Education as a Moral Responsibility: Foucault\u27s Subjectivity and Confucian Cultivation

The current state of education focusing on standards and assessment, according to Wu (2004), reduces education to “technical problems and individual deficiencies, subject to surveillance and quality managerial procedures” (p. 308). This work uses Foucault’s discourses of discipline and power to understand standardization as a political utility of control that makes children docile subjects through “a set of practices by which one can acquire and assimilate” (Foucault, 1988, p. 31). The process of standardization provides an ineffective grounding for achieving a worthwhile life as children are shaped as results-driven individuals (Shun & Wong, 2004). Baker (2008) believes that only through “a moral notion of reasoning” can a sense of responsibility be learnt (p. 191). The Confucian cultivation of Ren represents a moral notion of reasoning. It understands the very foundation of human existence, not as an epistemology based on a dichotomous way of thinking, but as a moral responsibility. Not relying on an extensive accumulation of knowledge, the cultivation of Ren is based on a belief that all children are born with a moral goodness that can be led to a moral responsibility. Moreover, it emphasizes the carrying out of the benefit for others through respect, propriety, and relationship, rather than the seeking of rewards for one’s own. Furthermore, I explain the Confucian notion of rights as embedded in the autonomy of the self. The more the self becomes morally responsible toward others, the more one’s rights are assured. I cite the United Sates law cases on higher education to support the claim that the political protection of rights may be necessary, but it is not the only condition to achieve autonomy and justice. In the case of Iowa Redistricting Policy, when a moral responsibility is absent in the policymakers, an ideology of segregation continues to persist under the cover of diversity, which indirectly pushes the practice of discipline and assessment to its extreme. I conclude that the Confucian Ren celebrates a responsible living that cares children as lifetime achievers rather than results, rights-driven subjects. Moral responsibility can transform the existing power relations and make social, educational changes

The Intensity Matching Approach: A Tractable Stochastic Geometry Approximation to System-Level Analysis of Cellular Networks

The intensity matching approach for tractable performance evaluation and optimization of cellular networks is introduced. It assumes that the base stations are modeled as points of a Poisson point process and leverages stochastic geometry for system-level analysis. Its rationale relies on observing that system-level performance is determined by the intensity measure of transformations of the underlaying spatial Poisson point process. By approximating the original system model with a simplified one, whose performance is determined by a mathematically convenient intensity measure, tractable yet accurate integral expressions for computing area spectral efficiency and potential throughput are provided. The considered system model accounts for many practical aspects that, for tractability, are typically neglected, e.g., line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight propagation, antenna radiation patterns, traffic load, practical cell associations, general fading channels. The proposed approach, more importantly, is conveniently formulated for unveiling the impact of several system parameters, e.g., the density of base stations and blockages. The effectiveness of this novel and general methodology is validated with the aid of empirical data for the locations of base stations and for the footprints of buildings in dense urban environments.Comment: Submitted for Journal Publicatio

Unsteady Flow Simulations About Moving Boundary Configurations Using Dynamic Domain Decomposition Techniques

A computational method is developed to solve the coupled governing equations of an unsteady flowfield and those of rigid-body dynamics in six degrees-of-freedom (6-DOF). This method is capable of simulating the unsteady flowfields around multiple component configurations with at least one of the components in relative motion with respect to the others. Two of the important phenomena that such analyses can help us to understand are the unsteady aerodynamic interference and the boundary-induced component of such a flowfield. By hybridizing two dynamic domain decomposition techniques, the grid generation task is simplified, the computer memory requirement is reduced, and the governing equations of the rigid-body dynamics are simplified with certain assumptions. Three dimensional, unsteady Navier-Stokes equations are solved on each of the subdomains by a fully-vectorized, finite-volume, upwind-biased, and approximately-factored method. These equations are solved on the composite meshes of hybrid subdomain grids that can move with respect to each other. Hence, the present method combines the advantages of an efficient, geometrically conservative, minimally and automatically dissipative algorithm with the advantages and flexibility of the domain decomposition techniques. Several measures that reduce the numerical error are studied and compared with the exact solution of a moving normal shock in a tube. This solution compares very well with the analytic solution of the isentropic equations. It is concluded, that as a minimum measure, the connectivity of nonconservative overlapped scheme needs to be second-order accurate for spatial and temporal discretizations, as well as for the moving subdomain interpolations. Furthermore, the CFL numbers should be restricted to below unity, if affordable, for flows with high flow gradients. The method is further scrutinized by simulating the flow past a sinusoidally pitching airfoil, and the flow past a sinusoidally pitching and plunging airfoil. The results of the former case are successfully compared with the experimental data. The final two-dimensional case is the separation of a store from an airfoil along a prescribed path. As the first three dimensional case, the flowfield past an oscillating cylinder near a vertical wall is simulated. Prior to coupling it with the flowfield equations, the 6-DOF trajectory method is validated by successfully comparing the path it predicts with the one used in a captive trajectory testing. Finally, a rigid-body dynamics method is used to predict the aerodynamically determined trajectory of a store dropped from its initial position under a wing. The results of the present investigation contribute to the understanding of the unsteady aerodynamic interference and the boundary-induced component of such a flowfield. However, its main contribution is the newly proposed computational method for flows involving relative boundary motions