Experience representation in information systems

This thesis looks into the ways subjective dimension of experience could be represented in artificial, non-biological systems, in particular information systems. The pivotal assumption is that experience as opposed to mainstream thinking in information science is not equal to knowledge, so that experience is a broader term which encapsulates both knowledge and subjective, affective component of experience, which so far has not been properly embraced by knowledge representation theories. This is the consequence of dominance of behaviourism and later cognitivism in the XXth-century science, which tended to reduce mind and experience respectively to behavioural expressions and discrete states relating mindful creature to external world, meanwhile the processes of knowing to manipulations with symbols. We support the view that traditional knowledge representation approaches will not suffice to embrace the entirety of mental phenomena. We propose that in order to understand, represent and model the thinking and behavioural processes of mindful entities in information systems we need to look into the phenomenon of experience beyond the boundaries of knowledge. At the same time we propose to look at experience in a more structured way and try to capture it in formal terms, making it amenable to symbolic representation, being aware at the same time of innate limitations of symbolic representations compared to the natural representations in biological bodies. Under the paradigm of mind intentionality, which assumes that minds have this special intrinsic feature that they can relate to external word and thus are about external world, it can be asserted that experience is one in all intentional mind state composed of knowledge that is the intentional contents of this state, the world-to-mind relation, meanwhile its inseparable subjective component is composed of subjective feelings of the mindful individual corresponding to this intentional mind states. If so, we propose that experience can be defined as two-dimensional mental phenomena consisting of mental states that have both knowledge and affective component. Consequently we suggest that experience can be represented as pairs of elements of sets K, and A, where K represents knowledge, hence contents of remembered intentional states of mind (i.e. intentional contents of experience), whereas A represents affect, i.e. the subjective qualitative component of experience. iii Importantly, it does not particularly matter if we define experience as a set of mind states or a mind state process for assessing if the overall relation between knowledge and subjective experience that we have outlined above is valid. Whether there is knowing rather then knowledge or experiencing rather than experience which seems increasingly a contemporary principle, remains a fascinating philosophical, ontological to be more specific, question, however it falls beyond the scope of the thesis and therefore we shall not concentrate on it herewith. Furthermore we propose that the subjective component of experience is also intrinsically intentionalistic, but meanwhile the intentionality in case of knowing is directed outward, to the external world, in case of feeling it is directed inwards to the within of the experiencing mindbody. We tap into the contemporary thinking in the philosophy of mind that the primordial, intrinsic intentionalistic capacity of mind is non-linguistic, as there must be other more primordial, non-linguistic form of intentionality that allows human children, as well as other language-capable animals, to learn language in first place. Contemporary cognitive neuroscience suggest that this capacity is tightly related to affect. We also embrace the theories of consciousness and self coming from brain scientists such as Damasio and Panksepp who believe that there is a primordial component of self, a so called protoself composed of the raw feelings coming from within the body, which are representations of bodily states in the mind, and have strictly subjective character. Therefore we can look at this compound of primordial feelings as a mirror in which external world reflects via the interface of the senses. This results in experience that has this conceptually dual, yet united within the conscious mindbody, composition of intentional contents that is knowledge and subjective component that is built up by feelings coming from within the experiencing mindbody. For it is problematic to state sharply either that this composition is dual or united we can refer to these two separately considered aspects of experience either as components or dimensions. In this thesis we pay particular attention to the role the affective component of experience plays in the behaviour of organisms, and we use the concept of rational agency to discuss the relations between agent experience and behaviour. This role is primarily about motivation and experience vividness, i.e. how easily experiential states can be retrieved from memory. The affective dimension of experience determines the drivers for agent action and influences the remembering and forgetting (memory) processes that experience is prone to. We reflect on how the above presented framework could enhance one of the most popular rational agency models: the Believes Desires Intentions model (BDI) based on Bratmann’s account of practical reason that has dominated information science and artificial intelligence literature. Inspired by Davidson, who opposing Hume’s account that the passions (desires) drive action while reason (belief) merely directs its force, concluded that iv “(...) belief and desire seem equally to be causal conditions of action. But (...) desire is more basic in that if we know enough about a person’s desires, we can work out what he believes, while the reverse does not hold.” (Davidson, 2004) we conclude that in so far as BDI model approaches them, desires are sort of beliefs. Indeed a desire in the above sense is a verbalised desire, i.e. in order for a proposition to be included in the deliberation an agent must have internally verbalize it and accept it by which he converts it into a belief. As a result an agent acquires a belief about its desire. Apart from desires made thus explicit and becoming beliefs there are implicit experiential states that directly influence behaviour, these are not embraced by the Desires set in the BDI and other instrumentalist rationality models as these currently do not have adequate forms of representation. If this is so, the BDI models looses its D creating a gap which must be filled in, which we try to do with the subjective dimension of experience. Under such an account each belief, either the proper one or about the desire, represented formally with a proposition should have an extra component added which would stand for the subjective affective state to this belief. Some preliminary suggestions how this could be implemented are proposed and discussed. The central proposition of this thesis states that experience, broadly understood as the entirety of contents and quality of a conscious mind state, can be satisfactorily represented in information systems, and any information system which objective is to emulate natural agent behaviour with satisfactory faithfulness cannot do without a sound experience representation framework. To achieve this it is necessary to realize and accept, based on convincing evidence from neuroscience, that the missing subjective component of experience is affect that forms and integral part of natural agent’s experience, and determines, or at least impacts profoundly the behaviour of natural agents. Relating affect to knowledge would result in a satisfactory approximation of experience. It is to realize as well that the subjective dimension of experience, classified as affect, is not entirely private, subjective epiphenomenal entity but rather can be studied in objective terms as neurological correlates in the brain following account of emotion and affect as fostered by contemporary neuroscience. By identifying affective correlates of intentional contents of states of mind, which build up knowledge, we can exploit a broader concept experience for the purpose of more accurate emulation of natural agents’ thinking process and behaviour in information systems. This thesis presents and discusses a bulk of evidence coming mainly from three fields: information science, philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience that led us to the above stated conclusions, as well as establishes a framework for experience representation in information systems

