Dimensionality reduction in complex models

As a part of the Managing Uncertainty in Complex Models (MUCM) project, research at Aston University will develop methods for dimensionality reduction of the input and/or output spaces of models, as seen within the emulator framework. Towards this end this report describes a framework for generating toy datasets, whose underlying structure is understood, to facilitate early investigations of dimensionality reduction methods and to gain a deeper understanding of the algorithms employed, both in terms of how effective they are for given types of models / situations, and also their speed in applications and how this scales with various factors. The framework, which allows the evaluation of both screening and projection approaches to dimensionality reduction, is described. We also describe the screening and projection methods currently under consideration and present some preliminary results. The aim of this draft of the report is to solicit feedback from the project team on the dataset generation framework, the methods we propose to use, and suggestions for extensions that should be considered.

Place, ethnicity and poverty in England’

Examination of the relationship between ethnicity, poverty and place has tended to focus on the spatial distribution of minority ethnic groups. This summary paper reviews some key themes in this literature, in order to review the following key questions: •Where are different ethnic groups located, and how does this location relate to their experience of poverty? •Is clustering a good or bad thing, and what is the role of location – regardless of concentration – in terms of impacts on access to housing, employment, and other resources? However, it is notable that existing research in this area continues to present ethnicity as a factor that shapes outcomes only for minority ethnic groups. A wider discussion increasingly recognises the working of ethnicity in the lives of majority communities. Some of the most consistently impoverished areas in Britain, for example, are in regions with relatively small minority ethnic communities. For example, examinations of poverty in Cornwall (Cemlyn, et al., 2002) and Wales (Kenway and Palmer, 2007) identify longstanding concentrations of poverty and social exclusion among relatively static populations. Instead of assuming that ethnic identity influences propensity to poverty when concentrated in particular places, the experiences of Cornwall and Wales encourage us to consider the manner in which places of poverty also have an ethnic character and the impact of this in the wider experience of poverty. In what follows, and in order to reflect the existing literature, we review key points in the debate about the spatial concentration of minority ethnic groups and the impact of this concentration on experiences of poverty. Where possible, we seek to extend these ideas to consider possible implications for spaces of poverty characterised by concentrations of majority ethnic groups.

Probabilistic resource space model for managing resources in cyber-physical society

Classification is the most basic method for organizing resources in the physical space, cyber space, socio space and mental space. To create a unified model that can effectively manage resources in different spaces is a challenge. The Resource Space Model RSM is to manage versatile resources with a multi-dimensional classification space. It supports generalization and specialization on multi-dimensional classifications. This paper introduces the basic concepts of RSM, and proposes the Probabilistic Resource Space Model, P-RSM, to deal with uncertainty in managing various resources in different spaces of the cyber-physical society. P-RSM’s normal forms, operations and integrity constraints are developed to support effective management of the resource space. Characteristics of the P-RSM are analyzed through experiments. This model also enables various services to be described, discovered and composed from multiple dimensions and abstraction levels with normal form and integrity guarantees. Some extensions and applications of the P-RSM are introduced.

The Knowledge: Its Presentation and Role in Recognition Systems

The concept of knowledge is the central one used when solving the various problems of data mining and pattern recognition in finite spaces of Boolean or multi-valued attributes. A special form of knowledge representation, called implicative regularities, is proposed for applying in two powerful tools of modern logic: the inductive inference and the deductive inference. The first one is used for extracting the knowledge from the data. The second is applied when the knowledge is used for calculation of the goal attribute values. A set of efficient algorithms was developed for that, dealing with Boolean functions and finite predicates represented by logical vectors and matrices.

Lp Microlocal Properties for Multi-Quasi-Elliptic Pseudodifferential Operators

2010 Mathematics Subject Classification: Primary 35S05; Secondary 35A17.

Generalized Backscattering and the Lax-Phillips Transform

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 35P25, 35R30, 58J50.

