Original Notion Research Articles

Polynomial crisp-minimization algorithm for fuzzy deterministic automata

Designing automata minimization algorithms is a significant topic in Automata Theory and Languages with practical applications. In this paper, we develop an efficient minimization algorithm for deterministic fuzzy finite automata over locally finite lattices. More precisely, the algorithm outputs an equivalent minimal crisp-deterministic fuzzy finite automaton for an input fuzzy deterministic finite automaton (FDfA). The running time of the proposed algorithm is polynomial for particular types of locally finite lattices, specifically for max-min-based complete residuated lattices. The intuition behind the proposed algorithm relies on the polynomial minimization algorithm's intuition for ordinary deterministic automata developed by Vazquez de Parga, Garcia, and Lopez (2013) [35]. The motivation for this study comes from the fact that the original algorithm's notions and meanings are lost in the context of fuzzy automata. Thus, we establish a new theoretical foundation that provides the correctness and the polynomial-time nature of this new crisp-minimization algorithm for FDfAs.

‘Plastic truth’ after Catherine Malabou. Truth, life, and education

What form might truth take in a theoretical frame which precludes notions of origin and telos? Catherine Malabou’s theory of ‘plasticity’ is such a frame, as it takes the accumulation of life and not the search for eternal truths to be a central premise of philosophy. I conduct a close reading of central texts of Malabou’s to conceptualise truth as a plastic phenomenon over three stages: conception, gestation, and nativity. The conception of truth involves its coming-into-shape; gestation its consolidation of shape; nativity the precariousness of being alive. ‘Plastic truth’ represents a meeting of negotiations, accidents, history, and morality, in constant motion; an epistemic modality with moral and political consequences for education.

Where do field-specific notions of research quality come from?

Abstract Researchers’ notions of research quality depend on their field of research. Previous studies have shown that field-specific assessment criteria exist but could explain neither why these specific criteria and not others exist, nor how criteria are used in specific assessment situations. To give initial answers to these questions, formal assessment situations (reviews of publications) and informal assessment situations (seminar and conference discussions) in two specialties (plant biology and medieval history) were analysed through observations and qualitative content analysis. The empirical findings reveal a large variety of quality criteria used by researchers, which cannot be subsumed under conventional notions of originality, reliability, or validity. The identified field-specific quality criteria can be explained by differences between the two fields’ research practices and between the epistemic properties of the two fields.

Endothelial Progenitor Cells: A Review of Molecular Mechanisms in the Pathogenesis and Endovascular Treatment of Intracranial Aneurysms.

This comprehensive review explores the multifaceted role of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) in vascular diseases, focusing on their involvement in the pathogenesis and their contributions to enhancing the efficacy of endovascular treatments for intracranial aneurysms (IAs). Initially discovered as CD34+ bone marrow-derived cells implicated in angiogenesis, EPCs have been linked to vascular repair, vasculogenesis, and angiogenic microenvironments. The origin and differentiation of EPCs have been subject to debate, challenging the conventional notion of bone marrow origin. Quantification methods, including CD34+ , CD133+ , and various assays, reveal the influence of factors, like age, gender, and comorbidities on EPC levels. Cellular mechanisms highlight the interplay between bone marrow and angiogenic microenvironments, involving growth factors, matrix metalloproteinases, and signaling pathways, such as phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K) and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK). In the context of the pathogenesis of IAs, EPCs play a role in maintaining vascular integrity by replacing injured and dysfunctional endothelial cells. Recent research has also suggested the therapeutic potential of EPCs after coil embolization and flow diversion, and this has led the development of device surface modifications aimed to enhance endothelialization. The comprehensive insights underscore the importance of further research on EPCs as both therapeutic targets and biomarkers in IAs.

Self-translation, Rewriting, and Translingual Address: Li Kotomi’s Solo Dance

Abstract Drawing on Susan Bassnett’s critique of ‘self-translation,’ whereby the phenomenon is understood according to a binary source-target logic and the related notion of originality, this article examines three versions of a Li Kotomi novel: the Japanese original Hitorimai (独り舞, 2018), the Chinese self-translation Du Wu (獨舞, 2019), and Arthur Reiji Morris’s English translation Solo Dance (2022). Our focus is on how Li’s practice of self-translation and translanguaging muddles traditional boundaries between culture and language, and challenges binary notions of translation. Rather than viewing self-translation through source-target/original-translation binaries, we examine Hitorimai and Du Wu as a translingual, transcultural dialogue between Li (as author and translator) and her readers in a space of “translingual address” (Robinson). Furthermore, we discuss queer cross-cultural representations in Morris’s English translation and argue that, together, the Japanese text and the Chinese self-translation constitute the queer original of the novel.

