Context Dependence, MOPs,WHIMs and procedures Recanati and Kaplan on Cognitive Aspects in Semantics

After presenting Kripke’s criticism to Frege’s ideas on context dependence of thoughts, I present two recent attempts of considering cognitive aspects of context dependent expressions inside a truth conditional pragmatics or semantics: Recanati’s non-descriptive modes of presentation (MOPs) and Kaplan’s ways of having in mind (WHIMs). After analysing the two attempts and verifying which answers they should give to the problem discussed by Kripke, I suggest a possible interpretation of these attempts: to insert a procedural or algorithmic level in semantic representations of indexicals. That a function may be computed by different procedures might suggest new possibilities of integrating contextual cognitive aspects in model theoretic semanti

Monitoramento hidrometeorológico em bacias rurais do Bioma Mata Atlântica.

Visando estabelecer estudos sobre a hidrologia de bacias com uso agrícola nas regiões tropicais, foram instaladas redes de instrumentação hidrometeorológica em duas bacias rurais. Caracterizadas por um mosaico de classes de cobertura e uso da terra, na Mata Atlântica Fluminense, as bacias são: a do córrego Pito Aceso, no Município de Bom Jardim, região Serrana Fluminense, e a bacia dos Rios Guapiaçu-Macacu, cuja drenagem tem sua foz na Baía de Guanabara. Os resultados obtidos no monitoramento provêm informações essenciais para parametrizar modelos simuladores de processos de fluxo de água e transporte de nutrientes e sedimentos. No projeto AgroHidro, a associação do monitoramento ao uso de modelos visa prover maior conhecimento dos processos de hidrologia em bacias, bem como de suas interações com os sistemas agrícolas

Flow intermittence prediction using a hybrid hydrological modelling approach: influence of observed intermittence data on the training of a random forest model

Rivers are rich in biodiversity and act as ecological corridors for plant and animal species. With climate change and increasing anthropogenic water demand, more frequent and prolonged periods of drying in river systems are expected, endangering biodiversity and river ecosystems. However, understanding and predicting the hydrological mechanisms that control periodic drying and rewetting in rivers is challenging due to a lack of studies and hydrological observations, particularly in non-perennial rivers. Within the framework of the Horizon 2020 DRYvER (Drying River Networks and Climate Change) project, a hydrological modelling study of flow intermittence in rivers is being carried out in three European catchments (Spain, Finland, France) characterised by different climate, geology, and anthropogenic use. The objective of this study is to represent the spatio-temporal dynamics of flow intermittence at the reach level in mesoscale river networks (between 120 and 350 km2). The daily and spatially distributed flow condition (flowing or dry) is predicted using the J2000 distributed hydrological model coupled with a random forest classification model. Observed flow condition data from different sources (water level measurements, photo traps, citizen science applications) are used to build the predictive model. This study aims to evaluate the impact of the observed flow condition dataset (sample size, spatial and temporal representativity) on the performance of the predictive model. Results show that the hybrid modelling approach developed in this study allows the spatio-temporal patterns of drying to be accurately predicted in the three catchments, with a sensitivity criterion above 0.9 for the prediction of dry events in the Finnish and French case studies and 0.65 in the Spanish case study. This study shows the value of combining different data sources of observed flow condition to reduce the uncertainty in predicting flow intermittence.</p

Modelagem de processos hidrológicos em bacias de mesoescala escassamente monitoradas na Mata Atlântica, RJ, Brasil.

A Bacia Hidrográfica do Guapi-Macacu (BHGM), situada na região metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro, é responsável pelo abastecimento de mais de dois milhões de pessoas. A região é sujeita a inundações e deslizamentos no período chuvoso, e escassez hídrica na estação seca, com riscos para o abastecimento doméstico e agrícola nos anos de menor precipitação. Ferramentas de modelagem podem colaborar para a gestão integrado de recursos hídricos e apoiar a tomada de decisão. Este estudo utilizou o modelo hidrológico J2K, desenvolvido na plataforma Jena Adaptable Modeling System (JAMS), para representar o comportamento hidrológico da BHGM. Os procedimentos de parametrização e calibração do modelo foram baseados em dados de campo e de séries temporais meteorológicas e de vazão. O modelo parametrizado para a BHGM foi aplicado numa bacia adjacente, a Bacia Dois Rios (BHDR). Os indicadores de desempenho do modelo foram satisfatórios a bons para ambas as bacias e mostraram a viabilidade de aplicar conjuntos de parâmetros obtidos a partir de bacias instrumentadas em âmbito regional, i.e., em bacias semelhantes quanto às características geomorfológicas e climatológicas

Etapas metodológicas para a modelagem do nitrogênio na água na bacia Guapi-Macacu, Rio de Janeiro, RJ.

