988 research outputs found
Proofs Versus Experiments: Wittgensteinian Themes Surrounding the Four-Color Theorem
The Four-Colour Theorem (4CT) proof, presented to the mathematical
community in a pair of papers by Appel and Haken in the late 1970's, provoked a series of philosophical debates. Many conceptual points of these disputes still require some elucidation. After a brief presentation of the main ideas of Appel and Haken’s procedure for the proof and a reconstruction of Thomas Tymoczko’s argument for the novelty of 4CT’s proof, we shall formulate some questions regarding the connections between the points raised by Tymoczko and some Wittgensteinian topics in the philosophy of mathematics such as the importance of the surveyability as a criterion for distinguishing mathematical proofs from empirical experiments. Our aim is to show that the “characteristic Wittgensteinian invention” (Mühlhölzer 2006) – the strong distinction between proofs and experiments – can shed some light in the conceptual confusions surrounding the Four-Colour Theorem
Orchestrating Forest Policy in Italy: Mission Impossible?
In the Italian political and economic agenda the forest sector occupies a marginal role. The forest sector in Italy is characterized by a high institutional fragmentation and centralized decision-making processes dominated by Public Forest Administrations. Public participation in forest policy processes has been implemented since the 1990s at national, regional and local levels in several cases. However, today no significant changes have been observed in the overall governance of the forest sector and stakeholders' involvement in Italian forest policy decision-making is still rather limited. The aims of this paper are to describe the state of forest-related participatory processes in Italy at various levels (national, regional and local) and identify which factors and actors hinder or support the establishment and implementation of participatory forest-related processes in the country. The forest-related participatory processes are analyzed adopting a qualitative-based approach and interpreting interactive, complex and non-linear participatory processes through the lens of panarchy theory
On the tilt of Fundamental Plane by Clausius' virial maximum theory
The theory of the Clausius' virial maximum to explain the Fundamental Plane
(FP) proposed by Secco (2000, 2001,2005) is based on the existence of a maximum
in the Clausius' Virial (CV) potential energy of a early type galaxy (ETG)
stellar component when it is completely embedded inside a dark matter (DM)
halo. At the first order approximation the theory was developed by modeling the
two-components with two cored power-law density profiles. An higher level of
approximation is now taken into account by developing the same theory when the
stellar component is modeled by a King-model with a cut-off. Even if the DM
halo density remains a cored power law the inner component is now more
realistic for the ETGs. The new formulation allows us to understand more deeply
what is the dynamical reason of the FP tilt and in general how the CV theory
may really be the engine to produce the FP main features. The degeneracy of FP
in respect to the initial density perturbation spectrum may be now full
understood in a CDM cosmological scenario. A possible way to compare the FPs
predicted by the theory with those obtained by observations is also
exemplified.Comment: 35 pages, 8 figure
Co-constructing a new framework for evaluating social innovation in marginalized rural areas
The EU funded H2020 project \u2018Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas\u2019 (SIMRA; www.simra-h2020.eu) has the overall objective of advancing the state-of-the-art in social innovation. This paper outlines the process for co- developing an evaluation framework with stakeholders, drawn from across Europe and the Mediterranean area, in the fields of agriculture, forestry and rural development. Preliminary results show the importance of integrating process and outcome-oriented evaluations, and implementing participatory approaches in evaluation practice. They also raise critical issues related to the comparability of primary data in diverse regional contexts and highlight the need for mixed methods approaches in evaluation
The role of dark matter in the galaxy mass-size relationship
The observed relationship between stellar mass and effective radius for early
type galaxies, pointed out by many authors, is interpreted in the context of
Clausius' virial maximum theory. In this view, it is strongly underlined that
the key of the above mentioned correlation is owing to the presence of a deep
link between cosmology and the existence of the galaxy Fundamental Plane. Then
the ultimate meaning is: understanding visible mass - size correlation and/or
Fundamental Plane means understanding how galaxies form. The mass - size
relationship involves baryon (mainly stellar) mass and its typical dimension
related to the light, but it gets memory of the cosmological mass variance at
the equivalence epoch. The reason is that the baryonic component virializes by
sharing virial energy in about equal amount between baryons and dark matter,
this sharing depending, in turn, on the steepness of the dark matter
distribution. The general strategy consists in using the two-component tensor
virial theorem for determining the virialized baryonic configurations. A King
and a Zhao density profile are assumed for the inner baryonic and the outer
dark matter component, respectively, at the end of the relaxation phase. All
the considerations are restricted to spherical symmetry for simplicity. The
effect of changing the dark-to-baryon mass ratio, m, is investigated inside a
LambdaCDM scenario. A theoretical mass - size relation is expressed for the
baryonic component, which fits fairly well to the data from a recently studied
galaxy sample. Finally, the play of intrinsic dispersion on the mass ratio, m,
is discussed in the light of the cusp/core problem and some consequences are
speculated about the existence of a limit, m_l, expected by the theory.Comment: 36 pages, 8 figures (Accepted for publication in New Astronomy
An Activity Classifier based on Heart Rate and Accelerometer Data Fusion
The European project ProeTEX realized a novel set of prototypes based on smart garments
that integrate sensors for the real-time monitoring of physiological, activity-related and environmental
parameters of the emergency operators during their interventions. The availability of these parameters
and the emergency scenario suggest the implementation of novel classification methods aimed at
detecting dangerous status of the rescuer automatically, and based not only on the classical activityrelated
signals, rather on a combination of these data with the physiological status of the subject. Here
we propose a heart rate and accelerometer data fusion algorithm for the activity classification of
rescuers in the emergency context
EXPO-AGRI: Smart Automatic Greenhouse Control
Predicting and controlling plant behavior in con- trolled environments is a growing requirement in precision agri- culture. In this context sensor networks and artificial intelligence methods represent key aspects for optimizing the processes of data acquisition, mathematical modeling and decision making. In this paper we present a general architecture for automatic greenhouse control. In particular, we focus on a preliminary model for predicting the risk of new infections of downy mildew of basil (Peronospora belbahrii) on sweet basil. The architecture has three main elements of innovation: new kinds of sensors are used to extract information about the state of the plants, model predictors are generated from this information by non-trivial processing methods, and informative predictors are automatically selected using regularization techniques
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