A Defense of Shepherd’s Account of Cause and Effect as Synchronous

Lady Mary Shepherd holds that the relation of cause and effect consists of the combination of two objects to create a third object. She also holds that this account implies that causes are synchronous with their effects. There is a single instant in which the objects that are causes combine to create the object which is their effect. Hume argues that cause and effect cannot be synchronous because if they were then the entire chain of successive causes and effects would all collapse into a single moment, and succession would not be possible. I argue that Shepherd has a ready, although implicit response, to Hume’s argument. Since causation is combination on Shepherd’s view, she is free to hold that there are times in between those instants in which combinations occur, during which times other, non-combinatory changes occur, which changes account for succession

Sellars' Argument for an Ontology of Absolute Processes

Scholars have rejected Wilfrid Sellars’ argument for an ontology of absolute processes on the grounds that it relies on a dubious and dogmatic appeal to the homogeneity of color. Borrowing from Rosenthal’s recent defense, but ultimate rejection of homogeneity, I defend this claim of on Sellarsian/Kantian transcendental grounds, and reconstruct the remainder of his argument. I argue that Sellars has good reason to suppose that homogeneity is a necessary condition of any possible experience, including indirect experience of theoretical-explanatory posits, and therefore good reason to hold that Reductive Materialism, as he conceives it, is an untenable account of color. The remainder of his argument aims to answer the question of what the metaphysical relation is between the state of an experiencing subject that we take color to be and the colorless microphysical particles that we take to constitute that subject. After rejecting Substance Dualism, Epiphenomenalism, and Wholistic or Emergent Materialism as explanatorily inadequate, Sellars proposes that both color-states and micro-physical particles should be understood as manifestations of an underlying ontology on absolute processes

Scientific Realism without Rigid Designation in Kant's Analogies

In Kant, Science, and Human Nature, Robert Hanna argues against a version of scientific realism founded on the Kripke/Putnam theory of reference, and defends a Kant-inspired manifest realism in its place. I reject Kriple/Putnam for different reasons than Hanna does, and argue that what should replace it is not manifest realism, but Kant‘s own scientific realism, which rests on a radically different theory of reference. Kant holds that we picture manifest objects by uniting manifolds of sensation using concepts-qua-inferential-rules. When these rules are demonstrated to be invalid, we replace the picture of the macroscopic world with a picture of the microscopic entities of theoretical science that unites the very same manifolds using different rules of inference. Thus, we refer to "unobservable" theoretical entities in the same way that we do manifest ones: by specifying both their determinate location in space and time and the concepts by which they are understood

Closed loop operation eliminates need for auxiliary gas in high pressure pumping station

Closed loop system for a liquid nitrogen high pressure pump feeds back gaseous nitrogen generated by heat leak into the reservoir to maintain the pressure in the storage tank. This safer, more efficient system eliminates the need for auxiliary gas to maintain the tank pressure and can be used on relatively high cryogenic pumping systems

Developing Sound Banks in Transitional Economies: Structural Reforms in Ukraine

This paper explores the methods that the Ukrainian government (supported by international technical assistance providers) is developing to minimize the probability of a damaging, systemic banking crisis. The contention is that with highly lucrative existing sources of income for banks receding (and profits under increasing pressure), banks will more aggressively expand their balance sheets - but not necessarily in a healthy manner - as well as engage more in riskier off-balance sheet activities, such as foreign exchange trading. Thus, in the coming period, the fragility of the Ukrainian banking system could increase, leaving the system at greater risk. The first two sections briefly review banking under the Communist system, and in the first period of the transitional governments. Then follows an in-depth discussion of Ukraine which explores at some length some of the elements needed for a more comprehensive strategy. An appendix deals with the question of banking sector strategy in more general terms.Economic Transition, Structural Reforms, Banking Sector, Ukraine

Centred approach to the period of anharmonic oscillators

We present a simple method for obtaining a concise series expression for the period of one-dimensional classical oscillators. The series converges well for typical potentials and is of a form that is often suitable for obtaining approximate expressions for the period valid to any order in the amplitude desired. The method is most easily applied to even potentials. However, by employing the lower turning point expansion discussed in the appendices it may readily be applied even to those potentials where the lower turning point may not be solved for explicitly in terms of the upper turning point. We demonstrate the method by obtaining expressions for the periods of both the simple pendulum and tadpole orbits