Hydrogeological investigations of river bed clogging at a river bank filtration site along the River Warta, Poland

River bank filtration (RBF) is a system that enriches groundwater resources by induced infiltration of river water to an aquifer. Problematic during operation of RBF systems is the deterioration of infiltration effectiveness caused by river bed clogging. This situation was observed in the Krajkowo well field which supplies fresh water to the city of Poznań (Poland) during and after the long hydrological drought between the years 1989 and 1992. The present note discusses results of specific hydrogeological research which included drilling of a net of boreholes to a depth of 10 m below river bottom (for sediment sampling as well as for hydrogeological measurements), analyses of grain size distribution and relative density studies. The results obtained have allowed the recognition of the origin of the clogging processes, as well as the documentation of the clogged parts of the river bottom designated for unclogging activities

Analysis of expression of MHC class I molecules and TAP genes in malignant human cell lines.

TAP proteins (transporters associated with antigen processing) take part in the transport of oligopeptides created in proteasomes from cytoplasm into endoplasmic reticulum. In the endoplasmic reticulum those oligopeptides are bound to MHC class I molecules and transported to the cell surface. TAP proteins consist of two subunits: TAP1 and TAP2. It has been previously shown that TAP protein expression can be decreased in malignant cells, followed by reduced protein expression or complete lack of MHC class I antigens on the cell surface. The aim of the study was to characterize of MHC class I protein expression and TAP mRNA synthesis in twenty human malignant tumor cell lines. MHC class I protein expression was examined by immunohistochemistry and flow cytometry. Expression of TAP genes was studied using RT-PCR and real-time PCR. All tested cell lines expressed MHC class I molecules. Flow cytometry showed different expression of MHC class I protein in tested cell lines. Molecular analysis revealed the presence of TAP1 and TAP2 gene transcripts in all cell lines examined. Quantitative real time PCR analysis showed differences of gene expression among cell lines tested

TLR receptors in laryngeal carcinoma - immunophenotypic, molecular and functional studies.

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) have been shown to play crucial role in the recognition of unicellular pathogens. We have shown the expression of three TLRs on tumor cells of human laryngeal carcinoma by means of immunohistochemistry. In the current study we searched presence of TLR1-10 on protein and molecular level in larynx carcinoma cell lines and the impact of respective TLR ligands on TLR expression. Larynx carcinoma cell lines have been used. Cell were subjected to immunocytochemistry. RNA isolated from the cells was tested by RT-PCR. Cells were cultured in the presence of respective TLR ligands. Cells than were harvested and subjected to flow cytometry, using anti TLR1-10 Moabs. The cells were evaluated of membrane and cytoplasmic cell staining. TLR reactivity varied in individual cell lines. RT-PCR allowed to show mRNA for all TLRs tested. After short-term cell culture each cell line exhibited distinct pattern of expression of TLRs following interaction with respective ligand. Cytoplasmic TLR staining had usually higher MFI value than membrane one, but after culture with ligand it became reversed. TLRs 7 and 9 showed highest expression in the majority of tumor cells tested. In conclusion, larynx carcinoma cell lines exhibit rather universal expression of TLRs, both on protein and molecular level. Culture of TLR expressing tumor cells with ligands points out for potential reactivity of tumor cells with TLR agonists, what may have therapeutic implications

