Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have emerged as an attractive means of implementing logic circuits, providing instant manufacturing turnaround and negligible prototype costs. They hold the promise of replacing much of the VLSI market now held by mask-programmed gate arrays. FPGAs offer an affordable solution for customized VLSI, over a wide variety of applications, and have also opened up new possibilities in designing reconfigurable digital systems. Field-Programmable Gate Arrays discusses the most important aspects of FPGAs in a textbook manner. It provides (...) the reader with a focused view of the key issues, using a consistent notation and style of presentation. It provides detailed descriptions of commercially available FPGAs and an in-depth treatment of the FPGA architecture and CAD issues that are the subjects of current research. The material presented is of interest to a variety of readers, including those who are not familiar with FPGA technology, but wish to be introduced to it, as well as those who already have an understanding of FPGAs, but who are interested in learning about the research directions that are of current interest. (shrink)

Science and scientific knowledge have been questioned in many ways for a long period of time. Especially, after the scientific revolution of 16th- and 17th-century Europe, science and its knowledge have been mainly accepted one of the most valuable and trustable information. However, in 20th century, autonomy of scientific knowledge and its dominant position over other kinds of knowledge have been mainly criticised. Social and other factors that were tried to be excluded before have been incorporated into the work by (...) the influence of the Strong Programme. In this article, it will be argued that while people are presenting scientific knowledge, their interests, beliefs and the communities they are involved in are also shown to be effective in producing this information. Thus, the desired result is that it is not reasonable to talk about the absolute autonomy of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

The number of International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) schools has increased rapidly in China in recent years. However, access to schools offering the IBDP remains restricted to a relatively elite minority of China’s population due to enrolment barriers for Chinese nationals and relatively high school fees. An implication is that students potentially remain in physical, cultural and socio-economic isolation from host communities. Within this context, this study explored how, and the extent to which, two core components of the IBDP – (...) namely, the Learner Profile and Creativity, Action, Service – help foster inter-cultural understanding between students and other communities within Chinese society. To this end, in mid 2013 interview data were gathered from IBDP teachers, IBDP administrators, and IBDP students from five elite IBDP schools in Beijing and Shanghai. Findings revealed a perception that the Learner Profile could provide a strong theoretical appreciation of the norms and values of other cultures, while Creativity, Action, Service could break down physical divides by offering students an opportunity to interact with people of different cultures and socio-economic groups. Nevertheless, interviewees also noted tensions with the implementation of these components in the context of results-oriented elite IBDP schools in China. (shrink)

Faire de la biologie et penser la biologie constituent deux activités indispensables l'une à l'autre. L'exemple de la " métaphore du programme génétique " nous montre, qu'entre l'explication atomique des physiciens et l'explication vitaliste, il peut y avoir un niveau moléculaire spécifique d'analyse des propriétés du vivant. Cet ouvrage a pour double ambition de montrer comment cette métaphore s'est constituée et quels en sont les éléments discutables. Il se propose d'analyser le processus à travers lequel elle est passée historiquement de (...) l'état de concept dynamique et opératoire à celui d'une image figée de plus en plus décalée de la réalité de la connaissance biologique. (shrink)

Résumé François Morellet parle de « hasard programmé » pour traduire la manière selon laquelle la production de l’œuvre est cadrée : l’artiste accueille ou enregistre les produits d’un processus aléatoire qu’il a suscité. La forme d’automatisme que ce mode de fabrication suppose invite à établir une analogie entre la réalisation de ces objets et certains des principes de la prise photographique, à interroger la portée du « hasard programmé » quand c’est la production d’une photographie qui est en jeu.

