Breadth-first serialisation of trees and rational languages

We present here the notion of breadth-first signature and its relationship with numeration system theory. It is the serialisation into an infinite word of an ordered infinite tree of finite degree. We study which class of languages corresponds to which class of words and,more specifically, using a known construction from numeration system theory, we prove that the signature of rational languages are substitutive sequences.Comment: 15 page

Dimensions of Neural-symbolic Integration - A Structured Survey

Research on integrated neural-symbolic systems has made significant progress in the recent past. In particular the understanding of ways to deal with symbolic knowledge within connectionist systems (also called artificial neural networks) has reached a critical mass which enables the community to strive for applicable implementations and use cases. Recent work has covered a great variety of logics used in artificial intelligence and provides a multitude of techniques for dealing with them within the context of artificial neural networks. We present a comprehensive survey of the field of neural-symbolic integration, including a new classification of system according to their architectures and abilities.Comment: 28 page

Linguistic Optimization

Optimality Theory (OT) is a model of language that combines aspects of generative and connectionist linguistics. It is unique in the field in its use of a rank ordering on constraints, which is used to formalize optimization, the choice of the best of a set of potential linguistic forms. We show that phenomena argued to require ranking fall out equally from the form of optimization in OT's predecessor Harmonic Grammar (HG), which uses numerical weights to encode the relative strength of constraints. We further argue that the known problems for HG can be resolved by adopting assumptions about the nature of constraints that have precedents both in OT and elsewhere in computational and generative linguistics. This leads to a formal proof that if the range of each constraint is a bounded number of violations, HG generates a finite number of languages. This is nontrivial, since the set of possible weights for each constraint is nondenumerably infinite. We also briefly review some advantages of HG

Remarks on J. H. Nketia’s Funeral Dirges of the Akan People

J. H. Kwabena Nketiah’s Funeral Dirges of the Akan People (1955) is undoubtedly one of the classics among studies devoted to African oral poetry. However, it has received little comment and continues to be inaccessible to students and teachers of oral literature. The purpose of this essay is to introduce the monograph and its subject to college students and lecturers. For purposes of classification, we put the poems in the class of elegies and justify this in the first part of the essay. The second part explores some of the features of the verse form. The final part discusses the theme of life, growth and procreation in the family and the choice of imagery in expressing it

Lisp, Jazz, Aikido -- Three Expressions of a Single Essence

The relation between Science (what we can explain) and Art (what we can't) has long been acknowledged and while every science contains an artistic part, every art form also needs a bit of science. Among all scientific disciplines, programming holds a special place for two reasons. First, the artistic part is not only undeniable but also essential. Second, and much like in a purely artistic discipline, the act of programming is driven partly by the notion of aesthetics: the pleasure we have in creating beautiful things. Even though the importance of aesthetics in the act of programming is now unquestioned, more could still be written on the subject. The field called "psychology of programming" focuses on the cognitive aspects of the activity, with the goal of improving the productivity of programmers. While many scientists have emphasized their concern for aesthetics and the impact it has on their activity, few computer scientists have actually written about their thought process while programming. What makes us like or dislike such and such language or paradigm? Why do we shape our programs the way we do? By answering these questions from the angle of aesthetics, we may be able to shed some new light on the art of programming. Starting from the assumption that aesthetics is an inherently transversal dimension, it should be possible for every programmer to find the same aesthetic driving force in every creative activity they undertake, not just programming, and in doing so, get deeper insight on why and how they do things the way they do. On the other hand, because our aesthetic sensitivities are so personal, all we can really do is relate our own experiences and share it with others, in the hope that it will inspire them to do the same. My personal life has been revolving around three major creative activities, of equal importance: programming in Lisp, playing Jazz music, and practicing Aikido. But why so many of them, why so different ones, and why these specifically? By introspecting my personal aesthetic sensitivities, I eventually realized that my tastes in the scientific, artistic, and physical domains are all motivated by the same driving forces, hence unifying Lisp, Jazz, and Aikido as three expressions of a single essence, not so different after all. Lisp, Jazz, and Aikido are governed by a limited set of rules which remain simple and unobtrusive. Conforming to them is a pleasure. Because Lisp, Jazz, and Aikido are inherently introspective disciplines, they also invite you to transgress the rules in order to find your own. Breaking the rules is fun. Finally, if Lisp, Jazz, and Aikido unify so many paradigms, styles, or techniques, it is not by mere accumulation but because they live at the meta-level and let you reinvent them. Working at the meta-level is an enlightening experience. Understand your aesthetic sensitivities and you may gain considerable insight on your own psychology of programming. Mine is perhaps common to most lispers. Perhaps also common to other programming communities, but that, is for the reader to decide..

Music and Northern Forest Cultures

This article argues that it is critical to recognize the importance of northern forests in Finno-Ugric musical contexts (Finnish and Karelian) by focusing on the question of cultural survival, which is connected with thinking about global challenges, including climate change and environmental pressure. The discussion highlights cultural survival by outlining the significance of the forest, the politics of language transmission with reference to the Kalevala (the Finnish national epic), Sibelius’s nature-based aesthetic (especially in Tapiola, 1926), and the evocation of the forest in contemporary folk and popular music. Overall, the main aims are to consider the resilience of northern forest cultures in the nexus of music, language, and ecology, and to emphasize that resilience cannot be taken for granted under environmental pressure.  This article argues that it is critical to recognize the importance of northern forests in Finno-Ugric musical contexts (Finnish and Karelian) by focusing on the question of cultural survival, which is connected with thinking about global challenges, including climate change and environmental pressure. The discussion highlights cultural survival by outlining the significance of the forest, the politics of language transmission with reference to the Kalevala (the Finnish national epic), Sibelius’s nature-based aesthetic (especially in Tapiola, 1926), and the evocation of the forest in contemporary folk and popular music. Overall, the main aims are to consider the resilience of northern forest cultures in the nexus of music, language, and ecology, and to emphasize that resilience cannot be taken for granted under environmental pressure. &nbsp

LSound: An L-System Framework for Score Generation

Visual language or visual representation has been used in the past few years in order to express the knowledge in graphics. One of the important graphical elements is fractal and L-Systems is a mathematics-based grammatical model for modelling cell development and plant topology. From the plant model, L-Systems can be interpreted as music sound and score. In this paper, LSound which is a Visual Language Programming (VLP) framework has been developed as a tool that can model plant to music sound and generate music score and vice versa. The objectives of this research have three folds: (i) To expand the grammar dictionary of L-Systems music based on visual programming, (ii) To design and produce a user-friendly and icon-based visual language framework typically for L-Systems musical score generation which helps the basic learners in musical field and (iii) To generate music score from plant models and vice versa using L-Systems method. This research undergoes four phases methodology where the plant is first modeled, then the music is interpreted, followed by the output of music sound through MIDI and a score is generated. Technically, LSound was compared to other existing applications in the aspects of the capability of modelling the plant, rendering the music and generating the sound. LSound is a flexible framework in which the plant can be easily altered through arrow-based programming and the music score can be altered through the music symbols and notes which encourages non-experts to work with L-Systems and music