How can spatial language be learned?

How languages are learned is one of the deepest mysteries of cognitive science. This question can be addressed from multiple perspectives. This position paper considers two of them: (1) How do people learn spatial language? (2) Given the wide range of spatial terms in language, how might we bootstrap the linguistic capabilities of intelligent systems that need spatial language to achieve wide and accurate coverage? We discuss each question in turn

Crosslinguistic Image Schema Differential Hypothesis Clarifies Non-Prototypical and Polysemous Spatial Preposition ‘on’ for L2 Learners

A key question for linguistics involves how to determine and account for expressions of non-prototypical spatial relationships between languages. To address this issue, Crosslinguistic Image Schema Differential (CISD) hypothesis is introduced to examine various uses of the English preposition on produced by L2 (second language) learners. Data collection consisted of a grammar test designed to elicit and measure participants’ knowledge of the English preposition on by completing cloze sentences in English, translating these sentences into the L1 (first language), and then drawing visual images of the sentences presented as redescriptions of perceptual events, i.e., image schemas. The most remarkable findings were that two space-relational types (‘encirclement with contact’ and ‘at an edge’) and one image schema (‘concave surface’) were almost completely lacking in the Japanese learners of English (JLEs) who participated in this study. This investigation indicates that simple explicit explanations are possible utilizing the CISD hypothesis.アクセプト後にアブストラクトの変更あり

Proceedings of the GIS Research UK 18th Annual Conference GISRUK 2010

This volume holds the papers from the 18th annual GIS Research UK (GISRUK). This year the conference, hosted at University College London (UCL), from Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 April 2010. The conference covered the areas of core geographic information science research as well as applications domains such as crime and health and technological developments in LBS and the geoweb. UCL’s research mission as a global university is based around a series of Grand Challenges that affect us all, and these were accommodated in GISRUK 2010. The overarching theme this year was “Global Challenges”, with specific focus on the following themes: * Crime and Place * Environmental Change * Intelligent Transport * Public Health and Epidemiology * Simulation and Modelling * London as a global city * The geoweb and neo-geography * Open GIS and Volunteered Geographic Information * Human-Computer Interaction and GIS Traditionally, GISRUK has provided a platform for early career researchers as well as those with a significant track record of achievement in the area. As such, the conference provides a welcome blend of innovative thinking and mature reflection. GISRUK is the premier academic GIS conference in the UK and we are keen to maintain its outstanding record of achievement in developing GIS in the UK and beyond

Microtheories for SDI - Accounting for diversity of local conceptualisations at a global level

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.The categorization and conceptualization of geographic features is fundamental to cartography, geographic information retrieval, routing applications, spatial decision support and data sharing in general. However, there is no standard conceptualization of the world. Humans conceptualize features based on numerous factors including cultural background, knowledge, motivation and particularly space and time. Thus, geographic features are prone to multiple, context-dependent conceptualizations reflecting local conditions. This creates semantic heterogeneity and undermines interoperability. Standardization of a shared definition is often employed to overcome semantic heterogeneity. However, this approach loses important local diversity in feature conceptualizations and may result in feature definitions which are too broad or too specific. This work proposes the use of microtheories in Spatial Data Infrastructures, such as INSPIRE, to account for diversity of local conceptualizations while maintaining interoperability at a global level. It introduces a novel method of structuring microtheories based on space and time, represented by administrative boundaries, to reflect variations in feature conceptualization. A bottom-up approach, based on non-standard inference, is used to create an appropriate global-level feature definition from the local definitions. Conceptualizations of rivers, forests and estuaries throughout Europe are used to demonstrate how the approach can improve the INSPIRE data model and ease its adoption by European member states

Shape, Space and Typeface: Mapping Black Subjectivity through Caribbean Aesthetics

The Caribbean is frequently imagined and aestheticized by the image of the basin, which limits the way the region is confined in geographic and historic terms. By conceptualizing the poets as mapmakers, the collections by Kei Miller, Olive Senior, and M. NourbeSe Phillip reference the container of the basin but remediate it in poetic terms. The movement towards a distinctive lack of containment illustrates the dynamic literary and geographical operations of the Caribbean, linking typography and topography. Reading with a new lens, including digital resources that re-spatialize these poems, demonstrates the complexities that characterize the formation of these texts and how they resist neat containers and containment, thereby charting new ways to redraw and reimagine places and spaces

Essential Speech and Language Technology for Dutch: Results by the STEVIN-programme

Computational Linguistics; Germanic Languages; Artificial Intelligence (incl. Robotics); Computing Methodologie