Much is being made of local food. It is at once a social movement, a diet, and an economic strategy—a popular solution—to a global food system in great distress. Yet, despite its popularity or perhaps because of it, local food (especially in the US) is also something of a chimera if not a tool of the status quo. This paper reflects on and contrasts aspects of current local food rhetoric with Dalhberg’s notion of a regenerative food system. (...) It identifies three problematic emphases—the locavore emphasis, the Wal-Mart emphasis, and the Pollan emphasis—and argues that they are shifting local food (as a concept and a social movement) away from the deeper concerns of equity, citizenship, place-building, and sustainability. It is suggested that local food activists and advocates might consider the use of multiple methodologies and forms of expression to explore the integration and reintegration of local food into diverse and redundant place-based practice. A short case study of a low-income, urban neighborhood in Lansing, Michigan, illustrates the value of contextual analysis for more fully enabling the local food movement and a regenerative food system. (shrink)

Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity is recognized as the premier philosophical study of Bell's Theorem and its implication for the relativistic account of space and time. Previous editions have been praised for the remarkable clarity of Maudlin's descriptions of both Bell's theorem and his examination of the potential conflict between the theorem and relativity. The third edition of this text has been carefully updated to reflect significant developments, including a new chapter covering important recent work in the foundations of physics. Foremost (...) among these is Roderich Tumiulka's explicit, relativistic theory that can reproduce the quantum mechanical violation of Bell's inequality. The "Free Will Theorem" of John Conway and Simon Kochen is also discussed, as is the status of locality in the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum theory. The book has also been updated to reflect recent results in information theory. The book introduces philosophers to the relevant physics and demonstrates how philosophical analysis can help to resolve some of the problems, and requires no technical background in Physics. All of the physics is presented from first principles, and as much as possible is presented pictorially"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

One of the central topics in semantic theory over the last few decades concerns the nature of local contexts. Recently, theorists have tried to develop general, non-stipulative accounts of local contexts (Schlenker, 2009; Ingason, 2016; Mandelkern & Romoli, 2017a). In this paper, we contribute to this literature by drawing attention to the local contexts of subclausal expressions. More specifically, we focus on the local contexts of quantificational determiners, e.g. `all', `both', etc. Our central tool for probing (...) the local contexts of subclausal elements is the principle Maximize Presupposition! (Percus, 2006; Singh, 2011). The empirical basis of our investigation concerns some data discussed by Anvari (2018b), e.g. the fact that sentences such as `All of the two presidential candidates are crooked' are unacceptable. In order to explain this, we suggest that the local context of determiners needs to contain the information carried by their restrictor. However, no existing non-stipulative account predicts this. Consequently, we think that the local contexts of subclausal expressions will likely have to be stipulated. This result has important consequences for debates in semantics and pragmatics, e.g. those around the so-called "explanatory problem" for dynamic semantics (Soames, 1982; Heim, 1990; Schlenker, 2009). (shrink)

David Lewis defends the thesis of the asymmetry of overdetermination: later affairs are seldom overdetermined by earlier affairs, but earlier affairs are usually overdetermined by later affairs. Recently, Carol Cleland has argued that since the distinctive methodologies of historical science and experimental science exploit different aspects of this asymmetry, the methodology of historical science is just as good, epistemically speaking, as that of experimental science. This paper shows, first, that Cleland's epistemological conclusion does not follow from the thesis of the (...) asymmetry of overdetermination, because overdetermination is compatible with epistemic underdetermination. The paper also shows, contra Cleland, that there is at least one interesting sense in which historical science is epistemically inferior to experimental science, after all, because local underdetermination problems are more widespread in historical than in experimental science. (shrink)

A local, deterministic, and realistic model within a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime with constant spatial curvature is presented which describes simultaneous measurements of the spins of two fermions emerging in a singlet state from the decay of a spinless boson. Exact agreement with the probabilistic predictions of quantum theory is achieved in the model without data rejection, remote contextuality, superdeterminism, or backward causation. An event-by-event numerical simulation of the model is presented, which confirms our analytical results with the accuracy of 4 (...) in 10,000 parts. (shrink)

