Symmetry between the intentionality of minds and machines? The biological plausibility of Dennett’s account

One of the most influential arguments against the claim that computers can think is that while our intentionality is intrinsic, that of computers is derived: it is parasitic on the intentionality of the programmer who designed the computer-program. Daniel Dennett chose a surprising strategy for arguing against this asymmetry: instead of denying that the intentionality of computers is derived, he endeavours to argue that human intentionality is derived too. I intend to examine that biological plausibility of Dennett’s suggestion and show that Dennett’s argument for the claim that human intentionality is derived because it was designed by natural selection is based on the misunderstanding of how natural selection works.     

HCI and Society: Towards a Typology of Universal Design Principles

The task of this article is to focus on aspects of design from a theoretical perspective that works out a general framework of techno-social design that is grounded in the notion of the participatory, cooperative, sustainable information society. The approach is normative in that it is based on the judgment that not just any information society is needed, but one that has specific qualities that this article tries to identify. Methodologically, the article works out a conceptual framework that synthesizes general social theory and human–computer interaction. Design is seen as a social process that shapes society and techno-social systems. First, a model of society that is based on the dialectical interaction of economic, political, and cultural subsystems is introduced. Then, the notion of the the participatory, cooperative, sustainable information society is introduced. This theoretical definition is then used for classifying design principles of techno-social information systems from a social theory perspective.     

Auxiliary signal design for rapid multi-model identification using optimization

Under the assumption that one of several given models is the real underlying model of the system, a proper auxiliary signal is defined as an input signal that allows one to select the correct model. It is assumed that there is no knowledge prior to the beginning of the application of the auxiliary signal and that detection is to be done within a specified detection horizon. Under the assumption that the noise energy is bounded, a method for the computation of the minimal energy auxiliary signal is given. The new algorithm extends previous work in that it can handle more than two models and certain types of nonlinearities.     

Controlling the order of moves in voting by veto. II. Algorithms for constructing an optimal order of moves

The study of issues concerning collective decision-making in complex systems using voting by veto is continued. A dedicated player is assumed to exist in the collective that forms the order of voting (order of moves) for the other participants. The problem of searching for the control strategy for the order of moves that ensures the win of alternative 1 that is preferable for the dedicated player is studied for the previously unstudied cases when such an order of moves exists. In particular, an algorithm for constructing such an order is proposed for the case when there is another participant for which alternative 1 is higher than the fourth from the end and when there is a group of participants that are relatively well-disposed to alternative 1 (more precisely, this alternative is higher than the third from the end for them). It is shown that the preference order of the alternatives that are better than alternative 1 is of no importance for the problem under consideration. It is proved that the conditions for the participants’ preferences that are sufficient for the existence of the desired order of moves (they were obtained in the first part of this paper) are unimprovable.     

Pruning algorithms-a survey

A rule of thumb for obtaining good generalization in systems trained by examples is that one should use the smallest system that will fit the data. Unfortunately, it usually is not obvious what size is best; a system that is too small will not be able to learn the data while one that is just big enough may learn very slowly and be very sensitive to initial conditions and learning parameters. This paper is a survey of neural network pruning algorithms. The approach taken by the methods described here is to train a network that is larger than necessary and then remove the parts that are not needed.     

Selection of indexes to memory-resident entities for semantic datamodels

A variation of the index selection problem for an extended relational model when all encoding of information is memory resident is discussed. The data model is the relational model extended in two ways that are common with semantic data models. One consequence of memory residence is that the search space of possible indexes is enlarged to the extent that previous methods requiring some consideration of each possibility are no longer possible. An instance of the index selection problem that includes a set of partial match queries in addition to the input schema is given. It is assumed that the set is determined by an initial phase of query optimization when applied to a fixed set of more general forms of queries that characterize the way in which information is accessed for an application. An initial choice of indexes is made, only considering their suitability for answering the partial match queries     

From Family First to the FBI: Children, ideology and Cyberspace

The Internet and child protection are usually discussed as if one inevitably follows the other. This article questions the process by which children are constructed on the Internet and suggests that the ideological agenda of the organisations that advocate the protection of children must be questioned. In particular, it is argued that many of these organisations proceed from a view of the child that is based on a conservative view of family relationships that is not obviously in children's best interests. The problem is that these views of the child have begun to permeate the state apparatus, which itself polices the Internet leading to an orthodoxy that is difficult to challenge.     

