221,872 research outputs found
An Institutional Framework for Heterogeneous Formal Development in UML
We present a framework for formal software development with UML. In contrast
to previous approaches that equip UML with a formal semantics, we follow an
institution based heterogeneous approach. This can express suitable formal
semantics of the different UML diagram types directly, without the need to map
everything to one specific formalism (let it be first-order logic or graph
grammars). We show how different aspects of the formal development process can
be coherently formalised, ranging from requirements over design and Hoare-style
conditions on code to the implementation itself. The framework can be used to
verify consistency of different UML diagrams both horizontally (e.g.,
consistency among various requirements) as well as vertically (e.g.,
correctness of design or implementation w.r.t. the requirements)
Consumption of honey in Portugal: consumersâ attitudes, perceptions and trends
Consumersâ attitudes about reveal important information about
the production and supply chain of food and the commercialisation
process (Unnevehr et al., 2010). To fully understand a consumption
market, it is important to study the symbolic representations of
consumption habits (Bekker et al., 2017). The consumer perceives
consumption accordingly to social norms and values, and
consumption habits cannot be analyzed as individual phenomena.
Choices are under the influence of norms, values, taboos,
permissions, prohibitions, and beliefs (Andorfer & Liebe, 2013). The
consumersâ attitudes have been considered important
determinants of their behaviour. The Ajzenâs Planned Behaviour
Theory (APBT) (Ajzen, 1991) is based in the presumption that
people behave in a sensible way, consider the information
available, and consider the implications of their actions. The theory
postulates that a personâs interest to perform or not a certain
behaviour is a direct function of individually and socially related
variables. The individual component is based in the individual
attitude or mood to react favourably or unfavourably to an object,
individual, institution, or event (Kim and Hunter, 1993). The social
component includes the subjective norms determined by the
perception of the social pressures acting on the individual, to
perform or not a certain behaviour (Ajzen 1991N/
Money and mental contents
It can be hard to see where money fits in the world. Money seems both real and imaginary, since it has obvious causal powers, but is also, just as obviously, something humans have just made up. Recent philosophical accounts of money have declared it to be real, but for very different reasons. John Searle and Francesco Guala disagree over whether money is just whatever acts like money, or just whatever people believe to be money. In developing their accounts of institutions as a part of social reality, each uses money as a paradigm institution, but they disagree on how institutions exist. Searle argues that the institution of money belongs to an ontological level separate from the physical world, held up by the collective intentions of a group, while Guala claims that money is a part of the ordinary physical world and is just whatever performs a âmoney-like functionâ in a group, regardless of what that group believes about it. Here, we argue that any purely functional account like Gualaâs will be unable to capture the distinctive phenomenon of money, since monetary transactions are defined by the attitudes transactors hold toward them. Money will be obscured or misidentified if defined functionally. As we go on to show by examining recent work by Smit et al., belief in money does not require taking on all of Searleâs ontological commitments, but money and mental contents will stand or fall together
Positive law and the idea of freedom
The project was financed by National Science Centre Poland
(decision no. DEC-2012/05/B/HS5/01111); The following text was prepared as a part of a research grant financed
by the National Science Center (Poland), No. DEC-2012/05/B/HS5/01111
Hypermedia Learning Objects System - On the Way to a Semantic Educational Web
While eLearning systems become more and more popular in daily education,
available applications lack opportunities to structure, annotate and manage
their contents in a high-level fashion. General efforts to improve these
deficits are taken by initiatives to define rich meta data sets and a
semanticWeb layer. In the present paper we introduce Hylos, an online learning
system. Hylos is based on a cellular eLearning Object (ELO) information model
encapsulating meta data conforming to the LOM standard. Content management is
provisioned on this semantic meta data level and allows for variable,
dynamically adaptable access structures. Context aware multifunctional links
permit a systematic navigation depending on the learners and didactic needs,
thereby exploring the capabilities of the semantic web. Hylos is built upon the
more general Multimedia Information Repository (MIR) and the MIR adaptive
context linking environment (MIRaCLE), its linking extension. MIR is an open
system supporting the standards XML, Corba and JNDI. Hylos benefits from
manageable information structures, sophisticated access logic and high-level
authoring tools like the ELO editor responsible for the semi-manual creation of
meta data and WYSIWYG like content editing.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure
Who is my neighbour? Understanding indifference as a vice
Indifference is often described as a vice. Yet who is indifferent; to what; and in what way is poorly understood, and frequently subject to controversy and confusion. This paper proposes a framework for the interpretation and analysis of ethically problematic forms of indifference in terms of how different states of indifference can be either more or less dynamic, or more or less sensitive to the nature and state of their object
A Problem for Information Theoretic Semantics
Information theoretic semantics proposes to construe predicate reference in terms of nomological relations between distal properties and properties of representational mental events. Research on the model has largely concentrated on the problem of choosing the nomological relation in terms of which distal properties are to be singled out. I argue that, in addition to this, an information theoretic account has to provide a specification of which properties of representational mental events will play a role in determining reference,qua bearers of nomological relations. I contend that this task poses a serious additional challenge to the viability of the model.Articl
- âŠ