The erosion of a friendship

Abstract

The following story is about my childhood friend Amber and the loss of a close relationship. The story traces the relationship from grade school through adolescence. As we grew, we faced different obstacles, at first together and then apart. I follow in the footsteps of Ellis (1995) and Uematsu (1996) in discussing the advantages of writing about loss.     

Growth of diamond crystals by combustion synthesis

Abstract

Low-pressure synthesis of diamond by activated chemical vapour deposition processes is attractive for producing diamond films for optical and electronic (i.e. non-abrasive) applications because of the ability of these processes to produce these films in large dimensions. The low growth rate (about 1 μm h^?1) has, however, precluded these processes for abrasive grain production on simple economic grounds. With the introduction of combustion synthesis of diamond at growth rates exceeding 100μmh^?1, this barrier seems less formidable than it once did. The synthesis of large (about 200 μm) well formed single crystals of diamond by the combustion process with growth rates of about 100μm h^?1, reported here, offers an opportunity to explore the potential of this process for abrasive grain production.     

The erosion of sexual dimorphism: challenges to religion and religious ethics

Late modernity has been witnessing the erosion of the dimorphic sexual paradigm that, in both strong and weak forms, has characterized human history as we know it. Recent discoveries in biology and the social sciences have combined with altered patterns in human sexual behavior to raise critical new questions about the inherited paradigm. Religions of the West whose sacred texts, mythologies, and codes of behavior assume that maleness and femaleness are exclusive and complementary types of sexuality-each of which determines sexual identity, reproductive role, social role, and the sex of one's partner-increasingly must grapple with both theoretical evidence for and experiential evidence of polymorphous human sexuality. Inherited categories of dimorphic sexuality not only are challenged but become less and less intelligible.     

On non-verbatim learning: II. The erosion effect of a task-induced learning algorithm

Abstract.— The failure of a learning-algorithm (which tells the subjects what to do in order to succeed in the learning task) is demonstrated. The experimental group was asked content-neutral questions, intended to induce deep-level processing after each section of the passage to be read. Narrow focusing of attention on the questions themselves resulted in erosion of content, reflected in weak performance on a retention test, and only mentioning (as opposed to commenting on) topics in recall. The deleterious effects persisted over an interval of more than two months.     

The existence of superluminal particles is consistent with relativistic dynamics

Within an axiomatic framework, we prove that the existence of faster than light (FTL) particles is consistent with (does not contradict) the dynamics of Einstein's special relativity. The proof goes by constructing a model of relativistic dynamics where FTL particles can move with arbitrary speeds. To have a complete picture, we not only construct an appropriate model but explicitly list all the basic assumptions (axioms) we use.     

Orientation of the diamond and the square revisited

Below the age of 7 or 8, children find it very difficult to reproduce a diamond compared with a square. They are also highly sensitive to contextual alignment cues from the age of three years. It is shown here that over the brief age-span of 4-6 years (inclusive), children come to control the weight they give to contextual cues. It is argued that this is a more likely precursor of the older child's ability to cope with obliques, than is the converse process of learning to specify targets and thence to prevent themselves from responding inappropriately to the context. Of course, both target-specification and contextual-responsiveness are manifest at all the ages, but the latter seems to have the leading edge in early development.     

The stability of a double-slab configuration of two-phase particles confined in a third phase

The stability of a double-slab configuration of two-phase particles confined in a third phase is studied as a function of shape in two and three dimensions. The condition of stability against splitting one phase in the particle into two separate identical slabs is shown to be the sum of the wetting factor and the change in the interface area relative to the shape of the two-phase particle. It is found that the double-slab configuration can be stable for a wide range of wetting factors and shapes.     

Impact resistance performance of diamond film on a curved molybdenum substrate

Diamond films with different thicknesses were deposited on flat and curved molybdenum substrate by the microwave plasma chemical vapour deposition (MPCVD) method. Scanning electronic microscopy, atomic force microscopy and Raman spectroscopy were employed to characterise the morphology, the surface roughness and the composition of the films, respectively. A NanoTest system was used for hardness, elastic modulus and nanoimpact tests. The curved surface and ductility of the molybdenum substrate allow large deformation for the thinner films. The substrate has less effect on impact for the thicker film, the deformation of which is mainly determined by the film composition. Under a load of 50 mN and 75 cycles, less deformation occurred for the 22 μm thick film on the curved molybdenum substrate.     

Analysis of sintering of two cylindrical particles by lattice or grain-boundary diffusion at the initial stage

The sintering of two cylindrical particles by lattice or grain-boundary diffusion at the initial stage is analysed by a variational principle and use of the continuity equation. The expression for the growth rate by lattice or grain-boundary diffusion indicates that the length of the neck increases as a power of time.     

