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We study the topological μ-calculus, based on both Cantor derivative and closure modalities, proving completeness, decidability, and finite model property over general topological spaces, as well as over T0 and TD spaces. We also investigate the relational μ-calculus, providing general completeness results for all natural fragments of the μ-calculus over many different classes of relational frames. Unlike most other such proofs for μ-calculi, ours is model theoretic, making an innovative use of a known method from modal logic (the 'final' submodel of the canonical model), which has the twin advantages of great generality and essential simplicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health messaging is effective if it achieves audience adherence to guidance. Through the lens of Systemic Functional Linguistics, we examine the expression of obligation in poster-based health campaigns (4 posters) employed during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK by considering whether differences in grammatical mood and modality values impact on public compliance toward the message content. Effects of mood and modality variations are examined through a quantitative-cum-qualitative analysis of results from a representative survey (N = 1,089), which included closed questions on self-predicted compliance to health guidance and open questions on the respondents’ understanding of messaging. The quantitative results favour medium values of obligation (“should” vis-à-vis “must”) and directives in declarative mood for self-efficacy messages, and expressions of certainty when the need to take action to prevent negative outcomes is conveyed. The qualitative results show that, communication context and linguistic features being equal, message types (i.e., self-efficacy, moralising, fear appeals) and visual cues prevail in conditioning public reception. Moreover, since directives employing modality allow for speakers’ inclusion among the targeted addressees, they appear to offer more favourable outcomes than those in the imperative mood. This study provides empirical insights into the effects of modality and mood on health guidance compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Causal multivariate time-series analysis, combined with network theory, provide a powerful tool for studying complex ecological interactions. However, these methods have limitations often underestimated when used in graphical modelling of ecological systems. In this opinion article, I examine the relationship between formal logic methods used to describe causal networks and their inherent statistical and epistemological limitations. I argue that while these methods offer valuable insights, they are restricted by axiomatic assumptions, statistical constraints and the incompleteness of our knowledge. To prove that, I first consider causal networks as formal systems, define causality and formalize their axioms in terms of modal logic and use ecological counterexamples to question the axioms. I also highlight the statistical limitations when using multivariate time-series analysis and Granger causality to develop ecological networks, including the potential for spurious correlations among other data characteristics. Finally, I draw upon Gödel's incompleteness theorems to highlight the inherent limits of fully understanding complex networks as formal systems and conclude that causal ecological networks are subject to initial rules and data characteristics and, as any formal system, will never fully capture the intricate complexities of the systems they represent. This article is part of the theme issue 'Connected interactions: enriching food web research by spatial and social interactions'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In-vehicle information system (IVIS) use is prevalent among young adults. However, their interaction with IVIS needs to be better understood. Therefore, an on-road study aims to explore the effects of input modalities and secondary task types on young drivers' secondary task performance, driving performance, and visual glance behavior. A 2 × 4 within-subject design was undertaken. The independent variables are input modalities (auditory-speech and visual-manual) and secondary task types (calls, music, navigation, and radio). The dependent variables include secondary task performance (task completion time, number of errors, and SUS), driving performance (average speed, number of lane departure warnings, and NASA-TLX), and visual glance behavior (average glance duration, number of glances, total glance duration, and number of glances over 1.6 s). The statistical analysis result showed that the main effect of input modalities is significant, with more distraction during visual-manual than auditory-speech. The main impact of secondary task types was also substantial across most metrics, aside from average speed and average glance duration. Navigation and music were the most distracting, followed by calls, and radio came in last. The distracting effect of input modalities is relatively stable and generally not moderated by the secondary task types, except radio tasks. The findings practically benefit the driver-friendly human–machine interface design, preventing IVIS-related distraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to one view of alethic modality, alethic modality is deontic modality with respect to thoughts or language. To say that something is necessary is to prescribe norms on how we must think or use language. This view has been argued to have many philosophical advantages over the traditional view that takes alethic modality to describe things in the world. In this article, I argue that the deontic view also enjoys a wide range of empirical support from linguistics and psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Striking similarities across ape gestural repertoires suggest shared phylogenetic origins that likely provided a foundation for the emergence of language. We pilot a novel approach for exploring possible semantic universals across human and nonhuman ape species. In a forced‐choice task, n = 300 participants watched 10 chimpanzee gesture forms performed by a human and chose from responses that paralleled inferred meanings for chimpanzee gestures. Participants agreed on a single meaning for nine gesture forms; in six of these the agreed form‐meaning pair response(s) matched those established for chimpanzees. Such shared understanding suggests apes' (including humans') gesturing shares deep evolutionary origins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amie Thomasson has argued against descriptivism about modality, which starts from the idea that modal statements serve to track features of the world and that these features explain the truth-values of modal claims. Thomasson objects that descriptivists cannot satisfactorily explain how modal features fit into the naturalistic picture of the world and that they cannot account for our apparent capacity to acquire modal knowledge. On Thomasson's alternative to descriptivism (called 'normativism'), the function of modal claims is to facilitate communication about certain semantic rules. I argue that it is not obvious that the semantic rules that Thomasson takes to be expressed by modal truths really exist. Moreover, I defend a specific version of descriptivism – essentialism – against Thomasson's objections. Essential truths play a central role in the best explanations of many facts about the world. That includes the explanations delivered by our best scientific theories once these theories are correctly interpreted philosophically. In this way, essences earn their keep in a naturalistic view of the world. Furthermore, the abductive methods by which we confirm our explanatory theories also support certain theses about essences. This allows essentialists to explain knowledge of essences and modal knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an epistemic language for representing an artificial player's beliefs and actions in the context of the Yōkai board game. Yōkai is a cooperative game which requires a combination of Theory of Mind (ToM), temporal and spatial reasoning to be played effectively by an artificial agent. We show that the language properly accounts for these three dimensions and that its satisfiability problem is NP-complete. This opens up the possibility of exploiting SAT techniques for automating reasoning of an artificial player in the context of the Yōkai board-game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autonomous behaviors may raise ethical issues that agents must consider in their reasoning. Some approaches use deontic logics, while others consider a value-based argumentation framework. However, no work combines both modal logic and argumentation to reason about ethics. Hence, we propose a new argumentation framework where arguments are built from a n-ary multi-modal logic. It allows to express different kinds of operators, e.g. nullary choice or moral worth operators, dyadic deontic operators or mental states. However the standard attacks based on logical contradictions are no longer sufficient to catch an intuitive meaning for attacks. Hence, we enrich standard attacks by characterizing how oppositions between modal operators arise. Furthermore we show the standard logic-based attacks have a quasi-symmetry property, i.e. when an argument attacks another, this argument is necessarily attacked by another one. Our modal attacks do not have this property, which is highly relevant to decide a dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a fresh perspective on the interplay among visual, verbal, and auditory modalities, positing that these modalities, as semogenic resources, compete to express dynamic meanings. The theoretical paradigm emphasizes that whether a modality or an element within a modality gets or loses semantic status, it will elicit an additional layer of social meaning to depict a comprehensive picture of a story together with an explicit semiotic meaning. The article adopts a qualitative method to analyze the data, which are drawn from The Good Wife and My Roommate is a Gumiho and annotated in ELAN 6.3. It was found that modal competition can shed light on the dynamic meaning-making processes in semiotic and societal orientations. Modal competition may distort space and time of different stories, and reconstruct a different discursive spatio-temporal dimension in the TV world. It can diversify the dynamic orientations from New to Given in visual, verbal, and auditory texts of multimodal discourses to tell stories. Modal competition provides a lens to understand the multidimensional reality and to appreciate the aesthetics of a modern TV series. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Serious actualism is the view that it is metaphysically impossible for an entity to have a property, or stand in a relation, and not exist. Fine (1985) and Pollock (1985) influentially argue that this view is false. In short, there are properties like the property of nonexistence, and it is metaphysically possible that some entity both exemplifies such a property and does not exist. I argue that such arguments are indeed successful against the standard formulation of serious actualism. However, I also argue that we should distinguish a weaker formulation of serious actualism using the actualist distinction between truth in, and truth at, a possible world. This weaker formulation is then shown to be consistent with the existence and possible exemplification of properties like the property of nonexistence. I end with a novel argument for the truth of the weaker formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(Goodsell, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 51(1), 127-150 2022) establishes the noncontingency of sentences of first-order arithmetic, in a plausible higher-order modal logic. Here, the same result is derived using significantly weaker assumptions. Most notably, the assumption of rigid comprehension—that every property is coextensive with a modally rigid one—is weakened to the assumption that the Boolean algebra of properties under necessitation is countably complete. The results are generalized to extensions of the language of arithmetic, and are applied to answer a question posed by Bacon and Dorr (2024). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their controversial ontological status, the discussion on arbitrary objects has been reignited in recent years. According to the supporting views, they present interesting and unique qualities. Among those, two define their nature: their assuming of values, and the way in which they present properties. Leon Horsten has advanced a particular view on arbitrary objects which thoroughly describes the earlier, arguing they assume values according to a sui generis modality, which he calls afthairetic. In this paper, we offer a general method for defining the minimal system of this modality for any given first-order theory, and possible extensions of it that incorporate further aspects of Horsten's account. The minimal system presents an unconventional inference rule, which deals with two different notions of derivability. For this reason and the failure of the Necessitation rule, in its full generality, the resulting system is non-normal. Then, we provide conditional soundness and completeness results for the minimal system and its extensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a general approach to quantified modal logics that can simulate most other approaches. The language is based on operators indexed by terms which allow to express de re modalities and to control the interaction of modalities with the first-order machinery and with non-rigid designators. The semantics is based on a primitive counterpart relation holding between n-tuples of objects inhabiting possible worlds. This allows an object to be represented by one, many, or no object in an accessible world. Moreover by taking as primitive a relation between n-tuples we avoid some shortcoming of standard individual counterparts. Finally, we use cut-free labelled sequent calculi to give a