In this dissertation, I explore unsupervised techniques for the task of automatic short answer grading. I compare a number of knowledge-based and corpus-based measures of text similarity, evaluate the effect of domain and size on the corpus-based measures, and also introduce a novel technique to improve the performance of the system by integrating automatic feedback from the student answers. I continue to combine graph alignment features with lexical semantic similarity measures and employ machine learning techniques to show that grade assignment error can be reduced compared to a system that considers only lexical semantic measures of similarity. I also detail a preliminary attempt to align the dependency graphs of student and instructor answers in order to utilize a structural component that is necessary to simulate human-level grading of student answers. I further explore the utility of these techniques to several related tasks in natural language processing including the detection of text similarity, paraphrase, and textual entailment.

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This paper describes an exercise in building a complete robot aimed at being as small as possible but using off-the-shelf components exclusively. The result is an autonomous mobile robot slightly larger than one cubic inch which incorporates sensing, actuation, onboard computation, and onboard power supplies. Nicknamed Squirt, this robot acts as a 'bug', hiding in dark corners and venturing out in the direction of last heard noises, only moving after the noises are long gone.

In this paper we describe a working, implemented controller for a real, physical mobile robot arm. The controller is composed of a collection of 15 independent behaviors which run, in real time, on a set of 8 loosely coupled on-board 8-bit microprocessors. We describe how these behaviors cooperate to actually seek out and retrieve objects using local sensory data. We also discuss the methodology used to decompose this collection task and the types of spatial representation and reasoning used by the system.

This Ph.D. thesis presents the design and implementation of a biologically inspired four-phase walking strategy using behaviours for a four legged walking robot. In particular, the walking strategy addresses the balance issue, including both static and dynamic balance that were triggered non-deterministically based on the robot’s realtime interaction with the environment. Four parallel Subsumption Architectures (SA) and a simple Central Pattern Producer (CPP) are employed in the physical implementation of the walking strategy. An implementation framework for such a parallel Subsumption Architecture is also proposed to facilitate the reusability of the system. A Reinforcement Learning (RL) method was integrated into the CPP to allow the robot to learn the optimal walking cycle interval (OWCI), appropriate for the robot walking on various terrain conditions. Experimental results demonstrate that the robot employs the proposed walking strategy and can successfully carry out its walking behaviours under various experimental terrain conditions, such as flat ground, incline, decline and uneven ground. Interactions of all the behaviours of the robot enable it to exhibit a combination of both preset and emergent walking behaviours.

For the description logic EL, we consider the neighborhood relation which is induced by the subsumption order, and we show that the corresponding lattice of EL concept descriptions is distributive, modular, graded, and metric. In particular, this implies the existence of a rank function as well as the existence of a distance function.