Abstract“Scaling-up” is the next hurdle facing the local food movement. In order to effect broader systemic impacts, local food systems (LFS) will have to grow, and engage either more or larger consumers and producers. Encouraging the involvement of mid-sized farms looks to be an elegant solution, by broadening the accessibility of local food while providing alternative revenue streams for troubled family farms. Logistical, structural and regulatory barriers to increased scale in LFS are well known. Less is understood (...) about the way in which scale developments affect the perception and legitimacy of LFS. This value-added opportunity begs the question: Is the value that adheres to local food scalable? Many familiar with local food discourse might suggest that important pieces of added value within LFS are generated by the reconnection of producer and consumer, the direct exchange through which this occurs, and the shared goals and values that provide the basis for reconnection. However, these assertions are based on tenuous assumptions about how interactions within the direct exchange produce value, and how LFS are governed. Examination shows that existing assumptions do not properly acknowledge the hybridity, diversity, and flexibility inherent in LFS. A clear analysis of the potential of scale in LFS will depend on understanding both how value is determined within LFS, and the processes through which these systems are governed. Such an analysis shows that, while scaled-up LFS will be challenged to maintain legitimacy and an identity as “alternative”, the establishment of an open governance process—based on a “negotiation of accommodations”—is likely to enhance their viability. (shrink)

"Local History/Global Designs" is one of the most important books in the historical humanities to have emerged since the end of the Cold War University. This is vintage Mignolo: packed with insights, breadth, and intellectual zeal.

Eating local food has become a mainstream proxy for virtue and a reliable model of sustainable dieting. It suffers, nonetheless, from genuine criticisms and limitations. In this paper, we suggest theoretical amendments to reorient the local food movement and turn eating local into a robust concept—comprehensive, coherent, and inclusive, affording a firm grip over structural aspects of the food chain. We develop our argument in three parts. The first contends that ‘local’ can be said of lots (...) of entities (e.g. whole or multi-ingredient foods, recipes, menus) and that its meaning varies depending on which entities are under consideration. The second examines three dimensions of being local: the distance from the place of production; the geographical origins; the social links to consumers and producers. The third presents our robust conception of eating local, grounded on a more realistic model that accommodates for heterogeneous and complex actors. (shrink)

It is argued that while quantum mechanics contains nonlocal or entangled states, the instantaneous or nonlocal influences sometimes thought to be present due to violations of Bell inequalities in fact arise from mistaken attempts to apply classical concepts and introduce probabilities in a manner inconsistent with the Hilbert space structure of standard quantum mechanics. Instead, Einstein locality is a valid quantum principle: objective properties of individual quantum systems do not change when something is done to another noninteracting system. There is (...) no reason to suspect any conflict between quantum theory and special relativity. (shrink)

This paper explores two non-standard supermajority rules in the context of judgment aggregation over multiple logically connected issues. These rules set the supermajority threshold in a local, context sensitive way—partly as a function of the input profile of opinions. To motivate the interest of these rules, I prove two results. First, I characterize each rule in terms of a condition I call ‘Block Preservation’. Block preservation says that if a majority of group members accept a judgment set, then so (...) should the group. Second, I show that one of these rules is, in a precise sense, a judgment aggregation analogue of a rule for connecting qualitative and quantitative belief that has been recently defended by Hannes Leitgeb. The structural analogy is due to the fact that Leitgeb sets thresholds for qualitative beliefs in a local, context sensitive way—partly as a function of the given credence function. (shrink)