proof-theoretic characterisation of the quantified extensions of each first-order definable propositional modal logic. In this way we show how to complete many axiomatically incomplete quantified modal logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here I show that the one-variable fragment of several first-order relevant logics corresponds to certain S5ish extensions of the underlying propositional relevant logic. In particular, given a fairly standard translation between modal and one-variable languages and a permuting propositional relevant logic L, a formula A of the one-variable fragment is a theorem of LQ (QL) iff its translation is a theorem of L5 (L.5). The proof is model-theoretic. In one direction, semantics based on the Mares-Goldblatt [15] semantics for quantified L are transformed into ternary (plus two binary) relational semantics for S5-like extensions of L (for a general presentation, see Seki [26-27]). In the other direction, a valuation is given for the full first-order relevant logic based on L into a model for a suitable S5 extension of L. I also discuss this work's relation to finding a complete axiomatization of the constant domain, non-general frame ternary relational semantics for which RQ is incomplete [11]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brauer (Philos Stud 179:2751–2763, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-022-01793-7, 2022) has recently argued that if it is possible that there is nothing, then the correct modal logic for metaphysical modality cannot include D. Here, I argue that Brauer's argument is unsuccessful; or at the very least significantly weaker than presented. First, I outline a simple argument for why it is not possible that there is nothing. I note that this argument has a well-known solution involving the distinction between truth in and truth at a possible world. However, I then argue that once the semantics presupposed by Brauer's argument is reformulated in terms of truth at a world, we have good reasons to think that a crucial semantic premise in Brauer's argument should be rejected in favour of an alternative. Brauer's argument is, however, no longer valid with this alternative premise. Thus, plausibly Brauer's argument against D is only valid, if it is not sound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantified modal inferences interest logicians, linguists, and computer scientists, but no previous psychological study of them appears to be in the literature. Here is an example of one: All those artists are businessmen. Paulo is possibly one of the artists. What follows? People tend to conclude: Paulo is possibly a businessman (Experiment 1). It seems plausible, and it follows from an intuitive mental model in which Paulo is one of a set of artists who are businessmen. Further deliberation can yield a model of an alternative possibility in which Paulo is not one of the artists, which confirms that the conclusion is only a possibility. The snag is that standard modal logics, which deal with possibilities, cannot yield a particular conclusion to any premises: Infinitely many follow validly (from any premises) but they do not include the present conclusion. Yet, further experiments corroborated a new mental model theory's predictions for various inferences (Experiment 2), for the occurrence of factual conclusions drawn from premises about possibilities (Experiment 3) and for inferences from premises of modal syllogisms (Experiment 4). The theory is therefore plausible, but we explore the feasibility of a cognitive theory based on modifications to modal logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The positive, non-exclusive inference of only has been famously elusive with respect to its projective status and its content: in some cases the positive inference behaves like a presupposition, while in others it does not; in some cases the inference is non-modal, corresponding to the prejacent of only or an existential counterpart of it, while in others it is modalized. This behavior, we argue, surfaces the exceptive nature of only (cf. von Fintel and Iatridou in Linguist Inq 38(3):445–483, 2007). More specifically, if the import of only is distributed between a minimality and a subtraction component, as has been argued for exceptives (esp. Gajewski in Nat Lang Semant 16(1):69–110, 2008), the apparently irreconcilable properties of only can be captured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fine (J Philos Logic 46(6):625–674, 2017) develops a unilateral and a bilateral truthmaker semantics for propositional logic. The unilateral approach trades off the primitive exact falsification relation of the bilateral approach for a primitive exclusion relation between states, thereby raising the question if exclusion serves any purpose other than to avoid exact falsification. We argue that exclusion is motivated independently of its use in avoiding exact falsification, namely as a foundation for the reconstruction of modal notions such as possibility and necessity. This reconstruction in turn motivates what we call emergent exclusion: an atomic state can exclude a sum of atomic states collectively without excluding any of these atomic states individually. Emergent exclusion is banned in Fine (2017a) in order to maintain exact equivalence in de Morgan's law ¬ (P ∧ Q) ⇔ ¬ P ∨ ¬ Q ; we argue that the two sides of this law are not exactly equivalent and discuss a variety of state spaces that feature emergent exclusion. This paper aims to be accessible to linguists without prior exposure to truthmaker semantics. We highlight points of contact with natural language semantics, such as event semantics and algebraic semantics of plurals and conjunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of linguistic landscapes (LL) examines the use of signage in public spaces, often with a focus on the use of non-majority languages. The main goals of this project are to map, quantify, and analyze signage in Spanish within Tuscaloosa County, AL, an emerging site of Spanish language use which differs from the large urban places often studied in the LL literature. Photographs of public signage in Spanish were taken and uploaded to an ArcGIS Field Maps app to allow for both geolocation of the image and tagging of the image for specific linguistic and visual characteristics, which are subsumed under multimodality. Multimodality refers to the interaction of the linguistic code with other modes of communication such as images, colors, flags, and other cultural objects to make meaning in a given LL text. Within the multimodality framework, we examine the use of Spanish by itself or with English, location of the signage, communicative functions (symbolic, informative), and the combination of multimodal resources to index the actors originating the text and their intended audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-modal large language models (MLLMs), such as GPT-4, exhibit great comprehension capabilities on human instruction, as well as zero-shot ability on new downstream multi-modal tasks. To integrate the different modalities within a