Holism as the empirical significance of symmetries

Not all symmetries are on a par. For instance, within Newtonian mechanics, we seem to have a good grasp on the empirical significance of boosts, by applying it to subsystems. This is exemplified by the thought experiment known as Galileo’s ship: the inertial state of motion of a ship is immaterial to how events unfold in the cabin, but is registered in the values of relational quantities such as the distance and velocity of the ship relative to the shore. But the significance of gauge symmetries seems less clear. For example, can gauge transformations in Yang-Mills theory—taken as mere descriptive redundancy—exhibit a similar relational empirical significance as the boosts of Galileo’s ship? This question has been debated in the last fifteen years in philosophy of physics. I will argue that the answer is ‘yes’, but only for a finite subset of gauge transformations, and under special conditions. Under those conditions, we can mathematically identify empirical significance with a failure of supervenience: the state of the Universe is not uniquely determined by the intrinsic state of its isolated subsystems. Empirical significance is therefore encoded in those relations between subsystems that stand apart from their intrinsic states.

COVID-19 and Leisure: Directions for Policy Makers

Epictetus, the Greek Stoic Philosopher, once said “Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one’s principle. Some things are within your control; and some things are not”. In adopting Epictetus quote for the current COVID-19 world, it has become more important than ever to realize that freedom and happiness can be intrinsic states that come from within the individual. Leisure, also an intrinsic state, is linked with freedom and happiness, and when leisure, freedom and happiness are experienced, a healthy lifestyle can be under your control and achieved. The current paper presents the importance of experiencing leisure, freedom and happiness for physical and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic era. COVID-19 is not only political, social and economic challenge, but also a citizen’s well-being challenge. For this reason, three directions for policy making from the current and post COVID-19 era are presented: 1) the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, 2) individual and community activation and 3) empowering people.

Second ISSMGE R. Kerry Rowe Lecture: On the intrinsic, state, and fabric parameters of active clays for contaminant control

The osmotic, hydraulic and self-healing efficiency of bentonite-based barriers for the containment of subsoil pollutants is governed not only by the intrinsic chemicophysical parameters of the bentonite, i.e., the solid phase density, ρsk; the total specific surface, S; the surface density of the electric charge, σ; and the Stern layer thickness, dStern, and fraction, fStern, but also by the chemicomechanical fabric parameters that quantify the structure or texture of the solid skeleton, such as the micro, em, and nano, en, void ratios; the average number of platelets or lamellae per tactoid, Nl,AV; and the solid skeleton effective electric charge concentration, [Formula: see text]. In turn, the fabric parameters are controlled by state parameters, such as the total void ratio, e; and the salt concentration of the equilibrium solution, cs. A theoretical framework has been developed to describe the relationships between the aforementioned intrinsic, state, and fabric parameters for a bentonite barrier and its performance parameters: the hydraulic conductivity, k; the effective diffusion coefficient, [Formula: see text]; the chemico-osmotic efficiency coefficient, ω; and the osmotic swelling pressure, usw. The proposed theoretical hydrochemicomechanical model has been validated through comparison with a large amount of experimental results.

Meta-analysis reveals weak associations between intrinsic state and personality

Individual differences in behaviour characterize humans and animals alike. A hot field in behavioural ecology asks why this variation in ‘personality’ evolved. Theory posits that selection favours the integration of ‘intrinsic state’ and behaviour. Metabolism, hormones, energetic reserves and structural size have particularly been proposed as states covarying with behaviour among-individuals, either genetically or through plasticity integration. We conducted a meta-analysis estimating the amount of among-individual variation in behaviour attributable to variation in state. Our literature search showed that only 22% of the studies claiming to estimate individual-level associations between state and behaviour actually did so. Our meta-analysis revealed that relatively aggressive, bold, explorative and/or active individuals had relatively high metabolic rates, hormone levels, body weights and/or body sizes. The proportion of among-individual variation common to state and behaviour was nevertheless small (approx. 5%). This means that (i) adaptive explanations involving intrinsic states fail to explain much individual variation in behaviour, (ii) empiricists should consider nonlinear, additive or interactive effects of (multiple) intrinsic states, (iii) explanations not involving intrinsic states might be important, or (iv) empirical tests of state-dependent personality theory were inappropriate. Our meta-analysis highlights the importance of feedback between empiricists and theoreticians in the study of adaptive behavioural variation.

A MICROSCOPIC PERSPECTIVE ON STRUCTURE OF YRAST BANDS IN 100-112Ru ISOTOPES

The projected shell model (PSM) study of 100 - 112 Ru nuclei is carried out. The reliability of the ground state wave functions is checked by reproducing yrast spectra and electromagnetic properties. The results of calculations indicate that the observed deformation systematics in 100 - 112 Ru isotopes depends on the increase of occupation probability of (1h11/2)ν orbit and the deformation producing tendency of n–p interaction operating between spin orbit partner (SOP) orbits (d5/2)π-(d3/2)ν and (g9/2)π-(g7/2)ν. Besides this, the results on band diagrams show that the yrast spectra in Ru isotopes do not arise from a single intrinsic state only but also from multi-quasiparticle states.