What can be measured? This is a key question for measurement in general and particularly for the measurement of quantities related to human perception and interpretation. Very recently, the following measurability criterion has been proposed (Rossi G B, Measurement 40 (2007) 545-562). A general procedure for ensuring the measurability of a characteristic comprises the following steps:

1. Define the class of objects that manifest the characteristic
2. Identify the empirical properties that define the characteristic
3. Construct a reference measurement scale, that is select a set of standard objects “representative” of the possible manifestations of the characteristic and assign to each of them a measure that complies with empirical relations
4. Find at least one empirical procedure for assigning measures to elements not included in the reference scale that comply with empirical relations.

It is therefore suggested that a characteristic x is measurable if it is possible for the above procedure to be satisfactorily applied to it .

What do you think of this proposal? How does it compare with your current knowledge and understanding of this subject, with your professional experience and with your vision?
Feedback and comments are warmly encouraged.

Please leave a comment here.

Measuring the Impossible
3rd Workshop

Wageningen, The Netherlands, May 14th-15th, 2009

Workshop objectives

The third “Measuring the Impossible” workshop is one of a series of events organised within the framework of the MINET (Measuring the Impossible NETwork) project. The workshop is open to members of MtI projects and to anyone with an interest in research in this area.

This workshop will focus on the presentation and discussion of methods and research in the following areas:

• psychometrics
• psychophysics
• human perception
• neuroscience, including fMRI
• physical/physiological measurements including vision and audio
• modelling including pattern recognition/machine learning/reasoning
• measurement theory

For the call for papers , registration details, venue and accommodation information, and local organisers details please visit http://minet.wordpress.com/events/workshop3.

Related events

Think Tank D, 13 May 2009

MINET Think Tank D on the subject of Decision Making and Impact Assessment will take place in Wageningen, The Netherlands, on 13 May 2009. For more information see: www.measuringimpossible.net

4th Measuring the Impossible Workshop, November 2009, London (UK).

More information will soon be available on the MINET website: www.measuringimpossible.net

Presentations from the MINET training course 2008 are available to download. You must be a member of e-MINET to gain access (signup to e-MINET here).

Go to the presentations.

Measurement uncertainty when measuring the impossible

Rome, October 9 – 10, 2008

The Rome Think Tank Event is the third in a series of four meetings organised in the framework of the MINET (Measuring the Impossible NETwork) project.

The Rome Think Tank will revolve around a crucial topic of measurement in general and especially for Measuring the Impossible (MtI), i.e., how to detect, determine and express uncertainty. Uncertainty is a common ground for physical, psychological and social measurement and the expression of an increasing convergence between the so called hard and soft sciences, yet it is not often treated with the necessary awareness.

The Think Tank Event will be an occasion for dialogue and interdisciplinary scientific communication between, the metrological community which has championed the issue of uncertainty for years, and, scientists engaged in measuring the impossible in the various application fields. Such a dialogue will take place through discussions in plenum, working groups, and an educational lecture by a scholar in this field.

For full details on this event, please click here

Summary Programme

OCTOBER 9th, 2008: Afternoon (2.30pm – 5.00pm)

2.30pm – 3.10pm    INTRODUCTION TO THINK TANK EVENT C

- L PENDRILL, G B ROSSI, A CANCEDDA

3.10pm – 4.00pm    EDUCATIONAL LECTURE

- LEONARDO CANNAVÒ, University “La Sapienza” of Rome

“Uncertain Measures? A Comparison between Causal and Systemic Sciences from the Viewpoint of an Applied Methodologist”

4.15pm – 5.00pm    DISCUSSIONS IN PLENUM

OCTOBER 10TH, 2008: Morning (9.00am – 1.00pm)

9.00am – 9.30am    INTRODUCTION TO DISCUSSION GROUPS

- L PENDRILL

9.30am – 11.30am    BREAK OUT DISCUSSIONS GROUPS

11.30am – 12.30pm    GROUP REPORTS AND DISCUSSIONS

12.30pm – 1.00pm    CONCLUSIONS

- B BERGLUND, L PENDRILL, G QUINTI

Registration

Please confirm your participation in the Think Tank secretariat by e-mail (minet@scienzecittadinanza.org) or fax (+39-06-45435683)

Registration is free of charge. The final deadline for registration is September 15th, 2008.

