Graph Transformation Model of a Triangulated Network of Mobile Units

A triangulated network of mobile units is modelled by means of a graph trans-formation system in which graph nodes are labelled with geometric coordinates and edges are labelled with distances. Nodes represent mobile units and edges represent wireless radio communication links between them. Under concurrency the model can describe interesting practical scenarios, for example swarms of taxis in an urban environment. The contribution features the enhancement of a graph transformation system by trigonometric calculations. By the way it is also shown that the classical negative edge condition has only limited applicability if a strict locality principle is assumed, and "vice versa" that there are reasonable modeling cases in which this locality principle itself fails to suffice

Heinz Zemanek\u27s Almost Forgotten Contributions to the Early Philosophy of Informatics

This paper recapitulates some of the most important aspects of the early and almost forgotten computer- and informatics-philosophy by the Austrian computer pioneer Heinz Zemanek (1920-2014). From a practical perspective, this remembrance has the two important purposes of preventing our contemporary discipline of computer-philosophy from the unnecessary \u27re-invention of the wheel\u27 in many of its ongoing efforts, and of providing opportunities for Zemanek-inspired conflict resolutions in some cases where contemporary informatics-philosophical disputes appear to be \u27stuck\u27

The Notion of "Aether": Hegel versus Contemporary Physics

P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); widows: 2; orphans: 2; }P.western { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; } Hegel's transient notion of "Aether", developed and finally abandoned again during his short period of time at the University of Jena in the early years of the 19th century, has received comparatively little attention so far – much less than, for example, his Phenomenology of Spirit, or his later systematic works which he published after his departure from Jena. In modern and contemporary physics, on the other hand, novel notions comparable to Hegel's "aether" have become interesting again with the rise of quantum physics. In this essay we recapitulate and explain the notion of "Aether" in Hegel's works and compare it to novel aether concepts which might be appropriate in the context of contemporary quantum physics. Such a juxtaposition would well have matched Hegel's own intentions, since he had always been a keen observer of the latest developments in the natural sciences during his own lifetime. In conclusion we can say that, in spite of a number of differences, both notions of aether can be speculatively characterised by the paradoxical term "reality of possibility"

Proliferating dendritic cell progenitors in human blood

CD34+cells in human cord blood and marrow are known to give rise to dendritic cells (DC), as well as to other myeloid lineages. CD34+cells are rare in adult blood, however, making it difficult to use CD34 + ceils to ascertain if DC progenitors are present in the circulation and if blood can be a starting point to obtain large numbers of these immunostimulatory antigenpresenting cells for clinical studies. A systematic search for DC progenitors was therefore carried out in several contexts. In each case, we looked initially for the distinctive proliferating aggregates that were described previously in mice. In cord blood, it was only necessary to deplete erythroid progenitors, and add granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) together with tumor necrosis factor (TNF), to observe many aggregates and the production of typical DC progeny. In adult blood from patients receiving CSFs after chemotherapy for malignancy, GMCSF and TNF likewise generated characteristic DCs from HLA-DR negative precursors. However, in adult blood from healthy donors, the above approaches only generated small DC aggregates which then seemed to become monocytes. When interleukin 4 was used to suppress monocyte development (Jansen, J. H., G.-J. H. M. Wientjens, W. E. Fibbe, K. Willemze, and H. C. Kluin-Nelemans. 1989. J. Exp. Med. 170:577.), the addition of GM-CSF led to the formation of large proliferating DC aggregates and within 5-7 d, many nonproliferating progeny, about 3-8 million cells per 40 ml of blood. The progeny had a characteristic morphology and surface composition (e.g., abundant HLA-DK and accessory molecules for cell-mediated immunity) and were potent stimulators of quiescent T cells. Therefore, large numbers of DCs can be mobilized by specific cytokines from progenitors in the blood stream. These relatively large numbers of DC progeny should facilitate future studies of their FceRI and CD4 receptors, and their use in stimulating T cell-mediated resistance to viruses and tumors

Mobile Agents For Implementing Local Computations in Graphs

Mobile agents are a recent paradigm to facilitate the design and programming of distributed applications. However, whilst their popularity continues to grow, a uniform theory of mobile agent systems is not yet sufficiently elaborated, in comparison with classical models of distributed computation. In this paper we show how to use mobile agents as an alternative model for implementing distributed local computation rules. In doing so, we approach a general and unified framework for local computations which is consistent with the classical theory of distributed computations based on graph relabeling systems

Proliferating dendritic cell progenitors in human blood

Romani, N., Gruner, S., Brang, D., Kampgen, E., Lenz, A., Trockenbacher, B., Konwalinka, G., Fritsch, P.O., Steinman, R.M., and Schuler, G. Proliferating dendritic cell progenitors in human blood. J. Exp. Med. 180:83-93, 1994https://digitalcommons.rockefeller.edu/historical-scientific-reports/1039/thumbnail.jp

Hans Driesch re-visited after a century : on "Leib und Seele – Eine Untersuchung über das psychophysische Grundproblem"

Long before Alan Turing laid the foundations of the ongoing artificial intelligence project with all its computer-scientific and philosophical consequences and side effects, we can find in a short but intellectually dense booklet by the German biologist, bio-and-psycho-philosopher and philosopher of science, Hans Driesch, the following noteworthy remark: ‘It is conceivable that once a great technician of the future might reproduce the internal state of a brain at one moment; according to our doctrine there would not be 'on the other side' any corresponding state of a conscious having.’ The ongoing philosophical disputes about the possibility or impossibility of 'strong artificial intelligence', with well-known participants such as John Searle and Roger Penrose, provides sufficient reason and motivation to look once again at what Hans Driesch had told us approximately a century ago. From his many books and essays I have chosen "Leib und Seele – Eine Untersuchung über das psychophysische Grundproblem" (1st:1916, 3rd:1923) for this review, specifically because of that book's persistent relevance for the ongoing discourses in the philosophy of computing and AI. These contemporary AI-philosophical discourses are –at least in part– characterised by the occasional re-emergence of naive mapping models for mental and mechanical 'states' which Driesch had convincingly refuted already two decades before the first Turing-equivalent freely programmable digital computers were electro-mechanically or fully electronically implemented – long before the linguist Searle came up with this famous 'Chinese Room' argument, and long before mathematical physicists like Penrose attacked the position of 'strong' AI by means of an intellectual pincer manoeuvre with Gödel's incompleteness theorems on the one flank and quantum physics on the other.http://www.cosmosandhistory.orgam2018Computer Scienc

Towards a Generic Design for General-Purpose Sensor Network Nodes

The key to mature and efficient industrial software engineering is standardisation more than an aggressive struggle for innovation only for the sake of its own. This is assumption is also held for the area of sensor networks development, which is becoming an increasingly important field at the interface between software and hardware engineering. This short position paper proposes and outlines a generic design for the nodes of such sensor networks, which could be used in the future as the basis of almost any conceivable sensor network application. On such a basis of generic standardisation, the development of specific and particular sensor network applications will then be mainly a matter of hardware-independent programming with APIs, as it is already well known in the classical domain of operating systems in ordinary desktop PCs.This work was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa.http://www.enase.orgmv201

Abstraction, Refinement, Enrichment

In the no longer existing South African journal Quaestiones Informaticae, "An Approach to Defining Abstractions, Refinements and Enrichments" was published by Derrick Kourie more than twenty years ago. At some occasion, about two years ago, Derrick Kourie had asked and encouraged me to review his original topics, such as to re-construct and re-present them from a different perspective. In this festschrift chapter, in honour of Derrick Kourie's 65th birthday, I outline the results of my attempt at fulfilling Derrick Kourie's collegial request. For this purpose I shall first recapitulate the key concepts of Kourie's original paper, since that paper has more or less fallen into oblivion and cannot be easily retrieved from the public domain any more. Thereafter Kourie's notions of abstraction, refinement and enrichment are re-defined in a different (more classical) theoretical framework. Finally those notions are contextualised with respect to the related notion of retrenchment developed since the mid-1990s by Banach, Poppleton, et alNote that the related Chapter 1 in the above-mentioned book published by Shaker Verlag contains three Figures, as well as a long list of Acknowledgments, which are OMITTED in this pre-print version.http://www.shaker.de/shop/978-3-8440-2068-7mv201