This project offers an analysis of how the transformative power of creative process in learning offers humankind relational connections with the natural environment. It supports the recommendation that educational institutions move towards a transformative creative learning process. The paper argues that by teaching children through assumptions of the world as in constant creative becoming humankind will move toward a more encompassing, coherent story of the universe which allows for the increasing self-actualization of individuals. After offering a theoretical discussion of the transformative power of creativity through the works of Brian Swimme, Edmund OSullivan and Alfred North Whitehead, the author provides descriptive, interpretive and critical narrative accounts of a teaching occasion created by her in which she illustrates her understanding of this transformative power.

This project offers an analysis of how the transformative power of creative process in learning offers humankind relational connections with the natural environment. It supports the recommendation that educational institutions move towards a transformative creative learning process. The paper argues that by teaching children through assumptions of the world as in constant creative becoming humankind will move toward a more encompassing, coherent story of the universe which allows for the increasing self-actualization of individuals. After offering a theoretical discussion of the transformative power of creativity through the works of Brian Swimme, Edmund OSullivan and Alfred North Whitehead, the author provides descriptive, interpretive and critical narrative accounts of a teaching occasion created by her in which she illustrates her understanding of this transformative power.

I looked at the restoration of Santa Cruz Island National Park to examine the interconnected relationship between nature and culture in the United States. I conducted literature research on the changes in conceptual construction and environmental policy, and grounded my analysis in interviews I conducted with National Park Employees involved in the Primary Restoration Plan. Through the language of their responses, I analyzed how specific words, process and possibility, affect the restoration and consequently our concept of nature.

This study seeks to explore and develop innovative methods for the extraction of semantic knowledge from unlabelled written English documents and the representation of this knowledge using a formal mathematical expression to facilitate its use in practical applications. The first method developed in this research focuses on semantic information extraction. To perform this task, the study introduces a natural language processing (NLP) method designed to extract information-rich keywords from English sentences. The method involves initially learning a set of rules that guide the extraction of keywords from parts of sentences. Once this learning stage is completed, the method can be used to extract the keywords from complete sentences by pairing these sentences to the most similar sequence of rules. The key innovation in this method is the use of a part-of-speech hierarchy. By raising words to increasingly general grammatical categories in this hierarchy, the system can compare rules, compute the degree of similarity between them, and learn new rules. The second method developed in this study addresses the problem of knowledge representation. This method processes triplets of keywords through several successive steps to represent information contained in the triplets using possibility distributions. These distributions represent the possibility of a topic given a particular triplet of keywords. Using this methodology, the information contained in the natural language triplets can be quantified and represented in a mathematical format, which can be easily used in a number of applications, such as document classifiers. In further extensions to the research, a theoretical justification and mathematical development for both methods are provided, and examples are given to illustrate these notions. Sample applications are also developed based on these methods, and the experimental results generated through these implementations are expounded and thoroughly analyzed to confirm that the methods are reliable in practice.

This study seeks to explore and develop innovative methods for the extraction of semantic knowledge from unlabelled written English documents and the representation of this knowledge using a formal mathematical expression to facilitate its use in practical applications. The first method developed in this research focuses on semantic information extraction. To perform this task, the study introduces a natural language processing (NLP) method designed to extract information-rich keywords from English sentences. The method involves initially learning a set of rules that guide the extraction of keywords from parts of sentences. Once this learning stage is completed, the method can be used to extract the keywords from complete sentences by pairing these sentences to the most similar sequence of rules. The key innovation in this method is the use of a part-of-speech hierarchy. By raising words to increasingly general grammatical categories in this hierarchy, the system can compare rules, compute the degree of similarity between them, and learn new rules. The second method developed in this study addresses the problem of knowledge representation. This method processes triplets of keywords through several successive steps to represent information contained in the triplets using possibility distributions. These distributions represent the possibility of a topic given a particular triplet of keywords. Using this methodology, the information contained in the natural language triplets can be quantified and represented in a mathematical format, which can be easily used in a number of applications, such as document classifiers. In further extensions to the research, a theoretical justification and mathematical development for both methods are provided, and examples are given to illustrate these notions. Sample applications are also developed based on these methods, and the experimental results generated through these implementations are expounded and thoroughly analyzed to confirm that the methods are reliable in practice.

This thesis presents and evaluates David Chalmers argument that the existence of phenomenal conscious experience constitutes a permanent barrier to the reductive aspirations of a purely materialistic neuroscience. My aim is to defend the possibility of a reductive explanation of consciousness, and argue that continued research in neuroscience and neurophysiology can result in a successful materialistic or reductive solution to the hard problem of consciousness. My argument against Chalmers is two-fold. First, I challenge Chalmers claim that consciousness does not logically supervene on the physical. And second, I argue that his conceivability argument is implausible.

A method to find solutions to multi-objective design problems that involve poor information available was proposed. The method quantified the designers intuition in a systematic manner, and utilized it to approximate inaccurate and/or vague numbers. In the context of possibility theory, uncertain values were expressed through possibility distributions, i.e. fuzzy membership functions. Based on the membership functions of the value, levels of confidence of the solutions to multi-objective problems were defined through the notions of possibility and necessity. An evolutionary algorithm was modified to find sets of solutions that allow certain levels of confidence instead of the crisp sets of the solutions. The method was applied to a design problem of the gyrodyne configuration and sets of the solutions of the specified possibility and necessity were found. The results of the design problem and the suggestions for future research were discussed.

The main objective of this study is to shed light on some difficulties involved in the formulation of the problem of contingency in Leibniz&rsquo / s philosophical system. Leibniz&rsquo / s mature philosophy is characterized by the solutions he proposes for this problem, and the ontological ideas underlying or assisting them. &lsquo / The problem of contingency&rsquo / refers to the tension between his conceptual containment theory of truth and his claim that true existential propositions &ndash / that is, propositions which concern actual individuals &ndash / are all contingent. Though Leibniz does not seem to have one definite theory of contingency, two general lines of thought can nevertheless be discerned from his fragments on propositions and propositional truth. The first one is the infinite analysis theory, which is regarded in general as Leibniz&rsquo / s real theory of contingency, and the other is a theory of necessity, providing a division between absolute and hypothetical modalities. This thesis is not a study on the question whether Leibniz did really manage to solve the problem, but rather an attempt to trace the problem to its logical and ontological origins, and redefine it under a relatively simple form. It is first shown that Leibniz&rsquo / s theory of propositions relies heavily on his ontological conception of modalities, which covers the idea of a division between pure possibility and actuality / and then this idea is shown to be reflected on the logical level as a division between essential and existential truths. Finally it is argued that the two lines of thought and some peculiar characteristics of Leibniz&rsquo / s conception of modalities bring us to the conclusion that his real problem is the (deliberate) inability of his propositional calculus to express the difference between truths of reason (essential truths) and truths of fact (existential truths) as a logical structural one.

