Quantum Mechanics on Spacetime I: Spacetime State Realism

What ontology does realism about the quantum state suggest? The main extant view in contemporary philosophy of physics is wave-function realism. We elaborate the sense in which wave-function realism does provide an ontological picture; and defend it from certain objections that have been raised against it. However, there are good reasons to be dissatisfied with wave-function realism, as we go on to elaborate. This motivates the development of an opposing picture: what we call spacetime state realism; a view which takes the states associated to spacetime regions as fundamental. This approach enjoys a number of beneficial features, although, unlike wave-function realism, it involves non-separability at the level of fundamental ontology. We investigate the pros and cons of this non-separability, arguing that it is a quite acceptable feature; even one which proves fruitful in the context of relativistic covariance. A companion paper discusses the prospects for combining a spacetime-based ontology with separability, along lines suggested by Deutsch and HaydenComment: LaTeX; 29 pages, 1 Fig. Forthcoming in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Scienc

Aesthetic experience and action in participatory art.

The purpose of this study is to explore the diverse ways that aesthetic experience is tested by participatory art. The study will show the part played by participatory action in changing the conditions in which aesthetic experience arises. It will be confirmed that when the philosophy of action is taken into account then explanations of participatory art are enhanced. There are many descriptions of aesthetic experience and it is generally assumed to be a cornerstone in explanations of art. In one of the leading accounts aesthetic experience is associated with disinterested perceptions where the individual is free of any practical concern for the object of experience. In recent explanations of contemporary art there is less emphasis on aesthetic experience and there is a tendency to suggest that background knowledge and interpretation are equally as significant as perception in the experience of art. Participatory art is a category of art that explicitly demonstrates this state of affairs. In contemporary criticism participatory art is a term used to describe art that favours an audience composed of active contributors rather than detached viewers. These are artworks that encourage moments of engagement by an audience such as the moving of elements in the work or the movement of the participants body. It could be said that the observable actions of participants mediate between perception and knowledge in participatory art. Such work opens up a space where assumptions made about the experience of art can be challenged. The present study explores how aesthetic experience is affected by the introduction of human action in participatory art by exploring three exhibitions of participatory art at The Tate Modern, The Barbican and Dundee Contemporary Arts. In this study it is suggested that participation in such artwork may be a consequence of deliberation, spontaneity or may take place within a social group. Therefore the aesthetic experiences and actions that are identified in these artworks are examined from the standpoint of reason, the body and social convention through the respective adoption of analytical, phenomenological and institutional/sociological perspectives

Transformation Through Trust and Authenticity: Improving and Aligning Service Learning in an International Baccalaureate School

The International Baccalaureate’s Middle Years Programme places service learning at the core of its curriculum. Yet, challenges with implementing it successfully are omnipresent in international schools. This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) aims to support teachers with the implementation of service learning projects at a private, non-profit international school in Western Europe. It is guided and framed by a Problem of Practice (POP) that addresses the current state of service learning at Mountain Range School (MRS) where curriculum and independent service projects are inconsistently designed, implemented and supported. It includes an evaluation of school policies, curriculum, teacher capacity, resources and systems. The underlying leadership approaches to this OIP are authentic and transformational leadership. A consideration of the cultural and logistical aspects that are impacting the implementation of service learning is evaluated. A gap analysis is conducted between the current and future state of service that analyzes inputs, outputs, resources and materials. Four solutions are considered and evaluated against a cost-benefit criteria, resulting in a fifth hybrid solution that combines professional development support for teachers and curriculum implementation strategies. A change path model (CPM) is used to outline the proposed changes and the plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle is used to monitor change. The communication and tracking of change is aligned with authentic, transformational leadership approaches that leverage the ethos of service through human interactions that emphasize dialogic, cyclical growth in order to institutionalize change and ultimately improve the program’s effectiveness to impact change in the local community

What’s Driving Food Prices in 2011?

Agricultural Finance, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

The Low Energy Phenomenology of a Dark Force

This thesis investigates an area of beyond the Standard Model (BSM) phenomenology associated with the presence of additional light, “weakly interacting slim particles” (WISPs). Particular attention is given to the hidden photon, the gauge boson associated with an additional U(1) gauge group that mixes kinetically with hypercharge. The theoretical foundation of the interactions studied lies in effective field theory, and the first part of the thesis investigates a so-far untested aspect of effective theories, namely effective non-locality in particle propagation. There are no observable effects of hidden photons if they are massless. We investigate the impact on experimental signatures in the case that the hidden photon gets its mass during compactification from a higher dimensional theory. WISPs make good dark matter candidates, and are especially compelling in light of the lack of observation of heavy WIMP (“weakly interacting massive particle”) dark matter. Nonetheless, it is shown that if WIMP dark matter is composed of a Dirac fermion that couples to the SM only through a pseudoscalar, indirect detection may be our only experimental window, and that it may already be appearing as a gamma ray excess at the Galactic Centre. There is considerable interest in dark matter searches at beam dump facilities, in particular for light dark matter coupled through a similarly light mediator particle. We investigate this set up in the context of the E613 beam dump experiment. Owing to the light mediator, the low-Q^2 kinematic region of deep inelastic scattering is especially important. We present a new treatment of dark particle scattering in this region via a light vector mediator (such as a hidden photon), and find that it enhances constraints

Non-locality and gauge freedom in Deutsch and Hayden's formulation of quantum mechanics

Deutsch and Hayden have proposed an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics which is completely local. We argue that their proposal must be understood as having a form of `gauge freedom' according to which mathematically distinct states are physically equivalent. Once this gauge freedom is taken into account, their formulation is no longer local.Comment: 3 page

Improved Optimal and Approximate Power Graph Compression for Clearer Visualisation of Dense Graphs

Drawings of highly connected (dense) graphs can be very difficult to read. Power Graph Analysis offers an alternate way to draw a graph in which sets of nodes with common neighbours are shown grouped into modules. An edge connected to the module then implies a connection to each member of the module. Thus, the entire graph may be represented with much less clutter and without loss of detail. A recent experimental study has shown that such lossless compression of dense graphs makes it easier to follow paths. However, computing optimal power graphs is difficult. In this paper, we show that computing the optimal power-graph with only one module is NP-hard and therefore likely NP-hard in the general case. We give an ILP model for power graph computation and discuss why ILP and CP techniques are poorly suited to the problem. Instead, we are able to find optimal solutions much more quickly using a custom search method. We also show how to restrict this type of search to allow only limited back-tracking to provide a heuristic that has better speed and better results than previously known heuristics.Comment: Extended technical report accompanying the PacificVis 2013 paper of the same nam

Control rod monitoring of advanced gas-cooled reactors

The UK’s fleet of Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors (AGR) are approaching, and have in some cases exceeded, their original design lives. Continued operation is under enhanced safety cases based on monitoring, inspection and component condition assessment of the core and related systems. This paper presents an analysis of the regulating control rods of an AGR, which are used to manage the power and reactivity of the core. Current manual analyses attempt to detect possible restrictions in the motion of the rods due to degradation of the graphite core, however the development of an automated intelligent analysis of the control rod data provides a repeatable and auditable method of analyzing the data. It is shown, by means of an example data set, that despite some limitations in the scope of the recorded data, it is possible to estimate the performance of the rods and present this information to the engineer in a way that more easily indicates abnormal behavior than existing analyses. It is also noted that though this work was initially conceived as a method of detecting restrictions in the motion of the regulating control rods, the results are potentially more useful is characterizing control rod performance and has potential application in predictive maintenance