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Angular dependence of third-order law in anisotropic MHD turbulence
(IOP Publishing, 2026) Jiang, Bin; Gao, Zhuoran; Yang, Yan; Pecora, Francesco; Gao, Kai; Li, Cheng; Oughton, Sean; Matthaeus, William H.; Wan, Minping
In solar wind turbulence, the energy transfer/dissipation rate is typically estimated using MHD third-order structure functions calculated using spacecraft observations. However, the inherent anisotropy of solar wind turbulence leads to significant variations in structure functions along different observational directions, thereby affecting the accuracy of energy dissipation rate estimation. An unresolved issue is how to optimise the selection of observation angles under limited directional sampling to improve estimation precision. We conduct a series of MHD turbulence simulations with different mean magnetic field strengths, B0. Our analysis of the third-order structure functions reveals that the global energy dissipation rate estimated around a polar angle of θ = 60^∘agrees reasonably with the exact one for 0 ≤ B0/brms ≤ 5, where brms denotes the rms magnetic field fluctuation. The speciality of 60^∘ polar angle can be understood by the mean value theorem of integrals, since the spherical integral of the polar-angle component (T̃θ) of the divergence of Yaglom flux is zero, and T̃θ changes sign around 60^∘. Existing theory on the energy flux vector as a function of the polar angle is assessed, and supports the speciality of the 60^∘ polar angle. The angular dependence of the third-order structure functions is further assessed with virtual spacecraft data analysis. The present results can be applied to measure the turbulent dissipation rates of energy in the solar wind, which are of potential importance to other areas in which turbulence takes place, such as laboratory plasmas and astrophysics.
Experiences of curriculum integration: The challenges in practice between learner relationships, agency, and knowledge
(Taylor & Francis, 2026-07-09) Taylor, Simon
This paper reports on the multiple ways teachers interpreted and implemented curriculum integration (CI) and considers the factors which contributed to the nature and degree of integration success in programmes in a number of case study secondary schools. This qualitative study examines the experiences of teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand who have implemented Curriculum Integration (CI) programmes for students aged 13–14. The shift away from single-subject specialisations prompts a reconfiguration of how teachers integrate, align, and engage with the curriculum. By examining the complex factors affecting CI in a range of school contexts, where teachers contribute to sustained collaborations, we identify examples from the research that illustrate teaching realities, and frame possibilities of future action. Some teachers utilised thematic contexts, others favoured student led, and co-construction processes. All, however, agreed that a balance was needed between supporting learner relationships and student agency and ensuring that students developed important knowledge. The paper offers a narrative of ways the integrated programmes have been developed, implemented and reflected upon within a secondary curriculum context.
Experts or expertise? A response to Otte, Yearby and Myszka (2024)
(Department of Psychology at Michigan State University, 2026) Grootenboer, Peter; Petrie, Kirsten; Scott, Emily
In 2024 Otte, Yearby, and Myszka published an article arguing for Skill Acquisition Specialists to be incorporated into high-performance sport, and they then responded further in 2026 (Myszka et al.) to Fransen who questioned their position. In this brief commentary we discuss the position presented by Otte et al., not so much to argue against it, but rather to extend their view and consider it from another perspective— practice theory. In this, we argue that what is needed is not ‘skill acquisition’ experts per se, but ‘skill acquisition’ expertise.
Do digital immortals dream of offline afterlives?
(Springer, 2025-10-16) Ulatowski, Joseph W.
The aim of this paper is to argue that it is not possible for a person to live an indefinitely long life as a digital immortal. To argue for this, I show that there is an insurmountable problem from the digital immortal’s perspective. If the digital immortal is an exact replica of a mortal, then the entirety of the digital mind will be directed toward offline content, e.g., from big events like birthday parties, weddings, and the birth of one’s children to the more mundane such as what the embodied mortal had for breakfast on 22 June 1987. The possibility of digital immortals living a person’s life indefinitely means that the digital immortal is able to conceive of and understand the content of the mortal’s embodied mind. To conceive of and to understand the content of a mortal’s embodied mind the digital immortal must know what it is like to be an embodied mortal. However, the digital immortal cannot conceive of what it is like to be an embodied mortal because the experience would be so transformative that it would be irrational to consider it (cf. (Paul in Transformative Experience. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014)) and because it would have to conceive of its own offline afterlife, which is something well beyond its capacity. Just as we cannot conceive what it’s like to be immortal because of its highly transformative experience (cf. (Ulatowski in Diametros: Online J. Philos. 16(62), 65–77, 2019), digital immortals would be similarly perplexed by an offline afterlife. Our digital döppelganger would have no way of knowing what meaty embodied lives are like. The pollyannaish view of living forever as a digital döppelganger gives rise to the realisation that our functionally equivalent digital replica would be filled by memories, experiences, and other content of which it cannot possibly conceive.
On Russell's so-called truth primitivism
(University of Waikato, 2026-07-07) Ulatowski, Joseph W.
According to Truth Primitivism, truth is an unanalysable concept or property. Proponents of the view, especially Jamin Asay, have argued that the GE Moore and Bertrand Russell were early adopters of primitivism until they both abandoned the view in favour of the correspondence theory because neither one of them were able to reconcile how a proposition as a state of affairs could be false if truth is a primitive and unanalysable. In this paper, my focus will be Russell, and I will challenge the view that early Russell was a primitivist about truth; instead, once we have a clearer appreciation of how he understood propositions and the connection between truth and fact, it becomes clear that even early Russell was a correspondence theorist—albeit a special, unique form of correspondence not otherwise in the literature then or now.