Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 391-403). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2005. Graduate Programme in Philosophy. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 227-240). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNR11615

Software projects are not developed in isolation. Open source software projects encourage a networked collaboration and interdependence across projects and developers. Recent research has shifted to studying software ecosystems, communities of projects that depend on each other and are developed together. However, identifying technical dependencies at the ecosystem level can be challenging. In this dissertation, we propose a new method, known as reference coupling, for detecting technical dependencies between projects. The method establishes dependencies through user-specified cross-references between projects. We use our method to identify ecosystems in GitHub hosted projects, and we identify several characteristics of the identified ecosystems. Our findings show that most ecosystems are centered around one project and are interconnected with other ecosystems. The predominant type of ecosystems are those that develop tools to support software development. We also found that the project owners’ social behavior aligns well with the technical dependencies within the ecosystem, but project contributors’ social behavior does not align with these dependencies. We conclude with a discussion on future research that is enabled by our reference coupling method. / Graduate / harrison.franc@gmail.com

This dissertation explores one family's experience of a son's disclosure of homosexuality, through the use of a second-order cybernetic epistemology, and social constructionist theory. Second-order cybernetics enables a description of patterns and themes that recursively connect the family's ideas and behaviour. Social constructionism enables the family's reaction to disclosure to be recursively linked to their fit with wider society. By using semantic and political frames of reference to describe the family's narratives around disclosure, this study indicates that disclosure is a relational metaphor, dependent on the family's locally co-constructed and transgenerational meanings. It also shows that although the family change with disclosure, stability is regained in a way consistent with the family's rules and norms. This study therefore demystifies viewing disclosure in one way only and creates alternative ways of conceptualising it. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Esta pesquisa, que aborda o tema escuta de professoras, apresenta como problema fundamental uma investigação acerca das condições que alicerçam a possibilidade de escutar professoras. O objeto do estudo é a trajetória profissional e pessoal da pesquisadora, registrada em diário de campo, enquanto a metodologia utilizada é a escrita em psicanálise. Esta é sustentada pela formulação do tempo lógico, proposto por Lacan (1998b), assim como os estudos de Porge (1994) e Costa (1998) sobre aquela temporalidade. Assim, a escrita acerca da escuta de professoras é concebida a partir do instante de ver, do tempo de compreender, marcado por suspensões, e do momento de concluir. Inicialmente, trabalhamos o instante de ver a partir dos elementos da queixa e do saudosismo que emergem no trabalho docente, e são constatados por pesquisadores do campo da educação. A passagem pelo instante de ver requer um trabalho de posicionamento frente ao enigma sobre a singularidade que pode emergir do sujeito/local que se escuta. Nessa perspectiva, no tempo de compreender buscamos rastros históricos da cidade de Santo Ângelo no sentido de buscar elementos que se repetem no trabalho docente e dinâmicas que possibilitem a elaboração do traumático. A marca da educação jesuítica na cidade incide nos processos educacionais a partir da compreensão da educação como domínio e violência. As moções suspensas que se estabelecem no momento de compreender são movimentos realizados na escrita como forma de escutar aquilo que até aquele momento não estava formulado. Na primeira escansão, buscamos no diário de campo da pesquisadora, registros que indicassem os elementos apontados nas primeiras formulações do tempo de compreender. Na segunda escansão, a compreensão da violência foi trabalhada na via do singular e do coletivo, sendo a marca constitutiva do laço social. Nesse caminho, a violência como marca constitutiva e singular, indicamos a função da escuta como forma de reconhecimento de um lugar no laço social, oferecendo novos endereçamentos para as palavras silenciadas, incluindo aberturas para o outro na sua pura diferença. O momento de concluir é reconhecido como o tempo de singularidade, no qual podemos indicar que o tempo lógico pode ser um dispositivo que fundamenta a escuta, através dos movimentos da passagem de um tempo ao outro, que incidem em perguntas que reposicionam o sujeito frente ao inconsciente. A escrita como maneira de apresentar forma para escuta, colocando em jogo o real e o simbólico, possibilita o exercício da alteridade, que emerge no reconhecimento do grande Outro, abrindo vias para escutar. / The present research on „listening to teachers‟ shows, as a fundamental issue, an investigation about the conditions, which are the key for the possibility of listening to teachers. The object of study is the professional and personal path of the researcher, recorded in a field diary, while the methodology used is the writing in psychoanalysis. Such a methodology is supported by the formulation of logical time, as proposed by Lacan (1998b), as well as studies by Porge (1994) and Costa (1998) on that temporality. Thus, writing about listening to teachers is conceived from the moment of seeing, the time to understand, going through suspensions, and the moment to finish. Initially, the moment of seeing is worked from the elements of complain and the nostalgia which emerge in a teaching job, and this is found by researchers of the education field. The passage of the instant of seeing requires a positioning work against the enigma about the singularity that may emerge from the subject/place being listened to. Under this perspective, in the time to understand, historical traces were sought in the city of Santo Angelo in order to find elements that are repetitive in the teaching job as well as dynamics which enable the elaboration of the traumatic. The city‟s Jesuitical education focus on the educational processes having the comprehension of education as domain and violence. The suspended motions that are established in the moment to understand are motions carried out in writing as a way to listen to what, till that moment, was not formulated. In the first scansion, registries which showed the elements pointed out in the first formulations of time to understand were taken from the researcher‟s field diary. In the second scansion, the comprehension of violence was worked towards the singular and collectively, being a constitutive trait of the social bond. In this way, violence as a constitutive and singular trait, it was indicated the role of listening as a way of recognition of a place in a social bond, offering new assignments for silenced words, including new assignments to each other. The moment of conclusion is recognized as a singularity time, where one can indicate that the logical time may be something that serves as a base for listening, through the movements of the time passing, which have questions that reposition the subject towards the unconscious. Writing as a way of presenting form for listening, and dealing with real and symbolic, enables the exercise of otherness, which emerges in the recognition of the big Other, making way for listening.

