Abstract When generally applicable rules clash with one’s cultural, religious or moral commitments, should exemptions be granted? The debate on raises the question both of what it means to treat people equally and protect diversity adequately. objective this paper is defend no-exemption argument make a more attractive position for liberals. I first argue that violate principle equal treatment b...

We present an algorithm for summarizing the metric resource requirements of an abstract task based on the resource usages of its potential refinements. We use this summary information within the ASPEN planner/scheduler to coordinate a team of rovers that conflict over shared resources. We find analytically and experimentally that an iterative repair planner can experience an exponential speedup...

Recently, there is a growing interest in the automatic analysis of learner activity in web-based learning environments. The approach and system SIAM (System for Interaction Analysis by Machine learning) presented in this article aims at helping to establish a basis for the automatic analysis of interaction data by developing a data logging and analysis system based on a standard database server...

Base composition, codon usages and amino acid usages have been analyzed by taking 529 orthologous sequences of Aquifex aeolicus and Bacillus subtilis, having different optimal growth temperatures. These two bacteria do not have significant difference in overall GC composition, but GC(1+2) and GC3 levels were found to vary significantly. Significant increments in purine content and GC3 compositi...

Modern computing paradigms for distributed applications advocate a strong control on shared resources available on demand in order to guarantee their correct usages. An illustrative example of such paradigms is Cloud Computing. In this dissertation, we study formal models for distributed applications, paying particular attention to resource usage analysis. Formal methods for specifying and anal...

Simulation is on the one hand an important application area for multiagent systems, but on the other hand also a useful tool for building agent applications. This chapter investigates constructs and techniques that foster both usages of simulation in the context of agent technology. The vision for integrating simulation support consists in establishing simulation transparency, i.e. it should be...

Yet there are restrictions: a justified belief can inferentially justify a belief in some propositions but not others. Suppose I justifiably believe (J) that Jones ate pizza last night. My justified belief in J can, by itself, inferentially justify me in believing (S) that someone ate pizza last night. 2 Maybe I won’t be justified in believing S because I have a defeater. But S is at least a ca...