Notion Of Hierarchy Research Articles

The development of a fire safety evaluation points scheme for dwellings. Part I—Some theoretical considerations

The use of expert opinion is considered to be an effective way of assessing complex fire problems where statistical records are not available. The Delphi technique is chosen as the most appropriate means for handling experts' views. Elements chosen by the Delphi group and pertaining to the dwelling fire safety system are arranged in a hierarchical interaction framework. Some of the issues associated with the application of the Delphi technique are discussed and an established hierarchical structure is examined and modified for use in this study. The notions of hierarchy, interactive importance, hierarchical impacts and sequential perturbations are formalised. Finally, the total fire safety evaluation scheme is identified and its utility explained.

Bombs and Other Exciting Devices, or the Problem of Teaching Irony

In the representation of power, the ironing board has long served as a sign of women's work, connoting the relegation of the female to the relative powerlessness of the home. Irony, on the other hand, has traditionally been discussed as a trope of the powerful, to be mastered by the rulers of language and the state. Fielding's irony, deployed at Mrs. Slipslop's expense, depends for its comic effect on our recognition of this fact, that is, on our recognition of the incommensurability of the domains of ironing and irony. Unfortunately, the hierarchical implications of this distinction are still with us, sometimes where we might not expect them to be. Specifically, in the college writing course-the course charged with teaching the rhetoric of reading and writing-one might expect students to be empowered culturally by learning to master the trope of the powerful. Yet this is all too obviously not what occurs. If our textbooks are any indication, few of us spend any-or any significanttime teaching irony. Those teachers who have presented an essay dependent on irony to their freshman writing classes probably already know how much difficulty students typically have in interpreting ironic meaning. Students may miss not only the joke of such essays, but also their critical force. Perhaps because of this, few of us encourage students to use irony in their own writing. Following Richard Ohmann's lead in examining the politics of what we do teach in the writing classroom, I would like to speculate on the politics of not teaching irony. For the decision to teach or not teach irony is a political gesture in a way that the decision to teach other tropes, such as metaphor, for example, is not. Irony is not simply a trope among tropes, not simply a neutral and purely formal device. Unlike other tropes, it defines a political relationship between the user and the audience being addressed or excluded. Even while provoking laughter, irony invokes notions of hierarchy and subordination, judgment and perhaps even moral superiority. It is subversive. And it challenges some of the principles of Lori Chamberlain has published articles on translation theory and postmodern literature. She is

Statecharts: a visual formalism for complex systems

We present a broad extension of the conventional formalism of state machines and state diagrams, that is relevant to the specification and design of complex discrete-event systems, such as multi-computer real-time systems, communication protocols and digital control units. Our diagrams, which we call statecharts, extend conventional state-transition diagrams with essentially three elements, dealing, respectively, with the notions of hierarchy, concurrency and communication. These transform the language of state diagrams into a highly structured and economical description language. Statecharts are thus compact and expressive—small diagrams can express complex behavior—as well as compositional and modular. When coupled with the capabilities of computerized graphics, statecharts enable viewing the description at different levels of detail, and make even very large specifications manageable and comprehensible. In fact, we intend to demonstrate here that statecharts counter many of the objections raised against conventional state diagrams, and thus appear to render specification by diagrams an attractive and plausible approach. Statecharts can be used either as a stand-alone behavioral description or as part of a more general design methodology that deals also with the system's other aspects, such as functional decomposition and data-flow specification. We also discuss some practical experience that was gained over the last three years in applying the statechart formalism to the specification of a particularly complex system.

