A Swiss Pocket Knife for Computability

This research is about operational- and complexity-oriented aspects of classical foundations of computability theory. The approach is to re-examine some classical theorems and constructions, but with new criteria for success that are natural from a programming language perspective. Three cornerstones of computability theory are the S-m-ntheorem; Turing's "universal machine"; and Kleene's second recursion theorem. In today's programming language parlance these are respectively partial evaluation, self-interpretation, and reflection. In retrospect it is fascinating that Kleene's 1938 proof is constructive; and in essence builds a self-reproducing program. Computability theory originated in the 1930s, long before the invention of computers and programs. Its emphasis was on delimiting the boundaries of computability. Some milestones include 1936 (Turing), 1938 (Kleene), 1967 (isomorphism of programming languages), 1985 (partial evaluation), 1989 (theory implementation), 1993 (efficient self-interpretation) and 2006 (term register machines). The "Swiss pocket knife" of the title is a programming language that allows efficient computer implementation of all three computability cornerstones, emphasising the third: Kleene's second recursion theorem. We describe experiments with a tree-based computational model aiming for both fast program generation and fast execution of the generated programs.Comment: In Proceedings Festschrift for Dave Schmidt, arXiv:1309.455

MASTER\u27S PROJECT: FRIENDS OF THE SOUL: A STUDY IN INTENTIONAL OPENING AND MUSIC

This capstone reflects the beginning of a livelong practice of intentional vulnerability and opening to spirit and connection. I built on learnings from my instructors at the University of Vermont (UVM) about relationship protocols, including listening, vulnerability, and honest introductions. I began with a question about how my leadership practices might shift away from unacknowledged privilege in relationships and emotional disengagement to embodied connection, openness to teachers and friends, and creative presence. The methods I used were creative harp music making, sharing harp music with others, mindfulness through harp, emotional awareness training with harp, and harp repair as a practice of exquisite attention and care for non-humans. I began a Vermont Harp Center and have been present to the community who have been drawn to that center. I have tried to listen to their needs and ideas and to hold the space of that community to look any way and to learn from my observation of the growth and movement of that community. I took harp lessons from a master harpist, I gave private lessons and group lessons for the first time in my life, I organized several harp community events, and I did harp repair work. I’ve also had many conversations with harpists and my broader community about presence, music, emotional connection, creative process, and love. I asked for feedback in those conversations, especially in those where I would previously have held an unspoken amount of power (such as when I am a professional helper or music teacher). I practiced noticing shifts in my emotional state and I recorded those shifts. I engaged with feelings of joy or upset with creativity and I practiced using harp playing to increase emotional regulation and awareness. I have been totally amazed, overwhelmed, and humbled by this capstone. It has transformed my understanding of my role as a leader from envisioning power and expertise to envisioning presence and patience. It has transformed my vision of myself as a helper and teacher into a vision where teachers and helpers are available to me everywhere, in every relationship to which I open myself

Subjugated Knowledges and Dedisciplinarity in Cultural Studies Pedagogy

Discussions of the contested politics of academic fields that have emerged from social movements often emphasize course content while deemphasizing the ways that power circulates through specific sites in the academy. Certainly women\u27s studies, queer studies, and the different ethnic studies fields have struggled to maintain links to the social movements that engendered them. and a concomitant focus on social change. In a more complex fashion, the same is true of postcolonial studies. Similarly, cultural studies may be understood as an academic field emerging from class-based social movements that are affiliated in complex ways with various Marxist analyses whose academic lineage is longer and differently constituted. Within and among these different fields, ongoing debates continue over their ability to remain oriented toward social justice in the face of pressures from the academy to align with knowledge protocols and modes of claiming legitimacy that are measured in terms distant from those of progressive social change

N-linked glycans characterization and biomarker discovery by sequential mass spectrometry

