On Y. Nievergelt's Inversion Formula for the Radon Transform

Mathematics Subject Classification 2010: 42C40, 44A12.

Critical Exponents of Semilinear Equations via the Feynman-Kac Formula

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 60H30, 35K55, 35K57, 35B35.

The Legendre Formula in Clifford Analysis

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 30A05, 33E05, 30G30, 30G35, 33E20.

Misrepresentations and flawed logic about the prevalence of false memories

Brewin and Andrews (2016) propose that just 15% of people, or even fewer, are susceptible to false childhood memories. If this figure were true, then false memories would still be a serious problem. But the figure is higher than 15%. False memories occur even after a few short and low-pressure interviews, and with each successive interview they become richer, more compelling, and more likely to occur. It is therefore dangerously misleading to claim that the scientific data provide an “upper bound” on susceptibility to memory errors. We also raise concerns about the peer review process.

A kínai reformfolyamat politikai gazdaságtani logikája (The politico-economic logic of the Chinese reform process)

Kína az elmúlt több mint három évtizedben szegény, elmaradott országból a világgazdaság egyik legfontosabb szereplője lett. Szocialista rendszerét egy sajátos kapitalista rendszer váltotta fel, miközben politikai struktúrája lényegében változatlan maradt. A folyamatok során a vezetés mindvégig ügyelt arra, hogy a kommunista párt egyeduralmát semmi se veszélyeztethesse, ugyanakkor megfelelő források álljanak rendelkezésre hatalma megtartásához. A tanulmány a kínai reformfolyamatot politikai gazdaságtani szempontból vizsgálja, különös figyelmet szentelve az intézményi változásoknak. Bemutatja, milyen okok és tényezők álltak a reformok elindításának hátterében, milyen változások következtek be a szereplők érdekviszonyaiban a reformok előrehaladtával, és mire lehet számítani a reformok jövőjét illetően. Úgy tűnik, hogy a jelenlegi rendszer érdekviszonyai a reformok folytatása ellen hatnak, ellehetetlenítve a piacgazdaság intézményrendszerének további kiépítését. A járadékok és privilégiumok az elitet abban sem teszik érdekeltté, hogy komolyabb politikai reformokat hajtson végre, így a kialakuló csapdahelyzet megakadályozza az átmenet kiteljesedését. ____ In the last three decades China has risen from being a poor and underdeveloped country to being one of the most important players in the world economy. Its planned economy has been replaced by a capitalist system, but its political structure has remained essentially unchanged. The leaders during the reform process have sought constantly to avert dangers to the rule of the Communist Party and gain access to valuable resources that allow power to be retained. The study approaches the Chinese reform process from a politico-economic point of view, focusing primarily on institutional changes. It reveals the main factors behind the various phases of reform, the constantly changing interests of the players, and the possible future of the process. It seems that under the current authoritarian regime, there are vested interests working against a continuation of the reforms and precluding full establishment of the institutional framework of a market economy. The elite is also deterred from implementing serious political reforms by the current rents and privileges. This leads to a trap that prevents completion of the transition process.

Corporate cash-pool valuation in a multi-firm context: a closed formula

Following our earlier paper on the subject, we present a general closed formula to value the interest savings due to a multi-firm cash-pool system. Assuming normal distribution of the accounts the total savings can be expressed as the product of three independent factors representing the interest spread, the number and the correlation of the firms, and the time-dependent distribution of the cash accounts. We derive analytic results for two special processes one characterizing the initial build-up period and the other describing the mature period. The value gained in the stationary system can be thought of as the interest, paid at the net interest spread rate on the standard deviation of the account. We show that pooling has substantial value already in the transient period. In order to increase the practical relevance of our analysis we discuss possible extensions of our model and we show how real option pricing technics can be applied here.

Pavement performance prediction using adaptive logic networks

Pavement performance is one of the most important components of the pavement management system. Prediction of the future performance of a pavement section is important in programming maintenance and rehabilitation needs. Models for predicting pavement performance have been developed on the basis of traffic and age. The purpose of this research is to extend the use of a relatively new approach to performance prediction in pavement performance modeling using adaptive logic networks (ALN). Adaptive logic networks have recently emerged as an effective alternative to artificial neural networks for machine learning tasks. ^ The ALN predictive methodology is applicable to a wide variety of contexts including prediction of roughness based indices, composite rating indices and/or individual pavement distresses. The ALN program requires key information about a pavement section, including the current distress indexes, pavement age, climate region, traffic and other variables to predict yearly performance values into the future. ^ This research investigates the effect of different learning rates of the ALN in pavement performance modeling. It can be used at both the network and project level for predicting the long term performance of a road network. Results indicate that the ALN approach is well suited for pavement performance prediction modeling and shows a significant improvement over the results obtained from other artificial intelligence approaches. ^

