An Odyssey at the Interface – A Study in the Stream of Consciousness

Experimental science should be experimental in every aspect of it, from the life and career path of the experimenter to how its results and thoughts are being written up. In this paper, the author experiments with the stream of consciousness style of writing. To conform to this literary style, the text follows a natural train of thought that abounds with analogies and associations and deliberate typographic and syntactic omissions at times. Paying an homage to Joyce’s Ulysses as the hallmark of the stream of consciousness writings, the author demonstrates empirically and through a bibliographic meta-analysis that a nanoparticle protected against biodegradation in lysosomal compartments of the cell, like Odysseus, takes significantly more time to return to its point of origin than to reach its intracellular destination. Thus, getting across the biological barrier and into the living system is less laborious and tardy than escaping from it. From here on, the corollaries of this finding relevant for the field of targeted drug delivery using nanoparticles are elaborated. This discussion is entwined with the storyline of the paper, which reflects Homer’s epic poem about Odysseus and his long journey home. This experiment in scientific writing is motivated by the hope that rejuvenation of the literary style of technical papers in natural sciences might revitalize the rusty creativity and ill social relations underlying them. By experimenting with literary novelties and eventually adopting them as a common practice, science would be brought closer to the world of arts, at the interface of which it could rediscover its renaissance identity and flourish anew.

Train of Language, Train of Thought: Notes on an Exophonic Anomaly

The creation of poetry with literary value in a non-native language often invites questions about how this is possible to achieve. This question, however, can be turned around: is there something in being an exophonic poet that, rather than being an obstacle, could make the development and maturing of a poetic language possible? Adam Zagajewski writes that ardor, not irony, can be primary building blocks, and about the ideal of being ‘in between’. Ben Lerner writes about the sources of Hatred of Poetry and sees poetry as a potential that can never be completely realised. Being between languages causes the reality of language as one of many possibilities to be always present. The result can be construed as a poetic of time and light, but also of a reconciliation at depth warranted by the poetic ethos. Language becomes aware of itself, its autonomy and inherent lack of objectivity, and this becomes less naive and prone to cliches, but this awareness need not spiral into self-dissolving irony. Rather, it may seek to reconcile the possible ways of seeing the world into a new sense of sincerity. It inspires creative and playful use of language, gives heightened awareness of possible metaphors even where the sense of the transferred image is absent within the framework of one language. This has the potential to change perception of language and reality in a way that makes poetry almost possible.

Is Davidson's Theory of Action Consistent?

A theory of human action should provide an account of the connection between reason and action when an agent acts for a reason, and it should provide an account of the explanatory force of explanations of actions. On the causal theory of action, the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and explanations of actions are modeled on ordinary causal explanations, where events are explained by citing other events as their causes. A once common objection to the causal theory had it that reasons cannot be causes, since explanations of actions do not fit reason and action into a nomic nexus expressed by laws or law-like generalizations. Against this train of thought, Donald Davidson defends a version of the causal theory by arguing that the view that the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and the view that explanations of actions do not fit reasons and actions into a nomic nexus are compatible. Davidson's theory generated a small industry of criticism focusing on the implications of his version of the causal theory for the nature of the causal connection between reasons and actions.

Is Davidson's Theory of Action Consistent?

A theory of human action should provide an account of the connection between reason and action when an agent acts for a reason, and it should provide an account of the explanatory force of explanations of actions. On the causal theory of action, the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and explanations of actions are modeled on ordinary causal explanations, where events are explained by citing other events as their causes. A once common objection to the causal theory had it that reasons cannot be causes, since explanations of actions do not fit reason and action into a nomic nexus expressed by laws or law-like generalizations. Against this train of thought, Donald Davidson defends a version of the causal theory by arguing that the view that the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and the view that explanations of actions do not fit reasons and actions into a nomic nexus are compatible. Davidson's theory generated a small industry of criticism focusing on the implications of his version of the causal theory for the nature of the causal connection between reasons and actions.

On Relevant Knowledge and Valorization in Religious and Worldview Education

Internationalization of academic research and international knowledge transfer can contribute to making religious and worldview educational practices relevant. Thus, international endearvors of academic research are also to be valued as well as national endeavors. However, neo-liberal perverse stimuli have had the upper hand in academic research policies since the 1980s. Thus research policy criteria and aims of academic research need to change in order to result in relevancy and valorization for pedagogical practices. Following a pragmatistic train of thought in philosophy of science can offer the possibility for a democratic approach which is truly oriented on the world’s problems in which academic researchers, pedagogical practitioners, politicians and lay-persons can join forces.

