Aristotle's view of human nature as a basis for ethical theory

The thesis examines Aristotle's ethical theory with primary reference to the Nicomachean Ethics (ED. It argues that the EX is intended not to improve its audience ethically, but rather to give it the political tools to pass an its already good life. The EN does this by articulating the goodness of that life and thus allowing the audience to enter effectively into ethical discussions. These form part of the process of passing on the good life by way of legislation in the polls and by more informal methods in institutions such as the household. The thesis examines in particular the accounts of practical reason, pleasure and the ergon argument in the Elf, and seeks to understand them in this context. It argues that by allowing the audience to improve the transmission of its values over the generations and by allowing its menbers to articulate the value of so doing, it moves the audience's life closer to divine perfection

Efficient Quotients of Non-Commutative Polynomials

It is shown how to compute quotients efficiently in non-commutative univariate polynomial rings. This expands on earlier work where generic efficient quotients were introduced with a primary focus on commutative domains. Asymptotically fast algorithms are given for left and right quotients when the polynomial variable commutes with coefficients. These algorithms are based on the concept of the ``whole shifted inverse'', which is a specialized quotient where the dividend is a power of the polynomial variable. When the variable does not commute with coefficients, that is for skew polynomials, left and right whole shifted inverses are defined and the left whole shifted inverse may be used to compute the right quotient, although not with asymptotically fast complexity. Examples are shown of polynomials with matrix coefficients and differential operators and a proof-of-concept Maple implementation is given

Efficient Generic Quotients Using Exact Arithmetic

The usual formulation of efficient division uses Newton iteration to compute an inverse in a related domain where multiplicative inverses exist. On one hand, Newton iteration allows quotients to be calculated using an efficient multiplication method. On the other hand, working in another domain is not always desirable and can lead to a library structure where arithmetic domains are interdependent. This paper uses the concept of a whole shifted inverse and modified Newton iteration to compute quotients efficiently without leaving the original domain. The iteration is generic to domains having a suitable shift operation, such as integers or polynomials with coefficients that do not necessarily commute

Enhanced recovery after surgery

Enhanced Recovery or Fast Track Recovery after Surgery protocols (ERAS) have significantly changed perioperative care following colorectal surgery and are promoted as reducing the stress response to surgery. The present systematic review aimed to examine the impact on the magnitude of the systemic inflammatory response (SIR) for each ERAS component following colorectal surgery using objective markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6). A literature search was performed of the US National Library of Medicine (MEDLINE), EMBASE, PubMed, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews using appropriate keywords and subject headings to February 2015. Included studies had to assess the impact of the selected ERAS component on the SIR using either CRP or IL-6. Nineteen studies, including 1898 patients, were included. Fourteen studies (1246 patients) examined the impact of laparoscopic surgery on the postoperative markers of SIR. Ten of these studies (1040 patients) reported that laparoscopic surgery reduced postoperative CRP. One study (53 patients) reported reduced postoperative CRP using opioid-minimising analgesia. One study (142 patients) reported no change in postoperative CRP following preoperative carbohydrate loading. Two studies (108 patients) reported conflicting results with respect to the impact of goal-directed fluid therapy on postoperative IL-6. No studies examined the effect of other ERAS components, including mechanical bowel preparation, antibiotic prophylaxis, thromboprophylaxis, and avoidance of nasogastric tubes and peritoneal drains on markers of the postoperative SIR following colorectal surgery. The present systematic review shows that, with the exception of laparoscopic surgery, objective evidence of the effect of individual components of ERAS protocols in reducing the stress response following colorectal surgery is limited

Performance Rights for Software

As we use software in increasingly varied contexts, the concept of a software license has become progressively more complex. Software is embedded in devices that do not obviously resemble computers. Web services make software on one computer available to anyone with internet access. An individual may use several computers over the course of the day so the concept of a node locked or individual license is no longer clear. How should time based and single use and consumptive licenses be governed and interact? This paper examines how these and other issues in software licensing can be seen as instances of the general concept of performance rights, rather than simply reproduction rights. Licenses involving finely specified performance rights are common in the entertainment industry for music, film, stage and television. We describe how, as software and our use of it becomes more sophisticated, we see performance rights as becoming an apt basis for software licensing

Do the eyes have it? Cues to the direction of social attention

The face communicates an impressive amount of visual information. We use it to identify its owner, how they are feeling and to help us understand what they are saying. Models of face processing have considered how we extract such meaning from the face but have ignored another important signal - eye gaze. In this article we begin by reviewing evidence from recent neurophysiological studies that suggests that the eyes constitute a special stimulus in at least two senses. First, the structure of the eyes is such that it provides us with a particularly powerful signal to the direction of another person's gaze, and second, we may have evolved neural mechanisms devoted to gaze processing. As a result, gaze direction is analysed rapidly and automatically, and is able to trigger reflexive shifts of an observer's visual attention. However, understanding where another individual is directing their attention involves more than simply analysing their gaze direction. We go on to describe research with adult participants, children and non-human primates that suggests that other cues such as head orientation and pointing gestures make significant contributions to the computation of another's direction of attention

Correcting for Beam Aberrations in a Beam-Waveguide Antenna

A method for correcting the aim of a beam-waveguide microwave antenna compensates for the beam aberration that occurs during radio tracking of a target that has a component of velocity transverse to the line of sight from the tracking station. The method was devised primarily for use in tracking of distant target spacecraft by large terrestrial beam-waveguide antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN). The method should also be adaptable to tracking, by other beam-waveguide antennas, of targets that move with large transverse velocities at large distances from the antennas

06271 Abstracts Collection -- Challenges in Symbolic Computation Software

From 02.07.06 to 07.07.06, the Dagstuhl Seminar 06271 ``Challenges in Symbolic Computation Software\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available