Adapting work to special needs

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Adapting work to special needs

• Towards a usable and user friendly base system
  for describing and explaining task design
• A copy of this presentation, together with two
  appendices, will appear at our website
  http//www.sikte.no

Tormod Jaksholt Adviser/psychologist NAV
SIKTE Norway e-mailtormod.jaksholt_at_nav.no
2
A common problem

• Extending, developing and using knowledge, i.e.
  pure and applied science, most often is
  interdisciplinary, both in the natural and social
  sciences.
• Whether we as stakeholders want to investigate
  an existing system or design a system that shall
  satisfy a set of requirements, we regularly find
  ourselves in a situation much like this

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(No Transcript)
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Rehabilitation is no exception

• We, as potential or actual stakeholders, have
  all access to
• a rapidly growing number of specialists with
  their specialist systems for description and
  explanation,
• all with highly developed classification systems
  and highly developed technical terms,
• advanced tools for collecting and analysing data
  and interpreting the results and
• a host of ISO, CEN and other standards (See
  Appendix 1)

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• To unify this Babel, we need a common standard
  base system for description and explanation, i.e.
  making sense
• We might call the system Common Sense.

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Requirements that the system ought to satisfy
Back to slide 21

• Universal could be used to describe and explain
  anything.
• Minimal as to base (primitive) types, base
  operations and presuppositions (axioms).
• Descriptions and explanations should be precise
  enough to be both human and machine readable.
• Indefinitely extendable to any specialist
  system.
• User friendly applications could be tailored to
  fit any user need and capability.

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Such a base system exists!

• Minimal Just one 1 base sort, just one 1
  base operation and two 2 transparently
  obvious axioms!
• Precise and both human and machine readable
• Indefinitely extendable into any specialist
  system (read application)
• Any application might be tailored to fit any user
  need and capability

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It is called Category Theory

• ... but ought to be called logic as it might be
  understood as a modern development of logic, both
  very general and very abstract.
• Category theory (CT) has the forbidding looks of
  advanced mathematics. The basics of CT, however,
  is absolutely not! Even if CT is very general and
  very abstract, the basics is very simple and
  ought to be easy to understand.
• In Appendix 2 the incurably curious can find some
  details and links for further studies.

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As our illustrating example is adapting work to
special needs

• .. let me try to sketch how concepts such as
  'activity', 'task', 'work', 'mastery' and 'task
  design' could be defined using the proposed
  conception of common sense.

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• Here we only need to consider the basic
  term/concept a process, f, in a system, S,
  written either as an arrow
• f A???B
• or as a triple
• ltresult procedure sufficient resourcegt
• Starting the system S in state A, you obtain the
  result state B by doing f and using the necessary
  resources available in S that, together, is
  sufficient.

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Activity

• Definition (normative)
• A process, f, in a system S is an activity, if
  and only if (iff), at least one person P, being
  part of the system, does something trying to
  obtain a result.
• P participates might then be normatively
  defined as P does something trying to obtain a
  result.
• P tries to obtain a result iff P wants to
  obtain the result and believes that he/she can.
• P's trying is essential. If P does not try
  to obtain a result that all the same occurs, the
  process does not qualify as an activity.

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Activity (ctd.)?

• When a participant P regularly succeeds
  performing the activity f, we might use the
  expression can as in the specimen context P
  can perform the activity f.
• We must presuppose that P can do f iff Ps
  ability to do f is greater than f's difficulty,
  (Smedslund, 1997 21).
• We might also presuppose that P wants to
  maximise expected utility and minimise exertion,
  (ibid. 24-25).

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Task

• Definition (normative)
• An activity f is a task iff f is imposed or
  agreed upon, self-imposed activities included,
  (Little et al., 1973).
• The imposition is derived from the web of
  rights and duties that P is involved in as a
  citizen, and where Ps life projects encounter
  those of other citizens.
• One might use the expression have to in a
  context like P has to do f to indicate that f
  is a task.

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Work

• Definition (normative)
• A task f is work iff the imposition is based on
  a (job) contract.
• The contract can be everything from a very
  informal agreement to firmly founded on laws,
  regulations and the recently negotiated wage
  agreement.

