Stochastic process approximation for recursive estimation with guaranteed bound on the error covariance

An approach, is proposed for the design of approximate, fixed order, discrete time realizations of stochastic processes from the output covariance over a finite time interval, was proposed. No restrictive assumptions are imposed on the process; it can be nonstationary and lead to a high dimension realization. Classes of fixed order models are defined, having the joint covariance matrix of the combined vector of the outputs in the interval of definition greater or equal than the process covariance; (the difference matrix is nonnegative definite). The design is achieved by minimizing, in one of those classes, a measure of the approximation between the model and the process evaluated by the trace of the difference of the respective covariance matrices. Models belonging to these classes have the notable property that, under the same measurement system and estimator structure, the output estimation error covariance matrix computed on the model is an upper bound of the corresponding covariance on the real process. An application of the approach is illustrated by the modeling of random meteorological wind profiles from the statistical analysis of historical data

Filosofia del soggetto e mediazione interpretativa: sulla fenomenologia ermeneutica di Paul Ricoeur

Several attempts, which have recently tried to empower again the philosophical crossing between phenomenology and hermeneutics, call for a re-examination of the main topics and themes at stake in such a project, which has dominated in many ways part of the 20th Century Continental Philosophy. However, given such a perspective, what I would like to show in the following essay is that, far from insisting again on the primacy of the thought of an author like Hans-Georg Gadamer, it could be of higher suitability to address the thought of another philosopher: Paul Ricoeur. Particularly, by reconsidering the main steps of his phenomenological- hermeneutical project, I would like to stress how Ricoeur’s philosophy, in comparison to Gadamer’s approach, is not only able to display a larger spectrum of confrontations, but also a stronger theoretical structure, which has its pivotal point in the notion of an interpretative deconstruction of the titanic subject through the appropriative mediation of the narrative text

Legge della pluralità o armonia del potere? Annotazioni su una possibilità di pensare Arendt contro Arendt

In this article I intend to trace and discuss a contradiction, which – I believe – lies in Arendt’s thought: the one between her concept of plurality and her concept of power. In a more specific way, I will argue that Arendt, by admitting only an intransitive understanding of power, betrays her vision of plurality, as this one cannot exclude a transitive conception of power. Furthermore, I will try to detect how this same contradiction reflects itself in another topical place of Arendt’s thought, i.e. her critical opposition to political representation. Here the direction of my arguing can be expressed by a simple question: isn’t maybe representation a much more adequate way to correspond plurality than Arendt’s tendency to acclaim an aggregative and quasi-organic collective participation

Il primato della contingenza e la premessa politica del discorso etico: riflessioni sulla filosofia del giovane Heidegger

More than trying to make explicit an ethical discourse that – for whichever reason – would have remained only implicit in Heidegger’s philosophy, the aim of this article is to trace, in Heidegger’s work, the eventual presence of the structural premises for such a discourse. Premises which, in our perspective, can be brought back to the following two elements: first of all, to the character of contingency of experience and absence of ontological foundation, which only makes ethics a genuine discourse of responsibility and not a simple application of pre-given rules; and, second (given such lack of ontological foundation), to the unavoidable political institution of this same discourse. Now, the pivotal point of this article is that such premises, in Heidegger’s work, far from being traceable in Being and Time or in his later works, are to be rather found in his previous texts, and precisely in his early Freiburg lectures (from 1919 to 1923), in which his thought appears to be still not so much seduced by an ontological drive

A-Legality: Journey to the Borders of Law. In Dialogue with Hans Lindahl

This paper delineates and discusses the overall theoretical trajectory of Hans Lindahl’s work Fault Lines of Globalization. Furthermore, through a strategy of joint thinking – or dialogue – with the author, the article hits a double target. On the one hand, it gives the reader the oppor-tunity to better grasp some aspects and features of the author’s philosophical background. On the other, it fleshes out some crucial passages of the book with the aim of a further clarification and more accurate inspection

Order as Unclosed Scene: the Alienness of Origin between Translation and Tragedy

Every order lies on the claim or pretension to give itself as an accomplished realm, i.e. as a closed scene which is capable to give shape, orientation and sense to the totality of elements embraced by it. Yet, from the same operation of ordering, a paradox soon arises, in that no order can avoid its contingent genealogy, that means: it cannot avoid the fact that, in enclosing and including something, it must simultaneously exclude something else, which, therefore, can always challenge and threaten its stability or total “delimitation”. In this sense, that which is excluded can be seen as an alien element, which structurally prevents order from a definite closure and thus keeps it in a permanent (historical and nondialectisable) movement. Now, what I would like to convey in my following reflections is that this dynamics of impossible closure of order, given to a non-appropriable alienness, is exactly the one operative in the realms of translation and tragedy, so that, once we carefully investigate these realms, we may dare to affirm that saying that orders are unclosed scenes is as much true as to say that they are constantly “in translation”, always “in tragedy”

Exploring the effect of geometric coupling on friction and energy dissipation in rough contacts of elastic and viscoelastic coatings

We study the frictional behavior of both elastic and viscoelastic thin coatings bonded to a seemingly rigid substrate and sliding against a rough profile in the presence of Coulomb friction at the interface. The aim is to explore the effect of the coupling between the normal and tangential displacement fields arising from the finiteness of the material thickness and to quantify the contribution this can have on energy losses. We found that, due to normal-tangential coupling, asymmetric contacts and consequently additional friction are observed even for purely elastic layers, indeed associated with zero bulk energy dissipation. Furthermore, enhanced viscoelastic friction is reported in the case of viscoelastic coatings due to coupling, this time also entailing larger bulk energy dissipation. Geometric coupling also introduces additional interactions involving the larger scales normal displacements, which leads to a significant increase of the contact area, under given normal load, compared to the uncoupled contacts. These results show that, in the case of contact interfaces involving thin deformable coating bonded to significantly stiffer substrate, the effect of interfacial shear stresses on the frictional and contact behavior cannot be neglected