unified embedding space, previous MLLMs attempted to conduct visual instruction tuning with massive and high-quality image-text pair data, which requires substantial costs in data collection and training resources. In this article, we propose TOMGPT (Text-Only training Multi-modal GPT), a cost-effective MLLM tuned solely on easily accessible text data with much fewer resources. Along with pre-trained visual-linguistic coupled modality space (e.g., CLIP and ALIGN model), a text-only training strategy is devised to further project the aligned multi-modal latent space to that of LLM, endowing the LLM with visual comprehension capabilities in an efficient manner. Instead of enormous image-text training data required by previous MLLMs, we find that TOMGPT can be well-tuned with fewer yet diverse GPT-generated free-form text data, as we establish the semantic connection between LLM and pre-trained vision-language model. A quantitative evaluation is conducted on both MME and LVLM, which are recently released and extensively utilized MLLM benchmarks. The experiments reveal that TOMGPT achieved reliable performance compared to numerous models trained on a large amount of image-text pair data. Case studies are also presented, demonstrating TOMGPT's broad understanding and dialogue capabilities across diverse image categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I athletes' experiences engaging in activism through the lens of the communicative constitution of organizations. Specifically, we investigated the modalities and approaches collegiate athletes employ in their activism. Findings indicate that collegiate athletes gravitate toward online and offline channels, and fiscal, ideological, and organizational activities as modalities for their activist efforts. We also uncovered that collegiate athletes' inclination to call-in versus call-out is characterized by their willingness to engage with the recipients of their cause-related messages. This inquiry demonstrates the discursive and material nature of collegiate athlete activism, highlighting the call-in approach, and provides direction for athletes and athletic institutions in this time of heightened activist engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to its low computational' cost, excellent storage capacity, and efficient retrieval performance, unsupervised deep cross-modal hashing methods have received extensive attention. However, there are still some challenges with existing unsupervised methods: (1) Due to the lack of label semantics, the neighborhood structure information of unimodal and inter-modal instances may not be fully integrated, resulting in ignoring the deep semantic similarity interaction information. (2) Unsupervised hash codes can neither effectively resolve the semantic consistency between the original features of modal instances nor bridge the gap between the heterogeneous modalities of hash codes. To address these issues, we propose a new unsupervised deep cross-modal hash method called Multi-Perspective Fusing Semantic Alignment Hashing (MPFSAH). It mainly includes two aspects. Firstly, to enhance inter-modal communication, a Multi-level Semantic Similarity Interactive Measure (MSSIM) is constructed. By fusing the neighborhood structure of different modalities and increasing the distance between instances within a modality, the semantic interaction similarity can be deeply mined, to obtain discriminative semantic information. Moreover, we also propose a novel Multi-Perspective Semantic Alignment Mechanism (MPSAM). By minimizing the consistency quantization error of elements in the multi-perspective similarity, it learns the inter-modal similarity consistency. MPSAM includes similarity consistency alignment, structural-semantic alignment, and ranking alignment. It achieves structural-semantic consistency fully ensures the effective connection of cross-modal data similarities and bridges the modal gap in the process of hash codes. Through experiments on three cross-modal retrieval datasets, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method, which outperforms some state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are societies required to pursue continual economic growth as a matter of justice? In "The Value of Economic Growth", Julie Rose considers three arguments in favor of the need for continual economic growth, each of which revolves around the instrumental value of economic growth for promoting an important good that is needed for a just society. In each case, Rose argues that there are mechanisms other than economic growth that could allow a society to deliver the relevant goods, and thus meet the demands of justice with respect to those goods. I raise a set of issues for Rose's argument that put pressure on the normative significance of her discussion. At the heart of these issues are ones about which possibilities Rose considers and which idealizations she makes. These issues tie into more general questions about the aims and methodology of normative work in social/political philosophy. Thus, in addition to being a contribution to the debate over the politics of economic growth, this paper can be understood partly as a case study in how reflection on these kinds of issues – ones about modality, idealization, and methodology – can matter to how we evaluate specific arguments in social/political philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A standard approach to indeterminacy treats 'determinately' and 'indeterminately' as modal operators. Determinacy behaves like necessity; indeterminacy like contingency. This raises two questions. What is the appropriate modal system for these operators? And how should we interpret that system? Ken Akiba has developed an account of ontic indeterminacy that interprets possible worlds as worldly precisifications. He argues that this account vindicates S4 as the logic of indeterminacy. In this paper I explore one significant and surprising consequence of this view. I do this in two stages. First, I prove a technical result, which I call the Infinite Indeterminacy Theorem. Roughly put, this theorem states that, at any given precisification w, either every instance of indeterminacy admits of never-ending higher-order indeterminacy, or else there's indeterminacy in an infinite amount of distinct atomic formulas. In slogan form: either all indeterminacy is infinitely ascending or else there's infinitely wide indeterminacy. Second, I unpack the metaphysical consequences of this technical result (under its intended interpretation) and assess their plausibility. I conclude that these consequences commit Akiba's theory to highly contentious – and arguably untenable – views about the metaphysics of indeterminacy and related matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Far from being a purely cerebral activity, meaningful theological work seeks the transformation of people; intellectual assent is necessary, but humans are embodied, and theology can be multi‐modal in its action and delivery. This essay draws on the traditions of visual and sensory theological practices to make