27,241 research outputs found
An interactive semantics of logic programming
We apply to logic programming some recently emerging ideas from the field of
reduction-based communicating systems, with the aim of giving evidence of the
hidden interactions and the coordination mechanisms that rule the operational
machinery of such a programming paradigm. The semantic framework we have chosen
for presenting our results is tile logic, which has the advantage of allowing a
uniform treatment of goals and observations and of applying abstract
categorical tools for proving the results. As main contributions, we mention
the finitary presentation of abstract unification, and a concurrent and
coordinated abstract semantics consistent with the most common semantics of
logic programming. Moreover, the compositionality of the tile semantics is
guaranteed by standard results, as it reduces to check that the tile systems
associated to logic programs enjoy the tile decomposition property. An
extension of the approach for handling constraint systems is also discussed.Comment: 42 pages, 24 figure, 3 tables, to appear in the CUP journal of Theory
and Practice of Logic Programmin
Collision Helps - Algebraic Collision Recovery for Wireless Erasure Networks
Current medium access control mechanisms are based on collision avoidance and
collided packets are discarded. The recent work on ZigZag decoding departs from
this approach by recovering the original packets from multiple collisions. In
this paper, we present an algebraic representation of collisions which allows
us to view each collision as a linear combination of the original packets. The
transmitted, colliding packets may themselves be a coded version of the
original packets.
We propose a new acknowledgment (ACK) mechanism for collisions based on the
idea that if a set of packets collide, the receiver can afford to ACK exactly
one of them and still decode all the packets eventually. We analytically
compare delay and throughput performance of such collision recovery schemes
with other collision avoidance approaches in the context of a single hop
wireless erasure network. In the multiple receiver case, the broadcast
constraint calls for combining collision recovery methods with network coding
across packets at the sender. From the delay perspective, our scheme, without
any coordination, outperforms not only a ALOHA-type random access mechanisms,
but also centralized scheduling. For the case of streaming arrivals, we propose
a priority-based ACK mechanism and show that its stability region coincides
with the cut-set bound of the packet erasure network
A Process Algebra Software Engineering Environment
In previous work we described how the process algebra based language PSF can
be used in software engineering, using the ToolBus, a coordination architecture
also based on process algebra, as implementation model. In this article we
summarize that work and describe the software development process more formally
by presenting the tools we use in this process in a CASE setting, leading to
the PSF-ToolBus software engineering environment. We generalize the refine step
in this environment towards a process algebra based software engineering
workbench of which several instances can be combined to form an environment
On the Development of Early Algebraic Thinking
This article deals with the question of the development of algebraic thinking in young students. In contrast to mental approaches to cognition, we argue that thinking is made up of material and ideational components such as (inner and outer) speech, forms of sensuous imagination, gestures, tactility, and actual actions with signs and cultural artifacts. Drawing on data from a longitudinal classroom-based research program where 8-year old students were followed as they moved from Grade 2 to Grade 3 to Grade 4, our developmental research question is investigated in terms of the manner in which new relationships between embodiment, perception, and symbol-use emerge and evolve as students engage in patterning activities
Conceptually driven and visually rich tasks in texts and teaching practice: the case of infinite series
The study we report here examines parts of what Chevallard calls the institutional dimension of the students’ learning experience of a relatively under-researched, yet crucial, concept in Analysis, the concept of infinite series. In particular, we examine how the concept is introduced to students in texts and in teaching practice. To this purpose, we employ Duval's Theory of Registers of Semiotic Representation towards the analysis of 22 texts used in Canada and UK post-compulsory courses. We also draw on interviews with in-service teachers and university lecturers in order to discuss briefly teaching practice and some of their teaching suggestions. Our analysis of the texts highlights that the presentation of the concept is largely a-historical, with few graphical representations, few opportunities to work across different registers (algebraic, graphical, verbal), few applications or intra-mathematical references to the concept's significance and few conceptually driven tasks that go beyond practising with the application of convergence tests and prepare students for the complex topics in which the concept of series is implicated. Our preliminary analysis of the teacher interviews suggests that pedagogical practice often reflects the tendencies in the texts. Furthermore, the interviews with the university lecturers point at the pedagogical potential of: illustrative examples and evocative visual representations in teaching; and, student engagement with systematic guesswork and writing explanatory accounts of their choices and applications of convergence tests
The Information-Flow Approach to Ontology-Based Semantic Integration
In this article we argue for the lack of formal foundations for ontology-based semantic alignment. We analyse and formalise the basic notions of semantic matching and alignment and we situate them in the context of ontology-based alignment in open-ended and distributed environments, like the Web. We then use the mathematical notion of information flow in a distributed system to ground three hypotheses that enable semantic alignment. We draw our exemplar applications of this work from a variety of interoperability scenarios including ontology mapping, theory of semantic interoperability, progressive ontology alignment, and situated semantic alignment
Bounds for the time to failure of hierarchical systems of fracture
For years limited Monte Carlo simulations have led to the suspicion that the
time to failure of hierarchically organized load-transfer models of fracture is
non-zero for sets of infinite size. This fact could have a profound
significance in engineering practice and also in geophysics. Here, we develop
an exact algebraic iterative method to compute the successive time intervals
for individual breaking in systems of height in terms of the information
calculated in the previous height . As a byproduct of this method,
rigorous lower and higher bounds for the time to failure of very large systems
are easily obtained. The asymptotic behavior of the resulting lower bound leads
to the evidence that the above mentioned suspicion is actually true.Comment: Final version. To appear in Phys. Rev. E, Feb 199
- …