Em estudos sobre o profetismo da Bíblia Hebraica, constata-se a referência à presença de relatos de ações simbólicas. Ainda que fragmentários, os estudos que mencionam tais ações englobam diversas visões. Neste trabalho apresenta-se, em língua portuguesa, uma introdução às ações simbólicas dos profetas da Bíblia Hebraica, abordando os principais pontos de vista vigentes no cenário acadêmico. Também se expõe as principais características das ações simbólicas e a importância do panorama das maldições da aliança do Pentateuco, para uma melhor compreensão do tema. / In Hebrew Bible Prophetism studies, one can notice the mention to the presence of symbolic actions reports. Although fragmentary, the studies that mention such actions encompass diverse views. The following research presents, in Portuguese, an introduction to the symbolic actions of the biblical prophets addressing the main standpoints of the academic scenario. Likewise, it presents the main characteristics of their symbolic actions and the importance of the Pentateuch covenant curses background for a better understanding of the theme.

Monogamy is recognized as a singularly accepted relationship construct within the United States. As a result, little is understood about alternative relationship constructs and those who choose them. Even less is understood regarding these practices among members of marginalized communities. Despite this lack of knowledge, there is evidence to suggest that approximately 4-5% of the United States population is engaged in some form of consensually nonmonogamous relationship pairing (a percentage comparable to the LGBTQAI community), and an estimated 25% of the population will engage in some form of consensual nonmonogamy over the course of their lifespan. This study looked to understand the lived experiences of African American men and women in married or cohabitating relationships who have participated in consensually nonmonogamous relationships with secondary partners. This qualitative study was conducted with 3 African American heteronormative married couples, using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and a combined theoretical framework which includes symbolic interactionism and queer theory. Study findings concluded that consensually nonmonogamous couples viewed consensual nonmonogamy as an orientation as opposed to a lived experience in which their primary relationship remained their priority. Emerging themes included rules related to consensual nonmonogamy, emotional regulation, stigma, and the intersectionality between race and sexuality. Implications for social change include reduced stigma related to nontraditional families, a more informed understanding of practices and experiences involving consensual nonmonogamy and the development of sociopolitical interventions, policy and advocacy, and positive and negative consequences of consensually nonmonogamous experiences.

Cette thèse étudie la moyennabilité et la propriété de Liouville des groupes pleins-topologiques des systèmes de Cantor, des groupes d'échanges d'intervalles, et des groupes agissants sur les arbres enracinés. Dans le Chapitre 2, nous obtenons les premiers exemples de groupes simples, infinis, de type fini, tels que le bord de Poisson de toute marche aléatoire simple est trivial (la propriété de Liouville). Ces exemples sont des sous-groupes dérivés de groupes pleins topologiques d'une famille de sous-décalages minimaux. Nous montrons que si la complexité d'un sous-décalage (pas nécessairement minimal) est strictement sous-quadratique, toute mesure de probabilité symétrique de support fini sur le groupe plein-topologique est d'entropie asymptotique nulle. Dans le Chapitre 3, nous exhibons une famille de groupes pleins-topologiques de sous-décalages minimaux qui contiennent les groupes de Grigorchuk G_ω comme sous-groupes. Cette construction montre que le groupe plein-topologique d'un sous-décalage minimal peut avoir des sous-groupes de croissance intermédiaire, en répondant à une question de Grigorchuk. Dans le Chapitre 4 (basé sur un travail en commun avec K. Juschenko, N. Monod, M. de la Salle) nous étudions les actions extensivement moyennables, une notion qui est un outil pour montrer la moyennabilité des groupes. Comme application, nous montrons la moyennabilité des groupes d'échanges d'intervalles dont les angles de translations ont rang rationnel au plus 2. Nous obtenons aussi une caractérisation "de type Kesten" de la moyennabilité extensive d'une action, et nous l'utilisons pour donner une preuve courte, purement probabiliste du fait que les actions récurrentes sont extensivement moyennables. Nous étudions aussi la propriété de Liouville pour les groupes d'échanges d'intervalles, et nous montrons qu'il existe des groupes d'échanges d'intervalles tels que toute mesure de support fini non dégénérée a un bord non trivial. Dans le Chapitre 5 (basé sur un travail en commun avec G. Amir, O. Angel, B. Virág) nous montrons que les groupes agissant sur les arbres enracinés par automorphismes bornés ont la propriété de Liouville. En particulier cela inclut les groupes engendrés par des automates d'activité bornée. / This thesis deals with the Liouville property and amenability of topological full groups of Cantor systems, groups