an argument for theology as a rigorous process enacted in embodied—mind, hand, and heart—ways. The interwoven relationship between orthodoxy and orthopraxy is too often tenuous, practitioners on one side and thinkers on the other. In exploring lives of biblical characters, specifically women, and expressing these across modalities of spoken word, stitch, and poetry, the writer makes a case for the essential embodiment of a sensuous theological expression—the kind of expression that one frequently experiences in sacrament and frequently ignores in formal theological discourse. In drawing from her own research practices the writer presents a case for the importance of personal theological work moving from thinking as the sole location, arguing that embodiment is always the outcome of good theological commitment. This essay builds on a foundation of theologians who make a case for the arts and for the sensory in pointing toward the Divine, and it unapologetically draws on textile practice as “women's work” and a location of shared human experience. The essay also explores responses to theology in physical stitched form and poetry. It includes responses which take theological interactions beyond consumption into production; it considers the value of embodied, holistic theological work as a potential gift to the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study looked at a classical truth logic of multi-propositions that is new in some ways: [1] Alethic modalities were mixed with logical consistency and incompatibility in a single plate form, i.e., necessary consistency (NC), possible consistency (PC)/ possible incompatibility (PI) and impossible incompatibility (IPI); [2] multi-propositions were judged by individuals as either NC, PC/PI, or IPI; [3] Four quantifiers; All (∀), No (∼∀), Some (∃), and Some Not (∼∃) of four propositional modes and three shapes (, ▱ and) are used to evaluate predictions; and [4] it inspired by multi-propositional of dual-process theories (DPTs) of deduction and modal syllogistic of multi-propositions, from which logicians have derived general hypotheses. HP 1- Individuals will more likely to endorse inferences as PC/PI rather than NC. HP 2: It's easier to calculate that inference has PC/ PI if it has also NC. Generally, logicians predict more endorsing PC for NC than for PI proposition. HP 3: It's easier to calculate that inference is not NC if it is also not PC. Generally, logicians predict more PI than IPI proposition endorses as NC. A modal syllogistic as a classical truth logic is presented by multi-propositions (two premises and one inference), each one from four modes has quantifiers such as universal quantifiers and existential quantifier; ∀, ∼∀, ∃, and ∼ ∃. They were evaluated by a single-mental model (Experiment I) and a multi-mental model (Experiment II). Logicians applied the immediate inference task (IIT), evaluation task (ET), and production task (PT) to evaluate three experiments. The results of the experiments suggested that students mostly endorsed PC/PI inferences over NC inferences. Even when logicians divided PC/PI separately as PC and PI, individuals endorsed PC most likely as compared to NC, and PI than IPI. Logicians also highlighted fallacies that were continuously resisted and endorsed when students were asked to judge multi-propositions that had NC. The purpose of this experimental study is to present a glimpse of students' endorsement of multi-propositions and explain that each individual has a different working memory and intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spoken communicative contexts, speakers often convey uncertainty via intonation and through paralinguistic behaviours such as speech rate and gesture—and addressees can use these behaviours to generate inferences about the speaker's epistemic state. In text-based contexts, however, cues of this sort are more restricted. In this study, we examine the expression and reception of epistemic information in the context of real-time written message production. We hypothesised that real-time typing dynamics (like those available in text-based collaborative contexts, such as Google Docs) can function as a rich paralinguistic cue about a partner's epistemic state. In Experiment 1, we collected production data showing that manipulations of typist certainty, instantiated through both the ease of message formulation and repeated experience with the task, are reflected in measures of typing fluency and speed. Then, in Experiment 2, we presented select screen recordings of the typing behaviours from Experiment 1 to a group of independent observers who made epistemic judgements about the typist. Our results show that observable differences in typing speed and fluency contribute to perceptions of typist knowledge and confidence, which has implications for interfaces that enable real-time text-based collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study many-valued coalgebraic logics with semi-primal algebras of truthdegrees. We provide a systematic way to lift endofunctors defined on the variety of Boolean algebras to endofunctors on the variety generated by a semi-primal algebra. We show that this can be extended to a technique to lift classical coalgebraic logics to many-valued ones, and that (one-step) completeness and expressivity are preserved under this lifting. For specific classes of endofunctors, we also describe how to obtain an axiomatization of the lifted many-valued logic directly from an axiomatization of the original classical one. In particular, we apply all of these techniques to classical modal logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the complexity of classical modal logics and of their extension with fixed-point operators, using translations to transfer results across logics. In particular, we show several complexity results for multi-agent logics via translations to and from the µ-calculus and modal logic, which allow us to transfer known upper and lower bounds. We also use these translations to introduce terminating and non-terminating tableau systems for the logics we study, based on Kozen's tableau for the µ-calculus and the one of Fitting and Massacci for modal logic. Finally, we describe these tableaux with µ-calculus formulas, thus reducing the satisfiability of each of these logics to the satisfiability of the µ-calculus, resulting in a general 2EXP upper bound for satisfiability testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can events in part of the Stoic cosmos be contingent, when all events are necessary? Why does Chrysippus hold that the impossible may flow from the possible, or that while it is possible Dion die, 'this person be dead' is impossible. This article constructs a naïve model of Stoic modality in which truth evaluations are grounded in spatial location and motion. This is shown to provide a best fit for the Stoic doctrine, generating the six events which Chrysippus groups into the four Stoic modal categories, and explaining why the Stoics espoused doctrines attacked as contradictory by their opponents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we