146 research outputs found
Interactively using Semantic Web knowledge: Creating scalable abstractions with FacetOntology
No full textThe amount of knowledge accessible on the Semantic Web is growing, and there is a need for a scalable solution to facilitate exploring that data. Currently approaches to exploring Semantic Web data either focus on exploring resources individually, following links during exploration, and making little use of collated data, or take the approach of collating and aligning multiple sources into one store for one purpose, and hand-crafting a specific browsing interface onto it. We present an approach that provides a scalable browsing interface, which can browse knowledge from the Semantic Web at will. Our approach creates abstractions of knowledge, collated into facets, which are described using FacetOntology. FacetOntology facilitates describing facets from RDF data, suitable for use in creating datasets for faceted browsing
Go Big or Go Home: Priorities for the Canada-EU Economic and Trade Agreement
No full textA comprehensive economic and trade agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union (EU) is both desirable and possible. For Canada, an agreement with the EU is a strategic opportunity to significantly diversify the market for its high-value-added goods, services and skills, to increase the attractiveness of its economy for investors, and to make a statement that it is ready to engage with other important trade partners on reducing barriers to mutually beneficial trade and investment. This is important in light of both the failure of the Doha round of WTO talks and the existence of other important trade negotiations undertaken by Canada’s key trade partners.International Economic Policy, comprehensive economic and trade agreement (CETA), Canada, European Union (EU)
The Kalam Cosmological Argument Meets The Mentaculus
No full textAccording to the orthodox interpretation of bounce cosmologies, the universe was born from an entropy reducing phase in a previous universe. To defend the thesis that the whole of physical reality was caused to exist a finite time ago, William Lane Craig and co-author James Sinclair have argued the low entropy interface between universes should instead be understood as the beginning of two universes. Here, I present Craig and Sinclair with a dilemma. On the one hand, if the direction of time is reducible, as friends of the Mentaculus -- e.g., David Albert, Barry Loewer, and David Papineau -- maintain, then there is reason to think that the direction of time and the entropic arrow of time align. But on that account, efficient causation is likely reducible to non-causal phenomena. In consequence, contrary to Craig and Sinclair's theological aims, things can begin to exist without causes. On the other hand, if the direction of time is not reducible, Craig and Sinclair's interpretation of bounce cosmologies is unjustified. Lastly, a reply to a potential objection motivates a discussion of how to interpret bounce cosmologies on the tensed theory of absolute time favored by Craig and Sinclair. I offer two interpretations of bounce cosmologies that, given a tensed theory of absolute time, are preferable to those Craig and Sinclair offer, yet inconsistent with their project in natural theology; on one interpretation, the universe does not require a supernatural cause and, on the other, bounce cosmologies represent the universe as never having begun to exist
Performance Evaluation of Zero Net-Investment Strategies
No full textThis paper introduces new nonparametric statistical methods to evaluate zero-cost investment strategies. We focus on directional trading strategies, risk-adjusted returns, and the investor’s decisions under uncertainty as the core of our analysis. By relying on classification tools with a long tradition in the sciences and biostatistics, we can provide a tighter connection between model-based risk characteristics and the no-arbitrage conditions for market efficiency. Moreover, we extend the methods to multicategorical settings, such as when the investor can sometimes take a neutral position. A variety of inferential procedures are provided, many of which are illustrated with applications to excess equity returns and to currency carry trades.
