the Galactic Center on the IR grid is presented and applied to astrometric IR observations of stars close to the BH. This is of interest for measuring the IR emission from the BH, in order to constrain accretion models; for solving the orbits of stars near the BH, in order to measure the BH mass and to search for general relativistic effects; and for detecting the fluctuations of the BH away from the dynamical center of the stellar cluster, in order to study the stellar potential. The BH lies on the line connecting the two images of any background source it gravitationally lenses, and so the intersection of these lines fixes its position. A combined search for a lensing signal and for the BH shows that the most likely point of intersection coincides with the center of acceleration of stars orbiting the BH. This statistical detection of lensing by the BH has a random probability of ~0.01. It can be verified by deep IR stellar spectroscopy, which will determine whether the most likely lensed image pair candidates (listed here) have identical spectra.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to ApJ

General Conditions for Lepton Flavour Violation at Tree- and 1-Loop Level

In this work, we compile the necessary and sufficient conditions a theory has to fulfill in order to ensure general lepton flavour conservation, in the spirit of the Glashow-Weinberg criteria for the absence of flavour-changing neutral currents. At tree-level, interactions involving electrically neutral and doubly charged bosons are investigated. We also investigate flavour changes at 1-loop level. In all cases we find that the essential theoretical requirements can be reduced to a few basic conditions on the particle content and the coupling matrices. For 1-loop diagrams, we also investigate how exactly a GIM-suppression can occur that will strongly reduce the rates of lepton flavour violating effects even if they are in principle present in a certain theory. In all chapters, we apply our criteria to several models which can in general induce lepton flavour violation, e.g. LR-symmetric models or the MSSM. In the end we give a summarizing table of the obtained results, thereby demonstrating the applicability of our criteria to a large class of models beyond the Standard Model.Comment: 31 pages, 2 figure

Trust, control, interactionand performancein IJVs: A taxonomy of German-Chinese Joint Ventures

Control and trust are recurring themes in the analysis of the management of International Joint Ventures (IJVs). Both issues (and their antecedents) have been analysed in isolation and in their relation with performance, though hardly any study exists which analyses them simultaneously in their interdependence. More importantly however, there are few, if any, studies that have empirically tested the existence and nature of the mechanisms that are assumed to link control and trust to performance. It is the purpose of this paper to empirically investigate these mechanisms in view of the interaction processes taking place between the JV partners. Analysing the interaction processes in the context of control, trust and performance is expected to provide a better understanding of the relationship between control, trust and performance. To this aim a concept of inter-firm interaction in IJVs is proposed. The empirical basis for this study consists of data gathered through a questionnaire survey among German and Chinese General Managers of German-Chinese Joint Ventures (GCJVs) in the People?s Republic of China carried out in 2000/01. Using Cluster-Analysis two JV types are derived, which allow for some first yet tentative inferences to be made regarding the complex interplay between control, trust, performance, and interaction in GCJVs. --Joint Venture,China,empirical study,trust,control