31,160 research outputs found
Teleological Essentialism: Generalized
Natural/social kind essentialism is the view that natural kind categories, both living and non-living natural kinds, as well as social kinds (e.g., race, gender), are essentialized. On this view, artifactual kinds are not essentialized. Our viewāteleological essentialismāis that a broad range of categories are essentialized in terms of teleology, including artifacts. Utilizing the same kinds of experiments typically used to provide evidence of essentialist thinkingāinvolving superficial change (study 1), transformation of insides (study 2) and inferences about offspring (study 3)āwe find support for the view that a broad range of categoriesāliving natural kinds, non-living natural kinds and artifactual kindsāare essentialized in terms of teleology. Study 4 tests a unique prediction of teleological essentialism and also provides evidence that people make inferences about purposes which in turn guide categorization judgments
Does Competition Reduce Costs? Assessing the Impact of Regulatory Restructuring on U.S. Electric Generation Efficiency
This paper explores the empirical effects of competition on technical efficiency in the context of electricity industry restructuring. Restructuring programs adopted by many U.S. states made utilities residual claimants to cost savings and increased their exposure to competitive markets. We estimate the impact of these changes on annual generating plant-level input demand for non-fuel operating expenses, the number of employees and fuel use. We find that municipally-owned plants, whose owners were for the most part unaffected by restructuring, experienced the smallest efficiency gains over the past decade. Investor-owned utility plants in states that restructured their wholesale electricity markets had the largest reductions in nonfuel operating expenses and employment, while investor-owned plants in nonrestructuring states fell between these extremes. The analysis also highlights the substantive importance of treating the simultaneity of input and output decisions, which we do through an instrumental variables approach.Efficiency, Production, Competition, Electricity restructuring, Electric Generation, Regulation
You never surf alone. Ubiquitous tracking of users' browsing habits
In the early age of the internet users enjoyed a large level of anonymity. At
the time web pages were just hypertext documents; almost no personalisation of
the user experience was o ered. The Web today has evolved as a world wide
distributed system following specific architectural paradigms. On the web now,
an enormous quantity of user generated data is shared and consumed by a network
of applications and services, reasoning upon users expressed preferences and
their social and physical connections. Advertising networks follow users'
browsing habits while they surf the web, continuously collecting their traces
and surfing patterns. We analyse how users tracking happens on the web by
measuring their online footprint and estimating how quickly advertising
networks are able to pro le users by their browsing habits
Teleological Essentialism
Placeholder essentialism is the view that there is a causal essence that holds category members together, though we may not know what the essence is. Sometimes the placeholder can be filled in by scientific essences, such as when we acquire scientific knowledge that the atomic weight of gold is 79. We challenge the view that placeholders are elaborated by scientific essences. On our view, if placeholders are elaborated, they are elaborated Aristotelian essences, a telos. Utilizing the same kinds of experiments used by traditional essentialistsāinvolving superficial change (study 1), transformation of insides (study 2), acquired traits (study 3) and inferences about offspring (study 4)āwe find support for the view that essences are elaborated by a telos. And we find evidence (study 5) that teleological essences may generate category judgments
Community Ecology
COMMUNITIES with Microtus tend to be structurally simple, usually grasslands or tundra, and to have no more than two species of Microtus and rarely more than six species of small mammals. Microtus often dominates both numerically and in total small mammal biomass, especially at higher latitudes. The small mammal community is most influenced by Microtus through its fluctuations in density, and thus also in biomass, by its relatively high level of diurnal activity, and by its year-round activity. Other species of small mammals may be adversely affected because Microtus usually is larger and behaviorally dominant and also because the mere presence of Microtus may focus predators on the area, especially during periods of high density. As generalized herbivores, primarily on grasses and herbs, Microtus has the potential to alter plant communities, either by selectively harvesting some species or through stimulating growth by grazing. Scarcely anything is known about the role Microtus plays in plant and small mammal communities, so both descriptive and experimental studies can make significant contributions to an understanding of the role and impact Microtus has on its communities
Deterministic annealing, constrained clustering, and optimization
In previous work the authors (Phys. Rev. Let., vol.65, p.945-8, 1990) proposed the concept of deterministic annealing for the problem of clustering and vector quantization. This approach is summarized. The authors extend the clustering method to the constraint clustering method. Adding constraints to the deterministic annealing mechanism expands the variety of optimization problems which can be solved by this method. A brief presentation of the clustering approach is given. Two examples to which the constraint clustering approach can be applied are included
Angular Correlations in Internal Pair Conversion of Aligned Heavy Nuclei
We calculate the spatial correlation of electrons and positrons emitted by
internal pair conversion of Coulomb excited nuclei in heavy ion collisions. The
alignment or polarization of the nucleus results in an anisotropic emission of
the electron-positron pairs which is closely related to the anisotropic
emission of -rays. However, the angular correlation in the case of
internal pair conversion exhibits diverse patterns. This might be relevant when
investigating atomic processes in heavy-ion collisions performed at the Coulomb
barrier.Comment: 27 pages + 6 eps figures, uses revtex.sty and epsf.sty,
tar-compressed and uuencoded with uufile
Pasture species evaluation in the medium rainfall zone
The effect of mechanical defoliation on the production of legume species in the Katanning region - 84KA26. The effect of grazing on the seed production of legume species - 84KA27. The effect of gypsum and establishment techniques on Circle Valley medic - 84KA29. The effect of gypsum, tillage and nitrogen on cereal yields in a continous crop system - 84KA28. The effect of gypsum on cereal crop yield - Katanning, E. Garlick Kwobrup, D. Webse. Pasture probe evaluation. Aim: To determine the suitability of the Vickery single probe earth plate capacitance meter for determining pasture production
A survey of the interaction between security protocols and transport services
This document provides a survey of commonly used or notable network security protocols, with a focus on how they interact and integrate with applications and transport protocols. Its goal is to supplement efforts to define and catalog Transport Services by describing the interfaces required to add security protocols. This survey is not limited to protocols developed within the scope or context of the IETF, and those included represent a superset of features a Transport Services system may need to support
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