This thesis combines a philosophical interpretation of Epicurean attitudes to language with literary analysis of the language of DRN. Chapters 1-2 describe Epicurean attitudes to diachronic and synchronic linguistic phenomena. In the first chapter I claim that the Epicurean account of the first stage of the development of language involves pre-rational humans acting under a ‘strong’ form of compulsion. The analogies with which Lucretius describes this process were motivated by a structural similarity between the Epicurean accounts of phylogenetic and ontogenetic psychology. Chapter 2 explores the Epicurean account of word use and recognition, central to which are ‘conceptions’. These are attitudes which express propositions; they are not mental images. Προλήψεις, a special class of conception, are self-evidently true basic beliefs about how objects in the world are categorized which, alongside the non-doxastic criteria of perceptions and feelings, play a foundational role in enquiry. Chapter 3 offers a reconstruction of an Epicurean theory of metaphor. Metaphor, for Epicureans, involves the subordination of additional conceptions to words to create secondary meanings. Secondary meanings are to be understood by referring back to primary meanings. Accordingly, Lucretius’ use of metaphor regularly involves the juxtaposition in the text of primary and secondary uses of terms. An account of conceptual metaphor in DRN is given in which the various conceptual domains from which Lucretius draws his metaphorical language are mapped and explored. Chapter 4 presents a new argument against ‘atomological’ readings of Lucretius’ atoms/letters analogies. Lucretian implicit etymologies involve the illustration, via juxtaposition, of language change across time. This is fully in keeping with the Epicurean account of language development. Chapter 5 describes Lucretius’ reflections on and interactions with the Greek language. I suggest that the study of lexical Hellenisms in DRN must be sensitive to the distinction between lexical borrowing and linguistic code-switching. I then give an account of morphological calquing in the poem, presenting it as a significant but overlooked strategy for Lucretian vocabulary-formation.

[pt] A presente tese se dispõe a analisar o conceito de obra de arte de Walter Benjamin tomando em consideração sua teoria da linguagem. Temos como objeto os primeiros escritos do autor, que vão de 1910 até o ano de 1930. A partir daquela teoria, percebemos certa manutenção de uma estrutura de pensamento que abarca muitos temas, incluso nosso objeto, o de um conceito de obra. Essa estrutura se caracteriza pela determinação de extremos conceituais que se comunicam e se correspondem para formar um sistema filosófico que, contraditoriamente, se impõe pela fragmentação. Neste sentido, tentamos fazer uma abordagem topológica, nomeando alguns topoi, lugares conceituais que se espalham naquele sistema e que reproduzem as mesmas características, seja na filosofia da história, seja na teoria da arte. Com esse fim, atentaremos para uma dimensão que se forma aos poucos nessa estrutura, tomando ares dialéticos. É com isso que apontaremos as relações e correspondências entre aqueles extremos que se perfazem em topoi. / [en] The present thesis aims to analyze Walter Benjamin s concept of work of art based on his theory of language, using as our object the first writings of the author, ranging from 1910 to 1930. The reason for focusing on such a theory is that we perceive the maintenance of a thought structure in it which encompasses many themes, including our own, that of a concept of work of art. This structure characterizes itself for the determination of conceptual extremes, which communicate and correspond one another in order to form a philosophical system that, contradictorily, is distinguished by its fragmentation. With this in mind, we intend to make a topological approach, that is, to name some topoi, motifs spread in Benjamin s system, which reproduce the same characteristics, either in his philosophy of history or in his theory of art. In sum, we point out the relations as well as the correspondences among those topoi as we also observe a dimension that gradually rises in this structure, a dialectical one.

