Themes and structural symbols in the novels of George Eliot

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The boon and bane of religiosity in dealing with uncertainties arising from social change

Current trends of social change such as globalization, individualization, and pluralization confront people in many industrialized societies with growing uncertainties concerning important developmental goals of young and middle adulthood, such as career and family formation. Because they threaten the successful resolution of these developmental goals, these uncertainties pose new demands that require a response by the individual; as such, they represent potential stressors that can impinge on psychological adaptation. An important yet understudied question is what psychosocial resources may help individuals deal with such conditions of heightened uncertainty. Burgeoning evidence in both psychology and sociology points to an important role of religiosity in coping with life stress generally, and uncertainty more specifically. Building on this precedent, the overarching goal of this dissertation, comprising three empirical studies, was to explore the role of religiosity in dealing with perceived uncertainties that arise from social change in the realm of work and family life. The Jena model of social change and human development served as the theoretical background for these studies, according to which religiosity can be conceived as a potential psychosocial resource. Data came from a cross-sectional survey among 3,078 respondents (aged 16 to 46 years) which was conducted in 2009 in Poland, a nation that is highly religious and which has recently been witnessing profound social change. The results of these three studies point to a dual role of religiosity in coping with social change. They suggest that religiosity – depending on the life domain and outcome under study – can function both as a resource and as a risk factor for psychological adaptation, in particular subjective well-being. Theoretical and practical implications of these results, as well as suggestions for future psychological studies in the emerging research area of religion and coping are discussed

Applications of MATLAB in Science and Engineering

The book consists of 24 chapters illustrating a wide range of areas where MATLAB tools are applied. These areas include mathematics, physics, chemistry and chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, biological (molecular biology) and medical sciences, communication and control systems, digital signal, image and video processing, system modeling and simulation. Many interesting problems have been included throughout the book, and its contents will be beneficial for students and professionals in wide areas of interest

Exchangeable equilibria

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 183-188).The main contribution of this thesis is a new solution concept for symmetric games (of complete information in strategic form), the exchangeable equilibrium. This is an intermediate notion between symmetric Nash and symmetric correlated equilibrium. While a variety of weaker solution concepts than correlated equilibrium and a variety of refinements of Nash equilibrium are known, there is little previous work on "interpolating" between Nash and correlated equilibrium. Several game-theoretic interpretations suggest that exchangeable equilibria are natural objects to study. Moreover, these show that the notion of symmetric correlated equilibrium is too weak and exchangeable equilibrium is a more natural analog of correlated equilibrium for symmetric games. The geometric properties of exchangeable equilibria are a mix of those of Nash and correlated equilibria. The set of exchangeable equilibria is convex, compact, and semi-algebraic, but not necessarily a polytope. A variety of examples illustrate how it relates to the Nash and correlated equilibria. The same ideas which lead to the notion of exchangeable equilibria can be used to construct tighter convex relaxations of the symmetric Nash equilibria as well as convex relaxations of the set of all Nash equilibria in asymmetric games. These have similar mathematical properties to the exchangeable equilibria. An example game reveals an algebraic obstruction to computing exact exchangeable equilibria, but these can be approximated to any degree of accuracy in polynomial time. On the other hand, optimizing a linear function over the exchangeable equilibria is NP-hard. There are practical linear and semidefinite programming heuristics for both problems. A secondary contribution of this thesis is the computation of extreme points of the set of correlated equilibria in a simple family of games. These examples illustrate that in finite games there can be factorially many more extreme correlated equilibria than extreme Nash equilibria, so enumerating extreme correlated equilibria is not an effective method for enumerating extreme Nash equilibria. In the case of games with a continuum of strategies and polynomial utilities, the examples illustrate that while the set of Nash equilibria has a known finite-dimensional description in terms of moments, the set of correlated equilibria admits no such finite-dimensional characterization.by Noah D. Stein.Ph.D

Organisation et fonctionnement des groupes sociaux chez une blatte grégaire : un autre modèle de société d’insectes

