The making of Wallace’s Everything and More: an interview with Erica Neely

Of all the works by celebrated author David Foster Wallace, his ‘popular mathematics’ book on Georg Cantor is by far the most neglected. Everything and More: A compact history of Infinity has proven difficult to reconcile with both Wallace’s fiction and non-fiction alike. This interview article aims to shed some light on the nature and construction of Everything and More. First introducing the book in context by reconstructing from Wallace’s personal letters its production, it then benefits from the unique insight of Wallace’s technical adviser on the project, mathematician-turned-philosopher Erica Neely. Over the course of the interview, Wallace’s motivations as well as his research and compositional strategy are exposed as Neely reflects on her time working with the author. This unique exposition and reflection paves the way for future dialogue about Everything and More that we may fully appreciate and understand this complex ‘oddity’ at the centre Wallace’s oeuvre

Extracting Superproperty Candidates Using Vector Embeddings

Hierarchical relationships between attributes in knowledge representation can have a number of benefits such as automatic alignment of attributes of differing semantic granularity, simultaneous assertion of semantically equivalent properties defined on different levels of a semantic hierarchy, etc. Many knowledge representation systems lack systematic hierarchical alignment of attributes. Since there are few existing sources of such inventories, there exists a bootstrapping problem for superproperty curation. Given the large number of pre-existing properties that can exist in a knowledge graph, it is difficult for human curators to evaluate all of the possible pairings of properties that may potentially represent a superproperty relationship. This disclosure describes a human-in-the-loop machine learning approach to seed a pre-existing collection of knowledge representation schema with superproperty relations.[1] [1] All authors have contributed equally

Making Time For Space At Çatalhöyük: GIS as a tool for exploring intra-site spatiotemporality within complex stratigraphic sequences

This thesis explores the inherent temporality embedded within the complex stratigraphic sequence of the ‘tell’ site of Çatalhöyük, an important Anatolian Neolithic settlement situated upon the Konya Plain, South-Central Turkey. Recently the Çatalhöyük Research Project has digitized all of its single context excavation data, fully integrating their digital archive within an intra-site GIS, as an aid to analysis and interpretation. This process of digitisation excludes the Harris matrix, which, despite being integral to the recording system, and the main source of relative temporal data for the development of the site, remains an analogue mode of analysis. This research digitally visualises the stratigraphic sequence, both dynamically and intuitively (moving beyond conventional archaeological methods of phasing and periodisation), utilising the temporal capabilities of ArcGIS 10 to generate robust and dynamic intra-site spatiotemporal models. By focusing upon two case studies as a ‘proof-of-method’ (a ‘typical’ sequence of two fully excavated superjacent buildings – Buildings 65 and 56, and one unusually large and well preserved burnt building – Building 77), the experimental appending of stratigraphically-based temporal data onto the spatial component of an excavation dataset within a GIS, and subsequent analysis of associated material culture within its spatiotemporal context, has proved an innovative way to articulate and visualise the site’s space through time. This represents a transparent, repeatable and critical approach to post-excavation analysis, using current computing technologies. Focusing upon integrated spatiotemporal analysis of excavation data and associated material culture within these models also facilitates greater understanding of the relationship between space and time in archaeology within the data structure of primary recording in archaeological excavations. The resultant spatiotemporal animations combine this data as a new type of ‘visual narrative’ that may help illustrate the social meaning of these structures, potentially telling the bigger story of the site within its wider context of the Anatolian Neolithic

Strategy and its discontents: the place of strategy in national policymaking

This paper presents a collection of views about the definition, role, purpose and health of strategic policymaking. Introduction One of the liveliest debates to have taken place on ASPI’s blog, The Strategist, concerned the place of strategy in Canberra’s policymaking community. It seems that there’s little consensus around what strategy’s core business should be, let alone who should practice it and whether indeed enough strategy is being done by DFAT, Defence or other parts of government. The 11 short pieces printed here by eight authors with quite diverse perspectives span a broad range of views about the definition, role, purpose and health of strategic policymaking. There’s no more important debate in public policy than on the place of strategy in meeting complex national challenges. This paper hopefully will encourage a more structured debate about strategy’s place at the heart of national policymaking

Dehydrative etherification reactions of glycerol with alcohols catalyzed by recyclable nanoporous aluminosilicates: telescoped routes to glyceryl ethers

