Unification in Description Logics has been proposed as a novel inference service that can, for example, be used to detect redundancies in ontologies. The inexpressive Description Logic EL is of particular interest in this context since, on the one hand, several large biomedical ontologies are defined using EL. On the other hand, unification in EL has recently been shown to be NP-complete, and thus of considerably lower complexity than unification in other DLs of similarly restricted expressive power. However, EL allows the use of the top concept (>), which represents the whole interpretation domain, whereas the large medical ontology SNOMEDCT makes no use of this feature. Surprisingly, removing the top concept from EL makes the unification problem considerably harder. More precisely, we will show that unification in EL without the top concept is PSpace-complete. / This is an updated version of the original report that includes Appendix A on locality of unifiers.

Unification has been investigated both in modal logics and in description logics, albeit with different motivations. In description logics, unification can be used to detect redundancies in ontologies. In this context, it is not sufficient to decide unifiability, one must also compute appropriate unifiers and present them to the user. For the description logic EL, which is used to define several large biomedical ontologies, deciding unifiability is an NP-complete problem. It is known that every solvable EL-unification problem has a minimal unifier, and that every minimal unifier is a local unifier. Existing unification algorithms for EL compute all minimal unifiers, but additionally (all or some) non-minimal local unifiers. Computing only the minimal unifiers would be better since there are considerably less minimal unifiers than local ones, and their size is usually also quite small. In this paper we investigate the question whether the known algorithms for EL-unification can be modified such that they compute exactly the minimal unifiers without changing the complexity and the basic nature of the algorithms. Basically, the answer we give to this question is negative.

Fuzzy description logics can be used to model vague knowledge in application domains. This paper analyses the consistency and satisfiability problems in the description logic SHI with semantics based on a complete residuated De Morgan lattice. The problems are undecidable in the general case, but can be decided by a tableau algorithm when restricted to finite lattices. For some sublogics of SHI, we provide upper complexity bounds that match the complexity of crisp reasoning.

In the work of Baader and Distel, a method has been proposed to axiomatize all general concept inclusions (GCIs) expressible in the description logic EL⊥ and valid in a given interpretation I. This provides us with an effective method to learn EL⊥-ontologies from interpretations, which itself can be seen as a different representation of linked data. In another report, we have extended this approach to handle errors in the data. This has been done by not only considering valid GCIs but also those whose confidence is above a certain threshold 𝑐. In the present work, we shall extend the results by describing another way to compute bases of confident GCIs. We furthermore provide experimental evidence that this approach can be useful for practical applications. We finally show that the technique of unravelling can also be used to effectively turn confident EL⊥gfp-bases into EL⊥-bases.

This study treats the problems that the social worker (the child welfare worker) is faced with, when deciding to take a child into compulsory care. Empirical data (with particulars of the children and parents involved) covering the public child care at a local authority, was collected from its records and by means of interviews. Data concerning the social workers was obtained through observation, interviews and questionnaires. Out of 166 new child care clients during one year, 77%were teenagers, and nine out of ten children taken into care were adolescents.Taking up a position in child care cases and making decisions about courses of action were mostly difficult or even painful for the social worker. The decision to take a child into care was considered the hardest task in social work.The social worker's dilemma is created by the requirements of the law that any decision to take a child into care should be based on satisfactory predictions of the consequences for the child.The social worker's agony arises out of her attempts to motivate such predictions when in fact she is convinced, through experience,that very few, if any, of the consequences can be safely established.Empirical data showed that motivations of the decisions given in the investigation for the court were often vague and implicit. This may be explained by referring to the emotionally experienced conflict between prediction and subsumption.In other empirical data social workers described their anxiety when handling cases where children are taken into care. This may be analysed as 'the agony of decision-making', caused by their choice between alternative courses of action, and 'the agony of separation' brought about by the social worker's identification either with the child or with its parents.The proposed model for decision-making aims to reduce the social worker's agony, by shifting some of her burden of responsibility over to the society. This is achieved by letting the grounds for a decision to take a child into care rest explicitly on the principia of subsumption. The social worker's task is thereby limited to assessments of the child's present situation. Three criteria of assessment, child abuse, sexual abuse and 'Good-Enough Parenting' are suggested. The study points out the importance of specifying what is counted as 'Good-Enough Parenting'. / digitalisering@umu

