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A reference architecture is a key architectural asset for the systems engineer, that intends both to simplify its work and to guarantee the exhaustiveness of the coverage of its system analyses. This paper proposes formal definitions for a reference architecture, based on the theory of abstract interpretation that formalizes the notion of abstraction, which covers respectively large and small‐scale families of systems. These definitions are illustrated by automotive, building, and mining case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to show that properties of cognitive/conceptual representations and formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning can be inter‐translated, recast, transformed into one another, and so united together, even though cognitive/conceptual representations and formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning are apparently distinct in ontology and divergent in their form or character. While cognitive/conceptual representations are ultimately rooted in sensory‐motor systems, formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning are abstractions detached from and independent of the actualized world. This paper sketches out the foundations of how representations of linguistic meaning in terms of cognitive/conceptual structures in Cognitive/Conceptual Semantics can be unified with those in terms of formal‐logical structures in Formal Semantics. This is done by recasting cognitive/conceptual representations in terms of formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning and re‐encoding formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning in terms of cognitive/conceptual representations. Then, these two types of semantic representations, thus shown representationally equivalent, will be related to a series of derivations across levels in neuronal networks and dynamics. The general discussion on unifying cognitive/conceptual representations of linguistic meaning with formal‐logical structures is contextualized within the broader context of theorizing in cognitive science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social interactions present complex learning challenges. Recent computational models of learning assume people negotiate a tradeoff between complex-but-difficult behavior and easy-but-simple behavior. Humans have social expertise that lets them simplify difficult learning problems, reducing detailed scenarios to familiar social concepts that can subsequently guide learning. People can therefore use learning strategies that achieve flexible social behavior with easy cognition, using the earlier work of concept development to simplify the later work of complex choice. Accounting for pre-existing conceptual knowledge and expertise can enrich models of reinforcement learning in familiar environments. Social learning is complex, but people often seem to navigate social environments with ease. This ability creates a puzzle for traditional accounts of reinforcement learning (RL) that assume people negotiate a tradeoff between easy-but-simple behavior (model-free learning) and complex-but-difficult behavior (e.g., model-based learning). We offer a theoretical framework for resolving this puzzle: although social environments are complex, people have social expertise that helps them behave flexibly with low cognitive cost. Specifically, by using familiar concepts instead of focusing on novel details, people can turn hard learning problems into simpler ones. This ability highlights social learning as a prototype for studying cognitive simplicity in the face of environmental complexity and identifies a role for conceptual knowledge in everyday reward learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe representation and recognition of icons play a crucial role in interface interaction efficiency and user experience within human–computer interaction. However, the intricate relationship between product icon types, feature types, and abstraction in cognitive contexts has yet to be clarified. This study aimed to delve into the cognitive mechanisms concerning practical and hedonic product icons across varying abstraction levels using EEG analysis. Moreover, it investigated how the explicitness and implicitness of these icons and their abstraction levels influence recognition efficiency via eye-tracking studies. In Experiment A, a high abstraction level led to prolonged reaction times (RTs), reduced accuracy rate (ACC), more negative N400, and decreased late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes. These outcomes suggested increased effort, heightened semantic conflict, and negative emotional engagement. Moreover, at middle abstraction levels, RTs were consistently longer for hedonic product icons compared to practical ones. Additionally, both N400 and LPP amplitudes were notably larger for hedonic product icons. In Experiment B, eye-tracking results revealed that compared with implicit features, the change of abstraction degree of explicit features is more likely to increase the number of fixation points and RTs of users. Specifically, functional explicit features wielded the greatest impact on overall icon cognitive efficiency. Synthesizing both experiments revealed significant differences in abstraction requirements for practical vs. hedonic product icons. A practical implication arises: moderate overall abstraction suits practical product icons, while higher abstraction suits hedonic ones. Among features, it’s essential to avoid excessive abstraction in functional and symbolic aspects, while simplifying or removing area line features and chamfered elements can be beneficial. This study contributes to Internet of Things (IoT) icon research, offering potential guidance for graphic designers in crafting user-friendly icons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I analyze the shift in Twardowski's views between his early psychologistic theory of logic and his later anti-psychologistic theory. In particular, I point out that the interpretation suggesting that this change merely involves Twardowski enriching his ontology with products encounters a certain problem in light of his earlier views. To present this problem more precisely, I discuss the foundations of Twardowski's theory of products, focusing on aspects relevant to the issue of psychologism. Based on this, I reconstruct Twardowski's theory of logic and highlight where he identified the fallacy of psychologism. I contrast this reconstructed theory with Twardowski's earlier views at key points and demonstrate that the difference between his early psychologistic theory and his later anti-psychologistic theory is a matter of a shift in emphasis rather than a significant change in the theoretical system itself, and that Twardowski himself understood it as such. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People have ideas about the attributes (i.e., traits or characteristics that vary along a dimension) that they like in others (e.g., "I like intelligence in a romantic partner"), and these ideas about liking are called summarized attribute preferences (Ledgerwood et al., 2018). But where do summarized preferences come from, and what do they predict? Across four studies, we examined how people form summarized attribute preferences and whether they predict situation selection. We showed participants a series of photographs of faces and assessed both their experienced liking for an attribute (or functional attribute preference) as well as their inference about how much they liked the attribute in the abstract (their summarized attribute preference). Our results suggest that summarized attribute preferences--despite being (weakly) grounded in functional attribute preferences--were affected by incidental aspects of the context in which people learn about them (i.e., the overall likeability of the pool of faces). Furthermore, we observed a double dissociation in the predictive validity of summarized and functional attribute preferences: Whereas summarized attribute preferences predicted situation selection at a distance (e.g., whether to join a new dating website based on a description of it), functional attribute preferences predicted situation selection with experience (e.g., whether to join a new dating website after sampling it). We discuss theoretical and methodological implications for the interdisciplinary science of human evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, an interpretation of Marx's notions of abstraction and concretization is presented. Unlike Leszek Nowak's approach, Marx's use of idealizations is not a reversible process of adding and removing idealizing assumptions. Marx had a richer use of the term abstraction, one in which concretization involves a creative moment of conceptual innovation. Marx adds new variables and new assumptions and elaborates new categories at different levels of abstraction in order to show the unity between appearances and essences. De-idealization, according to Marx, involves both recomposition and de-isolation. Also, concretization, for Marx, does not follow a linear approximation to reality, but rather a hermeneutical circle that is constantly in the process of reframing categories to provide answers to different questions. As a case study, this article shows an interpretation of Marx's labor theory of value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first year of design education is essential for students as it is their initial interaction with the design process. Awareness of the body through dance has the potential to reveal bodily experience in space. Abstraction of embodied experience contributes to realising the significance of the body and its analytical dimension for spatial and structural design. This study investigates the impact of embodied experience and abstraction on the architectural design process and the outcome through correlation and regression analysis. We observed that increasing awareness of the space through bodily movement and its drawn representation positively impacted students' success in architectural design. Also, the measures related to space and structure mainly advanced students' success in the final design. However, the association of the abstraction process with the final design remained limited. The study's contribution is the systematic and statistical evaluation of the relationship between body, movement, abstraction and architectural design by constructing a set of measures from various stages of the design studio. We hope our research will provide a basis for the upcoming discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on dialogues between Michael Ball and Ben Fine, this paper proposes provisioning approaches as a way of reintegrating theoretical and institutional work on rent. Recent debates on financialisation and rent theory overlook the potential contribution of provisioning approaches because urban studies typically take the work of Ball as reference point. By looking at provisioning approaches beyond Ball, the paper shows that such approaches are already making important contributions to financialisation research. It then proposes an interpretation of provisioning approaches as extending Marx's method of moving between abstract and concrete and thereby integrating agentic and theoretic understandings of rent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological neutral theory has been controversial as an alternative to niche theory for explaining community structure. Neutral theory, which explains community structure in terms of ecological drift, is frequently charged with being unrealistic, but commentators have usually not provided an account of theory or model realism. In this paper, I propose a framework for comparing the “realism” or accuracy of alternative theories within a domain with respect to the extent to which the theories abstract and idealize. Using this framework I argue, contrary to most previous commentators, that neutral and niche theories are similarly realistic. Realism cannot provide a basis for accepting or rejecting either type of theory; instead, community ecologists should continue working with a plurality of models. While theoretical unification may become possible, we should treat a plurality of complementary, partial models as the expected situation within community ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marx’s critical theory of slavery is the operational subtext throughout his critique of political economy. For Marx, the movement from modern slavery to capital represents a historical transition of significance, not only (or foremost) as an empirical transition but also as a transformation of social substance. Marx reveals why, in retrospect, production based on slavery, as logical configuration, must give way to the generalising logic of wage labour. Marx’s critical theory of slavery historicises wage labour (qua category) as the dissolution and inversion of enslaved labour (qua category). Plantation slavery production in the colonised territories initiates a qualitative development that constitutes the historical condition for the emergence of a mode of sociality that we can call ‘value’. Marx’s theoretical account of modern slavery is a lever in his broader critique of capital and is fundamentally distinct from empirical, historical accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amino acids, N‐containing compounds, hold a significant importance in various field. Within the biomass energy sector, amino acids constitute a large fraction of the biomass's nitrogen content. As such, it is essential to comprehend their combustion chemistry; most specifically their biomolecular interactions with governing radicals in the pyrolytic and combustion media that prevail during thermal utilization of biomass. Herein, we have employed quantum chemical calculations and reaction rate theory to investigate reactions of a selected set of amino acids with H, CH3, NH2, OH, HO2, and HS radicals. Thermo‐kinetic calculations have been performed to determine the rates of hydrogen abstraction by these six radicals across all possible reaction channels for three specific amino acids: alanine, cysteine, and methionine. The investigation of other amino acids like glycine, threonine, and other models have been carried out for α‐C positions as the most probable abstractable sites. The study also examines the individual effects of different substituents (COOH, NH2, HS, and CH2) and uncovers significant insights. Notably, the presence of the COOH group introduces polar effects that counterintuitively deactivate the thermodynamically favored α‐abstraction pathway. Presented thermo‐kinetic values are anticipated to complement existing biomass kinetic models and to improve current understanding of chemical events that participate in the complex nitrogen transformation reactions in biomass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstraction has taken very different terminologies revolving around the relation between reality and thought. In this framework, the debate on the issue of crisis is fueled by different, often one-sided and ideologically contradictive, uses of abstraction. In this work, we attempt to show that without an adequate grasp of the role of abstraction, and without sufficient flexibility in making the needed abstractions, most interpreters of Marx — Marxists and non-Marxists alike — have constructed versions of his theories that suffer in their very form from the same rigidity, inappropriate focus, and