Philosophical expertise under the microscope

Recent experimental studies indicate that epistemically irrelevant factors can skew our intuitions, and that some degree of scepticism about appealing to intuition in philosophy is warranted. In response, some have claimed that philosophers are experts in such a way as to vindicate their reliance on intuitions—this has become known as the ‘expertise defence’. This paper explores the viability of the expertise defence, and suggests that it can be partially vindicated. Arguing that extant discussion is problematically imprecise, we will finesse the notion of ‘philosophical expertise’ in order to better reflect the complex reality of the different practices involved in philosophical inquiry. On this basis, we offer a new version of the expertise defence that allows for distinct types of philosophical expertise. The upshot of our approach is that wholesale vindications or rejections of the expertise defence are shown to be unwarranted; we must instead turn to local, piecemeal investigations of philosophical expertise. Lastly, in the spirit of taking our own advice, we exemplify how recent developments from experimental philosophy lend themselves to this approach, and can empirically support one instance of a successful expertise defence

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Application of Floating Pedal Regenerative Braking for a Rear-Wheel-Drive Parallel-Series Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle with an Automatic Transmission

As the world continues to move further away from our reliance on fossil fuels, hybrid vehicles are becoming ever more popular. Braking is a system on both hybrid and normal vehicles that involves a significant amount of power and energy. A hybrid can recapture some of that energy using regenerative braking. In this thesis, a method is devised to blend hydraulic and regenerative braking in the most effective manner. A MATLAB Simulink model was built to simulate a parallel-series plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. The model allows for the implementation of a regenerative brake controller that utilizes floating pedal regen, custom shift logic, and brake pedal blended regen. The floating pedal controller activates regenerative braking when the driver releases the accelerator pedal. This is done by remapping the pedal based on vehicle speed, gear position, and wheel torques. The custom shift logic utilizes the motor rpm and efficiencies curves to determine when to shift the transmission. The brake pedal regen is added to the hydraulic braking based on brake pedal position. This regenerative brake controller can recharge the battery by 2% SOC during one deceleration event from 130 kph to 20 kph, while maintaining a comfortable deceleration rate less than 3m/sec^2

Constitutive spectral EEG peaks in the gamma range: suppressed by sleep, reduced by mental activity and resistant to sensory stimulation

This Document is Protected by copyright and was first published by Frontiers. All rights reserved. it is reproduced with permission. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.Objective: In a systematic study of gamma activity in neuro-psychiatric disease, we unexpectedly observed distinctive, apparently persistent, electroencephalogram (EEG) spectral peaks in the gamma range (25–100 Hz). Our objective, therefore, was to examine the incidence, distribution and some of the characteristics of these peaks. Methods: High sample-rate, 128-channel, EEG was recorded in 603 volunteers (510 with neuropsychiatric disorders, 93 controls), whilst performing cognitive tasks, and converted to power spectra. Peaks of spectral power, including in the gamma range, were determined algorithmically for all electrodes. To determine if peaks were stable, 24-h ambulatory recordings were obtained from 16 subjects with peaks. In 10 subjects, steady-state responses to stimuli at peak frequency were compared with off-peak-frequency stimulation to determine if peaks were a feature of underlying network resonances and peaks were evaluated with easy and hard versions of oddball tasks to determine if peaks might be influenced by mental effort. Results: 57% of 603 subjects exhibited peaks >2 dB above trough power at or above 25 Hz. Larger peaks (>5 dB) were present in 13% of subjects. Peaks were distributed widely over the scalp, more frequent centrally. Peaks were present through the day and were suppressed by slow-wave-sleep. Steady-state responses were the same with on- or off-peak sensory stimulation. In contrast, mental effort resulted in reductions in power and frequency of gamma peaks, although the suppression did not correlate with level of effort. Conclusions: Gamma EEG can be expressed constitutively as concentrations of power in narrow or wide frequency bands that play an, as yet, unknown role in cognitive activity. Significance: These findings expand the described range of rhythmic EEG phenomena. In particular, in addition to evoked, induced and sustained gamma band activity, gamma activity can be present constitutively in spectral peaks