Acting Without Me: Corporate Agency and the First Person Perspective

In our book The Inessential Indexical we argue that the various theses of essential indexicality all fail. Indexicals are not essential, we conclude. One essentiality thesis we target in the third chapter is the claim that indexical attitudes are essential for action. Our strategy is to give examples of what we call impersonal action rationalizations , which explain actions without citing indexical attitudes. To defeat the claim that indexical attitudes are essential for action, it suffices that there could be even one successful impersonal action rationalization. In what follows we bolster our case against an essential connection between action and the de se (or indexicality), first by developing a range of new action models and secondly by responding to challenges from Dilip Ninan, Stephan Torre, and José Luis Bermúdez

Low Earth orbital atomic oxygen and ultraviolet radiation effects on polymers

Because atomic oxygen and solar ultraviolet radiation present in the low earth orbital (LEO) environment can alter the chemistry of polymers resulting in degradation, their effects and mechanisms of degradation must be determined in order to determine the long term durability of polymeric surfaces to be exposed on missions such as Space Station Freedom. The effects of atomic oxygen on polymers which contain protective coatings must also be explored, since unique damage mechanisms can occur in areas where the protective coatings has failed. Mechanisms can be determined by utilizing results from previous LEO missions, by performing ground based LEO simulation tests and analysis, and by carrying out focussed space experiments. A survey is presented of the interactions and possible damage mechanisms for environmental atomic oxygen and UV radiation exposure of polymers commonly used in LEO

Dynamics of wind-driven upwelling and relaxation between Monterey Bay and Point Arena: Local-, regional-, and gyre-scale controls

In north and central California, equatorward winds drive equatorward flows and the upwelling of cold dense water over the shelf during the midspring and summer upwelling season. When the winds temporarily weaken, the upwelling flows between Point Reyes and Point Arena relax,\u27\u27 becoming strongly poleward over the shelf. Analytical and numerical models are used to describe the effect of alongshore variability of winds, bathymetry, and basin-scale pressure gradients on the strength of upwelling and its relaxation. Alongshore winds weaken to the south of Point Reyes, and the shelf becomes narrower from Point Reyes to Monterey Bay. Both of these lead to reduced upwelling at and to the north of Point Reyes, causing an alongshore gradient of temperature and density on the shelf. These alongshore gradients lead to an along-isobath pressure gradient over the shelf that drive the relaxation flows. A simple analytical model is used to explain the dynamics, magnitude, and structure of the relaxation flows. The modeling also suggests that the depth of origin of the upwelled waters, and thus their temperature, is controlled by the along-isobath pressure gradient that exists over the continental slope. This along-slope pressure gradient is also responsible for the California undercurrent in this region. This pressure gradient is not generated in a model of the Californian coast extending from 32 degrees N to 42 degrees N and integrated for several months, suggesting it is caused by dynamics whose spatial or temporal scales are larger than the Californian coast and/or longer than several months

Reviving the parameter revolution in semantics

Montague and Kaplan began a revolution in semantics, which promised to explain how a univocal expression could make distinct truth-conditional contributions in its various occurrences. The idea was to treat context as a parameter at which a sentence is semantically evaluated. But the revolution has stalled. One salient problem comes from recurring demonstratives: "He is tall and he is not tall". For the sentence to be true at a context, each occurrence of the demonstrative must make a different truth-conditional contribution. But this difference cannot be accounted for by standard parameter sensitivity. Semanticists, consoled by the thought that this ambiguity would ultimately be needed anyhow to explain anaphora, have been too content to posit massive ambiguities in demonstrative pronouns. This article aims to revived the parameter revolution by showing how to treat demonstrative pronouns as univocal while providing an account of anaphora that doesn't end up re-introducing the ambiguity

This Paper Might Change your Mind

Rational decision change can happen without information change. This is a problem for standard views of decision theory, on which linguistic intervention in rational decision-making is captured in terms of information change. But the standard view gives us no way to model interventions involving expressions that only have an attentional effects on conversational contexts. How are expressions with non-informational content - like epistemic modals - used to intervene in rational decision making? We show how to model rational decision change without information change: replace a standard conception of value (on which the value of a set of worlds reduces to values of individual worlds in the set) with one on which the value of a set of worlds is determined by a selection function that picks out a generic member world. We discuss some upshots of this view for theorizing in philosophy and formal semantics

