WorldWideScience

Sample records for natural language understanding

  1. Natural language understanding

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yoshida, S

    1982-04-01

    Language understanding is essential for intelligent information processing. Processing of language itself involves configuration element analysis, syntactic analysis (parsing), and semantic analysis. They are not carried out in isolation. These are described for the Japanese language and their usage in understanding-systems is examined. 30 references.

  2. Theoretical approaches to natural language understanding

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    1985-01-01

    This book discusses the following: Computational Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, Philosophy, and Cognitive Science and the current state of natural language understanding. Three topics form the focus for discussion; these topics include aspects of grammars, aspects of semantics/pragmatics, and knowledge representation.

  3. Understanding and representing natural language meaning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Waltz, D. L.; Maran, L. R.; Dorfman, M. H.; Dinitz, R.; Farwell, D.

    1982-12-01

    During this contract period the authors have: (1) continued investigation of events and actions by means of representation schemes called 'event shape diagrams'; (2) written a parsing program which selects appropriate word and sentence meanings by a parallel process know as activation and inhibition; (3) begun investigation of the point of a story or event by modeling the motivations and emotional behaviors of story characters; (4) started work on combining and translating two machine-readable dictionaries into a lexicon and knowledge base which will form an integral part of our natural language understanding programs; (5) made substantial progress toward a general model for the representation of cognitive relations by comparing English scene and event descriptions with similar descriptions in other languages; (6) constructed a general model for the representation of tense and aspect of verbs; (7) made progress toward the design of an integrated robotics system which accepts English requests, and uses visual and tactile inputs in making decisions and learning new tasks.

  4. Research and Development in Natural Language Understanding as Part of the Strategic Computing Program.

    Science.gov (United States)

    1987-04-01

    facilities. BBN is developing a series of increasingly sophisticated natural language understanding systems which will serve as an integrated interface...Haas, A.R. A Syntactic Theory of Belief and Action. Artificial Intelligence. 1986. Forthcoming. [6] Hinrichs, E. Temporale Anaphora im Englischen

  5. Natural language modeling

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sharp, J.K. [Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)

    1997-11-01

    This seminar describes a process and methodology that uses structured natural language to enable the construction of precise information requirements directly from users, experts, and managers. The main focus of this natural language approach is to create the precise information requirements and to do it in such a way that the business and technical experts are fully accountable for the results. These requirements can then be implemented using appropriate tools and technology. This requirement set is also a universal learning tool because it has all of the knowledge that is needed to understand a particular process (e.g., expense vouchers, project management, budget reviews, tax, laws, machine function).

  6. Learning to Understand Natural Language with Less Human Effort

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-05-01

    Supervision Distant supervision is a recent trend in information extraction. Distantly-supervised extractors are trained using a corpus of unlabeled text...consists of fill-in-the-blank natural language questions such as “Incan emperor ” or “Cunningham directed Auchtre’s second music video .” These questions...with an 132 unknown knowledge base, simultaneously learning how to semantically parse language and pop - ulate the knowledge base. The weakly

  7. Integrating Multi-Purpose Natural Language Understanding, Robot's Memory, and Symbolic Planning for Task Execution in Humanoid Robots

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wächter, Mirko; Ovchinnikova, Ekaterina; Wittenbeck, Valerij

    2017-01-01

    We propose an approach for instructing a robot using natural language to solve complex tasks in a dynamic environment. In this study, we elaborate on a framework that allows a humanoid robot to understand natural language, derive symbolic representations of its sensorimotor experience, generate....... The framework is implemented within the robot development environment ArmarX. We evaluate the framework on the humanoid robot ARMAR-III in the context of two experiments: a demonstration of the real execution of a complex task in the kitchen environment on ARMAR-III and an experiment with untrained users...

  8. Human Computer Collaboration at the Edge: Enhancing Collective Situation Understanding with Controlled Natural Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-09-06

    conversational agent with information exchange disabled until the end of the experiment run. The meaning of the indicator in the top- right of the agent... Human Computer Collaboration at the Edge: Enhancing Collective Situation Understanding with Controlled Natural Language Alun Preece∗, William...email: PreeceAD@cardiff.ac.uk †Emerging Technology Services, IBM United Kingdom Ltd, Hursley Park, Winchester, UK ‡US Army Research Laboratory, Human

  9. A Tableau Prover for Natural Logic and Language

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Abzianidze, Lasha

    2015-01-01

    Modeling the entailment relation over sentences is one of the generic problems of natural language understanding. In order to account for this problem, we design a theorem prover for Natural Logic, a logic whose terms resemble natural language expressions. The prover is based on an analytic tableau

  10. A Natural Language Architecture

    OpenAIRE

    Sodiya, Adesina Simon

    2007-01-01

    Natural languages are the latest generation of programming languages, which require processing real human natural expressions. Over the years, several groups or researchers have trying to develop widely accepted natural language languages based on artificial intelligence (AI). But no true natural language has been developed. The goal of this work is to design a natural language preprocessing architecture that identifies and accepts programming instructions or sentences in their natural forms ...

  11. Advances in natural language processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hirschberg, Julia; Manning, Christopher D

    2015-07-17

    Natural language processing employs computational techniques for the purpose of learning, understanding, and producing human language content. Early computational approaches to language research focused on automating the analysis of the linguistic structure of language and developing basic technologies such as machine translation, speech recognition, and speech synthesis. Today's researchers refine and make use of such tools in real-world applications, creating spoken dialogue systems and speech-to-speech translation engines, mining social media for information about health or finance, and identifying sentiment and emotion toward products and services. We describe successes and challenges in this rapidly advancing area. Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

  12. Neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics as a basis for computer acquisition of natural language

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Powers, D.M.W.

    1983-04-01

    Research into natural language understanding systems for computers has concentrated on implementing particular grammars and grammatical models of the language concerned. This paper presents a rationale for research into natural language understanding systems based on neurological and psychological principles. Important features of the approach are that it seeks to place the onus of learning the language on the computer, and that it seeks to make use of the vast wealth of relevant psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic theory. 22 references.

  13. Do neural nets learn statistical laws behind natural language?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuntaro Takahashi

    Full Text Available The performance of deep learning in natural language processing has been spectacular, but the reasons for this success remain unclear because of the inherent complexity of deep learning. This paper provides empirical evidence of its effectiveness and of a limitation of neural networks for language engineering. Precisely, we demonstrate that a neural language model based on long short-term memory (LSTM effectively reproduces Zipf's law and Heaps' law, two representative statistical properties underlying natural language. We discuss the quality of reproducibility and the emergence of Zipf's law and Heaps' law as training progresses. We also point out that the neural language model has a limitation in reproducing long-range correlation, another statistical property of natural language. This understanding could provide a direction for improving the architectures of neural networks.

  14. Semantic structures advances in natural language processing

    CERN Document Server

    Waltz, David L

    2014-01-01

    Natural language understanding is central to the goals of artificial intelligence. Any truly intelligent machine must be capable of carrying on a conversation: dialogue, particularly clarification dialogue, is essential if we are to avoid disasters caused by the misunderstanding of the intelligent interactive systems of the future. This book is an interim report on the grand enterprise of devising a machine that can use natural language as fluently as a human. What has really been achieved since this goal was first formulated in Turing's famous test? What obstacles still need to be overcome?

  15. Emerging Approach of Natural Language Processing in Opinion Mining: A Review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Tai-Hoon

    Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. It studies the problems of automated generation and understanding of natural human languages. This paper outlines a framework to use computer and natural language techniques for various levels of learners to learn foreign languages in Computer-based Learning environment. We propose some ideas for using the computer as a practical tool for learning foreign language where the most of courseware is generated automatically. We then describe how to build Computer Based Learning tools, discuss its effectiveness, and conclude with some possibilities using on-line resources.

  16. Flexibility in embodied language understanding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Willems, Roel M; Casasanto, Daniel

    2011-01-01

    Do people use sensori-motor cortices to understand language? Here we review neurocognitive studies of language comprehension in healthy adults and evaluate their possible contributions to theories of language in the brain. We start by sketching the minimal predictions that an embodied theory of language understanding makes for empirical research, and then survey studies that have been offered as evidence for embodied semantic representations. We explore four debated issues: first, does activation of sensori-motor cortices during action language understanding imply that action semantics relies on mirror neurons? Second, what is the evidence that activity in sensori-motor cortices plays a functional role in understanding language? Third, to what extent do responses in perceptual and motor areas depend on the linguistic and extra-linguistic context? And finally, can embodied theories accommodate language about abstract concepts? Based on the available evidence, we conclude that sensori-motor cortices are activated during a variety of language comprehension tasks, for both concrete and abstract language. Yet, this activity depends on the context in which perception and action words are encountered. Although modality-specific cortical activity is not a sine qua non of language processing even for language about perception and action, sensori-motor regions of the brain appear to make functional contributions to the construction of meaning, and should therefore be incorporated into models of the neurocognitive architecture of language.

  17. Flexibility in embodied language understanding

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roel M Willems

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available Do people use sensori-motor cortices to understand language? Here we review neurocognitive studies of language comprehension in healthy adults and evaluate their possible contributions to theories of language in the brain. We start by sketching the minimal predictions that an embodied theory of language understanding makes for empirical research, and then survey studies that have been offered as evidence for embodied semantic representations. We explore four debated issues: first, does activation of sensori-motor cortices during action language understanding imply that action semantics relies on mirror neurons? Second, what is the evidence that activity in sensori-motor cortices plays a functional role in understanding language? Third, to what extent do responses in perceptual and motor areas depend on the linguistic and extra-linguistic context? And finally, can embodied theories accommodate language about abstract concepts? Based on the available evidence, we conclude that sensori-motor cortices are activated during a variety of language comprehension tasks, for both concrete and abstract language. Yet, this activity depends on the context in which perception and action words are encountered. Although modality-specific cortical activity is not a sine qua non of language processing even for language about perception and action, sensori-motor regions of the brain appear to make functional contributions to the construction of meaning, and should therefore be incorporated into models of the neurocognitive architecture of language.

  18. Interactive natural language acquisition in a multi-modal recurrent neural architecture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heinrich, Stefan; Wermter, Stefan

    2018-01-01

    For the complex human brain that enables us to communicate in natural language, we gathered good understandings of principles underlying language acquisition and processing, knowledge about sociocultural conditions, and insights into activity patterns in the brain. However, we were not yet able to understand the behavioural and mechanistic characteristics for natural language and how mechanisms in the brain allow to acquire and process language. In bridging the insights from behavioural psychology and neuroscience, the goal of this paper is to contribute a computational understanding of appropriate characteristics that favour language acquisition. Accordingly, we provide concepts and refinements in cognitive modelling regarding principles and mechanisms in the brain and propose a neurocognitively plausible model for embodied language acquisition from real-world interaction of a humanoid robot with its environment. In particular, the architecture consists of a continuous time recurrent neural network, where parts have different leakage characteristics and thus operate on multiple timescales for every modality and the association of the higher level nodes of all modalities into cell assemblies. The model is capable of learning language production grounded in both, temporal dynamic somatosensation and vision, and features hierarchical concept abstraction, concept decomposition, multi-modal integration, and self-organisation of latent representations.

  19. On the Relationship between a Computational Natural Logic and Natural Language

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Andreasen, Troels; Bulskov, Henrik; Nilsson, Jørgen Fischer

    2016-01-01

    This paper makes a case for adopting appropriate forms of natural logic as target language for computational reasoning with descriptive natural language. Natural logics are stylized fragments of natural language where reasoning can be conducted directly by natural reasoning rules reflecting intui...... intuitive reasoning in natural language. The approach taken in this paper is to extend natural logic stepwise with a view to covering successively larger parts of natural language. We envisage applications for computational querying and reasoning, in particular within the life-sciences....

  20. Natural language processing in psychiatry. Artificial intelligence technology and psychopathology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garfield, D A; Rapp, C; Evens, M

    1992-04-01

    The potential benefit of artificial intelligence (AI) technology as a tool of psychiatry has not been well defined. In this essay, the technology of natural language processing and its position with regard to the two main schools of AI is clearly outlined. Past experiments utilizing AI techniques in understanding psychopathology are reviewed. Natural language processing can automate the analysis of transcripts and can be used in modeling theories of language comprehension. In these ways, it can serve as a tool in testing psychological theories of psychopathology and can be used as an effective tool in empirical research on verbal behavior in psychopathology.

  1. Language Development: Understanding Language Diversity in the Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levey, Sandra; Polirstok, Susan

    2010-01-01

    Language Development: Understanding Language Diversity in the Classroom offers comprehensive coverage of the language development process for pre- and in-service teachers while emphasizing the factors that further academic success in the classroom, including literacy skills, phonological awareness, and narrative. With chapters written by respected…

  2. Empirical Methods in Natural Language Generation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Krahmer, Emiel; Theune, Mariet

    Natural language generation (NLG) is a subfield of natural language processing (NLP) that is often characterized as the study of automatically converting non-linguistic representations (e.g., from databases or other knowledge sources) into coherent natural language text. In recent years the field

  3. Public understandings of nature: a case study of local knowledge about "natural" forest conditions

    Science.gov (United States)

    R. Bruce Hull; David P. Robertson; Angelina Kendra

    2001-01-01

    This study is intended to serve as an explicit and specific example of the social construction of nature. It is motivated by the need to develop a more sophisticated language for a critical public dialogue about society's relationship with nature. We conducted a case study of environmental discourse in one local population in hopes of better understanding how a...

  4. Where humans meet machines innovative solutions for knotty natural-language problems

    CERN Document Server

    Markowitz, Judith

    2013-01-01

    Where Humans Meet Machines: Innovative Solutions for Knotty Natural-Language Problems brings humans and machines closer together by showing how linguistic complexities that confound the speech systems of today can be handled effectively by sophisticated natural-language technology. Some of the most vexing natural-language problems that are addressed in this book entail   recognizing and processing idiomatic expressions, understanding metaphors, matching an anaphor correctly with its antecedent, performing word-sense disambiguation, and handling out-of-vocabulary words and phrases. This fourteen-chapter anthology consists of contributions from industry scientists and from academicians working at major universities in North America and Europe. They include researchers who have played a central role in DARPA-funded programs and developers who craft real-world solutions for corporations. These contributing authors analyze the role of natural language technology in the global marketplace; they explore the need f...

  5. Knowledge representation and natural language processing

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Weischedel, R.M.

    1986-07-01

    In principle, natural language and knowledge representation are closely related. This paper investigates this by demonstrating how several natural language phenomena, such as definite reference, ambiguity, ellipsis, ill-formed input, figures of speech, and vagueness, require diverse knowledge sources and reasoning. The breadth of kinds of knowledge needed to represent morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics is surveyed. Furthermore, several current issues in knowledge representation, such as logic versus semantic nets, general-purpose versus special-purpose reasoners, adequacy of first-order logic, wait-and-see strategies, and default reasoning, are illustrated in terms of their relation to natural language processing and how natural language impact the issues.

  6. Language Games and Musical Understanding

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alessandro Arbo

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available Wittgenstein has often explored language games that have to do with musical objects of different sizes (phrases, themes, formal sections or entire works. These games can refer to a technical language or to common parlance and correspond to different targets. One of these coincides with the intention to suggest a way of conceiving musical understanding. His model takes the form of the invitation to "hear (something as (something": typically, to hear a musical passage as an introduction or as a conclusion or in a certain tonality. However one may ask to what extent or in what terms (literal or metaphorical these procedures, and usually the intervention of language games, is requested by our common ways of understanding music. This article shows through the use of some examples that aspectual perception inherent to musical understanding does not require language games as a necessary condition (although in many cases the link between them seems very strong, in contradiction with the thesis of an essential linguistic character of music. At a basic level, it seems more appropriate to insist on the notion of a game: to understand music means to enter into the orbit of "music games" which show an autonomous functioning. Language games have, however, an important function when we develop this comprehension in the light of the criteria of judgment that substantiate the manner in which music is incorporated in and operates within specific forms of life.

  7. Surmounting the Tower of Babel: Monolingual and bilingual 2-year-olds' understanding of the nature of foreign language words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Byers-Heinlein, Krista; Chen, Ke Heng; Xu, Fei

    2014-03-01

    Languages function as independent and distinct conventional systems, and so each language uses different words to label the same objects. This study investigated whether 2-year-old children recognize that speakers of their native language and speakers of a foreign language do not share the same knowledge. Two groups of children unfamiliar with Mandarin were tested: monolingual English-learning children (n=24) and bilingual children learning English and another language (n=24). An English speaker taught children the novel label fep. On English mutual exclusivity trials, the speaker asked for the referent of a novel label (wug) in the presence of the fep and a novel object. Both monolingual and bilingual children disambiguated the reference of the novel word using a mutual exclusivity strategy, choosing the novel object rather than the fep. On similar trials with a Mandarin speaker, children were asked to find the referent of a novel Mandarin label kuò. Monolinguals again chose the novel object rather than the object with the English label fep, even though the Mandarin speaker had no access to conventional English words. Bilinguals did not respond systematically to the Mandarin speaker, suggesting that they had enhanced understanding of the Mandarin speaker's ignorance of English words. The results indicate that monolingual children initially expect words to be conventionally shared across all speakers-native and foreign. Early bilingual experience facilitates children's discovery of the nature of foreign language words. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Visualizing Natural Language Descriptions: A Survey

    OpenAIRE

    Hassani, Kaveh; Lee, Won-Sook

    2016-01-01

    A natural language interface exploits the conceptual simplicity and naturalness of the language to create a high-level user-friendly communication channel between humans and machines. One of the promising applications of such interfaces is generating visual interpretations of semantic content of a given natural language that can be then visualized either as a static scene or a dynamic animation. This survey discusses requirements and challenges of developing such systems and reports 26 graphi...

  9. Linguistic fundamentals for natural language processing 100 essentials from morphology and syntax

    CERN Document Server

    Bender, Emily M

    2013-01-01

    Many NLP tasks have at their core a subtask of extracting the dependencies-who did what to whom-from natural language sentences. This task can be understood as the inverse of the problem solved in different ways by diverse human languages, namely, how to indicate the relationship between different parts of a sentence. Understanding how languages solve the problem can be extremely useful in both feature design and error analysis in the application of machine learning to NLP. Likewise, understanding cross-linguistic variation can be important for the design of MT systems and other multilingual a

  10. Speech perception and reading: two parallel modes of understanding language and implications for acquiring literacy naturally.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Massaro, Dominic W

    2012-01-01

    I review 2 seminal research reports published in this journal during its second decade more than a century ago. Given psychology's subdisciplines, they would not normally be reviewed together because one involves reading and the other speech perception. The small amount of interaction between these domains might have limited research and theoretical progress. In fact, the 2 early research reports revealed common processes involved in these 2 forms of language processing. Their illustration of the role of Wundt's apperceptive process in reading and speech perception anticipated descriptions of contemporary theories of pattern recognition, such as the fuzzy logical model of perception. Based on the commonalities between reading and listening, one can question why they have been viewed so differently. It is commonly believed that learning to read requires formal instruction and schooling, whereas spoken language is acquired from birth onward through natural interactions with people who talk. Most researchers and educators believe that spoken language is acquired naturally from birth onward and even prenatally. Learning to read, on the other hand, is not possible until the child has acquired spoken language, reaches school age, and receives formal instruction. If an appropriate form of written text is made available early in a child's life, however, the current hypothesis is that reading will also be learned inductively and emerge naturally, with no significant negative consequences. If this proposal is true, it should soon be possible to create an interactive system, Technology Assisted Reading Acquisition, to allow children to acquire literacy naturally.

  11. Mobile speech and advanced natural language solutions

    CERN Document Server

    Markowitz, Judith

    2013-01-01

    Mobile Speech and Advanced Natural Language Solutions provides a comprehensive and forward-looking treatment of natural speech in the mobile environment. This fourteen-chapter anthology brings together lead scientists from Apple, Google, IBM, AT&T, Yahoo! Research and other companies, along with academicians, technology developers and market analysts.  They analyze the growing markets for mobile speech, new methodological approaches to the study of natural language, empirical research findings on natural language and mobility, and future trends in mobile speech.  Mobile Speech opens with a challenge to the industry to broaden the discussion about speech in mobile environments beyond the smartphone, to consider natural language applications across different domains.   Among the new natural language methods introduced in this book are Sequence Package Analysis, which locates and extracts valuable opinion-related data buried in online postings; microintonation as a way to make TTS truly human-like; and se...

  12. Teachers' understanding of the communicative language teaching ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Teachers' understanding of the communicative language teaching approach: The case of English language teachers in Thohoyandou. ... with CLT theories and practice. Keywords: communicative competence, approach versus method, Grammar translation method, direct method, first additional language, second language ...

  13. Artificial intelligence, expert systems, computer vision, and natural language processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gevarter, W. B.

    1984-01-01

    An overview of artificial intelligence (AI), its core ingredients, and its applications is presented. The knowledge representation, logic, problem solving approaches, languages, and computers pertaining to AI are examined, and the state of the art in AI is reviewed. The use of AI in expert systems, computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition and understanding, speech synthesis, problem solving, and planning is examined. Basic AI topics, including automation, search-oriented problem solving, knowledge representation, and computational logic, are discussed.

  14. An algorithm to transform natural language into SQL queries for relational databases

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Garima Singh

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Intelligent interface, to enhance efficient interactions between user and databases, is the need of the database applications. Databases must be intelligent enough to make the accessibility faster. However, not every user familiar with the Structured Query Language (SQL queries as they may not aware of structure of the database and they thus require to learn SQL. So, non-expert users need a system to interact with relational databases in their natural language such as English. For this, Database Management System (DBMS must have an ability to understand Natural Language (NL. In this research, an intelligent interface is developed using semantic matching technique which translates natural language query to SQL using set of production rules and data dictionary. The data dictionary consists of semantics sets for relations and attributes. A series of steps like lower case conversion, tokenization, speech tagging, database element and SQL element extraction is used to convert Natural Language Query (NLQ to SQL Query. The transformed query is executed and the results are obtained by the user. Intelligent Interface is the need of database applications to enhance efficient interaction between user and DBMS.

  15. Bayesian natural language semantics and pragmatics

    CERN Document Server

    Zeevat, Henk

    2015-01-01

    The contributions in this volume focus on the Bayesian interpretation of natural languages, which is widely used in areas of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and computational linguistics. This is the first volume to take up topics in Bayesian Natural Language Interpretation and make proposals based on information theory, probability theory, and related fields. The methodologies offered here extend to the target semantic and pragmatic analyses of computational natural language interpretation. Bayesian approaches to natural language semantics and pragmatics are based on methods from signal processing and the causal Bayesian models pioneered by especially Pearl. In signal processing, the Bayesian method finds the most probable interpretation by finding the one that maximizes the product of the prior probability and the likelihood of the interpretation. It thus stresses the importance of a production model for interpretation as in Grice's contributions to pragmatics or in interpretation by abduction.

  16. A Natural Logic for Natural-Language Knowledge Bases

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Andreasen, Troels; Styltsvig, Henrik Bulskov; Jensen, Per Anker

    2017-01-01

    We describe a natural logic for computational reasoning with a regimented fragment of natural language. The natural logic comes with intuitive inference rules enabling deductions and with an internal graph representation facilitating conceptual path finding between pairs of terms as an approach t...

  17. A Natural Logic for Natural-language Knowledge Bases

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Andreasen, Troels; Bulskov, Henrik; Jensen, Per Anker

    2017-01-01

    We describe a natural logic for computational reasoning with a regimented fragment of natural language. The natural logic comes with intuitive inference rules enabling deductions and with an internal graph representation facilitating conceptual path finding between pairs of terms as an approach t...

  18. Natural language generation of surgical procedures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wagner, J C; Rogers, J E; Baud, R H; Scherrer, J R

    1999-01-01

    A number of compositional Medical Concept Representation systems are being developed. Although these provide for a detailed conceptual representation of the underlying information, they have to be translated back to natural language for used by end-users and applications. The GALEN programme has been developing one such representation and we report here on a tool developed to generate natural language phrases from the GALEN conceptual representations. This tool can be adapted to different source modelling schemes and to different destination languages or sublanguages of a domain. It is based on a multilingual approach to natural language generation, realised through a clean separation of the domain model from the linguistic model and their link by well defined structures. Specific knowledge structures and operations have been developed for bridging between the modelling 'style' of the conceptual representation and natural language. Using the example of the scheme developed for modelling surgical operative procedures within the GALEN-IN-USE project, we show how the generator is adapted to such a scheme. The basic characteristics of the surgical procedures scheme are presented together with the basic principles of the generation tool. Using worked examples, we discuss the transformation operations which change the initial source representation into a form which can more directly be translated to a given natural language. In particular, the linguistic knowledge which has to be introduced--such as definitions of concepts and relationships is described. We explain the overall generator strategy and how particular transformation operations are triggered by language-dependent and conceptual parameters. Results are shown for generated French phrases corresponding to surgical procedures from the urology domain.

  19. Paired structures in logical and semiotic models of natural language

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rodríguez, J. Tinguaro; Franco, Camilo; Montero, Javier

    2014-01-01

    The evidence coming from cognitive psychology and linguistics shows that pairs of reference concepts (as e.g. good/bad, tall/short, nice/ugly, etc.) play a crucial role in the way we everyday use and understand natural languages in order to analyze reality and make decisions. Different situations...

  20. Natural language processing and advanced information management

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoard, James E.

    1989-01-01

    Integrating diverse information sources and application software in a principled and general manner will require a very capable advanced information management (AIM) system. In particular, such a system will need a comprehensive addressing scheme to locate the material in its docuverse. It will also need a natural language processing (NLP) system of great sophistication. It seems that the NLP system must serve three functions. First, it provides an natural language interface (NLI) for the users. Second, it serves as the core component that understands and makes use of the real-world interpretations (RWIs) contained in the docuverse. Third, it enables the reasoning specialists (RSs) to arrive at conclusions that can be transformed into procedures that will satisfy the users' requests. The best candidate for an intelligent agent that can satisfactorily make use of RSs and transform documents (TDs) appears to be an object oriented data base (OODB). OODBs have, apparently, an inherent capacity to use the large numbers of RSs and TDs that will be required by an AIM system and an inherent capacity to use them in an effective way.

  1. Generating natural language under pragmatic constraints

    CERN Document Server

    Hovy, Eduard H

    2013-01-01

    Recognizing that the generation of natural language is a goal- driven process, where many of the goals are pragmatic (i.e., interpersonal and situational) in nature, this book provides an overview of the role of pragmatics in language generation. Each chapter states a problem that arises in generation, develops a pragmatics-based solution, and then describes how the solution is implemented in PAULINE, a language generator that can produce numerous versions of a single underlying message, depending on its setting.

  2. Teaching natural language to computers

    OpenAIRE

    Corneli, Joseph; Corneli, Miriam

    2016-01-01

    "Natural Language," whether spoken and attended to by humans, or processed and generated by computers, requires networked structures that reflect creative processes in semantic, syntactic, phonetic, linguistic, social, emotional, and cultural modules. Being able to produce novel and useful behavior following repeated practice gets to the root of both artificial intelligence and human language. This paper investigates the modalities involved in language-like applications that computers -- and ...

  3. Thought beyond language: neural dissociation of algebra and natural language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monti, Martin M; Parsons, Lawrence M; Osherson, Daniel N

    2012-08-01

    A central question in cognitive science is whether natural language provides combinatorial operations that are essential to diverse domains of thought. In the study reported here, we addressed this issue by examining the role of linguistic mechanisms in forging the hierarchical structures of algebra. In a 3-T functional MRI experiment, we showed that processing of the syntax-like operations of algebra does not rely on the neural mechanisms of natural language. Our findings indicate that processing the syntax of language elicits the known substrate of linguistic competence, whereas algebraic operations recruit bilateral parietal brain regions previously implicated in the representation of magnitude. This double dissociation argues against the view that language provides the structure of thought across all cognitive domains.

  4. Understanding Cognitive Language Learning Strategies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sergio Di Carlo

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Over time, definitions and taxonomies of language learning strategies have been critically examined. This article defines and classifies cognitive language learning strategies on a more grounded basis. Language learning is a macro-process for which the general hypotheses of information processing are valid. Cognitive strategies are represented by the pillars underlying the encoding, storage and retrieval of information. In order to understand the processes taking place on these three dimensions, a functional model was elaborated from multiple theoretical contributions and previous models: the Smart Processing Model. This model operates with linguistic inputs as well as with any other kind of information. It helps to illustrate the stages, relations, modules and processes that occur during the flow of information. This theoretical advance is a core element to classify cognitive strategies. Contributions from cognitive neuroscience have also been considered to establish the proposed classification which consists of five categories. Each of these categories has a different predominant function: classification, preparation, association, elaboration and transfer-practice. This better founded taxonomy opens the doors to potential studies that would allow a better understanding of the interdisciplinary complexity of language learning. Pedagogical and methodological implications are also discussed.

  5. Designing Service-Oriented Chatbot Systems Using a Construction Grammar-Driven Natural Language Generation System

    OpenAIRE

    Jenkins, Marie-Claire

    2011-01-01

    Service oriented chatbot systems are used to inform users in a conversational manner about a particular service or product on a website. Our research shows that current systems are time consuming to build and not very accurate or satisfying to users. We find that natural language understanding and natural language generation methods are central to creating an e�fficient and useful system. In this thesis we investigate current and past methods in this research area and place particular emph...

  6. Handbook of Natural Language Processing

    CERN Document Server

    Indurkhya, Nitin

    2010-01-01

    Provides a comprehensive, modern reference of practical tools and techniques for implementing natural language processing in computer systems. This title covers classical methods, empirical and statistical techniques, and various applications. It describes how the techniques can be applied to European and Asian languages as well as English

  7. Understanding Student Language: An Unsupervised Dialogue Act Classification Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ezen-Can, Aysu; Boyer, Kristy Elizabeth

    2015-01-01

    Within the landscape of educational data, textual natural language is an increasingly vast source of learning-centered interactions. In natural language dialogue, student contributions hold important information about knowledge and goals. Automatically modeling the dialogue act of these student utterances is crucial for scaling natural language…

  8. An Overview of Computer-Based Natural Language Processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gevarter, William B.

    Computer-based Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the key to enabling humans and their computer-based creations to interact with machines using natural languages (English, Japanese, German, etc.) rather than formal computer languages. NLP is a major research area in the fields of artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. Commercial…

  9. On Not Understanding Extraordinary Language in the Buddhist Tantra of Japan

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Richard K. Payne

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available The question motivating this essay is how tantric Buddhist practitioners in Japan understood language such as to believe that mantra, dhāraṇī, and related forms are efficacious. “Extraordinary language” is introduced as a cover term for these several similar language uses found in tantric Buddhist practices in Japan. The essay proceeds to a critical examination of Anglo-American philosophy of language to determine whether the concepts, categories, and concerns of that field can contribute to the analysis and understanding of extraordinary language. However, that philosophy of language does not contribute to this analysis, as it is constrained by its continuing focus on its founding concepts, dating particularly from the work of Frege. Comparing it to Indic thought regarding language reveals a distinct mismatch, further indicating the limiting character of the philosophy of language. The analysis then turns to examine two other explanations of tantric language use found in religious studies literature: magical language and performative language. These also, however, prove to be unhelpful. While the essay is primarily critical, one candidate for future constructive study is historical pragmatics, as suggested by Ronald Davidson. The central place of extraordinary language indicates that Indic reflections on the nature of language informed tantric Buddhist practice in Japan and are not simply cultural baggage.

  10. Drawing Dynamic Geometry Figures Online with Natural Language for Junior High School Geometry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wong, Wing-Kwong; Yin, Sheng-Kai; Yang, Chang-Zhe

    2012-01-01

    This paper presents a tool for drawing dynamic geometric figures by understanding the texts of geometry problems. With the tool, teachers and students can construct dynamic geometric figures on a web page by inputting a geometry problem in natural language. First we need to build the knowledge base for understanding geometry problems. With the…

  11. Language understanding and vocabulary of early cochlear implanted children

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Percy-Smith, L; Busch, GW; Sandahl, M

    2013-01-01

    The aim of the study was to identify factors associated with the level of language understanding, the level of receptive and active vocabulary, and to estimate effect-related odds ratios for cochlear implanted children's language level.......The aim of the study was to identify factors associated with the level of language understanding, the level of receptive and active vocabulary, and to estimate effect-related odds ratios for cochlear implanted children's language level....

  12. Understanding of Foreign Language Learning of Generation Y

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bozavli, Ebubekir

    2016-01-01

    Different generations are constituted depending on social changes and they are designed sociologically as traditional, baby boomer, X, Y and Z. Many studies have been reported on understanding of foreign language learning generation Y. This study aims to realise the gap in and contribute to the research on language learning understanding of…

  13. The Integration Hypothesis of Human Language Evolution and the Nature of Contemporary Languages

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shigeru eMiyagawa

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available How human language arose is a mystery in the evolution of Homo sapiens. Miyagawa, Berwick, & Okanoya (Frontiers 2013 put forward a proposal, which we will call the Integration Hypothesis of human language evolution, which holds that human language is composed of two components, E for expressive, and L for lexical. Each component has an antecedent in nature: E as found, for example, in birdsong, and L in, for example, the alarm calls of monkeys. E and L integrated uniquely in humans to give rise to language. A challenge to the Integration Hypothesis is that while these non-human systems are finite-state in nature, human language is known to require characterization by a non-finite state grammar. Our claim is that E and L, taken separately, are finite-state; when a grammatical process crosses the boundary between E and L, it gives rise to the non-finite state character of human language. We provide empirical evidence for the Integration Hypothesis by showing that certain processes found in contemporary languages that have been characterized as non-finite state in nature can in fact be shown to be finite-state. We also speculate on how human language actually arose in evolution through the lens of the Integration Hypothesis.

  14. Toward a Theory-Based Natural Language Capability in Robots and Other Embodied Agents: Evaluating Hausser's SLIM Theory and Database Semantics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burk, Robin K.

    2010-01-01

    Computational natural language understanding and generation have been a goal of artificial intelligence since McCarthy, Minsky, Rochester and Shannon first proposed to spend the summer of 1956 studying this and related problems. Although statistical approaches dominate current natural language applications, two current research trends bring…

  15. BT-Nurse: computer generation of natural language shift summaries from complex heterogeneous medical data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hunter, James; Freer, Yvonne; Gatt, Albert; Reiter, Ehud; Sripada, Somayajulu; Sykes, Cindy; Westwater, Dave

    2011-01-01

    The BT-Nurse system uses data-to-text technology to automatically generate a natural language nursing shift summary in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The summary is solely based on data held in an electronic patient record system, no additional data-entry is required. BT-Nurse was tested for two months in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh NICU. Nurses were asked to rate the understandability, accuracy, and helpfulness of the computer-generated summaries; they were also asked for free-text comments about the summaries. The nurses found the majority of the summaries to be understandable, accurate, and helpful (pgenerated summaries. In conclusion, natural language NICU shift summaries can be automatically generated from an electronic patient record, but our proof-of-concept software needs considerable additional development work before it can be deployed.

  16. Using Edit Distance to Analyse Errors in a Natural Language to Logic Translation Corpus

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barker-Plummer, Dave; Dale, Robert; Cox, Richard; Romanczuk, Alex

    2012-01-01

    We have assembled a large corpus of student submissions to an automatic grading system, where the subject matter involves the translation of natural language sentences into propositional logic. Of the 2.3 million translation instances in the corpus, 286,000 (approximately 12%) are categorized as being in error. We want to understand the nature of…

  17. Clinical Natural Language Processing in languages other than English: opportunities and challenges.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Névéol, Aurélie; Dalianis, Hercules; Velupillai, Sumithra; Savova, Guergana; Zweigenbaum, Pierre

    2018-03-30

    Natural language processing applied to clinical text or aimed at a clinical outcome has been thriving in recent years. This paper offers the first broad overview of clinical Natural Language Processing (NLP) for languages other than English. Recent studies are summarized to offer insights and outline opportunities in this area. We envision three groups of intended readers: (1) NLP researchers leveraging experience gained in other languages, (2) NLP researchers faced with establishing clinical text processing in a language other than English, and (3) clinical informatics researchers and practitioners looking for resources in their languages in order to apply NLP techniques and tools to clinical practice and/or investigation. We review work in clinical NLP in languages other than English. We classify these studies into three groups: (i) studies describing the development of new NLP systems or components de novo, (ii) studies describing the adaptation of NLP architectures developed for English to another language, and (iii) studies focusing on a particular clinical application. We show the advantages and drawbacks of each method, and highlight the appropriate application context. Finally, we identify major challenges and opportunities that will affect the impact of NLP on clinical practice and public health studies in a context that encompasses English as well as other languages.

  18. Concepts and implementations of natural language query systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dominick, Wayne D. (Editor); Liu, I-Hsiung

    1984-01-01

    The currently developed user language interfaces of information systems are generally intended for serious users. These interfaces commonly ignore potentially the largest user group, i.e., casual users. This project discusses the concepts and implementations of a natural query language system which satisfy the nature and information needs of casual users by allowing them to communicate with the system in the form of their native (natural) language. In addition, a framework for the development of such an interface is also introduced for the MADAM (Multics Approach to Data Access and Management) system at the University of Southwestern Louisiana.

  19. Brain readiness and the nature of language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bouchard, Denis

    2015-01-01

    To identify the neural components that make a brain ready for language, it is important to have well defined linguistic phenotypes, to know precisely what language is. There are two central features to language: the capacity to form signs (words), and the capacity to combine them into complex structures. We must determine how the human brain enables these capacities. A sign is a link between a perceptual form and a conceptual meaning. Acoustic elements and content elements, are already brain-internal in non-human animals, but as categorical systems linked with brain-external elements. Being indexically tied to objects of the world, they cannot freely link to form signs. A crucial property of a language-ready brain is the capacity to process perceptual forms and contents offline, detached from any brain-external phenomena, so their "representations" may be linked into signs. These brain systems appear to have pleiotropic effects on a variety of phenotypic traits and not to be specifically designed for language. Syntax combines signs, so the combination of two signs operates simultaneously on their meaning and form. The operation combining the meanings long antedates its function in language: the primitive mode of predication operative in representing some information about an object. The combination of the forms is enabled by the capacity of the brain to segment vocal and visual information into discrete elements. Discrete temporal units have order and juxtaposition, and vocal units have intonation, length, and stress. These are primitive combinatorial processes. So the prior properties of the physical and conceptual elements of the sign introduce combinatoriality into the linguistic system, and from these primitive combinatorial systems derive concatenation in phonology and combination in morphosyntax. Given the nature of language, a key feature to our understanding of the language-ready brain is to be found in the mechanisms in human brains that enable the unique

  20. Brain readiness and the nature of language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Denis eBouchard

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available To identify the neural components that make a brain ready for language, it is important to have well defined linguistic phenotypes, to know precisely what language is. There are two central features to language: the capacity to form signs (words, and the capacity to combine them into complex structures. We must determine how the human brain enables these capacities.A sign is a link between a perceptual form and a conceptual meaning. Acoustic elements and content elements, are already brain-internal in non-human animals, but as categorical systems linked with brain-external elements. Being indexically tied to objects of the world, they cannot freely link to form signs. A crucial property of a language-ready brain is the capacity to process perceptual forms and contents offline, detached from any brain-external phenomena, so their representations may be linked into signs. These brain systems appear to have pleiotropic effects on a variety of phenotypic traits and not to be specifically designed for language.Syntax combines signs, so the combination of two signs operates simultaneously on their meaning and form. The operation combining the meanings long antedates its function in language: the primitive mode of predication operative in representing some information about an object. The combination of the forms is enabled by the capacity of the brain to segment vocal and visual information into discrete elements. Discrete temporal units have order and juxtaposition, and vocal units have intonation, length, and stress. These are primitive combinatorial processes. So the prior properties of the physical and conceptual elements of the sign introduce combinatoriality into the linguistic system, and from these primitive combinatorial systems derive concatenation in phonology and combination in morphosyntax.Given the nature of language, a key feature to our understanding of the language-ready brain is to be found in the mechanisms in human brains that

  1. Arabic Natural Language Processing System Code Library

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-06-01

    Adelphi, MD 20783-1197 This technical note provides a brief description of a Java library for Arabic natural language processing ( NLP ) containing code...for training and applying the Arabic NLP system described in the paper "A Cross-Task Flexible Transition Model for Arabic Tokenization, Affix...and also English) natural language processing ( NLP ), containing code for training and applying the Arabic NLP system described in Stephen Tratz’s

  2. Resolution of ambiguities in cartoons as an illustration of the role of pragmatics in natural language understanding by computers

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mazlack, L.J.; Paz, N.M.

    1983-01-01

    Newspaper cartoons can graphically display the result of ambiguity in human speech; the result can be unexpected and funny. Likewise, computer analysis of natural language statements also needs to successfully resolve ambiguous situations. Computer techniques already developed use restricted world knowledge in resolving ambiguous language use. This paper illustrates how these techniques can be used in resolving ambiguous situations arising in cartoons. 8 references.

  3. An overview of computer-based natural language processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gevarter, W. B.

    1983-01-01

    Computer based Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the key to enabling humans and their computer based creations to interact with machines in natural language (like English, Japanese, German, etc., in contrast to formal computer languages). The doors that such an achievement can open have made this a major research area in Artificial Intelligence and Computational Linguistics. Commercial natural language interfaces to computers have recently entered the market and future looks bright for other applications as well. This report reviews the basic approaches to such systems, the techniques utilized, applications, the state of the art of the technology, issues and research requirements, the major participants and finally, future trends and expectations. It is anticipated that this report will prove useful to engineering and research managers, potential users, and others who will be affected by this field as it unfolds.

  4. Individual differences in children's emotion understanding: Effects of age and language

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pons, Francisco; Lawson, J.: Harris, P.; Rosnay, M. de

    2003-01-01

    Over the last two decades, it has been established that children's emotion understanding changes as they develop. Recent studies have also begun to address individual differences in children's emotion understanding. The first goal of this study was to examine the development of these individual...... differences across a wide age range with a test assessing nine different components of emotion understanding. The second goal was to examine the relation between language ability and individual differences in emotion understanding. Eighty children ranging in age from 4 to 11 years were tested. Children...... displayed a clear improvement with age in both their emotion understanding and language ability. In each age group, there were clear individual differences in emotion understanding and language ability. Age and language ability together explained 72% of emotion understanding variance; 20% of this variance...

  5. Finite-State Methodology in Natural Language Processing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michal Korzycki

    2001-01-01

    Full Text Available Recent mathematical and algorithmic results in the field of finite-state technology, as well the increase in computing power, have constructed the base for a new approach in natural language processing. However the task of creating an appropriate model that would describe the phenomena of the natural language is still to be achieved. ln this paper I'm presenting some notions related to the finite-state modelling of syntax and morphology.

  6. Language Models With Meta-information

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Shi, Y.

    2014-01-01

    Language modeling plays a critical role in natural language processing and understanding. Starting from a general structure, language models are able to learn natural language patterns from rich input data. However, the state-of-the-art language models only take advantage of words themselves, which

  7. Statistical Language Models and Information Retrieval: Natural Language Processing Really Meets Retrieval

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hiemstra, Djoerd; de Jong, Franciska M.G.

    2001-01-01

    Traditionally, natural language processing techniques for information retrieval have always been studied outside the framework of formal models of information retrieval. In this article, we introduce a new formal model of information retrieval based on the application of statistical language models.

  8. Generating and Executing Complex Natural Language Queries across Linked Data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamon, Thierry; Mougin, Fleur; Grabar, Natalia

    2015-01-01

    With the recent and intensive research in the biomedical area, the knowledge accumulated is disseminated through various knowledge bases. Links between these knowledge bases are needed in order to use them jointly. Linked Data, SPARQL language, and interfaces in Natural Language question-answering provide interesting solutions for querying such knowledge bases. We propose a method for translating natural language questions in SPARQL queries. We use Natural Language Processing tools, semantic resources, and the RDF triples description. The method is designed on 50 questions over 3 biomedical knowledge bases, and evaluated on 27 questions. It achieves 0.78 F-measure on the test set. The method for translating natural language questions into SPARQL queries is implemented as Perl module available at http://search.cpan.org/ thhamon/RDF-NLP-SPARQLQuery.

  9. Natural language processing-based COTS software and related technologies survey.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Stickland, Michael G.; Conrad, Gregory N.; Eaton, Shelley M.

    2003-09-01

    Natural language processing-based knowledge management software, traditionally developed for security organizations, is now becoming commercially available. An informal survey was conducted to discover and examine current NLP and related technologies and potential applications for information retrieval, information extraction, summarization, categorization, terminology management, link analysis, and visualization for possible implementation at Sandia National Laboratories. This report documents our current understanding of the technologies, lists software vendors and their products, and identifies potential applications of these technologies.

  10. Natural language computing an English generative grammar in Prolog

    CERN Document Server

    Dougherty, Ray C

    2013-01-01

    This book's main goal is to show readers how to use the linguistic theory of Noam Chomsky, called Universal Grammar, to represent English, French, and German on a computer using the Prolog computer language. In so doing, it presents a follow-the-dots approach to natural language processing, linguistic theory, artificial intelligence, and expert systems. The basic idea is to introduce meaningful answers to significant problems involved in representing human language data on a computer. The book offers a hands-on approach to anyone who wishes to gain a perspective on natural language

  11. A grammar-based semantic similarity algorithm for natural language sentences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Ming Che; Chang, Jia Wei; Hsieh, Tung Cheng

    2014-01-01

    This paper presents a grammar and semantic corpus based similarity algorithm for natural language sentences. Natural language, in opposition to "artificial language", such as computer programming languages, is the language used by the general public for daily communication. Traditional information retrieval approaches, such as vector models, LSA, HAL, or even the ontology-based approaches that extend to include concept similarity comparison instead of cooccurrence terms/words, may not always determine the perfect matching while there is no obvious relation or concept overlap between two natural language sentences. This paper proposes a sentence similarity algorithm that takes advantage of corpus-based ontology and grammatical rules to overcome the addressed problems. Experiments on two famous benchmarks demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has a significant performance improvement in sentences/short-texts with arbitrary syntax and structure.

  12. A System for Natural Language Sentence Generation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levison, Michael; Lessard, Gregory

    1992-01-01

    Describes the natural language computer program, "Vinci." Explains that using an attribute grammar formalism, Vinci can simulate components of several current linguistic theories. Considers the design of the system and its applications in linguistic modelling and second language acquisition research. Notes Vinci's uses in linguistics…

  13. Task planning systems with natural language interface

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kambayashi, Shaw; Uenaka, Junji

    1989-12-01

    In this report, a natural language analyzer and two different task planning systems are described. In 1988, we have introduced a Japanese language analyzer named CS-PARSER for the input interface of the task planning system in the Human Acts Simulation Program (HASP). For the purpose of a high speed analysis, we have modified a dictionary system of the CS-PARSER by using C language description. It is found that the new dictionary system is very useful for a high speed analysis and an efficient maintenance of the dictionary. For the study of the task planning problem, we have modified a story generating system named Micro TALE-SPIN to generate a story written in Japanese sentences. We have also constructed a planning system with natural language interface by using the CS-PARSER. Task planning processes and related knowledge bases of these systems are explained. A concept design for a new task planning system will be also discussed from evaluations of above mentioned systems. (author)

  14. Teaching the tacit knowledge of programming to noviceswith natural language tutoring

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lane, H. Chad; Vanlehn, Kurt

    2005-09-01

    For beginning programmers, inadequate problem solving and planning skills are among the most salient of their weaknesses. In this paper, we test the efficacy of natural language tutoring to teach and scaffold acquisition of these skills. We describe ProPL (Pro-PELL), a dialogue-based intelligent tutoring system that elicits goal decompositions and program plans from students in natural language. The system uses a variety of tutoring tactics that leverage students' intuitive understandings of the problem, how it might be solved, and the underlying concepts of programming. We report the results of a small-scale evaluation comparing students who used ProPL with a control group who read the same content. Our primary findings are that students who received tutoring from ProPL seem to have developed an improved ability to solve the composition problem and displayed behaviors that suggest they were able to think at greater levels of abstraction than students in the read-only group.

  15. The Value of Bilingualism in Pupils' Understanding of Scientific Language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kearsey, John; Turner, Sheila

    1999-01-01

    Argues that, although some bilingual pupils may be at a disadvantage in understanding scientific language, there may be some circumstances where being bilingual is an advantage in understanding scientific language. Presents evidence of circumstances where being bilingual was an advantage and circumstances where it was a disadvantage in…

  16. Developing Formal Correctness Properties from Natural Language Requirements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nikora, Allen P.