one-sidedness that Marx saw in bourgeois ideology. In this framework, we argue that Marx's abstraction is not 'other things equal', i.e. ceteris paribus, but 'nothing equal'. In the same vein, we argue that the capitalist process is a 'non-equilibrium' process. Instead of 'laws', we argue that tendencies and contradictions may be found in the Marxian oeuvre. Furthermore, we argue that the isolation of the third Volume of Marx's capital from the rest of the Marxian oeuvre facilitates the interpretation of Marx's method in terms of 'mechanical materialism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In three different projects photographer Laura Van Severen has approached (or is still approaching) the landscape in three distinctively different ways. For the images that became her book Land. On the brink of some formidably complex matter, Van Severen photographed the landscape from her childhood memories with no preconceived subject or idea, using the practice of landscape photography as a method (a way of working), rather than a goal (a way of gathering information about a place). Experiencing a lot of freedom in this photographic investigation, the resulting images offered abstraction, geometry and fragmentation - and not much for a viewer to hold on to in terms of depth and scale. The book, then, became an invitation for a reader to take these fragments and design his own (visual) landscape. Just one of many human interventions, it were landfills and the way they altered the landscape that caught her eye and interest next. This could not be merely addressed photographically Van Severen felt, - although the question of the 'realness' of a hill or mound in the landscape comes into play - as it comes with ecological, global and as result of that also political implications. A very concrete subject now, it meant that photographs alone were not enough to comprehend this issue; data and further research into the global connections and implications of landfills were now also needed. The third project discussed here focusses on women in a rural environment, and turns the roles around. Now it is not about the (invisible) human and his impact on the land, but about the impact of the land on these women, and about how they inhabit it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is concerned with war in the history of economic thought. It looks at disputes about abstraction versus historicism over the long 19th century, in relation to war and the state. It then looks at the historical setting in which Léon Walras and others developed their ideas of political economy. It concludes with reflections on the presence or absence of the state in modern economic history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent findings show that goals affect the way in which agents represent their environment, choose relevant actions, and subjectively evaluate outcomes as rewards. Because goals influence all aspects of decision-making and learning, developing a complete theory thereof requires that we understand how agents select their goals. While computational research on goal generation and management is in its early stages, existing studies suggest that goal selection may be framed as a value-based decision-making process, with values acquired via direct experience or inference, combined with directed and undirected selection policies. Goals play a central role in human cognition. However, computational theories of learning and decision-making often take goals as given. Here, we review key empirical findings showing that goals shape the representations of inputs, responses, and outcomes, such that setting a goal crucially influences the central aspects of any learning process: states, actions, and rewards. We thus argue that studying goal selection is essential to advance our understanding of learning. By following existing literature in framing goal selection within a hierarchy of decision-making problems, we synthesize important findings on the principles underlying goal value attribution and exploration strategies. Ultimately, we propose that a goal-centric perspective will help develop more complete accounts of learning in both biological and artificial agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My objective is a better comprehension of two theoretically fundamental concepts. One, the concept of a substance in an ordinary (non-Aristotelian) sense, ranging over such things as salt, carbon, copper, iron, water, and methane—kinds of stuff that now count as (chemical) elements and compounds. The other I will call the object-concept in the abstract sense of Russell, Wittgenstein, and Frege in their logico-semantical enquiries. The material object-concept constitutes the heart of our received logico/ontic system, still massively influenced by Aristotle after almost 2.5 millennia. On such an account, the fundamentality of material objects and their attributes are the metaphysical basis of the cosmos, as reflected in our received logic, Quine's 'canonical notation'—derived via the empiricism of Russell from Frege's function-based Begriffschrifft, and consisting of concrete singular terms and variables, quantifiers and predicate-expressions. The inadequacy of Frege's approach to understanding concepts is reflected in his initial question. Frege enquires of 'what it is that we are calling an object', remarking that he regards a regular definition as impossible: "we have here something too simple to admit of logical analysis". The imagined ultimacy or simplicity of the idea of a single object (arithmetically, just a unit—one as opposed to two, three, four, etc.) as foundational to the calculus is just that—imagined. It is also guaranteed to block the comprehension of the substance-concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The slogan "by teaching programming, abstraction capacity is developed" played a key role in the acceptance of the incorporation of programming teaching in schools. it should be noted that the role of abstraction in Computing is central, to the point of being conceptualized as "the art of abstraction". But, is it the same abstraction that psychology teaches? To answer this question, we reviewed the literature from both fields and found intrafield and interfield heterogeneity. While in the field of psychology the piagetian influence makes the association between abstraction, generalization and fluid intelligence very strong, in the field of computer science this association is not present. it is treated as a very powerful but much more specific tool, with at least three different meanings. Based on them and on previous bibliography, we outline a mathematization proposal to clarify their differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social navigation--such as anticipating where gossip may spread, or identifying which acquaintances can help land a job--relies on knowing how people are connected within their larger social communities. Problematically, for most social networks, the space of possible relationships is too vast to observe and memorize. Indeed, people's knowledge of these social relations is well known to be biased and error-prone. Here, we reveal that these biased representations reflect a fundamental computation that abstracts over individual relationships to enable principled inferences about unseen relationships. We propose a theory of network representation that explains how people learn inferential cognitive maps of social relations from direct observation, what kinds of knowledge structures emerge as a consequence, and why it can be beneficial to encode systematic biases into social cognitive maps. Leveraging simulations, laboratory experiments, and "field data" from a real-world network, we find that people abstract observations of direct relations (e.g., friends) into inferences of multistep relations (e.g., friends-of-friends). This multistep abstraction mechanism enables people to discover and represent complex social network structure, affording adaptive inferences across a variety of contexts, including friendship, trust, and advice-giving. Moreover, this multistep abstraction mechanism unifies a variety of otherwise puzzling empirical observations about social behavior. Our proposal generalizes the theory of cognitive maps to the fundamental computational problem of social inference, presenting a powerful framework for understanding the workings of a predictive mind operating within a complex social world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Haitian Revolution—the famed historical event that redefined the liberatory possibilities of modernity and altered Black diasporic subjectivities—offers a wealth of knowledge that has yet to be fully analyzed. This article explores the diasporic and queered possibilities embedded in the story and aesthetic representation of the revolutionary actor, Romaine la Prophètesse. This liminal figure of the early revolutionary era galvanized thousands of formerly enslaved people to fight against the French colonial apparatus while embodying a feminine, creative, and spiritual gendered subjectivity, diverting from the overdetermined masculinist and militaristic ethos of the time. Nonetheless, most accounts of Romaine are tangentially mentioned and do not explore the rebellious possibilities of this historical figure's imaginative gendered presentation. To counter the analytical impasse imposed by Western and authoritative archives and methodologies, the author employs a "radical interdisciplinarity"—a crucial Black studies approach—to unearth the potential of creative genders and their role in upholding Black diasporic epistemes of freedom and resistance. Paying attention to Haitian abstract art, and particularly the work of Haiti-born, Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist Manuel Mathieu, the author explores how his pieces blur temporal, spatial and ontological registers offering a glimpse into undecipherable, yet affective, genealogies of "freedom dreams." Indeed, through the use of a conceptual frameworks that honours the "right to opacity," the author suggests that the obscured mythology and the abstracted aesthetics of Romaine la Prophètesse allow for a genealogical reading of queer spiritual ontologies that are part of larger Black diasporic freedom epistemes and that are demonstrated through contemporary Haitian queer designations and advocacy work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstraction enables us to categorize experience, learn new information, and form judgments. Language arguably plays a crucial role in abstraction, providing us with words that vary in specificity (e.g., highly generic: tool vs. highly specific: muffler). Yet, human-generated ratings of word specificity are virtually absent. We hereby present a dataset of specificity ratings collected from Italian native speakers on a set of around 1K Italian words, using the Best-Worst Scaling method. Through a series of correlation studies, we show that human-generated specificity ratings have low correlation coefficients with specificity metrics extracted automatically from WordNet, suggesting that WordNet does not reflect the hierarchical relations of category inclusion present in the speakers' minds. Moreover, our ratings show low correlations with concreteness ratings, suggesting that the variables Specificity and Concreteness capture two separate aspects involved in abstraction and that specificity may need to be controlled for when investigating conceptual concreteness. Finally, through a series of regression studies we show that specificity explains a unique amount of variance in decision latencies (lexical decision task), suggesting that this variable has theoretical value. The results are discussed in relation to the concept and investigation of abstraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We shall propose a conceptual-oriented discussion of the so-called Univalent Foundations Program, that is, of Martin–Löf type theory enriched with a homotopic interpretation, together with the univalence axiom proposed by Voevodsky. We shall argue that the type-theoretic notion of propositional equality encodes the notion of indiscernibility, we shall address the homotopic interpretation of Martin–Löf type theory, and we shall analyse whether Leibniz's principle of the identity of indiscernibles holds or not in Univalent Foundations. We shall finally argue that univalence can be understood as a particular implementation of a constructive notion of abstraction that resolves Fregean abstraction. This article is part of the theme issue 'Identity, individuality and indistinguishability in physics and mathematics'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The publication of the first 'critical introduction' to David Harvey is long overdue and most welcome. Aimed at degree students and more experienced readers seeking to gain a broader understanding of Harvey's voluminous oeuvre, the book is clear and comprehensive, making a strong defence of the 'power of abstraction' in his work and productively centring crisis at the core of his writings. The book fills an obvious need in terms of the reception of Harvey's work and is to be commended for the breadth of its engagement, but is rather pessimistic on Harvey's wider impact. This is my main contention with what is otherwise a fine introduction to Harvey and a necessary, if contestable, contribution to studies of Marxism and Marxist geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capacities for abstract thinking and problem‐solving are central to human cognition. Processes of abstraction allow the transfer of experiences and knowledge between contexts helping us make informed decisions in new or changing contexts. While we are often inclined to relate such reasoning capacities to individual minds and brains, they may in fact be contingent on human‐specific modes of collaboration, dialogue, and shared attention. In an experimental study, we test the hypothesis that social interaction enhances cognitive processes of rule‐induction, which in turn improves problem‐solving performance. Through three sessions of increasing complexity, individuals and groups were presented with a problem‐solving task requiring them to categorize a set of visual stimuli. To assess the character of participants' problem representations, after each training session, they were presented with a transfer task involving stimuli that differed in appearance, but shared relations among features with the training set. Besides, we compared participants' categorization behaviors to simulated agents relying on exemplar learning. We found that groups performed superior to individuals and agents in the training sessions and were more likely to correctly generalize their observations in the transfer phase, especially in the high complexity session, suggesting that groups more effectively induced underlying categorization rules from the stimuli than individuals and agents. Crucially, variation in performance among groups was predicted by semantic diversity in members' dialogical contributions, suggesting a link between social interaction, cognitive diversity, and abstraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the lexical properties -degree of familiarity and abstraction- of the words that teachers most frequently pronounced during Social and Natural Science classes in kindergarten classrooms in the province of Cordoba (Argentina). Additionally, it reports whether these words were taught or not and the types of information that teachers provided when teaching