The thesis portrays the process of adaptation and transition of analog games to digital formats. In a practical manner, the game The Last Vampire, which is a social deduction board game custom-developed and designed by the team, was used as a proof of concept to convey the challenges and possibilities that may arise from such transitions. On a theoretical level, a review of the current state of the field was done, exploring the intersection between analog and digital environments and how in such a hybrid context the landscape of play can be potentially reshaped offering new degrees of freedom to designers when crafting games. Whereas, also illustrating the delicate balance needed when integrating novel digital functionalities and traditional analog elements in hybrid play.

La comparaison entre des systèmes civilistes et, plus particulièrement, la France et la Lituanie, permet de confronter des expériences diverses au service de la construction de l’Union européenne. La méthode comparatiste peut, dans une approche régulatrice, permettre de réaliser une véritable intégration commune pour une matière comme le droit fiscal et d’appréhender les modalités du droit à déduction de la TVA relatives à l’exercice régulier et abusif d’un tel droit. Depuis la création de la TVA, comme instrument majeur pour financer le budget des États, le moment est venu de porter un regard critique sur le système de la TVA. Le droit à déduction de la TVA est fondamental pour le système de la TVA et sa neutralité. La taxe sur la valeur ajoutée a une incidence considérable sur chaque citoyen de l'Union européenne et il faut se donner les moyens en vue d’améliorer le mécanisme d’application de la déduction et créer des méthodes supplémentaires de lutte contre la fraude / The comparison between civil law systems and, more particularly, between France and Lithuania, allows to confront diverse experiences in favour of the European Union’s construction. The comparative method allows, in a regulating approach, to realize a real common integration of a subject like tax law and better understand the conditions of VAT deduction related to the deduction practise in the regular or abusive way. Since the establishment of VAT, as a major instrument to fund the State’s budget, it is the time to take a critical look on the VAT system. The right to deduct VAT is fundamental composant of VAT system and of its neutrality. The value added tax has a significant impact on each citizen of the European Union and we must give ourselves the means to improve the application of the deduction mechanism and develop the additional methods to fight against fraud

The intention of the empirical missiology is to systematically examine the reality of mission practice with the aid of empirical methods. To reach this aim the dissertation will attempt to combine empirical social science with missiology in a way that they positively complement one another throughout the whole process of research. This intradisciplinary procedure is new to missiology and therefore an important contribution to research. To form a basis, social as well as missiological research will be dealt with and von der Vens empirical theology examined. For the hermeneutic methodological realization of the empirical missiology an empirical-theological praxis cycle will be developed consisting of seven individual stages of research. The missiological reflection of each stage is the minor cycle. This procedure guarantees firstly a strictly methodical way of working and secondly missiological relevance that takes the context of praxis seriously and serves the mission. / Missiology / M. Th.

The inadequacy of the usual possible world semantics of modal languages when the meaning of 'belief' is attached to the modal operator is discussed. Three other approaches are then investigated. In the case of Moore's autoepistemic logic it becomes possible to compare an agent's beliefs to 'reality', which cannot be done directly in the possible world semantics. Levesque's semantics makes explicit in the object language the notion of 'this is all the information the agent has', which plays an important role in nonmonotonic reasoning. Both of these approaches deal with ideal reasoners. The third approach, Konolige's deduction model, is based on a semantics capable of describing the beliefs of one or more resourcebounded agents. Finally, the AGM postulates for belief revision are discussed. / Computer Science / M.Sc. (Computer Science)

Personal Income Taxation in the United States of America on Federal and State Level The main aim of this thesis is to show the complexity of personal income taxation in the United States of America, by explaining the system of taxation and the main changes of the personal income taxation for the last ten years, under the influence of Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, which was passed in year 2001. The system of this work is divided into four main parts. The role of the first part is to show the history of the taxation which led to the today's personal income taxation system, followed by second part with the explanation of system of the personal income tax of individuals, shown in details with the differentiated statuses of subjects, deductions, progressive tax brackets and tax credit for the taxpayers. The third part shortly describes personal income taxation system in the state of Maryland to show a different layer of the taxation system with its rules. The fourth part reflects the changes of the tax system in the last decade, which were brought by EGTRRA, with its affects on various groups of taxpayers and the effect on the economy of the country. These four parts together should create a picture of the system and its functioning of the personal income taxation in the United States of America.

Syftet med denna undersökning har varit att studera vad RUT-avdragets införande 2007 har inneburit för anställda inom befintliga svenska aktiebolag inom RUT-branschen. RUTavdraget är en skattesubvention som innebär att privatpersoner kan få hushållsnära tjänster utförda till ett reducerat pris. Undersökningen har gjorts genom att empiriskt studera hur genomsnittlig lönesumma per anställd och genomsnittligt antal anställda i befintliga svenska aktiebolag har förändrats inom RUT-branschen mellan åren 2006 och 2008, allt annat lika. För att studera detta användes en difference-in-difference-metod med fixa effekter och robusta standardfel. Datamaterialet som användes till undersökningen var bokföringsdata från aktiebolag som samlats in av PAR. I undersökningen ingick 2 506 företag inom RUTbranschen och totalt 74 798 observationer. Resultatet visar att i genomsnitt har det inom de befintliga aktiebolagen inom branschen skapats 1,4 nya jobb per företag och årslönerna för de anställda i dessa företag har i genomsnitt ökat med 10 931 kronor per anställd. Totalt innebär det att 3 065 nya jobb har skapats i dessa befintliga aktiebolag, vilket kan sättas i relation till tidigare undersökningar som visat att den totala ökningen av antal anställda i genomsnitt varit ca 5 700 personer. Tidigare har inte löneeffekter till följd av RUT-avdraget studerats, vilket innebär att detta arbete bidrar med ny forskning inom ett område som inte studerats tidigare. / The purpose of this thesis has been to study what the introduction of the RUT deduction 2007 has meant for employees in existing Swedish limited companies in the RUT industry. The RUT deduction is a tax subsidy that allows the public to buy household services at a reduced price. The study has been conducted by empirically studying how average wages per employee and average number of employees in existing Swedish limited companies have changed within the RUT industry between 2006 and 2008, ceteris paribus. For this, a Difference-in-Difference method was used with fixed effects and robust standard errors. The data used for the study was accounting data from companies, collected by PAR. The dataset consisted of 2,506 companies in the RUT industry and a total of 74,798 observations. The result shows that on average, within the existing companies in the industry, 1.4 new jobs have been created per company and the annual salary for employees in these companies has increased by an average of SEK 10,931 per employee. In total, 3,065 new jobs have been created in these existing limited companies, which can be compared with previous studies where the average number of employees on average was approximately 5,700. Previously, wage effects resulting from the RUT deduction have not been studied, which means that this work contributes to new research in a previously unexplored area.

[pt] Segerberg apresentou uma prova geral da completude para lógicas proposicionais. Para tal, um sistema de dedução foi definido de forma que suas regras sejam regras para um operador booleano arbitrário para uma dada lógica proposicional. Cada regra desse sistema corresponde a uma linha na tabela de verdade desse operador. Na primeira parte desse trabalho, mostramos uma extensão da ideia de Segerberg para lógicas proposicionais finito-valoradas e para lógicas não-determinísticas. Mantemos a ideia de definir um sistema de dedução cujas regras correspondam a linhas de tabelas verdade, mas ao invés de termos um tipo de regra para cada valor de verdade da lógica correspondente, usamos uma representação bivalente que usa a técnica de fórmulas separadoras definidas por Carlos Caleiro e João Marcos. O sistema definido possui tantas regras que pode ser difícil trabalhar com elas. Acreditamos que um sistema de cálculo de sequentes definido de forma análoga poderia ser mais intuitivo. Motivados por essa observação, a segunda parte dessa tese é dedicada à definição de uma tradução entre cálculo de sequentes e dedução natural, onde procuramos definir uma bijeção melhor do que as já existentes. / [en] Segerberg presented a general completeness proof for propositional logics. For this purpose, a Natural Deduction system was defined in a way that its rules were rules for an arbitrary boolean operator in a given propositional logic. Each of those rules corresponds to a row on the operator s truth-table. In the first part of this thesis we extend Segerbergs idea to finite-valued propositional logic and to non-deterministic logic. We maintain the idea of defining a deductive system whose rules correspond to rows of truth-tables, but instead of having n types of rules (one for each truth-value), we use a bivalent representation that makes use of the technique of separating formulas as defined by Carlos Caleiro and João Marcos. The system defined has so many rules it might be laborious to work with it. We believe that a sequent calculus system defined in a similar way would be more intuitive. Motivated by this observation, in the second part of this thesis we work out translations between Sequent Calculus and Natural Deduction, searching for a better bijective relationship than those already existing.

Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit Kants Projekt der transzendentalen Deduktion der reinen Verstandesbegriffe hinsichtlich ihrer Fragen, Annahmen, und Argumente. Anders als viele Interpreten schlage ich vor, dass Kants Fragestellung in der transzendentalen Deduktion im metaphysischen Sinne meta-semantisch ist. Indem er alle möglichen konkurrierenden Theorien ablehnt, zeigt Kant überzeugend die Notwendigkeit seiner kopernikanischen Lösung und die Plausibilität der Auffassung von „keiner notwendigen Verknüpfung ohne notwendige Instanziierung“. Ich werde argumentiert, dass Kant verschiedene Argumentationsansätze in der transzendentalen Deduktion entwickelt: das Argument aus der Erkenntnis, das Argument aus dem Selbstbewusstsein, das Argument aus dem Urteil und das Argument aus der Wahrnehmung, und dass sie alle in erster Linie nicht im Wesen anti-skeptisch, sondern erklärend sind. Diese von mir vorgeschlagene Interpretation von Kants transzendentaler Deduktion zeigt, wie ernst Kant seinen transzendentalen Weg für notwendig hält und warum Kants Ansatz vor allem als problemorientiert, nicht aber als gründungsmotiviert angesehen werden sollte. / This present work addresses Kant’s project of transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of understanding with regard to its question, assumptions, and arguments. Unlike many interpreters, I propose that Kant’s question in transcendental deduction is meta-semantic in the metaphysical sense. By rejecting all the possible rival theories, Kant convincingly shows the necessity of his Copernican solution and the plausibility of the view of “no necessary connection without necessary instantiation”. I argue that Kant develops different lines of arguments in transcendental deduction: the argument from cognition, the argument from self-consciousness, the argument from judgment and the argument from perception, and that all of them are primarily not anti-skeptical, but explanatory in character. This interpretation of Kant’s transcendental deduction reveals how seriously Kant takes his transcendental path to be necessary and why Kant’s approach should be viewed as problem-oriented, rather than foundation-motivated.

La génération de stratégies pour les solveurs en Satisfiabilité Modulo des Théories (SMT) nécessite des outils théoriques et pratiques qui permettent aux utilisateurs d’exercer un contrôle stratégique sur les aspects heuristiques fondamentaux des solveurs de SMT, tout en garantissant leur performance. Nous nous intéressons dans cette thèse au solveur Z3 , l’un des plus efficaces lors des compétitions SMT (SMT-COMP). Dans les solveurs SMT, la définition d’une stratégie repose sur un ensemble de composants et paramètres pouvant être agencés et configurés afin de guider la recherche d’une preuve de (in)satisfiabilité d’une instance donnée. Dans cette thèse, nous abordons ce défi en définissant un cadre pour la génération autonome de stratégies pour Z3, c’est-à-dire un algorithme qui permet de construire automatiquement des stratégies sans faire appel à des connaissances d’expertes. Ce cadre général utilise une approche évolutionnaire (programmation génétique), incluant un système à base de règles. Ces règles formalisent la modification de stratégies par des principes de réécriture, les algorithmes évolutionnaires servant de moteur pour les appliquer. Cette couche intermédiaire permettra d’appliquer n’importe quel algorithme ou opérateur sans qu’il soit nécessaire de modifier sa structure, afin d’introduire de nouvelles informations sur les stratégies. Des expérimentations sont menées sur les jeux classiques de la compétition SMT-COMP. / The Strategy Challenge in Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) claims to build theoretical and practical tools allowing users to exert strategic control over core heuristic aspects of high-performance SMT solvers. In this work, we focus in Z3 Theorem Prover: one of the most efficient SMT solver according to the SMT Competition, SMT-COMP. In SMT solvers, the definition of a strategy relies on a set of tools that can be scheduled and configured in order to guide the search for a (un)satisfiability proof of a given instance. In this thesis, we address the Strategy Challenge in SMT defining a framework for the autonomous generation of strategies in Z3, i.e. a practical system to automatically generate SMT strategies without the use of expert knowledge. This framework is applied through an incremental evolutionary approach starting from basic algorithms to more complex genetic constructions. This framework formalise strategies modification as rewriting rules, where algorithms acts as enginess to apply them. This intermediate layer, will allow apply any algorithm or operator with no need to being structurally modified, in order to introduce new information in strategies. Validation is done through experiments on classic benchmarks of the SMT-COMP.

<p>In this thesis we use the syntactic-semantic method of constructive type theory to give meaning to classical logic, in particular Gentzen's LK.</p><p>We interpret a derivation of a classical sequent as a derivation of a contradiction from the assumptions that the antecedent formulas are true and that the succedent formulas are false, where the concepts of truth and falsity are taken to conform to the corresponding constructive concepts, using function types to encode falsity. This representation brings LK to a manageable form that allows us to split the succedent rules into parts. In this way, every succedent rule gives rise to a natural deduction style introduction rule. These introduction rules, taken together with the antecedent rules adapted to natural deduction, yield a natural deduction calculus whose subsequent interpretation in constructive type theory gives meaning to classical logic.</p><p>The Gentzen-Prawitz inversion principle holds for the introduction and elimination rules of the natural deduction calculus and allows for a corresponding notion of convertibility. We take the introduction rules to determine the meanings of the logical constants of classical logic and use the induced type-theoretic elimination rules to interpret the elimination rules of the natural deduction calculus. This produces an interpretation injective with respect to convertibility, contrary to an analogous translation into intuitionistic predicate logic.</p><p>From the interpretation in constructive type theory and the interpretation of cut by explicit substitution, we derive a full precision contraction relation for a natural deduction version of LK. We use a term notation to formalize the contraction relation and the corresponding cut-elimination procedure.</p><p>The interpretation can be read as a Brouwer-Heyting-Kolmogorov (BHK) semantics that justifies classical logic. The BHK semantics utilizes a notion of classical proof and a corresponding notion of classical truth akin to Kolmogorov's notion of pseudotruth. We also consider a second BHK semantics, more closely connected with Kolmogorov's double-negation translation.</p><p>The first interpretation reinterprets the consequence relation while keeping the constructive interpretation of truth, whereas the second interpretation reinterprets the notion of truth while keeping the constructive interpretation of the consequence relation. The first and second interpretations act on derivations in much the same way as Plotkin's call-by-value and call-by-name continuation-passing-style translations, respectively.</p><p>We conclude that classical logic can be given a constructive semantics by laying down introduction rules for the classical logical constants. This semantics constitutes a proof interpretation of classical logic.</p>