Le changement de croyances vise à trouver des moyens adéquats pour faire évoluer les croyances d'un agent lorsqu'il est confronté à de nouvelles informations. Dans la plupart des travaux sur la révision de croyances, l'ensemble de croyances d'un agent est composé de croyances au sujet de l'environnement (le monde) et est représenté par un ensemble de formules de la logique classique. Dans de nombreuses applications, un agent n'est pas seul dans l'environnement, mais le partage avec d'autres agents, qui ont aussi des croyances. Ainsi les croyances sur les croyances des autres agents constituent un élément d'information important pour l'agent, afin d'être en mesure de prendre les meilleures décisions et d'effectuer les meilleures actions. L'utilisation de croyances sur les croyances des autres agents est par exemple cruciale dans la théorie des jeux. Dans cette thèse, nous étudions dans un premier temps les opérateurs de contraction propositionnelle correspondant aux opérateurs de révision de Katsuno et Mendelzon. Nous étudions ensuite une connexion entre les logiques épistémiques et la théorie du changement de croyances, proche de l'approche AGM. Nous nous sommes intéressés à l'utilisation des opérateurs qui modifient les croyances des agents dans les modèles KD45n standard. Cette tâche est plus compliquée que dans le cadre AGM standard, car, dans un contexte multi-agents, les nouvelles informations peuvent prendre différentes formes. Par exemple, chaque nouvelle information peut être observée/transmise/disponible à tous les agents ou seulement à certains d’entre eux. / Belief change is about finding appropriate ways to evolve an agent's beliefs when confronted with new pieces of information. In most works on belief revision, the set of beliefs of an agent is composed of beliefs about the environment (the world) and is represented by a set of formulas of classical logic. In many applications, an agent is not alone in the environment, but sharing with other agents, which also have beliefs. Thus beliefs about the beliefs of other agents are an important piece of information for the agent in order to be able to make the best decisions and perform the best actions. The use of beliefs about the beliefs of other agents is, for exampel, crucial in game theory. In this thesis, we first study the operators of propositional contraction corresponding to the revision operators proposed by Katsuno and Mendelzon. Then, we study a connection between epistemic logics and belief change theory, close to the AGM approach. We are interested in the use of operators that modify agent beliefs in standard KD45n models. This task is more complicated than in the standard AGM framework because, in a multi-agent context, new information can take different forms. For example, each new information can be observed/transmitted/available to all agents or only some of them.

Egophoric marking as a potentially categorical expression in language is conceived of as a binary semantic contrast that marks an event as either involving one of the speech act participants (egophoric), or as one that does not (non-egophoric). Prima facie, the egophoric marking pattern resembles person indexing and has been interpreted as such. However, it appears that what is marked does not simply correspond to indexing the speech act roles of speaker and addressee. Rather, egophoric marking appears to encode the speech participant’s respective access to events/information in terms of ‘involvement’ and is therefore more akin to epistemic categories, such as evidentiality. This thesis presents a comparative study of egophoric marking on the basis of data from descriptions of relevant languages from the Barbacoan (South America), Nakh-Daghestanian (Caucasus) and Tibeto-Burman (Himalaya) language families. The study covers grammatical and functional properties, as well as diachronic aspects of egophoric marking systems. The findings are discussed in relation to typological studies on person and evidentiality in order to determine similarities and differences between egophoric marking and these associated categories. / Egoforicitet som en potentiell språklig kategori innebär en semantisk kontrast mellan händelser som involverar någon av taldeltagarna (egoforisk), och händelser som inte gör det (icke-egoforisk). Vid första anblick kan egoforicitet verka snarlik personkongruens (personböjning), och egoforicitet har ibland analyserats som sådan. Vid närmare undersökning uttrycker egoforicitet deltagarnas tillgång till en händelse med hänsyn till deras respektive delaktighet i denna, snarare än deras roller som talare eller mottagare. Detta gör att egoforicitet är mer lik en epistemisk kategori som t.ex. evidentialitet än personböjning. Uppsatsen diskuterar grammatiska, funktionella och diakrona egenskaper hos egoforicitets- markeringssystem. En typologisk-jämförande studie av egoforicitet görs baserad på data från beskrivningar av relevanta språk ur de Barbakoanska (Sydamerika), Nakh-Dagestanska (Kaukasus), och Tibetoburmesiska (Himalaya) språkfamiljerna. Resultaten jämförs med typologiska studier av personböjning och evidentialitet med syfte att identifiera likheter och skillnader mellan egoforicitet och dessa närbesläktade kategorier.