Esta pesquisa, que aborda o tema escuta de professoras, apresenta como problema fundamental uma investigação acerca das condições que alicerçam a possibilidade de escutar professoras. O objeto do estudo é a trajetória profissional e pessoal da pesquisadora, registrada em diário de campo, enquanto a metodologia utilizada é a escrita em psicanálise. Esta é sustentada pela formulação do tempo lógico, proposto por Lacan (1998b), assim como os estudos de Porge (1994) e Costa (1998) sobre aquela temporalidade. Assim, a escrita acerca da escuta de professoras é concebida a partir do instante de ver, do tempo de compreender, marcado por suspensões, e do momento de concluir. Inicialmente, trabalhamos o instante de ver a partir dos elementos da queixa e do saudosismo que emergem no trabalho docente, e são constatados por pesquisadores do campo da educação. A passagem pelo instante de ver requer um trabalho de posicionamento frente ao enigma sobre a singularidade que pode emergir do sujeito/local que se escuta. Nessa perspectiva, no tempo de compreender buscamos rastros históricos da cidade de Santo Ângelo no sentido de buscar elementos que se repetem no trabalho docente e dinâmicas que possibilitem a elaboração do traumático. A marca da educação jesuítica na cidade incide nos processos educacionais a partir da compreensão da educação como domínio e violência. As moções suspensas que se estabelecem no momento de compreender são movimentos realizados na escrita como forma de escutar aquilo que até aquele momento não estava formulado. Na primeira escansão, buscamos no diário de campo da pesquisadora, registros que indicassem os elementos apontados nas primeiras formulações do tempo de compreender. Na segunda escansão, a compreensão da violência foi trabalhada na via do singular e do coletivo, sendo a marca constitutiva do laço social. Nesse caminho, a violência como marca constitutiva e singular, indicamos a função da escuta como forma de reconhecimento de um lugar no laço social, oferecendo novos endereçamentos para as palavras silenciadas, incluindo aberturas para o outro na sua pura diferença. O momento de concluir é reconhecido como o tempo de singularidade, no qual podemos indicar que o tempo lógico pode ser um dispositivo que fundamenta a escuta, através dos movimentos da passagem de um tempo ao outro, que incidem em perguntas que reposicionam o sujeito frente ao inconsciente. A escrita como maneira de apresentar forma para escuta, colocando em jogo o real e o simbólico, possibilita o exercício da alteridade, que emerge no reconhecimento do grande Outro, abrindo vias para escutar. / The present research on „listening to teachers‟ shows, as a fundamental issue, an investigation about the conditions, which are the key for the possibility of listening to teachers. The object of study is the professional and personal path of the researcher, recorded in a field diary, while the methodology used is the writing in psychoanalysis. Such a methodology is supported by the formulation of logical time, as proposed by Lacan (1998b), as well as studies by Porge (1994) and Costa (1998) on that temporality. Thus, writing about listening to teachers is conceived from the moment of seeing, the time to understand, going through suspensions, and the moment to finish. Initially, the moment of seeing is worked from the elements of complain and the nostalgia which emerge in a teaching job, and this is found by researchers of the education field. The passage of the instant of seeing requires a positioning work against the enigma about the singularity that may emerge from the subject/place being listened to. Under this perspective, in the time to understand, historical traces were sought in the city of Santo Angelo in order to find elements that are repetitive in the teaching job as well as dynamics which enable the elaboration of the traumatic. The city‟s Jesuitical education focus on the educational processes having the comprehension of education as domain and violence. The suspended motions that are established in the moment to understand are motions carried out in writing as a way to listen to what, till that moment, was not formulated. In the first scansion, registries which showed the elements pointed out in the first formulations of time to understand were taken from the researcher‟s field diary. In the second scansion, the comprehension of violence was worked towards the singular and collectively, being a constitutive trait of the social bond. In this way, violence as a constitutive and singular trait, it was indicated the role of listening as a way of recognition of a place in a social bond, offering new assignments for silenced words, including new assignments to each other. The moment of conclusion is recognized as a singularity time, where one can indicate that the logical time may be something that serves as a base for listening, through the movements of the time passing, which have questions that reposition the subject towards the unconscious. Writing as a way of presenting form for listening, and dealing with real and symbolic, enables the exercise of otherness, which emerges in the recognition of the big Other, making way for listening.