A conventional wisdom about the progress of physics holds that successive theories wholly encompass the domains of their predecessors through a process that is often called reduction. While certain influential accounts of inter-theory reduction in physics take reduction to require a single "global" derivation of one theory's laws from those of another, I show that global reductions are not available in all cases where the conventional wisdom requires reduction to hold. However, I argue that a weaker "local" form of (...) reduction, which defines reduction between theories in terms of a more fundamental notion of reduction between models of a single fixed system, is available in such cases and moreover suffices to uphold the conventional wisdom. To illustrate the sort of fixed-system, inter-model reduction that grounds inter-theoretic reduction on this picture, I specialize to a particular class of cases in which both models are dynamical systems. I show that reduction in these cases is underwritten by a mathematical relationship that follows the broad prescriptions of Nagel/Schaffner reduction, and support this claim with several examples. Moreover, I show that this broadly Nagelian analysis of inter-model reduction encompasses several cases that are sometimes cited as instances of the "physicist's" limit-based notion of reduction. (shrink)

The notion of local deduction theorem (which generalizes on the known instances of indeterminate deduction theorems, e.g. for the infinitely-valued ukasiewicz logic C ) is defined. It is then shown that a given finitary non-pathological logic C admits the local deduction theorem iff the class Matr(C) of all matrices validating C has the C-filter extension property (Theorem II.1).

Kuhn regards local incommensurability as an unavoidable result of changes in worldview, but his account fails to explain both historical cases in which rivals with different paradigms obtained consensus, and psychological experiments in which people with different cultural backgrounds accurately presented other points of view. Although the conditions required to generate local incommensurability were present in the dispute between Brewster and Herschel on light absorption, they succeeded in communicating. Ultimately Brewster understood his opponent's position, in the same way (...) that subjects in Barsalou's recent psychological experiments proved able to comprehend alien conceptual structures. Building upon recent cognitive theories of graded conceptual structures, I offer a new account of incommensurability, which accommodates these historical cases and psychological results. By correcting and extending Kuhn's account I show that local incommensurability may be a matter of degree. (shrink)

It is a classic result in lattice theory that a poset is a complete lattice iff it can be realized as fixpoints of a closure operator on a powerset. Dragalin [9,10] observed that a poset is a locale (complete Heyting algebra) iff it can be realized as fixpoints of a nucleus on the locale of upsets of a poset. He also showed how to generate a nucleus on upsets by adding a structure of “paths” to a poset, forming what we (...) call a Dragalin frame. This allowed Dragalin to introduce a semantics for intuitionistic logic that generalizes Beth and Kripke semantics. He proved that every spatial locale (locale of open sets of a topological space) can be realized as fixpoints of the nucleus generated by a Dragalin frame. In this paper, we strengthen Dragalin’s result and prove that every locale—not only spatial locales—can be realized as fixpoints of the nucleus generated by a Dragalin frame. In fact, we prove the stronger result that for every nucleus on the upsets of a poset, there is a Dragalin frame based on that poset that generates the given nucleus. We then compare Dragalin’s approach to generating nuclei with the relational approach of Fairtlough and Mendler [11], based on what we call FM-frames. Surprisingly, every Dragalin frame can be turned into an equivalent FM-frame, albeit on a different poset. Thus, every locale can be realized as fixpoints of the nucleus generated by an FM-frame. Finally, we consider the relational approach of Goldblatt [13] and characterize the locales that can be realized using Goldblatt frames. (shrink)

A norm of local expert deference says that your credence in an arbitrary proposition A, given that the expert's probability for A is n, should be n. A norm of global expert deference says that your credence in A, given that the expert's entire probability function is E, should be E(A). Gaifman (1988) taught us that these two norms are not equivalent. Stalnaker (2019) conjectures that Gaifman's example is "a loophole". Here, I substantiate Stalnaker's suspicions by providing characterisation theorems (...) which tell us precisely when the norms give different advice. They tell us that, in a good sense, Gaifman's example is the only case where the two norms differ. I suggest that the lesson of the theorems is that Bayesian epistemologists need not concern themselves with the differences between these two kinds of norms. While they are not strictly speaking equivalent, they are equivalent for all philosophical purposes. (shrink)

This work is a step toward the development of a logic for types and computation that includes not only the usual spaces of mathematics and constructions, but also spaces from logic and domain theory. Using realizability, we investigate a configuration of three toposes that we regard as describing a notion of relative computability. Attention is focussed on a certain local map of toposes, which we first study axiomatically, and then by deriving a modal calculus as its internal logic. The (...) resulting framework is intended as a setting for the logical and categorical study of relative computability. (shrink)

If $\mathcal{A}$ (V) is a net of local von Neumann algebras satisfying standard axioms of algebraic relativistic quantum field theory and V 1 and V 2 are spacelike separated spacetime regions, then the system ( $\mathcal{A}$ (V 1 ), $\mathcal{A}$ (V 2 ), φ) is said to satisfy the Weak Reichenbach's Common Cause Principle iff for every pair of projections A∈ $\mathcal{A}$ (V 1 ), B∈ $\mathcal{A}$ (V 2 ) correlated in the normal state φ there exists a projection (...) C belonging to a von Neumann algebra associated with a spacetime region V contained in the union of the backward light cones of V 1 and V 2 and disjoint from both V 1 and V 2 , a projection having the properties of a Reichenbachian common cause of the correlation between A and B. It is shown that if the net has the local primitive causality property then every local system ( $\mathcal{A}$ (V 1 ), $\mathcal{A}$ (V 2 ), φ) with a locally normal and locally faithful state φ and suitable bounded V 1 and V 2 satisfies the Weak Reichenbach's Common Cause Principle. (shrink)

Scientific realism and anti-realism are most frequently discussed as global theses: theses that apply equally well across the board to all the various sciences. Against this status quo I defend the localist alternative, a methodological stance on scientific realism that approaches debates on realism at the level of individual sciences, rather than at science itself. After identifying the localist view, I provide a number of arguments in its defense, drawing on the diversity and disunity found in the sciences, as well (...) as problems with other approaches (such as basing realism debates on the aim of science). I also show how the view is already at work, explicitly or implicitly, in the work of several philosophers of science. After meeting the objections that localism collapses either into globalism or hyperlocalism, I conclude by sketching what sorts of impacts localism can have in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

We provide new evidence that the prosocial attitudes of local residents play a significant role in determining a firm’s corporate social responsibility engagement. We show that firms are more likely to engage in CSR initiatives when they are headquartered in areas with large senior citizen populations and where a large fraction of the population makes charitable donations. In contrast, we find that firms are less likely to engage in CSR initiatives when they are headquartered in areas with large religiously (...) affiliated groups. After establishing the local demographic roots of CSR demand, we then examine the relationship between the firm’s CSR activities and its market valuation. Our results suggest that CSR initiatives create value when they are properly aligned with local residents’ prosocial attitudes. Overall, our study stresses the role of local residents’ CSR preferences in mediating the relationship between CSR and market valuations. (shrink)

For Humean atomists, cosmic contents supervene on a spatiotemporal mosaic of modally insulated, freely recombinable local qualities. One piecemeal subspecies of Humean atomism promises more than global supervenience—somehow or other—on a separable base; it constrains how exactly elemental inputs yield everything else. Roughly, the distribution of basic local qualities across elements in one part of our cosmos metaphysically suffices for the complete local physical state of that part: anything sharing this part’s basic elemental decoration should share its (...) more complete contents, regardless of what may be happening elsewhere. On a non-piecemeal alternative, derivative contents can be recognizably local to, or manifest within, one part of our cosmos while reflecting some more global elemental base. To develop this alternative, non-piecemeal Humeans can borrow inspiration from some critics of Humean supervenience, who already distinguish a broader notion of locality from strict Humean intrinsicality. (shrink)

We consider locally o-minimal structures possessing tame topological properties shared by models of DCTC and uniformly locally o-minimal expansions of the second kind of densely linearly ordered abelian groups. We derive basic properties of dimension of a set definable in the structures including the addition property, which is the dimension equality for definable maps whose fibers are equi-dimensional. A decomposition theorem into quasi-special submanifolds is also demonstrated.

