The use of clocks for timekeeping seems to be a straightforward and almost intuitive routine. Glancing at mechanical clocks designed in Edo period Japan, however, we witness how modern-day intuitions betray our attempts to understand devices created in a culture…

The goal of this work involves the developing of an argumentation-based formalism that an agent could use for constructing plans. In this formalism, agents will have certain knowledge about the world, and a set of actions that they will be…

This study set sights at the issue of predominance of the attitude and behavior of self medication, medication storage and self treatment among female students of a Pakistani university. Random sampling and cross sectional surveys were conducted after collecting the…

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Cultural differences play a very important role in matching computer interfaces to the expectations of users from different national and cultural backgrounds. But to date, there has been little systematic research as to the extent of such differences, and how…

In this work we present a reactive autonomous robot navigation system based only on omnidirectional vision. It does not rely on any prior knowledge about the environment apart from assuming a structured one, like indoor corridors or outdoor avenues. The…

This project investigates how doctoral students make
‘learning leaps’ to recognise and cross conceptual
and skills thresholds in their research and ways in
which they can be best supported to do so. It
responds to current national and international
concerns…

The design of intelligent agents is a key issue for many applications. Since there is no universally accepted definition of intelligence, the notion of rational agency was proposed by Russell as an alternative for the characterization of intelligent agency.
A…

Due to the dynamic nature of the Web as well as its heterogeneous audience, web applications are more likely to rapidly evolve leading to inconsistencies among requirements during the development process. With the purpose to deal with these inconsistencies, web…

This dissertation chronicles the emergence of economic calculation as an analytical, argumentative, and moral tool in British politics in the half-century after the 1688 Revolution. During Britain's "financial revolution," novel questions about the nation's "Trade & Revenue" were contested in…