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The job contract

• A job contract specifies, in sufficient detail,
  the negotiated rights and duties of the
  stakeholders.
• Normally, the wage agreement might be in focus.
  For persons with special needs, however,
  effectiveness and efficiency of task performance
  might be the issues of importance.
• The negotiations needed to reach an agreement
  might take both energy and time. And,
  renegotiations should always be expected!

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And the (potential) stakeholders are

• the employee
• the employer
• the public services involved, (in Norway NAV,
  the Health services, )
• other institutions involved, directly or
  indirectly (trade union, special interest
  organisation, employers organisation, task
  design expert, )?
• the end user of the product, the service, the
  system,
• other citizens involved, directly or indirectly

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Using the definition ...

• ... we specify in sufficient detail
• a result
• a procedure
• a sufficient resource
• for each work task that is part of the job as
  described in the job contract.

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Result

• A result might be specified in many ways.
• The proposal here is to implement the
  process-in-a-system-approach as sketched in
  Appendix 2.

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• A result, then, is always specifiable as
• a product (a 0-process in a 0-system), or
• a (1-)process in a (1-)system producing (or
  modifying) a product, or
• a 2-process in a 2-system producing (or
  modifying) a 1-process in a 1-system, or
• a 3-process in a 3-system producing (or
  modifying) a 2-process in a 2-system, or
• ...

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These definitions might not be very illuminating,
but there is a suggestive pattern here that might
be easier to grasp if we use diagrams
(Leinster, 2003 iv)?
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Procedure

• We need a basic concept procedure that
  satisfies the exacting requirements presented on
  slide 6. One obvious proposal is the intuitive
  notion of effective procedure or algorithm,
  together with an acceptance of the so-called
  Church-Turing thesis.
• Accepting that, the concept algorithm can be
  formally represented in sundry equivalent ways,
  most of them hopelessly technical. Using normal
  language, the conditional form if else ,
  borrowed from the McCarthy formalism, (McCarthy,
  1960), is helpful, presupposing, all the same,
  the equivalent fully formal definitions.

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Sufficient resource

• A sufficient resource is, by definition,
  equivalent to all necessary resources, i.e.
• all necessary personal resources for the
  participant(s)
• all necessary environmental resources , i.e.
• all necessary physical environmental resources
• all necessary social environmental resources

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Task design
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... is a task, too.

• Using our definition to describe task design, we
  shall specify ...
• a result
• a procedure
• a sufficient resource
• that satisfy the requirements for result
  properties, effectiveness, efficiency and the
  other requirements, agreed upon by the
  stakeholders.

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The result of task design

• is a task satisfying
• requirements that the result should satisfy
• requirement for effectiveness, (e.g. specified as
  (i) a probability for obtaining the required
  result X and (ii) probabilities for avoiding
  other results Y, Z, )
• requirement for efficiency, (e.g. specified as a
  value of result obtained - (value of resources
  used up in producing planned result and
  non-planned results not avoided) (value of
  making up for non-planned results not avoided))
• other requirements, i.e. given by laws,
  regulations, job contract and wage agreement
• agreed upon by the stakeholders.

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The task design procedure

• using McCarthys conditional form If else
  , the and then connective and both the
  descriptive and the imperative modes
• 1. Negotiate (hiding most of it, except) If the
  stakeholders (still) agree on the (re-)negotiated
  requirements of result, effectiveness, efficiency
  and the other requirements, do 2./3., else
  conclude that no good solution is possible and
  then, stop.
• 2. Plan and realise new/modified procedure If
  the task is new, plan and realise a procedure,
  and then, try, else plan and realise a modified
  procedure based on information gleaned by
  previous trials and then, try.
• 3. Plan and realise new/modified resources If
  the task is new, plan and realise the resources
  and then, try, else plan and realise change of
  resources based on information gleaned from
  previous trials, and then, try.
• 4. Try Try new/modified procedure and
  new/modified reources and then, assess.
• 5. Assess If the requirements for
  effectiveness, efficiency and the other
  requirements are all satisfied, conclude with
  success and then, stop, else, if repeated
  applications of 2./3.-4. do not reduce the
  mismatch between required and obtained results,
  go to 1 to renegotiate, else do 2./3..
• As this is too difficult to read,
• we magnify.

