11,469 research outputs found
Ad Fontes: Desiderius Erasmus’ Call for a Return to the Sources of a Unified and Simple Christian Faith
Desiderius Erasmus’ humanism greatly shaped his view of Christianity. He developed a “philosophy of Christ” that led him to seek peaceful reforms from within the Church while attempting to maintain unity. He was a consummate scholar and inspiring figure of his time. Unfortunately, his interactions with Luther did not bring out the best in him, or in Luther for that matter, but there is still much to be learned by modern Christians from Erasmus’ views on reform that can be applied to the modern Church
Tolkien and the Deadly Sin of Greed
Tolkien’s genius as a writer and insight as a philosopher and theologian (of sorts) are reflected in his subtle yet impactful interweaving of the consequences of greed within the lives of the peoples of Middle-Earth. He shows readers that greed is not simply the love of money. Greed is the root of all evil, and it takes a variety of forms, as represented by Sauron’s desire to possess power over and control others, Saruman’s imitative desire, and Feanor’s over-possessiveness of his sub-creative acts. Tolkien also reveals that a proper relationship with nature can provide recovery from the drab familiarity which the appropriation of nature can cause. Ultimately, Tolkien shows that in relinquishing possession of the things and people we most desire, we can find a greater sense of personhood, relationality, and peace within the world
The Maxwell-Pauli Equations
We study the quantum mechanical many-body problem of
non-relativistic electrons with spin interacting with their self-generated
classical electromagnetic field and static nuclei. We model the
dynamics of the electrons and their self-generated electromagnetic field using
the so-called many-body Maxwell-Pauli equations. The main result of this thesis
is to construct time global, finite-energy, weak solutions to the many-body
Maxwell-Pauli equations under the assumption that the fine structure constant
and the nuclear charges are not too large. The assumptions on the size
of and the nuclear charges ensure that we have energetic stability for
this system, i.e., the absolute ground state energy exists. The work in this
thesis serves as an initial step towards understanding the connection between
the energetic stability of matter in quantum mechanics and the well-posedness
of the corresponding dynamical equations.Comment: 95 pages. PhD thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology, May 2020.
Includes results from arXiv:1904.0674
Lute, Vihuela, and Early Guitar
ProducciĂłn CientĂficaLutes, guitars, and vihuelas were the principal plucked instruments in use in Europe until around
1800. Ancient forms of the lute existed in many parts of the ancient world, from Egypt and
Persia through to China. It appears to have become known in Europe, where its earliest
associations were with immigrants such as the legendary Persian lutenist Ziryab (b. c. 790–d.
852), who was established in Moorish Spain by 822. The origins of the various flat-backed
instruments that eventually became guitars are more difficult to trace. The vihuela is one such
instrument that evolved in the mid-15th century and was prolific in Spain and its dominions
throughout the 16th century and beyond. Very few plucked instruments, and only a handful of
fragmentary musical compositions, survive from before 1500. The absence of artifacts and
musical sources prior to 1500 has been a point of demarcation in the study of early plucked
instruments, although current research is seeking to explore the continuity of instrumental
practice across this somewhat artificial divide. In contrast, perhaps as many as thirty thousand
works—perhaps even more—for lute, guitar, and vihuela survive from the period 1500–1800.
The music and musical practices associated with them are not well integrated into general
histories of music. This is due in part to the use of tablature as the principal notation format until
about 1800, and also because writers of general histories of music have for the most part
ignored solo instrumental music in their coverage. (For example, the Oxford Anthology of
Western Music, Vol. 1 (2018), designed to accompany chapters 1–11 of Richard Taruskin’s
Oxford History of Western Music, does not contain a single piece of instrumental music prior to
Frescobaldi [1637]). Contrary to this marginalized image, lutes, vihuelas, and guitars were a
revered part of courtly musical culture until well into the 18th century, and constantly present in
urban contexts. After the development of basso continuo practice after 1600, plucked
instruments also became frequent in Christian church music, although the lute was widely
played by clerics of all levels, particularly during the Renaissance. It was also one of the
principal tools used by composers of liturgical polyphony, in part because tablature was the
most common way of writing music in score. From the beginning of music printing, printed
tablatures played a fundamental role in the urban dissemination of music originally for church
and court, and plucked instruments were used widely by all levels of society for both leisure and
pleasure. After 1800, the lute fell from use, the guitar was transformed into its modern form with
single strings, and tablature ceased to be the preferred notation for plucked instruments.Este trabajo forma parte del proyecto de investigación “La obra musical renacentista: fundamentos, repertorios y prácticas” HAR 2015-70181-P (MINECO/FEDER, UE
Oral messages improve visual search
Input multimodality combining speech and hand gestures has motivated numerous
usability studies. Contrastingly, issues relating to the design and ergonomic
evaluation of multimodal output messages combining speech with visual
modalities have not yet been addressed extensively. The experimental study
presented here addresses one of these issues. Its aim is to assess the actual
efficiency and usability of oral system messages including brief spatial
information for helping users to locate objects on crowded displays rapidly.
Target presentation mode, scene spatial structure and task difficulty were
chosen as independent variables. Two conditions were defined: the visual target
presentation mode (VP condition) and the multimodal target presentation mode
(MP condition). Each participant carried out two blocks of visual search tasks
(120 tasks per block, and one block per condition). Scene target presentation
mode, scene structure and task difficulty were found to be significant factors.
Multimodal target presentation proved to be more efficient than visual target
presentation. In addition, participants expressed very positive judgments on
multimodal target presentations which were preferred to visual presentations by
a majority of participants. Besides, the contribution of spatial messages to
visual search speed and accuracy was influenced by scene spatial structure and
task difficulty: (i) messages improved search efficiency to a lesser extent for
2D array layouts than for some other symmetrical layouts, although the use of
2D arrays for displaying pictures is currently prevailing; (ii) message
usefulness increased with task difficulty. Most of these results are
statistically significant.Comment: 4 page
Ring particle sizes and composition derived from eclipse cooling curves and reflection spectra
The probable chemistry of the Saturn rings is reviewed. Reflectance spectra for H20 and NH3 frosts and Saturn's rings are compared, along with temperature dependence of 1.6 microns water frost feature. The reflection spectra of Galilean satellite J2 and water frost are also reviewed
Spacecraft instrumentation and observations for the spectral reflectance experiment of Martian frost Final report, 1 Oct. 1968 - 31 Mar. 1970
Instrumentation to determine spectral reflectance properties for simulated Martian frost
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