For work submitted up to 24 hours after the agreed submission deadline, a penalty of 10 marks out of 100 (or 3 marks out of 20) from the mark the student would have received applies; for work submitted after 24 hours and up to, and including, 7 days from the original submission deadline, the maximum awarded will be the pass mark (50%); for work submitted 8 or more calendar days after the submission deadline the student will receive a mark of 0.

How can one read an abstract graphic narrative? Under what conditions do we cease to view a set of images as static representations, or as marks on paper existing for their own sake, and begin to read them as the story of a changing world in motion, or even invest them with impetus, emotions and desires? In this article I will explore the ways in which readers can make sense of abstract comics. The notion of an abstract graphic narrative seems to be a contradiction in terms: how can something be non-representational, and also be a narrative, a category which seems to presuppose representations of characters, settings and events? When confronted with these visual texts, readers will have to seek out and create such ‘actants’ and ‘existents’ from the material abstract comics offer, if the text is to warrant its status as narrative. The article will use a number of exemplar stories from Andrei Molotiu’s 2009 collection Abstract Comics to explore the process of reading these image texts. It will use ideas from narratology and philosophy of consciousness to help outline some of the ways we can ‘animate’ the static images we see across the sequence of panels, in which we recognize and reconstitute persistent entities, bringing a narrative life to the apparently inert marks on the comics page. I will explore the limits of readers’ ability to apply this process and comment on its relevance to more mainstream graphic narrative in general.

Deadline-sensitive workflows require careful coordination of user constraints with resource availability. Current distributed resource access models provide varying degrees of resource control: from limited or none in grid batch systems to explicit in cloud systems. Additionally applications experience variability due to competing user loads, performance variations, failures, etc. These variations impact the quality of service (QoS) that goes unaccounted for in planning strategies. In this paper we propose Workflow ORchestrator for Distributed Systems (WORDS) architecture based on a least common denominator resource model that abstracts the differences and captures the QoS properties provided by grid and cloud systems. We investigate algorithms for effective orchestration (i.e., resource procurement and task mapping) for deadline-sensitive workflows atop the resource abstraction provided in WORDS. Our evaluation compares orchestration methodologies over TeraGrid and Amazon EC2 systems. Experimental results show that WORDS enables effective orchestration possible at reasonable costs on batch queue grid and cloud systems with or without explicit resource control.

In this paper, we investigate the integration of virtual knowledge communities (VKC) into an ontology-driven uncertainty model (On-toBayes). The selected overall framework for OntoBayes is the multiagent paradigm. Agents modeled with OntoBayes have two parts: knowledge and decision making parts. The former is the ontology knowledge while the latter is based upon Bayesian Networks (BN). OntoBayes is thus designed in agreement with the Agen Oriented Abstraction (AOA) paradigm. Agents modeled with OntoBayes possess a common community layer that enables to define, describe and implement corporate knowledge. This layer consists of virtual knowledge communities.

For a long time, one of the major research goals in the computer science research community has been to raise the level of abstraction power of specification languages/programming languages. Many specification languages and formalisms have been invented, but unfortunately very few of those are practically useful, due to limited computer support of these languages and/or inefficient implementations. Thus, one important goal is executable specification languages of high abstraction power and with high performance, good enough for practical usage and comparable in execution speed to hand implementations of applications in low-level languages such as C or C++. In this paper we briefly describe our work in creating efficient executable specification languages for two application domains. The first area is formal specification of programming language semantics, whereas the second is formal specification of complex systems for which we have developed an object-oriented mathematical modeling language called Modelica, including architectural support for components and connectors. Based on these efforts, we are currently working on a unified equation-based mathematical modeling language that can handle modeling of items as diverse as programming languages, computer algebra, event-driven systems, and continuous-time physical systems. The key unifying feature is the notion of equation. In this paper we describe the design and implementation of the unified language. A compiler implementation is already up and running, and used for substantial applications.

The researcher provides the keys of the work Without Title (1941) by Vasily Kandinsky, belonging to the permanent collection of the Museo Universidad de Navarra (MUN). The lecture takes place beside the work, in the exhibition room.

