Biology has made great progress in identifying and measuring the building blocks of life. The availability of high-throughput methods in molecular biology has dramatically accelerated the growth of biological knowledge for various organisms. The advancements in genomic, proteomic and metabolomic technologies allow for constructing complex models of biological systems. An increasing number of biological repositories is available on the web, incorporating thousands of biochemical reactions and genetic regulations. Systems Biology is a recent research trend in life science, which fosters a systemic view on biology. In Systems Biology one is interested in integrating the knowledge from all these different sources into models that capture the interaction of these entities. By studying these models one wants to understand the emerging properties of the whole system, such as robustness. However, both measurements as well as biological networks are prone to considerable incompleteness, heterogeneity and mutual inconsistency, which makes it highly non-trivial to draw biologically meaningful conclusions in an automated way. Therefore, we want to promote Answer Set Programming (ASP) as a tool for discrete modeling in Systems Biology. ASP is a declarative problem solving paradigm, in which a problem is encoded as a logic program such that its answer sets represent solutions to the problem. ASP has intrinsic features to cope with incompleteness, offers a rich modeling language and highly efficient solving technology. We present ASP solutions, for the analysis of genetic regulatory networks, determining consistency with observed measurements and identifying minimal causes for inconsistency. We extend this approach for computing minimal repairs on model and data that restore consistency. This method allows for predicting unobserved data even in case of inconsistency. Further, we present an ASP approach to metabolic network expansion. This approach exploits the easy characterization of reachability in ASP and its various reasoning methods, to explore the biosynthetic capabilities of metabolic reaction networks and generate hypotheses for extending the network. Finally, we present the BioASP library, a Python library which encapsulates our ASP solutions into the imperative programming paradigm. The library allows for an easy integration of ASP solution into system rich environments, as they exist in Systems Biology. / In den letzten Jahren wurden große Fortschritte bei der Identifikation und Messung der Bausteine des Lebens gemacht. Die Verfügbarkeit von Hochdurchsatzverfahren in der Molekularbiology hat das Anwachsen unseres biologischen Wissens dramatisch beschleunigt. Durch die technische Fortschritte in Genomic, Proteomic und Metabolomic wurde die Konstruktion komplexer Modelle biologischer Systeme ermöglicht. Immer mehr biologische Datenbanken sind über das Internet verfügbar, sie enthalten tausende Daten biochemischer Reaktionen und genetischer Regulation. System Biologie ist ein junger Forschungszweig der Biologie, der versucht Biologische Systeme in ihrer Ganzheit zu erforschen. Dabei ist man daran interessiert möglichst viel Wissen aus den unterschiedlichsten Bereichen in ein Modell zu aggregieren, welches das Zusammenwirken der verschiedensten Komponenten nachbildet. Durch das Studium derartiger Modelle erhofft man sich ein Verständnis der aufbauenden Eigenschaften, wie zum Beispiel Robustheit, des Systems zu erlangen. Es stellt sich jedoch die Problematik, das sowohl die biologischen Modelle als auch die verfügbaren Messwerte, oft unvollständig, miteinander unvereinbar oder fehlerhaft sind. All dies macht es schwierig biologisch sinnvolle Schlussfolgerungen zu ziehen. Daher, möchten wir in dieser Arbeit Antwortmengen Programmierung (engl. Answer Set Programming; ASP) als Werkzeug zur diskreten Modellierung system biologischer Probleme vorschlagen. ASP verfügt über eingebaute Eigenschaften zum Umgang mit unvollständiger Information, eine reichhaltige Modellierungssprache und hocheffiziente Berechnungstechniken. Wir präsentieren ASP Lösungen zur Analyse von Netzwerken genetischer Regulierungen, zur Prüfung der Konsistenz mit gemessene Daten, und zur Identifikation von Gründen für Inkonsistenz. Diesen Ansatz erweitern wir um die Möglichkeit zur Berechnung minimaler Reparaturen an Modell und Daten, welche Konsistenz erzeugen. Mithilfe dieser Methode werden wir in die Lage versetzt, auch im Fall von Inkonsistenz, noch ungemessene Daten vorherzusagen. Weiterhin, präsentieren wir einen ASP Ansatz zur Analyse metabolischer Netzwerke. Bei diesem Ansatz, nutzen wir zum einen aus das sich Erreichbarkeit mit ASP leicht spezifizieren lässt und das ASP mehrere mächtige Methoden zur Schlussfolgerung bereitstellt, welche sich auch kombiniert lassen. Dadurch wird es möglich die Synthese Möglichkeiten eines Metabolischen Netzwerks zu erforschen und Hypothesen für Erweiterungen des metabolischen Netzwerks zu berechnen. Zu guter Letzt, präsentieren wir die BioASP Softwarebibliothek. Die BioASP-Bibliothek kapselt unsere ASP Lösungen in das imperative Programmierparadigma und vereinfacht eine Integration von ASP Lösungen in heterogene Betriebsumgebungen, wie sie in der System Biologie vorherrschen.