Organisers

The local organiser of Think Tank Event C is LSC: Alessandra Cancedda: minet@scienzecittadinanza.org & Maresa Berliri: Postmaster@scienzecittadinanza.org

Workpackage 3 Coordinator is Leslie Pendrill, Technical Research Institute of Sweden (SP), leslie.pendrill@sp.se

AWARENESS, PERCEPTION AND INTERPRETATION: measurements vis-a-vis the complexity of life

Rome, ITALY
October 8th-9th, 2008

Workshop objectives and contents

This workshop is part of a series of events (workshops and sessions at conferences) organised within the framework of the MINET (Measuring the Impossible NETwork) project, funded by the European Commission – 6th Framework Programme of Scientific and Technological Research. MINET aims to achieve a long-term integration and advancement of interdisciplinary research and novel investigative methods for the measurement of multidimensional, complex phenomena which are mediated by the human perception and/or interpretation – so called ‘Measuring the Impossible’ (MtI) research.

MINET workshops aim at achieving a deeper and wider understanding of the themes under investigation in the MtI field. They are a valuable opportunity for an exchange and transfer of knowledge among researchers with an interest in this topic, and especially between the various projects funded under the New and Emerging Science and Technology (NEST)– Measuring the Impossible programme.

The complexity of the investigated and measured phenomena is a feature shared by all MtI projects, which have human beings as objects of study or as measuring instruments. The scientific study of topics such as haptic, visual or auditory perception, emotions, the mind-brain relationship, differences among individuals, quality of environments, products and services, and so on, poses remarkable challenges to scientists. MtI projects are meeting these challenges on both a methodological level – by developing theories, models and techniques for measurement – and a substantive scientific level – by producing relevant results in their respective research fields.

The Rome workshop will be an occasion to share advancements, findings and achievements of projects, as well as problems encountered and solutions worked out, in an unrestricted dialogue among the disciplines, inter-disciplines and application areas of the physical, natural, psychological and social sciences that are involved in the MtI field.

Each project funded under the EU NEST “Measuring the Impossible” programme is expected to contribute to the Workshop with a presentation of their progress and results achieved so far.

The workshop is open to everyone to attend to learn more about the Measuring the Impossible projects and participate in discussions.

Further information

Further information can be found on the MINET website. Please click here.

Annecy, France

September 3-5, 2008

IMEKO technical committees TC1 and TC7 are organising a joint symposium on Man, Science & Measurement. This conference will explore emerging challenges and novel concepts in Measurement Science in relation to human activities, considering:

• Measurement systems as a way for helping human perception of the world
• Measurement as a way for helping perception of human activity
• Measurement Science as a focus of interest

MINET session: MEASUREMENTS RELATED TO HUMAN PERCEPTION

We are pleased to announce that there will be a special session within the symposium on the Measuring the Impossible (MtI) projects.  Papers will focus on the principles involved in the measurements being made, with a special attention to the problem of “measurability”, and hence fit well with the scope of this symposium.

26-29 August 2008

Maastricht, The Netherlands

Measuring Behavior 2008, the 6th international conference on methods and techniques in behavioral research, is the premier interdisciplinary event for scientists and practitioners concerned with the study of human or animal behavior. 

Symposium on “Measuring the Impossible”

A symposium on “Measuring the Impossible” is being organised within this conference, at which papers will be presented on the Measuring the Impossible (MtI) projects, with an emphasis on the techniques used to measure complex phenomena that are mediated by human perception and interpretation.