Square and compass: Freemasonry's tools for constructing a global civil society

The concept of a global civil society is gaining greater acceptance among International Relations (IR) scholars, yet few studies exist that look at the role of fraternal organizations and their influence in constructing this realm. Freemasonry, one of the oldest fraternal orders, exerts a powerful influence on its membership through its symbolism, architecture and ritual, based on the tenets of mutual respect and tolerance towards all human beings. Such principles helped in creating a body of practices and institutions as early as the eighteenth century which two hundred years later were identified and conceptualized as global civil society. ^ The allegations of anti-Masons and conspiracy theorists offer a continuous account of Masonry's influence on the political scene since its modern founding in 1717 Great Britain. Conspiracy theorists portray the coming of a New World Order, orchestrated and directed by a secret hierarchy of Masons/Illuminati. Even though the lens of conspiracy theories paints a distorted view of reality, it does focus attention to Freemasonry's activities as a major player in politics over the span of three centuries. Not only do such theories challenge the novelty of practices that make up a global civil society, but also the notion that it is an inclusive and growing sector that unites people across the globe. They also provide a valuable critique by pointing out the inconsistencies and discriminatory practices of Masonry as contrasted with the lofty ideals and aims for humanity. ^ The Masonic influence in the social world is perceived as one that reflects the liberal worldview where the nation-state and power structures are in pursuit of human progress, or profit. The symbolism of Masonry, however, carries a message that can be characterized as representing republican ideals. Masonic symbolism and ritual create spaces of meaning where the contradictions between the ideals and the structures of inequality and elitism can be resolved. Freemasonry as a symbolic system proclaiming their inherent republican values does have a global reach. However, the effectiveness of these values is bounded by the constraints that are inherent in a liberal world dominated by nation-states. ^

Trans Terrains: Gendered Embodiments and Religious Landscapes in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Transgendered Indonesians live in the fourth most populated nation in the world with more Muslims than any other country. This thesis summarizes an ethnography conducted on one religiously oriented male-to-female transgender community known in the city of Yogyakarta as the waria. This study analyzes the waria’s gender and religious identities from an emic and etic perspective, focusing on how individuals comport themselves inside the world’s first transgender mosque-like institution called a pesantren waria. The waria take their name from the Indonesian words wanita (woman) and pria (man). I will chart how this male-to-female population create spaces of spiritual belonging and physical security within a territory that has experienced geo-religio-political insecurity: natural disasters, fundamentalist movements, and toppling dictatorships. This work illuminates how the waria see themselves as biologically male, not men. Anatomy is not what gives the waria their gender, their feminine expression and sexual attraction does. Although the waria self-identity as women/waria, in a religious context they perform as men, not women.

Espaço de todos ou de ninguém: análise morfológica de transformações espaciais dos Conjuntos Residenciais Parque Serrambi em Natal/ RN

This work analyses the effects of form over the emergence of new patterns of use and occupation in public spaces of housing estates designed in the 1980s and 1990s in Natal’s municipality (Brazil). We start from the premise that form acts on social process (HILLIER; HANSON, 1984), and verify how much the original spatial configuration of Parque Serrambi housing states contributed to the creation of new spatial patterns following the interventions of the people living there. The Serrambi states were built in Natal’s south based on an urbanization model following modernist’s principals and aimed to supply demands for popular dwellings. They were one of the last estates financed by the former National Dwelling Bank (BNH) and supervised by the Dwelling Cooperatives Orientation Institute (INOCOOP), materialized a spatial form different from the highrise dwelling experiences from the same period. The results were obtained through configurational analysis based on Space Syntax conceptual and methodological framework, in which space and society are viewed as interrelated. The analyses was based on represanting and quantifying spatial properties and identificatying social patterns related to the interventions. We identified that the original spatial configurations, associated to subtle changes in the states social patterns, analysed independently of non-morphological categories, gave way to the occupation patterns verrified in both Serrambi cases.

Ações de cuidado nas relações intrageracionais em crianças em acolhimento institucional

According to the Statute of Children and Adolescents (1990) children and adolescents are conceived as subjects of rights, with absolute priority and development peculiar condition. Thus, if these rights were violated or threatened, will be applied protection measures. Within these measures, in that Statute, the foster institutional is proposed, with transitional and exceptional character. When the child goes out from family and community life, and she is upheld in an institution, the child is placed in a new development context, therefore, with new people, new places, and new relationships. According with Socio-Historical Psychology, theoretical support of this study, each context presents specific demands of socialization that influence child development and her subjectivity is constituted through the relations that the subject establishes in each context. These contexts bring challenges and proposals for the child and she needs to respond these. Then, whereas he is in relation to the other, in this moment, the subject is constituted, the interactions established during the foster institutional will be of paramount importance to the child. Among these interactions, we can cite situations involving aspects of moral development, specifically those that can ask (or not) the exercise of the virtues. About the intersection between these actions can then arise care actions beyond those involving the attending of an emerging need. The objective of this study is to investigate the presence of relation everyday permeated by care actions among children in foster institutional. For the scope of the objective three children were participated, with three years old and in foster care measure. The research is qualitative and the procedure for building the corpus was, mainly, the participant observation. Procedures with video and history in books were also used as supplementary procedures. The analysis of the corpus was made through Thematic Content Analysis, the episodes were grouped into analysis categories pre-and post-established. The preestablished were care actions related to body care, care actions related to socio affective aspects, and care actions related to body care and socio affective aspects simultaneously. The two post-established categories were dismemberment of the preceding categories, called care actions developed in child-child interaction, without the intervention of an adult, and care actions developed in child-child interaction, with direct intervention of the educator. The analysis indicated that in the everyday interaction between foster children, they identify the physical and emotional needs of each other foster member, and they are willing to help them in whatever way they can, emphasizing the importance of play and playful moments like mediators about these interactions. The care actions observed are based on children´s concepts and interpretations made from their experiences and largely refer to maternal care. The condition of being away from their family life can be an element that enables these actions. Finally, this study reaffirms the importance of designing the foster institution as a socialization and care space. It follows the importance of valuing and strengthening the positive aspects that arise in the relationships established by the children in this context, including the care actions, the research objective, which are components of the subjectivity of these children