This thesis presents two applications of the incompleteness and one application of the imperfection of the market economy. The first application, Chapter 2, studies the decision making problem of an individual seeking to accumulate an optimal amount of human capital realizing that the wage income derived from the accumulated human capital is subject to incompletely insured uncertainty. In other words, the financial market that insures against wage income risk is not fully functional. We find that the individual's inability to diversify wage income risk tends to increase the need to accumulate more human capital in order to elevate wage path and compensate for the burden of its associated risk. This is particularly true when (i) the wage income risk is positively correlated with the rate-of-return risk in the financial market, resulting in an even greater risk burden to the individual, and (ii) the individual is more risk averse. There are two possibilities that no human capital is needed. The first possibility occurs when it is optimal to work as an unskilled worker because both the burden from wage income risk and the rate of return from education are low. The second possibility is the case where the risk burden is so high that the optimal time spent in school to acquire sufficient human capital to cover the risk is so long that the discounted rate of return from education is negative. In this case, the best strategy is to invest in financial assets alone and forfeit the opportunity to earn wage income - either as an educated or as an unskilled worker - to avoid its associated risk. Chapter 3 applies equilibrium unemployment theory with a frictional labor market to study the impact of immigration on the local labor market. Markets are imperfect in the sense that job matching takes time and recruitment is costly. We find that labor market outcomes of both the natives and existing immigrants depend crucially on how the economic surplus from successful matching is divided between the firms and the workers or, in other words, on the bargaining power of the workers. An arrival of immigrants with low bargaining power tends to benefit both the natives and the existing immigrants. A disparity between the two worker types in the matching efficiency also plays a major role. An inferior matching technology among the immigrants, interpreted here as reflecting their less established social network, lowers their wage rate and increases their unemployment rate. The natives are more likely to benefit from additional immigration than the existing immigrants and, when they do, the overall benefit can be decomposed into "job creation spillover" effect resulting from the immigrants' low bargaining power, and "job stealing" effect resulting from the immigrants' less efficient matching. The implications on the pattern of international migration flows are also discussed. In Chapter 4, a simple macroeconomic model is constructed and applied quantitatively to OECD countries, to analyze the effect of incomplete insurance on saving, growth and welfare in a closed economy. In this economy, precautionary saving motivated by uninsured idiosyncratic shocks raises growth rates but lowers risk-free returns. Welfare is measured by the sum of growth rates and risk-free rates of return, not growth rates alone. This welfare measure takes the negative impact of precautionary saving into consideration. Applied to the OECD data, three major results emerge: (i) the heterogeneous performance of growth and saving across the countries reflects different degrees of insurance incompleteness, (ii) since the externality of growth on productivity was very strong in the 1960's, the heavily constrained insurance market itself improves productivity by promoting growth, thereby enhancing welfare, (iii) while the externality of growth became weaker in the 1980's, the development of insurance markets lowered growth, but still contributed to a raise in welfare.