of interval exchanges, and groups acting on rooted trees. In Chapter 2, we provide the first examples of finitely generated, infinite simple groups that have trivial Poisson-Furstenberg boundary for simple random walks (the Liouville property). These arise as the derived subgroup of the topological full groups of a family of minimal subshifts. We show that if the complexity of a (non necessarily minimal) subshift grows strictly subquadratically, every symmetric and finitely supported probability measure on the topological full group has vanishing asymptotic entropy. In Chapter 3, we exhibit a family of topological full groups of minimal subshifts that contain Grigorchuk groups G_ω as subgroups. This shows that the topological full group of a minimal subshift can have subgroups of intermediate growth, answering a question of Grigorchuk. In Chapter 4 (based on a joint work with K. Juschenko, N. Monod, M. de la Salle), we study various features of extensively amenable group actions, a notion which is a tool to prove amenability of groups. As an application, we prove amenability of groups of interval exchanges whose angular components have rational rank at most 2. We also obtain a "Kesten-like" characterisation of extensive amenability in terms of the inverted orbit and use it give a short, probabilistic proof of the fact that recurrent actions are extensively amenable. Finally we study the Liouville property for groups of interval exchanges, and show that there are groups of interval exchanges that admit no finitely supported measure with trivial boundary. In Chapter 5 (based on a joint work with G. Amir, O. Angel, B. Virág), we establish the Liouville property for all groups acting on rooted trees by bounded automorphisms. This includes in particular groups generated by bounded automata. This strengthens results by various authors about amenability of these groups, some of which are based on proving the Liouville property in some special cases.

<div>With the rise of individuals’ interests in travelling for a meaningful experience, travelers today not only immerse themselves in consuming food for pleasure but also seek to gain meaningful outcomes. In particular, local food consumption experiences can facilitate travelers to enhance their sense of competence and perceived personal growth, referred to as eudaimonic wellbeing. As travelers experience the culture of the destination and enjoy the sense of exoticness through consumption of local food, they can recognize their capabilities and learn better about themselves through contrast with others. Yet, limited knowledge exists on the higher-level outcomes of such an experience and the process through which travelers encounter local food.</div><div><br></div><div>Therefore, the first study proposed to understand the procedures through which travelers experience local food, utilizing symbolic interactionism as a theoretical perspective. According to symbolic interactionists, role-playing is a paramount process that shapes individuals’ behaviors and experiences (Hewitt, 1976). Accordingly, this study outlined the role-playing process for each role-taking (taking the role of others to understand their role and associated expectations) and role-making (playing their own role and acting based on related expectations). In role-taking, four themes were identified including Utilization of Symbolic Cues, Imitating, Simulation of Other’s Position, and Comparison with Expected Characteristic of a Role. For role-making processes, three themes emerged including Performance of One’s Regular Role, Disassociation of Self from One’s Role, and Creation of a Desired Role. As such, various role-playing activities were identified as critical means through which travelers determine their behavior and appraisal of their local food consumption experience. Such a finding is valuable in extending the existing literature that mostly paid attention to cognition or emotion as the procedures through which people construct their experience (Hume, Mort, Liesch, & Winzar, 2006).</div><div><br></div><div>To understand the higher-level outcome of local food consumption experience that relates to eudaimonic wellbeing, the second study investigated changes in self-concept based on travelers’ encounters with local food. Individuals’ food choice behaviors or food practices have been identified as important bearers of their identity in the general food consumption literature (Valli & Traill, 2005). Yet, travelers’ food consumption activities have been mostly viewed merely as a pleasurable pursuit in the food and tourism studies (Kivela & Crotts, 2006). In line with the characteristic of one’s self-concept being subject to change (Festinger, 1954), the second study explored whether and how travelers modify their self-concept through their local food consumption experiences. The findings showed that self-concept change took place in terms of two themes of General Self-Concept and Eating Self-Concept. Within General Self-Concept, four aspects of self-concept appeared to have changed or emerged including Superiority, Satisfaction, Cultural Competency, and Appreciation. As for Eating Self-Concept, it was found that travelers’ self-concept changes involved Mindful Eating, International Food Expertise, and Eating Characteristics. Some of the factors that caused these self-concept modifications include the characteristic of local food experience being challenging, representative of local culture and identity, and exotic. Therefore, the findings are valuable in demonstrating local food consumption experience as a case in which people can change how they view themselves, what specifically change, and how they change based on their encounters with local food.