A Foundational View on Integration Problems

The integration of reasoning and computation services across system and language boundaries is a challenging problem of computer science. In this paper, we use integration for the scenario where we have two systems that we integrate by moving problems and solutions between them. While this scenario is often approached from an engineering perspective, we take a foundational view. Based on the generic declarative language MMT, we develop a theoretical framework for system integration using theories and partial theory morphisms. Because MMT permits representations of the meta-logical foundations themselves, this includes integration across logics. We discuss safe and unsafe integration schemes and devise a general form of safe integration

Two Decades of Maude

This paper is a tribute to José Meseguer, from the rest of us in the Maude team, reviewing the past, the present, and the future of the language and system with which we have been working for around two decades under his leadership. After reviewing the origins and the language's main features, we present the latest additions to the language and some features currently under development. This paper is not an introduction to Maude, and some familiarity with it and with rewriting logic are indeed assumed.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Encoding hybridised institutions into first order logic

"First published online: 12 November 2014"A ‘hybridization’ of a logic, referred to as the base logic, consists of developing the characteristic features of hybrid logic on top of the respective base logic, both at the level of syntax (i.e. modalities, nominals, etc.) and of the semantics (i.e. possible worlds). By ‘hybridized institutions’ we mean the result of this process when logics are treated abstractly as institutions (in the sense of the institution theory of Goguen and Burstall). This work develops encodings of hybridized institutions into (many-sorted) first order logic (abbreviated FOL) as a ‘hybridization’ process of abstract encodings of institutions into FOL, which may be seen as an abstraction of the well known standard translation of modal logic into first order logic. The concept of encoding employed by our work is that of comorphism from institution theory, which is a rather comprehensive concept of encoding as it features encodings both of the syntax and of the semantics of logics/institutions. Moreover we consider the so-called theoroidal version of comorphisms that encode signatures to theories, a feature that accommodates a wide range of concrete applications. Our theory is also general enough to accomodate various constraints on the possible worlds semantics as well a wide variety of quantifications. We also provide pragmatic sufficient conditions for the conservativity of the encodings to be preserved through the hybridization process, which provides the possibility to shift a formal verification process from the hybridized institution to FOL.We thank both Till Mossakowski and Andrzej Tarlecki for the technical suggestion of using the predicates D. The work of the first author has been supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNCS-UEFISCDI, project number PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0439. The work of the second author was funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the COMPETE Programme, and by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology through the projects FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028923 and NORTE-01-0124-FEDER-000060

Epistemological Challenges of Conflicting Worldviews (Christianity& Lugbara) Among the Lugbara People of Uganda

The task of every philosopher and, or theologian today in Africa, is how Christianity should be at home among the people it encounters. This paper tries to explore the patterns that exist in the encounter between Christianity and the Lugbara people of Northern Uganda. Rather than producing an integrated Lugbara Christian, at the intersect between the Christian and the Lugbara worldviews, the author discovers that it produced a disassociated Lugbara Christian. The flow of meaning and language remain challenging for the Lugbara Christian. An appreciation of the positive dimensions from the worldviews, which facilitate better understanding of the new identity, calls for an “inside-towards-out” approach to knowing. The “copy and paste” approach is counterproductive and distorts meaning. There must be a real mature conversation between the Christian witnesses of faith and the existential Lugbara culture for Christianity to make a home among the Lugbara. Keywords: Worldview, Lugbara, Christianity, missioning, evangelizatio

Multipolarity in plural: resignification(s), language games, and Russia's multiple identities

"In his working paper, the author addresses the situation of linguistic uncertainty that gives obvious political effects. He approaches the concept of multipolarity, which has been well-known for decades, and demonstrates that it has multiple meanings in Russia. He challenges the almost iconic uniformity of the idea of multipolarity, showing that it hides many alternative discourses, both academic and political. As a 'Russian doll', the unpacked multipolarity breaks down into a number of fragments, which constitute a certain menu of Russia's foreign policy choices. The author invites to think more creatively about Russian foreign policy narratives by asking such questions as: how 'real' is multipolarity in the eyes of Russian experts? Is there a gap between its academic understanding and political meaning? Shall Russia and EU find a common language in their worldviews, or are discursive disconnections between them to prevail?" (author's abstract

The visual dimension in organizing, organization, and organization research: Core ideas, current developments, and promising avenues

With the unprecedented rise in the use of visuals, and its undeniable omnipresence in organizational contexts, as well as in the individual's everyday life, organization and management science has recently started to pay closer attention to the to date under-theorized "visual mode" of discourse and meaning construction. Building primarily on insights from the phenomenological tradition in organization theory and from social semiotics, this article sets out to consolidate previous scholarly efforts and to sketch a fertile future research agenda. After briefly exploring the workings of visuals, we introduce the methodological and theoretical "roots" of visual studies in a number of disciplines that have a long-standing tradition of incorporating the visual. We then continue by extensively reviewing work in the field of organization and management studies: More specifically, we present five distinct approaches to feature visuals in research designs and to include the visual dimension in scholarly inquiry. Subsequently, we outline, in some detail, promising avenues for future research, and close with a reflection on the impact of visualization on scientific practice itself. (authors' abstract

When Institutional Logics Meet Information and Communication Technologies: Examining Hybrid Information Practices in Ghana’s Agriculture

In this paper, we describe how changes in the availability of information artifacts—in particular, information and communication technologies (ICTs)—among smallholder farmers in Ghana, led to a process of hybridization of information practices, and how this process could be linked to underlying institutional change. We use the notions of institutional carriers and activity systems to study the evolution of the prevailing “smallholder” institutional logic of Ghanaian agriculture toward an incoming “value-chain” institutional logic concerned with linking farmers to output markets, improving the knowledge base in agriculture, and increasing its information intensity. We draw on a mixed-methods approach, including in-depth qualitative interviews, focus groups, observations, and detailed secondary quantitative data. We cultivate activity theory as a practice-based lens for structuring inquiry into institutional change. We find that information artifacts served to link the activities of farmers that were embedded in the smallholder logic with those of agricultural-development actors that promoted the value-chain logic. Hybridization occurred through the use of artifacts with different interaction modalities. In terms of conceptualizing change, our findings suggest that hybridization of the two logics may be an intermediary point in the long transition from the smallholder toward the value-chain logic