This dissertation explores value-creation in interaction design through practical collaborations with studio craftspersons. A focus is on the meaning of “preciousness” from a design perspective – what I refer to as Making Preciousness –  which highlights aspects of material properties, design processes, and the attitude to the design space. Theoretically, the work takes inspiration from the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi, which is based on the fact that things are impermanent, incomplete, and imperfect. This reflects a view of preciousness beyond notions of practical use, luxury or monetary cost. In addition to theoretical studies, I engaged in practice-based research at the intersection of interaction design and studio crafts, in the domains of leather, silversmith and textile crafting. Through an approach that blends these practices with the making of interactive artefacts, preciousness for interaction design was explored. Through this work, I extract three qualities, all of which are closely linked to attributes and values ​​embedded in the craft practices examined. I refer to these as resourceful composition, material sensuality and the aiming for mattering artefacts. Resourceful composition refers to approaching a design space “resourcefully”, meaning that the designer actively values and uses the specific qualities of materials and tools consciously, for what they are suitable for. Material sensuality is about appreciating the sensory experience of interacting with materials, arriving through particular material qualities, such as texture, temperature or smell, but also interactive qualities. Aiming for mattering artefacts involves actively designing for impermanence, incompleteness and imperfection, and through that contributing to notions of preciousness through use, care, ownership and interaction between users and artefacts over time. The attitude of making preciousness can be seen as tying together materials and making with user experiences of computational artefacts. For interaction design, this points towards making processes in which computation and material knowledge, craftsmanship and aesthetic intentions are placed at the core. These values ​​relate to cultural, but also sensual experiences, which can be seen as under-explored in the design of interactive products. / <p>QC 20171213</p>

Cette thèse présente une ethnologie des phénomènes migratoires en Afrique de l’Ouest qui promeut une étude de la mobilité, localement baptisée « aventure », en tant qu’anthropologie de l’incertitude dont le dessein premier a été de saisir les identités labiles et vagabondes de migrants se désignant aventuriers – identité ramifiée à des pratiques, des désirs et des conceptions spécifiques de l’Ailleurs. En serrant de près le sens des discours des acteurs et des témoins rencontrés, en analysant des biographies fouillées d’aventuriers afin de restituer la dimension subjective du vécu migratoire, et en observant in vivo les creusets sociaux et les foyers de significations où naissent les désirs d’extraversion, nous donnons à voir et à comprendre les usages que font les aventuriers de l’Ici et de l’Ailleurs, ainsi que les rapports à eux-mêmes, aux autres et au monde qu’ils produisent. À rebours du poncif misérabiliste, nous dévoilons ainsi une philosophie de la mobilité qui nous incline à penser l’aventurier comme sujet-auteur de son existence et l’aventurisme comme un éthos et une forme rituelle d’esthétisation, de narration, de conquête et d’exposition de soi. / Ethnology of the adventure. Contemporary practices of male mobility and identity buildings in West Africa (Burkina Faso) – This PhD thesis features an ethnology of migratory phenomena in West Africa which promotes a study of the mobility locally called “adventure” as an anthropology of the uncertainty. The initial purpose was to grasp labile and roaming identities of migrants who refer to themselves as adventurers – identity branched to specific practices, desires and conceptions of the Elsewhere. In approaching as closely as possible the meaning of the speeches of the actors and the witnesses, in analyzing thick biographies of adventurers in order to reproduce the subjective dimension of their migratory experience, and in observing in vivo the social contexts and the crucibles of meanings where the desires of extroversion arise, we give to see and understand the adventurers’ uses of the Here and the Elsewhere, as well as their relationships to themselves, to others and to the world they generate. Contrary to the cliché painting migrations in the most miserable way, thus we unveil a philosophy of the mobility that makes us inclined to think the adventurer as a subject-author of his existence and the adventurism as an éthos and a ritual form of self-aestheticization, self-narrative, self-conquest and self-exposure.