them. Teaching situations that involved the complete development of two units: types of work (Social Sciences) and the water cycle (Natural Sciences) in four classrooms of 5-year-old children were video-recorded. Quantitative and qualitative data analysis procedures were applied. The results showed that teachers prioritized the teaching of familiar and concrete words during Natural Science classes. They also gave more information when teaching familiar words in Natural Science classes, while in Social Science classes they provided a greater amount of information to teach unfamiliar words. The interpretation of these results highlights the need for kindergarten teachers to systematically and multimodally teach the vocabulary that integrates the conceptual content of Social and Natural Science classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to explain the importance of inventing zero and the application thereof in the context of the history of culture, philosophy, and the exact sciences bring to the forefront a range of problems in relation to the overlapping of challenging issues (and terminology) in science and culture. The symbol of zero is qualified both as a scientific discovery (or invention) and an empirically found solution for the satisfaction of certain practical needs of humans. Moreover, its invention is also based on references to certain religious and philosophical teachings. All this makes the explanation of this phenomenon extremely difficult, taking into account that explanations frequently connect fundamentally different fields that actually address completely different areas of research. Furthermore, when looking more closely into the materials related to scientific-technical and religious-philosophical explanations, we see that the emergence of zero (or the idea of 'emptiness', 'nothingness') on the religious-philosophical side does not at all indicate the existence of this phenomenon in exact scientific use, and vice versa. There might be a discussion about 'emptiness' or 'nothingness' within a specific historical period in a certain society, and at the same time zero might not show up at all in the mathematical theory and practice known to that society, as was the case, for example, in medieval Europe. Likewise, the introducers of zero in mathematical practice may theoretically disagree with the idea of 'nothingness' per se at the religious-philosophical level, as was seen in the Europe of the early modern period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is believed to be involved in many cognitive processes, including linking goals to actions and tracking decision-relevant contextual information. ACC neurons robustly encode expected outcomes, but how this relates to putative functions of ACC remains unknown. Here, we approach this question from the perspective of population codes by analyzing neural spiking data in the ventral and dorsal banks of the ACC in two male monkeys trained to perform a stimulus- motor mapping task to earn rewards or avoid losses. We found that neural populations favor a low dimensional representational geometry that emphasizes the valence of potential outcomes while also facilitating the independent, abstract representation of multiple task-relevant variables. Valence encoding persisted throughout the trial, and realized outcomes were primarily encoded in a relative sense, such that cue valence acted as a context for outcome encoding. This suggests that the population coding we observe could be a mechanism that allows feedback to be interpreted in a context-dependent manner. Together, our results point to a prominent role for ACC in context setting and relative interpretation of outcomes, facilitated by abstract, or untangled, representations of task variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a novel approach to defining, teaching, and assessing creativity by examining its origins and delineating the processes involved. The rationale for introducing this framework developed from studying existing thinking and questioning the current metrics for measuring creativity, which we posit are unfit for purpose. We reach this conclusion because rather than accepting the existing focus on outcomes, we perceive creativity as a process based on different types of logic. Drawing upon the earlier work of De Bono and Kolb, we explore the creative process through the lenses of humour and systems engineering to reveal and develop a range of demonstrable skills and key techniques that can be learned, taught and assessed. By using the identified system inputs of creative logic, dialectic conflicts (dualities), alternate narratives, and abstraction, we ultimately present a possible framework for evaluating creativity without relying on subjective assessment. This methodology and framework can be applied in all educational contexts, from cross-curricular mainstream learning to a focus on excluded and hard-to-reach learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of an empirical concept is a recurrent theme in the specialized literature dedicated to the discussion of the work of Immanuel Kant. In this text, initiating from the differentiation of the logical question from the metaphysical question about the formation of an empirical concept I intend to offer an alternative to the most influential interpretations on this subject. Thus, the text that follows is divided into three parts. First, I investigate the logical question about the formation of empirical concepts. Second, I deal with the interpretation of Béatrice Longuenesse and bring it closer to the treatment of this question by Meier and Locke. Finally, I offer, from a reading of the Reflexion (AA 14-19) and Logik Vorlesungen (AA 24) an alternative interpretation of the role of logical acts in the formation of an empirical concept for Kant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between thiamine blood level (TBL) and cognition remains uncertain, including among alcohol-dependent persons (ADP). To evaluate this relationship during protocol-driven inpatient alcohol detoxification treatment including thiamine supplementation (AD + Th). Prospective 3-week study with 100 consecutively admitted detoxification-seeking ADP (47.7 ± 11 years old, 21% females) without superseding comorbidities requiring treatment. TBL and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) were measured at admission (t 1 , pre-AD + Th) and discharge (t 3 , post-AD + Th). Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) was performed at t 1. AD + Th included abstinence, pharmacological alcohol withdrawal syndrome treatment, and oral thiamine supplementation (200 mg/day for 14 days). Regression and mediation analyses assessed TBL-cognition relationships. We found no cases of Wernicke Encephalopathy (WE) and only one case of thiamine deficiency. Both MoCA and TBL significantly improved across AD + Th (with medium-to-large effect sizes). At t 1 , TBL significantly predicted MoCA and FAB sum scores (medium effect sizes; extreme and very strong evidence, respectively). The clear TBL-MoCA association disappeared at t 3. In multivariate regression and mediation analyses exploring key influential factors of cognition (identified by LASSO regression), the TBL-MoCA interactions did not relevantly change at t 1 and t 3. Age, serum transaminases, vitamin D levels, drinking-years, and depression score weakly modified the relationship. TBL was a robust predictor of pre-detoxification cognitive impairment, and both TBL and cognition improved significantly during AD + Th (including abstinence) in our ADP population, supporting routine thiamine supplementation for ADP, even those at low WE-risk. The TBL-cognition relationship was minimally confounded by age, alcohol-toxicity proxies, mood, and vitamin D