The variety of Heyting algebras has two well-behaved locally finite reducts, the variety of bounded distributive lattices and the variety of implicative semilattices. The variety of bounded distributive lattices is generated by the →-free reducts of Heyting algebras, while the variety of implicative semilattices is generated by the ∨-free reducts. Each of these reducts gives rise to canonical formulas that generalize Jankov formulas and provide an axiomatization of all superintuitionistic logics. The ∨-free reducts of Heyting algebras give rise to the (...) -canonical formulas that we studied in an earlier work. Here we introduce the -canonical formulas, which are obtained from the study of the →-free reducts of Heyting algebras. We prove that every si-logic is axiomatizable by -canonical formulas. We also discuss the similarities and differences between these two kinds of canonical formulas. One of the main ingredients of these formulas is a designated subset D of pairs of elements of a finite subdirectly irreducible Heyting algebra A. When D=A2, we show that the -canonical formula of A is equivalent to the Jankov formula of A. On the other hand, when D=∅, the -canonical formulas produce a new class of si-logics we term stable si-logics. We prove that there are continuum many stable si-logics and that all stable si-logics have the finite model property. We also compare stable si-logics to splitting and subframe si-logics. (shrink)

The “local food” movement has been growing since at least the mid- twentieth century with the founding of the Rodale Institute. Since then, local food has increasingly become a goal of food systems. Today, books and articles on local food have become commonplace, with popular authors such as Barbara Kingsolver1 and Michael Pollan2 espousing the virtues of eating locally. Additionally, local food initiatives, such as the “farm- tofork,” “Buying Local,” and “Slow Food” have gained a (...) strong international following with clearly visible impacts on the food industry and policy. The numbers of local farmers’ markets, community- supported agriculture projects, and community gardens have been on the rise steadily since 1994. (shrink)

Local food has become the rising star of the sustainable agriculture movement, in part because of the energy efficiencies thought to be gained when food travels shorter distances. In this essay I critique four key assumptions that underlie this connection between local foods and energy. I then describe two competing conclusions implied by the critique. On the one hand, local food systems may need a more extensive and integrated transportation infrastructure to achieve sustainability. On the other hand, (...) the production, transportation, and consumption of local foods are fundamentally as reliant on fossil fuels as are long distance foods. A more holistic approach to energy use in the food system is needed to determine which particular sociotechnical factors optimize energetic sustainability. (shrink)

Amid the highly industrialized, export-focused food system of the Canadian prairies, some farmers and consumers are turning to localized agriculture as an alternative—they are “going local”. Despite farmers’ obvious importance to the food system, surprisingly little research has examined their motivations and reasons for localization. To date, most local food scholarship in North America has focused on either consumers’ motivations to buy local or the systemic aspects of local food, such as regulations, infrastructure, and marketing arrangements. (...) Existing research suggests that local food systems are supported by consumers’ rejection of the industrial paradigm and desire to connect with their food and its source. But what drives farmers to localize, particularly when export-focused production is firmly entrenched as the status quo? Based on interviews and focus groups with 60 farmers, processors, policy experts, and retailers in the Canadian prairie province of Saskatchewan, this paper examines local food systems from the producer perspective in a rural context of high industrialization and geographical dispersion. We examine what motivates farmers to produce for local markets, and what forces they must resist to do so. The findings indicate that farmers’ main motivations for localization are political and social in nature, and stem from a critique of the dominant neoliberal agri-food system. We map farmers’ agential responses to this dominant system on a spectrum that ranges from acceptance of a neoliberal “feed the world” ideology to promotion of food sovereignty. Drawing on farmers’ perspectives, our findings question the straightforward equation of local food with environmental sustainability and also challenge neoliberal economic assumptions of “scaling up”. (shrink)

According to a widespread view, the Bell theorem establishes the untenability of so-called ‘local realism’. On the basis of this view, recent proposals by Leggett, Zeilinger and others have been developed according to which it can be proved that even some non-local realistic theories have to be ruled out. As a consequence, within this view the Bell theorem allows one to establish that no reasonable form of realism, be it local or non-local, can be made compatible (...) with the (experimentally tested) predictions of quantum mechanics. In the present paper it is argued that the Bell theorem has demonstrably nothing to do with the ‘realism’ as defined by these authors and that, as a consequence, their conclusions about the foundational significance of the Bell theorem are unjustified. (shrink)

The paper argues that a causal explanation of the correlated outcomes of EPR-type experiments is desirable and possible. It shows how Bohmian mechanics and the GRW mass density theory offer such an explanation in terms of a non-local common cause.

