Background The concept of evidence has become firmly rooted in health care, with most importance placed on the outcome of research in clinical and economic spheres. Much less emphasis is placed on the patientÕs contribution to evidence which remains relatively vague, of low status and often difficult to integrate with other forms of knowledge.
Turner leads us on a whirlwind tour of nonstandard logics and their general applications to Al and computer science.Many Al problems resist straightforward translation into classical logic. Reasoning with uncertain or incomplete information, modeling temporal relationships, and formalizing knowledge and belief models-three issues important to Al-are difficult to satisfactorily represent in standard logic. In the quest for adequate formal models of these and other Al problems, researchers are exploring alternative, nonstandard logics.Turner divides nonstandard logics into two categories-those extending classical logic and those rivaling it. Extensions achieve greater expressive power through a richer operator vocabulary; for example, the modal logic operators M and L for logical possibility and logical necessity. Rival logics reject some classical-logic theorems such as the law of the excluded middle (probably not provable in fuzzy or threevalued logic).In dealing with extensions, Turner discusses modal and temporal logic. He covers the following rival systems: multiple-valued logic, intuitionist logic, nonmonotonic inference, and fuzzy logic. For each system, he presents the rationale and fundamental tenets common to all variants, and then critically reviews the most important variants of each logic. Some chapters include extended examples of applying nonstandard logic to research problems in computer science.Turner seeks to convey the state of the art in each area, and to provide pointers into the literature for background information and further study. To cover six kinds of logic in 120 pages, exposition must be brisk. Although the book is self contained and the author clearly separates important points from details, readers should have firm foundations in classical logic plus healthy appetites for formalism. The chapters on modal, temporal, and intuitionist logic exemplify promising applications of nonstandard logics to active computer science research. Modal logic is used to develop formal semantic specification for a simple programming language.The sample application of intuitionist logic shows how logic can be used simultaneously as a specification and a programming language, making possible program specifications directly executable as code. Temporal logic is applied to problems involving specification and verification of digital hardware components. These sample applications reveal to nonlogicians the rewards for investing time and effort to learn yet another logi-cal variety. One only wishes Turner had given illustrative applications for every logical system surveyed.On the negative side, the book's most annoying faults are excessive typographical errors (literally hundreds) and mangled bibliographical entries. The title's reference to Al is misleading as well. Although some logical systems discussed have special relevance to Al (nonmonotonic and fuzzy logic, for example), others relate to theoretical computer science in general but not to Al in particular. At times, the author presupposes more backgroun...
The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.
Transatlantica-Revue d'études américaines est mis à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Attribution-Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale-Pas de Modification 4.0 International.
“I am as American as April in Arizona,” Nabokov claimed in a 1966 interview. Although he repeatedly emphasized his American citizenship and the affection he held for his adopted nation, my argument is that his 1947 novel, Bend Sinister, offers us an opportunity to interrogate the received narrative of Nabokov's unproblematic arrival and assimilation into the United States. In examining the engagement with mass culture in this dystopian novel, my intention is to restore some of the political valence denied the novel by both Nabokov and his readers, and to suggest how it functions as a critique of American culture which reveals the author's profound ambivalence about his adopted nation in the early to mid-1940s. Drawing on unpublished archive material, as well as theoretical work by Theodor Adorno, this paper opens up a new approach to Nabokov's American work and demands a reassessment of his avowed apoliticism.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.