Symbolic Scheme Research Articles

Nomad Iconography on Tombstones from Luristan, Iran

In Luristan in western Iran the nomad cemeteries are scattered apparently at random across the landscape. The history of these nomads is not very well known, and until a few years ago they were themselves largely illiterate. They have lived in areas which comprise some of the very isolated mountain valleys and plains in the central Zagros mountains, and untilrecently their rhythm of life was to a great extent determined by the changing seasons. In the interpretation of the images on Luristani tombstones, it may never be possible ,with certainty, to arrive at the correct interpretation of a motif. The signs and symbols on the tombstones are comparable to a code whereby messages are converted from one form of representation to another, which means that they have to be encoded in a form that the communicants can easily interpret. In a community sharing the same religion, cultural inheritance and social background, and living at a given time in particular area, this should present no problem. But if one or more of these elements are altered, the whole structural pattern and symbolic scheme of the community will be affected: as, for example, is clearly demonstrated by the forcible settlement of nomads in Luristan which has caused an abrupt discontinuation in the erection of pictorial tombstones. The more drastic the change, the quicker the transition of symbolic values into fossilized and sometimes incomprehensible fragments of a tradition.

Optical higher-order quaternary signed-digit arithmetic

Higher-order quaternary signed-digit arithmetic using optical symbolic substitution is presented. This technique allows for multi-bit carry-free addition and borrow-free subtraction via a two-step symbolic substitution scheme and leads to a compact design by incorporating more information in fewer digits. Optical implementations based on a contentaddressable memory and on a multichannel correlator are identified.

Dual Symbolic Classification, the Primary Emotions,and Mandala Symbolism

The Durkheim‐Mauss claim that emotions play a causal in the emergence of dual symbolic classification schemes of dual social organizations is evaluated by reanalysis of their three case studies of dual symbolic classification, divinatory compass" of trigrams incorporated in ancient China's I Ching. Because their analysis lacked a classification the emotions, their claim has not been investigated. In paper we emend to the Durkheim‐Mauss theory Plutchik's psychoevolutionary classification of the primary emotions. It is found that the primal arrangement of eight trigrams and the eight primary emotions of Plutchik's emotions "wheel" are structurally coincident: both are based four pairs of opposites arranged by similarity in identical manner. These twofold/fourfold symbols are further described as Jungian archetypes of wholeness and totality.

Connectionist meta-representation for propositional attitudes

This paper discusses the representation of propositional attitudes (beliefs, etc.) in connectionist systems that do not implement symbolic represen­ tations. One prominent way of symbolically representing attitudes is through meta-representational schemes. These have representational expressions that themselves refer to representational expressions. Meta-representation is one of the most expressively powerful symbolic approaches for attitude representation. Therefore: could non-implementationai connectionist systems use an analogous approach? Unfortunately, it is not straightforward to devise a plausible analogy. The paper looks at three main possibilities: (i) the representational activation patterns of the non-implementational connectionist system refer to the system's own activation patterns; (ii) the activation patterns refer to formal symbolic expressions; and (iii) the activation patterns refer to natural-language expressions. These approaches, which are not claimed to be exhaustive, concentrate respectively on the following facts about symbolic meta-representation schemes: (1) they typically refer to their own representational expressions; (2) the schemes typically refer to formal symbolic expressions; although (3) some of the schemes refer to natural language expressions. The article briefly argues that possibility (iii) avoids some of the problems of (i) and (ii). There are also two independent, non­ connectionism-derived reasons for considering (iii). One is that it is strongly related to a prevalent commonsense metaphor of beliefs and so on as internal, natural language utterances. (The other is to do with the heightened difficulty of handling vague quantification within propositional attitude contexts, but is discussed elsewhere and not in the present paper.) The paper as a whole highlights the point that even a non-implementational connectionist system must be able to think about complex symbolic constructs such as logic expressions and natural language phrases, even though it does not think with them.

Integrating Neural and Symbolic Approaches: A Symbolic Learning Scheme for a Connectionist Associative Memory

This paper deals with the integration of neural and symbolic approaches. It focuses on associative memories where a connectionist architecture tries to provide a storage and retrieval component for...

