JavaScript is a dynamic object-oriented programming language, which is designed with flexible programming mechanisms. JavaScript is widely used in developing sophisticated software systems, especially web applications. Despite of its popularity, there is a lack of software tools that support JavaScript for software engineering clients. Dataflow analysis approximates software behavior by analyzing the program code; it is the foundation for many software tools. However, several unique features of JavaScript render existing dataflow analysis techniques ineffective. Reflective constructs, generating code at runtime, make it difficult to acquire the complete program at compile time. Dynamic typing, resulting in changes in object behavior, poses a challenge for building accurate models of objects. Different functionalities can be observed when a function is variadic; the variance of the function behavior may be caused by the arguments whose values can only be known at runtime. Object constructors may be polymorphic such that objects created by the same constructor may contain different properties. In addition to object-oriented programming, JavaScript supports paradigms of functional and procedural programming; this feature renders dataflow analysis techniques ineffective when a JavaScript application uses multiple paradigms. Dataflow analysis needs to handle these challenges. In this work, we present an analysis framework and several dataflow analyses that can handle dynamic features in JavaScript. The first contribution of our work is the design and instantiation of the JavaScript Blended Analysis Framework (JSBAF). This general-purpose and flexible framework judiciously combines dynamic and static analyses. We have implemented an instance of JSBAF, blended taint analysis, to demonstrate the practicality of the framework. Our second contribution is an novel context-sensitive points-to analysis for JavaScript that accurately models object property changes. This algorithm uses a new program representation that enables partial flow-sensitive analysis, a more accurate object representation, and an expanded points-to graph. We have defined parameterized state sensitivity (i.e., k-state sensitivity) and evaluated the effectiveness of 1-state-sensitive analysis as the static phase of JSBAF. The third contribution of our work is an adaptive context-sensitive analysis that selectively applies context-sensitive analysis on the function level. This two-staged adaptive analysis extracts function characteristics from an inexpensive points-to analysis and uses learning-based heuristics to decide on an appropriate context-sensitive analysis per function. The experimental results show that the adaptive analysis is more precise than any single context-sensitive analysis for several programs in the benchmarks, especially for those multi-paradigm programs. / Ph. D.

This thesis defends Semantic Pluralism, the view that sentences express sets of propositions in context. It puts forward two arguments against Contextualism, the main opposing view, on which each sentence expresses exactly one proposition in context. It spells out two versions of Pluralism: Flexible Pluralism, which takes most sentences to be context-sensitive, and Strong Pluralism, which denies that context-sensitivity is widespread. And it defends Flexible Pluralism and Strong Pluralism from a number of objections.

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This Thesis addresses issues that lie at the intersection of two broad philosophical projects: inferentialism and contextualism. It discusses and defends an account of the logical concepts based on the following two ideas: 1) that the logical concepts are constituted by our canonical inferential usages of them; 2) that to grasp, or possess, a logical concept is to undertake an inferential commitment to the canonical consequences of the concept when deploying it in a linguistic practice. The account focuses on the concept of universal quantification, with respect to which it also defends the view that linguistic context contributes to an interpretation of instances of the concept by determining the scope of our commitments to the canonical consequences of the quantifier. The model that I offer for the concept of universal quantification relies on, and develops, three main ideas: 1) our understanding of the concept’s inferential role is one according to which the concept expresses full inferential generality; 2) what I refer to as the ‘domain model’ (the view that the universal quantifier always ranges over a domain of quantification, and that the specification of such a domain contributes to determine the proposition expressed by sentences in which the quantifier figures) is subject to a series of crucial difficulties, and should be abandoned; 3) we should regard the undertaking of an inferential commitment to the canonical consequences of the universal quantifier as a stable and objective presupposition of a universally quantified sentence expressing a determinate proposition in context. In the last chapter of the Thesis I sketch a proposal about how contextual quantifier restrictions should be understood, and articulate the main challenges that a commitment-theoretic story about the context-sensitivity of the universal quantifier faces.

