LOW-COST REMOTE WEATHER INFORMATION SYSTEM PHASE I AND PHASE 2

Remote Weather Information Systems (RWIS) are an important part of deciding maintenance activities and scheduling. However, the cost of RWIS limits the number of systems that can be deployed. Because of the lack of power and the high power budget of commonly used systems, some locations are not suitable for RWIS even though the information would be of great value. This project focuses on the development of a low-cost, low-power RWIS that is suitable for remote locations and allows for a higher density of RWIS. The system produced under this study uses less than 10 watts of power and costs less than $10,000 for the basic system. The system has performed well in Fairbanks, Alaska, over two winters. In addition, the system has been fully integrated into the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities RWIS network.WeatherCloud Inc

Estimating parameters in the presence of many nuisance parameters

This paper considers estimation of parameters for high-dimensional time series with the presence of many nuisance parameters. In particular we are interested in data consisting of p time series of length n, with p to be as large or even larger than n. Here we consider the composite-likelihood estimation and the profile quasi-likelihood estimation. The asymptotic properties of these methodologies are investigated. Simulations are used to illustrate our both of these methods and explore the performance of these methods

Humeanism and Exceptions in the Fundamental Laws of Physics

It has been argued that the fundamental laws of physics do not face a ‘problem of provisos’ equivalent to that found in other scientific disciplines (Earman, Roberts and Smith 2002) and there is only the appearance of exceptions to physical laws if they are confused with differential equations of evolution type (Smith 2002). In this paper I argue that even if this is true, fundamental laws in physics still pose a major challenge to standard Humean approaches to lawhood, as they are not in any obvious sense about regularities in behaviour. A Humean approach to physical laws with exceptions is possible, however, if we adopt a view of laws that takes them to be the algorithms in the algorithmic compressions of empirical data. When this is supplemented with a distinction between lossy and lossless compression, we can explain exceptions in terms of compression artefacts present in the application of the lossy laws

“What do you want me to tell?” The inferential texture of Alice Munro’s ‘Postcard’

This paper considers some of the ways in which ideas from pragmatic stylistics (based here on relevance theory) can be applied in exploring aspects of the production and interpretation of Alice Munro’s story ‘Postcard’. It identifies some features of the story, considers the role of inferential processes in reading, writing and evaluating texts in general, and considers how focusing on inference can help in understanding specific effects of the story on readers. Finally, it considers how focusing on inference can help to account for what Stockwell (2009) terms the ‘texture’ of the story, i.e. what it feels like to engage with the story during and after reading it