Search results for "complexity"

John H. McWhorter, Linguistic simplicity and complexity: Why do languages undress? Language contact and bilingualism, Vol. 1. Berlin: De Gruyter Mout…

2013

The Syllogistic with Unity

2011

We extend the language of the classical syllogisms with the sentence-forms “At most 1 p is a q” and “More than 1 p is a q”. We show that the resulting logic does not admit a finite set of syllogism-like rules whose associated derivation relation is sound and complete, even when reductio ad absurdum is allowed.

Logic and the Myth of the Perfect Language

2010

We argue that the dream of a ‘perfect language’ – namely, a universal, unambiguous and semantically transparent medium of expression –, whose intriguing story has been told by Umberto Eco (1993), is deeply intertwined with the myth of instant rationality: the idea that a perfect language is one in which all logical relations becomeimmediatly visible, so that the language itself “does the thinkingfor us” (Frege 1884). In the first part of this paper we trace this versionof the dream in the works of Leibniz, Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein. In the second part we re-examine it in the light of more recent negative results in logic and theoretical computer science.

Tatouage des bases de données

2010

Database watermarking techniques allow for hiding information in a database, like a copyright mark. While watermarking methods are numerous in the multimedia setting, databases present various specificities. This work addresses some of them: how to watermark a numerical database while preserving the result of interesting aggregate queries, how to watermark a structured stream like a typed XML stream or a symbolic music score, how to watermark geographical data sets.

Principled animation design improves comprehension of complex dynamics

2016

International audience; Learners can have difficulty in decomposing conventionally designed animations to obtain raw material suitable for building high quality mental models. A composition approach to designing animations based on the Animation Processing Model was developed as a principled alternative to prevailing approaches. Outcomes from studying novel and conventional animation designs (independent variable) were compared with respect to mental model quality, knowledge of local kinematics, and capacity to transfer (dependent variables). Study of a compositional animation that presented material in a contiguous fashion resulted in higher quality mental models of a piano mechanism than …

Complement activation by oxidatively modified low-density lipoproteins

1999

Background Oxidatively modified low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) have been implicated in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and are found in human vascular lesions. There is increasing evidence that complement activation may also play a role in atherogenesis. Activated complement proteins have been demonstrated to be present in early atherosclerotic lesions, and lipids isolated from lesions have been shown to activate complement, hence their designation as lesion complement activator (LCA). The question now arose whether oxidized LDLs would also activate complement. Material and methods The complement-activating capacity of a lesion complement activator preparation and of minimally as well …

Evaluation of the Complexity of Myocardial Activation During Ventricular Fibrillation. An Experimental Study

2013

A B S T R A C T Introduction and objectives: An experimental model is used to analyze the characteristics of ventricular fibrillation in situations of variable complexity, establishing relationships among the data produced by different methods for analyzing the arrhythmia. Methods: In 27 isolated rabbit heart preparations studied under the action of drugs (propranolol and KB-R7943) or physical procedures (stretching) that produce different degrees of change in the complexity of myocardial activation during ventricular fibrillation, use was made of spectral, morphological, and mapping techniques to process the recordings obtained with epicardial multielectrodes. Results: The complexity of ve…

IMPAIRED DECISION-MAKING AND DIFFUSION ORIENTATIONAL COMPLEXITY IN PEOPLE WITH MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

2013

Objective Difficulties with decision-making have been reported in people with multiple sclerosis (MS). It is however unclear what aspect of decision making is impaired, for example whether they are more impulsive, and how any impairments relate to grey matter pathology. In this study we assess grey matter microstructure using a novel measure of the number of diffusion orientations on diffusion MRI “diffusion orientation complexity (DOC)”. We studied DOC in cortical areas known to be associated with decision making and looked at its associations with performance on the Cambridge Gambling Task (CGT). Method One hundred and five patients with MS (61 RR, 26 SP, 18 PP; mean age: 45.9 years) and …

Slow 0.1 Hz Breathing and Body Posture Induced Perturbations of RRI and Respiratory Signal Complexity and Cardiorespiratory Coupling

2020

Objective: We explored the physiological background of the non-linear operating mode of cardiorespiratory oscillators as the fundamental question of cardiorespiratory homeodynamics and as a prerequisite for the understanding of neurocardiovascular diseases. We investigated 20 healthy human subjects for changes using electrocardiac RR interval (RRI) and respiratory signal (Resp) Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA, α1RRI, α2RRI, α1Resp, α2Resp), Multiple Scaling Entropy (MSERRI1−4, MSERRI5−10, MSEResp1−4, MSEResp5−10), spectral coherence (CohRRI−Resp), cross DFA (ρ1 and ρ2) and cross MSE (XMSE1−4 and XMSE5−10) indices in four physiological conditions: supine with spontaneous breathing, stand…

Appropriateness of admission and hospital stay in obstetric wards: an Italian cross-sectional study comparing Sicilian settings

2015

Appropriateness is one of the main topics of health policy and should be estimable in order to analyze the efficacy of hospital services. The Review and Use of the Hospital Protocol (in Italian: Protocollo di Revisione dell’Uso dell’ Ospedale-PRUO) allowed us to evaluate the appropriateness of hospitalizations, starting from daily available clinical records in a selected hospital. Methods The cross-sectional study applied the PRUOmethod on a sample of medical records (N=575; years: 2008–2010) related to ordinary admissions to obstetric wards of Lipari and Pantelleria Hospital (both Minor Islands of Sicily: MI) and to the Teaching Hospital of the University of Palermo (P) in order to evaluat…