levels. • The relationship between thiamine blood level (TBL) and cognition is still unclear. • This is a prospective 3-week study with 100 detoxifying adult alcohol-dependent persons. • TBL and cognition significantly improved during the detoxification treatment including thiamine supplementation. • TBL significantly predicted pre-detoxification cognition, esp. visuospatial, executive, memory, and abstraction abilities. • Significant TBL-cognition association was missing at post-detoxification (presumably owning to a ceiling effect upon MOCA). • TBL-cognition association was not meaningfully confounded by alcohol-toxicity proxies, homocysteine, mood, serum vitamin D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary art is increasingly reverting to notions of the index to image the slow changes and catastrophic destructions caused by climate breakdown. Looking at Gideon Mendel's photo series Watermarks (since 2011), Tomonari Nishikawa's short film sound of a million insects, light of a thousand stars (2014), and Santiago Sierra's installation 52 Canvases Exposed to Mexico City's Air (2019), the essay analyzes three positions that employ analog techniques of direct exposure to the elements and to toxicity. They use the index to create artworks that function as collaborative testimonies of human and non-human witnessing work, prompting a re-reading of Rosalind Krauss' two-part essay "Notes on the Index" (1977) for the present. Central to such a re-reading is the form the testimonies take on. I describe them as indexical abstractions, seeing in them images that are materially connected to the world yet expressing that involvement in non-mimetic ways. The works cite the idiom of abstract art not only to show that modernism has put the planet into distress but to also find a pictorial code operating beyond the confines of linear perspective. By doing so, they give expression to what Timothy Morton has called the hyperobject of climate change, creating pictures that combine image and imagination, thereby asking viewers to approach them – and the world they index – with care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary goals of this research were to investigate the development of computational thinking (CT) skills among elementary students and to identify areas for improvement in their CT practices. Empirical investigations, accomplished in a learner-centered, problem-based learning curriculum for sixth-graders, sought to examine student proficiency in CT practices by analyzing programs developed by students. A total of 30 students participated in this study and eleven Scratch projects were analyzed. Results revealed that students showed high competence in Event, Parallelism, Sequence, and Design while low competence in Loop & Operator. Examination of the flow of their programs revealed how effectively students utilized CT concepts in CT practices. As areas for improvement, researchers identified an extremely fine-grained programming (EFGP) approach and a lack of abstraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article demonstrates that geometric analysis by itself is not enough to evaluate Alexander's wholeness in public spaces and that his theories of wholeness can--and should--be extended into the realm of events. The first section provides a summary of the theory of centers and the relevance of events with regard to the theory of wholeness. In the second section, a new way to classify centers is presented, along with insights from Alexander's works into an approach for incorporating event centers into the theory of wholeness. The final part puts these ideas to the test on a public square in Stuttgart, Germany, using a geometric analysis and an analysis of user activity to determine the performance of the square as a center. The research concludes that utilizing Alexander's theories from an event-first rather than a geometry-first perspective is an approach especially well-suited for public spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The understanding of technical concepts is a prerequisite for science education. Education cannot proceed satisfactorily unless the teacher and the pupil have the same (or at least very similar) conceptions of the same content under the same word. The process of concept acquisition (crystallization) starts with motivation (the pupil’s willingness to acquire the concept), proceeds through isolated models and their generalization to generic models and abstraction. In this paper, one of the pathways by which crystallization can be fostered, i.e., systematic work with isolated models, is presented. Examples representing typical models, atypical models and apparent models are sought for basic systematic categories (classification of birds, fish, etc.). For reference purposes, QR codes linking to worksheets for teachers and pupils are embedded in the paper. This method can be recommended for practicing the understanding of all taxonomic categories as well as other abstract scientific concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Torsten Hägerstrand's career can be understood as a protracted experiment in thinking creatively about space and human–environment interactions. He continually sought to abstract – select, simplify and exclude – from the complexity of spatiotemporal processes in ways that differed from customs at a given point in time. This article argues that Hägerstrand's Diorama, Path and Project, one of TESG's most influential papers published in 1982, elaborated the diorama in English as a conceptual device to enact a different mode of abstraction in geography and interdisciplinary research. An undervalued conceptual device with which Hägerstrand was never entirely comfortable himself, the diorama is still worth engaging with at the current time of climate emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay compares the poetic and political theories of contemporary philosopher Giorgio Agamben with the poetry of Wallace Stevens in order to outline a dynamic of 'inoperativity' that foregrounds the intimate relationship between language, form and an existential expression of possibility. Through a reading of Stevens's prose essays and poetry, I demonstrate how Agamben's reconceptualization of potentiality as a power kept in a non-relational relationship towards its formal realization can be mapped onto the self-conscious articulations of Stevens's poetic speakers who employ poetic tropes and forms only to question and expose their claims to truth and foundationality. Rather than follow a tradition of poststructuralist readings of Stevens's destabilizations, I argue for a framework of 'inoperativity' that preserves Stevens's poetic attitude towards life, while showing how his emphasis on potentiality delineates an imaginative vigour that brings the poetic self into renewed attunement with his or her environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groundwater is the primary source of water supply in Ethiopia. The study area was challenged due to increasing water demand, uneven water resource distribution, and noticeable changes in groundwater levels. The study focused on the examining of existing abstraction and future water demand scenarios on groundwater balance in the Weyib watershed using the WetSpass-M and MODFLOW-2005 models. The input datasets, such as aquifer properties, observed groundwater heads, hydrogeology, groundwater recharge, the Digital Elevation Model (DEM), and hydrological data were used. Datasets were prepared to better represent subsurface hydrology and its future demand effects evaluated using calibrated steady-state numerical groundwater modeling. The WetSpass-M and MODFLOW-2005 models depicted good performances during the simulations of groundwater recharge and groundwater budget under existing