Letter to So-and-So from Wherever is a collection of poems, perhaps even a “poem-cycle,” initially inspired by the epistolary poems of Richard Hugo. This dissertation is essentially the author’s second full-length poetry manuscript, and consists of more of a single “project” than the author’s first collection, which was published in 2007. These poems here are rooted in concrete imagery, metaphor, hyperbole, irony, and voice. The style is influenced in part by Beat Generation writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, and to some extent Charles Bukowski.

We present a series of improvements to the Hybrid system, a formal theory implemented in Isabelle/HOL to support specifying and reasoning about formal systems using higher-order abstract syntax (HOAS). We modify Hybrid's type of terms, which is built definitionally in terms of de Bruijn indices, to exclude at the type level terms with `dangling' indices. We strengthen the injectivity property for Hybrid's variable-binding operator, and develop rules for compositional proof of its side condition, avoiding conversion from HOAS to de Bruijn indices. We prove representational adequacy of Hybrid (with these improvements) for a lambda-calculus-like subset of Isabelle/HOL syntax, at the level of set-theoretic semantics and without unfolding Hybrid's definition in terms of de Bruijn indices. In further work, we prove an induction principle that maintains some of the benefits of HOAS even for open terms. We also present a case study of the formalization in Hybrid of a small programming language, Mini-ML with mutable references, including its operational semantics and a type-safety property. This is the largest case study in Hybrid to date, and the first to formalize a language with mutable references. We compare four variants of this formalization based on the two-level approach adopted by Felty and Momigliano in other recent work on Hybrid, with various specification logics (SLs), including substructural logics, formalized in Isabelle/HOL and used in turn to encode judgments of the object language. We also compare these with a variant that does not use an intermediate SL layer. In the course of the case study, we explore and develop new proof techniques, particularly in connection with context invariants and induction on SL statements.

This paper is intended to serve as a supporting document for the exhibition "No Peace" that was held at the Artery Gallery, 158 King St. W, Kitchener, ON, Canada, March 28 - April 18, 2009. This drawing installation presents the emotional restlessness of an immigrant who lives in a peaceful place but at the same time is tormented by the ongoing war in his homeland. The drawings make use of the vocabulary of abstraction while presenting the physical process of a repetitive line-based action. The work does not illustrate a political narrative but reflect on recent global issues by using the personal language of art. The No Peace installation combines drawing with video, animation, and performance in the hope of gaining a more communicative interaction with the viewer.

This paper is intended to serve as a supporting document for the exhibition "No Peace" that was held at the Artery Gallery, 158 King St. W, Kitchener, ON, Canada, March 28 - April 18, 2009. This drawing installation presents the emotional restlessness of an immigrant who lives in a peaceful place but at the same time is tormented by the ongoing war in his homeland. The drawings make use of the vocabulary of abstraction while presenting the physical process of a repetitive line-based action. The work does not illustrate a political narrative but reflect on recent global issues by using the personal language of art. The No Peace installation combines drawing with video, animation, and performance in the hope of gaining a more communicative interaction with the viewer.

<p>In the search for companies to distinguish themselves from the mass, so called non-traditional trade marks have become increasingly popular, and in particular colour marks. It is now clear that abstract colour marks can be registered as trade marks, and the number of registered colour marks has increased considerably in recent years. However, it remains a lot more uncertain, mainly due to lack of case law, what the extent of colour marks’ scope of protection is. Are colours actually worth protecting? The purpose of this thesis is to examine the scope of protection of registered abstract colour marks from an EU perspective. Through this examination it will also be established whether colours are worth protecting.</p><p>The essential function of trade marks is to indicate the origin of products. Signs that are capable of being represented graphically and capable of distinguishing goods and services from one undertaking from those of other undertakings can be registered as trade marks. Colours can fulfil these criteria in certain circumstances, however, colours can practically never have distinctive character per se. Instead, they must have acquired distinctive character through use. Since it is quite difficult to register colour marks, a colour mark proprietor should be prepared to have the validity of his trade mark challenged if he issues proceedings for infringement.</p><p>There are a few national cases from EU Member States that have concerned infringement of colour marks, and in all of these the plaintiff was successful in claiming infringement. Through the decisions in these cases, general legal principles and statements made in literature, the scope of protection of colour marks has been examined. Infringement of a colour mark occurs in three different situations: where there is likelihood of confusion, where there is double identity and where there is dilution of a trade mark with a reputation.</p><p>Some of the most important findings are that confusingly similar colours include adjacent shades, but in order to prove likelihood of confusion, the infringing colour must probably be perceived by the public as an indication of origin and other signs that appear together with the colour must probably be taken into account, which limits the scope of protection to some extent. However, since colour marks must almost always have acquired distinctive character through use, consumers are used to perceiving that colour as a trade mark in relation to those types of goods/services, and are therefore more likely to do so also when the colour is used by the third party. Furthermore, there have to be an individual assessment in each case in order to determine whether surrounding signs exclude a likelihood of confusion, where all factors should be considered, including the distinctiveness of the colour mark and how clear and prominent the other signs are.</p><p>In situations of double identity, the infringing sign does not have to be used as a trade mark, which is advantageous for colour mark owners. Furthermore, identical colours can possibly include other shades if they are so similar that the difference is barely perceptible in a direct comparison.</p><p>Colour marks can often qualify as trade marks with a reputation, since the assessment of whether trade marks have a reputation is similar to the assessment of whether trade marks have acquired distinctive character through use. Trade marks with a reputation has an extended protection meaning that if a third party uses a sign that is identical or similar to a trade mark with a reputation, and that use without due cause takes unfair advantage of, or is detrimental to, the distinctive character or repute of the trade mark, then that use constitutes infringement. This applies both in relation to identical, similar and dissimilar products, however, it will probably only apply in relation to identical or similar products when it comes to colour marks, due to the extensive use of colours in the market. The extended protection could be relevant in particular in situations where likelihood of confusion cannot be proven, because the public does not perceive the infringing sign as a trade mark or because of surrounding prominent signs.</p><p>This examination shows that the scope of protection of colour marks is not great, it has some weaknesses. However, it is definitely not worthless either, which clearly shows in the fact that the plaintiffs were successful in claiming infringement in all of the infringement cases. By registering a colour as a trade mark, a company can to some extent stop others from using the same or similar colour, and it will also most likely have a discouraging effect. However, some carefulness should still be applied in relation to colour marks, since this is still a very new phenomenon and additional case law can take another direction. But considering how the situation looks today, colours are worth protecting as trade marks.</p>

