17,191 research outputs found
ADAM SMITH'S OPTIMISTIC TELEOLOGICAL VIEW OF HISTORY
No full textAdam Smith's four-stage theory provides the framework for his writings on history. The fourth stage is the commercial epoch; the culmination of history in this stage is a key component in the conventional interpretation of Adam Smith as a prophet of commercialism. In two historical case studies Smith shows the capacity of commercial society to regenerate itself. This potent capacity suggests that commercial society is inevitable. At a certain point in time it also overcomes the major obstacles to its permanence. Smith's philosophy of history anticipates the end of history views of Kant and Hegel.Political Economy,
How Might Adam Smith Pay Professors Today?
No full textAdam Smith’s proposal for paying professors was intended to induce increased faculty knowledge. If students have imperfect information about what they learn, and universities can only imperfectly measure the input of faculty time in student learning, publications may be used to measure faculty knowledge. If professors’ ability to publish is positively related to their ability to produce student learning, which universities can imperfectly measure, publications may be necessary to attract more able professors. Since research signals faculty knowledge, schools that do not value publications per se could require higher publication standards and pay higher wages than schools that value only publications.
ADAM SMITH'S VIEW OF HISTORY: CONSISTENT OR PARADOXICAL?
No full textThe conventional interpretation of Adam Smith is that he is a prophet of commercialism. The liberal capitalist reading of Smith is consistent with the view that history culminates in commercial society. The first part of the article develops this optimistic interpretation of Smith's view of history. Smith implies that commercial society is the end of history because 1) it supplies the ends of nature that he identifies; 2) it is inevitable; and 3) it is permanent. The second part of the article shows that Smith has some dark moments in his writings where he seems to reject completely such teleological notions. In this more civic humanist mood he confesses that commercial society does not supply the ends of nature, nor is it inevitable, nor is it permanent. Both views exist in Smith and the commentator is forced to choose between passages in Smith's work in order to support a particular interpretation of the former's view of history.Political Economy,
Adam Oehlenschläger
No full textThis is a short presentation of the main works of the Danish author Adam Oehlenschläger
Shaping drops with magnetic fields
No full textThe control of small volumes of fluids (or drops) is important for a wide range of
applications, including lab-on-chip devices, where drops are transported and merged
for sensing and chemical mixing; liquid lenses, where drops are shaped to set optical
properties; and printing, where drops are generated by nozzles. Electric techniques
are widely used to generate, transport, split and merge drops. Equivalent magnetic
techniques are less well-known. Similarly to electric dipoles in electric fields, magnetic
dipoles experience a force in magnetic fields. This effect, called magnetophoresis,
is used to shape ferrofluids in magnetic valves and seals. Interest in shaping
drops with magnetic fields for microfluidics has recently increased, and ferrofluids
and paramagnetic salt solutions have been studied. The rich phenomenology of the
interaction of magnetic fields and fluids offers ample opportunities for exploration.
Diamagnetic fluids for example have no natural electric equivalent and are rarely
studied as a tool for microfluidics.
In this thesis, I study the shaping of drops with magnetic fields. My research focus
is on para- and diamagnetic salt solutions. Deformation of drops using external fields
and induced magnetism has not been fully explored in the literature. I study here
how induced magnetism can shape the liquid-vapour interface of drops and control
solids that float on them. This thesis includes (i) an introduction to the background
of the interaction of electromagnetic fields and fluids; (ii) a derivation of an expression
for the shape of drops in electromagnetic fields; (iii) experimental validation of
this expression through the measurement of the shape of para- and diamagnetic axisymmetric
sessile drops in homogeneous magnetic fields; (iv) demonstration of the
transport of para- and diamagnetic drops in magnetic field gradients; (v) explorations
of the use of shaping drops with magnetic fields for rheological measurements, and
for the controlled driving of objects floating on drops.
In summary, I explore how drops can be shaped in homogeneous magnetic fields,
and how the drops can be transported by magnetic field gradients. These fundamental
investigations may help stimulate novel applications of the controlled shaping of
drops with magnetic fields. In particular, I explore how this technique can be used in
rheology for food or medical research
HoverBot: a manufacturable swarm robot that has multi-functional sensing capabilities and uses collisions for two-dimensional mapping
No full textSwarm robotics is the study of developing and controlling large
groups of robots. Collectives of robots possess advantages over single robots
such as being robust to mission failures due to single-robot errors. Experimental
research in swarm robotics is currently limited by swarm robotic technology.
Current swarm robotic systems are either small groups of sophisticated
robots or large groups of simple robots due to manufacturing overhead,
functionality-cost dependencies, and their need to avoid collisions, amongst
others. It is therefore useful to develop a swarm robotic system that is easy to
manufacture, that utilises its sensors beyond standard usage, and that allows
for physical interactions. In this work, I introduce a new type of low-friction
locomotion and show its first implementation in the HoverBot system. The
HoverBot system consists of an air-levitation and magnet table, and a HoverBot agent. HoverBots are levitating circuit boards which are equipped with
an array of planar coils and a Hall-effect sensor. HoverBot uses its coils to
pull itself towards magnetic anchors that are embedded into a levitation table.