Fructooligosaccharides Intake during Pregnancy Improves Metabolic Phenotype of Offspring in High Fat Diet-Induced Obese Mice.

Obesity and metabolic diseases are closely associated, and individuals who become obese are also prone to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disorders. Gut microbiota is mediated by diet and can influence host metabolism and the incidence of metabolic disorders. Recent studies have suggested that improving gut microbiota through a fructooligosaccharide (FOS)-supplemented diet may ameliorate obesity and other metabolic disorders. Although accumulating evidence supports the notion of the developmental origins of health and disease, the underlying mechanisms remain obscure. ICR mice are fed AIN-93G formula-based cellulose -, FOS-, acetate-, or propionate-supplemented diets during pregnancy. Offspring are reared by conventional ICR foster mothers for 4 weeks; weaned mice are fed high fat diet for 12 weeks and housed individually. The FOS and propionate offspring contribute to suppressing obesity and improving glucose intolerance. Gut microbial compositions in FOS-fed mothers and their offspring are markedly changed. However, the beneficial effect of FOS diet on the offspring is abolished when antibiotics are administered to pregnant mice. The findings highlight the link between the maternal gut environment and the developmental origin of metabolic syndrome in offspring. These results open novel research avenues into preemptive therapies for metabolic disorders by targeting the maternal gut microbiota.

Turn-It-Off: Reflections on Technology, the Knowledge Commons and the Academic Plagiarism Industry

This essay concerns the pervasive “problem” of plagiarism in student writing, arguing against the easy adoption of technological policing “solutions” that may themselves contribute to an erosion of authentic learning and knowledge production. The paper critically examines the key tool, or weapon, in the war against plagiarism, namely the educational software Turnitin, and some of the discontent that has arisen in consequence of its widespread adoption in academic institutions. The second part of the essay examines practices of literary plagiarism, using the example of Shakespeare and Coetzee to question notions of originality. Both writers, one from the Renaissance, the other from contemporary literature, will serve as illustrative bookends for the English literary canon as a whole, exemplifying the close relationship between copying and creativity. These ideas are applied to the concept of a “knowledge commons,” which is indispensable to the idea of a good university, and which is being crowded out by inflated discourses of plagiarism and an overreach of plagiarism policing in the academy. Lastly, the essay briefly offers a few practical and pedagogic observations.

Terrestrial territories: From the Globe to Gaia, a new ground for territory

Territory is a central tool for analysing the politics, primarily between nation-states, of the division of a world based on the figure of the Globe. However, with the Anthropocene, the ground of territories has somehow changed, shifting from ‘the Globe’ of the globalisation age, to the Anthropocene, where Gaia, or the earth-system, ‘irrupts’ onto the political scene. Yet, both sovereign territories and critical approaches to territoriality, despite revealing the role of non-human actors in territorial interactions, fail to take into account the issue of the habitability of the Earth. This article advances the notion of ‘terrestrial territories’ as a new descriptive and analytical tool for a Gaia-politics intended to transcend traditional geopolitics by taking into account the dynamics of the planet. Resulting from the original intersection between critical territory studies and the late work of Bruno Latour, it introduces terrestrial territories as an original and much-needed notion that could help to describe new coalitions of actors along new lines of divisions and conflicts based on the logic of Gaia. Beyond the famous but inefficient ‘think global, act local’ scheme, the notion of terrestrial territory tries to reconcile the apparent hyperglobal nature of the planetary and the obviously local nature of action.

Epidemiological Data and Antimicrobial Resistance of Campylobacter spp. in Portugal from 13 Years of Surveillance.

This study extensively analyzed campylobacteriosis surveillance in Portugal from 2009 to 2021, aiming to investigate demographic shifts, seasonal variations, and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) within Campylobacter isolates. Surveillance network and sentinel laboratory-based system data revealed a substantial under-notification of campylobacteriosis cases, suggesting an underestimated disease burden. Notification rates exhibited a paradigm shift, with a notable prevalence among the pediatric population, particularly in children aged 1-4 years, diverging from European reports. Additionally, an emerging trend of Campylobacter infections in younger adults (15-44 years) was observed. The study unveiled a unique seasonal distribution of cases, defying typical summer peaks seen elsewhere. AMR analysis revealed high resistance to ciprofloxacin and tetracycline, in both C. jejuni (93.7% and 79.2%, respectively) and C. coli (96.5% and 93.2%, respectively), stable throughout the studied period (2013-2021). C. coli exhibited significantly higher resistance to erythromycin, gentamicin, ampicillin and ertapenem compared to C. jejuni (p < 0.001). Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) data demonstrated the distribution of resistance markers across diverse sequence types, challenging the notion of a clonal origin for multidrug-resistant isolates. In conclusion, the study highlights the need for enhanced surveillance and raises concerns about alarming AMR levels, recommending the implementation of whole-genome sequencing (WGS)-based surveillance for a deeper comprehension of disease patterns and an evolving AMR landscape.