Submitted by Maria Rita Santos da Silva (mariarita.dmt@gmail.com) on 2018-10-08T21:33:03Z No. of bitstreams: 3 Silva_Maria Rita Santos da.pdf: 5751071 bytes, checksum: feb6568c89061ffeb5b94bc9e6197424 (MD5) CartaEncaminhamentoAutodepósito (2).pdf: 41756 bytes, checksum: ce7e237da8b891ce59da8fd01fda5168 (MD5) ATA de aprovação TESE.pdf: 515566 bytes, checksum: 8b9eed2e600663886f2ad9fa0d6d293f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2018-10-09T15:27:55Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 3 Silva_Maria Rita Santos da.pdf: 5751071 bytes, checksum: feb6568c89061ffeb5b94bc9e6197424 (MD5) CartaEncaminhamentoAutodepósito (2).pdf: 41756 bytes, checksum: ce7e237da8b891ce59da8fd01fda5168 (MD5) ATA de aprovação TESE.pdf: 515566 bytes, checksum: 8b9eed2e600663886f2ad9fa0d6d293f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-10-09T15:27:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 Silva_Maria Rita Santos da.pdf: 5751071 bytes, checksum: feb6568c89061ffeb5b94bc9e6197424 (MD5) CartaEncaminhamentoAutodepósito (2).pdf: 41756 bytes, checksum: ce7e237da8b891ce59da8fd01fda5168 (MD5) ATA de aprovação TESE.pdf: 515566 bytes, checksum: 8b9eed2e600663886f2ad9fa0d6d293f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-08-27 / This thesis is part of the Public Education Policy, linked to the Postgraduate Program in Education - PPGE, from the Faculty of Education - FACED, Federal University of Amazonas - UFAM. The object of study and analysis deals with the relation between the Basic Education Development Index - Ideb and school work. The delimitation was in the initial years of elementary education, with empirical research in four public schools, with the main objective of analyzing the socio-political context of educational policies and the lived reality in the teaching institution of the municipal network of Manaus / AM, in the which refers to Ideb, above all, its implications for school work and its horizon for improving the quality of public school education. From the analysis made, it was verified that the State is conferred the officialization of educational policies in a context marked by public governance, under the auspices of the capital that reaches the reality experienced by the participants of empirical research. Considering this context, the thesis is that the demands and charges for reaching and surpassing projected goals for each school and municipal school network in Manaus has negative effects on students' learning, since administrative and pedagogical strategies lead to the inversion of educational priorities, since its valorization seeks for quantifiable results, under the argument of the quality of school education based on an index, called Ideb, that leads to the subsumption of school work from a methodology derived from a managerialist rationality, an incentive for ranking among educational institutions, in the logic of the neoliberal principle. The literary revision considers classical and contemporary theorists, such as: Afonso (2007, 2009, 2014), Antunes (2009, 2011), Apple (2005), Duarte (2013, 2016), Freitas (1988, 1978, 2017), Saviani (2007; 2013), and Frigotto (1995, 1997, 2010, 2016), Gramsci (1977, 1998, 2011), Guimarães-Iosif (2012) 2014, 2016), among others. The conceptual and methodological categories are related to the method of historical-dialectical materialism, since it is understood as the most coherent option for understanding the contextual movements in which human action produces and / or reproduces what is real in social relations permeated by contradictions. / A presente tese situa-se no eixo das Políticas Públicas Educacionais, vinculada ao Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação - PPGE, da Faculdade de Educação - FACED, da Universidade Federal do Amazonas - UFAM. O objeto de estudo e análise trata sobre a relação entre o Índice de Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica - Ideb e o trabalho escolar. A delimitação foi nos anos iniciais do ensino fundamental, com pesquisa empírica em quatro escolas públicas, tendo como objetivo central analisar o contexto sócio-político de emersão das políticas educacionais e a realidade vivenciada na instituição de ensino da rede municipal de Manaus/AM, no que se refere ao Ideb, sobretudo, suas implicações no trabalho escolar e seu horizonte quanto à melhoria da qualidade da educação escolar pública. Da análise realizada, constatou-se que ao Estado é conferida a oficialização das políticas educacionais em um contexto marcado por uma governança pública, sob o auspício do capital que atinge a realidade vivenciada pelos participantes da pesquisa empírica. Diante desse contexto, sustenta-se a tese de que, as demandas e as cobranças por atingir e superar metas projetadas para cada escola e rede municipal de ensino de Manaus incide em efeitos negativos à aprendizagem dos estudantes, pois estratégias administrativo-pedagógicas levam à inversão de prioridades educativas, uma vez que sua valorização busca por resultados quantificáveis, sob o argumento da qualidade da educação escolar baseada em um índice, denominado Ideb, que leva à subsunção do trabalho escolar a partir de uma metodologia oriunda de uma racionalidade gerencialista, verticalizada, incitadora do ranqueamento entre as instituições de ensino, na lógica do princípio neoliberal. A revisão literária considera teóricos clássicos e contemporâneos, tais como: Afonso (2007, 2009, 2014), Antunes (2009, 2011), Apple (2005), Duarte (2013; 2016), Freitas (2007; 2012; 2014; 2015), Enguita (1991, 2001), Frigotto (1995, 1997, 2010, 2016), Gramsci (1977; 1998; 2011), Guimarães-Iosif (2012), Marx (1969, 1978, 2017), Saviani (2007; 2013; 2014; 2016), entre outros. As categorias conceituais e metodológicas estão relacionadas com o método do materialismo histórico-dialético por entender que é a opção mais coerente para compreender os movimentos contextuais em que a ação humana produz e/ou reproduz o que é real nas relações sociais permeadas por contradições.

