An artificial Intelligence Approach to improving Speech Recognition

Speech Recognition is a technology with promising applications. However, the performance of current speech recognizers greatly limit their widespread use. Approaches to reducing the word error rate have mainly been associated with statistical techniques. As a consequence, speech recognition results can still contain sentences that are nonsensical. The method proposed here, is to analize the output of any chosen speech recognition system, in order to determine whether a sentence contains syntactic or semantic errors. This is done via a software agent that uses the information from its knowledge base to attempt to correct the errors found. A system was implemented with a small vocabulary speaker-independent continuous speech recognition system, with limited sentence structures. The achieved increase in speech recognition accuracy, shows that there are bene ts in using this approach

A language for the sociological description of pedagogic texts with particular reference to the Secondary School Mathematics Scheme SMP 11-16.

The thesis is concerned with the production of a language for the systematic\ud sociological description of pedagogic texts and with the application of this mechanism\ud to two series of textbooks within the secondary school mathematics scheme, SMP\ud 11-16. One series is targeted at the upper end of the 'ability' range, the other is\ud intended for low ability' pupils.\ud The thesis opens with a discussion of two prominent positions within\ud mathematics education, concluding that they both 'mythologise' mathematical\ud knowledge by abstracting it from the social bases of its elaboration. A search of the\ud literature on the analysis of textbooks reveals that the majority of sociologicallyoriented\ud work entails either ideological analysis or the analysis of the representation\ud of one or more particular categories, most frequently gender and/or race. None of this\ud research combines a theoretically coherent position with a set of derived principles for\ud the detailed analysis of text.\ud Chapter 3 presents a general methodological position in relation to three themes.\ud These are, the distinction between the abstract and the concrete, the construction of\ud subjectivity, and the contextualising and recontextualising of practices. The principal\ud resources in this discussion are the works of Basil Bernstein, Pierre Bourdieu,\ud Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, and Valerie Walkerdine. Out of a critical discussion\ud of this work, ten Theoretical Propositions are derived. These propositions form the\ud general methodological basis of the 'language of description' which is derived from\ud them in Chapter 4.\ud The following five Chapters comprise an introductory description and a detailed\ud analysis of the two series of textbooks. The analysis is predominantly qualitative in\ud nature, but also incorporates a quantitative component. The latter focuses, in\ud particular, on the modes of signification (icon, index, symbol) that are incorporated in\ud the textbooks. The principal findings that emerge from the analysis describe the ways\ud in which the texts select and construct apprenticed and alienated ideal readers. The differentiation between the apprenticed and alienated ideal readers is, primarily,\ud constructed in terms of social class.\ud The concluding Chapter includes an overview of the thesis and a discussion of the\ud limitations of and possibilities arising from the language of description and its\ud application. The concluding Section works more freely with the language and with\ud the findings of the analysis in developing a theoretical speculation in respect of a\ud possible conception of the relationship between sociological research and educational\ud practice

Prospettive nello studio del lessico italiano

The Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the International Society of Italian Linguistics and Philology (SILFI), «Prospects in the study of Italian vocabulary» (Florence, 14-17 June 2006), comprise 88 contributions by scholars from Italy and abroad. The essays are divided into twelve sections, each representing a study prospect, thus illustrating the vitality of the great tradition of Italian studies on language. The Conference confirms the importance of tradition, but also points up how the new areas of study – concerning the use of information infrastructures for the acquisition and conservation of the linguistic heritage – are by now pivotal both for research and for the establishment of essential resources for the defence and promotion of our language. Meditation on the Italian lexicon at this moment in time signifies retrieving the relation between our language and our culture, which tends to be overshadowed in a period of globalisation and of vehicular language such as the present