QRAT+: Generalizing QRAT by a More Powerful QBF Redundancy Property

The QRAT (quantified resolution asymmetric tautology) proof system simulates virtually all inference rules applied in state of the art quantified Boolean formula (QBF) reasoning tools. It consists of rules to rewrite a QBF by adding and deleting clauses and universal literals that have a certain redundancy property. To check for this redundancy property in QRAT, propositional unit propagation (UP) is applied to the quantifier free, i.e., propositional part of the QBF. We generalize the redundancy property in the QRAT system by QBF specific UP (QUP). QUP extends UP by the universal reduction operation to eliminate universal literals from clauses. We apply QUP to an abstraction of the QBF where certain universal quantifiers are converted into existential ones. This way, we obtain a generalization of QRAT we call QRAT+. The redundancy property in QRAT+ based on QUP is more powerful than the one in QRAT based on UP. We report on proof theoretical improvements and experimental results to illustrate the benefits of QRAT+ for QBF preprocessing.Comment: preprint of a paper to be published at IJCAR 2018, LNCS, Springer, including appendi

Cognitive Semiotics and On-Line Reading of Religious Texts

In this essay a hermeneutic model of the higher level understanding during on-line ritual reading by devotees of their respective sacred literatures is proposed, using the instruments provided by cognitive sciences. The way a devotee reads a sacred text differs from the way he or she would read a common piece of literature or how a lay person might read the same sacred text. After providing an overview of metaphor, anthropomorphism, and the “religious brain”, it is suggested how devotee-readers might make sense of a religious text and why it should be so important for their own personal everyday life. Universals are implicated in this genre of literature and the way it is interpreted

Sharing Traditional and Contemporary Literature with Deaf Children

published or submitted for publicatio

Enc0d1ng poetry

So-called “poetry in code” mounts a doubled claim to electronic-ness and literariness, and can be dubbed “literary” precisely due to its coded nature. It would seem, then, that code requires at least as much critical consideration as the linguistic and rhetorical devices normally employed in print literature. Insofar as a legitimate codework employs code at the scripting level as a language-generator and –animator, and at the surface level as either executable or non-executable programming, to what extent can E. E. Cummings’s I Will Be (1925) be considered a poem in code? What can be inferred from a comparison between this would-be proto-codework and a canonical digital poem such as Brian Kim Stefans’s The Dreamlife of Letters (2000)? What is it that makes Cummings’ poem a potentially more remarkable codework than Stefans’s? Is it the precociousness of his coded address, or is it the fact that he anticipates the links which N. Katherine Hayles makes between code and liminal somatic states in her essay 'Traumas of Code' (2006)?peer-reviewe

Cyclic phonology–syntax-interaction : movement to first position in German

This paper investigates the nature of the attraction of XPs to clauseinitial position in German (and other languages). It argues that there are two different types of preposing. First, an XP can move when it is attracted by an EPP-like feature of Comp. Comp can, however, also attract elements that bear the formal marker of some semantic or pragmatic (information theoretic) function. This second type of movement is driven by the attraction of a formal property of the moved element. It has often been misanalysed as “operator” movement in the past

Access, March 2011

https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/accessmagazine/1001/thumbnail.jp

Complexity of evolutionary equilibria in static fitness landscapes

A fitness landscape is a genetic space -- with two genotypes adjacent if they differ in a single locus -- and a fitness function. Evolutionary dynamics produce a flow on this landscape from lower fitness to higher; reaching equilibrium only if a local fitness peak is found. I use computational complexity to question the common assumption that evolution on static fitness landscapes can quickly reach a local fitness peak. I do this by showing that the popular NK model of rugged fitness landscapes is PLS-complete for K >= 2; the reduction from Weighted 2SAT is a bijection on adaptive walks, so there are NK fitness landscapes where every adaptive path from some vertices is of exponential length. Alternatively -- under the standard complexity theoretic assumption that there are problems in PLS not solvable in polynomial time -- this means that there are no evolutionary dynamics (known, or to be discovered, and not necessarily following adaptive paths) that can converge to a local fitness peak on all NK landscapes with K = 2. Applying results from the analysis of simplex algorithms, I show that there exist single-peaked landscapes with no reciprocal sign epistasis where the expected length of an adaptive path following strong selection weak mutation dynamics is $e^{O(n^{1/3})}$ even though an adaptive path to the optimum of length less than n is available from every vertex. The technical results are written to be accessible to mathematical biologists without a computer science background, and the biological literature is summarized for the convenience of non-biologists with the aim to open a constructive dialogue between the two disciplines.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

Islamic Influence on Spain: Discussion of Women’s Rights and Islamic Influence

Current sentiment in the West surrounding Islam stems from a variety of factors: terror attacks, lack of understanding the Islamic faith and cultures that practice the religion, and stereotypical depictions in the media of Muslims as terrorist or as oppressed women. Arab societies oppress women via laws, such as the law that prevents women from driving or the law that prevents women from being outside of the house without being accompanied by a man, both in Saudi Arabia. These depictions, especially of Saudi Arabian practices or similar practices from other nations, are generally available to the West, via media, web, literature or radio, rather than of the societies that have had women as Prime Ministers and leading forces in the government, in Indonesia and many others. Islam itself is not oppressive to women, but rather particular practices of Islam are. Spanish history of the Muslims in Spain provides evidence on the how laws were practiced versus what was written down. This continued divide was evident in both Christian and Muslim laws, which allows for the understanding of women’s status within the religion differs than that of which was practiced judiciously in Spain. Spain is a case study for how a Western nation has become more accepting in the presence of Islamic influence that has persisted throughout the centuries. Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism provides support to explain why Islamic culture has been vilified in the West. While Said provides an explanation to the vilification, Fazal Rahim writes of ways to combat the media system that marginalizes Muslims. Rahim writes of a normalized vision of Muslims for the Western media to circulate rather than the banal version of Muslims as terrorists or oppressed. Rahim’s work provides evidence for the needed change that must occur in media outlets of all kinds to see an acceptance of Muslims rather than treating them as the “other.” The lasting effects of Islamic rule and culture on Spanish society, specifically the linguistic influence, as created a society of acceptance rather than denial. Ralph Penny explains the mix of the Arabic and Spanish was a byproduct of the need to communicate with one another, thus creating words that are still used today enforcing the idea of syncretism rather than divide. I conclude with advocating for practical initiatives within communities that can further alleviate tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims, specifically looking at the Butler University’s initiative “Ask A Muslim.

Retrocausal Quantum Mechanics: Maudlin's Challenge Revisited

In 1994, Maudlin proposed an objection to retrocausal approaches to quantum mechanics in general, and to the transactional interpretation (TI) in particular, involving an absorber that changes location depending on the trajectory of the particle. Maudlin considered this objection fatal. However, the TI did not die; rather, a number of responses were developed, some attempting to accommodate Maudlin's example within the existing TI, and others modifying the TI. I argue that none of these responses is fully adequate. The reason, I submit, is that there are two aspects to Maudlin's objection; the more readily soluble aspect has received all the attention, but the more problematic aspect has gone unnoticed. I consider the prospects for developing a successful retrocausal quantum theory in light of this second aspect of the objection