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Vocalizations are a central resource for instructing in orchestra rehearsals. Conductors use them to make the musicians understand what they want to hear, i.e., through singing and rhythmic vocalizations they imitate or depict the envisaged musical qualities. In this contribution, I examine what vocalizations of orchestra conductors look like and how they are embedded in the instructional interaction between conductor and musicians. Based on a corpus of orchestra rehearsals in France and Italy, the paper uses multimodal conversation analysis to describe the vocal resources used by the conductors for singing, the interactional and sequential organization of vocalizations, as well as their functional properties. Vocalizing appears to often be accompanied by other semiotic resources, such as gestures and gaze, in order to form vocal-gestural demonstrations that embody musical aspects, e.g., tempo, phrasing, articulation, etc. The analysis reveals that vocalizations are employed by conductors for various purposes that exceed the simple action of imitating the music. Data are in French, Italian and English. • Conductors vocalize using arbitrary but similar syllables and onomatopoeic patterns. • Vocalizations are closely tied to and timed with prosodic and gestural events. • Vocal depictions provide gestalt-like information about music character. • Vocalizations indicate correctable aspects prospectively and retrospectively. • Vocal demonstrations specify verbal instructions and monitor musical performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study normalisation of multistep strategies, strategies that reduce a set of redexes at a time, focusing on the notion of necessary sets, those which contain at least one redex that cannot be avoided in order to reach a normal form. This is particularly appealing in the setting of non-sequential rewrite systems, in which terms that are not in normal form may not have any needed redex. We first prove a normalisation theorem for abstract rewrite systems (ARS), a general rewriting framework encompassing many rewriting systems developed by P-A. Melliès [20]. The theorem states that multistep strategies reducing so called necessary and never-gripping sets of redexes at a time are normalising in any ARS. Gripping refers to an abstract property reflecting the behaviour of higher-order substitution. We then apply this result to the particular case of PPC, a calculus of patterns and to the lambda-calculus with parallel-or. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the denial of epistemic access through the use of the verbs tietää ‘to know’ and muistaa ‘to remember’ in Finnish conversation. The authors show that both verbs tend to occur in the first person negative form. Each verb is likely to occur in certain formulaic syntactic formats that are in turn associated with particular sequential and interactional contexts, in which they perform certain functions beyond simple denial of knowing and remembering, such as hedging and rejecting a compliment. We show that the negative-initial format for both verbs is likely to occur in responsive position and to occur without any complements, while the pronoun-initial format is less likely to occur in responsive position and more likely to be followed by complements. Both these tendencies are stronger for the verb tietää ‘to know’ than the verb muistaa ‘to remember’. The verb tietää functions as an epistemic marker and as a projective fragment in our data. The clearest tendency for the verb muistaa emerging from our data is that it often occurs in contexts of reminiscing, involving several instances of use of the verb by different participants in close succession. The formats also manifest different degrees of phonetic reduction, at least partly due to differences in frequency of use. We suggest that the use of these verbs in Finnish conversation manifests the emergent and sequentially sensitive nature of grammar, as its design is motivated by its use in human interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores how doctors and patients discursively track responsibility for patients’ poor health after treatment recommendations have been delivered in South-western Nigerian hospitals. Purposively sampling 10 audio-taped and five video-taped doctor–patient interactions in selected Nigerian hospitals, it takes a mid-course between aspects of the conversation analytic, exclusively bottom-up, and the discourse analytic, mostly top-down, approaches to clinical conversations. It argues that the discursive treatment of postrecommendation poor health, situated in common ground and sequentiality, is construed by participants as either patient- or doctor-induced. When construed as patient-induced, poor health is anchored to a patient-designed therapy plan and is co-constructed as a clear patient responsibility, necessitating a re-negotiation of an existing recommendation by doctors and patients. When construed as doctor-induced, poor health is co-constructed as a physician error, but responsibility for it is sequentially refused by the doctor, who negotiates a fresh therapy plan to neutralise physician blame. While the analysis shows that doctors’ simplified language which facilitates consultative exchanges proves useful in negotiating responsibility in poor health discourses and, consequently, instituting a more effective medical procedure on patients, it reveals doctors’ occasional communication of inadequate and misleading information, use of suppressive interactive power and or nonacceptance of clinical errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spiking neural P systems (SN P systems, for short) are a class of distributed parallel computing devices inspired by spiking neurons. SN P systems with anti-spikes (ASN P systems) are a variant of SN P systems, which were inspired by inhibitory impulses/spikes or inhibitory synapses. In this work, we consider ASN P systems with the restrictions: (1) systems are simple in the sense that each neuron has only one rule; (2) at each step the neuron(s) with the maximum number of spikes among the neurons that are active (can spike) will fire; (3) the feature of delays and forgetting rules