SGGS theorem proving: an exposition

We present in expository style the main ideas in SGGS, which stands for Semantically-Guided Goal-Sensitive theorem proving. SGGS uses sequences of constrained clauses to represent models, instance generation to go from a candidate model to the next, and resolution as well as other inferences to repair the model. SGGS is refutationally complete for first-order logic, model based, semantically guided, proof confluent, and goal sensitive, which appears to be a rare combination of features. In this paper we describe the core of SGGS in a narrative style, emphasizing ideas and trying to keep technicalities to a minimum, in order to advertise it to builders and users of theorem provers

A relevance restriction strategy for automated deduction

Identifying relevant clauses before attempting a proof may lead to more efficient automated theorem proving. Relevance is here defined relative to a given set of clause

Decoding Charlotte\u27s Prevalence. A Kristevian Approach to the Representation of Femininity in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe\u27s Die Wahlverwandtschaften

This dissertation examines Goethe’s portrayal of femininity in Die Wahlver-wandtschaften and how his depiction of all three central female characters relates to feminine ideals that were promoted through the theoretical gender debate of the late 1700s in Germany and Western Europe. I analyze Charlotte’s, Luciane’s, and Ottilie’s actions and interactions in various triadic character constellations in order to offer new insights into Goethe’s portrayal of femininity. In so doing, I argue that Goethe’s depiction of Charlotte holds the key to understanding how far Die Wahlverwandtschaften functions as (critical) commentary on the late Enlightenment gender discourse. I maintain that the actions and interactions of these three women show them as at times ‘unfit’ and/or unwilling to meet feminine ideals promoted in the late Enlightenment. I apply central concepts of Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytic theory from the 1970s and 1980s as analytical tools to examine how far Goethe’s Wahlverwandt-schaften can be viewed as a critique of the norms and expectations commonly expressed in the late Enlightenment. I primarily focus on Kristeva’s concepts of subjectivity formation, semiotic and symbolic modalities, abjection, and her theorizing of motherhood. Kristeva’s emphasis on the pivotal role of the maternal function in the child’s identity formation and her representation of femininity as alterity allow me to explore the significance of Charlotte’s prevalence among the characters and to approach Goethe’s ambiguous and complex portrayal of unsteady, constantly shifting, and interrelated models of femininity in Charlotte, Luciane, and Ottilie as a narrative experiment in which he tests the viability of such models within the surrounding social discourse. In the main body of this dissertation, I begin by concentrating on Charlotte’s partnerships with men, and then I focus on her maternal role in relation to Luciane, Ottilie, and Otto. By making Charlotte the ‘epicenter’ of this investigation, I explore how far Goethe shapes her, Luciane, and Ottilie as characters who transgress late Enlightenment gender boundaries and thus deviate from what were considered ‘feminine ideals’ in order to underscore the arbitrary and contradictory nature of the prevalent social order

Validité convergente entre l’Entrevue de l’attachement adulte et le Projectif de l’attachement adulte auprès de mères de familles d’accueil

