This essay tries to lay the transcendental foundations to a notion of “pure evil”, pure in the Kantian sense of the term, which means to find the necessary conditions for the concept and establish which criteria must be in place for such a concept to be justified. This essay tries to show the importance of thinking evil on its own terms instead as a secondary concept derived from ”the Good”. The prevailing philosophical stance from Platon until Kant has been to treat evil as either privation or unreason; this paper instead seeks to formulate a substantive notion of evil as pure evil, showing how it can be thought in its own right as an independent and self-sufficient concept. From a Kantian perspective it is only practical reason that can ground a moral action or maxim as free and self-determined, therefore a true concept of evil is only possible at level of the moral law i.e. the source of reason itself. Hence this paper argues that pure evil is intimately linked to the functioning of pure reason itself. In contrast to the traditional thinking regarding the issue of evil, I argue that reason is the sole source of pure evil and that no other factors such as pathology, affect or bad faith can account for events or actions that demonstrates the characteristics of pure evil. With help from the groundbreaking work of Kant, Arendt, Lacan and Sade I hope to point towards a new understanding of the concept of evil as a product of reason itself. Hopefully this work manages to show how and why such a perspective is needed and makes clear what we might gain from such an analysis.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / To Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), moral and religion are bound up in some way, becoming different just by the fact that while moral, the duties are enacted as fundamental principles of every thinking human being, and by the fact that this one must act as a member of an ends universal system; while religion, those duties are seen as commandments of a supreme holy will, so that, the moral laws are the only ones which are in accordance with the idea of a supreme perfection. In the preface to the first edition of the Religion within the Boundaries of mere Reason Kant opens it with a claim moral is self-sufficient. Nevertheless, if morality in no way needs religion whether objectively (as regards willing) or subjectively (as regards capability), but it is self-sufficient; it is asked: why does religion consider the moral law as a commandment of a supreme holy will? Or yet, why is there a correlation between moral and religion? In this sense, its objective is to show how moral can reach its plenitude only in the absolute autonomy within the practice reason, which becomes law to itself as an unconditional and pure duty, and which can, then, indicate an inevitable relation existing between moral and religion. The connection between moral and religion, besides being fundamental and structural information of pure reason, it is the progressive recognition of a universal plan in which, despite all the liberty abuses by men, will reach in the end the highest possible degree of perfection of humankind. / Para Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), moral e religião estão ligadas de modo estreito, diferenciando-se apenas pelo fato de que na moral os deveres são praticados como princípios fundamentais de todo ser racional, e pelo fato de que esse último deve agir como membro de um sistema universal de fins, enquanto que na religião esses deveres são vistos como mandamentos de uma suprema vontade santa, pois que, as leis da moral são as únicas que estão de acordo com a idéia de uma suprema perfeição. No prólogo à primeira edição de A Religião nos Limites da simples razão (1793) Kant o abre com a afirmação de que a moral basta-se a si mesma. No entanto, se a moral de nenhum modo precisa da religião tanto objetivamente (com relação ao querer) quanto subjetivamente (com relação à capacidade) mas basta-se a si mesma; pergunta-se: porque a religião vê a lei moral como mandamento de uma suprema vontade santa? Ou ainda, porque existe uma relação entre moral e religião? Nesse sentido, o objetivo é o de mostrar como a moral atinge a sua plenitude somente na absoluta autonomia da razão prática, a qual se torna lei para si mesma como dever puro e incondicional, e que chegará então a indicar uma inevitável relação existente entre moral e religião. A conexão entre moral e religião, além de ser um dado fundamental e estrutural da razão pura, é o reconhecimento progressivo de um plano universal segundo o qual, a despeito de todos os abusos da liberdade por parte dos homens, alcançará no final o mais alto grau possível de perfeição do gênero humano.

Using a case study of the Italian spirit grappa, we examine status recategorization - the vertical extension and reclassification of an entire market category. Grappa was historically a low-status product, but in the 1970s one regional distiller took steps that led to a radical break from its traditional image, so that in just over a decade high-quality grappa became an exemplar of cultured Italian lifestyle and held a market position in the same class as cognac and whisky. We use this context to articulate "theorization by allusion", which occurs through three mechanisms: category detachment-distancing a social object from its existing category; category emulation-presenting that object so that it hints at the practices of a high-status category; and category sublimation-shifting from local, field-specific references to broader, societal-level frames. This novel theorization is particularly appropriate for explaining change from low to high status because it avoids resistance to and contestation of such change (by customers, media, and other sources) as a result of status imperatives, which may be especially strong in mature fields. Unlike prior studies that have examined the status of organizations within a category, ours foregrounds shifts in the status and social meaning of a market category itself. (authors' abstract)

