Policies to avert the threat of dangerous climate change focus on stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations by drastically reducing anthropogenic emissions of carbon. Such reductions require limiting the use of fossil fuels-which supply the bulk of energy to economic activity,…

In this work we present an approach to model an action-oriented system controlled by BDI agents using a defeasible argumentation formalism to represent its knowledge. Here, our main concern will be modelling the software agents that drive the physical robots.

Signature schemes are fundamental cryptographic primitives, useful as a stand-alone application, and as a building block in the design of secure protocols and other cryptographic objects. In this thesis, we study both the uses that signature schemes find in protocols,…

The Internet and Technology Revolution has created a new business environment, one in which traditional business rules are being challenged, and even repudiated. Information Communication Technology (ICT) has made a major impact to many business sectors, ranging from retail, stock…

This study presents a theoretical model for predictions of near-shore hydrodynamic characteristics and the local sediment transport rate along long, straight beaches. The wave may be periodic or random, the beach may be plane or barred, and the bed may…

(cont.) of free methionine. Therefore, the environments surrounding different methionine sites in G-CSF mainly provide spatial restriction to the access to the solvent but do not affect oxidation in a specific manner, consistent with the good correlation between 2SWCN's and…

Following the deaths of Victoria Climbié and of Peter Connelly (Baby P) the media has raged about social work competence, the public have expressed dismay and the government has responded with proposals designed to alter practice procedures. Altering procedures gives…

Although we represent other people in terms of both what they look like and how they behave, these two aspects of person knowledge have rarely been studied together. While vision scientists have focused on the processing of faces and bodies,…

This paper presents an overview of a theory of discourse structure, and discusses a model for assimilating text into a frame-based data structure. The model has been applied to the analysis of news articles. The theory assumes sentences contain links…

Three important trends - unrelenting globalization, growing worldwide electronic connectivity, and increasing knowledge intensity of economic activity - are creating new opportunities for global politics, with challenging demands for information access, interpretation, provision and overall use. This has serious implications…