Quantitative possibility theory: logical- and graphical-based representations

Purpose– A need to renew music-related information notions arises from both information-seeking models and literature of musical semiotics. The purpose of this paper is to create a music information typology, which aims at facilitating the examination of music information types at varying levels of abstraction in the context of information seeking.Design/methodology/approach– Literature of musical semiotics and information seeking are juxtaposed to develop a novel approach to music-related information. The grounding concepts are Bruner’s enactive, iconic and symbolic modes of representation. The modes of representation offer a universal scheme of knowledge that is applied to the domain of music by defining their content through Tarasti’sTheory of Musical Semiotics.Findings– This conceptual paper results in a music information typology ranging from the enactive music information representations to the abstract ones as follows. Music making as the first mode of enactive representations; music listening as the second mode of enactive representations; iconic representations of music; technological models of music as the first mode of symbolic representations; and ideological models of music as the second mode of symbolic representations.Originality/value– The present paper develops a music information typology that encompasses broadly different music information facets by categorizing music information sources according to their level of abstraction. When applied into empirical research, the typology opens a new window into the perceived roles of music information types in the context of information seeking.

Graphical modelling is an important tool for the efficient representation and analysis of uncertain information in knowledge-based systems. While Bayesian networks and Markov networks from probabilistic graphical modelling are well-known for a couple of years, the field of possibilistic graphical modelling occurs as a new promising area of research. Possibilistic networks provide an alternative approach compared to probabilistic networks, whenever it is necessary to model uncertainty and imprecision as two different kinds of imperfect information. Imprecision in the sense of set-valued data has often to be considered in situations where data are obtained from human observations or non-precise measurement units. In this contribution we present a comparison of the background and perspectives of probabilistic and possibilistic graphical models, and give an overview on the current state of the art of possibilistic networks with respect to propagation and learning algorithms, applicable to data mining and data fusion problems.

Financial Disclosure, Risk Perception and Investment Choices: Evidence from a Consumer Testing Exercise

This paper is concerned with the development of new cyberinfrastructures which are being constructed on the foundations of Web 2.0 looking forward to Web 3.0, employing semantic techniques for modelling archaeological information in order to enhance the location, retrieval and use of data. It argues that, as these techniques emerge, it is important to consider their origins, their underlying models and their consequent effects on the subject. Representations of archaeological information are predicated upon new and existing data standards and constitute additional layering or nesting of standards within each other. The paper identifies the need for an ethnographic study of the creation of these new technologies since they present the potential for radical change within the subject but presently lack proper evaluation.

System design and development are fundamental capabilities for an engineer. The Department of Control Engineering at the National Institute of Technology, Nara College, has been offering a course called “Practical System Design,” a unique opportunity for students to experience the entire process of developing an autonomous mobile robot, to fourth-year students for about 20 years. However, in recent years, robot design and construction have become a huge challenge for these students. To address this problem, we have worked on improving the engineering program. First, we have introduced a problem-based learning (PBL) education program in all experimental engineering classes in years 1–3. Also, we require students to submit a written report after each class session. This report is intended to help improve the students' schedule management, role-sharing, and work-tracking skills. These reports are reviewed by the relevant course teachers and assessed for logic and quantitative representation. In this paper, we discuss the approach to, achievements of, and future subjects to be taken up by this multi-stage-experience educational program, especially the effect of report-writing.

Chapter 19 Representation and Processing of Morphological Information

This paper is based on a longer report on the benefits, safety and modalities of information representation with regard to women and statin use, situated within the historical context of Women's Health Movement which has advocated for unbiased, appropriate medical research and prescribing for women based on the goals of full-disclosure, informed consent, evidence-based medicine and gender-based analysis. The evidence base for prescribing statins for women, especially for primary prevention is weak, yet Canadian data suggest that half of all prescriptions are for women. Safety meta-analyses do not disaggregate for women; do not consider female vulnerability to statin induced muscle problems, and women-centred concerns such as breast-cancer, miscarriage or birth defects are under-researched. Many trials have not published their non-cardiac serious adverse event data. These factors suggest that the standards of full-disclosure, informed consent, evidence-based prescribing and gender-based analysis are not being met and women should proceed with caution.

Considering the inheritance and hereditary of product structure life cycle assessment, full life cycle assessment properties of structure is introduced into expression of design scheme. Scheme evolution design is presented based on gene model of full life cycle assessment properties of structure. The gene model of life cycle assessment properties of structure is established. The variable length coding is converted to equal length coding to realize the quantitative representation of structure information. The fitness function is established for life cycle assessment of structure by Analytic Hierarchy Process. The genetic operators are designed. Scheme evolution design is realized based on gene model of life cycle assessment of structure, reflecting life cycle assessment properties of design schemes, improving the efficiency of product design generation. The evolution design example of multi-rope diamond wire saw verifies the feasibility of the imposed method.

The Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) formalization has been a productive tool within Artificial Intelligence and related areas. The Finite CSP (FCSP) framework is presented here as a restricted logical calculus within a space of logical representation and reasoning systems. FCSP is formulated in a variety of logical settings: theorem proving in first order predicate calculus, propositional theorem proving (and hence SAT), the Prolog and Datalog approaches, constraint network algorithms, a logical interpreter for networks of constraints, the Constraint Logic Programming (CLP) paradigm and propositional model finding (and hence SAT, again). Several standard, and some not-so-standard, logical methods can therefore be used to solve these problems. By doing this we obtain a specification of the semantics of the common approaches. This synthetic treatment also allows algorithms and results from these disparate areas to be imported, and specialized, to FCSP; the special properties of FCSP are exploited to achieve, for example, completeness and to improve efficiency. It also allows export to the related areas. By casting CSP both as a generalization of FCSP and as a specialization of CLP it is observed that some, but not all, FCSP techniques lift to CSP and, perhaps, thereby to CLP. Various new connections are uncovered, in particular between the proof-finding approaches and the alternative model-finding approaches that have arisen in depiction and diagnosis applications.

This article demonstrates the existence of a strong aesthetic kinship between themise en scèneof Robert Lepage and the representational mode of the classical Japanese rock garden. In order to elicit the creative participation of an active spectator, both use such Zen techniques as a radical reduction of scale, orshukukei(miniature landscape); minimalistic material metaphors, ormitate(metaphoric representation); and an asymmetrical, fragmented style, orfusuma-e(fragmented scene). Drawing on the theory and practice of Japanese rock gardening, this article introduces a new critical vocabulary for describing the representational logic, and enlightening effects, of Lepage's approach to ‘setting up stones’ on the stage inSeven Streams of the River Otaand other works.