Topological reasoning about dextrous grasps

The need, in robot manipulation, for higher levels of dexterity and versatility than those provided by grippers and by special-purpose end-effectors has prompted much research effort during the last decade on the design and control of multifingered hands. Most work on multifingered robot hands has dealt with low-level, numeric control, commonly based on screw theory and tools drawn from line geometry, differential geometry, kinematics, and dynamics. Current numeric, contact-based schemes, however, are limited to tip prehension (intentional grasping by the fingertips). The intriguing ease with which humans perform grasping and manipulation activities has concurrently triggered new investigations to provide robots with humanlike, prehensile capability for complex tasks in unstructured environments. These investigations have resulted in numerous AI-oriented, task-directed, distributed, symbolic schemes that have been conducted essentially independently. Efforts to link symbolic and numeric schemes have been undertaken, but the results have been rather modest. This paper deals with an intelligent, integrated symbolic-numeric scheme for dextrous manipulation, using a topological approach. In this paper, we introduce a reasoning scheme called topological reasoning that is used in conjunction with a grasp-based, topological model for uniform representations of multifingered robot hands at different levels of detail (e.g., whole hand, finger, joint), and discuss its application to dextrous manipulation (grasp selection and regrasping). We show that using topological reasoning, both hand posture and hand functionality can be derived from symbolic, high-level task requirements and object attributes, and can be transformed into numeric, low-level, joint space variables. Furthermore, the reasoning scheme is applicable not only to tip prehension, but also to palm prehension and any combination of the two.

Ecological product declaration rather than “green” symbol schemes

The travel business and environmental protection organizations have long been looking for an award system for environmentally compatible and socially responsible tourism — a so‐called “green” seal of approval (cf. Touristik Management 11/91, p 60). So far, people have come up with imaginative creations like green suitcases, silver thistles, blue angels or blue flags designed to give an ecological “all clear” to individual beaches, hotels, holiday areas, tour operators or entire package holidays. Rather than add to this confusing jungle of “green” symbols, Hansruedi Mller and Roman Mezzasalma, two Berne University tourism researchers, put forward the idea of better ecological declarations for tourism products.

Symbolic Representation of Cleft Lip and Palate

Since the introduction of symbolic representations of cleft lip and palate anomalies in 1964, they have served the clinician as a quick and easy method of recording these disorders. This paper reviews the evolution of the schematic classification systems and evaluates them. It then presents a new scheme that synthesizes what the authors feel are the most advanced of the existing symbolic representations. This proposed new symbolic representation scheme also specifically provides for ratings of severity (including the documentation of microforms) and facilitates computerized data storage and analysis.

Bond graph modelling of multibody dynamics and its symbolic scheme

A bond graph method of modelling multibody dynamics is demonstrated. Specifically, a symbolic generation scheme which fully utilizes the bond graph information is presented. It is also demonstrated that structural understanding and representation in bond graph theory is quite powerful for the modelling of such large scale systems, and that the non-energic multiport of junction structure, which is a multiport expression of the system structure, plays an important role, as first suggested by Paynter. The principal part of the proposed symbolic scheme, that is, the elimination of excess variables, is done through tearing and interconnection in the sense of Kron using newly defined causal and causal coefficient arrays.

British Geological Survey thematic geology maps of Quaternary deposits in Scotland

Abstract This paper describes the portrayal of the surface distribution of Quaternary deposits (drift) in a range of maps prepared by the Geological Survey (Scotland). It considers three methods of classification involving the use of 1. the familiar BGS symbol scheme, 2. the descriptive lithological codes of thematic map packages and 3. an alphabetical Classification adopted in a recent thematic study of the Clyde valley. The three dimensional distribution of Quaternary deposits has rarely been portrayed in map form. A lithological profile scheme, also prepared as part of the Clyde valley project, is advocated as an appropriate method of representing the third dimension in complex sequences.

THE ACCURACY OF VISUAL DETERMINATIONS OF STATISTICAL CHARACTERISTICS FROM MAPS

The authors address a range of issues connected with the visual representation and interpretation of statistical data on maps. Attention is focused on common behaviors of map users in determinations of various characteristics of map symbols. Results are reported from experiments testing the relationship between the accuracy of obtaining quantitative information on a map with the total number of symbols and number of scale levels [size classes] employed, the use (or non-use) of color in the symbolization scheme, etc. Translated by Larry Richardson, Los Angeles, CA 90039 from: Izvestiya Vsesoyuznogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva, 1989, No. 4, pp. 345–351.

A geometric consistency theorem for a symbolic perturbation scheme

In a previous paper, we introduced a generic solution to the problem of data degeneracy in geometric algorithms. The scheme is simple to use: algorithms qualifying under our requirements just have to use a prescribed blackbox for polynomial evaluation in order to achieve a symbolic perturbation of data. In this paper, we introduce the concept of an infinitesimal perturbation and show that our method is consistent relative to such perturbations.

Symbolic treatment of geometric degeneracies

Many descriptions of algorithms in computational geometry exclude degeneracies by fiat . Practitioners are left to their own devices for dealing with degeneracies when implementing such algorithms. Since degeneracies tend to be numerous and hard to enumerate exhaustively, this is often a reason against implementing such algorithms. This paper proposes a symbolic scheme for treating degeneracies. Our method is simple to use, and is applicable to a variety of problems in computational geometry. Implementation, limitations and wider issues are discussed.

Morphological transformation using optical symbolic substitution

AbstractPhase‐only hologram based optical symbolic substitution architecture is used for realizing digital‐optical morphological transformations. Accordingly, symbolic substitution schemes are applied to binary images to perform erosion, dilation, opening, and closing operations.

