801 research outputs found
Aristotle on Forming Friendships
In lieu of an abstract, here is the article\u27s first paragraph:
Although he lived long ago, the ethical writings of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE) still have relevance to the present day, particularly when we want to understand the meaning of friendship. In Books VIII and IX of his work the Nichomachean Ethics (named in honor of both his father and son, who shared the name Nichomachus), Aristotle categorizes three different types of friendship: friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure, and friendships of the good (also known as virtuous friendships). Briefly, friendships of utility are where people are on cordial terms primarily because each person benefits from the other in some way: business partnerships, relationships among co-workers, and classmate connections are examples. Friendships of pleasure are those where individuals seek out each other’s company because of the joy it brings them. Passionate love affairs, people belonging to the same cultural or social organization, and fishing buddies all fall into this category. Most important of all are friendships of the good. These are friendships based upon mutual respect, admiration for each other’s virtues, and a strong desire to aid and assist the other person because one recognizes an essential goodness in them. (See Tim Madigan’s article ‘Aristotle’s Email, Or, Friendship in the Cyber Age’ in Philosophy Now 61 for further details on these categories.)
But, the questions remain – just why do we need friends? And if we do need them, how do such relationships arise
SPITZER/IRAC-MIPS Survey of NGC2451A and B: Debris Disks at 50-80 million years
We present a Spitzer IRAC and MIPS survey of NGC 2451 A and B, two open
clusters in the 50-80 Myr age range. We complement these data with extensive
ground-based photometry and spectroscopy to identify the cluster members in the
Spitzer survey field. We find only two members with 8 micron excesses. The
incidence of excesses at 24 microns is much higher, 11 of 31 solar-like stars
and 1 of 7 early-type (A) stars. This work nearly completes the debris disk
surveys with Spitzer of clusters in the 30-130 Myr range. This range is of inte
rest because it is when large planetesimal collisions may have still been
relatively common (as indicated by the one that led to the formation of the
Moon during this period of the evolution of the Solar System). We review the
full set of surveys and find that there are only three possible cases out of
about 250 roughly solar-mass stars where very large excesses suggest that such
collisions have occurred recently.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 25 pages 17 figure
ADOPTING 21ST CENTURY COMPETENCIES FOR A TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY CURRICULUM
Russian universities are involved in the global process of rethinking and remodelling of the higher educational system. They are expected to provide their students with a wide variety of skills, which are often referred to as "21st century competencies". Such skills as critical thinking, decision making, the ability to communicate effectively and solve problems through negotiation and collaboration are needed for success in study and careers. For the universities it means growing importance of making curriculum relevant, helping students learn how to teach themselves, and fostering creativity. This article explores the quality of learning in the Russian technical university and concludes that the current pedagogy has not adapted yet to address the challenges of the twenty-first century. The traditional approach, based upon a teacher-centred focus on rote learning still prevails.  Through this research it was found that there are different pedagogical approaches that could develop different 21st century competencies by technical students. The article concludes with a discussion around some innovative teaching methods that make lessons more student-driven and motivating
Monitoring evolved stars for binarity with the HERMES spectrograph
Binarity is often invoked to explain peculiarities that can not be explained
by the standard theory of stellar evolution. Detecting orbital motion via the
Doppler effect is the best method to test binarity when direct imaging is not
possible. However, when the orbital period exceeds the duration of a typical
observing run, monitoring often becomes problematic. Placing a high-throughput
spectrograph on a small semi- robotic telescope allowed us to carry out a
radial-velocity survey of various types of peculiar evolved stars. In this
review we highlight some findings after the first four years of observations.
Thus, we detect eccentric binaries among hot subdwarfs, barium, S stars, and
post- AGB stars with disks, which are not predicted by the standard binary
interaction theory. In disk objects, in addition, we find signs of the on-
going mass transfer to the companion, and an intriguing line splitting, which
we attribute to the scattered light of the primary.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the conference "Setting a new
standard in the analysis of binary stars", A. Tkachenko (ed.), European
Astron. Soc. Publ. Se
Out-of-plane fluctuation conductivity of layered superconductors in strong electric fields
The non-Ohmic effect of a high electric field on the out-of-plane
magneto-conductivity of a layered superconductor near the superconducting
transition is studied in the frame of the Langevin approach to the
time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation. The transverse fluctuation
conductivity is computed in the self-consistent Hartree approximation for an
arbitrarily strong electric field and a magnetic field perpendicular to the
layers. Our results indicate that high electric fields can be effectively used
to suppress the out-of-plane fluctuation conductivity in high-temperature
superconductors and a significant broadening of the transition induced by a
strong electric field is predicted. Extensions of the results are provided for
the case when the electric field is applied at an arbitrary angle with respect
to the layers, as well as for the three-dimensional anisotropic regime of a
strong interlayer coupling.Comment: to be published in Phys. Rev.
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