Why the One Cannot Have Parts: Plotinus on Divine Simplicity, Ontological Independence, and Perfect Being Theology

I use Plotinus to present absolute divine simplicity as the consequence of principles about metaphysical and explanatory priority to which most theists are already committed. I employ Phil Corkum’s account of ontological independence as independent status to present a new interpretation of Plotinus on the dependence of everything on the One. On this reading, if something else (whether an internal part or something external) makes you what you are, then you are ontologically dependent on it. I show that this account supports Plotinus’s claim that any entity with parts cannot be fully independent. In particular, I lay out Plotinus’s case for thinking that even a divine self-understanding intellect cannot be fully independent. I then argue that a weaker version of simplicity is not enough for the theist since priority monism meets the conditions of a moderate version of ontological independence just as well as a transcendent but complex ultimate being

Inferring Robot Task Plans from Human Team Meetings: A Generative Modeling Approach with Logic-Based Prior

We aim to reduce the burden of programming and deploying autonomous systems to work in concert with people in time-critical domains, such as military field operations and disaster response. Deployment plans for these operations are frequently negotiated on-the-fly by teams of human planners. A human operator then translates the agreed upon plan into machine instructions for the robots. We present an algorithm that reduces this translation burden by inferring the final plan from a processed form of the human team's planning conversation. Our approach combines probabilistic generative modeling with logical plan validation used to compute a highly structured prior over possible plans. This hybrid approach enables us to overcome the challenge of performing inference over the large solution space with only a small amount of noisy data from the team planning session. We validate the algorithm through human subject experimentation and show we are able to infer a human team's final plan with 83% accuracy on average. We also describe a robot demonstration in which two people plan and execute a first-response collaborative task with a PR2 robot. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that integrates a logical planning technique within a generative model to perform plan inference.Comment: Appears in Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-13

Are all fast radio bursts repeating sources?

We present Monte-Carlo simulations of a cosmological population of repeating fast radio burst (FRB) sources whose comoving density follows the cosmic star formation rate history. We assume a power-law model for the intrinsic energy distribution for each repeating FRB source located at a randomly chosen position in the sky and simulate their dispersion measures (DMs) and propagation effects along the chosen lines-of-sight to various telescopes. In one scenario, an exponential distribution for the intrinsic wait times between pulses is chosen, and in a second scenario we model the observed pulse arrival times to follow a Weibull distribution. For both models we determine whether the FRB source would be deemed a repeater based on the telescope sensitivity and time spent on follow-up observations. We are unable to rule out the existence of a single FRB population based on comparisons of our simulations with the longest FRB follow-up observations performed. We however rule out the possibility of FRBs 171020 and 010724 repeating with the same rate statistics as FRB 121102 and also constrain the slope of a power-law fit to the FRB energy distribution to be $-2.0 < \gamma <-1.0$. All-sky simulations of repeating FRB sources imply that the detection of singular events correspond to the bright tail-end of the adopted energy distribution due to the combination of the increase in volume probed with distance, and the position of the burst in the telescope beam.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Chemistry in One Dimension

We report benchmark results for one-dimensional (1D) atomic and molecular systems interacting via the Coulomb operator $|x|^{-1}$. Using various wavefunction-type approaches, such as Hartree-Fock theory, second- and third-order M{\o}ller-Plesset perturbation theory and explicitly correlated calculations, we study the ground state of atoms with up to ten electrons as well as small diatomic and triatomic molecules containing up to two electrons. A detailed analysis of the 1D helium-like ions is given and the expression of the high-density correlation energy is reported. We report the total energies, ionization energies, electron affinities and other interesting properties of the many-electron 1D atoms and, based on these results, we construct the 1D analog of Mendeleev's periodic table. We find that the 1D periodic table contains only two groups: the alkali metals and the noble gases. We also calculate the dissociation curves of various 1D diatomics and study the chemical bond in H$_2^+$, HeH$^{2+}$, He$_2^{3+}$, H$_2$, HeH$^+$ and He$_2^{2+}$. We find that, unlike their 3D counterparts, 1D molecules are primarily bound by one-electron bonds. Finally, we study the chemistry of H$_3^+$ and we discuss the stability of the 1D polymer resulting from an infinite chain of hydrogen atoms.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figure

Uniform Electron Gases. II. The Generalized Local Density Approximation in One Dimension

We introduce a generalization (gLDA) of the traditional Local Density Approximation (LDA) within density functional theory. The gLDA uses both the one-electron Seitz radius \rs and a two-electron hole curvature parameter $\eta$ at each point in space. The gLDA reduces to the LDA when applied to the infinite homogeneous electron gas but, unlike the LDA, is is also exact for finite uniform electron gases on spheres. We present an explicit gLDA functional for the correlation energy of electrons that are confined to a one-dimensional space and compare its accuracy with LDA, second- and third-order M{\o}ller-Plesset perturbation energies and exact calculations for a variety of inhomogeneous systems.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Journal of Chemical Physic

THE REGULATION OF ROTAVIRUS–INFECTED HT29.F8 AND MA104 CELLS TREATED WITH ARACHIDIN 1 OR ARACHIDIN 3

Rotavirus (RV) infections cause severe life threatening diarrhea in young children and immunocompromised individuals. Several effective vaccines have been developed for young children but are not protective against all strains of RV, and there are no anti-RV therapeutics. Our laboratory has discovered a decrease in the number of infectious simian RV particles (SA114f) in human intestinal cell line, HT29.f8 cells with the addition of either of two stilbenoids, arachidin-1 (A1) or arachidin-3 (A3). This suggests effects on the host cell and RV replication. We examined the cellular effects of human RV strain (Wa) on a human intestinal cell line (HT29.f8) and an African green monkey kidney cell line (MA104) treated with/without either arachidin. Both cell lines demonstrated apoptotic characteristics that were modulated with the addition of either A1 or A3, and the size and population of the released virus particles were significantly altered. Likewise, the number of infectious virus particles released from the arachidin treated cells were significantly reduced. This data supports the RV therapeutic potential of A1 and A3

Decolonial Homophobia: Is Decolonisation Incompatible with LGBT+ Affirmation in Christian Ethics?

I evaluate the argument advanced in politics and Christian ethics that I term ‘decolonial homophobia’: that decolonisation and LGBT+ affirmation are contradictory because LGBT+ rights are a global Northern phenomenon that is imperialistically imposed on the global South. I suggest one premise of the argument is valid—neo-colonial imposition of LGBT+ rights does happen and should be opposed. However, the overall argument fails because it erases or distorts diverse views and complexities of pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial history, and it tacitly supports ‘homophobic nationalism’ that is oppressive even when advanced in ostensibly decolonial causes. I grant that there are tensions within many current expressions of decolonisation and LGBT+ rights, but argue that Christians should support both decolonisation and LGBT+ rights as intersecting justice issues. I close by suggesting we listen to global Southern LGBT+ activists like Uganda's kuchus on how to navigate this tension and pursue intersectional justice in all societies

The Rhetorical Biopower of Eugenics: Understanding the Influence of British Eugenics on the Nazi Program

The relationship between the British and Nazi eugenics movements has been underexamined, largely because of the more obvious ties between the American and Nazi programs and the lack of a state-sponsored program in Britain. This article revisits this gap to reinsert the British eugenics movement into the historiography of the Nazi program by way of their shared rhetoric. To do this, I employ Foucault’s concepts of biopower and power/knowledge, arguing that biopower exists in rhetorical constructions of power and identity, which the eugenics movements employed at national and individual levels to garner support and participation, particularly from women. The article is not an exhaustive account of the rhetorical overlaps between the two movements, but rather serves as a model of how one might understand eugenics as a rhetoric of biopower