Children's comprehension of sentences with focus particles

We report three studies investigating children's and adults' comprehension of sentences containing the focus particle only. In Experiments 1 and 2, four groups of participants (6-7 years, 8-10 years, 11-12 years and adult) compared sentences with only in different syntactic positions against pictures that matched or mismatched events described by the sentence. Contrary to previous findings (Crain, S., Ni, W., & Conway, L. (1994). Learning, parsing and modularity. In C. Clifton, L. Frazier, & K. Rayner (Eds.), Perspectives on sentence processing. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; Philip, W., & Lynch, E. (1999). Felicity, relevance, and acquisition of the grammar of every and only. In S. C. Howell, S. A. Fish, & T. Keith-Lucas (Eds.), Proceedings of the 24th annual Boston University conference on language development. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press) we found that young children predominantly made errors by failing to process contrast information rather than errors in which they failed to use syntactic information to restrict the scope of the particle. Experiment 3 replicated these findings with pre-schoolers.     

Ostwald ripening of spherical Fe particles in Cu-Fe alloys

The coarsening of spherical n -Fe and f -Fe precipitate particles in Cu-Fe alloys aged at 600, 650 and 700C has been studied by measuring both the particle size by transmission electron microscopy and the Fe concentration in the Cu matrix by electric resistivity. The average size of n -Fe and f -Fe particles increases with ageing time t as t 1/3, as predicted by the Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner theory. The kinetics of the depletion of supersaturation with t for n -Fe and f -Fe particles are consistent with the predicted t -1/3 time law. The solubilities of Fe in equilibrium with a n -Fe particle of infinite size are greater than those in equilibrium with an f -Fe particle of infinite size. The Fe-Cu interface energy and the diffusivity of Fe in Cu have been independently derived from the data on coarsening. The coherent n -Fe-Cu interface energy is estimated to be 0.25Jm -2, and the incoherent f -Fe-Cu interface energy 0.52Jm -2 . The preexponential factor and activation energy for diffusion are found to be 9.75 10 -5 m 2 s -1 and 213kJmol -1 respectively.     

Observation of a threshold impact energy required to cause passive film rupture during slurry erosion of stainless steel

The impact of solid particles during the erosion of stainless steel by a slurry jet reveals a sequence of anodic current transients due to individual impacts. Measurement of these current transients shows that there is a minimum particle energy below which no transients can be detected. The result is interpreted as a threshold energy required to rupture the passivating oxide film on the metal surface. If this energy is exceeded, the current transients arise from electrochemical reaction of the depassivated metal surface after denudation. Below this threshold no rupture occurs and there are no current transients.     

On discernibility in symmetric languages: the case of quantum particles

Synthese - In this paper I consider the question of whether absolute discernibility is attainable in symmetric languages. Simon Saunders has proven that all facts expressible in first-order...     

A new crystal structure of pure cobalt formed in ultrafine particles

Abstract

A long-period stacking structure of 9R, which has the stacking order ABC/BCA/CAB, has been found in ultrafine cobalt particles 20–500 nm in diameter. The structure seems to have resulted from the martensitic transformation of f.c.c. cobalt on cooling to room temperature. Electron microscopy reveals the existence of heavily faulted particles, the structure of which is presumed to be 9R.     

On the stability of 𝛃-SiC with respect to chemical disorder induced by irradiation with energetic particles

X-ray diffraction measurements of changes in the long-range structural orderof 𝛃-SiC thin films have been performed during irradiation with energetic ions atlow temperature. The decrease in both the chemical and the topological order wasanalysed in situ using the superstructure (002) and the fundamental (004)reflections of the zincblende-type structure, in a dose range up to completeamorphization. The data indicate that the crystalline-to-amorphous transitionis a continuous process rather than a sudden collapse of a defective crystalstructure and that, in contrast with previous assumptions, 𝛃-SiC remains stablewith respect to amorphization up to a high degree of chemical disorder.     

The perception of emotions by ear and by eye

Emotions are expressed in the voice as well as on the face. As a first step to explore the question of their integration, we used a bimodal perception situation modelled after the McGurk paradigm, in which varying degrees of discordance can be created between the affects expressed in a face and in a tone of voice. Experiment 1 showed that subjects can effectively combine information from the two sources, in that identification of the emotion in the face is biased in the direction of the simultaneously presented tone of voice. Experiment 2 showed that this effect occurs also under instructions to base the judgement exclusively on the face. Experiment 3 showed the reverse effect, a bias from the emotion in the face on judgement of the emotion in the voice. These results strongly suggest the existence of mandatory bidirectional links between affect detection structures in vision and audition.     

The possibility of resurrection by reassembly

It is widely held that the classic reassembly model of resurrection faces intractable problems. (1) What happens to someone if God assembles two individuals at the resurrection which are equally good candidates for being the original person? (2) If two or more people, such as a cannibal and the cannibal’s victim, were composed of the same particles at their respective deaths, can they both be resurrected? If they can, who gets the shared particles? (3) And would an attempt to reassemble a long-gone individual result in a genuine resurrection, or merely an intrinsic duplicate of the original person? In this paper, I argue that the first of these problems has, in effect, been solved by defenders of a rival view; I propose a novel solution to the second problem; and I show that the third can be solved by upgrading the naïve reassembly model to a novel variety of reassembly model.