What Is Time?

In this paper, I answer the question of what time is. First, however, I consider why one might ask this question and what exactly it is asking. The latter consideration reveals that in order to answer the question, one must first engage in a more basic investigation of what a thing, anything at all, is. Such radical investigation requires a special methodology. After briefly characterizing this methodology, I show how it can be employed to answer the titular question. This answer is significant not merely because it illuminates something of perennial interest, but because it is essential to a comprehensive and fully satisfactory metaphysics of time and, hence, to a view of the full structure in reality

Knowing Things in Themselves

A perennial epistemological question is whether things can be known just as they are in the absence of any awareness of them. This epistemological question is posterior to ontological considerations and more specific ones pertaining to mind. In light of such considerations, the author propounds a naïve realist, foundationalist account of knowledge of things in themselves, one that makes crucial use of the work of Brentano. After introducing the resources provided by Brentano’s study of mind, the author reveals the ontological framework in which it takes place. Doing so is instrumental to illuminating acquaintance, the state that enables the direct engagement of a mind and some other thing. The author discusses this state and shows how it has the epistemic heft, with a Brentanian account of judgment, to provide the foundations of one’s knowledge of the world. A naïve realist, foundationalist account of knowledge is open to a compelling objection; the author presents this objection with the means of undermining it. In conclusion, the author recurs to the opening theme of the primacy of ontology and suggests that familiar misgivings about knowing things in themselves are all based on questionable—and ultimately untenable—ontological presuppositions

Structure, Intentionality and the Given

The given is the state of a mind in its primary engagement with the world. A satisfactory epistemology—one, it turns out, that is foundationalist and includes a naïve realist view of perception—requires a certain account of the given. Moreover, knowledge based on the given requires both a particular view of the world itself and a heterodox account of judgment. These admittedly controversial claims are supported by basic ontological considerations. I begin, then, with two contradictory views of the world per se and the structure one experiences. I draw out the consequences of these two views for what intentionality is. The two views yield incompatible accounts of the given. The definitive spontaneity of the one account, and passivity of the other, can be understood in terms of the structure (or lack thereof) in the given. In defense of the claim that a structured given is not an apt epistemic basis, I examine an attempt to found an epistemology on such an account in light of the so-called myth of the given. I maintain that the given, if it is to provide some justification for taking the world to be a particular way, must be unstructured. To support this, I first discuss a significant problem with traditional foundationalism. I then argue that a satisfactory (foundationalist) epistemology requires the rejection of the orthodox propositional view of judgment in favor of a non-propositional, reistic view

Sensing of meteorological variables by laser probe techniques Semiannual report, 1 Aug. 1966 - 31 Jan. 1967

Optical radar sensing of meteorological variables in atmosphere and ionospher

Sensing of meteorological variables by laser probe techniques Semiannual report, 1 Feb. - 31 Jul. 1968

Spectrum of coherent light scattered from water jet with uniform spherical particle

Sensing of Meteorological Variables by Laser Probe Techniques Semiannual Report, 1 Aug. 1965 - 31 Jan. 1966

Sensing of meteorological variables by laser probe technique

Investigations of dust in the upper atmosphere by optical radar Final report, 1 Jul. 1966 - 31 Jul. 1968

Upper atmospheric dust investigations using optical radar technique

The Regulation of Interdependent Markets

We examine the issue of whether two monopolists which produce substitutable goods should be regulated by one (centralization) or two (decentralization) regulatory authorities, when the regulator(s) can be partially captured by industry. Under full information, two decentral- ized agencies - each regulating a single market - charge lower prices than a unique regulator, making consumers better off. However, this leads to excessive costs for the taxpayers who subsidize the …rms, so that centralized regulation is preferable. Under asymmetric informa- tion about the firms' costs, lobbying induces a unique regulator to be more concerned with the industry's interests, and this decreases social welfare. When the substitutability between the goods is high enough, the firms'lobbying activity may be so strong that decentralizing the regulatory structure may be social welfare enhancing.regulation, lobbying, asymmetric information, energy markets

Bargaining and Collusion in a Regulatory Model

We consider the regulation of a monopolistic market when the prin- cipal delegates to a regulatory agency two tasks: the supervision of the firm's unknown costs and the arrangement of a pricing mechanism. As usual, the agency may have an incentive to hide information from the principal to share the informative rent with the firm. The novelty of this paper is that both the regulatory mechanism and the side con- tracting between the agency and the firm are modelled as a bargaining process. This negotiation between the regulator and the monopoly induces a radical change in the extraprofit from private information, which is now equal to the standard informational rent weighted by the agency’ bargaining power. This in turn a¤ects the collusive stage, in particular the firm has the greatest incentive to collude when fac- ing an agency with the same bargaining power. Then, we focus on the optimal organizational responses to the possibility of collusion. In our setting, where incompleteness of contracts prevents the design of a screening mechanism between the agency’ types and thus Tirole’ equivalence principle does not apply, we prove that the stronger the agency in the negotiation process, the greater the incentives for the principal to tolerate collusion in equilibrium.regulation, bargaining, collusion.

Persistent memory in athermal systems in deformable energy landscapes

We show that memory can be encoded in a model amorphous solid subjected to athermal oscillatory shear deformations, and in an analogous spin model with disordered interactions, sharing the feature of a deformable energy landscape. When these systems are subjected to oscillatory shear deformation, they retain memory of the deformation amplitude imposed in the training phase, when the amplitude is below a "localization" threshold. Remarkably, multiple, persistent, memories can be stored using such an athermal, noise-free, protocol. The possibility of such memory is shown to be linked to the presence of plastic deformations and associated limit cycles traversed by the system, which exhibit avalanche statistics also seen in related contexts.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure