Simulation of Closed Timelike Curves in the Framework of an Information-Theoretic Darwinian Approach to Quantum Mechanics

Closed timelike curves (CTCs), non-intuitive theoretical solutions of general relativity field equations can be modelled in quantum mechanics in a way, known as Deutsch-CTCs, to circumvent one of their most paradoxical implications, namely, the so-called grandfather paradox. An outstanding theoretical result of this model is the demonstration that in the presence of a Deutsch-CTC a classical computer would be computationally equivalent to a quantum computer. In the present study, the possible implications of such a striking result for the foundations of quantum mechanics and the connections between classicality and quantumness are explored. To this purpose, a model for fundamental particles that interact in physical space exchanging carriers of momentum and energy is considered. Every particle is then supplemented with an information space in which a probabilistic classical Turing machine is stored. It is analysed whether, through the action of Darwinian evolution, both a classical algorithm coding the rules of quantum mechanics and an anticipation module might plausibly be developed on the information space from initial random behaviour. The simulation of a CTC on the information space of the particle by means of the anticipation module would imply that fundamental particles, which do not possess direct intrinsic quantum features from first principles in this information-theoretic Darwinian approach, could however generate quantum emergent behaviour in real time as a consequence of Darwinian evolution acting on information-theoretic physical systems.

Systematic approach to ensuring the information security of childhood

The article deals with significant changes that are associated with total informatization, which is a powerful converter of economic, social and other types of life activity of society. The author notes that at the same time, the satisfaction of information needs, the state of the information space for minors should be subject to moderate regulation. Attention is drawn to the fact that the intensive growth of the diversity of information and communication technologies is today the dominant environment for the development of a modern child. The characteristics of information harmful to the health and development of children are given. It is proved that relying on the principles of a systematic approach makes it possible to competently organize and correctly carry out the process of achieving the state of protection of children in the information space by various methods and means. Ensuring the information security of childhood is defined by the author as a system; the components of the system of ensuring the information security of childhood (methodological, regulatory, organizational and activity, effective) are highlighted.

A Pipeline for Graph-Based Monitoring of the Changes in the Information Space of Russian Social Media during the Lockdown

With the COVID-19 outbreak and the subsequent lockdown, social media became a vital communication tool. The sudden outburst of online activity influenced information spread and consumption patterns. It increases the relevance of studying the dynamics of social networks and developing data processing pipelines that allow a comprehensive analysis of social media data in the temporal dimension. This paper scopes the weekly dynamics of the information space represented by Russian social media (Twitter and LiveJournal) during a critical period (massive COVID-19 outbreak and first governmental measures). The approach is twofold: 1) build the time series of topic similarity indicators by identifying COVID-related topics in each week and measuring user contribution to the topic space, and 2) cluster user activity and display user-topic relationships on graphs in a dashboard application. The paper describes the development of the pipeline, explains the choices made and provides a case study of the adaptation to virus control measures. The results confirm that social processes and behavior in response to pandemic-triggered changes can be successfully traced in social media. Moreover, the adaptation trends revealed by psychological and sociological studies are reflected in our data and can be explored using the proposed method.

Information space as a factor of optimization of the future specialists’ self-education

The training of a specialist at a university is determined by the quality of the educational process, during which it is necessary to take into account the situation on the labor market. Successful training largely depends on the students self-education, which is difficult and limited in the context of a pandemic. The conditions of todays realities dictate the methods and forms of the process of self-education of students. During the pandemic, students practice self-education on a remote basis. We consider this form as a complex functional system with its own logic of development and relatively independent stages of learning via the Internet. Changes in various fields of activity are observed daily, which increases the requirements for the quality of education of a competitive individual; the idea of online education using electronic information platforms that serve as a means of self-education of students at the university is analyzed. The process of organizing the educational process in disciplines and tasks from the position of digitalization, through the introduction of modern digital technologies in the process of education of academic courses at the time of the pandemic in the country and the world, becomes significant. The conceptual apparatus considered in the paper: information space, educational space, self-education, competence, competence approach. It clarifies the need to teach the discipline in combination to acquire professional experience; the idea of revealing and enriching the inner potential of each person, his development and self-education throughout his life is substantiated; a detailed analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature is given. The results of a comprehensive study conducted at Chelyabinsk State University confirm the dependence of communicative competence on the students self-education during the pandemic.

Development of a model and technology of access to documents in scientific and educational activities

The paper deals with general issues of organizing access to electronic documents in the framework of scientific and educational activities. Large volumes of already existing information, its continuous growth, the heterogeneous nature of storage and distribution, the lack of a unified way of working with it create many difficulties when using it. Awareness of these difficulties, qualitative changes in the field of information technology and telecommunications have led to the need to solve the problem of finding new approaches to the creation of repositories of information resources, their structure, and the development of tools necessary for users. Currently, such approaches are called “digital” or “electronic” libraries. According to the preliminary concept, an intelligent scientific and educational Internet resource will be an information system accessible via the Internet, providing systematization and integration of scientific knowledge, data, and information resources into a single information space, meaningful and effective access to them, as well as support for their use in solving various scientific and educational tasks. Another problem of the organization of effective information support for scientific and educational activities is that, due to its diversity and multidimensional nature, scientific and educational information resources are dispersed on remote pages of many sites and in distributed electronic libraries and archives. To solve this problem, it is necessary to solve the problem of bringing such resources related to one area of knowledge into a single information space, and also, no less important, to support their logical integrity. Without solving these two related tasks, it is impossible to solve the main task – to provide all participants of scientific and educational activities with meaningful access to integrated information resources and means of their analysis. The support of information systems in the field of scientific and educational activities is relevant, since the need for information always exists. In order to satisfy this need, it is necessary to organize access to various resources.