An approach for design and analysis of User-centric Communication Middleware

Today, the development of domain-specific communication applications is both time-consuming and error-prone because the low-level communication services provided by the existing systems and networks are primitive and often heterogeneous. Multimedia communication applications are typically built on top of low-level network abstractions such as TCP/UDP socket, SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol) APIs. The User-centric Communication Middleware (UCM) is proposed to encapsulate the networking complexity and heterogeneity of basic multimedia and multi-party communication for upper-layer communication applications. And UCM provides a unified user-centric communication service to diverse communication applications ranging from a simple phone call and video conferencing to specialized communication applications like disaster management and telemedicine. It makes it easier to the development of domain-specific communication applications. The UCM abstraction and API is proposed to achieve these goals. The dissertation also tries to integrate the formal method into UCM development process. The formal model is created for UCM using SAM methodology. Some design errors are found during model creation because the formal method forces to give the precise description of UCM. By using the SAM tool, formal UCM model is translated to Promela formula model. In the dissertation, some system properties are defined as temporal logic formulas. These temporal logic formulas are manually translated to promela formulas which are individually integrated with promela formula model of UCM and verified using SPIN tool. Formal analysis used here helps verify the system properties (for example multiparty multimedia protocol) and dig out the bugs of systems.

An automatic tuning strategy for local fuzzy logic ramp metering algorithm using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)

Freeway systems are becoming more congested each day. One contribution to freeway traffic congestion comprises platoons of on-ramp traffic merging into freeway mainlines. As a relatively low-cost countermeasure to the problem, ramp meters are being deployed in both directions of an 11-mile section of I-95 in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The local Fuzzy Logic (FL) ramp metering algorithm implemented in Seattle, Washington, has been selected for deployment. The FL ramp metering algorithm is powered by the Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC). The FLC depends on a series of parameters that can significantly alter the behavior of the controller, thus affecting the performance of ramp meters. However, the most suitable values for these parameters are often difficult to determine, as they vary with current traffic conditions. Thus, for optimum performance, the parameter values must be fine-tuned. This research presents a new method of fine tuning the FLC parameters using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). PSO attempts to optimize several important parameters of the FLC. The objective function of the optimization model incorporates the METANET macroscopic traffic flow model to minimize delay time, subject to the constraints of reasonable ranges of ramp metering rates and FLC parameters. To further improve the performance, a short-term traffic forecasting module using a discrete Kalman filter was incorporated to predict the downstream freeway mainline occupancy. This helps to detect the presence of downstream bottlenecks. The CORSIM microscopic simulation model was selected as the platform to evaluate the performance of the proposed PSO tuning strategy. The ramp-metering algorithm incorporating the tuning strategy was implemented using CORSIM's run-time extension (RTE) and was tested on the aforementioned I-95 corridor. The performance of the FLC with PSO tuning was compared with the performance of the existing FLC without PSO tuning. The results show that the FLC with PSO tuning outperforms the existing FL metering, fixed-time metering, and existing conditions without metering in terms of total travel time savings, average speed, and system-wide throughput.

On the Equivalence between Assumption-Based Argumentation and Logic Programming

Postprint

Explanation, Dialogue and Default Logic

La distinción entre argumentación y explicación es una tarea complicada pero necesaria por diversas razones. Una de ellas es la necesidad de incorporar la explicación en un movimiento del diálogo como resultado de una obligación dialéctica. Se propusieron distintos sistemas de diálogo que exploran la distinción enfatizando aspectos pragmáticos. En el presente trabajo me ocupo de aspectos estructurales de la explicación analizados en el marco de la lógica por defecto que permite caracterizar ciertas objeciones en el diálogo. Asimismo, considero que la versión operacional de la lógica por defecto constituye una aproximaciónadecuada en la construcción de la explicación y en la representación de la instancia de diálogo en el intercambio dialéctico

Rethinking Professional Practice: The Logic of Competition and the Crisis of Identity in Housing Practice

The relationship between professionalism, education and housing practice has become increasingly strained following the introduction of austerity measures and welfare reforms across a range of countries. Focusing on the development of UK housing practice, this article considers how notions of professionalism are being reshaped within the context of welfare retrenchment and how emerging tensions have both affected the identity of housing professionals and impacted on the delivery of training and education programmes. The article analyses the changing knowledges and skills valued in contemporary housing practice and considers how the sector has responded to the challenges of austerity. The central argument is that a dominant logic of competition has culminated in a crisis of identity for the sector. Although the focus of the article is on UK housing practice, the processes identified have a wider relevance for the analysis of housing and welfare delivery in developed economies.

Financial media, globalisation, and China’s economic integration: comparing narrative construction of the Economist and Caijing

In June 2015, legal frameworks of the Asian Infrastructural Investment Bank were signed by its 57 founding members. Proposed and initiated by China, this multilateral development bank is considered to be an Asian counterpart to break the monopoly of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In October 2015, China’s Central Bank announced a benchmark interest rate cut to combat the economic slowdown. The easing policy coincides with the European Central Bank’s announcement of doubts over US Fed’s commitment to raise interest rates. Global stock markets responded positively to China’s move, with the exception of the indexes from Wall Street (Bland, 2015; Elliott, 2015). In the meantime, China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ (or New Silk Road Economic Belt) became atopic of discourse in relation to its growing global economy, as China pledged $40 billion to trade and infrastructure projects (Bermingham, 2015). The foreign policy aims to reinforce the economic belt from western China through Central Asia towards Europe, as well as to construct maritime trading routes from coastal China through the South China Sea (Summers, 2015). In 2012, The Economist launched a new China section, to reveal the complexity of the‘meteoric rise’ of China. John Micklethwait, who was then the chief editor of the magazine, said that China’s emergence as a global power justified giving it a section of its own(Roush, 2012). In July 2015, Hu Shuli, the former chief editor of Caijing, announced the launch of a think tank and financial data service division called Caixin Insight Group, which encompasses the new Caixin China Purchasing Managers Index (PMI). Incooperation with with Markit Group, a principal global provider of PMI, the index soon became a widely cited economic indicator. One anecdote from November’s Caixin shows how much has changed: in a high-profile dialogue between Hu Shuli and Kevin Rudd, Hu insisted on asking questions in English; interestingly, the former Prime Minister of Australia insisted on replying in Chinese. These recent developments point to one thing: the economic ascent of China and its increasing influence on the power play between economics and politics in world markets. China has begun to take a more active role in rule making and enforcement under neoliberal frameworks. However, due to the country’s size and the scale of its economy in comparison to other countries, China’s version of globalisation has unique characteristics. The ‘Capitalist-socialist’ paradox is vital to China’s market-oriented transformation. In order to comprehend how such unique features are articulated and understood, there are several questions worth investigating in the realms of media and communication studies,such as how China’s neoliberal restructuring is portrayed and perceived by different types of interested parties, and how these portrayals are de-contextualised and re-contextualised in global or Anglo-American narratives. Therefore, based on a combination of the themes of globalisation, financial media and China’s economic integration, this thesis attempts to explore how financial media construct the narratives of China’s economic globalisation through the deployment of comparative and multi-disciplinary approaches. Two outstanding elite financial magazines, Britain’s The Economist, which has a global readership and influence, and Caijing, China’s leading financial magazine, are chosen as case studies to exemplify differing media discourses, representing, respectively, Anglo-American and Chinese socio-economic and political backgrounds, as well as their own journalistic cultures. This thesis tries to answer the questions of how and why China’s neoliberal restructuring is constructed from a globally-oriented perspective. The construction primarily involves people who are influential in business and policymaking. Hence, the analysis falls into the paradigm of elite-elite communication, which is an important but relatively less developed perspective in studying China and its globalisation. The comparing of characteristics of narrative construction are the result of the textual analysis of articles published over a ten-year period (mid-1998 to mid-2008). The corpus of samples come from the two media outlets’ coverage of three selected events:China becoming a member of the World Trade Organization, its outward direct investment, and the listing of stocks of Chinese companies in overseas exchanges, which are mutually exclusive in sample collection and collectively exhaustive in the inclusion of articles regarding China’s economic globalisation. The findings help to understand that, despite language, socio-economic and political differences, elite financial media with globally-oriented readerships share similar methods of and approaches to agenda setting, the evaluation of news prominence, the selection of frame, and the advocacy of deeply rooted neoliberal ideas. The comparison of their distinctive features reflects the different phases of building up the sense of identity in their readers as global elites, as well as the different economic interests that are aligned with the corresponding readerships. However, textual analysis is only relevant in terms of exploring how the narratives are constructed and the elements they include; textual analysis alone prevents us from seeing the obstacles and the constrains of the journalistic practices of construction. Therefore, this thesis provides a brief discussion of interviews with practitioners from the two media, in order to understand how similar or different narratives are manifested and perceived, how the concept of neoliberalism deviates from and is justified in the Chinese context, and how and for what purpose deviations arise from Western to Chinese contexts. The thesis also contributes to defining financial media in the domain of elite communication. The relevant and closely interlocking concepts of globalisation, elitism and neoliberalism are discussed, and are used as a theoretical bedrock in the analysis of texts and contexts. It is important to address the agenda-setting and ideological role of elite financial media, because of its narrative formula of infusing business facts with opinions,which is important in constructing the global elite identity as well as influencing neoliberal policy-making. On the other hand, ‘journalistic professionalism’ has been redefined, in that the elite identity is shared by the content producer, reader and the actors in the news stories emerging from the much-compressed news cycle. The professionalism of elite financial media requires a dual definition, that of being professional in the understanding of business facts and statistics, and that of being professional in the making sense of stories by deploying economic logic.

Mental logic and its difficulties with disjunction

The mental logic theory does not accept the disjunction introduction rule of standard propositional calculus as a natural schema of the human mind. In this way, the problem that I want to show in this paper is that, however, that theory does admit another much more complex schema in which the mentioned rule must be used as a previous step. So, I try to argue that this is a very important problem that the mental logic theory needs to solve, and claim that another rival theory, the mental models theory, does not have these difficulties.