In 'Local pragmatics in a Gricean framework', Mandy Simons argues that, contrary to the received view, it is possible to accommodate local pragmatic effects utilising just the mechanisms for pragmatic reasoning provided by Grice. Although I agree with this overarching claim, this paper argues that we need to be careful in our understanding of 'what is said', and the nature of communicated content in general, when deciding between local and global accounts of pragmatic effects.

Many advocate practices of ‘local food’ or ‘locavorism’ as a partial solution to the injustices and unsustainability of contemporary food systems. I think that there is much to be said in favor of local food movements, but these virtues are insufficient to immunize locavorism from criticism. In particular, three duties of international ethics—beneficence, repair and fairness—may provide reasons for constraining the developed world’s permissible pursuit of local food. A complete account of why (and how) the fulfillment of (...) these duties constrains locavorism will require extensive empirical evidence about the relationship between agricultural demand-led industrialization, international trade (rules), and local food practices. In this paper I can only gesture at some of this evidence and, for that reason, my policy prescriptions are merely provisional. Instead, the upshot of this paper is that advocates of locavorism ought to be attentive to the empirical-dependence of the moral permissibility of their projects. As local food ‘scales up’—and comes to be embraced as a goal of political communities—these concerns should receive even greater attention. (shrink)

Research explored methods for “shortening the food links” or developing the “local foodshed” by connecting farmers with food service buyers (for restaurants and institutions) in Colorado. Telephone interviews were used to investigate marketing and purchasing practices. Findings include that price is not a significant factor in purchasing decisions; that food buyers prioritize quality as their top purchasing criterion but are not aware that local farmers can provide higher quality, that institutions are interested in buying locally; that small farms (...) can offer comparable or higher quality produce andservice; and that farmers need to show buyers what the quality of produce and service they can provide. (shrink)

We prove the following instance of a conjecture stated in [P. E. Eleftheriou and Y. Peterzil, Definable quotients of locally definable groups, Selecta Math. 18 885–903]. Let [Formula: see text] be an abelian semialgebraic group over a real closed field [Formula: see text] and let [Formula: see text] be a semialgebraic subset of [Formula: see text]. Then the group generated by [Formula: see text] contains a generic set and, if connected, it is divisible. More generally, the same result holds when (...) [Formula: see text] is definable in any o-minimal expansion of [Formula: see text] which is elementarily equivalent to [Formula: see text]. We observe that the above statement is equivalent to saying: there exists an [Formula: see text] such that [Formula: see text] is an approximate subgroup of [Formula: see text]. (shrink)

In response to Mandy Simons’ defence of a classical Gricean approach to pragmatic enrichment in terms of conversational implicature, I emphasize the following contrast. Conversational implicatures are generated by a global inference which uses as a premise the fact that the speaker has said that p, but only the triggering inference is global in cases of pragmatic enrichment. What generates the correct interpretation is a process of reconstrual, which locally maps the literal meaning of a constituent to a modulated meaning (...) and composes that meaning with that of the other constituents. That process is constrained by Gricean considerations but that is true of all pragmatic aspects of interpretation, whether pre-propositional or post-propositional. Just as indexical resolution, though pragmatic and constrained by Gricean considerations, does not fit the two-stage model through which Grice accounts for conversational implicatures, so pragmatic modulation can’t be accounted for in terms of that model despite the fact that, like conversational implicatures and unlike indexical resolution, modulation is pragmatically rather than semantically triggered. (shrink)

Using a result of H. Hanche-Olsen, we show that (subject to fairly natural constraints on what constitutes a system, and on what constitutes a composite system), orthodox finite-dimensional complex quantum mechanics with superselection rules is the only non-signaling probabilistic theory in which (i) individual systems are Jordan algebras (equivalently, their cones of unnormalized states are homogeneous and self-dual), (ii) composites are locally tomographic (meaning that states are determined by the joint probabilities they assign to measurement outcomes on the component systems) (...) and (iii) at least one system has the structure of a qubit. Using this result, we also characterize finite dimensional quantum theory among probabilistic theories having the structure of a dagger-monoidal category. (shrink)