The accuracy comparison of multisensor covariance intersection fuser and three weighting fusers

For multisensor systems with exactly known local filtering error variances and cross-covariances, a covariance intersection (CI) fusion steady-state Kalman filter without cross-covariances is presented. It is rigorously proved that it has consistency, and its accuracy is higher than that of each local Kalman filter and is lower than that of the optimal Kalman fuser with matrix weights. Under the unbiased linear minimum variance (ULMV) criterion, it is proved that the accuracy of the fuser with matrix weights is higher than that of the fuser with scalar weights, and the accuracy of the fuser with diagonal matrix weights is in between both of them, and the accuracies of all three weighting fusers and the CI fuser are lower than that of centralized Kalman fuser, and are higher than that of each local Kalman filter. The geometric interpretations of the above accuracy relations are given based on the covariance ellipsoids. A Monte-Carlo simulation example for tracking system verifies correctiveness of the proposed theoretical accuracy relations, and shows that the actual accuracy of the CI Kalman fuser is close to that of the optimal Kalman fuser, so that it has higher accuracy and good performance. When the actual local filtering error variances and cross-covariances are unknown, if the local filtering estimates are consistent, then the corresponding robust CI fuser is also consistent, and its robust accuracy is higher than that of each local filter.     

面向客户需求ERP产品可重构开发模型研究

目前ERP系统在开发中主要存在两个问题:一是ERP产品在开发的过程中存在大量的重复工作,系统的开发周期比较长;二是ERP产品的刚性太强,系统的柔性差,适应性不强。针对上述问题,文章提出了客户需求驱动,可重构ERP软件开发模型,阐述了基于客户需求分析的动态企业建模、可重构ERP软件开发的主要技术和系统构建方法。     

On representation of source reliability through weights on rules

Rule-based expert systems often require their users assess the state of an event and then “report” to the system that state. the system then uses that report of the event as the basis of inference, that is, the hypothesis. the problem is that the report is just that, a report. the report is not necessarily the same as the underlying event that occurred. the relationship between the report and the underlying event is referred to as the reliability of the report or the credibility of the report. This article integrates the difference between the report and the underlying event into the weights of two different uncertainty representation schemes used in expert systems. In each case the impact of that reliability is explored. For example, it is found that the model without reliability is equivalent to the model with reliability, in the case of complete reliability. Further, in some cases the weights are monotonic functions of reliability. Accounting for reliability is found to have a substantial impact on the value of the weights. Further, one approach is seen as influenced less by a lack of reliability than another approach.     

On the Fly Estimation of the Processes that Are Alive in an Asynchronous Message-Passing System

It is well known that in an asynchronous system where processes are prone to crash, it is impossible to design a protocol that provides each process with the set of processes that are currently alive. Basically, this comes from the fact that it is impossible to distinguish a crashed process from a process that is very slow or with which communications are very slow. Nevertheless, designing protocols that provide the processes with good approximations of the set of processes that are currently alive remains a real challenge in fault-tolerant-distributed computing. This paper proposes such a protocol, plus a second protocol that allows to cope with heterogeneous communication networks. These protocols consider a realistic computation model where the processes are provided with nonsynchronized local clocks and a function alpha () that takes a local duration Delta as a parameter, and returns an integer that is an estimate of the number of processes that could have crashed during that duration Delta. A simulation-based experimental evaluation of the proposed protocols is also presented. These experiments show that the protocols are practically relevant.     

Conditions for Synchronizability in Arrays of Coupled Linear Systems

Synchronization in arrays of coupled continuous-time linear systems is studied. Sufficiency of certain conditions for the existence of a synchronizing feedback law are analyzed. It is shown that, for neutrally stable systems that are detectable from their outputs, a linear feedback law exists under which any number of coupled systems synchronize provided that the (directed, weighted) graph describing the interconnection is fixed and connected. An algorithm generating one such feedback law as well as the trajectory that the solutions converge to are presented. It is also shown that, for critically unstable systems, detectability is not sufficient, whereas full-state coupling is, for the existence of a linear feedback law that is synchronizing for all coupling configurations described by a connected graph.     

