The papers collected in this volume exemplify some of the trends in current approaches to logic, language and computation. Written by authors with varied academic backgrounds, the contributions are intended for an interdisciplinary audience. The first part of this volume addresses issues relevant for multi-agent systems: reasoning with incomplete information, reasoning about knowledge and beliefs, and reasoning about games. Proofs as formal objects form the subject of Part II. Topics covered include: contributions on logical frameworks, linear logic, and different approaches (...) to formalized reasoning. Part III focuses on representations and formal methods in linguistic theory, addressing the areas of comparative and temporal expressions, modal subordination, and compositionality. (shrink)

Information is a recognized fundamental notion across the sciences and humanities, which is crucial to understanding physical computation, communication, and human cognition. The Philosophy of Information brings together the most important perspectives on information. It includes major technical approaches, while also setting out the historical backgrounds of information as well as its contemporary role in many academic fields. Also, special unifying topics are high-lighted that play across many fields, while we also aim at identifying relevant themes for philosophical reflection. There (...) is no established area yet of Philosophy of Information, and this Handbook can help shape one, making sure it is well grounded in scientific expertise. As a side benefit, a book like this can facilitate contacts and collaboration among diverse academic milieus sharing a common interest in information. . First overview of the formal and technical issues involved in the philosophy of information . Integrated presentation of major mathematical approaches to information, form computer science, information theory, and logic . Interdisciplinary themes across the traditional boundaries of natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. (shrink)

There exists a growing literature on the so-called physical Church-Turing thesis in a relativistic spacetime setting. The physical Church-Turing thesis is the conjecture that no computing device that is physically realizable can exceed the computational barriers of a Turing machine. By suggesting a concrete implementation of a beyond-Turing computer in a spacetime setting, Istvan Nemeti and Gyula David have shown how an appreciation of the physical Church-Turing thesis necessitates the confluence of mathematical, computational, physical, and indeed cosmological ideas. In this (...) essay, I will honour Istvan's seventieth birthday, as well as his longstanding interest in, and his seminal contributions to, this field going back to as early as 1987 by modestly proposing how the concrete implementation in Nemeti and D\'avid might be complemented by a quantum-information-theoretic communication protocol between the computing device and the logician who sets the beyond-Turing computer a task such as determining the consistency of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory. This suggests that even the foundations of quantum theory and, ultimately, quantum gravity may play an important role in determining the validity of the physical Church-Turing thesis. (shrink)

In the fallout from the war on terror is a revived Cold War, with more nuclear players than ever, across even more dry-tinder landscapes around the world.

The paper proposes a notion of fairness which overcomes the conflict arising between efficiency and the absence of envy in economies with uncertainty and asymmetrically informed agents. We do it in general economies which include, as particular cases, the main models of differential information economies, providing in this framework a natural competitive equilibrium notion which satisfies the fair criterion. The analysis is conducted allowing the presence of large traders, which may cause the lack of perfect competition.

This work approaches the distinction between knowledge-how and knowledge-that in terms of two complementary concepts: performance and information. In order to do so, I formulate Ryle’s argument of infinite regress in terms of performance in order to show that Stanley and Williamson’s counterargument has no real object: both reject the view that the exercise of knowledge-that necessarily requires the previous consideration of propositions. Next, using the concept of feedback, I argue that Stanley and Williamson’s positive account of knowledge-how in terms (...) of knowledge-that corresponds to the output of the comparison between an intention of action and the perceived outcome of performance. Then, I expound other theories of mind and cognition in which feedback and prediction play a fundamental role in order to explain other ways in which information intervenes in performance—i.e., information is construed as knowledge-that available at subject level that guides performance. Finally, I present some reflections on the impact of the concept of knowledge-how, and possible routes to continue our enquiry on the nature of knowledge. (shrink)

Mitochondrial dysfunction underlies a vast array of chronic disorders across the life span. The asymptotic limit theorems of information and control theories, supplemented by symmetry-breaking phase transition arguments adapted from physical theory, give deep insight into canonical mechanisms of cognition and regulation associated with such dysfunction. The probability models studied here can provide a foundation for the development of statistical tools useful in clinical and public health address of those disorders.

This book is intended to help transform epistemology - the traditional study of knowledge - into a rigorous discipline by removing conceptual roadblocks and developing formal tools required for a fully naturalized epistemology. The evolutionary approach which Harms favours begins with the common observation that if our senses and reasoning were not reliable, then natural selection would have eliminated them long ago. The challenge for some time has been how to transform these informal musings about evolutionary epistemology into a rigorous (...) theoretical discipline capable of complementing current scientific studies of the evolution of cognition with a philosophically defensible account of meaning and justification. (shrink)

The current crisis is an open phase of a global crisis. It is a result of a false recognition of this structural crisis, previously described in the Limits to Growth Report. This crisis is not a result of overpopulation, but of the world society's maladjustment to life in a State of Change and Risk. In this rather new situation, obsolescence of life-forms not adapted to new life-conditions is the main life-destroying and crisis-generating factor.To permanently overcome this crisis, we have to (...) reinforce the UN “three pillars” world society sustainable development strategy by including into it the task of building an information basis of sustainable-development policy and economy. To achieve sustainable development, what we also need to create includes a subsidiarity-principle-based UN Sustainable Development Council with the World Sustainable Development Strategy Center, including the UN Global Dynamic Monitoring Information Center. (shrink)

Freedom of information requests are increasingly used in sociology, criminology and other social science disciplines to examine government practices and processes. University ethical review boards in Canada have not typically subjected researchers’ FOI requests to independent review, although this may be changing in the United Kingdom and Australia, reflective of what Haggerty calls ‘ethics creep’. Here we present four arguments for why FOI requests in the social sciences should not be subject to formal ethical review by ERBs. These four arguments (...) are: existing, rigorous bureaucratic vetting; double jeopardy; infringement of citizenship rights; and unsuitable ethics paradigm. In the discussion, we reflect on the implications of our analysis for literature on ethical review and qualitative research, and for literature on FOI and government transparency. (shrink)

I will show that the semantic structure of a new imperfect-information propositional logic can be described in terms of extensive forms of semantic games. I will discuss some ensuing properties of these games such as imperfect recall, informational consistency, and team playing. Finally, I will suggest a couple of applications that arise in physics, and most notably in quantum theory and quantum logics.

Behavioral Finance is an evolving field that studies how psychological factors affect decision making under uncertainty. This study seeks to find the influence of certain identified behavioral financial biases on the decision-making process of investors in developing countries. This research examines the moderating effect of Information asymmetry on the two most important and commonly used cognitive biases, namely Anchoring bias and Optimism bias and decision making and investigates whether Risk perception mediates the relationship between them or not. Quantitative research has (...) been conducted using a structured questionnaire for data collection. After completing the pilot study, a questionnaire was designed and sent to investors via online channels. Data has been collected from 317 real estate investors. Mediation analysis has been performed using model 4 and moderation analysis by applying model 15 of Process Macros for the interaction effect. The study investigated that both cognitive biases have a significant positive effect on investors’ decisions and Risk perception also significantly mediates the relationship between them. Consistency with other studies suggests that Information asymmetry has a significant moderating effect. The proposed conceptual model provides insight into how investors’ decisions are influenced by behavioral biases in the real estate sector and enhances the understanding of cognitive biases in the real estate sector. This study is recommended for real estate investors and policymakers of emerging and developed countries. The current study is the first of its kind, focusing on cognitive biases on investment decisions with mediating role of Risk perception and the moderating effect of Information asymmetry. (shrink)

플로리디(Luciano Floridi)는 인공지능 시대가 도래하면서 발생하는 윤리 문제들에 기존 윤리학이 적절하게 대응할 수 없음을 지적하며, 인공지능시대에 걸맞은 ‘새로운’ 윤리학으로 “탈(脫)-인간 중심”(de-anthropocentric) 정보 윤리학(ethics of information)을 제안한다. 그러나 많은 학자들은 플로리디의 이러한 시도가 여전히 인간 중심적(anthropocentric)이라고 비판하거나, 또는 기존 윤리학이 구축해온 질서를 탈피하려는 그의 탈-인간 중심 시도가 성공하지 못했다고 비판한다. 플로리디의 정보 윤리학이 인공지능 시대에 기여할 수 있는 이론적 가치와 실천적 의미가 지대함에도 불구하고, 인간 중심적인 논의와 탈-인간 중심적인 논의 사이 어디에 위치하는가에 대한 논란은 이러한 가치와 의미에 주목하지 못하게 한다. 따라서 (...) 플로리디 정보 윤리학의 위치와 성격에 대한 논의가 우선으로 다루어질 필요가 있다. 본 논문의 목적은 플로리디의 정보 윤리학이 탈-인간 중심 윤리를 지향하면서도 실천적으로는 인간 중심 논의로부터 시작하는 과도기에 위치한 공존(co-existence) 윤리임을 주장하는 것이다. 이를 위해 먼저 플로리디 정보 윤리학이 과도기 윤리에 위치함을 규명하고, 과도기 윤리로서의 정보 윤리학이 지향하는 윤리적 가치는 공존에 해당한다고 분석한다. 그런데 본 논문의 분석에 따르면, 플로리디 논의에 나타나는 공존 방식은 탈-인간 중심 윤리로 나아가는 과도기 윤리로서 불충분하다. 왜냐하면, 정보 세계(infosphere)의 윤리 가치에 대한 플로리디의 논의는 인간 중심적인 방식의 공존인 위계 공존만을 설명할 뿐, 탈-인간 중심 윤리로 나아가는 이행 동력과 이행 절차를 제시하지 못하기 때문이다. 이러한 한계를 극복하기 위해 본 논문은 동등 공존 방식을 보완책으로 제시한다. 본 논문은 플로리디 정보윤리학의 위치와 성격에 대한 규명과 보완을 통해 정보윤리학의 풍성한 이론적 가치와 실천적 의미를 효과적으로 이해하는 토대 마련에 기여하고자 한다. (shrink)

Obesity is a worldwide epidemic associated with severe health and psychological wellbeing impairments expressed by an increased prevalence of affective disorders. Emotional dysfunction is important due to its effect on social performance. The aim of the present narrative review is to provide a general overview of human research exploring emotional information processing in overweight and obese people. Evidence suggests that obesity is associated with an attenuation of emotional experience, contradictory findings about emotion recognition, and scarce research about automatic emotional information (...) processing. Finally, we made some concluding considerations for future research on emotional information processing in overweight and obese people. (shrink)

In this paper, we will review research done by the Large-Scale Integrated Photonics group at HP Laboratories, and in particular we will discuss applications of optical resonances in dielectric microstructures and nanostructures to future classical and quantum information technologies. Our goal is to scale photonic technologies over the next decade in much the same way as electronics over the past five, thereby establishing a Moore’s Law for optics.

In order to extract the regularities underlying a continuous sensory input, the individual elements constituting the stream have to be encoded and their transitional probabilities (TPs) should be learned. This suggests that variance in statistical learning (SL) performance reflects efficiency in encoding representations as well as efficiency in detecting their statistical properties. These processes have been taken to be independent and temporally modular, where first, elements in the stream are encoded into internal representations, and then the co‐occurrences between them are (...) computed and registered. Here, we entertain a novel hypothesis that one unifying construct—the rate of information in the sensory input—explains learning performance. This theoretical approach merges processes related to encoding of events and those related to learning their regularities into a single computational principle. We present data from two large‐scale experiments with over 800 participants tested in support for this hypothesis, showing that rate of information in a visual stream clearly predicts SL performance, and that similar rate of information values leads to similar SL performance. We discuss the implications for SL theory and its relation to regularity learning. (shrink)

Janusz Czelakowski Elements of Formal Action Theory 1. Elementary Action Systems 1.1 Introductory Remarks. In contemporary literature one may distinguish ...

Purpose This paper aims to explore the evolution of academic publishing from the traditional roots to today’s online publishing cycle which embraces many of the elements of virtual space. Design/methodology/approach A case study approach is adopted using the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society to explore the revolutionary journey. Findings The value of using a range of virtual space facilities in tandem is assessed. Originality/value The paper can be used as a guide for academic editors and publishers in (...) reaching out to the next generations of the academic population. (shrink)

TIMMONS S.Nursing Inquiry2003;10: 257–269Nurses resisting information technologyResistance in the workplace, by nurses, has not been extensively studied from a sociological perspective. In this paper, nurses’ resistance to the implementation and use of computer systems is described and analysed, on the basis of semistructured interviews with 31 nurses in three UK NHS hospitals. While the resistance was not ‘successful’, in that it did not prevent the implementation of the systems, it nonetheless persisted. Resistance took a wide variety of forms, including attempts (...) to minimise or ‘put off’ use of the systems, and extensive criticism of the systems, though outright refusal to use them was very rare. Resistance was as much about the ideas and ways of working that the systems embodied as it was about the actual technology being used. The patterns of resistance can best be summed up by the phrase ‘resistive compliance’. (shrink)

Dupras and Bunnik take on the particular privacy risks of multi-omics, in particular via a contrast and comparison of genomics and epigenomics, followed by a consideration of the issues in r...

As a profession, librarians have proclaimed an ethical duty to ensure access to information for all people. However, many barriers exist to fulfilling this duty, including varying levels of education and technology around the globe, the cost of obtaining research information, and the concentration of scholarly publishing in English. This article outlines these barriers, concluding with a call to action for librarians to advocate for multilingual Open Access, to foster international scholarly communities, and to champion Internet access for all.

The wanton dissemination of network pseudohealth information has brought great harm to people’s health, life, and property. It is important to detect and identify network pseudohealth information. Based on this, this paper defines the concepts of pseudohealth information, data block, and data block integration, designs an architecture that combines the latent Dirichlet allocation algorithm and data block update integration, and proposes the combination algorithm model. In addition, crawler technology is used to crawl the pseudohealth information transmitted on the Sina Weibo (...) platform during the “epidemic situation” from February to March 2020 for the simulation test on the experimental case dataset. The research results show that the LDA model can deeply mine the semantic information of network pseudohealth information, obtain the features of document-topic distribution, and classify and train topic features as input variables; the dataset partitioning method can effectively block data according to the text attributes and class labels of network pseudohealth information and can accurately classify and integrate the block data through the data block reintegration method; and considering that the combination model has certain limitations on the detection of network pseudohealth information, the support vector machine model can extract the granularity content of data blocks in pseudohealth information in real time, thus greatly improving the recognition performance of the combination model. (shrink)

The main task is to discuss the issue in belief dynamics in which philosophical beliefs and rational introspective agents incorporate Moorean type new information. First, a brief survey is conducted on Moore’s Paradox, and one of its solutions is introduced with the help of Update Semantics. Then, we present a Dynamic Doxastic Logic (DDL) which revises the belief of introspective agents put forward by Lindström & Rabinowicz. Next, we attempt to incorporate Moorean type new information within the DEL (DDL) framework, (...) as advised by van Benthem, Segerberg et al. Though we maintain the principle of “the primacy of new information” from the literature on traditional belief revision theory, several unsuccessful ways are also presented. We then conclude that some special kind of success (weak success) can still be found in those revision processes although absolute success does not hold. At last, the relevant problem of “learnability” is re-considered through weak success. (shrink)