    2006-01-01

    This viewgraph presentation reviews the rationale of the program to transform natural language specifications into formal notation.Specifically, automate generation of Linear Temporal Logic (LTL)correctness properties from natural language temporal specifications. There are several reasons for this approach (1) Model-based techniques becoming more widely accepted, (2) Analytical verification techniques (e.g., model checking, theorem proving) significantly more effective at detecting types of specification design errors (e.g., race conditions, deadlock) than manual inspection, (3) Many requirements still written in natural language, which results in a high learning curve for specification languages, associated tools and increased schedule and budget pressure on projects reduce training opportunities for engineers, and (4) Formulation of correctness properties for system models can be a difficult problem. This has relevance to NASA in that it would simplify development of formal correctness properties, lead to more widespread use of model-based specification, design techniques, assist in earlier identification of defects and reduce residual defect content for space mission software systems. The presentation also discusses: potential applications, accomplishments and/or technological transfer potential and the next steps.

  17. Achieving mutual understanding in Argentine Sign Language (LSA)

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Manrique Cordeje, M.E.

    2017-01-01

    How does (mis)understanding works in conversation? Problems of understanding occur all the time in our everyday social life. How does miscommunication happen and how do we deal with it? This thesis reports on how sign language users manage to understand each other based on a large Conversational

  18. A Requirements-Based Exploration of Open-Source Software Development Projects--Towards a Natural Language Processing Software Analysis Framework

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vlas, Radu Eduard

    2012-01-01

    Open source projects do have requirements; they are, however, mostly informal, text descriptions found in requests, forums, and other correspondence. Understanding such requirements provides insight into the nature of open source projects. Unfortunately, manual analysis of natural language requirements is time-consuming, and for large projects,…

  19. A Grammar-Based Semantic Similarity Algorithm for Natural Language Sentences

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Jia Wei; Hsieh, Tung Cheng

    2014-01-01

    This paper presents a grammar and semantic corpus based similarity algorithm for natural language sentences. Natural language, in opposition to “artificial language”, such as computer programming languages, is the language used by the general public for daily communication. Traditional information retrieval approaches, such as vector models, LSA, HAL, or even the ontology-based approaches that extend to include concept similarity comparison instead of cooccurrence terms/words, may not always determine the perfect matching while there is no obvious relation or concept overlap between two natural language sentences. This paper proposes a sentence similarity algorithm that takes advantage of corpus-based ontology and grammatical rules to overcome the addressed problems. Experiments on two famous benchmarks demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has a significant performance improvement in sentences/short-texts with arbitrary syntax and structure. PMID:24982952

  20. A Grammar-Based Semantic Similarity Algorithm for Natural Language Sentences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ming Che Lee

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents a grammar and semantic corpus based similarity algorithm for natural language sentences. Natural language, in opposition to “artificial language”, such as computer programming languages, is the language used by the general public for daily communication. Traditional information retrieval approaches, such as vector models, LSA, HAL, or even the ontology-based approaches that extend to include concept similarity comparison instead of cooccurrence terms/words, may not always determine the perfect matching while there is no obvious relation or concept overlap between two natural language sentences. This paper proposes a sentence similarity algorithm that takes advantage of corpus-based ontology and grammatical rules to overcome the addressed problems. Experiments on two famous benchmarks demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has a significant performance improvement in sentences/short-texts with arbitrary syntax and structure.

  1. Natural language interface for nuclear data bases

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Heger, A.S.; Koen, B.V.

    1987-01-01

    A natural language interface has been developed for access to information from a data base, simulating a nuclear plant reliability data system (NPRDS), one of the several existing data bases serving the nuclear industry. In the last decade, the importance of information has been demonstrated by the impressive diffusion of data base management systems. The present methods that are employed to access data bases fall into two main categories of menu-driven systems and use of data base manipulation languages. Both of these methods are currently used by NPRDS. These methods have proven to be tedious, however, and require extensive training by the user for effective utilization of the data base. Artificial intelligence techniques have been used in the development of several intelligent front ends for data bases in nonnuclear domains. Lunar is a natural language program for interface to a data base describing moon rock samples brought back by Apollo. Intellect is one of the first data base question-answering systems that was commercially available in the financial area. Ladder is an intelligent data base interface that was developed as a management aid to Navy decision makers. A natural language interface for nuclear data bases that can be used by nonprogrammers with little or no training provides a means for achieving this goal for this industry

  2. Evolution, brain, and the nature of language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berwick, Robert C; Friederici, Angela D; Chomsky, Noam; Bolhuis, Johan J

    2013-02-01

    Language serves as a cornerstone for human cognition, yet much about its evolution remains puzzling. Recent research on this question parallels Darwin's attempt to explain both the unity of all species and their diversity. What has emerged from this research is that the unified nature of human language arises from a shared, species-specific computational ability. This ability has identifiable correlates in the brain and has remained fixed since the origin of language approximately 100 thousand years ago. Although songbirds share with humans a vocal imitation learning ability, with a similar underlying neural organization, language is uniquely human. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. Evolution: Language Use and the Evolution of Languages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Croft, William

    Language change can be understood as an evolutionary process. Language change occurs at two different timescales, corresponding to the two steps of the evolutionary process. The first timescale is very short, namely, the production of an utterance: this is where linguistic structures are replicated and language variation is generated. The second timescale is (or can be) very long, namely, the propagation of linguistic variants in the speech community: this is where certain variants are selected over others. At both timescales, the evolutionary process is driven by social interaction and the role language plays in it. An understanding of social interaction at the micro-level—face-to-face interactions—and at the macro-level—the structure of speech communities—gives us the basis for understanding the generation and propagation of language structures, and understanding the nature of language itself.

  4. The Arabic Natural Language Processing: Introduction and Challenges

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Boukhatem Nadera

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Arabic is a Semitic language spoken by more than 330 million people as a native language, in an area extending from the Arabian/Persian Gulf in the East to the Atlantic Ocean in the West. Moreover, it is the language in which 1.4 billion Muslims around the world perform their daily prayers. Over the last few years, Arabic natural language processing (ANLP has gained increasing importance, and several state of the art systems have been developed for a wide range of applications.

  5. ROPE: Recoverable Order-Preserving Embedding of Natural Language

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Widemann, David P. [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Wang, Eric X. [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Thiagarajan, Jayaraman J. [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

    2016-02-11

    We present a novel Recoverable Order-Preserving Embedding (ROPE) of natural language. ROPE maps natural language passages from sparse concatenated one-hot representations to distributed vector representations of predetermined fixed length. We use Euclidean distance to return search results that are both grammatically and semantically similar. ROPE is based on a series of random projections of distributed word embeddings. We show that our technique typically forms a dictionary with sufficient incoherence such that sparse recovery of the original text is possible. We then show how our embedding allows for efficient and meaningful natural search and retrieval on Microsoft’s COCO dataset and the IMDB Movie Review dataset.

  6. Symbolic Natural Language Processing

    OpenAIRE

    Laporte , Eric

    2005-01-01

    The connection between language processing and combinatorics on words is natural. Historically, linguists actually played a part in the beginning of the construction of theoretical combinatorics on words. Some of the terms in current use originate from linguistics: word, prefix, suffix, grammar, syntactic monoid... However, interpenetration between the formal world of computer theory and the intuitive world of linguistics is still a love story with ups and downs. We will encounter in this cha...

  7. Multilingual natural language generation as part of a medical terminology server.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wagner, J C; Solomon, W D; Michel, P A; Juge, C; Baud, R H; Rector, A L; Scherrer, J R

    1995-01-01

    Re-usable and sharable, and therefore language-independent concept models are of increasing importance in the medical domain. The GALEN project (Generalized Architecture for Languages Encyclopedias and Nomenclatures in Medicine) aims at developing language-independent concept representation systems as the foundations for the next generation of multilingual coding systems. For use within clinical applications, the content of the model has to be mapped to natural language. A so-called Multilingual Information Module (MM) establishes the link between the language-independent concept model and different natural languages. This text generation software must be versatile enough to cope at the same time with different languages and with different parts of a compositional model. It has to meet, on the one hand, the properties of the language as used in the medical domain and, on the other hand, the specific characteristics of the underlying model and its representation formalism. We propose a semantic-oriented approach to natural language generation that is based on linguistic annotations to a concept model. This approach is realized as an integral part of a Terminology Server, built around the concept model and offering different terminological services for clinical applications.

  8. Using Open Geographic Data to Generate Natural Language Descriptions for Hydrological Sensor Networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Molina, Martin; Sanchez-Soriano, Javier; Corcho, Oscar

    2015-07-03

    Providing descriptions of isolated sensors and sensor networks in natural language, understandable by the general public, is useful to help users find relevant sensors and analyze sensor data. In this paper, we discuss the feasibility of using geographic knowledge from public databases available on the Web (such as OpenStreetMap, Geonames, or DBpedia) to automatically construct such descriptions. We present a general method that uses such information to generate sensor descriptions in natural language. The results of the evaluation of our method in a hydrologic national sensor network showed that this approach is feasible and capable of generating adequate sensor descriptions with a lower development effort compared to other approaches. In the paper we also analyze certain problems that we found in public databases (e.g., heterogeneity, non-standard use of labels, or rigid search methods) and their impact in the generation of sensor descriptions.

  9. Using Open Geographic Data to Generate Natural Language Descriptions for Hydrological Sensor Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Martin Molina

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Providing descriptions of isolated sensors and sensor networks in natural language, understandable by the general public, is useful to help users find relevant sensors and analyze sensor data. In this paper, we discuss the feasibility of using geographic knowledge from public databases available on the Web (such as OpenStreetMap, Geonames, or DBpedia to automatically construct such descriptions. We present a general method that uses such information to generate sensor descriptions in natural language. The results of the evaluation of our method in a hydrologic national sensor network showed that this approach is feasible and capable of generating adequate sensor descriptions with a lower development effort compared to other approaches. In the paper we also analyze certain problems that we found in public databases (e.g., heterogeneity, non-standard use of labels, or rigid search methods and their impact in the generation of sensor descriptions.

  10. Handbook of natural language processing and machine translation DARPA global autonomous language exploitation

    CERN Document Server

    Olive, Joseph P; McCary, John

    2011-01-01

    This comprehensive handbook, written by leading experts in the field, details the groundbreaking research conducted under the breakthrough GALE program - The Global Autonomous Language Exploitation within the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), while placing it in the context of previous research in the fields of natural language and signal processing, artificial intelligence and machine translation. The most fundamental contrast between GALE and its predecessor programs was its holistic integration of previously separate or sequential processes. In earlier language research pro

  11. Natural language processing techniques for automatic test ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Natural language processing techniques for automatic test questions generation using discourse connectives. ... PROMOTING ACCESS TO AFRICAN RESEARCH. AFRICAN JOURNALS ... Journal of Computer Science and Its Application.

  12. Natural language processing with Java

    CERN Document Server

    Reese, Richard M

    2015-01-01

    If you are a Java programmer who wants to learn about the fundamental tasks underlying natural language processing, this book is for you. You will be able to identify and use NLP tasks for many common problems, and integrate them in your applications to solve more difficult problems. Readers should be familiar/experienced with Java software development.

  13. "Speaking English Naturally": The Language Ideologies of English as an Official Language at a Korean University

    Science.gov (United States)

    Choi, Jinsook

    2016-01-01

    This study explores language ideologies of English at a Korean university where English has been adopted as an official language. This study draws on ethnographic data in order to understand how speakers respond to and experience the institutional language policy. The findings show that language ideologies in this university represent the…

  14. Storytelling, behavior planning, and language evolution in context.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McBride, Glen

    2014-01-01

    An attempt is made to specify the structure of the hominin bands that began steps to language. Storytelling could evolve without need for language yet be strongly subject to natural selection and could provide a major feedback process in evolving language. A storytelling model is examined, including its effects on the evolution of consciousness and the possible timing of language evolution. Behavior planning is presented as a model of language evolution from storytelling. The behavior programming mechanism in both directions provide a model of creating and understanding behavior and language. Culture began with societies, then family evolution, family life in troops, but storytelling created a culture of experiences, a final step in the long process of achieving experienced adults by natural selection. Most language evolution occurred in conversations where evolving non-verbal feedback ensured mutual agreements on understanding. Natural language evolved in conversations with feedback providing understanding of changes.

  15. The Language of Information Literacy: Do Students Understand?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schaub, Gayle; Cadena, Cara; Bravender, Patricia; Kierkus, Christopher

    2017-01-01

    To effectively access and use the resources of the academic library and to become information-literate, students must understand the language of information literacy. This study analyzes undergraduate students' understanding of fourteen commonly used information-literacy terms. It was found that some of the terms least understood by students are…

  16. Applications of Natural Language Processing in Biodiversity Science

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anne E. Thessen

    2012-01-01

    A computer can handle the volume but cannot make sense of the language. This paper reviews and discusses the use of natural language processing (NLP and machine-learning algorithms to extract information from systematic literature. NLP algorithms have been used for decades, but require special development for application in the biological realm due to the special nature of the language. Many tools exist for biological information extraction (cellular processes, taxonomic names, and morphological characters, but none have been applied life wide and most still require testing and development. Progress has been made in developing algorithms for automated annotation of taxonomic text, identification of taxonomic names in text, and extraction of morphological character information from taxonomic descriptions. This manuscript will briefly discuss the key steps in applying information extraction tools to enhance biodiversity science.

  17. Linguistics in Language Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumar, Rajesh; Yunus, Reva

    2014-01-01

    This article looks at the contribution of insights from theoretical linguistics to an understanding of language acquisition and the nature of language in terms of their potential benefit to language education. We examine the ideas of innateness and universal language faculty, as well as multilingualism and the language-society relationship. Modern…

  18. Imitation, Sign Language Skill and the Developmental Ease of Language Understanding (D-ELU) Model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holmer, Emil; Heimann, Mikael; Rudner, Mary

    2016-01-01

    Imitation and language processing are closely connected. According to the Ease of Language Understanding (ELU) model (Rönnberg et al., 2013) pre-existing mental representation of lexical items facilitates language understanding. Thus, imitation of manual gestures is likely to be enhanced by experience of sign language. We tested this by eliciting imitation of manual gestures from deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) signing and hearing non-signing children at a similar level of language and cognitive development. We predicted that the DHH signing children would be better at imitating gestures lexicalized in their own sign language (Swedish Sign Language, SSL) than unfamiliar British Sign Language (BSL) signs, and that both groups would be better at imitating lexical signs (SSL and BSL) than non-signs. We also predicted that the hearing non-signing children would perform worse than DHH signing children with all types of gestures the first time (T1) we elicited imitation, but that the performance gap between groups would be reduced when imitation was elicited a second time (T2). Finally, we predicted that imitation performance on both occasions would be associated with linguistic skills, especially in the manual modality. A split-plot repeated measures ANOVA demonstrated that DHH signers imitated manual gestures with greater precision than non-signing children when imitation was elicited the second but not the first time. Manual gestures were easier to imitate for both groups when they were lexicalized than when they were not; but there was no difference in performance between familiar and unfamiliar gestures. For both groups, language skills at T1 predicted imitation at T2. Specifically, for DHH children, word reading skills, comprehension and phonological awareness of sign language predicted imitation at T2. For the hearing participants, language comprehension predicted imitation at T2, even after the effects of working memory capacity and motor skills were taken into

  19. Imitation, sign language skill and the Developmental Ease of Language Understanding (D-ELU model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Emil eHolmer

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Imitation and language processing are closely connected. According to the Ease of Language Understanding (ELU model (Rönnberg et al., 2013 pre-existing mental representation of lexical items facilitates language understanding. Thus, imitation of manual gestures is likely to be enhanced by experience of sign language. We tested this by eliciting imitation of manual gestures from deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH signing and hearing non-signing children at a similar level of language and cognitive development. We predicted that the DHH signing children would be better at imitating gestures lexicalized in their own sign language (Swedish Sign Language, SSL than unfamiliar British Sign Language (BSL signs, and that both groups would be better at imitating lexical signs (SSL and BSL than non-signs. We also predicted that the hearing non-signing children would perform worse than DHH signing children with all types of gestures the first time (T1 we elicited imitation, but that the performance gap between groups would be reduced when imitation was elicited a second time (T2. Finally, we predicted that imitation performance on both occasions would be associated with linguistic skills, especially in the manual modality. A split-plot repeated measures ANOVA demonstrated that DHH signers imitated manual gestures with greater precision than non-signing children when imitation was elicited the second but not the first time. Manual gestures were easier to imitate for both groups when they were lexicalized than when they were not; but there was no difference in performance between familiar and unfamiliar gestures. For both groups, language skills at the T1 predicted imitation at T2. Specifically, for DHH children, word reading skills, comprehension and phonological awareness of sign language predicted imitation at T2. For the hearing participants, language comprehension predicted imitation at T2, even after the effects of working memory capacity and motor skills

  20. Applications Associated With Morphological Analysis And Generation In Natural Language Processing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Neha Yadav

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available Natural Language Processing is one of the most developing fields in research area. In most of the applications related to the Natural Language Processing findings of the Morphological Analysis and Morphological Generation can be considered very important. As morphological study is the technique to recognise a word and its output can be used on later on stages .Keeping in view this importance this paper describes how Morphological Analysis and Morphological Generation can be proved as an important part of various Natural Language Processing fields such as Spell checker Machine Translation etc.

  1. Steering the conversation: A linguistic exploration of natural language interactions with a digital assistant during simulated driving.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Large, David R; Clark, Leigh; Quandt, Annie; Burnett, Gary; Skrypchuk, Lee

    2017-09-01

    Given the proliferation of 'intelligent' and 'socially-aware' digital assistants embodying everyday mobile technology - and the undeniable logic that utilising voice-activated controls and interfaces in cars reduces the visual and manual distraction of interacting with in-vehicle devices - it appears inevitable that next generation vehicles will be embodied by digital assistants and utilise spoken language as a method of interaction. From a design perspective, defining the language and interaction style that a digital driving assistant should adopt is contingent on the role that they play within the social fabric and context in which they are situated. We therefore conducted a qualitative, Wizard-of-Oz study to explore how drivers might interact linguistically with a natural language digital driving assistant. Twenty-five participants drove for 10 min in a medium-fidelity driving simulator while interacting with a state-of-the-art, high-functioning, conversational digital driving assistant. All exchanges were transcribed and analysed using recognised linguistic techniques, such as discourse and conversation analysis, normally reserved for interpersonal investigation. Language usage patterns demonstrate that interactions with the digital assistant were fundamentally social in nature, with participants affording the assistant equal social status and high-level cognitive processing capability. For example, participants were polite, actively controlled turn-taking during the conversation, and used back-channelling, fillers and hesitation, as they might in human communication. Furthermore, participants expected the digital assistant to understand and process complex requests mitigated with hedging words and expressions, and peppered with vague language and deictic references requiring shared contextual information and mutual understanding. Findings are presented in six themes which emerged during the analysis - formulating responses; turn-taking; back

  2. Storytelling, behavior planning and language evolution in context.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Glen eMcbride

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available An attempt is made to specify the structure of the hominin bands that began steps to language. 8 Storytelling could evolve without need for language yet be strongly subject to natural selection 9 and could provide a major feedback process in evolving language. A storytelling model is 10 examined, including its effects on the evolution of consciousness and the possible timing of 11 language evolution. Behavior planning is presented as a model of language evolution from 12 storytelling. The behavior programming mechanism in both directions provide a model of 13 creating and understanding behavior and language. Culture began with societies, then family 14 evolution, family life in troops, but storytelling created a culture of experiences, a final step in 15 the long process of achieving experienced adults by natural selection. Most language evolution 16 occurred in conversations where evolving non-verbal feedback ensured mutual agreements on 17 understanding. Natural language evolved in conversations with feedback providing 18 understanding of changes.

  3. Early human communication helps in understanding language evolution.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lenti Boero, Daniela

    2014-12-01

    Building a theory on extant species, as Ackermann et al. do, is a useful contribution to the field of language evolution. Here, I add another living model that might be of interest: human language ontogeny in the first year of life. A better knowledge of this phase might help in understanding two more topics among the "several building blocks of a comprehensive theory of the evolution of spoken language" indicated in their conclusion by Ackermann et al., that is, the foundation of the co-evolution of linguistic motor skills with the auditory skills underlying speech perception, and the possible phylogenetic interactions of protospeech production with referential capabilities.

  4. Statistical learning in a natural language by 8-month-old infants.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pelucchi, Bruna; Hay, Jessica F; Saffran, Jenny R

    2009-01-01

    Numerous studies over the past decade support the claim that infants are equipped with powerful statistical language learning mechanisms. The primary evidence for statistical language learning in word segmentation comes from studies using artificial languages, continuous streams of synthesized syllables that are highly simplified relative to real speech. To what extent can these conclusions be scaled up to natural language learning? In the current experiments, English-learning 8-month-old infants' ability to track transitional probabilities in fluent infant-directed Italian speech was tested (N = 72). The results suggest that infants are sensitive to transitional probability cues in unfamiliar natural language stimuli, and support the claim that statistical learning is sufficiently robust to support aspects of real-world language acquisition.

  5. Natural language processing tools for computer assisted language learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vandeventer Faltin, Anne

    2003-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper illustrates the usefulness of natural language processing (NLP tools for computer assisted language learning (CALL through the presentation of three NLP tools integrated within a CALL software for French. These tools are (i a sentence structure viewer; (ii an error diagnosis system; and (iii a conjugation tool. The sentence structure viewer helps language learners grasp the structure of a sentence, by providing lexical and grammatical information. This information is derived from a deep syntactic analysis. Two different outputs are presented. The error diagnosis system is composed of a spell checker, a grammar checker, and a coherence checker. The spell checker makes use of alpha-codes, phonological reinterpretation, and some ad hoc rules to provide correction proposals. The grammar checker employs constraint relaxation and phonological reinterpretation as diagnosis techniques. The coherence checker compares the underlying "semantic" structures of a stored answer and of the learners' input to detect semantic discrepancies. The conjugation tool is a resource with enhanced capabilities when put on an electronic format, enabling searches from inflected and ambiguous verb forms.

  6. A semantic-based approach for querying linked data using natural language

    KAUST Repository

    Paredes-Valverde, Mario André s; Valencia-Garcí a, Rafael; Rodriguez-Garcia, Miguel Angel; Colomo-Palacios, Ricardo; Alor-Herná ndez, Giner

    2016-01-01

    The semantic Web aims to provide to Web information with a well-defined meaning and make it understandable not only by humans but also by computers, thus allowing the automation, integration and reuse of high-quality information across different applications. However, current information retrieval mechanisms for semantic knowledge bases are intended to be only used by expert users. In this work, we propose a natural language interface that allows non-expert users the access to this kind of information through formulating queries in natural language. The present approach uses a domain-independent ontology model to represent the question's structure and context. Also, this model allows determination of the answer type expected by the user based on a proposed question classification. To prove the effectiveness of our approach, we have conducted an evaluation in the music domain using LinkedBrainz, an effort to provide the MusicBrainz information as structured data on the Web by means of Semantic Web technologies. Our proposal obtained encouraging results based on the F-measure metric, ranging from 0.74 to 0.82 for a corpus of questions generated by a group of real-world end users. © The Author(s) 2015.

  7. A semantic-based approach for querying linked data using natural language

    KAUST Repository

    Paredes-Valverde, Mario Andrés

    2016-01-11

    The semantic Web aims to provide to Web information with a well-defined meaning and make it understandable not only by humans but also by computers, thus allowing the automation, integration and reuse of high-quality information across different applications. However, current information retrieval mechanisms for semantic knowledge bases are intended to be only used by expert users. In this work, we propose a natural language interface that allows non-expert users the access to this kind of information through formulating queries in natural language. The present approach uses a domain-independent ontology model to represent the question\\'s structure and context. Also, this model allows determination of the answer type expected by the user based on a proposed question classification. To prove the effectiveness of our approach, we have conducted an evaluation in the music domain using LinkedBrainz, an effort to provide the MusicBrainz information as structured data on the Web by means of Semantic Web technologies. Our proposal obtained encouraging results based on the F-measure metric, ranging from 0.74 to 0.82 for a corpus of questions generated by a group of real-world end users. © The Author(s) 2015.

  8. The Islamic State Battle Plan: Press Release Natural Language Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-06-01

    Institute for the Study of Violent Groups NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NLP Natural Language Processing PCorpus Permanent Corpus PDF...approaches, we apply Natural Language Processing ( NLP ) tools to a unique database of text documents collected by Whiteside (2014). His collection...from Arabic to English. Compared to other terrorism databases, Whiteside’s collection methodology limits the scope of the database and avoids coding

  9. Areas Recruited during Action Understanding Are Not Modulated by Auditory or Sign Language Experience.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fang, Yuxing; Chen, Quanjing; Lingnau, Angelika; Han, Zaizhu; Bi, Yanchao

    2016-01-01

    The observation of other people's actions recruits a network of areas including the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the inferior parietal lobule (IPL), and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG). These regions have been shown to be activated through both visual and auditory inputs. Intriguingly, previous studies found no engagement of IFG and IPL for deaf participants during non-linguistic action observation, leading to the proposal that auditory experience or sign language usage might shape the functionality of these areas. To understand which variables induce plastic changes in areas recruited during the processing of other people's actions, we examined the effects of tasks (action understanding and passive viewing) and effectors (arm actions vs. leg actions), as well as sign language experience in a group of 12 congenitally deaf signers and 13 hearing participants. In Experiment 1, we found a stronger activation during an action recognition task in comparison to a low-level visual control task in IFG, IPL and pMTG in both deaf signers and hearing individuals, but no effect of auditory or sign language experience. In Experiment 2, we replicated the results of the first experiment using a passive viewing task. Together, our results provide robust evidence demonstrating that the response obtained in IFG, IPL, and pMTG during action recognition and passive viewing is not affected by auditory or sign language experience, adding further support for the supra-modal nature of these regions.

  10. The nature of pragmatic language impairment

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ketelaars, M.P.

    2010-01-01

    The present dissertation reports on research into the nature of Pragmatic Language Impairment (PLI) in children aged 4 to 7 in the Netherlands. First, the possibility of screening for PLI in the general population is examined. Results show that this is indeed possible as well as feasible. Second, an

  11. Language matters: thirteen-month-olds understand that the language a speaker uses constrains conventionality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scott, Jessica C; Henderson, Annette M E

    2013-11-01

    Object labels are valuable communicative tools because their meanings are shared among the members of a particular linguistic community. The current research was conducted to investigate whether 13-month-old infants appreciate that object labels should not be generalized across individuals who have been shown to speak different languages. Using a visual habituation paradigm, Experiment 1 tested whether infants would generalize a new object label that was taught to them by a speaker of a foreign language to a speaker from the infant's own linguistic group. The results suggest that infants do not expect 2 individuals who have been shown to speak different languages to use the same label to refer to the same object. The results of Experiment 2 reveal that infants do not generalize a new object label that was taught to them by a speaker of their native language to an individual who had been shown to speak a foreign language. These findings offer the first evidence that by the end of the 1st year of life, infants are sensitive to the fact that the conventional nature of language is constrained by the language that a person has been shown to speak.

  12. Template-based generation of natural language expressions with Controlled M-Grammar

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Appelo, Lisette; Leermakers, M.C.J.; Rous, J.H.G.

    1993-01-01

    A method is described for the generation of related natural-language expressions. The method is based on a formal grammar of the natural language in question, specified in the Controlled M-Grammar (CMG) formalism. In the CMG framework the generation of an utterance is controlled by a derivation

  13. Deciphering the language of nature: cryptography, secrecy, and alterity in Francis Bacon.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clody, Michael C

    2011-01-01

    The essay argues that Francis Bacon's considerations of parables and cryptography reflect larger interpretative concerns of his natural philosophic project. Bacon describes nature as having a language distinct from those of God and man, and, in so doing, establishes a central problem of his natural philosophy—namely, how can the language of nature be accessed through scientific representation? Ultimately, Bacon's solution relies on a theory of differential and duplicitous signs that conceal within them the hidden voice of nature, which is best recognized in the natural forms of efficient causality. The "alphabet of nature"—those tables of natural occurrences—consequently plays a central role in his program, as it renders nature's language susceptible to a process and decryption that mirrors the model of the bilateral cipher. It is argued that while the writing of Bacon's natural philosophy strives for literality, its investigative process preserves a space for alterity within scientific representation, that is made accessible to those with the interpretative key.

  14. Figurative Idiomatic Language: Strategies and Difficulties of Understanding English Idioms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nisreen Al-Khawaldeh

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Learning idioms which is considered a very essential part of learning and using language (Sridhar and Karunakaran, 2013 has recently attracted a great attention of English learning researchers particularly the assessment of how well Asian language learners acquire and use idioms in communication (Tran, 2013. Understanding and using them fluently could be viewed as a sign towards language proficiency as they could be an effective way to give students better conditions to enhance their communication skills in the daily context (Beloussova, 2015. Investigating how idiomatic expressions are dealt with and processed in a second language or foreign language is an issue worth examining further since it may give language teachers a better idea of some of the strategies language learners use in order to interpret figurative language. Despite their importance, learning and using English idioms by Arab EFL learners have not been investigated extensively, and no research has been conducted on Jordanian students’ idiomatic competency. Thus, the researcher decided to work on these un-tackled issues in the Jordanian context. Most idioms-based investigations are the difficulties Jordanians learners of English face when translating them into Arabic (Hussein, Khanji, and Makhzoumi, 2000; Bataineh and Bataineh, 2002; Alrishan and Smadi, 2015. The analysis of the test showed students’ very poor idiomatic competence; particularly a very limited awareness of the most frequently used idioms despite their overwhelming desire to learn them. Data analysis of the questionnaire revealed the strategies students use and the problems they face in understanding and learning idioms.

  15. Suicide Note Classification Using Natural Language Processing: A Content Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pestian, John; Nasrallah, Henry; Matykiewicz, Pawel; Bennett, Aurora; Leenaars, Antoon

    2010-08-04

    Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 25-34 year olds and the third leading cause of death among 15-25 year olds in the United States. In the Emergency Department, where suicidal patients often present, estimating the risk of repeated attempts is generally left to clinical judgment. This paper presents our second attempt to determine the role of computational algorithms in understanding a suicidal patient's thoughts, as represented by suicide notes. We focus on developing methods of natural language processing that distinguish between genuine and elicited suicide notes. We hypothesize that machine learning algorithms can categorize suicide notes as well as mental health professionals and psychiatric physician trainees do. The data used are comprised of suicide notes from 33 suicide completers and matched to 33 elicited notes from healthy control group members. Eleven mental health professionals and 31 psychiatric trainees were asked to decide if a note was genuine or elicited. Their decisions were compared to nine different machine-learning algorithms. The results indicate that trainees accurately classified notes 49% of the time, mental health professionals accurately classified notes 63% of the time, and the best machine learning algorithm accurately classified the notes 78% of the time. This is an important step in developing an evidence-based predictor of repeated suicide attempts because it shows that natural language processing can aid in distinguishing between classes of suicidal notes.

  16. Modeling Coevolution between Language and Memory Capacity during Language Origin

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gong, Tao; Shuai, Lan

    2015-01-01

    Memory is essential to many cognitive tasks including language. Apart from empirical studies of memory effects on language acquisition and use, there lack sufficient evolutionary explorations on whether a high level of memory capacity is prerequisite for language and whether language origin could influence memory capacity. In line with evolutionary theories that natural selection refined language-related cognitive abilities, we advocated a coevolution scenario between language and memory capacity, which incorporated the genetic transmission of individual memory capacity, cultural transmission of idiolects, and natural and cultural selections on individual reproduction and language teaching. To illustrate the coevolution dynamics, we adopted a multi-agent computational model simulating the emergence of lexical items and simple syntax through iterated communications. Simulations showed that: along with the origin of a communal language, an initially-low memory capacity for acquired linguistic knowledge was boosted; and such coherent increase in linguistic understandability and memory capacities reflected a language-memory coevolution; and such coevolution stopped till memory capacities became sufficient for language communications. Statistical analyses revealed that the coevolution was realized mainly by natural selection based on individual communicative success in cultural transmissions. This work elaborated the biology-culture parallelism of language evolution, demonstrated the driving force of culturally-constituted factors for natural selection of individual cognitive abilities, and suggested that the degree difference in language-related cognitive abilities between humans and nonhuman animals could result from a coevolution with language. PMID:26544876

  17. Representing Information in Patient Reports Using Natural Language Processing and the Extensible Markup Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Friedman, Carol; Hripcsak, George; Shagina, Lyuda; Liu, Hongfang

    1999-01-01

    Objective: To design a document model that provides reliable and efficient access to clinical information in patient reports for a broad range of clinical applications, and to implement an automated method using natural language processing that maps textual reports to a form consistent with the model. Methods: A document model that encodes structured clinical information in patient reports while retaining the original contents was designed using the extensible markup language (XML), and a document type definition (DTD) was created. An existing natural language processor (NLP) was modified to generate output consistent with the model. Two hundred reports were processed using the modified NLP system, and the XML output that was generated was validated using an XML validating parser. Results: The modified NLP system successfully processed all 200 reports. The output of one report was invalid, and 199 reports were valid XML forms consistent with the DTD. Conclusions: Natural language processing can be used to automatically create an enriched document that contains a structured component whose elements are linked to portions of the original textual report. This integrated document model provides a representation where documents containing specific information can be accurately and efficiently retrieved by querying the structured components. If manual review of the documents is desired, the salient information in the original reports can also be identified and highlighted. Using an XML model of tagging provides an additional benefit in that software tools that manipulate XML documents are readily available. PMID:9925230

  18. Mother and Infant Talk about Mental States Relates to Desire Language and Emotion Understanding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taumoepeau, Mele; Ruffman, Ted

    2006-01-01

    This study assessed the relation between mother mental state language and child desire language and emotion understanding in 15--24-month-olds. At both times point, mothers described pictures to their infants and mother talk was coded for mental and nonmental state language. Children were administered 2 emotion understanding tasks and their mental…

  19. Towards automatic understanding of technical texts

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hajicova, E; Sgall, P

    1981-01-01

    The authors briefly mention one experiment of natural language interface with databases of a common type. The main part of this paper is devoted to the prepared system of natural language understanding with an automatic construction of the collection of data. 12 references.

  20. Knowledge-Based Natural Language Understanding: A AAAI-87 Survey Talk

    Science.gov (United States)

    1991-01-01

    easily transformed into a regrettable mistake (don’t cry over spilt milk ) if G is not characterized as a fleeting goal and a recovery plan therefore...technical literature is characterized by very dry and literal language. If there is one place where metaphors might not intrude, it must be when people...from the point of view of both evidential support and falsification ? I ask it because you didn’t say anything about it. A: Well, I think there’s a lot

  1. Dependency distance: A new perspective on syntactic patterns in natural languages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Haitao; Xu, Chunshan; Liang, Junying

    2017-07-01

    Dependency distance, measured by the linear distance between two syntactically related words in a sentence, is generally held as an important index of memory burden and an indicator of syntactic difficulty. Since this constraint of memory is common for all human beings, there may well be a universal preference for dependency distance minimization (DDM) for the sake of reducing memory burden. This human-driven language universal is supported by big data analyses of various corpora that consistently report shorter overall dependency distance in natural languages than in artificial random languages and long-tailed distributions featuring a majority of short dependencies and a minority of long ones. Human languages, as complex systems, seem to have evolved to come up with diverse syntactic patterns under the universal pressure for dependency distance minimization. However, there always exist a small number of long-distance dependencies in natural languages, which may reflect some other biological or functional constraints. Language system may adapt itself to these sporadic long-distance dependencies. It is these universal constraints that have shaped such a rich diversity of syntactic patterns in human languages.

  2. A natural language interface plug-in for cooperative query answering in biological databases.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jamil, Hasan M

    2012-06-11

    One of the many unique features of biological databases is that the mere existence of a ground data item is not always a precondition for a query response. It may be argued that from a biologist's standpoint, queries are not always best posed using a structured language. By this we mean that approximate and flexible responses to natural language like queries are well suited for this domain. This is partly due to biologists' tendency to seek simpler interfaces and partly due to the fact that questions in biology involve high level concepts that are open to interpretations computed using sophisticated tools. In such highly interpretive environments, rigidly structured databases do not always perform well. In this paper, our goal is to propose a semantic correspondence plug-in to aid natural language query processing over arbitrary biological database schema with an aim to providing cooperative responses to queries tailored to users' interpretations. Natural language interfaces for databases are generally effective when they are tuned to the underlying database schema and its semantics. Therefore, changes in database schema become impossible to support, or a substantial reorganization cost must be absorbed to reflect any change. We leverage developments in natural language parsing, rule languages and ontologies, and data integration technologies to assemble a prototype query processor that is able to transform a natural language query into a semantically equivalent structured query over the database. We allow knowledge rules and their frequent modifications as part of the underlying database schema. The approach we adopt in our plug-in overcomes some of the serious limitations of many contemporary natural language interfaces, including support for schema modifications and independence from underlying database schema. The plug-in introduced in this paper is generic and facilitates connecting user selected natural language interfaces to arbitrary databases using a

  3. Automatic Item Generation via Frame Semantics: Natural Language Generation of Math Word Problems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deane, Paul; Sheehan, Kathleen

    This paper is an exploration of the conceptual issues that have arisen in the course of building a natural language generation (NLG) system for automatic test item generation. While natural language processing techniques are applicable to general verbal items, mathematics word problems are particularly tractable targets for natural language…

  4. Belief Reasoning and Emotion Understanding in Balanced Bilingual and Language-Dominant Mexican American Young Children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weimer, Amy A; Gasquoine, Philip G

    2016-01-01

    Belief reasoning and emotion understanding were measured among 102 Mexican American bilingual children ranging from 4 to 7 years old. All children were tested in English and Spanish after ensuring minimum comprehension in each language. Belief reasoning was assessed using 2 false and 1 true belief tasks. Emotion understanding was measured using subtests from the Test for Emotion Comprehension. The influence of family background variables of yearly income, parental education level, and number of siblings on combined Spanish and English vocabulary, belief reasoning, and emotion understanding was assessed by regression analyses. Age and emotion understanding predicted belief reasoning. Vocabulary and belief reasoning predicted emotion understanding. When the sample was divided into language-dominant and balanced bilingual groups on the basis of language proficiency difference scores, there were no significant differences on belief reasoning or emotion understanding. Language groups were demographically similar with regard to child age, parental educational level, and family income. Results suggest Mexican American language-dominant and balanced bilinguals develop belief reasoning and emotion understanding similarly.

  5. An intelligent tutoring system that generates a natural language dialogue using dynamic multi-level planning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woo, Chong Woo; Evens, Martha W; Freedman, Reva; Glass, Michael; Shim, Leem Seop; Zhang, Yuemei; Zhou, Yujian; Michael, Joel

    2006-09-01

    The objective of this research was to build an intelligent tutoring system capable of carrying on a natural language dialogue with a student who is solving a problem in physiology. Previous experiments have shown that students need practice in qualitative causal reasoning to internalize new knowledge and to apply it effectively and that they learn by putting their ideas into words. Analysis of a corpus of 75 hour-long tutoring sessions carried on in keyboard-to-keyboard style by two professors of physiology at Rush Medical College tutoring first-year medical students provided the rules used in tutoring strategies and tactics, parsing, and text generation. The system presents the student with a perturbation to the blood pressure, asks for qualitative predictions of the changes produced in seven important cardiovascular variables, and then launches a dialogue to correct any errors and to probe for possible misconceptions. The natural language understanding component uses a cascade of finite-state machines. The generation is based on lexical functional grammar. Results of experiments with pretests and posttests have shown that using the system for an hour produces significant learning gains and also that even this brief use improves the student's ability to solve problems more then reading textual material on the topic. Student surveys tell us that students like the system and feel that they learn from it. The system is now in regular use in the first-year physiology course at Rush Medical College. We conclude that the CIRCSIM-Tutor system demonstrates that intelligent tutoring systems can implement effective natural language dialogue with current language technology.

  6. Research in Knowledge Representation for Natural Language Understanding

    Science.gov (United States)

    1983-10-01

    how a Concept specializes its subsumer. |C|ANIMAL. |C|PLANT. |C(PERSON, and |C| UNICORN are natural kinds, and so will need a PrimitiveClass. As...build this proof, we must build a proof of p x (p X n) steps. The size of the proofs grows exponentially with the depth of nesting This :s clearly

  7. Natural language generation in health care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cawsey, A J; Webber, B L; Jones, R B

    1997-01-01

    Good communication is vital in health care, both among health care professionals, and between health care professionals and their patients. And well-written documents, describing and/or explaining the information in structured databases may be easier to comprehend, more edifying, and even more convincing than the structured data, even when presented in tabular or graphic form. Documents may be automatically generated from structured data, using techniques from the field of natural language generation. These techniques are concerned with how the content, organization and language used in a document can be dynamically selected, depending on the audience and context. They have been used to generate health education materials, explanations and critiques in decision support systems, and medical reports and progress notes.

  8. Intercomprehension - When Everyone Speaks Their Own Language and Understands Others

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nataša Pirih Svetina

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Intercomprehension is a communication practice where two persons speak their mother tongue and are able to understand each other without being taught the language of their adressee. It is a usual practice between languages that belong to the same linguistic family, for example Slavic, Romance or Germanic languages. In the article, the authors present the notion of intercomprehension as an alternative to communication in English as a lingua franca. That kind of communication was known among Scandinavians, whereas the first teaching method was developped for Romance languages (EuRomCom at the beginning of the 21st century. Today, more methods exist including German and Slavic languages. In the article, the authors are enumerating some of them and also give a short outline of existing practices.

  9. Natural Language Generation for dialogue: system survey

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Theune, Mariet

    Many natural language dialogue systems make use of `canned text' for output generation. This approach may be su±cient for dialogues in restricted domains where system utterances are short and simple and use fixed expressions (e.g., slot filling dialogues in the ticket reservation or travel

  10. Natural language processing and the Now-or-Never bottleneck.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gómez-Rodríguez, Carlos

    2016-01-01

    Researchers, motivated by the need to improve the efficiency of natural language processing tools to handle web-scale data, have recently arrived at models that remarkably match the expected features of human language processing under the Now-or-Never bottleneck framework. This provides additional support for said framework and highlights the research potential in the interaction between applied computational linguistics and cognitive science.

  11. Suicide Note Classification Using Natural Language Processing: A Content Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    John Pestian

    2010-08-01

    Full Text Available Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 25–34 year olds and the third leading cause of death among 15–25 year olds in the United States. In the Emergency Department, where suicidal patients often present, estimating the risk of repeated attempts is generally left to clinical judgment. This paper presents our second attempt to determine the role of computational algorithms in understanding a suicidal patient’s thoughts, as represented by suicide notes. We focus on developing methods of natural language processing that distinguish between genuine and elicited suicide notes. We hypothesize that machine learning algorithms can categorize suicide notes as well as mental health professionals and psychiatric physician trainees do. The data used are comprised of suicide notes from 33 suicide completers and matched to 33 elicited notes from healthy control group members. Eleven mental health professionals and 31 psychiatric trainees were asked to decide if a note was genuine or elicited. Their decisions were compared to nine different machine-learning algorithms. The results indicate that trainees accurately classified notes 49% of the time, mental health professionals accurately classified notes 63% of the time, and the best machine learning algorithm accurately classified the notes 78% of the time. This is an important step in developing an evidence-based predictor of repeated suicide attempts because it shows that natural language processing can aid in distinguishing between classes of suicidal notes.

  12. Dependency distance: A new perspective on syntactic patterns in natural languages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Haitao; Xu, Chunshan; Liang, Junying

    2017-07-01

    Dependency distance, measured by the linear distance between two syntactically related words in a sentence, is generally held as an important index of memory burden and an indicator of syntactic difficulty. Since this constraint of memory is common for all human beings, there may well be a universal preference for dependency distance minimization (DDM) for the sake of reducing memory burden. This human-driven language universal is supported by big data analyses of various corpora that consistently report shorter overall dependency distance in natural languages than in artificial random languages and long-tailed distributions featuring a majority of short dependencies and a minority of long ones. Human languages, as complex systems, seem to have evolved to come up with diverse syntactic patterns under the universal pressure for dependency distance minimization. However, there always exist a small number of long-distance dependencies in natural languages, which may reflect some other biological or functional constraints. Language system may adapt itself to these sporadic long-distance dependencies. It is these universal constraints that have shaped such a rich diversity of syntactic patterns in human languages. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  13. Natural Language Navigation Support in Virtual Reality

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Luin, J.; Nijholt, Antinus; op den Akker, Hendrikus J.A.; Giagourta, V.; Strintzis, M.G.

    2001-01-01

    We describe our work on designing a natural language accessible navigation agent for a virtual reality (VR) environment. The agent is part of an agent framework, which means that it can communicate with other agents. Its navigation task consists of guiding the visitors in the environment and to

  14. Natural-language processing applied to an ITS interface

    OpenAIRE

    Antonio Gisolfi; Enrico Fischetti

    1994-01-01

    The aim of this paper is to show that with a subset of a natural language, simple systems running on PCs can be developed that can nevertheless be an effective tool for interfacing purposes in the building of an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). After presenting the special characteristics of the Smalltalk/V language, which provides an appropriate environment for the development of an interface, the overall architecture of the interface module is discussed. We then show how sentences are par...

  15. Selecting the Best Mobile Information Service with Natural Language User Input

    Science.gov (United States)

    Feng, Qiangze; Qi, Hongwei; Fukushima, Toshikazu

    Information services accessed via mobile phones provide information directly relevant to subscribers’ daily lives and are an area of dynamic market growth worldwide. Although many information services are currently offered by mobile operators, many of the existing solutions require a unique gateway for each service, and it is inconvenient for users to have to remember a large number of such gateways. Furthermore, the Short Message Service (SMS) is very popular in China and Chinese users would prefer to access these services in natural language via SMS. This chapter describes a Natural Language Based Service Selection System (NL3S) for use with a large number of mobile information services. The system can accept user queries in natural language and navigate it to the required service. Since it is difficult for existing methods to achieve high accuracy and high coverage and anticipate which other services a user might want to query, the NL3S is developed based on a Multi-service Ontology (MO) and Multi-service Query Language (MQL). The MO and MQL provide semantic and linguistic knowledge, respectively, to facilitate service selection for a user query and to provide adaptive service recommendations. Experiments show that the NL3S can achieve 75-95% accuracies and 85-95% satisfactions for processing various styles of natural language queries. A trial involving navigation of 30 different mobile services shows that the NL3S can provide a viable commercial solution for mobile operators.

  16. Learning to rank for information retrieval and natural language processing

    CERN Document Server

    Li, Hang

    2014-01-01

    Learning to rank refers to machine learning techniques for training a model in a ranking task. Learning to rank is useful for many applications in information retrieval, natural language processing, and data mining. Intensive studies have been conducted on its problems recently, and significant progress has been made. This lecture gives an introduction to the area including the fundamental problems, major approaches, theories, applications, and future work.The author begins by showing that various ranking problems in information retrieval and natural language processing can be formalized as tw

  17. UNLization of Punjabi text for natural language processing ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Vaibhav Agarwal

    2018-05-26

    May 26, 2018 ... resent, and store information in a natural-language-inde- pendent format [8]. UNL is .... account semantic information available in words of the problem ...... Sentiment Analysis (SA) plays a vital role in decision making process.

  18. Three-dimensional grammar in the brain: Dissociating the neural correlates of natural sign language and manually coded spoken language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jednoróg, Katarzyna; Bola, Łukasz; Mostowski, Piotr; Szwed, Marcin; Boguszewski, Paweł M; Marchewka, Artur; Rutkowski, Paweł

    2015-05-01

    In several countries natural sign languages were considered inadequate for education. Instead, new sign-supported systems were created, based on the belief that spoken/written language is grammatically superior. One such system called SJM (system językowo-migowy) preserves the grammatical and lexical structure of spoken Polish and since 1960s has been extensively employed in schools and on TV. Nevertheless, the Deaf community avoids using SJM for everyday communication, its preferred language being PJM (polski język migowy), a natural sign language, structurally and grammatically independent of spoken Polish and featuring classifier constructions (CCs). Here, for the first time, we compare, with fMRI method, the neural bases of natural vs. devised communication systems. Deaf signers were presented with three types of signed sentences (SJM and PJM with/without CCs). Consistent with previous findings, PJM with CCs compared to either SJM or PJM without CCs recruited the parietal lobes. The reverse comparison revealed activation in the anterior temporal lobes, suggesting increased semantic combinatory processes in lexical sign comprehension. Finally, PJM compared with SJM engaged left posterior superior temporal gyrus and anterior temporal lobe, areas crucial for sentence-level speech comprehension. We suggest that activity in these two areas reflects greater processing efficiency for naturally evolved sign language. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. A real-time spoken-language system for interactive problem-solving, combining linguistic and statistical technology for improved spoken language understanding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moore, Robert C.; Cohen, Michael H.

    1993-09-01

    Under this effort, SRI has developed spoken-language technology for interactive problem solving, featuring real-time performance for up to several thousand word vocabularies, high semantic accuracy, habitability within the domain, and robustness to many sources of variability. Although the technology is suitable for many applications, efforts to date have focused on developing an Air Travel Information System (ATIS) prototype application. SRI's ATIS system has been evaluated in four ARPA benchmark evaluations, and has consistently been at or near the top in performance. These achievements are the result of SRI's technical progress in speech recognition, natural-language processing, and speech and natural-language integration.

  20. System reliability analysis with natural language and expert's subjectivity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Onisawa, T.