La investigadora ofrece las claves de la obra Sin título (1941) de Vasily Kandinsky, perteneciente a la colección del Museo Universidad de Navarra. La conferencia tiene lugar en la sala expositiva de la pieza.

l inicio de la formación del artista donostiarra Rafael Ruiz Balerdi, fue academicista, aunque pronto buscó nuevas vías de expresión de manera autodidacta. A lo largo de su trayectoria fue evolucionando desde la pintura figurativa hacía la abstracción, la cual derivó en el informalismo que mantuvo hasta el final de sus días. Fue uno de los artistas apoyados por Juan Huarte Beaumont, quien entre 1963 y 1972 se encargó de que residiese en Madrid dedicado a la pintura, mientras que el empresario se ocupaba de organizar su vida cotidiana para que nada la distrajese de la creación artística. Durante este tiempo, su obra estuvo marcada por las dos vías, paralelas pero a la vez opuestas entre sí, que han marcado su carrera, por un lado la pintura figurativa y por otro la abstracción informalista. Y aunque esto pudiera parecer contradictorio, el propio Balerdi explicó la existencia de ambas debido a la "necesidad psicológica que sentía de abandonar el mundo de las formas prietas y atenazadas de vez en cuando para refugiarse en otro más inestructurado y ligero". En lo que respecta a la abstracción, su obra se adscribe al informalismo, con un color vibrante y rico, reflejo de un optimismo vital que no le abandonaría hasta el final de su vida. Balerdi desmenuza la pintura, creando una serie de formas aleatorias que protagonizaron sus obras, de factura rápida, mental, en la que la agilidad y premura del trazo impedía al subconsciente la creación de formas concretas y definidas. Dentro de este marco se insertan una serie de piezas, a menudo formando trilogías, en las que las formas se van disolviendo, intervenidas hasta la extenuación por el pintor. Este modo de trabajo se debe a que amaba la pintura por si misma, dando impor-

The system building process should start with a model of the relevant part of the real world, but most O-O systems work is concerned with the later stages, taking O-O languages as a given and looking at how to use them to build the system. This article discusses the origin of the object paradigm, and demonstrates the value of beginning with real-world modeling using an O-O approach.

Il paper è dedicato all'analisi delle vicende del Groupe de Grasse (1940-1942), variamente composto da perseguitati politici e artisti in esilio in attesa di un visto per emigrare negli Stati Uniti, trovatisi a condividere a stretto contatto un periodo stori-co estremamente travagliato e incerto. Dopo una breve introduzione sulla storia e la struttura di vari gruppi artistici creatisi nel Sud della Francia durante la Repubblica di Vichy, si passa ad analizzare il contributo dei singoli artisti e la loro idea di collettività artistica. Si intende pertanto riflettere sui problemi storici posti da una tipologia di opere difficile da inquadrare all'interno del percorso di ogni singolo artista del gruppo. Dal punto vista metodologico si è scelto di operare un taglio eminentemente storico, sulla base di documenti inediti e testi rari provenienti dalla Stiftung Hans Arp di Berlino.

The Internet computing model with its ubiquitous networking and computing infrastructure is driving a new class of interoperable applications that benefit both from high computing power and multiple Internet connections. In this context, grids are promising computing platforms that allow to aggregate distributed resources such as workstations and clusters to solve large-scale problems. However, because most parallel programming tools were primarily developed for MPP and cluster computing, to exploit the new environment higher abstraction and cooperative interfaces are required. Rocmeμ is a platform originally designed to support the operation of multi-SAN clusters that integrates application modeling and resource allocation. In this paper we show how the underlying resource oriented computation model provides the necessary abstractions to accommodate the migration from cluster to multicluster grid enabled computing.

This essay, included in the first reprinting of Color Problems, a Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color, By Emily Noyes Vanderpoel, 1902, introduces Vanderpoel's pedagogy of color theory and the color abstraction works and techniques of Vanderpoel. The author proposes that Vanderpoel is an overlooked abstract artist.

