Learning-Assisted Automated Reasoning with Flyspeck

The considerable mathematical knowledge encoded by the Flyspeck project is combined with external automated theorem provers (ATPs) and machine-learning premise selection methods trained on the proofs, producing an AI system capable of answering a wide range of mathematical queries automatically. The performance of this architecture is evaluated in a bootstrapping scenario emulating the development of Flyspeck from axioms to the last theorem, each time using only the previous theorems and proofs. It is shown that 39% of the 14185 theorems could be proved in a push-button mode (without any high-level advice and user interaction) in 30 seconds of real time on a fourteen-CPU workstation. The necessary work involves: (i) an implementation of sound translations of the HOL Light logic to ATP formalisms: untyped first-order, polymorphic typed first-order, and typed higher-order, (ii) export of the dependency information from HOL Light and ATP proofs for the machine learners, and (iii) choice of suitable representations and methods for learning from previous proofs, and their integration as advisors with HOL Light. This work is described and discussed here, and an initial analysis of the body of proofs that were found fully automatically is provided

‘GOD AT WORK’: ENGAGING CENTRAL AND INCOMPATIBLE INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS THROUGH ELASTIC HYBRIDITY

Based on a 24-month ethnographic case study of the opening of the first Islamic bank in Germany, we make three contributions to the institutional theory literature: First, we outline polysemy and polyphony as mechanisms that dynamically engage conflicting logics through an organizational-individual interplay. Borrowing from paradox theory, we explain how hybrids can empower individuals to fluidly separate and integrate logics when neither structural compartmentalizing nor organizational blending are feasible because management cannot prescribe a specific balance of logics. Second, we explain the state of elastic hybridity, constituted through the recursive, multi-level relationship between polysemy and polyphony. Elastic hybrids maintain unity in diversity. They are capable of institutionally bending without organizationally breaking and thus enable individuals to practice more of their personal convictions at work while still experiencing a sense of shared organizational purpose. Third, we show how contested hybrids can be made to last. By dynamically making logics either less central or more compatible, elastic hybrids become less conflict-prone and more resilient without permanently becoming more aligned or estranged

Quantum Ecologies in Cosmological Infrastructures: A Critical Holographers Encounters with the Meta/Physics of Landscape-Laboratories

Quantum Ecologies interrogates the role of physics in the construction of an indifferent and disenchanted universe. It explores conceptual resonances within and between new materialism, Indigenous philosophy of place, science fiction, and art. Quantum Ecologies recognizes that the world is alive and wise and considers relevant modes of responsible address within and as the Earth. Through theoretical and historical analysis, site based research and a/v installation Quantum Ecologies has developed the heuristic of the ‘holographic’ as a way to attend to the multi-temporal, co-present, and multi-scalar pluralities and layers of knowing, agency, and landscape. This feminist, anti-colonial art-science framework for critically engaging (physics) sites and philosophies addresses the scientific cosmology of the West that (inadvertently) legitimates the exploitation, dispossession, and extraction of Earthly beings and bodies. Holography as critical interferometry is applied to experimental sites and assemblages known as ‘landscape-laboratories’ as a mode of both reading and (re)writing them. My field/work has taken place in remote environmentally protected sites that are entangled and instrumentalized as cosmological sensing arrays, experimental nuclear fusion energy, or dark matter particle physics laboratories in Russia, France, the UK, Germany, and Canada. By thinking through the strangeness of these planetary quantum assemblages alongside sciences inheritances and genealogies in magic, alchemy, and mysticism I argue for the necessity of ‘another science’ that is situated, compassionate, and responsible. Quantum Ecologies proposes a plural, poly-perspectival assessment of place, where accounting for the promiscuous more-than of materials, sites, forces, and energies is a necessary and continuous (re)configuring of meta/physics and respectful anti-colonial engagement with Land

Frontier dynamics: reflections on evangelical and Tablighi missions in Central Asia

Missionaries have flocked to the Kyrgyz Republic ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Evangelical-Pentecostal and Tablighi missions have been particularly active on what they conceive of as a fertile post-atheist frontier. But as these missions project their message of truth onto the frontier, the dangers of the frontier may overwhelm them. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork amongst foreign and local Tablighis and evangelical-Pentecostals, this article formulates an analytic of the frontier that highlights the affective and relational characteristics of missionary activities and their effects. This analytic explains why and how missionaries are attracted to the frontier, as well as some of the successes and failures of their expansionist efforts. In doing so, the article reveals the potency of instability, a feature that is particularly evident in missionary work, but also resonates with other frontier situations

Enhancing entrepreneurial innovation through industry-led accelerators: corporate-new venture dynamics and organizational redesign in a port maritime ecosystem

This PhD dissertation studies the management and design of corporate accelerators, in particular, industry-led value chain corporate accelerators. I addressed a multi-faceted research question about the novelty, corporate impact, dynamics and design of industry-led accelerators. Using a longitudinal, inductive, multiple-case embedded research design that analyses the industrial accelerator interface, the relationships between incumbent firms and external new ventures and the R&D/innovation units of established firms in a port maritime complex, this dissertation addresses this multi-faceted research question and it makes five core contributions. First, it positions, for the first time, the corporate accelerator phenomena at the intersection of fundamental management research streams, including organizational design, dynamic capabilities and corporate entrepreneurship. Second, it conducts the first study of the promising model of industry-led accelerator by inductively generating a four-step framework of how these accelerators work: i) co-define a broad innovation remit, ii) generate an innovation funnel to attract start-ups and scale-ups, iii) mutual sensing via flexible matching iv) select for scale and investment. Third, it finds striking counter-intuitive evidence in that the industry-led accelerator not only accelerates external new ventures but rather the corporate partners themselves by triggering them to internalize the lean start-up method and redesign their R&D/innovation processes and routines. To explain this, I inductively developed a four-phases process model of corporate entrepreneurial capability-building, comprising: a) attracting, b) strategic fit sensing, c) shaping and d) internalizing. Fourth, this dissertation uncovers three novel tensions—internalization, implementation and role—at the incumbent - new venture interface and develops a new ecological and symbiotically-inspired framework for tension identification and mitigation in industrial acceleration contexts. Fifth, and finally, using the frameworks and process models developed, this dissertation proposes a new toolkit (industrial acceleration design canvas and workshops) to orient practitioners when strategizing, designing and sustaining corporate new venture ecosystem acceleration initiatives.Open Acces

Sustainable Energy Imaginaries: Utilizing Mie Optics to Reengineer Photobioreactors and Reimagine the Socio-spatial Conditions of Autonomous Energy Production

In order to build a more sustainable future, society must transition toward carbon negative energy production and infrastructure. Algae photobioreactors have proven to be an efficient producer of lipid rich oil which can be synthesized into carbon neutral biodiesel. However, the neutrality of such a technology rests in its ability to yield adequate algal biomass through photosynthesis. In order to reach maximum quantum efficiency of algal cells, solar flux must be transformed so that photon absorption can occur without oversaturating the constituent matter. This project looks at the scattering effects of iridocyte-like structures and their potential to create cost effective solar transformers by utilizing the principles of geometrical optics, spherical harmonics, and Mie theory. Additionally, the socioeconomic implications of energy autonomy are considered across communal scales, along with a reimagining of the socio-spatial arrangements behind decentralized energy production. In this way, the project serves as a model of multidisciplinary collaboration and the importance of use value in technological analysis–both of which will prove vital as we reorganize grid infrastructures to accommodate renewable energy

'Social enterprise spin-outs': an institutional analysis of their emergence and potential

The recent phenomenon of public sector ‘social enterprise spin-outs’ is examined in order to critically assess their nature and innovative potential as providers of public services. The study utilises a theoretical model of institutional creation and change which incorporates key characteristics of ‘corporate spin-outs’ and ‘university spin-outs’ to facilitate the examination of their public sector counterparts, drawing on interview evidence from 30 newly-established social enterprise providers of health and care services in England. A main contribution of the paper is to provide a conceptual framework which sheds light on the strengths and potential vulnerabilities of social enterprise spin-outs as novel organisations that span the public, private and civil society sectors