This thesis considers the problem of program correctness within a rich theory of dependent types, the Extended Calculus of Constructions (ECC). This system contains a powerful programming language of higher-order primitive recursion and higher-order intuitionistic logic. It is supported by Pollack's versatile LEGO implementation, which I use extensively to develop the mathematical constructions studied here. I systematically investigate Burstall's notion of deliverable, that is, a program paired with a proof of correctness. This approach separates the concerns of programming and logic, since I want a simple program extraction mechanism. The Sigma-types of the calculus enable us to achieve this. There are many similarities with the subset interpretation of Martin-Löf type theory. I show that deliverables have a rich categorical structure, so that correctness proofs may be decomposed in a principled way. The categorical combinators which I define in the system package up much logical book-keeping, allowing one to concentrate on the essential structure of algorithms. I demonstrate our methodology with a number of small examples, culminating in a machine-checked proof of the Chinese remainder theorem, showing the utility of the deliverables idea. Some drawbacks are also encountered. I consider also semantic aspects of deliverables, examining the definitions in an abstract setting, again firmly based on category theory. The aim is to overcome the clumsiness of the language of categorical combinators, using dependent type theories and their interpretation in fibrations. I elaborate a concrete instance based on the category of sets, which generalises to an arbitrary topos. In the process, I uncover a subsystem of ECC within which one may speak of deliverables defined over the topos. In the presence of enough extra structure, the interpretation extends to the whole of ECC. The wheel turns full circle.

The aim of the present thesis is to reconcile two opposing intuitions; one originating from mainstream individualistic epistemology and the other one from social epistemology. In particular, conceiving of knowledge as a cognitive phenomenon, mainstream epistemologists focus on the individual as the proper epistemic subject. Yet, clearly, knowledge-acquisition many times appears to be a social process and, sometimes, to such an extent—as in the case of scientific knowledge—that it has been argued there might be knowledge that is not possessed by any individual alone. In order to make sense of such contradictory claims, I combine virtue reliabilism in mainstream epistemology with two hypotheses from externalist philosophy of mind, viz., the extended and distributed cognition hypotheses. Reading virtue reliabilism along the lines suggested by the hypothesis of extended cognition allows for a weak anti-individualistic understanding of knowledge, which has already been suggested on the basis of considerations about testimonial knowledge: knowledge, many times, has a dual nature; it is both social and individual. Provided, however, the possibility of distributed cognition and group agency, we can go even further by making a case for a robust version of antiindividualism in mainstream epistemology. This is because knowledge may not always be the product of any individual’s cognitive ability and, thereby, not creditable to any individual alone. Knowledge, instead, might be the product of an epistemic group agent’s collective cognitive ability and, thus, attributable only to the group as a whole. Still, however, being able—on the basis of the hypothesis of distributed cognition—to recognize a group as a cognitive subject in itself allows for proponents of virtue reliabilism to legitimately apply their individualistic theory of knowledge to such extreme cases as well. Put another way, mainstream individualistic epistemologists now have the means to make sense of the claim that p is known by S, even though it is not known by any individual alone.

Cognitive abilities have been invoked to do much work in externalist epistemology. An ability condition (sometimes in conjunction with a separate, anti-luck condition) is seen to be key in satisfying direction-of-fit and modal stability intuitions which attach to the accrual of positive epistemic status to doxastic attitudes. While the notion of ability has been given some extensive treatment in the literature (especially John Greco, Alan Millar and Ernest Sosa), the implications for these abilities being particularly cognitive ones has been given less attention. To rectify this oversight, I examine the debate over the nature of cognition from philosophy of cognitive science, paying particular attention to the debate between defenders of internalist theories (Fred Adams, Kenneth Aizawa and Rob Rupert) and externalist theories (so-called “extended mind” positions). Armed with substantive accounts of cognition, I argue that the epistemological externalist’s obligation to repudiate epistemological internalism forces her to adopt some sort of externalist account of cognition.

Using short stories, descriptions of objects and thoughts on process, I aim to establish a few ideas about the way I see and think through making in the studio.

THIN TIME by Jonathan Benjamin, MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture + Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2012. Major Director: Corin Hewitt, Assistant Professor, Department of Sculpture + Extended Media This thesis is an honest attempt to put language to a non-lingual practice. It describes my studio process, my thoughts on materials and surface, and outlines some of the images and things out in the world that inform my work.

This is a piece for mixed chamber ensemble (flute doubling piccolo and alto flute, bass clarinet, piano, percussion [crotales and vibraphone] violins 1&2, viola, and cello). The total performance length of the piece is approximately fifteen minutes. The structure of the work is based on the exploration of formlessness as form, a piece of music where the drifting, seemingly aimless instrumental lines create a complex texture that becomes more than the sum of its parts. Instead of relying on a clearly delineated form based on goal-oriented structures, this work gradually transforms its elements without ever feeling the need to go anywhere other than where it already is. In this sense, the music is in a constant state of becoming itself, a goal that it can never really achieve.

The following is a quantitative study, with a convenience sample of 117 adults, ranging in age from 18-73, to gather information about the public’s perspective towards extended foster care (EFC) and emerging adulthood. Topics varied from when foster youth should emancipate to when emerging adult children should move out of their parents’ homes. There is very little literature regarding the topic of EFC, which could impact the sustainability of this program as its objective is to help emerging adults transition more successfully into adulthood and out of the child welfare system. An online survey was created through Qualtrics with 25 questions. The link to the survey was distributed through text message and the social media website, Facebook. The results showed that the participants appear to believe that foster youth should stop receiving services at the age of 18 and emancipate out of care at the age of 21while also suggesting that emerging adults, not in foster care, should be self-sufficient and moved out of their parents’ home by the age of 23. These views could be due to the lack of awareness of the general population regarding the reality of the impact abuse, neglect, and life in the child welfare system can have on a developing child. Furthermore, the implication for the future of EFC is that foster youth may need continued assistance until the age of 23, perhaps in the form of housing vouchers as opposed to financial assistance.