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The task design procedure 1

• 1. Negotiate (hiding most of it, except)
• If the stakeholders (still) agree on the (re-)
  negotiated requirements of result, effectiveness,
  efficiency and the other requirements, do 2./3.,
  else conclude that no good solution is possible
  and then, stop.

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The task design procedure 2

• 2. Plan and realise new/modified procedure
• If the task is new, plan and realise a procedure
  and then, try, else plan and realise a modified
  procedure based on information gleaned by
  previous trials and then, try.

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The task design procedure 3

• 3. Plan and realise new/modified resources
• If the task is new, plan and realise the
  resources and then, try, else plan and realise
  changes of resources based on information gleaned
  from previous trials, and then, try.

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The task design procedure 4

• 4. Try
• Try new/modified procedure and new/modified
  resources and then, assess.

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The task design procedure 5

• 5. Assess
• If the requirements for effectiveness,
  efficiency and the other requirements are all
  satisfied, conclude with success and then, stop,
  else, if repeated applications of 2./3.-4. do not
  reduce the mismatch between required and obtained
  results, go to 1 to renegotiate, else do 2./3..

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The sufficient resource

• , i.e. a specification of all necessary
  resources that the task design process requires,
  
• Personal resources (incompletely specified in
  ICF)?
• Environmental resources ICF
• using the classifications of ICF (WHO, 2001).

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All necessary personal resources

• Factual knowledge
• Procedural knowledge
• Emotionality
• Body functionsICF
• Body structuresICF

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All necessary environmental resources ICF

• Products and technologyICF
• Physical environmentICF
• Relations and supportICF
• AttitudesICF
• Services, systems and policiesICF

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• Satisfied?

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• In the present context satisfaction does not
  refer to emotions but to a result that the task
  designed satisfies the requirements agreed upon.
  
• That might, of course, cause good feelings
  amongst the stakeholders.

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• If the stakeholders conclude that no solution is
  possible for the time being, that might produce
  frustration, even sadness.
• However, it might also bring peace of mind based
  on the high quality knowledge about the whats,
  hows and whys of the negative result.
• Too often one or more of the stakeholders resign
  and quit as stakeholder before an agreement about
  the whats, hows and the whys of the negative
  result is reached.

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• Most of us have experienced or at least observed
  instances of very ineffective and inefficient
  task design processes, that all the same,
  resulted in tasks satisfying very strict
  requirements.
• The obvious idea is to apply task design to task
  design, with the express goal of satisfying
  requirements that are just as exacting as those
  satisfied by the (1st order) task designed. But
  why stop at that level? This directly leads to
  the notion of higher order task design for
  arbitrarily high orders
• (To be continued )

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Thank you for your kind attention!
A copy of this presentation, together with two
appendices, can be found at our website
http//www.sikte.no
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Appendix 1

• On ISO and CEN standards in ergonomics, i.e. task
  design.

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Standards for Task Design
Back to page 4

• Quoting from FEES website on standards for
  ergonomics
• In designing of production systems, economic
  and social goals can be combined, if ergonomics
  is integrated into the design process. More than
  50 years of ergonomics research and practice have
  resulted in a large number of ergonomics
  standards for designing physical and
  organizational work environments. Here, you find
  the 174 international ISO and European CEN
  standards related to this field.

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Back to page 4

• If we look more closely at the ISO and CEN
  standards, we find an impressive collection of
  standards, principles and guidelines.
• There is nothing wrong with this multitude of
  standards for the specialists, they truly
  represent important results of (m)ore than 50
  years of ergonomics research and practice.
• However basic terms, as system, process,
  activity, task and work for general common
  use seem to be taken for granted and left
  undefined.

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Back to page 4

• Explanation also presupposes knowledge about what
  follows from what. Many potential stakeholders
  might have huge volumes of relevant data, but in
  different knowledge representation systems.
• Based on ISOs Common Logic standard, one can
  apply a suitable standard knowledge interchange
  system, enabling communication between
  organisations with different internal knowledge
  representation systems.

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Back to page 4

• That, however, does not help much in unaided
  person to person knowledge interchange between
  persons belonging to organisations with different
  knowledge representation systems (read
  cultures).
• We also need a Common base system for making
  Sense that can be used by all and everyone,
  layman as well as specialist. Appendix 2 offers a
  proposal for a standard definition of Common
  Sense.

