Deterministic Dynamics and Chaos: Epistemology and Interdisciplinary Methodology

We analyze, from a theoretical viewpoint, the bidirectional interdisciplinary relation between mathematics and psychology, focused on the mathematical theory of deterministic dynamical systems, and in particular, on the theory of chaos. On one hand, there is the direct classic relation: the application of mathematics to psychology. On the other hand, we propose the converse relation which consists in the formulation of new abstract mathematical problems appearing from processes and structures under research of psychology. The bidirectional multidisciplinary relation from-to pure mathematics, largely holds with the "hard" sciences, typically physics and astronomy. But it is rather new, from the social and human sciences, towards pure mathematics

Mobile Applications in X-KLAIM

Networking has turned computers from isolated data processors into powerful communication and elaboration devices, called global computers; an illustrative example is the World–Wide Web. Global computers are rapidly evolving towards programmability. The new scenario has called for new programming languages and paradigms centered around the notions of mobility and location awareness. In this paper, we briefly present X-KLAIM, an experimental programming language for global computers, and show a few programming examples

Resource theories of knowledge

How far can we take the resource theoretic approach to explore physics? Resource theories like LOCC, reference frames and quantum thermodynamics have proven a powerful tool to study how agents who are subject to certain constraints can act on physical systems. This approach has advanced our understanding of fundamental physical principles, such as the second law of thermodynamics, and provided operational measures to quantify resources such as entanglement or information content. In this work, we significantly extend the approach and range of applicability of resource theories. Firstly we generalize the notion of resource theories to include any description or knowledge that agents may have of a physical state, beyond the density operator formalism. We show how to relate theories that differ in the language used to describe resources, like micro and macroscopic thermodynamics. Finally, we take a top-down approach to locality, in which a subsystem structure is derived from a global theory rather than assumed. The extended framework introduced here enables us to formalize new tasks in the language of resource theories, ranging from tomography, cryptography, thermodynamics and foundational questions, both within and beyond quantum theory.Comment: 28 pages featuring figures, examples, map and neatly boxed theorems, plus appendi

Epistemic Modal Credence

Triviality results threaten plausible principles governing our credence in epistemic modal claims. This paper develops a new account of modal credence which avoids triviality. On the resulting theory, probabilities are assigned not to sets of worlds, but rather to sets of information state-world pairs. The theory avoids triviality by giving up the principle that rational credence is closed under conditionalization. A rational agent can become irrational by conditionalizing on new evidence. In place of conditionalization, the paper develops a new account of updating: conditionalization with normalization

Socio-cultural design and interactive governance

The aim here is to address the questions corresponding to the emergence and the evolution of groups, of communities within a population of heterogeneous agents so as to describe the overcoding processes (as manipulation of the codes themselves, translation procedures) which characterize the creative behaviours that can be attributed to agents in the framework of complex mediations issuing from an interdisciplinary approach relevant to negotiation through the identification of the heuristics that they use. At this level the notions of cognitive or cultural shortcut and strategic shortcut as well that of the autonomy turn out to be particularly of interest since while taking into account the socio-cultural context to design the complex relations built inside the population, they enable us to set the foundations relative to the mechanisms that characterize the procedures of interactive governance in regard to the criteria of sustainability.cognitive, cultural and strategic shortcuts, complexity, heuristics, proximity, interactive governance, sustainability

The challenges of participatory research with 'tech-savvy' youth

This paper focuses on participatory research and how it can be understood and employed when researching children and youth. The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretically and empirically grounded discussion of participatory research methodologies with respect to investigating the dynamic and evolving phenomenon of young people growing up in networked societies. Initially, we review the nature of participatory research and how other researchers have endeavoured to involve young people (children and youth) in their research projects. Our review of these approaches aims to elucidate what we see as recurring and emerging issues with respect to the methodological design of involving young people as co-researchers. In the light of these issues and in keeping with our aim, we offer a case study of our own research project that seeks to understand the ways in which high school students use new media and network ICT systems (Internet, mobile phone applications, social networking sites) to construct identities, form social relations, and engage in creative practices as part of their everyday lives. The article concludes by offering an assessment of our tripartite model of participatory research that may benefit other researchers who share a similar interest in youth and new media