</div><div><br></div><div>The third study aimed to investigate emotional bonding with the place, place attachment, as another outcome that is associated with eudaimonic wellbeing. Attention was paid to how travelers’ psychological comfort plays a role in their place attachment development. In addition, such an influence of psychological comfort on place attachment was explored by comparing Koreans and Americans to contrast possible cultural differences between the two groups regarding the degree to which comfort is valued in forming their place attachment level. Specifically, comfort was measured for three major elements of the local food consumption experience including atmospherics, interaction with service providers, and food. The findings showed that comfort with all three elements can influence travelers’ place attachment levels and that individuals from different cultures can vary in the degree to which comfort shapes their place attachment levels. Thus, this study expands our knowledge by proposing comfort with local food consumption experience as a critical trigger of emotional bonding development between travelers and the travel destination.</div><div><br></div><div>The synthesis of these key findings from the three studies explicates how travelers’ eudaimonic wellbeing can be enhanced from an overarching viewpoint. In line with the basic premise of self-determination theory which suggests that one’s eudaimonic wellbeing is promoted when three psychological needs (competence, autonomy, and relatedness) are satisfied (Deci & Ryan, 1985), propositions were outlined regarding how these psychological needs can be met through role-playing activity, self-concept change, and place attachment development based on consuming local food. As one’s general wellbeing comprises both hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing (Ryff & Keyes, 1995), the linkage proposed between local food consumption experience and eudaimonic wellbeing complements the current view that has been focused on hedonic aspects of travelers’ local dining experience.</div>

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(情報学) / 甲第23324号 / 情博第760号 / 新制||情||130(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院情報学研究科システム科学専攻 / (主査)教授 大塚 敏之, 教授 石井 信, 教授 太田 快人 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Informatics / Kyoto University / DFAM

In this paper I critically discuss the concept of religious knowledge. My aim, based on texts by the religious realists Anders Jeffner, Mikael Stenmark and John Polkinghorne, is to try and find answers to three questions: 1. What do they mean by religious knowledge? 2. What do they mean religious knowledge gives us knowledge of? 3. With which arguments and discursive and rhetorical strategies do they defend their answers to the above questions? I conclude that Jeffner, Stenmark and Polkinghorne have similar ontological and epistemo- logical perspectives. According to them, reality is not one, but consists of different layers or dimensions. Science is only suited to study the dimension of reality that we have access to through our senses. The study of divine or transcendent reality requires other forms of investigations, resulting in another form of knowledge, often called religious knowledge. The topics in religious knowledge are ethics, esthetics, values, meaning, purpose and spirituality. The relation between truth and religious knowledge is that religious knowledge is supposed to be epistemically true and, unlike scientific knowledge, true in the respect of guiding the believer successfully through life. Jeffner, Stenmark and Polkinghorne use different strategies and arguments to defend their positions. Some are philosophically grounded, and others are of a more rhetorical character. Some of the defense mechanisms are integral parts of their religious worldview, and others can be seen as various immunizing strategies. According to my interpretation I have labeled their different strategies:” reality stratified”,” the shortcomings of science”,” to choose worldview”, ”straw men”, ”the ignorant opponent”, “religious experiences”, ”different but still similar” and “the use of concepts”. As far as    I´m concerned, Jeffner, Stenmark and Polkinghorne haven´t, in view of their religious realism, successfully argued for the claim that there actually exists a form of knowledge that ought to be called religious knowledge. They have not, to my mind, more than as a logical possibility, shown examples of this kind of religious knowledge and successfully argued for its kinship to knowledge as true, justified belief. With a little help from Bourdieu, I have also tried to show that Jeffner, Stenmark and Polkinghorne are participants in a discursive apologetic battle, where the combatants are armed with different forms of symbolic capital.

