Ethics and the Awareness of Complex Individuals: Reflections on Adolf Eichmann and Oskar Schindler

Like many philosophers who favor Aristotelian virtue ethics over more legalistic and impersonal theories like those of Kant and Mill, I claim that ethics is more a matter of cultivating the right character than of living by a set of rules based on abstract principles. True to this stance, I present a certain attitude toward others as crucial to living well. This attitude involves cultivating a powerful awareness of the intricate complexity of other people and a deep appreciation of the value of such complex beings. Also with this attitude comes a sense of relation and community inspired by our understanding that other human beings, like us, as isolated within their own perspective. In support of these views, I examine the lives of two men, Adolf Eichmann and Oskar Schindler, who help reveal the importance of this attitude and the moral tendencies it inspires

Extremizers for Adjoint Restriction to a Pair of Reflected Paraboloids

We consider the adjoint restriction inequality associated to the hypersurface $\{(\tau, \xi) : \tau = \pm|\xi|^2, \;\xi \in \mathbb{R}^d\}$ at the Stein-Tomas exponent. Extremizers exist in all dimensions and extremizing sequences are precompact modulo symmetries conditional on a certain inequality, which we verify in the case $d \in \{1,2\}$

Extremizers for Adjoint Restriction to Pairs of Translated Paraboloids

Consider the adjoint restriction inequality associated with the hypersurface $\{ (\tau, \xi) \in \mathbb{R}^{d+1} : \tau = |\xi|^2 \} \cup \{(\tau, \xi) \in \mathbb{R}^{d+1} : \tau - \tau_0 = |\xi - \xi_0|^2\}$ for any $(\tau_0, \xi_0) \neq 0$. We prove that extremizers do not exist for this inequality and fully characterize extremizing sequences in terms of extremizers for the adjoint restriction inequality for the paraboloid

Development and application of mass-spectrometric methods for the quantification and characterization of organic compounds in ice cores

Eisbohrkerne stellen wertvolle Klimaarchive dar, da sie atmosphärisches Aerosol konservieren. Die Analyse chemischer Verbindungen als Bestandteil atmosphärischer Aerosole in Eisbohrkernen liefert wichtige Informationen über Umweltbedingungen und Klima der Vergangenheit. Zur Untersuchung der α-Dicarbonyle Glyoxal und Methylglyoxal in Eis- und Schneeproben wurde eine neue, sensitive Methode entwickelt, die die Stir Bar Sorptive Extraction (SBSE) mit der Hochleistungsflüssigchromatographie-Massenspektrometrie (HPLC-MS) kombiniert. Zur Analyse von Dicarbonsäuren in Eisbohrkernen wurde eine weitere Methode entwickelt, bei der die Festphasenextraktion mit starkem Anionenaustauscher zum Einsatz kommt. Die Methode erlaubt die Quantifizierung aliphatischer Dicarbonsäuren (â ¥ C6), einschließlich Pinsäure, sowie aromatischer Carbonsäuren (wie Phthalsäure und Vanillinsäure), wodurch die Bestimmung wichtiger Markerverbindungen für biogene und anthropogene Quellen ermöglicht wurde. Mit Hilfe der entwickelten Methoden wurde ein Eisbohrkern aus den Schweizer Alpen analysiert. Die ermittelten Konzentrationsverläufe der Analyten umfassen die Zeitspanne von 1942 bis 1993. Mittels einer Korrelations- und Hauptkomponentenanalyse konnte gezeigt werden, dass die organischen Verbindungen im Eis hauptsächlich durch Waldbrände und durch vom Menschen verursachte Schadstoffemissionen beeinflusst werden. Im Gegensatz dazu sind die Konzentrationsverläufe einiger Analyten auf den Mineralstaubtransport auf den Gletscher zurückzuführen. Zusätzlich wurde ein Screening der Eisbohrkernproben mittels ultrahochauflösender Massenspektrometrie durchgeführt. Zum ersten Mal wurden in diesem Rahmen auch Organosulfate und Nitrooxyorganosulfate in einem Eisbohrkern identifiziert.Ice cores are valuable climate archives, preserving atmospheric aerosols. Hence, the analysis of aerosol-related chemical compounds in ice provides information on past environmental and climatic conditions. In order to investigate the α-dicarbonyls glyoxal and methylglyoxal in ice cores, a new sensitive method using stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) and high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) was developed. A second method employing solid phase extraction with strong anion exchange was developed for the analysis of dicarboxylic acids, thus enabling the determination of important biogenic, anthropogenic, and biomass burning marker compounds. Concentration records of α-dicarbonyls and (di)carboxylic acids were obtained by applying both methods to a glacier ice core from the Swiss Alps, covering the time period of 1942 to 1993. A correlation and principal component analysis of the resulting concentration data revealed biomass burning and anthropogenic emissions to be the main parameters influencing the concentration of organic compounds present in the ice. In contrast to this observation, the records of some analytes were affected by changing mineral dust transport to the drilling site. Additionally, a non-target screening of the ice samples was performed using ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry. For the first time, organosulfates and nitrooxy organosulfates were detected in ice core samples

Existence and smoothness of extremizers for convolution with compactly supported measures

In this article, we establish various facts about extremizers for $L^p$-improving convolution operators $T\colon L^p \rightarrow L^q$ associated with compactly-supported probability measures on either $\mathbb{R}^d$ or $\mathbb{T}^d$ . If $\sigma$ has positive Fourier decay, we prove that extremizers exist and extremizing sequences are precompact modulo translation for all "non-endpoint" $(p,q)$. These extremizers also satisfy an interesting positivity property and belong to $C_{loc}^\infty \cap L^\infty$