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Appendix 2

• What Common Sense ought to be

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Proposal 1
Back to page 8

• Common Sense Logic

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Logic has a long history,
Back to page 8

• in European philosophy at least from the times
  of Aristotle. Today philosophers are more
  interested in logic than ever. However, today
  logic is a proper part of pure and applied
  mathematics.
• One might divide logic into three parts proof
  theory (or syntax), recursion theory and model
  theory (or semantics). Traditionally one
  specifies the syntax part by specifying (a) a
  formal language, (b) a proof system and (c) a set
  of axioms. The theorems, then, are freely
  generated from the axioms. The structure might be
  called a deductive system.
• The formulas of a deductive system, i.e. the
  axioms and the theorems, are but meaningless
  strings of signs, and the proofs are lists (or
  trees) of strings of signs. To become meaningful,
  the formulas must be interpreted. Models, i.e.
  interpretation systems that make the axioms and,
  hence, the theorems true, provide the semantics.

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Back to page 8

• Recursion theory provides for the notion of
  effective procedure, telling us that in a
  certain, very specific sense, computer science is
  applied logic.
• Even if the technicalities of mathematical logic
  might seem forbidding to the non-specialist, it
  is an uncontroversial fact that as for now there
  exists well established standards for formal
  language precision, proof correctness based on
  proof theory, formal language semantics and
  effective procedure.
• Based on this, we can produce usable and very
  user friendly applications, e.g. software for
  proof generation, proof testing and knowledge
  management.
• The incurably curios reader might enjoy S.I.
  Adyans nice article Mathematical logic in
  Springers Online Encyclopaedia of Mathematics

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ISO and Logic
Back to page 8

• Logic is taken very seriously by the ISO. The
  ISO Common Logic (CL) effort started 2003 and the
  ISO CL standard (ISO/IEC IS 247072007) was
  published October 1, 2007. One might note that
  ISO places proof theory outside the scope of the
  CL standard, but that probably reflects that as
  of today, proof theory is considered standard.
• For some details on CL, motivations and
  applications, dig into the next two links A talk
  by John Sowa at the Santa Fe ISO meetings
  concerning the CL standardization effort, and a
  presentation by Harry Delugach to ISO/IEC JTC1
  SC32 Open Forum, Berlin, Germany, April 2005.
• ISOs CL is a very important and basic standard
  in the world of ICT. However, even if ISOs CL
  provides a common base for ICT-based knowledge
  interchange systems, probably a necessary
  condition for effective and efficient task design
  that involves ICT, CL seems not to provide too
  much guidance in the efforts of reaching an
  agreement on basic common terminology/concepts
  and classifications to use in describing and
  explaining task design.
• Today an alternative base system exists, both
  more general and more abstract than classical
  logic. It is called category theory (CT). It
  might seem almost like a miracle that the most
  elementary basics of CT could provide such
  guidance. But it can!

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Proposal 2
Back to page 8

• Logic Category theory

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Back to page 8

• Categories are built using just one base
  sort, typographically represented by an arrow
  fA ???B, and just one (partial) operation, arrow
  composition. Identity arrows IdAA??A might be
  written just A and called objects. A category, C,
  then, is a collection (maybe better a build) of
  arrows satisfying the following two requirements
  (axioms)
• 1. For every fA ???B in C, identity is both a
  left and a right unit for composition
• The diagram might be represented by an equation,
  viz. IdAfff IdB .
• 2. For every (composable) f, g, h, in C, arrow
  composition is associative,
• or in equational shorthand, (fg)hfghf(gh).?

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So, once again What is Common Sense?
Back to page 8

