Information integration: from P&I diagrams to functional models

Information integration is a very important topic. Reusing the knowledge and having common and exchangeable representations have been an active research topic in process systems engineering. In this paper we deal with information integration in two different ways, the first one sharing knowledge between different heterogeneous applications and the second one integrating two different (but complementary) types of knowledge: functional and structural. A new architecture to integrate these representation and use for several purposes is presented in this paper

The Emergence of Norms via Contextual Agreements in Open Societies

This paper explores the emergence of norms in agents' societies when agents play multiple -even incompatible- roles in their social contexts simultaneously, and have limited interaction ranges. Specifically, this article proposes two reinforcement learning methods for agents to compute agreements on strategies for using common resources to perform joint tasks. The computation of norms by considering agents' playing multiple roles in their social contexts has not been studied before. To make the problem even more realistic for open societies, we do not assume that agents share knowledge on their common resources. So, they have to compute semantic agreements towards performing their joint actions. %The paper reports on an empirical study of whether and how efficiently societies of agents converge to norms, exploring the proposed social learning processes w.r.t. different society sizes, and the ways agents are connected. The results reported are very encouraging, regarding the speed of the learning process as well as the convergence rate, even in quite complex settings

Convicts and coolies : rethinking indentured labour in the nineteenth century

This article seeks to shift the frame of analysis within which discussions of Indian indentured migration take place. It argues that colonial discourses and practices of indenture are best understood not with regard to the common historiographical framework of whether it was 'a new system of slavery', but in the context of colonial innovations in incarceration and confinement. The article shows how Indian experiences of and knowledge about transportation overseas to penal settlements informed in important ways both their own understandings and representations of migration and the colonial practices associated with the recruitment of indentured labour. In detailing the connections between two supposedly different labour regimes, it thus brings a further layer of complexity to debates around their supposed distinctions

Incomplete Information

In interactive contexts such as games and economies, it is important to take account not only of what the players believe about substantive matters (such as payoffs), but also of what they believe about the beliefs of other players. Two different but equivalent ways of dealing with this matter, the semantic and the syntactic, are set forth. Canonical and universal semantic systems are then defined and constructed, and the concepts of common knowledge and common priors formulated and characterized. The last two sections discuss relations with Bayesian games of incomplete information and their applications, and with interactive epistemology -- the theory of multi-agent knowledge and belief as formulated in mathematical logic

Wyner-Ziv Type Versus Noisy Network Coding For a State-Dependent MAC

We consider a two-user state-dependent multiaccess channel in which the states of the channel are known non-causally to one of the encoders and only strictly causally to the other encoder. Both encoders transmit a common message and, in addition, the encoder that knows the states non-causally transmits an individual message. We find explicit characterizations of the capacity region of this communication model in both discrete memoryless and memoryless Gaussian cases. The analysis also reveals optimal ways of exploiting the knowledge of the state only strictly causally at the encoder that sends only the common message when such a knowledge is beneficial. The encoders collaborate to convey to the decoder a lossy version of the state, in addition to transmitting the information messages through a generalized Gel'fand-Pinsker binning. Particularly important in this problem are the questions of 1) optimal ways of performing the state compression and 2) whether or not the compression indices should be decoded uniquely. We show that both compression \`a-la noisy network coding, i.e., with no binning, and compression using Wyner-Ziv binning are optimal. The scheme that uses Wyner-Ziv binning shares elements with Cover and El Gamal original compress-and-forward, but differs from it mainly in that backward decoding is employed instead of forward decoding and the compression indices are not decoded uniquely. Finally, by exploring the properties of our outer bound, we show that, although not required in general, the compression indices can in fact be decoded uniquely essentially without altering the capacity region, but at the expense of larger alphabets sizes for the auxiliary random variables.Comment: Submitted for publication to the 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, 5 pages, 1 figur