Esta pesquisa, que aborda o tema escuta de professoras, apresenta como problema fundamental uma investigação acerca das condições que alicerçam a possibilidade de escutar professoras. O objeto do estudo é a trajetória profissional e pessoal da pesquisadora, registrada em diário de campo, enquanto a metodologia utilizada é a escrita em psicanálise. Esta é sustentada pela formulação do tempo lógico, proposto por Lacan (1998b), assim como os estudos de Porge (1994) e Costa (1998) sobre aquela temporalidade. Assim, a escrita acerca da escuta de professoras é concebida a partir do instante de ver, do tempo de compreender, marcado por suspensões, e do momento de concluir. Inicialmente, trabalhamos o instante de ver a partir dos elementos da queixa e do saudosismo que emergem no trabalho docente, e são constatados por pesquisadores do campo da educação. A passagem pelo instante de ver requer um trabalho de posicionamento frente ao enigma sobre a singularidade que pode emergir do sujeito/local que se escuta. Nessa perspectiva, no tempo de compreender buscamos rastros históricos da cidade de Santo Ângelo no sentido de buscar elementos que se repetem no trabalho docente e dinâmicas que possibilitem a elaboração do traumático. A marca da educação jesuítica na cidade incide nos processos educacionais a partir da compreensão da educação como domínio e violência. As moções suspensas que se estabelecem no momento de compreender são movimentos realizados na escrita como forma de escutar aquilo que até aquele momento não estava formulado. Na primeira escansão, buscamos no diário de campo da pesquisadora, registros que indicassem os elementos apontados nas primeiras formulações do tempo de compreender. Na segunda escansão, a compreensão da violência foi trabalhada na via do singular e do coletivo, sendo a marca constitutiva do laço social. Nesse caminho, a violência como marca constitutiva e singular, indicamos a função da escuta como forma de reconhecimento de um lugar no laço social, oferecendo novos endereçamentos para as palavras silenciadas, incluindo aberturas para o outro na sua pura diferença. O momento de concluir é reconhecido como o tempo de singularidade, no qual podemos indicar que o tempo lógico pode ser um dispositivo que fundamenta a escuta, através dos movimentos da passagem de um tempo ao outro, que incidem em perguntas que reposicionam o sujeito frente ao inconsciente. A escrita como maneira de apresentar forma para escuta, colocando em jogo o real e o simbólico, possibilita o exercício da alteridade, que emerge no reconhecimento do grande Outro, abrindo vias para escutar. / The present research on „listening to teachers‟ shows, as a fundamental issue, an investigation about the conditions, which are the key for the possibility of listening to teachers. The object of study is the professional and personal path of the researcher, recorded in a field diary, while the methodology used is the writing in psychoanalysis. Such a methodology is supported by the formulation of logical time, as proposed by Lacan (1998b), as well as studies by Porge (1994) and Costa (1998) on that temporality. Thus, writing about listening to teachers is conceived from the moment of seeing, the time to understand, going through suspensions, and the moment to finish. Initially, the moment of seeing is worked from the elements of complain and the nostalgia which emerge in a teaching job, and this is found by researchers of the education field. The passage of the instant of seeing requires a positioning work against the enigma about the singularity that may emerge from the subject/place being listened to. Under this perspective, in the time to understand, historical traces were sought in the city of Santo Angelo in order to find elements that are repetitive in the teaching job as well as dynamics which enable the elaboration of the traumatic. The city‟s Jesuitical education focus on the educational processes having the comprehension of education as domain and violence. The suspended motions that are established in the moment to understand are motions carried out in writing as a way to listen to what, till that moment, was not formulated. In the first scansion, registries which showed the elements pointed out in the first formulations of time to understand were taken from the researcher‟s field diary. In the second scansion, the comprehension of violence was worked towards the singular and collectively, being a constitutive trait of the social bond. In this way, violence as a constitutive and singular trait, it was indicated the role of listening as a way of recognition of a place in a social bond, offering new assignments for silenced words, including new assignments to each other. The moment of conclusion is recognized as a singularity time, where one can indicate that the logical time may be something that serves as a base for listening, through the movements of the time passing, which have questions that reposition the subject towards the unconscious. Writing as a way of presenting form for listening, and dealing with real and symbolic, enables the exercise of otherness, which emerges in the recognition of the big Other, making way for listening.

