The Burden of Knowing: Camus, Qohelet, and the Limitations of Human Reason

In one of the most influential works of the twentieth century, The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus writes this: “This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction.” Here, Camus addresses what he believes to be one of the main sources of the absurd: the limitations of human reason. He claims that his inability to fully understand human reality creates a gap between his existence and its meaning, and, in effect, renders the whole of human experience as absurd. Because Camus makes these conclusions from a purely atheistic position, it would seem that his notion of the absurd is incompatible with a theistic understanding of the human condition. Interestingly, however, the main speaker of the ancient Hebrew wisdom book Ecclesiastes, Qohelet, also concludes that the limits of human knowledge give life a sense of absurdity. Although Camus (an atheist) and Qohelet (a theist) begin with different assumptions regarding the existence of God—the very Being who gives meaning and clarity to his creation—their similar conclusions reveal an unlikely compatibility between atheistic and theistic attitudes towards the human predicament. While Camus and Qohelet recognize that the world cannot be explained by human reasoning, and is therefore absurd, they each conclude that uncertainty and human limitations may prompt a certain liberation and solace that allows them to move beyond the absurd. This curious parallel between Camus’s modern existential attitudes in The Myth of Sisyphus and the ancient Hebraic wisdom of Ecclesiastes show that the awareness of the limitation of human reason may compel man to live authentically and passionately despite the seeming unreasonableness of his life

Hysteresis Effects In Driving

This dissertation presents two studies examining the interaction between workload history and driver mental workload. The first experiment focuses on testing for the presence of a hysteresis effect in the driving task. The second experiment examines the proposition that cueing impending periods of higher task demand can reduce the impact of any such potential hysteresis effects. Thirty-two licensed drivers served as participants and all served in both studies. Using the directions provided by a Heads-Up-Display navigation system, participants followed a pre-set route in the simulated environment. At specified points within the drive, the navigation system would purposefully fail which required drivers to relay a ten digit alphanumeric error code to a remote operator in order to reset the system. Results indicated that this increase in task demand from the navigation system\u27s failure leads to a significant increase in perceived mental workload as compared to pre-failure periods. This increase in driver mental workload was not significantly reduced by the time the drive ended, indicating the presence of a hysteresis effect. In the second experiment, the navigation system provided a completely reliable visual warning before failure. Results indicate that cueing had neither an effect on perceived mental workload, nor any ameliorating effect on the hysteretic type effect seen in mental workload recovery. The conclusion of these findings being that the overall safety and efficiency of the surface transportation system would likely improve by designs which accommodate the periods immediately following a reduction in stress. Whether from leaving high demand areas such as work zones or in the period immediately after using a in-car information device such as a GPS or a cell phone, these post-high workload periods are associated with increased variability in driver inputs and levels of mental workload

Testing the Lumberjack Analogy: Automation, Situational Awareness, and Mental Workload

This study examines the effects of automation on the human user of that automation. Automation has been shown to produce a variety of benefits to employees in terms of performance and a reduction of workload, but research in this area indicates that this might be at the cost of situational awareness. This loss of situational awareness is thought to lead to “out-of-the-loop” performance effects. One way this set of effects has been explained is through the “lumberjack” analogy, which suggests these effects are related to degree of automation and automation failure. This study recreates the effects of automation on mental workload, performance, and situational awareness by altering the characteristics of automation in a UAV supervisory control environment; RESCHU was chosen because of its complexity and the ability to manipulate levels of control within the task. Afterwards, it will be discussed whether the effects align with the predictions of the lumberjack analogy. Participants were assigned to one of two automation reliability groups, routine or failure, and all participants experienced all three degrees of automation – manual/low, medium, and high. Scores collected for mental workload, situational awareness, and performance were compared across groups and conditions. Results indicated differences in performance for both degree of automation and reliability, but no interaction. There was also a main effect of degree of automation on raw NASA-TLX scores, with a few main effects reported for individual subscales

Clustering Web Users By Mouse Movement to Detect Bots and Botnet Attacks

The need for website administrators to efficiently and accurately detect the presence of web bots has shown to be a challenging problem. As the sophistication of modern web bots increases, specifically their ability to more closely mimic the behavior of humans, web bot detection schemes are more quickly becoming obsolete by failing to maintain effectiveness. Though machine learning-based detection schemes have been a successful approach to recent implementations, web bots are able to apply similar machine learning tactics to mimic human users, thus bypassing such detection schemes. This work seeks to address the issue of machine learning based bots bypassing machine learning-based detection schemes, by introducing a novel unsupervised learning approach to cluster users based on behavioral biometrics. The idea is that, by differentiating users based on their behavior, for example how they use the mouse or type on the keyboard, information can be provided for website administrators to make more informed decisions on declaring if a user is a human or a bot. This approach is similar to how modern websites require users to login before browsing their website; which in doing so, website administrators can make informed decisions on declaring if a user is a human or a bot. An added benefit of this approach is that it is a human observational proof (HOP); meaning that it will not inconvenience the user (user friction) with human interactive proofs (HIP) such as CAPTCHA, or with login requirement

An evaluation of oyster stocks, grow-out conditions, and off-bottom culture methods for increasing commercial production of eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) in the northern Gulf of Mexico