In this paper, we aim to contribute to the discussion of the role of the human body and of the concrete artefacts and signs created by humankind in the constitution of meanings for mathematical practices. We argue that cognition is both embodied and situated in the activities through which it occurs and that mathematics learning involves the appropriation of practices associated with the sets of artefacts that have historically come to represent the body of knowledge we call mathematics. This process of appropriation involves a coordination of a variety of the semiotic resources-spoken and written languages, mathematical representation systems, drawings, gestures and the like-through which mathematical objects and relationships might be experienced and expressed. To highlight the connections between perceptual activities and cultural concepts in the meanings associated with this process, we concentrate on learners who do not have access to the visual field. More specifically, we present three examples of gesture use in the practices of blind mathematics students-all involving the exploration of geometrical objects and relationships. On the basis of our analysis of these examples, we argue that gestures are illustrative of imagined reenactions of previously experienced activities and that they emerge in instructional situations as embodied abstractions, serving a central role in the sense-making practices associated with the appropriation of mathematical meanings.

This research aims to model the process of data visualization (DV) and design to facilitate computational thinking (CT) of secondary-level students. As an interdisciplinary method for visualizing complex data, creating data visualizations requires learners to analyze data from knowledge of pure and applied science. This study investigates creating DV to facilitate CT as an interdisciplinary method which combines mathematics and information technology. The study was carried out using synthesised design-based research (DBR) method by conducting two cycles comprised of five phases: problem analysis within real-life context, design solution, develop solution, evaluate in practice and reflection. CT dimensions (decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithm design) were tested by using the Computational Thinking through Data Visualization Rubric and reflection form acquired during implementation. The sample consisted of secondary school students in the data visualization creation process with 27 in the first cycle and 31 in the second cycle. This research proposes a model to facilitate development of CT by DV with the analysis of complex data, creating an effective method by enabling analytics and visualizing data. The proposed DV development process facilitating CT has the potential to inform research on interdisciplinary learning environments.

It is generally agreed today that the single most important progress which needs to be made to improve the quality and naturalness of synthetic speech is towards a better understanding and control of prosody. This is true even for those languages which have been the object of considerable research (e.g. English, French, German, Japanese, …) -it is obviously still more true for the vast majority of the world's languages for which such research is either completely inexistant or is only in a fairly preliminary stage. Even for the best-researched languages, there is still very little reliable and robust data available on the prosodic characteristics of dialectal and/or stylisitic variability. It seems inevitable that the need for prosodic analysis of large speech data-bases from a great variety of languages and dialects as well as from different speech styles will increase exponentially over the next two or three decades. In this paper I present an overview ofProZed an aid for developing prosody rules for speech synthesis using the MOMEL and INTSINT , algorithms and interfaced with the MBROLA, [12] MBROLIGN [23] and Praat [4] programs. It allows the interactive editing of a symbolic representation of an utterance in any of the twenty languages and dialects for which an MBROLA diphone database is currently available. ProZed defines a number of different levels of representation of varying abstraction. At the lowest level, representations are a specification of the identity of each phonemic segment together with its prosodic characteristics. More abstract representations allow the user to abstract away from speakerspecific characteristics in order to concentrate on the meaningful content of the utterance's prosody. It is evident that no tool is entirely innocent of theoretical bias and the tools described here are no exception to this rule. ProZed has, however, been designed to be as theory-independent as possible so that it could be used to describe intonation patterns in a number of different frameworks with the ultimate aim of providing a framework that could be used to evaluate competing models of prosody. The program is currently implemented as a set of Perl scripts. Like the other programs with which it is interfaced, ProZed will be freely distributed for non-commercial, non-military applications. It is hoped that this tool will greatly facilitate the task of phoneticians and linguists involved in developing efficient rules for speech synthesis for a wide variety of languages and dialects.

In this chapter I consider ways in which contemporary graphical causal models can be extended to model systems with complex temporal dynamics. I propose that the present limitations of many contemporary causal models in representing such dynamics are a legacy of their original application to simultaneous equations for long-term equilibrium relationships. Iwasaki and Simon (1994) provide a way of generalizing causal models to represent the dynamics of systems that are away from equilibrium. I clarify the temporal relationships among the variables in dynamic causal models, and illustrate how these relationships relate to those studied by time-series econometricians.

