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The purpose of this paper is to recuperate Heinz von Foerster’s “Quantum Mechanical Theory of Memory” from Cybernetics: Circular, Causal, and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems and John von Neumann’s The Computer and the Brain for present-day, and future, applications in biophysics, theories of information and cognition, and quantum theories; the main objective is to ground cybernetic theory for a critical evaluation of the historical evolution of the Monte Carlo method, with potential for application to quantum computing.

Close-reading of selected texts, historiography, and case studies in current developments in the Monte Carlo method of high-energy particle physics (HEP) for developing a platform for bridging the apparently incommensurable differences between the physical-mathematical and the biological sciences.

First, usefulness of the cybernetic approach for historicizing the Monte Carlo method in relation to digital computing and quantum physics. Second, development of an inter/trans-disciplinary approach to the hard sciences through a critical re-evaluation of the historical texts of von Foerster and von Neumann for application to developments in quantum theory, biophysics, and computing.

This work is largely theoretical and uses dialectical thought experiments to engage between sciences operating across different ontological scales.

Consideration of developments of quantum computing and how that would change one’s perception of information, data, and the way in which analysis is currently performed with big data.

This is the first time that von Neumann and von Foerster have been contrasted and compared in relation to their epistemic compatibility, historical importance, and relevance for producing a creative approach to current scientific epistemology. This paper hopes to change how the authors view trans-disciplinary/inter-disciplinary practices in the sciences and produce new vistas of thought in the history and philosophy of science.

This chapter aims at making clear growth and distribution of China’s economy 1987–2000 with fixed capital on the input-output table basis. Since fixed capital data are not sufficiently available, one has to estimate fixed capital coefficients. In the outset, this chapter outlines the Sraffa–Fujimori method, which simulates the maximum growth path and estimates the marginal fixed capital coefficients on that path. In the second place, the marginal fixed capital coefficients of China’s economy are estimated. In the third place, the wage-profit curves of China’s economy will be drawn, and we discuss some further features obtained by our observations.

Turing and Von Neumann are often credited with being responsible for the design of modern computers. Turing's influence can be traced back to his 1936 paper where he defined the abstract notion of computability and demonstrated an ‘abstract’ paper computing machine. It was extremely influential especially in mathematical logic although its importance for the design of modern digital computers can only be inferred. He himself saw this work as an investigation into the theoretical possibilities and limitations of digital computing machines. During World War II Turing worked in the cryptanalysis section at Bletchley Park where various electromagnetic and some electronic devices for decoding were built. It is unclear what Turing's involvement was in the design and building of these machines. However immediately after the War, he produced a blue‐print for a computer (ACE) which is in architecture like a modern machine. A prototype was built sometime after Turing had left the NPL. It is difficult to pinpoint the practical contribution Turing has made. Nevertheless he can be claimed as one of the pioneers of computing especially because of the indirect influence of his ideas on the development of computer science.

The basis of the analysis carried out in this part of the work was the normative and advisory sources included in the system of Russian law in the sphere of corporate conflicts regulation.

For the purpose of a comprehensive study of the existing norms and the definition of promising trends in their development, the provisions of policy acts of a strategic nature, such as the concept of development of the legislation of the Russian Federation for the period 2008–2011 and the concept of 2016 to improve the legislation of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2021 were studied.

The study examined the provisions of industry-specific codified acts of both regulatory and advisory nature, such as the civil code of the Russian Federation, the code of corporate conduct (now invalid), and the code of corporate governance, approved by the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Russia from April 10, 2014.

Among the special Federal laws that form the basis of positive legal regulation of corporate conflicts are: Federal law No. 205-FL “On amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation”; Federal law No. 82-FL of May 19, 1995, “on public associations”; Federal law No. 193-FL of December 8, 1995, “on agricultural cooperation”; Federal law No. 7-FL of January 12, 1996, “on non-profit associations”; Federal law No. 79-FL of July 27, 2004, “on the state civil service of the Russian Federation”; Federal law No. 7-FL “on non-profit associations” of December 25, 2008, g. 273-FL “on combating corruption”; the Federal law of March 2, 2007 No. 25-FL “on municipal service in the Russian Federation.”

In the course of the study, the authors actively formed an empirical base and turned to judicial and arbitration practice, which were: the Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of July 18, 2003, No.14-P “in the case of verification of the constitutionality of the provisions of Article 35 of the Federal law “on joint stock companies,” Articles 61 and 99 of the civil code of the Russian Federation, Article 31 of the tax code of the Russian Federation, and Article 14 of the Arbitration procedural code of the Russian Federation; the Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of March 15, 2005. No.3-P “in the case of verification of the constitutionality of the provisions of paragraph 2 of Article 278 and Article 279 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation and paragraph 2 of paragraph 4 of Article 69 of the Federal law” on joint stock companies; resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation of June 20, 2007, No. 40 “on some issues of practice of the provisions of the legislation on transactions with interest” ; resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of June 26, 2018, No.27 “on challenging major transactions and transactions in which there is an interest”; Resolution of the FAS of the Ural district of June 23, 2004, No. F09-1854/04-CL, etc.

The concept of “conflict” in terms of etymology, as well as social conflictology and social sciences is studied in the chapter on the example of the works of L. Coser, J. Von Neumann, N. Morgenstern, V. Yadov, T. V. Novikova, etc.

Studying corporate conflicts in legal doctrine, the authors turned to the works of D. I. Dedov and A. A. Kirillov.

The theory of interest and “legally protected interests” were studied thanks to the works of Rudolf von Ihering, who as the main idea behind the development of mechanisms for their balance. In the Russian doctrine, the issues of subjective and legitimate interests were developed in the works of Y. S. Gambarov, V. P. Gribanov, N. M. Korkunova, and G. F. Shershenevich.

The essence of socially significant interests that receive legal regulation from the state and become legal (legal) interests was studied on the basis of the works of N. V. Vitruka, R. E. Gukasyan, O. S. Ioffe, E. A. Krasheninnikova, and N. I. Matuzova.

The methodological basis of the study was a set of general and particular scientific research methods: observation, complex and diversified analysis, synthesis, analogy, comparison, explanation, proof, induction, deduction, reduction, elementalism, systematic approach, methods of comparative law, specific sociological research, historical, logical, statistical, etc.

The shift to the fourth industrial revolution presents new sustainable development challenges. The externalities of the second and third industrial revolutions were related to the degradation of the biosphere. It is suggested that the externalities of the fourth industrial revolution, underpinned by artificial intelligence, are extending the repertoire of externalities to include the degradation and manipulation of cognition and by extension the fabric of society. The implications for South Africa’s transformation within the fourth industrial revolution are highlighted. It is shown that digital nudging and choice architecture are tools that are capable of maximising profit while externalising social value through the algorithmic manipulation of our decision-making processes. The case for an alternative explanatory framework is presented because the limitations of the prevailing conception of physical reality appear unable to adequately resolve these super-wicked problems. Constructor theory is introduced as an alternative explanatory framework, and the constructor-theoretic conception is suggested as an ontological framework that will provide better explanations. Some principles of the theory are introduced.

A respectable theory which accounts for investor behaviour needs to start from a statement of investor objectives. The objective may be generally stated as the maximisation of utility (von Neumann & Morgenstern 1953), though of itself utility is difficult to measure. In order to operationalise the theory utility may be broken down into more readily measurable elements, risk and return. From an investor's point of view, it also becomes necessary to specify a scale whereon various combinations of risk and return may be compared. This latter exercise is a very personal one; indeed it may be unique to each investor. It is beyond the scope of this paper to follow this line of argument. Instead we shall concentrate on describing the measurement of risk and return, in particular by using the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). We recognise, however, that in using this model, we are simplifying the investment behaviour process, in particular we posit the choice of portfolios to be based on single period return/risk with investors having identical estimates (subjective) of these returns.

The ongoing anthropological transformation urges the rethinking of education, underlining the inadequacy of our schools and universities in dealing with hypercomplexity, that is, with the global extension of all political, social, and cultural processes and with their indeterminacy, interdependence, and interconnection. The idea that educational processes are questions of a purely technical/technological nature, solely a problem of skills and know-how, is the “great mistake” of the hypertechnological society, based on the illusion of being able to measure and quantify everything, to eliminate error and unpredictability, and to achieve total control and rationality. It is necessary to rethink education radically because the extraordinary scientific discoveries and the dynamics of the new technologies have completely overturned the complex interaction between biological and cultural evolution, doing away with the borders between the natural and the artificial. Emergence and emergency themselves are structural features of complex systems (living, social, and human systems), rendered hypercomplex through today’s acceleration and virality, regarding not only education and socialization but also the representations and perceptions of all systemic processes. The merging of fields of knowledge and an epistemology of error become essential for the analysis and interpretation of this hypercomplexity and the unpredictability that distinguishes it.

Paul Strathern’s book, A Brief History of Economic Genius, is a history of economic thought that is written for the general public. The book contains photographs, no footnotes and a very limited list of sources that functions as a list of “further reading” advice. This book stands in a long line of over more than forty books by Paul Strathern on the lives and works of great philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, Locke, Kant, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Hegel, and Madame Curie as the exceptional woman scientist. In these books he introduces the lay reader in an accessible and brief manner to often complicated ideas. As his other books, A Brief History tells the life stories of scholars, which are here woven into an account of the history of economics.

Shows how the essential ecotoxicological question of constructing a quantitative model of the interactions between environmental stress factors, and their synergistic effects resulting in a biosystem's perturbation, even in its pathology, has been formulated from a systemic viewpoint. The proposed model has been developed on the basis of the multicorrelational structure of heavy‐metal concentrations in the blood of pregnant women with a high environmental exposure to those metals. The proposed model uses an original notion of the interaction which allows one to find and explain the observed connection between the phenomenon of spontaneous abortion as an environmentally induced foetal pathology and some heavy metals, particularly cadmium and lead.