A critical review of GenAI policies in higher education assessment: a call to reconsider the “originality” of students’ work

This study offers a critical examination of university policies developed to address recent challenges presented by generative AI (GenAI) to higher education assessment. Drawing on Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be’ (WPR) framework, we analysed the GenAI policies of 20 world-leading universities to explore what are considered problems in this AI-mediated assessment landscape and how these problems are represented in policies. Although miscellaneous GenAI-related problems were mentioned in these policies (e.g. reliability of AI-generated outputs, equal access to GenAI), the primary problem represented is that students may not submit original work for assessment. In the current framing, GenAI is often viewed as a type of external assistance separate from the student’s independent efforts and intellectual contribution, thereby undermining the originality of their work. We argue that such problem representation fails to acknowledge how the rise of GenAI further complicates the process of producing original work and what it means by originality in a time when knowledge production becomes increasingly distributed, collaborative and mediated by technology. Therefore, a critical silence in higher education policies concerns the evolving notion of originality in the digital age and a more inclusive approach to address the originality of students’ work is required.

«…Не Стерн или, по крайности, не Верн»: К описанию французского генезиса карамзинского Стерна

The article is an attempt to specify the genesis of the image of Laurence Sterne as it was created and presented by Nickolai Karamzin in the early 1790s. Karamzin’s Sterne, the most influential among other such attempts in Russian culture, turns out to be primarily French and imitative. Namely, the fragment “A Poor Man and His Dog”, presented in Karamzin’s Moscow Magazine (1792) as “Sterne’s work”, appears to be a translation not of Sterne but of an interpolation made by his French translator into the French version of Tristram Shandy. The very choice of fragments from Sterne presented in the Moscow Magazine (1791–1792) reflects not the editor’s own taste, but is a replication of the most common items from popular anthological editions of “The Beauties of Sterne”. Karamzin’s culturally influential decision not to translate and consequently not to introduce into Russian culture the original English notions of ‘sentimental’ and ‘humour’ is explained by the fact that he had viewed them through the prism of particular French texts-intermediaries. Karamzin’s insistence on reading Sterne “with tears in the eyes” and on alluding to him (in Letters of a Russian Traveller) primarily in melancholic charnel locations that made Sterne practically indistinguishable from Edward Young goes back not to the original Sterne, but to his later French imitators, such as François Vernes. Karamzin’s Sterne is contrasted with the assimilation of original narrative experiments and humour of Tristram by other Russian authors of the same period but of a different circle, Fyodor Rostopchin and Ivan Martynov.

Graikiškosios filosofijos sampratos aktualumas: ko galėtume pasimokyti iš senovės graikų

The article is dedicated to the problem of relevance of the Classical Greek understanding of philosophy to contemporary philosophy. A distinction is made between the relevance of the Greek philosophy that has already been realized, or made actual, in the sphere of contemporary philosophy and culture, and the relevance of the Greek philosophy which is yet in need of realization, that is, which has a potential of being realized in the future. The author, mainly focusing on this latter kind of relevance, for it is more interesting from the philosophical point of view and suggests new ways to reinvigorate the contemporary field of philosophical thought, discusses the original Greek understanding of philosophy that can be discerned from the ancient Greek philosophical texts and the original Greek term for philosophy, philosophia. The author presents an analysis of the Greek word philosophia from the etymological and conceptual points of view, disclosing its several layers of meaning. It is argued that the Greek philosophical thinking employs a productive combination of pre-methodical and methodical thought, deriving from this combination a specific synergy that might also be useful to contemporary philosophy. A point is made that the original Greek notion of philosophy, understood as the love of divine wisdom, presupposes both modesty, stemming from the acknowledgment of one’s absolute ignorance of the most important philosophical answers, and intellectual passion. The author makes a claim that the original close and deep relation between the Greek philosophy and astronomy was instrumental in the original Greek understanding of the philosopher as a theōros of a special kind, that is, as a theoretic viewer of the entire cosmos who focuses on the whole of the cosmos (or reality in general), not on its individual constituents and details. What was expected of the Greek philosopher was the ability to deeply appreciate the beauty, unity, and underlying divine order of the cosmos, not the capacity to acquire the knowledge of concrete information related to it. The attention is drawn to the circumstance that the Greek philosopher’s aesthetic appreciation of the cosmos that took place at the moments of its theoretical contemplation had also a specific ethical aspect to it – an aspect that cannot be simply explained in terms of the Classical Greek virtue ethics and can be rather viewed in terms of the modern approaches to ethics. The relation between the ability to acknowledge one’s ignorance of the most important matters and the capacity to theoretically contemplate and aesthetically appreciate the cosmos in holistic terms is viewed by the author as potentially relevant to those contemporary thinkers who seek to reassert the unique status of philosophy, its special place among other disciplines, and to rethink the radical difference between philosophy and science. After discussing some other aspects of potential relevance of the Greek understanding of philosophy to contemporary philosophy, the author makes a conclusion that the Classical Greek understanding of the nature of philosophy should be viewed not as having to replace, but as being able to complement the current understanding of the nature and mission of philosophy.

