Community Preparatory School: 2013-2014 Public Relations Plan

Community Prep sends out seasonal newsletters during fall, winter, spring, and summer of each year that promote recent activities in school, discuss recent events, profile important donors, and give updates on alumni’s successes. These newsletters are sent out in the mail, and are also accessible on Community Prep’s website. Each newsletter comes in one color, with black and white photographs, and has a readable and attractive layout. Email updates have similar information, but sometimes have embedded videos, and provide links to a site where donations can be made or tickets can be bought for future events

Post-Franco Theatre

In the multiple realms and layers that comprise the contemporary Spanish theatrical landscape, “crisis” would seem to be the word that most often lingers in the air, as though it were a common mantra, ready to roll off the tongue of so many theatre professionals with such enormous ease, and even enthusiasm, that one is prompted to wonder whether it might indeed be a miracle that the contemporary technological revolution – coupled with perpetual quandaries concerning public and private funding for the arts – had not by now brought an end to the evolution of the oldest of live arts, or, at the very least, an end to drama as we know it

“Against the Dog Only a Dog”. Talking Canines Civilizing Cynicism in Cervantes’ “coloquio de los perros” (With Tentative Remarks on the Discourse and Method of Animal Studies)

Deriving its designation from the Greek word for ‘dog’, cynicism is likely the only philosophical ‘interest group’ with a diachronically dependable affinity for various animals—particularly those of the canine kind. While dogs have met with differing value judgments, chiefly along a perceived human–animal divide, it is specifically discourses with cynical affinities that render problematic this transitional field. The Cervantine “coloquio de los perros” has received scholarly attention for its (caninely) picaresque themes, its “cynomorphic” (Ziolkowski) narratological technique, its socio-historically informative accounts relating to Early Modern Europe and the Iberian peninsula, including its ‘zoopoetically’ (Derrida) relevant portrayal of dogs (see e.g., Alves, Beusterien, Martín); nor did the dialog’s mention of cynical snarling go unnoticed. The essay at hand commences with a chapter on questions of method pertaining to ‘animal narration’: with recourse to Montaigne, Descartes, and Derrida, this first part serves to situate the ensuing close readings with respect to the field of Animal Studies. The analysis of the Cervantine texts synergizes thematic and narratological aspects at the discourse historical level; it commences with a brief synopsis of the respective novellas in part 2; Section 3, Section 4 and Section 5 supply a description of the rhetorical modes of crafting plausibility in the framework narrative (“The Deceitful Marriage”), of pertinent (Scriptural) intertexts for the “Colloquy”. Parts 6–7 demonstrate that the choice of canine interlocutors as narrating agencies—and specifically in their capacity as dogs—is discursively motivated: no other animal than this animal, and precisely as animal, would here serve the discursive purpose that is concurrently present with the literal plane; for this dialogic novella partakes of a (predominantly Stoicizing) tradition attempting to resocialize the Cynics, which commences already with the appearance of the Ancient arch-Cynic ‘Diogenes’ on the scene. At the discursive level, a diachronic contextualization evinces that the Cervantine text takes up and outperforms those rhetorical techniques of reintegration by melding Christian, Platonic, Stoicizing elements with such as are reminiscent of Diogenical ones. Reallocating Blumenberg’s reading of a notorious Goethean dictum, this essay submits the formula ‘against the Dog only a dog’ as a concise précis of the Cervantine method at the discursive level, attained to via a decidedly pluralized rhetorical sermocination featuring, at a literal level, specifically canine narrators in a dialogic setting

Evaluating a Qualitative Reasoner

In order to support verification, validation and analysis of dynamic Operations Research (OR) models a method of testing models against data is required. In the case of the QCM qualitative reasoning system (QRS) this requires an extension to accomodate temporal data streams. This paper examines a number of temporal reasoning methods for QCM. On the basis of this a general methodology for evaluating QRSs and a statement of success criteria have been developed, and will be used in future work. Key words: qualitative reasoning, temporal reasoning, evaluation. Submitted to Tenth Australian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence Perth, Western Australia 2 - 4 December Evaluating a Qualitative Reasoner; page 2 of 9 Evaluating a Qualitative Reasoner ABSTRACT: In order to support verification, validation and analysis of dynamic Operations Research (OR) models a method of testing models against data is required. In the case of the QCM qualitative reasoning system (QRS) this requires ..

Reasoning and Data Representation in a Health and Lifestyle Support System

Case-based reasoning and data interpretation is an artificial intelligence approach that capitalizes on past experience to solve current problems and this can be used as a method for practical intelligent systems. Case-based data reasoning is able to provide decision support for experts and clinicians in health systems as well as lifestyle systems. In this project we were focusing on developing a solution for healthy ageing considering daily activities, nutrition as well as cognitive activities. The data analysis of the reasoner followed state of the art guidelines from clinical practice. Guidelines provide a general framework to guide clinicians, and require consequent background knowledge to become operational, which is precisely the kind of information recorded in practice cases; cases complement guidelines very well and helps to interpret them. It is expected that the interest in case-based reasoning systems in the health