Reply to Nathan: How to reconstruct the causal argument

Nicholas Nathan tries to resist the current version of the causal argument for sense-data in two ways. First he suggests that, on what he considers to be the correct re-construction of the argument, it equivocates on the sense of proximate cause. Second he defends a form of disjunctivism, by claiming that there might be an extra mechanism involved in producing veridical hallucination, that is not present in perception. I argue that Nathan’s reconstruction of the argument is not the appropriate one, and that, properly interpreted, the argument does not equivocate on proximate cause. Furthermore, I claim that his postulation of a modified mechanism for hallucinations is implausibly ad hoc.     

On the bounded version of Hilbert's tenth problem

 The paper establishes lower bounds on the provability of 𝒟=NP and the MRDP theorem in weak fragments of arithmetic. The theory I ⁵ E ₁ is shown to be unable to prove 𝒟=NP. This non-provability result is used to show that I ⁵ E ₁ cannot prove the MRDP theorem. On the other hand it is shown that I ¹ E ₁ proves 𝒟 contains all predicates of the form (∀i≤|b|)P(i,x)^Q(i,x) where ^ is =, <, or ≤, and I ⁰ E ₁ proves 𝒟 contains all predicates of the form (∀i≤b)P(i,x)=Q(i,x). Here P and Q are polynomials. A conjecture is made that 𝒟 contains NLOGTIME. However, it is shown that this conjecture would not be sufficient to imply 𝒟=N P. Weak reductions to equality are then considered as a way of showing 𝒟=NP. It is shown that the bit-wise less than predicate, ≤₂, and equality are both co-NLOGTIME complete under FDLOGTIME reductions. This is used to show that if the FDLOGTIME functions are definable in 𝒟 then 𝒟=N P. Received: 13 July 2001 / Revised version: 9 April 2002 / Published online: 19 December 2002 Key words or phrases: Bounded Arithmetic – Bounded Diophantine Complexity     

Automorphisms with only infinite orbits on non-algebraic elements

 This paper generalizes results of F. K?rner from [4] where she established the existence of maximal automorphisms (i.e. automorphisms moving all non-algebraic elements). An ω-maximal automorphism is an automorphism whose powers are maximal automorphisms. We prove that any structure has an elementary extension with an ω-maximal automorphism. We also show the existence of ω-maximal automorphisms in all countable arithmetically saturated structures. Further we describe the pairs of tuples (ˉa,ˉb) for which there is an ω-maximal automorphism mapping ˉa to ˉb. Received: 12 December 2001 / Published online: 10 October 2002 Supported by the ``Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture' Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): Primary: 03C50; Secondary: 03C57 Key words or phrases: Automorphism – Recursively saturated structure     

On a compromise social choice correspondence

This paper analyzes the compromise social choice correspondence derived from the τ-value of digraph games. Monotonicity of this correspondence is shown. A connection between several properties of social choice correspondences based on game theoretical solutions and game theoretical properties of the underlying solutions is given. Applications to several game theoretic solutions are provided.     

Critical Point Theorems and Applications to Differential Equations

This paper contains a generalization of the well-known Palais-Smale and Cerami compactness conditions. The compactness condition introduced is used to prove some general existence theorems for critical points. Some applications are given to differential equations.     

A laser Doppler anemometry technique for Reynolds stresses measurement

A technique is described for the measurement of all components of mean velocity and Reynolds stresses, in a complex turbulent flow where achieving coincidence data acquisition is difficult. The method is based on data recorded using four orientations of the laser probe. It is shown that the measurement errors are not the same for all the components of the Reynolds tensor, but they are sufficiently small to give a good accuracy. An application to a turbomachinery flow is given to illustrate the method.     

Nano-tribological study on a super-hydrophobic film formed on rough aluminium substrates

A novel super-hydrophobic stearic acid (STA) film with a water contact angle of 166^o was prepared by chemical adsorption on aluminum wafer coated with polyethyleneimine (PEI) film. The micro-tribological behavior of the super-hydrophobic STA monolayer was compared with that of the polished and PEI-coated Al surfaces. The effect of relative humidity on the adhesion and friction was investigated as well. It was found that the STA monolayer showed decreased friction, while the adhesive force was greatly decreased by increasing the surface roughness of the Al wafer to reduce the contact area between the atomic force microscope (AFM) tip and the sample surface to be tested. Thus the friction and adhesion of the Al wafer was effectively decreased by generating the STA monolayer, which indicated that it could be feasible and rational to prepare a surface with good adhesion resistance and lubricity by properly controlling the surface morphology and the chemical composition. Both the adhesion and friction decreased as the relative humidity was lowered from 65% to 10%, though the decrease extent became insignificant for the STA monolayer. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (50375151, 50323007, 10225209) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KJCX-SW-L2)