The Epistemology of Intentionality: Notional Constituents vs. Direct Grasp

Franz Brentano is well known for highlighting the importance of intentionality, but he said curiously little about the nature of intentionality. According to Mark Textor, there is a deep reason for this: Brentano took intentionality to be a conceptual primitive the nature of which is revealed only in direct grasp. Although there is certainly textual support for this interpretation, it appears in tension with Brentano’s repeated attempts to analyze intentionality in terms of ‘notional constituents’ – aspects of intentionality which cannot come apart in reality but which can be conceptually distinguished. After bringing out this tension, I explore some options for resolving it, ultimately offering my own favored interpretation

Buildings LCA and digitalization: Designers\u27 toolbox based on a survey

In a context of digitalization and increasing quality requirements, the building sector is facing an increasing level of complexity regarding its design process. This results in a growing number of involved actors from different domains, a multitude of tasks to be completed and a higher degree of needed expertise. New buildings are also required to reach higher performances in terms of environmental quality. To that regard, the exploitation of the full potential of digital tools can facilitate the integration of environmental aspects in the planning process, limit productivity shortcomings and reduce environmental impacts, which can result from an unaware decision making. Building environmental assessment can be performed through several Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)-based tools. “Pure calculation” tools quantify final buildings\u27 environmental potential, while “complex tools” additionally support decision making during the planning process. It is often difficult to choose the best suitable tool, which strongly depends on the user\u27s needs. Within the IEA EBC Annex 72, a survey was realized with the main objective of creating a comprehensive overview of the existing tools dedicated to buildings LCA. The questionnaire included the usability, functionality, compliance, data reliability and interoperability of the analysed tools. Lastly, based on the survey outcomes and their critical assessment, a procedure for the identification and selection of a tool has been proposed based on user\u27s needs. As a result, this work outlines main features of currently available building LCA tools, for which there is a harmonized status in terms of usability and overall applied LCA methodology. Despite the need for more automatized workflows, tools\u27 embedding is mostly not yet applicable in system chains or limited to a restricted number of tools

From speed of sound to vapour pressure: an undergraduate school experiment as an example of systematic error research

Abstract This article presents an undergraduate project for measuring the speed of sound in the air as a function of air temperature. The measurement is implemented in two versions. The simplicity of the basic experiment in dry air is used for a detailed analysis of systematic errors: the measured values are corrected with an additive constant and optimized to match the expected parabolic dependence of the speed of sound on temperature. Such a time correction is correlated with the physical content, that is, by changing the phase of oscillation of the pressure difference at the reflection of the sound at the open end of the tube. The second part of the experiment involves measuring the speed of sound in saturated humid air as a function of air temperature and allows for a substantive connection of two areas of physics (waves and thermodynamics). The measured water vapour pressure, within the range of statistical errors, follows the theoretical course up to the upper limit of the measured temperature range (60 °C) surprisingly well.</jats:p

Simulation-based performance analysis of order picking systems

Order picking is the process of retrieving items from the warehouse in response to a specific customer request. The design of an order picking system is often complicated and complex due to a large spectrum of external and internal factors, which influence the design choices. The most common objective of order picking systems during the design phase is to maximize the service level subject to reduce constraints such as labour, machines and capital. Therefore, the main objective of our paper is to present different policies for routing order pickers in one-block warehouse. Regarding the proposed routing policies, the effects on the order picking system performance will be presented

Simulation-based performance analysis of order picking systems

Order picking is the process of retrieving items from the warehouse in response to a specific customer request. The design of an order picking system is often complicated and complex due to a large spectrum of external and internal factors, which influence the design choices. The most common objective of order picking systems during the design phase is to maximize the service level subject to reduce constraints such as labour, machines and capital. Therefore, the main objective of our paper is to present different policies for routing order pickers in one-block warehouse. Regarding the proposed routing policies, the effects on the order picking system performance will be presented