The Practice of “Controlled Dreams” in the Alchemical Tradition of Taoism

The paper focuses on the Taoist concept of “dreams”, which is considered from the point of view of the meditative practice of “realized dreams” or “controlled visions”. Famous Taoist masters Chen Tuan (10th cent.), Ma Danyang (12th cent.), Bai Yuchan (12th cent.) and many others implemented techniques of “controlled dreams” as a type of meditative alchemical practice: erasing the frontier between sleep and reality, long periods of vigil in a state of “almost sleep” lead to deactualization of the own “ego”. Deliverance from the conventions of the “dream world” leads to the beginning of the mystical transformations inside the body, and the practitioner passes through several stages: to set up breathing, calm consciousness, the beginning of the “copulation” inside the body of two agents (analogs of alchemical lead and mercury), concluding with the formation of a “miracle remedy”. With the control of the spirit-shen, overnight visions were the continuation of the Taoist self-control during the day, while due to various psychosomatic methods, dreams and reality were perceived as a single indistinguishable continuum, and various “lustful desires” were expelled from consciousness. In this regard, the popular idea of a “dream” in Taoist practice, just as a philosophical and aesthetic category, seemed to be too one-sided. The technique of “controlled dreams” did not exist in separation from the general alchemical practice and was rather an additional than the central part of it. Dreams themselves, in other words, the uncontrolled immersion of a person into the world of images and traces of consciousness, at that moment turned into his opposite – a similar, but not identical – in the colossal work of the spirit for the complete transformation into an “immortal”.

The Difference in the Case Factor and Its Semantic Effect in the Holy Qur’an: A Semantic Grammatical Study

The Holy Qur'an is revealed by Allah Almighty with miraculous and rhetoric style having various characteristics and features. The inimitability of Qur'anic style may be grasped only after an in-depth analytical study of Quran. During my research, I observed that the diversity of agent by the status is profoundly linked to the polysemy of the Qur'anic verses. Hence the current study identifies some of the wonders of inimitable style of the Holy Qur'an. This article comprises of preface and three sections. The preface contains a brief theoretical study about the agent by the status, the first section is about the diversity between two agents in terms of being the noun and verb. The second section is about the diversity between two agents in terms of their existence while the third section is about the diversity of Agents in terms of Grammatical Structure.

Monotonicity in the averaging process

We investigate an averaging process that describes how interacting agents approach consensus through binary interactions. In each elementary step, two agents are selected at random and they reach compromise by adopting their opinion average. We show that the fraction of agents with a monotonically decreasing opinion decays as $e^{-\alpha t}$, and that the exponent $\alpha=\tfrac{1}{2}-\tfrac{1+\ln \ln 2}{4\ln 2}$ is selected as the extremum from a continuous spectrum of possible values. The opinion distribution of monotonic agents is asymmetric, and it becomes self-similar at large times. Furthermore, the tails of the opinion distribution are algebraic, and they are characterized by two distinct and nontrivial exponents. We also explore statistical properties of agents with an opinion strictly above average.

Weighted Envy-freeness in Indivisible Item Allocation

We introduce and analyze new envy-based fairness concepts for agents with weights that quantify their entitlements in the allocation of indivisible items. We propose two variants of weighted envy-freeness up to one item (WEF1): strong , where envy can be eliminated by removing an item from the envied agent’s bundle, and weak , where envy can be eliminated either by removing an item (as in the strong version) or by replicating an item from the envied agent’s bundle in the envying agent’s bundle. We show that for additive valuations, an allocation that is both Pareto optimal and strongly WEF1 always exists and can be computed in pseudo-polynomial time; moreover, an allocation that maximizes the weighted Nash social welfare may not be strongly WEF1, but it always satisfies the weak version of the property. Moreover, we establish that a generalization of the round-robin picking sequence algorithm produces in polynomial time a strongly WEF1 allocation for an arbitrary number of agents; for two agents, we can efficiently achieve both strong WEF1 and Pareto optimality by adapting the adjusted winner procedure. Our work highlights several aspects in which weighted fair division is richer and more challenging than its unweighted counterpart.

Effects of silodosin, darifenacin, and combination therapy for the treatment of ureteral stent related discomforts

Background: To evaluate the effect of silodosin, darifenacin and combination therapy of two agents in improving the lower urinary tract symptoms of patients with indwelling double-J ureteral stents.Methods: A total of 150 patients underwent placement of a double-J ureteral stent after retrograde ureteroscopy for urinary stone disease. All patients received polyurethane double-J ureteral stents (4 Fr and length 26 cm), which were removed at a mean of around 14 days postoperatively. A total of 40 patients were given no medication (group 1), 39 patients were given silodosin 4 mg once daily (group 2), 40 patients were given darifenacin 7.5 mg once daily (group 3), and 31 patients were given a combination of two agents postoperatively (group 4). International prostate symptom score (IPSS) and visual analogue pain scale (VAPS) questionnaires were completed by each patient at 1st day postoperatively and on the day of stent removal.Results: In the total group of patients, the mean age was 50.24±12.90 years. There was a significant difference in the IPSS total score between group 1 and groups 3 and 4. Group 4 also differed significantly from group 1 in the irritative subscore. The obstructive subscore differed between groups 2 and 4 and group 1. There was a statistically significant difference between group 1 and group 4 in the quality of life (QoL) score.Conclusions: Combination therapy with silodosin and darifenacin improved both irritative and obstructive symptoms more than in the other groups. Combination therapy should be strongly considered for patients who complain of stent-related symptoms.

Speech Act Pluralism in Argumentative Polylogues

I challenge two key assumptions of speech act theory, as applied to argumentation: illocutionary monism, grounded in the idea each utterance has only one (primary) illocutionary force, and the dyadic reduction, which models interaction as a dyadic affair between only two agents (speaker-hearer, proponentopponent). I show how major contributions to speech act inspired study of argumentation adhere to these assumptions even as illocutionary pluralism in argumentative polylogues is a significant empirical fact in need of theoretical attention. I demonstrate this with two examples where arguers interacting with multiple persons convey plural, argumentatively relevant illocutionary forces. Understanding illocutionary pluralism in argumentative polylogues also affords a better account of fallacious and manipulative discourse.

Kinetic model of wealth distribution by trading stocks with geometric brownian motion

In this paper, we consider the wealth distribution obtained by trading (buying–selling) stocks whose prices follow the geometric Brownian motion (GBM), when both number of the ticker symbol of the stock and maximum number of the traded stock are limited to unity. The binary exchange of the cash and stock between two agents is expressed with the Boltzmann-type kinetic equation. The distribution function of the number of the agents with the specific number of the stock or specific amount of the cash can be demonstrated, theoretically, when the price of the stock is constant. The distribution function of the number of the agents with the specific amount of the total asset can be approximated by [Formula: see text]-distribution, when the price of the stock follows the GBM. Finally, the rule in the binary-exchange-game approximates the distribution function of the number of the agents with the specific amount of the total asset to the Feller–Pareto-like distribution at the high wealth tail.

Agents in Balinese passive construction

This paper accounts for the agents in Balinese passive forms. It focuses on kinds of agent and their syntactic and semantic representation in Balinese passive constructions. This research used two novels, namely Dadi Ati written by Manda (2013) and Ki Baru Gajah by Sugianto (2015) as the data source. To support the data, this research also used informants. Aplying the RRG theory proposed by Van Valin and Randy (1999) and ideas from Balinese experts, it was found out that the agents of Balinese passive sentences varied in their forms and applied various constructions and semantic representation. Some constructions of passive sentences do not have an agent in their usage and some do have it. The ka- passive forms, for example, generally have no agents, but the ka- forms followed by suffix -ang or -in do need an agent. The first and second person agents directly follow the verb in the passive constructions. These two agents may be expressed by a noun. The pronoun in the third person as an agent can be expressed by suffix -a. Frequently the agents are expressed by a prepositional phrase.