Innovation and Employability in Knowledge Management Curriculum Design

During 2007/8, Southampton Solent University worked on a Leadership Foundation project focused on the utility of the multi-functional team approach as a vehicle to deliver innovation in strategic and operational terms in higher education (HE). The Task-Orientated Multi-Functional Team Approach (TOMFTA) project took two significant undertakings for Southampton Solent as key areas for investigation, one academic and one administrative in focus. The academic project was the development of an innovative and novel degree programme in knowledge management (KM). The new KM Honours degree programme is timely both in recognition of the increasing importance to organisations of knowledge as a commodity, and in its adoption of a distinctive structure and pedagogy. The methodology for the KM curriculum design brings together student-centred and market-driven approaches: positioning the programme for the interests of students and requirements of employers, rather than just the capabilities of staff; while looking at ways that courses can be delivered with more flexibility, e.g. accelerated and block-mode; with level-differentiated activities, common cross-year content and material that is multi-purpose for use in short courses. In order to permit context at multiple levels in common, a graduate skills strand is taught separately as part of the University’s business-facing education agenda. The KM portfolio offers a programme of practically-based courses integrating key themes in knowledge management, business, information distribution and development of the media. They develop problem-solving, communications, teamwork and other employability skills as well as the domain skills needed by emerging information management technologies. The new courses are built on activities which focus on different aspects of KM, drawing on existing content as a knowledge base. This paper presents the ongoing development of the KM programme through the key aspects in its conception and design

Two Ways of Explaining Negative Entailments in Description Logics Using Abduction: Extended Version

We discuss two ways of using abduction to explain missing entailments from description logic knowledge bases, one more common, one more unusual, and then have a closer look at how current results/implementations on abduction could be used towards generating such explanations, and what still needs to be done.This is an extended version of an article submitted to XLoKR 2021

Health : sculptured by the hands of culture : exploring the Ecuadorian worldview of health : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy of Development Studies at Massey University, New Zealand

Worldview is at the core of our being, providing the filter that gives form to our beliefs, values and behaviour. Each culture and country has its unique perspective in such vital areas such as health and wellbeing. In the global context, where 'health for all' is more a dream than reality, the challenge is to grasp the conceptual understanding of health in each context, to dialogue with the culture, and look for creative ways of meeting health needs. This thesis is part of my journey to achieve an understanding of this, in the context of Ecuador. The essence of this study is an exploration of the Ecuadorian context. How is health conceptualised within the culture? Is there a worldview of health? Are there areas of commonality of beliefs and practices in health? What are some of the historical events and processes that have formed this way of understanding? What has the ways of seeing health in Ecuador's current context? This thesis presents the experiences and knowledge collected during five months of focussed research and two years of lived experiences in Ecuador. It is very much a journey of discovery for the researcher and participants. The research methodology gives voice to the stories of four participatory groups and five in-depth interviews, which allowed the participants to share their knowledge and experience of health. Through the process of reviewing literature on the beliefs and practices throughout various non-western systems of healing, a number of elements were found common to all. These include: the interrelated nature of the physical and spiritual realms; the concept of self and community; origins of unwellness and health seeking practices; food and food practices; syncretism and the concept of body image. The stories of the participants reveal some of their beliefs and practices of health. Despite the wealth of cultural origins, climatic and contextual variety presented in Ecuador, nine themes emerge from the participants' stories, as common to their beliefs and practices of health: nature's healers, traditional sicknesses, the path of tradition, common sicknesses and causes of death, the therapeutic route, you are well if you look happy, of divine descent but humanly frail, no health without money, the path of tradition, and an acute awareness of the state of health. Together these portray a fascinating insight into part of the Ecuadorian worldview of health

Incentives and spillovers in R&D activities: an agency-theoretic analysis of industry-university relations

In this paper, I study industry-university relations in a principal- agent framework. Following the existing literature, these relations are interpreted in two ways: (1) as occurring through spillovers of knowledge among different groups of researchers, working for different institutional settings; or (2) as more formal interactions, through the possibility, for a scientist, to directly respond to incentives defined by the different communities she may belong to. I formalize these two configurations in a unified framework. I account for: (1) the inherent difficulty in measuring the impact of scientific activities; and (2) the multiplicity of activities that scientists perform. I combine multi-task agency models with distorted performance measures and common agency models. My model identifies several types of incongruities between an agent's actions and the desired outcomes. These incongruities derive also from the strategic interaction among the principals. I also identify some potentially distortionary behavioral effects of the presence of spillovers.Economics of Science; Agency Theory; Industry-University Relations; Science Policy; R&D Management.