Values Generation: Turning Values into Wealth

Much of management behavior is focused on increasing benefits (usually thought of — in terms of Utilitarian ethics — as maximizing utility). Good, in terms of what increases benefits; thus, what is preferred by business is defined as the ability to motivate individuals in a way that increases desired outcomes (or that enhances organizational performance). This talent (referred to as the art of persuasion or the art of management) is valued because it facilitates achieving the desired results. Managers with such persuasive or motivational skills are highly regarded because of their ability to increase personal wealth, improve performance, and contribute to increasing stakeholder satisfaction. However, as was made clear by Aristotle’s socio-economic ethics, a leader’s ability to generate higher levels of excellence is based on a character trait defined by Aristotle as magnanimous. Developing such a character is important because it is the key to enabling a person to get more of what he or she wants out of life and with such a character a manager/leader is able to motivate an organization to have improved performance. This article highlights the dynamics that are connected with how such characters contribute to enhancing organizational performance, how an individual obtains such character traits, and why such characters contribute to the prosperity of other individuals and of society

Complex City Systems

Information and communications technology (ICT) is being exploited within cities to enable them to better compete in a global knowledge-based service-led economy. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, cities exploited large technical systems (LTSs) such as the telegraph, telephony, electrical networks, and other technologies to enhance their social and economic position. This paper examines how the LTS model applies to ICT deployments, including broadband network, municipal wireless, and related services, and how cities and city planners in the twenty-first century are using or planning to use these technologies. This paper also examines their motivations and expectations, the contribution to date, and the factors affecting outcomes. The findings extend the LTS model by proposing an increased role for organizations with respect to an individual agency. The findings show how organizations form themselves into networks that interact and influence the outcome of the system at the level of the city. The extension to LTS, in the context of city infrastructure, is referred to as the complex city system framework. This proposed framework integrates the role of these stakeholder networks, as well as that of the socioeconomic, technical, and spatial factors within a city, and shows how together they shape the technical system and its socioeconomic contribution. The CCS framework has been presented at Digital Cities Conferences in Eindhoven, Barcelona, Taiwan, London and at IBM’s Global Smart Cities Conference in Shanghai between 2010 and 2012. Its finding are timely in the context of major policy decisions on investments at regional, national and international level on ICT infrastructure and related service transformation, as well as the governance of such projects, their planning and their deployment

Bloch and Josephson Oscillations in a Ring of an Ideal Bose Gas

We show that an Ideal Bose gas that is contained within a very thin ring exhibits phenomena analogous to the Bloch and Josephson oscillations of a charged Ideal Fermi gas in a thin ring. If the walls of the ring are constrained to have an angular velocity $\omega$, the angular momentum has an anomalous component that is periodic in $\omega$, with a period equal to the quantum of angular velocity $\omega_{0}\equiv \hbar /mR^{2}$. If a constant applied torque is applied to the walls, there will be component of the angular momentum of the gas that is periodic in time, with a 'Josephson frequency' given by $f_{J} =\tau/N \hbar$. Finally, we show that the oscillations are an automatic feature of the quantum regime of any ring of an ensemble of identical particles, even with particle interactions.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure

Hilbert's machine and the Axiom of Infinity

Hilbert's machine is a supertask machine inspired by Hilbert's Hotel whose functioning leads to a contradiction that compromises the Axiom of Infinity

Simulating Interference and Diffraction in Instructional Laboratories

Studies have shown that standard lectures and instructional laboratory experiments are not effective at teaching interference and diffraction. In response, the author created an interactive computer program that simulates interference and diffraction effects using the Finite Difference Time Domain method. The software allows students to easily control, visualize, and quantitatively measure the effects. Students collected data from simulations as part of their laboratory exercise, and they performed well on a subsequent quiz---showing promise for this approach.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure