Tesi sul tema "Logics and meaning of programs"

In this paper, we explore how corporations use visual artifacts to translate and recontextualize a globally theorized managerial concept (CSR) into a local setting (Austria). In our analysis of the field-level visual discourse, we analyze over 1,600 images in stand-alone CSR reports of publicly traded corporations. We borrow from framing analysis and structural linguistics to show how the meaning structure underlying a multifaceted construct like CSR is constituted by no more than a relatively small number of fundamental dimensions and rhetorical standpoints (topoi). We introduce the concept of imageries-of-practice to embrace the critical role that shared visual language plays in the construction of meaning and the emergence of field-level logics. In particular, we argue that imageries-of-practice, compared to verbal vocabularies, are just as well equipped to link locally resonating symbolic representations and globally diffusing practices, thus expressing both the material and ideational dimension of institutional logics in processes of translation. We find that visual rhetoric used in the Austrian discourse emphasizes the qualities of CSR as a bridging concept, and facilitates the mediation of inconsistencies in several ways: By translating abstract global ideas into concrete local knowledge, imageries-of-practice aid in mediating spatial oppositions; by linking the past, present, and future, they bridge time; by mediating between different institutional spheres and their divergent logics, they appease ideational oppositions and reduce institutional complexity; and, finally, by connecting questionable claims with representations of authenticity, they aid in overcoming credibility gaps.

The twofold purpose of this study was to ground a model of Lens Meaning in the literature of the Fine Arts and Social Sciences and to use that term as a referent in evaluating three Media Studies curricula. Lens Meaning is a term derived from a variety of sources, particularly Peirce (1955), whose semiotic theory described three systems of signs used as terms on one axis of a matrix or model by which Lens Meaning can be described. These terms are: "index", "icon", and "symbol". DeLauretis' (1984) expanded understanding of another system of signs described by Peirce, interpretants, is the foundation for the three terms on the other axis of the matrix. Those terms, which describe interpretation or response, are: "emotional", "energetic", and "habit changing". These, and other terms identified in the literature, provided a conceptual model that might be applied to the analysis and evaluation of programs of Media Studies, and similar documents. Three Media Studies programs were selected for study: from Western Australia, Ontario, and Scotland. Application of the model permitted conclusions to be drawn on the extent to which current issues of an ideological and sociopolitical nature were addressed by these programs. It was concluded that the model achieved the purposes required of it and that it may be of further utility for educators.
Education, Faculty of
Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of
Graduate

Nurse residency programs (NRPs) have been identified as a means to promote transitioning of new nurses into the professional nursing role. Questions have arisen related to which elements within those programs are most meaningful to the development of new nurses. As the nursing shortage drives the need for quick transition and development of nurses to meet workforce needs, nursing must identify what is meaningful to nurses in their transition to practice. The purpose of this multi-site study was to explicate meaning from the experiences of newly licensed registered nurses (NLRNs) who have just completed NRPs. The research question was “What factors have meaning for NLRNs who have experienced transition to practice in nurse residency programs in acute care settings?”

Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from six NLRNs from three different NRPs after completion of their programs. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, themes and variations within those themes were derived from the descriptive narratives provided from participant interviews. Overarching themes identified were Relationships, Reflection, Active Learning, Resources and Organizational Systems. Findings have implications for practice and education as the nursing profession strives to find ways to transform nurses in an effective and efficient manner.

Cette thèse s’intéresse à la question de démontrer rigoureusement que l’implantation d’un algorithme donné est non seulement correcte (elle renvoie bien le bon résultat dans tous les cas possibles), mais aussi possède la bonne complexité asymptotique (elle calcule toujours ce résultat en le temps attendu).Pour les chercheurs en algorithmique, caractériser la performance d’un algorithme se fait généralement en indiquant sa complexité asymptotique, notamment à l’aide de la notation “grand O” due à Landau. Nous détaillons, tout d’abord informellement, pourquoi de telles bornes de complexité asymptotiques sont également utiles en tant que spécifications formelles. La raison est que celles-ci permettent de raisonner de façon modulaire à propos du coût d’un programme : une borne en O s’abstrait de l’expression exacte du coût du programme, et par là des divers détails d’implantation. Par ailleurs, nous illustrons, à l’aide d’exemples simples, un certain nombre de difficultés liées à l’utilisation rigoureuse de la notation O, et qu’il est facile de négliger lors d’un raisonnement informel.Ces considérations sont mises en pratique en formalisant d’une part la notation O dans l’assistant de preuve Coq, et d’autre part en étendant CFML, un outil existant dédié à la vérification de programmes, afin de permettre à l’utilisateur d’élaborer des démonstrations robustes et modulaires établissant des bornes de complexité asymptotiques. Nous étendons la logique de séparation avec crédits temps—qui permet de raisonner à la fois sur des propriétés de correction et de complexité en temps—avec la notion de crédits temps négatifs. Ces derniers augmentent l’expressivité de la logique, donnent accès à des principes de raisonnement commodes et permettent d’exprimer certaines spécifications de manière plus élégante. Au niveau des spécifications, nous montrons comment des bornes de complexité asymptotique avec O s’expriment en logique de séparation avec crédits temps. Afin d’être capable d’établir de telles spécifications, nous développons une méthodologie qui permet à l’utilisateur de développer des démonstrations qui soient à la fois robustes et menées à un niveau d’abstraction satisfaisant. Celle-ci s’appuie sur deux principes clefs : d’une part, un mécanisme permettant de collecter et remettre à plus tard certaines contraintes durant une démonstration interactive, et par ailleurs, un mécanisme permettant de synthétiser semi-automatiquement une expression de coût, et ce sans perte de généralité.Nous démontrons l’utilité et l’efficacité de notre approche en nous attaquant à un certain nombre d’études de cas. Celles-ci comprennent des algorithmes dont l’analyse de complexité est relativement simple (par exemple, une recherche dichotomique, déjà hors de portée de la plupart des approches automatisées) et des structures de données (comme les “binary random access lists” d’Okasaki). Dans notre étude de cas la plus significative, nous établissons la correction et la complexité asymptotique d’un algorithme incrémental de détection de cycles publié récemment. Nous démontrons ainsi que notre méthodologie passe à l’échelle, permet de traiter des algorithmes complexes, donc l’analyse de complexité s’appuie sur des invariants fonctionnels subtils, et peut vérifier du code qu’il est au final possible d’utiliser au sein de programmes réellement utiles et utilisés
This dissertation is concerned with the question of formally verifying that the imple- mentation of an algorithm is not only functionally correct (it always returns the right result), but also has the right asymptotic complexity (it reliably computes the result in the expected amount of time).In the algorithms literature, it is standard practice to characterize the performance of an algorithm by indicating its asymptotic time complexity, typically using Landau’s “big-O” notation. We first argue informally that asymptotic complexity bounds are equally useful as formal specifications, because they enable modular reasoning: a O bound abstracts over the concrete cost expression of a program, and therefore abstracts over the specifics of its implementation. We illustrate—with the help of small illustrative examples—a number of challenges with the use of the O notation, in particular in the multivariate case, that might be overlooked when reasoning informally.We put these considerations into practice by formalizing the O notation in the Coq proof assistant, and by extending an existing program verification framework, CFML, with support for a methodology enabling robust and modular proofs of asymptotic complexity bounds. We extend the existing framework of Separation Logic with Time Credits, which allows to reason at the same time about correctness and time complexity, and introduce negative time credits. Negative time credits increase the expressiveness of the logic, and enable convenient reasoning principles as well as elegant specifications. At the level of specifications, we show how asymptotic complexity specifications using O can be integrated and composed within Separation Logic with Time Credits. Then, in order to establish such specifications, we develop a methodology that allows proofs of complexity in Separation Logic to be robust and carried out at a relatively high level of abstraction, by relying on two key elements: a mechanism for collecting and deferring constraints during the proof, and a mechanism for semi-automatically synthesizing cost expressions without loss of generality.We demonstrate the usefulness and practicality of our approach on a number of increasingly challenging case studies. These include algorithms whose complexity analysis is relatively simple (such as binary search, which is nonetheless out of the scope of many automated complexity analysis tools) and data structures (such as Okasaki’s binary random access lists). In our most challenging case study, we establish the correctness and amortized complexity of a state-of-the-art incremental cycle detection algorithm: our methodology scales up to highly non-trivial algorithms whose complexity analysis intimately depends on subtle functional invariants, and furthermore makes it possible to formally verify OCaml code which can then actually be used as part of real world programs

