|
Modularity
Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a system into varying degrees of interdependence and independence across and "hide the complexity of each part behind an abstraction and interface". However, the concept of modularity can be extended to multiple disciplines, each with their own nuances. Despite these nuances, consistent themes concerning modular systems can be identified. Contextual nuances The meaning of the word "modularity" can vary somewhat based on context. The following are contextual examples of modularity across several fields of science, technology, industry, and culture: Science *In biology, modularity recognizes that organisms or metabolic pathways are composed of modules. *In ecology, modularity is considered a key factor—along with diversity and feedback—in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modularity In Biology
Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a system into varying degrees of interdependence and independence across and "hide the complexity of each part behind an abstraction and interface". However, the concept of modularity can be extended to multiple disciplines, each with their own nuances. Despite these nuances, consistent themes concerning modular systems can be identified. Contextual nuances The meaning of the word "modularity" can vary somewhat based on context. The following are contextual examples of modularity across several fields of science, technology, industry, and culture: Science *In biology, modularity recognizes that organisms or metabolic pathways are composed of modules. *In ecology, modularity is considered a key factor—along with diversity and feedback—in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modularity (networks)
Modularity is a measure of the structure of networks or graphs which measures the strength of division of a network into modules (also called groups, clusters or communities). Networks with high modularity have dense connections between the nodes within modules but sparse connections between nodes in different modules. Modularity is often used in optimization methods for detecting community structure in networks. However, it has been shown that modularity suffers a resolution limit and, therefore, it is unable to detect small communities. Biological networks, including animal brains, exhibit a high degree of modularity. Motivation Many scientifically important problems can be represented and empirically studied using networks. For example, biological and social patterns, the World Wide Web, metabolic networks, food webs, neural networks and pathological networks are real world problems that can be mathematically represented and topologically studied to reveal some unexpected str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modularity Of Mind
Modularity of mind is the notion that a mind may, at least in part, be composed of innate neural structures or mental modules which have distinct, established, and evolutionarily developed functions. However, different definitions of "module" have been proposed by different authors. According to Jerry Fodor, the author of ''Modularity of Mind'', a system can be considered 'modular' if its functions are made of multiple dimensions or units to some degree. One example of modularity in the mind is ''binding''. When one perceives an object, they take in not only the features of an object, but the integrated features that can operate in sync or independently that create a whole. Instead of just seeing ''red'', ''round'', ''plastic'', and ''moving'', the subject may experience a rolling red ball. Binding may suggest that the mind is modular because it takes multiple cognitive processes to perceive one thing. Early investigations Historically, questions regarding the ''functional architectu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modular Design
Modular design, or modularity in design, is a design principle that subdivides a system into smaller parts called ''modules'' (such as modular process skids), which can be independently created, modified, replaced, or exchanged with other modules or between different systems. Overview A modular design can be characterized by functional partitioning into discrete scalable and reusable modules, rigorous use of well-defined modular interfaces, and making use of industry standards for interfaces. In this context modularity is at the component level, and has a single dimension, component slottability. A modular system with this limited modularity is generally known as a platform system that uses modular components. Examples are car platforms or the USB port in computer engineering platforms. In design theory this is distinct from a modular system which has higher dimensional modularity and degrees of freedom. A modular system design has no distinct lifetime and exhibits flexibility ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Module
The language module or language faculty is a hypothetical structure in the human brain which is thought to contain innate capacities for language, originally posited by Noam Chomsky. There is ongoing research into brain modularity in the fields of cognitive science and neuroscience, although the current idea is much weaker than what was proposed by Chomsky and Jerry Fodor in the 1980s. In today's terminology, 'modularity' refers to specialisation: language processing is specialised in the brain to the extent that it occurs partially in different areas than other types of information processing such as visual input. The current view is, then, that language is neither compartmentalised nor based on general principles of processing (as proposed by George Lakoff). It is modular to the extent that it constitutes a specific cognitive skill or area in cognition. Meaning of a module The notion of a dedicated language module in the human brain originated with Noam Chomsky's theory of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Visual Modularity
