We analyse a recent paper in which an alleged devastating criticism of the so called GRW proposal to account for the objectification of the properties of macroscopic systems has been presented and we show that the author has not taken into account the precise implications of the GRW theory. This fact makes his conclusions basically wrong. We also perform a survey of measurement theory aimed to focus better on the physical and the conceptual aspects of the so-called macro-objectification problem.

In view of the arguments put forward by Clifton and Monton [this volume], we reconsider the alleged conflict of dynamical reduction models with the enumeration principle. We prove that our original analysis of such a problem is correct, that the GRW model does not meet any difficulty and that the reasoning of the above authors is inappropriate since it does not take into account the correct interpretation of the dynamical reduction theories.

We present the idea of searching for X-rays as a signature of the mechanism inducing the spontaneous collapse of the wave function. Such a signal is predicted by the continuous spontaneous localization theories, which are solving the “measurement problem” by modifying the Schrödinger equation. We will show some encouraging preliminary results and discuss future plans and strategy.

This volume commemorates the scientific contributions of Detlef Dürr (1951–2021) to foundational questions of physics. It presents new contributions from his former students, collaborators, and colleagues about their current research on topics inspired or influenced by Dürr. These topics are drawn from physics, mathematics, and philosophy of nature, and concern interpretations of quantum theory, new developments of Bohmian mechanics, the role of typicality, quantum physics in relativistic space-time, classical and quantum electrodynamics, and statistical mechanics. The volume thus also gives a (...) snapshot of present research in the foundations of physics. (shrink)

This book celebrates the work of Giancarlo Ghiradi.

Due to improvements in medicine, the figures of patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC) are increasing. Diagnostics of DoC and prognostication of rehabilitation outcome is challenging but necessary to evaluate recovery potential and to decide on treatment options. Such decisions should be made by doctors and patients’ surrogates based on medico-ethical principles. Meeting information needs and communicating effectively with caregivers as the patients´ most common surrogate-decision makers is crucial, and challenging when novel tech-nologies are introduced. This qualitative study aims to (...) explore information needs of informal DoC caregivers, how they manage the obtained information and their perceptions and experiences with caregiver-physician communication in facilities that implemented innovative neurodiagnostics studies. In 2021, we conducted semi-structured interviews with nine caregivers of clinically stable DoC patients in two rehabilitation centers in Italy and Germany. Participants were selected based on consecutive purposeful sampling. Caregivers were recruited at the facilities after written informed consent. All interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and translated. For analysis, we used reflexive thematic analysis according to Braun & Clarke (2006). Caregivers experienced the conversations emotionally, generally based on the value of the information provided. They reported to seek positive information, comfort and empathy with-in the communication of results of examinations. They needed detailed information to gain a deep understanding and a clear picture of their loved-one’s condition. The results suggest a mismatch between the perspectives of caregivers and the perspectives of medical profession-als, and stress the need for more elaborate approaches to the communication of results of neu-rodiagnostics studies. (shrink)

In this paper, we review and connect the three essential conditions needed by the collapse model to achieve a complete and exact formulation, namely the theoretical, the experimental, and the ontological ones. These features correspond to the three parts of the paper. In any empirical science, the first two features are obviously connected but, as is well known, among the different formulations and interpretations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, only collapse models, as the paper well illustrates with a richness of details, (...) have experimental consequences. Finally, we show that a clarification of the ontological intimations of collapse models is needed for at least three reasons: (1) to respond to the indispensable task of answering the question ’what are collapse models (and in general any physical theory) about?’; (2) to achieve a deeper understanding of their different formulations; (3) to enlarge the panorama of possible readings of a theory, which historically has often played a fundamental heuristic role. (shrink)

Over the past decade, strategy and international business scholars have increasingly turned their attention to assessing how alterations in institutional arrangements in former centrally planned economies influence enterprise‐level strategies. Little is known about the strategic responses of organizations operating in countries going through institutional transformation related to social issues. Since the first democratic elections in 1994, the South African government has focused on addressing the inequalities of the past through what is known as Black Economic Empowerment (empowerment of historically disadvantaged (...) black people). In this paper, we investigate the approach used by the Amalgamated Banks of South Africa (ABSA) Group Limited, one of the top four banks and an important player in the South African financial services sector, in formulating and implementing strategy to ensure successful and sustainable organizational transformation. A key component of ABSA's Black Economic Empowerment strategy is incorporation of transformation as a business imperative and not merely as a compliance requirement. (shrink)