Seen from the viewpoints of politics and administration, the retirement system of civil servant is related to the overall planning and flexible utilization of human resource, the improvement of national competitiveness and the collocation of financial resource of a country; seen from the viewpoint of economy, the prosperity or depression of national economy closely affects the planning of retirement payment system; in the aspect of society, as the aged society comes earlier than expected and the social structure changes, the retirement system of civil servant is related to whether the living security and social welfare system for the aged people is sound enough. Through the proper and reasonable retirement payment, the retirement system of civil servant is intended, firstly, to motivate the civil servants to be satisfied with the job and work hard for the public; secondly, to provide a reasonable income for the civil servants and guarantee their life in the years after retirement; and thirdly, with the reasonable retirement payment mechanism and the social security mechanism of the country, to construct a complete social security system network and build a safe and peaceful society in which all people can make their own livings. The implementation of the new pension system has really improved the problems faced in the old public finance-based pension system, and has laid a solid foundation in stabilizing the source of pension fund and establishing the civil servants' concept of being prepared to burden their post-retirement life when they are on the job. However, the current retirement system was designed more than 20 years ago and some tradeoff or progressive measures were taken for the purpose of reducing the resistance in the beginning of implementation. As the age and the environment both have changed, some provisions of the pension system have been behind the time. Therefore, it is really necessary to research how to manage and operate the retirement system, think over the problems in the current retirement system of civil servant, and research how to build a better retirement fund system and balance the retirement benefits of the civil servants of different generations. In this thesis, the legal system of retirement of civil servant is the subject of research and the other related administrative legal provisions are used for explanation, and the basic theories of administrative law ¡V administrative principles, administrative organization, administrative authority, administrative remedy, and administrative supervision, are used as the research methods to review the retirement system of civil servant in Taiwan. Through the research it is found that, the average age of Taiwanese people has been higher and a lot of civil servants choose to retire earlier for they can receive monthly pension for a long time; this is likely to deteriorate the governmental finance. How to solve this problem efficiently and reasonably, relieve the accumulation of retirement cost and avoid it from being transferred to the later generations as a heavy burden, maintain the existing rights and benefits, provide a reasonable guarantee for the original expectation of civil servants and distribute the national resources reasonably? It is necessary for us to think about for planning a reasonable legal system of retirement.

A model based algorithm of pipeline flow is developed and tested to determine if the model is capable of detecting a leak in a pipeline. The overall objective of this research is to determine the feasibility of applying the Extended Kalman Filter and a new technique defined as the Extended Boundary Approach to the detection of leakages in a physical water distribution system. <p>The demands on the water supply system increase as the human population grows and expands throughout the world. Water conservation is required to ensure an adequate supply of water remains for future generations. One way to conserve this water is by reducing the leakages in underground water distribution systems. Currently between 10 to 50 percent of the pumped water is lost due to unrecognized leakages. This results in a huge revenue loss of water, chemicals and energy that is required for transporting the water. The detection of underground leakages is a very complex problem because many leakages are small and go unnoticed by todays leak detection technology. <p>A model based leak detection technique is developed and tested in this thesis. The Method of Characteristics is used to develop a model of a single pipeline. This method is extensively used and provides the most accurate results of the two partial differential equations of continuity and momentum that describe pipe flow. The Extended Kalman Filter is used to estimate two fictitious leakages at known locations along the pipeline. In order to ensure the model is observable four pressure measurements are needed at equally spaced nodes along the pipeline. With the development of the Extended Boundary Approach only the upstream and downstream pressure measurements are required, however; the upstream and downstream flow measurements are also required. Using the information from the two fictitious leaks the actual leak location and magnitude can be determined. This method is only capable of detecting one leak in a single pipeline. <p>The results of the developed model show that the approach is capable of theoretically determining the leak location and magnitude in a pipeline. However, at this time, the feasibility of implementing the proposed leak detection method is limited by the required level of accuracy of the sensors which is beyond that found in todays technology. It was also found that the EKF used primarily steady state information to predict the leakage. It is recommended that further research explore alternate models which might better enhance the EKF approach using transient information from the pipeline. This may allow implementation on a real pipeline.

The aim of platooning is to enable several Heavy Duty Vehicles (HDVs) to drive in a convoy and act as one unit to decrease the fuel consumption. By introducing wireless communication and tight control, the distance between the HDVs can be decreased significantly. This implies a reduction of the air drag and consequently the fuel consumption for all the HDVs in the platoon. The challenge in platooning is to keep the HDVs as close as possible to each other without endangering safety. Therefore, sensor fusion is necessary to get an accurate estimate of the relative distance and velocity, which is a pre-requisite for the controller. This master thesis aims at developing a sensor fusion framework from on-board sensor information as well as other vehicles’ sensor information communicated over a WiFi link. The most important sensors are GPS, that gives a rough position of each HDV, and radar that provides relative distance for each pair of HDV’s in the platoon. A distributed solution is developed, where an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) estimates the state of the whole platoon. The state vector includes position, velocity and length of each HDV, which is used in a Model Predictive Control (MPC). Furthermore, a method is discussed on how to handle vehicles outside the platoon and how various road surfaces can be managed. This master thesis is a part of a project consisting of three parallel master’s theses. The other two master’s theses investigate and implement rough pre-processing of data, time synchronization and MPC associated with platooning. It was found that the three implemented systems could reduce the average fuel consumption by 11.1 %.