“X” meansX: Fodor/Warfield semantics

In an earlier paper, we argued that Fodorian Semantics has serious difficulties. However, we suggested possible ways that one might attempt to fix this. Ted Warfield suggests that our arguments can be deflected and he does this by making the very moves that we suggested. In our current paper, we respond to Warfield's attempts to revise and defend Fodorian Semantics against our arguments that such a semantic theory is both too strong and too weak. To get around our objections, Warfield proposes a modified reading of one of Fodor's conditions and proposes adding a new condition to the theory. We show that neither the modified reading nor the additional condition saves the asymmetric causal dependency approach to naturalized semantics.     

Some Properties of Aluminum Carbide Powder Prepared by the Pyrolysis of Alkylaluminu

Ultrafine aluminum carbide (Al₄C₃) powders with crystallite sizes of <40 nm were prepared by the pyrolyses of alkylaluminums, i.e., trimethylaluminum (Al(CH₃)₃: TMAL), triethylaluminum (Al(C₂H₅)₃: TEAL), triisobutylaluminum (Al(i-C₄H₉)₃: TIBAL) at a temperature between 950° and 1100°C. Although the pyrolysis of TMAL produced Al₄C₃ at 950°C, the pyrolysis temperature of TEAL to produce Al₄C₃ was raised up to 1100°C. The pyrolysis of TIBAL at 1100°C produced not only crystalline Al₄C₃ but also amorphous oxycarbide. The TEAL-derived powder had the highest true density (2.89 g^.cm⁻³ or 97% of the theoretical density) among the three kinds of powders.     

Deposition and microhardness of SiC from the Si2Cl6-C3H8-H2-Ar system

We obtained SiC coating layers on a graphite substrate using hexachlorodisilane (Si₂Cl₆, boiling point 144° C) as a silicon source and propane as a carbon source. We examined the deposition conditions, contents of carbon, silicon and chlorine in the deposits, and the microhardness. Mirror-like amorphous silicon layers were deposited in the reaction temperature range 500 to 630° C. well-formed silicon carbide layers with good adherency to the substrate were obtained above 850° C. The lowest deposition temperature of SiC was estimated to be 750 to 800° C. The Vickers microhardness of the SiC layer was about 3800 kg mm^–2 at room temperature and 2150 kg mm^–2 at 1000° C.     

Deterioration of electromotive force of chromel-alumel thermocouples in reducing atmospheres at high temperatures

The deterioration of electromotive force (emf) of Chromel-Alumel (CA) thermocouples in 80 pct H₂ + 15 pct CO + 5 pct CO₂ has been analyzed in terms of the corrosion behavior of Chromel. Emf of the CA thermocouple deteriorated drastically in 80 pct H₂ + 15 pct CO + 5 pct CO₂. After exposure for about 1000 hours at 900 °C, the decrease of emf was about 16 mV. The deterioration process could be separated into three terms. The first term, which has the smallest time constant of about 20 hours, was attributed to carbon deposition on the Chromel surface in the temperature range of 600 to 700 °C. The second term, which has a time constant of about 100 hours, was attributed to the severe internal oxidation of chromium in the temperature range of 500 to 800 °C. The third term, having the largest time constant of several thousand hours, might be attributed to the moderate and gradual preferential oxidation of chromium in Chromel in the range 800 to 900 °C. Boron nitride (BN) coating on CA thermocouples could reduce this deterioration of emf; the decrease of emf was improved to about 3 °C during 700 hours test at 900 °C.     

STW gas sensors using plasma-polymerized allylamine

Gas sensors generally consist of two major components: a gas recognition element which provides the specificity and selectivity of the measurement and a physical transducer which translates the gas absorption or desorption event into electronic signal. In this paper, plasma polymerized allylamine (PPAa) film is used as a gas recognition element and a surface transverse wave (STW) device is used as a physical transducer. It is confirmed that STW sensor devices coated with PPAa films provide high sensitivity for moisture. The STW sensor device with a 63 nm PPAa film provided twenty four times higher sensitivity than that of a non-coated STW device. In addition, the chemical structure of PPAa films is characterized by the FT-IR and the contact angle measurement.     

Latex piezoelectric immunoassay: analysis of C-reactive protein in human serum

We constructed an integrated immunosensor system to combine a quartz crystal microbalance with the agglutination reaction of immunized latex beads. C-reactive protein (CRP) induced an immunoreaction due to the latex bends with anti-CRP antibody. We succeeded in determining the concentration of CRP necessary in human serum for disease diagnosis using a CRP Sensor I.     

“X” means X: Semantics Fodor-style

InPsychosemantics Jerry Fodor offered a list of sufficient conditions for a symbol X to mean something X. The conditions are designed to reduce meaning to purely non-intentional natural relations. They are also designed to solve what Fodor has dubbed the disjunction problem. More recently, inA Theory of Content and Other Essays, Fodor has modified his list of sufficient conditions for naturalized meaning in light of objections to his earlier list. We look at his new set of conditions and give his motivation for them-tracing them to problems in the literature. Then we argue that Fodor's conditions still do not work. They are open to objections of two different varieties: they are too strong and too weak. We develop these objections and indicate why Fodor's new, improved list of conditions still do not work to naturalize meaning.We wish to thank Ray Elugardo, Pat Manfredi, and Donna Summerfield for comments on a draft of this paper, as well as other members of the CMU Mind Group (David Drebushenko, Gary Fuller, and Naomi Reshotko) for helpful discussion and support. A version of this paper was presented at the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology in Atlanta, March, 1991, and at the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Science in Kingston, Ontario, in May, 1991.     

Seasonal change in the level and the chemical forms of aluminum in soil solution under a Japanese cedar forest

The level of dissolved aluminum and its chemical forms in soil solutions consecutively collected by a porous cup vacuum sampler were monitored over a period from January 2001 to December 2001 at a Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) forestry area susceptible to acid deposition to characterize current soil dynamics and to evaluate potential tree damages. Distinction and characterization of Al species with differential toxicities were performed by two complementary speciation techniques; cation-exchange HPLC with fluorometric detection using 8-hydroxyquinoline-5-sulfonic acid (HQS) and size-fractionation/inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). The concentrations of free Al (mainly Al3+ and Al(OH)2+) and inert Al (existing as the complexed and/or colloidal forms) ranged between 0-150 microM and 10-50 microM, respectively. The concentrations of inert Al were mostly below 40 microM during an annual cycle and showed no marked seasonal variation, while free Al concentrations showed a clear tendency to increase in the spring and summer seasons (in the period from April to August) probably due to the enhanced activity of microbial nitrification and the resultant soil acidification. Major cations and anions were also regularly determined and their seasonal changes were correlated with that of the dissolved Al concentration. Correlations between total Al (mainly existing as free Al) and the related species (and environmental conditions) were as follows: Al and Mg (R=0.96, P<0.01), Al and Ca (R=0.97, P<0.01), Al and NO3- (R=0.68, P<0.01), Al and temperature (R=0.68, P<0.01), Al and solution pH (R=-0.61, P<0.01), solution pH and NO3- (R=-0.65, P<0.01).     

Development of dedicated STEM with high stability

We developed a dedicated scanning transmission electron microscope with high-stability. The mechanical and electronic stabilities of the microscope were substantially improved, e.g. the specimen drift rate was found to be <0.2 nm min(-1). The Fourier transform of an ADF image showed spots of 0.105 nm at an acceleration voltage of 200 kV without spherical aberration corrector. The stabilized STEM instrument allows us to acquire distortion-free STEM images and high-signal to noise ratio analyses. We have shown the outline of the instrument and preliminary results.