Il est bien documenté que les représentations d’attachement des parents ont une influence sur différents aspects du développement de leurs enfants notamment le développement du lien d’attachement. Ceci est également observé chez les parents d’accueil et les enfants qu’ils hébergent, pourtant les représentations d’attachement de ces parents ne sont pas prises en compte lors de leur évaluation pour devenir famille d’accueil. Les représentations d’attachement des adultes peuvent être évaluées à l’aide de l’Entrevue de l’attachement adulte (AAI) et du Projectif de l’attachement adulte (AAP) qui utilisent les mêmes catégories d’attachement pour classifier les individus, mais à partir de systèmes de codification distincts. Plusieurs études ont étudié la validité convergente entre les catégories de ces deux outils, mais aucune ne l’a fait avec un échantillon de mères de familles d’accueil. Par ailleurs, des études ont démontré que les caractéristiques individuelles de l’attachement seraient mieux représentées de façon continue plutôt que catégorielle. Ainsi, il semble pertinent d’évaluer la convergence entre les dimensions du AAI et du AAP. Ce mémoire visait donc à évaluer la convergence entre les catégories et les échelles dimensionnelles de ces deux outils ainsi que leur association à l’Inventaire de dépression de Beck (BDI). L’échantillon est composé de 54 mères d’accueil québécoises d’un âge moyen de 39 ans. Les résultats révèlent une convergence acceptable lorsque les participantes sont divisées en catégories autonomes et non-autonomes alors que les résultats ne sont pas concluants pour les quatre catégories d’attachement et la division résolue et non-résolue. Certaines échelles dimensionnelles du AAI et du AAP ont été associées et une échelle du AAP a été corrélée significativement avec le score de dépression obtenu au BDI. En somme, les deux outils catégorisent les participantes selon des systèmes de classification semblables, mais des disparités sont observées particulièrement en ce qui concerne les états d’esprit insécures.Parents’ attachment state of mind is known to influence their child’s development in various domains as well as the attachment relationship. Indeed, the attachment type that children develop is significantly associated to their parent’s attachment state of mind, including among foster families. Adults’ attachment representations can be assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and the Adult Attachment Projective (AAP) that categorize adults in corresponding attachment categories with very different classification systems. Studies have examined convergent validity between the both measures among different populations, but none among foster mothers. Moreover, studies revealed significant convergence between attachment categories, but none has examined the convergence between dimensional scales of both measures. Some authors have proposed that differences according to attachment may be better explained continuously rather than with categories. Thus, this study aims to investigate the convergent validity between the overall classifications as well as dimensional scales of the AAI and the AAP and their association to the global score of depression obtained at Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI). The sample consists of 54 foster mothers (mean age: 39) from Quebec (Canada). Results show acceptable convergence when participants a separated in autonomous and non-autonomous categories but not for the four-way classification and the resolved and unresolved division. Some dimensional scales of the AAI and the AAP were significantly associated and one scale of the AAP was associated to the global score of depression as assessed by the BDI. In sum, the two measures categorized adults in similar manners, but some discrepancies are observed in the insecure states of mind

Pseudo-contractions as Gentle Repairs

Updating a knowledge base to remove an unwanted consequence is a challenging task. Some of the original sentences must be either deleted or weakened in such a way that the sentence to be removed is no longer entailed by the resulting set. On the other hand, it is desirable that the existing knowledge be preserved as much as possible, minimising the loss of information. Several approaches to this problem can be found in the literature. In particular, when the knowledge is represented by an ontology, two different families of frameworks have been developed in the literature in the past decades with numerous ideas in common but with little interaction between the communities: applications of AGM-like Belief Change and justification-based Ontology Repair. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between pseudo-contraction operations and gentle repairs. Both aim to avoid the complete deletion of sentences when replacing them with weaker versions is enough to prevent the entailment of the unwanted formula. We show the correspondence between concepts on both sides and investigate under which conditions they are equivalent. Furthermore, we propose a unified notation for the two approaches, which might contribute to the integration of the two areas