This thesis investigates errors on speech sounds (or phonemes) produced in laboratory speech stimuli designed to generate phonological onset errors. The present study adds to the literature on phonological speech errors with an instrumental analysis of tongue posture during speech error production and an investigation of the nature of speech errors as unintended variation in articulation. This study utilized ultrasound instrumentation to visualize speech errors made on velar and alveolar stop consonants at the point of stop closure. Two types of errors were of interest, categorical errors and gradient errors. Categorical errors are those that are heard by the listener and instrumentally appear to be a correct production of an incorrect target. Gradient errors are those that are usually heard to be the correct target, but on instrumental examination display characteristics of an incorrect production. Six participants repeated eight tongue twisters in both a baseline and an experimental condition. This study was interested in errors produced on the onset stop consonant pairs /t, d/ and /k, g/. Recordings were transcribed to determine the perceptual identity of each target. Ultrasound videos were then analyzed and an individual frame representing the articulatory posture for each closure was extracted. These frames were fit with a smoothing spline curve using Edgetrak software. A curve-to-curve analysis based on the methods of Zharkova (2009) was conducted as a means of further investigating variation in individual speakers as well as providing a quantitative measure of errors. Results from the six speakers showed that all produced both categorical and gradient errors. The speakers showed individual variation in the stability of their productions and overall rate of errors. There was an observable trend for speakers who were more stable in their baseline productions to produce fewer errors, both gradient and categorical, in the experimental portion. Conversely, those speakers who exhibited more variation in their baseline productions had a higher rate of error under the experimental condition.

Consumer loans are part of loan products provided by bank institutions. This diploma thesis is focused on possibility of identifying risk clients with the consumer loans, using available data set. In the first part of the work was briefly mentioned the credit process and also theoretical basis of statistic methods used in empirical part of the work. In the second part were investigated dependencies, and was described the clients structure. Then the discriminant analysis was applied, with the aim to identify the sorting criteria, which could recognize the risk and unproblematic clients. Subsequently the results of the analysis were evaluated and described the identified connections.

We investigate categorical models of the unit-free multiplicative and multiplicative-additive fragments of linear logic by representing derivations as particular structures known as dinatural transformations. Suitable categories are considered to satisfy a property known as full completeness if all such entities are the interpretation of a correct derivation. It is demonstrated that certain Hyland-Schalk double glueings [HS03] are capable of transforming large numbers of degenerate models into more accurate ones. Compact closed categories with finite biproducts possess enough structure that their morphisms can be described as forms of linear arrays. We introduce the notion of an extended tensor (or ‘extensor’) over arbitrary semirings, and show that they uniquely describe arrows between objects generated freely from the tensor unit in such categories. It is made evident that the concept may be extended yet further to provide meaningful decompositions of more general arrows. We demonstrate how the calculus of extensors makes it possible to examine the combinatorics of certain double glueing constructions. From this we show that the Hyland-Tan version [Tan97], when applied to compact closed categories satisfying a far weaker version of full completeness, produces genuine fully complete models of unit-free multiplicative linear logic. Research towards the development of a full completeness result for the multiplicative-additive fragment is detailed. The proofs work for categories of finite arrays over certain semirings under both the Hyland-Tan and Schalk [Sch04] constructions. We offer a possible route to finishing this proof. An interpretation of these results with respect to linear logic proof theory is provided, and possible further research paths and generalisations are discussed.

Epistemology in its contemporary post-modern ethos is generally believed to be inseparably hinged upon language. This of course ensures a major paradigm shift in the disciplined human conceptions of reality. It has been stated and is widely acknowledged that the Kantian Noumenal barrier has, in this recent shift, been proved to be looming far closer than it was ever previously considered. This new barrier to the world of ‘objective absolutes’ comprises a barrier of semantics and syntax, and calls for a radical restructuring of all the human sciences. There is surely no discipline in the humanities that can claim immunity to this colossal shift in epistemology, and theology (particularly of the Evangelical variety) is no exception to the rule. The impact of post-modern epistemological assumption upon contemporary Evangelicalism presents to those who adhere to this school’s position, a profound challenge. Conservative Christians, who hold to the propositional universality and the objectivity of biblical truth, find in the post-modern ethos little sympathy and no rational justification granted for their ‘metaphysical objectivity’. A major challenge therefore to Evangelical Christianity at the present time is this: Is there, in the light of the challenge of post-modern epistemology, any reasonable justification for continuing to adhere to the evangelical claim that God has spoken in unchanging propositional terms that are universally valid and binding? It would seem that in this regard many evangelicals are feeling pressured. Evidence of the pressure of this challenge can readily be found either in the growing contemporary evangelical tendency towards advocating a more cooperative attitude to the post-modern ethos, or in the reactionary theology of schools of thought like the Spiritual Warfare Movement. The writings of Clive Staples Lewis (1898 – 1963) have been proven effective in the countering of negative challenges to Christian faith for the past sixty years. Lewis, as an apologist, in the opinion of many intellectual searchers, positively and convincingly countered modernistic objections to faith in his own time. Modernistic assumptions prevailed in the Western world in Lewis’ day that tended to discredit a rational belief in the supernatural. Lewis was widely held to be an effective apostle to counter this modernistic scepticism. It is the conviction of the present writer that C. S. Lewis apologetics can be just as effectively utilised today in addressing post-modern challenges, as it was fifty years ago used to answer the questions raised by modernism. Lewis in all of his Christian writings, reveals an underlying epistemology that I believe (because it is based firmly upon Christian orthodoxy), has stood the test of time. The apologetics of C. S. Lewis may serve to answer post-modern challenges just as rationally as it did modernism. In this thesis, Lewis’ underlying epistemology will be examined. This will comprise the first part of my work. The second part of the thesis deals with the post-modern epistemological challenge to Evangelicalism as a world-view. The final part of this thesis consists of a dialogue between the most common post-modern challenges to evangelical thinking, and rationally compelling answers thereto that are found in Lewis’ writings. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Dogmatics and Christian Ethics / Unrestricted