The thesis considers Felix Guattati's notion of transversality, Fernand Deligny anti-pedagody, and Brigid Brophy's novel In Transit (1969) to argue that the terms of subsumption and stratification have the potential to address the conceptual apparatus of the avant-garde to avoid certain foreclosures concerned with the rhetoric of revolutionary transformation traditionally associated both with vanguardism in a politico-ideological sense and with the avant-garde as an aesthetic and critical project. To unlock the critical potential of the terms of subsumption and stratification in regard to the avant-garde, the theoretical framework of Félix Guattari and Fernand Deligny developed as a result of their clinical experience with psychotic and autistic patients, respectively, is used to foreground how subsumption and stratification are inherent in the notions of transversality, group subjectivity, assemblage of enunciation, signification, schizoanalysis, tracing, and mapping. Using these, the thesis argues that in order to address the theoretical foreclosures associated with the notion of the avant-garde, the latter should be viewed in the light of the complementary operations of subsumption and stratification. To substantiate the argument, the thesis juxtaposes Félix Guattari's notion of transversality,...

Conventional method of development which repeats phases of design, implementation and testing is not adequate for systems like intelligent agents for which complex behavior is required but specification is unclear at the beginning of development process. Incremental design of agent's model during simulation seems more suitable for it enables direct feedback in behavioral changes of a system. This interactivity speeds up development process and helps to uncover parts of a space of all models to designer - thanks to new knowledge acquired during simulation. This thesis aims to provide comparison of suitability of two agent architectures and respective platforms in context of SmallDEVS modeling and simulation framework for this methodology of development. First approach is reactive and decentralized subsumption architecture based on DEVS formalism and the second one is PNagent, framework realizing deliberative BDI architecture using Object Oriented Petri Nets.

The purpose of this study was to determine what difference, if any, exists between the implementation and use of Thinking Maps® and students' academic achievement in Reading and Mathematics as measured over time by the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test® (FCAT). Thinking Maps® is a registered trademark of Thinking Maps, Inc. The data were examined after three years of Thinking Maps® implementation and instruction. The design of this study was quantitative, with a nonrandomized control group, pretest-posttest design (Ary, Jacobs, & Razavieh, 2002) that examined the effects on student Reading and Mathematics FCAT scores in one middle school that implemented Thinking Maps® throughout all grade levels and core subjects for three years as compared to student Reading and Mathematics FCAT scores in a second middle school that did not implement the Thinking Maps® program throughout all grade levels and core subjects for three years. MANOVA and Chi-square tests were used to examine student FCAT scores. This study focused on one major question: Do students who have been instructed in the use of Thinking Maps® have higher academic achievement as measured by the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test® (FCAT) than those that have not been instructed in the use of Thinking Maps®? Results of this study indicated that students who have been instructed in the use of Thinking Maps® do not have higher academic achievement as measured by the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test® (FCAT) than those who have not been instructed in the use of Thinking Maps®. The researcher concluded that other methods of evaluating the implementation of Thinking Maps® and student achievement should be explored.

Axiom pinpointing has been introduced in description logics (DLs) to help the user to understand the reasons why consequences hold and to remove unwanted consequences by computing minimal (maximal) subsets of the knowledge base that have (do not have) the consequence in question. The pinpointing algorithms described in the DL literature are obtained as extensions of the standard tableau-based reasoning algorithms for computing consequences from DL knowledge bases. Although these extensions are based on similar ideas, they are all introduced for a particular tableau-based algorithm for a particular DL. The purpose of this paper is to develop a general approach for extending a tableau-based algorithm to a pinpointing algorithm. This approach is based on a general definition of „tableaux algorithms,' which captures many of the known tableau-based algorithms employed in DLs, but also other kinds of reasoning procedures.