Sentences such as Olivia can take Logic or Algebra (‘♢∨-sentences’) are typically interpreted as entailing that Olivia can take Logic and can take Algebra. Given a standard semantics for modals and disjunction, those ‘Free choice’ (FC) readings are not predicted from the surface form of ♢∨-sentences. Yet the standard semantics is appropriate for the ‘double prohibition’ reading typically assigned to ¬♢∨-sentences like Olivia can’t take Logic or Algebra. Several extant approaches to FC can account for those two cases, but face (...) challenges when ♢∨, ¬♢∨ and related sentences appear embedded in certain environments. In this paper, we present a novel account of FC that builds on a ‘grammatical’ theory of scalar implicatures — proposed by Bassi et al. (2021) and Del Pinal (2021) — according to which covert exhaustification is a presupposition trigger such that the prejacent forms the assertive content while any excludable or includable alternatives are incorporated at the non-at issue, presuppositional level. Applied to ♢∨, ¬♢∨, and similar sentences, ‘presuppositional exhaustification’ predicts that their default interpretations have an assertive component (roughly, the classical interpretation of the prejacent) and a homogeneity presupposition which projects in standard ways. Those predictions, we then show, support a uniform account of the puzzling behavior of ♢∨, ¬♢∨, and related sentences when embedded under (negative) factives (Marty & Romoli 2020), disjunctions (Romoli & Santorio 2019), and in the scope of universal, existential (Bar-Lev & Fox 2020) and non-monotonic quantifiers (Gotzner et al. 2020). (shrink)

Grammatical theories of Scalar Implicatures make use of an exhaustivity operator exh, which asserts the conjunction of the prejacent with the negation of excludable alternatives. We present a new Grammatical theory of Scalar Implicatures according to which exh is replaced with pex, an operator that contributes its prejacent as asserted content, but the negation of scalar alternatives at a non-at-issue level of meaning. We show that by treating this non-at-issue level as a presupposition, this theory resolves a number of empirical (...) challenges faced by the old formulation of exh (as well as by standard neo-Gricean theories). The empirical challenges include projection of scalar implicatures from certain embedded environments (‘some under some’ sentences, some under negative factives), their restricted distribution under negation, and the existence of common ground-mismatching and oddness-inducing implicatures. We argue that these puzzles have a uniform solution given a pex-based Grammatical theory of implicatures and some independently motivated principles concerning presupposition projection, cancellation and accommodation. (shrink)

In view of the arguments put forward by Clifton and Monton [this volume], we reconsider the alleged conflict of dynamical reduction models with the enumeration principle. We prove that our original analysis of such a problem is correct, that the GRW model does not meet any difficulty and that the reasoning of the above authors is inappropriate since it does not take into account the correct interpretation of the dynamical reduction theories.

The paper examines the open problems that experts of space law shall increasingly address over the next few years, according to four different sets of legal issues. Such differentiation sheds light on what is old and what is new with today’s troubles of space law, e.g., the privatization of space, vis-à-vis the challenges that AI raises in this field. Some AI challenges depend on its unique features, e.g., autonomy and opacity, and how they affect pillars of the law, whether on (...) Earth or in space missions. The paper insists on a further class of legal issues that AI systems raise, however, only in outer space. We shall never overlook the constraints of a hazardous and hostile environment, such as on a mission between Mars and the Moon. The aim of this paper is to illustrate what is still mostly unexplored or in its infancy in this kind of research, namely, the fourfold ways in which the uniqueness of AI and that of outer space impact both ethical and legal standards. Such standards shall provide for thresholds of evaluation according to which courts and legislators evaluate the pros and cons of technology. Our claim is that a new generation of sui generis standards of space law, stricter or more flexible standards for AI systems in outer space, down to the “principle of equality” between human standards and robotic standards, will follow as a result of this twofold uniqueness of AI and of outer space. (shrink)

The paper deals with the governance of Unmanned Aircraft Systems in European law. Three different kinds of balance have been struck between multiple regulatory systems, in accordance with the sector of the governance of UAS which is taken into account. The first model regards the field of civil aviation law and its European Union ’s regulation: the model looks like a traditional mix of top-down regulation and soft law. The second model concerns the EU general data protection law, the GDPR, (...) which has set up a co-regulatory framework summed up with the principle of accountability also, but not only, in the field of drones. The third model of governance has been adopted by the EU through methods of legal experimentation and coordination mechanisms for UAS. The overall aim of the paper is to elucidate the ways in which such three models interact, insisting on differences and similarities with other technologies, and further legal systems. (shrink)