We propose and investigate several new principles of rational reasoning within the framework of Pure Inductive Logic, PIL, where probability functions defined on the sentences of a first-order language are used to model an agent's beliefs. The Elephant Principle is concerned with how learning, modelled by conditioning, may be uniquely `remembered'. The Perspective Principle requires that, from a given prior, conditioning on statistically similar experiences should result in similar assignments, and is found to be a necessary condition for Reichenbach's Axiom to hold. The Abductive Inference Principle and some variations are proposed as possible formulations of a restriction of C.S. Peirce's notion of hypothesis in the context of PIL, though characterization results obtained for these principles suggest that they may be too strong. The Finite Values Property holds when a probability function takes only finitely many values when restricted to sentences containing only constant symbols from some fixed finite set. This is shown to entail a certain systematic method of assigning probabilities in terms of possible worlds, and it is considered in this light as a possible principle of inductive reasoning. Classification results are given, stating which members of certain established families of probability functions satisfy each of these new principles. Additionally, we define the theory of a principle P of PIL to be the set of those sentences which are assigned probability 1 by every probability function which satisfies P. We investigate the theory of the established principle of Spectrum Exchangeability by finding separately the theories of heterogeneous and homogeneous functions. The theory of Spectrum Exchangeability is found to be equal to the theory of finite structures. The theory of Johnson's Sufficientness Postulate is also found. Consequently, we find that Spectrum Exchangeability, Johnson's Sufficientness Postulate and the Finite Values Property are all inconsistent with the principle of Super-Regularity: that any consistent sentence should be assigned non-zero probability.

Purpose. This work addresses an escalating problem within the realm of scientific publishing, that stems from accelerated publication rates of article formats difficult to process automatically. The amount of manual labour required to organise a comprehensive corpus of relevant literature has long been impractical. This has, in effect, reduced research efficiency and delayed scientific advancement. Two complementary approaches meant to alleviate this problem are detailed and improved upon beyond the current state-of-the-art, namely logical structure recovery of articles and keyphrase extraction. Methodology. The first approach targets the issue of flat-format publishing. It performs a structural analysis of the camera-ready PDF article and recognises its fine-grained organisation over logical units. The second approach is the application of a keyphrase extraction algorithm that relies on rhetorical information from the recovered structure to better contour an article’s true points of focus. A recount of the scientific article’s function, content and structure is provided, along with insights into how different logical components such as section headings or the bibliography can be automatically identified and utilised for higher-quality keyphrase extraction. Findings. Structure recovery can be carried out independently of an article’s formatting specifics, by exploiting conventional dependencies between logical components. In addition, access to an article’s logical structure is beneficial across term extraction approaches, reducing input noise and facilitating the emphasis of regions of interest. Value. The first part of this work details a novel method for recovering the rhetorical structure of scientific articles that is competitive with state-of-the-art machine learning techniques, yet requires no layout-specific tuning or prior training. The second part showcases a keyphrase extraction algorithm that outperforms other solutions in an established benchmark, yet does not rely on collection statistics or external knowledge sources in order to be proficient.

Sensor networks comprise of a collection of resource-constrained, low cost, sometimes fragile wireless motes which have the capability to gather information about their surroundings through the use of sensors, and can be conceived as a distributed computing platform for applications ranging from event detection to environmental monitoring. A Sensor Network Query Processor (SNQP) is a means of collecting data from sensor networks where the requirements are defined using a declarative query language with a set of Quality of Service (QoS) expectations. As sensor networks are often deployed in hostile environments, there is a high possibility that the motes could break or that the communication links between the motes become unreliable. SNQP Query Execution Plans (QEPs) are often optimised for a specific network deployment and are designed to be as energy efficient as possible whilst ensuring the QEPs meet the QoS expectations, yet little has been done for handling the situation where the deployment itself has changed since the optimisation in such a way as to make the original QEP no longer efficient, or unable to operate. In this respect, the previous work on SNQPs has not aimed at being resilient to failures in the assumptions used at compilation/optimisation time which result in a QEP terminating earlier than expected. This dissertation presents a collection of approaches that embed resilience into a SNQP generated QEPs in such a way that a QEP operates for longer whilst still meeting the QoS expectations demanded of it, thereby resulting in a more reliable platform that can be applicable to a broader range of applications. The research contributions reported here include (a) a strategy designed to adapt to predictable node failures due to energy depletion; (b) a collection of strategies designed to adapt to unpredictable node failures; (c) a strategy designed to handle unreliable communication channels; and (d) an empirical evaluation to show the benefits of a resilient SNQP in relation to a representative non-resilient SNQP.