• Categories have all kinds of models. One
  kind of model that might look silly to
  mathematicians is systems of processes where
  any system of processes are built with processes
  fA ???B, gB ??, hC ???D, . Identity
  processes IdxX???X, , can conveniently be
  dubbed states, as IdX is the process of keeping
  X as it is by doing nothing. We also require that
  the system satisfies the requirements (1.)
  IdAfff IdB and (2.) (fg)hf(gh).
• If we drop the requirements (1.) and (2.) from
  the previous foil, but keep process composition
  and the requirement that every identity process
  can be identifieid with a state, a system of
  processes becomes just a deductive system
  provided that the objects/states A, B, C, are
  identified with formulas and the arrows/processes
  f, g, h, with proofs! The incurably curious might
  J. Lambeks article Categorical logic in
  Springers Online Encyclopaedia of Mathematics.
• Categories were introduced by Samuel Eilenberg
  and Saunders Mac Lane in their (1945) paper.
  Instead of trying the impossible, to explain
  category theory in a few slides, the reader is
  referred to Jean-Pierre Marquis marvellous
  article Category Theory in Stanford Encyclopaedia
  of Philosophy. The article has a very useful
  bibliography spanning from very accessible
  introductory texts to standard textbooks and
  research papers. (Bookmark the article and the
  site immediately!)?
• One particular introductory book on category
  theoretical logic deserves mention (Goldblatt,
  1979), as it starts with elements and proceeds to
  an advanced level in a highly pedagogical way and
  is freely available for online viewing here.

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Back to page 8

• It should not surprise that a category is but a
  first step of an infinite ladder of increasingly
  complex structures and semantics. The reader is
  challenged to give this article by John
  Baez,(Baez, 1997) a serious try as it gives a
  quite understandable introduction to higher
  category theory. Even if higher category theory
  is still not fully developed, it provides a
  powerful language, a mighty conceptual system and
  a tower of axioms (often called coherence rules)
  that are accepted as standard in mathematics and
  a diverse and rapidly growing spectrum of
  applications.
• So, if we extend the meaning of category to
  n-category for all n0, 1, 2, , n, ,?, you
  are invited to accept as standard the following
  definition
• Common Sense Category theory.
• reached by combining the two definitions
• Common Sense Logic
• and
• Logic Category theory,
• and hiding Logic.

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Back to page 8

• Using the expression fA??B to represent a
  process in a system might sometimes be awkward
  when we use (informal) normal language. We might
  translate fA ???B into the expression
• ltresult procedure sufficient resourcegt
• where B is the result of starting the system in
  state A and doing f, i.e. following the procedure
  referred to by procedure and using the
  necessary resources that together provide the
  sufficient resource.
• Any system of processes might be further analysed
  into sub-systems, i.e. system of agents
  performing actions. Each agent is a system of
  processes that might be further analysed into
  systems , until we reach agents that are
  reasonably atomic , i.e. systems of processes
  that in the particular context do not give us
  better understanding by being further analysed
  into sub-systems.
• Persons, of course, are all agents as are all
  institutions.

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Back to page 8

• Actions are what agents do, viz. input actions,
  internal actions (that might be hidden) and
  output actions. Some of the actions might not be
  goal-directed. Agents might change, e.g. split,
  merge, disappear or, more importantly, change in
  behaviour, perhaps from some kind of learning. An
  important key-word when analysing systems of
  active agents is concurrency. The incurably
  curious reader might look here (Wikipedia) or
  here (Virtual Library).
• How, then, do we represent the atomic agent and
  its actions? One of sundry equivalent answers is
  a Turing machine or general recursion. The
  incurably curious reader might begin to dig here.
  In the practical everyday life, McCarthys
  conditional form if else is very useful.
  The full McCarthy formalism might not be
  presupposed, but rather the notion of algorithm
  together with an acceptance of the Church-Turing
  thesis.
• The preceding slides should provide more than
  sufficient support for accepting the concept
  process in a system as basic in our effort to
  propose a normative definition of work.

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References

• Baez, J., 1997, An Introduction to n-Categories,
  preprint at http//arxiv.org/PS_cache/q-alg/pdf/97
  05/9705009v1.pdf
• Eilenberg, S. and Mac Lane, S., 1945, General
  theory of natural equivalences, in Transactions
  of the American Mathematical Society, 58,
  231-294.
• Goldblatt, R., 1979, Topoi The Categorical
  Analysis of Logic, Elsvier, Amsterdam
• Leinster, T., Higher Operads, Higher Categories,
  London Mathematical Society Lecture Notes Series,
  Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-53215-9.
• Little et al., Shorter Oxford English Dictionary,
  Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1973.
• McCarthy, J., 1960, Recursive Functions of
  Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by
  Machine, Part I, Communications of the ACM, 3,
  184-195 (April 1960).
• Smedslund, J., 1997, The Structure of
  Psychological Common Sense, Lawrence Erlbaum
  Associates, Publishers, N.Y. USA, p. 69-72.