Graphite fluoride fibers and their applications in the space industry

Characterization and potential space applications of graphite fluoride fibers from commercially available graphitized carbon fibers are presented. Graphite fluoride fibers with fluorine to carbon ratios of 0.65 and 0.68 were found to have electrical resistivity values of 10(exp 4) and 10(exp 11) Ohms-cm, respectively, and thermal conductivity values of 24 and 5 W/m-K, respectively. At this fluorine content range, the fibers have tensile strength of 0.25 + or - 0.10 GPa (36 + or - 14 ksi), Young's modulus of 170 + or - 30 GPa (25 + or - 5 Msi). The coefficient of thermal expansion value of a sample with fluorine to carbon ratio of 0.61 was found to be 7 ppm/C. These properties change and approach the graphite value as the fluorine content approach 0. Electrically insulative graphite fluoride fiber is at least five times more thermally conductive than fiberglass. Therefore, it can be used as a heat sinking printed circuit board material for low temperature, long life power electronics in spacecraft. Also, partially fluorinated fiber with tailor-made physical properties to meet the requirements of certain engineering design can be produced. For example, a partially fluorinated fiber could have a predetermined CTE value in -1.5 to 7 ppm/C range and would be suitable for use in solar concentrators in solar dynamic power systems. It could also have a predetermined electrical resistivity value suitable for use as a low observable material. Experimental data indicate that slightly fluorinated graphite fibers are more durable in the atomic oxygen environment than pristine graphite. Therefore, fluorination of graphite used in the construction of spacecraft that would be exposed to the low Earth orbit atomic oxygen may protect defect sites in atomic oxygen protective coatings and therefore decrease the rate of degradation of graphite

Sexism in Teaching Spanish: Linguistic Discrimination is Sometimes Unconscious

The Spanish language is becoming more flexible in creating feminine forms for occupational names that correspond with the already existing masculine terms. However, there has been some resistance among Spaniards with regard to using feminine forms like física to refer to a physicist who is a woman. Similarly, there have been objections to química (chemist, chemistry), música (musician, music), and others because, some say, such terms are ambiguous and confusing with regard to the professions. Do words and the way they are used significantly affect their meaning? The author discusses this question by highlighting linguistic discrimination in Spanish that is sometimes unconscious. However, such usage negatively affects perceptions about women and their role in society. Increasing the awareness of students about the pervasive nature of sexism in language would help to promote equitable treatment of the sexes in both oral and written communication. The author gives examples of sexism in the use of language, and explains specific ways in which society uses language at the most basic level to relegate women to an inferior status. Lastly, the author suggests ways in which professors of Spanish (and English) can address sex-bias in language communication while still remaining faithful to fundamental language structures

Social and Economic Development of a Specialized Community in Chengue, Parque Tairona, Colombia.

The primary intention of this research has been to establish how the specialized Tairona community of Chengue was formed and how social inequality plays a role in socio-economic change from 200BC to 1650AD. The main questions are organized around two opposing scenarios designed to test top-down and bottom-up processes for community formation. In the top-down scenario the community would be the result of an external agent that had sufficient authority to "create" a community with the intention to extract a highly concentrated resource, marine salt. In the alternative scenario, the bottom-up process, the community would become specialized as a result of a slower process in which the changes that led to specialization are the product of decisions of the individuals who resided in Chengue and natural environmental changes. Consequently specialization would have been the role of individual agents (individuals and households) at a very small scale. Although the observed sequence had components from both scenarios, the bottom-up process appears to be the primary force in the formation of a specialized community and the production of surplus that led to social inequality.Study of soils, lagoon and coastal sediments, flora and fauna allowed the climatic reconstruction the last 2500 years. During this long span of time communal units larger than households but smaller than villages had great stability and appear to have been the motors of socio-economic change. The evidence from Chengue suggests that progressive specialization in the context of environmental limitations produced a group of people less well-off than others. Elites do not; however, appear to have had much range of political action during most of the sequence