Natural Language Processing: A Look Into How Computers Understand Human Language

The semantic interpretation of the human language is very complex and diverse making natural language processing an interesting task for researchers and engineers. Natural language processing is a subfield of machine learning focusing on enabling computers to understand and process human languages. Although computers do not have the same intuitive understanding of natural language like humans do, recent advances in machine learning have enabled computers to perform many useful things with natural language like text classification, language modeling, speech recognition, and question answering. Computers are able to accomplish these tasks by learning the deep contextual representations of words including both the syntax and semantics. Through the use of recurrent neural networks, long short-term memory units, temporal convolution networks, and different language embedding models, computers have made significant strides in their ability to interpret and understand human language. With large volumes of textual data available and the need to structure the unstructured data source that is human language, the area of natural language processing will continue to be of interest.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/stander_posters/2706/thumbnail.jp

Social Responses to Media Technologies in the 21st Century: The Media are Social Actors Paradigm

Clifford Nass and his colleagues proposed the Computers Are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm in the 1990s and demonstrated that we treat computers in some of the ways we treat humans. To account for technological advances and to refine explanations for CASA results, this paper proposes the Media Are Social Actors (MASA) paradigm. We begin by distinguishing the roles of primary and secondary cues in evoking medium-as-social-actor presence and social responses. We then discuss the roles of individual differences and contextual factors in these responses and identify mindless and mindful anthropomorphism as two major complementary mechanisms for understanding MASA phenomena. Based on evolutionary psychology explanations for socialness, we conclude with nine formal propositions and suggestions for future research to test and apply MASA

Elements influencing IS success in developing countries : a case study of organisations in Papua New Guinea

Since the introduction of computers in to organisations in the 1950s, computer information systems have become powerful organisational instruments. The uptake of information technology including information systems (IS) and the impact of these technologies have been phenomenal, particularly in the least developed countries (LDCs). Organisations in these countries have continued to utilise IS as a development tool with the belief that it will enhance business processes, in many instances accelerated by foreign assistance. IS can have a positive effect on users, organisations and national development, measured economically or otherwise at the individual, organisational, and national levels. Yet IS implementation and the measure of its success is characterised by a high rate of failure and disagreement among scholars and practitioners. The success of organisational IS is influenced by a fabric of many variables, including contextual elements. In this regard IS can be influenced by both the organisational context in terms of strategies, structures, politics and culture, and by the wider political socio-economic, cultural, and technological climate within which organisations exist. Understanding the contributing variables and the barriers that impede IS success, would better prepare organisations to overcome the inherent difficulties. There is a large body of work documenting the usefulness and consequences of IS. However, these studies have been concentrated in the developed countries (DCs), hence, little is known about IS implementation in LDCs. DCs and LDCs differ in their contextual and social settings, and a uniform analysis may not be applicable in their disparate settings. Indeed the paucity of research and data in the IS domain indicates that the study would benefit an LDC such as Papua New Guinea (PNG) and contribute to knowledge in understanding IS implementation in an LDC environment. This thesis reports on a study that examined IS implementation success in PNG organisations in the context of an LDC. Computers were introduced to PNG in the 1960s, however, no studies have been undertaken to date in this domain that the author is aware of. Hence, the objective of this study was to provide detailed analysis of IS, the context in which it was implemented, its interaction with organisational and external settings, and elicit the underlying elements associated with its success. It also explores the emphasis placed on each of the elements and the extent to which organisations effectively addressed these elements to ensure IS success. The exploratory study employs a multi method design - beginning in Stage 1 with case studies, followed by a survey in Stage 2. Stage 1 adopted a multiple case study approach. Eight case studies were undertaken, however, results of only four case studies are reported in this thesis. Data obtained in the case studies provide a useful basis for the survey. The study in Stage 2 consolidated and expanded on the case study findings from the perspective of a wider population. All the organisations contacted but not involved in the Stage 1 study contributed by participating in the survey. The study identified more than fifty elements that contributed to the success of IS in PNG organisations. There were significant similarities to the findings of studies in other DCs and LDCs despite the disparate contextual conditions. Several elements, not identified in prior studies, were also revealed. Based on this study, a set of principles pertaining to IS implementation and management in PNG were postulated. Similarly a set of recommendations were also outlined

Children and computers: the development of graphical user interfaces to improve the quality of interaction

The development of educational multimedia since 1994 has been characterised by a rapid expansion of new technologies. In the context of an exciting and controversial exploration of techniques, research into how children used computers in the classroom had been limited. The thesis therefore included a wide-ranging study into factors informing a deeper understanding of the way 5 to7-year-old school children use interactive computer programs. The thesis originated in contextual studies undertaken by the researcher in classrooms. The contextual research raised issues that are not the common ground of educational multimedia practitioners. These issues were explored in depth in the literature review. The thesis tested the potential improvements in interface design - an interactive educational CD-ROM using audio and visual resources from a BBC School Radio music series. The focus was not the music content or the teaching of the subject. The results of testing the research tool that used observation of groups of three children, interviews with individual children and teachers were summarised and improvements identified. The aim was to seek answers to the question 'How can the quality of computer interface interaction be improved?' Improvements were considered by enhancing the quality of interaction through greater depth of engagement by using the computer mouse to move icons on the computer screen. In the process of contextual research the following issues were raised: the need for teachers to have a method of mediating the content of educational CD-ROMs, the physiological demands made on children in terms of eye search; the difficulties they encountered using navigation metaphors; and the potential of pseudo 3-D perspective interfaces. The research re-evaluates the relationship between children and computers in the familiar context of groups of three children using computers in the primary classroom, and resulted in a coherent set of suggestions for a more effective holistic paradigm for the design of multimedia programs that takes into account practical realities in classroom environments. .

Location-based and contextual mobile learning. A STELLAR Small-Scale Study

This study starts from several inputs that the partners have collected from previous and current running research projects and a workshop organised at the STELLAR Alpine Rendevous 2010. In the study, several steps have been taken, firstly a literature review and analysis of existing systems; secondly, mobile learning experts have been involved in a concept mapping study to identify the main challenges that can be solved via mobile learning; and thirdly, an identification of educational patterns based on these examples has been done. Out of this study the partners aim to develop an educational framework for contextual learning as a unifying approach in the field. Therefore one of our central research questions is: how can we investigate, theorise, model and support contextual learning