overview the research literature exploring the teaching of evaluative language in written and/or visual texts in the elementary years of schooling. We then review the recently redrafted Australian Curriculum: English to identify the emphasis given to the teaching of evaluative language and the grammar of visual design across the elementary years of schooling in Australia. Also featured is the importance of the persuasive genre, and multimodal texts. The focus of our research work is on one Year 4 elementary years school teacher who scaffolds her students to bring all of this knowledge together to read/view and write/create in ways that take seriously the powerful written and visual language use of persuasive multimodal texts. The students are undertaking an inquiry topic "Sharks: Dangerous or Misunderstood?". As part of the unit, students are exploring the written and visual grammar of danger signs. The students explore these texts by making a danger sign they would expect to see at the beach, as well as a danger sign for something that is not typically dangerous such as a ladybug. We examine the students' use of the grammar of appraisal and the grammar of visual design, and their capacity to discuss the knowledge/power relationship of their own persuasive multimodal texts during an interview with their teacher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst a plethora of research has taken into account the exertion of website homepages as a conduit for effectively conveying information, it is acknowledged that the matter of ideological values and how these ideals are manifested through such digital communication media has been somewhat overlooked. Thus, the research at hand attempts to go over how the university advertises its ideological construal on its homepages by way of the adoption of multiple modes, involving both linguistic and aesthetic dimensions, and video. In this investigation, multimodal approaches encapsulated by Kress (2010) and Pauwels (2012) were employed to address the ideological values through visual components on the university homepages. Drawing from the attainable data, the university's homepage is crafted utilizing two fundamental categories of semiotic methods such as a combination of visual and textual elements, as well as video to reinforce the aesthetic, nevertheless, it neglects to incorporate any semiotic resource that places particular emphasis on visual components. The strategic utilization of diverse multiple modalities of communication on the homepage has effectively promoted an array of constructive ideological ideals that hold significant worth for stakeholders and the public, considering the pivotal role that universities play in shaping societal beliefs and perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite evidence to the contrary, many people believe in learning styles (LS)–the idea that students learn best in their preferred modality, such as visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. However, the impact of this belief on instructional decisions remains unclear. Therefore, this study investigated how belief in the neuromyth impacts instructional choices and why educators choose an LS lesson plan or an alternative. We found that educators’ beliefs about LS indeed predicted their instructional choice, but that other factors influenced their decisions as well. Three themes encapsulate educators’ justifications for their lesson plan choices: beliefs about LS, practical considerations, and student learning and motivation. These findings suggest that for many educators, implementing an LS lesson provides an opportunity to integrate diverse teaching strategies that address multiple educational priorities. Although many prior studies have replicated the prevalence of the myth, this is one of the first to explore the reasons that LS is attractive to educators. Attempts to dispel the LS neuromyth could leverage the reasons educators find LS appealing to provide alternative research-backed approaches to meet their goals. Future research should examine the extent to which beliefs in the LS neuromyth are translated into instructional practices within classroom lessons and explore potential differences across grade levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the linear logic of multi-agent knowledge using multivalued models. The logic of the language contains the unary operators $K_{j}$ --- $j$ --- the agent knows, $ULK_{G}$ --- unstable local knowledge, $E_{G}$ --- stable local knowledge in the group, and the binary logical operator $AP_{G}$ - the majority opinion. We will show some examples that demonstrate the diversity of this language and its capabilities. Technically we prove decidability of satisfiability problem in the resulting models for our multi-agent logic, develop verification technique and provide some examples.

As the educational landscape changes throughout time and with circumstances that forced learning institutions to shift and implement different modalities, maximizing the use of technology in teaching and learning has become an approach to meet the demands of present educational system. This study aimed to investigate the quality of instruction of Computer System Servicing specialization utilizing a strategy called as Pentapartite Gap Analysis; specifically, identifying the issues of learning, utilizing the five key dimensions of the gap analysis which are knowledge, delivery, communication, perception, and service quality to evaluate the said specialization, and proposed an action plan to improve the quality of the specialization across selected public schools. Employing quantitative descriptive research design and utilizing data collection through structured surveys to students and teachers, the study yielded the following results: (1) the respondents perceived the issues faced by the school when first implementing the program in terms of facilities, teachers, and instructional materials; (2) the respondents perceived the extent of the school's capability in offering the specialized program to be at a great extent across various dimensions; and (3) there is a significant difference in the implementation of the said specialization of schools about the assessment of teachers and students. Lastly, there is an importance of an action plan in enhancing the implementation of the specialization program as it served as a strategic guide to strengthen its quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is shown that both classical and intuitionistic propositional logics of an associative binary modality are undecidable. The proof is based on the deduction theorem for these logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study was to determine the challenges of grade five learners, also aimed to examine the relationship between the challenges of grade five learners to their academic performance using modular learning modality. Sixty Learners from the six sections of grade five of Balo-i Central Elementary School were chosen as the respondent of the study, convenient sampling technique was used. Data were drawn