Syntactical Informational Structural Realism

Luciano Floridi’s informational structural realism (ISR) takes a constructionist attitude towards the problems of epistemology and metaphysics, but the question of the nature of the semantical component of his view remains vexing. In this paper, I propose to dispense with the semantical component of ISR completely. I outline a Syntactical version of ISR (SISR for short). The unified entropy-based framework of information has been adopted as the groundwork of SISR. To establish its realist component, SISR should be able to dissolve the latching problem. We have to be able to account for the informational structures–reality relationship in the absence of the standard semantical resources. The paper offers a pragmatic solution to the latching problem. I also take pains to account for the naturalistic plausibility of this solution by grounding it in the recent computational neuroscience of the predictive coding and the free energy principle.     

On the Possibility of Quantum Informational Structural Realism

In The Philosophy of Information, Luciano Floridi presents an ontological theory of Being qua Being, which he calls “Informational Structural Realism”, a theory which applies, he says, to every possible world. He identifies primordial information (“dedomena”) as the foundation of any structure in any possible world. The present essay examines Floridi’s defense of that theory, as well as his refutation of “Digital Ontology” (which some people might confuse with his own). Then, using Floridi’s ontology as a starting point, the present essay adds quantum features to dedomena, yielding an ontological theory for our own universe, Quantum Informational Structural Realism, which provides a metaphysical interpretation of key quantum phenomena, and diminishes the “weirdness” or “spookiness” of quantum mechanics.     

Towards an educational Superlnterface

Abstract  It is presumed that recent technological innovations, combined with three more established (educational) technologies, could cause a drastic change in university education, if adequate organizational conditions could be created. Such conditions are needed to structure, channel and manage an as yet undreamed of flow of information. Closely related to the metaphor of the 'Info Highway', an educational 'Superlnterface' is described. Based upon networked computer platforms, such a human-computer-human interface is to support large scale telestudy (and teleworking). The Superlnterface is to be designed or is to evolve in such a way that reliable and valid organizational foundations for university education can be established. As the organizational foundation is so paramount, the authors would like to see serious research into the modelling of Superlnterface structures, resources, and dynamics. Indications of some such research issues are presented.     

Towards an Assembly Language Stanldard

The world does not need another assembly language syntax, but it does need a standard for one-and now. Comments are invited on this analysis of the proposed draft standard.     

Towards an optimal swap gate

We present a novel approach that generalizes the well- known quantum SWAP gate to higher dimensions and construct a regular quantum gate composed entirely in terms of the generalized CNOT gate that cyclically permutes the states of $d$ qudits for $d$ prime. We also investigate the case for $d$ other than prime. A key feature of the construction design relates to the periodicity evaluation for a family of linear recurrences which we achieve by exploiting generating functions and their factorization over the complex reals.     

Towards an account of intuitiveness

Abstract

Since the 1970s, many improvements have been made in the technology available for automatic speech recognition (ASR). Changes in the methods of analysing the incoming speech have resulted in larger, more complex vocabularies being used with greater recognition accuracy. Despite this enhanced performance and substantial research activity, the introduction of voice input into the office is still largely unrealized. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of office applications of ASR, dividing them into the areas of voice messaging and word processing activities, data entry and information retrieval systems, and environmental control. Within these areas, cartographic computer-aided-design systems are identified as an application with proven success. The slow growth of voice input in the office is discussed in the light of constraints imposed by existing speech technology, and the need for human factors evaluation of potential applications.     

Energetic and Informational Masking Effects in an Audiovisual Speech Recognition System

The paper presents a robust audiovisual speech recognition technique called audiovisual speech fragment decoding. The technique addresses the challenge of recognizing speech in the presence of competing nonstationary noise sources. It employs two stages. First, an acoustic analysis decomposes the acoustic signal into a number of spectro–temporall fragments. Second, audiovisual speech models are used to select fragments belonging to the target speech source. The approach is evaluated on a small vocabulary simultaneous speech recognition task in conditions that promote two contrasting types of masking: energetic masking caused by the energy of the masker utterance swamping that of the target, and informational masking, caused by similarity between the target and masker making it difficult to selectively attend to the correct source. Results show that the system is able to use the visual cues to reduce the effects of both types of masking. Further, whereas recovery from energetic masking may require detailed visual information (i.e., sufficient to carry phonetic content), release from informational masking can be achieved using very crude visual representations that encode little more than the timing of mouth opening and closure.      

Visual Realism Enhances Realistic Response in an Immersive Virtual Environment

Does greater visual realism induce greater participant presence in immersive virtual environments (VE)? Presence refers to how realistically participants respond to the environment as well as their subjective sense of being in the place depicted by the VE. Thirty-three people were exposed for three minutes to a virtual environment depicting a precipice using a head-tracked head-mounted display system. Seventeen of them saw the environment rendered with real-time recursive ray tracing (RT) that included shadows and reflections of their virtual body, and the remainder experienced the same environment rendered with ray casting (RC), which did not include shadows and reflections. Participants completed a presence questionnaire immediately after their experience, and physiological responses (skin conductance and electrocardiogram) were recorded throughout. Results show that subjective presence was higher for the RT environment than for the RC one and that higher stress was induced in the RT environment compared to the RC one.     