Uma escola e muitos sentidos: um estudo com os sujeitos jovens da EJA na Escola Estadual 15 de Outubro

Work that aims to understand the meanings attributed to school knowledge by young students of the EJA State School 15 October, located in the Natal’s North Zone. Young people were elected as the focus of interest for having a numerical expression increased in groups of adult education EJA, but above all, they demand for new issues and specific to school. For the research, we used methodologically the Comprehensive Interview organized by Kaufmann (2013), making use of its own analytical and organization of information, captured through semi-structured interviews and on-site observation. Whereas the meaning ascribed to it in relation to the school knowledge conditions the way to experience the school, sought the theoretical constructions of Bernard Charlot (2000; 2005), the understanding of knowledge as a relation of the subject with you, with each other and with the world, so we know beyond the object content. Analytical work incorporates also the contributions of Marc Augé (1994, 1997) with respect to the understanding of meaning as a social construction. Reflections were also made in light of Michel de Certeau (2012), in that it allows you to take the students as active subjects and producers of survival tactics in life and at school. From the speech of students, seized three units of meaning, namely: the learning considered most important by young students, which make up a set of ethical and moral values; the school as a guarantee of "a better future", in which young people seek to ensure a job in adulthood, however, from a "magical relationship" with knowledge, in that the target of young students is more the certificate completion of the level of education they attend, which is not necessarily associated with school learning. The third core seized sense is the school as a place of socialization, that is, a space where you can meet with friends to talk. There is therefore a relationship with knowledge that is prestigious for the youth of adult education EJA; there is an objective expectation of these students about the school; and they do "use" of the institution to "meetings" that are not necessarily with the curricular knowledge. Consider, therefore, these questions which hold school sense of reframing, is part of an effort to understand the subject of adult education EJA and helps to think ways to ensure continuity and their success in the institution.

Desenho de deficiência visual: uma experiência no ensino de artes visuais na perspectiva da educação inclusiva

Over the past 30 years, Art Education in interface with disabilities has been a subject of increasing interest in research in academia, especially with regard to Special Education, but still has some shortages in terms of socialization studies to discuss this type of teaching from the perspective of inclusive education. In this scenario, this paper presents an analysis from the field of teaching Visual Arts in the context of school inclusion, with emphasis on teaching drawing to the visually impaired. The conducted literature indicates a number of authors who discuss teaching drawing to people with visual disabilities, who are dedicated primarily to the Special Education context. In this sense, the shortage of research that discuss this teaching from the perspective of inclusive education, this research aimed at the inclusive approach to teaching drawing in the school context. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop a proposal for a pedagogical intervention in Visual Arts, with reference to drawing and its construction process, with the participation of seeing and unseeing students. Therefore, the methodological approach, which was qualitative, was the intervention research, in the light of the Bakhtinian principles of dialogism and otherness, with exploratory study characteristics. The locus of the research was the State School Admiral Newton Braga Faria, which is located in Alecrim, on the East Zone of Natal / RN and is near the Institute for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind - IERC / RN. The class chosen for intervention was the 7th grade “C” afternoon shift, which had children aged 12 to 16, with 27 students enrolled, three students with disabilities: 02 blind girls and 01 deafblind boy with light hearing and visual loss. As interlocutors of the research, we could also count on the Art teacher who served as a collaborator, as well as teacher in the school’s Multifunction Resource Room. The instruments and research procedures were observation, semi-structured interview, field diary and the photo / video recording. In the development of research, we conducted 10 workshops with multisensory teaching sequences, articulating the physical, tactile and graphical expressions as intrinsic to the reading and production of drawing for both seeing and unseeing students. The process and data built on research allowed for a reflection on cultural experiences with drawing in the school context and on the interactions between seeing and unseeing students in the production and analysis of tactile-visual drawings. They also point out the construction of a teaching approach to drawing, in the context of the common class, from educational workshops that enable artistic and aesthetic interactions from the perspective of school inclusiveness. Thus, we argued that the mobilization of the tactile, physical and graphical expressions can be adopted in a multisensory approach that enables a pedagogical focus that involves all students and is not restricted to the presence of students with visual impairment.

