Cognitive Architecture, Concepts, and Introspection: An Information-Theoretic Solution to the Problem of Phenomenal Consciousness

This essay is a sustained attempt to bring new light to some of the perennial problems in philosophy of mind surrounding phenomenal consciousness and introspection through developing an account of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Building on the information-theoretic framework of Dretske (1981), we present an informational psychosemantics as it applies to what we call sensory concepts, concepts that apply, roughly, to so-called secondary qualities of objects. We show that these concepts have a special informational character and semantic structure that closely tie them to the brain states realizing conscious qualitative experiences. We then develop an account of introspection which exploits this special nature of sensory concepts. The result is a new class of concepts, which, following recent terminology, we call phenomenal concepts: these concepts refer to phenomenal experience itself and are the vehicles used in introspection. On our account, the connection between sensory and phenomenal concepts is very tight: it consists in different semantic uses of the same cognitive structures underlying the sensory concepts, such as the concept of red. Contrary to widespread opinion, we show that information theory contains all the resources to satisfy internalist intuitions about phenomenal consciousness, while not offending externalist ones. A consequence of this account is that it explains and predicts the so-called conceivability arguments against physicalism on the basis of the special nature of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Thus we not only show why physicalism is not threatened by such arguments, but also demonstrate its strength in virtue of its ability to predict and explain away such arguments in a principled way. However, we take the main contribution of this work to be what it provides in addition to a response to those conceivability arguments, namely, a substantive account of the interface between sensory and conceptual systems and the mechanisms of introspection as based on the special nature of the information flow between them

At the nexus of three kingdoms: the genome of the mycorrhizal fungus Gigaspora margarita provides insights into plant, endobacterial and fungal interactions.

As members of the plant microbiota, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF, Glomeromycotina) symbiotically colonize plant roots. AMF also possess their own microbiota, hosting some uncultivable endobacteria. Ongoing research has revealed the genetics underlying plant responses to colonization by AMF, but the fungal side of the relationship remains in the dark. Here, we sequenced the genome of Gigaspora margarita, a member of the Gigasporaceae in an early diverging group of the Glomeromycotina. In contrast to other AMF, G. margarita may host distinct endobacterial populations and possesses the largest fungal genome so far annotated (773.104 Mbp), with more than 64% transposable elements. Other unique traits of the G. margarita genome include the expansion of genes for inorganic phosphate metabolism, the presence of genes for production of secondary metabolites and a considerable number of potential horizontal gene transfer events. The sequencing of G. margarita genome reveals the importance of its immune system, shedding light on the evolutionary pathways that allowed early diverging fungi to interact with both plants and bacteria

Integrating information seeking and information structuring: spatial hypertext as an interface to the digital library.

Information seeking is the task of finding documents that satisfy the information needs of a person or organisation. Digital Libraries are one means of providing documents to meet the information needs of their users - i.e. as a resource to support information seeking. Therefore, research into the activity of information seeking is key to the development and understanding of digital libraries. Information structuring is the activity of organising documents found in the process of information seeking. Information structuring can be seen as either part of information seeking, or as a sepárate, complementary activity. It is a task performed by the seeker themselves and targeted by them to support their understanding and the management of later seeking activity. Though information structuring is an important task, it receives sparse support in current digital library Systems. Spatial hypertexts are computer software Systems that have been specifically been developed to support information structuring. However, they seldom are connected to Systems that support information seeking. Thus to day, the two inter-related activities of information seeking and information structuring have been supported by disjoint computer Systems. However, a variety of research strongly indicates that in physical environments, information seeking and information structuring are closely inter-related activities. Given this connection, this thesis explores whether a similar relationship can be found in electronic information seeking environments. However, given the absence of a software system that supports both activities well, there is an immédiate practical problem. In this thesis, I introduce an integrated information seeking and structuring System, called Garnet, that provides a spatial hypertext interface that also supports information seeking in a digital library. The opportunity of supporting information seeking by the artefacts of information structuring is explored in the Garnet system, drawing on the benefits previously found in supporting one information seeking activity with the artefacts of another. Garnet and its use are studied in a qualitative user study that results in the comparison of user behaviour in a combined electronic environment with previous studies in physical environments. The response of participants to using Garnet is reported, particularly regarding their perceptions of the combined system and the quality of the interaction. Finally, the potential value of the artefacts of information structuring to support information seeking is also evaluated

Recommender system to support comprehensive exploration of large scale scientific datasets

