Donald E. Knuth has been making foundational contributions to the field of computer science for as long as computer science has been a field. His award-winning textbooks are often given credit for shaping the field, and his scientific papers are widely referenced and stand as milestones of development over a wide variety of topics. The present volume, the seventh in a series of his collected papers, is devoted to his work on the design of new algorithms. Nearly thirty of (...) Knuth’s classic papers are collected in this book and brought up to date with extensive revisions and notes on subsequent developments. The papers cover numerous discrete problems, such as assorting, searching, data compression, theorem proving, and cryptography, as well as methods for controlling errors in numerical computations. (shrink)

We present a criterion for the use of thought experiments as a guide to possibilia that bear on important arguments in philosophy of religion. We propose that the more successful thought experiments are closer to the world in terms of phenomenological realism and the values they are intended to track. This proposal is filled out by comparing thought experiments of life after death by Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman with an idealist thought experiment. In terms of realism and values (...) we contrast an exemplary thought experiment by Iris Murdoch with one we find problematic by William Irwin. (shrink)

The critique of mission history often involves perpetuating the overestimated impact of the missionaries from opposite sides. It was not so much the missionaries who mattered, but what mattered more was whether the people were responding to the message or not. Today we see the translating function of the missionaries in a clearer way and the people’s reception as the crucial factor in the process of modern Christianization. The World Council of Churches in its declaration “Together Towards Life” separates mission (...) from its entanglement with colonialism as a mission from the margins by grounding it in the triune God, but it seems to overlook the contributing factor of the people as the human subject of the Christianization process. Instead of following a simple input-impact model, we have to acknowledge more those who were adapting themselves to the Christian faith from within their own context. (shrink)

This piece raises a new challenge for Christian materialist accounts of human persons. Revisiting one of the perennial challenges for Christian materialism, explaining the metaphysical compatibility of resurrection and the life everlasting with materialist metaphysics, I argue that resuscitation phenomena reported in scripture undermine van Inwagen’s and Zimmerman’s attempts to reconcile resurrection and materialism. Although this challenge to Christian materialism is not insurmountable, it provides good reason to reject several of the most serious Christian materialist projects and offers a reason (...) for Christians to consider alternatives to materialism. (shrink)

We defend the guise of the good thesis in a tradition going back to Socrates and Plato, according to which persons act on the basis of what appears to them as good or the least bad or evil act available to them. This seems contrary to moral experience, but we defend the thesis against plausible counter-examples in life as well as fiction. We contend that the thesis makes wrong-doing and vice intelligible, but still wrong, dysfunctional and horrific.

Doctoral students receive many kinds of assistance from faculty members, but much of this support falls short of mentoring. This paper takes the perspective that it is more important to find out what kinds of help students receive from faculty than to assume that students are taken care of by mentors, as distinct from advisors or role models. The findings here are based on both survey and interview data collected through the Acadia Institute’s project on Professional Values and Ethical Issues (...) in the Graduate Education of Scientists and Engineers. The paper describes various kinds of assistance that students receive (or do not receive) from faculty members in their roles as teacher/coach, sponsor, and counselor, It concludes with a section on advisors assigned to doctoral students, notably the extent of their contact with and influence on students. (shrink)

Collectively these essays inform educators and researchers at different grade levels about the teaching and learning of proof at each level and, thus, help ...

In the children's book ``The Phantom Tollbooth'' by Norton Juster one can find the following passage:``Yes, please,'' said Milo. ``Can you show me the biggest number there is?''.

O artigo tem o objetivo de debater o pensamento político de Hannah Arendt e sua interpretação da política no século XX, onde se destaca a retomada por parte da autora de um dos principais expoentes sobre tal tema, que foi o Filósofo da antiguidade clássica: Aristóteles, ele compreendia a ética indissociável da política, através do conceito de bem comum. Assim, o texto que se segue, busca levantar algumas questões sobre ética e política.

The present article delves into the extension of Knuth’s fundamental Boolean logic table to accommodate the complexities of indeterminate truth values through the integration of neutrosophic logic (Smarandache & Christianto, 2008). Neutrosophic logic, rooted in Florentin Smarandache’s groundbreaking work on Neutrosophic Logic (cf. Smarandache, 2005, and his other works), introduces an additional truth value, ‘indeterminate,’ enabling a more comprehensive framework to analyze uncertainties inherent in computational systems. By bridging the gap between traditional boolean operations and the indeterminacy present in (...) various real-world scenarios, this extension redefines logic tables, introducing neutrosophic operators that capture nuances beyond the binary realm. Through a thorough exploration of neutrosophic logic's principles and its implications in computational paradigms, this study proposes a novel approach to logic design that accommodates uncertain, imprecise, and incomplete information. This paradigm shift in logic tables not only broadens the spectrum of computing methodologies but also holds promise in fields such as decision-making systems and data analytics. This article amalgamates insights from over twelve key references encompassing seminal works in boolean logic, neutrosophic logic, and their applications in diverse scientific and computational domains, aiming to pave the way for a more robust and adaptable logic framework in computation. (shrink)

O presente texto discute, em âmbito teórico, a relação entre acontecimento e narrativa midiática. Através de Louis Quéré, situa-se o acontecimento na dialética da experiência, originária da interação entre sujeitos e acontecimentos. Pensa-se a narrativa como um lugar de manifestação e representação das culturas e das ações dos sujeitos sobre o mundo. Volta-se para a narrativa por meio da tríplice mimese de Paul Ricoeur. No âmbito analítico, o texto realiza incursões e interpretações acerca da derrota da seleção brasileira de futebol (...) para a seleção alemã por sete gols a um na semifinal da Copa do Mundo de Futebol de 2014 e busca compreender como as capas de alguns jornais brasileiros produzem uma ressignificação do revés do Brasil na Copa de 1950, conhecido como Maracanaço. (shrink)