Antecedent selection techniques for high-recall roreference resolution

We investigate methods to improve the recall in coreference resolution by also trying to resolve those definite descriptions where no earlier mention of the referent shares the same lexical head (coreferent bridging). The problem, which is notably harder than identifying coreference relations among mentions which have the same lexical head, has been tackled with several rather different approaches, and we attempt to provide a meaningful classification along with a quantitative comparison. Based on the different merits of the methods, we discuss possibilities to improve them and show how they can be effectively combined

Acting-arrangement Ontology Introduced

In this thesis I begin the task of setting out and arguing for an account of the ontology of the world. The account of ontology I propose, acting-arrangement ontology (AAO), is radically new - it follows from a recognition that two seemingly prosaic and previously underappreciated features of our world are, I shall argue, the twin keystones of its ontology: acting and arrangement. My aim in this preliminary work is to develop and set out the main pieces of this ontology, showing how they fit together to form a compelling whole, so as to make a case that this account of ontology warrants further investigation

Two Walks with Objects

‘Two Walks With Objects’ attempts a tainted auto-ethnographic review of the affects and actions arising from reviewing the images remaining from two walks with objects, the first in 2013 and the second in 2017. The article sets out, within the context of a growing discussion about the agency of unhuman and nonhuman things and a refinement of neo-vitalist and object-based ontology, to narrate affect within an archive against the effects of memory, triangulating these not with a third human source, but with the absence of the things themselves, which are present only as written descriptions and photographic representations. By framing the walks as everyday performances, the article seeks then to use a critique of documentation of performance as transforming performance into something else as an efficacious model, identifying the ‘voids’ of mythogeographical practice as that “something else”, as potential spaces where human actors can learn to live with the agency of nonhuman objects

SciTech News Volume 71, No. 2 (2017)

Columns and Reports From the Editor 3 Division News Science-Technology Division 5 Chemistry Division 8 Engineering Division 9 Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division 12 Architecture, Building Engineering, Construction and Design Section of the Engineering Division 14 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews 16 Advertisements IEEE

Process control and configuration of a reconfigurable production system using a multi-agent software system

Thesis (M. Tech. (Information Technology)) -- Central University of technology, Free State, 2011Traditional designs for component-handling platforms are rigidly linked to the product being produced. Control and monitoring methods for these platforms consist of various proprietary hardware controllers containing the control logic for the production process. Should the configuration of the component handling platform change, the controllers need to be taken offline and reprogrammed to take the changes into account. The current thinking in component-handling system design is the notion of re-configurability. Reconfigurability means that with minimum or no downtime the system can be adapted to produce another product type or overcome a device failure. The re-configurable component handling platform is built-up from groups of independent devices. These groups or cells are each responsible for some aspect of the overall production process. By moving or swopping different versions of these cells within the component-handling platform, re-configurability is achieved. Such a dynamic system requires a flexible communications platform and high-level software control architecture to accommodate the reconfigurable nature of the system. This work represents the design and testing of the core of a re-configurable production control software platform. Multiple software components work together to control and monitor a re-configurable component handling platform. The design and implementation of a production database, production ontology, communications architecture and the core multi-agent control application linking all these components together is presented

Semi-quantitative proteomics of mammalian cells upon short-term exposure to nonionizing electromagnetic fields

The potential effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields (EMFs), such as those emitted by power-lines (in extremely low frequency range), mobile cellular systems and wireless networking devices (in radio frequency range) on human health have been intensively researched and debated. However, how exposure to these EMFs may lead to biological changes underlying possible health effects is still unclear. To reveal EMF-induced molecular changes, unbiased experiments (without a priori focusing on specific biological processes) with sensitive readouts are required. We present the first proteome-wide semi-quantitative mass spectrometry analysis of human fibroblasts, osteosarcomas and mouse embryonic stem cells exposed to three types of non-ionizing EMFs (ELF 50 Hz, UMTS 2.1 GHz and WiFi 5.8 GHz). We performed controlled in vitro EMF exposures of metabolically labeled mammalian cells followed by reliable statistical analyses of differential protein-and pathway-level regulations using an array of established bioinformatics methods. Our results indicate that less than 1% of the quantitated human or mouse proteome responds to the EMFs by small changes in protein abundance. Further network-based analysis of the differentially regulated proteins did not detect significantly perturbed cellular processes or pathways in human and mouse cells in response to ELF, UMTS or WiFi exposure. In conclusion, our extensive bioinformatics analyses of semi-quantitative mass spectrometry data do not support the notion that the short-time exposures to non-ionizing EMFs have a consistent biologically significant bearing on mammalian cells in culture

BIM extension for the sustainability appraisal of conceptual steel design

Contemporary advancements in Information Technology and the efforts from various research initiatives in the AEC industry are showing evidence of progress with the emergence of building information mod- elling (BIM). BIM presents the opportunity of electronically modelling and managing the vast amount of information embedded in a building project, from its conception to end-of-life. Researchers have been looking at extensions to expand its scope. Sustainability is one such modelling extension that is in need of development. This is becoming pertinent for the structural engineer as recent design criteria have put great emphasis on the sustainability credentials in addition to the traditional criteria of structural integrity, constructability and cost. With the complexity of designs, there are now needs to provide deci- sion support tools to aid in the assessment of the sustainability credentials of design solutions. Such tools would be most beneficial at the conceptual design stage so that sustainability is built into the design solu- tion starting from its inception. The sustainability of buildings is related to life cycle and is measured using indicator-terms such as life cycle costing, ecological footprint and carbon footprint. This paper proposes a modelling framework combining these three indicators in providing sustainability assessments of alterna- tive design solutions based on the economic and environmental sustainability pillars. It employs the prin- ciples of feature-based modelling to extract construction-specific information from product models for the purposes of sustainability analysis. A prototype system is implemented using .NET and linked to the BIM enabled software, Revit StructuresTM. The system appraises alternative design solutions using multi-crite- ria performance analysis. This work demonstrates that current process and data modelling techniques can be employed to model sustainability related information to inform decisions right from the early stages of structural design. It concludes that the utilized information modelling representations – in the form of a process model, implementation algorithms and object-based instantiations – can capture sustainability related information to inform decisions at the early stages of the structural design process