Efficient manipulation of Boolean functions is an important component of many computer-aided design task. As a data structure for representing and manipulating Boolean functions, Binary Decision Diagrams are commonly used. These diagrams are commonly used in many fields such as model checking, system verification, circuit design, etc. In this thesis we describe these diagrams and there are present their modifications. Furthermore, this paper present and describes techniques for effective handling and representation of binary decision diagrams. This thesis describes the design and implementation of library that will work with these diagrams. It is further discussed how the developed library can be used within the library VATA for manipulating tree automata. Finally, the library was compared with well known and heavily optimized library CUDD, which is public and with library CacBDD. The experimental results showed that the performance of the proposed library is quite close to that of CUDD a CacBDD (has comparable and mostly even slightly better performance).

L'intelligence artificielle est la discipline de recherche d'imitation ou de remplacement de fonctions cognitives humaines. À ce titre, l'une de ses branches s'inscrit dans l'automatisation progressive du processus de programmation. Il s'agit alors de transférer de l'intelligence ou, à défaut de définition, de transférer de la charge cognitive depuis l'humain vers le système, qu'il soit autonome ou guidé par l'utilisateur. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, nous considérons les conditions de l'évolution depuis un système guidé par son utilisateur vers un système autonome, en nous appuyant sur une autre branche de l'intelligence artificielle : l'apprentissage artificiel. Notre cadre applicatif est celui de la conception d'un assistant opérationnel incrémental, c'est-à-dire d'un système capable de réagir à des requêtes formulées par l'utilisateur en adoptant les actions appropriées, et capable d'apprendre à le faire. Pour nos travaux, les requêtes sont exprimées en français, et les actions sont désignées par les commandes correspondantes dans un langage de programmation (ici, R ou bash). L'apprentissage du système est effectué à l'aide d'un ensemble d'exemples constitué par les utilisateurs eux-mêmes lors de leurs interactions. Ce sont donc ces derniers qui définissent, progressivement, les actions qui sont appropriées pour chaque requête, afin de rendre le système de plus en plus autonome. Nous avons collecté plusieurs ensembles d'exemples pour l'évaluation des méthodes d'apprentissage, en analysant et réduisant progressivement les biais induits. Le protocole que nous proposons est fondé sur l'amorçage incrémental des connaissances du système à partir d'un ensemble vide ou très restreint. Cela présente l'avantage de constituer une base de connaissances très représentative des besoins des utilisateurs, mais aussi l'inconvénient de n'aquérir qu'un nombre très limité d'exemples. Nous utilisons donc, après examen des performances d'une méthode naïve, une méthode de raisonnement à partir de cas : le raisonnement par analogie formelle. Nous montrons que cette méthode permet une précision très élevée dans les réponses du système, mais également une couverture relativement faible. L'extension de la base d'exemples par analogie est explorée afin d'augmenter la couverture des réponses données. Dans une autre perspective, nous explorons également la piste de rendre l'analogie plus tolérante au bruit et aux faibles différences en entrée en autorisant les approximations, ce qui a également pour effet la production de réponses incorrectes plus nombreuses. La durée d'exécution de l'approche par analogie, déjà de l'ordre de la seconde, souffre beaucoup de l'extension de la base et de l'approximation. Nous avons exploré plusieurs méthodes de segmentation des séquences en entrée afin de réduire cette durée, mais elle reste encore le principal obstacle à contourner pour l'utilisation de l'analogie formelle dans le traitement automatique de la langue. Enfin, l'assistant opérationnel incrémental fondé sur le raisonnement analogique a été testé en condition incrémentale simulée, afin d'étudier la progression de l'apprentissage du système au cours du temps. On en retient que le modèle permet d'atteindre un taux de réponse stable après une dizaine d'exemples vus en moyenne pour chaque type de commande. Bien que la performance effective varie selon le nombre total de commandes considérées, cette propriété ouvre sur des applications intéressantes dans le cadre incrémental du transfert depuis un domaine riche (la langue naturelle) vers un domaine moins riche (le langage de programmation). / Artificial Intelligence is the field of research aiming at mimicking or replacing human cognitive abilities. As such, one of its subfields is focused on the progressive automation of the programming process. In other words, the goal is to transfer cognitive load from the human to the system, whether it be autonomous or guided by the user. In