Comparison of Different Knowledge Representations for Complex Structured Objects in Solving AI Problems

The problem of knowledge representation for a complex structured object is one of the actual problems of AI. This is due to the fact that many of the objects under study are not a single indivisible object characterized by its properties, but complex structures whose elements have some known properties and are in some, often multiplace, relations with each other. An approach to the representation of such knowledge based on first-order logic (predicate calculus formulas) is compared in this paper with two currently widespread approaches based on the representation of data information with the use of finite-valued strings or graphs. It is shown that the use of predicate calculus formulas for description of a complex structured object, despite the NP-difficulty of the solved problems arising after formalization, actually have no greater computational complexity than the other two approaches, what is usually not mentioned by their supporters. An algorithm for constructing an ontology is proposed that does not depend on the methodof desc ribing an object, and is based on the selection of the maximum common property of objects from a given set.

Digitizing Family Albums in The Family Camera Network (FamCam), Archive at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM): A Case Study of the Evans Family Collection

My thesis explores the family album as an indivisible object within a museum’s collection. Family albums hold both private and public importance for their ability to share collective memories and are valuable resources for scholars and the general public. To realize the inherent value of albums, I argue that we need to treat them as singular objects. Most institutions – such as museums, libraries or archives – treat family albums merely as a group of individual images. In this thesis, I propose an alternative approach: viewing and digitizing the albums as whole objects that are inseparable, lest we distort the narrative shaped in the album. The digitization process advances three services: first, digitization increases access to the album; second, digitization often enables the public to see and understand the album as a whole, maintaining the vision that the album’s maker sought to construct; third, digitization helps preserve the albums. My thesis investigates best practices for family album digitization so that the public can see albums as whole objects. A case study will focus on the Evans family collection from the FamCam at the ROM (accession numbers: 2018.24.1-21), a family collection which comes from a Canadian family that lived in China from 1888, for nearly a 100 years. Twenty-one family albums comprise the collection. The collection portrays the lives of a Western family in China, and provides insight into a century of photography and history. My thesis discusses the methodology, tools, and specific techniques for digitization, while highlighting the complexity of family albums. Though this digitization process may differ from the typical protocols for artifacts, the uniqueness of family albums necessitates genre-specific procedures. My thesis contributes to the emerging literature on family photography in public institutions, and develops an original method for preserving and archiving them digitally.

Digitizing Family Albums in The Family Camera Network (FamCam), Archive at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM): A Case Study of the Evans Family Collection

My thesis explores the family album as an indivisible object within a museum’s collection. Family albums hold both private and public importance for their ability to share collective memories and are valuable resources for scholars and the general public. To realize the inherent value of albums, I argue that we need to treat them as singular objects. Most institutions – such as museums, libraries or archives – treat family albums merely as a group of individual images. In this thesis, I propose an alternative approach: viewing and digitizing the albums as whole objects that are inseparable, lest we distort the narrative shaped in the album. The digitization process advances three services: first, digitization increases access to the album; second, digitization often enables the public to see and understand the album as a whole, maintaining the vision that the album’s maker sought to construct; third, digitization helps preserve the albums. My thesis investigates best practices for family album digitization so that the public can see albums as whole objects. A case study will focus on the Evans family collection from the FamCam at the ROM (accession numbers: 2018.24.1-21), a family collection which comes from a Canadian family that lived in China from 1888, for nearly a 100 years. Twenty-one family albums comprise the collection. The collection portrays the lives of a Western family in China, and provides insight into a century of photography and history. My thesis discusses the methodology, tools, and specific techniques for digitization, while highlighting the complexity of family albums. Though this digitization process may differ from the typical protocols for artifacts, the uniqueness of family albums necessitates genre-specific procedures. My thesis contributes to the emerging literature on family photography in public institutions, and develops an original method for preserving and archiving them digitally.

Redistribution Through Markets

Policymakers frequently use price regulations as a response to inequality in the markets they control. In this paper, we examine the optimal structure of such policies from the perspective of mechanism design. We study a buyer‐seller market in which agents have private information about both their valuations for an indivisible object and their marginal utilities for money. The planner seeks a mechanism that maximizes agents' total utilities, subject to incentive and market‐clearing constraints. We uncover the constrained Pareto frontier by identifying the optimal trade‐off between allocative efficiency and redistribution. We find that competitive‐equilibrium allocation is not always optimal. Instead, when there is inequality across sides of the market, the optimal design uses a tax‐like mechanism, introducing a wedge between the buyer and seller prices, and redistributing the resulting surplus to the poorer side of the market via lump‐sum payments. When there is significant same‐side inequality that can be uncovered by market behavior, it may be optimal to impose price controls even though doing so induces rationing.

Medicine and society: micro level of social interaction

This article examines the features of the interaction of social institutions of medicine and health care in modern Russian society at the micro level — within the social system “doctor — patient”. Sufficient space is given to a comparative analysis of traditional (paternalistic and collegial) and modern (informational and contractual) models of social relations between doctors and patients. Ne author highlights the factors under which the widespread use of information and contractual models in Russian realities contribute to the transformation of traditionally solidary social relations in the system under consideration into conflict ones. The article, based on the original author’s sociological research, examines the features of the conflict confrontation between doctors and patients, identifies their specific differences from traditional social conflicts. On the one hand, the conflicts that unfold in the social system “doctor — patient” are precisely social conflicts, since the interaction in this system embraces both all representatives of the medical community and practically all members of society, each of which, one way or another, becomes patient. On the other hand, if the prerequisite and then the basis of the usual conflict interaction is the presence of a single indivisible object, then in the case of a social conflict in the “doctor — patient” system, health can hardly be considered “a single and indivisible object”. Health for the subjects of this conflict is indeed an important spiritual value, but much more often the conflict arises over the rights and obligations, as well as the distribution of power among the interacting parties. Enough attention is paid to the analysis of the macro-, meso- and micro- causes of this conflict, as well as to the problem of the influence of the media on the genesis of this type of conflict relationship; tendencies that are especially characteristic in the relationship between the patient audience and the media in recent times are highlighted and revealed.