Forensic evidence often involves an evaluation of whether two impressions were made by the same source, such as whether a fingerprint from a crime scene has detail in agreement with an impression taken from a suspect. Human experts currently outperform computer-based comparison systems, but the strength of the evidence exemplified by the observed detail in agreement must be evaluated against the possibility that some other individual may have created the crime scene impression. Therefore, the strongest evidence comes from features in (...) agreement that are also not shared with other impressions from other individuals. We characterize the nature of human expertise by applying two extant metrics to the images used in a fingerprint recognition task and use eye gaze data from experts to both tune and validate the models. The Attention via Information Maximization model quantifies the rarity of regions in the fingerprints to determine diagnosticity for purposes of excluding alternative sources. The CoVar model captures relationships between low-level features, mimicking properties of the early visual system. Both models produced classification and generalization performance in the 75%–80% range when classifying where experts tend to look. A validation study using regions identified by the AIM model as diagnostic demonstrates that human experts perform better when given regions of high diagnosticity. The computational nature of the metrics may help guard against wrongful convictions, as well as provide a quantitative measure of the strength of evidence in casework. (shrink)

In the article, I outline the main layers that are fundamental to the construction of Bulgarian political culture. At the beginning of the text, I clarify the concept of political culture. The examined layers are four: geographical, Balkan, Orthodox, and national. These layers, in particular, have a determining influence on the character of Bulgarian political culture in the modern history of Bulgaria.

We use Concurrent Game Models (CGM) in which simple conditional promises are assigned the role of negotiation steps aiming to represent the formation of temporary coalitions and their agendas. By transforming these extended CGMs into equivalent CGMs with incomplete information, established methods for rational synthesis become enabled. The interpretation of promises is compatible with that of announcements as in dynamic epistemic logics. To accommodate requirements on plays that are written wrt the runs of the original model, we use temporal projection (...) that hides negotiation steps. (shrink)

Review on Vaclav Nemec, Marius Victorinus: The Consubstantiality of The Trinity OIKOYMENH, Prague, 2006.

Cet article se propose d’étudier la manière dont la traduction reflète le rapport à l’identité culturelle et nationale, et à l’altérité, en prenant pour exemples les systèmes littéraires français et bulgares, à partir de la création de l’alphabet glagolitique par Constantin-Cyrille le Philosophe vers 862 et du Serment de Strasbourg de 842, jusqu’au XIXe siècle, en passant par la Renaissance, d’une part, et le Réveil national bulgare, d’autre part. Les discours des traducteurs français et bulgares servent ici de révélateur des (...) représentations qu’ils ont du statut de leur propre langue ou culture, mais aussi de celles à partir desquelles ils traduisent, ainsi que de leur manière d’appréhender « soi » et « les autres ». Un tel parcours met au jour la nécessité pour l’Europe multiculturelle de se doter d’une histoire de la traduction, afin de mieux comprendre les enjeux de la traduction à l’heure de la mondialisation.This article looks into the effects of translation on consciousness of cultural and national identity and otherness. As examples, we use the French and Bulgarian literary systems from the time of the creation of the Glagolitic alphabet by Constantine-Cyril “the Philosopher” around 862 and the “Oath of Strasbourg” pledged in 842, and up to the 19th century, including the Renaissance on the one hand and the Bulgarian National Awakening on the other. The discourses of French and Bulgarian translators are used as material revealing their representations of the status of their own language and culture, and of those they translated from, and the different ways of apprehending “self” and “others”. What transpires from this study is a need for Europe as a multicultural area to write its own history of translation, as a way of achieving a better understanding of translation as an issue in the context of globalisation. (shrink)

