The fate of William Whewell’s four palætiological domains : a comparative study

In 1847, the British polymath William Whewell pointed out that the sciences for which he, in 1837, had coined the term “palætiological” have much in common and that they may reflect light upon each other by being treated together. This recommendation is here put into practice in a specific way, to wit, not by comparing the palaetiological sciences that Whewell distinguished himself but by comparing the general historical development of the scientific study of the four broad palætiological domains that he enumerated in 1847: the solar system, the Earth, its vegetable and animal creation, and man. For wide and various as their subjects are, it will be found that [the palætiological sciences] have all certain principles, maxims, and rules of procedure in common; and thus may reflect light upon each other by being treated together. William Whewell ( 1847 , 1, p. 640

Linguistic reference in science : problems and progress

The crucial role that mathematical notation systems have played in the success of the hard or mathematical sciences is well known and richly documented: the origin of the history of these sophisticated notation systems more or less coincides with the birth of modern science. The role of our linguistic notation systems (as applied to, or used in, the scientific study of nature), by contrast, is hardly documented at all, at least not in a systematic way. We distinguish between (metaphorical and non-metaphorical) meta-scientific terms and scientific terms and, as far as the latter is concerned, between methodology and content terms. It is the latter sort of terms that interest us here. Five different dysfunctions in the relationship between scientific linguistic tokens and their referents will be presented and illustrated: scientific terms or phrases can not only be imprecise, they can also be meaningless, indiscriminate, inapt and ambiguous. By correcting or alleviating such dysfunctions, our linguistic notation systems have, in the course of the past four centuries, become more refined and functional scientific tools. This simple, illustrated taxonomy is not only historically relevant, it may also help contemporaneous scientists to identify and avoid possible pitfalls, associated with the use of language in science

Enquête bij reders en scheepsjongens in de Belgische zeevisserij: het ‘Fonds voor Scheepsjongens’; de visserij, nu en in de nabije toekomst

In 1976 the Fund for Apprentice Fishermen, created in 1971 on a voluntary owners' contribution base, has been converted by legal provision into a new Fund, to which all ship owners must contribute for at least 50 % of all salary expenditure; administrative costs are for the account of the State. Apart from the financial aids granted, the Government is now directly engaged in the management of the Fund.The aim of this inquiry was to obtain some relevant information about the opinions of both ship owners and apprentice fishermen concerning aforesaid Fund. Subsequently it was also the intention to know their opinion about the fisherman's training, his job, his career, his prospects, in view of the considerable changes in the structure of the fishing fleet, and of the technological, vocational and socio-economic changes within the industry. Data were collectedin 1977 by questionnaire and interview. Furthermore use has been made of some existing information. Another major objective was to know the reasons which underlie the differences in earnings among apprentices (Fund salary, percent of gross returns, "poundage", etc.).This paper discusses the latent uneasiness in the fisherman's mind, that sometimes is roused to vigorous opinions, views and attitudes. The interviews were based on two questionnaires, one for the ship owners and an other one for the trainees. However, it was eventually the intention to hold a rather non-structured conversation on a broad and deep level. This, of course, provided more spontaneity in the utterances and replies.It may be concluded that the study provides adequate data for drawing up some guidelines for further improvements in the crew problem policy. An outstanding feature is undoubtedly the fact that the trainees are still recruited from the traditional fishing community, despite the many attempts of attracting youngsters from outside of that community. It is believed, both by the owners and by the trainees, that the Fund has a positive effect on the crew problem. However, it is felt that additional measures are needed to reach a decisive solution of this complex problem

Modelling the energy efficiency of microcell base stations

The power consumption of wireless access networks will become a major issue in the coming years. Therefore, it is important to have a realistic idea about the power consumption of each element in those access networks. In this paper, an energy efficiency model for microcell base stations is proposed. Based on this model, the energy efficiency of microcell base stations is compared for various wireless technologies, namely mobile WiMAX, HSPA and LTE. The power consumption of microcell base stations is about 70-77% lower than for macrocell base stations but a macrocell base station is more energy-efficient than a microcell base station for the same bit rates. However, for the considered case and assuming our parameters are correct, a reduction in power consumption can be obtained by using microcell base stations to fill coverage holes

Robots on spaceship earth: a theoretical plea for machine metaphors

Metaphors are inevitable core elements of the conceptual schemes that shape our thinking and behavior. Traditionally, nature is interpreted in terms of agential metaphors such as ghosts, gods, witches and angels. Science, in contrast, is characterized by contra-intuitive, mechanistic thinking and machine metaphors. Modern societies nevertheless remain, to a certain extent, in the grip of powerful agential tropes. It will be argued that they are one of the obstacles that stand in the way of both reaping the full benefits of modern science and of meeting two of the biggest challenges we have ever faced: overpopulation and climate change. Or, put differrently, they are one of the reasons why there is a problematic mismatch between our modern "Umwelt" and "niche"

Statistical study on the link between real energy use, official energy performance and inhabitants of low energy houses

Energy performance regulations are becoming increasingly strict and governments supply simplified calculation tools to assess whether new buildings fulfil the requirements. However, one can wonder what the accuracy of those tools is for assessing the next generation of houses, that will have to fulfil the upcoming energy requirements. In order to investigate the discrepancy between predicted and real energy use in low energy houses, 537 dwellings were analysed. Data on building characteristics and theoretical energy use from the Flemish EPBD-database was complemented with data from the energy utilities and a survey of the inhabiting households, providing information about the households, their user behaviour and real energy use. While an undeniable correlation was found between theoretical and real energy use, the EPBD-method overestimated the heating energy use for most of the cases. Two building related parameters and two user related parameters proved to have a significant impact on that gap: the use of default values for the air tightness of the envelop and for the efficiency of the gas boiler, the heating profiles of the master bedrooms and the amount of baths and showers taken by the inhabitants. However, two comments must be made. First, the dataset consists of early adopters who could afford such energy performance years before it would be imposed and are therefore not representative of the average household. In addition, the analysis showed significant correlations between household characteristics on the one hand and building characteristics and performance on the other. These last two points question the possibility to extrapolate findings from samples of existing forerunners towards prognoses on future, entire building stock level