This thesis presents two applications of the incompleteness and one application of the imperfection of the market economy. The first application, Chapter 2, studies the decision making problem of an individual seeking to accumulate an optimal amount of human capital realizing that the wage income derived from the accumulated human capital is subject to incompletely insured uncertainty. In other words, the financial market that insures against wage income risk is not fully functional. We find that the individual's inability to diversify wage income risk tends to increase the need to accumulate more human capital in order to elevate wage path and compensate for the burden of its associated risk. This is particularly true when (i) the wage income risk is positively correlated with the rate-of-return risk in the financial market, resulting in an even greater risk burden to the individual, and (ii) the individual is more risk averse. There are two possibilities that no human capital is needed. The first possibility occurs when it is optimal to work as an unskilled worker because both the burden from wage income risk and the rate of return from education are low. The second possibility is the case where the risk burden is so high that the optimal time spent in school to acquire sufficient human capital to cover the risk is so long that the discounted rate of return from education is negative. In this case, the best strategy is to invest in financial assets alone and forfeit the opportunity to earn wage income - either as an educated or as an unskilled worker - to avoid its associated risk. Chapter 3 applies equilibrium unemployment theory with a frictional labor market to study the impact of immigration on the local labor market. Markets are imperfect in the sense that job matching takes time and recruitment is costly. We find that labor market outcomes of both the natives and existing immigrants depend crucially on how the economic surplus from successful matching is divided between the firms and the workers or, in other words, on the bargaining power of the workers. An arrival of immigrants with low bargaining power tends to benefit both the natives and the existing immigrants. A disparity between the two worker types in the matching efficiency also plays a major role. An inferior matching technology among the immigrants, interpreted here as reflecting their less established social network, lowers their wage rate and increases their unemployment rate. The natives are more likely to benefit from additional immigration than the existing immigrants and, when they do, the overall benefit can be decomposed into "job creation spillover" effect resulting from the immigrants' low bargaining power, and "job stealing" effect resulting from the immigrants' less efficient matching. The implications on the pattern of international migration flows are also discussed. In Chapter 4, a simple macroeconomic model is constructed and applied quantitatively to OECD countries, to analyze the effect of incomplete insurance on saving, growth and welfare in a closed economy. In this economy, precautionary saving motivated by uninsured idiosyncratic shocks raises growth rates but lowers risk-free returns. Welfare is measured by the sum of growth rates and risk-free rates of return, not growth rates alone. This welfare measure takes the negative impact of precautionary saving into consideration. Applied to the OECD data, three major results emerge: (i) the heterogeneous performance of growth and saving across the countries reflects different degrees of insurance incompleteness, (ii) since the externality of growth on productivity was very strong in the 1960's, the heavily constrained insurance market itself improves productivity by promoting growth, thereby enhancing welfare, (iii) while the externality of growth became weaker in the 1980's, the development of insurance markets lowered growth, but still contributed to a raise in welfare. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

L’État de droit peut se définir comme un système institutionnel dans lequel la puissance publique est soumise au droit. Cette notion, a été redéfinie au début du vingtième siècle par Hans Kelsen comme : « un État dans lequel les normes juridiques sont hiérarchisées de telle sorte que sa puissance s’en trouve limitée ». Un tel système qui pose la soumission des patients à la règle, présuppose outre la légitimité de ses agents, la traduction objective de la normativité qui en est issue. Pour autant il appert de l’observation des dispositifs qui en résultent, des anomalies structurelles et fonctionnelles dont les effets cliniques constitutifs d’un syndrome, pointent les dysfonctionnements d’un espace juridictionnel essentiellement abandonné aux individualités. En conséquence, les interactions entre les agents et les patients (justiciables, défendeurs, demandeurs) ne sauraient être dissociées de l’analyse de ces manifestations spécifiques au droit continental, notamment français contemporain. C’est donc, après avoir procédé à l’identification du syndrome et à l’analyse du « concept dispositif », fait le constat d’un paradoxe régulatoire constant et relevé les signes cliniques des affections, que nous en avons déduis les vecteurs. Toutefois, le