Mark Evan Bonds’ recent book, Absolute Music, deepens considerably the historical context within which Eduard Hanslick’s famous treatise on musical beauty can be read. This paper argues that, with the aid of this expanded context, we can understand Hanslick’s treatise to have provided contemporary and subsequent audiences with a kind of meta-programme for listening to symphonic and other non-texted music. That is to say, Hanslick’s text arguably informed and directed the way audiences came to listen to instrumental music by furnishing (...) them with imaginative constructs which could then be applied to the practice of musical listening. In much the same way as the texts which supply the poetic scenarios of so-called programme music, Hanslick’s ‘meta-programme’ became indispensable to an expanding culture of musical listening in the second half of the 19th century and beyond beyond. My claim thus contradicts the well-known formalist tenets of Hanslick’s musical aesthetics. (shrink)

Ce terme, et son équivalent latin « prescription », signifient « texte dont le propos est de provoquer un comportement spécifique de la part de son récepteur ». Le comportement se dépolitise progressivement, pour devenir de plus en plus fonctionnel. Mais, dans cette série progressive, il y a rupture. Toutes les prescriptions, des Dix Commandements jusqu’au mode d’emploi, s’orientent vers l’Homme. Tout programme d’ordinateur, lui, indique une machine. Je proposerai dans cet essai l’idée que la rupture entre l’avant-dernier et le (...) dernier exemple de la série est ce qui nous caractérise. (shrink)

Die Soncino-Gesellschaft war ein bibliophiler Verein, der sich 1924 in Berlin gründete und bis zu seiner Auflösung 1937 über hundert Publikationen aus vielen Gebieten der jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur herausgegeben hat. Sie versammelte Mitglieder aus allen Strömungen des Judentums unter ihrem Dach und entwickelte sich mit ihrem Anspruch, ästhetische Vorbilder für das jüdische Buch zu geben, zu einem jüdischen Integrationsprojekt. Der Beitrag geht den kulturzionistischen Bruchlinien nach, die sich in der zionistischen Rezeption, dem Streit um die hebräische Bibelausgabe und der (...) Positionierung einiger prominenter Protagonisten der Soncino-Gesellschaft zeigen. Diese Bruchlinien blieben jedoch so marginal, dass sie den bibliophilen Konsens nicht gefährdeten. Im historischen Rückblick kann das Programm der Soncino-Gesellschaft vielmehr als Kanon der deutsch-jüdischen Integration in der Diaspora gelesen werden. (shrink)

The strong programme in the sociology of science is officially "inductively" based, generalizing a number of highly acclaimed case studies into a general approach to the social study of science. However, at a critical juncture, the programme allies itself with certain radical ideas in philosophical semantics, notablyWittgenstein's "rule following considerations". The result is an implausible, radical conventionalist view of natural science which undermines the empirical programme.

Reductionist research programmes in psychology, and elsewhere, are typified by a number of research strategies and methodological assumptions. The current essay isolates and examines some typical reductionist assumptions as they have been embodied in psychological research. Through a brief examination of the use of lesion studies coupled with functional deficit analyses, it is argued that localizationist approaches to the study of brain function incorporate at least four interlocking hypotheses. Two of the hypotheses are examined in detail. It is urged that (...) neither is warranted, and there is reason to think each is suspect. (shrink)

Source code is a form of human communication, albeit one where the information shared between the programmers reading and writing the code is constrained by the requirement that the code executes correctly. Programming languages are more syntactically constrained than natural languages, but they are also very expressive, allowing a great many different ways to express even very simple computations. Still, code written by developers is highly predictable, and many programming tools have taken advantage of this phenomenon, relying on language model (...) surprisal as a guiding mechanism. While surprisal has been validated as a measure of cognitive load in natural language, its relation to human cognitive processes in code is still poorly understood. In this paper, we explore the relationship between surprisal and programmer preference at a small granularity—do programmers prefer more predictable expressions in code? Using meaning‐preserving transformations, we produce equivalent alternatives to developer‐written code expressions and run a corpus study on Java and Python projects. In general, language models rate the code expressions developers choose to write as more predictable than these transformed alternatives. Then, we perform two human subject studies asking participants to choose between two equivalent snippets of Java code with different surprisal scores (one original and transformed). We find that programmers do prefer more predictable variants, and that stronger language models like the transformer align more often and more consistently with these preferences. (shrink)