The terms “patriotism” and “nationalism” are distinguished historically, conceptually, and geographically. Historically, patriotism is shown to have roots in the classical republican tradition of political thought, according to which citizens should give priority to the common good of their political or civic, as distinct from national, community. Conceptually, it is argued that patriotism is best understood as a political philosophy, an account of the form or forms of dialogue that citizens should engage in when responding to their conflicts, whereas nationalism (...) is a political ideology, an account of the kinds of things that citizens should be saying within those dialogues, in particular, when they take the form of negotiation. Patriotism, then, is that political philosophy which endorses the maxim “conversation first, negotiation second, force third,” since conversation between citizens has the best prospects for realizing and developing the common good. Nationalism, by contrast, is the ideology of those who, when it comes to political negotiations, give the greatest weight to the needs of their national community. Finally, regarding geography, patriotism is shown to be concerned with the jurisdiction of the state, whereas nationalism emphasizes the permanent and sharply demarcated territory where the national community is located. The chapter then concludes with the recommendation that we all need to affirm a global patriotism, alongside the more local forms. (shrink)

IntroductionThe prefrontal cortex plays a crucial role in cognition, particularly in executive functions. Cortical reactivity measured with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation combined with Electroencephalography is altered in pathological conditions, and it may also be a marker of cognitive status in middle-aged adults. In this study, we investigated the associations between cognitive measures and TMS evoked EEG reactivity and explored whether the effects of this relationship were related to neurofilament light chain levels, a marker of neuroaxonal damage.MethodsFifty two healthy middle-aged adults from (...) the Barcelona Brain Health Initiative cohort underwent TMS-EEG, a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment, and a blood test for NfL levels. Global and Local Mean-Field Power, two measures of cortical reactivity, were quantified after left prefrontal cortex stimulation, and cognition was set as the outcome of the regression analysis. The left inferior parietal lobe was used as a control stimulation condition.ResultsLocal reactivity was significantly associated with working memory and reasoning only after L-PFC stimulation. No associations were found between NfL and cognition. These specific associations were independent of the status of neuroaxonal damage indexed by the NfL biomarker and remained after adjusting for age, biological sex, and education.ConclusionOur results demonstrate that TMS evoked EEG reactivity at the L-PFC, but not the L-IPL, is related to the cognitive status of middle-aged individuals and independent of NfL levels, and may become a valuable biomarker of frontal lobe-associated cognitive function. (shrink)

It is shown that the violation of Bell's inequality allowed by quantum mechanics and the related Bell's theorem without inequalities is accounted for by local commutations of operators representing single-particle observables. It is argued that the idea of nonlocal influencing of one particle on another when they are in spacelike separated regions clearly has neither empirical nor theoretical support.

This paper introduces a local version of envy-freeness and investigates its implications in a continuum agent economy with connected preferences. We show that the set of locally envy-free and Pareto efficient allocations coincides with the set of equal-income Walrasian allocations.

The counterfactual and regularity theories are universal accounts of causation. I argue that these should be generalized to produce local accounts of causation. A hallmark of universal accounts of causation is the assumption that apparent variation in causation between locations must be explained by differences in background causal conditions, by features of the causal-nexus or causing-complex. The local account of causation presented here rejects this assumption, allowing for genuine variation in causation to be explained by differences in location. (...) I argue that local accounts of causation are plausible, and have pragmatic, empirical and theoretical advantages over universal accounts. I then report on the use of presheaves as models of local causation. The use of presheaves as models of local variation has precedents in algebraic geometry, category theory and physics; they are here used as models of local causal variation. The paper presents this idea as stemming from an approach using presheaves as models of local truth. Finally, I argue that a proper balance between universal and local causation can be assuaged by moving from presheaves to fully-fledged sheaf models. (shrink)