A System Innovation Approach for Science-Stakeholder Interface: Theory and Application to Water-Land-Food-Energy Nexus

The Water-Food-Energy Nexus can support a general model of sustainable development, balancing resources with increasing economic/productive expectations, as e.g., in agriculture. We synthesise lessons from Greece's practical and research experience, identify knowledge and application gaps, and propose a novel conceptual framework to tackle these challenges. Thessaly (Central Greece), the country's driest region and largest agricultural supplier is used as an example. The area faces a number of water quantity and quality issues, ambitious production-economic objectives, continuous (historically) drought and flood events, conflicts, administrative and economic issues, under serious climate change impacts. A detailed assessment of the current situation is carried out, covering all these aspects, for the first time in an integrated way. Collaboration gaps among different stakeholders are identified as the biggest impediment to socially acceptable actions. For the first time, to our knowledge, the Nexus is set as a keystone to develop a novel framework to reverse the situation and achieve sustainable management under socially acceptable long-term visions. The proposed framework is based on Systems' Theory, innovation, uses a multi-disciplinary platform to bring together all relevant stakeholders, provides scientific support and commitment, and makes use of technological advances for the system's improvement.

Constitutional Provision in Protecting and Managing Indigenous Knowledge Systems

Methodologically, this study aligns with the analytical philosophy and the indigenous standpoint and cultural interface theory. This study found that the education system itself is contaminated with colonial legacy and historical ontology of ‘State'. The recommendations are the participation of indigenous people in deciding their education and making curricula. Although the location of this study is remote and rural, this phenomenon occurs in many countries. Therefore, this research would contribute to efforts in this regard over the world to merge humanity.

Betraying Blockchain: Accountability, Transparency and Document Standards for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)

Transparency and accountability are important aspects to any technological endeavor and are popular topics of research as many everyday items have become ‘smart’ and interact with user data on a regular basis. Recent technologies such as blockchain tout these traits through the design of their infrastructure and their ability as recordkeeping mechanisms. This project analyzes and compares records produced by non-fungible tokens (NFTs), an increasingly popular blockchain application for recording and trading digital assets, and compares them to ‘document standards,’ an interdisciplinary method of contract law, diplomatics, document/interface theory, and evidentiary proof, to see if they live up to the bar that has been set by a body of literature concerned with authentic documents. Through a close reading of the current policies on transparency (i.e., CCPA, GDPR), compliance and recordkeeping (i.e., FCPA, SOX, UETA), and the consideration of blockchain records as user-facing interfaces, this study draws the conclusion that without an effort to design these records with these various concerns in mind and from the perspectives of all three stakeholders (Users, Firms, and Regulators), any transparency will only be illusory and could serve the opposite purpose for bad actors if not resolved.

CHARACTERIZING CEMENT BOND QUALITY USING SLIP-INTERFACE THEORY AND COUPLING STIFFNESS

Cased-hole acoustic-wave modeling using the slip-interface theory is applied to cement bond evaluation, allowing for characterizing various bonding issues caused by poor bonding, lack of a cement, interface roughness and irregularity, micro-annulus, etc. The new theory models the interface between casing and cement (or cement and formation) as a slip boundary governed by normal and tangential coupling stiffness parameters. With the new theory and the stiffness parameters, we can model various wave phenomena for bond quality variation between the free-pipe and well bonded conditions. The modeling shows that wave amplitude variation is primarily controlled by the tangential (or shear) coupling stiffness, providing the theoretical foundation for developing an inversion procedure to estimate this parameter from field acoustic logging data. In the inversion procedure, the maximum stiffness value is first determined by matching the modeled and measured waveform data for the well bonded condition. Using the stiffness value as a reference, the stiffness values for the borehole section of interest are inverted by minimizing the modeled and measured waveform data, resulting in a continuous coupling stiffness curve to characterize the cement bond quality of the borehole section of interest. Because the stiffness parameter is directly related to the cement bond strength, the new stiffness-based method is advantageous over the existing wave-amplitude-based method and can thus better characterize and quantify the cement bond quality.

The labour-oriented, collective intelligence of ours: economic systems seen through the eyes of a neural network

This article explores and substantiates the hypothesis that capital investment and real output in national economies are instrumental to the optimization of labour markets, i.e. human societies are oriented, most of all, on shaping their labour markets so as to assure an equilibrium between demographic growth and the set of social roles available. An original method, largely based on the Interface Theory of Perception, studies economic systems as manifestations of collective intelligence, learning by evolutionary tinkering with itself. An artificial neural network is used to study economic systems as Markov chains of states, and to discover their structuring σ-algebras, which turn out being oriented mostly on optimizing the compensation of labour and the average workload per person per year.

Migration of nanoparticles across a polymer-polymer interface: theory and simulation

We proposed recently a theoretical description for hydrodynamic flows in inhomogeneous liquids in the vicinity of solid interfaces, consistent with current theoretical descriptions of the thermodynamical equilibrium of liquids in...

Dr Goff, Tear Down This Wall! The Interface Theory of Perception and the Science of Consciousnessiousness

Here I outline an alternative to panpsychism, premised on the interface theory of perception, that too subscribes to a 'post- Galilean' research programme. However, interface theorists disagree along several lines. (1) They note that Galileo's distinction should be replaced by a truly non-dual account, referring to a difference of degree only. (2) They highly appreciate the role of mathematics, in particular when it comes to actually engaging scientifically with consciousness. Some notable features of the interface theory are its scepticism towards our epistemic capacities and its rejection of the existence of a public, physical reality. In addition, some interface theorists further employ a thin concept of 'conscious agency' to ground their theory. The interface theory leaves open many of the problems of consciousness science (e.g. what is a 'self'?) as questions for further (scientific, mathematical) research.