<p>Abstract</p><p>The purpose of this study is to analyse the reading- and writing-approaches: the LTG-method and the whole language-theory. The attention is to perform a comparative literate-study to distinguish their similarities and differences, and examine which one of the approaches that is most clearly anchored in the syllabus of the subject Swedish. The starting-point of the study is the questions: Which similarities respectively differences have the LTG-method and the whole language-theory? Which one of these theories is most clearly anchored in the syllabus of the subject Swedish? The study has shown that both the whole language-theory and the LTG-method can anchor in the syllabus for Swedish. However the whole language-theory has stronger hold in the syllabus, as the whole language emphasises the meaning of literature for reading- and writing-learning, and considers the pupils reflection during their learning-process and conquered knowledge-goal. The whole language-theory and the LTG-method have a number of similarities and emanate from similar influences. Finally I insinuate that the LTG-method could be a part or a direction under the parasol of the whole language-theory.</p> / <p>Sammandrag</p><p>Syftet med studien är att studera läs- och skrivlärorna LTG-metoden och whole language-teorin. Avsikten är att utföra en komparativ litteraturstudie, för att urskilja de bådas likheter och olikheter, samt undersöka vilken av dem som är tydligast förankrad i kursplanen för svenska. Studiens utgångspunkt är frågeställningarna: Vilka likheter respektive skillnader har LTG och whole language-teorin? Vilken av dessa teorier finns tydligast förankrad i kursplanen för svenska? Studien har visat att såväl whole language-teorin som LTG-metoden kan förankras i kursplanen för svenska. Dock har whole language-teorin starkare fäste i kursplanen, då whole language-teorin betonar litteraturens betydelse för läs- och skrivinlärning, samt behandlar elevernas reflektion under deras inlärningsprocess och erövrade kunskapsmål. Whole language-teorin och LTG-metoden har en rad beröringspunkter, samt utgår från liknande influenser. Slutligen antyder jag att LTG-metoden skulle kunna vara en del eller en riktning under whole language-teorins parasoll.</p>

In this thesis, we investigate examples of random walks on free products of cyclic groups. Free products are groups that contain words constructed by concatenation with possible simplifications[20]. Mairesse in [17] proved that the harmonic measure on the boundary of these random walks has a Markovian Multiplicative structure (this is a class of Markov measures which requires fewer parameters than the usual Markov measures for its description ), and also showed how in the case of the harmonic measure these parameters can be found from Traffic Equations. Then Mairesse and Math ́eus in [20] continued investigation of these random walks and the associated Traffic Equations. They introduced the Stationary Traffic Equations for the situation when the measure is shift-invariant in addition to being μ-invariant. In this thesis, we review these developments as well as explicitly describe several concrete examples of random walks on free products, some of which are new.

Visual scripting languages are used as alternatives to text programming to make coding easier. Visual programming languages provide a structure and a guidance that does not exist in text programming, which should make them easier to code with. Some users do however find that the structure in visual scripting languages makes it cumbersome to code. To find a design of visual scripting that subvert this and has a better user experience than contemporary designs, a prototype of a visual scripting interface was developed using an iterative design and testing cycle. When a final prototype had been developed, it was tested to see how it compared to text programming. From the tests performed, a few teachings were discovered. If-statements that grow perpendicularly to the rest of the code fit more information on the screen at the same time and can feel more natural and easier to parse for some users. Having a help menu with syntax-help makes it so that users do not have to leave the program, which increases programming speed. The visual coding elements in a visual scripting language need to be coloured such that the most important parts are the most visible; otherwise users have a hard time parsing the code. Showing existing variables that are in scope gives the user a good overview of what variables they can use. Having help menus where elements can be clicked to insert them at the user's text cursor reduces the chance of misspelling variables and gives the user confidence in the correctness of the code. Having visual coding elements that can change depending on context or by using toggles can make coding more intuitive and faster. / <p>Examensarbetet är utfört vid Institutionen för teknik och naturvetenskap (ITN) vid Tekniska fakulteten, Linköpings universitet</p>

Thesis (MSc)--Stellenbosch University, 2012 / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis presents the FATKID Finite Automata Toolkit. While a lot of toolkits currently exist which can manipulate and process nite state automata, this toolkit was designed to e ectively and e ciently generate, manipulate and process large numbers of nite automata by distributing the work ow across machines and running the computations in parallel. Other toolkits do not currently provide this functionality. We show that this framework is user-friendly and extremely extensible. Furthermore we show that the system e ectively distributes the work to reduce computation time. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie tesis bespreek ons die FATKID Eindige Automaat Toestel. Al- hoewel daar reeds toestelle bestaan wat automate kan genereer, manupileer, en bewerkings daarmee kan uitvoer, is daar egter geen toestelle wat dit op die skaal kan doen wat ons vereis deur die proses te versprei na 'n aantal nodes nie. Ons vereis 'n stelsel wat mew baie groot aantalle automate werk. Die stelsel moet dan die gewensde prosesse in 'n verspreide omgewing, en in parallel uitvoer om verwerkingstyd te verminder. Ons sal wys dat ons stelsel nie net hierdie doel bereik nie, maar ook dat dit gebruikers-vriendelik is en maklik om uit te brei.

L'analyse prévisionnelle des risques d'un système complexe repose aujourd'hui sur une modélisation de la dynamique du système vis-à-vis des défaillances et réparations de ses composants. L'analyse qualitative d'un tel système consiste à rechercher et à analyser les scénarios conduisant à la panne. En raison de leur nombre, il est courant de ne s'intéresser qu'aux scénarios les plus caractéristiques, les Séquences de Coupe Minimales (SCM). L'absence de formalisation de ces SCM a généré soit des définitions spécifiques à certains outils de modélisation soit des définitions informelles. Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse proposent: i) un cadre et une définition formelle des séquences de coupe minimales, tout deux indépendants de l'outil de modélisation de fiabilité utilisé, ii) une méthode permettant leur calcul, méthode basée sur des propriétés déduites de leur définition, iii) l'extension des premières définitions aux composants multimodes. Ce cadre permet le calcul des SCM pour des installations décrites avec les Boolean logic Driven Markov Processes (BDMP). Sous l'hypothèse que l'ensemble des scénarios représentés implicitement via le modèle de sûreté établi peut être modélisé à l'aide d'un automate fini, ces travaux définissent la notion de cohérence des systèmes dynamiques et réparables, et le moyen d'obtenir une représentation minimale de l'ensemble des scénarios menant à la défaillance du système. / Preventive risk assessment of a complex system rely on a dynamic models which describe the link between the system failure and the scenarios of failure and repair events from its components. The qualitative analyses of a binary dynamic and repairable system is aiming at computing and analyse the scenarios that lead to the system failure. Since such systems describe a large set of those, only the most representative ones, called Minimal Cut Sequences (MCS), are of interest for the safety engineer. The lack of a formal definition for the MCS has generated multiple definitions either specific to a given model (and thus not generic) or informal. This work proposes i) a formal framework and definition for the MCS while staying independent of the reliability model used, ii) the methodology to compute them using property extracted from their formal definition, iii) an extension of the formal framework for multi-states components in order to perform the qualitative analyses of Boolean logic Driven Markov Processes (BDMP) models. Under the hypothesis that the scenarios implicitly described by any reliability model can always be represented by a finite automaton, this work is defining the coherency for dynamic and repairable systems as the way to give a minimal representation of all scenarios that are leading to the system failure.

Este trabalho descreve o formalismo das gramáticas livres de contexto adaptativas com verificação de aparência. Esses dispositivos gramaticais possuem como núcleo uma gramática livre de contexto subjacente e, como mecanismo de auto-modificação, uma ou várias funções adaptativas que determinam quais produções são aplicáveis em cada passo de uma derivação. A verificação de aparência se refere a uma forma especial de aplicar algumas produções, escolhidas pelo projetista da gramática, sem alterar a forma sentencial nessa aplicação. É provado que esse formalismo tem poder de máquina de Turing demonstrando, em forma construtiva, sua equivalência com quatro formalismos gramaticais baseados em gramáticas livres de contexto com mecanismos de controle, que tem esse poder. São desenvolvidos dois analisadorers para linguagens dependentes de contexto a partir de um desses outros quatro formalismos. Um deles, que é baseado em autômatos-pilha, opera em forma ascendente; o outro, baseado em autômatos finitos adaptativos, opera em forma descendente. / This work introduces and describes the formalism of the context-free adaptive grammar with appearance checking. Such gramatical devices have as its kernel a subjacent context-free grammar and, as mechanism of self-modification, one or several adaptive functions which determines the productions able to be applied at each step of a derivation. The appearance checking refers to a special way to apply some productions, choosen by the designer of the grammar, without changing the sentential form in this application. It is proved that this formalism has Turing Machine power, proving, by construction, its equivalence with four grammatical formalisms based on context-free grammars and with control mechanisms, with such power. Two parsers have been developed for context-dependent languages from one of these four formalisms. One of them is based on stack-automata, and operates in a bottom-up fashion.