In cognitive neuroscience, visual modularity is an organizational concept concerning how vision works. The way in which the primate visual system operates is currently under intense scientific scrutiny. One dominant thesis is that different properties of the visual world (color, motion, form and so forth) require different computational solutions which are implemented in anatomically/functionally distinct regions that operate independently – that is, in a modular fashion. Motion processing Akinetopsia, a term coined by Semir Zeki, refers to an intriguing condition brought about by damage to the Extrastriate cortex MT+ (also known as area V5) that renders humans and monkeys unable to perceive motion, seeing the world in a series of static "frames" instead and indicates that there might be a "motion centre" in the brain. Of course, such data can only indicate that this area is at least necessary to motion perception, not that it is sufficient; however, other evidence has shown the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modular Art
Modular art is art created by joining together standardized units (modules) to form larger, more complex compositions. In some works the units can be subsequently moved, removed and added to – that is, ''modulated'' – to create a new work of art, different from the original or ensuing configurations. Origins Historically, alterable objects of art have existed since the Renaissance, for example, in the Triptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Hieronymus Bosch or in the so-called "alterable altarpieces", such as the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald, or Albrecht Dürer's Paumgartner altarpiece, where changing motifs could be revised in accord with the changing themes of the ecclesiastical calendar. 20th century Beginning in the first half of the 20th century, a number of contemporary artists sought to incorporate kinetic techniques into their work in an attempt to overcome what they saw as the predominantly static nature of art. Alexander Calder's mobiles are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerry Fodor
Jerry Alan Fodor (; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, and he is recognized as having had "an enormous influence on virtually every portion of the philosophy of mind literature since 1960." Until his death in 2017 he held the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Rutgers University. Fodor was known for his provocative and sometimes polemical style of argumentation. He argued that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, are relations between individuals and mental representations. He maintained that these representations can only be correctly explained in terms of a language of thought (LOT) in the mind. Furthermore, this language of thought itself is an actually existing thing that is codified in the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Design
Software design is the process by which an agent creates a specification of a software artifact intended to accomplish goals, using a set of primitive components and subject to constraints. Software design may refer to either "all the activity involved in conceptualizing, framing, implementing, commissioning, and ultimately modifying complex systems" or "the activity following requirements specification and before programming, as ... na stylized software engineering process." Software design usually involves problem-solving and planning a software solution. This includes both a low-level component and algorithm design and a high-level, architecture design. Overview Software design is the process of envisioning and defining software solutions to one or more sets of problems. One of the main components of software design is the software requirements analysis (SRA). SRA is a part of the software development process that lists specifications used in software engineering. If ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modular Programming
Modular programming is a software design technique that emphasizes separating the functionality of a program into independent, interchangeable modules, such that each contains everything necessary to execute only one aspect of the desired functionality. A module interface expresses the elements that are provided and required by the module. The elements defined in the interface are detectable by other modules. The implementation contains the working code that corresponds to the elements declared in the interface. Modular programming is closely related to structured programming and object-oriented programming, all having the same goal of facilitating construction of large software programs and systems by decomposition into smaller pieces, and all originating around the 1960s. While the historical usage of these terms has been inconsistent, "modular programming" now refers to the high-level decomposition of the code of an entire program into pieces: structured programming to the low-l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loose Coupling
In computing and systems design, a loosely coupled system is one # in which components are weakly associated (have breakable relationships) with each other, and thus changes in one component least affect existence or performance of another component. # in which each of its components has, or makes use of, little or no knowledge of the definitions of other separate components. Subareas include the coupling of classes, interfaces, data, and services. Loose coupling is the opposite of tight coupling. Advantages and disadvantages Components in a loosely coupled system can be replaced with alternative implementations that provide the same services. Components in a loosely coupled system are less constrained to the same platform, language, operating system, or build environment. If systems are decoupled in time, it is difficult to also provide transactional integrity; additional coordination protocols are required. Data replication across different systems provides loose coupling (i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster graphics editing, but in digital art as a whole. The software's name is often colloquially used as a verb (e.g. "to photoshop an image", "photoshopping", and "photoshop contest") although Adobe discourages such use. Photoshop can edit and compose raster images in multiple layers and supports masks, alpha compositing and several color models including RGB, CMYK, CIELAB, spot color, and duotone. Photoshop uses its own PSD and PSB file formats to support these features. In addition to raster graphics, Photoshop has limited abilities to edit or render text and vector graphics (especially through clipping path for the latter), as well as 3D graphics and video. Its feature set can be expanded by plug-ins; programs developed and distributed in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