Releases of hazardous materials and waste from transportation incidents in the US: an analysis to increase environmental resiliency

Excessive amounts of hazardous materials and waste are released into the environment from transportation incidents. The United States federal government has regulations on the movement of hazardous material and waste during transportation, but preventing environmental releases is not a major priority. Multiple external factors influence the release of hazardous material and waste into the environment. Transportation incidents can be prevented by modifying the information collected in emergency reports, adjusting transportation patterns and conditions, and expressing negative environmental impacts, preparing responder efforts to communicate effectively. The components of previous hazardous materials and waste releases emphasize the needed improvements for increasing environmental resiliency through a SWOT analysis, GIS, and descriptive statistical analysis. These interfaces were utilized to focus on the initial stages of the emergency response process, identify frequent locations of hazardous releases from transportation incidents, and highlight the most susceptible environments. It was discovered that agencies’ reporting documentation lacked environmentally conscious sections to reflect the transportation incidents, structural reinforcements and designated routes should be implemented to reduce transportation incidents, and a standardized categorization must be established to communicate the movement of the most commonly released hazardous material and waste. Limiting releases of hazardous materials and wastes will increase environmental resiliency from transportation incidents overall, but requires federal intervention in each stage to decrease susceptibility and vulnerability of hazardous releases and limit the stress anthropogenic behaviors impose on the environment

Surface Mesh Generation based on Imprinting of S-T Edge Patches

AbstractOne of the most robust and widely used algorithms for all-hexahedral meshes is the sweeping algorithm. However, for multi- sweeping, the most difficult problems are the surface matching and interval assignment for edges on the source and target surfaces. In this paper, a new method to generate surface meshes by imprinting edge patches between the source and target surfaces is proposed. The edge patch imprinting is based on a cage-based morphing of edge patches on the different sweeping layers where deformed and undeformed cages are extracted by propagating edge patches on the linking surfaces. The imprinting results in that the source or target surfaces will be partitioned with the imprinted edge patches. After partitioning, every new source surface should be matched to a new specific target surface where surface mesh projection from one-to-one sweeping based on harmonic mapping[19] can be applied. In addition, 3D edge patches are projected onto 2D computational domains where every sweeping level is planar in order to increase the robustness of imprinting. Finally, the algorithm time complexity is discussed and examples are provided to verify the robustness of our proposed algorithm

Generating Unstructured Nuclear Reactor Core Meshes in Parallel

AbstractRecent advances in supercomputers and parallel solver techniques have enabled users to run large simulations problems using millions of processors. Techniques for multiphysics nuclear reactor core simulations are under active development in several countries. Most of these techniques require large unstructured meshes that can be hard to generate in a standalone desktop computers because of high memory requirements, limited processing power, and other complexities. We have previously reported on a hierarchical lattice-based approach for generating reactor core meshes. Here, we describe efforts to exploit coarse-grained parallelism during reactor assembly and reactor core mesh generation processes. We highlight several reactor core examples including a very high temperature reactor, a full-core model of the Korean MONJU reactor, a ¼ pressurized water reactor core, the fast reactor Experimental Breeder Reactor-II core with a XX09 assembly, and an advanced breeder test reactor core. The times required to generate large mesh models, along with speedups obtained from running these problems in parallel, are reported. A graphical user interface to the tools described here has also been developed

Comparison of Sexual Risk Behaviors Between Junior Male and Female Students at Pierz High School

The purpose of the study was to conduct a secondary analysis of Minnesota Student Survey data to compare selected sexual risk behavior of male and female eleventh grade students at Pierz High School. The secondary analysis revealed that the males and females are not significantly different with respect to the selected sexual risk behaviors. The conclusion can be reached that there is no need to tailor the sexual health instruction to students based on gender

Der Design-Analyzer - decision support im Designprozeß

Die Entwicklung moderner Industrieprodukte erfordert schon in der Designphase viele frühzeitige Entscheidungen mit weitreichenden Konsequenzen. Verschiedenartige Informationsquellen wie fachspezifische Informationssysteme, Fachexperten und die Anforderungsliste des Kunden stellen sowohl die notwendigen Daten als auch die Bewertungsgrundlage für eine optimale Designentscheidung bereit. Die Arbeit stellt einen Ansatz zur Unterstützung der Auswahl eines besten Konstruktionsvorschlags unter Berücksichtigung der verschiedenen Informationsquellen vor. Die Formalisierung der Produktanforderungen stützt sich auf Methoden des Maschinenbaus. Alle kompetenten Experten und relevanten Daten werden in einer Mehr-Kriterien-Gruppenentscheidung integriert. Der Entscheidungsalgorithmus basiert auf einer Nutzwertanalyse aus der klassischen Entscheidungstheorie. Die Implementation des DESIGN-ANALYZERS orientiert sich an der Dreiteilung von entscheidungsunterstützenden Systemen nach dem DDM-Paradigma.Modern industrial product development necessitates already during the design phase lots of early decisions with farreaching consequences. Various information resources like domain specific information systems, technical experts, and customer\u27s product requirements contribute both the necessary data and the valuation background for the optimal design. This document presents a basic approach to support the selection of a best design suggestion using the different information resources. The formalization of the product requirements is based on engineering methods. All competent experts and all relevant data are integrated in a multi-criteria multi-participants decision. The decision algorithm is based on an utility analysis taken from classical decision theory. The implementation of the DESIGN-ANALYZER follows the trisection of decision support systems according to the DDM-Paradigma