    1996-01-01

    This paper introduces natural language expressions and expert's subjectivity to system reliability analysis. To this end, this paper defines a subjective measure of reliability and presents the method of the system reliability analysis using the measure. The subjective measure of reliability corresponds to natural language expressions of reliability estimation, which is represented by a fuzzy set defined on [0,1]. The presented method deals with the dependence among subsystems and employs parametrized operations of subjective measures of reliability which can reflect expert 's subjectivity towards the analyzed system. The analysis results are also expressed by linguistic terms. Finally this paper gives an example of the system reliability analysis by the presented method

  1. Research in Knowledge Representation for Natural Language Understanding

    Science.gov (United States)

    1981-11-01

    interpretation would not be too bad if one were to believe that a frame "is intended to represent a ’ stereotypical situation’" ( [24], p. 48). We...natural kind-like concepts - some form of definitional structuring is necessary. The internal structure of non atomic concepts (e.g., proximate genus ...types of beer, bottles of wine, etc.; <x> need not be any sort of Onatural genus .’ For example, in Dll the definite pronoun Othem" is not meant to I

  2. The Meta Language of Accounting: What's the Level of Students' Understanding?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elson, Raymond J.; O'Callaghan, Susanne; Walker, John P.; Williams, Robert

    2013-01-01

    Students rely on rote knowledge to learn accounting concepts. However, this approach does not allow them to understanding the meta language of accounting. Meta language is simply the concepts and terms that are used in a profession and are easily understood by its users. Terms such as equity, assets, and balance sheet are part of the accounting…

  3. Pattern Recognition and Natural Language Processing: State of the Art

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mirjana Kocaleva

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Development of information technologies is growing steadily. With the latest software technologies development and application of the methods of artificial intelligence and machine learning intelligence embededs in computers, the expectations are that in near future computers will be able to solve problems themselves like people do. Artificial intelligence emulates human behavior on computers. Rather than executing instructions one by one, as theyare programmed, machine learning employs prior experience/data that is used in the process of system’s training. In this state of the art paper, common methods in AI, such as machine learning, pattern recognition and the natural language processing (NLP are discussed. Also are given standard architecture of NLP processing system and the level thatisneeded for understanding NLP. Lastly the statistical NLP processing and multi-word expressions are described.

  4. Measuring and Comparing Academic Language Development and Conceptual Understanding via Science Notebooks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huerta, Margarita; Tong, Fuhui; Irby, Beverly J.; Lara-Alecio, Rafael

    2016-01-01

    The authors of this quantitative study measured and compared the academic language development and conceptual understanding of fifth-grade economically disadvantaged English language learners (ELL), former ELLs, and native English-speaking (ES) students as reflected in their science notebook scores. Using an instrument they developed, the authors…

  5. Integrating deep and shallow natural language processing components : representations and hybrid architectures

    OpenAIRE

    Schäfer, Ulrich

    2006-01-01

    We describe basic concepts and software architectures for the integration of shallow and deep (linguistics-based, semantics-oriented) natural language processing (NLP) components. The main goal of this novel, hybrid integration paradigm is improving robustness of deep processing. After an introduction to constraint-based natural language parsing, we give an overview of typical shallow processing tasks. We introduce XML standoff markup as an additional abstraction layer that eases integration ...

  6. Spoken Language Understanding Systems for Extracting Semantic Information from Speech

    CERN Document Server

    Tur, Gokhan

    2011-01-01

    Spoken language understanding (SLU) is an emerging field in between speech and language processing, investigating human/ machine and human/ human communication by leveraging technologies from signal processing, pattern recognition, machine learning and artificial intelligence. SLU systems are designed to extract the meaning from speech utterances and its applications are vast, from voice search in mobile devices to meeting summarization, attracting interest from both commercial and academic sectors. Both human/machine and human/human communications can benefit from the application of SLU, usin

  7. Automatic generation of natural language nursing shift summaries in neonatal intensive care: BT-Nurse.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hunter, James; Freer, Yvonne; Gatt, Albert; Reiter, Ehud; Sripada, Somayajulu; Sykes, Cindy

    2012-11-01

    Our objective was to determine whether and how a computer system could automatically generate helpful natural language nursing shift summaries solely from an electronic patient record system, in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). A system was developed which automatically generates partial NICU shift summaries (for the respiratory and cardiovascular systems), using data-to-text technology. It was evaluated for 2 months in the NICU at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, under supervision. In an on-ward evaluation, a substantial majority of the summaries was found by outgoing and incoming nurses to be understandable (90%), and a majority was found to be accurate (70%), and helpful (59%). The evaluation also served to identify some outstanding issues, especially with regard to extra content the nurses wanted to see in the computer-generated summaries. It is technically possible automatically to generate limited natural language NICU shift summaries from an electronic patient record. However, it proved difficult to handle electronic data that was intended primarily for display to the medical staff, and considerable engineering effort would be required to create a deployable system from our proof-of-concept software. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  8. Language Networks as Models of Cognition: Understanding Cognition through Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beckage, Nicole M.; Colunga, Eliana

    Language is inherently cognitive and distinctly human. Separating the object of language from the human mind that processes and creates language fails to capture the full language system. Linguistics traditionally has focused on the study of language as a static representation, removed from the human mind. Network analysis has traditionally been focused on the properties and structure that emerge from network representations. Both disciplines could gain from looking at language as a cognitive process. In contrast, psycholinguistic research has focused on the process of language without committing to a representation. However, by considering language networks as approximations of the cognitive system we can take the strength of each of these approaches to study human performance and cognition as related to language. This paper reviews research showcasing the contributions of network science to the study of language. Specifically, we focus on the interplay of cognition and language as captured by a network representation. To this end, we review different types of language network representations before considering the influence of global level network features. We continue by considering human performance in relation to network structure and conclude with theoretical network models that offer potential and testable explanations of cognitive and linguistic phenomena.

  9. Socialization, Language, and Scenic Understanding

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Olesen, Henning Salling; Weber, Kirsten

    2012-01-01

    resumida brevemente, enfatizando el rol de los argumentos del investigador en descubrir el significado socialmente inconsciente en la interacción social. Finalmente, una mirada a los problemas epistemológicos contemporáneos. El enfoque de LORENZER para teorizar e investigar al sujeto como una entidad......The article is a guided tour to Alfred LORENZER's proposal for an "in-depth hermeneutic" cultural analysis methodology which was launched in an environment with an almost complete split between social sciences and psychology/psychoanalysis. It presents the background in his materialist...... socialization theory, which combines a social reinterpretation of the core insights in classical psychoanalysis—the unconscious, the drives—with a theory of language acquisition. His methodology is based on a transformation of the "scenic understanding" from a clinical to a text interpretation, which seeks...

  10. Inferring Speaker Affect in Spoken Natural Language Communication

    OpenAIRE

    Pon-Barry, Heather Roberta

    2012-01-01

    The field of spoken language processing is concerned with creating computer programs that can understand human speech and produce human-like speech. Regarding the problem of understanding human speech, there is currently growing interest in moving beyond speech recognition (the task of transcribing the words in an audio stream) and towards machine listening—interpreting the full spectrum of information in an audio stream. One part of machine listening, the problem that this thesis focuses on, ...

  11. Do Adolescents with Specific Language Impairment Understand Driving Terminology?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pandolfe, Jessica M.; Wittke, Kacie; Spaulding, Tammie J.

    2016-01-01

    Purpose: This study examined if adolescents with specific language impairment (SLI) understand driving vocabulary as well as their typically developing (TD) peers. Method: A total of 16 adolescents with SLI and 16 TD comparison adolescents completed a receptive vocabulary task focused on driving terminology derived from statewide driver's manuals.…

  12. Ontology Based Queries - Investigating a Natural Language Interface

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van der Sluis, Ielka; Hielkema, F.; Mellish, C.; Doherty, G.

    2010-01-01

    In this paper we look at what may be learned from a comparative study examining non-technical users with a background in social science browsing and querying metadata. Four query tasks were carried out with a natural language interface and with an interface that uses a web paradigm with hyperlinks.

  13. Neural Basis of Action Understanding: Evidence from Sign Language Aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rogalsky, Corianne; Raphel, Kristin; Tomkovicz, Vivian; O'Grady, Lucinda; Damasio, Hanna; Bellugi, Ursula; Hickok, Gregory

    2013-01-01

    The neural basis of action understanding is a hotly debated issue. The mirror neuron account holds that motor simulation in fronto-parietal circuits is critical to action understanding including speech comprehension, while others emphasize the ventral stream in the temporal lobe. Evidence from speech strongly supports the ventral stream account, but on the other hand, evidence from manual gesture comprehension (e.g., in limb apraxia) has led to contradictory findings. Here we present a lesion analysis of sign language comprehension. Sign language is an excellent model for studying mirror system function in that it bridges the gap between the visual-manual system in which mirror neurons are best characterized and language systems which have represented a theoretical target of mirror neuron research. Twenty-one life long deaf signers with focal cortical lesions performed two tasks: one involving the comprehension of individual signs and the other involving comprehension of signed sentences (commands). Participants' lesions, as indicated on MRI or CT scans, were mapped onto a template brain to explore the relationship between lesion location and sign comprehension measures. Single sign comprehension was not significantly affected by left hemisphere damage. Sentence sign comprehension impairments were associated with left temporal-parietal damage. We found that damage to mirror system related regions in the left frontal lobe were not associated with deficits on either of these comprehension tasks. We conclude that the mirror system is not critically involved in action understanding.

  14. Natural language retrieval in nuclear safety information system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Komata, Masaoki; Oosawa, Yasuo; Ujita, Hiroshi

    1983-01-01

    A natural language retrieval program NATLANG is developed to assist in the retrieval of information from event-and-cause descriptions in Licensee Event Reports (LER). The characteristics of NATLANG are (1) the use of base forms of words to retrieve related forms altered by the addition of prefixes or suffixes or changes in inflection, (2) direct access and short time retrieval with an alphabet pointer, (3) effective determination of the items and entries for a Hitachi event classification in a two step retrieval scheme, and (4) Japanese character output with the PL-1 language. NATLANG output reduces the effort needed to re-classify licensee events in the Hitachi event classification. (author)

  15. Policy-Based Management Natural Language Parser

    Science.gov (United States)

    James, Mark

    2009-01-01

    The Policy-Based Management Natural Language Parser (PBEM) is a rules-based approach to enterprise management that can be used to automate certain management tasks. This parser simplifies the management of a given endeavor by establishing policies to deal with situations that are likely to occur. Policies are operating rules that can be referred to as a means of maintaining order, security, consistency, or other ways of successfully furthering a goal or mission. PBEM provides a way of managing configuration of network elements, applications, and processes via a set of high-level rules or business policies rather than managing individual elements, thus switching the control to a higher level. This software allows unique management rules (or commands) to be specified and applied to a cross-section of the Global Information Grid (GIG). This software embodies a parser that is capable of recognizing and understanding conversational English. Because all possible dialect variants cannot be anticipated, a unique capability was developed that parses passed on conversation intent rather than the exact way the words are used. This software can increase productivity by enabling a user to converse with the system in conversational English to define network policies. PBEM can be used in both manned and unmanned science-gathering programs. Because policy statements can be domain-independent, this software can be applied equally to a wide variety of applications.

  16. Capturing and Modeling Domain Knowledge Using Natural Language Processing Techniques

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Auger, Alain

    2005-01-01

    .... Initiated in 2004 at Defense Research and Development Canada (DRDC), the SACOT knowledge engineering research project is currently investigating, developing and validating innovative natural language processing (NLP...

  17. Maternal Mental State Language and Preschool Children's Attachment Security: Relation to Children's Mental State Language and Expressions of Emotional Understanding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mcquaid, Nancy; Bigelow, Ann E.; McLaughlin, Jessica; MacLean, Kim

    2008-01-01

    Mothers' mental state language in conversation with their preschool children, and children's preschool attachment security were examined for their effects on children's mental state language and expressions of emotional understanding in their conversation. Children discussed an emotionally salient event with their mothers and then relayed the…

  18. On the relation between dependency distance, crossing dependencies, and parsing. Comment on "Dependency distance: a new perspective on syntactic patterns in natural languages" by Haitao Liu et al.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gómez-Rodríguez, Carlos

    2017-07-01

    Liu et al. [1] provide a comprehensive account of research on dependency distance in human languages. While the article is a very rich and useful report on this complex subject, here I will expand on a few specific issues where research in computational linguistics (specifically natural language processing) can inform DDM research, and vice versa. These aspects have not been explored much in [1] or elsewhere, probably due to the little overlap between both research communities, but they may provide interesting insights for improving our understanding of the evolution of human languages, the mechanisms by which the brain processes and understands language, and the construction of effective computer systems to achieve this goal.

  19. Never-Ending Learning for Deep Understanding of Natural Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-10-01

    fundamental to knowledge management problems. In [Wijaya13] presented a novel approach to this ontology alignment problem that employs a very large natural...to them. This report is the result of contracted fundamental research deemed exempt from public affairs security and policy review in accordance...S / ALEKSEY PANASYUK MICHAEL J. WESSING Work Unit Manager Deputy Chief, Information Intelligence Systems & Analysis Division Information

  20. Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Corballis, Michael C.

    2010-01-01

    The mirror system provided a natural platform for the subsequent evolution of language. In nonhuman primates, the system provides for the understanding of biological action, and possibly for imitation, both prerequisites for language. I argue that language evolved from manual gestures, initially as a system of pantomime, but with gestures…

  1. Understanding Language: A Primer for the Language Arts Teacher.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Malmstrom, Jean

    This volume aims to bridge the gap between language arts teaching and linguistic theory. Part one discusses selected aspects of linguistics that are relevant to language arts teaching: the acquisition and development of language during childhood; the English sound system and its relation to spellings and meanings; traditional, structural, and…

  2. The oscillopathic nature of language deficits in autism: from genes to language evolution

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonio eBenítez-Burraco

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Autism spectrum disorders (ASD are pervasive neurodevelopmental disorders involving a number of deficits to linguistic cognition. The gap between genetics and the pathophysiology of ASD remains open, in particular regarding its distinctive linguistic profile. The goal of this paper is to attempt to bridge this gap, focusing on how the autistic brain processes language, particularly through the perspective of brain rhythms. Due to the phenomenon of pleiotropy, which may take some decades to overcome, we believe that studies of brain rhythms, which are not faced with problems of this scale, may constitute a more tractable route to interpreting language deficits in ASD and eventually other neurocognitive disorders. Building on recent attempts to link neural oscillations to certain computational primitives of language, we show that interpreting language deficits in ASD as oscillopathic traits is a potentially fruitful way to construct successful endophenotypes of this condition. Additionally, we will show that candidate genes for ASD are overrepresented among the genes that played a role in the evolution of language. These genes include (and are related to genes involved in brain rhythmicity. We hope that the type of steps taken here will additionally lead to a better understanding of the comorbidity, heterogeneity, and variability of ASD, and may help achieve a better treatment of the affected populations.

  3. Science Olympiad students' nature of science understandings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Philpot, Cindy J.

    2007-12-01

    Recent reform efforts in science education focus on scientific literacy for all citizens. In order to be scientifically literate, an individual must have informed understandings of nature of science (NOS), scientific inquiry, and science content matter. This study specifically focused on Science Olympiad students' understanding of NOS as one piece of scientific literacy. Research consistently shows that science students do not have informed understandings of NOS (Abd-El-Khalick, 2002; Bell, Blair, Crawford, and Lederman, 2002; Kilcrease and Lucy, 2002; Schwartz, Lederman, and Thompson, 2001). However, McGhee-Brown, Martin, Monsaas and Stombler (2003) found that Science Olympiad students had in-depth understandings of science concepts, principles, processes, and techniques. Science Olympiad teams compete nationally and are found in rural, urban, and suburban schools. In an effort to learn from students who are generally considered high achieving students and who enjoy science, as opposed to the typical science student, the purpose of this study was to investigate Science Olympiad students' understandings of NOS and the experiences that formed their understandings. An interpretive, qualitative, case study method was used to address the research questions. The participants were purposefully and conveniently selected from the Science Olympiad team at a suburban high school. Data collection consisted of the Views of Nature of Science -- High School Questionnaire (VNOS-HS) (Schwartz, Lederman, & Thompson, 2001), semi-structured individual interviews, and a focus group. The main findings of this study were similar to much of the previous research in that the participants had informed understandings of the tentative nature of science and the role of inferences in science, but they did not have informed understandings of the role of human imagination and creativity, the empirical nature of science, or theories and laws. High level science classes and participation in

  4. A Classification of Sentences Used in Natural Language Processing in the Military Services.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wittrock, Merlin C.

    Concepts in cognitive psychology are applied to the language used in military situations, and a sentence classification system for use in analyzing military language is outlined. The system is designed to be used, in part, in conjunction with a natural language query system that allows a user to access a database. The discussion of military…

  5. Removing obstacles for African American English-speaking children through greater understanding of language difference.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pearson, Barbara Zurer; Conner, Tracy; Jackson, Janice E

    2013-01-01

    Language difference among speakers of African American English (AAE) has often been considered language deficit, based on a lack of understanding about the AAE variety. Following Labov (1972), Wolfram (1969), Green (2002, 2011), and others, we define AAE as a complex rule-governed linguistic system and briefly discuss language structures that it shares with general American English (GAE) and others that are unique to AAE. We suggest ways in which mistaken ideas about the language variety add to children's difficulties in learning the mainstream dialect and, in effect, deny them the benefits of their educational programs. We propose that a linguistically informed approach that highlights correspondences between AAE and the mainstream dialect and trains students and teachers to understand language varieties at a metalinguistic level creates environments that support the academic achievement of AAE-speaking students. Finally, we present 3 program types that are recommended for helping students achieve the skills they need to be successful in multiple linguistic environments.

  6. Orwell's 1984: Natural Language Searching and the Contemporary Metaphor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dadlez, Eva M.

    1984-01-01

    Describes a natural language searching strategy for retrieving current material which has bearing on George Orwell's "1984," and identifies four main themes (technology, authoritarianism, press and psychological/linguistic implications of surveillance, political oppression) which have emerged from cross-database searches of the "Big…

  7. Evaluation of uncertainty in the measurement of sense of natural language constructions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bisikalo Oleg V.

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The task of evaluating uncertainty in the measurement of sense in natural language constructions (NLCs was researched through formalization of the notions of the language image, formalization of artificial cognitive systems (ACSs and the formalization of units of meaning. The method for measuring the sense of natural language constructions incorporated fuzzy relations of meaning, which ensures that information about the links between lemmas of the text is taken into account, permitting the evaluation of two types of measurement uncertainty of sense characteristics. Using developed applications programs, experiments were conducted to investigate the proposed method to tackle the identification of informative characteristics of text. The experiments resulted in dependencies of parameters being obtained in order to utilise the Pareto distribution law to define relations between lemmas, analysis of which permits the identification of exponents of an average number of connections of the language image as the most informative characteristics of text.

  8. Using of Natural Language Processing Techniques in Suicide Research

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Azam Orooji

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available It is estimated that each year many people, most of whom are teenagers and young adults die by suicide worldwide. Suicide receives special attention with many countries developing national strategies for prevention. Since, more medical information is available in text, Preventing the growing trend of suicide in communities requires analyzing various textual resources, such as patient records, information on the web or questionnaires. For this purpose, this study systematically reviews recent studies related to the use of natural language processing techniques in the area of people’s health who have completed suicide or are at risk. After electronically searching for the PubMed and ScienceDirect databases and studying articles by two reviewers, 21 articles matched the inclusion criteria. This study revealed that, if a suitable data set is available, natural language processing techniques are well suited for various types of suicide related research.

  9. Discovery of Kolmogorov Scaling in the Natural Language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maurice H. P. M. van Putten

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available We consider the rate R and variance σ 2 of Shannon information in snippets of text based on word frequencies in the natural language. We empirically identify Kolmogorov’s scaling law in σ 2 ∝ k - 1 . 66 ± 0 . 12 (95% c.l. as a function of k = 1 / N measured by word count N. This result highlights a potential association of information flow in snippets, analogous to energy cascade in turbulent eddies in fluids at high Reynolds numbers. We propose R and σ 2 as robust utility functions for objective ranking of concordances in efficient search for maximal information seamlessly across different languages and as a starting point for artificial attention.

  10. MILROY, Lesley. Observing and Analysing Natural Language: A Critical Account of Sociolinguistic Method. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987. 230pp. MILROY, Lesley. Observing and Analysing Natural Language: A Critical Account of Sociolinguistic Method. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987. 230pp.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Iria Werlang Garcia

    2008-04-01

    Full Text Available Lesley Milroy's Observing and Analysing Natural Language is a recent addition to an ever growing number of publications in the field of Sociolinguistics. It carries the weight of one of the experienced authors in the current days in the specified field and should offer basic information to both newcomers and established investigators in natural language. Lesley Milroy's Observing and Analysing Natural Language is a recent addition to an ever growing number of publications in the field of Sociolinguistics. It carries the weight of one of the experienced authors in the current days in the specified field and should offer basic information to both newcomers and established investigators in natural language.

  11. Sociolinguistic Typology and Sign Languages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schembri, Adam; Fenlon, Jordan; Cormier, Kearsy; Johnston, Trevor

    2018-01-01

    This paper examines the possible relationship between proposed social determinants of morphological 'complexity' and how this contributes to linguistic diversity, specifically via the typological nature of the sign languages of deaf communities. We sketch how the notion of morphological complexity, as defined by Trudgill (2011), applies to sign languages. Using these criteria, sign languages appear to be languages with low to moderate levels of morphological complexity. This may partly reflect the influence of key social characteristics of communities on the typological nature of languages. Although many deaf communities are relatively small and may involve dense social networks (both social characteristics that Trudgill claimed may lend themselves to morphological 'complexification'), the picture is complicated by the highly variable nature of the sign language acquisition for most deaf people, and the ongoing contact between native signers, hearing non-native signers, and those deaf individuals who only acquire sign languages in later childhood and early adulthood. These are all factors that may work against the emergence of morphological complexification. The relationship between linguistic typology and these key social factors may lead to a better understanding of the nature of sign language grammar. This perspective stands in contrast to other work where sign languages are sometimes presented as having complex morphology despite being young languages (e.g., Aronoff et al., 2005); in some descriptions, the social determinants of morphological complexity have not received much attention, nor has the notion of complexity itself been specifically explored.

  12. Sociolinguistic Typology and Sign Languages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schembri, Adam; Fenlon, Jordan; Cormier, Kearsy; Johnston, Trevor

    2018-01-01

    This paper examines the possible relationship between proposed social determinants of morphological ‘complexity’ and how this contributes to linguistic diversity, specifically via the typological nature of the sign languages of deaf communities. We sketch how the notion of morphological complexity, as defined by Trudgill (2011), applies to sign languages. Using these criteria, sign languages appear to be languages with low to moderate levels of morphological complexity. This may partly reflect the influence of key social characteristics of communities on the typological nature of languages. Although many deaf communities are relatively small and may involve dense social networks (both social characteristics that Trudgill claimed may lend themselves to morphological ‘complexification’), the picture is complicated by the highly variable nature of the sign language acquisition for most deaf people, and the ongoing contact between native signers, hearing non-native signers, and those deaf individuals who only acquire sign languages in later childhood and early adulthood. These are all factors that may work against the emergence of morphological complexification. The relationship between linguistic typology and these key social factors may lead to a better understanding of the nature of sign language grammar. This perspective stands in contrast to other work where sign languages are sometimes presented as having complex morphology despite being young languages (e.g., Aronoff et al., 2005); in some descriptions, the social determinants of morphological complexity have not received much attention, nor has the notion of complexity itself been specifically explored. PMID:29515506

  13. Sociolinguistic Typology and Sign Languages

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adam Schembri

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available This paper examines the possible relationship between proposed social determinants of morphological ‘complexity’ and how this contributes to linguistic diversity, specifically via the typological nature of the sign languages of deaf communities. We sketch how the notion of morphological complexity, as defined by Trudgill (2011, applies to sign languages. Using these criteria, sign languages appear to be languages with low to moderate levels of morphological complexity. This may partly reflect the influence of key social characteristics of communities on the typological nature of languages. Although many deaf communities are relatively small and may involve dense social networks (both social characteristics that Trudgill claimed may lend themselves to morphological ‘complexification’, the picture is complicated by the highly variable nature of the sign language acquisition for most deaf people, and the ongoing contact between native signers, hearing non-native signers, and those deaf individuals who only acquire sign languages in later childhood and early adulthood. These are all factors that may work against the emergence of morphological complexification. The relationship between linguistic typology and these key social factors may lead to a better understanding of the nature of sign language grammar. This perspective stands in contrast to other work where sign languages are sometimes presented as having complex morphology despite being young languages (e.g., Aronoff et al., 2005; in some descriptions, the social determinants of morphological complexity have not received much attention, nor has the notion of complexity itself been specifically explored.

  14. CITE NLM: Natural-Language Searching in an Online Catalog.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doszkocs, Tamas E.

    1983-01-01

    The National Library of Medicine's Current Information Transfer in English public access online catalog offers unique subject search capabilities--natural-language query input, automatic medical subject headings display, closest match search strategy, ranked document output, dynamic end user feedback for search refinement. References, description…

  15. Computing an Ontological Semantics for a Natural Language Fragment

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Szymczak, Bartlomiej Antoni

    tried to establish a domain independent “ontological semantics” for relevant fragments of natural language. The purpose of this research is to develop methods and systems for taking advantage of formal ontologies for the purpose of extracting the meaning contents of texts. This functionality...

  16. Incidence Rate of Canonical vs. Derived Medical Terminology in Natural Language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Topac, Vasile; Jurcau, Daniel-Alexandru; Stoicu-Tivadar, Vasile

    2015-01-01

    Medical terminology appears in the natural language in multiple forms: canonical, derived or inflected form. This research presents an analysis of the form in which medical terminology appears in Romanian and English language. The sources of medical language used for the study are web pages presenting medical information for patients and other lay users. The results show that, in English, medical terminology tends to appear more in canonical form while, in the case of Romanian, it is the opposite. This paper also presents the service that was created to perform this analysis. This tool is available for the general public, and it is designed to be easily extensible, allowing the addition of other languages.

  17. Second Language Aquisition and The Development through Nature-Nurture

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Syahfitri Purnama

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available There are some factors regarding which aspect of second language acquisition is affected by individual learner factors, age, learning style. aptitude, motivation, and personality. This research is about English language acquisition of fourth-year child by nature and nurture. The child acquired her second language acquisition at home and also in one of the courses in Jakarta. She schooled by her parents in order to be able to speak English well as a target language for her future time. The purpose of this paper is to see and examine individual learner difference especially in using English as a second language. This study is a library research and retrieved data collected, recorded, transcribed, and analyzed descriptively. The results can be concluded: the child is able to communicate well and also able to construct simple sentences, complex sentences, sentence statement, phrase questions, and explain something when her teacher asks her at school. She is able to communicate by making a simple sentence or compound sentence in well-form (two clauses or three clauses, even though she still not focus to use the past tense form and sometimes she forgets to put bound morpheme -s in third person singular but she can use turn-taking in her utterances. It is a very long process since the child does the second language acquisition. The family and teacher should participate and assist the child, the proven child can learn the first and the second language at the same time.

  18. Attitude change through understanding (cognition of the influence of the persuasive language of liturgy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ferdi Kruger

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this article is to argue that the use of language in liturgy during worship services should be meaningful to contribute to persuasion in the lives of the participants in liturgy. Language is a prominent medium to convey meaning. In fact, the essence of liturgy that has to lead to the liturgy of life is in itself a meaningful act. The question regarding the meaning of worship services that people often raise is another reason why research on the influence of liturgy is crucial. This investigation is anchored in research on the importance of cognition in persuasive language use to promote attitude change. The research gathers insights from the fields of language philosophy and cognitive psychology. It is clear that the meaning of words in language can never be separated from people’s understanding of the meaning of language. Communication and communion are not opposites. In the normative phase of this investigation, perspectives from Romans 12 are offered. The renewal of the mind that leads to discernment of God’s will must also lead to a new cognition (understanding or phronesis of each believer’s place within the Body of Christ. The insights gained from language philosophy, cognitive psychology and the normative grounding make it evident that people always try to make sense of what they are experiencing and of what they are observing. The attempt to understand necessitates further reflection on the importance of cognition. Finally, practical theological perspectives are offered to indicate that cognition is important to create a meaningful liturgy. This cognition is anchored in God’s presence during worship services and, therefore, it requires meaningful words from liturgists.

  19. Unpacking the Right to plain and understandable Language in the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Philip N Stoop

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available The Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 came into effect on 1 April 2011. The purpose of this Act is, among other things, to promote fairness, openness and respectable business practice between the suppliers of goods or services and the consumers of such good and services. In consumer protection legislation fairness is usually approached from two directions, namely substantive and procedural fairness. Measures aimed at procedural fairness address conduct during the bargaining process and generally aim at ensuring transparency. Transparency in relation to the terms of a contract relates to whether the terms of the contract terms accessible, in clear language, well-structured, and cross-referenced, with prominence being given to terms that are detrimental to the consumer or because they grant important rights. One measure in the Act aimed at addressing procedural fairness is the right to plain and understandable language. The consumer’s right to being given information in plain and understandable language, as it is expressed in section 22, is embedded under the umbrella right of information and disclosure in the Act. Section 22 requires that notices, documents or visual representations that are required in terms of the Act or other law are to be provided in plain and understandable language as well as in the prescribed form, where such a prescription exists. In the analysis of the concept “plain and understandable language” the following aspects are considered in this article: the development of plain language measures in Australia and the United Kingdom; the structure and purpose of section 22; the documents that must be in plain language; the definition of plain language; the use of official languages in consumer contracts; and plain language guidelines (based on the law of the states of Pennsylvania and Connecticut in the United States of America.

  20. Aware Computing in Spatial Language Understanding Guided by Cognitively Inspired Knowledge Representation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Masao Yokota

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Mental image directed semantic theory (MIDST has proposed an omnisensory mental image model and its description language Lmd. This language is designed to represent and compute human intuitive knowledge of space and can provide multimedia expressions with intermediate semantic descriptions in predicate logic. It is hypothesized that such knowledge and semantic descriptions are controlled by human attention toward the world and therefore subjective to each human individual. This paper describes Lmd expression of human subjective knowledge of space and its application to aware computing in cross-media operation between linguistic and pictorial expressions as spatial language understanding.

  1. Natural-language processing applied to an ITS interface

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonio Gisolfi

    1994-12-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to show that with a subset of a natural language, simple systems running on PCs can be developed that can nevertheless be an effective tool for interfacing purposes in the building of an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS. After presenting the special characteristics of the Smalltalk/V language, which provides an appropriate environment for the development of an interface, the overall architecture of the interface module is discussed. We then show how sentences are parsed by the interface, and how interaction takes place with the user. The knowledge-acquisition phase is subsequently described. Finally, some excerpts from a tutoring session concerned with elementary geometry are discussed, and some of the problems and limitations of the approach are illustrated.

  2. Reconceptualising Learning in Transdisciplinary Languages Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scarino, Angela; Liddicoat, Anthony J.

    2016-01-01

    Understanding and working with the complexity of second language learning and use in an intercultural orientation necessitates a re-examination of the different theories of learning that inform the different schools of second language acquisition (SLA). This re-examination takes place in a context where explicitly conceptualizing the nature of…

  3. Understanding Language Change: Phonetics, Phonology and Child Language Acquisition

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Volk, Kevin

    1999-01-01

    Language change is a phenomenon that has fascinated scholars for centuries. As a science, linguistic theory has evolved considerably during the 20th century, but the overall puzzle of language change still remains unsolved...

  4. HomeNL: Homecare Assistance in Natural Language. An Intelligent Conversational Agent for Hypertensive Patients Management.

    OpenAIRE

    Rojas Barahona , Lina Maria; Quaglini , Silvana; Stefanelli , Mario

    2009-01-01

    International audience; The prospective home-care management will probably of- fer intelligent conversational assistants for supporting patients at home through natural language interfaces. Homecare assistance in natural lan- guage, HomeNL, is a proof-of-concept dialogue system for the manage- ment of patients with hypertension. It follows up a conversation with a patient in which the patient is able to take the initiative. HomeNL pro- cesses natural language, makes an internal representation...

  5. Automatic Requirements Specification Extraction from Natural Language (ARSENAL)

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-10-01

    studies: the Time-Triggered Ethernet (TTEthernet) communication platform used in space, and FAA-Isolette infant incubators used in NICU . We...in space, and FAA-Isolette infant incubators used in Neonatal Intensive Care Units ( NICUs ). We systematically evalu- ated various aspects of ARSENAL...effect, we present the ARSENAL methodology. ARSENAL uses state-of-the-art advances in natural language processing (NLP) and formal methods (FM) to

  6. Language of the Earth: Exploring Natural Hazards through a Literary Anthology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Malamud, B. D.; Rhodes, F. H. T.

    2009-04-01

    This paper explores natural hazards teaching and communications through the use of a literary anthology of writings about the earth aimed at non-experts. Teaching natural hazards in high-school and university introductory Earth Science and Geography courses revolves mostly around lectures, examinations, and laboratory demonstrations/activities. Often the results of such a course are that a student 'memorizes' the answers, and is penalized when they miss a given fact [e.g., "You lost one point because you were off by 50 km/hr on the wind speed of an F5 tornado."] Although facts and general methodologies are certainly important when teaching natural hazards, it is a strong motivation to a student's assimilation of, and enthusiasm for, this knowledge, if supplemented by writings about the Earth. In this paper, we discuss a literary anthology which we developed [Language of the Earth, Rhodes, Stone, Malamud, Wiley-Blackwell, 2008] which includes many descriptions about natural hazards. Using first- and second-hand accounts of landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and volcanic eruptions, through the writings of McPhee, Gaskill, Voltaire, Austin, Cloos, and many others, hazards become 'alive', and more than 'just' a compilation of facts and processes. Using short excerpts such as these, or other similar anthologies, of remarkably written accounts and discussions about natural hazards results in 'dry' facts becoming more than just facts. These often highly personal viewpoints of our catostrophic world, provide a useful supplement to a student's understanding of the turbulent world in which we live.

  7. Managing Fieldwork Data with Toolbox and the Natural Language Toolkit

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stuart Robinson

    2007-06-01

    Full Text Available This paper shows how fieldwork data can be managed using the program Toolbox together with the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK for the Python programming language. It provides background information about Toolbox and describes how it can be downloaded and installed. The basic functionality of the program for lexicons and texts is described, and its strengths and weaknesses are reviewed. Its underlying data format is briefly discussed, and Toolbox processing capabilities of NLTK are introduced, showing ways in which it can be used to extend the functionality of Toolbox. This is illustrated with a few simple scripts that demonstrate basic data management tasks relevant to language documentation, such as printing out the contents of a lexicon as HTML.

  8. Using natural language processing techniques to inform research on nanotechnology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nastassja A. Lewinski

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Literature in the field of nanotechnology is exponentially increasing with more and more engineered nanomaterials being created, characterized, and tested for performance and safety. With the deluge of published data, there is a need for natural language processing approaches to semi-automate the cataloguing of engineered nanomaterials and their associated physico-chemical properties, performance, exposure scenarios, and biological effects. In this paper, we review the different informatics methods that have been applied to patent mining, nanomaterial/device characterization, nanomedicine, and environmental risk assessment. Nine natural language processing (NLP-based tools were identified: NanoPort, NanoMapper, TechPerceptor, a Text Mining Framework, a Nanodevice Analyzer, a Clinical Trial Document Classifier, Nanotoxicity Searcher, NanoSifter, and NEIMiner. We conclude with recommendations for sharing NLP-related tools through online repositories to broaden participation in nanoinformatics.

  9. Combining Natural Language Processing and Statistical Text Mining: A Study of Specialized versus Common Languages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jarman, Jay

    2011-01-01

    This dissertation focuses on developing and evaluating hybrid approaches for analyzing free-form text in the medical domain. This research draws on natural language processing (NLP) techniques that are used to parse and extract concepts based on a controlled vocabulary. Once important concepts are extracted, additional machine learning algorithms,…

  10. False-Belief Understanding and Language Ability Mediate the Relationship between Emotion Comprehension and Prosocial Orientation in Preschoolers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ornaghi, Veronica; Pepe, Alessandro; Grazzani, Ilaria

    2016-01-01

    Emotion comprehension (EC) is known to be a key correlate and predictor of prosociality from early childhood. In the present study, we examined this relationship within the broad theoretical construct of social understanding which includes a number of socio-emotional skills, as well as cognitive and linguistic abilities. Theory of mind, especially false-belief understanding, has been found to be positively correlated with both EC and prosocial orientation. Similarly, language ability is known to play a key role in children's socio-emotional development. The combined contribution of false-belief understanding and language to explaining the relationship between EC and prosociality has yet to be investigated. Thus, in the current study, we conducted an in-depth exploration of how preschoolers' false-belief understanding and language ability each contribute to modeling the relationship between children's comprehension of emotion and their disposition to act prosocially toward others, after controlling for age and gender. Participants were 101 4- to 6-year-old children (54% boys), who were administered measures of language ability, false-belief understanding, EC and prosocial orientation. Multiple mediation analysis of the data suggested that false-belief understanding and language ability jointly and fully mediated the effect of preschoolers' EC on their prosocial orientation. Analysis of covariates revealed that gender exerted no statistically significant effect, while age had a trivial positive effect. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

  11. Instruction understanding for intelligent robots in nuclear facilities

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kambayashi, Shaw; Abe, Yasuaki

    1993-01-01

    As a first step to realize an autonomous mobile robot for plant maintenance, where the robot is capable to understand instructions written in natural languages, we have developed a prototype of instruction understanding system which makes the robot construct its motion sequences to approach instrumentations and inspect them from input sentences written in Japanese. In the prototype system, the instruction understanding and planning capabilities are integrated by an inference engine which consists of a cyclic operation of three processings, i.e., sensing, decision, and execution. Based on environmental data and current states of the robot, a proper process such as natural language processing is triggered by the decision part of the inference engine to accomplish the input instructions. The multiple- and dynamic-planning capabilities, which are necessary to cope with dynamic changes of environments surrounding the robot, are achieved by utilizing the cyclic inference engine together with a set of the inference packets which keep intermediate results of natural language processing and planning for respective input instructions. (orig.)

  12. Children’s Third-Party Understanding of Communicative Interactions in a Foreign Language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Narges Afshordi

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Two studies explored young children’s understanding of the role of shared language in communication by investigating how monolingual English-speaking children interact with an English speaker, a Spanish speaker, and a bilingual experimenter who spoke both English and Spanish. When the bilingual experimenter spoke in Spanish or English to request objects, four-year-old children, but not three-year-olds, used her language choice to determine whom she addressed (e.g. requests in Spanish were directed to the Spanish speaker. Importantly, children used this cue – language choice – only in a communicative context. The findings suggest that by four years, monolingual children recognize that speaking the same language enables successful communication, even when that language is unfamiliar to them. Three-year-old children’s failure to make this distinction suggests that this capacity likely undergoes significant development in early childhood, although other capacities might also be at play.

  13. Learning from a Computer Tutor with Natural Language Capabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Michael, Joel; Rovick, Allen; Glass, Michael; Zhou, Yujian; Evens, Martha

    2003-01-01

    CIRCSIM-Tutor is a computer tutor designed to carry out a natural language dialogue with a medical student. Its domain is the baroreceptor reflex, the part of the cardiovascular system that is responsible for maintaining a constant blood pressure. CIRCSIM-Tutor's interaction with students is modeled after the tutoring behavior of two experienced…

  14. Natural language processing: an introduction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nadkarni, Prakash M; Ohno-Machado, Lucila; Chapman, Wendy W

    2011-01-01

    To provide an overview and tutorial of natural language processing (NLP) and modern NLP-system design. This tutorial targets the medical informatics generalist who has limited acquaintance with the principles behind NLP and/or limited knowledge of the current state of the art. We describe the historical evolution of NLP, and summarize common NLP sub-problems in this extensive field. We then provide a synopsis of selected highlights of medical NLP efforts. After providing a brief description of common machine-learning approaches that are being used for diverse NLP sub-problems, we discuss how modern NLP architectures are designed, with a summary of the Apache Foundation's Unstructured Information Management Architecture. We finally consider possible future directions for NLP, and reflect on the possible impact of IBM Watson on the medical field.

  15. Using Learning Analytics to Understand the Design of an Intelligent Language Tutor – Chatbot Lucy

    OpenAIRE

    Yi Fei Wang; Stephen Petrina

    2013-01-01

    the goal of this article is to explore how learning analytics can be used to predict and advise the design of an intelligent language tutor, chatbot Lucy. With its focus on using student-produced data to understand the design of Lucy to assist English language learning, this research can be a valuable component for language-learning designers to improve second language acquisition. In this article, we present students’ learning journey and data trails, the chatting log architecture and result...

  16. Oracle Bones and Mandarin Tones: Demystifying the Chinese Language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor. Project on East Asian Studies in Education.

    This publication will provide secondary level students with a basic understanding of the development and structure of Chinese (guo yu) language characters. The authors believe that demystifying the language helps break many cultural barriers. The written language is a good place to begin because its pictographic nature is appealing and inspires…

  17. Selected Topics on Systems Modeling and Natural Language Processing: Editorial Introduction to the Issue 7 of CSIMQ

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Witold Andrzejewski

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available The seventh issue of Complex Systems Informatics and Modeling Quarterly presents five papers devoted to two distinct research topics: systems modeling and natural language processing (NLP. Both of these subjects are very important in computer science. Through modeling we can simplify the studied problem by concentrating on only one aspect at a time. Moreover, a properly constructed model allows the modeler to work on higher levels of abstraction and not having to concentrate on details. Since the size and complexity of information systems grows rapidly, creating good models of such systems is crucial. The analysis of natural language is slowly becoming a widely used tool in commerce and day to day life. Opinion mining allows recommender systems to provide accurate recommendations based on user-generated reviews. Speech recognition and NLP are the basis for such widely used personal assistants as Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google Now. While a lot of work has already been done on natural language processing, the research usually concerns widely used languages, such as English. Consequently, natural language processing in languages other than English is very relevant subject and is addressed in this issue.

  18. False-belief understanding and language ability mediate the relationship between emotion comprehension and prosocial orientation in preschoolers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Veronica Ornaghi

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Emotion comprehension is known to be a key correlate and predictor of prosociality from early childhood. The present study look at their relation within the wide theoretical construct of social understanding which includes a number of socio-emotional skills, as well as cognitive and linguistic abilities. Theory of mind, especially false-belief understanding, has been found to have positive correlations with both emotion comprehension and prosocial orientation. Similarly, language ability is known to play a key role in children’s socio-emotional development. The combined contribution of both false-belief understanding and language in explaining the relation between emotion comprehension and prosociality has yet to be investigated. Thus, in the current study, we conducted an in-depth exploration of how preschoolers’ false-belief understanding and language ability each contribute to modeling the relationship between their comprehension of emotion and their disposition to act prosocially towards others, after controlling for age and gender. Participants were 101 4-to-6 year old children (54% boys, who were administered measures of language ability, false-belief understanding, emotion comprehension and prosocial orientation. Multiple mediation analysis of the data suggested that false-belief understanding and language ability jointly and fully mediated the effect of preschoolers’ emotion comprehension on their prosocial orientation. Analysis of covariates revealed that gender exerted no statistically significant effect, while age had a trivial positive effect. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

  19. Natural Language Processing in Radiology: A Systematic Review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pons, Ewoud; Braun, Loes M M; Hunink, M G Myriam; Kors, Jan A

    2016-05-01

    Radiological reporting has generated large quantities of digital content within the electronic health record, which is potentially a valuable source of information for improving clinical care and supporting research. Although radiology reports are stored for communication and documentation of diagnostic imaging, harnessing their potential requires efficient and automated information extraction: they exist mainly as free-text clinical narrative, from which it is a major challenge to obtain structured data. Natural language processing (NLP) provides techniques that aid the conversion of text into a structured representation, and thus enables computers to derive meaning from human (ie, natural language) input. Used on radiology reports, NLP techniques enable automatic identification and extraction of information. By exploring the various purposes for their use, this review examines how radiology benefits from NLP. A systematic literature search identified 67 relevant publications describing NLP methods that support practical applications in radiology. This review takes a close look at the individual studies in terms of tasks (ie, the extracted information), the NLP methodology and tools used, and their application purpose and performance results. Additionally, limitations, future challenges, and requirements for advancing NLP in radiology will be discussed. (©) RSNA, 2016 Online supplemental material is available for this article.

  20. The social impact of natural language processing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hovy, Dirk; Spruit, Shannon

    Research in natural language processing (NLP) used to be mostly performed on anonymous corpora, with the goal of enriching linguistic analysis. Authors were either largely unknown or public figures. As we increasingly use more data from social media, this situation has changed: users are now...... individually identifiable, and the outcome of NLP experiments and applications can have a direct effect on their lives. This change should spawn a debate about the ethical implications of NLP, but until now, the internal discourse in the field has not followed the technological development. This position paper...

  1. Exploiting Lexical Regularities in Designing Natural Language Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    1988-04-01

    ELEMENT. PROJECT. TASKN Artificial Inteligence Laboratory A1A4WR NTumet 0) 545 Technology Square Cambridge, MA 02139 Ln *t- CONTROLLING OFFICE NAME AND...RO-RI95 922 EXPLOITING LEXICAL REGULARITIES IN DESIGNING NATURAL 1/1 LANGUAGE SYSTENS(U) MASSACHUSETTS INST OF TECH CAMBRIDGE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE...oes.ary and ftdou.Ip hr Nl wow" L,2This paper presents the lexical component of the START Question Answering system developed at the MIT Artificial

  2. An ontology model for nursing narratives with natural language generation technology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Min, Yul Ha; Park, Hyeoun-Ae; Jeon, Eunjoo; Lee, Joo Yun; Jo, Soo Jung

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to develop an ontology model to generate nursing narratives as natural as human language from the entity-attribute-value triplets of a detailed clinical model using natural language generation technology. The model was based on the types of information and documentation time of the information along the nursing process. The typesof information are data characterizing the patient status, inferences made by the nurse from the patient data, and nursing actions selected by the nurse to change the patient status. This information was linked to the nursing process based on the time of documentation. We describe a case study illustrating the application of this model in an acute-care setting. The proposed model provides a strategy for designing an electronic nursing record system.

  3. Understanding Surface Adhesion in Nature: A Peeling Model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gu, Zhen; Li, Siheng; Zhang, Feilong; Wang, Shutao

    2016-07-01

    Nature often exhibits various interesting and unique adhesive surfaces. The attempt to understand the natural adhesion phenomena can continuously guide the design of artificial adhesive surfaces by proposing simplified models of surface adhesion. Among those models, a peeling model can often effectively reflect the adhesive property between two surfaces during their attachment and detachment processes. In the context, this review summarizes the recent advances about the peeling model in understanding unique adhesive properties on natural and artificial surfaces. It mainly includes four parts: a brief introduction to natural surface adhesion, the theoretical basis and progress of the peeling model, application of the peeling model, and finally, conclusions. It is believed that this review is helpful to various fields, such as surface engineering, biomedicine, microelectronics, and so on.

  4. Advanced applications of natural language processing for performing information extraction

    CERN Document Server

    Rodrigues, Mário

    2015-01-01

    This book explains how can be created information extraction (IE) applications that are able to tap the vast amount of relevant information available in natural language sources: Internet pages, official documents such as laws and regulations, books and newspapers, and social web. Readers are introduced to the problem of IE and its current challenges and limitations, supported with examples. The book discusses the need to fill the gap between documents, data, and people, and provides a broad overview of the technology supporting IE. The authors present a generic architecture for developing systems that are able to learn how to extract relevant information from natural language documents, and illustrate how to implement working systems using state-of-the-art and freely available software tools. The book also discusses concrete applications illustrating IE uses.   ·         Provides an overview of state-of-the-art technology in information extraction (IE), discussing achievements and limitations for t...

  5. im4Things: An Ontology-Based Natural Language Interface for Controlling Devices in the Internet of Things

    KAUST Repository

    Noguera-Arnaldos, José Ángel

    2017-03-14

    The Internet of Things (IoT) offers opportunities for new applications and services that enable users to access and control their working and home environment from local and remote locations, aiming to perform daily life activities in an easy way. However, the IoT also introduces new challenges, some of which arise from the large range of devices currently available and the heterogeneous interfaces provided for their control. The control and management of this variety of devices and interfaces represent a new challenge for non-expert users, instead of making their life easier. Based on this understanding, in this work we present a natural language interface for the IoT, which takes advantage of Semantic Web technologies to allow non-expert users to control their home environment through an instant messaging application in an easy and intuitive way. We conducted several experiments with a group of end users aiming to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach to control home appliances by means of natural language instructions. The evaluation results proved that without the need for technicalities, the user was able to control the home appliances in an efficient way.

