The perception of incorporating digital information into online educational systems and the ideal of developing digital schools for lifelong learning have drawn much attention of the governments, academia, and industries around the world. The techniques of interactive learning have become a primary research topic in E-learning. However, most existing E-learning systems provide static instructional materials. The techniques of dynamic learning content management that adaptive to individual user knowledge level and learning goals have been tough challenges for the related research communities. The resulting repetitive and blind learning phenomena have significantly reduced user performance and motivation. We hypothesized that new algorithms of adaptive learning based on the integration of current information technologies, the use of fuzzy theory to express the uncertainty features of the user knowledge, and the exploitation of clustering techniques to analyze the knowledge of a user for the comprehended areas of the domain knowledge will effectively improve user satisfaction. In this study, a prototype system is developed, implemented, and experimented by using SCORM run-time environment. The knowledge of teaching domain and the features of the learner behavior are modeled by ontology to represent the hierarchy and relationship of the learning concepts. To quantify user knowledge and learning ability, fuzzy sets are applied with multiple analysis dimensions based on the pedagogical strategies and user learning experiences. The performance of a user for learning knowledge concepts is then evaluated. In particular, an algorithm is designed to extract the existing learning paths of a user by the relative position of the concepts that the user attains in the domain knowledge. Furthermore, the candidate direction types for recommending concepts are inferred and the candidate learning concepts that are appropriate or inappropriate to learn followed up can be identified by rules. Moreover, the candidate learning concepts are scheduled to construct customizable learning routes by clustering techniques. The personalized learning contents that best matching user learning intention would then be presented to the user. Simulations study in the uniform and normal distributions for the grades of users is conducted to evaluate the tutoring model for three levels of users. The experimental results show that the proposed model helps different levels of users to learn the domain knowledge effectively and the accuracy of recommending the relevant learning object contents is superior than the random selection method. With a richer description of user knowledge and features, the proposed adaptive system for online learning assistance may better diagnose the understanding of a learner and enhance the pertinence of the retrieved courses to user intended learning to improve the service quality for the user.

<p>When two distributed parties want to share information stored in ontologies, they have to make sure that they refer to the same concepts. This is done matching the ontologies.</p><p>This thesis will show the implementation of a method for automatic ontology matching based on the representation of polygons. The method is used to compare two ontologies and determine the degree of similarity between them.</p><p>The first of the ontologies will be taken as the standard, while the other will be compared to it by analyzing the elements in both. According to the degrees of similarity obtained from the comparison of elements, a set of polygons is represented for the standard ontology and another one for the second ontology.</p><p>Comparing the polygons we obtain the final result of the similarity between the ontologies.</p><p>With that result it is possible to determine if two ontologies handle information referred to the same concept.</p>

Thesis--Freie Universität Berlin. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 363-368).

Title from title page of PDF (University of Missouri--St. Louis, viewed Febuary 22, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-39).

In this dissertation, I defend the claim that realism – that is, a theory committed to an ontology of universals and particulars – is a more viable theory than any of the others adopted in order solve to the problem of universals. I begin in chapter 1 by setting out a method for comparing the various theories offered as solutions to this problem that is based primarily on a preference for those theories that exhibit greater ontological parsimony. In developing this method I endorse rather than reject (as is standard for realists to do) Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment. In chapter 2, I utilize the aforementioned method of theory comparison to argue for the greater comparative viability of realism over each of its primary competitors. In chapter 3, I set out and offer a solution to the “problem of instantiation”, which has traditionally been taken to be the most difficult problem for realists to solve. Finally, in chapter 4, I discuss two remaining issues that face the sort of “Quinean” realism that I prefer: (1) the ability of this version of realism to accommodate the traditional realist distinction between universals and particulars, and (2) the ability of this version of realism to account for “relational facts” while maintaining its greater comparative viability over its competitors. / text