Cette thèse explore le phénomène de whistleblowing et comment il a été encadré, principalement du point de vue anglo-saxon, à travers des lectures proches de récits culturels et une vue critique sur l'érudition existante sur whistleblowing. À travers des lectures rapprochées d'une sélection de cas, la poursuite, l'importance et l'impact de la vérité apparaîtront comme le thème central dans les récits culturelles explorées, mais aussi les moments où la vérité est rendu impuissante, en raison de sa nature coercitive comme factualité. L'impuissance de la vérité vécue par les lanceurs d'alerte ("les whistleblowers") est ce qui relie d'autre part les récits culturels à l'art tragique. Les diseurs de vérité ne sont pas reconnus, et ils entrent dans un conflit tragique parce qu'elles révèlent des vérités qui ne sont pas pratiques pour les gens au pouvoir. En d'autres termes, les whistleblowers, en disant la vérité, cherchent à élargir l'espace épistémique dans la sphère publique et à tenir les gens et le pouvoir responsables. Cependant, ils sont continuellement négativement encadrés avec des métaphores conceptuelles qui obstruent la perception d'eux en tant que conteurs de la vérité. / This dissertation posits that whistleblowing is factual truth-telling, or truthful public denunciation. In scholarship, media, and in the popular perception of whistleblowing, the truth-claim is often overlooked, and in many occasions hampered by the dominant ways it is framed (e.g. as leak, which is explored among other frames as a problematic conceptual metaphor). Interestingly, the representation of the whistleblower is different in cultural narratives. Through close readings of a selection of cases, the pursuit, importance, and impact of truth will appear as the central theme in the explored plots, but also the moments where truth becomes impotent, due to its coercive nature as factuality - a process that furthermore connects whistleblowing with the idea of the tragic. Put differently, the special literary interest of narratives of whistleblowing is to turn ignorance into knowledge, knowledge into telling, and how the unraveling of truth becomes a reversal of fortune for the truth-teller who enters a particular tragic conflict. As frame, as narrative, and as a modern phenomenon of truthful public denunciation, whistleblowing offers particular moments of truth, often about moments of falsehood, and ultimately seeks to be a moment of impetus: for the public to restore justice, and for readerships and audience of narrative and dramatic configurations to choose or to distance themselves from multiple proposals of justice emplotted - not only ethical justice, but also epistemic, hermeneutical, and testimonial justice. In other words, whistleblowers, by telling the truth, seek to expand the epistemic space in the public sphere and hold people and power accountable.

Dès les années 1970, à l’appui de travaux scientifiques et statistiques, un groupe de scientifiques de la NASA convainc les plus hautes autorités américaines des conséquences désastreuses de la prolifération des débris dans l’espace extra-atmosphérique. Déjà, ils mettent en garde contre les tests antisatellites, accélérateurs du phénomène. Ces chercheurs essaiment leurs croyances au-delà des frontières américaines, et au-delà de la communauté scientifique. Ils sont aidés en cela par la popularisation du thème plus global de développement durable. Le résultat est qu’aujourd’hui, presque n’importe quel citoyen est capable de discourir sur le problème des débris dans l’espace. Une communauté épistémique s’est formée autour de ce sujet rassemblant scientifiques, ingénieurs, militaires, diplomates, étudiants et citoyens. Les savants et les profanes. Fort de ce contexte, la nécessité d’une norme semble s’imposer afin de sécuriser les activités spatiales. Bien qu’existante depuis la conquête de l’espace de manière latente, cette norme n’a jamais fait l’objet de consensus entre les Etats permettant d’aboutir à un régime. Or, de 2007 à 2016 il devient l’objet de toutes les attentions mais aussi de toutes les divisions entre puissances spatiales, amenant même à créer de manière schématique deux camps opposés. Cette thèse interroge la supériorité américaine dans l’espace au 21ème siècle, le rôle des institutions supranationales dans leur capacité à réguler les relations entre Etats, mais aussi la place de ces derniers face aux acteurs non étatiques. Dans cette même idée, elle analyse le rôle, l’influence voire le pouvoir des communautés épistémiques sur les Etats et inversement. / From the seventies, a small group of scientific in NASA convinced American authorities of the dangerousness of orbital debris. At that time already, they warned against the antisatellite weapons tests which exacerbate the phenomenon. These researchers disseminated their knowledge beyond the American borders and beyond the scientific community. In their struggle of recognition, they are helped by the global awareness on sustainable development. As a result, today, almost no citizen in the world ignores the problem of debris in outer space. Thus, an epistemic community made of scientifics, engineers, servicemen, diplomats, academics, students, and citizen arose. Scholars and laymen all together. Thanks to that global awareness, the need for a standard seems to be necessary in order to regulate and secure the space activities. Although it has existed since the conquest of space in a latent way, this norm has never been the object of a consensus between the States allowing reaching a regime. However, from 2007 to 2016, States renew their interest for this norm. But because they don’t agree with each other, the debate creates schematically two opposing camps.This dissertation aims at questioning the American superiority in the 21st century, the role of the international organizations to mitigate the conflicts between States, but also the influence of the latter facing the non-States actors. Similarly, the dissertation tries to assess the role and the influence of the epistemic communities on States and conversely.

This study examines the ways in which public participation in the production of scientific knowledge, influences the practices and expertise of the scientists in Galaxy Zoo, an online Big Data citizen science initiative. The need for citizen science in the field of Astronomy arose in response to the challenges of rapid advances in data gathering technologies, which demanded pattern recognition capabilities that were too advanced for existing computer algorithms. To address these challenges, Galaxy Zoo scientists recruited volunteers through their online website, a strategy which proved to be remarkably reliable and efficient. In doing so, they opened up the boundaries of scientific processes to the public. This shift has led to important outcomes in terms of the scientific discovery of new Astronomical objects; the creation and refining of scientific practices; and the development of new forms of expertise among key actors while they continue to pursue their scientific goals. This thesis attempts to answer the over-arching research question: How is citizen science shaping the practices and expertise of Galaxy Zoo scientists? The emergence of new practices and development of the expertise in the domain of managing citizen science projects were observed through following the work of the Galaxy Zoo scientists and in particular the Principal Investigator and the project's Technical Lead, from February 2010 to April 2013. A broadly ethnographic approach was taken, which allowed the study to be sensitive to the uncertainty and unprecedented events that characterised the development of Galaxy Zoo as a pioneering project in the field of data-intensive citizen science. Unstructured interviewing was the major source of data on the work of the PI and TL; while the communication between these participants, the broader Science Team and their inter-institutional collaborators was captured through analyses of the team emailing list, their official blog and their social media posts. The process of data analysis was informed by an initial conceptualisation of Galaxy Zoo as a knowledge production system and the concept of knowledge object (Knorr-Cetina,1999), as an unfolding epistemic entity, became a primary analytical tool. Since the direction and future of Galaxy Zoo involved addressing new challenges, the study demanded periodic recursive analysis of the conceptual framework and the knowledge objects of both Galaxy Zoo and the present examination of its development. The key findings were as follows. The involvement of public volunteers shaped the practices of the Science Team, while they pursued robust scientific outcomes. Changes included: negotiating collaborations; designing the classification tasks for the volunteers; re-examining data reduction methods and data release policies; disseminating results; creating new epistemic communities; and science communication. In addition, new kinds of expertise involved in running Galaxy Zoo were identified. The relational and adaptive aspects of expertise were seen as important. It was therefore proposed that the development of the expertise in running citizen science projects should be recognised as a domain-expertise in its own right. In Galaxy Zoo, the development of the expertise could be attributed to a combined understanding of: the design principles of doing good science; innovation in methods; and creating a dialogic space for scientists and volunteers. The empirical and theoretical implications of this study therefore lie in (i) identifying emergent practices in citizen science while prioritising scientific knowledge production and (ii) a re-examination of expertise for science in the emerging context of data-intensive science.

Magister Artium - MA / This dissertation explores the potential contributions of the mechanisms for early warning and intelligence sharing to regional security in Africa. The Continental Early Warning System (CEWS) and the Committee on Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA) are centrally concerned with the dissemination of information to enable decision-making on continental security. The main focus of the dissertation is on the manner in which the information generated by the CEWS and CISSA can contribute to regional security. In order to analyse the potential contribution of the CEWS and CISSA to regional security, a sound theoretical framework is proposed so as to explore how and why states choose to cooperate, as well as addressing multifaceted cooperation and integration at inter-state, government department and nonstate levels. Constructivist interpretations of international cooperation are utilised to explore the role of ideas, meanings and understandings in shaping behaviour. The focus is placed on the manner in which interaction as provided for by the CEWS and CISSA can shape understandings of reality and potentially impact on the definition of actors' interests. This is based on the assumption drawn from security community and epistemic community theory that, enabling the creation of shared meanings and shared knowledge there is the potential for both the CEWS and CISSA to have a positive influence on the choices that stakeholders take in favour of peaceful change. / South Africa

L’objectif de cette thèse est de construire un framework qui représente les incertitudes aléatoires et épistémiques basé sur les approches probabilistes et des théories d’incertain, de comparer les méthodes et de trouver les propres applications sur les grands systèmes avec événement rares. Dans la thèse, une méthode de normalité asymptotique a été proposée avec simulation de Monte Carlo dans les cas binaires ainsi qu'un modèle semi-Markovien dans les cas de systèmes multi-états dynamiques. On a aussi appliqué la théorie d’ensemble aléatoire comme un modèle de base afin d’évaluer la fiabilité et les autres indicateurs de performance dans les systèmes binaires et multi-états avec technique bootstrap. / Our research objective is to build frameworks representing both aleatory and epistemic uncertainties based on probabilistic approach and uncertainty approaches and to compare these methods and find the proper applicatin for these methods in large scale systems with rare event. In this thesis, an asymptotic normality method is proposed with Monte Carlo simulation in case of binary systems as well as semi-Markov model for cases of dynamic multistate system. We also apply random set as a basic model to evaluate system reliability and other performance indices on binary and multistate systems with bootstrap technique.

Cette thèse étudie la théorie de la correspondance et la théorie des preuves pour la logique modale monotone et les logiques qui en sont proches.La première partie de la thèse établit une connexion formelle entre la théorie de la correspondance algorithmique et des résultats de caractérisation duale pour les treillis finis, similaire à la caractérisation par Nation d'une hiérarchie de variétés de treillis qui généralise les treillis distributifs. Cette connexion formelle est établie en utilisant la logique modale monotone. Nous adaptons l'algorithme ALBA pour la correspondance à l'environnement de la logique modale monotone, et nous utilisons un encodage, induit par une dualité, des treillis finis sous forme de 'neighbourhood frames' pour traduire les termes de la théorie des treillis en formules de la logic modal monotone.La deuxième partie de la thèse étend la théorie des 'display calculi' à la logique Baltag-Moss-Solecki pour les actions épistémiques et la connaissance (Epistemic Actions and Knowledge), à la logique modale monotone et à la logique propositionnelle dynamique (PDL). Nos résultats incluent plusieurs méta-théorèmes d'élimination de la coupure qui généralisent le théorème original de Belnap dans des dimensions différentes et indépendantes. Les deux principales généralisations des 'display calculi' traitées dans la thèse sont : la généralisation d'une théorie pour les langages ne contenant qu'un seul type à une théorie pour les langages contenant plusieurs types, et la généralisation d'une théorie pour les calculs satisfaisant la propriété de 'display' aux calculs ne la satisfaisant pas. / The present thesis focuses on Monotone Modal Logic and closely related logics from the point of view of Correspondence Theory and Proof Theory.The first part of the thesis establishes a formal connection between algorithmic corre- spondence theory and certain dual characterization results for finite lattices, similar to Nation's characterization of a hierarchy of pseudovarieties of finite lattices progressively generalizing finite distributive lattices. This formal connection is established through monotone modal logic. Specifically, we adapt the correspondence algorithm ALBA to the setting of monotone modal logic, and we use a certain duality-induced encoding of finite lattices as monotone neighbourhood frames to translate lattice terms into formulas in monotone modal logic.The second part of the thesis extends the theory of display calculi to Baltag-Moss- Solecki's logic of Epistemic Actions and Knowledge (EAK), Monotone Modal Logic (MML), and Propositional Dynamic Logic (PDL). Our results include several cut-elimination metatheorems, which generalize the original metatheorem of Belnap in different and mutually independent dimensions. The two main generalizations of display calculi treated in the thesis are: the generalization from single type to multi-type languages, and from the full or relativized display property to no display property.

First, we consider different kinds of representation of uncertainty and the meth- ods for updating each of them by conditioning. We focus on the generic frame- work of (conditional) plausibility spaces, since it generalises all the introduced representations. Further, we select three frameworks and list the properties that need to be added to a conditional plausibility space in order to recover each of these frameworks. The main goal of this work, however, is to show how public announcement on single-agent plausibility models, ranking structures, and pos- sibility structures realised by their corresponding update mechanisms, can be embedded into the framework of conditional plausibility spaces. At the very end we briefly illustrate a general update model using plausibility measures. Keywords: belief revision, dynamic logic, epistemic logic, plausibility space, pub- lic announcement, uncertainty, update.

<p>Software modeling is an integral practice for software engineers especially as the complexity of software solutions increase. There is precedent in industry to model information systems in terms of functions, structures, and behaviors. While constructing these models, abstraction and systems thinking are employed to determine elements essential to the solution and how they are connected. However, both abstraction and systems thinking are difficult to put in practice and difficult to teach due to the, often, ill-structured nature of real-world IT problems. Unified Modeling Language (UML) is the industry standard for software modeling but unfortunately it is often used incorrectly and misunderstood by novices. This has also been observed in educational contexts where students encounter difficulty in employing the appropriate level of abstraction in modeling and programming contexts and not necessarily being able to view or treat software systems as being interconnected. </p> <p>The researcher detailed a multi-methods approach, through the lens of pragmatism, towards understanding patterns of student proficiency with abstraction and software modeling in terms capturing the functional, structural, and behavioral aspects of an information system, as given by the Structures-Behaviors-Function framework. The quantitative strand involved the development of rubrics to analyze functional, structural, and behavioral models given by UML activity diagrams, class diagrams, and sequence diagrams, respectively. The subjects of this study were students enrolled in a sophomore-level systems analysis and design class. Descriptive analysis revealed patterns of modeling proficiency. Students were generally proficient in modeling the system in terms of functions but there was an overall drop-off in proficiency when modeling the system in terms of structures and behaviors. The results of the clustering analysis revealed underlying profiles of students based on abstract thinking and systems thinking ability. Two distinct clusters – high performing students and moderate performing students – were revealed with statistically significant differences between the groups in terms of abstract thinking and systems thinking ability. Further correlational analysis was performed on each cluster. The results of the correlational analyses pointed to significant positive associations between software modeling proficiency and the constructs of abstract thinking and systems thinking. Logistic regression analysis was then performed, and it could be inferred from the regression model that abstract thinking in terms of behaviors and systems thinking in terms of aligning sequence diagrams with activity diagrams were the most important predictors of high performance. </p> The qualitative strand of this study involved a case study approach using the think-aloud protocol centered around exploring how students utilized abstract thinking and systems thinking while constructing software models. The participants of this study were students who had completed the sophomore-level systems analysis and design course. Thematic analysis was utilized to identify themes of abstract thinking and systems thinking within the epistemic games of structural, functional, and process analyses. Two different approaches towards modeling information systems were identified and chronological visualizations for each approach were presented. Overall, it could be inferred from the results and findings of the study that the learning design of the sophomore-level course was successful in equipping students with the skills to proficiently model information systems in terms of functions. However, the students were not as proficient in modeling information systems in terms of structures and behaviors. The theoretical contribution of this study was centered around the application of the SBF framework and epistemic forms and games in the context of information systems. The methodological contributions pertain to the rubrics that were developed which can be used to evaluate software modeling proficiency as well as abstract thinking and systems thinking. Abstract thinking and systems thinking were successfully characterized in the context of information systems modeling. The results of this study have implications in computing education. The suggested instructional approaches and scaffolds can be utilized to improve outcomes in terms of structural and behavioral modeling proficiency.