The thesis concentrates on a methodological research on categorical structural optimization by means of manifold learning. The main difficulty of handling the categorical optimization problems lies in the description of the design variables: they are presented in a discrete manner and do not have any orders. Thus the treatment of the design space is a key issue. In this thesis, the non-ordinal categorical variables are treated as multi-dimensional discrete variables, thus the dimensionality of corresponding design space becomes high. In order to reduce the dimensionality, the manifold learning techniques are introduced to find the intrinsic dimensionality and map the original design space to a reduced-order space. The mechanisms of both linear and non-linear manifold learning techniques are firstly studied. Then numerical examples are tested to compare the performance of manifold learning techniques. It is found that Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Multi-dimensional Scaling (MDS) can only deal with linear or globally approximately linear cases. Isomap preserves the geodesic distances for non-linear manifold, however, its time consuming is the most. Locally Linear Embedding (LLE) preserves the neighbour weights and can yield good results in a short time. Kernel Principal Component Analysis (KPCA) works as a non-linear classifier and we proves the reason why it cannot preserve distances or angles in some cases.Based on the reduced-order representation obtained by Isomap, the graph-based evolutionary crossover and mutation operators are proposed to deal with categorical structural optimization problems, including the design of dome, six-story rigid frame and dame-like structures. The results show that the proposed graph-based evolutionary approach constructed on the reduced-order space performs more efficiently than traditional methods including simplex approach or evolutionary approach without reduced-order space.The Locally Linear Embedding is applied to reduce the data dimensionality and a polynomial interpolation helps to construct the responding surface from lower dimensional representation to original data. Then the continuous search method of moving asymptotes is executed and yields a competitively good but inadmissible solution within only a few of iteration numbers. Then in the second stage, a discrete search strategy is proposed to find out better solutions based on a neighbour search. The ten-bar truss and dome structural design problems are tested to show the validity of the method. In the end, this method is compared to the Simulated Annealing algorithm and Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolutionary Strategy, showing its better optimization efficiency.In order to deal with the case in which the categorical design instances are distributed on several manifolds, we propose a k-manifolds learning method based on the Weighted Principal Component Analysis. The obtained manifolds are integrated in the lower dimensional design space. Then the two-stage search method is applied to solve the ten-bar truss, the dome and the dam-like structural design problems. / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur et technologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

During spoken language comprehension, listeners transform continuous acoustic cues into categories (e.g. /b/ and /p/). While longstanding research suggests that phoneme categories are activated in a gradient way, there are also clear individual differences, with more gradient categorization being linked to various communication impairment like dyslexia and specific language impairments (Joanisse, Manis, Keating, & Seidenberg, 2000; López-Zamora, Luque, Álvarez, & Cobos, 2012; Serniclaes, Van Heghe, Mousty, Carré, & Sprenger-Charolles, 2004; Werker & Tees, 1987). Crucially, most studies have used two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) tasks to measure the sharpness of between-category boundaries. Here we propose an alternative paradigm that allows us to measure categorization gradiency in a more direct way. We then use this measure in an individual differences paradigm to: (a) examine the nature of categorization gradiency, (b) explore its links to different aspects of speech perception and other cognitive processes, (c) test different hypotheses about its sources, (d) evaluate its (positive/negative) role in spoken language comprehension, and (e) assess whether it can be modified via training. Our results provide validation for this new method of assessing phoneme categorization gradiency and offer valuable insights into the mechanisms that underlie speech perception.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第23402号 / 理博第4737号 / 新制||理||1679(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科数学・数理解析専攻 / (主査)准教授 照井 一成, 教授 牧野 和久, 教授 長谷川 真人 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DGAM