This article presents results from simulations studying the hypothesis that mechanisms for landmark-based navigation could have served as preadaptations for compositional language. It is argued that sharing directions would significantly have helped bridge the gap between general and language-specific cognitive faculties. A number of different levels of navigational and communicative abilities are considered, resulting in a range of possible evolutionary paths. The selective pressures for, resp. against, increased complexity in either faculty are then evaluated for a range of environments. The (...) study aims specifically to identify whether there is a viable evolutionary path leading to compositional language, and if so, under what circumstances. The results show that environmental conditions can render a step towards more complex communication either desirable or harmul, and suggest that very specific initial conditions and changes in the environment, resp. the ecological niche occupied, would have been needed to select for compositional language. Subject to these conditions, a (proto)language using order, but no hierarchical structure could evolve. This represents a middle ground, which brings closer hypotheses about syntax that have so far appeared difficult to reconcile. (shrink)

This article presents results from simulations studying the hypothesis that mechanisms for landmark-based navigation could have served as preadaptations for compositional language. It is argued that sharing directions would significantly have helped bridge the gap between general and language-specific cognitive faculties. A number of different levels of navigational and communicative abilities are considered, resulting in a range of possible evolutionary paths. The selective pressures for, resp. against, increased complexity in either faculty are then evaluated for a range of environments. The (...) study aims specifically to identify whether there is a viable evolutionary path leading to compositional language, and if so, under what circumstances. The results show that environmental conditions can render a step towards more complex communication either desirable or harmul, and suggest that very specific initial conditions and changes in the environment, resp. the ecological niche occupied, would have been needed to select for compositional language. Subject to these conditions, a language using order, but no hierarchical structure could evolve. This represents a middle ground, which brings closer hypotheses about syntax that have so far appeared difficult to reconcile. (shrink)

We present a variant of ATL with incomplete information which includes the distributed knowledge operators corresponding to synchronous action and perfect recall. The cooperation modalities assume the use the distributed knowledge of coalitions and accordingly refer to perfect recall incomplete information strategies. We propose a model-checking algorithm for the logic. It is based on techniques for games with imperfect information and partially observable objectives, and involves deciding emptiness for automata on infinite trees. We also propose an axiomatic system and prove (...) its completeness for a rather expressive subset. As for the constructs left outside this completely axiomatised subset, we present axioms by which they can be defined in the subset on the class of models in which every state has finitely many successors and give a complete axiomatisation for a “flat” subset of the logic with these constructs included. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 204 Seiten: 315-339.

This paper presents an w-completeness theorem for a new propositional probabilistic logic, namely, the dynamic propositional logic of qualitative probabilities (DQP), which has been introduced by the author as a dynamic extension of the logic of qualitative probabilities (Q P) introduced by Segerberg.

We present a complete axiomatisation of the operator of projection onto state in the Duration Calculus relative to validity in DC without extending constructs. Projection onto state was introduced and studied extensively in our earlier works. We first establish the completeness of a system of axioms and proof rules for the operator relative to validity in the extension of DC by neighbourhood formulas, which express the neighbourhood values of boolean DC state expressions. By establishing a relatively complete axiomatisation for the (...) neighbourhood formulas in DC, we then achieve completeness of our system relative to basic DC. (shrink)

Gabbay's separation theorem about linear temporal logic with past has proved to be one of the most useful theoretical results in temporal logic. In this paper, we establish an analogous statement a...

This paper presents a new kind of interpolation theorems about Neighbourhood Logic and Interval Temporal Logic . Unlike Craig interpolation, which holds for these logics too, the new theorems treat the existence of interpolants which specify properties of selected intervals in the models of NL and ITL.