  6. Computer Understanding of Conventional Metaphoric Language

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Martin, James H

    1990-01-01

    .... This approach asserts that the interpretation of conventional metaphoric language should proceed through the direct application of specific knowledge about the metaphors in the language. MIDAS...

  7. What baboons can (not) tell us about natural language grammars.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Poletiek, Fenna H; Fitz, Hartmut; Bocanegra, Bruno R

    2016-06-01

    Rey et al. (2012) present data from a study with baboons that they interpret in support of the idea that center-embedded structures in human language have their origin in low level memory mechanisms and associative learning. Critically, the authors claim that the baboons showed a behavioral preference that is consistent with center-embedded sequences over other types of sequences. We argue that the baboons' response patterns suggest that two mechanisms are involved: first, they can be trained to associate a particular response with a particular stimulus, and, second, when faced with two conditioned stimuli in a row, they respond to the most recent one first, copying behavior they had been rewarded for during training. Although Rey et al. (2012) 'experiment shows that the baboons' behavior is driven by low level mechanisms, it is not clear how the animal behavior reported, bears on the phenomenon of Center Embedded structures in human syntax. Hence, (1) natural language syntax may indeed have been shaped by low level mechanisms, and (2) the baboons' behavior is driven by low level stimulus response learning, as Rey et al. propose. But is the second evidence for the first? We will discuss in what ways this study can and cannot give evidential value for explaining the origin of Center Embedded recursion in human grammar. More generally, their study provokes an interesting reflection on the use of animal studies in order to understand features of the human linguistic system. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  8. Natural Language Processing Technologies in Radiology Research and Clinical Applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cai, Tianrun; Giannopoulos, Andreas A.; Yu, Sheng; Kelil, Tatiana; Ripley, Beth; Kumamaru, Kanako K.; Rybicki, Frank J.

    2016-01-01

    The migration of imaging reports to electronic medical record systems holds great potential in terms of advancing radiology research and practice by leveraging the large volume of data continuously being updated, integrated, and shared. However, there are significant challenges as well, largely due to the heterogeneity of how these data are formatted. Indeed, although there is movement toward structured reporting in radiology (ie, hierarchically itemized reporting with use of standardized terminology), the majority of radiology reports remain unstructured and use free-form language. To effectively “mine” these large datasets for hypothesis testing, a robust strategy for extracting the necessary information is needed. Manual extraction of information is a time-consuming and often unmanageable task. “Intelligent” search engines that instead rely on natural language processing (NLP), a computer-based approach to analyzing free-form text or speech, can be used to automate this data mining task. The overall goal of NLP is to translate natural human language into a structured format (ie, a fixed collection of elements), each with a standardized set of choices for its value, that is easily manipulated by computer programs to (among other things) order into subcategories or query for the presence or absence of a finding. The authors review the fundamentals of NLP and describe various techniques that constitute NLP in radiology, along with some key applications. ©RSNA, 2016 PMID:26761536

  9. Natural Language Processing Technologies in Radiology Research and Clinical Applications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cai, Tianrun; Giannopoulos, Andreas A; Yu, Sheng; Kelil, Tatiana; Ripley, Beth; Kumamaru, Kanako K; Rybicki, Frank J; Mitsouras, Dimitrios

    2016-01-01

    The migration of imaging reports to electronic medical record systems holds great potential in terms of advancing radiology research and practice by leveraging the large volume of data continuously being updated, integrated, and shared. However, there are significant challenges as well, largely due to the heterogeneity of how these data are formatted. Indeed, although there is movement toward structured reporting in radiology (ie, hierarchically itemized reporting with use of standardized terminology), the majority of radiology reports remain unstructured and use free-form language. To effectively "mine" these large datasets for hypothesis testing, a robust strategy for extracting the necessary information is needed. Manual extraction of information is a time-consuming and often unmanageable task. "Intelligent" search engines that instead rely on natural language processing (NLP), a computer-based approach to analyzing free-form text or speech, can be used to automate this data mining task. The overall goal of NLP is to translate natural human language into a structured format (ie, a fixed collection of elements), each with a standardized set of choices for its value, that is easily manipulated by computer programs to (among other things) order into subcategories or query for the presence or absence of a finding. The authors review the fundamentals of NLP and describe various techniques that constitute NLP in radiology, along with some key applications. ©RSNA, 2016.

  10. Query2Question: Translating Visualization Interaction into Natural Language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nafari, Maryam; Weaver, Chris

    2015-06-01

    Richly interactive visualization tools are increasingly popular for data exploration and analysis in a wide variety of domains. Existing systems and techniques for recording provenance of interaction focus either on comprehensive automated recording of low-level interaction events or on idiosyncratic manual transcription of high-level analysis activities. In this paper, we present the architecture and translation design of a query-to-question (Q2Q) system that automatically records user interactions and presents them semantically using natural language (written English). Q2Q takes advantage of domain knowledge and uses natural language generation (NLG) techniques to translate and transcribe a progression of interactive visualization states into a visual log of styled text that complements and effectively extends the functionality of visualization tools. We present Q2Q as a means to support a cross-examination process in which questions rather than interactions are the focus of analytic reasoning and action. We describe the architecture and implementation of the Q2Q system, discuss key design factors and variations that effect question generation, and present several visualizations that incorporate Q2Q for analysis in a variety of knowledge domains.

  11. Mathematical structures of natural intelligence

    CERN Document Server

    Neuman, Yair

    2017-01-01

    This book uncovers mathematical structures underlying natural intelligence and applies category theory as a modeling language for understanding human cognition, giving readers new insights into the nature of human thought. In this context, the book explores various topics and questions, such as the human representation of the number system, why our counting ability is different from that which is evident among non-human organisms, and why the idea of zero is so difficult to grasp. The book is organized into three parts: the first introduces the general reason for studying general structures underlying the human mind; the second part introduces category theory as a modeling language and use it for exposing the deep and fascinating structures underlying human cognition; and the third applies the general principles and ideas of the first two parts to reaching a better understanding of challenging aspects of the human mind such as our understanding of the number system, the metaphorical nature of our thinking and...

  12. Language and Identities: The Exceptional Normality of Italy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    John J. Kinder

    2008-10-01

    Full Text Available Language issues loom large in current debates on Italian identity/identities, indigenous minorities in Italy and, of course, immigration. While the context of language debates in early 21st century Italy presents new realities and challenges, the fundamental issues are the same as those originally defined by the first European language planner, Dante, and reworked by successive theorists. The debates turn on exclusions and inclusions, on levels of multiple identities, on understandings of otherness. It is no accident that language is at once as a provocation for debates on identity and a metaphor of those debates, for the tensions that run through the debates lie at the heart of language itself. All cultures have a narrative that explains diversity among languages and cultures, either as the result of a mistake or as divine punishment. The Biblical accounts of Creation, Babel and Pentecost provide the framework for European understandings of language diversity. These accounts capture the paradoxical nature of human language, which characterizes us a species and is a tool for building unity between persons and groups, but is, by its nature, always and inevitably an expression of diversity, in time and space. These contradictions are being played out in current language debates as emigration, return migration, internal migration and immigration elicit new constructions of ‘Italianness’, the literary canon and the social weight of the different varieties of language present on Italian soil and in Italian communities abroad.

  13. Exploring culture, language and the perception of the nature of science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sutherland, Dawn

    2002-01-01

    One dimension of early Canadian education is the attempt of the government to use the education system as an assimilative tool to integrate the First Nations and Me´tis people into Euro-Canadian society. Despite these attempts, many First Nations and Me´tis people retained their culture and their indigenous language. Few science educators have examined First Nations and Western scientific worldviews and the impact they may have on science learning. This study explored the views some First Nations (Cree) and Euro-Canadian Grade-7-level students in Manitoba had about the nature of science. Both qualitative (open-ended questions and interviews) and quantitative (a Likert-scale questionnaire) instruments were used to explore student views. A central hypothesis to this research programme is the possibility that the different world-views of two student populations, Cree and Euro-Canadian, are likely to influence their perceptions of science. This preliminary study explored a range of methodologies to probe the perceptions of the nature of science in these two student populations. It was found that the two cultural groups differed significantly between some of the tenets in a Nature of Scientific Knowledge Scale (NSKS). Cree students significantly differed from Euro-Canadian students on the developmental, testable and unified tenets of the nature of scientific knowledge scale. No significant differences were found in NSKS scores between language groups (Cree students who speak English in the home and those who speak English and Cree or Cree only). The differences found between language groups were primarily in the open-ended questions where preformulated responses were absent. Interviews about critical incidents provided more detailed accounts of the Cree students' perception of the nature of science. The implications of the findings of this study are discussed in relation to the challenges related to research methodology, further areas for investigation, science

  14. Recurrent Artificial Neural Networks and Finite State Natural Language Processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moisl, Hermann

    It is argued that pessimistic assessments of the adequacy of artificial neural networks (ANNs) for natural language processing (NLP) on the grounds that they have a finite state architecture are unjustified, and that their adequacy in this regard is an empirical issue. First, arguments that counter standard objections to finite state NLP on the…

  15. Patient empowerment by increasing the understanding of medical language for lay users.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Topac, V; Stoicu-Tivadar, V

    2013-01-01

    Patient empowerment is important in order to increase the quality of medical care and the life quality of the patients. An important obstacle for empowering patients is the language barrier the lay patient encounter when accessing medical information. To design and develop a service that will help increase the understanding of medical language for lay persons. The service identifies and explains medical terminology from a given text by annotating the terms in the original text with the definition. It is based on an original terminology interpretation engine that uses a fuzzy matching dictionary. The service was implemented in two projects: a) into the server of a tele-care system (TELEASIS) with the purpose of adapting medical text assigned by medical personnel for the assisted patients. b) Into a dedicated web site that can adapt the medical language from raw text or from existing web pages. The output of the service was evaluated by a group of persons, and the results indicate that such a system can increase the understanding of medical texts. Several design decisions were driven from the evaluation, and are being considered for future development. Other tests measuring accuracy and time performance for the fuzzy terminology recognition have been performed. Test results revealed good performance for accuracy and excellent results regarding time performance. The current version of the service increases the accessibility of medical language by explaining terminology with a good accuracy, while allowing the user to easily identify errors, in order to reduce the risk of incorrect terminology recognition.

  16. Identification of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus within the Nation’s Veterans Affairs Medical Centers using natural language processing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jones Makoto

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Accurate information is needed to direct healthcare systems’ efforts to control methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA. Assembling complete and correct microbiology data is vital to understanding and addressing the multiple drug-resistant organisms in our hospitals. Methods Herein, we describe a system that securely gathers microbiology data from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA network of databases. Using natural language processing methods, we applied an information extraction process to extract organisms and susceptibilities from the free-text data. We then validated the extraction against independently derived electronic data and expert annotation. Results We estimate that the collected microbiology data are 98.5% complete and that methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus was extracted accurately 99.7% of the time. Conclusions Applying natural language processing methods to microbiology records appears to be a promising way to extract accurate and useful nosocomial pathogen surveillance data. Both scientific inquiry and the data’s reliability will be dependent on the surveillance system’s capability to compare from multiple sources and circumvent systematic error. The dataset constructed and methods used for this investigation could contribute to a comprehensive infectious disease surveillance system or other pressing needs.

  17. Learner Characteristics and Understanding Nature of Science. Is There an Association?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Çetinkaya-Aydın, Gamze; Çakıroğlu, Jale

    2017-11-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the possible associations between preservice science teachers' understanding of nature of science and their learner characteristics; understanding of nature of scientific inquiry, science teaching self-efficacy beliefs, metacognitive awareness level, and faith/worldview schemas. The sample of the current study was 60 3rd-year preservice science teachers enrolled in the Nature of Science and History of Science course. Using a descriptive and associational case study design, data were collected by means of different qualitative and quantitative questionnaires. Analysis of the data revealed that preservice science teachers' understanding of nature of science and nature of scientific inquiry were highly associated. Similarly, science teaching self-efficacy beliefs, metacognitive awareness levels, and faith/worldviews of the preservice science teachers were found to be significantly associated with their understanding of nature of science. Thus, it can be concluded that there might be other factors interfering with the learning processes of nature of science.

  18. GAIML: A New Language for Verbal and Graphical Interaction in Chatbots

    OpenAIRE

    Roberto Pirrone; Giuseppe Russo; Vincenzo Cannella; Daniele Peri

    2008-01-01

    Natural and intuitive interaction between users and complex systems is a crucial research topic in human-computer interaction. A major direction is the definition and implementation of systems with natural language understanding capabilities. The interaction in natural language is often performed by means of systems called chatbots. A chatbot is a conversational agent with a proper knowledge base able to interact with users. Chatbots appearance can be very sophisticated with 3D avatars and sp...

  19. [Understand the neurodevelopment of language: a necessity to prevent learning disabilities in children].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Charollais, A; Marret, S; Stumpf, M-H; Lemarchand, M; Delaporte, B; Philip, E; Monom-Diverre; Guillois, B; Datin-Dorriere, V; Debillon, T; Simon, M-J; De Barace, C; Pasquet, F; Saliba, E; Zebhib, R

    2013-09-01

    Clinical and radiological knowledge of language development in the former premature infant compared to the newborn allows us to argue for exploration of the sensorimotor co-factors required for proper language development. There are early representations of the maternal language in the infant's visual, auditory, and sensorimotor areas, activated or stabilized by orofacial and articulatory movements. The functional architecture of language is different for vulnerable children such as premature infants. We have already mentioned the impact of early dysfunction of the facial praxis fine motor skills in this population presenting comprehension disorders. A recent meta-analysis confirms the increasing difficulty of understanding between 3 and 12 years, questioning the quality of the initial linguistic processes. A precise analysis of language, referenced from 3 years of age, should be completed by sensorimotor tests to assess possible constraints in automating neurolinguistic foundations. The usual assessment at this age can exclude sensory disturbances and communication and offers guidance and socialization. However, a recent study shows the ineffectiveness of "language-reinforced immersion" at 2 and 3 years in a population of vulnerable children. The LAMOPRESCO study of language and motor skills in the premature infant (National PHRC 2010) has assessed language and sensorimotor skills of preterm-born (theory of speech perception." Early and accurate assessment of language and the patient's constraints should differentiate and specify management strategies for all children, whatever their background and pathologies. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  20. Text understanding for computers

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kenter, T.M.

    2017-01-01

    A long-standing challenge for computers communicating with humans is to pass the Turing test, i.e., to communicate in such a way that it is impossible for humans to determine whether they are talking to a computer or another human being. The field of natural language understanding — which studies

  1. Diagnosing Students' Understanding of the Nature of Models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gogolin, Sarah; Krüger, Dirk

    2017-10-01

    Students' understanding of models in science has been subject to a number of investigations. The instruments the researchers used are suitable for educational research but, due to their complexity, cannot be employed directly by teachers. This article presents forced choice (FC) tasks, which, assembled as a diagnostic instrument, are supposed to measure students' understanding of the nature of models efficiently, while being sensitive enough to detect differences between individuals. In order to evaluate if the diagnostic instrument is suitable for its intended use, we propose an approach that complies with the demand to integrate students' responses to the tasks into the validation process. Evidence for validity was gathered based on relations to other variables and on students' response processes. Students' understanding of the nature of models was assessed using three methods: FC tasks, open-ended tasks and interviews ( N = 448). Furthermore, concurrent think-aloud protocols ( N = 30) were performed. The results suggest that the method and the age of the students have an effect on their understanding of the nature of models. A good understanding of the FC tasks as well as a convergence in the findings across the three methods was documented for grades eleven and twelve. This indicates that teachers can use the diagnostic instrument for an efficient and, at the same time, valid diagnosis for this group. Finally, the findings of this article may provide a possible explanation for alternative findings from previous studies as a result of specific methods that were used.

  2. Epistemological Predictors of Prospective Biology Teachers' Nature of Science Understandings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Köseoglu, Pinar; Köksal, Mustafa Serdar

    2015-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate epistemological predictors of nature of science understandings of 281 prospective biology teachers surveyed using the Epistemological Beliefs Scale Regarding Science and the Nature of Science Scale. The findings on multiple linear regression showed that understandings about definition of science and…

  3. A Thai pre-service teacher's understanding of nature of science in biology teaching

    Science.gov (United States)

    Srisawat, Akkarawat; Aiemsum-ang, Napapan; Yuenyong, Chokchai

    2018-01-01

    This study was conducted on the effect of understanding and instruction of the nature of science of Ms. Wanida, a pre-service student under science education program in biology, Faculty of Education, Khon Kaen University. Wanida was a teaching practicum student majoring in biology at Khon Kaen University Demonstration School (Modindaeng). She was teaching biology for 38 Grade 10 students. Methodology regarded interpretive paradigm. The study aimed to examine 1) Wanida's understanding of the nature of science, 2) Wanida's instruction of the nature of science, 3 students' understanding of the nature of science from Wanida's instruction, and 4) the effects of Wanida's understanding and instruction of the nature of science on students' understanding of the nature of science from Wanida's instruction. Tools of interpretation included teaching observation, a semi-structured interview, open-ended questionnaire, and an observation record form for the instruction of the nature of science. The data obtained was interpreted, encoded, and classified, using the descriptive statistics. The findings indicated that Wanida held good understanding of the nature of science. She could apply the deficient nature of science approach mostly, followed by the implicit nature of science approach. Unfortunately, she could not show her teaching as explicit nature of science. However, her students' the understanding of the nature of science was good.

  4. The influence of the visual modality on language structure and conventionalization: insights from sign language and gesture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perniss, Pamela; Özyürek, Asli; Morgan, Gary

    2015-01-01

    For humans, the ability to communicate and use language is instantiated not only in the vocal modality but also in the visual modality. The main examples of this are sign languages and (co-speech) gestures. Sign languages, the natural languages of Deaf communities, use systematic and conventionalized movements of the hands, face, and body for linguistic expression. Co-speech gestures, though non-linguistic, are produced in tight semantic and temporal integration with speech and constitute an integral part of language together with speech. The articles in this issue explore and document how gestures and sign languages are similar or different and how communicative expression in the visual modality can change from being gestural to grammatical in nature through processes of conventionalization. As such, this issue contributes to our understanding of how the visual modality shapes language and the emergence of linguistic structure in newly developing systems. Studying the relationship between signs and gestures provides a new window onto the human ability to recruit multiple levels of representation (e.g., categorical, gradient, iconic, abstract) in the service of using or creating conventionalized communicative systems. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  5. Understanding Language in Education and Grade 4 Reading Performance Using a "Natural Experiment" of Botswana and South Africa

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shepherd, Debra Lynne

    2018-01-01

    The regional and cultural closeness of Botswana and South Africa, as well as differences in their political histories and language policy stances, offers a unique opportunity to evaluate the role of language in reading outcomes. This study aims to empirically test the effect of exposure to mother tongue and English instruction on the reading…

  6. The relationship between mathematics and language: academic implications for children with specific language impairment and English language learners.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alt, Mary; Arizmendi, Genesis D; Beal, Carole R

    2014-07-01

    The present study examined the relationship between mathematics and language to better understand the nature of the deficit and the academic implications associated with specific language impairment (SLI) and academic implications for English language learners (ELLs). School-age children (N = 61; 20 SLI, 20 ELL, 21 native monolingual English [NE]) were assessed using a norm-referenced mathematics instrument and 3 experimental computer-based mathematics games that varied in language demands. Group means were compared with analyses of variance. The ELL group was less accurate than the NE group only when tasks were language heavy. In contrast, the group with SLI was less accurate than the groups with NE and ELLs on language-heavy tasks and some language-light tasks. Specifically, the group with SLI was less accurate on tasks that involved comparing numerical symbols and using visual working memory for patterns. However, there were no group differences between children with SLI and peers without SLI on language-light mathematics tasks that involved visual working memory for numerical symbols. Mathematical difficulties of children who are ELLs appear to be related to the language demands of mathematics tasks. In contrast, children with SLI appear to have difficulty with mathematics tasks because of linguistic as well as nonlinguistic processing constraints.

  7. The Language of Mathematics Utilizing Math in Practice

    CERN Document Server

    Baber, Robert L

    2011-01-01

    A new and unique way of understanding the translation of concepts and natural language into mathematical expressions Transforming a body of text into corresponding mathematical expressions and models is traditionally viewed and taught as a mathematical problem; it is also a task that most find difficult. The Language of Mathematics: Utilizing Math in Practice reveals a new way to view this process-not as a mathematical problem, but as a translation, or language, problem. By presenting the language of mathematics explicitly and systematically, this book helps readers to learn mathematics¿and i

  8. Mathematical Formula Search using Natural Language Queries

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    YANG, S.

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents how to search mathematical formulae written in MathML when given plain words as a query. Since the proposed method allows natural language queries like the traditional Information Retrieval for the mathematical formula search, users do not need to enter any complicated math symbols and to use any formula input tool. For this, formula data is converted into plain texts, and features are extracted from the converted texts. In our experiments, we achieve an outstanding performance, a MRR of 0.659. In addition, we introduce how to utilize formula classification for formula search. By using class information, we finally achieve an improved performance, a MRR of 0.690.

  9. The social impact of natural language processing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hovy, Dirk; Spruit, Shannon

    Research in natural language processing (NLP) used to be mostly performed on anonymous corpora, with the goal of enriching linguistic analysis. Authors were either largely unknown or public figures. As we increasingly use more data from social media, this situation has changed: users are now...... individually identifiable, and the outcome of NLP experiments and applications can have a direct effect on their lives. This change should spawn a debate about the ethical implications of NLP, but until now, the internal discourse in the field has not followed the technological development. This position paper...... identifies a number of social implications that NLP research may have, and discusses their ethical significance, as well as ways to address them....

  10. Ninth Grade Students' Understanding of The Nature of Scientific Knowledge

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kilic, Kerem; Sungur, Semra; Cakiroglu, Jale; Tekkaya, Ceren

    2005-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the 9th-grade students' understandings of the nature of scientific knowledge. The study also aimed to investigate the differences in students' understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge by gender, and school types. A total of 575 ninth grade students from four different school types (General…

  11. Language learning, language use and the evolution of linguistic variation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perfors, Amy; Fehér, Olga; Samara, Anna; Swoboda, Kate; Wonnacott, Elizabeth

    2017-01-01

    Linguistic universals arise from the interaction between the processes of language learning and language use. A test case for the relationship between these factors is linguistic variation, which tends to be conditioned on linguistic or sociolinguistic criteria. How can we explain the scarcity of unpredictable variation in natural language, and to what extent is this property of language a straightforward reflection of biases in statistical learning? We review three strands of experimental work exploring these questions, and introduce a Bayesian model of the learning and transmission of linguistic variation along with a closely matched artificial language learning experiment with adult participants. Our results show that while the biases of language learners can potentially play a role in shaping linguistic systems, the relationship between biases of learners and the structure of languages is not straightforward. Weak biases can have strong effects on language structure as they accumulate over repeated transmission. But the opposite can also be true: strong biases can have weak or no effects. Furthermore, the use of language during interaction can reshape linguistic systems. Combining data and insights from studies of learning, transmission and use is therefore essential if we are to understand how biases in statistical learning interact with language transmission and language use to shape the structural properties of language. This article is part of the themed issue ‘New frontiers for statistical learning in the cognitive sciences’. PMID:27872370

  12. Language learning, language use and the evolution of linguistic variation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Kenny; Perfors, Amy; Fehér, Olga; Samara, Anna; Swoboda, Kate; Wonnacott, Elizabeth

    2017-01-05

    Linguistic universals arise from the interaction between the processes of language learning and language use. A test case for the relationship between these factors is linguistic variation, which tends to be conditioned on linguistic or sociolinguistic criteria. How can we explain the scarcity of unpredictable variation in natural language, and to what extent is this property of language a straightforward reflection of biases in statistical learning? We review three strands of experimental work exploring these questions, and introduce a Bayesian model of the learning and transmission of linguistic variation along with a closely matched artificial language learning experiment with adult participants. Our results show that while the biases of language learners can potentially play a role in shaping linguistic systems, the relationship between biases of learners and the structure of languages is not straightforward. Weak biases can have strong effects on language structure as they accumulate over repeated transmission. But the opposite can also be true: strong biases can have weak or no effects. Furthermore, the use of language during interaction can reshape linguistic systems. Combining data and insights from studies of learning, transmission and use is therefore essential if we are to understand how biases in statistical learning interact with language transmission and language use to shape the structural properties of language.This article is part of the themed issue 'New frontiers for statistical learning in the cognitive sciences'. © 2016 The Authors.

  13. Box: Natural Language Processing Research Using Amazon Web Services

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Axelrod Amittai

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available We present a publicly-available state-of-the-art research and development platform for Machine Translation and Natural Language Processing that runs on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. This provides a standardized research environment for all users, and enables perfect reproducibility and compatibility. Box also enables users to use their hardware budget to avoid the management and logistical overhead of maintaining a research lab, yet still participate in global research community with the same state-of-the-art tools.

  14. Receptive Language Skills in Slovak-Speaking Children With Intellectual Disability: Understanding Words, Sentences, and Stories.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Polišenská, Kamila; Kapalková, Svetlana; Novotková, Monika

    2018-06-05

    The study aims to describe receptive language skills in children with intellectual disability (ID) and to contribute to the debate on deviant versus delayed language development. This is the 1st study of receptive skills in children with ID who speak a Slavic language, providing insight into how language development is affected by disability and also language typology. Twenty-eight Slovak-speaking children participated in the study (14 children with ID and 14 typically developing [TD] children matched on nonverbal reasoning abilities). The children were assessed by receptive language tasks targeting words, sentences, and stories, and the groups were compared quantitatively and qualitatively. The groups showed similar language profiles, with a better understanding of words, followed by sentences, with the poorest comprehension for stories. Nouns were comprehended better than verbs; sentence constructions also showed a qualitatively similar picture, although some dissimilarities emerged. Verb comprehension was strongly related to sentence comprehension in both groups and related to story comprehension in the TD group only. The findings appear to support the view that receptive language skills follow the same developmental route in children with ID as seen in younger TD children, suggesting that language development is a robust process and does not seem to be differentially affected by ID even when delayed.

  15. The International English Language Testing System (IELTS): Its Nature and Development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ingram, D. E.

    The nature and development of the recently released International English Language Testing System (IELTS) instrument are described. The test is the result of a joint Australian-British project to develop a new test for use with foreign students planning to study in English-speaking countries. It is expected that the modular instrument will become…

  16. On the Thematic Nature of the Subjunctive in the Romance Languages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gerzymisch-Arbogast, Heidrun

    1993-01-01

    A theoretical discussion is offered on whether the subjunctive in the Romance languages is by nature thematic, as suggested in previous studies. English and Spanish samples are used to test the hypothesis; one conclusion is that the subjunctive seems to offer speaker-related information and may express the intensity of the speaker's involvement.…

  17. Quantization, Frobenius and Bi algebras from the Categorical Framework of Quantum Mechanics to Natural Language Semantics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sadrzadeh, Mehrnoosh

    2017-07-01

    Compact Closed categories and Frobenius and Bi algebras have been applied to model and reason about Quantum protocols. The same constructions have also been applied to reason about natural language semantics under the name: ``categorical distributional compositional'' semantics, or in short, the ``DisCoCat'' model. This model combines the statistical vector models of word meaning with the compositional models of grammatical structure. It has been applied to natural language tasks such as disambiguation, paraphrasing and entailment of phrases and sentences. The passage from the grammatical structure to vectors is provided by a functor, similar to the Quantization functor of Quantum Field Theory. The original DisCoCat model only used compact closed categories. Later, Frobenius algebras were added to it to model long distance dependancies such as relative pronouns. Recently, bialgebras have been added to the pack to reason about quantifiers. This paper reviews these constructions and their application to natural language semantics. We go over the theory and present some of the core experimental results.

  18. Modelling the phonotactic structure of natural language words with simple recurrent networks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Stoianov, [No Value; Nerbonne, J; Bouma, H; Coppen, PA; vanHalteren, H; Teunissen, L

    1998-01-01

    Simple Recurrent Networks (SRN) are Neural Network (connectionist) models able to process natural language. Phonotactics concerns the order of symbols in words. We continued an earlier unsuccessful trial to model the phonotactics of Dutch words with SRNs. In order to overcome the previously reported

  19. Adult language learning after minimal exposure to an unknown natural language

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gullberg, M.; Robert, L.; Dimroth, C.; Veroude, K.; Indefrey, P.

    2010-01-01

    Despite the literature on the role of input in adult second-language (L2) acquisition and on artificial and statistical language learning, surprisingly little is known about how adults break into a new language in the wild. This article reports on a series of behavioral and neuroimaging studies that

  20. The application of natural language processing to augmentative and alternative communication.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Higginbotham, D Jeffery; Lesher, Gregory W; Moulton, Bryan J; Roark, Brian

    2011-01-01

    Significant progress has been made in the application of natural language processing (NLP) to augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), particularly in the areas of interface design and word prediction. This article will survey the current state-of-the-science of NLP in AAC and discuss its future applications for the development of next generation of AAC technology.

  1. A Qualitative Analysis Framework Using Natural Language Processing and Graph Theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tierney, Patrick J.

    2012-01-01

    This paper introduces a method of extending natural language-based processing of qualitative data analysis with the use of a very quantitative tool--graph theory. It is not an attempt to convert qualitative research to a positivist approach with a mathematical black box, nor is it a "graphical solution". Rather, it is a method to help qualitative…

  2. Grade six students' understanding of the nature of science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cochrane, Donald Brian

    The goal of scientific literacy requires that students develop an understanding of the nature of science to assist them in the reasoned acquisition of science concepts and in their future role as citizens in a participatory democracy. The purpose of this study was to investigate and describe the range of positions that grade six students hold with respect to the nature of science and to investigate whether gender or prior science education was related to students' views of the nature of science. Two grade six classes participated in this study. One class was from a school involved in a long-term elementary science curriculum project. The science curriculum at this school involved constructivist epistemology and pedagogy and a realist ontology. The curriculum stressed hands-on, open-ended activities and the development of science process skills. Students were frequently involved in creating and testing explanations for physical phenomena. The second class was from a matched school that had a traditional science program. Results of the study indicated that students hold a wider range of views of the nature of science than previously documented. Student positions ranged from having almost no understanding of the nature of science to those expressing positions regarding the nature of science that were more developed than previous studies had documented. Despite the range of views documented, all subjects held realist views of scientific knowledge. Contrary to the literature, some students were able to evaluate a scientific theory in light of empirical evidence that they had generated. Results also indicated that students from the project school displayed more advanced views of the nature of science than their matched peers. However, not all students benefited equally from their experiences. No gender differences were found with respect to students' understanding of the nature of science.

  3. Combining Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing to Assess Literary Text Comprehension

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balyan, Renu; McCarthy, Kathryn S.; McNamara, Danielle S.

    2017-01-01

    This study examined how machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) techniques can be leveraged to assess the interpretive behavior that is required for successful literary text comprehension. We compared the accuracy of seven different machine learning classification algorithms in predicting human ratings of student essays about…

  4. Learner Characteristics and Understanding Nature of Science: Is There an Association?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Çetinkaya-Aydin, Gamze; Çakiroglu, Jale

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the possible associations between preservice science teachers' understanding of nature of science and their learner characteristics; understanding of nature of scientific inquiry, science teaching self-efficacy beliefs, metacognitive awareness level, and faith/worldview schemas. The sample of the…

  5. Understanding the natural history of Gaucher disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mistry, Pramod K; Belmatoug, Nadia; vom Dahl, Stephan; Giugliani, Roberto

    2015-07-01

    Gaucher disease is a rare and extraordinarily heterogeneous inborn error of metabolism that exhibits diverse manifestations, a broad range of age of onset of symptoms, and a wide clinical spectrum of disease severity, from lethal disease during infancy to first age of onset of symptoms in octogenarians. Before the advent of the International Collaborative Gaucher Group (ICGG) Gaucher Registry, the understanding of the natural history and phenotypic range of Gaucher disease was based on isolated case reports and small case series. Limited data hindered understanding of the full spectrum of the disease leading to some early misconceptions about Gaucher disease, notably, that nonneuronopathic (type 1) disease was a disease of adults only. The global scope of the ICGG Gaucher Registry, with its vast body of longitudinal data, has enabled a real appreciation of both the phenotypic spectrum of Gaucher disease and its natural history. This body of evidence represents the foundation for accurate assessment of the response to specific therapies for Gaucher disease and to the development of standard-of-care to monitor disease activity. Here, we outline the key developments in delineating the natural history of this highly complex disease and role of the ICGG Gaucher Registry in this effort. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  6. Primate vocal communication: a useful tool for understanding human speech and language evolution?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fedurek, Pawel; Slocombe, Katie E

    2011-04-01

    Language is a uniquely human trait, and questions of how and why it evolved have been intriguing scientists for years. Nonhuman primates (primates) are our closest living relatives, and their behavior can be used to estimate the capacities of our extinct ancestors. As humans and many primate species rely on vocalizations as their primary mode of communication, the vocal behavior of primates has been an obvious target for studies investigating the evolutionary roots of human speech and language. By studying the similarities and differences between human and primate vocalizations, comparative research has the potential to clarify the evolutionary processes that shaped human speech and language. This review examines some of the seminal and recent studies that contribute to our knowledge regarding the link between primate calls and human language and speech. We focus on three main aspects of primate vocal behavior: functional reference, call combinations, and vocal learning. Studies in these areas indicate that despite important differences, primate vocal communication exhibits some key features characterizing human language. They also indicate, however, that some critical aspects of speech, such as vocal plasticity, are not shared with our primate cousins. We conclude that comparative research on primate vocal behavior is a very promising tool for deepening our understanding of the evolution of human speech and language, but much is still to be done as many aspects of monkey and ape vocalizations remain largely unexplored.

  7. Instructional games: Scientific language use, concept understanding, and attitudinal development of middle school learners

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mongillo, Geraldine

    The purpose of this qualitative study was to discover the influence of instructional games on middle school learners' use of scientific language, concept understanding, and attitude toward learning science. The rationale for this study stemmed from the lack of research concerning the value of play as an instructional strategy for older learners. Specifically, the study focused on the ways in which 6 average ability 7th grade students demonstrated scientific language and concept use during gameplay. The data were collected for this 6-week study in a southern New Jersey suburban middle school and included audio recordings of the 5 games observed in class, written documents (e.g., student created game questions, self-evaluation forms, pre- and post-assessments, and the final quiz) interviews, and researcher field notes. Data were coded and interpreted borrowing from the framework for scientific literacy developed by Bybee (1997). Based on the findings, the framework was modified to reflect the level of scientific understanding demonstrated by the participants and categorized as: Unacquainted, Nominal, Functional, and Conceptual. Major findings suggested that the participants predominantly achieved the Functional level of scientific literacy (i.e., the ability to adequately and appropriately use scientific language in both written and oral discourse) during games. Further, it was discovered that the participants achieved the Conceptual level of scientific literacy during gameplay. Through games participants were afforded the opportunity to use common, everyday language to explore concepts, promoted through peer collaboration. In games the participants used common language to build understandings that exceeded Nominal or token use of the technical vocabulary and concepts. Additionally, the participants reported through interviews and self-evaluation forms that their attitude (patterns included: Motivation, Interest, Fun, Relief from Boredom, and an Alternate Learning

  8. Gay guys using gay language: friendship, shared values and the intent-context-effect matrix.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McCormack, Mark; Wignall, Liam; Morris, Max

    2016-12-01

    This article draws on in-depth interviews with 35 openly gay male undergraduates from four universities in England to develop an understanding of the changing nature of language related to homosexuality. In addition to finding a diminution in the prevalence of homophobic language, we demonstrate that participants maintain complex and nuanced understandings of phrases that do not use homophobic pejoratives, such as 'that's so gay'. The majority of participants rejected the notion that these phrases are inherently homophobic, instead arguing that the intent with which they are said and the context in which they are used are vital in understanding their meaning and effect. We conceptualize an intent-context-effect matrix to understand the interdependency of these variables. Highlighting the situated nature of this matrix, we also demonstrate the importance of the existence of shared norms between those saying and hearing the phrase when interpreting such language. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2016.

  9. Detecting inpatient falls by using natural language processing of electronic medical records

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Toyabe Shin-ichi

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Incident reporting is the most common method for detecting adverse events in a hospital. However, under-reporting or non-reporting and delay in submission of reports are problems that prevent early detection of serious adverse events. The aim of this study was to determine whether it is possible to promptly detect serious injuries after inpatient falls by using a natural language processing method and to determine which data source is the most suitable for this purpose. Methods We tried to detect adverse events from narrative text data of electronic medical records by using a natural language processing method. We made syntactic category decision rules to detect inpatient falls from text data in electronic medical records. We compared how often the true fall events were recorded in various sources of data including progress notes, discharge summaries, image order entries and incident reports. We applied the rules to these data sources and compared F-measures to detect falls between these data sources with reference to the results of a manual chart review. The lag time between event occurrence and data submission and the degree of injury were compared. Results We made 170 syntactic rules to detect inpatient falls by using a natural language processing method. Information on true fall events was most frequently recorded in progress notes (100%, incident reports (65.0% and image order entries (12.5%. However, F-measure to detect falls using the rules was poor when using progress notes (0.12 and discharge summaries (0.24 compared with that when using incident reports (1.00 and image order entries (0.91. Since the results suggested that incident reports and image order entries were possible data sources for prompt detection of serious falls, we focused on a comparison of falls found by incident reports and image order entries. Injury caused by falls found by image order entries was significantly more severe than falls detected by

  10. Visual statistical learning is related to natural language ability in adults: An ERP study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Daltrozzo, Jerome; Emerson, Samantha N; Deocampo, Joanne; Singh, Sonia; Freggens, Marjorie; Branum-Martin, Lee; Conway, Christopher M

    2017-03-01

    Statistical learning (SL) is believed to enable language acquisition by allowing individuals to learn regularities within linguistic input. However, neural evidence supporting a direct relationship between SL and language ability is scarce. We investigated whether there are associations between event-related potential (ERP) correlates of SL and language abilities while controlling for the general level of selective attention. Seventeen adults completed tests of visual SL, receptive vocabulary, grammatical ability, and sentence completion. Response times and ERPs showed that SL is related to receptive vocabulary and grammatical ability. ERPs indicated that the relationship between SL and grammatical ability was independent of attention while the association between SL and receptive vocabulary depended on attention. The implications of these dissociative relationships in terms of underlying mechanisms of SL and language are discussed. These results further elucidate the cognitive nature of the links between SL mechanisms and language abilities. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  11. Quantization, Frobenius and Bi Algebras from the Categorical Framework of Quantum Mechanics to Natural Language Semantics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Compact Closed categories and Frobenius and Bi algebras have been applied to model and reason about Quantum protocols. The same constructions have also been applied to reason about natural language semantics under the name: “categorical distributional compositional” semantics, or in short, the “DisCoCat” model. This model combines the statistical vector models of word meaning with the compositional models of grammatical structure. It has been applied to natural language tasks such as disambiguation, paraphrasing and entailment of phrases and sentences. The passage from the grammatical structure to vectors is provided by a functor, similar to the Quantization functor of Quantum Field Theory. The original DisCoCat model only used compact closed categories. Later, Frobenius algebras were added to it to model long distance dependancies such as relative pronouns. Recently, bialgebras have been added to the pack to reason about quantifiers. This paper reviews these constructions and their application to natural language semantics. We go over the theory and present some of the core experimental results.

  12. Use of an orton-gillingham approach to teach a foreign language to dyslexic/learning-disabled students: Explicit teaching of phonology in a second language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sparks, R L; Ganschow, L; Kenneweg, S; Miller, K

    1991-01-01

    Recent research findings suggest that students who have difficulty learning a second language have weaknesses in oral and written native-language skills which affect their performance in the foreign-language classroom. These weaknesses involve understanding the phonological, syntactic, and semantic codes of language. Evidence suggests that dyslexic/learning-disabled and other "at risk" students who struggle in the second language classroom exhibit particular difficulty with the phonological and syntactic codes of the language. The Orton-Gillingham method, a multisensory, structured language approach which adheres to the direct and explicit teaching of phonology, is presented as an alternative to the "natural" communication approaches recently developed by foreign-language educators to teach a second language. A method for adapting this approach for teaching Spanish is described.

  13. Mathematics and the Laws of Nature Developing the Language of Science (Revised Edition)

    CERN Document Server

    Tabak, John

    2011-01-01

    Mathematics and the Laws of Nature, Revised Edition describes the evolution of the idea that nature can be described in the language of mathematics. Colorful chapters explore the earliest attempts to apply deductive methods to the study of the natural world. This revised resource goes on to examine the development of classical conservation laws, including the conservation of momentum, the conservation of mass, and the conservation of energy. Chapters have been updated and revised to reflect recent information, including the mathematical pioneers who introduced new ideas about what it meant to

  14. Comparative study on the customization of natural language interfaces to databases.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pazos R, Rodolfo A; Aguirre L, Marco A; González B, Juan J; Martínez F, José A; Pérez O, Joaquín; Verástegui O, Andrés A

    2016-01-01

    In the last decades the popularity of natural language interfaces to databases (NLIDBs) has increased, because in many cases information obtained from them is used for making important business decisions. Unfortunately, the complexity of their customization by database administrators make them difficult to use. In order for a NLIDB to obtain a high percentage of correctly translated queries, it is necessary that it is correctly customized for the database to be queried. In most cases the performance reported in NLIDB literature is the highest possible; i.e., the performance obtained when the interfaces were customized by the implementers. However, for end users it is more important the performance that the interface can yield when the NLIDB is customized by someone different from the implementers. Unfortunately, there exist very few articles that report NLIDB performance when the NLIDBs are not customized by the implementers. This article presents a semantically-enriched data dictionary (which permits solving many of the problems that occur when translating from natural language to SQL) and an experiment in which two groups of undergraduate students customized our NLIDB and English language frontend (ELF), considered one of the best available commercial NLIDBs. The experimental results show that, when customized by the first group, our NLIDB obtained a 44.69 % of correctly answered queries and ELF 11.83 % for the ATIS database, and when customized by the second group, our NLIDB attained 77.05 % and ELF 13.48 %. The performance attained by our NLIDB, when customized by ourselves was 90 %.

  15. Language related differences of the sustained response evoked by natural speech sounds.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christina Siu-Dschu Fan

    Full Text Available In tonal languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, the pitch contour of vowels discriminates lexical meaning, which is not the case in non-tonal languages such as German. Recent data provide evidence that pitch processing is influenced by language experience. However, there are still many open questions concerning the representation of such phonological and language-related differences at the level of the auditory cortex (AC. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG, we recorded transient and sustained auditory evoked fields (AEF in native Chinese and German speakers to investigate language related phonological and semantic aspects in the processing of acoustic stimuli. AEF were elicited by spoken meaningful and meaningless syllables, by vowels, and by a French horn tone. Speech sounds were recorded from a native speaker and showed frequency-modulations according to the pitch-contours of Mandarin. The sustained field (SF evoked by natural speech signals was significantly larger for Chinese than for German listeners. In contrast, the SF elicited by a horn tone was not significantly different between groups. Furthermore, the SF of Chinese subjects was larger when evoked by meaningful syllables compared to meaningless ones, but there was no significant difference regarding whether vowels were part of the Chinese phonological system or not. Moreover, the N100m gave subtle but clear evidence that for Chinese listeners other factors than purely physical properties play a role in processing meaningful signals. These findings show that the N100 and the SF generated in Heschl's gyrus are influenced by language experience, which suggests that AC activity related to specific pitch contours of vowels is influenced in a top-down fashion by higher, language related areas. Such interactions are in line with anatomical findings and neuroimaging data, as well as with the dual-stream model of language of Hickok and Poeppel that highlights the close and reciprocal interaction

  16. Language related differences of the sustained response evoked by natural speech sounds.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fan, Christina Siu-Dschu; Zhu, Xingyu; Dosch, Hans Günter; von Stutterheim, Christiane; Rupp, André

    2017-01-01

    In tonal languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, the pitch contour of vowels discriminates lexical meaning, which is not the case in non-tonal languages such as German. Recent data provide evidence that pitch processing is influenced by language experience. However, there are still many open questions concerning the representation of such phonological and language-related differences at the level of the auditory cortex (AC). Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we recorded transient and sustained auditory evoked fields (AEF) in native Chinese and German speakers to investigate language related phonological and semantic aspects in the processing of acoustic stimuli. AEF were elicited by spoken meaningful and meaningless syllables, by vowels, and by a French horn tone. Speech sounds were recorded from a native speaker and showed frequency-modulations according to the pitch-contours of Mandarin. The sustained field (SF) evoked by natural speech signals was significantly larger for Chinese than for German listeners. In contrast, the SF elicited by a horn tone was not significantly different between groups. Furthermore, the SF of Chinese subjects was larger when evoked by meaningful syllables compared to meaningless ones, but there was no significant difference regarding whether vowels were part of the Chinese phonological system or not. Moreover, the N100m gave subtle but clear evidence that for Chinese listeners other factors than purely physical properties play a role in processing meaningful signals. These findings show that the N100 and the SF generated in Heschl's gyrus are influenced by language experience, which suggests that AC activity related to specific pitch contours of vowels is influenced in a top-down fashion by higher, language related areas. Such interactions are in line with anatomical findings and neuroimaging data, as well as with the dual-stream model of language of Hickok and Poeppel that highlights the close and reciprocal interaction between

  17. Accommodating Grief on Twitter: An Analysis of Expressions of Grief Among Gang Involved Youth on Twitter Using Qualitative Analysis and Natural Language Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patton, Desmond Upton; MacBeth, Jamie; Schoenebeck, Sarita; Shear, Katherine; McKeown, Kathleen

    2018-01-01

    There is a dearth of research investigating youths’ experience of grief and mourning after the death of close friends or family. Even less research has explored the question of how youth use social media sites to engage in the grieving process. This study employs qualitative analysis and natural language processing to examine tweets that follow 2 deaths. First, we conducted a close textual read on a sample of tweets by Gakirah Barnes, a gang-involved teenaged girl in Chicago, and members of her Twitter network, over a 19-day period in 2014 during which 2 significant deaths occurred: that of Raason “Lil B” Shaw and Gakirah’s own death. We leverage the grief literature to understand the way Gakirah and her peers express thoughts, feelings, and behaviors at the time of these deaths. We also present and explain the rich and complex style of online communication among gang-involved youth, one that has been overlooked in prior research. Next, we overview the natural language processing output for expressions of loss and grief in our data set based on qualitative findings and present an error analysis on its output for grief. We conclude with a call for interdisciplinary research that analyzes online and offline behaviors to help understand physical and emotional violence and other problematic behaviors prevalent among marginalized communities. PMID:29636619

  18. Harnessing Biomedical Natural Language Processing Tools to Identify Medicinal Plant Knowledge from Historical Texts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sharma, Vivekanand; Law, Wayne; Balick, Michael J; Sarkar, Indra Neil

    2017-01-01

    The growing amount of data describing historical medicinal uses of plants from digitization efforts provides the opportunity to develop systematic approaches for identifying potential plant-based therapies. However, the task of cataloguing plant use information from natural language text is a challenging task for ethnobotanists. To date, there have been only limited adoption of informatics approaches used for supporting the identification of ethnobotanical information associated with medicinal uses. This study explored the feasibility of using biomedical terminologies and natural language processing approaches for extracting relevant plant-associated therapeutic use information from historical biodiversity literature collection available from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The results from this preliminary study suggest that there is potential utility of informatics methods to identify medicinal plant knowledge from digitized resources as well as highlight opportunities for improvement.

  19. A Cognitive Neural Architecture Able to Learn and Communicate through Natural Language.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bruno Golosio

    Full Text Available Communicative interactions involve a kind of procedural knowledge that is used by the human brain for processing verbal and nonverbal inputs and for language production. Although considerable work has been done on modeling human language abilities, it has been difficult to bring them together to a comprehensive tabula rasa system compatible with current knowledge of how verbal information is processed in the brain. This work presents a cognitive system, entirely based on a large-scale neural architecture, which was developed to shed light on the procedural knowledge involved in language elaboration. The main component of this system is the central executive, which is a supervising system that coordinates the other components of the working memory. In our model, the central executive is a neural network that takes as input the neural activation states of the short-term memory and yields as output mental actions, which control the flow of information among the working memory components through neural gating mechanisms. The proposed system is capable of learning to communicate through natural language starting from tabula rasa, without any a priori knowledge of the structure of phrases, meaning of words, role of the different classes of words, only by interacting with a human through a text-based interface, using an open-ended incremental learning process. It is able to learn nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns and other word classes, and to use them in expressive language. The model was validated on a corpus of 1587 input sentences, based on literature on early language assessment, at the level of about 4-years old child, and produced 521 output sentences, expressing a broad range of language processing functionalities.

  20. The Speech Act Theory between Linguistics and Language Philosophy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liviu-Mihail MARINESCU

    2006-10-01

    Full Text Available Of all the issues in the general theory of language usage, speech act theory has probably aroused the widest interest. Psychologists, forexample, have suggested that the acquisition of the concepts underlying speech acts may be a prerequisite for the acquisition of language in general,literary critics have looked to speech act theory for an illumination of textual subtleties or for an understanding of the nature of literary genres,anthropologists have hoped to find in the theory some account of the nature of magical incantations, philosophers have seen potential applications to,amongst other things, the status of ethical statements, while linguists have seen the notions of speech act theory as variously applicable to problemsin syntax, semantics, second language learning, and elsewhere.

  1. Computer modelling as a tool for understanding language evolution

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Boer, Bart; Gontier, N; VanBendegem, JP; Aerts, D

    2006-01-01

    This paper describes the uses of computer models in studying the evolution of language. Language is a complex dynamic system that can be studied at the level of the individual and at the level of the population. Much of the dynamics of language evolution and language change occur because of the

  2. General Chemistry Students' Conceptual Understanding and Language Fluency: Acid-Base Neutralization and Conductometry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nyachwaya, James M.

    2016-01-01

    The objective of this study was to examine college general chemistry students' conceptual understanding and language fluency in the context of the topic of acids and bases. 115 students worked in groups of 2-4 to complete an activity on conductometry, where they were given a scenario in which a titration of sodium hydroxide solution and dilute…

  3. Recent Technological Advances in Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence

    OpenAIRE

    Shah, Nishal Pradeepkumar

    2012-01-01

    A recent advance in computer technology has permitted scientists to implement and test algorithms that were known from quite some time (or not) but which were computationally expensive. Two such projects are IBM's Jeopardy as a part of its DeepQA project [1] and Wolfram's Wolframalpha[2]. Both these methods implement natural language processing (another goal of AI scientists) and try to answer questions as asked by the user. Though the goal of the two projects is similar, both of them have a ...

  4. Quantum Algorithms for Compositional Natural Language Processing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    William Zeng

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available We propose a new application of quantum computing to the field of natural language processing. Ongoing work in this field attempts to incorporate grammatical structure into algorithms that compute meaning. In (Coecke, Sadrzadeh and Clark, 2010, the authors introduce such a model (the CSC model based on tensor product composition. While this algorithm has many advantages, its implementation is hampered by the large classical computational resources that it requires. In this work we show how computational shortcomings of the CSC approach could be resolved using quantum computation (possibly in addition to existing techniques for dimension reduction. We address the value of quantum RAM (Giovannetti,2008 for this model and extend an algorithm from Wiebe, Braun and Lloyd (2012 into a quantum algorithm to categorize sentences in CSC. Our new algorithm demonstrates a quadratic speedup over classical methods under certain conditions.

  5. Do we actually understand how people perceive risk?

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bochud, Francois O.

    2016-11-01

    The best way to understand how people perceive radiation risk is to not consider them as fundamentally different from experts, but rather, to consider how we, as experts, naturally react when we are confronted with a risk and how we like to be treated. Do we have to alter our language to make it understandable by members of the public?.

  6. Understanding action language modulates oscillatory mu and beta rhythms in the same way as observing actions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moreno, Iván; de Vega, Manuel; León, Inmaculada

    2013-08-01

    The mu rhythms (8-13 Hz) and the beta rhythms (15 up to 30 Hz) of the EEG are observed in the central electrodes (C3, Cz and C4) in resting states, and become suppressed when participants perform a manual action or when they observe another's action. This has led researchers to consider that these rhythms are electrophysiological markers of the motor neuron activity in humans. This study tested whether the comprehension of action language, unlike abstract language, modulates mu and low beta rhythms (15-20 Hz) in a similar way as the observation of real actions. The log-ratios were calculated for each oscillatory band between each condition and baseline resting periods. The results indicated that both action language and action videos caused mu and beta suppression (negative log-ratios), whereas abstract language did not, confirming the hypothesis that understanding action language activates motor networks in the brain. In other words, the resonance of motor areas associated with action language is compatible with the embodiment approach to linguistic meaning. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Biological and social understanding of human nature: biopolitical dimension

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. K. Kostiuchkov

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available This paper examines the position of the biopolitical nature of man as a biosocial being given supplies of both the two spheres of life – natural, biological and social. The necessity of understanding of human nature, which by definition are bio-social importance of the approach to the definition of man as an integral, binary-konnotovanoyi of the «social individual – a species» which is characterized by symmetrical opposition – upposition social and biological. It was found that the main task of modern political science, and in particular bio-political studies presented appeals to rethink the political picture of the world in order to predict the development of a new order or a new chaos. Understanding the formation of a new global civilization worldview is today one of the most important problems, which is connected with the main problem of the modern world – the task of preserving life on the planet. It is concluded that the contradictions of human nature – between the biological and the social, physical and spiritual, universal and the particular, natural and artificial, rational and emotional – in today’s conditions are extremely sharp. The said situation requires more in-depth scientific analysis of human nature, the study of the structural level as human biosocial system.

  8. Multimodal Languaging as a Pedagogical Model--A Case Study of the Concept of Division in School Mathematics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Joutsenlahti, Jorma; Kulju, Pirjo

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to present a multimodal languaging model for mathematics education. The model consists of mathematical symbolic language, a pictorial language, and a natural language. By applying this model, the objective was to study how 4th grade pupils (N = 21) understand the concept of division. The data was collected over six…

  9. Cognitive Neuroscience of Natural Language Use

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Willems, R.M.

    2015-01-01

    When we think of everyday language use, the first things that come to mind include colloquial conversations, reading and writing e-mails, sending text messages or reading a book. But can we study the brain basis of language as we use it in our daily lives? As a topic of study, the cognitive

  10. Understanding the Relationship between Language Proficiency, Language Impairment and Rehabilitation: Evidence from a Case Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiran, Swathi; Iakupova, Regina

    2011-01-01

    The goal of this study was to address the relationship between language proficiency, language impairment and rehabilitation in bilingual Russian-English individuals with aphasia. As a first step, we examined two Russian-English patients' pre-stroke language proficiency using a detailed and comprehensive language use and history questionnaire and…

  11. Teaching Cultural Taboos and Taboo Language for Intercultural Awareness and Understanding

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Georgeta Rata

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available The goal of the paper is to show that language can support social and intercultural competence of both students and teachers: one of the ways to do it is teaching cultural taboos and taboo language for intercultural awareness and understanding. The current state of the art in the field points to an increasing interest in the teaching of taboos. The material we analysed consisted in 238 offensive, vulgar and obscene English words that both students and teachers should know to attain social and intercultural competence. The method used is the descriptive one. The degree of novelty is rather high in our cultural area. Results show that there are 134 offensive (slang words and expressions (referring to the country of origin or to an ethnic group, to sex and sex-related issues (sexual orientation, to race, etc., 75 vulgar words and expressions (referring to sex and sex-related issues, to body parts, to people, etc., and 29 obscene words and expressions (referring to body secretions, to sex and sex-related issues, to people, etc.. There seems to be no research limitations given the lexicographic sources that we used. The implications of teaching cultural taboos and taboo language at tertiary level concern both the students and teachers and the organisation they belong to. The paper is original and relevant given the process of globalisation.

  12. How we understand mathematics conceptual integration in the language of mathematical description

    CERN Document Server

    Woźny, Jacek

    2018-01-01

    This volume examines mathematics as a product of the human mind and analyzes the language of "pure mathematics" from various advanced-level sources. Through analysis of the foundational texts of mathematics, it is demonstrated that math is a complex literary creation, containing objects, actors, actions, projection, prediction, planning, explanation, evaluation, roles, image schemas, metonymy, conceptual blending, and, of course, (natural) language. The book follows the narrative of mathematics in a typical order of presentation for a standard university-level algebra course, beginning with analysis of set theory and mappings and continuing along a path of increasing complexity. At each stage, primary concepts, axioms, definitions, and proofs will be examined in an effort to unfold the tell-tale traces of the basic human cognitive patterns of story and conceptual blending. This book will be of interest to mathematicians, teachers of mathematics, cognitive scientists, cognitive linguists, and anyone interested...

  13. The relation between language, culture, and thought.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Imai, Mutsumi; Kanero, Junko; Masuda, Takahiko

    2016-04-01

    The relationship between culture, language, and thought has long been one of the most important topics for those who wish to understand the nature of human cognition. This issue has been investigated for decades across a broad range of research disciplines. However, there has been scant communication across these different disciplines, a situation largely arising through differences in research interests and discrepancies in the definitions of key terms such as 'culture,' 'language,' and 'thought.' This article reviews recent trends in research on the relation between language, culture and thought to capture how cognitive psychology and cultural psychology have defined 'language' and 'culture,' and how this issue was addressed within each research discipline. We then review recent research conducted in interdisciplinary perspectives, which directly compared the roles of culture and language. Finally, we highlight the importance of considering the complex interplay between culture and language to provide a comprehensive picture of how language and culture affect thought. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  14. Theoretical Studies in Natural Language Understanding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    1980-05-01

    concepts in the taxonomy (e.g., "if you eat this, you will get sick" or "if you eat this it will satisfy your hunger") . The two most important aspects... eating meat, etc., then in almost all such cases one can imagine (or actually encounter) entities to which the term should apply, but which fail to...Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, Bradford Books, 1978. Frege, G. 1892. " Uber Sinn und Bedeutung". Zeitschr. f. Philosophie und philosoph. Kritik

  15. Language Revitalization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hinton, Leanne

    2003-01-01

    Surveys developments in language revitalization and language death. Focusing on indigenous languages, discusses the role and nature of appropriate linguistic documentation, possibilities for bilingual education, and methods of promoting oral fluency and intergenerational transmission in affected languages. (Author/VWL)

  16. Laboratory process control using natural language commands from a personal computer

    Science.gov (United States)

    Will, Herbert A.; Mackin, Michael A.

    1989-01-01

    PC software is described which provides flexible natural language process control capability with an IBM PC or compatible machine. Hardware requirements include the PC, and suitable hardware interfaces to all controlled devices. Software required includes the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) operating system, a PC-based FORTRAN-77 compiler, and user-written device drivers. Instructions for use of the software are given as well as a description of an application of the system.

  17. Creation of a simple natural language processing tool to support an imaging utilization quality dashboard.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Swartz, Jordan; Koziatek, Christian; Theobald, Jason; Smith, Silas; Iturrate, Eduardo

    2017-05-01

    Testing for venous thromboembolism (VTE) is associated with cost and risk to patients (e.g. radiation). To assess the appropriateness of imaging utilization at the provider level, it is important to know that provider's diagnostic yield (percentage of tests positive for the diagnostic entity of interest). However, determining diagnostic yield typically requires either time-consuming, manual review of radiology reports or the use of complex and/or proprietary natural language processing software. The objectives of this study were twofold: 1) to develop and implement a simple, user-configurable, and open-source natural language processing tool to classify radiology reports with high accuracy and 2) to use the results of the tool to design a provider-specific VTE imaging dashboard, consisting of both utilization rate and diagnostic yield. Two physicians reviewed a training set of 400 lower extremity ultrasound (UTZ) and computed tomography pulmonary angiogram (CTPA) reports to understand the language used in VTE-positive and VTE-negative reports. The insights from this review informed the arguments to the five modifiable parameters of the NLP tool. A validation set of 2,000 studies was then independently classified by the reviewers and by the tool; the classifications were compared and the performance of the tool was calculated. The tool was highly accurate in classifying the presence and absence of VTE for both the UTZ (sensitivity 95.7%; 95% CI 91.5-99.8, specificity 100%; 95% CI 100-100) and CTPA reports (sensitivity 97.1%; 95% CI 94.3-99.9, specificity 98.6%; 95% CI 97.8-99.4). The diagnostic yield was then calculated at the individual provider level and the imaging dashboard was created. We have created a novel NLP tool designed for users without a background in computer programming, which has been used to classify venous thromboembolism reports with a high degree of accuracy. The tool is open-source and available for download at http

  18. A phenomenographic study of the ways of understanding conditional and repetition structures in computer programming languages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bucks, Gregory Warren

    Computers have become an integral part of how engineers complete their work, allowing them to collect and analyze data, model potential solutions and aiding in production through automation and robotics. In addition, computers are essential elements of the products themselves, from tennis shoes to construction materials. An understanding of how computers function, both at the hardware and software level, is essential for the next generation of engineers. Despite the need for engineers to develop a strong background in computing, little opportunity is given for engineering students to develop these skills. Learning to program is widely seen as a difficult task, requiring students to develop not only an understanding of specific concepts, but also a way of thinking. In addition, students are forced to learn a new tool, in the form of the programming environment employed, along with these concepts and thought processes. Because of this, many students will not develop a sufficient proficiency in programming, even after progressing through the traditional introductory programming sequence. This is a significant problem, especially in the engineering disciplines, where very few students receive more than one or two semesters' worth of instruction in an already crowded engineering curriculum. To address these issues, new pedagogical techniques must be investigated in an effort to enhance the ability of engineering students to develop strong computing skills. However, these efforts are hindered by the lack of published assessment instruments available for probing an individual's understanding of programming concepts across programming languages. Traditionally, programming knowledge has been assessed by producing written code in a specific language. This can be an effective method, but does not lend itself well to comparing the pedagogical impact of different programming environments, languages or paradigms. This dissertation presents a phenomenographic research study

  19. Promoting Intercultural Understanding among School Students through an English Language Based Reading Programme

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manjet Kaur Mehar Singh

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Malaysian intercultural society is typified by three major ethnic groups mainly Malays, Chinese and Indians.  Although education system is the best tool for these three major ethnic groups to work together, contemporary research reveals that there is still lack of intercultural embedding education context and national schools are seen as breeding grounds of racial polarisation.  In Malaysian context, there is a gap in research that focuses on the design of a proper intercultural reading framework for national integration and such initiatives are viable through schools.  The main objective of this conceptual paper is to introduce the English Language Intercultural Reading Programme (ELIRP in secondary schools to promote intercultural understanding among secondary school students.  The proposed framework will facilitate the acquisition of intercultural inputs without being constrained by ideological, political, or psychological demands.  This article will focus on elucidating how ELIRP could affect cognitive (knowledge and behavioural transformations to intercultural perceptions harboured by selected Form 4 students of 20 national schools in Malaysia. Keywords: behavior, knowledge, intercultural reading framework, intercultural understanding, English Language Intercultural Reading Programme, secondary school students

  20. Understanding the Language Demands on Science Students from an Integrated Science and Language Perspective

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seah, Lay Hoon; Clarke, David John; Hart, Christina Eugene

    2014-01-01

    This case study of a science lesson, on the topic thermal expansion, examines the language demands on students from an integrated science and language perspective. The data were generated during a sequence of 9 lessons on the topic of "States of Matter" in a Grade 7 classroom (12-13 years old students). We identify the language demands…

  1. Deviations in the Zipf and Heaps laws in natural languages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bochkarev, Vladimir V.; Lerner, Eduard Yu; Shevlyakova, Anna V.

    2014-03-01

    This paper is devoted to verifying of the empirical Zipf and Hips laws in natural languages using Google Books Ngram corpus data. The connection between the Zipf and Heaps law which predicts the power dependence of the vocabulary size on the text size is discussed. In fact, the Heaps exponent in this dependence varies with the increasing of the text corpus. To explain it, the obtained results are compared with the probability model of text generation. Quasi-periodic variations with characteristic time periods of 60-100 years were also found.

  2. Semi-supervised learning and domain adaptation in natural language processing

    CERN Document Server

    Søgaard, Anders

    2013-01-01

    This book introduces basic supervised learning algorithms applicable to natural language processing (NLP) and shows how the performance of these algorithms can often be improved by exploiting the marginal distribution of large amounts of unlabeled data. One reason for that is data sparsity, i.e., the limited amounts of data we have available in NLP. However, in most real-world NLP applications our labeled data is also heavily biased. This book introduces extensions of supervised learning algorithms to cope with data sparsity and different kinds of sampling bias.This book is intended to be both

  3. Deviations in the Zipf and Heaps laws in natural languages

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bochkarev, Vladimir V; Lerner, Eduard Yu; Shevlyakova, Anna V

    2014-01-01

    This paper is devoted to verifying of the empirical Zipf and Hips laws in natural languages using Google Books Ngram corpus data. The connection between the Zipf and Heaps law which predicts the power dependence of the vocabulary size on the text size is discussed. In fact, the Heaps exponent in this dependence varies with the increasing of the text corpus. To explain it, the obtained results are compared with the probability model of text generation. Quasi-periodic variations with characteristic time periods of 60-100 years were also found

  4. The «Natural Hazard WIKISAURUS»: explanation and understanding of natural hazards to build disaster resilience

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rapisardi, Elena; Di Franco, Sabina; Giardino, Marco

    2013-04-01

    not a unique meaning: e.g. Mercury could stand for the Roman god, the metallic element, the planet, or Freddy the singer. Similarly the word «alert»: in the common language has a certain meaning, whilst in the civil protection framework includes regulations, responsibilities and procedures. The NHW is intended as a collaborative virtual source with validated information on geosciences to support a common understanding of natural hazards, risks and civil protection. The NHW aims to become a point of reference both for acknowledged practitioners, who will share their expertise and data, and for citizens, civil servants, media representatives, and students allowed to comment and contribute to the scientifically validated content. The NHW is a simple tool to support information and communication on natural hazards and civil protection at all levels and would set up a shared and common knowledge. Moreover, NHW could represent the first step of a further challenging programme: through the power of «linked data» NHW could develop and contribute first to a natural hazard semantic, then to a «semantic disaster resilience».

  5. Automated Trait Extraction using ClearEarth, a Natural Language Processing System for Text Mining in Natural Sciences

    OpenAIRE

    Thessen,Anne; Preciado,Jenette; Jain,Payoj; Martin,James; Palmer,Martha; Bhat,Riyaz

    2018-01-01

    The cTAKES package (using the ClearTK Natural Language Processing toolkit Bethard et al. 2014, http://cleartk.github.io/cleartk/) has been successfully used to automatically read clinical notes in the medical field (Albright et al. 2013, Styler et al. 2014). It is used on a daily basis to automatically process clinical notes and extract relevant information by dozens of medical institutions. ClearEarth is a collaborative project that brings together computational linguistics and domain scient...

  6. The Relationship Between Artificial and Second Language Learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ettlinger, Marc; Morgan-Short, Kara; Faretta-Stutenberg, Mandy; Wong, Patrick C M

    2016-05-01

    Artificial language learning (ALL) experiments have become an important tool in exploring principles of language and language learning. A persistent question in all of this work, however, is whether ALL engages the linguistic system and whether ALL studies are ecologically valid assessments of natural language ability. In the present study, we considered these questions by examining the relationship between performance in an ALL task and second language learning ability. Participants enrolled in a Spanish language class were evaluated using a number of different measures of Spanish ability and classroom performance, which was compared to IQ and a number of different measures of ALL performance. The results show that success in ALL experiments, particularly more complex artificial languages, correlates positively with indices of L2 learning even after controlling for IQ. These findings provide a key link between studies involving ALL and our understanding of second language learning in the classroom. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  7. AutoTutor and Family: A Review of 17 Years of Natural Language Tutoring

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nye, Benjamin D.; Graesser, Arthur C.; Hu, Xiangen

    2014-01-01

    AutoTutor is a natural language tutoring system that has produced learning gains across multiple domains (e.g., computer literacy, physics, critical thinking). In this paper, we review the development, key research findings, and systems that have evolved from AutoTutor. First, the rationale for developing AutoTutor is outlined and the advantages…

  8. Construct Validity in TOEFL iBT Speaking Tasks: Insights from Natural Language Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kyle, Kristopher; Crossley, Scott A.; McNamara, Danielle S.

    2016-01-01

    This study explores the construct validity of speaking tasks included in the TOEFL iBT (e.g., integrated and independent speaking tasks). Specifically, advanced natural language processing (NLP) tools, MANOVA difference statistics, and discriminant function analyses (DFA) are used to assess the degree to which and in what ways responses to these…

  9. The Ease of Language Understanding (ELU model: theoretical, empirical, and clinical advances

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jerker eRönnberg

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available Working memory is important for online language processing during conversation. We use it to maintain relevant information, to inhibit or ignore irrelevant information, and to attend to conversation selectively. Working memory helps us to keep track of and actively participate in conversation, including taking turns and following the gist. This paper examines the Ease of Language Understanding model (i.e., the ELU model, Rönnberg, 2003; Rönnberg et al., 2008 in light of new behavioral and neural findings concerning the role of working memory capacity (WMC in uni-modal and bimodal language processing. The new ELU model is a meaning prediction system that depends on phonological and semantic interactions in rapid implicit and slower explicit processing mechanisms that both depend on WMC albeit in different ways. A revised ELU model is proposed based on findings that address the relationship between WMC and (a early attention processes in listening to speech, (b signal processing in hearing aids and its effects on short-term memory, (c inhibition of speech maskers and its effect on episodic long-term memory, (d the effects of hearing impairment on episodic and semantic long-term memory, and finally, (e listening effort. New predictions and clinical implications are outlined. Comparisons with other WMC and speech perception models are made.

  10. Action Control, L2 Motivational Self System, and Motivated Learning Behavior in a Foreign Language Learning Context

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khany, Reza; Amiri, Majid

    2018-01-01

    Theoretical developments in second or foreign language motivation research have led to a better understanding of the convoluted nature of motivation in the process of language acquisition. Among these theories, action control theory has recently shown a good deal of explanatory power in second language learning contexts and in the presence of…

  11. Language evolution and human-computer interaction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grudin, Jonathan; Norman, Donald A.

    1991-01-01

    Many of the issues that confront designers of interactive computer systems also appear in natural language evolution. Natural languages and human-computer interfaces share as their primary mission the support of extended 'dialogues' between responsive entities. Because in each case one participant is a human being, some of the pressures operating on natural languages, causing them to evolve in order to better support such dialogue, also operate on human-computer 'languages' or interfaces. This does not necessarily push interfaces in the direction of natural language - since one entity in this dialogue is not a human, this is not to be expected. Nonetheless, by discerning where the pressures that guide natural language evolution also appear in human-computer interaction, we can contribute to the design of computer systems and obtain a new perspective on natural languages.

  12. Children with Specific Language Impairment and Their Families: A Future View of Nature Plus Nurture and New Technologies for Comprehensive Language Intervention Strategies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rice, Mabel L

    2016-11-01

    Future perspectives on children with language impairments are framed from what is known about children with specific language impairment (SLI). A summary of the current state of services is followed by discussion of how these children can be overlooked and misunderstood and consideration of why it is so hard for some children to acquire language when it is effortless for most children. Genetic influences are highlighted, with the suggestion that nature plus nurture should be considered in present as well as future intervention approaches. A nurture perspective highlights the family context of the likelihood of SLI for some of the children. Future models of the causal pathways may provide more specific information to guide gene-treatment decisions, in ways parallel to current personalized medicine approaches. Future treatment options can build on the potential of electronic technologies and social media to provide personalized treatment methods available at a time and place convenient for the person to use as often as desired. The speech-language pathologist could oversee a wide range of treatment options and monitor evidence provided electronically to evaluate progress and plan future treatment steps. Most importantly, future methods can provide lifelong language acquisition activities that maintain the privacy and dignity of persons with language impairment, and in so doing will in turn enhance the effectiveness of speech-language pathologists. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

  13. What sign language creation teaches us about language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brentari, Diane; Coppola, Marie

    2013-03-01

    How do languages emerge? What are the necessary ingredients and circumstances that permit new languages to form? Various researchers within the disciplines of primatology, anthropology, psychology, and linguistics have offered different answers to this question depending on their perspective. Language acquisition, language evolution, primate communication, and the study of spoken varieties of pidgin and creoles address these issues, but in this article we describe a relatively new and important area that contributes to our understanding of language creation and emergence. Three types of communication systems that use the hands and body to communicate will be the focus of this article: gesture, homesign systems, and sign languages. The focus of this article is to explain why mapping the path from gesture to homesign to sign language has become an important research topic for understanding language emergence, not only for the field of sign languages, but also for language in general. WIREs Cogn Sci 2013, 4:201-211. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1212 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  14. Natural language acquisition in large scale neural semantic networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ealey, Douglas

    This thesis puts forward the view that a purely signal- based approach to natural language processing is both plausible and desirable. By questioning the veracity of symbolic representations of meaning, it argues for a unified, non-symbolic model of knowledge representation that is both biologically plausible and, potentially, highly efficient. Processes to generate a grounded, neural form of this model-dubbed the semantic filter-are discussed. The combined effects of local neural organisation, coincident with perceptual maturation, are used to hypothesise its nature. This theoretical model is then validated in light of a number of fundamental neurological constraints and milestones. The mechanisms of semantic and episodic development that the model predicts are then used to explain linguistic properties, such as propositions and verbs, syntax and scripting. To mimic the growth of locally densely connected structures upon an unbounded neural substrate, a system is developed that can grow arbitrarily large, data- dependant structures composed of individual self- organising neural networks. The maturational nature of the data used results in a structure in which the perception of concepts is refined by the networks, but demarcated by subsequent structure. As a consequence, the overall structure shows significant memory and computational benefits, as predicted by the cognitive and neural models. Furthermore, the localised nature of the neural architecture also avoids the increasing error sensitivity and redundancy of traditional systems as the training domain grows. The semantic and episodic filters have been demonstrated to perform as well, or better, than more specialist networks, whilst using significantly larger vocabularies, more complex sentence forms and more natural corpora.

  15. Toward a Natural Speech Understanding System

    Science.gov (United States)

    1989-10-01

    toward the monolingual English 25 msec value. Miyawaki et a]. (1975) investigated the /ra/ - /la/ continuum with English and Japanese speakers...Standard Dictionary In order to evaluate some of the claims of the learning theory of speech recognition, a computer model was developed. The NEXus...discrimination of synthetic vowels. Language and Speech, 1962, 5, 171-189. Funk and Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary of the English Language. New York: Funk and

  16. Languages in a global world learning for better cultural understanding

    CERN Document Server

    Scott, Jessica; Hinton, Christina

    2012-01-01

    The rise of globalisation makes language competencies more valuable, both at individual and societal levels. This book examines the links between globalisation and the way we teach and learn languages. It begins by asking why some individuals are more successful than others at learning non-native languages, and why some education systems, or countries, are more successful than others at teaching languages. The book comprises chapters by different authors on the subject of language learning. There are chapters on the role of motivation; the way that languages, cultures and identities are interc

  17. Nurse ethical awareness: Understanding the nature of everyday practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Milliken, Aimee; Grace, Pamela

    2017-08-01

    Much attention has been paid to the role of the nurse in recognizing and addressing ethical dilemmas. There has been less emphasis, however, on the issue of whether or not nurses understand the ethical nature of everyday practice. Awareness of the inherently ethical nature of practice is a component of nurse ethical sensitivity, which has been identified as a component of ethical decision-making. Ethical sensitivity is generally accepted as a necessary precursor to moral agency, in that recognition of the ethical content of practice is necessary before consistent action on behalf of patient interests can take place. This awareness is also compulsory in ensuring patient good by recognizing the unique interests and wishes of individuals, in line with an ethic of care. Scholarly and research literature are used to argue that bolstering ethical awareness and ensuring that nurses understand the ethical nature of the role are an obligation of the profession. Based on this line of reasoning, recommendations for education and practice, along with directions for future research, are suggested.

  18. The Initial Stages of First-Language Acquisition Begun in Adolescence: When Late Looks Early

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramirez, Naja Ferjan; Lieberman, Amy M.; Mayberry, Rachel I.

    2013-01-01

    Children typically acquire their native language naturally and spontaneously at a very young age. The emergence of early grammar can be predicted from children's vocabulary size and composition (Bates et al., 1994; Bates, Bretherton & Snyder, 1998; Bates & Goodman, 1997). One central question in language research is understanding what…

  19. PERSISTENCE AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN NATURAL SCIENCES STUDENTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexandr I Krupnov

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The article discusses the results of empirical study of the association between variables of persistence and academic achievement in foreign languages. The sample includes students of the Faculty of Physics, Mathematics and Natural Science at the RUDN University ( n = 115, divided into 5 subsamples, two of which are featured in the present study (the most and the least successful students subsamples. Persistence as a personality trait is studied within A.I. Krupnov’s system-functional approach. A.I. Krupnov’s paper-and-pencil test was used to measure persistence variables. Academic achievement was measured according to the four parameters: Phonetics, Grammar, Speaking and Political vocabulary based on the grades students received during the academic year. The analysis revealed that persistence displays different associations with academic achievement variables in more and less successful students subsamples, the general prominence of this trait is more important for unsuccessful students. Phonetics is the academic achievement variable most associated with persistence due to its nature, a skill one can acquire through hard work and practice which is the definition of persistence. Grammar as an academic achievement variable is not associated with persistence and probably relates to other factors. Unsuccessful students may have difficulties in separating various aspects of language acquisition from each other which should be taken into consideration by the teachers.

  20. The Problem of Understanding of Nature in Exact Science

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leo Näpinen

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available In this short inquiry I would like to defend the statement that exact science deals with the explanation of models, but not with the understanding (comprehending of nature. By the word ‘nature’ I mean nature as physis (as a self-moving and self-developing living organism to which humans also belong, not nature as natura naturata (as a nonevolving creature created by someone or something. The Estonian philosopher of science Rein Vihalemm (2008 has shown with his conception of phi-science (φ-science that exact science is itself an idealized model or theoretical object derived from Galilean mathematical physics.

  1. Testing an AAC system that transforms pictograms into natural language with persons with cerebral palsy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pahisa-Solé, Joan; Herrera-Joancomartí, Jordi

    2017-10-18

    In this article, we describe a compansion system that transforms the telegraphic language that comes from the use of pictogram-based augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) into natural language. The system was tested with four participants with severe cerebral palsy and ranging degrees of linguistic competence and intellectual disabilities. Participants had used pictogram-based AAC at least for the past 30 years each and presented a stable linguistic profile. During tests, which consisted of a total of 40 sessions, participants were able to learn new linguistic skills, such as the use of basic verb tenses, while using the compansion system, which proved a source of motivation. The system can be adapted to the linguistic competence of each person and required no learning curve during tests when none of its special features, like gender, number, verb tense, or sentence type modifiers, were used. Furthermore, qualitative and quantitative results showed a mean communication rate increase of 41.59%, compared to the same communication device without the compansion system, and an overall improvement in the communication experience when the output is in natural language. Tests were conducted in Catalan and Spanish.

  2. The understanding of the students about the nature of light in recursive curriculum

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Geide Rosa Coelho

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available We report an inquiry on the development of students' understanding about the nature of light. The study happened in a learning environment with a recursive and spiral Physics syllabus. We investigated the change in students' understanding about the nature of light during their 3rd year in High School, and the level of understanding about this subject achieved by students at the end of this year. To assess the students' understanding, we developed an open questionnaire form and a set of hierarchical categories, consisting of five different models about the nature of light. The questionnaire was used to access the students´ understanding at the beginning and at the end of the third level of the recursive curriculum. The results showed that students have a high level of prior knowledge, and also that the Physics learning they experienced had enhanced their understanding, despite the effects are not verified in all the Physics classes. By the end of the third year, most of the students explain the nature of light using or a corpuscular electromagnetic model or a dual electromagnetic model, but some students use these models with inconsistencies in their explanations.

  3. Constructing Concept Schemes From Astronomical Telegrams Via Natural Language Clustering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Graham, Matthew; Zhang, M.; Djorgovski, S. G.; Donalek, C.; Drake, A. J.; Mahabal, A.

    2012-01-01

    The rapidly emerging field of time domain astronomy is one of the most exciting and vibrant new research frontiers, ranging in scientific scope from studies of the Solar System to extreme relativistic astrophysics and cosmology. It is being enabled by a new generation of large synoptic digital sky surveys - LSST, PanStarrs, CRTS - that cover large areas of sky repeatedly, looking for transient objects and phenomena. One of the biggest challenges facing these is the automated classification of transient events, a process that needs machine-processible astronomical knowledge. Semantic technologies enable the formal representation of concepts and relations within a particular domain. ATELs (http://www.astronomerstelegram.org) are a commonly-used means for reporting and commenting upon new astronomical observations of transient sources (supernovae, stellar outbursts, blazar flares, etc). However, they are loose and unstructured and employ scientific natural language for description: this makes automated processing of them - a necessity within the next decade with petascale data rates - a challenge. Nevertheless they represent a potentially rich corpus of information that could lead to new and valuable insights into transient phenomena. This project lies in the cutting-edge field of astrosemantics, a branch of astroinformatics, which applies semantic technologies to astronomy. The ATELs have been used to develop an appropriate concept scheme - a representation of the information they contain - for transient astronomy using hierarchical clustering of processed natural language. This allows us to automatically organize ATELs based on the vocabulary used. We conclude that we can use simple algorithms to process and extract meaning from astronomical textual data.

  4. The relationship between biology teachers' understanding of the nature of science and the understanding and acceptance of the theory of evolution

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cofré, Hernán; Cuevas, Emilia; Becerra, Beatriz

    2017-11-01

    Despite the importance of the theory of evolution (TE) to scientific knowledge, a number of misconceptions continue to be found among biology teachers. In this context, the first objective of this study was to identify the impact of professional development programme (PDP) on teachers' understanding of nature of science (NOS) and evolution and on the acceptance of this theory. Its second objective was to study the relationship among these variables. Three instruments were used to quantify these variables: the Views of the Nature of Science Version D (VNOS D+), the Assessing Contextual Reasoning about Natural Selection (ACORN), and the Measure of Acceptance of Theory of Evolution (MATE). The results indicate that the PDP had a positive impact on teachers, significantly improving their understanding of the NOS and natural selection, as well as their acceptance of the TE. Furthermore, a positive correlation between the understanding of the NOS obtained by teachers in the first part of the PDP and the understanding and acceptance of evolution that these teachers showed at the end of the programme was determined. However, no relationship between an understanding of the NOS and gains in the understanding and acceptance of evolution was found.

  5. Dynamical Languages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xie, Huimin

    The following sections are included: * Definition of Dynamical Languages * Distinct Excluded Blocks * Definition and Properties * L and L″ in Chomsky Hierarchy * A Natural Equivalence Relation * Symbolic Flows * Symbolic Flows and Dynamical Languages * Subshifts of Finite Type * Sofic Systems * Graphs and Dynamical Languages * Graphs and Shannon-Graphs * Transitive Languages * Topological Entropy

  6. Training Parents to Use the Natural Language Paradigm to Increase Their Autistic Children's Speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laski, Karen E.; And Others

    1988-01-01

    Parents of four nonverbal and four echolalic autistic children, aged five-nine, were trained to increase their children's speech by using the Natural Language Paradigm. Following training, parents increased the frequency with which they required their children to speak, and children increased the frequency of their verbalizations in three…

  7. A guide to understanding social science research for natural scientists.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moon, Katie; Blackman, Deborah

    2014-10-01

    Natural scientists are increasingly interested in social research because they recognize that conservation problems are commonly social problems. Interpreting social research, however, requires at least a basic understanding of the philosophical principles and theoretical assumptions of the discipline, which are embedded in the design of social research. Natural scientists who engage in social science but are unfamiliar with these principles and assumptions can misinterpret their results. We developed a guide to assist natural scientists in understanding the philosophical basis of social science to support the meaningful interpretation of social research outcomes. The 3 fundamental elements of research are ontology, what exists in the human world that researchers can acquire knowledge about; epistemology, how knowledge is created; and philosophical perspective, the philosophical orientation of the researcher that guides her or his action. Many elements of the guide also apply to the natural sciences. Natural scientists can use the guide to assist them in interpreting social science research to determine how the ontological position of the researcher can influence the nature of the research; how the epistemological position can be used to support the legitimacy of different types of knowledge; and how philosophical perspective can shape the researcher's choice of methods and affect interpretation, communication, and application of results. The use of this guide can also support and promote the effective integration of the natural and social sciences to generate more insightful and relevant conservation research outcomes. © 2014 Society for Conservation Biology.

  8. Coupling ontology driven semantic representation with multilingual natural language generation for tuning international terminologies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rassinoux, Anne-Marie; Baud, Robert H; Rodrigues, Jean-Marie; Lovis, Christian; Geissbühler, Antoine

    2007-01-01

    The importance of clinical communication between providers, consumers and others, as well as the requisite for computer interoperability, strengthens the need for sharing common accepted terminologies. Under the directives of the World Health Organization (WHO), an approach is currently being conducted in Australia to adopt a standardized terminology for medical procedures that is intended to become an international reference. In order to achieve such a standard, a collaborative approach is adopted, in line with the successful experiment conducted for the development of the new French coding system CCAM. Different coding centres are involved in setting up a semantic representation of each term using a formal ontological structure expressed through a logic-based representation language. From this language-independent representation, multilingual natural language generation (NLG) is performed to produce noun phrases in various languages that are further compared for consistency with the original terms. Outcomes are presented for the assessment of the International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI) and its translation into Portuguese. The initial results clearly emphasize the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of the proposed method for handling both a different classification and an additional language. NLG tools, based on ontology driven semantic representation, facilitate the discovery of ambiguous and inconsistent terms, and, as such, should be promoted for establishing coherent international terminologies.

  9. Text to Speech Berbasis Natural Language pada Aplikasi Pembelajaran Tenses Bahasa Inggris

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amak Yunus

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Bahasa adalah sebuah cara berkomunikasi secara sistematis dengan menggunakan suara atau simbol-simbol yang memiliki arti, yang diucapkan melalui mulut. Bahasa juga ditulis dengan mengikuti kaidah yang berlaku. Salah satu bahasa yang banyak digunakan di belahan dunia adalah Bahasa Inggris. Namun ada beberapa kendala apabila kita belajar kepada seorang guru atau instruktur. Waktu yang diberikan seorang guru, terbatas pada jam sekolah atau les saja. Bila siswa pulang sekolah atau les, maka yang bersangkutan harus belajar bahasa Inggris secara mandiri. Dari permasalahan di atas, muncul sebuah ide tentang bagaimana membuat sebuah penelitian yang berkaitan dengan pembuatan aplikasi yang mampu memberikan pengetahuan kepada siswa tentang bagaimana belajar bahasa Inggris secara mandiri baik dari perubahan kalimat postif menjadi kalimat negatif dan kalimat tanya. Disamping itu, aplikasi ini juga mampu memberikan pengetahuan tentang bagaimana mengucapkan kalimat dalam bahasa Inggris. Pada intinya kontribusi yang dapat diperoleh dari hasil penelitian ini adalah pihak terkait dari tingkat SMP sampai dengan SMU/SMK, dapat menggunakan aplikasi text to speech berbasis natural language processing untuk mempelajari tenses pada bahasa Inggris. Aplikasi ini dapat memperdengarkan kalimat-kalimat pada bahasa inggris dan dapat menyusun kalimat tanya dan kalimat negatif berdasarkan kalimat positifnya dalam beberapa tenses bahasa Inggris. Kata Kunci : Natural language processing, Text to speech

  10. ONTOLOGY BASED MEANINGFUL SEARCH USING SEMANTIC WEB AND NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    K. Palaniammal

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available The semantic web extends the current World Wide Web by adding facilities for the machine understood description of meaning. The ontology based search model is used to enhance efficiency and accuracy of information retrieval. Ontology is the core technology for the semantic web and this mechanism for representing formal and shared domain descriptions. In this paper, we proposed ontology based meaningful search using semantic web and Natural Language Processing (NLP techniques in the educational domain. First we build the educational ontology then we present the semantic search system. The search model consisting three parts which are embedding spell-check, finding synonyms using WordNet API and querying ontology using SPARQL language. The results are both sensitive to spell check and synonymous context. This paper provides more accurate results and the complete details for the selected field in a single page.

  11. Bibliography of Research in Natural Language Generation

    Science.gov (United States)

    1993-11-01

    593], pages International Conference of the IEEE Engineer- 351-363. ing in Medicine and Biology Society, volume 3, pages 1347-1348, New Orleans, LA...Conference on Machine Translation of Languages and Applied [1218] Ingrid Zukerman. Koalas are not bears: Gener- Language Analysis. pages 66-80. Her

  12. Exploring Language Awareness through Students' Engagement in Language Play

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahn, So-Yeon

    2016-01-01

    The present study explores Korean students' demonstration of language awareness through their engagement in language play. Grounded in the understanding of the relationship between language play and an "engagement with language" (EWL) perspective, this ethnographic and discourse analytic study investigates how Korean students aged 11-15…

  13. Bringing Chatbots into education: Towards Natural Language Negotiation of Open Learner Models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kerlyl, Alice; Hall, Phil; Bull, Susan

    There is an extensive body of work on Intelligent Tutoring Systems: computer environments for education, teaching and training that adapt to the needs of the individual learner. Work on personalisation and adaptivity has included research into allowing the student user to enhance the system's adaptivity by improving the accuracy of the underlying learner model. Open Learner Modelling, where the system's model of the user's knowledge is revealed to the user, has been proposed to support student reflection on their learning. Increased accuracy of the learner model can be obtained by the student and system jointly negotiating the learner model. We present the initial investigations into a system to allow people to negotiate the model of their understanding of a topic in natural language. This paper discusses the development and capabilities of both conversational agents (or chatbots) and Intelligent Tutoring Systems, in particular Open Learner Modelling. We describe a Wizard-of-Oz experiment to investigate the feasibility of using a chatbot to support negotiation, and conclude that a fusion of the two fields can lead to developing negotiation techniques for chatbots and the enhancement of the Open Learner Model. This technology, if successful, could have widespread application in schools, universities and other training scenarios.

  14. THE ELITISM OF LEGAL LANGUAGE AND THE NEED OF SIMPLIFICATION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonio Escandiel de Souza

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available This article presents the results of the research project entitled “Simplification of legal language: a study on the view of the academic community of the University of Cruz Alta”. It is a qualitative nature study on simplifying the legal language as a means of democratizing/pluralize access to justice, in the view of scholars and Law Course teachers. There is great difficulty by society in the understanding of legal terms, which hinders access to justice. Similarly, the legal field is not far, of their traditional formalities, which indicates the existence of a parallel where, on one hand, is society, with its problems of understanding, and the other the law, its inherent and intrinsic procedures. However, the company may not have access to the judiciary hampered on account of formalities arising from the law and its flowery language. Preliminary results indicate simplification of legal language as essential to real democratization of access to Law/Justice.

  15. Understanding and managing compliance in the nature conservation context.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arias, Adrian

    2015-04-15

    Nature conservation relies largely on peoples' rule adherence. However, noncompliance in the conservation context is common: it is one of the largest illegal activities in the world, degrading societies, economies and the environment. Understanding and managing compliance is key for ensuring effective conservation, nevertheless crucial concepts and tools are scattered in a wide array of literature. Here I review and integrate these concepts and tools in an effort to guide compliance management in the conservation context. First, I address the understanding of compliance by breaking it down into five key questions: who?, what?, when?, where? and why?. A special focus is given to 'why?' because the answer to this question explains the reasons for compliance and noncompliance, providing critical information for management interventions. Second, I review compliance management strategies, from voluntary compliance to coerced compliance. Finally, I suggest a system, initially proposed for tax compliance, to balance these multiple compliance management strategies. This paper differs from others by providing a broad yet practical scope on theory and tools for understanding and managing compliance in the nature conservation context. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Conference | The Big Bang and the interfaces of knowledge: towards a common understanding? | 11 November

    CERN Multimedia

    2015-01-01

    The third in a series of conferences organised by CERN and Wilton Park, this event will once again bring together scientists, theologians and philosophers to discuss the themes of the nature and understanding of a common language, truth and logic.   Wednesday, 11 November at 4 p.m. in the Main Auditorium For more information and to register, click here. In 2012, CERN and Wilton Park hosted the pioneering international conference “The Big Bang and the interfaces of knowledge: towards a common language?”. The event was very successful and a follow-up conference was organised in June 2014 with the purpose of widening the spectrum of scientists, theologians and philosophers involved, continuing the dialogue on one of the key themes that emerged during the first meeting: the nature and the understanding of “truth”. A key theme emerging from the 2014 event was the nature and understanding of logic, and this third meeting will focu...

  17. Constructed Action, the Clause and the Nature of Syntax in Finnish Sign Language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jantunen Tommi

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper investigates the interplay of constructed action and the clause in Finnish Sign Language (FinSL. Constructed action is a form of gestural enactment in which the signers use their hands, face and other parts of the body to represent the actions, thoughts or feelings of someone they are referring to in the discourse. With the help of frequencies calculated from corpus data, this article shows firstly that when FinSL signers are narrating a story, there are differences in how they use constructed action. Then the paper argues that there are differences also in the prototypical structure, linkage type and non-manual activity of clauses, depending on the presence or non-presence of constructed action. Finally, taking the view that gesturality is an integral part of language, the paper discusses the nature of syntax in sign languages and proposes a conceptualization in which syntax is seen as a set of norms distributed on a continuum between a categorial-conventional end and a gradient-unconventional end.

  18. Media framing of complex issues: The case of endangered languages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rivenburgh, Nancy K

    2013-08-01

    This study investigates how media frame a global trend that is complex in nature, emergent in terms of scientific understanding, and has public policy implications: the rapid disappearance of languages. It analyzes how English-language media from 15 western, industrialized countries frame the causes and implications of endangered languages over 35 years (1971-2006) - a time period notable for growing, interdisciplinary concerns over the potential negative impacts of losing the world's linguistic diversity. The results reveal a media discourse characterized by three complementary frames that are sympathetic to the plight of endangered languages, but that present the problem, its cause, and societal implications in a logical structure that would promote public complacency.

  19. Language and Interactional Discourse: Deconstrusting the Talk- Generating Machinery in Natural Convresation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amaechi Uneke Enyi

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available The study entitled. “Language and Interactional Discourse: Deconstructing the Talk - Generating Machinery in Natural Conversation,” is an analysis of spontaneous and informal conversation. The study, carried out in the theoretical and methodological tradition of Ethnomethodology, was aimed at explicating how ordinary talk is organized and produced, how people coordinate their talk –in- interaction, how meanings are determined, and the role of talk in the wider social processes. The study followed the basic assumption of conversation analysis which is, that talk is not just a product of two ‘speakers - hearers’ who attempt to exchange information or convey messages to each other. Rather, participants in conversation are seen to be mutually orienting to, and collaborating in order to achieve orderly and meaningful communication. The analytic objective is therefore to make clear these procedures on which speakers rely to produce utterances and by which they make sense of other speakers’ talk. The datum used for this study was a recorded informal conversation between two (and later three middle- class civil servants who are friends. The recording was done in such a way that the participants were not aware that they were being recorded. The recording was later transcribed in a way that we believe is faithful to the spontaneity and informality of the talk. Our finding showed that conversation has its own features and is an ordered and structured social day by- day event. Specifically, utterances are designed and informed by organized procedures, methods and resources which are tied to the contexts in which they are produced, and which participants are privy to by virtue of their membership of a culture or a natural language community.  Keywords: Language, Discourse and Conversation

  20. On the Possibility of ESP Data Use in Natural Language Processing

    OpenAIRE

    Knopp, Tomáš

    2011-01-01

    The aim of this bachelor thesis is to explore this image label database coming from the ESP game from the natural language processing (NLP) point of view. ESP game is an online game, in which human players do useful work - they label images. The output of the ESP game is then a database of images and their labels. What interests us is whether the data collected in the process of labeling images will be of any use in NLP tasks. Specifically, we are interested in the tasks of automatic corefere...

  1. Development of a user-friendly interface for the searching of a data base in natural language while using concepts and means of artificial intelligence

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pujo, Pascal

    1989-01-01

    This research thesis aimed at the development of a natural-language-based user-friendly interface for the searching of relational data bases. The author first addresses how to store data which will be accessible through an interface in natural language: this organisation must result in as few constraints as possible in query formulation. He briefly presents techniques related to the automatic processing of natural language, and highlights the need for a more user-friendly interface. Then, he presents the developed interface and outlines the user-friendliness and ergonomics of implemented procedures. He shows how the interface has been designed to deliver information and explanations on its processing. This allows the user to control the relevance of the answer. He also indicates the classification of mistakes and errors which may be present in queries in natural language. He finally gives an overview of possible evolutions of the interface, briefly presents deductive functionalities which could expand data management. The handling of complex objects is also addressed [fr

  2. Ulisse Aldrovandi's Color Sensibility: Natural History, Language and the Lay Color Practices of Renaissance Virtuosi.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pugliano, Valentina

    2015-01-01

    Famed for his collection of drawings of naturalia and his thoughts on the relationship between painting and natural knowledge, it now appears that the Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) also pondered specifically color and pigments, compiling not only lists and diagrams of color terms but also a full-length unpublished manuscript entitled De coloribus or Trattato dei colori. Introducing these writings for the first time, this article portrays a scholar not so much interested in the materiality of pigment production, as in the cultural history of hues. It argues that these writings constituted an effort to build a language of color, in the sense both of a standard nomenclature of hues and of a lexicon, a dictionary of their denotations and connotations as documented in the literature of ancients and moderns. This language would serve the naturalist in his artistic patronage and his natural historical studies, where color was considered one of the most reliable signs for the correct identification of specimens, and a guarantee of accuracy in their illustration. Far from being an exception, Aldrovandi's 'color sensibility'spoke of that of his university-educated nature-loving peers.

