On a stronger reconstruction notion for monoids and clones

Motivated by reconstruction results by Rubin, we introduce a new reconstruction notion for permutation groups, transformation monoids and clones, called automatic action compatibility, which entails automatic homeomorphicity. We further give a characterization of automatic homeomorphicity for transformation monoids on arbitrary carriers with a dense group of invertibles having automatic homeomorphicity. We then show how to lift automatic action compatibility from groups to monoids and from monoids to clones under fairly weak assumptions. We finally employ these theorems to get automatic action compatibility results for monoids and clones over several well-known countable structures, including the strictly ordered rationals, the directed and undirected version of the random graph, the random tournament and bipartite graph, the generic strictly ordered set, and the directed and undirected versions of the universal homogeneous Henson graphs.Comment: 29 pp; Changes v1-->v2::typos corr.|L3.5+pf extended|Rem3.7 added|C. Pech found out that arg of L5.3-v1 solved Probl2-v1|L5.3, C5.4, Probl2 of v1 removed|C5.2, R5.4 new, contain parts of pf of L5.3-v1|L5.2-v1 is now L5.3,merged with concl of C5.4-v1,L5.3-v2 extends C5.4-v1|abstract, intro updated|ref[24] added|part of L5.3-v1 is L2.1(e)-v2, another part merged with pf of L5.2-v1 => L5.3-v

The number of clones determined by disjunctions of unary relations

We consider finitary relations (also known as crosses) that are definable via finite disjunctions of unary relations, i.e. subsets, taken from a fixed finite parameter set $\Gamma$. We prove that whenever $\Gamma$ contains at least one non-empty relation distinct from the full carrier set, there is a countably infinite number of polymorphism clones determined by relations that are disjunctively definable from $\Gamma$. Finally, we extend our result to finitely related polymorphism clones and countably infinite sets $\Gamma$.Comment: manuscript to be published in Theory of Computing System

Cost and the Craving for Novelty: Exploring Motivations and Barriers for Cooperative Education and Exchange Students to Go Abroad

Canadian universities aim to increase student participation in international learning experiences through mobility programs such as international co-op and academic exchange. According to the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE), 97% of Canadian universities offer education abroad programs, reflecting a pervasive belief that international experiential learning is good for students as well as their home universities. Contrasting with this international orientation, a relatively small percentage of students actually complete international co-op and exchange. Research into what motivates or prevents students to undertake these somewhat risky ventures and knowledge of how to increase students’ participation in these programs is limited. Business students at a single western Canadian university were surveyed to gain insight into what motivates or prevents them from participating in international co-op and exchange

Incorporating ecological considerations into industrial design practice

University of Technology, Sydney. Institute for Sustainable Futures.Industrial designers play a pivotal role in the development of consumer products. Consumer products contribute significantly to society’s ecological impact, which needs to be lowered. This thesis examines the role of industrial design practice in developing consumer products with low(er) ecological impacts by (i) expanding the concept of ecodesign and (ii) collecting evidence on its contemporary application in Australia. Ecodesign refers to both the integration of ecological considerations into commercial product development processes and their conversion into product designs. When practicing ecodesign, industrial designers must consider the entire life cycle of products—an approach termed Life Cycle Thinking (LCT). This research proposes that industrial design practice allows two expansions to the traditional notion of ecodesign. Firstly, it can uncover new opportunities for creating value through eco-designed products by applying solution-focused thinking. Solution-focused thinking uses representations of tentative suggestions for product designs to explore responses of the context being designed for. Traditionally, ecodesign only applies problem-focused thinking—deductively analysing the status quo to establish requirements for how value can be created. This can result in a lock-in to incremental product-improvement. Secondly, industrial design practice can widen the range of interventions that convert ecological considerations into product designs towards manipulating how products are perceived and understood by consumers, namely, the meanings attached to products. Traditionally, ecodesign focuses too narrowly on technical aspects of product design and has failed to sufficiently represent influencing product meanings. For this research project multiple-case study research was conducted, investigating the ecodesign practice of Australian industrial design consultancies (IDCs) and their clients. The theoretically developed notion of ecodesign was used to guide and structure the enquiry. Data was collected through content analysis of IDC-websites and sixteen interviews with ecodesign experts, representatives of IDCs and their clients. The empirical insights show that the proposed expansions to ecodesign are appropriate. They can support converting ecological considerations into product designs. In tandem, they can also help with exploring and potentially stimulating opportunities for products that offer new eco-friendly meanings to consumers, which they perceive as valuable. If industrial design practice can identify such opportunities, it can justify ecodesign—guided by LCT—as a value-adding element in the product development process. In conclusion, industrial designers can contribute to reducing the negative ecological impact of society by embracing the expanded notion of ecodesign. Several factors need to align to enable this; most importantly, they need to practice ecodesign in collaboration with their clients

Equality, Proportionality and Statistics : Political Representation from the English to the French and American Revolutions

Debates on the proportionality of political representation surfaced repeatedly, and in similar forms, from the English to the American and French Revolutions. They contributed to shaping those revolutions' outcomes and, through them, to the emergence of modern democracy - especially so as they were linked up with voting rights: demands to make seats in assemblies more numerically proportionate to electorates - in other words, to weigh all votes equally - implied the equal weight of individual votes and thus also entailed calls for more equal standards regarding the right to vote. This did not yet signify voting rights for all: only specific categories of individuals - as a rule, male and propertied - were considered, even by the most 'enlightened' writers, to be politically entitled. Nevertheless, it was only one step from here to envisage voting rights for all individuals - or at least, for the time being, for all male individuals - as can also be seen in all three revolutions. If claims for more proportional and equal representation showed their full impact only on the American and French Revolutions, finally, this was due to the intervening emergence of statistics (or 'political arithmetic') as a tool of reflection and debate that gave numbers and calculations increasing persuasive power

Statistics and politics in the 18th century

The article first gives an overview over the early history of statistics in politics, and then zooms in on the first attempts at establishing a nationwide agrarian statistics in pre-revolutionary France. Attention is given to the obstacles as well as to the long-term successes in standardizing and quantifying agrarian productivity. The corresponding learning experience, both in terms of concepts and practice, was a condition for the institutionalization of statistics in the early nineteenth century. It had its roots in the secular-utilitarian agenda of "enlightened absolutism" and its focus on a systematic and state-sponsored relaunch of the national economy. (author's abstract

Ecological User Equilibrium in Traffic Management (TM)?

With increasing environmental sustainability awareness significant attention on ecological traffic management (eco-TM) has come into the focus of researchers and practitioners. While different approaches have been applied to reach minimal pollutant production, the classic user equilibrium calculation with the pollutant production as travel costs instead of using travel times remains in the center of attention. However, the validity of such a direct transformation to find a user equilibrium is questionable. In this paper, a simplified analytical approach to examine the above aforementioned validity has been carried out, followed by a simulation approach to verify the results of the analytical approach. The result shows that the pollutant production function violates the usual assumption of a monotonous function (typically, emission has a minimum at travel speeds around 60 km/h). It also indicates that the respective algorithms to compute the user equilibrium must deal with the fact, that the equilibrium solution is not unique and is dependent on the initial solution. This means that substantial modifications to the algorithms that compute the user equilibrium have to be discussed since they do not work as intended when pollutant production is used as travel costs, especially in a transportation system with mixed speeds that cover a range around the minimum emission speed