The present thesis is an exploration of normalization processes and the problem of appropriation in labor conflict. More specifically, it analyses the way contemporary labor conflicts in nursing relate to, and thereby help to illuminate, changes in modes of gender normalization under neoliberalism, and how nurse labor conflict thereby sheds light on wider patterns of labor strife. Analysis shows how a “virtue script” bound up with long-lasting patterns of gender normalization in nursing becomes tangled with forms of abstract labor related to “new public management” reform. Although the restructuring of work threatens public professionals’ autonomy, at the same time, it provides opportunities for resistance through collective action. What is more, this restructuring process facilitates the appropriation by nurses and, by implication, other public workers, of the discourses and ideals that belonged to the ethos of the Keynesian welfare state. However, this is a contradictory process, since the discourses and ideals thus appropriated inhere in modes of labor exploitation and normalization. Analysis indicates that although appropriation risks to reinforce gendered and exploitative ideas about work, the strategy can be a lever of collective mobilization, and one of its possible outcomes is the radical transformation of the entities it takes possession of. This interview study is mainly based on four journal articles, attending to different aspects of an act of collective resignation taken by registered nurses at a Swedish hospital ward. This is an emerging form of collective action and the thesis provides one of the first analyses of this new grassroots and workplace-based phenomenon, which may be considered its particular empirical contribution. On the other hand, the chapters of the cover essay unfold a sustained argument on normalization and appropriation, thereby elaborating theoretical themes broached in the articles. The focal point of this discussion is a certain concept of form, deployed in Marxist and feminist theory, a concept pointing to the identity of thought-forms and practically enacted forms. Further, these forms migrate: they are evoked in practices wherein “the mind is not active as sentient” (Hegel), later to be projected by the mind onto different entities. The results of the discussion thus question common approaches to normalization. In particular, it is untenable to oppose a tacit and internal mode of control where individuals are induced to comply by attaching to identifications (by becoming/being made into subjects) to an overt and external mode reliant on sheer coercion. This matter–form dichotomy should be dissolved, and modes of coercion should be understood to leave subjective imprints—not at the level of identity but at the level of thought’s infrastructure, that is, form. / Föreliggande avhandling utforskar normaliseringsprocesser och problem rörande appropriering i samband med arbetskonflikter. Avhandlingen analyserar hur sam-tida arbetskonflikter i sjuksköterskeprofessionen relaterar till och sålunda belyser förändrad genusnormalisering i en nyliberal tid, samt hur dessa konflikter belyser övergripande konfliktmönster i arbetslivet. Analysen påvisar hur en ”dygdighets-norm” kopplad till långlivade modaliteter av genusnormalisering sammanvävs med en form av abstrakt arbete relaterad till sentida NPM-reformer. Men medan denna omstruktureringsprocess urholkar den autonomi som professioner i offentlig sektor länge innehaft medför den också möjligheter till kollektiva motståndshandlingar. Vidare möjliggör denna nyliberala omstrukturering sjuksköterskors—liksom andra offentliga professioners—appropriering av diskurser och ideal som var centrala i den tidigare, keynesianska, välfärdsstaten; men detta är en motsägelsefull process då dessa diskurser och ideal är sprungna ur, och präglade av, historier av utsugning och normalisering. Analysen visar att medan appropriering visserligen riskerar att reproducera former av normalisering underlättar denna strategi mobilisering och kan i förlängningen omvandla övertagna diskurser och ideal. Denna intervjustudie är huvudsakligen baserad på fyra artiklar: de analyserar olika aspekter av en kollektiv uppsägningsaktion bland sjuksköterskor vid en sjukhus-avdelning. Detta är en framväxande typ av aktion i Sverige och avhandlingen är en av de första studierna av denna gräsrots- och arbetsplatsbaserade kampform, vilket kan ses som dess empiriska forskningsbidrag. I kappan förs, å andra sidan, en kon-tinuerlig teoretisk diskussion kring normalisering och appropriering som utvecklar teman som lyfts i de enskilda artiklarna. Diskussionen kretsar kring ett visst form-begrepp, som härrör ur marxistisk och feministisk teori och som påvisar en identitet mellan tankeform och praktiskt artikulerad form. Dessa former migrerar; de uttrycks omedvetet i praktiker där individens fokus är annorstädes och projiceras sedan på andra praktiker. I diskussionen ifrågasätts sålunda vedertagna förståelser av norma-lisering: det är teoretiskt ofruktbart att ställa omedvetna, interna, former av kontroll där lydnad eller konformitet uppnås via internaliseringen av påbjudna identiteter mot medvetna, externa, eller tvingande, former av kontroll. En häri latent dikotomi om materia respektive form bör upplösas i syfte att synliggöra hur ett slags kontroll över arbete lämnar subjektiverande avtryck, inte genom att påbjuda identifikationer utan genom att forma vad som kan beskrivas som tänkandets minsta beståndsdelar. / <p>Vid tidpunkten för disputationen var följande delarbeten opublicerade: delarbete 2 och 4 inskickat.</p><p>At the time of the doctoral defence the following papers were unpublished: paper 2 and 4 submitted.</p>

This thesis examines scientific, technological, and organizational innovations in Newfoundland's saltfish industry between 1887 and 1937. Since entering the orbit of European capital in the fifteenth century, Newfoundland's economy and society was organized around the export of saltfish (salted and dried cod) to consuming markets in Southern Europe and Latin America. By the nineteenth century, saltfish production was organized primarily around the small-scale fishing family financed by merchant capital. This mode of production consistently produced a large aggregate amount of saltfish of highly uneven quality. By the late-nineteenth century, however, this production system was placed under pressure as consumers in the key European markets demanded uniformly high quality saltfish, and Newfoundland's competitors began providing it. Using archival and secondary sources, this thesis examines attempts to improve and modernize saltfish production in Newfoundland over a fifty-year period, beginning with the formation of the first Fisheries Commission in 1887.I argue that saltfish producers had to confront and overcome "the problem of fluctuation." This refers to both the biogeophysical processes controlling the quantity of cod extracted (reproduction, predation, ocean dynamics, etc.) and the biogeophysical processes determining the quality of saltfish produced and consumed (decomposition, preservation, socio-biology of consumption). In contrast to many studies of the political economy of fishing, and inspired by agrarian political economy, I develop a theoretical framework called "aquarian political economy" that expands the analytical focus beyond extraction to include the entire circulation of capital. Between 1887 and 1937, I document a number of attempts at reshaping biogeophysical processes to suit the dynamics of capital accumulation in the "upstream" (pre-extraction) and "downstream" (post-extraction) phases of production. These innovations proceeded by way of introducing abstract, scientific forms of measure, which identified and helped render biogeophysical processes as amenable to human control. I define these innovations as moments in an expanded conception of the "real subsumption of nature under capital." Although many of these innovations and interventions were defined by false starts and only partial success, I conclude that this period witnessed a shift in the notion of expertise from practical experience on the ocean to techno-scientific managerial knowledge behind the desk. Through my empirical research and theoretical framework, this thesis makes a contribution to the political economy of fishing, critical resource geography, and the historical political economy of Newfoundland.

