Charge Fluctuations of a Schwarzschild Black-Hole

In this paper we calculate charge fluctuations of a Schwarzschild black-hole of mass $M$ in thermal equilibrium with radiation and an electron-positron plasma confined within a vessel of radius R. We show that charge fluctuations are always present, even if the black-hole is neutral and the overall charge of the system vanishes. Furthermore, if $R/M >>1$ the system becomes unstable under charge fluctuations. Surprisingly enough, besides the expected thermodynamical black hole charge fluctuation that result from the fluctuations on the number of charge carriers, there are other contributions to the overall charge fluctuation of the black-hole which, against our intuition, do not depend upon the charge of the particles. We conjecture that one of the contributions is an intrinsic purely quantum mechanical fluctuation of the black-hole itself as it does not depend on any of the control parameters, namely the radius of the confining cavity nor the temperature of the system, and even not upon the mass or charge of the particles

The power mapping tool: A method for the empirical research of power relations

"This paper presents an innovative participatory method to visualize, discuss and analyze the power of different actors in a given governance field. The Power Mapping Tool was first used to analyze the governance effects of Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) in Namibia. This example is presented as a case study to show how the method works: The actors involved are represented by board game figures that are characterized through “range-of-action-cards” and put on wooden “power towers” to show their power in the governance field. The result is a three dimensional sketch that provides quantitative data and guides the qualitative discussion about reasons for and effects of the power of different actors. In the case of Namibian CBNRM Power Mapping helped to understand how power indeed had been devolved from the national to the local level. However, on the community level elite-capture was seen as a serious problem. In this research the Power Mapping Tool proved to be easy to use with a very diverse mix of interview partners and provided not only a wealth of data but also increased the interviewees' understanding of their own situation." from Authors' AbstractGovernance, Participatory methods, Decentralization, Natural resource management, Political power,

Expression-Meaning and Vagueness

Brian Loar attempted to provide the Gricean program of intention-based semantics with an account of expression-meaning. But the theory he presented, like virtually every other foundational semantic or meta-semantical theory, was an idealization that ignored vagueness. What would happen if we tried to devise theories that accommodated the vagueness of vague expressions? I offer arguments based on well-known features of vagueness that, if sound, show that neither Brian’s nor any other extant theory could successfully make that adjustment, and this because, if sound, the arguments show not only that nothing can be the content of a vague expression, but also that no spoken language has a compositional semantics. This raises the question of what, really, are the facts about a language whose explanation might seem to require the language to have a compositional semantics, and whether there might not be a way to explain those facts on the assumption that the language doesn’t have a compositional semantics. In response to this question I offer a rough sketch of a view designed to suggest how what needs to be explained might be explained without appeal to compositional semantics