this thesis, we investigate the conditions for making a user-guided system autonomous using another subfield of Artificial Intelligence : Machine Learning. As an implementation framework, we chose the design of an incremental operational assistant, that is a system able to react to natural language requests from the user with relevant actions. The system must also be able to learn the correct reactions, incrementally. In our work, the requests are in written French, and the associated actions are represented by corresponding instructions in a programming language (here R and bash). The learning is performed using a set of examples composed by the users themselves while interacting. Thus they progressively define the most relevant actions for each request, making the system more autonomous. We collected several example sets for evaluation of the learning methods, analyzing and reducing the inherent collection biases. The proposed protocol is based on incremental bootstrapping of the system, starting from an empty or limited knowledge base. As a result of this choice, the obtained knowledge base reflects the user needs, the downside being that the overall number of examples is limited. To avoid this problem, after assessing a baseline method, we apply a case base reasoning approach to the request to command transfer problem: formal analogical reasoning. We show that this method yields answers with a very high precision, but also a relatively low coverage. We explore the analogical extension of the example base in order to increase the coverage of the provided answers. We also assess the relaxation of analogical constraints for an increased tolerance of analogical reasoning to noise in the examples. The running delay of the simple analogical approach is already around 1 second, and is badly influenced by both the automatic extension of the base and the relaxation of the constraints. We explored several segmentation strategies on the input examples in order to reduce reduce this time. The delay however remains the main obstacle to using analogical reasoning for natural language processing with usual volumes of data. Finally, the incremental operational assistant based on analogical reasoning was tested in simulated incremental condition in order to assess the learning behavior over time. The system reaches a stable correct answer rate after a dozen examples given in average for each command type. Although the effective performance depends on the total number of accounted commands, this observation opens interesting applicative tracks for the considered task of transferring from a rich source domain (natural language) to a less rich target domain (programming language).

Cette thèse se positionne dans le domaine de la vérification déductive de programmes, qui consiste à transformer une propriété à vérifier sur un programme en un énoncé logique, pour ensuite démontrer cet énoncé. La vérification effective d'un programme peut poser de nombreuses difficultés pratiques. En fait, les concepts mis en jeu derrière le programme peuvent suffire à faire obstacle à la vérification. En effet, certains programmes peuvent être assez courts et n'utiliser que des constructions simples, et pourtant s'avérer très difficiles à vérifier. Cela nous amène à la question suivante: dans le contexte d'un environnement de vérification déductive de programmes basé sur les démonstrateurs automatiques, quelles méthodes appliquer pour réduire l'effort nécessaire à la fois pour spécifier des comportements attendus complexes, ainsi que pour démontrer qu'un programme respecte ces comportements attendus? Pour mener notre étude, nous nous sommes placés dans le cadre de l'environnement de vérification déductive de programmes Why3. La vérification de programmes en Why3 est basée sur la génération de conditions de vérification, et l'usage de démonstrateurs externes pour les prouver, que ces démonstrateurs soient automatiques ou interactifs. Nous avons développé plusieurs méthodes, certaines générales et d'autres spécifiques à des classes de programmes, pour réduire l'effort manuel. Nos contributions sont les suivantes. Tout d'abord, nous ajoutons des fonctionnalités à Why3 pour assister le processus de vérification, notamment un mécanisme léger de preuve déclarative basé sur la notion d'indicateurs de coupures. Ensuite, nous présentons une méthode de vérification d'absence de débordement arithmétique pour une classe d'utilisation des entiers difficile à traiter par les méthodes standards. Enfin, nous nous intéressons au développement d'une bibliothèque générique pour la spécification et la preuve de programmes générateurs de code. / This thesis is set in the domain of deductive verification of programs, which consists of transforming a property to be verified about a program into a logical statement, and then proving this statement. Effective verification of a program can pose many practical difficulties. In fact, the concepts behind the program may be sufficient to impede verification. Indeed, some programs can be quite short and use only simple constructions, and yet prove very difficult to verify. This leads us to the following question: in the context of a deductive program verification environment based on automatic provers, what methods can be applied to reduce the effort required both to specify complex behaviors, as well as to prove that a program respects these expected behaviors? To carry out our study, we placed ourselves in the context of the deductive verification environment of programs Why3. The verification of programs in Why3 is based on the generation of verification conditions, and the use of external provers to prove them, whether these provers are automatic or interactive. We have developed several methods, some general and others specific to some program classes, to reduce manual effort. Our contributions are as follows. First, we add features to Why3 to assist the verification process, including a lightweight declarative proof mechanism based on the notion of cut indicators. Then we present a method for checking the absence of arithmetic overflow, for use cases which are difficult to process by standard methods. Finally, we are interested in the development of a generic library for the specification and proof of code generating programs.

In this qualitative study excessive weight gain in men is placed in the context of a life course trajectory with its characteristic stages. A combination of symbolic interactionism and life course perspectives was deemed appropriate for studying obesity as their basic assumptions complement each other to create a holistic view of the phenomenon. Both the life course and symbolic interactionism perspectives stress the interaction between individuals and their social environment, an observation particularly evident when viewed as a micro-level experience. The chosen approach emphasises the social creation of meanings about life transitions and individual development. The obese man cannot be seen as an isolated unit as, like all people, he is a social being forming part of a network of relationships. Theoretically those with whom he is socialising can be classified as significant others, general others and reference group others. It is their influence that is important in his personal development and experience of the self. While the symbolic interactionism perspective accentuates the development of the self in interaction with others, the life course perspective gives clarity on the way the individual handles transition experiences in order to regain balance after a time of disequilibrium resulting from different trajectories. The theory of cognitive appraisal used in this study enhanced understanding of the obese man‟s passion for food, and the emotion of joy experienced when busy with food-related activities. Cognitive appraisal takes place in each situation when the obese man needs to make a decision or take action in terms of food and life style behaviour. The strategy of enquiry for this research followed a phenomenological and qualitative approach. The unit of analysis was a white man who was obese. The inclusion criteria for the sample were: being older than 21; and complying with the acknowledged criterion for obesity of having a BMI greater than 30kg/m². A purposive sampling technique was employed with each of the 14 participants being interviewed on more than one occasion. Participants were expected to, and were able to describe their experiences of being obese retrospectively. The researcher made almost exclusive use of lengthy, individual, in-depth, unstructured interviews. Three themes emerged from the data namely the meaning of food, the sadness of obesity and coping with obesity. The findings from this study show that, as a social object, the obese man‟s eating habits and the meaning that food has for him are influenced by, and learnt from others such as his family during childhood and adolescence, and his married partner and work colleagues in young adulthood. Essentially, indulgence in eating is for the anticipated pleasure it brings. Thus several factors like marriage, friends and career influence the food trajectory of the obese man. The obese man‟s food trajectories affect his weight trajectory and have a negative impact on his experience of self. His overweight body gives rise to distressing physical constraints and causes emotional experiences of sadness. He is unable to make peace with his obese state and needs to consciously address the situation. Coping strategies used by the obese participants were critical in their handling of their obesity. In the process of self-appraisal they needed confirmation that they could handle the problem so that it did not influence the way they experienced their physical and inner selves. Regardless of all the coping strategies adopted, the participants were not totally able to handle their plight. It actually got worse and impacted extremely negatively on their well-being. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / gm2014 / Consumer Science / unrestricted