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7.0 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

7.4 PROPAGATION

Rather than viewing transformations, one sees the system in terms of signs. The transforms are not explicitly specified because what is important is not how the transformation takes place, but how the transformation appears. This underscores the contention that meaning resides in the manifestation itself and not in the transformation.

An electronic spreadsheet (Lotus 1-2-3, Borland's Quatro) is an example of where the manifestation, in this case the numbers in a table of cells, is the central artifact. The inter-relation of cells, numbers, and underlying formulas are on the whole less explicit in the display, although easily accessible. Modification of a number propagates through the spreadsheet on the basis of these unseen connections. The transformations are implicit in the signs themselves, while the manifestations are the bearers of meaning.

The propagation of meaning and changes through domains interconnected with the CLIP model could be examined. Iconic-object signs are essentially propositions and can be compounded as such. An example of this is the representation of Figure 37 on page 73. An intermediate representation of the DDPF feature abstraction utility, that of loops, has been included:

(EQ 13) <Critique, <Features, <DDPF_Loops, <Noodles, IGES> > > >

Under this arrangement, changes in the IGES file propagate to the critique.

An alternate view highlights modularity, with the use of a MAT-based feature abstraction which uses intersections to determine features:

(EQ 14) <Critique, <Features, <MAT_Intersections, <Noodles, IGES> > > >

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