These robots consist of a Printed Circuit Board (PCB), surface mount components,
and a battery. HoverBots are easily manufacturable, robots can be
ordered populated; the assembly consists of plugging in a battery to a robot. I
demonstrate how HoverBot’s low-cost hardware can be used beyond its standard
functionality. HoverBot’s magnetic field readouts from its Hall-effect sensor
can be associated with successful movement, robot rotation and collision
measurands. I build a time series classifier based on these magnetic field readouts,
I modify and apply signal processing techniques to enable the online
classification of the time-variant magnetic field measurements on HoverBot’s
low-cost microcontroller. This method allows HoverBot to detect rotations,
successful movements, and collisions by utilising readouts from its single Hall-effect
sensor. I discuss how this classification method could be applied to other
sensors and demonstrate how HoverBots can utilise their classifier to create an
occupancy grid map. HoverBots use their multi-functional sensing capabilities
to determine whether they moved successfully or collided with a static object
to map their environment. HoverBots execute an "explore-and-return-to-nest"
strategy to deal with their sensor and locomotion noise. Each robot is assigned
to a nest (landmark); robots leave their nests, move n steps, return and share
their observations. Over time, a group of four HoverBots collectively builds a
probabilistic belief over its environment.
In summary, I build manufacturable swarm robots that detect collisions
through a time series classifier and map their environment by colliding with
their surroundings. My work on swarm robotic technology pushes swarm
robotics research towards studies on collision-dependent behaviours, a research
niche that has been barely studied. Collision events occur more often in
dense areas and/or large groups, circumstances that swarm robots experience.
Large groups of robots with collision-dependent behaviours could become a
research tool to help invent and test novel distributed algorithms, to understand
the dependencies between local to global (emergent) behaviours and
more generally the science of complex systems. Such studies could become
tremendously useful for the execution of large-scale swarm applications such
as the search and rescue of survivors after a natural disaster
Adam Smith and Roman Servitudes
No full textThis essay is a preprint of an article that appeared at: Tijdschrift voor Rechstsgeschiedenis, 72 (2004), 327–57.This essay discusses Adam Smith historical jurisprudence and his use of Roman law materials in his Lectures on Jurisprudence. It argues that Smith found it difficult to maintain his theory of legal development in the face of a highly developed body of Roman law literature
The Limpet: A ROS-Enabled Multi-Sensing Platform for the ORCA Hub
No full textThe oil and gas industry faces increasing pressure to remove people from dangerous offshore environments. Robots present a cost-effective and safe method for inspection, repair, and maintenance of topside and marine offshore infrastructure. In this work, we introduce a new multi-sensing platform, the Limpet, which is designed to be low-cost and highly manufacturable, and thus can be deployed in huge collectives for monitoring offshore platforms. The Limpet can be considered an instrument, where in abstract terms, an instrument is a device that transforms a physical variable of interest (measurand) into a form that is suitable for recording (measurement). The Limpet is designed to be part of the ORCA (Offshore Robotics for Certification of Assets) Hub System, which consists of the offshore assets and all the robots (Underwater Autonomous Vehicles, drones, mobile legged robots etc.) interacting with them. The Limpet comprises the sensing aspect of the ORCA Hub System. We integrated the Limpet with Robot Operating System (ROS), which allows it to interact with other robots in the ORCA Hub System. In this work, we demonstrate how the Limpet can be used to achieve real-time condition monitoring for offshore structures, by combining remote sensing with signal-processing techniques. We show an example of this approach for monitoring offshore wind turbines, by designing an experimental setup to mimic a wind turbine using a stepper motor and custom-designed acrylic fan blades. We use the distance sensor, which is a Time-of-Flight sensor, to achieve the monitoring process. We use two different approaches for the condition monitoring process: offline and online classification. We tested the offline classification approach using two different communication techniques: serial and Wi-Fi. We performed the online classification approach using two different communication techniques: LoRa and optical. We train our classifier offline and transfer its parameters to the Limpet for online classification. We simulated and classified four different faults in the operation of wind turbines. We tailored a data processing procedure for the gathered data and trained the Limpet to distinguish among each of the functioning states. The results show successful classification using the online approach, where the processing and analysis of the data is done on-board by the microcontroller. By using online classification, we reduce the information density of our transmissions, which allows us to substitute short-range high-bandwidth communication systems with low-bandwidth long-range communication systems. This work shines light on how robots can perform on-board signal processing and analysis to gain multi-functional sensing capabilities, improve their communication requirements, and monitor the structural health of equipmen
Screen-printed platinum electrodes for measuring crevice corrosion: Nickel aluminium bronze as an example
No full textScreen-printed platinum electrodes were used to monitor crevice corrosion processes. The electrodes, printed on an inert alumina substrate, formed the bottom of an artificial crevice when mechanically clamped to a rectangular block of nickel-aluminium bronze (NAB). Cyclic differential pulse voltammetry was used to detect corrosion products over time whilst the assembly was immersed in a 3.5% by weight aqueous solution of sodium chloride. Cupric (Cu2+), ferric (Fe3+) and ferrous (Fe2+) ions were detected with evolution profiles indicative of selective phase corrosion
THE THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF ADAM SMITH'S WORK
No full textThe paper will discuss the theological foundation to Smith's writings. Teleology, final causes and divine design were initially seen as central to understanding Smith's writings. Over time, this view fell out of fashion. In the period after World War II, with the rise of positivism, commentators tended to overlook or downplay this interpretation. In the last decade, or so, teleology has started to be restored to its former position as an essential element in understanding Smith. After spelling out Smith's teleology and his view of final causes, divine design and the ends of nature, we try to explain the Panglossian nature of the 'new theistic view' of Smith. While our view differs somewhat, we agree with the essence of the 'new view' claim: a theological view exists in Smith which underpins his moral and economic theories.Political Economy,
- …