Contents. Introduction. 1. Preliminaries. 2. Normal Form Games. 3. Extensive Games. 4. Applications of Game Theory. 5. The Methodology of Game Theory. Conclusion. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. Does game theory—the mathematical theory of strategic interaction—provide genuine explanations of human behaviour? Can game theory be used in economic consultancy or other normative contexts? Explaining Games: The Epistemic Programme in Game Theory—the first monograph on the philosophy of game theory—is an attempt to combine insights from epistemic logic and the philosophy of science to (...) investigate the applicability of game theory in such fields as economics, philosophy and strategic consultancy. I prove new mathematical theorems about the beliefs, desires and rationality principles of individual human beings, and explore in detail the logical form of game theory as it is used in explanatory and normative contexts. I argue that game theory reduces to rational choice theory if used as an explanatory device, and that game theory is nonsensical if used as a normative device. A provocative account of the history of game theory reveals that this is not bad news for all of game theory, though. Two central research programmes in game theory tried to find the ultimate characterisation of strategic interaction between rational agents. Yet, while the Nash Equilibrium Refinement Programme has done badly thanks to such research habits as overmathematisation, model-tinkering and introversion, the Epistemic Programme, I argue, has been rather successful in achieving this aim. "The 'epistemic' approach to game theory has emerged over the past twenty-five years. What is this approach? How does it differ from the conventional equilibrium-based approach to game theory? What have been its strengths and weaknesses to date? To find out, read this comprehensive and excellently written account". Adam Brandenburger, J. P. Valles Professor of Business Economics and Strategy, Stern School of Business, New York University "Reading Boudewijn de Bruin's book should be rewarding both for game theorists interested in the conceptual foundations of their discipline and for philosophers who want to learn more about formal analysis of strategic interaction. It provides an in-depth logical study of the currently dominant epistemic approaches to non-cooperative games, with an eye both to the attractions and to the serious challenges facing the Epistemic Programme". Wlodek Rabinowicz, Professor of Practical Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Lund University . (shrink)

The program provides psycho-social support to foster adolescents during both their placement in foster families and in transitional period of leaving care, until they manage to cope with independent living. It is concieved as a direct answer to the needs of young people disturbed by the insecure patterns of attachment, who needed an opportunity to explore and modify negative experiences and acquire more successful models on how to build and maintain relationships, how to integrate the past, develop self-esteem and successfully (...) enter the world of adults. It is based on the principles of community psychology, the concept of the group as the transitional object and group dynamics. It was created through interaction with the beneficiaries, with emphasis on their participation and linking with all relevant players on the local level. Applied methods: self-support groups, psychological workshops, supportive activities in socialization and social integration, trainings, educational courses, counselling service, co-operation with foster parents, schools, local community and participation activities with focus on campaigning for development of aftercare services. The Manual, which resulted from the programme, is prompting professionals to develop new services entitled to children and youth and to involve users themselves in the reforms of the system. (shrink)

At the risk of being ostracized (if not annihilated) by the community of Popperians present, I wish to remark that Professor Lakatos is - and, I think - cannot help being, a second-level inductivist. If Professor Kuhn has pointed out (most eruditely) that science quite frequently is in a rut, and occasionally gets out of it (and into a new one), then Professor Lakatos appraises problem and theory shifts, and methodological innova- tions in the sciences, in the light of his (...) criteria of 'progress' or 'degenera- tion'. There can be little doubt that he wishes to serve (at least) in a critical and/or advisory capacity to scientists. But he can do that only if he 'places his bets', i.e., conjectures as to the fruitfulness of a method, and along with it of a theory engendered or supported by such a method along the lines of success or failure, whichever may be plausibly indicated. I find Professor Lakatos's refutations of simple inductivism (here he agrees with Popper), as well as of simple falsificationism (here he disagrees with a caricature of the early Popper), completely convincing. But if he is to fulfill the critical and/or advisory functions, what else can he do but watch the course of the 'shifts' and extrapolate?! (shrink)