Este trabalho descreve o formalismo das gramáticas livres de contexto adaptativas com verificação de aparência. Esses dispositivos gramaticais possuem como núcleo uma gramática livre de contexto subjacente e, como mecanismo de auto-modificação, uma ou várias funções adaptativas que determinam quais produções são aplicáveis em cada passo de uma derivação. A verificação de aparência se refere a uma forma especial de aplicar algumas produções, escolhidas pelo projetista da gramática, sem alterar a forma sentencial nessa aplicação. É provado que esse formalismo tem poder de máquina de Turing demonstrando, em forma construtiva, sua equivalência com quatro formalismos gramaticais baseados em gramáticas livres de contexto com mecanismos de controle, que tem esse poder. São desenvolvidos dois analisadorers para linguagens dependentes de contexto a partir de um desses outros quatro formalismos. Um deles, que é baseado em autômatos-pilha, opera em forma ascendente; o outro, baseado em autômatos finitos adaptativos, opera em forma descendente. / This work introduces and describes the formalism of the context-free adaptive grammar with appearance checking. Such gramatical devices have as its kernel a subjacent context-free grammar and, as mechanism of self-modification, one or several adaptive functions which determines the productions able to be applied at each step of a derivation. The appearance checking refers to a special way to apply some productions, choosen by the designer of the grammar, without changing the sentential form in this application. It is proved that this formalism has Turing Machine power, proving, by construction, its equivalence with four grammatical formalisms based on context-free grammars and with control mechanisms, with such power. Two parsers have been developed for context-dependent languages from one of these four formalisms. One of them is based on stack-automata, and operates in a bottom-up fashion.

Cette thèse porte sur certaines extensions des automates pondérés, et étudie les séries qu’ils réalisent en fonction de la nature des poids.Ces extensions se distinguent par les mouvements supplémentaires autorisés à la tête de lecture de l’automate : retour au début du mot pour les automates circulaires, changement de sens de lecture pour les automates boustrophédons.Dans le cas général, les automates pondérés circulaires sont plus puissants que les automates unidirectionnels classiques, et moins puissants que les boustrophédons.On introduit de plus les expressions de Hadamard, qui sont une extension des expressions rationnelles et qui permettent de dénoter le comportement des automates circulaires. Les aspects algorithmiques de cette conversion sont étudiés dans le cas où les poids appartiennent à un semi-anneau rationnellement additif.On montre que lorsque les poids sont des nombres rationnels, réels ou complexes, les automates circulaires sont aussi expressifs que les boustrophédons.Enfin, si les poids forment un bi-monoïde localement fini, les automates boustrophédons ne sont pas plus expressifs que les automates pondérés classsiques. / This thesis deals with some extensions of weighted automata,and studies the series they can realisedepending on the nature of their weigths.These extensions are characterised by howthe input head of the automaton is allowed to move:rotating automata can go back at the beginning of the word,and two-way automata can change the reading direction.In the general setting, weigthed rotating automata are morepowerful than classical one-way automata, and less powerfulthan two-way ones.Moreover, we introduce Hadamard expressions,which are an extension of rational expressions and can denotethe behaviour of rotating automata.The algorithms for this conversion are studied when the weights belong toa rationally additive semiring.Then, rotating automata are shown as expressive as two-way automatain the case of rational, real or complex numbers.It is also proved that two-way and one-way automataare equivalent when weighted on a locally finite bimonoid.