FIGURE 3 in Twenty years of Dipterology through the pages of Zootaxa
No full textFIGURE 3. Published papers on Diptera in Zootaxa by country of affiliation of corresponding author. "Others" includes Lithuania (25), Belgium (24), Denmark (23), Egypt (21), Malaysia (21), Chile (20), France (20), Spain (15), Slovakia (14), Thailand (14), Estonia (13), Serbia (13), South Korea (13), Israel and Switzerland (12), The Netherlands (10), Hungary, South Africa and Ukraine (9), Turkey (8), Bulgaria and Croatia (6), Saudi Arabia (4), Portugal and Romania (3), Algeria, Belarus, Ecuador, Kenya, Morocco, Peru, Republic of Ireland, Singapore and Taiwan (2), Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, East Timor, El Salvador, Jordan, Madagascar, New Zealand, North Korea, Tunisia and Uruguay (1).Published as part of Whitmore, Daniel, Gaimari, Stephen D., Nihei, Silvio S., Evenhuis, Neal L., Kurina, Olavi, Borkent, Christopher J., Sinclair, Bradley J., O'Hara, James E., Zhang, Zhi-Qiang, Moulton, John K., Ribeiro, Guilherme Cunha, Bickel, Daniel J., Giłka, Wojciech, Andersen, Trond, Rossaro, Bruno, Whittington, Andrew E., Lamas, Carlos José Einicker, Heller, Kai, Kehlmaier, Christian, Courtney, Gregory W., Kerr, Peter H. & Blagoderov, Vladimir, 2021, Twenty years of Dipterology through the pages of Zootaxa, pp. 166-189 in Zootaxa 4979 (1) on page 170, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4979.1.17, http://zenodo.org/record/492883
Tildrakizumab for treatment of refractory pyoderma gangrenosum of the penis and polymyalgia rheumatica: Killing two birds with one stone
No full textAssisted Reproduction in Jewish Law
No full textThis Article attempts to untangle Jewish law regarding assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), namely artificial insemination with husband\u27s sperm, artificial insemination with donor sperm, and in vitro fertilization. The author examines teachings by prominent Jewish law scholars and clarifies basic schools of thought regarding each method. He explores Jewish law prohibitions on incest and adultery and the laws regarding legal parentage and lineage of the child and explains the consequences of ARTs on those laws
Interview with Jens Zimmermann: Author of ‘Hermeneutics: A Very Short Introduction’
No full textDr. Jens Zimmermann is a German-Canadian philosopher and J.I. Packer Professor of Theology at Regent College. As the author of Hermeneutics: A Very Short Introduction, he held a lecture titled “Gadamer, Ricoeur and the Future of Philosophical Hermeneutics” at SFU. Hosted by the Department of World Languages and Literatures, the lecture focused on how we can use the art of hermeneutics to interpret literature and our identities of being human
Neo-Lorentzian Relativity and the Beginning of the Universe
No full textMany physicists have thought that absolute time became otiose with the introduction of Special Relativity. William Lane Craig disagrees. Craig argues that although relativity is empirically adequate within a domain of application, relativity is literally false and should be supplanted by a Neo-Lorentzian alternative that allows for absolute time. Meanwhile, Craig and co-author James Sinclair have argued that physical cosmology supports the conclusion that physical reality began to exist at a finite time in the past. However, on their view, the beginning of physical reality requires the objective passage of absolute time, so that the beginning of physical reality stands or falls with Craig's Neo-Lorentzian metaphysics. Here, I raise doubts about whether, given Craig's NeoLorentzian metaphysics, physical cosmology could adequately support a beginning of physical reality within the finite past. Craig and Sinclair's conception of the beginning of the universe requires a past boundary to the universe. A past boundary to the universe cannot be directly observed and so must be inferred from the observed matter-energy distribution in conjunction with auxilary hypotheses drawn from a substantive physical theory. Craig's brand of Neo Lorentzianism has not been sufficiently well specified so as to infer either that there is a past boundary or that the boundary is located in the finite past. Consequently, Neo Lorentzianism implicitly introduces a form of skepticism that removes the ability that we might have otherwise had to infer a beginning of the universe. Furthermore, in analyzing traditional big bang models, I develop criteria that Neo-Lorentzians should deploy in thinking about the direction and duration of time in cosmological models generally. For my last task, I apply the same criteria to bounce cosmologies and show that Craig and Sinclair have been wrong to interpret bounce cosmologies as including a beginning of physical reality
Neo-Lorentzian Relativity and the Beginning of the Universe
No full textMany physicists have thought that absolute time became otiose with the introduction of Special Relativity. William Lane Craig disagrees. Craig argues that although relativity is empirically adequate within a domain of application, relativity is literally false and should be supplanted by a Neo-Lorentzian alternative that allows for absolute time. Meanwhile, Craig and co-author James Sinclair have argued that physical cosmology supports the conclusion that physical reality began to exist at a finite time in the past. However, on their view, the beginning of physical reality requires the objective passage of absolute time, so that the beginning of physical reality stands or falls with Craig's Neo-Lorentzian metaphysics. Here, I raise doubts about whether, given Craig's NeoLorentzian metaphysics, physical cosmology could adequately support a beginning of physical reality within the finite past. Craig and Sinclair's conception of the beginning of the universe requires a past boundary to the universe. A past boundary to the universe cannot be directly observed and so must be inferred from the observed matter-energy distribution in conjunction with auxilary hypotheses drawn from a substantive physical theory. Craig's brand of Neo Lorentzianism has not been sufficiently well specified so as to infer either that there is a past boundary or that the boundary is located in the finite past. Consequently, Neo Lorentzianism implicitly introduces a form of skepticism that removes the ability that we might have otherwise had to infer a beginning of the universe. Furthermore, in analyzing traditional big bang models, I develop criteria that Neo-Lorentzians should deploy in thinking about the direction and duration of time in cosmological models generally. For my last task, I apply the same criteria to bounce cosmologies and show that Craig and Sinclair have been wrong to interpret bounce cosmologies as including a beginning of physical reality
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