Dagstuhl News January - December 2001

"Dagstuhl News" is a publication edited especially for the members of the Foundation "Informatikzentrum Schloss Dagstuhl" to thank them for their support. The News give a summary of the scientific work being done in Dagstuhl. Each Dagstuhl Seminar is presented by a small abstract describing the contents and scientific highlights of the seminar as well as the perspectives or challenges of the research topic

Reducing normative conflicts in information security

Security weaknesses often stem from users trying to comply with social expectations rather than following security procedures. Such normative conflicts between security policies and social norms are therefore undesirable from a security perspective. It has been argued that system developers have a "meta-task responsibility", meaning that they have a moral obligation to enable the users of the system they design to cope adequately with their responsibilities. Depending on the situation, this could mean forcing the user to make an "ethical" choice, by "designing out" conflicts. In this paper, we ask the question to what extent it is possible to detect such potential normative conflicts in the design phase of security-sensitive systems, using qualitative research in combination with so-called system models. We then envision how security design might proactively reduce conflict by (a) designing out conflict where possible in the development of policies and systems, and (b) responding to residual and emergent conflict through organisational processes. The approach proposed in this paper is a so-called subcultural approach, where security policies are designed to be culturally sympathetic. Where normative conflicts either cannot be avoided or emerge later, the organisational processes are used to engage with subcultures to encourage communally-mediated control

Happiest Thoughts: Great Thought Experiments of Modern Physics

This is a review of those key thought experiments in physics from the late 19th century onward that seem to have played a particular role in the process of the discovery or advancement of theory. Among others the paper discusses Maxwell's demon, several of Einstein's thought experiments in relativity, Heisenberg's microscope, the Einstein-Schrödinger cat, and the EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) thought experiment

Happiest Thoughts: Great Thought Experiments of Modern Physics

This is a review of those key thought experiments in physics from the late 19th century onward that seem to have played a particular role in the process of the discovery or advancement of theory. Among others the paper discusses Maxwell's demon, several of Einstein's thought experiments in relativity, Heisenberg's microscope, the Einstein-Schrödinger cat, and the EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) thought experiment

Glossarium BITri 2016 : Interdisciplinary Elucidation of Concepts, Metaphors, Theories and Problems Concerning Information

222 p.Terms included in this glossary recap some of the main concepts, theories, problems and metaphors concerning INFORMATION in all spheres of knowledge. This is the first edition of an ambitious enterprise covering at its completion all relevant notions relating to INFORMATION in any scientific context. As such, this glossariumBITri is part of the broader project BITrum, which is committed to the mutual understanding of all disciplines devoted to information across fields of knowledge and practic

Realist Magic

Object-oriented ontology offers a startlingly fresh way to think about causality that takes into account developments in physics since 1900. Causality, argues, Object Oriented Ontology (OOO), is aesthetic. In this book, Timothy Morton explores what it means to say that a thing has come into being, that it is persisting, and that it has ended. Drawing from examples in physics, biology, ecology, art, literature and music, Morton demonstrates the counterintuitive yet elegant explanatory power of OOO for thinking causality

31th International Conference on Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases

Information modelling is becoming more and more important topic for researchers, designers, and users of information systems.The amount and complexity of information itself, the number of abstractionlevels of information, and the size of databases and knowledge bases arecontinuously growing. Conceptual modelling is one of the sub-areas ofinformation modelling. The aim of this conference is to bring together experts from different areas of computer science and other disciplines, who have a common interest in understanding and solving problems on information modelling and knowledge bases, as well as applying the results of research to practice. We also aim to recognize and study new areas on modelling and knowledge bases to which more attention should be paid. Therefore philosophy and logic, cognitive science, knowledge management, linguistics and management science are relevant areas, too. In the conference, there will be three categories of presentations, i.e. full papers, short papers and position papers

Embodied encounters: a performative, material reading of selected contemporary artworks by Santu Mofokeng, El Anatsui, Willem Boshoff and Johan Thom

This dissertation is underpinned by two related materialist positions. Firstly, following in the analyses of Darwin (1871/ 2004, 1859/ 2009), Barash (2012), Miller (2001), Dunbar (1999, 2009), Donald (2009), and Grosz (2008, 2011) artworks are understood as being the material embodiment of context-specific ideals of beauty. That is to say artworks fulfil a performative, evolutionary function, one that is responsive to the corporeality of the body and the cultural and artistic values at stake in the specific material context to which that body belongs. Secondly, my body is not something I have but, rather, I am this body. However, following material readings by Barad (2007, 2009), Butler (1990, 1993), Foucault (1967), Deleuze and Guattari (1980/ 2004) and West-Eberhard (2003), like the artwork the body is also understood to be a socio-culturally, economic and politically constituted entity: the corporeal body does not exist pure and independently from the values of discourse and culture, for the latter is always already materially inscribed in it. Accordingly neither bodies nor the artworks they encounter are postulated as isolated ‘objects’ but, rather, are understood as being relationally founded material phenomena that weave in and out of one another even as they (re)configure historically specific boundaries between them and the world they inhabit. In this dissertation I apply this performative, materialist approach and the methodology implicit therein to the interpretation of selected contemporary artist’s works including ‘The Black Photo Album/ Look at Me 1890 - 1950’ (1997) by Santu Mofokeng, ‘Man’s Cloth’ (1998-2001) by El Anatsui, ‘The Blind Alphabet’ (1991 – ongoing) by Willem Boshoff, and ‘Every Sentence draws blood’ (2012) by Johan Thom. Throughout the dissertation I will show how a performative, material reading provides for an interpretive framework constituted as much by the form, subject matter and context of the artwork, as by the viewer’s embodied experience thereof. To this effect I have employed two voices throughout the text: a first-person account of specific moments in my life that have particular relevance to my meaningful encounter with - and interpretation of - specific artworks; and secondly, a questioning, analytic voice that attempts to map theoretically the deeply nuanced performative interrelationship between the material bonds and boundaries at stake in therein

Principles of Liberty: A Design-based Research on Liberty as A Priori Constitutive Principle of the Social in the Swiss Nation Story

One of the still unsolved problems in liberal anarchism is a definition of social constituency in positive terms. Partially, this had been solved by the advancements of liberal discourse ethics. These approaches, built on praxeology as a universal framework for social formation, are detached from the need of any previous or external authority or rule for the discursive partners. However, the relationship between action, personal identity, and liberty within the process of a community becoming solely generated from the praxeological a priori remains largely disputed. In order to develop a testable constitutional model, this study revises how the “ontological turn” was introduced into liberal theories and redefines the concept of liberty. Liberty is usually understood as a moral goal or measurement for just actions, as the generative principle of all social existence - individual and interpersonal. For this purpose, the function of performative contradiction within the mechanism of interpersonal “encounter”, as part of the co-generative process of the individual becoming and social formation was explored through the production of a game-based narrative historiography grounded on 19th century life writings. This narrative historiography was developed in the context of Swiss history, with a “design-based” research approach, and resulted in a prototype for networked storytelling through which the transformative learning process could be visible and the negotiation of competing individual visions of the future could be re-enacted