from the survey questionnaire and assessment tools. Statistical tools using Weighted Mean and Standard deviation was used to describe the respondent's level of challenges to Grade 5 learners in using modular learning and Pearson Product Moment Correlation was used to determine the significant relationship between the level of challenges to Grade 5 learners in modular learning modality and their academic performance. Result of the study revealed that there is a significant relationship between the challenges encountered by the grade V pupils to their academic performance. Furthermore, challenges encountered by the grade V pupils did affect their academic performance. Thus, the study inferred that the respondents' level of challenges encountered using modular learning modality play significant to their academic performance. Hence, it is hereby recommended that the proposed orientation program be implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a logic of temporal contingency, which has operators of past and future contingency as primitive modalities. This logic is less expressive than standard temporal logic over the class of bidirectional frames, and cannot define some basic frame properties such as bidirectionality and transitivity. We present a minimal system based on two key 'bridge axioms' and a bimodal version of a so-called 'almost definability' schema in the literature. The completeness proof is highly nontrivial due to the requirement that the canonical model be bidirectional. We then extend the results to the simplest dynamic case: public announcements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the context of the so‐called green energy transition, the mining industry has successfully repositioned itself as a facilitator of, rather than an impediment to, a sustainable future. Underlying the success of this claim is a discourse of sustainability that, on the one hand, equates sustainability with decarbonisation and, on the other hand, insists that the rapid expansion of renewable energy generation and storage infrastructures is the only viable way to decarbonise. Reflecting specifically on the mining industry's increasingly central role within this discourse, this article identifies three key modalities of decarbonisation, each of which involves energy storage as an important component: decarbonisation through mining; decarbonisation of mining; and decarbonisation of mines themselves. Analysing these modalities through the emergent literature on the political ecology of storage, which highlights both the spatial and temporal elements of storage infrastructures, we argue that the reinforcement and expansion of green extractivist logics is driven, in part, by the idea that extractivism can and will unlock new spaces and temporalities of decarbonisation through the installation and expansion of energy storage infrastructures. Consequently, energy storage in mining decarbonisation is not only a form of accumulation, but a condition of possibility for sustaining and generating new forms of capitalist extraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decidability of monadic first-order classical logic was established by L¨owenheim in 1915. The proof made use of a semantic argument and a purely syntactic proof has never been provided. In the present paper we introduce a syntactic proof of decidability of monadic first-order logic in innex normal form which exploits G3- style sequent calculi. In particular, we introduce a cut- and contraction-free calculus having a (complexity-optimal) terminating proof-search procedure. We also show that this logic can be faithfully embedded in the modal logic T. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we shall define semantically some families of propositional modal logics related to the interpretability logic IL. We will introduce the logics BIL and BIL+ in the propositional language with a modal operator □ and a binary operator ⇒ such that BIL ⊆ BIL+ ⊆ IL. The logic BIL is generated by the relational structures ⟨X, R, N⟩, called basic frames, where ⟨X, R⟩ is a Kripke frame and ⟨X, N⟩ is a neighborhood frame. We will prove that the logic BIL+ is generated by the basic frames where the binary relation R is definable by the neighborhood relation N and, therefore, the neighborhood semantics is suitable to study the logic BIL+ and its extensions. We shall also study some axiomatic extensions of BIL and we will prove that these extensions are sound and complete with respect to a certain classes of basic frames. Finally, we prove that the logic BIL+ and some of its extensions are complete respect with the class of neighborhood frames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modality is characterized by the important fact that it may be found within the grammar of all languages, which cannot be said of mood, for instance, another category of grammar. The present paper aims to identify deontic modal markers, specifically four English modal verbs, in George Orwell's Animal Farm, and analyze the grammatical / lexical instruments used for rendering them into five Romanian translated editions. The conclusions reveal that, although English seems easier in lexicalizing the meanings of modality, Romanian tends to be more explicative and thus, more comprehensive, due to its analytic character, which provides it with more variety in the choice of words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to provide a complete Natural Kind Semantics for an Essentialist Theory of Kinds. The theory is formulated in two-sorted first order monadic modal logic with identity. The natural kind semantics is based on Rudolf Willes Theory of Concept Lattices. The semantics is then used to explain several consequences of the theory, including results about the specificity (species–genus) relations between kinds, the definitions of kinds in terms of genera and specific differences and the existence of negative kinds. First, I show under which conditions the Hierarchy principle, which has been subjected to counterexamples in the literature, holds. I also show that a different principle about the species–genus relations between kinds, namely Kant's Law , follows from the essentialist theory. Second, I introduce two new operations for kinds and show that they can be used to provide traditional definitions of kinds in terms of genera and specific differences. Finally, I show that these operations of specific difference induce, for each kind, a uniquely specified contrary kind and a uniquely specified subcontrary kind, which can be used as semantic values for non-classical predicate negations of kind terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lewis (The Journal of Philosophy, 65(5), 113–126, 1968) attempts to provide an account of modal talk in terms of the resources of counterpart theory, a first-order theory that eschews transworld identity. First, a regimentation of natural language modal claims into sentences of a formal first-order modal language L is assumed. Second, a translation scheme from L-sentences to sentences of the language of the theory is provided. According