N-linked glycans from a well-studied glycoprotein, (hen albumin) were characterized using ion trap MS (MSn) without chromatographic separation. From the spectral profile, ten major ion compositions were selected for study, which resulted in the characterization of 37 isomeric structures, 16 of which were previously unreported. These findings were compared with previously reported studies using different analytical strategies: IMMS, MS/MS. MSn not only identifies but also structurally characterizes components in the absence of any adjunct instrumentation. Selected examples have been detailed. A major challenge for adult stem cell (ASC) research is the lack of specific biomarkers for their identification and isolation. In this study, carbohydrates were evaluated as candidate biomarkers that mimic the defining property of ASCs, asymmetric self-renewal. Composition differences, ASC-specific structures and the distribution of structural branching patterns were discovered as ASC-specific biomarkers using ion trap MSn

Science Fiction, Satire and Postmodern Nostalgia: Arctic Monkeys’ Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

Traballo Fin de Grao en Lingua e Literatura Inglesas. Curso 2021-2022This dissertation will analyse an album titled ‘Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino’, released in 2018 by the British band Arctic Monkeys as a postmodernism cultural manifestation. The lyrics, imagery, topics and making of this LP exhibit some features normally identified as postmodernist. The album is a satire of contemporary society, and that was generically articulated as a work of science fiction. It has been labelled as concept album whose action is located in a hotel with a casino on the moon. In order to carry out a postmodernist reading of the work, I will have recourse to theoretician of postmodernism such a Zygmunt Bauman and Fredric Jameson, among others. Common postmodernist topics such as the fluidity of the truth, globalization, technological advances, the power of media, the blurring lines between the private and the public, or the real and the fake, are to be found in this record. Alex Turner, the band’s singer and songwriter, composed Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino while he was living in California, with the more or less implicit intention of criticizing contemporary society at the times Donald Trump was elected for Office. He criticizes the fact that people’s lives, along with politics, seemed to have become, in a way, similar to a show. Reality seems distorted and individuals tend to isolate themselves. In Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino, we come across with recognizable postmodernist concepts, such as hyperreality (J. Baudrillard), mcdonaldization (G. Ritzer) and ‘non-place’ (Marc Augé). One of the most recurrent themes of this record is nostalgia, which is another postmodernist concern. Linked to temporality, the album revisits the past with nostalgic tone and presents the present in a way that looks more like a dystopian future. It contains many literary and cinematographic references (such as 1984, by G. Orwell), which also makes it interesting from the point of view of intertextualit

Inheritance and Appropriation: Confronting Privilege in Magical Young Adult Fiction

This thesis investigates the way that magical ability and the lack thereof has been racialized through the deployment of blood-based models of inheritance in young adult fantasy literature. Because of the connection between blood and biology, texts that only allow magical transmission from parent to child place significant limits on who can access witchery, creating systems of privilege that enforce racial and classed hierarchies. I will use magical novels written by Laurie Forest, Graci Kim, Nnedi Okorafor, Amy Rose Capetta, and Daniel José Older to illustrate the hierarchies created by blood-based models, as well as to demonstrate the possibilities that exist when authors utilize open community and mentorship models of magical transfer instead. I will then explain the risks of open systems of magical inheritance, primarily cultural appropriation, that exist in both fantastical texts and in the contemporary magickal community. By utilizing an intersectional feminist approach, this thesis will draw connections between racism, classism, and sexism, and modes of magical transfer that both reinforce and resist these power structures in young adult magical texts (YAMs)

Cooperation, risk, trust

Within the general approach known as translator ethics, complementary roles are played by the concepts of cooperation, risk, and trust. Cooperation, as a technical term, describes the attainment of mutual benefits as the desired outcome of an interaction, indeed as the foundation of social life. In translator ethics, the aim is more specifically to enhance long-term cooperation between cultures. The concept of risk is then used to think about the probabilities of that general aim not being obtained and what kinds of strategies and efforts can be employed to avert that outcome by increasing mutual benefits. Trust, finally, characterizes the relationship that translators must have with those around them in order for them to contribute to cooperation, such that the most critical risk they face is that of losing credibility. Together, these concepts are able to address some of the thornier issues in translator ethics and provide a frame for ongoing discussion and research