Zasadniczym celem mojej pracy jest zapoznanie z procesem abstrakcji, który w myśl filozofii realistycznej (Arystoteles, św. Tomasz z Akwinu) jest częścią procesu poznania. Aby to zrobić przedstawiam wizualny model, który nazwałem „Model przestrzeni abstrakcji”. To sposób pokazania za pomocą obrazu procesu poznania materialnej rzeczy i tworzenia przedmiotu możliwego do przyjęcia przez niematerialny intelekt.

Rozróżnienie pomiędzy abstraktem (elementy czystej matematyki), a konkretem (ludzie, drzewa) bardzo się komplikuje jeżeli wniknąć głębiej w proces poznania. Proces poznania umysłowego przebiega w ten sposób, że to co jest wynikiem poznania zmysłowego czyli wyobrażenia zostaje przejęte przez intelekt możnościowy. Wyobrażenia zostają prześwietlone i przeobrażone przez intelekt czynny w pojęcia. Cały ten proces ma na celu odmaterializowanie wyobrażeń, aby mogły być przyjęte przez władzę intelektu możnościowego. Każde więc wyobrażenie musi się odmaterializować i uogólnić, aby przekształcić się w pojęcie. Ten proces przeobrażania się wyobrażeń w pojęcie nazywa się abstrakcją. Abstraho po łacinie znaczy oddzielam, odrywam. W procesie abstrakcji dokonuje się oddzielnie wszystkich elementów czasowo-przestrzennych w wyobrażeniach i odszukiwanie wspólnej treści – pojęcia.
Model przestrzeni abstrakcji MPA to obiekt składający się z dwóch przylegających podstawą do siebie prostopadłościanów (A i B). Kwadratowa podstawa prostopadłościanu A to poznawana rzecz, a figury leżące na niej to cechy rzeczy. Poznanie cech rzeczy polega na „oderwaniu” jej od rzeczy i umieszczeniu jej obrazu w przestrzeni. Poprzez umieszczony w przestrzeni abstrakcji obraz jest możliwe jej poznanie w rzeczy. Działanie MPA można streścić w następujący sposób:
Etap pierwszy: W przestrzeni A dokonuje się proces powstawania obrazów zastępczych cech rzeczy. Obrazy zastępcze cech ustawiają się w przestrzeni A według hierarchii ich postrzegania. Powstawanie zastępczych obrazów cech rzeczy (czyli zastępczego obrazu rzeczy) kończy się wtedy, gdy ostatni obraz cechy zostanie umieszczony na odpowiednim poziomie.
Drugi etap: To uniesie się całej uhierarchizowanej przestrzeni obrazów zastępczych cech rzeczy i przemieszczanie się do przestrzeni B. W czasie „przechodzenia” zastępczego obrazu rzeczy przez podstawę przestrzeni B każdy obraz cechy zostawia odciśnięty w niej swój ślad. Etap drugi kończy się wtedy, gdy cały zastępczy obraz rzeczy znajdzie się w przestrzeni B, a w jej podstawie odciśnięty jest obraz rzeczy.
W etapie pierwszym zastępcze obrazy cech rzeczy wykonują jakiś ruch od rzeczy do odpowiedniego poziomu. Dla każdej cechy rzeczy tworzy się oddzielny obraz. To co spaja wszystkie zastępcze obrazy cech to hierarchia. W etapie drugim ruch dotyczy całego uhierarchizowanego zastępczego obrazu rzeczy. Etap pierwszy jest miejscem tworzenia się hierarchii obrazów zastępczych cech i potencjalnie może zawierać dowolną ilość kombinacji hierarchii. Etap drugi natomiast jest całkowicie uzależniony od etapu pierwszego.

Istotą działania MPA jest umieszczanie według odpowiedniej hierarchii zastępczych obrazów cech rzeczy w jednej przestrzeni i przemieszczanie jej do drugiej przestrzeni tak, aby w jej podstawie odcisnęły się uhierarchizowane zastępcze obrazy cech rzeczy. Hierarchię w pierwszej przestrzeni określa kolejność postrzeżenia cechy w rzeczy. W drugiej natomiast kolejność w czasie, w jakim dany obraz cechy przechodzi przez podstawę.