to Hazen (The Journal of Philosophy, 76(6), 319–338, 1979) and Fara & Williamson (Mind, 114(453), 1–30, 2005), the account cannot handle certain natural language modal claims involving a notion of actuality. The challenge has two parts. First, in order to handle such claims, the initial formal modal language that natural language modal claims are regimented into must extend L with something like an actuality operator. Second, certain ways that Lewis' translation scheme for L might be extended to accommodate an actuality operator are unacceptable. Meyer (Mind, 122(485), 27–42, 2013) attempts to defend Lewis' approach. First, Meyer holds that in order to handle such claims, the formal modal language L ∗ that we initially regiment our natural language claims into need not contain an actuality operator. Instead, we can make do with other resources. Next, Meyer provides an alternative translation scheme from L ∗ -sentences to sentences of an enriched language of counterpart theory. Unfortunately, Meyer's approach fails to provide an appropriate counterpart theoretic account of natural language modal claims. In this paper, I demonstrate that failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper attempts to provide an exact truthmaker semantical analysis of modalized propositions. According to the present proposal, an exact truthmaker for "Necessarily P" is a state that bans every exact truthmaker for "Not P", and an exact truthmaker for "Possibly P" is a state that allows an exact truthmaker for P. Based on this proposal, a formal semantics will be developed; and the soundness and completeness results for a well-known family of the systems of normal modal propositional logic will be established. It shall be seen that the present analysis offers an exactification of the standard Kripke semantics in the sense that it analyzes the accessibility relation between possible worlds in terms of the banning and allowing relations between the constituent states, and thereby gives an account of "truth at a possible world" in terms of exact truthmaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a logic of evidence that reduces agents' epistemic idealisations by combining classical propositional logic with substructural modal logic for formulas in the scope of epistemic modalities. To this aim, we provide a neighborhood semantics of evidence, which provides a modal extension of Fine's semantics for relevant propositional logic. Possible worlds semantics for classical propositional logic is then obtained by defining the set of possible worlds as a special subset of information states in Fine's semantics. Finally, we prove that evidence is a hyperintensional and non-prime notion in our logic, and provide a sound and complete axiomatisation of our evidence logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to examine whether peripheral information facilitates proactive processes during multitasking. For this purpose, peripheral information was presented regularly during multitasking and its effects on the performance of a tracking task (main task: reactive process) and a discrimination task (sub-task: proactive process) were examined. Experiment 1 presented peripheral information (white circles) in the same sensory modality (visual) as the information used for multitasking and the number of circle presentations was manipulated. In Experiment 2, a pure tone (auditory) was presented as peripheral information. We found that, in both experiments, the difficulty of the tracking task influenced discrimination performance, showing that as the difficulty of the tracking task (reactive process) increased, more cognitive resources were consumed in the tracking task, resulting in a decrease in cognitive resources available for the discrimination task (proactive process). In addition, regular presentation of peripheral information facilitated discrimination task performance in both experiments. Interestingly, this peripheral information also facilitated the tracking task performance (reactive process) even if the tracking task was difficult. Moreover, this promoting effect of the peripheral information occurred regardless of the sensory modality. This study revealed that processing of peripheral information facilitates the proactive process even if more cognitive resources are consumed, and that this facilitating effect does not conflict with multitasking and provides a margin of cognitive resources and also facilitates the reactive process. Our results provide evidence of how peripheral information and cognitive resources are used during multitasking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Propositional modal logic over relational frames is naturally extended with propositional quantifiers by letting them range over arbitrary sets of worlds of the relevant frame. This is also known as second-order propositional modal logic. The propositionally quantified modal logic of a class of relational frames is often not axiomatizable, although there are known exceptions, most notably the case of frames validating the strong modal logic $\mathrm {S5}$. Here, we develop new general methods with which many of the open questions in this area can be answered. We illustrate the usefulness of these methods by applying them to a range of examples, which provide a detailed picture of which normal modal logics define classes of relational frames whose propositionally quantified modal logic is axiomatizable. We also apply these methods to establish new results in the multimodal case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do modal expressions determine which possibilities they range over? According to the Modal Anchor Hypothesis (Kratzer in The language-cognition interface: Actes du 19econgrès international des linguistes, Libraire Droz, Genève, 179–199, 2013), modal expressions determine their domain of quantification from particulars (events, situations, or individuals). This paper presents novel evidence for this hypothesis, focusing on a class of Spanish relative clauses that host verbs inflected in the subjunctive. Subjunctive in Romance is standardly taken to be licensed only in a subset of intensional contexts. However, in our relative clauses, subjunctive is exceptionally licensed in extensional contexts. At the same time, the interpretation of these relative clauses still involves modality, a type of modality that targets the goals of the agent of the main event. We argue that the pattern displayed by these relative clauses follows straightforwardly if subjunctive is associated with a modal operator that, like modal indefinites (Alonso-Ovalle and Menéndez-Benito in Journal of Semantics 35(1):1–41, 2017), can project its domain from a volitional event. Overall, our proposal supports the event-based analysis of mood (Kratzer in Evidential mood in attitude and speech reports. Talk delivered at the 1st Syncart Workshop, Siena, July 13, 2016; Portner and Rubinstein in Natural Language Semantics 28:343–393, 2020) and extends its application beyond attitudinal and modal complements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]