The development of an information society and information technologies does not result in positive consequences only. Individuals with criminal intent also find their niche. Information security includes the creation of the input, processing and output processes of protection. The objective of information security is to protect the system of values, to protect and ensure accuracy and integrity and to minimize losses that may be incurred if the information is modified or destroyed. In the development of an information society, the new (...) visible changes in the legislation for the classification of crimes–crimes against computers–altered the concept of electronic crime data and information system security concepts. This article presents a brief analysis on the concept of the change of crimes against security of electronic data and information systems, the legislation analysis, the crimes against security of electronic data systems and information dynamics and its relationship with business factors. (shrink)

Within this paper we consider a model of Nash bargaining with incomplete information. In particular, we focus on fee games, which are a natural generalization of side payment games in the context of incomplete information. For a specific class of fee games we provide two axiomatic approaches in order to establish the Expected Contract Value, which is a version of the Nash bargaining solution.

Most models of risky decision making assume that all relevant information is taken into account (e.g., Kahneman & Tversky, 1979; von Neumann & Morgenstern, 1944). However, there are also some models supposing that only part of the information is considered (e.g., Brandstätter, Gigerenzer, & Hertwig, 2006; Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier, 2011). To further investigate the amount of information that is usually used for decision making, and how the use depends on feedback, we conducted a series of three experiments in which participants (...) choose between two lotteries and where no feedback, outcome feedback, and error feedback was provided, respectively. The result show that without feedback participants mostly chose the lottery with the higher winning probability, and largely ignored the potential gains. The same result occurred when the outcome of each decision was fed back. Only after presenting error feedback (i.e., signaling whether a choice was optimal or not), participants considered probabilities as well as gains, resulting in more optimal choices. We propose that outcome feedback was ineffective, because of its probabilistic and ambiguous nature. Participants improve information integration only if provided with a consistent and deterministic signal such as error feedback. (shrink)

In Floridi (2005), I argued that a definition of semantic information in terms of alethically-neutral content–that is, strings of well-formed and meaningful data that can be additionally qualified as true or untrue (false, for the classicists among us), depending on supervening evaluations–provides only necessary but insufficient conditions: if some content is to qualify as semantic information, it must also be true. One speaks of false information in the same way as one qualifies someone as a false friend, (i.e. not a (...) friend at all). This leads to a refinement of the initial definition into: [Def]: p qualifies as semantic information if and only if p is (constituted by) well-formed, meaningful and veridical data. [Def] captures the general consensus reached by the debate and mentioned at the outset of this section. According to it, semantic information is, strictly speaking, inherently truth-constituted and not a contingent truth-bearer, exactly like knowledge but unlike propositions or beliefs, for example, which are what they are independently of their truth values and then, because of their truth-aptness, may be further qualified alethically. (shrink)

The issue of underrepresentation of women in information technology (IT) is of national interest due to the rapid growth of IT in recent years, the impact of IT on growth and productivity, the shortage of IT workers, and the gender equity in IT. Scholarly research has pointed its finger at bias in early socialization, math anxiety, masculinity of computers, the scarcity of role models, and women’s preference for relational work. A study of students majoring in computer science and computer engineering (...) in a minority-serving university found some additional factors such as tension between demands imposed by IT curricula and students’family and work responsibilities. (shrink)

This paper considers the relationship between ethics, technology and law, and the roles and limitations each has in this relationship. It argues that ethics has the key role in establishing a resilient, comprehensive and sensitive information infrastructure. It puts forward a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities for the electronic community. … the most important use of the internet, and indeed the NII, will be to allow individuals to communicate with each other and to rapidly access the information they require or (...) desire…. A combination of ethics, technology and law are needed to insure the effective development of this important aspect of the network of the future. Robert E. Kahn1. (shrink)

Nakata (Theory Decis 71:559–574, 2011) presents a model of acquisition of information where the agent does not know what pieces of information she is missing. In this note, we point out some technical problems in a few of Nakata’s results and show how to correct them.