L’amusie congénitale chez l’adolescent : perspectives de réhabilitation

L’amusie congénitale est un trouble neurodéveloppemental qui affecte la perception mélodique, malgré une ouïe et une intelligence normale. Un déficit de la discrimination des fines variations de hauteur des sons serait à l’origine de ces difficultés. Les études ayant permis de caractériser les corrélats neuronaux de ce trouble ont mis en lumière des anomalies anatomiques et fonctionnelles du réseau fronto-temporal droit dans l’amusie. Notamment, les processus tardifs et conscients de détection des fines variations de hauteur sonore apparaissent perturbés chez les amusiques, alors que le traitement plus précoce et automatique de ces mêmes variations de hauteur serait normal. À ce jour, la vaste majorité des études sur l’amusie congénitale ont été effectuées auprès d’adultes et nous détenons peu d’informations sur la façon dont ce trouble se manifeste au cours du développement. La présente thèse vise ainsi à caractériser les corrélats comportementaux et neuronaux de l’amusie congénitale chez l’adolescent, pour ensuite explorer les perspectives de réhabilitation de ce trouble neurodéveloppemental. Dans une première étude, nous avons tenté de mieux comprendre comment le cerveau d’adolescents amusiques traite les fines variations de hauteur des sons, tant en ce qui a trait aux processus précoces et automatiques (associés à la composante de potentiel évoqué mismatch negativity; MMN) qu’au niveau du traitement conscient et plus tardif (associé à la composante de potentiel évoqué P300), en comparaison aux contrôles. Nous avons étudié les effets d’un mois d’écoute musicale quotidienne chez ces participants. Une deuxième étude a ensuite été effectuée, afin d’examiner l’impact de trois mois de leçons de guitare sur le traitement des fines variations de hauteur sonore chez des adolescents ii amusiques et leurs témoins. Nous nous sommes intéressés aux effets de cette formation musicale sur diverses composantes des potentiels évoqués, dont la P300 et la MMN. Les résultats de cette thèse révèlent que l’amusie peut se manifester à part entière à l’adolescence. Plus précisément, les adolescents amusiques présentent un profil hautement similaire à celui documenté chez l’adulte, soit une incapacité à détecter consciemment les fines variations de hauteur des sons, associée à l’absence de la composante P300, en dépit d’un traitement précoce et automatique normal tel que reflété par une MMN comparable aux contrôles. En outre, il appert qu’un mois d’écoute musicale quotidienne ne constitue pas une technique de réhabilitation efficace dans l’amusie, dont les manifestations sont demeurées inchangées suite à cette intervention. Par ailleurs, nos résultats révèlent qu’il est possible pour de jeunes amusiques d’apprendre à jouer d’un instrument de musique et que cette formation musicale a le potentiel d’engendrer des phénomènes de plasticité cérébrale prometteurs chez certains d’entre eux. Plus précisément, nous observons l’émergence de la composante P300 associée à une amélioration des capacités de discrimination des fines variations de hauteur chez trois amusiques sur quatre suite à cette intervention. Ces résultats enrichissent notre compréhension de l’amusie et de sa trajectoire développementale, en plus de motiver de futurs travaux de recherche qui pourraient mener au développement d’interventions optimales dans une perspective de réhabilitation de ce trouble neurodéveloppemental.Congenital amusia is a neurodevelopmental disorder that specifically impairs melodic perception despite normal hearing and intelligence. The disorder is thought to arise from a deficit in perceiving fine-grained pitch changes. Studies that aimed to characterize the neural correlates of congenital amusia have highlighted anatomical and functional anomalies along the right fronto-temporal pathways. Notably, the amusic brain has been shown to perceive fine-grained pitch distinctions at an early and automatic level of processing, but this does not reach higher levels of conscious processing. To date, the majority of research on amusia has been performed with adults and consequently little information has been acquired on how this disorder manifests itself during development. The goal of this thesis is therefore to characterize the behavioral and neural correlates of congenital amusia during adolescence, and then to explore different rehabilitation strategies in an attempt to attenuate the perceptual deficits. In a first study, we documented how amusic adolescents process fine-grained pitch changes using event-related potentials, both in terms of early and automatic processing (as indexed by the mismatch negativity component; MMN) and conscious processing (associated with the P300 component) compared to controls. We also explored the effects of a month of daily music listening among these participants. A second study was then conducted to explore the impact of three months of weekly guitar lessons on fine-grained pitch processing in amusic adolescents and controls. In particular, we investigated the effects of musical training on various evoked-potential components, including the P300 and the MMN. The results show that amusia can be fully expressed in the developing brain with manifestations that are similar to those observed in adults. Specifically, the amusic adolescent brain does not elicit a normal positivity (P300) in response to small pitch changes, while early and automatic processing of these pitch deviations appears normal (as indexed by the MMN). In addition, it appears that a month of daily music listening is not an effective amusia remediation strategy, since all electrophysiological and behavioral manifestations were unchanged following this intervention. Furthermore, we show that it is possible for amusic adolescents to learn to play a musical instrument despite their perceptual deficit and this intervention as the potential to induce promising brain plasticity phenomena for some of them. Specifically, a P300 response elicited by fine-grained pitch changes was seen after three months of guitar lessons in three out of four amusic adolescents. Importantly, the emergence of the P300 was paralleled by an improved perceptual ability to detect fine-grained pitch changes. These findings add to our understanding of congenital amusia and its developmental trajectory, while motivating future research that could lead to the development of optimal interventions to help young people with amusia engage with music