This study examines the home as a context of viewing for the television programme Intersexions in the township of Ginsberg in the Eastern Cape. The central question asked is whether the household influences the interpretation of the programme. The research was mainly conducted through ethnographical methods of participant observation and focus group interviews. Six families were observed and six gender-based focus groups convened. Drawing from the work of Morley (1986) and Lull (1990) that argues that the home be taken more seriously as a context of viewing; this study posits that the home is a rule-bound micro-society that influences the interpretation of media messages. As a starting point, this study contends with the arguments that the South African government has been slow to acknowledge the extent of the problem presented by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Much has been written about the inefficiency of state efforts to educate the public, with some pundits suggesting that government communications strategies have largely been outdated and thus resisted by audiences (Treffry-Goatley, Mahlinza & Imrie, 2013). To counter the pandemic, a large number of independent educational television serials have been launched in South Africa, and met with popular appeal since 1994. Furthermore, this development is in line with global trends of high audience ratings for Entertainment- Education (EE) programmes (Singhal et al., 1993). To investigate complex issue of EE reception by audiences in this burgeoning area of study, the programme at the centre of this study, Intersexions, is a good example. The serial, which concluded its second season in August 2013, is second to only the established soap opera, Generations, in television ratings in South Africa. Therefore, the impressive ratings garnered by educational serials in South Africa are a chance for audience studies to study audiences in context. This research investigates Intersexions using the understanding that television audiences must be analysed in "cultural and historic specific" sites because the struggle to make meanings of texts takes place at the moment when the text and subject meet (Fiske, 1987). This research investigates the assumption that the meanings made by audiences depend not just on the text, but also on environment. This means that the research delves into the situational context in which media are used and interpreted. Therefore, the central aim of this study is to analyse television viewing of the entertainment education programme, Intersexions, in the natural setting of the home, which is in line with analysing television viewers in cultural and historically specific sites.

The purpose of this dissertation is to understand the managerial â actionâ of public administrators in the management of their organizations within the brazilian context. It seeks to understand the relationships between managers and formal management mechanisms by exploring the complementary nature of the effective managerial action in the face of structural deficiencies and flaws, considering the possibility of overcoming the structuralism-subjectivism dichotomy present in the construction of the Theory of Organizations. Initially, the study provides a review of the literature on organizational design. It highlights the â goodness of fitâ proposition on strategic choice issues concerning the main organizational variables design and organizational goal attainment. It also calls special attention to the emerging interest of designing theorists on interpretivist aproachs to the matter, such that of Karl Weick. A review of the the administrative reforms in Brazil is made from the perspective of the main stream organizational design conceptual framework. It highlights the complex dynamics of a constant search for differenciation and flexibilization subject to patherns of advances and reversals, due to the centrality, streng and pervasiveness of the bureaucratic model. It is concluded that in no single given moment, a public manager and his team, may count on a formal organizational design wich attends the â congruencyâ criteria, devised by organizational design conceptual frameworks, to explain organizational results in different environmental sets. Although this conclusion may explain failure at the public sector, it can not provide understanding on the many instances of significative success attained by government operations in spite of inadequate formal administrative structures. This point calls for a better understanding from the interpretivist aproach, on how public administrators, strongly associated with good organizational results, engage into transformative action, in order to superate administrative structures flaws and disfuncional cultural patherns of conduct, structurally present and constantly reproduced, in vigorous develloping countries, such as Brazil. The dissertation transcribes the testimony of four outstanding public administrators, doing a deep incursion in the managerial real world of public administration, as subjectivelly defined by them and transformed by their engagement into action.Through the thematic version of the Oral History methodology, full segments of the complete enterviews are cathegorized into the thirty two managerial strategies captured wich are presented on a recathegorized manner under eight main strategies: (1) Interchanging Frames of Reference; (2) Exploring the Formal Limits; (3) Playing the Bureaucracy Game; (4) Inducing the Inclusion of Others (5)Promoting Internal Cohesion; (6) Creating Shields against Transgressions; (7) Overcoming Internal Restrictions; (8) Letting the Structures Blossom. Each one of these eight blocks of strategies presented, deserves further reflexive interpretation by the author, on the light of the interpretivist aproach to organizational design. A final effort is made, now on theory building, for improuving understanding on the matter. In order to find a significant meaning underlining all the strategies extracted from the â practical constiounessâ of the enterviweers as revealed in their report, the author resort to a methafor. This methafor helps to: (1) better describe and understand a not adequately treated phenomenon, namely, good results under inadequate structural social and organizational conditions; (2) reveal the logic and the meaning underlining all the strategies adopted to generate results under these unfaithfull conditions; (3) name, accordingly to the nature of the managerial transformative social action envolved, an open ended class of managerial interventions of a pragmatic sort driven by an ethics of results much common to good managers, that is, the concept of â managerial equalizationâ ; and (4) give back to public administrators, represented by the enterviwees, to be incorporated in their â discursive counciousnessâ , something the most effective and experienced public managers already have as tacit knowledge built in their â practical counsciousnessâ , and so, help the education and development of new talents.
Ph. D.

