Program explanations and causal relevance

Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit have defended a non-reductive account of causal relevance known as the ‘program explanation account’. Allegedly, irreducible mental properties can be causally relevant in virtue of figuring in non-redundant program explanations which convey information not conveyed by explanations in terms of the physical properties that actually do the ‘causal work’. I argue that none of the possible ways to spell out the intuitively plausible idea of a program explanation serves its purpose, viz., defends non-reductive physicalism against Jaegwon Kim’s Causal Exclusion Argument according to which non-reductive physicalism is committed to epiphenomenalism because irreducible mental properties are ‘screened off’ from causal relevance by their physical realizers. Jackson and Pettit’s most promising explication of a program explanation appeals to the idea of invariance of effect under variation of realization, but I show that invariance of effect under variation of realization is neither necessary nor sufficient for causal relevance.     

Zur Theorie der Liniencomplexe des ersten und zweiten Grades

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Eine Uebertragung des Pascal'schen Satzes auf Raumgeometrie

Ohne ZusammenfassungAus den Sitzungsberichten der physikalisch-medicinischen Societät zu Erlangen vom 10. November 1873Es ist dies diejenige Arbeit, auf welche Hr. Wedekind bei seiner Definition des complexen Doppelverhältnisses von vier Punkten der Kugel Bezug nimmt, Bd. 9 dieser Annalen, pag. 209 ff. [Febr. 1883].     

Ueber die Bestimmung des sauren weinsauren Kaliums in den Rohweinsteinen und der Weinhefe

Ohne ZusammenfassungNieder-Ingelheim, 3. Mai 1885.     

A posteriori error estimates for a time discrete scheme for a phase-field system of Penrose-Fife type

A time discrete scheme is used to approximate the solution toa phase field system of Penrose–Fife type with a non-conservedorder parameter. An a posteriori error estimate is presentedthat allows the estimation of the difference between continuousand semidiscrete solutions by quantities that can be calculatedfrom the approximation and given data.     

Semi-parametric estimation of covariate effects using the positive stable frailty model

Many biological and medical studies have as a response of interest the time to occurrence of some event, such as the occurrence of a particular symptom or disease, remission, relapse, death due to some specific disease, or simply death. In this paper we study the problem of assessing the effect of potential risk factors on the outcome event of interest through a parametric or semi-parametric frailty model where the lifetimes have a reason to be considered dependent. This dependence may arise because of multiple endpoints within the same individual or because, when studying a single endpoint, there are natural groupings between study subjects. The objective of this paper is to extend both parametric and semi-parametric approaches to regression analysis in which the lifetimes of individuals in a group are effected by the same random frailty which follows a positive stable distribution. Some comparisons of the properties of this frailty distribution with other frailty distributions are made and an example which assesses the effect of a treatment in a litter-matched tumorigenesis study is presented.     

A dynamic finite volume scheme for large-eddy simulation on unstructured grids

In recent years there has been considerable progress in the application of large-eddy simulation (LES) to increasingly complex flow configurations. Nevertheless a lot of fundamental problems still need to be solved in order to apply LES in a reliable way to real engineering problems, where typically finite-volume codes on unstructured meshes are used. A self-adaptive discretisation scheme, in the context of an unstructured finite-volume flow solver, is investigated in the case of isotropic turbulence at infinite Reynolds number. The Smagorinsky and dynamic Smagorinsky sub-grid scale models are considered. A discrete interpolation filter is used for the dynamic model. It is one of the first applications of a filter based on the approach presented by Marsden et al. In this work, an original procedure to impose the filter shape through a specific selection process of the basic filters is also proposed. Satisfactory results are obtained using the self-adaptive scheme for implicit LES. When the scheme is coupled with the sub-grid scale models, the numerical dissipation is shown to be dominant over the sub-grid scale component. Nevertheless the effect of the sub-grid scale models appears to be important and beneficial, improving in particular the energy spectra. A test on fully developed channel flow at Re_τ = 395 is also performed, comparing the non-limited scheme with the self-adaptive scheme for implicit LES. Once again the introduction of the limiter proves to be beneficial.     

A Tin(IV) Porphyrin with Two Axial Organometallic NCN‐Pincer Platinum Units

A tin(IV) porphyrin was combined with two axial NCN‐pincer platinum(II) fragments by utilizing the oxophilicity of the apical positions on the tin atom and the acidic nature of the NCN‐pincer platinum derived benzoic acid. The solid‐state structure determined by X‐ray crystallography revealed some close contacts between the pincer complexes and the meso‐p‐tolyl subsitutents of the porphyrin. It was shown by ¹H NMR spectroscopy that these close contacts were not present in solution and that this compound can potentially act as a novel building block for supramolecular architectures.