Hägerstrand’s time geography is a powerful conceptual framework for understanding constraints on human activity participation in space and time. However, rigorous, analytical definitions of basic time geography entities and relationships do not exist. This limits abilities to make statements about error and uncertainty in time geographic measurement and analysis. It also compromises comparison ...

In this article we review some generalizations of classical theories of measurement for concatenation (e.g., mass or length) and conjoint structures (e.g., momentum of mass-velocity pairs or loudness of intensity-frequency pairs). The earlier results on additive representations are briefly surveyed. Generalizations to nonadditive structures are outlined, and their more complex uniqueness result...

In reviewing the history of the conceptualization and measurement of “culture,” one quickly realizes that there is wide-ranging and contradictory scholarly opinion about which values, norms, and beliefs should be measured to represent the concept of “culture.” We explore an alternate theory-based view of culture via social identity theory (SIT), which suggests that each individual is influenced...

We present a quantum information theory that allows for a consistent description of entanglement. It parallels classical (Shannon) information theory but is based entirely on density matrices (rather than probability distributions) for the description of quantum ensembles. We find that quantum conditional entropies can be negative for entangled systems, which leads to a violation of well-known ...

This article reconsiders the Harsanyi–Sen debate concerning whether Harsanyi is justified in interpreting his Aggregation and Impartial Observer Theorems as providing axiomatizations of utilitarianism. Sen’s criticism and its formalization by Weymark are based on the claim that von Neumann–Morgenstern utility theory is ordinal, whereas Harsanyi’s utilitarian conclusions require cardinal utility...

It is common to model the random errors in a classical measurement by the normal (Gaussian) distribution, because of the central limit theorem. In the quantum theory, the analogous hypothesis is that the matrix elements of the errors of an observable are distributed normally. We obtain the probability distribution this implies for the outcome of a measurement, exactly for the case of traceless ...

O some kinds of inequality are ethically objectionable. The distinction between morally acceptable and unacceptable inequal ity is perhaps the most important contribution of philosophical egalitarian thought during the last forty years. In particular, more information than the welfare derived from final outcomes is needed to render social judgment about the degree of inequality. One must also k...

This first collection of chapters considers the measurement and understanding of poverty and hunger. Although there is broad agreement within the development community that, as Sen (1999) puts it, “Poverty must be seen as the deprivation of basic capabilities” (87),1 there is less agreement about how to identify the world’s poorest and determine where they live. As Deaton (2006) notes, it is of...

Errors of measurement arise because our observations are affected by many sources of variability, but our conceptual frameworks necessarily ignore much of this variability. Sources of variability that are not included in our models and descriptions of phenomena are treated as error or noise. A good theory of error supports the development of precise measurements, clearly defined constructs and ...