Site Authorization Service (SAZ)

In this paper we present a methodology to provide an additional level of centralized control for the grid resources. This centralized control is applied to site-wide distribution of various grids and thus providing an upper hand in the maintenance.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, CA, USA, March 2003, 3 pages, PSN TUBT00

A Solution to the Problem of Indeterminate Desert

A desert-sensitive moral theory says that whether people get what they deserve, whether they are treated as they deserve to be treated, plays a role in determining what we ought to do. Some popular forms of consequentialism are desert-sensitive. But where do facts about what people deserve come from? If someone deserves a raise, or a kiss, in virtue of what does he deserve those things? One plausible answer is that what someone deserves depends, at least in part, on how well he meets his moral requirements. The wicked deserve to suffer and the decent do not. Shelly Kagan (2006) has argued that this plausible answer is wrong. But his argument for that conclusion does not succeed. I will show how to formulate a desert-sensitive moral theory (and also a desert-sensitive version of consequentialism) on which this answer is correct

Relativity and the Moving Spotlight

The moving spotlight theory of time is usually introduced as follows. The theory combines eternalism—the doctrine that past, present, and future times all exist— with “objective becoming.” The claim that there is objective becoming has two parts. First, facts about which time is present are non-relative. That is, even if in some sense each time is present relative to itself, only one time is absolutely present. That time, and only that time, glows with a special metaphysical status. And second, which instant is absolutely present keeps changing. The NOW moves along the series of times from earlier times to later times

Some thoughts on Experiencing Time∗

This paper examples several arguments from Simon Prosser's book Experiencing Time. His argument against the doctrine of the specious present is applauded. His argument that even if time passes, nothing can detect the passage of time, is questioned. Also challenged are his claims that our experience represents things as enduring, rather than perduring, and represents things as having contradictory properties

Some Questions about The Moving Spotlight

I don’t like sports, but it is a sports metaphor that comes to mind: if my team were out of the playoffs, I’d be rooting for Cameron. Unlike Cameron, I think that The Block Universe Theory of Time is true, but like Cameron I’ve argued that the best alternative, the theory it should be squaring off against in the World Series of The Philosophy of Time, is The Moving Spotlight Theory. I came to Cameron’s book, therefore, curious about how his argument for this claim was going to go

More on Haecceitism and Possible Worlds

Anti-haecceitism is the thesis that the universe could not be nonqualitatively different without being qualitatively different. Haecceitism is the denial of anti-haecceitism.1 In “Haecceitism, Anti-Haecceitism, and Possible Worlds” (Skow 2008), I argued that there are no nontendentious definitions of “haecceitism” and “anti-haecceitism” using possible-worlds talk. For any candidate definition of “anti-haecceitism” that uses possible-worlds talk, there is some theory of possible worlds relative to which that definition is not equivalent to anti-haecceitism

Kagan, Shelly. The Geometry of Desert

Other things being equal, people ought to get what they deserve. If there is such a thing as common sense, this claim is part of it. But life is complicated, and this claim does not get us very far. Suppose I could give A what he deserves or give B what she deserves, but not both; what should I do? For Shelly Kagan this question lies on the known edge of a huge expanse of unexplored philosophical terrain. The Geometry of Desert is Kagan’s report on what he found there

The association between Parkinson's disease and anti-epilepsy drug carbamazepine: a case-control study using the UK General Practice Research Database.

AIMS: To investigate whether the use of carbamazepine is associated with reduced risk of Parkinson's disease. METHODS: We conducted a population-based, matched case-control study of patients randomly selected from the UK General Research Practice Database. We identified 8549 patients with Parkinson's disease using diagnosis criteria with a positive predictive value of 90%. These patients were compared with 42, 160 control subjects matched for age, sex and general practice. RESULTS: Overall, 3.0% of cases (257 of 8549) had at least one recorded prescription for carbamazepine compared with 2.5% (1050 of 42, 160) of controls. The crude odds ratio for the association between Parkinson's disease and carbamazepine was 1.22 (95% confidence interval 1.06-1.40), but this reduced to 0.93 (95% confidence interval 0.81-1.08, P = 0.34) after adjusting for annual consultation rate. Further adjustment for body mass index, smoking status, alcohol consumption or use of calcium channel blockers did not affect results. There was no evidence that risk decreased with higher doses or longer duration of carbamazepine use. CONCLUSIONS: There was little to no evidence that use of carbamazepine is associated with reduced risk of Parkinson's disease. Although the study was underpowered, it does indicate that any effect of carbamazepine is likely to be small

Experience and the passage of time

Some philosophers believe that the passage of time is a real phenomenon. And some of them find a reason to believe this when they attend to features of their conscious experience. In fact this “argument from experience” is supposed to be one of the main arguments for passage. What exactly does this argument look like? Is it any good? There are in fact many different arguments from experience. I am not sure I understand them all. In this paper I want to talk about the three most interesting arguments that I do understand. I am going to argue that all three of them fail

Large Scale Cluster Computing Workshop, Fermilab, IL, May 22nd to 25th 2001

A report on a Workshop held in Fermilab in May 2001 to share experiences in building and running large computer clusters