This project examined the ecologically and economically valuable eastern oyster (Crassotrea virginica) in Louisiana with two field experiments. Little information has been gathered on the performance of local Louisiana oyster stocks and no study has focused on a comparison of stocks among variable estuarine conditions. Additionally, the use of alternative grow-out methods and intensive cage aquaculture has never been evaluated in Louisiana. For the first study, a dermo-resistant stock of oysters (LSU-OYS: ‘OBOY’) was compared to three wild oyster stocks along a salinity gradient. The objectives of this study were to determine the optimal oyster stock(s) and the ideal grow-out condition(s) for intensive oyster aquaculture production. The second experiment compared the efficiencies of three commercially used, off-bottom culture systems. The objective of this study was to suggest which off-bottom grow-out method(s) is most suitable for use in Louisiana estuaries. The results of the stock comparison suggested that the selected dermo-resistant stock had greater mortality than two of the three wild stocks in all the environmental conditions tested. Specifically, wild stocks taken from low salinity areas had greater performance in test areas with low salinities while wild stocks collected from high salinity areas had greater performance at high salinity sites. The results of the grow-out method comparison revealed that an adjustable long line system (ALS) was the most suitable culture system in both high and low salinity conditions, specifically due to overall higher survival, improved growth in shell height, and reduced effort in labor and handling time. For the first time, the performance of four oyster stocks and three intensive oyster culture methods were quantified, suggesting superior stocks, grow-out conditions, and culture systems for augmenting wild production and increasing total production in the Louisiana oyster industry

Creating a Livable Region through Sustainable Development Practices: Reorienting Development in Windsor-Essex through the Implementation of Light Rail Transit

Windsor-Essex County lacks proper regional transportation, a major sustainability issue compounded by poor land use strategies, resulting in low-density suburban communities defined by extensive sprawl and heavy dependence on private automobile use. The current development direction of Windsor-Essex County is unsustainable on multiple levels, turning the region into space in which residents have limited options for how they can efficiently travel within their own municipality and to other municipalities. The downtown core of Windsor needs serious regeneration and the communities that make up the larger metropolitan region need an effective means of travel that is both environmentally sustainable and affordable. In order for Windsor-Essex County to be competitive in a global market place, the local governments within the region need to work on a regional development plan which will create strong economic clusters that are accessible by various means of transit

Ovalbumin-Based Porous Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Regeneration

Cell differentiation on glutaraldehyde cross-linked ovalbumin scaffolds was the main focus of this research. Salt leaching and freeze drying were used to create a three-dimensional porous structure. Average pore size was 147.84 ± 40.36 μm and 111.79 ± 30.71 μm for surface and cross sectional area, respectively. Wet compressive strength and elastic modulus were 6.8 ± 3.6 kPa. Average glass transition temperature was 320.1 ± 1.4°C. Scaffolds were sterilized with ethylene oxide prior to seeding MC3T3-E1 cells. Cells were stained with DAPI and Texas red to determine morphology and proliferation. Average cell numbers increased between 4-hour- and 96-hour-cultured scaffolds. Alkaline phosphatase and osteocalcin levels were measured at 3, 7, 14, and 21 days. Differentiation studies showed an increase in osteocalcin at 21 days and alkaline phosphatase levels at 14 days, both indicating differentiation occurred. This work demonstrated the use of ovalbumin scaffolds for a bone tissue engineering application

The Influence of Technological Reliability and Supervisor Supportiveness on Work Stress

Despite the prevalence of workplace stress, little research has identified both the social and technological sources of it. In two studies, we examined the role of supervisor support and reliable technology in the alleviation of stress. In Study 1, working adults in Mechanical Turk (n = 225) completed an online survey asking them about their workplace attitudes and opportunities. Results of a regression analysis showed that supportive supervisors and reliable technology were the only predictors of lowered stress, even while accounting for coworkers, pay, promotion opportunities, and everyday workplace tasks. In Study 2, undergraduate students (n = 186) completed a computer task that either malfunctioned or worked normally, and were either supervised by a supportive or unsupportive research assistant. The results showed a significant main effect of technology reliability and a Supervisor X Technology interaction effect, but only for female participants. Implications for improving workplace conditions are discussed

Corporate provision of public goods

Milton Friedman famously suggested that firms ought not divert profits toward public goods because shareholders can better make these contributions themselves. Despite this, activist shareholders are increasingly successful in persuading firms to be “socially responsible.” We study firm behavior when shareholders care about public goods as well as profits and when managerial contracts reflect these concerns. Under these ideal conditions, managers redirect more profits toward public goods than shareholders would when acting separately—shareholders are poorer but happier. Further, so long as the public good is sufficiently desirable, the manager selects the socially optimal level of output, despite the mismatch between shareholder preferences and those of society at large

Weighing Neutrinos with Galaxy Cluster Surveys

Large future galaxy cluster surveys, combined with cosmic microwave background observations, can achieve a high sensitivity to the masses of cosmologically important neutrinos. We show that a weak lensing selected sample of ~100,000 clusters could tighten the current upper bound on the sum of masses of neutrino species by an order of magnitude, to a level of 0.03 eV. Since this statistical sensitivity is below the best existing lower limit on the mass of at least one neutrino species, a future detection is likely, provided that systematic errors can be controlled to a similar level.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, version accepted for publication in PR