On the Kaleidoscopic Nature of Vietnamese Tones

Undergraduate Applie

Efficient Reasoning with Constrained Goal Models

GOAL models have been widely used in Computer Science to represent software requirements, business objectives, and design qualities. Existing goal modelling techniques, however, have shown limitations of expressiveness and/or tractability in coping with complex real-world problems. In this work, we exploit advances in automated reasoning technologies, notably Satisfiability and Optimization Modulo Theories (SMT/OMT), and we propose and formalize: (i) an extended modelling language for goals, namely the Constrained Goal Model (CGM), which makes explicit the notion of goal refinements and of domain as- sumptions, allows for expressing preferences between goals and refinements, and allows for associating numerical attributes to goals and refinements for defining constraints and optimization goals over multiple objective functions, refinements and their numerical attributes; (i) a novel set of automated reasoning functionalities over CGMs, allowing for automatically generating suitable realizations of input CGMs, under user-specified assumptions and constraints, that also maximize preferences and optimize given objective functions. We are also interested in supporting software evolution caused by changing requirements and/or changes in the operational environment of a software system. For example, users of a system may want new functionalities or performance enhancements to cope with growing user population (requirements evolution). Alternatively, vendors of a system may want to minimize costs in implementing requirements changes (evolution requirements). We propose to use CGMs to represent the requirements of a system and capture requirements changes in terms of incremental operations on a goal model. Evolution requirements are then represented as optimization goals that minimize implementation costs or customer value. We can then exploit reasoning techniques to derive optimal new specifications for an evolving software system. We have implemented these modelling and reasoning functionalities in a tool, named CGM-Tool, using the OMT solver OptiMathSAT as automated reasoning backend. More- over, we have conducted an experimental evaluation on large CGMs to support the claim that our proposal scales well for goal models with thousands of elements. To access our framework usability, we have employed a user-oriented evaluation using enquiry evaluation method

Wilson Harris a jeho mýtická vize v The Guyana Quartet

Tato práce se zabývá vizí Karibiku Wilsona Harrise ve světle procesů osídlování půdy, přivlastňování, genocidy a obchodování s otroky, které historicky upíraly lidskost místní populace. Práce se soustředí především na jeho první čtyři vydané romány - Palace of the Peacock (1960), The Far Journey of Oudin (1961), The Whole Armour (1962), a The Secret Ladder (1963), které byly později společně vydány jako The Guyana Quartet (1985) - přičemž současně také zohledňuje Harrisovy kritické eseje, zejména "The Amerindian Legacy" (1990). Tato diplomové práce začíná zasazením Wilsona Harrise do kontextu post- koloniálního myšlení a karibské literatury 20. století. Následně se zaměřuje na pozůstatky koloniálního dobývání, které se v uvedených čtyřech románech opakovaně objevují v podobě motivu pronásledování. Tato práce se snaží osvětlit Harrisovu reakci na cykly perzekuce, které jsou podle něj jednou příčinou stagnace Karibiku, skrze zkoumání přítomnosti jungiánského myšlení v Harrisově fikci a kritice, jakož i imanentní ontologie Karibiku tvořící základ jeho vize. Harrisova mytopoetická rekonceptualizace karibské identity v The Guyana Quartet navrhuje formu znovuzrození, která transformuje dialektiku mezi pronásledovatelem a pronásledovaným a současně překlenuje absenci historie v Karibiku. Předchozí...This thesis engages with Wilson Harris's vision for the Caribbean in light of the processes of land settlement, appropriation, genocide and slave trafficking that have historically denied the region's population of human identity. Concerned primarily with Wilson Harris's first four published novels, Palace of the Peacock (1960), The Far Journey of Oudin (1961), The Whole Armour (1962), and The Secret Ladder (1963), which were then grouped together and republished as The Guyana Quartet (1985), the study of this quartet also focuses on Harris's critical essays, most notably "The Amerindian Legacy" (1990). Firstly, this thesis situates Wilson Harris within the context of postcolonial thought and Caribbean literature in the 20th century. Then, it focuses on the remnants of colonial conquest that appear continuously in Harris's four novels under the repeated motif of pursuit. By exploring the presence of Jungian thought in Harris's fictional writing and critical writing, as well as the immanent ontology of the Caribbean that underpins the author's vision, the thesis draws out Harris's response to the cycle of persecution that he believes to stagnate the Caribbean. Harris's mythopoetic revisioning of Caribbean identity in The Guyana Quartet proposes a form of rebirth that transforms the dialectic between...Department of Anglophone Literatures and CulturesÚstav anglofonních literatur a kulturFaculty of ArtsFilozofická fakult

