Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 1993. / Includes bibliography (leaves 282-291).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2007. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 180-185). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2004. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 153-161).

Thesis (M.S. in Information Systems)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 1992. / Thesis Advisor: Bhargava, Hemant. "March 1992." Description based on title screen as viewed on March 4, 2009. Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-72). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / The problem of this dissertation is to present a critical exposition of the place of reason in Paul Tillich's conception of God. A discussion of the definition of reason as well as the place of reason in man and in his knowledge of God is a prerequisite to the consideration of the central problem of the dissertation. Reason is defined in terms of its ontological and technical functions. Ontological reason is active in the awareness or intuition of God and the ideal norms of goodness, beauty and truth. Ontological reason functions to relate man to that which is ultimately real. Technical reason, on the other hand, functions to appropriate all knowledge, to organize all experience into a consistent unity. But it is the same reason which is active in each case. Man is a composite unity of form (reason) and vitality (power). In essence man is in unity with God, man's logos is united with God's logos. In his essential nature, then, man is united with God and there is no distinction between reason and revelation. But man is free as well as rational, and he exercises his freedom to act by acting partially against his logos. In so doing man comes into existence. Thus existential man is in partial separation from and partial union with God. In existence man's reason is "fallen," it does not perceive God with absolute clarity. But existential reason is not wholly depraved; it still has the capacity to apprehend the world meaningfully and to be aware of God. Indeed, reason is the common basis upon which communication between God and man is possible. Though reason cannot produce the experience of unity with God, reason performs the important functions of receiving, judging and appropriating revelation. [TRUNCATED]

Information extraction (IE) is the process of automatically transforming written natural language (i.e., text) into structured information, such as a knowledge base. However, because natural language is inherently ambiguous, this transformation process is highly complex. On the other hand, as Information Extraction moves from the analysis of scientific documents to the analysis of Internet textual content, we cannot rely completely on the assumption that the content of the text is correct. Indeed, in contrast to scientific documents, which are peer reviewed, Internet content is not verified for the quality and correctness. Thus, two main issues that affect the IE process are the complexity of the extraction process and the quality of the data. In this dissertation, we propose an improved ontology-based IE (OBIE) by providing solutions to these issues of accuracy and content quality. Based on a hybrid strategy that combines aspects of IE that are usually considered as opposite to each other, or that are not even considered, we intend to improve IE by developing a more accurate extraction and new functionality (semantic error detection). Our approach is based on OBIE, a sub-area of IE, which reduces extraction complexity by including domain knowledge, in the form of concepts and relationships of the domain, to guide the extraction process. We address the complexity of extraction by combining information extractors that have different implementations. By integrating different types of implementation into one extraction system, we can produce a more accurate extraction. For each concept or relationship in the ontology, we can select the best implementation for extraction, or we can combine both implementations under an ensemble learning schema. In tandem, we address the quality of information by determining its semantic correctness with regard to domain knowledge. We define two methods for semantic error detection: by predefining the types of errors expected in the text or by applying logic reasoning to the text. This dissertation includes both published and unpublished coauthored material.

abstract: Researchers have documented the importance of seeing a graph as an emergent trace of how two quantities’ values vary simultaneously in order to reason about the graph in terms of quantitative relationships. If a student does not see a graph as a representation of how quantities change together then the student is limited to reasoning about perceptual features of the shape of the graph. This dissertation reports results of an investigation into the ways of thinking that support and inhibit students from constructing and reasoning about graphs in terms of covarying quantities. I collected data by engaging three university precalculus students in asynchronous teaching experiments. I designed the instructional sequence to support students in making three constructions: first imagine representing quantities’ magnitudes along the axes, then simultaneously represent these magnitudes with a correspondence point in the plane, and finally anticipate tracking the correspondence point to track how the two quantities’ attributes change simultaneously. Findings from this investigation provide insights into how students come to engage in covariational reasoning and re-present their imagery in their graphing actions. The data presented here suggests that it is nontrivial for students to coordinate their images of two varying quantities. This is significant because without a way to coordinate two quantities’ variation the student is limited to engaging in static shape thinking. I describe three types of imagery: a correspondence point, Tinker Bell and her pixie dust, and an actor taking baby steps, that supported students in developing ways to coordinate quantities’ variation. I discuss the figurative aspects of the students’ coordination in order to account for the difficulties students had (1) constructing a multiplicative object that persisted under variation, (2) reconstructing their acts of covariation in other graphing tasks, and (3) generalizing these acts of covariation to reason about formulas in terms of covarying quantities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Mathematics 2017

Hoarding and scrupulous OCD are part of the Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, which are characterized by obsessional preoccupation and ritualistic behavior. Prior research has found a statistical relationship between hoarding and scrupulosity after controlling for these common factors, suggesting the existence of other features shared by these two disorders. Clinical accounts and empirical research of hoarding and scrupulosity suggest three such shared factors: a tendency to experience intense guilt and shame, rigid moralistic thinking, and general cognitive rigidity. However, results of the current study show that, although both hoarding and scrupulosity were related to cognitive rigidity and a tendency to experience guilt and shame, they are not associated with rigid moralistic thinking. Instead, beliefs about the importance of emotions as moral guides were related to both disorders. These results are interpreted in terms of dual-process theories of moral reasoning. Additionally, implications for the conceptualization and treatment of hoarding and scrupulosity are discussed.

Classification is a core reasoning service provided by most OWL reasoners. Classification in general is hard - up to 2NExptime for SROIQ(D), the Description Logic which is underpinning the Web Ontology Language (OWL). While it has been shown that classification is practical for a wide range of inputs, there are still ontologies for which classification takes an unreasonable amount of time for purposes such as ontology engineering (frequent classifications after updates). A natural optimisation strategy is divide and conquer, that is, to decompose the ontology into subsets which are hopefully easier to classify and whose classifications can be combined into a complete classification of the whole ontology. Unfortunately, an arbitrary subset may not be self-contained, i.e. it might be missing information that is needed to determine entailments over its signature. Moreover, such a subset can be potentially harder to classify than the whole ontology. In order to mitigate those problems, classification preserving decompositions (CPDs) must be designed with care that they support complete classification which is, in practice, more efficient than monolithic classification. Locality-based modules are subsets of an ontology that provide certain guarantees with respect to the entities (concepts, roles) in its signature - in particular, modules are self-contained. In this thesis we explore the use of syntactic locality-based modules for underpinning classification-preserving decompositions. In particular, we empirically explore their potential to avoid subsumption tests and reduce subsumption test hardness and weigh those benefits against detrimental effects such as overhead (for example the time it takes to compute the decomposition) and redundancy (a consequence of potentially overlapping chunks in the decomposition). The main contributions of this thesis are an in-depth empirical characterisation of these effects, an extensible framework for observing CPDs in action up until a granularity of individual subsumption tests, a large, public corpus of observations and its analysis and insights on experimental methodologies around OWL reasoning.

This dissertation identified and addressed four of the unresolved issues pertaining to the proposition that nonabsolute/ relativistic (N/R) thinking is one of the possible unifying commonalities underlying the selected models of postformal reasoning, namely Problem Finding, Dialectical Reasoning, Relativistic Operations and Reflective Judgment. A total of 254 participants aged 10 to 48 and attending Grade 5 to doctoral studies were involved. Each participant was administered eight tests in pencil-and-paper format to measure eight different constructs of thinking. Different specific hypotheses were evaluated through different statistical approaches. The four identified issues were addressed as follows: Firstly, nonabsolute/ relativistic thinking was reconceptualized and operationally defined as a multidimensional and multilevel construct. Two dimensions were proposed: the basic form and the epistemic view. Within the basic form dimension, two levels were proposed: the formal and the postformal forms. Secondly, a battery of three tests was specifically designed by Arlin and the author to measure the different dimensions and levels of nonabsolute/ relativistic thinking. Thirdly, strong empirical evidence was obtained supporting the general hypothesis that nonabsolute/ relativistic thinking is a possible unifying commonality underlying the four selected postformal models. Within the construct of nonabsolute/ relativistic thinking, two dimensions, the basic form and the epistemic view, can be differentiated as hypothesized. Fourthly, empirical evidence was also obtained supporting the general hypothesis that nonabsolute/ relativistic thinking is an instance of both formal and postformal reasoning. Specifically within the basic form dimension, two qualitatively different forms, the formal and the postformal, can be differentiated as hypothesized. Findings also suggested that the development of a nonabsolute epistemic view might play a crucial role in the development of the postformal form. Therefore, the emergence of the postformal form can be explained by a paradigm shift from an absolute to a nonabsolute epistemic view. Performances in the tests of the postformal form and of the epistemic view in combination were found to be good predictors of performances in the selected postformal tests. Significant implications of the findings are that nonabsolute/ relativistic thinking represents a form of metamorphosis from closed-system to open-system thinking and it might serve as a potential springboard in the development of higher order thinking. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate