Towards a collocation writing assistant for learners of Spanish

This paper describes the process followed in creating a tool aimed at helping learners produce collocations in Spanish. First we present the Diccionario de colocaciones del español (DiCE), an online collocation dictionary, which represents the first stage of this process. The following section focuses on the potential user of a collocation learning tool: we examine the usability problems DiCE presents in this respect, and explore the actual learner needs through a learner corpus study of collocation errors. Next, we review how collocation production problems of English language learners can be solved using a variety of electronic tools devised for that language. Finally, taking all the above into account, we present a new tool aimed at assisting learners of Spanish in writing texts, with particular attention being paid to the use of collocations in this language

An Emergent Economics of Ecosystem Management

Economics is an evolving and emerging field of study, so is the management of ecosystems. As such, this paper delineates the co-evolution of economic evaluation that reflects the various recognized ecosystem management approaches of anticipative, adaptive and capacitive ecosystem management. Each management approach is critiqued and from this theoretical analysis an emergent approach for the management of ecosystem is put forward, which accordingly suggests an alternative methodological approach for economic evaluations.Complexity, creativity, economic evaluation, ecosystem management, evolution, open systems, rationality, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Explainable Human-in-the-loop Dynamic Data-Driven Digital Twins

Digital Twins (DT) are essentially Dynamic Data-driven models that serve as real-time symbiotic "virtual replicas" of real-world systems. DT can leverage fundamentals of Dynamic Data-Driven Applications Systems (DDDAS) bidirectional symbiotic sensing feedback loops for its continuous updates. Sensing loops can consequently steer measurement, analysis and reconfiguration aimed at more accurate modelling and analysis in DT. The reconfiguration decisions can be autonomous or interactive, keeping human-in-the-loop. The trustworthiness of these decisions can be hindered by inadequate explainability of the rationale, and utility gained in implementing the decision for the given situation among alternatives. Additionally, different decision-making algorithms and models have varying complexity, quality and can result in different utility gained for the model. The inadequacy of explainability can limit the extent to which humans can evaluate the decisions, often leading to updates which are unfit for the given situation, erroneous, compromising the overall accuracy of the model. The novel contribution of this paper is an approach to harnessing explainability in human-in-the-loop DDDAS and DT systems, leveraging bidirectional symbiotic sensing feedback. The approach utilises interpretable machine learning and goal modelling to explainability, and considers trade-off analysis of utility gained. We use examples from smart warehousing to demonstrate the approach.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, submitted to the 4th International Conference on InfoSymbiotics/Dynamic Data Driven Applications Systems (DDDAS2022

Semantics-Empowered Big Data Processing with Applications

We discuss the nature of Big Data and address the role of semantics in analyzing and processing Big Data that arises in the context of Physical-Cyber-Social Systems. We organize our research around the Five Vs of Big Data, where four of the Vs are harnessed to produce the fifth V - value. To handle the challenge of Volume, we advocate semantic perception that can convert low-level observational data to higher-level abstractions more suitable for decision-making. To handle the challenge of Variety, we resort to the use of semantic models and annotations of data so that much of the intelligent processing can be done at a level independent of heterogeneity of data formats and media. To handle the challenge of Velocity, we seek to use continuous semantics capability to dynamically create event or situation specific models and recognize relevant new concepts, entities and facts. To handle Veracity, we explore the formalization of trust models and approaches to glean trustworthiness. The above four Vs of Big Data are harnessed by the semantics-empowered analytics to derive value for supporting practical applications transcending physical-cyber-social continuum

A Practical and Practice-Sensitive Account of Science as Problem-Solving

Philosophers of science have recently begun to pay more attention to scientific practice, moving away from the discipline’s focus on theories. The creation of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice in 2006, as well as the emergence of scholarship on experimental practice (e.g. Sullivan 2009; 2010; 2016) as well as on the tools scientists use to construct explanations and theories (e.g. Feest 2011) all point to a disciplinary shift towards a more practice-conscious philosophy of science. In addition, scholars are realizing the potential social relevance of philosophy of science and identifying the obstacles that stand in the way of realizing said potential (e.g. Douglas 2010). The aim of this dissertation is to propose a novel descriptive framework for philosophy of science, one that rests on the idea that scientific practice should be described as accurately as possible so that philosophical discussions of science rest on a solid descriptive base and can more easily be of use in engaging users and practitioners of science. The dissertation is organized along the stages of developing what I call the dynamic-iterative model of scientific practice. In chapter 1, I clarify the project’s philosophical background and outline six conditions of adequacy on a descriptive model of science. These conditions allow me to evaluate the three descriptive models reviewed in chapter 2. Chapter 3 combines Nickles’ problem-solving view of science (1981) with core insights from the heuristics and biases literature into a workable version of the dynamic-iterative model. I then apply the model to the case of place cell research in chapter 4 as a test of the model’s usefulness and applicability. In chapter 5 I evaluate the model with respect to my six conditions and assess its strengths and weaknesses. The dynamic-iterative model is a flexible descriptive framework that not only allows for more complete philosophical analyses of cases than other current models, but also supports important practical applications