Towards an architecture for virtual enterprises

An approach to the design of an architecture for industrial virtual enterprises (VE), with special emphasis on the identification of main functional requirements, is presented. First, a discussion of the various types of virtual enterprises is provided. Some classification scenarios and discussions of the modelling and reengineering tools and methodologies are described. Due to the importance of the information flows and management in the VE, one section is merely devoted to the analysis of the appropriateness of a federated information management approach. This work is based on and represents the ongoing activities in two European Union funded projects; the Esprit PRODNET II and the INCO-DC SCM+ projects.     

Towards an advanced model-driven engineering toolbox

Model-driven engineering (MDE) is frequently presented as an important change in software development practice. However, behind this new trend, one may recognize a lot of different objectives and solutions. This paper first studies the multiple facets of MDE and its evolution in the recent period. Several new usage scenarios (i.e., reverse engineering, and models at runtime), which have appeared following the initial forward engineering scenario, i.e., platform-independent model (PIM) to platform-specific model (PSM), are described. Not surprisingly, new applications trigger the need for new tools and the requirement for model engineering platforms evolves correspondingly. We have adapted the AmmA toolbox to these new usages and the result is described herein together with some illustrative examples.     

Towards an ICT-based psychology: E-psychology

Cognitive science is the scientific domain which studies, analyzes, simulates and infers for various aspects, functions and procedures of human mentality such as, thinking, logic, language, knowledge, memory, learning, perception and the ability to solve problems. E-psychology is in close relation with the cognitive science domain, but expands beyond it, as e-psychology is the efficient convergence of psychology and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). E-psychology offers a number of services such as supporting, diagnosis, assessment, therapy, counseling, intervention and tests through an effective exploitation of ICTs. This article presents a user-friendly, flexible and adaptive electronic platform, which supports both synchronous and asynchronous e-psychology activities through the use of informative and communicative tools and services, which can be adapted to support various methods of e-psychology activities. It is important to underline that e-psychology is not an alternative psychology field, but a resource to enhance the conventional psychology process.     

Towards an optimum language data model

Maximizing the satisfaction of a value in an engineering design is usually limited by tradeoffs in which other values become unacceptably sacrificed. In a few cases, however, the maximization is limited by a boundary between what is mathematically possible and what is not. Round wheels, vertical pillars, and binary memory elements are examples of optimum engineering structures which result from such mathematical limits. It is proposed that optimum characteristics of a language data model result similarly by minimizing the variety of primitive data objects, the complexity of those objects, and the number of objects needed to represent data states. Reducing these measures is needed to combine both rich data structure and powerful operations in one language. The minimizations lead to a narrow range of designs for language semantics in which the potential advantages of specialization is small compared with the advantages of commonality. Universal language for support of technical literacy appears to be an appropriate scope of generality in language design.     

Towards an agent-oriented approach to conceptualization

Agent-oriented modeling provides a new technique for the conceptualization of agent-based systems. This paper extends and formalizes this agent-oriented modeling approach to the conceptualization process. It defines agent models and proposes a high-level methodology for agent-oriented analysis and design. It also includes analogies with the object-oriented and other existing agent-oriented methodologies, wherever applicable. The paper is concluded with a case study and an insight to future challenges.     

Towards an aesthetic of 'the Interactive

The Interactive is situated in the discourse of the user/player and discussed here in terms of domains of engagement and cursality, each of which is defined by a tension between qualities within the domain and each of which is affected by a dynamic of learning and familiarity. In its inherently ergodic nature, that discourse exists as particular instances which may never be shared. In its inevitable narrativity, in its construction of meaning through fleeting fragments juxtaposed in time, and in its unique instance determined by selection and selection histories, this discourse is unlike that of other media and represents a distinct and different way of storying the world. Reference is made to several contemporary interactive artworks and the text concludes with a short but detailed critique using the ideas mapped out in the preceding text.     

Towards an American Sign Language interface

In this paper, we present two major parts of an interface for American Sign Language (ASL) to computer applications currently under work; a hand tracker and an ASL-parser. The hand tracker extracts information about handshape, position and motion from image sequences. As an aid in this process, the signer wears a pair of gloves with colour-coded markers on joints and finger tips. We also present a computational model of American Sign Language. This model is realized in an ASL-parser which consists of a DCG-grammar and a non-lexical component that records non-manual and spatial information over an ASL-discourse.     

Dretske and Informational Closure

Minds and Machines - Christoph Jäger (Erkenntnis 61:187–201, 2004) has argued that Dretske’s (Knowledge and the flow of Information, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1981) information-based...