Philosophy and Politics in the 20th in Argentina. Readings of Italian Idealism

The transition from a positivist matrix to an idealistic one in Argentinean academic philosophy can be read as a result of a gradual and problematic pollution. It was, also, heavily traversed by considerations that exceeded the theoretical aspects. Based on the willingness to explore this transit, the article pays attention to one of the episodes of this contamination: how the Revista de Filosofía reads Croce and Gentile’s philosophy. Observing there some possibility of dialogue between positivist assumptions, with which the journal takes a position, and the idealism the article analyze how this dialogue and its limits were given from a political consideration. If the idealism was condemned, it is centrally owed to its performance during the first years of the government of Mussolini. If, meanwhile, it was some to rescue of that philosophy, it was that it contributed to think the revolutionary change.

Transport in nanoscale systems: the microcanonical versus grand-canonical picture

We analyse a picture of transport in which two large but finite charged electrodes discharge across a nanoscale junction. We identify a functional whose minimization, within the space of all bound many-body wavefunctions, defines an instantaneous steady state. We also discuss factors that favour the onset of steady-state conduction in such systems, make a connection with the notion of entropy, and suggest a novel source of steady-state noise. Finally, we prove that the true many-body total current in this closed system is given exactly by the one-electron total current, obtained from time-dependent density-functional theory.

Electron collisions with iron peak elements: a computational grand challenge

This paper discusses the calculation of electron impact collision strengths and effective collision strengths for iron peak elements of importance in the analysis of many astronomical and laboratory spectra. It commences with a brief overview of R-matrix theory which is the basis of computer programs which have been widely used to calculate the relevant atomic data used in this analysis. A summary is then given of calculations carried out over the last 20 y for electron collisions with Fe II. The grand challenge, represented by the calculation of accurate collision strengths and effective collision strengths for this ion, is then discussed. A new parallel R-matrix program PRMAT, which is being developed to meet this challenge, is then described and results of recent calculations, using this program to determine optically forbidden transitions in e- – Ni IV on a Cray T3E-1200 parallel supercomputer, are presented. The implications of this e- – Ni IV calculation for the determination of accurate data from an isoelectronic e- – Fe II calculation are discussed and finally some future directions of research are reviewed.