Though still viewed as the missing link between recruitment and retention, organisational induction programmes have recently acquired a new function: they can mould the new employee by inducing a positive "first impression" about the organisation and presenting a "caring" company image. Up to now, however, the majority of the induction literature has failed to refer to the political and ethical aspects of this process and analyse the embedded ideological structures and cultural practices through which induction trainers and newcomers construct, reconstruct (...) and deconstruct induction discourses and 'management language'. This paper argues that induction should be treated as a part of an organisational cosmos that is constantly created and re-created, defined and re-defined based on the discursive interactions of its increasingly "sophisticated‟ subjects. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 19 It is argued in this paper that physicalism is best understood as a research programme, rather than a thesis or an attitude, as some philosophers argue. Given that research programmes connect past, present and future philosophical or scientific activities, physicalists need not decide between current and future physical theories, as it has been required by Hempel’s Dilemma. The author contrasts this proposal with other solutions to Hempel’s Dilemma proposed by currentists, futurists, and those philosophers who (...) claim that physicalism should best be understood as an attitude, arguing that understanding physicalism as a research programme avoids problems that are present in the alternative views, and that it matches well with the standard classifications in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Critical thinking continues to be viewed as a prerequisite skill for lifelong learning. It is not surprising therefore, that academic programmes delineate CT as a goal and a learning outcome. However, there are concerns regarding the extent to which the aims and objectives of the programmes are aligned with pedagogies for CT. Both the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme and the Lebanese Baccalaureate Programme clearly delineate CT as a goal and a learning outcome. The study examines the facilitation of teaching CT (...) in the IBDP and LBP. The study was conducted in two schools located in Lebanon; one teaching the IBDP and the other the LBP. Semi structured interviews, questionnaires, and class visits were used to collect data pertaining to the teaching of CT in the two programmes in grades 11 and 12. The study is pioneering in studying the contribution of both programmes to the teaching of CT in Lebanese schools. (shrink)

The Euclidean Programme embodies a traditional sort of epistemological foundationalism, according to which knowledge – especially mathematical knowledge – is obtained by deduction from self-evident axioms or first principles. Epistemologists have examined foundationalism extensively, but neglected its historically dominant Euclidean form. By contrast, this book offers a detailed examination of Euclidean foundationalism, which, following Lakatos, the authors call the Euclidean Programme. The book rationally reconstructs the programme's key principles, showing it to be an epistemological interpretation of the axiomatic method. It (...) then compares the reconstructed programme with select historical sources: Euclid's Elements, Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, Descartes's Discourse on Method, Pascal's On the Geometric Mind and a twentieth-century account of axiomatisation. The second half of the book philosophically assesses the programme, exploring whether various areas of contemporary mathematics conform to it. The book concludes by outlining a replacement for the Euclidean Programme. (shrink)

Das Schleiermacher-Archiv ist primär ein begleitendes Publikationsorgan für die seit 1980 erscheinende Gesamtausgabe der Werke Friedrich Schleiermachers (KGA), welches Materialien und Untersuchungen veröffentlicht, die in engerer Beziehung zur KGA stehen. In Sammelbänden werden zudem Beiträge dokumentiert, die auf internationalen Schleiermacher-Kongressen vorgetragen worden oder in diesem Zusammenhang entstanden sind.

Various approaches have been made for understanding the nature of science and scientific knowledge. The social factors that played some role during the choice of scientific theories in the nineteenth century popularised the opinion that the scientific knowledge is the subject of a sociological research. During the ongoing discussions, one of the explanation or the justification models that was proposed is known as “the Strong Programme.” The main claim of “the Strong Programme” is that the social factors have a determining (...) role for the choice of scientific theories, rather than the rational and universal criteria one may expect. Hence, those who were behind this view rejected all of the rational analyses made for the sciences and the scientific methods. In this paper, we try to investigate the validity of the claims of “the Strong Programme,” and to clarify whether it is possible to understand the real nature of science without any rational approach. It is argued that it would be insufficient to determine the content of the science merely by the social factors, the natural facts might be meaningful by themselves as well. -/- Bilimin ve bilimsel bilginin doğasını açıklamak için farklı pek çok yaklaşım geliştirilmiştir. Özellikle ondokuzuncu yüzyıldaki bazı bilimsel kuramların tercihinde toplumsal etmenlerin rolünün gözlemlenmesi, bilimsel bilginin toplumbilimsel bir araştırma konusu olduğu kanısını yaygınlaştırmıştır. Bu süreçte ortaya konan açıklama ve gerekçelendirme modellerinden biri de “Strong Programme” olarak anılandır. “Strong Programme” ın temel savı, bilimsel kuramların tercihinde sanıldığı gibi ussal ve evrensel ölçütlerin değil, toplumsal etmenlerin belirleyici olduğu yönündeydi. Dolayısıyla bu görüşü savunanlar, bilim ve bilimsel yöntem için ortaya konan tüm ussalcı çözümlemeleri reddettiler. Bu çalışmada, “Strong Programme”ın ileri sürdüğü savların haklılığı ve sanıldığı gibi usçu bir yaklaşım olmaksızın bilimin gerçek doğasını anlamanın olanaklı olup olmadığı soruşturulmaktadır. Bilimin içeriğinin bütünüyle ve sadece toplumsal etmenlerce belirlenemeyeceği, doğa olaylarının da kendi başlarına anlamlı olabileceği ileri sürülmektedir. (shrink)