This work introduces a new UIMS (User Interface Management System), which aims to solve numerous problems in the field of user-interface development arising from hard-coded use of user interface toolkits. The presented solution is a concrete system architecture based on the abstract ARCH model consisting of an interface abstraction-layer, a dialog definition language called GIML (Generalized Interface Markup Language) and pluggable interface rendering modules. These components form an interface toolkit called GITK (Generalized Interface ToolKit). With the aid of GITK (Generalized Interface ToolKit) one can build an application, without explicitly creating a concrete end-user interface. At runtime GITK can create these interfaces as needed from the abstract specification and run them. Thereby GITK is equipping one application with many interfaces, even kinds of interfaces that did not exist when the application was written. It should be noted that this work will concentrate on providing the base infrastructure for adaptive/adaptable system, and does not aim to deliver a complete solution. This work shows that the proposed solution is a fundamental concept needed to create interfaces for everyone, which can be used everywhere and at any time. This text further discusses the impact of such technology for users and on the various aspects of software systems and their development. The targeted main audience of this work are software developers or people with strong interest in software development.

Les Phosphatidylethanolamine Binding Proteins (PEBP) sont des protéines d'environ 20 kDa conservées depuis les bactéries jusqu'aux mammifères. Elles sont caractérisées par leur capacité de fixer des ligands anioniques. Les PEBP agissent dans un grand nombre de processus cellulaires (notamment au niveau des voies de transduction du signal), et de processus physiologiques (comme la spermatogénèse) de l'organisme sain. Par ailleurs des modifications de l'expression de ces protéines sont corrélées à des situations pathologiques comme les cancers primaires et métastatiques, le diabète, la maladie d'Alzheimer et l'infertilité. Il existe 7 PEBP chez la drosophile. Durant ce travail de thèse nous avons exprimé 3 d'entre elles chez Escherichia coli et mis au point les protocoles pour les purifier en grande quantité. Parmi les protéines produites, la protéine CG7054 a été choisie pour une étude structurale par RMN. Nous avons réalisé l'attribution des signaux 'H, 13C et 'Shi du squelette peptidique et des chaînes latérales de cette protéine. L'étude de la dynamique de son squelette peptidique a été réalisée et sa structure 3D a été déterminée et analysée.

Die Diplomarbeit stellt einen innovativen und leichtgewichtigen Modellierungsansatz zur Beschreibung interaktiver, dienstbasierter Anwendungen auf Basis von Dienstannotationen vor.

A defining feature of American abstract expressionist painting is its enormous size and scale. Heroic ambition, the vast American landscape, and the sense of "something big" happening in American painting are often cited as determining factors in this phenomenon. This dissertation examines how Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko not only painted large-scale canvases but, following trends in modern architecture, shifted their painting towards the construction of architectural environments, thus promoting the transformation of painting from a window in the wall to a wall without a window. The artist and architect Tony Smith, a close friend and colleague of these painters, played an active role in encouraging their interest in modern architecture. As a result of their investigations into the physical, as well as conceptual, limits of the canvas, these artists shifted the viewer’s experience from a perceptual experience of pictorial space to a physical encounter with actual space. In contradiction to the notion of the purely optical, one could describe this as a somatic viewing experience, tactile and active, which anticipated specific concerns of 1960s minimalism. This achievement redefines Pollock's, Newman's, and Rothko's legacy to the subsequent generation of artists and places their production into a broader historical framework. / text

This report focuses on social networks surrounding visual music, a sub-field of audiovisual experimental art in which hearing and seeing intersect, often through the music-oriented manipulation of abstract imagery and audio-visual synchronization. The discussion evolves from my fieldwork in Los Angeles, where I interacted with artists, archivists, publishers, institutions, software developers, and scholars. Taking into account Howard Becker's notion of art world, Pierre Bourdieu's ideas of cultural and economic capitals, and Bruno Latour's actor-network theory, I try to understand how these groups have been trying to establish visual music-networks. Although elements of visual music have been present in various media and artistic trends (color organs, abstract films, VJing-DJing, etc.), the field's history and premises are still little known, in part because the very term 'visual music' is a contested one. Due to its entertainment/cultural industries, Los Angeles is a place where multiple processes of high tech differentiation coexist; since the 1930s the city's technocultural environment (from film production to academic programs on computer animation) has lured artists interested in visual music. Not surprisingly, the city holds the only two institutions directly related to visual music in the country. I navigate through this field by considering some intersections between science, art, and technology. / text