On Time and Other Things: Some Cartesian Dichotomies in Antarctica

Antarctica differs from all other regions in the world, not only from its unique geography, but also in the way humans understand it and have incorporated it into global relations. Considering Antarctica's distinctive landscapes and human relations, this paper discusses aspects of how time is humanly perceived in Antarctica. Basing on elements from different human occupations, nineteenth-century sailor-hunters and current incursions, this discussion approximates different historical groups in their experiences of Antarctica, connecting their personal lives, past and present. Meanwhile, also put into issue are the dualities that separate nature and culture, physical and relative time, and past and present, as well as the related notions of time in itself, perceived time speed and internal time consciousness.

The past participle and the periphrastic passive construction in French

Our hypothesis is that the past participle is a singular form in the TAM (tense-aspect-mood) linguistic system in French, in that it represents the internal time of the process on its terminal point ([R = Et]). Due to this representation of internal time, the p.p. can be related to the second argument – the patientive argument – of a direct transitive process: it is the essential element of the passive construction. Contrary to what is often written, the copula être ‘be’, is an optional element: it may serve to develop the construction in its periphrastic dimension, but it is not necessary to the passive construction itself, as the cases of the passive in the participial clause demonstrate. Moreover, the p.p. is not intrinsically resultative or processive, no more than it is active or passive: from its aspect [R = Et], it can, in interaction with different contexts, participate in the production of these different effects of meaning in discourse.

Induction of Internal Circadian Desynchrony by Misaligning Zeitgebers

24-hour rhythms in physiology and behaviour are orchestrated by an endogenous circadian clock system. In mammals, these clocks are hierarchically organized with a master pacemaker residing in the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). External time signal – so-called zeitgebers – align internal with geophysical time. During shift work, zeitgeber input conflicting with internal time induces circadian desynchrony which, in turn, promotes metabolic and psychiatric disorders. However, little is known about how internal desynchrony is expressed at the molecular level under chronodisruptive environmental conditions. We here investigated the effects of zeitgeber misalignment on circadian molecular organisation by combining 28-hour light-dark (LD-28) cycles with either 24-hour (FF-24) or 28-hour feeding-fasting (FF-28) regimes in mice. We found that FF cycles showed strong effects on peripheral clocks, while having little effect on centrally coordinated activity rhythms. Systemic, i.e., across-tissue internal circadian desynchrony was induced within four days in LD-28/FF-24, while phase coherence between tissue clocks was largely maintained under LD-28/FF-28 conditions. In contrast, temporal coordination of clock gene activity across tissues was reduced under LD-28/FF-28 conditions compared to LD-28/FF-24. These results indicate that timed food intake may improve internal synchrony under disruptive zeitgeber conditions but may, at the same time, weaken clock function at the tissue level.

Personal Self-identity As an Aspect of Educational Space and Time

The article implements a philosophical approach to the problems of education. The author sees the main problem in the fact that stereotyping and monologiza­tion of human behavior, thinking and communication in many ways are a conse­quence of the education system being monologue: most importantly, the content of education is viewed as a pedagogically adapted social experience transmitted to a student without taking into account his personal, cultural and historical background and other characteristics. The article debates that such a knowledge-transfer, subject-object nature of education leads to the expansion of the exter­nally specified content of education as the capacity of educational space. Most arguably, it does not take into account the student himself in education, his mis­sion, purpose, peculiarities, it creates preconditions for the loss of a person’s identity as an internal space which the author regards as the interaction of inter­nal forms, words and actions. Overloading the content of education at all its lev­els leads pedagogical science to the problems of pedagogical space and time. In his research, the author shows that the time for the student to create his own metasubject learning results differs from the time it takes for the student to ac­quire integrated, interdisciplinary “knowledge”. Based on the concept of “inter­nal forms” of a word (A.A. Potebnya, G.G. Shpet, P.A. Florensky, N.S. Avtono­mova), the author of the article considers dialogical communication as the nature of the student’s inner space which determines his self-identity. The author’s re­search shows that a heuristic dialogue, in which the questioning dominant in learning new things belongs to the student, and not the teacher, is the most im­portant tool for the formation and development of his inner space – the space of self-change, a condition for the conjugation of the “external” objective (histori­cal) time with the “internal” time – ahistorical, meta-time.