are not used. These restrictions make the systems working in a sequential way. We investigate the computational power of ASN P systems under these restrictions. Specifically, we prove that such systems with spiking rules of categories ( a , a ) and ( a , a ¯ ) are universal as both number generating and accepting devices. We also prove that ASN P systems with inhibitory synapses using spiking rules of category ( a , a ) are universal as both generating and accepting devices. These results show that ASN P systems are still powerful working with these restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Dialogue is tightly interwoven within everyday joint activities that require moment-by-moment coordination of utterances and actions. A common account of coordination is that it is established via progressive convergence (alignment, entrainment, similarity) of interlocutors' representations and behaviour. In order to examine how coordination is established and sustained, this paper distinguishes between (1) Semantic coordination of referring expressions (2) Procedural coordination of the timing and sequencing of contributions. Drawing on data from a series of maze experiments, this paper shows how both kinds of coordination result in the rapid development of highly elliptical, systematized and normative conventions. Focussing on how these conventions are established, this paper shows how interlocutors exploit partial repetition as an interactive resource, resulting in interlocutors' turns becoming progressively divergent and complementary. Further, this paper develops the claim that since repetition is best conceived as a special case of complementarity, it cannot be the general explanation of coordination. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Game semantics extends the Curry–Howard isomorphism to a three-way correspondence: proofs, programs, strategies. But the universe of strategies goes beyond intuitionistic logics and lambda calculus, to capture stateful programs. In this paper we describe a logical counterpart to this extension, in which proofs denote such strategies. The system is expressive: it contains all of the connectives of Intuitionistic Linear Logic, and first-order quantification. Use of Lairdʼs sequoid operator allows proofs with imperative behaviour to be expressed. Thus, we can embed first-order Intuitionistic Linear Logic into this system, Polarized Linear Logic, and an imperative total programming language. The proof system has a tight connection with a simple game model, where games are forests of plays. Formulas are modelled as games, and proofs as history-sensitive winning strategies. We provide a strong full completeness result with respect to this model: each finitary strategy is the denotation of a unique analytic (cut-free) proof. Infinite strategies correspond to analytic proofs that are infinitely deep. Thus, we can normalise proofs, via the semantics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Spiking neural P systems (SN P systems, for short) are a class of distributed parallel computing devices inspired from the way neurons communicate by means of spikes. Each neuron can have several spiking rules and forgetting rules and neurons work in parallel in the sense that each neuron that can fire should fire at each computation step. In this work, we consider SN P systems working in the sequential way, where the sequentiality is induced by the minimum number of spikes: at each step, one (resp. all) of the neurons with the minimum number of spikes among the neurons that are active (can fire) will fire, called min-sequentiality (resp. min-pseudo-sequentiality). We prove that SN P systems working in min-sequentiality or min-pseudo-sequentiality are universal as both number generating and accepting devices, where the computation results are encoded by the time elapsed between the first two spikes of the output neuron. The results give positive answers to two open problems formulated in [O.H. Ibarra, A. Păun, A. Rodríguez-Patón, Sequential SNP systems based on min/max spike number, Theoretical Computer Science 410 (30–32) (2009) 2982–2991]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Synthetic Domain Theory (SDT) was originally suggested by Dana Scott as a uniform and logic based account of domain theory. In SDT the domain structure is intrinsic to a chosen class of sets with “good” properties. General SDT has a lot of different models which differ w.r.t. the ambient logic but also w.r.t. the PCF hierarchy, i.e. the finite type hierarchy over the partial natural numbers. From the early days of SDT we know satisfactory axiomatizations of SDT à la Scott which enforce the existence of “parallel or”. A realizability model for SDT where the PCF hierarchy coincides with the strongly stable model of Bucciarelli and Ehrhard has been found independently by van Oosten (1999) and Longley (2002) . Their model is based on the typed partial combinatory algebra of concrete data structures and sequential algorithms. In this paper, we try to axiomatize this kind of Sequential SDT for the first time. Our approach is based on replacing by , the observably sequential algorithms, as suggested by Cartwright et al. (1994) . The axioms are inspired by the realizability model over and its type of observations with two global elements standing for nontermination and termination with error, respectively. Unlike in traditional domain theory this type is not a dominance because binary infimum is not available as an operation. This forces us to adapt some of the basic machinery of SDT. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper aims at outlining the sequential, situated and embodied dimensions of understanding in interaction. This perspective on understanding, originating in Ryle and Wittgenstein, further developed by ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, focuses on the orderly unfolding of sequences of actions in time. It also focuses on understanding as a collective achievement, publicly displayed and interactively oriented to within the production and the monitoring of action. Its accountability is built through a plurality of displays, claiming and demonstrating understanding, thanks to the mobilization of linguistic and embodied resources at specific sequential positions. The paper discusses evidences of understanding as they are publicly displayed by the participants in interaction: It both offers a discussion of the ethnomethodological and conversation analytic literature, and an analysis an empirical case, focusing on the interplay of embodied and sequential features in the production and monitoring of understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We consider the properties of spiking neural P (SNP) systems that work in a sequential manner. These SNP systems are a class of computing devices recently introduced as a bridge between spiking neural nets and membrane computing. The general sequentiality of these systems was considered previously; now we focus on the sequentiality induced by the spike number: at each step, the neuron with the maximum (or minimum) number of spikes among the neurons that are active (can spike) will fire. This strategy corresponds to a global view of the whole network that makes the system sequential. We study the properties of this type of a restriction (i.e. considering the case of sequentiality induced by the function maximum defined on numbers of spikes as well as the case of the sequentiality induced by the function minimum similarly defined on numbers of spikes). Several universality results are obtained for the cases of maximum and minimum induced sequentiality. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: As Dag Normann has recently shown, the fully abstract model for PCF of hereditarily-sequential functionals is not -complete (in contrast to the old fully abstract continuous dcpo model of Milner). This is also applicable to a potentially wider class of models such as the recently constructed by the author fully abstract (universal) model for (parallel ). Here we will present an outline of a general approach to this kind of ‘natural’ domains which, although being non-dcpos, allow considering ‘naturally’ continuous functions (with respect to existing directed ‘pointwise’, or ‘natural’ least upper bounds). There is also an appropriate version of ‘naturally’ algebraic and ‘naturally’ bounded complete ‘natural’ domains which serves as the non-dcpo analogue of the well-known concept of Scott domains, or equivalently, the complete f-spaces of Ershov. It is shown that this special version of ‘natural’ domains, if considered under ‘natural’ Scott topology, exactly corresponds to the class of f-spaces, not necessarily complete. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Finite automata with weights in the max-plus semiring are considered. The main result is: it is decidable whether a series that is recognized by a finitely ambiguous max-plus automaton is unambiguous, or is sequential. Furthermore, the proof is constructive. A collection of examples is given to illustrate the hierarchy of max-plus series with respect to ambiguity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Given a Hausdorff space X, we calculate the tightness and the character of the hyperspace CL(X) of X, endowed with either the co-compact or the lower Vietoris topology, and give some estimates for the tightness of CL(X), endowed with the Fell topology.Some properties related to first-countability and countable tightness, such as sequentiality, Fréchet property and, less directly, radiality and pseudoradiality, are investigated as well.To carry out our investigation, we also consider on the base space X several cardinal functions, and we compare some of them (which are newly defined or not so well known) with other classical ones, obtaining results and counterexamples which may be of some independent interest. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Sequentiality (input-side determinism) is a desirable property of finite-state transducers: such transducers are optimal for time efficiency. Not all transducers are sequentiable and those that are may not be sequential. Sequentialization algorithms of finite-state transducers do not recognize whether a transducer is sequentiable or not and simply do not ever halt when it is not. Choffrut proved that sequentiality of finite-state transducers is decidable. Be´al et al. (in: D. Gonnet, G. Panario, A. Viola (Eds.), Proceedings of LATIN 2000, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. C1776, Springer, Heidelberg, 2000, p. 397) have proposed squaring to decide sequentiality. We propose a different procedure, which, with ϵ-closure extension, is able to handle letter transducers with arbitrary ϵ-ambiguities, too. Our algorithm is more economical than squaring, in terms of size. In different cases of non-sequentiability, necessary and sufficient conditions of one of the four possible ambiguity classes of the transducer can be observed. These ambiguities can be mapped bijectively to particular basic patterns in the structure of the transducer. The non-presence of both the infinitely ambiguous and the unboundedly ambiguous patterns is the condition of sequentiability. These patterns can be recognized, using finite-state methods, in any transducer. The method shows both sequentiability and, if present, sequentiality on the given side of the transducer. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We consider a notion of sequential functional of finite type, more generous than the familiar notion embodied in Plotkin's language PCF. We study both the “full” and “effective” partial type structures arising from this notion of sequentiality. The full type structure coincides with that given by the strongly stable model of Bucciarelli and Ehrhard; it has also been characterized by van Oosten in terms of realizability over a certain combinatory algebra. We survey and relate several known characterizations of these type structures, and obtain some new ones. We show that (in both the full and effective scenarios) every finite type can be obtained as a retract of the pure type 2¯, and hence that all elements of the effective type structure are definable in PCF extended by a certain universal functional H. We also consider the relationship between our notion of sequentially computable functional and other known notions of higher-type computability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]