  3. GAIML: A New Language for Verbal and Graphical Interaction in Chatbots

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roberto Pirrone

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available Natural and intuitive interaction between users and complex systems is a crucial research topic in human-computer interaction. A major direction is the definition and implementation of systems with natural language understanding capabilities. The interaction in natural language is often performed by means of systems called chatbots. A chatbot is a conversational agent with a proper knowledge base able to interact with users. Chatbots appearance can be very sophisticated with 3D avatars and speech processing modules. However the interaction between the system and the user is only performed through textual areas for inputs and replies. An interaction able to add to natural language also graphical widgets could be more effective. On the other side, a graphical interaction involving also the natural language can increase the comfort of the user instead of using only graphical widgets. In many applications multi-modal communication must be preferred when the user and the system have a tight and complex interaction. Typical examples are cultural heritages applications (intelligent museum guides, picture browsing or systems providing the user with integrated information taken from different and heterogenous sources as in the case of the iGoogle™ interface. We propose to mix the two modalities (verbal and graphical to build systems with a reconfigurable interface, which is able to change with respect to the particular application context. The result of this proposal is the Graphical Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (GAIML an extension of AIML allowing merging both interaction modalities. In this context a suitable chatbot system called Graphbot is presented to support this language. With this language is possible to define personalized interface patterns that are the most suitable ones in relation to the data types exchanged between the user and the system according to the context of the dialogue.

  4. Towards an understanding of self-directed language as a mechanism of behavior change: A novel strategy for eliciting client language under laboratory conditions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Benjamin O. Ladd

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Change talk (CT and sustain talk (ST are thought to reflect underlying motivation and be important mechanisms of behavior change (MOBCs. However, greater specificity and experimental rigor is needed to establish CT and ST as MOBCs. Testing the effects of self-directed language under laboratory conditions is one promising avenue. The current study presents a replication and extension of research examining the feasibility for using simulation tasks to elicit self-directed language. Methods: First-year college students (N=92 responded to the Collegiate Simulated Intoxication Digital Elicitation, a validated task for assessing decision-making in college drinking. Verbal responses elicited via free-response and structured interview formats were coded based on established definitions of CT and ST, with minor modifications to reflect the non-treatment context. Associations between self-directed language and alcohol use at baseline and eight months were examined. Additionally, this study examined whether a contextually-based measure of decision-making, behavioral willingness, mediated relationships between self-directed language and alcohol outcome. Results: Healthy talk and unhealthy talk independently were associated with baseline alcohol use across both elicitation formats. Only healthy talk during the free-response elicitation was associated with alcohol use at follow up; both healthy talk and unhealthy talk during the interview elicitation were associated with 8-month alcohol use. Behavioral willingness significantly mediated the relationship between percent healthy talk and alcohol outcome. Conclusions: Findings support the utility of studying self-directed language under laboratory conditions and suggest that such methods may provide a fruitful strategy to further understand the role of self-directed language as a MOBC. Keywords: Change talk, College students, Alcohol, Simulation task

  5. Language architecture and its import for evolution.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chomsky, Noam

    2017-10-01

    Inquiry into the evolution of some biological system evidently can proceed only as far as its nature is understood. Lacking such understanding, its manifestations are likely to appear to be chaotic, highly variable, and lacking significant general properties; and, accordingly, study of its evolution cannot be seriously undertaken. These truisms hold of the study of the human faculty of language FL just as for other biological systems. As discussed below, FL appears to be a shared human capacity in essentials, with options of variation of a kind to which we return. After a long lapse, the problem of evolution of language arose in mid-twentieth century when the first efforts were made to construct accounts of FL as a biological object, internal to an individual, with particular internal languages - I-languages in current terminology - as manifestations of FL. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  6. A natural language screening measure for motivation to change.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, William R; Johnson, Wendy R

    2008-09-01

    Client motivation for change, a topic of high interest to addiction clinicians, is multidimensional and complex, and many different approaches to measurement have been tried. The current effort drew on psycholinguistic research on natural language that is used by clients to describe their own motivation. Seven addiction treatment sites participated in the development of a simple scale to measure client motivation. Twelve items were drafted to represent six potential dimensions of motivation for change that occur in natural discourse. The maximum self-rating of motivation (10 on a 0-10 scale) was the median score on all items, and 43% of respondents rated 10 on all 12 items - a substantial ceiling effect. From 1035 responses, three factors emerged representing importance, ability, and commitment - constructs that are also reflected in several theoretical models of motivation. A 3-item version of the scale, with one marker item for each of these constructs, accounted for 81% of variance in the full scale. The three items are: 1. It is important for me to . . . 2. I could . . . and 3. I am trying to . . . This offers a quick (1-minute) assessment of clients' self-reported motivation for change.

  7. Language Genre Transitions in a Secondary School Physics Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bower, M. W.; Ellerton, N. F.

    2007-01-01

    The research reported in this paper addressed the nature of transitions between language genres in school physics. In this qualitative study, quasi-ethnographic methods were employed to understand the culture of one secondary school physics classroom in the USA. One teacher and his physics students were the participants. The teacher was…

  8. Understanding foreign language teachers’ practical knowledge: What’s the role of prior language learning experience?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sibel Arıoğul

    2007-04-01

    Full Text Available Teachers’ practical knowledge is considered as teachers’ general knowledge, beliefsand thinking (Borg, 2003 which can be traced in teachers’ practices (Connelly & Clandinin,1988 and shaped by various background sources (Borg, 2003; Grossman, 1990; Meijer,Verloop, and Beijard, 1999. This paper initially discusses how language teachers areinfluenced by three background sources: teachers’ prior language learning experiences, priorteaching experience, and professional coursework in pre- and in-service education. Bydrawing its data from the author’s longitidunal study, it also presents the findings of a crosscasetheme emerged from the investigation of three English as a foreign language (EFLteachers’ prior language learning experiences. The paper also discusses how the participationin studies on teachers’ knowledge raises teachers’ own awareness while it informs theresearch.

  9. You Just Want to Be Like that Teacher: Modelling and Intercultural Competence in Young Language Learners

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moloney, Robyn

    2008-01-01

    Language teachers are called upon to understand both the nature of students' intercultural competence and their own role in its development. Limited research attention has been paid to the relationship between the types of behaviour that language teachers model and the intercultural competence their students acquire. This article reports on a case…

  10. Understanding Learner Agency as a Complex Dynamic System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mercer, Sarah

    2011-01-01

    This paper attempts to contribute to a fuller understanding of the nature of language learner agency by considering it as a complex dynamic system. The purpose of the study was to explore detailed situated data to examine to what extent it is feasible to view learner agency through the lens of complexity theory. Data were generated through a…

  11. Understanding developmental language disorder - the Helsinki longitudinal SLI study (HelSLI): a study protocol.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laasonen, Marja; Smolander, Sini; Lahti-Nuuttila, Pekka; Leminen, Miika; Lajunen, Hanna-Reetta; Heinonen, Kati; Pesonen, Anu-Katriina; Bailey, Todd M; Pothos, Emmanuel M; Kujala, Teija; Leppänen, Paavo H T; Bartlett, Christopher W; Geneid, Ahmed; Lauronen, Leena; Service, Elisabet; Kunnari, Sari; Arkkila, Eva

    2018-05-21

    Developmental language disorder (DLD, also called specific language impairment, SLI) is a common developmental disorder comprising the largest disability group in pre-school-aged children. Approximately 7% of the population is expected to have developmental language difficulties. However, the specific etiological factors leading to DLD are not yet known and even the typical linguistic features appear to vary by language. We present here a project that investigates DLD at multiple levels of analysis and aims to make the reliable prediction and early identification of the difficulties possible. Following the multiple deficit model of developmental disorders, we investigate the DLD phenomenon at the etiological, neural, cognitive, behavioral, and psychosocial levels, in a longitudinal study of preschool children. In January 2013, we launched the Helsinki Longitudinal SLI study (HelSLI) at the Helsinki University Hospital ( http://tiny.cc/HelSLI ). We will study 227 children aged 3-6 years with suspected DLD and their 160 typically developing peers. Five subprojects will determine how the child's psychological characteristics and environment correlate with DLD and how the child's well-being relates to DLD, the characteristics of DLD in monolingual versus bilingual children, nonlinguistic cognitive correlates of DLD, electrophysiological underpinnings of DLD, and the role of genetic risk factors. Methods include saliva samples, EEG, computerized cognitive tasks, neuropsychological and speech and language assessments, video-observations, and questionnaires. The project aims to increase our understanding of the multiple interactive risk and protective factors that affect the developing heterogeneous cognitive and behavioral profile of DLD, including factors affecting literacy development. This accumulated knowledge will form a heuristic basis for the development of new interventions targeting linguistic and non-linguistic aspects of DLD.

  12. Issues in bilingualism and heritage language maintenance: perspectives of minority-language mothers of children with autism spectrum disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Betty

    2013-02-01

    The author investigated the language practices of 10 bilingual, Chinese/English-speaking, immigrant mothers with their children with autism spectrum disorders. The aim was to understand (a) the nature of the language practices, (b) their constraints, and (c) their impact. The author employed in-depth phenomenological interviews with thematic and narrative analyses to yield themes. Interviewees reported that they adopted language practices perceived to be advantageous to intervention access and wellness. They valued Chinese language but did not pursue its use if it was believed to hinder the children's overall development of English acquisition. All of the mothers believed that bilingualism made learning more challenging. Many believed that it caused confusion or exacerbated disabilities. These deficit views of bilingualism were commonly reinforced by professionals. All of the mothers were motivated to help their children learn English but had no assistance to do so. Practices were sustainable only when they were aligned with families' preferred communication patterns. There is an urgent need for practitioners to be better informed about issues related to intergenerational language practices in minority-language families. Language use between parents and children is a complex matter that is unique to each family. Parents need to be supported to make language use decisions that are self-enhancing and congruent with their families' needs.

  13. Zipf’s word frequency law in natural language: A critical review and future directions

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-01-01

    The frequency distribution of words has been a key object of study in statistical linguistics for the past 70 years. This distribution approximately follows a simple mathematical form known as Zipf ’ s law. This article first shows that human language has a highly complex, reliable structure in the frequency distribution over and above this classic law, although prior data visualization methods have obscured this fact. A number of empirical phenomena related to word frequencies are then reviewed. These facts are chosen to be informative about the mechanisms giving rise to Zipf’s law and are then used to evaluate many of the theoretical explanations of Zipf’s law in language. No prior account straightforwardly explains all the basic facts or is supported with independent evaluation of its underlying assumptions. To make progress at understanding why language obeys Zipf’s law, studies must seek evidence beyond the law itself, testing assumptions and evaluating novel predictions with new, independent data. PMID:24664880

  14. Modelling language

    CERN Document Server

    Cardey, Sylviane

    2013-01-01

    In response to the need for reliable results from natural language processing, this book presents an original way of decomposing a language(s) in a microscopic manner by means of intra/inter‑language norms and divergences, going progressively from languages as systems to the linguistic, mathematical and computational models, which being based on a constructive approach are inherently traceable. Languages are described with their elements aggregating or repelling each other to form viable interrelated micro‑systems. The abstract model, which contrary to the current state of the art works in int

  15. Characterization of Change and Significance for Clinical Findings in Radiology Reports Through Natural Language Processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hassanpour, Saeed; Bay, Graham; Langlotz, Curtis P

    2017-06-01

    We built a natural language processing (NLP) method to automatically extract clinical findings in radiology reports and characterize their level of change and significance according to a radiology-specific information model. We utilized a combination of machine learning and rule-based approaches for this purpose. Our method is unique in capturing different features and levels of abstractions at surface, entity, and discourse levels in text analysis. This combination has enabled us to recognize the underlying semantics of radiology report narratives for this task. We evaluated our method on radiology reports from four major healthcare organizations. Our evaluation showed the efficacy of our method in highlighting important changes (accuracy 99.2%, precision 96.3%, recall 93.5%, and F1 score 94.7%) and identifying significant observations (accuracy 75.8%, precision 75.2%, recall 75.7%, and F1 score 75.3%) to characterize radiology reports. This method can help clinicians quickly understand the key observations in radiology reports and facilitate clinical decision support, review prioritization, and disease surveillance.

  16. Researching language teaching: Understanding practice through ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    In this article we argue that second language acquisition (SLA) research and theory have a significant role to play in teacher education, especially at the masters level. The danger of overly practical approaches is that they cannot challenge current practice in ways that are both critical and rigorous. However, to engage ...

  17. How Intuition and Language Use Relate to Students' Understanding of Span and Linear Independence in an Elementary Linear Algebra Class

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parker, Catherine Frieda

    2010-01-01

    A possible contributing factor to students' difficulty in learning advanced mathematics is the conflict between students' "natural" learning styles and the formal structure of mathematics, which is based on definitions, theorems, and proofs. Students' natural learning styles may be a function of their intuition and language skills. The purpose of…

  18. Crowdsourcing a normative natural language dataset: a comparison of Amazon Mechanical Turk and in-lab data collection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saunders, Daniel R; Bex, Peter J; Woods, Russell L

    2013-05-20

    Crowdsourcing has become a valuable method for collecting medical research data. This approach, recruiting through open calls on the Web, is particularly useful for assembling large normative datasets. However, it is not known how natural language datasets collected over the Web differ from those collected under controlled laboratory conditions. To compare the natural language responses obtained from a crowdsourced sample of participants with responses collected in a conventional laboratory setting from participants recruited according to specific age and gender criteria. We collected natural language descriptions of 200 half-minute movie clips, from Amazon Mechanical Turk workers (crowdsourced) and 60 participants recruited from the community (lab-sourced). Crowdsourced participants responded to as many clips as they wanted and typed their responses, whereas lab-sourced participants gave spoken responses to 40 clips, and their responses were transcribed. The content of the responses was evaluated using a take-one-out procedure, which compared responses to other responses to the same clip and to other clips, with a comparison of the average number of shared words. In contrast to the 13 months of recruiting that was required to collect normative data from 60 lab-sourced participants (with specific demographic characteristics), only 34 days were needed to collect normative data from 99 crowdsourced participants (contributing a median of 22 responses). The majority of crowdsourced workers were female, and the median age was 35 years, lower than the lab-sourced median of 62 years but similar to the median age of the US population. The responses contributed by the crowdsourced participants were longer on average, that is, 33 words compared to 28 words (Pcrowdsourced participants had more shared words (P=.004 and .01 respectively), whereas younger participants had higher numbers of shared words in the lab-sourced population (P=.01). Crowdsourcing is an effective approach

  19. Linguistic Models at the Crossroads of Agents, Learning and Formal Languages

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leonor BECERRA-BONACHE

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims at reviewing the most relevant linguistic applications developed in the intersection between three different fields: machine learning, formal language theory and agent technologies. On the one hand, we present some of the main linguistic contributions of the intersection between machine learning and formal languages, which constitutes a well-established research area known as Grammatical Inference. On the other hand, we present an overview of the main linguistic applications of models developed in the intersection between agent technologies and formal languages, such as colonies, grammar systems and eco-grammar systems. Our goal is to show how interdisciplinary research between these three fields can contribute to better understand how natural language is acquired and processed.

  20. "Real Language": Combining Intermediate Spanish Language Learners and ESOL/Native Speakers for Vernacular Language Acquisition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joe LaValle

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available This paper addresses the possibilities of combining Spanish language learners and English language learners in high school and post-secondary institutions for mutual benefit to learn authentic language. Academic or "classroom" Spanish is insufficient to empower students for today's workplace. The concept behind "Real Language" is illustrated by an example of an interdisciplinary activity to facilitate communicative interaction in genuine language and promote cultural understanding between intermediate Spanish students and ESOL/native speakers at the high school and post-secondary level. Students are asked to utilize their life skills in interactive, freestyle conversation without the intervention of an instructor. The learning space for language exchange is an out-of-class venue for a non-intimidating, more authentic setting. This simple qualitative study investigates the potential value of this sort of interdisciplinary activity. The intent is to evaluate attitudes of the participants in relation to confidence in their ability to use the target language, and their willingness to use it in social and professional environments and, in addition, to facilitate cultural understanding. The positive result of the project is validated by the voice of the student participants as they reflect on their experience in "Real Language". Could this concept facilitate evolving strategies for interdisciplinary contemporary foreign language learning?

  1. Language meddles with infants’ processing of observed actions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alessandra Sciutti

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available When learning from actions, language can be a crucial source to specify the learning content. Understanding its interactions with action processing is therefore fundamental when attempting to model the development of human learning to replicate it in artificial agents. From early childhood two different processes participate in shaping infants’ understanding of the events occurring around them: Infants’ motor system influences their action perception, driving their attention to the action goal; additionally, parental language influences the way children parse what they observe into relevant units. To date, however, it has barely been investigated whether these two cognitive processes – action understanding and language – are separate and independent or whether language might interfere with the former. To address this question we evaluated whether a verbal narrative concurrent with action observation could avert 14-month-old infants’ attention from an agent’s action goal, which is otherwise naturally selected when the action is performed by an agent. The infants observed movies of an actor reaching and transporting balls into a box. In three between-subject conditions, the reaching movement was accompanied either with no audio (Base condition, a sine-wave sound (Sound condition, or a speech sample (Speech condition. The results show that the presence of a speech sample underlining the movement phase reduced significantly the number of predictive gaze shifts to the goal compared to the other conditions. Our findings thus indicate that any modelling of the interaction between language and action processing will have to consider a potential top-down effect of the former, as language can be a meddler in the predictive behavior typical of the observation of goal oriented actions.

  2. Preface to Proceedings of the 12th European Workshop on Natural Language Generation (ENLG 2009)

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Krahmer, E.; Krahmer, E.; Theune, Mariet

    We are pleased to present the Proceedings of the 12th European Workshop on Natural Language Generation (ENLG 2009). ENLG 2009 was held in Athens, Greece, as a workshop at the 12th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (EACL 2009). Following our call, we

  3. Conceptual Change in Understanding the Nature of Science Learning: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    DiBenedetto, Christina M.

    This study is the first of its kind to explore the thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and values of secondary educators as they experience conceptual change in their understanding of the nature of science learning vis a vis the Framework for K-12 Science Education published by the National Research Council. The study takes aim at the existing gap between the vision for science learning as an active process of inquiry and current pedagogical practices in K-12 science classrooms. For students to understand and explain everyday science ideas and succeed in science studies and careers, the means by which they learn science must change. Focusing on this change, the study explores the significance of educator attitudes, beliefs and values to science learning through interpretive phenomenological analysis around the central question, "In what ways do educators understand and articulate attitudes and beliefs toward the nature of science learning?" The study further explores the questions, "How do educators experience changes in their understanding of the nature of science learning?" and "How do educators believe these changes influence their pedagogical practice?" Study findings converge on four conceptions that science learning: is the action of inquiry; is a visible process initiated by both teacher and learner; values student voice and changing conceptions is science learning. These findings have implications for the primacy of educator beliefs, attitudes and values in reform efforts, science teacher leadership and the explicit instruction of both Nature of Science and conceptual change in educator preparation programs. This study supports the understanding that the nature of science learning is cognitive and affective conceptual change. Keywords: conceptual change, educator attitudes and beliefs, framework for K-12 science education, interpretive phenomenological analysis, nature of science learning, next generation science standards, science professional development

  4. Natural Language Processing Approach for Searching the Quran: Quick and Intuitive

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zainal Abidah

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The Quran is a scripture that acts as the main reference to people which their religion is Islam. It covers information from politics to science, with vast amount of information that requires effort to uncover the knowledge behind it. Today, the emergence of smartphones has led to the development of a wide-range application for enhancing knowledge-seeking activities. This project proposes a mobile application that is taking a natural language approach to searching topics in the Quran based on keyword searching. The benefit of the application is two-fold; it is intuitive and it saves time.

  5. Causal knowledge extraction by natural language processing in material science: a case study in chemical vapor deposition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yuya Kajikawa

    2006-11-01

    Full Text Available Scientific publications written in natural language still play a central role as our knowledge source. However, due to the flood of publications, the literature survey process has become a highly time-consuming and tangled process, especially for novices of the discipline. Therefore, tools supporting the literature-survey process may help the individual scientist to explore new useful domains. Natural language processing (NLP is expected as one of the promising techniques to retrieve, abstract, and extract knowledge. In this contribution, NLP is firstly applied to the literature of chemical vapor deposition (CVD, which is a sub-discipline of materials science and is a complex and interdisciplinary field of research involving chemists, physicists, engineers, and materials scientists. Causal knowledge extraction from the literature is demonstrated using NLP.

  6. Understanding the Role of Teaching Materials in a Beginners’ Level English as a Foreign Language Course: A Case Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elio Jesús Cruz Rondón

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Learning a foreign language may be a challenge for most people due to differences in the form and structure between one’s mother tongue and a new one. However, there are some tools that facilitate the teaching and learning of a foreign language, for instance, new applications for digital devices, video blogs, educational platforms, and teaching materials. Therefore, this case study aims at understanding the role of teaching materials among beginners’ level students learning English as a foreign language. After conducting five non-participant classroom observations and nine semi-structured interviews, we found that the way the teacher implemented a pedagogical intervention by integrating the four language skills, promoting interactive learning through the use of online resources, and using the course book led to a global English teaching and learning process.

  7. Perception and understanding of invasive alien species issues by nature conservation and horticulture professionals in Belgium.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vanderhoeven, Sonia; Piqueray, Julien; Halford, Mathieu; Nulens, Greet; Vincke, Jan; Mahy, Grégory

    2011-03-01

    We conducted a survey to determine how two professional sectors in Belgium, horticulture professionals and nature reserve managers (those directly involved in conservation), view the issues associated with invasive plant species. We developed and utilized a questionnaire that addressed the themes of awareness, concept and use of language, availability of information, impacts and, finally, control and available solutions. Using co-inertia analyses, we tested to what extent the perception of invasive alien species (IAS) was dependent upon the perception of Nature in general. Only forty-two percent of respondent horticulture professionals and eighty-two percent of nature reserve managers had a general knowledge of IAS. Many individuals in both target groups nonetheless had an accurate understanding of the scientific issues. Our results therefore suggest that the manner in which individuals within the two groups view, or perceive, the IAS issue was more the result of lack of information than simply biased perceptions of target groups. Though IAS perceptions by the two groups diverged, they were on par with how they viewed Nature in general. The descriptions of IAS by participants converged with the ideas and concepts frequently found in the scientific literature. Both managers and horticulture professionals expressed a strong willingness to participate in programs designed to prevent the spread of, and damage caused by, IAS. Despite this, the continued commercial availability of many invasive species highlighted the necessity to use both mandatory and voluntary approaches to reduce their re-introduction and spread. The results of this study provide stakeholders and conservation managers with practical information on which communication and management strategies can be based.

  8. The Relation Between Emotion Understanding and Theory of Mind in Children Aged 3 to 8: The Key Role of Language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ilaria Grazzani

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available Although a significant body of research has investigated the relationships among children’s emotion understanding (EU, theory of mind (ToM, and language abilities. As far as we know, no study to date has been conducted with a sizeable sample of both preschool and school-age children exploring the direct effect of EU on ToM when the role of language was evaluated as a potential exogenous factor in a single comprehensive model. Participants in the current study were 389 children (age range: 37–97 months, M = 60.79 months; SD = 12.66, to whom a False-Belief understanding battery, the Test of Emotion Comprehension, and the Peabody Test were administered. Children’s EU, ToM, and language ability (receptive vocabulary were positively correlated. Furthermore, EU scores explained variability in ToM scores independently of participants’ age and gender. Finally, language was found to play a crucial role in both explaining variance in ToM scores and in mediating the relationship between EU and ToM. We discuss the theoretical and educational implications of these outcomes, particularly in relation to offering social and emotional learning programs through schools.

  9. The Relation Between Emotion Understanding and Theory of Mind in Children Aged 3 to 8: The Key Role of Language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grazzani, Ilaria; Ornaghi, Veronica; Conte, Elisabetta; Pepe, Alessandro; Caprin, Claudia

    2018-01-01

    Although a significant body of research has investigated the relationships among children's emotion understanding (EU), theory of mind (ToM), and language abilities. As far as we know, no study to date has been conducted with a sizeable sample of both preschool and school-age children exploring the direct effect of EU on ToM when the role of language was evaluated as a potential exogenous factor in a single comprehensive model. Participants in the current study were 389 children (age range: 37-97 months, M = 60.79 months; SD = 12.66), to whom a False-Belief understanding battery, the Test of Emotion Comprehension, and the Peabody Test were administered. Children's EU, ToM, and language ability (receptive vocabulary) were positively correlated. Furthermore, EU scores explained variability in ToM scores independently of participants' age and gender. Finally, language was found to play a crucial role in both explaining variance in ToM scores and in mediating the relationship between EU and ToM. We discuss the theoretical and educational implications of these outcomes, particularly in relation to offering social and emotional learning programs through schools.

  10. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA. Graduate School of Education.

    THIS BIBLIOGRAPHY LISTS MATERIAL ON VARIOUS ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT. APPROXIMATELY 65 UNANNOTATED REFERENCES ARE PROVIDED TO DOCUMENTS DATING FROM 1958 TO 1966. JOURNALS, BOOKS, AND REPORT MATERIALS ARE LISTED. SUBJECT AREAS INCLUDED ARE THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE, LINGUISTICS, LANGUAGE LEARNING, LANGUAGE SKILLS, LANGUAGE PATTERNS, AND…

  11. Natural Language Description of Emotion

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kazemzadeh, Abe

    2013-01-01

    This dissertation studies how people describe emotions with language and how computers can simulate this descriptive behavior. Although many non-human animals can express their current emotions as social signals, only humans can communicate about emotions symbolically. This symbolic communication of emotion allows us to talk about emotions that we…

  12. Detecting Target Objects by Natural Language Instructions Using an RGB-D Camera

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jiatong Bao

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Controlling robots by natural language (NL is increasingly attracting attention for its versatility, convenience and no need of extensive training for users. Grounding is a crucial challenge of this problem to enable robots to understand NL instructions from humans. This paper mainly explores the object grounding problem and concretely studies how to detect target objects by the NL instructions using an RGB-D camera in robotic manipulation applications. In particular, a simple yet robust vision algorithm is applied to segment objects of interest. With the metric information of all segmented objects, the object attributes and relations between objects are further extracted. The NL instructions that incorporate multiple cues for object specifications are parsed into domain-specific annotations. The annotations from NL and extracted information from the RGB-D camera are matched in a computational state estimation framework to search all possible object grounding states. The final grounding is accomplished by selecting the states which have the maximum probabilities. An RGB-D scene dataset associated with different groups of NL instructions based on different cognition levels of the robot are collected. Quantitative evaluations on the dataset illustrate the advantages of the proposed method. The experiments of NL controlled object manipulation and NL-based task programming using a mobile manipulator show its effectiveness and practicability in robotic applications.

  13. Systemic functional grammar in natural language generation linguistic description and computational representation

    CERN Document Server

    Teich, Elke

    1999-01-01

    This volume deals with the computational application of systemic functional grammar (SFG) for natural language generation. In particular, it describes the implementation of a fragment of the grammar of German in the computational framework of KOMET-PENMAN for multilingual generation. The text also presents a specification of explicit well-formedness constraints on syntagmatic structure which are defined in the form of typed feature structures. It thus achieves a model of systemic functional grammar that unites both the strengths of systemics, such as stratification, functional diversification

  14. Learning bias, cultural evolution of language, and the biological evolution of the language faculty.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Kenny

    2011-04-01

    The biases of individual language learners act to determine the learnability and cultural stability of languages: learners come to the language learning task with biases which make certain linguistic systems easier to acquire than others. These biases are repeatedly applied during the process of language transmission, and consequently should effect the types of languages we see in human populations. Understanding the cultural evolutionary consequences of particular learning biases is therefore central to understanding the link between language learning in individuals and language universals, common structural properties shared by all the world’s languages. This paper reviews a range of models and experimental studies which show that weak biases in individual learners can have strong effects on the structure of socially learned systems such as language, suggesting that strong universal tendencies in language structure do not require us to postulate strong underlying biases or constraints on language learning. Furthermore, understanding the relationship between learner biases and language design has implications for theories of the evolution of those learning biases: models of gene-culture coevolution suggest that, in situations where a cultural dynamic mediates between properties of individual learners and properties of language in this way, biological evolution is unlikely to lead to the emergence of strong constraints on learning.

  15. Natural language solution to a Tuff problem

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Langkopf, B.S.; Mallory, L.H.

    1984-01-01

    A scientific data base, the Tuff Data Base, is being created at Sandia National Laboratories on the Cyber 170/855, using System 2000. It is being developed for use by scientists and engineers investigating the feasibility of locating a high-level radioactive waste repository in tuff (a type of volcanic rock) at Yucca Mountain on and adjacent to the Nevada Test Site. This project, the Nevada Nuclear Waste Storage Investigations (NNWSI) Project, is managed by the Nevada Operations Office of the US Department of Energy. A user-friendly interface, PRIMER, was developed that uses the Self-Contained Facility (SCF) command SUBMIT and System 2000 Natural Language functions and parametric strings that are schema resident. The interface was designed to: (1) allow users, with or without computer experience or keyboard skill, to sporadically access data in the Tuff Data Base; (2) produce retrieval capabilities for the user quickly; and (3) acquaint the users with the data in the Tuff Data Base. This paper gives a brief description of the Tuff Data Base Schema and the interface, PRIMER, which is written in Fortran V. 3 figures

  16. Language development and assessment in the preschool period.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conti-Ramsden, Gina; Durkin, Kevin

    2012-12-01

    Most young children make significant progress in learning language during the first 4 years of life. Delays or differences in patterns of language acquisition are sensitive indicators of developmental problems. The dynamic, complex nature of language and the variability in the timing of its acquisition poses a number of challenges for the assessment of young children. This paper summarises the key developmental milestones of language development in the preschool years, providing a backdrop for understanding difficulties with language learning. Children with specific language impairment (SLI) are characterised illustrating the types of language difficulties they exhibit. Genetic evidence for language impairment suggests complex interactions among multiple genes of small effect. There are few consistent neurobiological abnormalities and currently there is no identified neurobiological signature for language difficulties. The assessment of young children's language skills thus focuses on the evaluation of their performances in comparison to typically developing peers. Assessment of language abilities in preschool children should involve an evaluation of both expressive and receptive skills and should include an evaluation of more than one dimension of language. The use of a single measure of a language component, such as vocabulary, is considered inadequate for determining whether preschool children have typical language or language impairment. Available evidence supports the inclusion of measures of phonological short-term memory in the assessment of the language abilities of preschool children. Further study of genetic, neurobiological and early behavioural correlates of language impairments in preschool children is needed.

  17. Population-Based Analysis of Histologically Confirmed Melanocytic Proliferations Using Natural Language Processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lott, Jason P; Boudreau, Denise M; Barnhill, Ray L; Weinstock, Martin A; Knopp, Eleanor; Piepkorn, Michael W; Elder, David E; Knezevich, Steven R; Baer, Andrew; Tosteson, Anna N A; Elmore, Joann G

    2018-01-01

    Population-based information on the distribution of histologic diagnoses associated with skin biopsies is unknown. Electronic medical records (EMRs) enable automated extraction of pathology report data to improve our epidemiologic understanding of skin biopsy outcomes, specifically those of melanocytic origin. To determine population-based frequencies and distribution of histologically confirmed melanocytic lesions. A natural language processing (NLP)-based analysis of EMR pathology reports of adult patients who underwent skin biopsies at a large integrated health care delivery system in the US Pacific Northwest from January 1, 2007, through December 31, 2012. Skin biopsy procedure. The primary outcome was histopathologic diagnosis, obtained using an NLP-based system to process EMR pathology reports. We determined the percentage of diagnoses classified as melanocytic vs nonmelanocytic lesions. Diagnoses classified as melanocytic were further subclassified using the Melanocytic Pathology Assessment Tool and Hierarchy for Diagnosis (MPATH-Dx) reporting schema into the following categories: class I (nevi and other benign proliferations such as mildly dysplastic lesions typically requiring no further treatment), class II (moderately dysplastic and other low-risk lesions that may merit narrow reexcision with skin biopsies, performed on 47 529 patients, were examined. Nearly 1 in 4 skin biopsies were of melanocytic lesions (23%; n = 18 715), which were distributed according to MPATH-Dx categories as follows: class I, 83.1% (n = 15 558); class II, 8.3% (n = 1548); class III, 4.5% (n = 842); class IV, 2.2% (n = 405); and class V, 1.9% (n = 362). Approximately one-quarter of skin biopsies resulted in diagnoses of melanocytic proliferations. These data provide the first population-based estimates across the spectrum of melanocytic lesions ranging from benign through dysplastic to malignant. These results may serve as a foundation for future

  18. Examining Preservice Science Teacher Understanding of Nature of Science: Discriminating Variables on the Aspects of Nature of Science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, William I.

    This study examined the understanding of nature of science among participants in their final year of a 4-year undergraduate teacher education program at a Midwest liberal arts university. The Logic Model Process was used as an integrative framework to focus the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of the data for the purpose of (1) describing participant understanding of NOS and (2) to identify participant characteristics and teacher education program features related to those understandings. The Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire form C (VNOS-C) was used to survey participant understanding of 7 target aspects of Nature of Science (NOS). A rubric was developed from a review of the literature to categorize and score participant understanding of the target aspects of NOS. Participants' high school and college transcripts, planning guides for their respective teacher education program majors, and science content and science teaching methods course syllabi were examined to identify and categorize participant characteristics and teacher education program features. The R software (R Project for Statistical Computing, 2010) was used to conduct an exploratory analysis to determine correlations of the antecedent and transaction predictor variables with participants' scores on the 7 target aspects of NOS. Fourteen participant characteristics and teacher education program features were moderately and significantly ( p Middle Childhood with a science concentration program major or in the Adolescent/Young Adult Science Education program major were more likely to have an informed understanding on each of the 7 target aspects of NOS. Analyses of the planning guides and the course syllabi in each teacher education program major revealed differences between the program majors that may account for the results.

  19. Computational Nonlinear Morphology with Emphasis on Semitic Languages. Studies in Natural Language Processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiraz, George Anton

    This book presents a tractable computational model that can cope with complex morphological operations, especially in Semitic languages, and less complex morphological systems present in Western languages. It outlines a new generalized regular rewrite rule system that uses multiple finite-state automata to cater to root-and-pattern morphology,…

  20. Language and Faith Encounters: Bridging Language--Ethnicity and Language--Religion Studies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Souza, Ana

    2016-01-01

    There has been growing interest by British policy-makers in the importance of acknowledging the role of migrant children's background in their educational progress. Therefore, this article draws on studies of language-ethnicity and of language-religion to understand the linguistic and the religious heritage of four groups of Brazilian migrants in…

  1. Optimizing annotation resources for natural language de-identification via a game theoretic framework.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Muqun; Carrell, David; Aberdeen, John; Hirschman, Lynette; Kirby, Jacqueline; Li, Bo; Vorobeychik, Yevgeniy; Malin, Bradley A

    2016-06-01

    Electronic medical records (EMRs) are increasingly repurposed for activities beyond clinical care, such as to support translational research and public policy analysis. To mitigate privacy risks, healthcare organizations (HCOs) aim to remove potentially identifying patient information. A substantial quantity of EMR data is in natural language form and there are concerns that automated tools for detecting identifiers are imperfect and leak information that can be exploited by ill-intentioned data recipients. Thus, HCOs have been encouraged to invest as much effort as possible to find and detect potential identifiers, but such a strategy assumes the recipients are sufficiently incentivized and capable of exploiting leaked identifiers. In practice, such an assumption may not hold true and HCOs may overinvest in de-identification technology. The goal of this study is to design a natural language de-identification framework, rooted in game theory, which enables an HCO to optimize their investments given the expected capabilities of an adversarial recipient. We introduce a Stackelberg game to balance risk and utility in natural language de-identification. This game represents a cost-benefit model that enables an HCO with a fixed budget to minimize their investment in the de-identification process. We evaluate this model by assessing the overall payoff to the HCO and the adversary using 2100 clinical notes from Vanderbilt University Medical Center. We simulate several policy alternatives using a range of parameters, including the cost of training a de-identification model and the loss in data utility due to the removal of terms that are not identifiers. In addition, we compare policy options where, when an attacker is fined for misuse, a monetary penalty is paid to the publishing HCO as opposed to a third party (e.g., a federal regulator). Our results show that when an HCO is forced to exhaust a limited budget (set to $2000 in the study), the precision and recall of the

  2. Robustness Versus Fidelity in Natural Language Understanding

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Core, Mark G; Moore, Johanna D

    2004-01-01

    .... Because the subject matter is richer, the range of vocabulary and grammatical structures is larger meaning NLU tools are more likely to encounter out-of-vocabulary words or extra-grammatical utterances...

  3. Large-Scale Paraphrasing for Natural Language Understanding

    Science.gov (United States)

    2018-04-01

    arrested, detained, incarcerated, jailed, locked up, taken into custody, and thrown into prison. However, not all the paraphrases are uniformly good...jailed, locked up, taken into custody, and thrown into prison, along with a set of incorrect/noisy paraphrases that have different syntactic types or...1 CharLogCR=-0.08004 ContainsX=0 Equivalence=0.427150 Exclusion=0.000101 GlueRule=0 GoogleNgramSim=0.04294 Identity =0 Independent=0.078898 Lex(e1

  4. Natural Language Generation from Pictographs

    OpenAIRE

    Sevens, Leen; Vandeghinste, Vincent; Schuurman, Ineke; Van Eynde, Frank

    2015-01-01

    We present a Pictograph-to-Text translation system for people with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities (IDD). The system translates pictograph messages, consisting of one or more pictographs, into Dutch text using WordNet links and an n-gram language model. We also provide several pictograph input methods assisting the users in selecting the appropriate pictographs.

  5. Gesture language use in natural UI: pen-based sketching in conceptual design

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, Cuixia; Dai, Guozhong

    2003-04-01

    Natural User Interface is one of the important next generation interactions. Computers are not just the tools of many special people or areas but for most people. Ubiquitous computing makes the world magic and more comfortable. In the design domain, current systems, which need the detail information, cannot conveniently support the conceptual design of the early phrase. Pen and paper are the natural and simple tools to use in our daily life, especially in design domain. Gestures are the useful and natural mode in the interaction of pen-based. In natural UI, gestures can be introduced and used through the similar mode to the existing resources in interaction. But the gestures always are defined beforehand without the users' intention and recognized to represent something in certain applications without being transplanted to others. We provide the gesture description language (GDL) to try to cite the useful gestures to the applications conveniently. It can be used in terms of the independent control resource such as menus or icons in applications. So we give the idea from two perspectives: one from the application-dependent point of view and the other from the application-independent point of view.

  6. Behind the scenes: A medical natural language processing project.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Joy T; Dernoncourt, Franck; Gehrmann, Sebastian; Tyler, Patrick D; Moseley, Edward T; Carlson, Eric T; Grant, David W; Li, Yeran; Welt, Jonathan; Celi, Leo Anthony

    2018-04-01

    Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities in medicine can help address many pressing problems in healthcare. However, AI research endeavors in healthcare may not be clinically relevant, may have unrealistic expectations, or may not be explicit enough about their limitations. A diverse and well-functioning multidisciplinary team (MDT) can help identify appropriate and achievable AI research agendas in healthcare, and advance medical AI technologies by developing AI algorithms as well as addressing the shortage of appropriately labeled datasets for machine learning. In this paper, our team of engineers, clinicians and machine learning experts share their experience and lessons learned from their two-year-long collaboration on a natural language processing (NLP) research project. We highlight specific challenges encountered in cross-disciplinary teamwork, dataset creation for NLP research, and expectation setting for current medical AI technologies. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  7. Computers and languages theory and practice

    CERN Document Server

    Nijholt, A

    1988-01-01

    A global introduction to language technology and the areas of computer science where language technology plays a role. Surveyed in this volume are issues related to the parsing problem in the fields of natural languages, programming languages, and formal languages.Throughout the book attention is paid to the social forces which influenced the development of the various topics. Also illustrated are the development of the theory of language analysis, its role in compiler construction, and its role in computer applications with a natural language interface between men and machine. Parts of the ma

  8. Overcoming language barriers in healthcare: A protocol for investigating safe and effective communication when patients or clinicians use a second language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meuter, Renata F I; Gallois, Cindy; Segalowitz, Norman S; Ryder, Andrew G; Hocking, Julia

    2015-09-10

    Miscommunication in the healthcare sector can be life-threatening. The rising number of migrant patients and foreign-trained staff means that communication errors between a healthcare practitioner and patient when one or both are speaking a second language are increasingly likely. However, there is limited research that addresses this issue systematically. This protocol outlines a hospital-based study examining interactions between healthcare practitioners and their patients who either share or do not share a first language. Of particular interest are the nature and efficacy of communication in language-discordant conversations, and the degree to which risk is communicated. Our aim is to understand language barriers and miscommunication that may occur in healthcare settings between patients and healthcare practitioners, especially where at least one of the speakers is using a second (weaker) language. Eighty individual interactions between patients and practitioners who speak either English or Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese) as their first language will be video recorded in a range of in- and out-patient departments at three hospitals in the Metro South area of Brisbane, Australia. All participants will complete a language background questionnaire. Patients will also complete a short survey rating the effectiveness of the interaction. Recordings will be transcribed and submitted to both quantitative and qualitative analyses to determine elements of the language used that might be particularly problematic and the extent to which language concordance and discordance impacts on the quality of the patient-practitioner consultation. Understanding the role that language plays in creating barriers to healthcare is critical for healthcare systems that are experiencing an increasing range of culturally and linguistically diverse populations both amongst patients and practitioners. The data resulting from this study will inform policy and practical solutions for

  9. LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY: THE PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE AS A SYMBOLIC IDENTIFICATION SPACE ON DOCUMENTARY: LANGUAGE – LIVES IN PORTUGUESE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joelton Duarte de Santana

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Language as a social element is constitutive to every human being. Language gives each person, as well as to his or her own linguistic community, an individual and peculiar way to figure out the world and its surroundings. Language is influenced by several processes, including sociocultural and historical ones. If we say that each language may allow its speaker to do a very own world reading, a question about its language behavior in other continents arises. This way we were able to understand how sociocultural influences could improve the whole cultural identity construction process. Both defining linguistic communities and specifying social groups, language becomes a symbolic space of identification. The movie – Language- lives In Portuguese reunites Portuguese speakers reports around the world aiming to illustrate Portuguese language as a nations identity construction, autoafirmation and legitimation factor through social, cultural and historic processes. This study is based on the belief in such a kind of dialogism between Language and Culture. The sociolinguistic studies nowadays do not intend, as they used to, understanding or describing structural language aspects and very individuals ones, but especially to reflect upon relations among subject, language, identity, culture and history.

  10. LABORATORY PROCESS CONTROLLER USING NATURAL LANGUAGE COMMANDS FROM A PERSONAL COMPUTER

    Science.gov (United States)

    Will, H.

    1994-01-01

    The complex environment of the typical research laboratory requires flexible process control. This program provides natural language process control from an IBM PC or compatible machine. Sometimes process control schedules require changes frequently, even several times per day. These changes may include adding, deleting, and rearranging steps in a process. This program sets up a process control system that can either run without an operator, or be run by workers with limited programming skills. The software system includes three programs. Two of the programs, written in FORTRAN77, record data and control research processes. The third program, written in Pascal, generates the FORTRAN subroutines used by the other two programs to identify the user commands with the user-written device drivers. The software system also includes an input data set which allows the user to define the user commands which are to be executed by the computer. To set the system up the operator writes device driver routines for all of the controlled devices. Once set up, this system requires only an input file containing natural language command lines which tell the system what to do and when to do it. The operator can make up custom commands for operating and taking data from external research equipment at any time of the day or night without the operator in attendance. This process control system requires a personal computer operating under MS-DOS with suitable hardware interfaces to all controlled devices. The program requires a FORTRAN77 compiler and user-written device drivers. This program was developed in 1989 and has a memory requirement of about 62 Kbytes.

  11. Some structural aspects of language are more stable than others: a comparison of seven methods.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dan Dediu

    Full Text Available Understanding the patterns and causes of differential structural stability is an area of major interest for the study of language change and evolution. It is still debated whether structural features have intrinsic stabilities across language families and geographic areas, or if the processes governing their rate of change are completely dependent upon the specific context of a given language or language family. We conducted an extensive literature review and selected seven different approaches to conceptualising and estimating the stability of structural linguistic features, aiming at comparing them using the same dataset, the World Atlas of Language Structures. We found that, despite profound conceptual and empirical differences between these methods, they tend to agree in classifying some structural linguistic features as being more stable than others. This suggests that there are intrinsic properties of such structural features influencing their stability across methods, language families and geographic areas. This finding is a major step towards understanding the nature of structural linguistic features and their interaction with idiosyncratic, lineage- and area-specific factors during language change and evolution.

  12. Creation of structured documentation templates using Natural Language Processing techniques.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kashyap, Vipul; Turchin, Alexander; Morin, Laura; Chang, Frank; Li, Qi; Hongsermeier, Tonya

    2006-01-01

    Structured Clinical Documentation is a fundamental component of the healthcare enterprise, linking both clinical (e.g., electronic health record, clinical decision support) and administrative functions (e.g., evaluation and management coding, billing). One of the challenges in creating good quality documentation templates has been the inability to address specialized clinical disciplines and adapt to local clinical practices. A one-size-fits-all approach leads to poor adoption and inefficiencies in the documentation process. On the other hand, the cost associated with manual generation of documentation templates is significant. Consequently there is a need for at least partial automation of the template generation process. We propose an approach and methodology for the creation of structured documentation templates for diabetes using Natural Language Processing (NLP).

  13. Building gold standard corpora for medical natural language processing tasks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deleger, Louise; Li, Qi; Lingren, Todd; Kaiser, Megan; Molnar, Katalin; Stoutenborough, Laura; Kouril, Michal; Marsolo, Keith; Solti, Imre

    2012-01-01

    We present the construction of three annotated corpora to serve as gold standards for medical natural language processing (NLP) tasks. Clinical notes from the medical record, clinical trial announcements, and FDA drug labels are annotated. We report high inter-annotator agreements (overall F-measures between 0.8467 and 0.9176) for the annotation of Personal Health Information (PHI) elements for a de-identification task and of medications, diseases/disorders, and signs/symptoms for information extraction (IE) task. The annotated corpora of clinical trials and FDA labels will be publicly released and to facilitate translational NLP tasks that require cross-corpora interoperability (e.g. clinical trial eligibility screening) their annotation schemas are aligned with a large scale, NIH-funded clinical text annotation project.

  14. Teaching language arts to English language learners

    CERN Document Server

    Vásquez, Anete; Smith, Philip C

    2013-01-01

    This thoroughly revised and updated edition of Teaching Language Arts to English Language Learners provides readers with the comprehensive understanding of both the challenges that face ELLs and ways in which educators might address them in the language arts classroom. The authors offer proven techniques that teachers can readily use to teach reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary as well as speaking, listening, and viewing skills. A complete section is also devoted to ways teachers can integrate all five strands of the language arts curriculum into a comprehensive unit of study w

  15. Dependency distance: A new perspective on the syntactic development in second language acquisition. Comment on "Dependency distance: A new perspective on syntactic patterns in natural language" by Haitao Liu et al.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Jingyang; Ouyang, Jinghui

    2017-07-01

    Liu et al. [1] offers a clear and informative account of the use of dependency distance in studying natural languages, with a focus on the viewpoint that dependency distance minimization (DDM) can be regarded as a linguistic universal. We would like to add the perspective of employing dependency distance in the studies of second languages acquisition (SLA), particularly the studies of syntactic development.

  16. Understanding Disorder Within Variation: Production of English Grammatical Forms by English Language Learners.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bedore, Lisa M; Peña, Elizabeth D; Anaya, Jissel B; Nieto, Ricardo; Lugo-Neris, Mirza J; Baron, Alisa

    2018-04-05

    This study examines English performance on a set of 11 grammatical forms in Spanish-English bilingual, school-age children in order to understand how item difficulty of grammatical constructions helps correctly classify language impairment (LI) from expected variability in second language acquisition when taking into account linguistic experience and exposure. Three hundred seventy-eight children's scores on the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment-Middle Extension (Peña, Bedore, Gutiérrez-Clellen, Iglesias, & Goldstein, 2008) morphosyntax cloze task were analyzed by bilingual experience groups (high Spanish experience, balanced English-Spanish experience, high English experience, ability (typically developing [TD] vs. LI), and grammatical form. Classification accuracy was calculated for the forms that best differentiated TD and LI groups. Children with LI scored lower than TD children across all bilingual experience groups. There were differences by grammatical form across bilingual experience and ability groups. Children from high English experience and balanced English-Spanish experience groups could be accurately classified on the basis of all the English grammatical forms tested except for prepositions. For bilinguals with high Spanish experience, it was possible to rule out LI on the basis of grammatical production but not rule in LI. It is possible to accurately identify LI in English language learners once they use English 40% of the time or more. However, for children with high Spanish experience, more information about development and patterns of impairment is needed to positively identify LI.

