Placing Chinese Phonetic Symbols on Mobile Phones Keyboard Using Branch-and-bound Strategy

Abstract-I

Young driver distraction by text messaging: A comparison of the effects of reading and typing text messages in Chinese versus English

Background: Reading and typing text messages while driving seriously impairs driving performance and are prohibited activities in many jurisdictions. Hong Kong is a bilingual society and many people write in both Chinese and English. As the input methods for text messaging in Chinese and English are considerably different, this study used a driving simulator approach to compare the effects of reading and typing Chinese and English text messages on driving performance. Method: The driving performances of 26 participants were monitored under the following conditions: (1) no distraction, (2) reading and typing Chinese text messages, and (3) reading and typing English text messages. The following measures of driving performance were collected under all of the conditions: reaction time (RT), driving lane undulation (DLU), driving speed fluctuation (DSF), and car-following distance (CFD) between test and leading cars. Results: RT, DLU, and DSF were significantly impaired by reading and typing both Chinese and English text messages. Moreover, typing text messages distracted drivers more than reading them. Although the Chinese text messaging input system is more complicated than the English system, the use of Chinese did not cause a significantly different degree of distraction. Conclusion: Both reading and typing text messages while driving should be prohibited regardless of whether Chinese or English is used.postprin

An exercise in learning what "they" don't say when they speak

Abstract Artificial Intelligence (AI) will surpass human intelligence significantly in less than 50 years if the trend of exponential growth of its computing power holds true. AI’s ability to process trillions of gbs of data patterns within hours and to predict outcomes with increasing accuracy has made it the most sought-after technology of the 21st Century. Its use by governments and multinational corporations without gathering much attention has radically impacted all aspects of human life. AI technologies have maintained complete invisibility yet are omnipresent, precisely the reason for the illusion of absence of their political and material effects. AI machines are modeled after the human brain and much like the latter they create learning methodologies (algorithms) on their own in their digital computational space to handle complexities that only the human brain could have dealt with previously. The evolution of these machines into entities that can soon match the complexity of thought of a human brain has raised multiple philosophical and ethical questions. Amongst these is the classic conundrum of machines becoming conscious and developing emotions and intentionality of their own. How should humans treat such entities and how will such entities treat humans? Can they co-exist? A new paradigm of cognitive, imaginative and physical change awaits us. In order to reconfigure our agency in a world run by AI it is crucial to understand the technology we are dealing with. For this purpose, the thesis adopts a methodology which splits in two. The thesis work for its first part employs textual research based argumentative analysis of the origination of Artificial Intelligence and the developing concerns regarding machine consciousness. The work also identifies and deconstructs the functioning and effects of systems employed by owners of AI for computation and control of society. The work utilizes its findings to suggest installation of ethical codes in the AI and testing of these technologies in Virtual Reality (VR). Such an experiment promises to disclose secrets about human consciousness itself and also enrich the developing field of ethics. The second part of the thesis adapts the Truing test format to engage with an actual AI in a game of Chinese whispers instead of a direct recursive interrogation of AI. Through feeding non-language sounds as inputs to the AI the work excites and reveals the imagination of AI which remains locked in its computational space otherwise. The project is presented as a Video Artwork and supplements the learnings from the textual part of the thesis. The thesis work in its entirety is not an attempt to further an agenda against AI technologies but rather encourages investigation of this technology through the lenses of Art and Philosophy. These fields are perhaps better equipped to understand the abstractions of a technology that mimics its complex human creators

Unsupervised and knowledge-poor approaches to sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis focuses upon automatic classiffication of a document's sentiment (and more generally extraction of opinion from text). Ways of expressing sentiment have been shown to be dependent on what a document is about (domain-dependency). This complicates supervised methods for sentiment analysis which rely on extensive use of training data or linguistic resources that are usually either domain-specific or generic. Both kinds of resources prevent classiffiers from performing well across a range of domains, as this requires appropriate in-domain (domain-specific) data. This thesis presents a novel unsupervised, knowledge-poor approach to sentiment analysis aimed at creating a domain-independent and multilingual sentiment analysis system. The approach extracts domain-specific resources from documents that are to be processed, and uses them for sentiment analysis. This approach does not require any training corpora, large sets of rules or generic sentiment lexicons, which makes it domain- and languageindependent but at the same time able to utilise domain- and language-specific information. The thesis describes and tests the approach, which is applied to diffeerent data, including customer reviews of various types of products, reviews of films and books, and news items; and to four languages: Chinese, English, Russian and Japanese. The approach is applied not only to binary sentiment classiffication, but also to three-way sentiment classiffication (positive, negative and neutral), subjectivity classifiation of documents and sentences, and to the extraction of opinion holders and opinion targets. Experimental results suggest that the approach is often a viable alternative to supervised systems, especially when applied to large document collections