Towards a ‘bucket’ theory of language disability: Taking account of interaction between linguistic levels

Models of language which recognize a series of levels are commonplace in clinical language studies, but less attention has been paid to how they interact, and the effect these interactions have on the linguistic performance of language handicapped people. Several relevant studies which seem to demonstrate the existence of restricted linguistic processing capacity are reviewed, from which it is concluded that there are a number of types of interaction which have not been sufficiently considered. A sample of spontaneous speech from a language-delayed child of 4;7 illustrates the effects of four of these interactions (syntax/non-segmental phonology, segmental phonology/other levels, syntax/semantics, pragmatics/other levels). It is concluded that there is a need for detailed description of the error-patterns of language-handicapped people, with particular reference to prosodic factors (especially those entering into the definition of fluency) to determine which kinds of interaction are most in evidence. A model of limited linguistic processing which is based on a notion of hierarchy is premature. Rather, a simpler model, referred to here as the ‘bucket’ model, in which the different levels exercise mutual influence without priorities, is more appropriate in our present state of knowledge.

A More Powerful Method for Triangularizing Input-Output Matrices and the Similarity of Production Structures

Studies in the production structure of any national economy, as revealed in its inputoutput table, have been closely related to the question of the interindustrial dependence or hierarchical structures of productive sectors leading from primary to final production. In particular, the notion of hierarchy provides a useful tool when one wants to draw inferences on the structural change or international difference of industrial structures. The standard technique for studying this notion is to triangularize the input-output table by interchanging sectors in order to maximize the entries below the main diagonal. In a perfect triangularized table, the entries above the main diagonal should be zero. For example, such a strong one-way interdependence relation as cotton-textiles-clothing can easily establish the hierarchy. Due to the existence of circular relations like coal-steel-mining equipment-coal, it is not possible to triangularize the input-output table perfectly. This paper extends and revises the previous triangulation method which is based on a permutation theorem deriving from the interchange of adjoining two industrial groups, into that among three industrial groups (Theorem 2). The new algorithm based on Theorem 2 is demonstrated by actually computing the suboptimal orderings for the four input-output tables for such more developed countries (MDC's) as the United States, Italy, Norway, Japan, and the two tables for such less developed countries (LDC's) as India and Korea. The empirical results suggest that sectors can be arranged in a similar hierarchical order among MDC's and LDC's. Transport Equipment, Machinery, Apparel, Leather and Products, Grain Mill Products, and Processed Foods, which link directly to the final demand, are recorded as higher-order sectors. Trade, Transport, and Services are lower-order ones, and Energy sectors such as Electric Power, Coal Products, Coal Mining, Petroleum, Petroleum Products and Natural Gas are the lowest. Consequently, this paper provides some more evidence in support of the similarity of hierarchical structures of production among these countries.

Italian Architects and Fascist Politics: An Evaluation of the Rationalist's Role in Regime Building

The relationship between the thought and architecture of Italian Rationalists and the new Fascist state is commonly presented as a battle between revolutionary modernism and a reactionary regime. Most historians have ignored the ardent Fascism of the best architects, while others simply avoid the issue altogether and study the buildings as stylistic phenomena. This attitude in part derives from a post-war desire to extricate the best architects and their architecture from a thoroughly discredited political system. Consequently, the architects' own words about their architecture and their ideas about Fascist culture and the purposes for which their state-funded buildings were designed are ignored. Historians acknowledge that the Modern Movement in other European nations encompassed social programs, but Italian architecture of the inter-war period has been strangely exempt from discussion on this level. Despite years of heated polemics and debates during the 20s, Rationalists, traditionalists, and moderates in Italy reached a consensus on political and social objectives. The Fascist state claimed to offer revolutionary social programs, and the various architectural factions merely argued about the appropriate forms within which to house these programs. This article discusses the differences between the various groups of architects, examines the work and writings of some leading Rationalists with particular reference to Fascist notions of hierarchy, order, and collective action, and discusses the ways in which Rationalist architecture celebrated Fascism. It also offers an explanation for the fact that Modern Movement architecture received substantial state support in Italy as it did from no other major power in the decade before World War II.

Polanyi's Notion of Hierarchy

Professor Gill's recent defence of the notion of ‘reasons of the heart’ in religion1 depends upon Polanyi's view that through ‘tacit knowledge’ of lower levels of reality we can come to know something of higher levels - even, I take it, of God, himself, as the highest level of all. Unfortunately, Polanyi's argument for such a hierarchy of being is confused and depends for its apparent strength on an illicit mixing together of ontological and what may be loosely called methodological claims. Because of this and other confusions, the argument is difficult to state concisely. For convenience I will first use Marjorie Grene's formulation.

Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?

The modern synthesis, as an exclusive proposition, has broken down on both of its fundamental claims: extrapolationism (gradual allelic substitution as a model for all evolutionary change) and nearly exclusive reliance on selection leading to adaptation. Evolution is a hierarchical process with complementary, but different, modes of change at its three major levels: variation within populations, speciation, and patterns of macroevolution. Speciation is not always an extension of gradual, adaptive allelic substitution to greater effect, but may represent, as Goldschmidt argued, a different style of genetic change—rapid reorganization of the genome, perhaps non-adaptive. Macroevolutionary trends do not arise from the gradual, adaptive transformation of populations, but usually from a higher-order selection operating upon groups of species, while the individual species themselves generally do not change following their geologically instantaneous origin. I refer to these two discontinuities in the evolutionary hierarchy as the Goldschmidt break (between change in populations and speciation) and the Wright break (between speciation and trends as differential success among species).A new and general evolutionary theory will embody this notion of hierarchy and stress a variety of themes either ignored or explicitly rejected by the modern synthesis: punctuational change at all levels, important non-adaptive change at all levels, control of evolution not only by selection, but equally by constraints of history, development and architecture—thus restoring to evolutionary theory a concept of organism.

Religion and Politics, Politics and Religion: An Introduction

Religion and politics have depended on and influenced one another since the origins of what we know as Latin America. Their relation is both mutual and multifaceted; mutual because religion and politics have evolved together over the years, taking material and symbolic support from one another, and multifaceted because it embraces interinstitutional conflict and accommodation (e.g., the “church-state” relations which dominated earlier scholarship) as well as more subtle and elusive exchanges whereby religious and political orders gave legitimacy and moral authority to one another. In this process, religious notions of hierarchy, authority, and obedience reflected and reinforced the pattern of existing social and political arrangements to such an extent that the two orders often seemed indistinguishable.

Hierarchies of data base languages: An example

In view of a manufacturer's investments, commercially available data base systems usually offer comparatively general-purpose interfaces. In order to adapt these interfaces to the special problems of a particular user considerable effort in time, money and personnel is required by the user. Therefore, one might ask whether, (a) construction rules may be found which simplify the process of adaptation and (b) new interfaces may be defined which are both more problem-oriented and still economical enough to be standardized. Based on the notion of hierarchy of abstract machines, this paper attempts to present a possible approach to the solution of these questions. In particular, a set-theoretic and a natural-German interface are suggested. These interfaces as well as some implementation aspects will be motivated, defined, and illustrated by means of a system currently in operation at the university of Karlsruhe. The advantages of a set-theoretic approach as well as the problems associated with a natural language interface will be discussed.

Professionals in Organizations: A Neoteric Model

Most current models of formal organizations exhibit certain similarities. One, which may be called the Weber-Mannheim model, emphasizes the legal-rational ordering of formal relationships and, concomitantly, the notions of hierarchy, specialization, and the downward flow of authority. The Barnard-Simon model, while it focuses on the premises upon which organizational decisions are based, nonetheless assumes that organizational decision-making is enmeshed in a formal matrix typified by hierarchy, status differentials, and various kinds and degrees of expertise, with decisions being ratified by those at the apex of the formal structure. Selznick and Merton also, although they are mainly interested in primary organizational relationships, the unanticipated consequences of action, and the adaptive, organismic aspects of large-scale formal systems, assume that such processes operate within a legally prescribed and formal hierarchy. Finally, Michels is preoccupied with the pervasive impact of hierarchy upon beh...