Descriptive model for distributed element synchronization digital radio networks of the IEEE 802.11s and IEEE 802.11p standards

Today, the basic radio communication standards for building self-organizing networks such as MANET, VANET and FANET are IEEE 802.11s and IEEE 802.11p. The link layer is responsible for establishing and conducting a communication session in these networks. It includes a variety of procedures, the main of which are synchronization procedures, random multiple media access, reserved media access and transmitter power control of network elements. Moreover, in digital radio communication networks of the IEEE 802.11 standards family, both centralized synchronization and distributed synchronization of such network elements are used. However, in digital radio networks of the IEEE 802.11s and IEEE 802.11p standards, the key procedure for establishing and conducting a communication session is the distributed synchronization of the network data elements. It should be noted that there is no descriptive model of distributed synchronization of the IEEE 802.11s and IEEE 802.11p standards digital radio communication network elements, taking into account these standards features. All elements of the IEEE 802.11s and IEEE 802.11p digital radio network send Beacons on a competitive basis. This occurs cyclically at the start of the repeating sync interval. In this regard, the occurrence of three events is possible: successful transmission of the synchronizing Beacon packet, its collision with a similar packet and a service or user data packet. To prevent (reduce) the number of collisions in a digital radio communication network, it is necessary to maintain a constant time difference between the internal time of all network elements. It is worth noting that maintaining a constant time difference for all digital radio communication network elements through guaranteed and timely sending of synchronizing Beacon packets is the main mechanism for distributed synchronization of such network elements. In the event that the calculated value of the time difference Toffsetni for one of the neighboring elements of the digital radio communication network does not coincide with the analogous value obtained in the past synchronization interval Toffsetni-1, then the correction of the own internal TTSF time of the IEEE 802.11s and IEEE 802.11p standards digital radio communication network element begins. The procedure for adjusting the network element internal time continues until the maximum value of this element internal time offset TMaxClockDrift is equal to zero. Also, to reduce or prevent collisions of synchronizing Beacon packets in the data transmission channel, each network element both initially, when entering the network, and immediately when collisions of synchronizing packets occur, Beacon selects and sets the timing parameters of synchronization so that they do not coincide with similar parameters of neighboring network elements. The developed descriptive model of the IEEE 802.11s and IEEE 802.11p standards digital radio communication network elements distributed synchronization includes algorithms for the such network elements functioning, adjusting the such elements intrinsic internal time, searching for an alternative value for the start time of a repeating synchronization interval and adjusting it. The presented model is applicable in the development of analytical and simulation models for assessing the IEEE 802.11s and IEEE 802.11p standards digital radio communication network performance, taking into account the distributed synchronization of such network elements.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE PRINCIPLE OF EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL AND NON-CLASSICAL SCIENCE

The relevance of the study of the mechanism of evolution is determined by the fact that the understanding of scientific laws is changing in modern science. From the microworld to the megaworld, the historical nature of the processes occurring in them is recognized, which should be reflected in the interpretation of laws. The author sets out to reveal the prerequisites of the idea of self-organization, which is a distinctive feature of evolutionary processes in the synergetic picture of the world of post-non-classical science. The idea of self-organization grows out of the concepts of evolution developed in the classical and non-classical periods of the development of modern science. The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the concepts of the evolution of these periods. The dominant approach in the modern philosophy of science is the history of science, so the author is guided by the methodology of historical and scientific research, when comparative analysis is implemented through finding out the similarities and differences of the stages of interest. The article substantiates the thesis that at this stage the concept of evolutionism is based on the recognition of the time parameter either in the form of an infinite sequence of events embodied in the present («external time»), or in the form of the principle of historicity («internal time»). The classical concept of evolution was a hypothesis. In non-classical science, the concept of evolution receives a scientific — empirical and theoretical — justification. To specify the principle of evolution in this period, the material from astrophysics, biology and historical science is given. The novelty of the obtained results is connected with the recognition of the hypothetical nature of the idea of evolution in the non-major non-rationalist branch of descriptive natural science of classical stage, the acquisition of scientific justification by it (the idea of evolution) at the non-classical stage, as well as with the transition from the concept of «external» to «internal» time. «Internal» time is the essence of the new concept of historicism, where evolution is interpreted as self-organization. A new concept of evolution and a new type of scientific laws set the prospect for further research. Key words: the concept of evolution, classical / non-classical science, time, the principle of historicism, V. I. Vernadsky, M. Foucault, sciences of inorganic / organic nature, historical science.