Defects in computer programs have great social and economic impacts and should be eliminated as much as possible. Since testing and debugging are among the most costly and time consuming tasks in the software development life cycle, a variety of intelligent debugging aids have been proposed within the last three decades. Model-based software debugging (MBSD) is a particular technique that exploits discrepancies between a program execution and the intended behaviour to isolate program fragments that could potentially explain an observed misbehaviour. In contrast to other techniques, model-based debugging does not require a formal specification of a program's behaviour, making the approach suitable for developers without training in formal software engineering practices. A key aspect of model-based debugging is the transformation of the given program into a model suitable for debugging. In this thesis, several models for analysing programs written in an object-oriented language are investigated, with Java as concrete example. The aim of this work is to assess the suitability of value-based models and generalisations thereof for debugging of programs making use of dynamically allocated data structures, recursive methods and polymorphic method invocations.

Tesis (Doctor en Cs. de la Computación)--Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física, 2015.
En este trabajo abordamos diferentes aspectos de la verificación de programas que manejan dinámicamente la memoria, y más en general, al razonamiento formal sobre ellos. Por un lado, proponemos un marco conceptual para considerar cuestiones ontológicas y epistemológicas de la propia tarea de verificación formal, a través de una generalización del concepto de intérprete, que nos permite relacionar los aspectos abstractos y concretos de la computación. En el plano metodológico, la principal contribución es la introducción de la Sharing Logic, que permite especificar de forma precisa estructuras dinámicas complejas y las relaciones entre ellas, de manera compatible con los principios de abstracción e information hiding. En el plano práctico, abordamos la decidibilidad del problema de validez de un fragmento de nuestra Sharing Logic que permite caracterizar estructuras de datos como listas enlazadas y segmentos de ellas. Además presentamos un análisis estático, que verifica automáticamente programas que manipulan estructuras de datos no lineales.

Research has shown that socially-focused partnerships that cross sectors (referred to as social partnerships within) are necessary in order to effectively address pressing societal issues such as poverty. Yet, in these complex organizational contexts, there is often variability within and between involved organizations as it relates to basic assumptions around work and the meanings given to practices at macro, meso and micro levels of analysis. Put differently, there are often a plurality of meaning systems at play in such multi-faceted organizational arrangements. Accordingly, the purpose of this dissertation was to understand to what extent multiple meaning systems exist in social partnerships focused on addressing multi-faceted societal challenges and, whether and how such differences in meaning systems are strategically negotiated over time. At a deeper theoretical level, this research was focused on illuminating the processes by which meaning systems are negotiated when organizational boundaries are blurred and when a plurality of meaning systems are at play, with a central focus on players that act as boundary spanners within these complex organizational contexts. To understand the complexities at play in social partnerships emanating from multiple meaning systems, I conducted a multi-site ethnographic study, involving in-depth interviews and participant observation, of the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness Society (Coalition) located in Victoria, British Columbia. In doing so, I utilized the principal literature streams that address multiple meaning systems at work: the culture literature in organization studies and the institutional logics perspective. As well, I incorporated other literatures based upon the emergent findings, namely organizational identity. Through this work I make a number of contributions within the area of sustainability, particularly the social partnership literature, as well as organizational theory. Empirically, I develop a process model that elucidates how players negotiate multiple meanings of organizational identity over time in a social partnership setting characterized by permeable boundaries and shared authority, at the group level of analysis. This is significant as we know little about how identity plays out in such multi-faceted organizational settings with continual blurred boundaries even as research has indicated that such arrangements are likely to surface identity issues among players (Maguire & Hardy, 2005). I also elucidate how individual players bridge across multiple meaning systems in a social partnership over time, answering the call for more research concerning the role of individuals and their interactions with organizations in the collaboration process over time (Manning & Roessler, 2014). To my knowledge, this work is one of the first of its kind to empirically explore tri-sector socially focused collaborations – involving players from the public, private and nonprofit sectors – that are more integrative and interconnected in nature (Austin & Seitanidi, 2012a) and that employs a process based perspective to understand how such collaborations unfold over time. In addition, I theoretically develop the link between institutional logics and organizational culture that emerged empirically via this study to guide future integrative work to holistically account for the multiplicity of meaning systems at work within and between such multi-faceted arrangements.
Graduate
2020-04-01