A unified privacy preserving model with AI at the edge for Human-in-the-Loop Cyber-Physical Systems

With the proliferation of personal Internet of Things (IoT) devices and their wide adoption among society, the original notion of IoT has been reshaped, giving rise to new IoT-based paradigms like Human-in-the-Loop Cyber-Physical Systems (HiTLCPS). While these systems can bring benefits and positively influence people, their pervasive nature raises significant privacy concerns, especially regarding the acquisition and processing of data. Although privacy-preserving mechanisms have been proposed for these implementations, the existing approaches tend to focus on either data acquisition or data processing. However, to date, no solution has encompassed the entire process. In this regard, this paper presents a unified privacy-preserving model for HiTLCPS. This approach integrates a human-centric mechanism to control and make data acquisition and sharing tasks transparent with a state inference process supported by Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the edge. A set of assessments were conducted in actual implementation to evaluate the feasibility of the model. Our findings reveal that our federated learning approach is a suitable solution compared to the traditional approach based on machine learning at the small cost of 3.27% of average accuracy. Finally, this paper concludes by providing a roadmap towards integrating HiTLCPS from diverse contexts, including a state inference process closer to the user domain.

Addressing inclusion, innovation, and sustainability challenges through the lens of economic geography: Introducing the hierarchical regional innovation system

The world is facing dramatic challenges related to environmental sustainability at an accelerating pace. In this context, the field of economic geography (EG) has been playing an important role in understanding both the socioeconomic and technological dimensions of these challenges, as it deals with a variety of complementary notions and perspectives. Departing from this lens, our aim is to explore a conceptual framework that can help us to understand environmental changes relating to multi-dimensional territorial development, notably in economic contexts where inequality is high, and stratification based on hierarchies regulate social and economic life. Based on the territory concept, we propose the original notion of a hierarchical regional innovation system (HRIS) that emphasises the pervasive role of hierarchies (powers) in regional innovation systems and illustrate its value with evidence and case studies from extant literature on sustainability transitions. The HRIS can help us understand and promote development paths considering the contribution of inclusive eco-innovations (another original conceptual amalgam). Through some empirical cases from other studies in low-carbon transitions, we show the application of the HRIS (and inclusive eco-innovation) framework. In conclusion, we provide incentives to explore new regional innovation systems, alongside the HRIS, adapted to different regions worldwide and centred on the inclusiveness of people and places.

« À l’exemple des Abeilles » : Daniel Thaly poète-apiculteur

The purpose of this article is to introduce the West Indian poet Daniel Thaly (1879-1950), who was both a poet and a beekeeper. In his collection of poems L’île et le voyage, Thaly devotes the Fourth Chant to "La maison aux abeilles" (The house of bees), in which he celebrates the insects he cares for, which teach him both an art of living and an art of poetry. Thaly’s example shows how the practice of beekeeping informs poetry, particularly by renewing man’s relationship with the landscape. Beekeeping and the observation of bees also led the poet to set up these insects as poetic models: the motif of the bee is frequently used in poetry to represent the practice of innutrition. Like the bee, the poet gleans inspiration from his readings to produce his own honey, the poetic result of his influences. The case of Daniel Thaly is an interesting one, since we are dealing with a French-speaking poet in a colonial situation marked by the influence of Western literature and the force of assimilation. Thaly and the apiary metaphor invite us to examine the notions of imitation, innutrition and originality in the context of West Indian colonisation. Here, the prism of beekeeping offers a fresh look at a form of writing that for too long has been relegated to the category of servile imitation and stigmatised by critics as regionalist, exotic and doudouist literature.

