The basic idea in PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS THEORY is to distinguish the invariants of human language (the principles) from the major points of crosslinguistic variation (the parameters). Both principles and parameters are taken to reflect innately determined, biological characteristics of the human brain (see UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR). In the course of normal child development, however, the two diver...

The author highlights the importance of emotions in all ethical reflections. He describes the most common positions of ethicists employing duties and rights as the basis for ethical thought. The author, goes to Freudian theory as viewed by the utilitarians, stating that the 'quest for pleasure' is not necessarily egocentric, especially for adults. For example, the feeling of solidarity emerges ...

The above approaches certainly have their place but also have their limitations. The repeated invocation of archival material tends to create an impression that ethical edicts are merely of historical significance and are irrelevant today. Some of the historical texts on medical ethics are based on morality, at times even bordering on the spiritual or the religious. This could be a hindrance to...

Remnant low-energy effects of Planck-scale Lorentz breaking in candidate fundamental theories typically include modified one-particle dispersion relations. Theoretical constraints on such modifications are discussed leading to the exclusion of a variety of previously considered Lorentz-violating parameters. In particular, the fundamental principle of coordinate independence, the role of an effe...

1 Intelligent Interactive Distributed Systems Faculty of Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam De Boelelaan 1081A, 1081 HV Amsterdam, the Netherlands 2 Computer and Law Institute Faculty of Law, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, the Netherlands 3 The Center for Law, Public Administration and Informatization Faculty of Law, Tilburg University Warandelaan 2, 5000...

Bacterial and animal cells are dynamic machines whose internal chemical networks perform hundreds of complex control and signal processing tasks to govern cellular development over time and in response to deterministic and stochastic signals from the environment. A central challenge in post-genomic biology is to discover the complete physical nature of these networks and to determine if there a...

Active videogames have the potential to enhance population levels of physical activity but have not been successful in achieving this aim to date. This article considers a range of principles that may be important to the design of effective and efficient active videogames from diverse discipline areas, including behavioral sciences (health behavior change, motor learning, and serious games), bu...

We discuss the nonlinear rheology of dense colloidal dispersions at the glass transition. A first principles approach starting with interacting Brownian particles in given arbitrary homogeneous (incompressible) flow neglecting hydrodynamic interactions is sketched. It e.g. explains steady state flow curves for finite shear rates measured in dense suspensions of thermosensitive core-shell partic...

We present a method for simulating and visualizing air flow around a static bat (order Chiroptera) wing geometry. This demonstration serves as proof-of-concept for simulating and visualizing air flow around a time-varying geometry in order to understand the aerodynamic principles behind bat flight. By understanding the mechanics of bat flight, we hope to make discoveries in areas such as biomec...

This paper provides an overview of existing technologies to measure flow parameters, such as material velocity and material concentration, in industrial transportation processes of particulate and powdery solids with a focus on pneumatic conveying. Restrictions, advantages and drawbacks of state of the art measurement principles are discussed. We show that capacitance-based sensing with suitabl...