(WP 2020-01) The Sea Battle Tomorrow: The Identity of Reflexive Economic Agents

This paper develops a conception of reflexive economic agents as an alternative to the standard utility conception, and explains individual identity in terms of how agents adjust to change in a self-organizing way, an idea developed from Herbert Simon. The paper distinguishes closed equilibrium and open process conceptions of the economy, and argues the former fails to explain time in a before-and-after sense in connection with Aristotle’s sea battle problem. A causal model is developed to represent the process conception, and a structure-agency understanding of the adjustment behavior of reflexive economic agents is illustrated using Merton’s self-fulfilling prophecy analysis. Simon’s account of how adjustment behavior has stopping points is then shown to underlie how agents’ identities are disrupted and then self-organized, and the identity analysis this involves is applied to the different identity models of Merton, Ross, Arthur, and Kirman. Finally, the self-organization idea is linked to the recent ‘preference purification’ debate in bounded rationality theory regarding the ‘inner rational agent trapped in an outer psychological shell,’ and it is argued that the behavior of self-organizing agents involves them taking positions toward their own individual identities

Conversations on a probable future: interview with Beatrice Fazi

No description supplie

Remembering today tomorrow: exploring the human-centred design of digital mementos

This paper describes two-part research exploring the context for and human-centred design of ‘digital mementos’, as an example of technology for reflection on personal experience(in this case, autobiographical memories). Field studies into families’ use of physical and digital objects for remembering provided a rich understanding of associated user needs and human values, and suggested properties for ‘digital mementos’ such as being ‘not like work’, discoverable and fun. In a subsequent design study, artefacts were devised to express these features and develop the understanding of needs and values further via discussion with groups of potential ‘users’. ‘Critical artefacts’(the products of Critical Design)were used to enable participants to envisage broader possibilities for social practices and applications of technology in the context of personal remembering, and thus to engage in the design of novel devices and systems relevant to their lives. Reflection was a common theme in the work, being what the digital mementos were designed to afford and the mechanism by which the design activity progressed. Ideas for digital mementos formed the output of this research and expressed the designer’s and researcher’s understanding of participants’ practices and needs, and the human values that underlie them and, in doing so, suggest devices and systems that go beyond usability to support a broader conception of human activity

Tomorrow optical interferometry: astrophysical prospects and instrumental issues

Interferometry has brought many new constraints in optical astronomy in the recent years. A major leap in this field is the opening of large interferometric facilities like the Very Large Telescope Interferometer and the Keck Interferometer to the astronomical community. Planning for the future is both easy --most specialists know in which directions to develop interferometry-- and difficult because of the increasing complexity of the technique. I present a short status of interferometry today. Then I detail the possible astrophysical prospects. Finally I address some important instrumental issues that are decisive for the future of interferometry.Comment: 8 pages, invited review at the "Visions in IR astronomy" conference held in Paris, 21-23 March 200

Spartan Daily, March 2, 1962

Volume 49, Issue 75https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/4262/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, March 3, 1960

Volume 47, Issue 84https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/4000/thumbnail.jp