Darbu bandoma pasižiūrėti į etnokultūrinio ugdymo galimybes ikimokykliniame amžiuje. Šiam tyrimui atlikti buvo pasirinkta kiekybinė metodologinė kryptis. Tyrimo problema - ikimokyklinio amžiaus vaikų etnokultūrinio ugdymo galimybės yra nepakankamai išnaudotos. Tyrimo objektas yra ikimokyklinio amžiaus vaikų etnokultūrinio ugdymo galimybės. Tyrimo tikslas – išsiaiškinti etnokultūrinio ugdymo galimybes ikimokykliniame amžiuje. Tyrimo uždaviniai: - apžvelgti etninės kultūros, etniškumo sąvokas, etnokultūros ir ugdymo sąsajas bei etninės kultūros išlikimo problemas; - išryškinti teorines etnokultūros taikymo ikimokykliniame amžiuje prielaidas; - empiriškai išskirti ikimokyklinio amžiaus vaikų etnokultūrinio ugdymo galimybes šeimoje ir ugdymo įstaigoje; Tyrimo metodai - etnokultūrinės, pedagoginės, menotyrinės, psichologinės literatūros analizė, padėjusi atskleisti etnokultūros sampratą, jos taikymo vaikų ugdymui teorines prielaidas. Tyrimo tipas – aprašomasis. Tyrimu buvo pasiekti tokie rezultatai: pateiktas tėvų ir pedagogų požiūris į etnokultūrinio ugdymo reikalingumą bei pedagogų ir tėvų požiūris į etnokultūrinį ugdymą, išskirtos pedagogų naudojamos etnokultūrinio ugdymo formos, atskleistas etninių vertybių puoselėjimas šeimoje, numatytas etnokultūrinio ugdymo proceso tobulinimas. Išvadose pateikos ikimokyklinio amžiaus vaikų etnokultūrinio ugdymo galimybės. Šis darbas pedagogams ir tėvams padės suprasti etnokultūrinio ugdymo svarbą, skatins ieškoti... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / In this work the possibilities of the etnocultural education of the preschool children are reviewed. The methodological quantitative analysis for this research was chosen. The question of the research - the possibilities of ethnocultural education of the preschool children are not fully developed. The object of the research - the possibilities of ethnocultural education of the preschool children. The aim of the research - to find out the possibilities of ethnocultural education of the preschool children. The goals of the research: - to review the notions of ethnic culture, the links and problems of survival between ethnic culture and education; - to highlight the theoretical possibilities of the application of the ethnoculture; - to distinguish empirically the possibilities of ethnocultural education of the preschool children in families and preschool institutions; The methods of the research - the analysis of the ethnocultural, pedagogical, art critical, and psychological literature, which helped to unfold the conception of the ethnoculture and its theoretical assumptions for the children education. It is a quantitative descriptive research (written survey). The results of the research - the presentation of the attitude of parents and educators towards the ethnocutural education and its necessity, also the forms of the ethnocultural education used by the educators, the upholding of the ethnical values, the development of the ethnocultural process of education. The... [to full text]

Ce mémoire a pour tâche de déterminer le statut ontologique de la puissance chez Aristote. Pour ce faire, il est d’abord question, dans le premier chapitre, de bien définir les deux sens de la puissance, soit la puissance motrice et l’état potentiel. Nous expliquons aussi alors les multiples sens de la puissance motrice et les multiples types de la puissance que sont la nature, l’âme et l’art. Ensuite, le second chapitre étudie les liens entre l’état potentiel et la matière, d’une part, et les liens entre le non-être, la puissance et la possibilité, d’autre part. Enfin, le troisième chapitre explicite la hiérarchie ontologique aristotélicienne pour en dégager le statut ontologique de la puissance par rapport à l’acte. Cela est fait de trois manières : selon l’antériorité de l’acte sur la puissance au sein d’une substance unique ; selon l’antériorité des êtres éternels, notamment celle du premier moteur, sur les êtres générables et corruptibles ; l’antériorité du bien en acte sur le bien puissance. / This master thesis seeks to determine the ontological value of potency in Arstotle’s philosophy. To do so, the first chapter defines the two meanings of potency, which are the power to change something else and the potential state of a being. We then explain the multiple meanings of power and its multiple types, namely nature, soul and art. The second chapter, in addition to analysing the links between potentiality and non-being, also studies how non-being, potency and possibility are connected. Finally, the third chapter explains the aristotelian ontological hierarchy to highlight the ontological value of potency in connection to act. This is done in accordance with three kinds of priority, which are the priority of act over potency in a single substance, the priority of eternal beings, especially the one of the prime mover, over generated and corruptible beings, and the priority of good in actuality over potential good.