constat qui en est résulté conduisait, soit à considérer le phénomène inéluctable et à l’intégrer, soit à en rechercher les causes originelles et les voies susceptibles d’en atténuer les effets. Par suite, c’est à l’aune d’un paradigme constant, propre au droit continental, qu’après avoir relevé les effets et identifié les causes des affections ainsi révélées par le syndrome du dispositif, que nous avons imaginé le concept de résidualisme. Partant, après en avoir aperçu tant les fondements que la stratégie, nous en avons recherché les premières pistes susceptibles d’en réduire la portée et de conduire à l’élaboration d’un dispositif « assisté », visant tant à obtenir l’adhésion effective des agents et des patients, qu’à décharger le juge d’une responsabilité normative qui n’est pas la sienne. / The two bodies of the judge and the syndrome of the device: study on the causes of the normative incompleteness, legal scope and its other consequences in contemporary French continental law.The rule of law can be defined as an institutional system in which the public authority is subject to the law. This notion has been redefined in the early twentieth century by Hans Kelsen as: "a State in which legal standards are prioritized so that its power is limited. Such a system that asks patients to the rule submission, presupposes the legitimacy of its agents, in addition to objective translation of normativity which from. So far it appears from the observation devices resulting, structural and functional abnormalities with the constituent clinical effects of a syndrome, that point the dysfunctions of a jurisdictional space essentially abandoned to individualities. As a result, the interactions between agents and patients (litigants, defendants, plaintiffs) cannot be separated from the analysis of these events specific to the continental law, including contemporary french. It is therefore, after identification of the syndrome and the analysis of the 'system concept', made the observation that for a constant regulatory paradox and noted the clinical signs of disease, that we examined the vectors. However, the observation that resulted was driving, consider the inevitable and to integrate it, either search for the original causes and ways to mitigate the effects. Accordingly, it is in the light of a paradigm of constant, clean to the continental law, after having noted the effects and identified the causes of disease as revealed by the syndrome of the device, we have created the concept of residualism. Therefore, after to have seen both the foundations that the strategy we sought in the first tracks likely to reduce the scope and lead to the development of a "guided" device, both aiming to get effective accession of agents and of the patients, to unload the judge of a normative responsibility is not hers.

BEGINNING MIDDLE AND is a project that takes a textile approach to explore repeated pattern and the ongoing. This paper, being a part of this project, is describing and discussing the potentiality of using notions such as softness, folds and ongoingness to widen the views on what a craft practice can be and do. This raises questions about the relevancy of ideas such as finished and the one piece, in a craft context. Based on the properties of a resist dyeing technique, the paper puts the fold in relation to pattern and modularity. It wants to discuss what a fold is and how ideas of folding and unfolding could engage with process based artistic work. Constantly shifting between perspectives and looking for overlaps, the text then touches upon paradoxes and dilemmas found when unfolding the systems and the unruliness that together form the work. Looking at acts of unfinishing, it tries to understand the fascination and the fear that is triggered by incompleteness. The beginning is a wish to enhance the complexity of my craft practice, and to expand the understanding of it. But realizing the difficulties in doing so, the reasoning eventually ends up at the challenging task to break free from your own habits, trying to find a new beginning.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:24:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodrigo Reis Ribeiro Bastos.pdf: 1650314 bytes, checksum: a64e9e73a4335f5e52fb9b89505e15d7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-24 / Using computer and computerize are very different things. Using computer means keeping the same procedures using other means. Change to the typewriter by the word processor and cards movements processes for databases. It's been done, it is ready! The next step is to computerize. Computerize means automating procedures based on formal hierarchical systems. Digital technology, binary, which we have today can not hand down sentences, but there is much in the legal procedure that can be automated, even the sentences. The computerization of judicial services is already underway. A major step in this direction was the adoption of the electronic process. The problem is that this is not being done in a uniform manner, every court, every stick and every judge adopt their own methods of computerization. The lack of cohesion and uniformity arises in the absence of a theory that is able to support the process of computerization