A simple criterion for [formula omitted]-adhesivity

Adhesive categories, and variants such as M,N-adhesive ones, marked a watershed moment for the algebraic approaches to the rewriting of graph-like structures, since they provide an abstract framework where many general results (on e.g. parallelism) could be recast and uniformly proved. However, often checking that a model satisfies the adhesivity properties is far from immediate. In this paper we present a new criterion giving a sufficient condition for M,N-adhesivity, a generalisation of the original notion of adhesivity. To show the effectiveness of this criterion, we apply it to several existing categories of graph-like structures, including hypergraphs, various kinds of hierarchical graphs (a formalism that is notoriously difficult to fit in the mould of algebraic approaches to rewriting), and combinations of them.

Revitalizing double‐loop learning in organizational contexts: A systematic review and research agenda

AbstractArgyris &amp; Schön's notion of two types of learning, single‐loop (SLL) and double‐loop learning (DLL), is arguably one of the most popularized categorizations of organizational learning (OL). However, while the concept of DLL is widely cited, it has left a superficial impact on the literature and practice. We argue that the limited impact of DLL is due to two features of DLL: the complexity of its definition and the difficulty in its implementation. This study identifies and organizes critical insights in the literature related to the conceptualization, measurement, and generation of DLL. To address these topics, we review and synthesize the findings of 128 studies on DLL published between 1974 and 2021. We aim to reduce the confusion surrounding DLL and the proliferation of empirical studies on DLL that ignore its original notion. We propose a framework that makes explicit the misconceptions, wrong assumptions, and barriers in conceptualizing, measuring, and generating DLL, and it also provides insights into how to overcome these limitations and serves as a platform for future research on DLL.

Originality and the future of copyright in an age of generative AI

This paper takes the occasion of French DJ David Guetta's use of generative AI tools to create lyrics and a voice in the style of Eminem, which he then used in one of his concerts, as the basis for an exploration of the shifting meaning of creativity and originality in the age of generative AI. Our main contention is that the Guetta form of creativity with generative AI tools differs in certain important respects from what has come before. The paper describes an iterative, dynamic process of conception, prompting, generation, refining, and deployment to characterise creativity in this context. Nevertheless, we contend that copyright – specifically the concept of originality as articulated in US federal law – is a sufficiently durable legal mechanism that can manage these new cultural forms, and that the two basic requirements of modern copyright law (a tangible medium of expression and a modest degree of creativity) remain relevant in identifying the scope of legal protection.The paper argues that the David Guetta story reveals something more general about creativity in a digital age, namely that while hybrid-networked (i.e., human – corporate – machine) creators have always created hybrid-networked cultural forms (i.e., creations that blend human and technology-constituted elements), such hybridity becomes increasingly visible and complex in the context of a new world of generative AI. At the very least, earlier – and influential – models of creativity as human-driven involving creation ex nihilo become harder to sustain in a new age of generative AI. But this does not mean copyright or notions of originality are redundant or that copyright law cannot accommodate Guetta and other cases.Such an account seems important as it challenges the hegemonic and reductive view that AI “generates” artistic works autonomously and avoids reducing the copyright issues raised by such creative works to the related but distinct question of whether learning models rely on copyrighted data. As such, copyright law should remain an important mechanism to facilitate genuine creators who are using AI systems in innovative and unique ways to push the boundaries of their creativity.

Essentialising medicines

Abstract Digital technologies used to make pharmaceuticals trustworthy promise to displace historical relations, offering instead transparency through data. This article draws from research with manufacturers, importers, and distributors moving medicines between factories and markets to explore trust-making and trustworthiness in pharmaceutical sales. It shows how practices of selling and regulating pharmaceuticals rely on narratives and technologies of safety, risk, trust, and essentialised notions of industrial origin. Following the medicines shows how, rather than displacing social knowledge with data, technologies of trust rely on situated knowledge of institutions and social relations that are the source of both trust and suspicion. Ultimately, both narratives and pharmaceuticals are stabilised through notions of trust as linked to identity in ways that implicate ethnographic as well as industrial practices.

Granular fuzzy sets and three-way approximations of fuzzy sets

A Pawlak approximation space is a pair of a ground set/space and a quotient set/space, where the latter is induced by an equivalence relation on the former. With this two-space understanding, it is possible to lift any concepts and notions from the ground space to the quotient space. The results are granular versions that approximate the original concepts and notions. In this paper, we investigate the problem of lifting a fuzzy set in the ground space to granular fuzzy sets in the quotient space. By applying the principles of three-way decision, we introduce the idea of three-way granular approximations of fuzzy sets in terms of three granular fuzzy sets that represent the two extremes and one middle. The two extremes are given by granular rough fuzzy sets. We present several different ways to interpret and construct a middle.