Love is . . . an abstract word: the influence of phonological and semantic factors on verbal short-term memory in Williams syndrome

It has been claimed that verbal short-term memory in Williams syndrome is characterised by an over-use of phonological coding alongside a reduced contribution of lexical semantics. We critically examine this hypothesis and present results from a memory span task comparing performance on concrete and abstract words, together with a replication of a span task using phonologically similar and phonologically dissimilar words. Fourteen participants with Williams syndrome were individually matched to two groups of typically developing children. The first control group was matched on digit span and the second on vocabulary level. Significant effects were found for both the semantic and the phonological variables in the WS group as well as in the control groups, with no interaction between experimental variable and group in either experiment. The results demonstrate that, despite claims to the contrary, children and adults with WS are able to access and make use of lexical semantics in a verbal short-term memory task in a manner comparable to typically developing individuals

Abstracting object interactions using composition filters

It is generally claimed that object-based models are very suitable for building distributed system architectures since object interactions follow the client-server model. To cope with the complexity of today's distributed systems, however, we think that high-level linguistic mechanisms are needed to effectively structure, abstract and reuse object interactions. For example, the conventional object-oriented model does not provide high-level language mechanisms to model layered system architectures. Moreover, we consider the message passing model of the conventional object-oriented model as being too low-level because it can only specify object interactions that involve two partner objects at a time and its semantics cannot be extended easily. This paper introduces Abstract Communication Types (ACTs), which are objects that abstract interactions among objects. ACTs make it easier to model layered communication architectures, to enforce the invariant behavior among objects, to reduce the complexity of programs by hiding the interaction details in separate modules and to improve reusability through the application of object-oriented principles to ACT classes. We illustrate the concept of ACTs using the composition filters model

Static Safety for an Actor Dedicated Process Calculus by Abstract Interpretation

The actor model eases the definition of concurrent programs with non uniform behaviors. Static analysis of such a model was previously done in a data-flow oriented way, with type systems. This approach was based on constraint set resolution and was not able to deal with precise properties for communications of behaviors. We present here a new approach, control-flow oriented, based on the abstract interpretation framework, able to deal with communication of behaviors. Within our new analyses, we are able to verify most of the previous properties we observed as well as new ones, principally based on occurrence counting

Knowledge Representation with Multiple Logical Theories and Time

We present a knowledge representation framework where a collection of logic programs can be combined together by means of meta-level program composition operations. Each object-level program is composed of a collection of extended clauses, equipped with a time interval representing the time period in which they hold. The interaction between program composition operations and time yields a powerful knowledge representation language in which many applications can be naturally developed. The language is given a meta-level semantics which also provides an executable specification. Moreover, we define an abstract semantics by extending the immediate consequence operator from a single logic program to compositions of logic programs and taking into account time intervals. The operational, meta-level semantics is proven sound and complete with respect to the abstract bottom-up semantics. The approach is further extended in order to cope with the problem of reasoning over joined intervals of time. Three applications in the field of business regulations are shown

Semantic verification of Behavior Conformance

This paper introduces a formal yet practical method to verify whether the behavior design of a distributed application conforms to the behavior design of the enterprise in which the application is embedded. The method allows both enterprise architects and application architects to talk about designs in their own terms, and introduces a common set of terms as the linking pin between enterprise and application designs. The formal semantics of these common terms allows us to verify the conformance between an enterprise and its applications formally and automatically

About the nature of Kansei information, from abstract to concrete

Designer’s expertise refers to the scientific fields of emotional design and kansei information. This paper aims to answer to a scientific major issue which is, how to formalize designer’s knowledge, rules, skills into kansei information systems. Kansei can be considered as a psycho-physiologic, perceptive, cognitive and affective process through a particular experience. Kansei oriented methods include various approaches which deal with semantics and emotions, and show the correlation with some design properties. Kansei words may include semantic, sensory, emotional descriptors, and also objects names and product attributes. Kansei levels of information can be seen on an axis going from abstract to concrete dimensions. Sociological value is the most abstract information positioned on this axis. Previous studies demonstrate the values the people aspire to drive their emotional reactions in front of particular semantics. This means that the value dimension should be considered in kansei studies. Through a chain of value-function-product attributes it is possible to enrich design generation and design evaluation processes. This paper describes some knowledge structures and formalisms we established according to this chain, which can be further used for implementing computer aided design tools dedicated to early design. These structures open to new formalisms which enable to integrate design information in a non-hierarchical way. The foreseen algorithmic implementation may be based on the association of ontologies and bag-of-words.AN

A thread-tag based semantics for sequence diagrams

The sequence diagram is one of the most popular behaviour modelling languages which offers an intuitive and visual way of describing expected behaviour of object-oriented software. Much research work has investigated ways of providing a formal semantics for sequence diagrams. However, these proposed semantics may not properly interpret sequence diagrams when lifelines do not correspond to threads of controls. In this paper, we address this problem and propose a thread-tag based sequence diagram as a solution. A formal, partially ordered multiset based semantics for the thread-tag based sequence diagrams is proposed