This thesis integrates the epistemology of testimony with work on the epistemology, psychology, and metaphysics of language. Epistemologists of testimony typically ask what conditions must be met for an agent to gain testimonial justification or knowledge that p given that p has been asserted, and this assertion has been understood. Questions regarding the audience's ability to grasp communicated contents are largely ignored. This is a mistake. Work in the philosophy of language (and related areas) suggests that the determination and recovery of communicated contents is far from straightforward, and can go wrong in many ways. This thesis investigates the epistemology of testimony in light of this work, with a special focus on miscommunication. The introduction provides a brief overview of some relevant work on testimony, the philosophy of language, and psychology, and argues that there is good reason to investigate the three. One obvious problem in this area is that if testimonial knowledge requires knowledge of what is said then the risk of miscommunication will block testimonial knowledge. Chapter two argues that testimonial knowledge does not require knowledge of what is said. The remaining four chapters discuss problems which do to arise from miscommunication. Chapters three and four focus on the epistemic uncertainty of communication with context sensitive terms. Chapter three argues that many beliefs formed on the basis of context sensitive testimony are unsafe and insensitive. Chapter four argues that speakers often have plausible deniability about the contents of their assertions. Chapters five and six explore types of miscommunication which arise as a result of background mental states affecting our linguistic understanding. Chapter five explores the social/ethical consequences of this, arguing that certain groups are disproportionately subject to harmful misinterpretation. Chapter six argues that testimonial anti-reductionists make the wrong predictions about a range of cases of cognitive penetration.

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The extensions of vague predicates like ‘is bald’, ‘is tall’, and ‘is a heap’ apparently lack sharp boundaries, and this makes such predicates susceptible to soritical reasoning, i.e. reasoning that leads to some version of the notorious sorites paradox. This essay is concerned with a certain kind of theory of vagueness, according to which the symptoms and puzzles of vagueness should be accounted for in terms of a particular species of context sensitivity exhibited by vague expressions. The basic idea is that the extensions of vague predicates vary with certain contextual factors, and that this fact can explain why they appear to lack sharp boundaries. This kind of view is referred to as contextualism about vagueness. A detailed characterisation of contextualism about vagueness is given in chapter two and three. In chapter two, a generic version of contextualism about vagueness is developed, and some alternative forms of context sensitivity are introduced. In chapter three, the specific contextual factors appealed to by different contextualists are discussed. In chapter four, different contextualist diagnoses of the sorites paradox are considered, and found to be problematic in various ways. It is argued that contrary to what some of its proponents have claimed, contextualism about vagueness is not superior to other comparable theories of vagueness when it comes to explaining the appeal of soritical reasoning. In chapter five, a certain version of the sorites paradox, known as the forced march sorites, is discussed. It is argued that “data” about how speakers would behave in the forced march cannot lend any firm support to contextualism about vagueness. In chapter six, some problems concerning the instability of the contextual factors are considered. One problem is that contextualist diagnoses of the sorites which locate a fallacy of equivocation in the reasoning seem to render non-soritical reasoning fallacious as well. A model for treating this problem is suggested, but on closer consideration, it turns out to be problematic. Moreover, this model is of no help in solving the more general problem that even if classical logic remains valid for vague language on some contextualist views, the instability of the extensions of vague predicates makes it difficult to know when a certain piece of reasoning instantiates a valid argument form. Other difficulties arise with respect to speech reports and belief contents. Chapter seven concludes with a summary and some methodological remarks.

abstract: In countries of conflict, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) often resort to humanitarian relief. A small number of peace and conflict resolution organizations (P/CROs) engage more directly, through grassroots mediation, elite negotiation and advocacy. This thesis observes the potential for implementing such direct conflict interventions in traditional relief and development organizations. To understand current NGO activities, I examine ten case study organizations in two countries of conflict, Cote d'Ivoire and Somalia. I analyze organizations' rhetorical presentation, their society-level engagement, strategies for intervention, and responses to persistent challenges, such as security, impartiality, collaboration and evaluation. Based on conflict study literature, I make tentative recommendations for NGOs in Cote d'Ivoire and Somalia specifically. I also propose a more general system for classifying NGO peace work: five generations of conflict intervention, each more integrated, direct, and political. Rhetorical, structural and operational changes will help organizations move toward higher generation work. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Social Justice and Human Rights 2011

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