This will be an excellent opportunity to learn about the latest developments in the EU NEST-MtI projects in addition to learning about the most up-to-date information in behavioural research, that will be presented at the rest of the conference.

MINET Training Course 2008: Theory and methods of measurements with persons

9-11 June 2008

Palazzo del Principe, Genova, Italy

AIM:

‘Measurements with Persons’ are measurements to characterise complex quantities and qualities that depend on human perception and interpretation. Providing a means for reproducible measurement of perceptual responses such as pleasure and pain, the perceived attributes of products and services, such as quality or desirability, or the quantification of societal parameters such as security and well-being, has important implications in many areas of commerce, industry, science, medicine and society.
Progress in this area requires the cross-linking of developments across a variety of disciplines, encompassing the physical, biological, psychological and social sciences, for example. Effective collaboration and exchange of information between these areas is essential in order to meet the ever-increasing demand for valid measurements as the basis for decision making.

The course ‘Theory and Methods of Measurements with Persons’ is intended for senior scientists with an interest in understanding and measuring human perceptual responses and behaviours. It will be held in Genova, Italy, in June 2008, organised as a part of an European coordination action, MINET: Measuring the Impossible Network.

In the first part, generic theoretical and methodological issues will be explored, including the conceptual basis of measurement and the approach to experimentation in the various fields involved, the development of formal, representational and probabilistic, theories, and theories and methods for multidimensional problems. In the second part of the course, several application areas will be presented, including sound, visual, touch and smell perception, brain imaging, body language and emotions, and, finally, the use of measurements in decision making.

PROGRAMME:

download

MINET TRAINING COURSE WEBSITE:

For full details of the course, incuding an application form, please visit:
www.minet.wordpress.com/events/trainingcourse2008

Palazzo del Principe

1st Workshop, Portorož, Slovenia, 26. September 2007

Title:

Measuring the Impossible: what can metrologists and psychophysicists learn from each other?

Aim:

This workshop will be organized within the framework of the Measuring the Impossible Network – MINET (a 6th EU framework program for scientific and technological research).
The aim is a more insightful and wider understanding of “hard’ (i.e. classical chemical and physical measurements) and ’soft’ measurements (i.e. measurements mediated by human perception and interpretation). We hope to achieve this by lectures from renowned speakers, combined with a presentation of selected projects within the Measuring the Impossible program, followed by a general discussion.

Program

Morning Program

Afternoon Program

Targeted audience

All participants of projects, which are granted within the framework of the EU New and Emerging Science and Technology program “Measuring the Impossible”, are cordially invited to attend this workshop.

Date and venue:

September 26, 2007 in Portoroz, Slovenia.

Related events:

On 24-26 September there will be the 16th international Electrotechnical and Computer Science conference in Portoroz, with a special session on Measuring the Impossible on September 25. See http://www.ieee.si/erk07/ for more details.
On September 27 there will be a think tank event within the MINET program. More details will follow later.

Registration:

Please send an email to gregor.gersak@fe.uni-lj.si
The registration is free. Registration deadline is Wednesday, 19. September 2007.

Organisers:

Dr. G.W.A.M. van der Heijden
Dr. G. Gersak, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Prof. J. Drnovšek, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
R. Montgomery, NPL, UK
R. Sefelin, CURE, Austria
Dr. A Cancedda, Laboratorio di Scienze della Cittadinanza, Italy
Local organiser: Dr G. Gersak

Web:

http://lmk.fe.uni-lj.si/minet
http://lmk.fe.uni-lj.si/minet

MINET
Measuring the Impossible Network project aims to achieve a long-term integration and advancement of interdisciplinary research and novel investigative methods in Europe. The measurement of multidimensional phenomena mediated by human interpretation and/or perception for measuring properties such as comfort, naturalness, perceived quality, feelings, body language and consciousness is to be advanced. ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/nest/docs/1-nest-measuring-290507.pdf