A qualidade da água depende de muitos fatores naturais e antrópicos. Estes impactos precisam ser caracterizados e quantificados para subsidiar cenários futuros e a gestão de recursos hídricos no âmbito das bacias hidrográficas. A Bacia Guapi-Macacu, pertencente ao Bioma Mata Atlântica, é a terceira no ranking de abastecimento de água no Estado do Rio de Janeiro. O propósito deste trabalho foi apresentar as etapas metodológicas para a modelagem hidrológica das formas de nitrogênio nesta bacia. Nesse caso, o modelo hidroquímico J2000-S foi aplicado. A fim de calibrar e validar o modelo, foi instalada uma rede de monitoramento hidrometeorológica e de qualidade da água. Dados secundários também foram organizados e utilizados. Etapas do trabalho: coleta e análise de dados, delimitação das unidades de resposta hidrológica; calibração e validação temporal do modelo hidroquímico; validação espacial e análise de incertezas. A principal fonte de nitrogênio é o esgoto doméstico, seguida das fontes difusas relacionadas à agricultura. Concluiu-se que a disponibilidade de dados é um grande desafio, mas a implantação de redes de monitoramento sólidas pode fornecer os dados necessários para a modelagem

The Prenective View of Propositional Content

Beliefs have what I will call ‘propositional content’. A belief is always a belief that so-and-so: a belief that grass is green, or a belief that snow is white, or whatever. Other things have propositional content too, such as sentences, judgments and assertions. The Standard View amongst philosophers is that what it is to have a propositional content is to stand in an appropriate relation to a proposition. Moreover, on this view, propositions are objects, i.e. the kind of thing you can refer to with singular terms. For example, on the Standard View, we should parse the sentence ‘Simon believes that Sharon is funny’ as: [Simon] believes [that Sharon is funny]; ‘Simon’ is a term referring to a thinking subject, ‘that Sharon is funny’ is a term referring to a proposition, and ‘x believes y’ is a dyadic predicate expressing the believing relation. In this paper, I argue against the Standard View. This is how I think we should parse ‘Simon believes that Sharon is funny’: [Simon] believes that [Sharon is funny]; here we have a singular term, ‘Simon’, a sentence ‘Sharon is funny’, and a ‘prenective’ joining them together, ‘x believes that p’. On this Prenective View, we do not get at the propositional content of someone’s belief by referring to a reified proposition with a singular term; we simply use the sentence ‘Sharon is funny’ to express that content for ourselves. I argue for the Prenective View in large part by showing that an initially attractive version of the Standard View is actually vulnerable to the same objection that Wittgenstein used against Russell’s multiple-relation theory of judgment

Unity through truth

Renewed worries about the unity of the proposition have been taken as a crucial stumbling block for any traditional conception of propositions. These worries are often framed in terms of how entities independent of mind and language can have truth conditions: why is the proposition that Desdemona loves Cassio true if and only if she loves him? I argue that the best understanding of these worries shows that they should be solved by our theory of truth and not our theory of content. Specifically, I propose a version of the redundancy theory according to which ‘it is true that Desdemona loves Cassio’ expresses the same proposition as ‘Desdemona loves Cassio’. Surprisingly, this variant of the redundancy theory treats ‘is true’ as an ordinary predicate of the language, thereby defusing many standard criticisms of the redundancy theory

Can minimalism about truth embrace polysemy?

Paul Horwich is aware of the fact that his theory as stated in his works is directly applicable only to a language in which a word, understood as a syntactic type, is connected with exactly one literal meaning. Yet he claims that the theory is expandable to include homonymy and indexicality and thus may be considered as applicable to natural language. My concern in this paper is with yet another kind of ambiguity - systematic polysemy - that assigns multiple meanings to one linguistic type. I want to combine the characteristics of systematic polysemy with the Kaplanian insight that meanings of expressions may be defined by semantic rules which assign content in context and to ask the question if minimalism about truth and meaning is compatible with such rule-based systematic polysemy. I will first explain why the expressions that exhibit rule-based systematic polysemy are difficult to combine with a truth theory that is based on a use theory of meaning before proceeding to argue that indexicals and proper names are such expressions