Counterfactuals and futures histories: retrospective imagining as an auxiliary for the scenarios of expectance

'So unanzweifelbar Geschichte scheinen mag, ergibt sie dennoch unterschiedliche Lesarten und unvereinbare Rückschlüsse trotz derselben Faktenserien. Auch professionelle Historiker können bisweilen von Betrachtungen über vergangene Möglichkeiten von Abzweigungen beschlichen werden. Was 'ungeschehene Geschichte' betrifft, muss in Erinnerung behalten werden, dass viele Alternativen unplausibel sind, jeglicher Glaube an ein vorherbestimmtes Universum der Notwendigkeiten jedoch deplaciert wäre. Manche Ereignisse sind klar genug, um Verstehen darüber zu ermöglichen, welche Komponenten getauscht werden müssten, um ein anderes Ergebnis zu erzielen. Andere sind so komplex, dass alle Versuche, sich alternative Abläufe und Resultate vorzustellen, illusorisch bleiben. Die Beispiele Midway (der erstgenannte Typ) und die Niederlage Frankreichs 1940 (extrem überdeterminiert) zeigen, dass es jedenfalls von Vorteil ist, allen Komplexitäten zum Trotz vergangene Potentiale auszuloten. Es ist die Voraussetzung für vernünftigere und effizientere Auswahl von künftigen Optionen.' (Autorenreferat)'Unquestionable as history may seem, there are all the same quite different readings and disparate inferences despite the same series of facts. This goes to show that even professional historians can sometimes be overcome by meditations on past possibilities of bifurcations. As to 'alternatives to actual history', is serves well to bear in mind that few are plausible, but that belief in a predeterminative universe of necessities would certainly be misplaced. Whereas some occurrences are clear-cut enough to make us understand which components would have had to be changed in order to get a different outcome, others are of such a high degree of complexity that attempts to imagine an alternative course and divergent results remain rather illusory: the examples of Midway (the former type) and the defeat of France in 1940 (intricately overdetermined) clearly show that it pays in any case, in defiance to all complexities, to consider past potential. It is prerequisite for choosing between future options in more reasonable and efficient ways than hitherto.' (author's abstract

Effect of Mn2+ and Ca2+ on O2 evolution and on the variable fluorescence yield associated with Photosystem II in preparations of Anacystis nidulans

AbstractExtraction with EDTA of lyophilized and lysozyme treated preparations of the blue-green algae Anacystis nidulans resulted in loss of the capacity for photoevolution of O2. Reactivation was achieved by the addition of both cations: Mn2+ and Ca2+ (or to a smaller extent by Mn2+ and Sr2+). The dual requirement for Mn2+ and Ca2+ could be demonstrated when the O2 evolution under short saturating light flashes and the variable chlorophyll fluorescence associated with the reduction of the primary acceptor of Photosystem II was examined. The fluorescence experiments in addition showed that incorporation of the cations was a light dependent step, since the fluorescence rise only started after a lag period

Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property Law: From Diagnosis to Action

The use of “artificial intelligence” systems becomes ever more widespread and far-reaching. Technological and economic concepts for an AI-based future are about to be implemented. It is, hence, time for the intellectual property system to develop answers to the challenges brought about by AI. Against this background, Zurich University’s Center for Intellectual Property and Competition Law (CIPCO) has initiated a joint research project on AI/IP with the Swiss Intellectual Property Institute (IPI). A first stage of this project has evaluated the state of the legal and economic discourse. These insights form the basis for policy recommendations on how the intellectual property system ought to be adapted to AI-related developments. The present paper describes – as draft work in progress – the project setup and summarizes its results gained so far. In doing so, it addresses key AI/IP issues, including business models of AI innovation leaders, inventorship/creatorship of AI systems de lege lata and de lege ferenda, the DABUS litigation, the discussion on whether new types of IP rights are necessary to protect AI inventions, the allocation of entitlements and liability regarding such innovations, AI-related revisions in the guidelines of important patent and trademark offices, the use such offices make of AI tools, the need for new protection carve-outs (e.g. to foster text and data mining), as well as AI’s potential raising the bar-effect. Der Einsatz von Systemen der „künstlichen Intelligenz“ wird immer verbreiteter und weitreichender. Viele technische und ökonomische Zukunftsszenarien stehen an der Schwelle zur Realisierung. Damit wird es auch für das Immaterialgüterrecht dringender, dort Antworten zu entwickeln, wo es sich durch KI herausgefordert sieht. Das Center for Intellectual Property and Competition Law (CIPCO) der Universität Zürich hat daher ein KI/IP-Kooperationsprojekt mit dem Schweizerischen Institut für Geistiges Eigentum (IGE) aufgenommen. Eine erste Projektphase hat den Stand des ökonomischen und rechtlichen Diskurses ermittelt und bildet damit die Grundlage für Empfehlungen zur künftigen Ausgestaltung des Immaterialgüterrechts in diesem Bereich. Der vorliegende Beitrag – bei dem es sich noch um einen weiterzuentwickelnden Entwurf handelt – legt hierüber Rechenschaft ab. Er beleuchtet nicht nur die Projektausgestaltung, sondern auch die gegenwärtigen KI/IP-Zentralthemen, etwa die Geschäftsmodelle von KI-Innovationsführern, Erfinder- bzw. Urheberschaft von KI-Systemen de lege lata und de lege ferenda, die Rechtsprechung zu DABUS, die Diskussion um die Notwendigkeit neuer Schutzrechte für KI-Innovationen, die Allokation von Rechtspositionen und Haftungsverantwortung an solchen Innovationen jenseits der Erfinder /Urheberfrage, die KI-bezogenen Neuerungen in den Leitlinien wichtiger Patent- und Markenämter sowie den Einsatz von KI-Instrumenten durch diese Ämter, neue Schutzschranken zur Förderung von KI und KI als Schutzhürden erhöhender Faktor

Two-Color Pump-Probe Experiments on Small Quantum Systems at the Free-Electron Laser in Hamburg

Within this thesis, the dynamical response of small quantum systems after the absorption of multiple extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) photons is studied via two-color pump-probe experiments at the free-electron laser (FEL) in Hamburg (FLASH) by employing many-particle recoil-ion momentum spectroscopy. The multi-photon ionization of argon atoms is investigated at a photon energy of 27 eV and FEL intensities of 10^13 - 10^14 W/cm^2. The sequential ionization channel is found to dominate and intermediate resonances are revealed by a delayed infrared (IR) laser pulse. Molecular hydrogen (H2) is studied at a photon energy of 28.2 eV. Dissociation via excited states and fragmentation by sequential two-photon ionization are observed. In addition, it is shown how the ground-state dissociation of H2+ can be used as a tool to determine the temporal overlap between an XUV and IR laser pulse. In the argon dimer, multiple interatomic relaxation processes are triggered by the absorption of several 27-eV-photons. Besides interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD), frustrated triple ionization and charge transfer at crossings of potential energy curves are observed. The lifetime of charge transfer is determined to be (531 +- 136) fs using an XUV-IR pump-probe scheme. The employed reaction microscope is upgraded by an in-line XUV split-delay and focussing optics, which was designed and commissioned as part of this thesis