Entropy method of determining the attribute weights of interval numbers based on relative superiority

In view of the multi-attribute decision making problems which the attribute values are in the forms of interval numbers, the paper presents an entropy method to obtain the attribute weights using the relative superiority concept. Firstly, the concept of this kind of problem is explained; Then in the light of the basic principle of the traditional entropy value method and train of thought, it given the calculation steps of weights using the relative superiority about the attribute value is interval number multiple attribute decision making problems. Its core is that relative superiority judgment matrix is obtained by comparing with two sets of interval numbers under the same indicator, which the group of interval numbers is equivalently mapped to the exact value form with the merits of relationship, then the weights of each indicator are calculated. Finally, the method is illustrated by giving an example.

Studi Perbandingan Pengajaran Reaksi Reduksi Oksidasi Antara Cara Perubahan Bilangan Oksidasi dengan Cara Setengah Reaksi terhadap Hasil Belajar Siswa Kelas XII IPA 1 dan XII IPA 2

Oxidation-Reduction Reactions (Redox) are one of the hardest reactions to equalize, this means that it is hard to determine the suitable Reaction Coefficient. An easier and more logical train of thought is to remember that a Reduction and an Oxidation reaction happens simultaneously. A Redox Reaction has two methods in order to equalize, that which is by using the “Change in Oxidation Number” method or the “Half-Reaction (Ion-Electron)” method. The students’ skills in completing a Redox Reaction can be observed in the grades that they have achieved. This observation is intended to find out if there is a difference in students’ grades if you were to teach them about the equalization of Redox Reactions using either of these two methods (the “Change in Oxidation Number” method and the “Half-Reaction” method). The population in this observation consists of the students of Class XII IPA 1 and Class XII IPA 2 of SMAS PERTIWI Jambi that are studying Oxidation-Reduction Reactions. Sample members consist of the students of Class XII IPA 1 and the students of Class XII IPA 3 of SMAS Pertiwi Jambi. The measuring instrument used is a test that has fulfilled standards. Normality tests and Homogeneity tests of the sample in question has been done before the Hypothetical test was implemented. The average grades of students using the “Change in Oxidation Number” method and the “Half-Reaction” method is 11.75 and 10.8 respectively. The T-value of calculations is approximately 1.81 while the T-value of tables is approximately 2.00. With the Level of Significance being 0.05. From the data provided above, it can be concluded that there is no difference in student grades whether the “Change in Oxidation Numbers” method or the “Half-Reaction” method is used to equalize Redox Reactions in applicative aspects.

Philosophische Superlative und die Maschine als Symbol

Philosophical Superlatives: Machines as Symbols. – In this paper, my chief aim is to present a close reading of parts of a central sequence of remarks from Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (191 – 197, cf. Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, I, 121 – 130). The apparent theme of this sequence is the idea of a ‘machine as a symbol of its mode of operation’. Obviously, this idea requires a good deal of clarification, and the present paper attempts to elucidate relevant passages which, in their turn, are discussed in the hope of succeeding in spelling out some of the points Wittgenstein has in mind in appealing to the picture of a machine as a symbol of its mode of operation. What will serve as a kind of framework of these elucidations is the notion of a philosophical superlative appealed to by Wittgenstein in a number of remarks that can be seen as particularly characteristic of his later thought. In the course of developing the idea of a philosophical superlative six aspects, or types, of superlatives are distinguished, and the last of these is found to shade into the image of a machine as symbol in a way that allows us to draw on various superlatives in striving to clarify the train of thought underpinning the sequence PI 191 – 197 and related passages.

A general branch-and-bound framework for continuous global multiobjective optimization

Current generalizations of the central ideas of single-objective branch-and-bound to the multiobjective setting do not seem to follow their train of thought all the way. The present paper complements the various suggestions for generalizations of partial lower bounds and of overall upper bounds by general constructions for overall lower bounds from partial lower bounds, and by the corresponding termination criteria and node selection steps. In particular, our branch-and-bound concept employs a new enclosure of the set of nondominated points by a union of boxes. On this occasion we also suggest a new discarding test based on a linearization technique. We provide a convergence proof for our general branch-and-bound framework and illustrate the results with numerical examples.

Из материалов для комментария к «Капитанской дочке»: 9–11 [Notes and Queries on _The Captain’s Daughter_ (9–11)]

There are three sections in this article, all concerning The Captains Daughter (Kapitanskaia dochka, 1836) by Alexander Pushkin. The first section reconstructs the hidden yet crucial train of thought launched by the elder Grinev’s reading of The Court Almanach for 1772, which comes to drive the novel’s plot in a surprising direction. The second section investigates the protagonist’s failed military career. The third section discusses Pushkin’s linguistic lapse (na son griadushchii instead of na son griadushchim), a distortion of a liturgical phrase well known to Orthodox Christians. Keywords: 19th-Century Russian Literature, Alexander Pushkin (1799—1837), Kapitanskaia dochka (1836), Russo-Turkish Wars (1736—1739, 1768—1774), Military Careers, The Orthodox Prayer Book, In memoriam: Larisa Georgievna Stepanova (1941—2009).