Transforming ASN.1 Specifications into CafeOBJ to assist with Property Checking

The adoption of algebraic specification/formal method techniques by the networks' research community is happening slowly but steadily. We work towards a software environment that can translate a protocol's specification, from Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1 - a very popular specification language with many applications), into the powerful algebraic specification language CafeOBJ. The resulting code can be used to check, validate and falsify critical properties of systems, at the pre-coding stage of development. In this paper, we introduce some key elements of ASN.1 and CafeOBJ and sketch some first steps towards the implementation of such a tool including a case study.Comment: 8 pages, 12 figure

Fewer epistemological challenges for connectionism

Seventeen years ago, John McCarthy wrote the note Epistemological challenges for connectionism as a response to Paul Smolensky’s paper 'On the proper treatment of connectionism'. I will discuss the extent to which the four key challenges put forward by McCarthy have been solved, and what are the new challenges ahead. I argue that there are fewer epistemological challenges for connectionism, but progress has been slow. Nevertheless, there is now strong indication that neural-symbolic integration can provide effective systems of expressive reasoning and robust learning due to the recent developments in the field

COMPARISON PARADOX, COMPARATIVE SITUATION AND INTER-PARADIGMATICY: A METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTION ON CROSS-CULTURAL PHILOSOPHICAL COMPARISON [abstract]

It is commonly believed that philosophical comparison depends on having some common measure or standard between and above the compared parts. The paper is to show that the foregoing common belief is incorrect and therewith to inquire into the possibility of cross-cultural philosophical comparison. First, the comparison paradox will be expounded. It is a theoretical difficulty for the philosophical tendency represented by Platos theory of Ideas to justify comparative activities. Further, the connection of the comparative paradox with the obstacles met by cross-cultural philosophical comparisons will be demonstrated. It will be shown that to attribute the difficulty of cross-cultural comparisons to incommensurability of traditions is irrelevant and misleading. It is to be argued that the original possibility of comparison depends on the comparative situation, i.e., the mechanism of meaning-production that functions in a non-universalistic and anonymous way. A philosophical paradigm does facilitate the attendance of such a situation, but it is also possible for the situation to emerge between paradigms in a gamesome way. Accordingly, the genuine comparison at issue will not originate primarily and merely on the level of concepts and propositions, but can only be achieved through inter-paradigmatic conditions, where we have the sharp awareness of a paradigms boundary from which we can attempt to achieve situational communication with another paradigm. In light of this, the perspective of a philosophical comparison differs not only from the traditional or universalistic one, but also from Gadamers hermeneutics, such as the doctrine of fusion of horizons. The new perspective finds an illustration in Heideggers relations with Daoism

Thomas Hooker, Martin Luther, and the Terror at the Edge of Protestant Faith

Unlike their Roman Catholic counterparts, early Protestants insisted that individual Christians could be certain that they personally enjoyed God’s favor and would be saved. Their faith in Christ’s redeeming work would give them “assurance of salvation,” and their ministers insisted that every Christian ought to feel that assurance. This article argues that Protestant assurance did not – and could not – banish believers’ anxiety that God’s saving promises had never been meant for them. “Behind” the God who promised salvation lurked a “hidden God” who had decided the ultimate fate of every individual before the beginning of time. Even the strongest believers – Martin Luther and the first-generation New England minister Thomas Hooker are offered as examples – dreaded the wrath of a terrifying God who might at any moment dash their comfort to pieces