Script Effects as the Hidden Drive of the Mind, Cognition, and Culture

This open access volume reveals the hidden power of the script we read in and how it shapes and drives our minds, ways of thinking, and cultures. Expanding on the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis (i.e., the idea that language affects the way we think), this volume proposes the “Script Relativity Hypothesis” (i.e., the idea that the script in which we read affects the way we think) by offering a unique perspective on the effect of script (alphabets, morphosyllabaries, or multi-scripts) on our attention, perception, and problem-solving. Once we become literate, fundamental changes occur in our brain circuitry to accommodate the new demand for resources. The powerful effects of literacy have been demonstrated by research on literate versus illiterate individuals, as well as cross-scriptal transfer, indicating that literate brain networks function differently, depending on the script being read. This book identifies the locus of differences between the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, and between the East and the West, as the neural underpinnings of literacy. To support the “Script Relativity Hypothesis”, it reviews a vast corpus of empirical studies, including anthropological accounts of human civilization, social psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, applied linguistics, second language studies, and cross-cultural communication. It also discusses the impact of reading from screens in the digital age, as well as the impact of bi-script or multi-script use, which is a growing trend around the globe. As a result, our minds, ways of thinking, and cultures are now growing closer together, not farther apart. ; Examines the origin, emergence, and co-evolution of written language, the human mind, and culture within the purview of script effects Investigates how the scripts we read over time shape our cognition, mind, and thought patterns Provides a new outlook on the four representative writing systems of the world Discusses the consequences of literacy for the functioning of the min

The Crisis of Language in Contemporary Japan: Reading, Writing, and New Technology

My dissertation is an ethnographically inspired theoretical exploration of the crises of reading and writing in contemporary Japan. Each of the five chapters examines concrete instances of reading and writing practices that have been problematized in recent decades. By calling attention to underlying moral assumptions, established sociocultural protocols, and socio-technological conditions of the everyday, I theorize the concept of embodied reading and writing thresholds. The scope of analysis is partly informed by popular discourse decrying a perceived decline in reading and writing proficiency among Japanese youth. This alleged failing literacy figures as a national crisis under the assumption that the futurity of children's national language proficiency metonymically correlates with the future well being of its national cultural body. In light of heightened interests in the past, present, and future of books, and a series of recent state interventions on the prospect of "national" text culture, it is my argument that ongoing tensions surrounding the changing media landscape and symbolic relations to the world do not merely reflect changes in styles of language, structures of spatiotemporal awareness, or forms of knowledge production. Rather, they indicate profound transformations and apprehensions among the lives mediated and embodied by the very system of signification that has come under scrutiny in the post-Lost Decade Japan (03/1991-01/2002). My dissertation offers an unique point of critical intervention into 1) various forms of tension arising from the overlapping media technologies and polarized population, 2) formations of reading and writing body (embodiment) at an intersection of heterogeneous elements and everyday disciplining, 3) culturally specific conditions and articulations of the effects of "universal" technologies, 4) prospects of "proper" national reading and writing culture, and 5) questions of cultural transformation and transmission. I hope that the diverse set of events explored in respective chapters provide, as a whole, a broader perspective of the institutional and technological background as well as an intimate understanding of culturally specific circumstances in Japan. Insofar as this is an attempt to conduct a nuanced inquiry into the culturally specific configurations and articulations of a global phenomenon, each ethnographic moment is carefully contextualized to reflect Japan specific conditions while avoiding the pitfall of culturalist assumptions. Understanding how an existing system of representation, technological imperatives and sociohistorical predicaments have coalesced to form a unique constellation is the first step in identifying how the practice of reading and writing becomes a site of heated national debate in Japan. Against theories that problematize the de-corporealizing effects of digital technology within reading and writing, I emphasize the material specificity of contemporary reading and writing practices

アメリカ人および日本人によるオンラインコミュニケーションの対照分析 ―人気日記ブログにおけるUMCの機能と用法を中心に―

Tohoku University上原聡課

Communication as Symbiogenesis – On the Relationality of Mobile Phoning in Korea

This study understands communication as parasitic and symbiogenetic. It recognizes an object or technology no less and no more important than a subject, and appreciates the “process” of the “becoming” of both a subject and an object. Media and individuals create and recreate each other. In the symbiogenetic space in-between, what happens is not a physical addition of a technological object to an individual, but, rather, it is a chemical fusion of the two, which holds unprecedented, distinctive qualities that have not been seen from any of the two constituents. Among various communication media, this study examines why and how the mobile phone is particularly parasitic and symbiogenetic