Good life egalitarianism

This article carves out a new path between the two dominant wings of contemporary egalitarianism. The luck egalitarian emphasis on choice and personal responsibility is misplaced because individuals differ so deeply, and arbitrarily, in their choice-making capacities. Allowing inequalities to result from ‘choice’ is akin to allowing inequalities to stem from the possession of any other morally arbitrary factor – such as skin colour or gender. The move towards relational egalitarianism has been a case of two-steps forward, one-step back. While the shift away from the focus on choice is salutary, the concurrent rejection of luck is problematic, given the prevalence and importance of luck-based discrepancies in opportunities to lead a good life. A new conceptual framework is presented: good life egalitarianism. The guiding idea is that given the unavoidable arbitrariness of human capacities, the foundation for a good life should be assured for people regardless of the actual choices that they make. The essential goods necessary for leading a good life – such as the opportunities to self-determine and to enjoy non-dominating social relationships – should be guaranteed to all.

Fullness of crossed products of factors by discrete groups

Let M be an arbitrary factor and $\sigma : \Gamma \curvearrowright M$ an action of a discrete group. In this paper, we study the fullness of the crossed product $M \rtimes _\sigma \Gamma $. When Γ is amenable, we obtain a complete characterization: the crossed product factor $M \rtimes _\sigma \Gamma $ is full if and only if M is full and the quotient map $\overline {\sigma } : \Gamma \rightarrow {\rm out}(M)$ has finite kernel and discrete image. This answers the question of Jones from [11]. When M is full and Γ is arbitrary, we give a sufficient condition for $M \rtimes _\sigma \Gamma $ to be full which generalizes both Jones' criterion and Choda's criterion. In particular, we show that if M is any full factor (possibly of type III) and Γ is a non-inner amenable group, then the crossed product $M \rtimes _\sigma \Gamma $ is full.

Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other

The scales used to describe the attributes of different choice options are usually open to alternative expressions, such as inches versus feet or minutes versus hours. More generally, a ratio scale can be multiplied by an arbitrary factor (e.g., 12) while preserving all of the information it conveys about different choice alternatives. We propose that expanded scales (e.g., price per year) lead decision makers to discriminate between choice options more than do contracted scales (e.g., price per month) because they exaggerate the difference between options on the expanded attribute. Two studies show that simply increasing the size of an attribute's scale systematically changes its weight in both multiattribute preferences and willingness to pay: Expanding scales for one attribute shifts preferences to alternatives favored on that attribute.

NON-COMMUTATIVE BIANCHI QUANTUM COSMOLOGY

Introducing non-commutative variables in the minisuperspace, we obtain the non-commutative quantum solutions to the Wheeler–DeWitt equation with an arbitrary factor ordering, for the anisotropic Bianchi type I cosmological model, coupled to barotropic matter and cosmological term Λ. From the probability density, the inclusion of non-commutativity seems to retard the isotropization of the universe.

Sliding Control of Force Reflecting Teleoperation:Preliminary Studies

In this paper, sliding mode nonlinear control is applied to force reflecting teleoperation. Various forms of the sliding mode control law are derived for force feedback master manipulation with an arbitrary factor for force and position scaling. Experiments were performed on a one axis test system and frequency domain Hybrid 2-port matrices are measured and compared between the sliding mode controller and a classical position error-based feedback controller. Time domain experiments are also performed. The model-based portion of the sliding mode controller was shown to be responsible for most of its performance improvement, but the nonlinear “sliding” component was essential for steady-state position accuracy and robust stability.