abstractions and estimated demand scenarios, respectively. The mean annual groundwater recharge estimated was 177.66 mm/year. The existing groundwater abstraction was 34,686.39, estimated short-term and long-term water demand scenarios were 72,113.61 and 93,795.57 m3/day, respectively. The upstream area has the highest groundwater head and recharge, while decreasing as it approaches the Weyib watershed outlet. During the outflow groundwater budget, the groundwater abstractions increased as expenses of river leakage and head dept. bounds increased. Moreover, the increasing groundwater withdrawal would reduce groundwater heads, and the estimated future water demand scenarios would substantially impact the groundwater budget, which would also have an impact on the watershed hydrology and ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper, we develop a theory of thinking based on an attempt to formalize the construction of mental representations as described in psychoanalytic theory. In previous work, we described Freud's and Matte Blanco's structural Unconscious in a formal model in which the properties of unconscious representations are captured by particular sets-infinite singletons-that can be derived in first-order logic language. Here, we afford the issue of the finitization of unconscious representations by assuming that the mind can form an all-purpose modality, originating from abstraction from infinite singletons; in this way, a symmetric prelogical setting for mental representations is formally created, and this is interpreted in a quantum spin model by a modal (necessity) projector. Then, by introducing time, one can describe the links that mental representations can establish with reality, and hence finitize the representations. The modality is so split into finite components, here termed positive, negative and irreal; the splitting of the modality is traced back to the decomposition of the spin observables by means of the Pauli matrices, which can offer a quantum semantics to the method applied. Here, we suggest that the development of the modal approach and its quantum logic implementation can be considered as a proper formalization of some aspect of the psychoanalytic theory of thinking proposed by Bion; namely, we will show that the process of abstraction leading from raw data to preconceptions, and therefore to the definition of the content-container relationship, is adequately captured by our model, and further correspondences can be detected with Bion's theory about links and transformations, implying different ways in which the mind can get in touch with both internal and external reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abilities to form concepts and abstractions, and to make analogies, are key to human intelligence, but AI systems have a long way to go before they can match the abilities of humans in these areas. To develop machines that can abstract and analogize, researchers typically focus on idealized problem domains that are meant to capture the essence of human abstraction abilities without having to deal with the complexity of real‐world situations. This commentary describes why solving problems in these domains remains difficult for AI systems, and discusses how AI researches can make progress on imbuing machines with these essential abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between a conveyance's validity and its underlying contract has been a classic but unsettled topic for comparative private lawyers over the past three decades. This paper attempts to add positivist and normative observations drawn from property transfer theories and practices in English and Chinese law. A jurisdiction adopting an 'intent plus' model does not necessarily recognise a separate intent to convey distinct from the intent in the underlying contract, as exemplified by Chinese law, while a jurisdiction adopting the 'intent alone' model does not necessarily deny the separate intent to convey, as exemplified by English law. One advantage for a jurisdiction that takes the separatist approach is its flexibility, so that it can still choose between pure causality, pure abstraction, or context-based abstraction at a later stage. Recent developments show that English and Chinese law are moving towards this approach. As to whether flaws in the underlying contract infect the validity of the conveyance, the English position depends on vitiating factors, whereas the mainstream Chinese judgments tend to be pro-causal. Justifications favouring causality provided in the English and Chinese academia are different, though neither can stand up to scrutiny. The detecting opportunity argument submitted in this paper helps to justify abstraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unsupervised learning algorithms are widely used for many important statistical tasks with numerous applications in science and industry. Yet despite their prevalence, they have attracted remarkably little philosophical scrutiny to date. This stands in stark contrast to supervised and reinforcement learning algorithms, which have been widely studied and critically evaluated, often with an emphasis on ethical concerns. In this article, I analyze three canonical unsupervised learning problems: clustering, abstraction, and generative modeling. I argue that these methods raise unique epistemological and ontological questions, providing data-driven tools for discovering natural kinds and distinguishing essence from contingency. This analysis goes some way toward filling the lacuna in contemporary philosophical discourse on unsupervised learning, as well as bringing conceptual unity to a heterogeneous field more often described by what it is not (i.e., supervised or reinforcement learning) than by what it is. I submit that unsupervised learning is not just a legitimate subject of philosophical inquiry but perhaps the most fundamental branch of all AI. However, an uncritical overreliance on unsupervised methods poses major epistemic and ethical risks. I conclude by advocating for a pragmatic, error-statistical approach that embraces the opportunities and mitigates the challenges posed by this powerful class of algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the current age is best understood as a theological age in that its normal approach to the world is one based on a high level of abstraction. Theology stands in contrast with piety, which derives much more from immediate experience and embodies common sense. The cultural and intellectual development of Europe and the West can be understood in terms of the interaction of two distinct modes of thinking and viewing the world, namely theology and piety, and the way in which theology has come to dominate Western culture to the detriment of piety. Hence, the dominance of Greek rationalism within the West has led to a one-sided culture that gives priority to rationalist modes of thought. There has been a continuing tradition of piety in the West, but its existence has tended to be somewhat fugitive as can be seen, for example, in Musil's depiction of the 'other condition' and in J S Mill's personal breakdown caused by an excess of theology. The implications of a theological approach for history are evident as historical developments are viewed through the rigid prisms of perspectives that either fragment the study of history into a series of disconnected narratives endowed with their unique telos or impose an all-encompassing narrative that erases differences as well as potentialities. In both cases, it is the theological mode of thought—which has dominated the West since the so-called birth of rationalism—that turns history into ideology. This paper contends that the current condition calls for a new history of philosophy that captures and responds