The study of social evolution is traditionally linked to the study of the most integrated societies. Key theories in insect sociobiology have been based mainly on the functioning rules of eusocial species, while the great majority of non-eusocial species were neglected, although their study is a necessary step to improve our understanding of social evolution. In this context, cockroaches constitute a good model because of their phylogenetic proximity with solitary as well as eusocial species. My thesis focused on the analysis of the organization and functioning of social groups in a gregarious cockroach, Blattella germanica (L.). An interdisciplinary approach including ethology, behavioural ecology, chemical ecology and mathematical modeling, enabled me to highlight the main characteristics of social life of this species. I demonstrated interdependence of group members related to physiological and behavioural group effects, thus stressing the importance of social relations and gregariousness. I identified a kin recognition mechanism that shapes interactions among group members in relation to context (social or sexual). Then, I demonstrated the occurrence of cooperation between group members to exploit food resources, based on a self-organized collective decision mechanism underlying recruitment. My results evidence that B. germanica is more than just a gregarious insect, as their aggregates form real social groups involving communication and cooperation. All my data allow me to present another model of insect society that can be qualified as a ‘mixed-family herd’ when group-living is primarily based on ecological benefits. Our results offer promising perspectives for the study of social evolution in insects.L’étude de l’évolution de la socialité est traditionnellement liée à l’étude des sociétés les plus intégrées. Ainsi chez les insectes, les théories clés en sociobiologie ont principalement été élaborées à partir des règles de fonctionnement observées chez les espèces eusociales, au détriment de la grande majorité des espèces non-eusociales, dont l’étude est cependant une étape indispensable pour une compréhension globale de l’évolution de la socialité. Dans ce contexte, les blattes constituent un modèle de choix, par leur proximité phylogénétique avec des espèces solitaires et des espèces eusociales. Ce travail est consacré à l’analyse de l’organisation et du fonctionnement des groupes sociaux chez une blatte grégaire, Blattella germanica (L.). Grâce à une approche interdisciplinaire faisant appel à l’éthologie, l’écologie comportementale, l’écologie chimique et la modélisation, nous décrivons les principales caractéristiques de la vie sociale chez cette espèce. Nous démontrons une interdépendance des individus envers le groupe au travers d’effets de groupe physiologiques et comportementaux, soulignant ainsi l’importance des relations sociales et de la vie grégaire. Nous identifions également un mécanisme de reconnaissance de parentèle qui régit une grande partie des interactions entre les membres du groupe en fonction du contexte social ou sexuel. Enfin, nous démontrons l’existence de coopération entre les membres du groupe sous forme d’un recrutement alimentaire pour exploiter les ressources du milieu, sous-tendu par une décision collective auto-organisée. Ces résultats démontrent que B. germanica est davantage qu’une simple espèce grégaire, les agrégats constituant des groupes sociaux organisés, sièges de communication et de coopération. L’ensemble de ce travail nous permet de décrire un autre modèle de société d’insectes principalement basé sur les avantages écologiques de la vie en groupe que nous qualifions de « troupe de familles », et laisse envisager d’intéressantes perspectives pour l’étude de l’évolution de la socialité chez les insectes

A Process Model of Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics

A process model of quantum mechanics utilizes a combinatorial game to generate a discrete and finite causal space upon which can be defined a self-consistent quantum mechanics. An emergent space-time and continuous wave function arise through a uniform interpolation process. Standard non-relativistic quantum mechanics (at least for integer spin particles) emerges under the limit of infinite information (the causal space grows to infinity) and infinitesimal scale (the separation between points goes to zero). This model is quasi-local, discontinuous, and quasi-non-contextual. The bridge between process and wave function is through the process covering map, which reveals that the standard wave function formalism lacks important dynamical information related to the generation of the causal space. Reformulating several classical conundrums such as wave particle duality, Schrodinger's cat, hidden variable results, the model offers potential resolutions to all, while retaining a high degree of locality and contextuality at the local level, yet nonlocality and contextuality at the emergent level. The model remains computationally powerful

Prediction of Robot Execution Failures Using Neural Networks

In recent years, the industrial robotic systems are designed with abilities to adapt and to learn in a structured or unstructured environment. They are able to predict and to react to the undesirable and uncontrollable disturbances which frequently interfere in mission accomplishment. In order to prevent system failure and/or unwanted robot behaviour, various techniques have been addressed. In this study, a novel approach based on the neural networks (NNs) is employed for prediction of robot execution failures. The training and testing dataset used in the experiment consists of forces and torques memorized immediately after the real robot failed in assignment execution. Two types of networks are utilized in order to find best prediction method - recurrent NNs and feedforward NNs. Moreover, we investigated 24 neural architectures implemented in Matlab software package. The experimental results confirm that this approach can be successfully applied to the failures prediction problem, and that the NNs outperform other artificial intelligence techniques in this domain. To further validate a novel method, real world experiments are conducted on a Khepera II mobile robot in an indoor structured environment. The obtained results for trajectory tracking problem proved usefulness and the applicability of the proposed solution