Respect for autonomy is problematic in relation to public health programmes such as vaccination, as the success of such programmes depends on widespread compliance. European countries have different policies for dealing with objectors to vaccination programmes. In some countries compliance is compulsory, while in others objectors are exempted or allowed to enter the programme under specific conditions. In this paper I argue that the objectors should not be treated as a homogenous group as is done in the above-mentioned policies. Objectors (...) have different arguments for not participating in vaccination programmes. Considering the value of respect for autonomy, some but not all of these arguments need to be accommodated by authorities. The concept of 'narrative autonomy' provides criteria to distinguish between tenable and untenable claims to the right to refuse vaccination. Narrative autonomy understands autonomy as essentially linked to identity, as this provides the moral framework with which we assess our first-order preferences. The above-mentioned concept of autonomy is derived from the concept of narrative identity as described by Marya Schechtman. She suggests that the application of the Articulation Constraint and the Reality Constraint enables us to establish the validity of personal narratives. Additionally, form and content features of identity, as proposed by Anthony Laden, will be used as criteria to establish the compatibility of the defectors' arguments with shared scientific and political values. Such compatibility is essential to accommodate respect for autonomy in the context of public health. (shrink)

Debates in the philosophy of science typically take place around issues such as realism and theory change. Recently, the debate has been reformulated to bring in the role of experiments in the context of theory change. As regards realism, Ian Hacking’s contribution has been to introduce ‘intervention’ as the basis of realism. He also proposed, following Imre Lakatos, to replace the issue of truth with progress and rationality. In this context we examine the case of the vitalism — reductionism debate (...) in biology inspired by the works of Indian physicist-turned-biologist Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937), in the early twentieth century. Both camps had their characteristic hardcores. Vitalists led by John S. Burdon-Sanderson and Augustus D. Waller accepted religious metaphysics to support their research programme, which ultimately degenerated. Bose worked more with the ideals of science such as Occam’s razor, large-scale systematization of phenomena and novel prediction. I argue that his religious metaphysics, instead of acting as a protective shield, helped him to consolidate his position and allowed further problem shift resulting in a research programme that involved consciousness too. His research programme remains relevant even today. (shrink)

This study used a partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to estimate curriculum management's direct and indirect effects on university graduate programmes' viability. The study also examined the role of institutional effectiveness in mediating the nexus between the predictor and response variables. This is a correlational study with a factorial research design. The study's participants comprised 149 higher education administrators (23 Faculty Deans and 126 HODs) from two public universities in Nigeria. A structured questionnaire designed by the researchers was (...) used for data collection. The questionnaire was duly validated with an acceptable scale and item content validity indices. The dimensionality of the instrument was determined using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Convergent validity was based on Average Variance Extracted (AVE), whereas discriminant validity was based on Fornell-Lacker criteria and the Hetero-Trait Mono-Trait (HTMT) ratio. Acceptable composite reliability estimates of internal consistency were reached for the three sub-scales. Following ethical practices, the questionnaire was physically administered to respondents and retrieved afterwards. Smart PLS (version 3.2.9) and SPSS (version 26.0) programs were used for all the statistical analyses. This study uncovered significant direct and indirect effects of curriculum management on the viability of graduate programmes. Institutional effectiveness significantly impacted graduate programmes’ viability while mediating the nexus between curriculum management and graduate programmes’ viability. Curriculum management and institutional effectiveness jointly explained a significant proportion of graduate programmes’ viability variance. The result of this study proved that graduate programmes’ viability depends, to a great extent, on how much curriculum is managed and how effective institutions are with their services. The result of this study can enable institutions seeking to run viable graduate programmes to re-evaluate their curriculum management practices and the effectiveness of their services. (shrink)