to the crisis affecting the West's self-understanding and sense of purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Echoing the increasing emphasis on STEM literacy, computational thinking has become a national priority in K-12 schools. Scholars have acknowledged abstraction as the keystone of computational thinking. To foster K-12 students' computational thinking and STEM literacy, students' ability to think abstractly should be enhanced. However, the existing curriculum in K-12 education may not adequately equip learners with the proper abstraction needed for the STEM workforce. Given the absence of a synthesized understanding of abstraction, effective instructional guidance for fostering student abstraction is also elusive. To overcome the gap in understanding abstraction, we attempted to conceptualize a synthesized framework of abstraction in computational thinking and proposed a set of design guidelines that may enhance students' uptake of abstraction. In this paper, we describe the importance of abstraction in computational thinking and existing challenges in developing students' ability to perform abstraction. Then, by reviewing the cognitive dimensions of abstraction and the role of abstraction in computing education, we identify three cognitive processes underlying abstraction in computational thinking (e.g., filtering information, locating similarities, and mapping problem structures). We thereby propose a conceptual framework of abstraction in computational thinking. Finally, design guidelines for fostering abstraction in computational thinking are provided with illustrated examples of a tailored STEM-integrative learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructions in which the verb combines with a fixed preposition in many cases have a verb taking a prepositional object (PO). It is often said that the preposition with a PO is very close to meaningless, and therefore arbitrary, but there are reasons to doubt this assertion. This paper aims at exploring the paths followed by prepositional and constructional meaning towards abstraction. For a relevant sample of PO-prepositions, it turns out to be possible to reconstruct the path that connects it to its literal sense, even synchronically. Important gateways to abstraction turn out to be the use of analogy and the shift from literal to figurative meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construal level theory identifies abstraction as the key process that guides the pursuit of distant goals and expands the scope of regulation beyond the here and now (Liberman & Trope, 2008; Trope et al., 2021). While low-level (concrete) construals are concrete representations that foster a narrow view on the immediate circumstances and allow people to focus on a small subset of concerns, high-level (abstract) construals enable people to consider variability and change by taking more distant targets into account. In the present research, we investigate how people associate construal level with lay theories and, in particular, how this association manifests in the inferences they draw about others. In line with predictions, results across eight experiments (N = 1,110) show that people associate high-level construal with growth theories and low-level construal with fixed theories. Moreover, Studies 4 and 5 demonstrate that construal level can selectively influence a candidate's employability, depending on the hiring company's organizational mindset. Overall, this research points out the importance of investigating people's beliefs about abstraction, as it highlights how low-level and high-level construals can communicate distinct traits, characteristics, or intentions to peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper starts with the presumption that the 'act of counseling' must involve the strategic 'method of dialogue', and by doing so, the practitioners/counselors do indeed 'philosophize' with their counselees. Such a strategic method involves "... attending and encouraging, restating and paraphrasing, reflecting content and feeling, clarifying and perception checking, and summarizing." This method may be traced way back in the philosophic dialogues of Socrates (though in a subtle manner), which have been compiled in the dialogues of Plato. In Aristotle, we find that this method of dialogue is relatively less apparent than in Socrates and Plato, but it continues to be applied. It becomes the aporetic method: the solution of the problem results from a discussion of all possible opinions/beliefs: the 'act of midwifery' in the method of dialogue seems a crucial aspect of 'Socratic perspective', and conducive to the act of philosophical counseling. This paper shall focus on a particular piece of work called Aristophanes' Clouds. In modern times, it definitely seems to make sense in the process of philosophical counseling where the counselee is supposed to reach the solution to her/his dilemma (with the assistance of the counselor). This is supposed to be conversational, mimetic, and sometimes rhetoric as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aesthesis is a political matter, such that black folk have often sought to challenge a mode of representation that mythologizes blackness as mere absence or lack. There is artmaking that seeks to transfigure both the void blackness is thought to represent and a known world whose "facts" depend on a fiction of black vacancy. These are works that, in the words of curator Adrienne Edwards, "are philosophically charged, culturally compounded abstractions" and figurations "that point to discourse beyond medium and art movements," alternately affirming nothing or attuning to the indeterminacy and incalculability of blackness, whether blackness be attributed to person, place, or thing. Perception and its organization are meaningful and necessarily remain a ground of contestation. This essay concerns the refractive potentialities of blackness as well as its density or fullness that exceed the capture of mimetic representation. It highlights works that critically explore the received terms and limits of representation in the interest of the dissolution of given categories and conceptual forms. Focusing particular attention on Faith Ringgold's Black Light and American People series, this essay both demonstrates that the aporia and paradoxical power that "black womanhood" has come to represent is pivotal in mediating the relation between abstraction and figuration in modern art and our social worlds as well as considers related works that reposition blackness as incalculable density and a light source in its own right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The usual puzzle raised about olfaction is that of a deficit of abstraction: smells, by contrast notably with colours, do not easily lend themselves to abstract categories and labels. Some studies have argued that the puzzle is culturally restricted and that abstraction is more common outside urban Western societies. Here, I argue that the puzzle is misconstrued and should be reversed: given that odours are constantly changing and that their commonalities are difficult for humans to identify, what is surprising is not that abstract terms are rare, but that they should be used at all for olfaction. Given the nature of the olfactory environment and our cognitive equipment, concrete labels referring to sources seem most adaptive. To explain the use and presence of abstract terms, we need to examine their social and communicative benefits. Here these benefits are spelt out as securing a higher agreement among individuals varying in their olfactory experiences as well as the labels they use, as well as feeling a heightened sense of confidence in one's naming capacities. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]