Catalytic strategies for the efficient transformation of abundant sustainable bioderived molecules, such as glycerol, into higher value more useful products is an important research goal. In this study, we demonstrate that atom efficient dehydrative etherification reactions of glycerol with activated alcohols are effectively catalyzed by nanoporous aluminosilicate materials in dimethylcarbonate (DMC) to produce the corresponding 1-substituted glyceryl ethers in high yield. By carrying out the reaction in acetone, it is possible to capitalize on the ability of these materials to catalyze the corresponding acetalization reaction, allowing for the development of novel, telescoped acetalization-dehydrative etherification reaction sequences to selectively produce protected solketal derivatives. These materials also catalyze the telescoped reaction of glycerol with <i>tert</i>-butanol (TBA) in acetone to produce the corresponding solketal mono <i>tert</i>-butyl ether product in high yield, providing a potential route to convert glycerol directly into a useful and sustainable fuel additive

Drawing and Knowledge Construction in Archaeology: The Aide Mémoire Project

The Aide Mémoire Project conducted a survey and a series of observational studies in field recording and artifact illustration to understand 1) the perception of digital and by-hand drawing in archaeology, 2) how drawing contributes to the creation of mental models that allow archaeologists to understand archaeological remains and artifacts, and 3) what impact digital drawing has on the creation of these mental models. Our toolkit includes the NASA Task Load Index to assess and compare the mental load while drawing digitally or by-hand. We conclude that there are significant pedagogical, academic, and professional implications to consider when removing or replacing by-hand drawing with digital recording in archaeological methodology

The effect of sodium species on methanol synthesis and water-gas shift Cu/ZnO catalysts: utilising high purity zincian georgeite

The effect of sodium species on the physical and catalytic properties of Cu/ZnO catalysts derived from zincian georgeite has been investigated. Catalysts prepared with <100 ppm to 2.1 wt% Na+, using a supercritical CO2 antisolvent technique, were characterised and tested for the low temperature water–gas shift reaction and also CO2 hydrogenation to methanol. It was found that zincian georgeite catalyst precursor stability was dependent on the Na+ concentration, with the 2.1 wt% Na+-containing sample uncontrollably ageing to malachite and sodium zinc carbonate. Samples with lower Na+ contents (<100–2500 ppm) remained as the amorphous zincian georgeite phase, which on calcination and reduction resulted in similar CuO/Cu particle sizes and Cu surface areas. The aged 2.1 wt% Na+ containing sample, after calcination and reduction, was found to comprise of larger CuO crystallites and a lower Cu surface area. However, calcination of the high Na+ sample immediately after precipitation (before ageing) resulted in a comparable CuO/Cu particle size to the lower (<100–2500 ppm) Na+ containing samples, but with a lower Cu surface area, which indicates that Na+ species block Cu sites. Activity of the catalysts for the water–gas shift reaction and methanol yields in the methanol synthesis reaction correlated with Na+ content, suggesting that Na+ directly poisons the catalyst. In situ XRD analysis showed that the ZnO crystallite size and consequently Cu crystallite size increased dramatically in the presence of water in a syn-gas reaction mixture, showing that stabilisation of nanocrystalline ZnO is required. Sodium species have a moderate effect on ZnO and Cu crystallite growth rate, with lower Na+ content resulting in slightly reduced rates of growth under reaction conditions

Supercritical antisolvent precipitation of amorphous copper–zinc georgeite and acetate precursors for the preparation of ambient‐pressure water‐gas‐shift copper/zinc oxide catalysts

A series of copper-zinc acetate and zincian georgeite precursors have been produced by supercritical CO2 anti-solvent (SAS) precipitation as precursors to Cu/ZnO catalysts for the water gas shift (WGS) reaction. The amorphous materials were prepared by varying the water/ethanol volumetric ratio in the initial metal acetate solutions. Water addition promoted georgeite formation at the expense of mixed metal acetates, which are formed in the absence of the water co-solvent. Optimum SAS precipitation occurs without water to give high surface areas, whilst a high water content gives inferior surface areas and copper-zinc segregation. Calcination of the acetates is exothermic, producing a mixture of metal oxides with high crystallinity. However, thermal decomposition of zincian georgeite resulted in highly dispersed CuO and ZnO crystallites with poor structural order. The georgeite-derived catalysts give superior WGS performance in comparison to the acetate-derived catalysts, which is attributed to enhanced copper-zinc interactions that originate from the precursor