Understanding European cross-border cooperation: a framework for analysis

European integration has had a dual impact on border regions. On the one hand, borders were physically dismantled across most of the EU’s internal territory. On the other hand, they have become a fertile ground for territorial co-operation and institutional innovation. The degree of cross-border co-operation and organization achieved varies considerably from one region to another depending on a combination of various facilitating factors for effective cross-border co-operation, more specifically, economic, political leadership, cultural/identity and state formation, and geographical factors. This article offers a conceptual framework to understand the growth and diversity of cross-border regionalism within the EU context by focusing on the levels of and drives for co-operation

On Modern Science, Human Cognition, and Cultural Diversity

The development of modern science has depended strongly on specific features of the cultures involved; however, its results are widely and trans-culturally accepted and applied. The science and technology of electricity provides a particularly interesting example. It emerged as a specific product of post-Renaissance Europe, rooted in the Greek philosophical tradition that encourages explanations of nature in theoretical terms. It did not evolve in China presumably because such encouragement was missing. The trans-cultural acceptance of modern science and technology is postulated to be due, in part, to the common biological dispositions underlying human cognition, with generalizable capabilities of abstract, symbolic and strategic thought. These faculties of the human mind are main prerequisites for dynamic cultural development and differentiation. They appear to have evolved up to a stage of hunters and gatherers perhaps some 100 000 years ago. However, the extent of the correspondence between some constructions of the human mind and the order of nature, as revealed by science, is a late insight of the last centuries. Quantum physics and relativity are particularly impressive examples

Dispute Resolution Using Argumentation-Based Mediation

Mediation is a process, in which both parties agree to resolve their dispute by negotiating over alternative solutions presented by a mediator. In order to construct such solutions, mediation brings more information and knowledge, and, if possible, resources to the negotiation table. The contribution of this paper is the automated mediation machinery which does that. It presents an argumentation-based mediation approach that extends the logic-based approach to argumentation-based negotiation involving BDI agents. The paper describes the mediation algorithm. For comparison it illustrates the method with a case study used in an earlier work. It demonstrates how the computational mediator can deal with realistic situations in which the negotiating agents would otherwise fail due to lack of knowledge and/or resources.Comment: 6 page

Formal Modeling of Connectionism using Concurrency Theory, an Approach Based on Automata and Model Checking

This paper illustrates a framework for applying formal methods techniques, which are symbolic in nature, to specifying and verifying neural networks, which are sub-symbolic in nature. The paper describes a communicating automata [Bowman & Gomez, 2006] model of neural networks. We also implement the model using timed automata [Alur & Dill, 1994] and then undertake a verification of these models using the model checker Uppaal [Pettersson, 2000] in order to evaluate the performance of learning algorithms. This paper also presents discussion of a number of broad issues concerning cognitive neuroscience and the debate as to whether symbolic processing or connectionism is a suitable representation of cognitive systems. Additionally, the issue of integrating symbolic techniques, such as formal methods, with complex neural networks is discussed. We then argue that symbolic verifications may give theoretically well-founded ways to evaluate and justify neural learning systems in the field of both theoretical research and real world applications

Weak Quantum Theory: Complementarity and Entanglement in Physics and Beyond

The concepts of complementarity and entanglement are considered with respect to their significance in and beyond physics. A formally generalized, weak version of quantum theory, more general than ordinary quantum theory of material systems, is outlined and tentatively applied to some examples.Comment: Revised version. Chapter 5.2 (old counting) omitted for separate publication, chapter 5.2 (new counting) reformulate

Understanding Science Through Knowledge Organizers: An Introduction

We propose, in this paper, a teaching program based on a grammar of scientific language borrowed mostly from the area of knowledge representation in computer science and logic. The paper introduces an operationizable framework for understanding knowledge using knowledge representation (KR) methodology. We start with organizing concepts based on their cognitive function, followed by assigning valid and authentic semantic relations to the concepts. We propose that in science education, students can understand better if they organize their knowledge using the KR principles. The process, we claim, can help them to align their conceptual framework with that of experts which we assume is the goal of science education

NiMo syntax: part 1

Many formalisms for the specification for concurrent and distributed systems have emerged. In particular considering boxes and strings approaches. Examples are action calculi, rewriting logic and graph rewriting, bigraphs. The boxes and string metaphor is addressed with different levels of granularity. One of the approaches is to consider a process network as an hypergraph. Based in this general framework, we encode NiMo nets as a class of Annotated hypergraphs. This class is defined by giving the alphabet and the operations used to construct such programs. Therefore we treat only editing operations on labelled hypergraphs and afterwards how this editing operation affects the graph. Graph transformation (execution rules) is not covered here.Postprint (published version

The modern versus extended evolutionary synthesis : sketch of an intra-genomic gene's eye view for the evolutionary-genetic underpinning of epigenetic and developmental evolution

Studying the phenotypic evolution of organisms in terms of populations of genes and genotypes, the Modern Synthesis (MS) conceptualizes biological evolution in terms of 'inter-organismal' interactions among genes sitting in the different individual organisms that constitute a population. It 'black-boxes' the complex 'intra-organismic' molecular and developmental epigenetics mediating between genotypes and phenotypes. To conceptually integrate epigenetics and evo-devo into evolutionary theory, advocates of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) argue that the MS's reductive gene-centrism should be abandoned in favor of a more inclusive organism-centered approach. To push the debate to a new level of understanding, we introduce the evolutionary biology of 'intra-genomic conflict' (IGC) to the controversy. This strategy is based on a twofold rationale. First, the field of IGC is both ‘gene-centered’ and 'intra-organismic' and, as such, could build a bridge between the gene-centered MS and the intra-organismic fields of epigenetics and evo-devo. And second, it is increasingly revealed that IGC plays a significant causal role in epigenetic and developmental evolution and even in speciation. Hence, to deal with the ‘discrepancy’ between the ‘gene-centered’ MS and the ‘intra-organismic’ fields of epigenetics and evo-devo, we sketch a conceptual solution in terms of ‘intra-genomic conflict and compromise’ – an ‘intra-genomic gene’s eye view’ that thinks in terms of intra-genomic ‘evolutionarily stable strategies’ (ESSs) among numerous and various DNA regions and elements – to evolutionary-genetically underwrite both epigenetic and developmental evolution, as such questioning the ‘gene-de-centered’ stance put forward by EES-advocates