The term Monte Carlo method indicates any computer-aided procedure for numerical estimation that combines mathematical calculations with randomly generated numerical input values. Today it is an important tool in high energy physics while physicists and philosophers also often consider it a sort of virtual experiment. The Monte Carlo method was developed in the 1940s, in the context of U.S. American nuclear weapons research, an event often regarded as the origin of both computer simulation and “artificial reality” (Galison 1997). The present (...) paper interrogates this strong claim by focusing on the emergence of Monte Carlo event generators in particle physics in the early 1960s. This historical case study shows how, as Monte Carlo computation became part of the toolbox of particle physicists around 1960, it was neither usually referred to as a “computer simulation” nor was it regarded as a surrogate for experimentation. In revising the history of this method, this paper asks, in what context did particle physicists of the 1960s decide to create FAKE, the first high-energy-physics Monte Carlo event simulator? What was their goal? And what epistemic role did FAKE play? In answering these questions, it is argued that Monte Carlo computations were not introduced into particle physics to simulate experiments, but rather they played the role of theoretical tools. The Monte Carlo method was able to do this thanks to its random component, a property which provided a means of modeling a specific phenomenon, so-called “(particle) resonances”. Indeed, in doing so, event generators even came to mutually assimilate and reshape the notions of particle and resonance, taking up an epistemic function which had previously been confined to physical-mathematical formulae: that of a medium which could express aspects of particle theory. (shrink)

My working hypothesis is based on the project of a theory of science (Wissenschaftslehre) at the very beginning of the Prolegomena and it consists in conceiving this theory of science as the program which insures their cohesion to the whole of the Investigations in this work. In order to test this hypothesis, I will first examine the different steps which led to the project of a theory of science in the pre-phenomenological period. I will secondly expound the guidelines of the (...) theory of science, insisting in particular on its relation to pure logic. In the third section, I will attempt to define the function of the theory of knowledge and of phenomenology in such a programme. I will conclude with some remarks on the fate of this theory of science after the Logical Investigations. Most of Husserl’s allusions to the theory of science, be it in his lecture notes, the manuscripts that were written after 1901 or other works published during Husserl’s lifetime, seem to suggest that the theory of science kept on assuming the very role it was playing in Husserl’s seminal work: the theory of science provides its basis to Husserl’s philosophical agenda. (shrink)

Maxwell’s programme did supersede the Ampere-Weber one because it did assimilate some ideas of the Ampere-Weber programme, as well as the presuppositions of the programmes of Young-Fresnel and Faraday. But the opposite proposition is not true. Ampere-Weber programme did not assimilate the propositions of the Maxwellian programme. Maxwell’s victory over his rivals became possible because the core of Maxwell’s unification strategy was formed by Kantian epistemology looked through the prism of William Whewell and such representatives of Scottish Enlightenment as Thomas (...) Reid and William Hamilton. (shrink)

During the course of its short history the discipline concerned with the origin of life has given birth to several scientific programmes in the Lakatosian sense, two of the most prominent and widespread being those initiated by Oparin (life began from protein entities) and Muller-Haldane (life began from genetic entities). The present paper sets down the bases for the rational reconstruction of both views by identifying their hard core and some of their successive developments. An assessment is made of the (...) various stages in the evolution of these programmes with respect to the crucial Lakatosian notions of progressivity and regressivity and of how their arguments stand up against one another. This epistemological analysis also establishes the internal reasons why the RNA version of the genotype programme (developed in particular by L. Orgel and S. Spiegelman) has today taken on a progressive character and enjoys recognition by the international scientific community. (shrink)