Cyklické konflikty v La vie et demie

This bacherlor's thesis focuses on the novel Life and a Half by Sony Labou Tansi, in which the narrator illustrates the cycle of tyrannical power set in the fictional African country of Katamalanasia. The Providential Guide, the dictator in this magical realist novel, is opposed by the rebel Martial and his daughter Chaïdana: these main characters struggle against each other throughout the novel, returning to life after death in order to relaunch the conflict between the authoritative power and its opposition. The novel's plot therefore consists of a cycle of recurring dictatorship, constantly threatened by rebellion. By analysing the ways in which the novel presents the attempts at rupturing the tyrannical cycle, as well as the meaning of these attempts' failures, the thesis aims to show the extent to which this vicious cycle of dictatorship is resolved. Key Words: magical realism, postcolonialism, temporality, dictatorship, Congolese literatureTato bakalářská práce se zaměřuje na román La vie et demie ("Život a půl") Sony Labou Tansiho, ve kterém vypravěč zobrazuje cyklus tyranské vlády ve fiktivním africkém státě Katamalanasie. Guide Providentiel ("Prozřetelný vůdce"), diktátor vystupující v tomto románu, který řadíme do žánru magického realismu, nachází své odpůrce v postavě rebela Martiala et jeho dcery Chaïdany: tyto hlavní postavy spolu po celou dobu bojují a neustále obžívají, aby zas a znovu zahájily boj mezi vládnoucí mocí a její protiváhou. Příběh románu je tudíž založen na cyklu, který se skládá z opakujícího se diktátorského režimu, jenž je neustále ohrožován vzpourou. V práci rozebereme způsoby, pomocí kterých román představuje snahy o prolomení cyklu, a také význam jejich nezdarů. Cílem práce bude určit, do jaké míry tento začarovaný kruh diktatury vede k vyřešení situace. Klíčová slova: magický realismus, postkolonialismus, časovost, diktatura, kongská literatureÚstav románských studiíInstitute of Romance StudiesFilozofická fakultaFaculty of Art

Improving bottleneck features for Vietnamese large vocabulary continuous speech recognition system using deep neural networks

In this paper, the pre-training method based on denoising auto-encoder is investigated and proved to be good models for initializing bottleneck networks of Vietnamese speech recognition system that result in better recognition performance compared to base bottleneck features reported previously. The experiments are carried out on the dataset containing speeches on Voice of Vietnam channel (VOV). The results show that the DBNF extraction for Vietnamese recognition decreases relative word error rate by 14 % and 39 % compared to the base bottleneck features and MFCC baseline, respectively

Mindful Unlearning in Unprecedented times: Implications for Management and Organizations

Crises trigger both learning and unlearning at both intra-organizational and inter-organizational levels. This article stresses the need to facilitate unlearning for effective crisis management and shows how we could use mindfulness practice to enhance unlearning and transformative learning in a crisis. This study proposes the conceptualization of mindful unlearning in crisis with different mechanisms to foster unlearning in three stages of crisis (pre-crisis, during-crisis, and post-crisis). These mechanisms include mindful awareness of impermanence and sensual processing (pre-crisis stage), mindful awareness of interdependence and right intention (crisis management stage), and mindful awareness of transiency and past experiences (post-crisis stage)