Pogłębiona analiza, którą zastosowałem do badań nad zagadnieniem abstrakcji w oparciu o zagadnienia metafizyczne i logiczne rzuca szersze światło na ten problem i otwiera dalszy etap poznania abstrakcji przy użyciu modeli wizualnych. Myśl przedstawiona w pracy pozostaje na poziomie zagadnień teoretycznych, można powiedzieć podstawowych. Dotyczy jak najbardziej konkretnych problemów, które są doświadczeniem każdego człowieka.
Praca została posiada również rozdziały: „Zagadnienia metafizyczne”, w którym zostały podane podstawowe pojęcia dotyczące filozofii tomistycznej pozwalające na szersze rozumienia procesu poznania i procesu abstrakcji oraz „Zagadnienia logiczne” będący przybliżeniem metody fenomenologicznej, metody semiotycznej oraz metody aksjomatycznej na podstawie pracy pt.: ”Współczesne metody myślenia” profesora Józefa Marii Bocheńskiego.

In de periode 1922–23 kende de onderlinge samenwerking van abstracte
kunstenaars in België haar hoogtepunt. Om de rol die Victor Servranckx
binnen deze beweging had te kunnen inschatten, volgen we het traject
dat hij in deze eerste jaren aflegde. Dit doen we enerzijds aan de hand
van zijn geschriften uit die pioniersjaren, anderzijds door te trachten de
werken die hij op het 2de en 3e Kongres voor Moderne Kunst toonde te
reconstrueren. Naast de ideeën en verwezenlijkingen op het esthetische
vlak zoeken we naar de ‘ethische’ component van zijn prestaties, namelijk de keuzes die hij maakte om het zogenaamde gemeenschapskunstideaal te bereiken. De stand van L’Équerre – 7 Arts kunnen we in deze optiek zien als een uitwerking van het op het 3e Kongres ingezette pad richting toegepaste kunst. We gaan kort in op de theorieën die de basis uitmaakten van de Zuivere Beelding, de Belgische variant van het internationaal constructivisme, waarna we Servranckx volgen door deze boeiende periode, met de nadruk op de protagonisten uit de twee avant-gardistische centra Antwerpen en Brussel.

The question of abstract landscape in contemporary painting: Cy Twombly and Gerhard Richter


Si la peinture abstraite n'a pas bien sûr fait mourir la peinture figurative qui existe après elle, si elle n'a pas supprimé le paysage pictural, quel peut bien être le sens, la nature et la portée, au sein de la peinture contemporaine elle-même, du paysage abstrait ? Quelles en sont les conditions de possibilité ? A quelles conditions un paysage abstrait est-il possible, c'est à dire réalisable pour le peintre et pensable pour l'historien et le théoricien de l'art ? Telles sont les questions rectrices de cette thèse qui entend déployer et explorer le paradoxe d'un paysage séparé-ce qui est bien le sens strict d'abstrait-de l'exigence de représentation mimétique d'un espace naturel ou urbain extérieur « d'un lieu assez élevé, où tous les objets auparavant dispersés se rassemblent sous un seul coup d'oeil » selon l'expression de Fénelon. Ce déploiement et cette exploration s'effectue sur les deux exemples des oeuvres de Cy Twombly et Gerhard Richter interprétées comme deux modalités différentes d'une relève du paysage, dépassant et conservant à la fois ce dernier sur le mode de l'évocation ou de la suggestion : par un langage purement pictural, par le langage des titres et des mots dans la peinture pour Twombly, par la photographie et la photo-peinture pour Richter. A cet égard, Twombly et Richter tentent tous les deux de mettre en oeuvre aux deux sens du terme, une rupture et une continuité : entre le forme du genre paysage et l'expérience paysagère au sein de l'espace de la galerie d'exposition, entre la tradition du paysage occidental (Poussin, Turner, Friedrich) et la peinture des peintres américains contemporains (Pollock, Rothko et Rauschenberg), entre la peinture et les autres média ou les autres arts auxquels elle se confronte (la poésie pour Twombly, la photographie et la littérature pour Richter). La thèse est donc construite comme un ensemble de croisements : entre deux artistes de deux cultures différentes, entre deux façons de réaliser la gageure d'un paysage abstrait, entre deux manières de reprendre tout en la subvertissant la tradition picturale depuis l'Âge classique, entre deux modalités d'une mise en travail des relations interartistiques. Car c'est bien l'ensemble de ces croisements qui rend possible le paysage abstrait renouvelant le genre du paysage, le libérant de ses règles traditionnelles et, ainsi, l'ouvrant à des formes inédites et étonnantes.

