Zur Eigenart religiöser Überzeugungen

Gewöhnlich ordnet die intensionale Semantik epistemologischer\ud Termini den Ausdruck »Überzeugung« in den\ud Bereich des rationalen Glaubens ein oder verwendet den\ud Überzeugungsbegriff synonym mit dem Begriff des rationalen\ud Glaubens (vgl. hierzu beispielsweise Kutschera\ud 1981, 2). Allerdings erweist sich eine epistemische Logik\ud als reichhaltiger und mit anderen "Logiken" (wie etwa der\ud deontischen Logik) verzahnbarer, wenn sie neben den\ud Termen »glauben« und »wissen« auch einen eigenen\ud Überzeugungsbegriff zuläßt, der weder mit Glauben noch\ud mit Wissen zusammenfällt. Die eigene Kontur des Überzeugungsbegriffes\ud erhellt aus den alltagssprachlichen Verwendungsweisen:\ud Wenn eine Person a von einem Sachverhalt\ud p überzeugt ist, dann steht sie in einer besonderen\ud epistemischen Relation zu p, die weder erschöpfend mit\ud einem Führwahrhalten noch bereits plausibel mit einem\ud Wissen beschrieben ist (vgl. Searle 1987, 49-58)

Thermomagnetic convection of magnetic fluids in a cylindrical geometry

The thermomagnetic convection of magnetic fluids in a cylindrical geometry subjected to a homogeneous magnetic field is studied. The study is motivated by a novel thermal instability [W. Luo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4134 (1999)]. As model system a composite cylinder with inner heating is considered which reflects the symmetry of the experimentally setup. The general condition for the existence of a potentially unstable stratification in the magnetic fluid is derived. Within a linear stability analysis the critical external induction for the onset of thermomagnetic convection is determined for dilute and nondilute magnetic fluids. The difference between both thresholds allows to test experimentally whether a test sample is a dilute fluid or not.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure

Brownian Dynamics Simulation of Polydisperse Hard Spheres

Standard algorithms for the numerical integration of the Langevin equation require that interactions are slowly varying during to the integration timestep. This in not the case for hard-body systems, where there is no clearcut between the correlation time of the noise and the timescale of the interactions. Starting from a short time approximation of the Smoluchowsky equation, we introduce an algorithm for the simulation of the overdamped Brownian dynamics of polydisperse hard-spheres in absence of hydrodynamics interactions and briefly discuss the extension to the case of external drifts

What UV Is What You Get

Vitamin D deficiency affects people differently and causes multiple health problems. Supplements may help when UV exposure is insufficient to generate Vitamin D in the body

Towards Interpretable Foundation Models of Robot Behavior: A Task Specific Policy Generation Approach

Foundation models are a promising path toward general-purpose and user-friendly robots. The prevalent approach involves training a generalist policy that, like a reinforcement learning policy, uses observations to output actions. Although this approach has seen much success, several concerns arise when considering deployment and end-user interaction with these systems. In particular, the lack of modularity between tasks means that when model weights are updated (e.g., when a user provides feedback), the behavior in other, unrelated tasks may be affected. This can negatively impact the system's interpretability and usability. We present an alternative approach to the design of robot foundation models, Diffusion for Policy Parameters (DPP), which generates stand-alone, task-specific policies. Since these policies are detached from the foundation model, they are updated only when a user wants, either through feedback or personalization, allowing them to gain a high degree of familiarity with that policy. We demonstrate a proof-of-concept of DPP in simulation then discuss its limitations and the future of interpretable foundation models.Comment: Short Paper accepted to RLC 2024 Workshop on Training Agents with Foundation Model

Phase equilibria and glass transition in colloidal systems with short-ranged attractive interactions. Application to protein crystallization

We have studied a model of a complex fluid consisting of particles interacting through a hard core and a short range attractive potential of both Yukawa and square-well form. Using a hybrid method, including a self-consistent and quite accurate approximation for the liquid integral equation in the case of the Yukawa fluid, perturbation theory to evaluate the crystal free energies, and mode-coupling theory of the glass transition, we determine both the equilibrium phase diagram of the system and the lines of equilibrium between the supercooled fluid and the glass phases. For these potentials, we study the phase diagrams for different values of the potential range, the ratio of the range of the interaction to the diameter of the repulsive core being the main control parameter. Our arguments are relevant to a variety of systems, from dense colloidal systems with depletion forces, through particle gels, nano-particle aggregation, and globular protein crystallization.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figure