Since the linguistic turn, many have taken semantics to guide metaphysics. By examining semantic theories proposed by philosophers and linguists, I argue that the semantics of a true theory in a natural language can serve as only a partial guide to metaphysics. Semantics will not always lead to determinate answers to questions of the form 'Does theory T carry an ontological commitment to Fs?' Further, semantics will never deliver answers to questions regarding the nature of Fs. If semantics is to be our guide, we must look to our best semantic theories to determine whether a theory carries ontological commitments to Fs. I develop criteria to determine when a semantic treatment is semantically adequate and should be counted amongst our best theories. Given these criteria, there can be more than one empirically adequate semantic treatment of a natural language theory. To determine ontological commitments I appeal to Quine's Criterion, which states that a theory has Fs in its ontology just in case it says or entails that there are Fs. To determine what a theory says and entails, we must appeal to semantic treatments. Since different equally adequate semantic treatments can yield different contents and entailments, Quine's Criterion delivers ontological commitments only relative to a semantic treatment. I then argue for a supervaluationist principle that delivers unrelativized, but possibly indeterminate, ontological commitments of a theory. Next, I apply my methodology to two case studies which exemplify two kinds of answers the supervalutationist principle might deliver concerning ontological commitments. I argue through an examination of data and formal treatments that plural expressions carry indeterminate ontological commitments to summed entities, while collective nouns carry determinate ontological commitments to group-like entities. Finally, I undertake an examination of what groups, things like teams, committees and courts, might be that accords with the minimal verdict delivered by the semantics of collective noun -- that they exist -- but which goes beyond this to examine their nature. I assess and reject the views of groups currently on offer and propose and defend a novel view of groups as realizations of structures. / text

Social studies of accounting have drawn attention to the dubious role of accounting as a representational link between organizational realities and action. Based on five years immersion with performance management and board work in a theatre company, this thesis inquires into the ontological significance of accounting practices. The study takes a praxiographic approach, which emphasizes action and relocates questions of representation towards the practices in which representations are mobilized. The research questions refer specifically to ontological work related to commensurability and distance in accounting practices. Four papers attend to the manners in which the organizational performance of the theatre company is represented in different situations of managing, governing and reporting. The papers demonstrate and analyse different examples of ontological work involved in achieving (or retracting) representational links. In conclusion, the thesis places the organizing of ontological tensions – especially the tension between singular accounting representations and multiple organizational realities – at the core of accounting representation practices. The thesis thus contributes to practical, theoretical and philosophical discussions on the links between accounting practices, accounts and reality. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

I defend a naive conception of material objects, according to which there are such things as stones, statues, cats and their tails, but no "strange fusions" of such things as my nose and the Eiffel Tower. Virtually everyone in the literature rejects the naive conception in favor of some revisionary theory of material objects. Eliminativists (e.g., Unger, van Inwagen, Merricks) deny that there are such things as statues and stones and, in some cases, cats as well. Universalists (e.g., Lewis, Rea, Sider) hold that for any objects you like--even my nose and the Eiffel Tower--there is a single object composed of those objects. These revisionary theories are manifestly counterintuitive, but there are powerful arguments for preferring them to the naive conception. The first part of the dissertation is devoted to showing how these arguments can be resisted. First, I assess the charge that, given the correctness of the naive conception, it would have been a miraculous stroke of luck for us to have hit upon the privileged conceptual scheme. Second, I examine the Lewis-Sider argument from vagueness for unrestricted mereological composition, Third, I show that the grounding problem for coincident modally discernible objects can be solved. Fourth, show that the causal exclusion argument as applied to ordinary objects can be resisted without either systematic overdetermination or epiphenomena. In the second part of the dissertation, I argue that the prima facie conflict between revisionary theories and our ordinary discourse, beliefs, and intuitions about material objects proves to be an insurmountable problem for those theories. First, I argue that existing attempts to reconcile revisionary theories of material objects with folk discourse are unsatisfactory, Second, I provide a perspicuous statement of the "challenge from folk belief" and argue that the standard strategies for meeting the challenge are unsatisfactory.

Pragmatism is a metatheoretical perspective within knowledge organization (KO) deriving from an American philosophical tradition active since the late 19th century. Its core feature is commitment to the evaluation of the adequacy of concepts and beliefs through the empirical test of practice: this entails epistemological antifoundationalism, fallibilism, contingency, social embeddedness, and pluralism. This article reviews three variants of Pragmatism historically influential in philosophyâ Pierceâ s scientifically oriented pragmaticism, Jamesâ s subjectivist practicalism; and Deweyâ s socially-directed instrumentalismâ and indicates points of contact with KO theories propounded by Bliss, Shera, and Hjørland. KO applications of classical Pragmatism have tended to converge toward a socially pluralist model characteristic of Dewey. Recently, Rortyâ s epistemologically radical brand of Neopragmatism has found adherents within KO: whether it provides a more advantageous metatheoretical framework than classical Pragmatism remains to be seen.

This article first introduces the needs for a true interoperability environment that allows information and its context can be transfer across domains and applications. Then it describes an approach to build a RDF-based digital library system at the University of Arizona Libraries. The system architecture consists of a storage layer, a metadata management and semantic layer, a common service layer and an application layer. The system is an artifact of the RDF model and also uses an RDF database to facilitate internal management of information resources. The article presents background for a journal delivery project and reports the implementation of the journal application using Java Servlet technology. Issues about metadata management such as various metadata formats for specific communities, and MARC to DC mapping are discussed.