This paper is an assessment of an attempt, by James Greeno, to measure the explanatory power of statistical theories by means of the notion of transmitted information (It). It is argued that It has certain features that are inappropriate in a measure of explanatory power. In particular, given a statistical theory T with explanans variables St and explanandum variables Mj, it is argued that no plausible measure of explanatory power should depend on the probability P(Si) of occurrence of initial conditions (...) in the systems to which T applies or the magnitudes of the conditional probabilities P(Mj/Si), in the manner in which Ir does. (shrink)

Clinical information about patients is increasingly being stored in electronic form and has therefore become more easily shareable. Data are collected as part of clinical care but have multiple other potential uses in relation to health system planning, audit and research. The use of clinical information for these secondary uses is controversial, and the ability to safeguard personal and sensitive data under current practices is contested.In this study, we investigate the attitudes of a representative sample of the Danish population towards (...) transfer of clinical data from their general practice for secondary use. We specifically study: patients’ trust in different types of healthcare professionals, their interest in being asked about secondary use of data and their willingness to dispense from a requirement of informed consent based on their trust in healthcare professionals.We find that adult Danes are positive towards research that use patient data, and they generally trust general practitioners, hospitals and researchers to treat their data confidentially.Nevertheless, they feel that they have a right to control the use of their data, only 7.3% disagreeing, and that the data belong to them, only 14.0% disagreeing. Answers to further questions about the relation between trust, information and consent show that although trust modifies the wish for information and consent, there is still a strong view that the patient should control the use of data. We find no differences between those who have frequent contact with the healthcare system and those who do not. (shrink)

The feedback concealed information test (fCIT) is a new variant of the CIT that added feedback about participants’ concealing performances in the classical CIT. The advantage of the fCIT is that the resulting feedback related event-related potentials (ERPs) can be used to detect concealed information. However, the detection efficiency of feedback-based ERPs varies across studies. The present experiment examined whether the extent participants believed the feedback influenced their detection efficiency. Specifically, participants did a mock crime and were then tested in (...) a fCIT. Following the fCIT, participants were asked to report how much they believed the feedback was accurate. Results showed that there were no significant correlations between the amplitude of the feedback related negativity (FRN), feedback P300, and participants’ self-report at the group level. However, individual analyses showed that the detection efficiency of both the FRN and feedback P300 were influenced by participants’ belief about the presented feedback. The detection efficiency of the FRN and the feedback P300 was higher among participants who believed the feedback. These findings suggest that the fCIT is dependent to some extent on the participants’ level of belief in the feedback. (shrink)

We explore the issue of media content and corporate social responsibility by considering three questions:1. Why is this issue becoming so salient to a variety of stakeholders across the political spectrum at this time?2. What are the ethical issues that companies and policy makers should be concerned about with regard to media content?3. How can media-related companies and industries either better self-regulate or enhance consumer choice to respond to legitimate concerns about access tocontent?

While a simple information market lets one trade on the probability of each value of a single variable, a full combinatorial information market lets one trade on any combination of values of a set of variables, including any conditional or joint probability. In laboratory experiments, we compare the accuracy of simple markets, two kinds of combinatorial markets, a call market and a market maker, isolated individuals who report to a scoring rule, and two ways to combine those individual reports into (...) a group prediction. We consider two environments with asymmetric information on sparsely correlated binary variables, one with three subjects and three variables, and the other with six subjects and eight variables (and so 256 states). (shrink)

The ability to integrate information from diverse texts and to detect logical implications of the integrated information is fundamental to the understanding process. This paper shows that identifying and configuring relevant facts in order to support hypothesized inferences is extremely difficult unless the facts have been committed to memory. Simply reading relevant texts for familiarization and then referring to them as needed provides an inadequate basis for deductive logic. Further, apprehension of the logical configuration of fads underlying a particular inference (...) can be an essentially automatic process for the reasoner who has structured the facts appropriately in memory. A model of search and memory mechanisms is proposed. It accounts for accuracy and reaction time data, as well as individual differences in inference evaluation. The implications of the superiority of memorization over familiarization‐plus‐referencing as a basis for learning and reasoning are discussed. (shrink)