본 연구는 혁신제품 개발을 위하여 관심 산업의 핵심 디자인특허를 네트워크분석을 통하여 추출하고, 정의된 핵심 디자인특허와 그 특허를 기반으로 하는 제품의 추상화 기능분석 (Abstraction Hierarchy)을 수행하였다. 그리고 추상화 기능분석에 해당하는 기술특허를 다시 접목함으로써, 기술특허와 디자인특허의 융합개발 방법론을 제시한다. 영국 다이슨社의 ‘날개없는 선풍기’의 사례를 기술-디자인 융합방법론에 대입하여 재구성하고 이를 통해서 새로운 ‘헤어드라이어기’ 아이디어 발상 방법 프로세스를 설명한다.

Interview exploring abstraction's use as a resource for artists working from transgender and queer perspectives.  Focus is placed on the resistance to compulsory self-disclosure and to protocols of surveillance and voyeurism.  Also discussed is the relation of these ideas to my historical work on the 1960s which makes a case for the widespread urgency of transgender theory by infiltrating canonical narratives and artists.

The early twentieth century revolutionised painting as new understandings of humanity were discovered, interpreted and expressed. These transformations introduced and developed trends which steered processes, aesthetics and concepts away from recognised and accepted forms of tangible representation and towards non-figurative styles.
As an inventor of Cubism Spanish painter Pablo Picasso was ‘the greatest of all abstract painters’ (Nash) and a forerunner of pure abstraction; through reference to Primitive artwork and its influence on Picasso’s Les Demoiselles D'Avignon and Guitar this paper aims to understand connections between Primitivism, Cubism and later trends of modern art.

Le capitalisme est un objet de haute abstraction, le commun est une force d'abstraction supérieure. La notion marxienne de « travail abstrait » a identifié le moteur interne du capitalisme, à savoir la transformation du travail, en un équivalent général 1 . Alfred Sohn-Rethel a bien vu la relation stricte qui unit l'abstraction du langage, celle de la marchandise et celle de la monnaie 2 . Dans l'introduction des Grundrisse de 1857, Marx clarifie le statut de l'abstraction au coeur de la méthodologie qui émergera dix ans plus tard dans Das Kapital. Chez lui, le concret est un résultat, le produit du processus de l'abstraction. La réalité capitaliste, et spécifiquement la réalité révolutionnaire, est une invention : « Le concret est concret, parce qu'il est la synthèse de beaucoup de déterminations, donc unité du divers. C'est pourquoi le concret apparaît dans la pensée comme le procès de la synthèse, comme résultat, non comme point de départ, quoiqu'il soit le véritable point de départ et par suite le point de départ aussi de la perception et de la représentation. » 3 L'abstraction est à la fois la tendance du capital et la méthode du marxisme. Le

In this study, Josefine Wikström challenges a concept of performance that makes no difference between art and non-art and argues for a new concept. This book confronts and criticises the way in which the dominating concept of performance has been used in art theory and performance and dance studies. Through an analysis of 1960s performance practices, Wikström focuses specifically on task-dance and event-score practices and provides an examination of the key philosophical concepts that are inseparable from such a concept of art and are necessary for the reconstruction of a critical concept of performance, such as "practice", "experience", "object", "abstraction" and "structure". This book will be of great interest to scholars, students and practitioners across dance, performance art, aesthetics and art theory. Josefine Wikström is Associate Professor of Dance Theory at Stockholm University of the Arts.

