Digital tools in media studies: analysis and research. An overview

Digital tools are increasingly used in media studies, opening up new perspectives for research and analysis, while creating new problems at the same time. In this volume, international media scholars and computer scientists present their projects, varying from powerful film-historical databases to automatic video analysis software, discussing their application of digital tools and reporting on their results. This book is the first publication of its kind and a helpful guide to both media scholars and computer scientists who intend to use digital tools in their research, providing information on applications, standards, and problems

Digital Tools in Media Studies

Digital tools are increasingly used in media studies, opening up new perspectives for research and analysis, while creating new problems at the same time. In this volume, international media scholars and computer scientists present their projects, varying from powerful film-historical databases to automatic video analysis software, discussing their application of digital tools and reporting on their results. This book is the first publication of its kind and a helpful guide to both media scholars and computer scientists who intend to use digital tools in their research, providing information on applications, standards, and problems

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

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 emphasis on Construction Grammar and its computational implementation. Our research shows that users have strong emotive reactions to how these systems behave, so we also investigate the human computer interaction component. We present three systems (KIA, John and KIA2), and carry out extensive user tests on all of them, as well as comparative tests. KIA is built using existing methods, John is built with the user in mind and KIA2 is built using the construction grammar method. We found that the construction grammar approach performs well in service oriented chatbots systems, and that users preferred it over other systems

Knowledge and Management Models for Sustainable Growth

In the last years sustainability has become a topic of global concern and a key issue in the strategic agenda of both business organizations and public authorities and organisations. Significant changes in business landscape, the emergence of new technology, including social media, the pressure of new social concerns, have called into question established conceptualizations of competitiveness, wealth creation and growth. New and unaddressed set of issues regarding how private and public organisations manage and invest their resources to create sustainable value have brought to light. In particular the increasing focus on environmental and social themes has suggested new dimensions to be taken into account in the value creation dynamics, both at organisations and communities level. For companies the need of integrating corporate social and environmental responsibility issues into strategy and daily business operations, pose profound challenges, which, in turn, involve numerous processes and complex decisions influenced by many stakeholders. Facing these challenges calls for the creation, use and exploitation of new knowledge as well as the development of proper management models, approaches and tools aimed to contribute to the development and realization of environmentally and socially sustainable business strategies and practices

Extracting proofs from documents

Often, theorem checkers like PVS are used to check an existing proof, which is part of some document. Since there is a large difference between the notations used in the documents and the notations used in the theorem checkers, it is usually a laborious task to convert an existing proof into a format which can be checked by a machine. In the system that we propose, the author is assisted in the process of converting an existing proof into the PVS language and having it checked by PVS. 1 Introduction The now-classic ALGOL 60 report [5] recognized three different levels of language: a reference language, a publication language and several hardware representations, whereby the publication language was intended to admit variations on the reference language and was to be used for stating and communicating processes. The importance of publication language ---often referred to nowadays as "pseudo-code"--- is difficult to exaggerate since a publication language is the most effective way..

On smart and natural language technology support of strategy work

This research explores how natural language processing of text, which is in electronic format, might be exploited to benefit strategic business planning in companies. It entails considering devices for making sense of huge, complex and dynamic data for decision making in a complex and dynamic world. It entails grasping managers' true requirements. Text that is in electronic format abounds. The Internet is continuing its phenomenal growth. Strategic decision-makers in companies struggle with making sense, keeping up with and taking advantage of the emerging world. Theoretical and technological advances in many fields of inquiry, from strategy to information technology, give rise to new promises for computer support of strategic managerial work. Management of knowledge and computer processing of natural language format text are among these. After surveying the field of strategy for its requirements and the state of art some alternative solutions are considered. A partial solution that was actually built is described together with experiments performed with it. Feedback solicited and obtained from managers with help of the concrete existence of the partial solution is then examined and analysed thoroughly. Ideas related to the use of systems based on language and knowledge technology have been developed and many issues identified. This together with managerial feedback forms a base for creating strategy support systems in the future.reviewe

Karl Popper's philosophy and the possibility of an African approach to science

This thesis makes the philosophical case for an engaged and active African perspective in science studies. The African dimension has been largely absent in an actively increasing research area of science and society, an applied area where philosophy and other disciplinary interests intersect. To be able to do this demands the need to revisit what constitutes an African intellectual tradition. Indeed, a core aspect of the African identity whose epistemic worth and relevance have been denigrated, ignored and dismissed on the basis of ideal standards of reason and rationality set up by the privileging of Western intellectual tradition as typified by modern Western science. Efforts and interventions to advance science development in the African context (Nigeria) have not been successful as a result of the contextual inattention that characterises the approach prevalent today—one based on a justificationist epistemology and methodology. Therefore, I argue that a non-justificationist conceptualisation of reason and rationality—seen as being open to criticism and which takes seriously the results of critical exchanges as advanced in Karl Popper—is more appropriate to the science situation in Nigeria. This exploration helps not only to vitiate cultural tensions but also able to create a new basis for interaction between African and Western knowledge traditions.Of particular interest in Popper’s philosophy—but too often ignored in the literature—is the strong connection between his epistemology of science and his political thought. In pointing out key epistemic principles that flow from Popper’s epistemology to his politics, I aim to provide a more robust account of the problem of science advancement in Africa than other approaches. These may be characterized as ‘colonialist’, seeing the answer as lying in the imposition of Western science and its values, and ‘traditionalist’, that resist this by championing indigenous knowledge and value systems. Positioning my account between these alternatives, Popper’s philosophy is deployed as a framework within which a dialogue between two seemingly incompatible cultures becomes possible. Popper’s emphasis on epistemic virtues of openness and humility, underlined by fallibilism and critical rationalism, allows the development of a new model of rationality that is neither absolute nor relative but pluralistic. Thus, although the primary focus is the development of an African science culture, the thesis demands a reappraisal by Western science of its own dispositions and outlook.This Popperian way of reconceptualising rationality and accompanying epistemic attitudes makes decoupling the entrenched entanglement embodied by prevailing popular models of science less problematic and so makes way for a new approach to science in an African context, where ownership and responsibility can be initiated on a dialogical basis. Such a model does not exclude, devalue, denigrate, oppress, or disrespect. In this way, the global image of science can be recalibrated in a manner that is characteristically ecumenical, authentically pluriversal, truly open, and genuinely decolonised, with each knowledge tradition better disposed to offer its modest contributions to the common pot of science, as all of humanity strives to sort the challenges of development world over