Reason Maintenance - State of the Art

This paper describes state of the art in reason maintenance with a focus on its future usage in the KiWi project. To give a bigger picture of the field, it also mentions closely related issues such as non-monotonic logic and paraconsistency. The paper is organized as follows: first, two motivating scenarios referring to semantic wikis are presented which are then used to introduce the different reason maintenance techniques

Semantic interpolation

We treat interpolation for various logics

Conflict resolution when axioms are materialized in semantic-based smart environments.

International audienceIn SemanticWeb applications, reasoning engines that are data intensive commonly materialise inferences to speed up processing at query time. However, in evolving systems, such as smart environments, semantic-based context aware systems (SCAS) [6] or social software with user-generated data, knowledge does not grow monotonically: newer facts may contradict older ones, knowledge may be deprecated, discarded or updated such that knowledge must sometimes be retracted. We are describing a technique to retract explicit and inferred statements, when some information becomes obsolete, as well as retracting any statement that would lead to get back the removed explicit statements. This technique is based on OWL justifications and is triggered whenever a knowledge base becomes inconsistent, such that the system stays in a consistent state all the time, in spite of uncontrolled evolution.We prove termination and correctness of the algorithm, and describe the implementation and evaluation of the proposal

Practice of Design Science Research in a Developing Country: Circumscription Knowledge Informed by the Socio-cultural Context

Team or group work has become the quasi-standard in teaching when it comes to alternatives for the traditional lecture. Since team work also causes problems like social loafing or dissatisfaction, we study the potential improvement of team work in a small IS course through the usage of personality traits. Personality traits that describe humans in stereotypes and allow to understand behavior, have been studied in different areas of IS and other disciplines. The usage of characteristics to optimize teams have not yet been considered. We present the first application of personality traits in a small seminar at a German university. Teams with specific personality characteristics (neuroticism and conscientiousness) performed better than the control group. We further observed differences in terms of shared mental models in relation to the personality traits

Resolution of paraphyly in caesalpinioid legumes

The exceptionally large, diverse, and economically important plant family Leguminosae has traditionally comprised three subfamilies, the Caesalpinioideae, Mimosoideae and Papilionoideae. Following a large-scale molecular based phylogenetic analysis in which subfamily Caesalpinioideae was demonstrated to be highly paraphyletic, the number of subfamilies recognised was increased to six, with four new subfamilies being segregated from within the Caesalpinioideae, and the Mimosoideae being subsumed into the redefined Caesalpinioideae (as the mimosoid clade). The Caesalpinioideae, and delimitation of genera therein, has therefore been a key focus of the international legume taxonomic community in recent years. Two of the largest genera in the Caesalpinioideae sensu traditional are Bauhinia and Caesalpinia; the former comprises part of the newly created subfamily Cercidoideae, whilst the latter is retained within the Caesalpinioideae sensu novo. Both Bauhinia and Caesalpinia have historically been most commonly treated as large, pantropical and polymorphic genera, but have in the light of molecular phylogenetic evidence been revealed to paraphyletic. A number of generic segregates have been consequently delineated from within each of them, but polymorphism has persisted, suggesting the existence of further paraphyly. The aim of this study is to address this remaining paraphyly, using a combined morphological, molecular and biogeographical approach to investigate generic limits and define segregate genera. The work herein creates a new segregate genus from within Bauhinia s.l., based upon morphological, molecular, palynological, and biogeographical evidence. Details of the composition of two further generic segregates of Bauhinia s.l. are presented, their geographical distributions described, and the relevance of this to the generic limits explored. The status of the putative segregate genus Lasiobema is examined, with novel data on a poorly known species of the genus presented. The monophyly of Mezoneuron, a segregate genus of Caesalpinia s.l., is demonstrated with morphological and molecular data, and infrageneric relationships are explained. Preliminary findings reconstructing the evolutionary and biogeographical history of the genus are discussed. This study represents substantial progress towards resolving generic limits within two of the major groups of the Caesalpinioideae (sensu traditional), and provides data upon which further such studies can be built, setting the framework for identification and resolution of the remaining paraphyly

Ideologies of response in composition classrooms.

This project responds to a neglected, over decade-old call from Jane Fife and Peggy O\u27Neill for greater consideration of classroom contexts in scholarship on teachers’ commenting practices. Drawing on Raymond Williams\u27s reconceptualization of ideology, I examine how response occurs within larger contexts including societal, programmatic, institutional, and disciplinary expectations, how teachers and students operate within and against these expectations, and how their beliefs and actions shape the production and reception of response. Deploying data collected through a mixed-methodology approach including classroom observation, interview, textual analysis, and protocol analysis, I examine three first-year writing classes, the instructors for these classes, and students enrolled in the observed courses. Chapter 1 introduces the limitations of previous response scholarship and defines the various contexts that comprise the classroom context. Chapter 2 focuses on how the expectation for first-year writing as service shapes the production and reception of response. Chapter 3 examines how one instructor\u27s use of a non-traditional grade alongside formative response and the student\u27s reading of this response illustrate the complexities present between grading and response. Chapter 4 draws on the work of Elaine Lees, Louise Weatherbee Phelps, and Elizabeth Rankin to investigate how response may extend formatively across multiple texts and contribute to what I call “a cumulative project.” In tracing this expansion of response across texts, I consider how the values and beliefs teachers and students have for response both facilitate and complicate such expansion. Chapter 5 concludes the project by demonstrating how the increased attention toward computer grading/response illustrates the central role response occupies in conversations about writing and writing improvement. I summarize the central role “the text” has played in the previous chapters and link this privileging of the text to these calls for computer grading. I argue that future response scholarship must be attentive to both the text and classroom contexts so as to demonstrate the full complexity of response to student writing