These Pixelscapes were found within a photograph of Kazimir Malevich (Ukranian-born artist, 1878-1935) via magnification, filter treatment (halftone) and isolation of the pixel(s) in Photoshop. Malevich founded the art movement, Suprematism in Moscow, 1913 as a parallel to Constructivism. Suprematism ("supremacy of forms") is a study in abstraction conceived in itself ... non-objective and not related to anything except geometric shapes and colors ... and a precursor to Minimalism.

"The article seeks to study Beckett’s (in)famous abstractionism in the light of his engagement with the discursive borderline of philosophy and literature with recourse to Alain Badiou’s texts on Beckett and his meditations on the philosophy-literature interface. Through a close textual reading of a series of Beckett’s late prose-texts, I argue that Beckett as a creative writer appropriates the reflexive locus of subjective thought which philosophy tries to claim as its exclusive belonging. This goes contra to Badiou’s idea of philosophy being  sutured to literature. In this problematic dialogue of the two discourses, Beckett’s obsessive abstractification renders the concrete as a remainder in the rigorous process of subtracting all particularities to arrive at a generic locus of thought. Beckett’s abstractionism is processual and non-absolute. It consists in the appropriation of the philosophical thought which thinks itself
without an object and as its own subject."

In this chapter I consider a particular conception of the role of language in promoting human freedom. We know the strength within Western thought of the belief in language as the source or location of the power of reason. But there is a concomitant association in our language-centred intellectual tradition between language and freedom. In what has become quite conventional philosophical discourse, language is said to enable an intellectual ascent from the lowly concrete of existing particulars to the lofty abstract of general or universal principle, law or essence. It is, as the story goes, the power of language to articulate the abstract which affords the possibility of freeing ourselves from the concrete chains that everywhere bind us in the here and now and of moving forward in pursuit of higher aims, aims worthy of our nature as rational thinking beings.
This chapter, then, is primarily dedicated to critical musings on the use of notions of ‘abstract’ and ‘concrete’ in a range of language-related enquiries and the problems such notions entail for an understanding of the scope and potential of human action and intelligence and, perhaps, freedom.  At the same time, I hope to affirm the interdependence, noted by other scholars, between attitudes towards cognition and cognitive development on the one hand and methods of linguistic investigation on the other.

This paper identifies aspects of computational thinking and proposes a description that meets the needs of teachers and academics reflecting upon the developing UK curriculum. Since Jeanette Wing's use of the term computational thinking in 2006, various discussions have arisen seeking a robust definition of the phrase with little consensus. In order to facilitate consistent curriculum design and appropriate assessment, it is argued that a definition and description of the elements of computational thinking need to be identified. Criteria are developed for the objectives of a computational thinking definition, in accordance with the needs identified in the literature. The most frequently occurring terms, descriptions, and meanings used to characterise computational thinking are also identified in the literature. Using the criteria as a guide and the collected terms as the vocabulary, a definition of computational thinking is developed which incorporates the concepts of automation, abstraction, decomposition, algorithmic design, evaluation, and generalisation.

Since the nineteenth century, artists, art theorists and art historians have dreamed of a Japanese material aesthetic—of the beauty of the formless, the ephemeral and the processual. This book is the first to explore this history: Japonism as a question of material aesthetics. It uncovers the historical, technical and discursive conditions on which the concept of a Japanese material aesthetic is based, and subjects the iconographic meanings so closely linked to the tradition of Japanese tea ceramics, wooden architecture or ink painting to a critical historical analysis. In doing so, it opens up new perspectives on the modernist art that emerged in Japan after 1945, which is shown to have radically challenged such iconographic fixations.

Gestalt psychology was the foundation of Rudolf Arnheim’s approach to art. Reviewing Arnheim’s long and productive career, it becomes useful to assess his relationship to the evolving theory. By paying special attention to the issues of (1) perceptual abstraction and visual thinking, (2) perceptual dynamics and expression, and (3) perceptual ‘goodness’ and beauty, it can be seen the degree to which Arnheim actually altered the basis of the general theory of Gestalt psychology, affirming the centrality of art in its purview

An exploration of Pythagorean-Platonic and Aristotelian-Thomistic Accounts of mathematics and science. This paper argues that mathematics is a specific form of abstraction. It concludes that science remains authentic when it maintains an awareness that it is necessarily abstract or reductionist.