of processes. The computerization and automation of procedures depends on the adoption of models of formal systems and hierarchy that need to be interpreted isomorphically by computer programs and, finally, the machine language (do not be alarmed with the terms, everything will be explained in the following pages). On the right who moved closer to the establishment of a formal hierarchical model was Hans Kelsen in his Pure Theory of Law. Moreover, it seems, Kelsen had a clear notion of the intrinsic and insurmountable limitations of formal systems. A useful, correct and consistent basis for the computerization of the law must take these limits into account. As the limits of formal systems were discovered and demonstrated by Kurt Gödel and having both lived in the same time in the same city, studied and taught at the same university and had friends in common, it is reasonable to assume that Kelsen has been influenced by the incompleteness theorems Gödel in building the fundamental hypothetical norm / Informatizar e computadorizar são coisas bem diferentes. Computadorizar significa manter os mesmos procedimentos usando outros meios. Troca-se a máquina de escrever pelo processador de textos e as fichas de andamentos de processos por bancos de dados. Isso já foi feito, está pronto! O próximo passo é a informatização. Informatizar significa automatizar procedimentos com base em sistemas formais hierarquizados. A tecnologia digital, binária, da qual dispomos hoje não é capaz de proferir sentenças, mas há muito no processo judicial que pode ser automatizado, até mesmo a atribuição das sentenças. A informatização da prestação jurisdicional já está em curso. Um grande passo nesta direção foi a adoção do processo eletrônico. O problema é que isto não está sendo feito de uma maneira uniforme, cada tribunal, cada vara e cada juiz adotam métodos próprios de informatização. A falta de coesão e de uniformidade decorre na inexistência de uma teoria que seja capaz de fundamentar o processo de informatização dos processos. A informatização e automação dos procedimentos depende da adoção de modelos de sistemas formais e hierarquizados que precisam ser interpretados isomórficamente pelos programas de computadores e, por fim, pela linguagem de máquina. No direito quem chegou mais perto da criação de um modelo formal hierarquizado foi Hans Kelsen com sua Teoria Pura do Direito. Além disso, ao que parece, Kelsen tinha clara noção das limitações intrínsecas e insuperáveis dos sistemas formais. Uma fundamentação útil, correta e coerente para a informatização do direito deve levar tais limites em conta. Como os limites dos sistemas formais foram descobertos e demonstrados por Kurt Gödel e tendo os dois vivido na mesma época, na mesma cidade, estudado e lecionado na mesma universidade e tido amigos em comum, é razoável supor que Kelsen tenha sido influenciado pelos teoremas da incompletude de Gödel na construção da norma fundamental. Ainda que assim não seja uma interpretação do sistema Kelseniano a luz dos teoremas da incompletude é a melhor forma de que dispomos para criar o fundamento teórico da inevitável informatização

This thesis is about the nature of proofs in mathematics as it is practiced, contrasting the informal proofs found in practice with formal proofs in formal systems. In the first chapter I present a new argument against the Formalist-Reductionist view that informal proofs are justified as rigorous and correct by corresponding to formal counterparts. The second chapter builds on this to reject arguments from Gödel's paradox and incompleteness theorems to the claim that mathematics is inherently inconsistent, basing my objections on the complexities of the process of formalisation. Chapter 3 looks into the relationship between proofs and the development of the mathematical concepts that feature in them. I deploy Waismann's notion of open texture in the case of mathematical concepts, and discuss both Lakatos and Kneebone's dialectical philosophies of mathematics. I then argue that we can apply work from conceptual engineering to the relationship between formal and informal mathematics. The fourth chapter argues for the importance of mathematical knowledge-how and emphasises the primary role of the activity of proving in securing mathematical knowledge. In the final chapter I develop an account of mathematical knowledge based on virtue epistemology, which I argue provides a better view of proofs and mathematical rigour.

Big Data on cities and regions bring new opportunities and challenges to data analysts and city planners. On the one side, they hold great promise to combine increasingly detailed data for each citizen with critical infrastructures to plan, govern and manage cities and regions, improve their sustainability, optimize processes and maximize the provision of public and private services. On the other side, the massive sample size and high-dimensionality of Big Data and their geo-temporal character introduce unique computational and statistical challenges. This chapter provides overviews on the salient characteristics of Big Data and how these features impact on paradigm change of data management and analysis, and also on the computing environment. / Series: Working Papers in Regional Science