多数据流上的联机方差分析研究

多数据流上的联机方差分析是一个有意义的研究问题。针对以元组为单位流入的具有相同属性集的多支单数据流组成的多数据流,提出了分别对每支单数据流进行蓄水池抽样,构造一一对应于各单数据流的若干个多快照窗口,即两者之间是双射关系,可以将多快照窗口串行置于主存中,将元组包含的属性与多快照窗口中的各个快照窗口一一对应,且使得同一快照窗口中的各基本窗口与取自其对应的单数据流的属性值样本一一对应,然后对这些相互独立的样本进行方差分析。按顺序串行处理各个多快照窗口中的数据,就可以用串行化的方法来实现并行的多数据流上的联机方差分析。理论分析与实验表明,该方法是合理的和有效的。     

二维熵取小法和模糊熵相结合的图像分割方法

基于二维熵的分割方法是常用的阈值分割技术,其基本假设是对象区域和背景区域占据了二维直方图的绝大部分区域,即假设对象区域和背景区域的概率和近似为1.Brink提出了通过将对象区域的熵和背景区域的熵先取小然后再取大的方法来获得阈值,该方法存在的不足是忽略了边界区域的信息对分割结果的影响,鉴于此,提出了一种结合二维熵和模糊熵的图像分割方法,先采用Brink提出的二维熵法对图像进行初步分割,再采用模糊熵作后续处理以弥补忽略边界信息带来的问题.实验结果表明,对于含噪图像,该方法的分割效果是比较理想的.     

Blind maximum likelihood identification of Hammerstein systems

This paper is about the identification of discrete-time Hammerstein systems from output measurements only (blind identification). Assuming that the unobserved input is white Gaussian noise, that the static nonlinearity is invertible, and that the output is observed without errors, a Gaussian maximum likelihood estimator is constructed. Its asymptotic properties are analyzed and the Cramér–Rao lower bound is calculated. In practice, the latter can be computed accurately without using the strong law of large numbers. A two-step procedure is described that allows to find high quality initial estimates to start up the iterative Gauss–Newton based optimization scheme. The paper includes the illustration of the method on a simulation example. A theoretical analysis demonstrates that additive output measurement noise introduces a bias that is proportional to the variance of that additive, unmodeled noise source. The simulations support this result, and show that this bias is insignificant beyond a certain Signal-to-Noise Ratio (40 dB in the example).     

嵌入式系统功能安全的三个问题的讨论

功能安全已经是现代工业产品基本的要求,本文讨论三个有关的问题:第一是汽车的功能安全要求可能高于飞机,这对开展该工作的战略重视程度有影响;第二是两种先进的CPU芯片如何满足功能安全的要求,并通过分析指出它们的局限;第三是指出功能安全分析中确定什么是安全状态是关键,只有抓住了它,才能分清什么是安全失效,什么是危险失效,也才能判断安全失效概率以及随之而定的安全完整性等级是否达到。     

大图中子图的可测性质

对于给定的距离参数。,性质测试算法A需以高概率正确地区分给定的对象具备预定性质II与二远离性质 II。若存在II的测试算法A满足其询问复杂性独立于规模参数n,则称II是可测的。设H是一个图,性质仔了)℃。为 不含井子图的图所构成的集合。在有界度模型中,Goldreich与Ron证明了对任意连通图H,性质仔力℃。是可测 的}s}。在邻接矩阵模型中,证明了对任意图H,不管其连通与否,性质件厂re。是可测的。     

面向服务的ERP产品可重构开发模型研究

目前,ERP系统在开发中主要有两个问题:①ERP产品在开发过程中存在大量的重复工作,系统的开发周期比较长;②ERP产品的刚性太强,系统的柔性差,适应性不强,至今还没有可参考的解决模型.本文从软件的体系结构出发,研究当前企业应用集成实现技术的局限性,提出了基于面向服务体系结构、可重构的ERP软件开发模型,阐述了面向服务模型、面向服务的ERP可重构模型、基于服务可重构ERP系统的构建开发过程.     

无形是形 形(型)——空间创造的途径

自从有建筑以来,就有关于空间的话题。建筑本来是朴素具体的东西,是与日常生活密切相关的事物。对空间的认知亦是如此,本文以单纯直接的命题,揭示空间的本义和认识创造的途径。即:空间就是形(型)。实体是型,虚体亦是型。有形是形,无形亦是形。空间的特征就是形态的特征,空间的表情就是形态的表情。空间的色彩就是形态的色彩,矛盾的空间就是矛盾的形(型)。空间构成就是形的构成,空间质感就是形态的质感。