This paper introduces the online bundle purchasing problem (OBPP) as a new computational challenge induced by e-commerce technology. The task of the OBPP is to decide which of possibly many satisfactory combinations (bundles) of items should be purchased, from whom, and when, to maximize the buyer’s overall satisfaction. Satisfaction, formalized as multiattribute utility, includes attitudes tow...

Getting a precise and accurate understanding of the mechanism of quotation is broadly important to contemporary philosophy, impacting on numerous research areas, and it’s deeply important, being foundational to truth-theoretic semantics (Saka 1998, 1991). It is gratifying, therefore, to see an upsurge in quotation studies that includes at least nine doctoral dissertations in the past fifteen ye...

We study reflection in the Lambda Calculus from an axiomatic point of view. Specifically, we consider various properties that the quote p·q must satisfy as a function from Λ to Λ. The most important of these is the existence of a definable left inverse: a term E, called the evaluator for p·q, that satisfies EpMq = M for all M ∈ Λ. Usually the quote pMq encodes the syntax of a given term, and th...

We’re changing gears in this column. Our recent columns have used a distributed stock quoting example to focus on different concurrency models for developing multithreaded server applications. In this column, we’ll start looking at another aspect of distributed object computing systems: decoupling the relationship between “clients” and “servers.” Our examples to date have focused exclusively on...

As the patronymic Ethiopian names do not match widespread GIVEN NAME – FAMILY pattern of Western world, authors are often quoted inconsistently and inappropriately by scholars in field linguistic typology historical-comparative linguistics. After a brief introduction into naming conventions summary recurrent issues quoting scientific publications, we propose number general citation rules that w...

The study of human categorization is contentious because it matters. How we understand the processes that give rise to categories is at the very core of how we understand human cognition. Over the past several decades, there has been growing concern that the assumptions that define and distinguish competing theories may notbe quite right. These assumptions are based on the traditional metaphor ...