Free Will: Real or Illusion - A Debate

Debate on free will with Christian List, Gregg Caruso, and Cory Clark. The exchange is focused on Christian List's book Why Free Will Is Real

Benthic Megafaunal Community Structure and Biodiversity Along a Sea Ice Gradient on the Western Antarctic Peninsula: Insights into Climate Warming

OCN 499 - Undergraduate Thesi

New media and impressionism

This master’s thesis is framed in the areas of New Media Art (NMA) and Human Computer Interaction (HCI). In particular, it is focused in the study of New Media Art pieces that share a set of characteristics (the most important one being that they are composed by atomic elements), might be explicitly interactive, and are usually exhibited in public settings or have been designed to be consumed by a large simultaneous audience. The content of the thesis can be divided in four big items: 1- The review of a certain set of NMA pieces, their characteristics, and some similarities hold between them and the impressionist movement that emerged at the second half of the 19th century, along with some visual perception principles of Gestalt psychology. 2- A selection and an adaptation of pre-existing theoretical frameworks for modelling interaction in public settings. These theoretical frameworks comprise a set of tools for describing, analysing, and designing New Media Art pieces. 3- The presentation of a set of selected artworks authored or coauthored by the author of this thesis. A description of their characteristics and technology will be presented. 4- The introduction of two tools for artistic production, which were instrumental for the construction of some of the artworks here presented: Sendero (an LED lighting system), and N.IMP (a tool for real time visual content generation)

The controversial piston in the thermodynamic limit

We consider the evolution of a system composed of $N$ non-interacting point particles of mass $m$ in a container divided in two regions by a movable adiabatic wall (adiabatic piston). In this talk we discuss the thermodynamic limit where the area $A$ of the container, the number $N$ of particles, and the mass $M$ of the piston go to infinity keeping $\frac{A}M$ and $\frac{N}M$ fixed. We show that in this limit the motion of the piston is deterministic. Introducing simplifying assumptions we discuss the approach to equilibrium and we illustrate the results with numerical simulations. The comparison with the case of a system with finite $(A, N, M)$ will be presented. We consider the evolution of a system composed of $N$ non-interacting point particles of mass $m$ in a container divided in two regions by a movable adiabatic wall (adiabatic piston). In this talk we discuss the thermodynamic limit where the area $A$ of the container, the number $N$ of particles, and the mass $M$ of the piston go to infinity keeping $\frac{A}M$ and $\frac{N}M$ fixed. We show that in this limit the motion of the piston is deterministic. Introducing simplifying assumptions we discuss the approach to equilibrium and we illustrate the results with numerical simulations. The comparison with the case of a system with finite $(A, N, M)$ will be presented.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physica

Celebra.

In this paper we present Celebra, a massive, site-specific, interactive installation comprising two hundred balloons, LEDs, custom electronics, and custom software. The artwork allows for different interaction modes: visitors can interact with the piece locally via sound and movements, and remotely via smartphone apps and a dedicated website. The piece can also become an audio-visual performance instrument, allowing its users both direct and high-level control. We will discuss the motivation behind Celebra, its implementation, and technical details

Stigmergic epistemology, stigmergic cognition

To know is to cognize, to cognize is to be a culturally bounded, rationality-bounded and environmentally located agent. Knowledge and cognition are thus dual aspects of human sociality. If social epistemology has the formation, acquisition, mediation, transmission and dissemination of knowledge in complex communities of knowers as its subject matter, then its third party character is essentially stigmergic. In its most generic formulation, stigmergy is the phenomenon of indirect communication mediated by modifications of the environment. Extending this notion one might conceive of social stigmergy as the extra-cranial analog of an artificial neural network providing epistemic structure. This paper recommends a stigmergic framework for social epistemology to account for the supposed tension between individual action, wants and beliefs and the social corpora. We also propose that the so-called "extended mind" thesis offers the requisite stigmergic cognitive analog to stigmergic knowledge. Stigmergy as a theory of interaction within complex systems theory is illustrated through an example that runs on a particle swarm optimization algorithm

High-resolution lidar analysis of the Fisi Tea defensive earthwork at Lapaha, Kingdom of Tonga

In many prehistoric societies, earthwork defences were among the costliest and largest built structures and required a significant investment in resources, particularly labour, land and materials. Consequently, the construction of major defences was not undertaken lightly and they were frequently built in response to an imminent threat of intense violence (Keeley 1996). Earthwork defences often enclosed residential communities and elite centres, whereas others were larger and included hinterlands and appear to have defended a regional area (Connah 2000; Fox 1976; Scherer and Golden 2006; Webster et al. 2007). In both cases, defences protected the areas most important to the community and represent emic statements of group territory (Webster et al. 2008:349). Long defensive systems and ‘great walls’ that protect settlements and their hinterlands have been something of a puzzle to archaeologists (Arkush and Stanish 2005:10). While the perceived logistical challenge of occupying long defensive systems may be the primary source of confusion, traditional archaeological and survey methodologies often limit the amount of spatial data that can be gathered. Long defensive systems require considerable resources to map and to record in detail the various defensive elaborations, in addition to the regional geography of the areas on both side of the defences

A push-pull unsymmetrical subphthalocyanine dimer

Unsymmetrical subphthalocyanine fused dimers have been prepared from appropriate ortho-dinitrile SubPc precursors. In particular, either electron-donating or electron-accepting substituents have been introduced on each SubPc constituent unit, resulting in unprecedented push–pull π-extended curved aromatic macrocycles. From fluorescence experiments in solvents of different polarity we conclude a dual fluorescence, namely a delocalized singlet excited state (1.73 eV) and a polarized charge transfer state (<1.7 eV). Pump probe experiments corroborate the dual nature of the fluorescence. On one hand, the delocalized singlet excited state gives rise to a several nanosecond lasting intersystem crossing yielding the corresponding triplet excited state. On the other hand, the polarized charge transfer state deactivates within a few picosesonds. Visualization of the charge transfer state was accomplished by means of molecular modeling with a slight polarization of the HOMO towards the electron donor and of the LUMO towards the electron acceptor