Bases de dados de entidades científicas, como compostos químicos, doenças e objetos astronómicos, têm crescido em tamanho e complexidade, chegando a milhares de milhões de itens por base de dados. Os investigadores precisam de ferramentas novas e inovadoras para auxiliar na escolha desses itens. Este trabalho propõe o uso de Sistemas de Recomendação para auxiliar os investigadores a encontrar itens de interesse. Identificamos como um dos maiores desafios para a aplicação de sistemas de recomendação em áreas científicas a falta de conjuntos de dados padronizados e de acesso aberto com informações sobre as preferências dos utilizadores. Para superar esse desafio, desenvolvemos uma metodologia denominada LIBRETTI - Recomendação Baseada em Literatura de Itens Científicos, cujo objetivo é a criação de conjuntos de dados , relacionados com campos científicos. Estes conjuntos de dados são criados com base no principal recurso de conhecimento que a Ciência possui: a literatura científica. A metodologia LIBRETTI permitiu o desenvolvimento de novos algoritmos de recomendação específicos para vários campos científicos. Além do LIBRETTI, as principais contribuições desta tese são conjuntos de dados de recomendação padronizados nas áreas de Astronomia, Química e Saúde (relacionado com a doença COVID-19), um sistema de recomendação semântica híbrido para compostos químicos em conjuntos de dados de grande escala, uma abordagem híbrida baseada no enriquecimento sequencial (SeEn) para recomendações sequenciais, um pipeline baseado em semântica de vários campos para recomendar entidades biomédicas relacionadas com a doença COVID-19.Databases for scientific entities, such as chemical compounds, diseases and astronomical objects, are growing in size and complexity, reaching billions of items per database. Researchers need new and innovative tools for assisting the choice of these items. This work proposes the use of Recommender Systems approaches for helping researchers to find items of interest. We identified as one of the major challenges for applying RS in scientific fields the lack of standard and open-access datasets with information about the preferences of the users. To overcome this challenge, we developed a methodology called LIBRETTI - LIterature Based RecommEndaTion of scienTific Items, whose goal is to create datasets related to scientific fields. These datasets are created based on scientific literature, the major resource of knowledge that Science has. LIBRETTI methodology allowed the development and testing of new recommender algorithms specific for each field. Besides LIBRETTI, the main contributions of this thesis are standard and sequence-aware recommendation datasets in the fields of Astronomy, Chemistry, and Health (related to COVID-19 disease), a hybrid semantic recommender system for chemical compounds in large-scale datasets, a hybrid approach based on sequential enrichment (SeEn) for sequence-aware recommendations, a multi-field semantic-based pipeline for recommending biomedical entities related to COVID-19 disease

Curation-based network marketing: strategies for network growth and electronic word-of-mouth diffusion

In the last couple of years, a new aspect of online social networking has emerged, in which the strength of social network connections is based not on social ties but mutually shared interests. This dissertation studies these "curation-based" online social networks (CBN) and their suitability for the diffusion of electronic word-of-mouth information (eWOM). Within CBN, users do not rely on profiles full of personal information to identify network ``friends''. Rather, CBN users curate collections of digital content that becomes their digital self-expression within the network. This digital content can then be viewed, commented on, and shared across the pages of other CBN users. As the dissertation will show, this process of digital content curation, a relatively new online practice that centers around the collection and sharing of rich digital media, builds CBN, and presents exciting opportunities for the study of eWOM. The dissertation presents three studies around digital content curation, CBN, and eWOM diffusion. Study 1 examines individual level antecedents of digital content curation behavior. In this study, we use theory from sociology and behavioral psychology to develop a model of user intentions towards digital content curation behavior. We find that digital content curation is comprised of a mixture of social and utilitarian motivations, and that the management and organization of digital content is a major reason that people spend time on CBN. Study 2 examines the way that digital content curation behaviors grow CBN. We study a sample of 1800 CBN users to determine the way that their digital content curation behaviors attract and retain interested CBN followers. We find that the most successful CBN users are those that can generate an eWOM response around their content collections. Additionally, we find that textual eWOM plays a very limited role in attracting followers in the CBN environment. Finally, Study 3 examines eWOM diffusion by analyzing data on the structure and diffusion of digital content through real-world CBN network structures. This descriptive analysis of eWOM in CBN presents details on the way that CBN data is structured, and the methods and techniques that can be used to collect and analyze real-world eWOM collected from a CBN site. The study uses the UCINET network visualization software package to examine the networks of thirty companies operating CBN pages. Using a unique data set specifically compiled for this study, we are able to visualize the diffusion of curated digital content through the networks of these companies, and show how companies can identify their most influential followers as targets for further eWOM and traditional marketing efforts. Together, the three dissertation studies offer a holistic view of content curation behavior and curation-based online social networking and has the potential to fill the gap in the literature on information diffusion and online marketing. We make substantial contributions to the areas of sociology, economics, and marketing, and offer one of the first treatments of the role of digital content curation in online social networks

The Dynamics of Influencer Marketing

YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Vimeo, Twitter, etc. have their own logics, dynamics and different audiences. This book analyses how the users of these social networks, especially those of YouTube and Instagram, become content prescribers, opinion leaders and, by extension, people of influence. What influence capacity do they have? Why are intimate or personal aspects shared with unknown people? Who are the big beneficiaries? How much is vanity and how much altruism? What business is behind these social networks? What dangers do they contain? What volume of business can we estimate they generate? How are they transforming cultural industries? What legislation is applied? How does the legislation affect these communications when they are sponsored? Is the privacy of users violated with the data obtained? Who is the owner of the content? Are they to blame for ""fake news""? In this changing, challenging and intriguing environment, The Dynamics of Influencer Marketing discusses all of these questions and more. Considering this complexity from different perspectives: technological, economic, sociological, psychological and legal, the book combines the visions of several experts from the academic world and provides a structured framework with a wide approach to understand the new era of influencing, including the dark sides of it. It will be of direct interest to marketing scholars and researchers while also relevant to many other areas affected by the phenomenon of social media influence

Influence of Learners’ L1 Arabic and L2 French on the Acquisition of L3 English

The thesis contributes to the understanding of an under investigated phenomenon, namely the relative effects of transfer from a first language (L1/Arabic) and a second language (L2/ French) into a third language (L3/English). The unique feature of the study lies in its investigation of lexical and grammatical transfer in their positive and negative forms in Lebanese university students’ use of English. Another distinguishing criterion is that the native language is distant to the acquired ones, both of which are typologically similar