Real-world automated reasoning systems, based on classical logic, face logically inconsistent information, and they must cope with it. It is onerous to develop such systems because classical logic is explosive. Recently, progress has been made towards semantics that deal with logical inconsistency. However, such semantics was never analyzed in the aspect of inconsistency tolerant relational model. In our research work, we use an inconsistency and incompleteness tolerant relational model called "Paraconsistent Relational Model." The paraconsistent relational model is an extension of the ordinary relational model that can store, not only positive information but also negative information. Therefore, a piece of information in the paraconsistent relational model has four truth values: true, false, both, and unknown. However, the paraconsistent relational model cannot represent disjunctive information (disjunctive tuples). We then introduce an extended paraconsistent relational model called disjunctive paraconsistent relational model. By using both the models, we handle inconsistency - similar to the notion of quasi-classic logic or four-valued logic -- in deductive databases (logic programs with no functional symbols). In addition to handling inconsistencies in extended databases, we also apply inconsistent tolerant reasoning technique in semantic web knowledge bases. Specifically, we handle inconsistency assosciated with closed predicates in semantic web. We use again the paraconsistent approach to handle inconsistency. We further extend the same idea to description logic programs (combination of semantic web and logic programs) and introduce dl-relation to represent inconsistency associated with description logic programs.

博士
國立中正大學
成人及繼續教育研究所
100
The main purpose of this study was to explore the effect on the changes of old people’s meaning of life and children’s attitude toward old people, after both had participated in the intergenerational program, by quasi-experimental design with the pretest and the posttest. The children samples were 54 people. The older samples were 8 people. The intergenerational program took 8 weeks. The study of children’s attitude toward the old people shows the findings as follows: 1. The fact that children live with grandparents and the frequency of been took care by grandparents have effect on the affection of children toward the elder. 2. Intergenerational program increased the children’s social and physical cognition in older people. The findings about the old people are: 1. The old people who had participated in the intergeneration program increased his/her the content of life meaning. 2.The old people who had participated in the intergeneration program showed the increasing of his/her the content of life meaning on individual value system, sense of direction and sense of fulfillment, but less on sense of being one’s own master. Base on the results shown above, suggestions were proposed as follows: 1. The children’s teachers should increase the chance for the children, who did not live with grandparents or seldom been took care by grandparents, to contact with the old people. Improving the understanding of the intergeneration program, planning and practicing the intergeneration program, and increasing the chances for the interaction between children and old people are also suggested. 2. The suggestions to the old people: Understand the meaning of the intergeneration program, spontaneously participate the intergeneration program, and increase the knowledge of participating in the intergeneration program.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
The landscape of James A. Garfield’s Mentor, Ohio home (now preserved at James A. Garfield National Historic Site) contains multiple layers of historical meanings and values. The landscape as portrayed in political biographies, political cartoons, and other ephemera during Garfield’s 1880 presidential campaign reveals the existence of the dual cultural values of agrarian tradition and agricultural progress in the late nineteenth century. Although Garfield did not depend on farming exclusively for his livelihood, he, like many agriculturalists of this era participated in a process of mediation between these dual values. The function of the landscape of Garfield’s farm between 1876 and 1880 is a reflection of this process of mediation. After President Garfield’s assassination in 1881, his wife and children returned to their Mentor home. Between 1885 and c. 1905, Garfield’s widow Lucretia made numerous changes to the agricultural landscape, facilitating the evolution of the home from farm to country estate. Despite the rich history of this landscape, its cultural complexity and evolution over time makes it difficult to interpret for public audiences. Additionally, the landscape is currently interpreted exclusively through indoor museum exhibits and outdoor wayside panels, two formats with severe limitations. I propose the integration of deep mapping into interpretation at James A. Garfield National historic site in order to more effectively represent the multi-layered qualities of its historic landscape.

This postmodern dissertation examines three individual experiences of violence in South Africa, using the qualitative research method of heuristics. Using social constructionism as a lens for viewing the phenomenon, violence is seen as occurring within a specific ecology, which is part of the individual's fluctuating, subjective reality. This discussion proposes that the violent experience, to which meanings are attributed, is part of the individual's socially constructed ecology. This ecology can either be transformed or conserved through dialogue, specifically dialogue relating to the telling of the story of the violent experience. This is discussed in relation to therapeutic encounters. The primary objective of the research is the implication of ecological thinking generally and, more specifically, ecological thinking on violence, for therapeutic interactions and psychological theory. This discussion also refers to psychological ethics.
Psychology
MA (CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY)