Automatic domain ontology extraction for context-sensitive opinion mining

Automated analysis of the sentiments presented in online consumer feedbacks can facilitate both organizations’ business strategy development and individual consumers’ comparison shopping. Nevertheless, existing opinion mining methods either adopt a context-free sentiment classification approach or rely on a large number of manually annotated training examples to perform context sensitive sentiment classification. Guided by the design science research methodology, we illustrate the design, development, and evaluation of a novel fuzzy domain ontology based contextsensitive opinion mining system. Our novel ontology extraction mechanism underpinned by a variant of Kullback-Leibler divergence can automatically acquire contextual sentiment knowledge across various product domains to improve the sentiment analysis processes. Evaluated based on a benchmark dataset and real consumer reviews collected from Amazon.com, our system shows remarkable performance improvement over the context-free baseline

A dialectical approach to theoretical integration in developmental-contextual identity research

Future advances in identity research will depend on integration across major theoretical traditions. Developmental-contextualism has established essential criteria to guide this effort, including specifying the context of identity development, its timing over the life course, and its content. This article assesses four major traditions of identity research - identify status, eudaimonic identity, sociocultural theory, and narrative identity - in light of these criteria, and describes the contribution of each tradition to the broader enterprise of developmental-contextual research. This article proposes dialectical integration of the four traditions, for the purpose of generating new questions when the tensions and contradictions among theoretical traditions are acknowledged. We provide examples from existing literature of the kinds of research that could address these questions and consider ways of addressing the validity issues involved in developmental-contextual identity research

The universality of categories and meaning: a Coserian perspective

Studies in linguistic typology have challenged the idea that languages can be analyzed in terms of a set of preestablished universal categories. Each language should instead be described “in its own terms,” a view consistent with the ‘old’ structuralist paradigm in linguistics. The renewed orientation toward differences between languages raises two questions: (i) How do we identify the meanings which are assumed to be crosslinguistically comparable? (ii) What is the relationship between language-particular categories and comparative concepts commonly used in linguistic typology? To answer these questions, this article focuses on a number of distinctions advocated by Eugenio Coseriu (1921–2002). Coseriu distinguishes three levels of meaning (designation, “signifiés,” and sense) and three types of universals (essential, empirical, and possible universals). Their relevance for linguistic typology is discussed with regard to the expression of possession and a particular diathesis in Japanese, viz. ukemi or “indirect passive.” As well as relating language-particular categories and comparative concepts, Coseriu’s approach offers a promising avenue to account for the ways language-specific meanings interact with extralinguistic knowledge and contents of discourse and texts, which are the object of translation

Counter archives: unfolding hidden stories

We select what we value as history creating collective memory that can obfuscate or devalue other threads in the story intentionally or unintentionally. Through collections of material culture, curated and described by archivists, we receive information that constructs our collective memory of self. These cultural artifacts reflect and reconstruct the past. Material artifacts in the archives depend largely on the story that is told about their provenance to provide meaning. This paper takes photographic collections in archives as examples of material culture to demonstrate how archival presentation affects the stories of collections items, and examines modalities and subverted stories in archival collections. Often acting as boundary objects that create, subvert, or erase cultural memory, archival collections are subject to interpretation and in turn affect our collective memory. Text-based documents, manuscripts, were traditionally considered the core medium through which knowledge is transmitted in archives. The evolution of photography as a mode of recording the human experience impacted the archival approach and photographs soon became part of the historical record. Archivists are trained to treat collections objectively, taking cues for description from the context of the source, and to minimally interpret these objects. Instead, archivists largely leave interpretation to the researcher who visits the archives specifically for that purpose. However, as other scholars of archives have addressed elsewhere, archives are far from neutral. Addressing the gaps this supposed neutrality leaves, I take an ethnographic approach to further interpret and pull from the hidden stories within the collections by examining three archival collections processed over the past ten years. Applying an ethnographic lens to “read” the photos, multiple narratives become evident. Emphasized here is the impact of archival records on what we remember about ourselves as a society, because we are as much what we forget as we are what we remember

Emotional Biosensing: Exploring Critical Alternatives

Emotional biosensing is rising in daily life: Data and categories claim to know how people feel and suggest what they should do about it, while CSCW explores new biosensing possibilities. Prevalent approaches to emotional biosensing are too limited, focusing on the individual, optimization, and normative categorization. Conceptual shifts can help explore alternatives: toward materiality, from representation toward performativity, inter-action to intra-action, shifting biopolitics, and shifting affect/desire. We contribute (1) synthesizing wide-ranging conceptual lenses, providing analysis connecting them to emotional biosensing design, (2) analyzing selected design exemplars to apply these lenses to design research, and (3) offering our own recommendations for designers and design researchers. In particular we suggest humility in knowledge claims with emotional biosensing, prioritizing care and affirmation over self- improvement, and exploring alternative desires. We call for critically questioning and generatively re- imagining the role of data in configuring sensing, feeling, ‘the good life,’ and everyday experience

The use and importance of emotional design in contemporary design practice

Thesis (Master)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Industrial Design, Izmir, 2006Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 83-89)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishx, 89 leavesThis thesis investigated emotional design concept. Products evoke emotions in people. This thesis suggests that emotions are at a basic importance for the success of a product since they influence product evaluation, purchase decision and product experience of users significantly. It is also claimed that, by the means of emotions, a higher user satisfaction, product longevity and a better product performance can be achieved, which will result in an enriched life.To provide an insight to emotional design concept, thesis investigated how products evoke emotions in people. Two recent design projects based on the traditions in emotion research were investigated in depth. Learning to Talk with Your Body project that is based on Jamesian tradition revealed that products could be designed to elicit predefined emotional responses in users. Emotionally Intelligent Alarm Clock project that is based on the cognitive tradition showed that it is possible to reach a higher user experience . thus an enriched life . through emotions. Aesthetics was considered as the most appropriate term encompassing the emotional attributes of products. Recent studies showed that, besides being appealing,aesthetic (attractive) products are perceived to perform better. Aesthetics generates a positive motivation for the user by contributing to the meaningfulness of the product.Thus aesthetics was accepted as a part of function. Roles of form, material and color in evoking emotions were investigated.Detailed observations about the emotional experiences of users with products and environment are fundamental necessities. Observing a user in a holistic structure, within a framework of a relational environment instead of evaluating user.s isolated performances in isolated activities will give a better understanding of user emotions

From the aesthetic mind to the human cultures: Towards an anthropology of aesthetics

This paper aims to shed light on the links between aesthetic mind and cultural dynamics. We’ll begin by describing the behavioural, cognitive and phenomenological complexity of the aesthetic before examining the role of such multidimensional phenomenon in the processes of cultural transmission. This analysis will lead us to consider aesthetics as a key frame of reference indispensable for investigating the creative and freely productive character of the processes through which individuals reproduce and transform their culture

BEYOND THEIR SMILING FACES: RECONSTRUCTING THE REMOJADAS RITUAL AND CULTURE THROUGH THE SONRIENTES FIGURINES FROM THE MPM COLLECTION

Sonrientes (Smiling Faces) scholarship has waned after a brief period of archaeological interest in the mid to late 20th century by both Spanish and English language scholars. Since then, brief attention to these figurines in the Remojadas style, or similar, has been given when discussing the Classic Period on the Gulf Coast and few direct studies on their interpretation or reinterpretation have been given within the last few years. The present study attempts to contribute my own interpretation of these Remojadas-style figurines and answer five major questions driving my research: What kind of rituals did Remojadas or other people carry out? Why did they do them? Who did them? How did they do them? How did the people and these rituals relate to other better-studied groups who neighbored them in space and time? Since the scholarship on the Remojadas culture is just as scarce as on its figurines, I reassess previous research on how the Remojadas-style Sonrientes figurines would have functioned within their cultural context(s) and what visibly sets their style apart from other figurine variations. A total of nine figurines from the Milwaukee Public Museum collection were chosen for this study. These figurines are all in modest condition and vary in size, type, gender, and decoration. Their study can be useful in reconstructing the rituals, ideological beliefs, and social structure of the Remojadas people by looking at more than just the Sonrientes’ smiles. My project here has the potential to develop a method that could be applied to similar objects that turn up in museum collections without adequate excavation records

Abstract expressions of affect

What form should happiness take? And how is disgust shaped? This research investigates how synthetic affective expressions can be designed with minimal reference to the human body. The authors propose that the recognition and attribution of affect expression can be triggered by appropriately presenting the bare essentials used in the mental processes that mediate the recognition and attribution of affect. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in the fact that it is based on mental processes involved in the recognition of affect, independent of the configuration of the human body and face. The approach is grounded in (a) research on the role of abstraction in perception, (b) the elementary processes and features relevant to visual emotion recognition and emotion attribution, and (c) how such features can be used (and combined) to generate a synthetic emotion expression. To further develop the argument for this approach they present a pilot study that shows the feasibility of combining affective features independently of the human configuration by using abstraction to create consistent emotional attributions. Finally, the authors discuss the potential implications of their approach for the design of affective robots. The developed design approach promises a maximization of freedom to integrate intuitively understandable affective expressions with other morphological design factors a technology may require, providing synthetic affective expressions that suit the inherently artificial and applied nature of affective technology