We explore the cosmological sensitivity to the amplitude of isocurvature fluctuations that would be caused by axions in the “anthropic window” where the axion decay constant fa ≫ 10 GeV and the initial misalignment angle Θi ≪ 1. In a minimal ΛCDM cosmology extended with subdominant scale-invariant isocurvature fluctuations, existing data constrain the isocurvature fraction to α < 0.09 at 95% C....

We propose the mechanism of quantum creation of the open Universe in the observable range of values of Ω. This mechanism is based on the no-boundary quantum state with the Hawking-Turok instanton in the model with nonminimally coupled inflaton field and does not use any anthropic considerations. Rather, the probability distribution peak with necessary parameters of the inflation stage is genera...

We utilize anthropic reasoning to demonstrate that we are typical observers of our reference class under a self-sampling assumption by investigating the definition of what a civilization is. With reference to the conflict between such reasoning and the observational lack of extra-terrestrial intelligent life, we conclude that a part of our theoretical understanding of the Universe will be at fa...

Cosmology seems extremely remote from everyday human practice and experience. It is usually taken for granted that cosmological data cannot rationally influence our beliefs about the fate of humanity except perhaps in the extremely distant future, when the question of heat death (in an ever-expanding universe) becomes actual. In this note, an attempt is made to show that it may become a practic...

In this paper, we develop a qualitative theory of influence diagrams that can be used to model and solve sequential decision making tasks when only qualitative (or imprecise) information is available. Our approach is based on an orderof-magnitude approximation of both probabilities and utilities and allows for specifying partially ordered preferences via sets of utility values. We also propose ...

Finding an optimal elimination ordering is a NP-hard problem of crucial importance for the efficiency of the Influence Diagrams evaluation. Some of the traditional methods for determining the elimination ordering use heuristics that consider that potentials are represented as tables. However, if potentials are represented using binary trees traditional methods may not offer the best results. In...

Probabilistic models (developped by workers such as Boltzmann, on foundations due to pioneers such as Bayes) were commonly regarded merely as approximations to a deterministic reality before the roles were reversed by the quantum revolution (under the leadership of Heisenberg and Dirac) whereby it was the deterministic description that was reduced to the status of an approximation, while the ro...

Polistes versicolor (Olivier) (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) colonies are easily found in anthropic environments; however there is little information available on biological, ecological and behavioral interactions of this species under these environmental conditions. The objective of this work was to characterize the foundation pattern, the productivity, and the success of colonies of P. versicolor in...