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar criticamente as transformações pelas quais o sistema capi-talista vem passando nas relações de produção com a emergência das novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação. A apresentação leva em consideração o fato de que hoje o capital subordina a produção com uma intensidade nova e de um modo novíssimo ligado à emergên-cia do conhecimento-capital. Apoiado na tese da desmedida do valor de Prado (2005), este trabalho retoma as formas de subsunção do trabalho ao capital (formal, material e real) deriva-das d\'O Capital de Karl Marx, procurando delinear uma sequência lógica e histórica para a gênese de uma nova forma, qual seja, a subsunção intelectual do trabalho ao capital, que seria típica de um período de produção pós-grande industrial. Para explicitar mais esses processos de mudança, toma como objeto de estudo a indústria fonográfica. Esta, por depender em última instância do trabalho criativo (uma vez que é intensiva em conhecimento e inovações), vem sofrendo os efeitos da emergência das novas tecnologias de uma forma bastante negativa do ponto de vista do capital e de uma forma, talvez, muito positiva no que tange à produção e à distribuição de mercadorias de forma autônoma e independente do capital. Através de estu-dos de caso e evidências empíricas, procura demonstrar como as descontinuidades que estão presentes na indústria fonográfica, principalmente as que emergiram no século XXI, mudaram de uma vez por todas os modelos de negócios tradicionais desta indústria. Ao final demostra que, apesar de hoje em dia existir cada vez mais a possibilidade da criação de música de forma autônoma e independente, a produção de música ainda é realizada por trabalhadores que, no limite, estão subsumidos intelectualmente à relação de capital. / The aim of this work is to critically analyze the transformations that the capitalist system has experienced in the relations of production with the emergence of the new information and communication technologies. The presentation will take into account the fact that capital now subordinates production with a new intensity and in a brand new way that is linked to the emergence of knowledge-capital. Supported by Prado\'s (2005) thesis of the desmeasure of value, this work reapproaches the forms of subsumption of labor to capital (formal, material and real) derived from Karl Marx\'s Capital, trying to delineate a logical and historical sequence to the genesis of a new form, namely, the intellectual subsumption of labor to capital, which would be typical of a period of post-large-scale industry. Looking to further explain these processes of change, the recording industry is taken as object of study. As it depends mostly on the creative work (because it is knowledge- and innovation-intensive) it has been suffering the effects of the emergence of new technologies in a very negative perspective from capital\'s point of view, and in a way, perhaps, very positive regarding the production and distribution of goods in an autonomous and independent way. Through case studies and empirical evidence, it strives to show how the discontinuities that are present in the music industry, especially those that emerged in the twenty-first century, changed once and for all the recording industry\'s traditional business models. At the end it demonstrates that, although today there is an increasing possibility of creating music in an autonomous and independent way, music production is still undertaken by workers who, ultimately, are intellectually subsumed to the capital\'s relations.

Este volume descreve o trabalho multi e interdisciplinar de pesquisa realizado na área de Inteligência Artificial aplicada à Educação, tendo como objetivo principal à proposta de uma metodologia de trabalho suportada por um ambiente na Web como recurso de apoio à aprendizagem almejada pela subárea de Programação Computacional, nos cursos de graduação em Informática. O trabalho investigativo e experimental foi desenvolvido com base na teoria proposta por Ausubel e o ambiente desenvolvido possui arquitetura baseada nos Sistemas Tutores Inteligentes, onde se buscou criar um Assistente Virtual de Ensino Inteligente, cujo comportamento é modelado a partir de um conjunto de regras oriundas da Lógica Fuzzy. Esta base de regras busca estabelecer uma nova forma de análise e assistência no acompanhamento da evolução de aprendizagem do aluno, tendo por base os pressupostos da teoria ausubeliana. A organização dos conteúdos na base de domínio utiliza uma estrutura organizada na forma de Mapas Conceituais, os quais possuem relação com as funções de pertinência associadas aos objetivos destes conteúdos. O trabalho experimental foi realizado na universidade onde o autor trabalha como docente, permitindo que fossem realizadas as análises e entrevistas de forma facilitada. O protótipo, criado para validar alguns aspectos da tese, obteve sucesso e constatou um aproveitamento médio melhor na aprendizagem em Programação Computacional. / This volume describe the multi and interdisciplinary work of made research in the Artificial Intelligence area applied to Education, with the main objective to the purpose of one methodology of work that has the support by Web environment as a way of support for the expected learning by the Computational Programming sub area in the graduation courses of Informatics. The investigative and experimental work was developed based in the theory proposed by Ausubel and the developed environment has the architecture based in the Intelligent Tutoring Systems, looking for a creation of one Intelligent Teaching Assistant, which the behavior is model from the rule group with origin in Fuzzy Logic. This base of rules search to establish one new form of analysis and assistance to go along with evolution of student knowledge, basing in the presuppositions of Subsumption Theory. The organization of contents in the base of dominion use one organized structure in Conceptual Maps form, that have the relation with functions of associated relevant to the objectives of these contents. The experimental work was realized in university where the author works as a teacher, giving the permission to realize the analysis and interviews in the easy way. The prototype, created for some aspect validation of the thesis it was obtained success and it was consisted a medium development better than the learning in the Computacional Programming.