Risk management is a well-known method to face technological challenges through a win–win combination of protective and proactive approaches, fostering the collaboration of operators, researchers, regulators, and industries for the exploitation of new markets. In the field of autonomous and unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, a considerable amount of work has been devoted to risk analysis, the generation of ground risk maps, and ground risk assessment by estimating the fatality rate. The paper aims to expand this approach with a tool (...) for managing data protection risks raised by drones through the design of flight maps. The tool should allow UAS operators choosing the best air corridor for their drones based on the so-called privacy by design principle pursuant to Article 25 of the EU data protection regulation, the GDPR. Among the manifold applications of this approach, the design of fly zones for drones can be tailored for public authorities in the phase of authorization of new operations, much as for national Data Protection authorities that have to control the lawfulness of personal data processing by UAS operations. The overall aim is to present the first win–win approach to data protection issues, aerospace engineering challenges, and risk management methods for the threats posed by this technology. (shrink)

Risk management is a well-known method to face technological challenges through a win–win combination of protective and proactive approaches, fostering the collaboration of operators, researchers, regulators, and industries for the exploitation of new markets. In the field of autonomous and unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, a considerable amount of work has been devoted to risk analysis, the generation of ground risk maps, and ground risk assessment by estimating the fatality rate. The paper aims to expand this approach with a tool (...) for managing data protection risks raised by drones through the design of flight maps. The tool should allow UAS operators choosing the best air corridor for their drones based on the so-called privacy by design principle pursuant to Article 25 of the EU data protection regulation, the GDPR. Among the manifold applications of this approach, the design of fly zones for drones can be tailored for public authorities in the phase of authorization of new operations, much as for national Data Protection authorities that have to control the lawfulness of personal data processing by UAS operations. The overall aim is to present the first win–win approach to data protection issues, aerospace engineering challenges, and risk management methods for the threats posed by this technology. (shrink)

Risk management is a well-known method to face technological challenges through a win–win combination of protective and proactive approaches, fostering the collaboration of operators, researchers, regulators, and industries for the exploitation of new markets. In the field of autonomous and unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, a considerable amount of work has been devoted to risk analysis, the generation of ground risk maps, and ground risk assessment by estimating the fatality rate. The paper aims to expand this approach with a tool (...) for managing data protection risks raised by drones through the design of flight maps. The tool should allow UAS operators choosing the best air corridor for their drones based on the so-called privacy by design principle pursuant to Article 25 of the EU data protection regulation, the GDPR. Among the manifold applications of this approach, the design of fly zones for drones can be tailored for public authorities in the phase of authorization of new operations, much as for national Data Protection authorities that have to control the lawfulness of personal data processing by UAS operations. The overall aim is to present the first win–win approach to data protection issues, aerospace engineering challenges, and risk management methods for the threats posed by this technology. (shrink)

We compute the effect of collapse models on neutrino oscillations. The effect of the collapse is to modify the evolution of the spatial part of the wave function and we will show that this indirectly amounts to a change on the flavor components. For the analysis we use the mass proportional CSL model, and perform the calculation to second order perturbation theory. As we will show, the CSL effect is very small—mainly due to the very small mass of neutrinos—and practically (...) undetectable. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Conway and Kochen proposed what is now known as the “Free Will theorem” which, among other things, should prove the impossibility of combining GRW models with special relativity, i.e., of formulating relativistically invariant models of spontaneous wavefunction collapse. Since their argument basically amounts to a non-locality proof for any theory aiming at reproducing quantum correlations, and since it was clear since very a long time that any relativistic collapse model must be non-local in some way, we (...) discuss why the theorem of Conway and Kochen does not affect the program of formulating relativistic GRW models. (shrink)

In view of the arguments put forward by Clifton and Monton [this volume], we reconsider the alleged conflict of dynamical reduction models with the enumeration principle. We prove that our original analysis of such a problem is correct, that the GRW model does not meet any difficulty and that the reasoning of the above authors is inappropriate since it does not take into account the correct interpretation of the dynamical reduction theories.

O presente artigo objetiva discutir como Richer de Reims, monge beneditino do século X, compôs um relato histórico baseando na construção narrativa totalmente ligada ao aparato estético com instrumento retórico. A partir de sua formação clássica, organizada pelo Abade Gerbert d’Aurillac, Richer constrói um texto de Histórias que compõe uma narrativa a partir de uma fórmula estética particular, que é a “reescrita”, ou “criação”, dos diálogos dos diversos personagens que aparecem no relato; com isso, faz com que as supostas “vozes” (...) de seus personagens ajudem-no na legitimação, política ou intelectual, daqueles para quem ele deixa transparecer sua preferência. (shrink)

Although beef and dairy production in Alberta, Canada, enjoys strong public support, there are enduring public concerns, including farm animal welfare. Evolving codes of practice and animal care councils prescribe changes and improvements to many areas of farm management, and may be seen by farmers as an appropriate response to public animal welfare concerns. However, codes of practice do not address every animal welfare concern, and new concerns can arise over time. Drawing on social practice theory and in-depth field research (...) with 36 cattle and dairy farmers, this paper explores the materials, competencies, and meanings of four animal husbandry practices: branding, dehorning, weaning, and on-farm handling and moving. Findings show that branding and dehorning are evolving slowly with attention to pain management, but remain firmly rooted in ranching tradition and communities of practice. Weaning and animal handling practices are evolving more quickly with attention to changing materials, attitudes, and values that are more prevalent within producer communities. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim (1998a, 2005) claims that his exclusion problem follows a priori for the non-reductive physicalist given her commitment to five apparently inconsistent theses: mental causation, non-identity, supervenience, causal closure and non-overdetermination. For Kim, the combination of these theses entails that mental properties are a priori excluded as causes, forcing the non-reductive physicalist to accept either epiphenomenalism, or some form of reduction. In this thesis, I argue that Kim’s exclusion problem depends on a particular conception of causation, namely sufficient production, (...) and that when causation is understood in interventionist terms, the non-reductive physicalist can avoid the exclusion problem. I argue that Woodward’s (2003, 2008a, 2011a) version of interventionism not only provides an account of mental causation that avoids the exclusion problem, but argue that it also upholds all of the minimal commitments of non-reductive physicalism, thereby providing a successful non-reductive physicalist solution to the exclusion problem. In Chapter 2, I argue that all five theses are minimal commitments of non-reductive physicalism that cannot be rejected in order to avoid the exclusion problem. Chapter 3 identifies the assumptions that I take to underlie the exclusion problem. Chapter 4 introduces and outlines the central features of Woodward’s (2003) interventionism and Chapter 5 argues that Woodward’s interventionist account of mental causation provides a solution to the exclusion problem. I examine two alternative interventionist accounts of mental causation[1] that fail to provide satisfactory solutions to the exclusion problem and conclude that Woodward’s account therefore provides the only satisfactory account of mental causation and solution to the exclusion problem. Chapter 6 addresses some challenges proposed by Michael Baumgartner (2009, 2010) and argues that the interventionist is able to defend her position against these objections and uphold the interventionist solution to the exclusion problem outlined in this thesis. [1. Proposed by List and Menzies (2009) and Campbell (2007, 2008a, 2008b, 2010).]. (shrink)

This paper argues that spatial contingencies, defined by the relationship between where historical actors are in the narrative and what they say, are crucial for understanding the political and ideological effects of Thucydides' History. A comprehensive approach to these contingencies is linked to two related premises. First, that the city of Athens is the principal spatial referent in the History and, second, that Athens refers both to a set of “real” topographical features and to a transcendent and trans-historical ideal that (...) exceeds those features. The dynamic between these two is mediated by Athens' inevitable defeat and by the related conflict between the History as the presentation of facts about the past, on the one hand, and as the source of future predictions, on the other. Framing this analysis are the distinctive characteristics ascribed to the Athenians as a collective and to the positions of Thucydides and Alcibiades as Athenians in exile. (shrink)

This article gives a conceptual review of the e-value, ev(H|X) – the epistemic value of hypothesis H given observations X. This statistical significance measure was developed in order to allow logically coherent and consistent tests of hypotheses, including sharp or precise hypotheses, via the Full Bayesian Significance Test (FBST). Arguments of analysis allow a full characterization of this statistical test by its logical or compositional properties, showing a mutual complementarity between results of mathematical statistics and the logical desiderata lying at (...) the foundations of this theory. (shrink)

We respond to criticisms of our paper “The Free Will Theorem”, and produce a new form of the theorem based on weaker assumptions.

Die Sculpturen des Vaticanischen Museums, im Auftrage und unter Mitwirkung des kaiserlick deutschen archaeologischen Instituts beschrieben von Walter Amerlung. Berlin: In Kommission bei Georg Reimer. Vol. I., 1903; Vol. II., 1908. Text, 8vo, pp. x + 935, 768. Plates, 4to, 121 + 83. M. 50 per vol.Guida illustrata del Museo Nazionale di Napoli; approvata dal Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione. Compilata da D. Bassi, E. Gábrici, L. Mariani, O. Maruchhi, G. Patroni, G. de Petra, A. Sogliano; per cura di A. (...) Ruesch. Naples: Richter & Co.; Munich: Buchholz, 1908. 8vo. Pp. 500. 129 illustrations in the text. Lire 25. (shrink)