From Information Search to the Loss of Personality: The Phenomenon of Dataism

Purpose. The research is devoted to the analysis of the urgent problem of the information society: the overload of a person with information and, as a result, the impossibility of adequate formation and development of the personality; as well as the problem of "digitization" of human existence and the formation of a new reality of dataism. Theoretical basis. A lot of modern scientific works are devoted to the analysis of the information society, its problems and features. The information society is a logical continuation of the scientific and technological revolution, which led to the rapid growth of scientific knowledge and the technology development. In the 20th century, technologies have touched the sphere of knowledge and information, as a result of which the formation and development of the information society, or "knowledge society", takes place. Information becomes the main resource in it, and, one way or another, a person’s life is inextricably connected with the information space. With the information society formation, the problem of information search and processing becomes one of the most urgent. It turns out that despite the abundance and availability of information, it is very difficult to determine its relevance. A lot of effort is spent on developing information retrieval algorithms. Another problem is related to the person’s inability to process large amounts of data. This situation begins to influence not only the education process and professional activity, but also the formation of a person’s personality. A person is "lost" in the information space and gradually loses his/her "I". Algorithms for data analysis come to the rescue, but gradually, instead of giving a person material for thought, they begin to make decisions on their own, and therefore, live life instead of a person. With the advent of Big Data processing algorithms, a new ideological paradigm appears – dataism, which predicts the merger of a person with the general data flow. Originality. The authors make assumptions that the dataistic future is "natural". A lot of works, including in the framework of philosophy, are focused on the problem of "dissolving" a person in the information space and finding ways to overcome it. But, in our opinion, this process is a completely logical continuation of human evolution. Conclusions. Existence of a person as a data flow is not a problem and a threat, but a new dimension of his/her being, and, therefore, requires a careful study and formulation of the main principles of this form of existence.

ZHYTOMYR NEWSPAPER “THE VOICE OF VOLYN” IN THE GERMAN INFORMATION SPACE (OCTOBER 1941-1943)

This paper aims to consider the newspaper “Voice of Volyn”, published in Zhytomyr in 1941-1943, as part of the German information space during the Second World War. The methodology of the study incorporates general scientific and special historical methods alongside with the fundamental principles of historical research: historicism, scientificity, objectivity, and systematicity. The principles of historicism and scientificity have contributed to the complex representation of the history of the newspaper “Voice of Volyn” in interconnection and interrelation with the events of that period. The principle of objectivity has facilitated the analysis of the discussed issue considering the objective historical regularities based on a comprehensive analysis of the existing specialized literature and sources. The principle of systematicity has allowed to obtain a holistic picture of the Zhytomyr newspaper “Voice of Volyn" as a component of the German information space on the occupied territory of Ukraine. The scientific novelty of the paper is conditioned by the fact that it is the first research discussing the history of the newspaper “Voice of Volyn” in the context of the German information space in 1941-1943 on the basis of a comprehensive range of historical sources. The author concludes that the activities of the newspaper “Voice of Volyn” can be divided into two periods: from October to the second half of November 1941, and from the second half of November 1941 until the end of the Nazi occupation. At the first stage, under the German military administration, the newspaper was controlled by the representatives of the independence movement, who exploited the newspaper to promote their own ideas. In the second stage, after the establishment of the German civil authorities, the newspaper “Voice of Volyn” was deprived of the independence movement’s influence and turned into an important information and propaganda press organ of the occupation authorities. The newspaper “Voice of Volyn” represented three directions of German propaganda: anti-Soviet propaganda; anti-Jewish propaganda; and propaganda aimed at supporting the occupation economic activities.

Towards a Semantic Interoperable Flemish Research Information Space: Development and Implementation of a Flemish Application Profile for Research Datasets

In Flanders, Research Performing Organizations (RPO) are required to provide information on publicly financed research to the Flemish Research Information Space (FRIS), a current research information system and research discovery platform hosted by the Flemish Department of Economics, Science and Innovation. FRIS currently discloses information onresearchers, research institutions, publications, and projects. Flemish decrees on Special and Industrial research funding, and the Flemish Open Science policy require RPOs to also provide metadata on research datasets to FRIS. To ensure accurate and uniform delivery of information across all information providing institutions on research datasets to FRIS, it isnecessary to develop a common application profile for research datasets. This article outlines the development of the Flemish application profile for research datasets that was developed by the Flemish Open Science Board (FOSB) WorkingGroup Metadata and Standardization. The main challenge was to achieve interoperability among stakeholders, which in part had existing metadata schemes and research information infrastructures in place, while others were still in the early stages of development.