Symbolic substitution based flagged arithmetic unit design using polarization-encoded optical shadow-casting system

An extremely efficient modified-signed digit arithmetic unit based on symbolic substitution scheme is designed using the polarization-encoded optical shadow-casting system. Alternate design characteristics for both addition and subtraction are also presented.

Modified-signed digit arithmetic using an efficient symbolic substitution

An efficient symbolic substitution scheme for modified-signed digit arithmetic operations is introduced. In this technique, an additional bit is used along with each pair of the input bits so that the nth additional bit is a characteristic of the (n - 1)th pair of input bits. The truth table minimization thereby shows that relatively fewer minterms are to be included in the corresponding optical content-addressable memory.

A cognitive strategy for structuring space

A spatial reasoning system must be able to represent and manipulate the location of objects in its world model. There are two general schemes for doing this—absolute symbolic schemes based on an independent coordinate system, and relative schemes which reference objects in relation to other objects of known location. This paper is concerned strictly with the latter.Given a relative scheme, there are several possible strategies for segmenting space. Two such strategies are identified and discussed. The first, called the situation-specific strategy is the one currently being explored and employed in most spatial reasoning systems. The second, here referred to as the general-purpose or cognitive strategy is the one used by the human cognitive system. It is suggested that while both strategies have outstanding strengths and weakness, the latter holds greater potential for achieving maximal coverage with minimal resources. The paper then proceeds to describe the structure of cognitive models of locative space and to specify how such models can be built from 3-D geometric models.This description is based on a cognitively motivated implementation called SEE-TELL. SEE-TELL takes as its input a 3-D geometric model and outputs a proposition of the form locative (referent, relatum). The function which maps the input to the output is a two part heuristic procedure. The first part determines the referent and relatum and the second part assigns the locative predicate. The system can assign the predicates on, right-of/left-of, and front-of/back-of. On and right-of/left-of are, respectively, illustrative of invariant and variant locatives. Front-of/back-of allows for a conflict between an ego/observer and a canonical object. These three situations are thought to cover the different classes of problems that can arise in assigning any locative.The paper concludes by summarizing the findings, identifying the shortcomings and limitations, and making suggestions for future work.

Des idées et des hommes : patronage électoral et culture politique en Corse

When dealing with electoral patronage, writers generally take a functionalist and specialized view. They argue that the patron-client relationship is characterised above all by exchange of goods and services and dominated by expectation of concrete rewards. In Corsica, the patron-client relationship is also informed by symbolic schemes i.e. ideas and values relating to society in general. Though having actual consequences on political organization, these ideas and values are not political in the modem sense of the term.

A comparison of symbolic and spatial filing

The traditional and still dominant form of object reference in computing systems is symbolic - data files, programs, etc. are initially labeled and subsequently referred to by name. This approach is being supplemented on some systems by a spatial alternative which is often driven by an office or desktop metaphor (e.g. Apple's Lisa and MacIntosh systems, or Bolt's 1979 Spatial Data Management System). In such systems, an object is placed in a simulated two- or three-dimensional space, and can later be retrieved by pointing to its location. In order to begin to understand the relative merits of spatial and symbolic filing schemes for representing and organizing information, we compared four ways of filing computer objects. We found location information to be of limited utility, either by itself or in combination with symbolic information. This calls into question the generality and efficacy of the desktop metaphor for information retrieval.

Application of Regional Geochemical Data to Uranium Exploration: ABSTRACT

Hydrogeochemical and stream-sediment reconnaissance data generated by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Uranium Resource Evaluation program can be used to identify geologic environments favorable for uranium or base metal deposits. Open-filed analytical data for 1 × 2° NTMS quadrangles are obtained on magnetic tape from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and transferred to disk for interactive computer use. Data may then be organized into subsets according to sample type, geologic, or physiographic units; smoothed using block or nearest-neighbor averaging techniques; and power transformed to normalize frequency distributions. Multivariate statistical techniques, including principal component, discriminant, and multiple regression analyses, aid in interpretation. A contrast filter may be used to identify areas that are significantly different from their local background. Machine-generated color or black and white maps are produced from raw elemental analyses, elemental ratios, and statistical parameters such as factor scores and multiple regression residuals. The data may be represented at any scale, using a variety of symbol or color schemes designed to cartographically enhance the appearance of anomalous areas. Results of the geochemical interpretation are used to select target areas several tens of square kilometers in size. Examples from the Colorado Plateau and other areas illustrate how the interpretive techniques are used. Both the data and data analysis techniques have wide application in mineral exploration. Because of the extensive suite of elements represented, the data can be End_Page 695------------------------------ beneficial to any organization involved in frontier exploration for uranium or base metals. End_of_Article - Last_Page 696------------