Relating Kleene algebras with pseudo uninorms

This paper explores a strict relation between two core notions of the semantics of programs and of fuzzy logics: Kleene Algebras and (pseudo) uninorms. It shows that every Kleene algebra induces a pseudo uninorm, and that some pseudo uninorms induce Kleene algebras. This connection establishes a new perspective on the theory of Kleene algebras and provides a way to build (new) Kleene algebras. The latter aspect is potentially useful as a source of formalism to capture and model programs acting with fuzzy behaviours and domains.publishe

An exploration of modal, serial, stochastic, electroacoustic and computer aided compositional techniques and their application into a series of original compositions

The text is divided into two parts preceded by an introduction. The introduction focuses on some general issues that relate to musical composition: More specifically, it discusses the motivation of a composer and the goals he tries to achieve. The first section of part I focuses on small-scale technical aspects in relation to the music submitted. More specifically, it deals with aspects relating to melody and harmony, counterpoint, timbre, tempo, rhythm and meter. The second section of the first part focuses on large-scale construction elements like the juxtaposition and development of ideas, the role of numbers and proportions on the submitted music as well as on certain aesthetic issues. In this first part, an overview is given of the techniques that were used in order to create the pieces that are included in this PhD. The goal is not to give a detailed analysis of the techniques but to emphasize the ideas that might interest other composers and facilitate them in then: search for their own organisational tools. Consequently, the creation of a 'system' of musical composition is out of the scope of this research. It is also true that there are many aspects of contemporary composition that are not discussed in this text, mainly because of the fact that they were not used in these particular pieces that were submitted with the theoretical part. Part II focuses on the main subject of the PhD, the submitted pieces themselves. It contains information that relates to the program notes as well as the actual scores of the pieces that can be studied together with the available recordings found on the CD. The opening commentaries of the second part include key structural points of the music as well as issues regarding their aesthetic approach. Each submitted piece is an 'amalgamation' of a series of techniques and thoughts on music so that the reader will be able to trace the evolution of thoughts among the different pieces. The works, however, are presented at random rather than in chronological order. This is because they were not written one after the other, but have undergone changes affecting one another up the last completion of the entire project. In this sense they do form a larger 'circle' of musical pieces while the last one, Engraving, which was composed separately at the very end of this 'circle', functions as a 'coda' to the whole project. The Epilogue of the theoretical part deals with personal thoughts regarding future 'musical quests'. The music and the ideas take composers into certain directions regarding future works and professional decisions that relate to the compositional activity as well as to decisions regarding technical and aesthetic issues. These are presented at the end of the text

Aspects Of Equivalence Relations In The School Curriculum And The Development Of The Concept In Young Children

This thesis considers some aspects of equivalence relations, especially in areas outside mathematics end in the development of children's thinking. The aim of Section 1 is to show that equivalence classes (and by implication equivalence relations) are an essential mode of thinking for adult English speakers in a variety of activities. As children have their own patterns of thinking which are developing toward adult form. Section 2 is devoted to establishing a framework within which observations about the development of the concept of equivalence relation can be organised. The relevant factors of Piaget's work are taken as the starting point. These are reviewed alongside more recent American studies. Some recent reformulations of Piaget's theory of groupings by Gorman writers ere also considered. This review Identifies difficulties arising from (a) diversity of interpretation of (i) Piaget's work (ii) terminology used, (b) gaps between the psychological models and the behavioural counterparts which they were designed to represent, (c) lock of agreed criterion for concept attainment. Points arising from (a) and (c) have been considered in greater detail in the context of - the identification and modification of points of weakness in the hypothesis that soristion implies transitivity, - an attempt to specify the characteristics of a test of conservation of a quantitative relation. The review also shows gaps in the research, notably, in the study of the growth of the understanding of symmetric relations; proposals for further tests to clarify the stages in the development of the concept of symmetry are put forward. The feasibility of these tests has been studied in the classroom

April 15, 2004

The Breeze is the student newspaper of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia

April 15, 2004

The Breeze is the student newspaper of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia

Natural anti-realism

The thesis defines and examines a position ('natural anti-realism') which combines an anti-realist semantics with an evolutionary epistemology. An anti-realist semantics, by requiring that a theory of meaning be also a theory of understanding, cries out for an explicit epistemological component. In urging an evolutionary epistemology as such a component, I seek to preserve and underscore the semantic insights of the anti-realist whilst deflecting the common criticism that the anti-realist must perforce embrace some form of noxious idealism. An evolutionary epistemology, I argue, can provide a distinctive content for the belief that reality is independent of human thought without needing to claim that anything we can say or think about the world can be conceived as being true or false in full independence of our capacity to know it as such. This content is to be secured in two ways. The first is to observe that language is best understood as a tool of minds which are themselves best understood as the products of a natural process operating in an independently real world. The second is to form a non-transcendent conception of transcendent facts. The accessible evidence concerning the form of the selective process, it is argued, warrants the claim that reality may exceed its humanly accessible contours. For it warrants the claim that man is probably cognitively limited and biased in ways rooted in our peculiar, and somewhat contingent, evolutionary past. The natural anti-realist thus conceives of reality as both independent of, and potentially transcending the limits of, man's particular mental orientation. A largely realistic metaphysics may thus accompany an anti-realist semantics without the lapse into vacuity or incoherence which some commentators seem to fear

Voyager spacecraft system - Preliminary design. Report summary, volume F

Technical review of Voyager spacecraft design and project implementation plan

Machine intelligence and robotics: Report of the NASA study group

Opportunities for the application of machine intelligence and robotics in NASA missions and systems were identified. The benefits of successful adoption of machine intelligence and robotics techniques were estimated and forecasts were prepared to show their growth potential. Program options for research, advanced development, and implementation of machine intelligence and robot technology for use in program planning are presented