Demonstrating Energy Migration in Coupled Oscillators. A Central Concept in the Theory of Unimolecular Reactions

2005 ◽  
Vol 82 (10) ◽  
pp. 1530
Author(s):  
Ronald E. Marcotte ◽  
James A. Zimmerman
Keyword(s):  
Coupled Oscillators ◽  
Energy Migration ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Unimolecular Reactions

Islamic-Secular Dialogue in the Arab World

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 63-89
Author(s):  
Mohammed El-Msaoui
Keyword(s):  
Action Theory ◽  
Communicative Action ◽  
Arab World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Political Sphere

Many debates between Islamists and secularists have taken place in the Arab political sphere with the aim of building bridges of communication between the two actors who contributed to the transformations that have taken place in the Arab world. Despite the multiple dialogues between Islamists and secularists, conflict and tension have prevailed on both sides, with conflict taking on all forms of material and moral violence. One of the most significant indicators of the crisis in communication is the emergence of violence. That being so, this study broaches the problem using Habermas’s basic idea, which focuses on violence as a disease of human discourse and communication. According to Habermas, violence is the result of distorted discourse between fundamentalists and others; it is a distorted discourse because it does not recognize the other as it is. The study employs the Habermas communicative action theory as a central concept. Accordingly, Habermas’s theory of communication is invoked to understand the causes of the escalation of violence in the Arab political sphere.

Evaluating Large-Scale STEM Outreach Efficacy with a Consistent Theme: Thermodynamics for Elementary School Students

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph DeWilde ◽  
Esha Rangnekar ◽  
Jeffrey Ting ◽  
Joseph Franek ◽  
Frank S. Bates ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Elementary School Students ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
College Education ◽  
School Students ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Specific Goal ◽  
Survey System ◽  
Society Today

A biannual chemistry demonstration-based show named “Energy and U” was created to extend the general outreach themes of STEM fields and a college education with a specific goal: to teach the First Law of Thermodynamics to elementary school students. Energy is a central concept in chemical education, most STEM disciplines, and it is the concept at the foundation of many of the greatest challenges faced by society today. The effectiveness of the program was analyzed using a clicker survey system. This study provides one of the first examples of incorporating real-time feedback into large- scale chemistry-based outreach events for elementary school students in order to quantify and better understand the broader impact and learning outcomes.

The Value of Rationality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Wedgwood
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Substantive Theory ◽  
Normative Concept ◽  
Normative Concepts

Rationality is a central concept for epistemology, ethics, and the study of practical reason. But what sort of concept is it? It is argued here that—contrary to objections that have recently been raised—rationality is a normative concept. In general, normative concepts cannot be explained in terms of the concepts expressed by ‘reasons’ or ‘ought’. Instead, normative concepts are best understood in terms of values. Thus, for a mental state or a process of reasoning to be rational is for it to be in a certain way good. Specifically, rationality is a virtue, while irrationality is a vice. What rationality requires of you at a time is whatever is necessary for your thinking at that time to be as rational as possible; this makes ‘rationally required’ equivalent to a kind of ‘ought’. Moreover, rationality is an “internalist” normative concept: what it is rational for you to think at a time depends purely on what is in your mind at that time. Nonetheless, rationality has an external goal—namely, getting things right in your thinking, or thinking correctly. The connection between rationality and correctness is probabilistic: if your thinking is irrational, that is bad news about your thinking’s degree of correctness; and the more irrational your thinking is, the worse the news is about your thinking’s degree of correctness. This account of the concept of rationality indicates how we should set about giving a substantive theory of what it is for beliefs and choices to be rational.

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