We generalise an interval-related interpolation theorem about abstract-time Interval Temporal Logic, which was first obtained in [GUE 01]. The generalisation is based on the abstract-time variant of a projection operator in the Duration Calculus, which was introduced in [DAN 99] and later studied extensively in [GUE 02]. We propose a way to understand interpolation in the context of formal verification. We give an example showing that, unlike abstract-time ITL, DC does not have the Craig interpolation property in general, and establish (...) a special form of Craig interpolation for abstract-time DC. Explicit definability after Beth is known to be strongly related to Craig interpolation in general. We show a limitation of a different kind to the scope of Beth definability in ITL by a counterexample too. We call the generalisation of interval-related interpolation that we present projection-related interpolation. The DC-specific restrictions apply to it too. We show that both Craig and projection-related interpolation hold about the ⌈P⌉-subset of DC without such restrictions. Our proofs of these theorems for the ⌈P⌉-subset entail algorithms for the construction of the interpolants. (shrink)

The emphasis is on the research approach applied in the last monograph of Prof. Nikolay Milkov. It is about studying the early sources of analytical philosophy, and especially in German literature from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, he dwells on the Bulgarian philosophers Dimitar Mihalchev and Tseko Torbov. Dimitar Mihalchev publishes in German a monograph “Philosophical Studies. A Contribution to the Critique of Modern Psychologism” (Leipzig, 1909), which J. Moore evaluated. Tseko Torbov is an assistant to (...) the neo-Kantian Leonard Nelson. Prof. Nikolay Milkov does not fail to mention these small presences of Bulgarian philosophers in the Western European intellectual panorama. (shrink)

The review is for a new study by Prof. Veselin Petrov, which is dedicated to the application of A. Whitehead's philosophical ideas in education and learning. For the Anglo-American thinker, this is an area that is very important for the development of civilization and therefore devotes dozens of studies on this topic.

Open peer commentary on the article “Designing Academic Conferences in the Light of Second-Order Cybernetics” by Laurence D. Richards. Upshot: This commentary gives voice to Richards’s desire to move away from traditional formats, such as the paper presentation, by digressing from the OPC format by illustrating how the proposal inspires and disseminates rather than merely adding any critical commentary.

A simplified derivation of the Gudder-Hemion quantum probability formula is proposed. Defining configurations as the classical (q, p) deterministic states and generalized action as the (quantum) generating function of a canonical transformation, we obtain the usual quantization rules (for arbitrary polynomial quantities) and derive the Schrödinger wave equation on the same grounds. This approach suggests a statistical interpretation of the wave function in terms of the classical canonical transformations.

In cooperation with the Philosophical Faculty of Sofia University, the Bulgarian Philosophical Society organized the conference "Phenomenologies: the legacies of Edmund Husserl," which took place on 6 and 7 November 2015, and became the founding event of BFO-Fenomenologia – the Phenomenological Association as a community of the Bulgarian Philosophical Society. The Association offers a new home for Bulgarian scholars and groups from different phenomenological currents.

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 112 Heft: 1 Seiten: 272-274.

Environmental, social and ethical issues have become increasingly important for businesses due to changed customer expectations, more regulation and stakeholder pressure, amongst others. This led to the development of concepts such as sustainability management, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder management and business ethics. Though mostly developed in isolation, scholars have increasingly worked on their integration. This editorial sheds light on overlaps between these concepts. We find that sustainability management and CSR have become more integrated and are increasingly grounded in an “embedded (...) view“ in which business and society is part of the natural environment. In contrast, business ethics has not been integrated to the same extent, expect for the subfield of environmental ethics. After this general overview, we introduce the individual contributions to the special issue which are advancing the conceptual and empirical foundation of sustainability management, CSR, and business ethics. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 107 Heft: 2 Seiten: 903-932.

The previously introduced algorithm \sqema\ computes first-order frame equivalents for modal formulae and also proves their canonicity. Here we extend \sqema\ with an additional rule based on a recursive version of Ackermann's lemma, which enables the algorithm to compute local frame equivalents of modal formulae in the extension of first-order logic with monadic least fixed-points \mffo. This computation operates by transforming input formulae into locally frame equivalent ones in the pure fragment of the hybrid mu-calculus. In particular, we prove that (...) the recursive extension of \sqema\ succeeds on the class of `recursive formulae'. We also show that a certain version of this algorithm guarantees the canonicity of the formulae on which it succeeds. (shrink)