  17. Child speech, language and communication need re-examined in a public health context: a new direction for the speech and language therapy profession.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Law, James; Reilly, Sheena; Snow, Pamela C

    2013-01-01

    Historically speech and language therapy services for children have been framed within a rehabilitative framework with explicit assumptions made about providing therapy to individuals. While this is clearly important in many cases, we argue that this model needs revisiting for a number of reasons. First, our understanding of the nature of disability, and therefore communication disabilities, has changed over the past century. Second, there is an increasing understanding of the impact that the social gradient has on early communication difficulties. Finally, understanding how these factors interact with one other and have an impact across the life course remains poorly understood. To describe the public health paradigm and explore its implications for speech and language therapy with children. We test the application of public health methodologies to speech and language therapy services by looking at four dimensions of service delivery: (1) the uptake of services and whether those children who need services receive them; (2) the development of universal prevention services in relation to social disadvantage; (3) the risk of over-interpreting co-morbidity from clinical samples; and (4) the overlap between communicative competence and mental health. It is concluded that there is a strong case for speech and language therapy services to be reconceptualized to respond to the needs of the whole population and according to socially determined needs, focusing on primary prevention. This is not to disregard individual need, but to highlight the needs of the population as a whole. Although the socio-political context is different between countries, we maintain that this is relevant wherever speech and language therapists have a responsibility for covering whole populations. Finally, we recommend that speech and language therapy services be conceptualized within the framework laid down in The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. © 2013 Royal College of Speech and Language

  18. New Ways to Learn a Foreign Language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hall, Robert A., Jr.

    This text focuses on the nature of language learning in the light of modern linguistic analysis. Common linguistic problems encountered by students of eight major languages are examined--Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, and Russian. The text discusses the nature of language, building new language habits, overcoming…

  19. Development of a user friendly interface for database querying in natural language by using concepts and means related to artificial intelligence

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pujo, Pascal

    1989-01-01

    This research thesis reports the development of a user-friendly interface in natural language for querying a relational database. The developed system differs from usual approaches for its integrated architecture as the relational model management is totally controlled by the interface. The author first addresses the way to store data in order to make them accessible through an interface in natural language, and more precisely to store data with an organisation which would result in the less possible constraints in query formulation. The author then briefly presents techniques related to automatic processing in natural language, and discusses the implications of a better user-friendliness and for error processing. The next part reports the study of the developed interface: selection of data processing tools, interface development, data management at the interface level, information input by the user. The last chapter proposes an overview of possible evolutions for the interface: use of deductive functionalities, use of an extensional base and of an intentional base to deduce facts from knowledge stores in the extensional base, and handling of complex objects [fr

  20. Teaching and Learning Sign Language as a “Foreign” Language ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    In recent years, there has been a growing debate in the United States, Europe, and Australia about the nature of the Deaf community as a cultural community,1 and the recognition of signed languages as “real” or “legitimate” languages comparable in all meaningful ways to spoken languages. An important element of this ...

  1. From language comprehension to action understanding and back again.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tremblay, Pascale; Small, Steven L

    2011-05-01

    A controversial question in cognitive neuroscience is whether comprehension of words and sentences engages brain mechanisms specific for decoding linguistic meaning or whether language comprehension occurs through more domain-general sensorimotor processes. Accumulating behavioral and neuroimaging evidence suggests a role for cortical motor and premotor areas in passive action-related language tasks, regions that are known to be involved in action execution and observation. To examine the involvement of these brain regions in language and nonlanguage tasks, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on a group of 21 healthy adults. During the fMRI session, all participants 1) watched short object-related action movies, 2) looked at pictures of man-made objects, and 3) listened to and produced short sentences describing object-related actions and man-made objects. Our results are among the first to reveal, in the human brain, a functional specialization within the ventral premotor cortex (PMv) for observing actions and for observing objects, and a different organization for processing sentences describing actions and objects. These findings argue against the strongest version of the simulation theory for the processing of action-related language.

  2. The language of football

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rossing, Niels Nygaard; Skrubbeltrang, Lotte Stausgaard

    2014-01-01

    levels (Schein, 2004) in which each player and his actions can be considered an artefact - a concrete symbol in motion embedded in espoused values and basic assumptions. Therefore, the actions of each dialect are strongly connected to the underlying understanding of football. By document and video......The language of football: A cultural analysis of selected World Cup nations. This essay describes how actions on the football field relate to the nations’ different cultural understanding of football and how these actions become spoken dialects within a language of football. Saussure reasoned...... language to have two components: a language system and language users (Danesi, 2003). Consequently, football can be characterized as a language containing a system with specific rules of the game and users with actual choices and actions within the game. All football players can be considered language...

  3. A Natural Language Intelligent Tutoring System for Training Pathologists - Implementation and Evaluation

    Science.gov (United States)

    El Saadawi, Gilan M.; Tseytlin, Eugene; Legowski, Elizabeth; Jukic, Drazen; Castine, Melissa; Fine, Jeffrey; Gormley, Robert; Crowley, Rebecca S.

    2009-01-01

    Introduction We developed and evaluated a Natural Language Interface (NLI) for an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) in Diagnostic Pathology. The system teaches residents to examine pathologic slides and write accurate pathology reports while providing immediate feedback on errors they make in their slide review and diagnostic reports. Residents can ask for help at any point in the case, and will receive context-specific feedback. Research Questions We evaluated (1) the performance of our natural language system, (2) the effect of the system on learning (3) the effect of feedback timing on learning gains and (4) the effect of ReportTutor on performance to self-assessment correlations. Methods The study uses a crossover 2×2 factorial design. We recruited 20 subjects from 4 academic programs. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions - two conditions for the immediate interface, and two for the delayed interface. An expert dermatopathologist created a reference standard and 2 board certified AP/CP pathology fellows manually coded the residents' assessment reports. Subjects were given the opportunity to self grade their performance and we used a survey to determine student response to both interfaces. Results Our results show a highly significant improvement in report writing after one tutoring session with 4-fold increase in the learning gains with both interfaces but no effect of feedback timing on performance gains. Residents who used the immediate feedback interface first experienced a feature learning gain that is correlated with the number of cases they viewed. There was no correlation between performance and self-assessment in either condition. PMID:17934789

  4. The Difficulties of English as a Foreign Language (EFL Learners in Understanding Pragmatics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fauzia

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Pragmatics is the study of the relation of signs to interpreters. For English foreign language (EFL learners, the knowledge and comprehensible input of pragmatics is much needed. This paper is based on research project. The writer did the research survey by giving some respondents questionnaire. The respondent is some students from UAD, which is taken randomly. Besides using open questionnaire, the writer also got the data from in depth interview with some EFL learners, the native speaker who teaches English, and also did literature review from some books. The result of the research then gives some evidences that EFL learners difficulties in understanding the English pragmatics occurs in 1 greeting, 2 apologizing, 3 complimenting, and 4 thanking. The factors that promotes EFL learners’ difficulties in understanding because 1 the different culture and values between native speaker and learners; 2 habit that the usually use in their daily life.

  5. Natural language processing systems for capturing and standardizing unstructured clinical information: A systematic review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kreimeyer, Kory; Foster, Matthew; Pandey, Abhishek; Arya, Nina; Halford, Gwendolyn; Jones, Sandra F; Forshee, Richard; Walderhaug, Mark; Botsis, Taxiarchis

    2017-09-01

    We followed a systematic approach based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses to identify existing clinical natural language processing (NLP) systems that generate structured information from unstructured free text. Seven literature databases were searched with a query combining the concepts of natural language processing and structured data capture. Two reviewers screened all records for relevance during two screening phases, and information about clinical NLP systems was collected from the final set of papers. A total of 7149 records (after removing duplicates) were retrieved and screened, and 86 were determined to fit the review criteria. These papers contained information about 71 different clinical NLP systems, which were then analyzed. The NLP systems address a wide variety of important clinical and research tasks. Certain tasks are well addressed by the existing systems, while others remain as open challenges that only a small number of systems attempt, such as extraction of temporal information or normalization of concepts to standard terminologies. This review has identified many NLP systems capable of processing clinical free text and generating structured output, and the information collected and evaluated here will be important for prioritizing development of new approaches for clinical NLP. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  6. Signed language and human action processing: evidence for functional constraints on the human mirror-neuron system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Corina, David P; Knapp, Heather Patterson

    2008-12-01

    In the quest to further understand the neural underpinning of human communication, researchers have turned to studies of naturally occurring signed languages used in Deaf communities. The comparison of the commonalities and differences between spoken and signed languages provides an opportunity to determine core neural systems responsible for linguistic communication independent of the modality in which a language is expressed. The present article examines such studies, and in addition asks what we can learn about human languages by contrasting formal visual-gestural linguistic systems (signed languages) with more general human action perception. To understand visual language perception, it is important to distinguish the demands of general human motion processing from the highly task-dependent demands associated with extracting linguistic meaning from arbitrary, conventionalized gestures. This endeavor is particularly important because theorists have suggested close homologies between perception and production of actions and functions of human language and social communication. We review recent behavioral, functional imaging, and neuropsychological studies that explore dissociations between the processing of human actions and signed languages. These data suggest incomplete overlap between the mirror-neuron systems proposed to mediate human action and language.

  7. Speech-language pathology students' self-reports on voice training: easier to understand or to do?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lindhe, Christina; Hartelius, Lena

    2009-01-01

    The aim of the study was to describe the subjective ratings of the course 'Training of the student's own voice and speech', from a student-centred perspective. A questionnaire was completed after each of the six individual sessions. Six speech and language pathology (SLP) students rated how they perceived the practical exercises in terms of doing and understanding. The results showed that five of the six participants rated the exercises as significantly easier to understand than to do. The exercises were also rated as easier to do over time. Results are interpreted within in a theoretical framework of approaches to learning. The findings support the importance of both the physical and reflective aspects of the voice training process.

  8. A Discussion about Upgrading the Quick Script Platform to Create Natural Language based IoT Systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Khanna, Anirudh; Das, Bhagwan; Pandey, Bishwajeet

    2016-01-01

    With the advent of AI and IoT, the idea of incorporating smart things/appliances in our day to day life is converting into a reality. The paper discusses the possibilities and potential of designing IoT systems which can be controlled via natural language, with help of Quick Script as a development...

  9. AIED 2009 Workshops Proceeedings Volume 10: Natural Language Processing in Support of Learning: Metrics, Feedback and Connectivity

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dessus, Philippe; Trausan-Matu, Stefan; Van Rosmalen, Peter; Wild, Fridolin

    2009-01-01

    Dessus, P., Trausan-Matu, S., Van Rosmalen, P., & Wild, F. (Eds.) (2009). AIED 2009 Workshops Proceedings Volume 10 Natural Language Processing in Support of Learning: Metrics, Feedback and Connectivity. In S. D. Craig & D. Dicheva (Eds.), AIED 2009: 14th International Conference in Artificial

  10. Developmental aspects of English argument structure constructions for Korean-speaking second language learners: Usage-based constructional approaches to language development

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gyu-Ho Shin

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available This study investigates developmental aspects of English Argument Structure Constructions (ASCs for Korean-speaking second language (L2 learners, providing evidence of how they manifest human domain-general cognitive systems during language acquisition via usage-based constructional approaches to language development. Participants were instructed on six English ASC types with their representative verbs for three months. The data from grammaticality preference tasks, writing tests, and free-writing tasks were analysed. Comprehension data from the grammaticality preference tasks showed significant improvement in understanding ASCs after instruction, supporting sentence-level generalisations for language comprehension independent of individual verbs. The production data from the writing tests demonstrated more frequent use of two-argument constructions than three-argument ones, which indicates the internal complexity between ASC types. The results of the writing tests also displayed skewed exploitation of verbs representative of the target ASCs, implying a frequency-sensitive nature of language acquisition. All production data further revealed active use of prefabricated chunks and incorporation of new and old language items. Taken all together, these observations suggest language learners’ merging narrowly stabilised L2 routines with other (non-linguistic resources as necessary, sustaining efficiency in a sentence-building process, under the superintendence of cognitive factors when satisfying communicative intents.

  11. Assembly processor program converts symbolic programming language to machine language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pelto, E. V.

    1967-01-01

    Assembly processor program converts symbolic programming language to machine language. This program translates symbolic codes into computer understandable instructions, assigns locations in storage for successive instructions, and computer locations from symbolic addresses.

  12. First Language Acquisition and Teaching

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena

    2011-01-01

    "First language acquisition" commonly means the acquisition of a single language in childhood, regardless of the number of languages in a child's natural environment. Language acquisition is variously viewed as predetermined, wondrous, a source of concern, and as developing through formal processes. "First language teaching" concerns schooling in…

  13. Context Analysis of Customer Requests using a Hybrid Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System and Hidden Markov Models in the Natural Language Call Routing Problem

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rustamov, Samir; Mustafayev, Elshan; Clements, Mark A.

    2018-04-01

    The context analysis of customer requests in a natural language call routing problem is investigated in the paper. One of the most significant problems in natural language call routing is a comprehension of client request. With the aim of finding a solution to this issue, the Hybrid HMM and ANFIS models become a subject to an examination. Combining different types of models (ANFIS and HMM) can prevent misunderstanding by the system for identification of user intention in dialogue system. Based on these models, the hybrid system may be employed in various language and call routing domains due to nonusage of lexical or syntactic analysis in classification process.

  14. Context Analysis of Customer Requests using a Hybrid Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System and Hidden Markov Models in the Natural Language Call Routing Problem

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rustamov Samir

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available The context analysis of customer requests in a natural language call routing problem is investigated in the paper. One of the most significant problems in natural language call routing is a comprehension of client request. With the aim of finding a solution to this issue, the Hybrid HMM and ANFIS models become a subject to an examination. Combining different types of models (ANFIS and HMM can prevent misunderstanding by the system for identification of user intention in dialogue system. Based on these models, the hybrid system may be employed in various language and call routing domains due to nonusage of lexical or syntactic analysis in classification process.

  15. How Contextualized Learning Settings Enhance Meaningful Nature of Science Understanding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bilican, K.; Cakiroglu, J.; Oztekin, C.

    2015-01-01

    Exploring different contexts to facilitate in-depth nature of science (NOS) views were seen as critical for better professional development of pre-service science teachers, which ultimately would assure better students' NOS understanding and achieve an ultimate goal of current science education reforms. This study aimed to reduce the lack of…

  16. Sentence Repetition in Deaf Children with Specific Language Impairment in British Sign Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marshall, Chloë; Mason, Kathryn; Rowley, Katherine; Herman, Rosalind; Atkinson, Joanna; Woll, Bencie; Morgan, Gary

    2015-01-01

    Children with specific language impairment (SLI) perform poorly on sentence repetition tasks across different spoken languages, but until now, this methodology has not been investigated in children who have SLI in a signed language. Users of a natural sign language encode different sentence meanings through their choice of signs and by altering…

  17. Computing Accurate Grammatical Feedback in a Virtual Writing Conference for German-Speaking Elementary-School Children: An Approach Based on Natural Language Generation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harbusch, Karin; Itsova, Gergana; Koch, Ulrich; Kuhner, Christine

    2009-01-01

    We built a natural language processing (NLP) system implementing a "virtual writing conference" for elementary-school children, with German as the target language. Currently, state-of-the-art computer support for writing tasks is restricted to multiple-choice questions or quizzes because automatic parsing of the often ambiguous and fragmentary…

  18. Prediction During Natural Language Comprehension.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Willems, Roel M; Frank, Stefan L; Nijhof, Annabel D; Hagoort, Peter; van den Bosch, Antal

    2016-06-01

    The notion of prediction is studied in cognitive neuroscience with increasing intensity. We investigated the neural basis of 2 distinct aspects of word prediction, derived from information theory, during story comprehension. We assessed the effect of entropy of next-word probability distributions as well as surprisal A computational model determined entropy and surprisal for each word in 3 literary stories. Twenty-four healthy participants listened to the same 3 stories while their brain activation was measured using fMRI. Reversed speech fragments were presented as a control condition. Brain areas sensitive to entropy were left ventral premotor cortex, left middle frontal gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, left inferior parietal lobule, and left supplementary motor area. Areas sensitive to surprisal were left inferior temporal sulcus ("visual word form area"), bilateral superior temporal gyrus, right amygdala, bilateral anterior temporal poles, and right inferior frontal sulcus. We conclude that prediction during language comprehension can occur at several levels of processing, including at the level of word form. Our study exemplifies the power of combining computational linguistics with cognitive neuroscience, and additionally underlines the feasibility of studying continuous spoken language materials with fMRI. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  19. Detecting evolutionary forces in language change.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Newberry, Mitchell G; Ahern, Christopher A; Clark, Robin; Plotkin, Joshua B

    2017-11-09

    Both language and genes evolve by transmission over generations with opportunity for differential replication of forms. The understanding that gene frequencies change at random by genetic drift, even in the absence of natural selection, was a seminal advance in evolutionary biology. Stochastic drift must also occur in language as a result of randomness in how linguistic forms are copied between speakers. Here we quantify the strength of selection relative to stochastic drift in language evolution. We use time series derived from large corpora of annotated texts dating from the 12th to 21st centuries to analyse three well-known grammatical changes in English: the regularization of past-tense verbs, the introduction of the periphrastic 'do', and variation in verbal negation. We reject stochastic drift in favour of selection in some cases but not in others. In particular, we infer selection towards the irregular forms of some past-tense verbs, which is likely driven by changing frequencies of rhyming patterns over time. We show that stochastic drift is stronger for rare words, which may explain why rare forms are more prone to replacement than common ones. This work provides a method for testing selective theories of language change against a null model and reveals an underappreciated role for stochasticity in language evolution.

  20. Rhetorical meta-language to promote the development of students' writing skills and subject matter understanding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pelger, Susanne; Sigrell, Anders

    2016-01-01

    Background: Feedback is one of the most significant factors for students' development of writing skills. For feedback to be successful, however, students and teachers need a common language - a meta-language - for discussing texts. Not least because in science education such a meta-language might contribute to improve writing training and feedback-giving. Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore students' perception of teachers' feedback given on their texts in two genres, and to suggest how writing training and feedback-giving could become more efficient. Sample: In this study were included 44 degree project students in biology and molecular biology, and 21 supervising teachers at a Swedish university. Design and methods: The study concerned students' writing about their degree projects in two genres: scientific writing and popular science writing. The data consisted of documented teacher feedback on the students' popular science texts. It also included students' and teachers' answers to questionnaires about writing and feedback. All data were collected during the spring of 2012. Teachers' feedback, actual and recalled - by students and teachers, respectively - was analysed and compared using the so-called Canons of rhetoric. Results: While the teachers recalled the given feedback as mainly positive, most students recalled only negative feedback. According to the teachers, suggested improvements concerned firstly the content, and secondly the structure of the text. In contrast, the students mentioned language style first, followed by content. Conclusions: The disagreement between students and teachers regarding how and what feedback was given on the students texts confirm the need of improved strategies for writing training and feedback-giving in science education. We suggest that the rhetorical meta-language might play a crucial role in overcoming the difficulties observed in this study. We also discuss how training of writing skills may contribute to

  1. Thinking or feeling? An exploratory study of maternal scaffolding, child mental state talk, and emotion understanding in language-impaired and typically developing school-aged children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yuill, Nicola; Little, Sarah

    2018-06-01

    Mother-child mental state talk (MST) supports children's developing social-emotional understanding. In typically developing (TD) children, family conversations about emotion, cognition, and causes have been linked to children's emotion understanding. Specific language impairment (SLI) may compromise developing emotion understanding and adjustment. We investigated emotion understanding in children with SLI and TD, in relation to mother-child conversation. Specifically, is cognitive, emotion, or causal MST more important for child emotion understanding and how might maternal scaffolding support this? Nine 5- to 9-year-old children with SLI and nine age-matched typically developing (TD) children, and their mothers. We assessed children's language, emotion understanding and reported behavioural adjustment. Mother-child conversations were coded for MST, including emotion, cognition, and causal talk, and for scaffolding of causal talk. Children with SLI scored lower than TD children on emotion understanding and adjustment. Mothers in each group provided similar amounts of cognitive, emotion, and causal talk, but SLI children used proportionally less cognitive and causal talk than TD children did, and more such child talk predicted better child emotion understanding. Child emotion talk did not differ between groups and did not predict emotion understanding. Both groups participated in maternal-scaffolded causal talk, but causal talk about emotion was more frequent in TD children, and such talk predicted higher emotion understanding. Cognitive and causal language scaffolded by mothers provides tools for articulating increasingly complex ideas about emotion, predicting children's emotion understanding. Our study provides a robust method for studying scaffolding processes for understanding causes of emotion. © 2017 The British Psychological Society.

  2. Experiments with a First Prototype of a Spatial Model of Cultural Meaning through Natural-Language Human-Robot Interaction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oliver Schürer

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available When using assistive systems, the consideration of individual and cultural meaning is crucial for the utility and acceptance of technology. Orientation, communication and interaction are rooted in perception and therefore always happen in material space. We understand that a major problem lies in the difference between human and technical perception of space. Cultural policies are based on meanings including their spatial situation and their rich relationships. Therefore, we have developed an approach where the different perception systems share a hybrid spatial model that is generated by artificial intelligence—a joint effort by humans and assistive systems. The aim of our project is to create a spatial model of cultural meaning based on interaction between humans and robots. We define the role of humanoid robots as becoming our companions. This calls for technical systems to include still inconceivable human and cultural agendas for the perception of space. In two experiments, we tested a first prototype of the communication module that allows a humanoid to learn cultural meanings through a machine learning system. Interaction is achieved by non-verbal and natural-language communication between humanoids and test persons. This helps us to better understand how a spatial model of cultural meaning can be developed.

  3. Medical subdomain classification of clinical notes using a machine learning-based natural language processing approach

    OpenAIRE

    Weng, Wei-Hung; Wagholikar, Kavishwar B.; McCray, Alexa T.; Szolovits, Peter; Chueh, Henry C.

    2017-01-01

    Background The medical subdomain of a clinical note, such as cardiology or neurology, is useful content-derived metadata for developing machine learning downstream applications. To classify the medical subdomain of a note accurately, we have constructed a machine learning-based natural language processing (NLP) pipeline and developed medical subdomain classifiers based on the content of the note. Methods We constructed the pipeline using the clinical ...

  4. Scientific literacy: Role of natural history studies in constructing understanding of the nature of science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lutz, Martha Victoria Rosett

    2002-01-01

    Scientific literacy is a central goal of science education. One purpose of this investigation was to reevaluate the definition of 'scientific literacy.' Another purpose was to develop and implement new curriculum involving natural history experiments with insects, with the goal of allowing students opportunities to construct an understanding of the nature of science, a crucial aspect of scientific literacy. This investigation was a qualitative case study. Methods of data collection included direct observations, analysis of sketches and written products created by students and class-room teachers, and analysis of audio tapes. Major findings include: (1) Scientific literacy is generally defined by lists of factual information which students are expected to master. When asked to evaluate their knowledge of selected items on a list published in a science education reform curriculum guide, 15 practicing scientists reported lack of familiarity or comprehension with many items, with the exception of items within their areas of specialization. (2) Genuine natural history experiments using insects can be incorporated into the existing school schedule and need not require any increase in the budget for science materials. (3) Students as young as first through third grade can learn the manual techniques and conceptual skills necessary for designing and conducting original natural history experiments, including manipulating the insects, making accurate sketches, developing test able hypotheses, recording data, and drawing conclusions from their data. Students were generally enthusiastic both about working with live insects and also conducting genuine science experiments. (4) Girls appear both positive and engaged with natural history activities and may be more likely than boys to follow through on designing, conducting, and reporting on independent experiments. The results imply that a valid definition of scientific literacy should be based on the ability to acquire scientific

  5. A UMLS-based spell checker for natural language processing in vaccine safety

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liu Fang

    2007-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The Institute of Medicine has identified patient safety as a key goal for health care in the United States. Detecting vaccine adverse events is an important public health activity that contributes to patient safety. Reports about adverse events following immunization (AEFI from surveillance systems contain free-text components that can be analyzed using natural language processing. To extract Unified Medical Language System (UMLS concepts from free text and classify AEFI reports based on concepts they contain, we first needed to clean the text by expanding abbreviations and shortcuts and correcting spelling errors. Our objective in this paper was to create a UMLS-based spelling error correction tool as a first step in the natural language processing (NLP pipeline for AEFI reports. Methods We developed spell checking algorithms using open source tools. We used de-identified AEFI surveillance reports to create free-text data sets for analysis. After expansion of abbreviated clinical terms and shortcuts, we performed spelling correction in four steps: (1 error detection, (2 word list generation, (3 word list disambiguation and (4 error correction. We then measured the performance of the resulting spell checker by comparing it to manual correction. Results We used 12,056 words to train the spell checker and tested its performance on 8,131 words. During testing, sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value (PPV for the spell checker were 74% (95% CI: 74–75, 100% (95% CI: 100–100, and 47% (95% CI: 46%–48%, respectively. Conclusion We created a prototype spell checker that can be used to process AEFI reports. We used the UMLS Specialist Lexicon as the primary source of dictionary terms and the WordNet lexicon as a secondary source. We used the UMLS as a domain-specific source of dictionary terms to compare potentially misspelled words in the corpus. The prototype sensitivity was comparable to currently available

  6. Language Policy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lauridsen, Karen M.

    2008-01-01

    Like any other text, instructive texts function within a given cultural and situational setting and may only be available in one language. However, the end users may not be familiar with that language and therefore unable to read and understand the instructions. This article therefore argues...... that instructive texts should always be available in a language that is understood by the end users, and that a corporate communication policy which includes a language policy should ensure that this is in fact the case for all instructive texts....

  7. Natural language metaphors covertly influence reasoning.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paul H Thibodeau

    Full Text Available Metaphors pervade discussions of social issues like climate change, the economy, and crime. We ask how natural language metaphors shape the way people reason about such social issues. In previous work, we showed that describing crime metaphorically as a beast or a virus, led people to generate different solutions to a city's crime problem. In the current series of studies, instead of asking people to generate a solution on their own, we provided them with a selection of possible solutions and asked them to choose the best ones. We found that metaphors influenced people's reasoning even when they had a set of options available to compare and select among. These findings suggest that metaphors can influence not just what solution comes to mind first, but also which solution people think is best, even when given the opportunity to explicitly compare alternatives. Further, we tested whether participants were aware of the metaphor. We found that very few participants thought the metaphor played an important part in their decision. Further, participants who had no explicit memory of the metaphor were just as much affected by the metaphor as participants who were able to remember the metaphorical frame. These findings suggest that metaphors can act covertly in reasoning. Finally, we examined the role of political affiliation on reasoning about crime. The results confirm our previous findings that Republicans are more likely to generate enforcement and punishment solutions for dealing with crime, and are less swayed by metaphor than are Democrats or Independents.

  8. Automated assessment of patients' self-narratives for posttraumatic stress disorder screening using natural language processing and text mining

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    He, Qiwei; Veldkamp, Bernard P.; Glas, Cornelis A.W.; de Vries, Theo

    2017-01-01

    Patients’ narratives about traumatic experiences and symptoms are useful in clinical screening and diagnostic procedures. In this study, we presented an automated assessment system to screen patients for posttraumatic stress disorder via a natural language processing and text-mining approach. Four

  9. Prediction of Emergency Department Hospital Admission Based on Natural Language Processing and Neural Networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Xingyu; Kim, Joyce; Patzer, Rachel E; Pitts, Stephen R; Patzer, Aaron; Schrager, Justin D

    2017-10-26

    To describe and compare logistic regression and neural network modeling strategies to predict hospital admission or transfer following initial presentation to Emergency Department (ED) triage with and without the addition of natural language processing elements. Using data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS), a cross-sectional probability sample of United States EDs from 2012 and 2013 survey years, we developed several predictive models with the outcome being admission to the hospital or transfer vs. discharge home. We included patient characteristics immediately available after the patient has presented to the ED and undergone a triage process. We used this information to construct logistic regression (LR) and multilayer neural network models (MLNN) which included natural language processing (NLP) and principal component analysis from the patient's reason for visit. Ten-fold cross validation was used to test the predictive capacity of each model and receiver operating curves (AUC) were then calculated for each model. Of the 47,200 ED visits from 642 hospitals, 6,335 (13.42%) resulted in hospital admission (or transfer). A total of 48 principal components were extracted by NLP from the reason for visit fields, which explained 75% of the overall variance for hospitalization. In the model including only structured variables, the AUC was 0.824 (95% CI 0.818-0.830) for logistic regression and 0.823 (95% CI 0.817-0.829) for MLNN. Models including only free-text information generated AUC of 0.742 (95% CI 0.731- 0.753) for logistic regression and 0.753 (95% CI 0.742-0.764) for MLNN. When both structured variables and free text variables were included, the AUC reached 0.846 (95% CI 0.839-0.853) for logistic regression and 0.844 (95% CI 0.836-0.852) for MLNN. The predictive accuracy of hospital admission or transfer for patients who presented to ED triage overall was good, and was improved with the inclusion of free text data from a patient

  10. Essential Building Blocks of Human Nature

    CERN Document Server

    Frey, Ulrich J; Willführ, Kai P

    2011-01-01

    To understand why we humans are as we are, it is necessary to look at the essential building blocks that comprise our nature. The foundations of this structure are our evolutionary origins as primates and our social roots. Upon these rest features such as our emotions, language and aesthetic preferences, with our self-perceptions, self-deceptions and thirst for knowledge right at the top. The unifying force holding these blocks together is evolutionary theory. Evolution provides a deeper understanding of human nature and, in particular, of the common roots of these different perspectives. To build a reliable and coherent model of man, leading authors from fields as diverse as primatology, anthropology, neurobiology and philosophy have joined forces to present essays  each describing their own expert perspective. Together they provide a convincing and complete picture of our own human nature.

  11. Simplexity, languages and human languaging

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Cowley, Stephen; Gahrn-Andersen, Rasmus

    2018-01-01

    Building on a distributed perspective, the Special Issue develops Alain Berthoz's concept of simplexity. By so doing, neurophysiology is used to reach beyond observable and, specifically, 1st-order languaging. While simplexity clarifies how language uses perception/action, a community's ‘lexicon......’ (a linguistic 2nd order) also shapes human powers. People use global constraints to make and construe wordings and bring a social/individual duality to human living. Within a field of perception-action-language, the phenomenology of ‘words’ and ‘things’ drives people to sustain their own experience....... Simplex tricks used in building bodies co-function with action that grants humans access to en-natured culture where, together, they build human knowing....

  12. Querying Natural Logic Knowledge Bases

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Andreasen, Troels; Bulskov, Henrik; Jensen, Per Anker

    2017-01-01

    This paper describes the principles of a system applying natural logic as a knowledge base language. Natural logics are regimented fragments of natural language employing high level inference rules. We advocate the use of natural logic for knowledge bases dealing with querying of classes...... in ontologies and class-relationships such as are common in life-science descriptions. The paper adopts a version of natural logic with recursive restrictive clauses such as relative clauses and adnominal prepositional phrases. It includes passive as well as active voice sentences. We outline a prototype...... for partial translation of natural language into natural logic, featuring further querying and conceptual path finding in natural logic knowledge bases....

  13. A step beyond local observations with a dialog aware bidirectional GRU network for Spoken Language Understanding

    OpenAIRE

    Vukotic , Vedran; Raymond , Christian; Gravier , Guillaume

    2016-01-01

    International audience; Architectures of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) recently become a very popular choice for Spoken Language Understanding (SLU) problems; however, they represent a big family of different architectures that can furthermore be combined to form more complex neural networks. In this work, we compare different recurrent networks, such as simple Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, Gated Memory Units (GRU) and their bidirectional versions,...

  14. Intercultural challenge to language learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luz María Muñoz de Cote

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents the findings of a qualitative research project set to investigate the piloting process of an innovative language program for university students. It challenges traditional English language teaching courses celebrating a view centered on learning; classes become spaces for students to understand the language they are learning through the development of small projects. The approach moves from a teaching transmission paradigm to one where the most important agent is each student who has to engage with a topic of his or her interest. Students are seen as individuals whose knowledge and understanding of the world is valued and not as people whose lack of language skills prevents themfrom engaging in discussions of complex topics. The objective of this innovation is to enhance students’ understanding and use of academic English in their field of interest. In this project, we argue that knowledge and understanding of the mother tongue and culture play key roles in the development of a second language. A number of studies suggest that students who had strong first language literacy skills achieved higher proficiency levels in their second language. Based on this argument and Vygotsky’s sociocultural learning theory, we designed disciplinary content language learning workshops for first-degree students. The main tenet is that students can develop academic English given that they know about their discipline. Findings so far reveal the difficulty of students to take distance from their previous learning experiences. They also show that students’ ideas expressed in English are far more complex than what would be expected of them given their second language skills. The complexity is not only related to thecontent, but to the way they construct their paragraphs and the understanding of how the register of their field  may be used.

  15. Descriptive Metaphysics, Natural Language Metaphysics, Sapir-Whorf, and All That Stuff: Evidence from the Mass-Count Distinction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Francis Jeffry Pelletier

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available Strawson (1959 described ‘descriptive metaphysics’, Bach (1986a described ‘natural language metaphysics’, Sapir (1929 and Whorf (1940a,b, 1941 describe, well, Sapir-Whorfianism. And there are other views concerning the relation between correct semantic analysis of linguistic phenomena and the “reality” that is supposed to be thereby described. I think some considerations from the analyses of the mass-count distinction can shed some light on that very dark topic.ReferencesBach, Emmon. 1986a. ‘Natural Language Metaphysics’. In Ruth Barcan Marcus, G.J.W. Dorn & Paul Weingartner (eds. ‘Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, VII’, 573–595. Amsterdam: North Holland.Bach, Emmon. 1986b. ‘The Algebra of Events’. Linguistics and Philosophy 9: 5–16.Berger, Peter & Luckmann, Thomas. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Doubleday.Boroditsky, Lera, Schmidt, Lauren & Phillips, Webb. 2003. ‘Sex, Syntax, and Semantics’. In Dedre Gentner & Susan Goldin-Meadow (eds. ‘Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Cognition’, 59–80. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Cheng, L. & Sybesma, R. 1999. ‘Bare and Not-So-Bare Nouns and the structure of NP’. Linguistic Inquiry 30: 509–542.http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/002438999554192Chierchia, Gennaro. 1998a. ‘Reference to Kinds across Languages’. Natural Language Semantics 6: 339–405.http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1008324218506Chierchia, Gennaro. 1998b. ‘Plurality of Mass Nouns and the Notion of ‘Semantic Parameter’ ’. In S. Rothstein (ed. ‘Events and Grammar’, 53–103. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Chierchia, Gennaro. 2010. ‘Mass Nouns, Vagueness and Semantic Variation’. Synthèse 174: 99–149.http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-009-9686-6Doetjes, Jenny. 1997. Quantifiers and Selection: On the Distribution of Quantifying Expressions in French, Dutch and English. Ph.D. thesis, University of Leiden, Holland

  16. Acquisition of a bodily-tactile language as first language

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ask Larsen, Flemming

    2013-01-01

    Language acquisition in the bodily-tactile modality is difficult to understand, describe, and support. This chapter advocates a reinterpretation of the gestural and idiosyncratic bodily-tactile communication of people with congenital deafblindness (CDB) in terms of early language acquisition...... towards Tactile Sign Language (TSL). The access to participation in complex TSL culture is crucial for language acquisition. We already know how to transfer the patterns of social interaction into the bodily-tactile modality. This is the fundation on which to build actual linguistic participation. TSL...... as a first language is presently a theoretic possibility. We need more research on how to accommodate TSL to language Development and on how to fit TSL into participation in complex cultural activities....

  17. Understanding Risk for Reading Difficulties in Children with Language Impairment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murphy, Kimberly A.; Justice, Laura M.; O'Connell, Ann A.; Pentimonti, Jill M.; Kaderavek, Joan N.

    2016-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this study was to retrospectively examine the preschool language and early literacy skills of kindergarten good and poor readers, and to determine the extent to which these skills predict reading status. Method: Participants were 136 children with language impairment enrolled in early childhood special education classrooms.…

  18. CLAMP - a toolkit for efficiently building customized clinical natural language processing pipelines.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soysal, Ergin; Wang, Jingqi; Jiang, Min; Wu, Yonghui; Pakhomov, Serguei; Liu, Hongfang; Xu, Hua

    2017-11-24

    Existing general clinical natural language processing (NLP) systems such as MetaMap and Clinical Text Analysis and Knowledge Extraction System have been successfully applied to information extraction from clinical text. However, end users often have to customize existing systems for their individual tasks, which can require substantial NLP skills. Here we present CLAMP (Clinical Language Annotation, Modeling, and Processing), a newly developed clinical NLP toolkit that provides not only state-of-the-art NLP components, but also a user-friendly graphic user interface that can help users quickly build customized NLP pipelines for their individual applications. Our evaluation shows that the CLAMP default pipeline achieved good performance on named entity recognition and concept encoding. We also demonstrate the efficiency of the CLAMP graphic user interface in building customized, high-performance NLP pipelines with 2 use cases, extracting smoking status and lab test values. CLAMP is publicly available for research use, and we believe it is a unique asset for the clinical NLP community. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  19. Computer-Assisted Language Learning : proceedings of the seventh Twente Workshop on Language Technology

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Appelo, L.; de Jong, Franciska M.G.

    1994-01-01

    TWLT is an acronym of Twente Workshop(s) on Language Technology. These workshops on natural language theory and technology are organised bij Project Parlevink (sometimes with the help of others) a language theory and technology project conducted at the Department of Computer Science of the

  20. Intelligent Performance Analysis with a Natural Language Interface

    Science.gov (United States)

    Juuso, Esko K.

    2017-09-01

    Performance improvement is taken as the primary goal in the asset management. Advanced data analysis is needed to efficiently integrate condition monitoring data into the operation and maintenance. Intelligent stress and condition indices have been developed for control and condition monitoring by combining generalized norms with efficient nonlinear scaling. These nonlinear scaling methodologies can also be used to handle performance measures used for management since management oriented indicators can be presented in the same scale as intelligent condition and stress indices. Performance indicators are responses of the process, machine or system to the stress contributions analyzed from process and condition monitoring data. Scaled values are directly used in intelligent temporal analysis to calculate fluctuations and trends. All these methodologies can be used in prognostics and fatigue prediction. The meanings of the variables are beneficial in extracting expert knowledge and representing information in natural language. The idea of dividing the problems into the variable specific meanings and the directions of interactions provides various improvements for performance monitoring and decision making. The integrated temporal analysis and uncertainty processing facilitates the efficient use of domain expertise. Measurements can be monitored with generalized statistical process control (GSPC) based on the same scaling functions.

  1. Semantics by levels: An example for an image language

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fasciano, M.; Levialdi, S.; Tortora, G.

    1984-01-01

    Ambiguities in formal language constructs may decrease both the understanding and the coding efficiency of a program. Within an image language, two semantic levels have been detected, corresponding to the lower level (pixel-based) and to the higher level (image-based). Denotational semantics has been used to define both levels within PIXAL (an image language) in order to enable the reader to visualize a concrete application of the semantic levels and their implications in a programming environment. This paper presents the semantics of different levels of conceptualization in the abstract formal description of an image language. The disambiguation of the meaning of special purpose constructs that imply either the elementary (pixels) level or the high image (array) level is naturally obtained by means of such semantic clauses. Perhaps non Von architectures on which hierarchical computations may be performed could also benefit from the use of semantic clauses to explicit the different levels where such computations are executed

  2. The emergence of temporal language in Nicaraguan Sign Language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kocab, Annemarie; Senghas, Ann; Snedeker, Jesse

    2016-11-01

    Understanding what uniquely human properties account for the creation and transmission of language has been a central goal of cognitive science. Recently, the study of emerging sign languages, such as Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL), has offered the opportunity to better understand how languages are created and the roles of the individual learner and the community of users. Here, we examined the emergence of two types of temporal language in NSL, comparing the linguistic devices for conveying temporal information among three sequential age cohorts of signers. Experiment 1 showed that while all three cohorts of signers could communicate about linearly ordered discrete events, only the second and third generations of signers successfully communicated information about events with more complex temporal structure. Experiment 2 showed that signers could discriminate between the types of temporal events in a nonverbal task. Finally, Experiment 3 investigated the ordinal use of numbers (e.g., first, second) in NSL signers, indicating that one strategy younger signers might have for accurately describing events in time might be to use ordinal numbers to mark each event. While the capacity for representing temporal concepts appears to be present in the human mind from the onset of language creation, the linguistic devices to convey temporality do not appear immediately. Evidently, temporal language emerges over generations of language transmission, as a product of individual minds interacting within a community of users. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. Socialization, Language, and Scenic Understanding

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Olesen, Henning Salling; Weber, Kirsten

    2013-01-01

    is based on a transformation of the "scenic understanding" from a clinical to a text interpretation, which seeks to understand collective unconscious meaning in text, and is presented with an illustration of the interpretation procedure from social research. Then follows a brief systematic account of key...

  4. Knowledge-based machine indexing from natural language text: Knowledge base design, development, and maintenance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Genuardi, Michael T.

    1993-01-01

    One strategy for machine-aided indexing (MAI) is to provide a concept-level analysis of the textual elements of documents or document abstracts. In such systems, natural-language phrases are analyzed in order to identify and classify concepts related to a particular subject domain. The overall performance of these MAI systems is largely dependent on the quality and comprehensiveness of their knowledge bases. These knowledge bases function to (1) define the relations between a controlled indexing vocabulary and natural language expressions; (2) provide a simple mechanism for disambiguation and the determination of relevancy; and (3) allow the extension of concept-hierarchical structure to all elements of the knowledge file. After a brief description of the NASA Machine-Aided Indexing system, concerns related to the development and maintenance of MAI knowledge bases are discussed. Particular emphasis is given to statistically-based text analysis tools designed to aid the knowledge base developer. One such tool, the Knowledge Base Building (KBB) program, presents the domain expert with a well-filtered list of synonyms and conceptually-related phrases for each thesaurus concept. Another tool, the Knowledge Base Maintenance (KBM) program, functions to identify areas of the knowledge base affected by changes in the conceptual domain (for example, the addition of a new thesaurus term). An alternate use of the KBM as an aid in thesaurus construction is also discussed.

  5. Visualizing Patient Journals by Combining Vital Signs Monitoring and Natural Language Processing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Vilic, Adnan; Petersen, John Asger; Hoppe, Karsten

    2016-01-01

    This paper presents a data-driven approach to graphically presenting text-based patient journals while still maintaining all textual information. The system first creates a timeline representation of a patients’ physiological condition during an admission, which is assessed by electronically...... monitoring vital signs and then combining these into Early Warning Scores (EWS). Hereafter, techniques from Natural Language Processing (NLP) are applied on the existing patient journal to extract all entries. Finally, the two methods are combined into an interactive timeline featuring the ability to see...... drastic changes in the patients’ health, and thereby enabling staff to see where in the journal critical events have taken place....

  6. Corporate Language Policies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sanden, Guro Refsum

    This paper offers a review of literature dealing with language policies in general and corporate language policies in particular. Based on a discussion of various definitions of these concepts within two research traditions, i.e. sociolinguistics and international management, a three......-level definition of corporate language policies is presented, emphasising that a corporate language policy is a context-specific policy about language use. The three-level definition is based on the argument that in order to acquire a complete understanding of what corporate language policies involve, one needs...... to consider three progressive questions; 1) what is a policy? 2) what is a language policy?, and ultimately, 3) what is a corporate language policy?...

  7. Corporate Language Policies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sanden, Guro Refsum

    2015-01-01

    This paper offers a review of literature dealing with language policies in general and corporate language policies in particular. Based on a discussion of various definitions of these concepts within two research traditions, i.e. sociolinguistics and international management, a three......-level definition of corporate language policies is presented, emphasising that a corporate language policy is a context-specific policy about language use. The three-level definition is based on the argument that in order to acquire a complete understanding of what corporate language policies involve, one needs...... to consider three progressive questions; 1) what is a policy? 2) what is a language policy?, and ultimately, 3) what is a corporate language policy?...

  8. Programming Language Pragmatics

    CERN Document Server

    Scott, Michael L

    2009-01-01

    Programming Language Pragmatics is the most comprehensive programming language textbook available today. Taking the perspective that language design and language implementation are tightly interconnected, and that neither can be fully understood in isolation, this critically acclaimed and bestselling book has been thoroughly updated to cover the most recent developments in programming language design. With a new chapter on run-time program management and expanded coverage of concurrency, this new edition provides both students and professionals alike with a solid understanding of the most impo

  9. LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS FOR THE BELARUSIAN CORPUS WITH THE APPLICATION OF NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING AND MACHINE LEARNING TECHNIQUES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yu. S. Hetsevich

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The article focuses on the problems existing in text-to-speech synthesis. Different morphological, lexical and syntactical elements were localized with the help of the Belarusian unit of NooJ program. Those types of errors, which occur in Belarusian texts, were analyzed and corrected. Language model and part of speech tagging model were built. The natural language processing of Belarusian corpus with the help of developed algorithm using machine learning was carried out. The precision of developed models of machine learning has been 80–90 %. The dictionary was enriched with new words for the further using it in the systems of Belarusian speech synthesis.

  10. Computers and Languages: Theory and Practice

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nijholt, Antinus

    A global introduction to language technology and the areas of computer science where language technology plays a role. Surveyed in this volume are issueas related to the parsing problem in the fields of natural languages, programming languages, and formal languages. Throughout the book attention is

  11. The Tao of Whole Language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zola, Meguido

    1989-01-01

    Uses the philosophy of Taoism as a metaphor in describing the whole language approach to language arts instruction. The discussion covers the key principles that inform the whole language approach, the resulting holistic nature of language programs, and the role of the teacher in this approach. (16 references) (CLB)

  12. Teacher educators’ personal practical knowledge of language

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Swart, Fenna; de Graaff, H.C.J.; Onstenk, Jeroen; Knezic, Dubravka

    2018-01-01

    This paper describes teacher educators’ understanding of language for classroom communication in higher education. We argue that teacher educators who are aware of their personal practical knowledge of language have a better understanding of their students’ language use and provide better support

  13. Natural Language Processing Systems Evaluation Workshop Held in Berkely, California on 18 June 1991

    Science.gov (United States)

    1991-12-01

    re~arded as -a fairly complete dictionary contains about 18,000 itemsw at soluition to the domain-restricted task at tzanlating present, and will be... dictionary access and so on, with an article. Unfortunately, the Weidner system did but as time goes on, one might imagine functionality not know that...superfast type. looped tht it A31l be built with taste by peo. writer ought to be possible in the monolingual case pie who understand languages and

  14. How Artificial Intelligence Can Improve Our Understanding of the Genes Associated with Endometriosis: Natural Language Processing of the PubMed Database.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bouaziz, J; Mashiach, R; Cohen, S; Kedem, A; Baron, A; Zajicek, M; Feldman, I; Seidman, D; Soriano, D

    2018-01-01

    Endometriosis is a disease characterized by the development of endometrial tissue outside the uterus, but its cause remains largely unknown. Numerous genes have been studied and proposed to help explain its pathogenesis. However, the large number of these candidate genes has made functional validation through experimental methodologies nearly impossible. Computational methods could provide a useful alternative for prioritizing those most likely to be susceptibility genes. Using artificial intelligence applied to text mining, this study analyzed the genes involved in the pathogenesis, development, and progression of endometriosis. The data extraction by text mining of the endometriosis-related genes in the PubMed database was based on natural language processing, and the data were filtered to remove false positives. Using data from the text mining and gene network information as input for the web-based tool, 15,207 endometriosis-related genes were ranked according to their score in the database. Characterization of the filtered gene set through gene ontology, pathway, and network analysis provided information about the numerous mechanisms hypothesized to be responsible for the establishment of ectopic endometrial tissue, as well as the migration, implantation, survival, and proliferation of ectopic endometrial cells. Finally, the human genome was scanned through various databases using filtered genes as a seed to determine novel genes that might also be involved in the pathogenesis of endometriosis but which have not yet been characterized. These genes could be promising candidates to serve as useful diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets in the management of endometriosis.

