Metasemantics for the Relaxed

This chapter discusses how to meet the ‘generalized integration challenge’ as a relaxed moral realist by providing a metasemantics of moral vocabulary which is compatible with relaxing about moral metaphysics and epistemology. Employing normative inferentialism and focussing on evaluative moral terms in particular, it is suggested that evaluative moral terms function to explain proprieties of language exit transitions, where having this function amounts to systematizing language exit transitions through a process of reflective equilibrium. Crucially, this inferentialist take on explanatory function does not engender any substantive metaphysical commitments about moral properties. Moreover, the systematization process on which it is based is undertaken from within moral discourse. As such, understanding evaluative terms as tools that systematize language exits fits perfectly with the relaxed take on moral discourse.

Advancing 1+1=1 Fully Integrated Designs using a Five Formative Figures Approach

For designs aiming to be fully integrated, lacking concrete tools to facilitate connections between methods and inferences stymie efforts toward advancing solutions to the “1+1=1 integration challenge.” Therefore, this article highlights formative joint displays as a mixing strategy to signpost explicit integration points in a mixed methods research design. Specifically, we present a practical moniker of Five Formative Figures to encapsulate a framework for using formative joint displays at each stage of the design. We situate these formative joint displays in fully integrated mixed methods designs, mixing across all phases of the research process. This article draws from a 4-stage, fully integrated study on the organization of and language use in transfer student webpages on institutional websites, highlighting how the methods are applicable beyond the original context. We provide example displays for the planning/research questions, data collection, sampling, analysis, and inference stages of the study. Although the moniker suggests using five joint displays, formative joint displays could be used several times to connect different aspects of the design and to form tightly integrated meta-inferences. This work demonstrates the capacity of formative joint displays to ensure mixing in the design formulation and to connect inferences across strands in a single design.

A Humean modal epistemology

I present an exemplary Humean modal epistemology. My version takes inspiration from but incurs no commitment to both Hume’s historical position and Lewis’s Humeanism. Modal epistemology should meet two challenges: the Integration challenge of integrating metaphysics and epistemology and the Reliability challenge of giving an account of how our epistemic capacities can be reliable in detecting modal truth. According to Lewis, modal reasoning starts from certain Humean principles: there is only the vast mosaic of spatiotemporally distributed local matters of fact. The facts can be arbitarily recombined. These principles cannot be taken for granted. I suggest a bottom-up approach instead: Humean principles of recombining the mosaic of facts can be retrieved from the evolutionarily instilled and empirically informed use of imagination in exploring everyday circumstantial possibilities. This use of imagination conforms to a primitive conception of matter as freely recombinable. The modal beliefs that can be obtained from generalizing the more elementary exercise of imagination have to be corrected. Recombination is limited by sortal criteria of identity. Moreover, the overall picture of a recombinable spatiotemporal mosaic must be weighed against the results of science.

Epistemological Advantages

This chapter argues that accepting modal normativism brings significant epistemological advantages. Those who aim to account for modal knowledge face the integration challenge of reconciling an account of what is involved in knowing modal truths with a plausible story about how we can come to know them, and the reliability challenge of explaining how we could have evolved to have a reliable faculty for coming to know modal truths. Recent empiricist accounts of modal knowledge cannot solve these problems regarding specifically metaphysical modal truths—leaving us with the threat of skepticism about large portions of metaphysics. However, by giving a different functional story, the modal normativist can develop a plausible response to the remaining versions of both of these classic problems for modal epistemology. Modal normativists can also respond to further worries parallel to those raised by Sharon Street’s evolutionary debunking arguments in meta-ethics.

Novel implementation of 3D multiplexers in nano magnetic logic technology

Purpose Owing to recent challenges of CMOS manufacturing and power consumption in silicon technologies among alternative technologies, Nanomagnetic logic (NML) is one of the most promising technologies, so it was selected for this study. NML is non-volatile with ultra-low power dissipation that operates at room temperature. This paper aims to propose novel implementation of 2% and 4% multiplexers (MUXs) in NML technology. Design/methodology/approach The proposed multiplexers in NML technology are verified by HDL-based simulators. In addition, this study estimated area and power dissipation of the proposed design to compare and approve the promising improvements in comparison to other similar NML implementations. Findings The results show the remarkable improvements in terms of APDP term in comparison to the recent proposed MUXs in NML technology which are reported in Table 2. The proposed implementation of the MUX in NML is designed in three-dimensional layout to improve interconnection complexity which is an integration challenge. Also, by facilitating the routing signals and total wire length needed for clock signals, the negative impact of the power dissipated in clock wires is improved. Originality/value These findings would appeal to a broad audience, such as the readership of Microelectronics International Journal. The authors confirm that this work is original and has not been published elsewhere nor is it currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. All authors have approved the paper and agreed with submission to Microelectronics International Journal. The authors have read and have abided by the statement of ethical standards for manuscripts submitted to Microelectronics International Journal. The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Impact of the COVID-19 Outbreak on the World and the Inspirations

The paper uses the balanced analysis method to systematically study the impact of the global coronavirus outbreak on the world, analyzes in depth the challenges posed by COVID-19 on global governance capacity, analyzes the causes of the pandemic at the macro level and especially proposes the strategic thinking for enhancing global governance capacity and the countermeasures against the pandemic. The coronavirus knows no national boundary, which requires humankind to stand closely together. Under the pandemic, “home quarantine” seems a most primitive traditional measure, but is actually the most effective approach that is about life or death. COVID-19 may change some ways human behave, pose severe impact on global production and demand, foster unilateralism, intensify geopolitical conflicts, undermine global economic integration, challenge global governance capacity and push China and U.S. closer to cold war.