“Acham que brotamos das fontes dessa cidade?”: uma etnografia sobre o cotidiano de sobrevivência de pessoas em situação de rua em Nata/RN

Through participant observation, held in the administrative region east of Natal / RN, this research aimed to understand about the daily life of men and women living on the streets in the city. How they relate to the space where they live? In this relationship, which uses and survival strategies triggered by this social segment? These were some of the questions that guided this research, in order to highlight the specificities of this way of life and the possible consequences that such a situation could reverberate. In this sense, there was an effort to keep up with people on the streets, their itineraries and seize their narratives. Along the search path - which took place intermittently between the years 2011-2015 - attended spaces of occupation and traffic of this population group in the street, as well as insert me and got involved in events, forums, seminars, meetings and subject of joints on the streets as a political movement (MNPR / RN). They are considered in this study as people on the street to those who occupy the street as their main space of survival and ordering of daily life: in the streets sleep, feed themselves, meet the physiological and hygienic needs, and is where draw sustenance. The street is taken in this research in its broadest sense, including all possible places relatively protected from the cold, rain and exposure to violence, thus includes both open and public spaces: as squares and parks; but also closed and private places: hostels, abandoned warehouses, prisons, etc. It was observed that in none of these spaces guys on the street are established in a fixed manner, in contrast, they experience the roaming, which in part is due to urban systems - which tends to stigmatize them and delete them places - and the very need to survive, because while living in the street differentiated practices are triggered, and these differ from the dominant mode of sedentary life.

“Acham que brotamos das fontes dessa cidade?”: uma etnografia sobre o cotidiano de sobrevivência de pessoas em situação de rua em Nata/RN

Through participant observation, held in the administrative region east of Natal / RN, this research aimed to understand about the daily life of men and women living on the streets in the city. How they relate to the space where they live? In this relationship, which uses and survival strategies triggered by this social segment? These were some of the questions that guided this research, in order to highlight the specificities of this way of life and the possible consequences that such a situation could reverberate. In this sense, there was an effort to keep up with people on the streets, their itineraries and seize their narratives. Along the search path - which took place intermittently between the years 2011-2015 - attended spaces of occupation and traffic of this population group in the street, as well as insert me and got involved in events, forums, seminars, meetings and subject of joints on the streets as a political movement (MNPR / RN). They are considered in this study as people on the street to those who occupy the street as their main space of survival and ordering of daily life: in the streets sleep, feed themselves, meet the physiological and hygienic needs, and is where draw sustenance. The street is taken in this research in its broadest sense, including all possible places relatively protected from the cold, rain and exposure to violence, thus includes both open and public spaces: as squares and parks; but also closed and private places: hostels, abandoned warehouses, prisons, etc. It was observed that in none of these spaces guys on the street are established in a fixed manner, in contrast, they experience the roaming, which in part is due to urban systems - which tends to stigmatize them and delete them places - and the very need to survive, because while living in the street differentiated practices are triggered, and these differ from the dominant mode of sedentary life.

Centelhas de uma cidade turística nos cartões-postais de Jaeci Galvão (1940-1980)

The postcard is a medium that has gained popularity at the time that the picture was linked to its support. It circulated favoring mainly the views of the cities and composed a triad between landscape, photography and tourism. The visuality that loads is among signs of representations, relationships, forms of collective consciousness and ways of seeing the world. In Natal, the photographer Jaeci Emereciano Galvão registered urban and social transformations focusing on interventions that emphasized urban centres as social space and progress and nature as a space for contemplation and enjoyment. They are images with social and cultural issues very clear, since the picture is from a process of creation that is all about choices and decisions about what deserves to be photographed. Therefore, the aim of this research by investigating the role of photographs evidenced in Jaeci’s postcards, with a view to inclusion of tourism in the spaces of Natal and the visuality assumed in the context of their own identity. The theoretical framework that makes up the discussions about the landscape, the city's tourism and photographic representation in postcards emerged from the literature of Schama (1996), Corbin (1989), Cosgrove (1998), Benjamin (1987), Kossoy (2003; 2006; 2009) and Souza Martins (2009), which gave grants to interpret and understand the symbolic construction presented in the postcards. Methodologically the work was done through research in archives, newspapers, postcards of the survey, interviews, iconographic and iconological analyses proposed by Kossoy. At the end, it was concluded the Jaeci Galvão’s postcards established themselves as essential elements for symbolic landscapes of tourism in Natal.