18,367 research outputs found
Semantic Component Composition
Building complex software systems necessitates the use of component-based
architectures. In theory, of the set of components needed for a design, only
some small portion of them are "custom"; the rest are reused or refactored
existing pieces of software. Unfortunately, this is an idealized situation.
Just because two components should work together does not mean that they will
work together.
The "glue" that holds components together is not just technology. The
contracts that bind complex systems together implicitly define more than their
explicit type. These "conceptual contracts" describe essential aspects of
extra-system semantics: e.g., object models, type systems, data representation,
interface action semantics, legal and contractual obligations, and more.
Designers and developers spend inordinate amounts of time technologically
duct-taping systems to fulfill these conceptual contracts because system-wide
semantics have not been rigorously characterized or codified. This paper
describes a formal characterization of the problem and discusses an initial
implementation of the resulting theoretical system.Comment: 9 pages, submitted to GCSE/SAIG '0
Towards unsupervised ontology learning from data
Data-driven elicitation of ontologies from structured data is a well-recognized knowledge acquisition bottleneck. The development of efficient techniques for (semi-)automating this task is therefore practically vital - yet, hindered by the lack of robust theoretical foundations. In this paper, we study the problem of learning Description Logic TBoxes from interpretations, which naturally translates to the task of ontology learning from data.In the presented framework, the learner is provided with a set of positive interpretations (i.e., logical models) of the TBox adopted by the teacher. The goal is to correctly identify the TBox given this input. We characterize the key constraints on the models that warrant finite learnability of TBoxes expressed in selected fragments of the Description Logic ε λ and define corresponding learning algorithms.This work was funded in part by the National Research Foundation under Grant no. 85482
Designing constraints: composing and performing with digital musical systems
This paper investigates two central terms in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) – affordances and constraints – and studies their relevance to the design and understanding of digital musical systems. It argues that in the analysis of complex systems, such as new interfaces for musical expression (NIME), constraints are a more productive analytical tool than the common HCI usage of affordances. Constraints are seen as limitations enabling the musician to encapsulate a specific search space of both physical and compositional gestures, proscribing complexity in favor of a relatively simple set of rules that engender creativity. By exploring the design of three different digital musical systems, the paper defines constraints as a core attribute of mapping, whether in instruments or compositional systems. The paper describes the aspiration for designing constraints as twofold: to save time, as musical performance is typically a real-time process, and to minimize the performer’s cognitive load. Finally, it discusses skill and virtuosity in the realm of new musical interfaces for musical expression with regard to constraints
Theorem proving support in programming language semantics
We describe several views of the semantics of a simple programming language
as formal documents in the calculus of inductive constructions that can be
verified by the Coq proof system. Covered aspects are natural semantics,
denotational semantics, axiomatic semantics, and abstract interpretation.
Descriptions as recursive functions are also provided whenever suitable, thus
yielding a a verification condition generator and a static analyser that can be
run inside the theorem prover for use in reflective proofs. Extraction of an
interpreter from the denotational semantics is also described. All different
aspects are formally proved sound with respect to the natural semantics
specification.Comment: Propos\'e pour publication dans l'ouvrage \`a la m\'emoire de Gilles
Kah
Research questions and approaches for computational thinking curricula design
Teaching computational thinking (CT) is argued to be necessary but also admitted to be a very challenging task. The reasons for this, are: i) no general agreement on what computational thinking is; ii) no clear idea nor evidential support on how to teach CT in an effective way. Hence, there is a need to develop a common approach and a shared understanding of the scope of computational thinking and of effective means of teaching CT. Thus, the consequent ambition is to utilize the preliminary and further research outcomes on CT for the education of the prospective teachers of secondary, further and higher/adult education curricula
Towards Intelligent Databases
This article is a presentation of the objectives and techniques
of deductive databases. The deductive approach to databases aims at extending
with intensional definitions other database paradigms that describe
applications extensionaUy. We first show how constructive specifications can
be expressed with deduction rules, and how normative conditions can be defined
using integrity constraints. We outline the principles of bottom-up and
top-down query answering procedures and present the techniques used for
integrity checking. We then argue that it is often desirable to manage with
a database system not only database applications, but also specifications of
system components. We present such meta-level specifications and discuss
their advantages over conventional approaches
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