A preliminary study in zero anaphora coreference resolution for Polish

A preliminary study in zero anaphora coreference resolution for PolishZero anaphora is an element of the coreference resolution task that has not yet been directly addressed in Polish and, in most studies, it has been left as the most challenging aspect for further investigation. This article presents an initial study of this problem. The preparation of a machine learning approach, alongside engineering features based on linguistic study of the KPWr corpus, is discussed. This study utilizes existing tools for Polish coreference resolution as sources of partial coreferential clusters containing pronoun, noun and named entity mentions. They are also used as baseline zero coreference resolution systems for comparison with our system. The evaluation process is focused not only on clustering correctness, without taking into account types of mentions, using standard CoNLL-2012 measures, but also on the informativeness of the resulting relations. According to the annotation approach used for coreference to the KPWr corpus, only named entities are treated as mentions that are informative enough to constitute a link to real world objects. Consequently, we provide an evaluation of informativeness based on found links between zero anaphoras and named entities. For the same reason, we restrict coreference resolution in this study to mention clusters built around named entities. Wstępne studium rozwiązywania problemu koreferencji anafory zerowej w języku polskimKoreferencja zerowa, w języku polskim, jest jednym z zagadnień rozpoznawania koreferencji. Dotychczas nie była ona bezpośrednim przedmiotem badań, gdyż ze względu na jej złożoność była pomijana i odsuwana na dalsze etapy badań. Artykuł prezentuje wstępne studium problemu, jakim jest rozpoznawanie koreferencji zerowej. Przedstawiamy podejście wykorzystujące techniki uczenia maszynowego oraz proces tworzenia cech w oparciu o analizę lingwistyczną korpusu KPWr. W przedstawionej pracy wykorzystujemy istniejące narzędzia do rozpoznawania koreferencji dla pozostałych rodzajów wzmianek (tj. nazwy własne, frazy rzeczownikowe oraz zaimki) jako źródło częściowych zbiorów wzmianek odnoszących się do tego samego obiektu, a także jako punkt odniesienia dla uzyskanych przez nas wyników. Ocena skupia się nie tylko na poprawności uzyskanych zbiorów wzmianek, bez względu na ich typ, co odzwierciedlają wyniki podane dla standardowych metryk CoNLL-2012, ale także na wartości informacji, która zostaje uzyskana w wyniku rozpoznania koreferencji. W nawiązaniu do założeń anotacji korpusu KPWr, jedynie nazwy własne traktowane są jako wzmianki, które zawierają w sobie wystarczająco szczegółową informację, aby można było powiązać je z obiektami rzeczywistymi. W konsekwencji dostarczamy także ocenę opartą na wartości informacji dla podmiotów domyślnych połączonych relacją koreferencji z nazwami własnymi. Z tą samą motywacją rozpatrujemy jedynie zbiory wzmianek koreferencyjnych zbudowane wokół nazw własnych

Heavy traffic, low mortality - tram tracks as terrestrial habitat of newts

Amphibian mortality caused by rail traffic has not attracted much attention in comparison to road mortality. Density of railways in landscape, as well as traffic intensity, is usually much lower than in case of roads. As a consequence, their overall effect on amphibian populations is tacitly assumed to be less negative. To test whether very intensive rail traffic can cause substantial mortality in population of a small amphibian, we investigated a Smooth newt Lissotriton vulgaris population located in the city of Poznań, W Poland, where tram tracks border isolated breeding ponds. We performed controls during the peak of autumn migratory activity along the tracks. Less than 1% of all individuals found during the survey were killed by rail traffic. Observed mortality was very low despite large number of individuals present on the track and intensive tram traffic. As negative effects of traffic are low, rail or tram embankments can provide an important terrestrial habitat for small European newts

Ovarian morphology and hormonal profiles in gilts following surgical denervation at day 12 of the oestrous cycle - preliminary data

To establish the role of the nervous system in the etiopathogenesis of ovarian cysts we studied ovarian morphology and hormonal profiles in gilts that had undergone bilateral surgical denervation at day 12 of the oestrous cycle. Blood samples were collected from day 13 of the first cycle until day 20 of the second studied cycle. On this day the number of follicles (6 to 10 mm in diameter) was lower (p < 0.01) in the denervated ovaries when compared to the control group. Denervation resulted in a dramatic reduction in the number of TH/D &#946;H- and/or NPY-IR nerve fibres, especially in the vicinity of the follicles. Furthermore, denervation lead to a decrease (p < 0.05&#8211;0.001) in plasma concentrations of P4 (at day 15 and 16 of the first cycle and during the luteal phase of the second studied cycle) and LH and E2 (mainly during the perioestrous period). These results suggest that sympathetic neurons supplying ovaries may participate in the follicular development and steroidogenesis in gilts