  15. RLL-1: A Representation Language Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    1980-10-01

    adaptable organisms over those which contain, built-in optimized features. Compare the extinct dinosaur , unable to adapt to new situations, with two of...natural language understandirq for KRL [Bobrow & Winograd] and OWL [Szolovits, et alD. For this reason , his language is ofL.:n inadequate for any...for no particular reason , switch the organ into its Oboe state. That is, the sequence which triggers a change to the organ is a Punction of the organ’s

  16. How many kinds of reasoning? Inference, probability, and natural language semantics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lassiter, Daniel; Goodman, Noah D

    2015-03-01

    The "new paradigm" unifying deductive and inductive reasoning in a Bayesian framework (Oaksford & Chater, 2007; Over, 2009) has been claimed to be falsified by results which show sharp differences between reasoning about necessity vs. plausibility (Heit & Rotello, 2010; Rips, 2001; Rotello & Heit, 2009). We provide a probabilistic model of reasoning with modal expressions such as "necessary" and "plausible" informed by recent work in formal semantics of natural language, and show that it predicts the possibility of non-linear response patterns which have been claimed to be problematic. Our model also makes a strong monotonicity prediction, while two-dimensional theories predict the possibility of reversals in argument strength depending on the modal word chosen. Predictions were tested using a novel experimental paradigm that replicates the previously-reported response patterns with a minimal manipulation, changing only one word of the stimulus between conditions. We found a spectrum of reasoning "modes" corresponding to different modal words, and strong support for our model's monotonicity prediction. This indicates that probabilistic approaches to reasoning can account in a clear and parsimonious way for data previously argued to falsify them, as well as new, more fine-grained, data. It also illustrates the importance of careful attention to the semantics of language employed in reasoning experiments. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. Language, Literacy, Literature: Using Storytelling in the Languages Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morgan, Anne-Marie

    2011-01-01

    Stories and storytelling have been used for millennia to entertain, challenge and educate. As a shared form of language interaction, storytelling has engaged communities in developing and perpetuating common understandings of both language and culture, as critical foundations to harmonious societies. Stories and storytelling provide a rich source…

  18. Dialogue-Games: Meta-Communication Structures for Natural Language Interaction

    Science.gov (United States)

    1977-01-01

    analogy from Wittgenstein’s term "language game" ( Wittgenstein , 1958). However, Dialogue-games represent knowledge people have about language as used to...and memory of narrative discourse. CoRtiiiive PsycholoRy, 1977, 9, 77-110. Wittgenstein , L. Philosophical inve-ÜRalions (3rd ed.). New York

  19. Aspects of an ecological theory of language

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bang, J. C.; Trampe, W.

    2014-01-01

    Our aim and knowledge-constitutive interest is to identify some central aspects of an ecological theory of language. In our understanding of building an integrative ecological theory of language, it seems useful to look first for roots of a special ecological understanding of language. Here...

  20. High School Teacher Perspectives and Practices: Second Language Writing and Language Development

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilliland, Betsy

    2015-01-01

    Teachers' understandings of second language learning influence their practices in the classroom. This paper analyzes interview and classroom data collected during a year-long ethnographic study of two high school English language development classes to identify (1) what the teachers understood about second language (L2) development and L2 academic…

  1. The Effect of Computer Models as Formative Assessment on Student Understanding of the Nature of Models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Mihwa; Liu, Xiufeng; Smith, Erica; Waight, Noemi

    2017-01-01

    This study reports the effect of computer models as formative assessment on high school students' understanding of the nature of models. Nine high school teachers integrated computer models and associated formative assessments into their yearlong high school chemistry course. A pre-test and post-test of students' understanding of the nature of…

  2. Perspective: The language of leadership.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Souba, Chip

    2010-10-01

    Human meaning is not given before language in and by some detached, prelinguistic domain and then labeled with words. Rather, language itself, always already ardently at play in our lives, is constitutive of the realities of our experience, opening up to us a uniquely human world. Language is the bridge between the created present and the uncreated future, affording leaders of medical schools with an underused opportunity to transform academic medicine. In creating and exchanging meaning, good leaders translate ambiguity into clear messages that convey the rationale for change and enroll others in a compelling strategy that fosters alignment and commitment. Because language influences our thinking and emotions, it is most powerful and effective for tackling challenges that rely heavily on conceptual, innovative solutions as opposed to those problems whose solutions are simple and technical in nature. However, many leaders in academic medicine spend much of their time in the domain of content, where issues are understandable, strategies are familiar, and solutions are seemingly apparent. Complex problems cannot be tackled by solely addressing content; the issue in question must be situated within an appropriate conversational context to provide a basis for action. Leaders do this by creating linguistic distinctions that prompt cognitive shifts in others, jarring them loose from their entrenched worldviews. This property of language--its ability to bring forth, out of the unspoken realm, innovative ideas and possibilities--will determine the future of our health care system and our world.

  3. Gendered Language in Interactive Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hussey, Karen A.; Katz, Albert N.; Leith, Scott A.

    2015-01-01

    Over two studies, we examined the nature of gendered language in interactive discourse. In the first study, we analyzed gendered language from a chat corpus to see whether tokens of gendered language proposed in the gender-as-culture hypothesis (Maltz and Borker in "Language and social identity." Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp…

  4. Automatic Lung-RADS™ classification with a natural language processing system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beyer, Sebastian E; McKee, Brady J; Regis, Shawn M; McKee, Andrea B; Flacke, Sebastian; El Saadawi, Gilan; Wald, Christoph

    2017-09-01

    Our aim was to train a natural language processing (NLP) algorithm to capture imaging characteristics of lung nodules reported in a structured CT report and suggest the applicable Lung-RADS™ (LR) category. Our study included structured, clinical reports of consecutive CT lung screening (CTLS) exams performed from 08/2014 to 08/2015 at an ACR accredited Lung Cancer Screening Center. All patients screened were at high-risk for lung cancer according to the NCCN Guidelines ® . All exams were interpreted by one of three radiologists credentialed to read CTLS exams using LR using a standard reporting template. Training and test sets consisted of consecutive exams. Lung screening exams were divided into two groups: three training sets (500, 120, and 383 reports each) and one final evaluation set (498 reports). NLP algorithm results were compared with the gold standard of LR category assigned by the radiologist. The sensitivity/specificity of the NLP algorithm to correctly assign LR categories for suspicious nodules (LR 4) and positive nodules (LR 3/4) were 74.1%/98.6% and 75.0%/98.8% respectively. The majority of mismatches occurred in cases where pulmonary findings were present not currently addressed by LR. Misclassifications also resulted from the failure to identify exams as follow-up and the failure to completely characterize part-solid nodules. In a sub-group analysis among structured reports with standardized language, the sensitivity and specificity to detect LR 4 nodules were 87.0% and 99.5%, respectively. An NLP system can accurately suggest the appropriate LR category from CTLS exam findings when standardized reporting is used.

  5. The Big Band and the interfaces of knowledge: towards a common language?

    CERN Multimedia

    Maximilien Brice

    2012-01-01

    This conference enabled scientists from a range of disciplines to dialogue with philosophers and theologians from the world religions about the nature of the Big Bang Theory and ask: . What understandings might scientists and theologians share in common? . How are their paradigms shaped and developed? . Is it possible to develop a common framework or language?

  6. Rights to Language

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Phillipson, Robert

    This work brings together cutting-edge scholarship in language, education and society from all parts of the world. Celebrating the 60th birthday of Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, it is inspired by her work in minority, indigenous and immigrant education; multilingualism; linguistic human rights; and global...... language and power issues. Drawn from all parts of the world, the contributors are active in a range of scientific and professional areas including bilingual education; sociolinguistics; the sociology of education, law and language; economics and language; linguistics; sign language; racism; communication......; discourse analysis; language policy; minority issues; and language pedagogy. The book situates issues of minorities and bilingual education in broader perspectives of human rights, power and the ecology of language. It aims at a distillation of themes that are central to an understanding of language rights...

  7. Development of children’s early understanding of numeric structure

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vasilyeva, Marina

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Understanding of the base-10 structure of multi-digit numbers is one of the critical aspects in early mathematics learning. It has been documented that children from different countries vary in their use of base-10 representations. Questions concerning potential sources of this variability have been debated for decades. One commonly posited explanation is that some languages provide explicit cues about the structure of multi-digit numbers, facilitating the development of base-10 representations. In the present study, we tested this view against an alternative view, positing that variability in children’s learning of numeric structure may reflect differences in their experiences with numbers. The study examined kindergartners and first-graders from four countries: Taiwan, South Korea, the USA, and Russia. Results showed that the use of base-10 representations by American first-graders increased dramatically over the last decades, following changes in curricular guidelines. First-graders across the four countries showed some differences in performance (however, not consistent with the language account, whereas kindergartners performed comparably despite the differences in their languages. The results suggest that the nature of early math instruction may be critical for children’s developing understanding of numeric structure.

  8. Understanding the nature of science and scientific progress: A theory-building approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maria Chuy

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available In 1993 Carey and Smith conjectured that the most promising way to boost students’ understanding of the nature of science is a “theory-building approach to teaching about inquiry.” The research reported here tested this conjecture by comparing results from two Grade 4 classrooms that differed in their emphasis on and technological support for creating and improving theories. One class followed a Knowledge Building approach and used Knowledge Forum®, which together emphasize theory improvement and sustained creative work with ideas. The other class followed an inquiry approach mediated through collaborative project-based activities. Apart from this, the two classes were demographically similar and both fell within the broad category of constructivist, inquiry-based approaches and employed a range of modes and media for investigative research and reports. An augmented version of Carey and Smith’s Nature of Science Interview showed that the Knowledge Building approach resulted in deeper understanding of the nature of theoretical progress, the connections between theories and facts, and the role of ideas in scientific inquiry.

  9. Sign language comprehension: the case of Spanish sign language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rodríguez Ortiz, I R

    2008-01-01

    This study aims to answer the question, how much of Spanish Sign Language interpreting deaf individuals really understand. Study sampling included 36 deaf people (deafness ranging from severe to profound; variety depending on the age at which they learned sign language) and 36 hearing people who had good knowledge of sign language (most were interpreters). Sign language comprehension was assessed using passages of secondary level. After being exposed to the passages, the participants had to tell what they had understood about them, answer a set of related questions, and offer a title for the passage. Sign language comprehension by deaf participants was quite acceptable but not as good as that by hearing signers who, unlike deaf participants, were not only late learners of sign language as a second language but had also learned it through formal training.

  10. Factors Influencing Sensitivity to Lexical Tone in an Artificial Language: Implications for Second Language Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Caldwell-Harris, Catherine L.; Lancaster, Alia; Ladd, D. Robert; Dediu, Dan; Christiansen, Morten H.

    2015-01-01

    This study examined whether musical training, ethnicity, and experience with a natural tone language influenced sensitivity to tone while listening to an artificial tone language. The language was designed with three tones, modeled after level-tone African languages. Participants listened to a 15-min random concatenation of six 3-syllable words.…

  11. Shared language:Towards more effective communication.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thomas, Joyce; McDonagh, Deana

    2013-01-01

    The ability to communicate to others and express ourselves is a basic human need. As we develop our understanding of the world, based on our upbringing, education and so on, our perspective and the way we communicate can differ from those around us. Engaging and interacting with others is a critical part of healthy living. It is the responsibility of the individual to ensure that they are understood in the way they intended.Shared language refers to people developing understanding amongst themselves based on language (e.g. spoken, text) to help them communicate more effectively. The key to understanding language is to first notice and be mindful of your language. Developing a shared language is an ongoing process that requires intention and time, which results in better understanding.Shared language is critical to collaboration, and collaboration is critical to business and education. With whom and how many people do you connect? Your 'shared language' makes a difference in the world. So, how do we successfully do this? This paper shares several strategies.Your sphere of influence will carry forward what and how you are communicating. Developing and nurturing a shared language is an essential element to enhance communication and collaboration whether it is simply between partners or across the larger community of business and customers. Constant awareness and education is required to maintain the shared language. We are living in an increasingly smaller global community. Business is built on relationships. If you invest in developing shared language, your relationships and your business will thrive.

  12. Arabic text preprocessing for the natural language processing applications

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Awajan, A.

    2007-01-01

    A new approach for processing vowelized and unvowelized Arabic texts in order to prepare them for Natural Language Processing (NLP) purposes is described. The developed approach is rule-based and made up of four phases: text tokenization, word light stemming, word's morphological analysis and text annotation. The first phase preprocesses the input text in order to isolate the words and represent them in a formal way. The second phase applies a light stemmer in order to extract the stem of each word by eliminating the prefixes and suffixes. The third phase is a rule-based morphological analyzer that determines the root and the morphological pattern for each extracted stem. The last phase produces an annotated text where each word is tagged with its morphological attributes. The preprocessor presented in this paper is capable of dealing with vowelized and unvowelized words, and provides the input words along with relevant linguistics information needed by different applications. It is designed to be used with different NLP applications such as machine translation text summarization, text correction, information retrieval and automatic vowelization of Arabic Text. (author)

  13. Language Ideologies in a Danish Company with English as a Corporate Language

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lønsmann, Dorte

    2015-01-01

    with Danish. While previous studies of English as an international language have tended to focus on the consequences for the local language, this article also includes a discussion of the role of English in relation to other international languages. English is constructed as the international language......With the spread of English as a global language, concerns have been voiced over the impact of English on local languages. This article presents results from an ethnographic study of language ideologies in a Danish workplace with a particular focus on ideologies of English in relation to the local...... language and to other foreign languages. In this international company, conflicting ideologies construct the local language Danish on the one hand as the natural language in Denmark, but as unimportant compared to English on the other hand. English is constructed as prestigious and powerful in contrast...

  14. Effects of Epilepsy on Language Functions: Scoping Review and Data Mining Findings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dutta, Manaswita; Murray, Laura; Miller, Wendy; Groves, Doyle

    2018-03-01

    This study involved a scoping review to identify possible gaps in the empirical description of language functioning in epilepsy in adults. With access to social network data, data mining was used to determine if individuals with epilepsy are expressing language-related concerns. For the scoping review, scientific databases were explored to identify pertinent articles. Findings regarding the nature of epilepsy etiologies, patient characteristics, tested language modalities, and language measures were compiled. Data mining focused on social network databases to obtain a set of relevant language-related posts. The search yielded 66 articles. Epilepsy etiologies except temporal lobe epilepsy and older adults were underrepresented. Most studies utilized aphasia tests and primarily assessed single-word productions; few studies included healthy control groups. Data mining revealed several posts regarding epilepsy-related language problems, including word retrieval, reading, writing, verbal memory difficulties, and negative effects of epilepsy treatment on language. Our findings underscore the need for future specification of the integrity of language in epilepsy, particularly with respect to discourse and high-level language abilities. Increased awareness of epilepsy-related language issues and understanding the patients' perspectives about their language concerns will allow researchers and speech-language pathologists to utilize appropriate assessments and improve quality of care.

  15. A Global Approach to Foreign Language Education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conner, Maurice W., Ed.

    The papers collected here are largely devoted to foreign language education as a means of increasing international and cross-cultural understanding. Titles include: (1) "Language Is the Medium, Culture Is the Message: Globalizing Foreign Languages" (Lorraine A. Strasheim); (2) "Cultural Understanding for Global Citizenship: An Inservice Model"…

  16. Understanding the Role of Academic Language on Conceptual Understanding in an Introductory Materials Science and Engineering Course

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelly, Jacquelyn

    2012-01-01

    Students may use the technical engineering terms without knowing what these words mean. This creates a language barrier in engineering that influences student learning. Previous research has been conducted to characterize the difference between colloquial and scientific language. Since this research had not yet been applied explicitly to…

  17. Broca and the General Language Faculty

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Grazia Basile

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, I examine the important impact of Paul Broca on our understanding of language. Broca not only discovered the brain area responsible for language production, but he also highlighted the importance of a general language faculty – as Ferdinand de Saussure would later do in his Course in General Linguistics – considered as a kind of semiotic faculty that enables us to establish a constant relationship between an idea and a sign, between an entity that is situated on the level of content and an entity that is situated on the level of expression. Saussure later emphasized that this faculty of associating something on the level of content with something on the level of expression is a natural tendency in every human being. In this paper we will argue – with reference to the socio-constructivist theory of meaning – that the “generality” to which Broca refers should be understood to be closely correlated with the “naturalness” intended by Saussure. In particular, general and natural should be considered together, taking into account the ways in which human beings who live within a linguistic community put into practice, from childhood, their ability to build a language and, conversely, what happens when, in cases of aphasia, patients - so to speak - “lose the words”. Both children who are acquiring their mother tongue and aphasic patients who fail to “find the words” behave in a holistic way, within forms of life, that is, shared situations in which their own life experiences, habits, knowledge, words and so on come to life.

  18. Communication Access for Deaf People in Healthcare Settings: Understanding the Work of American Sign Language Interpreters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olson, Andrea M; Swabey, Laurie

    Despite federal laws that mandate equal access and communication in all healthcare settings for deaf people, consistent provision of quality interpreting in healthcare settings is still not a reality, as recognized by deaf people and American Sign Language (ASL)-English interpreters. The purpose of this study was to better understand the work of ASL interpreters employed in healthcare settings, which can then inform on training and credentialing of interpreters, with the ultimate aim of improving the quality of healthcare and communication access for deaf people. Based on job analysis, researchers designed an online survey with 167 task statements representing 44 categories. American Sign Language interpreters (N = 339) rated the importance of, and frequency with which they performed, each of the 167 tasks. Categories with the highest average importance ratings included language and interpreting, situation assessment, ethical and professional decision making, manage the discourse, monitor, manage and/or coordinate appointments. Categories with the highest average frequency ratings included the following: dress appropriately, adapt to a variety of physical settings and locations, adapt to working with variety of providers in variety of roles, deal with uncertain and unpredictable work situations, and demonstrate cultural adaptability. To achieve health equity for the deaf community, the training and credentialing of interpreters needs to be systematically addressed.

  19. Music and language: relations and disconnections.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kraus, Nina; Slater, Jessica

    2015-01-01

    Music and language provide an important context in which to understand the human auditory system. While they perform distinct and complementary communicative functions, music and language are both rooted in the human desire to connect with others. Since sensory function is ultimately shaped by what is biologically important to the organism, the human urge to communicate has been a powerful driving force in both the evolution of auditory function and the ways in which it can be changed by experience within an individual lifetime. This chapter emphasizes the highly interactive nature of the auditory system as well as the depth of its integration with other sensory and cognitive systems. From the origins of music and language to the effects of auditory expertise on the neural encoding of sound, we consider key themes in auditory processing, learning, and plasticity. We emphasize the unique role of the auditory system as the temporal processing "expert" in the brain, and explore relationships between communication and cognition. We demonstrate how experience with music and language can have a significant impact on underlying neural function, and that auditory expertise strengthens some of the very same aspects of sound encoding that are deficient in impaired populations. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Understanding the centrality deficit: insight from foreign language learners.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Amanda C; Keenan, Janice M

    2011-07-01

    This study replicated and extended a phenomenon in the text memory literature referred to as the centrality deficit Miller & Keenan (Annals of Dyslexia 59:99-113, 2009). It examined how reading in a foreign language (L2) affects one's text representation and ability to recall the most important information. Readers recalled a greater proportion of central than of peripheral ideas, regardless of whether reading in their native language (L1) or a foreign language (L2). Nonetheless, the greatest deficit in participants' L2 recalls, as compared with L1 recalls, was on the central, rather than the peripheral, information. This centrality deficit appears to stem from resources being diverted from comprehension when readers have to devote more cognitive resources to lower level processes (e.g., L2 word identification and syntactic processing), because the deficit was most evident among readers who had lower L2 proficiency. Prior knowledge (PK) of the passage topic helped compensate for the centrality deficit. Readers with less L2 proficiency who did not have PK of the topic displayed a centrality deficit, relative to their L1 recall, but this deficit dissipated when they did possess PK.

  1. Language Learning Strategies of Language e-Learners in Turkey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Solak, Ekrem; Cakir, Recep

    2015-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to determine the use of language learning strategies of e-learners and to understand whether there were any correlations between language learning strategies and academic achievement. Participants of the study were 274?e-learners, 132 males and 142 females, enrolled in an e-learning program from various majors and…

  2. Positivity of the English Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kloumann, Isabel M.; Danforth, Christopher M.; Harris, Kameron Decker; Bliss, Catherine A.; Dodds, Peter Sheridan

    2012-01-01

    Over the last million years, human language has emerged and evolved as a fundamental instrument of social communication and semiotic representation. People use language in part to convey emotional information, leading to the central and contingent questions: (1) What is the emotional spectrum of natural language? and (2) Are natural languages neutrally, positively, or negatively biased? Here, we report that the human-perceived positivity of over 10,000 of the most frequently used English words exhibits a clear positive bias. More deeply, we characterize and quantify distributions of word positivity for four large and distinct corpora, demonstrating that their form is broadly invariant with respect to frequency of word use. PMID:22247779

  3. Positivity of the English language.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Isabel M Kloumann

    Full Text Available Over the last million years, human language has emerged and evolved as a fundamental instrument of social communication and semiotic representation. People use language in part to convey emotional information, leading to the central and contingent questions: (1 What is the emotional spectrum of natural language? and (2 Are natural languages neutrally, positively, or negatively biased? Here, we report that the human-perceived positivity of over 10,000 of the most frequently used English words exhibits a clear positive bias. More deeply, we characterize and quantify distributions of word positivity for four large and distinct corpora, demonstrating that their form is broadly invariant with respect to frequency of word use.

  4. Attitudes and Language. Multilingual Matters: 83.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baker, Colin

    This book examines language attitudes, focusing on individual attitudes toward majority and minority languages and bilingualism. Special emphasis is placed on research conducted on language attitudes in Wales toward the Welsh and English languages. Six chapters address the following: (1) the nature, definition, and measurement of language…

  5. Power in methods: language to infants in structured and naturalistic contexts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tamis-LeMonda, Catherine S; Kuchirko, Yana; Luo, Rufan; Escobar, Kelly; Bornstein, Marc H

    2017-11-01

    Methods can powerfully affect conclusions about infant experiences and learning. Data from naturalistic observations may paint a very different picture of learning and development from those based on structured tasks, as illustrated in studies of infant walking, object permanence, intention understanding, and so forth. Using language as a model system, we compared the speech of 40 mothers to their 13-month-old infants during structured play and naturalistic home routines. The contrasting methods yielded unique portrayals of infant language experiences, while simultaneously underscoring cross-situational correspondence at an individual level. Infants experienced substantially more total words and different words per minute during structured play than they did during naturalistic routines. Language input during structured play was consistently dense from minute to minute, whereas language during naturalistic routines showed striking fluctuations interspersed with silence. Despite these differences, infants' language experiences during structured play mirrored the peak language interactions infants experienced during naturalistic routines, and correlations between language inputs in the two conditions were strong. The implications of developmental methods for documenting the nature of experiences and individual differences are discussed. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  6. Language and Social Identity Construction: A Study of a Russian Heritage Language Orthodox Christian School

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moore, Ekaterina Leonidovna

    2012-01-01

    Grounded in discourse analytic and language socialization paradigms, this dissertation examines issues of language and social identity construction in children attending a Russian Heritage Language Orthodox Christian Saturday School in California. By conducting micro-analysis of naturally-occurring talk-in-interaction combined with longitudinal…

  7. Generation of Natural-Language Textual Summaries from Longitudinal Clinical Records.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goldstein, Ayelet; Shahar, Yuval

    2015-01-01

    Physicians are required to interpret, abstract and present in free-text large amounts of clinical data in their daily tasks. This is especially true for chronic-disease domains, but holds also in other clinical domains. We have recently developed a prototype system, CliniText, which, given a time-oriented clinical database, and appropriate formal abstraction and summarization knowledge, combines the computational mechanisms of knowledge-based temporal data abstraction, textual summarization, abduction, and natural-language generation techniques, to generate an intelligent textual summary of longitudinal clinical data. We demonstrate our methodology, and the feasibility of providing a free-text summary of longitudinal electronic patient records, by generating summaries in two very different domains - Diabetes Management and Cardiothoracic surgery. In particular, we explain the process of generating a discharge summary of a patient who had undergone a Coronary Artery Bypass Graft operation, and a brief summary of the treatment of a diabetes patient for five years.

  8. Beliefs in Context: Understanding Language Policy Implementation at a Systems Level

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hopkins, Megan

    2016-01-01

    Drawing on institutional theory, this study describes how cognitive, normative, and regulative mechanisms shape bilingual teachers' language policy implementation in both English-only and bilingual contexts. Aligned with prior educational language policy research, findings indicate the important role that teachers' beliefs play in the policy…

  9. Language, Cognitive Flexibility, and Explicit False Belief Understanding: Longitudinal Analysis in Typical Development and Specific Language Impairment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farrant, Brad M.; Maybery, Murray T.; Fletcher, Janet

    2012-01-01

    The hypothesis that language plays a role in theory-of-mind (ToM) development is supported by a number of lines of evidence (e.g., H. Lohmann & M. Tomasello, 2003). The current study sought to further investigate the relations between maternal language input, memory for false sentential complements, cognitive flexibility, and the development of…

  10. Naturalizing language: human appraisal and (quasi) technology

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Cowley, Stephen

    2013-01-01

    Using contemporary science, the paper builds on Wittgenstein’s views of human language. Rather than ascribing reality to inscription-like entities, it links embodiment with distributed cognition. The verbal or (quasi) technological aspect of language is traced to not action, but human specific...... interactivity. This species-specific form of sense-making sustains, among other things, using texts, making/construing phonetic gestures and thinking. Human action is thus grounded in appraisals or sense-saturated coordination. To illustrate interactivity at work, the paper focuses on a case study. Over 11 s......, a crime scene investigator infers that she is probably dealing with an inside job: she uses not words, but intelligent gaze. This connects professional expertise to circumstances and the feeling of thinking. It is suggested that, as for other species, human appraisal is based in synergies. However, since...

  11. Establishing New Norms of Language Use: The Circulation of Linguistic Ideology in Three New Irish-Language Communities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Armstrong, Timothy Currie

    2012-01-01

    Ideology can be understood as a guide to action, and therefore, language ideology can be viewed as a link between language ability on the one hand, and language use on the other. In this respect, language ideology plays a central role in the success of language revitalization movements. In an effort to understand how new language ideologies are…

  12. Foreign Language Learners' Views on the Importance of Learning the Target Language Pronunciation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Çakir, Ismail; Baytar, Birtan

    2014-01-01

    Pronunciation is one of the controversial topics in the field of English language teaching as a second or foreign language. The aim of this study is to understand the attitudes of prep class students at Kastamonu University (state university) in Turkey towards the importance of pronunciation in language learning. Therefore, a pronunciation…

  13. Cassirer's View of Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Ying

    2009-01-01

    Myth is the breakthrough point of [Ernest] Cassirer's philosophy; Art is one of key words to understand his defined language; and Symbolism infiltrates into all aspects of human cultures especially language. The shift of Cassirer from great theories of science and philosophy to the world of art, language, myth, and culture mirrors his bold and…

  14. Teacher and Student Language Practices and Ideologies in a Third-Grade Two-Way Dual Language Program Implementation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henderson, Kathryn I.; Palmer, Deborah K.

    2015-01-01

    This article provides an in-depth exploration of the language ecologies of two classrooms attempting to implement a two-way dual language (TWDL) program and its mediating conditions. Drawing on ethnographic methods and a sociocultural understanding of language, we examined both teachers' and students' language ideologies and language practices,…

  15. A corpus of full-text journal articles is a robust evaluation tool for revealing differences in performance of biomedical natural language processing tools.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Verspoor, Karin; Cohen, Kevin Bretonnel; Lanfranchi, Arrick; Warner, Colin; Johnson, Helen L; Roeder, Christophe; Choi, Jinho D; Funk, Christopher; Malenkiy, Yuriy; Eckert, Miriam; Xue, Nianwen; Baumgartner, William A; Bada, Michael; Palmer, Martha; Hunter, Lawrence E

    2012-08-17

    We introduce the linguistic annotation of a corpus of 97 full-text biomedical publications, known as the Colorado Richly Annotated Full Text (CRAFT) corpus. We further assess the performance of existing tools for performing sentence splitting, tokenization, syntactic parsing, and named entity recognition on this corpus. Many biomedical natural language processing systems demonstrated large differences between their previously published results and their performance on the CRAFT corpus when tested with the publicly available models or rule sets. Trainable systems differed widely with respect to their ability to build high-performing models based on this data. The finding that some systems were able to train high-performing models based on this corpus is additional evidence, beyond high inter-annotator agreement, that the quality of the CRAFT corpus is high. The overall poor performance of various systems indicates that considerable work needs to be done to enable natural language processing systems to work well when the input is full-text journal articles. The CRAFT corpus provides a valuable resource to the biomedical natural language processing community for evaluation and training of new models for biomedical full text publications.

  16. The Nature of the Language Faculty and Its Implications for Evolution of Language (Reply to Fitch, Hauser, and Chomsky)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jackendoff, Ray; Pinker, Steven

    2005-01-01

    In a continuation of the conversation with Fitch, Chomsky, and Hauser on the evolution of language, we examine their defense of the claim that the uniquely human, language-specific part of the language faculty (the ''narrow language faculty'') consists only of recursion, and that this part cannot be considered an adaptation to communication. We…

  17. The Meta-Language of Advertising in a Synergetic Vision of the World (in English Language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aila E. Zhumabekova

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available The relevance of this article is determined by necessity of consideration of the metalanguage, which is considered a language that expresses the hidden meaning of advertising through natural language, from the point of view of linguistic analysis in the synergy aspect as a main tool used by the metalanguage in the process of representation created in the framework of this direction terminology. The article creates a lexical reservoir used on the respective orientation, which detects the connection with the language phenomena and the facts in our case in advertising. Formed the language of "second order", which is the object of the natural language in all its manifestations. The new synergetic way of thinking in the meta-language of advertising is nonlinear, and evolutionary. This is the current stage of development of linguistics as an attempt of system description meta-language of advertising and its effects on customers are different segments of the population, that is, a synergistic perception of the content of advertising texts in English and their components.

  18. The cognitive functions of language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carruthers, Peter

    2002-12-01

    This paper explores a variety of different versions of the thesis that natural language is involved in human thinking. It distinguishes amongst strong and weak forms of this thesis, dismissing some as implausibly strong and others as uninterestingly weak. Strong forms dismissed include the view that language is conceptually necessary for thought (endorsed by many philosophers) and the view that language is de facto the medium of all human conceptual thinking (endorsed by many philosophers and social scientists). Weak forms include the view that language is necessary for the acquisition of many human concepts and the view that language can serve to scaffold human thought processes. The paper also discusses the thesis that language may be the medium of conscious propositional thinking, but argues that this cannot be its most fundamental cognitive role. The idea is then proposed that natural language is the medium for nondomain-specific thinking, serving to integrate the outputs of a variety of domain-specific conceptual faculties (or central-cognitive "quasimodules"). Recent experimental evidence in support of this idea is reviewed and the implications of the idea are discussed, especially for our conception of the architecture of human cognition. Finally, some further kinds of evidence which might serve to corroborate or refute the hypothesis are mentioned. The overall goal of the paper is to review a wide variety of accounts of the cognitive function of natural language, integrating a number of different kinds of evidence and theoretical consideration in order to propose and elaborate the most plausible candidate.

  19. Automated identification of wound information in clinical notes of patients with heart diseases: Developing and validating a natural language processing application.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Topaz, Maxim; Lai, Kenneth; Dowding, Dawn; Lei, Victor J; Zisberg, Anna; Bowles, Kathryn H; Zhou, Li

    2016-12-01

    Electronic health records are being increasingly used by nurses with up to 80% of the health data recorded as free text. However, only a few studies have developed nursing-relevant tools that help busy clinicians to identify information they need at the point of care. This study developed and validated one of the first automated natural language processing applications to extract wound information (wound type, pressure ulcer stage, wound size, anatomic location, and wound treatment) from free text clinical notes. First, two human annotators manually reviewed a purposeful training sample (n=360) and random test sample (n=1100) of clinical notes (including 50% discharge summaries and 50% outpatient notes), identified wound cases, and created a gold standard dataset. We then trained and tested our natural language processing system (known as MTERMS) to process the wound information. Finally, we assessed our automated approach by comparing system-generated findings against the gold standard. We also compared the prevalence of wound cases identified from free-text data with coded diagnoses in the structured data. The testing dataset included 101 notes (9.2%) with wound information. The overall system performance was good (F-measure is a compiled measure of system's accuracy=92.7%), with best results for wound treatment (F-measure=95.7%) and poorest results for wound size (F-measure=81.9%). Only 46.5% of wound notes had a structured code for a wound diagnosis. The natural language processing system achieved good performance on a subset of randomly selected discharge summaries and outpatient notes. In more than half of the wound notes, there were no coded wound diagnoses, which highlight the significance of using natural language processing to enrich clinical decision making. Our future steps will include expansion of the application's information coverage to other relevant wound factors and validation of the model with external data. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All

  20. Teacher Educators' Personal Practical Knowledge of Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Swart, Fenna; de Graaff, Rick; Onstenk, Jeroen; Knezic, Dubravka

    2018-01-01

    This paper describes teacher educators' understanding of language for classroom communication in higher education. We argue that teacher educators who are aware of their personal practical knowledge of language have a better understanding of their students' language use and provide better support for knowledge construction. Personal practical…

  1. Dual Sticky Hierarchical Dirichlet Process Hidden Markov Model and Its Application to Natural Language Description of Motions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Weiming; Tian, Guodong; Kang, Yongxin; Yuan, Chunfeng; Maybank, Stephen

    2017-09-25

    In this paper, a new nonparametric Bayesian model called the dual sticky hierarchical Dirichlet process hidden Markov model (HDP-HMM) is proposed for mining activities from a collection of time series data such as trajectories. All the time series data are clustered. Each cluster of time series data, corresponding to a motion pattern, is modeled by an HMM. Our model postulates a set of HMMs that share a common set of states (topics in an analogy with topic models for document processing), but have unique transition distributions. For the application to motion trajectory modeling, topics correspond to motion activities. The learnt topics are clustered into atomic activities which are assigned predicates. We propose a Bayesian inference method to decompose a given trajectory into a sequence of atomic activities. On combining the learnt sources and sinks, semantic motion regions, and the learnt sequence of atomic activities, the action represented by the trajectory can be described in natural language in as automatic a way as possible. The effectiveness of our dual sticky HDP-HMM is validated on several trajectory datasets. The effectiveness of the natural language descriptions for motions is demonstrated on the vehicle trajectories extracted from a traffic scene.

  2. Progressive Modularization: Reframing Our Understanding of Typical and Atypical Language Development

    Science.gov (United States)

    D'Souza, Dean; Filippi, Roberto

    2017-01-01

    The ability to acquire language is a critical part of human development. Yet there is no consensus on how the skill emerges in early development. Does it constitute an innately-specified, language-processing module or is it acquired progressively? One of Annette Karmiloff-Smith's (1938-2016) key contributions to developmental science addresses…

  3. Literary Language in Development of L2 Competence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dan Lu

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available Nowadays it is believed that language in daily communication rather than literary language should be the target of learning in L2 education. This is mainly because literary language is said to be uncommon in life. This paper reports on a study in which some Hong Kong ESL learners’ English proficiency was re-examined through literary texts. These learners had reached intermediate or advanced levels of English prior to the study and were generally competent in daily English. However, many of them encountered difficulty in understanding literary language. Their proficiency in general English test could not match their performances in understanding literary works. The findings reveal that learners who are strong in general proficiency may not be good in understanding literary language. Lack of literary language in the curriculum results in a false and distorted picture about the learners’ proficiency. Literary language helps upgrade L2 learners’ real proficiency in the target language.

  4. Language and other artifacts: socio-cultural dynamics of niche construction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sinha, Chris

    2015-01-01

    Niche construction theory is a relatively new approach in evolutionary biology that seeks to integrate an ecological dimension into the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection. It is regarded by many evolutionary biologists as providing a significant revision of the Neo-Darwinian modern synthesis that unified Darwin's theory of natural and sexual selection with 20th century population genetics. Niche construction theory has been invoked as a processual mediator of social cognitive evolution and of the emergence and evolution of language. I argue that language itself can be considered as a biocultural niche and evolutionary artifact. I provide both a general analysis of the cognitive and semiotic status of artifacts, and a formal analysis of language as a social and semiotic institution, based upon a distinction between the fundamental semiotic relations of "counting as" and "standing for." I explore the consequences for theories of language and language learning of viewing language as a biocultural niche. I suggest that not only do niches mediate organism-organism interactions, but also that organisms mediate niche-niche interactions in ways that affect evolutionary processes, with the evolution of human infancy and childhood as a key example. I argue that language as a social and semiotic system is not only grounded in embodied engagements with the material and social-interactional world, but also grounds a sub-class of artifacts of particular significance in the cultural history of human cognition. Symbolic cognitive artifacts materially and semiotically mediate human cognition, and are not merely informational repositories, but co-agentively constitutive of culturally and historically emergent cognitive domains. I provide examples of the constitutive cognitive role of symbolic cognitive artifacts drawn from my research with my colleagues on cultural and linguistic conceptualizations of time, and their cultural variability. I conclude by reflecting on

  5. Language and other artifacts: socio-cultural dynamics of niche construction.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chris eSinha

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Niche construction theory is a relatively new approach in evolutionary biology that seeks to integrate an ecological dimension into the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection. It is regarded by many evolutionary biologists as providing a significant revision of the Neo-Darwinian modern synthesis that unified Darwin’s theory of natural and sexual selection with 20th century population genetics. Niche construction theory has been invoked as a processual mediator of social cognitive evolution and of the emergence and evolution of language. I argue that language itself can be considered as a biocultural niche and evolutionary artifact. I provide both a general analysis of the cognitive and semiotic status of artifacts, and a formal analysis of language as a social and semiotic institution, based upon a distinction between the fundamental semiotic relations of counting as and standing for. I explore the consequences for theories of language and language learning of viewing language as a biocultural niche. I suggest that not only do niches mediate organism-organism interactions, but also that organisms mediate niche-niche interactions in ways that affect evolutionary processes, with the evolution of human infancy and childhood as a key example. I argue that language as a social and semiotic system is not only grounded in embodied engagements with the material and social-interactional world, but also grounds a sub-class of artifacts of particular significance in the cultural history of human cognition. Symbolic cognitive artifacts materially and semiotically mediate human cognition, and are not merely informational repositories, but co-agentively constitutive of culturally and historically emergent cognitive domains. I provide examples of the constitutive cognitive role of symbolic cognitive artifacts drawn from my research with my colleagues on cultural and linguistic conceptualizations of time, and their cultural variability. I conclude

  6. Graphics-oriented application language for LASNEX

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Stringer, L.M.

    1985-01-01

    GOAL, a graphics-oriented application language, was developed to help physicists understand the large amounts of data produced by LASNEX. GOAL combines many aspects of the old LASNEX language, computer graphics, and standard computer languages

  7. Informed Consent in the Field of Language and Sexuality

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mortensen, Kristine Køhler

    2015-01-01

    In order to understand how sexual and romantic relations are established and negotiated in discourse, the field of language and sexuality is dependent upon empirical data from naturally occurring spontaneous interaction. However, detailed discussions of research methods are lacking in the field...... argue that institutionalized informed consent procedures may undercut participant agency and expose symbolic violence towards their carefully built interactional framework. The analysis demonstrates participants’ ability to negotiate ethical issues and to turn such issues into a contribution...

  8. Immediate integration of novel meanings: N400 support for an embodied view of language comprehension.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Chwilla, D.J.; Kolk, H.H.J.; Vissers, C.T.W.M.

    2007-01-01

    A substantial part of language understanding depends on our previous experiences, but part of it consists of the creation of new meanings. Such new meanings cannot be retrieved from memory but still have to be constructed. The goals of this article were: first, to explore the nature of new meaning

  9. The Linguistic Interpretation for Language Union – Language Family

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    E.A. Balalykina

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available The paper is dedicated to the problem of determination of the essence of language union and language family in modern linguistics, which is considered important, because these terms are often used as absolute synonyms. The research is relevant due to the need to distinguish the features of languages that are inherited during their functioning within either language union or language family when these languages are compared. The research has been carried out in order to present the historical background of the problem and to justify the need for differentiation of language facts that allow relating languages to particular language union or language family. In order to fulfill the goal of this work, descriptive, comparative, and historical methods have been used. A range of examples has been provided to prove that some languages, mainly Slavonic and Baltic languages, form a language family rather than a language union, because a whole number of features in their systems are the heritage of their common Indo-European past. Firstly, it is necessary to take into account changes having either common or different nature in the system of particular languages; secondly, one must have a precise idea of what features in the phonetic and morphological systems of compared languages allow to relate them to language union or language family; thirdly, it must be determined whether the changes in compared languages are regular or of any other type. On the basis of the obtained results, the following conclusions have been drawn: language union and language family are two different types of relations between modern languages; they allow identifying both degree of similarity of these languages and causes of differences between them. It is most important that one should distinguish and describe the specific features of two basic groups of languages forming language family or language union. The results obtained during the analysis are very important for linguistics

  10. Sociolinguistic Typology and Sign Languages

    OpenAIRE

    Adam Schembri; Jordan Fenlon; Kearsy Cormier; Trevor Johnston

    2018-01-01

    This paper examines the possible relationship between proposed social determinants of morphological ‘complexity’ and how this contributes to linguistic diversity, specifically via the typological nature of the sign languages of deaf communities. We sketch how the notion of morphological complexity, as defined by Trudgill (2011), applies to sign languages. Using these criteria, sign languages appear to be languages with low to moderate levels of morphological complexity. This may partly reflec...

  11. Syntactic processing is distributed across the language system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blank, Idan; Balewski, Zuzanna; Mahowald, Kyle; Fedorenko, Evelina

    2016-02-15

    Language comprehension recruits an extended set of regions in the human brain. Is syntactic processing localized to a particular region or regions within this system, or is it distributed across the entire ensemble of brain regions that support high-level linguistic processing? Evidence from aphasic patients is more consistent with the latter possibility: damage to many different language regions and to white-matter tracts connecting them has been shown to lead to similar syntactic comprehension deficits. However, brain imaging investigations of syntactic processing continue to focus on particular regions within the language system, often parts of Broca's area and regions in the posterior temporal cortex. We hypothesized that, whereas the entire language system is in fact sensitive to syntactic complexity, the effects in some regions may be difficult to detect because of the overall lower response to language stimuli. Using an individual-subjects approach to localizing the language system, shown in prior work to be more sensitive than traditional group analyses, we indeed find responses to syntactic complexity throughout this system, consistent with the findings from the neuropsychological patient literature. We speculate that such distributed nature of syntactic processing could perhaps imply that syntax is inseparable from other aspects of language comprehension (e.g., lexico-semantic processing), in line with current linguistic and psycholinguistic theories and evidence. Neuroimaging investigations of syntactic processing thus need to expand their scope to include the entire system of high-level language processing regions in order to fully understand how syntax is instantiated in the human brain. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  12. A Large-Scale Analysis of Variance in Written Language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johns, Brendan T; Jamieson, Randall K

    2018-01-22

    The collection of very large text sources has revolutionized the study of natural language, leading to the development of several models of language learning and distributional semantics that extract sophisticated semantic representations of words based on the statistical redundancies contained within natural language (e.g., Griffiths, Steyvers, & Tenenbaum, ; Jones & Mewhort, ; Landauer & Dumais, ; Mikolov, Sutskever, Chen, Corrado, & Dean, ). The models treat knowledge as an interaction of processing mechanisms and the structure of language experience. But language experience is often treated agnostically. We report a distributional semantic analysis that shows written language in fiction books varies appreciably between books from the different genres, books from the same genre, and even books written by the same author. Given that current theories assume that word knowledge reflects an interaction between processing mechanisms and the language environment, the analysis shows the need for the field to engage in a more deliberate consideration and curation of the corpora used in computational studies of natural language processing. Copyright © 2018 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  13. Knowledge acquisition from natural language for expert systems based on classification problem-solving methods

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gomez, Fernando

    1989-01-01

    It is shown how certain kinds of domain independent expert systems based on classification problem-solving methods can be constructed directly from natural language descriptions by a human expert. The expert knowledge is not translated into production rules. Rather, it is mapped into conceptual structures which are integrated into long-term memory (LTM). The resulting system is one in which problem-solving, retrieval and memory organization are integrated processes. In other words, the same algorithm and knowledge representation structures are shared by these processes. As a result of this, the system can answer questions, solve problems or reorganize LTM.

  14. Voice-enabled Knowledge Engine using Flood Ontology and Natural Language Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sermet, M. Y.; Demir, I.; Krajewski, W. F.

    2015-12-01

    The Iowa Flood Information System (IFIS) is a web-based platform developed by the Iowa Flood Center (IFC) to provide access to flood inundation maps, real-time flood conditions, flood forecasts, flood-related data, information and interactive visualizations for communities in Iowa. The IFIS is designed for use by general public, often people with no domain knowledge and limited general science background. To improve effective communication with such audience, we have introduced a voice-enabled knowledge engine on flood related issues in IFIS. Instead of navigating within many features and interfaces of the information system and web-based sources, the system provides dynamic computations based on a collection of built-in data, analysis, and methods. The IFIS Knowledge Engine connects to real-time stream gauges, in-house data sources, analysis and visualization tools to answer natural language questions. Our goal is the systematization of data and modeling results on flood related issues in Iowa, and to provide an interface for definitive answers to factual queries. The goal of the knowledge engine is to make all flood related knowledge in Iowa easily accessible to everyone, and support voice-enabled natural language input. We aim to integrate and curate all flood related data, implement analytical and visualization tools, and make it possible to compute answers from questions. The IFIS explicitly implements analytical methods and models, as algorithms, and curates all flood related data and resources so that all these resources are computable. The IFIS Knowledge Engine computes the answer by deriving it from its computational knowledge base. The knowledge engine processes the statement, access data warehouse, run complex database queries on the server-side and return outputs in various formats. This presentation provides an overview of IFIS Knowledge Engine, its unique information interface and functionality as an educational tool, and discusses the future plans

  15. Towards multilingual access to textual databases in natural language

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Radwan, Khaled

    1994-01-01

    The Cross-Lingual Information Retrieval system (CLIR) or Multilingual Information Retrieval (MIR) has become the key issue in electronic documents management systems in a multinational environment. We propose here a multilingual information retrieval system consisting of a morpho-syntactic analyser, a transfer system from source language to target language and an information retrieval system. A thorough investigation into the system architecture and the transfer mechanisms is proposed in that report, using two different performance evaluation methods. (author) [fr

  16. Language-Centered Social Studies: A Natural Integration.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barrera, Rosalinda B.; Aleman, Magdalena

    1983-01-01

    Described is a newspaper project in which elementary students report life as it was in the Middle Ages. Students are involved in a variety of language-centered activities. For example, they gather and evaluate information about medieval times and write, edit, and proofread articles for the newspaper. (RM)

  17. How Localized are Language Brain Areas? A Review of Brodmann Areas Involvement in Oral Language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ardila, Alfredo; Bernal, Byron; Rosselli, Monica

    2016-02-01

    The interest in understanding how language is "localized" in the brain has existed for centuries. Departing from seven meta-analytic studies of functional magnetic resonance imaging activity during the performance of different language activities, it is proposed here that there are two different language networks in the brain: first, a language reception/understanding system, including a "core Wernicke's area" involved in word recognition (BA21, BA22, BA41, and BA42), and a fringe or peripheral area ("extended Wernicke's area:" BA20, BA37, BA38, BA39, and BA40) involved in language associations (associating words with other information); second, a language production system ("Broca's complex:" BA44, BA45, and also BA46, BA47, partially BA6-mainly its mesial supplementary motor area-and extending toward the basal ganglia and the thalamus). This paper additionally proposes that the insula (BA13) plays a certain coordinating role in interconnecting these two brain language systems. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  18. Music and language perception: expectations, structural integration, and cognitive sequencing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tillmann, Barbara

    2012-10-01

    Music can be described as sequences of events that are structured in pitch and time. Studying music processing provides insight into how complex event sequences are learned, perceived, and represented by the brain. Given the temporal nature of sound, expectations, structural integration, and cognitive sequencing are central in music perception (i.e., which sounds are most likely to come next and at what moment should they occur?). This paper focuses on similarities in music and language cognition research, showing that music cognition research provides insight into the understanding of not only music processing but also language processing and the processing of other structured stimuli. The hypothesis of shared resources between music and language processing and of domain-general dynamic attention has motivated the development of research to test music as a means to stimulate sensory, cognitive, and motor processes. Copyright © 2012 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  19. Word-length algorithm for language identification of under-resourced languages

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ali Selamat

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Language identification is widely used in machine learning, text mining, information retrieval, and speech processing. Available techniques for solving the problem of language identification do require large amount of training text that are not available for under-resourced languages which form the bulk of the World’s languages. The primary objective of this study is to propose a lexicon based algorithm which is able to perform language identification using minimal training data. Because language identification is often the first step in many natural language processing tasks, it is necessary to explore techniques that will perform language identification in the shortest possible time. Hence, the second objective of this research is to study the effect of the proposed algorithm on the run-time performance of language identification. Precision, recall, and F1 measures were used to determine the effectiveness of the proposed word length algorithm using datasets drawn from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Act in 15 languages. The experimental results show good accuracy on language identification at the document level and at the sentence level based on the available dataset. The improved algorithm also showed significant improvement in run time performance compared with the spelling checker approach.

  20. An Understanding of Language Development Models--Pidginization from the Perspective of Chaos Theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Guodong

    2010-01-01

    With the accelerated globalization, domestic and international communications become more frequent than ever before. As the major media of international communication, languages contact with each other more actively by day. And in the active contact any language would gradually develop and change. Pidgin language is a unique linguistic phenomenon…