8,456 research outputs found

    Complexity Science in Human Change

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    This reprint encompasses fourteen contributions that offer avenues towards a better understanding of complex systems in human behavior. The phenomena studied here are generally pattern formation processes that originate in social interaction and psychotherapy. Several accounts are also given of the coordination in body movements and in physiological, neuronal and linguistic processes. A common denominator of such pattern formation is that complexity and entropy of the respective systems become reduced spontaneously, which is the hallmark of self-organization. The various methodological approaches of how to model such processes are presented in some detail. Results from the various methods are systematically compared and discussed. Among these approaches are algorithms for the quantification of synchrony by cross-correlational statistics, surrogate control procedures, recurrence mapping and network models.This volume offers an informative and sophisticated resource for scholars of human change, and as well for students at advanced levels, from graduate to post-doctoral. The reprint is multidisciplinary in nature, binding together the fields of medicine, psychology, physics, and neuroscience

    „Wild Democracy” – The figurative conceptualization of the Parliament in Hungarian editorial cartoons (1989 – 2019) [vĂ©dĂ©s elƑtt]

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    The expression of the Parliament is often associated with abstract concepts such as politics, democracy, or nationhood (KapitĂĄny & KapitĂĄny, 2002; SzabĂł & Oross, 2018) when instead of the literal meaning of the ‘building’, we refer to its figurative meanings. It has already been confirmed that political cartoons are rich in figurative devices (e.g., conceptual metaphor) (i.a. El Refaie, 2009) and they serve as a suitable corpus for the investigation of the figurative meaning of the Parliament. In the case of a conceptual metaphor, for instance, the Parliament (considered as a target domain) is understood via the source domain conceptually different from the target (e.g., COLOSSEUM). In that way, certain characteristic features of the source domain are mapped onto the target domain, and we are able to interpret politics, specifically the Parliament itself as the site of real, dangerous, life-or-death physical battles. All these figurative meanings can influence how we think about politics, its processes, and actors, how we argue in the case of a political problem and how we would try to solve it. The current research aims to examine how the Hungarian Parliament is visually represented in editorial cartoons and how these visual representations – through figurative conceptual devices such as conceptual metaphors and conceptual metonymies – construct the concept of the parliament. Furthermore, the thesis discusses how these cognitive devices cooperate with ironies and cultural references (such as idioms, allusions, and national symbols) which are determinant in evaluation procedures and the creation of emotional bonds between the viewer and the cartoon. In doing so, the dissertation studies the caricaturistic representations of the Parliament in three various periods (KörösĂ©nyi, 2015); thus, the investigation is longitudinal (describing thirty years since 1989) and comparative. What are the novelties of the research? First, it examines Hungarian editorial cartoons in a cognitive linguistic framework, unlike this, so far Hungarian political cartoons have been discussed by historians (e.g., TamĂĄs, 2014). Second, although the Parliament is an important concept (KapitĂĄny & KapitĂĄny, 2002), its figurative meaning has not been studied so widely yet. Third, it is a multimodal investigation of conceptual processes that fits into the trend of cognitive linguistic research that focuses on the cooperation of different processes. Fourth, this research examines a large data set in context where the contextual factors are limited to three types, namely idioms, allusions, and national symbols (context types are usually not defined in such concrete ways, e.g., Charteris-Black, 2011). Fifth, the dissertation applies Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory (ECMT) (Kövecses, 2020) in practice in a larger corpus. Sixth, it is a diachronic investigation which is rare in the field of cartoon research (e.g., Frantzich, 2013) also in cognitive research, especially in multimodal research. The main results show that 1) the representation of the Parliament is strongly linked to such conceptual procedures as conceptual metonymy and conceptual metaphor. These cognitive devices are likely to cooperate with ironies and cultural references. 2) a limited number of cognitive devices (e.g., the conceptual metonymy THE PARLIAMENT STANDS FOR THE GOVERNMENT, or the conceptual metaphor THE PARLIAMENT IS A PLACE FOR PHYSICAL CONFLICT) are recurring in the corpus during the period between 1989 and 2019. However, regarding the perspectivization, content and function of these cognitive devices, it is said that the compared periods of democracy (KörösĂ©nyi, 2015) show significant differences based on the diverse preferences and distribution of the cognitive devices with specific cultural references in each era. 3) the increase of more aggressive scenes emerges from the metaphoric domain of PHYSICAL CONFLICT, which goes hand in hand with a change in the use of national symbols referring to the perceived extreme nationalist content, and political slogans which are dominated by the direct elements (literal citations, showing violence overtly). An unexpected result is the detection of a shift in communication acting in the opposite direction, according to which in linguistic changes indirect processes took place (e.g., increasing use of causal type ironies), in visual processes direct changes became predominant, so for instance, violence appeared literally. In sum, the Parliament seems a permanent phenomenon throughout the years, however, this research points to its different meanings and nuances of meaning variants. So even the stability of the meaning of such a strong national symbol can be questioned

    Vitalism and Its Legacy in Twentieth Century Life Sciences and Philosophy

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    This Open Access book combines philosophical and historical analysis of various forms of alternatives to mechanism and mechanistic explanation, focusing on the 19th century to the present. It addresses vitalism, organicism and responses to materialism and its relevance to current biological science. In doing so, it promotes dialogue and discussion about the historical and philosophical importance of vitalism and other non-mechanistic conceptions of life. It points towards the integration of genomic science into the broader history of biology. It details a broad engagement with a variety of nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century vitalisms and conceptions of life. In addition, it discusses important threads in the history of concepts in the United States and Europe, including charting new reception histories in eastern and south-eastern Europe. While vitalism, organicism and similar epistemologies are often the concern of specialists in the history and philosophy of biology and of historians of ideas, the range of the contributions as well as the geographical and temporal scope of the volume allows for it to appeal to the historian of science and the historian of biology generally

    Recent Advances in Research on Island Phenomena

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    In natural languages, filler-gap dependencies can straddle across an unbounded distance. Since the 1960s, the term “island” has been used to describe syntactic structures from which extraction is impossible or impeded. While examples from English are ubiquitous, attested counterexamples in the Mainland Scandinavian languages have continuously been dismissed as illusory and alternative accounts for the underlying structure of such cases have been proposed. However, since such extractions are pervasive in spoken Mainland Scandinavian, these languages may not have been given the attention that they deserve in the syntax literature. In addition, recent research suggests that extraction from certain types of island structures in English might not be as unacceptable as previously assumed either. These findings break new empirical ground, question perceived knowledge, and may indeed have substantial ramifications for syntactic theory. This volume provides an overview of state-of-the-art research on island phenomena primarily in English and the Scandinavian languages, focusing on how languages compare to English, with the aim to shed new light on the nature of island constraints from different theoretical perspectives

    Magma Chemical Evolution in the Lesser Antilles Arc Crust: Insights from Plutonic Xenoliths

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    Magmas generated beneath volcanic arcs at subduction zones must traverse the crust of the overriding plate, via “magma plumbing systems” prior to eruption. Magma plumbing systems are predominantly composed of crystal mush, where low volumes of melt are distributed throughout higher volumes of crystals. To understand processes controlling the chemical compositions of arc lavas, it is essential to constrain how magmas are chemically modified within mushy plumbing systems during storage and transit through the upper plate crust. Arc lavas often carry fragments of crystal mush, known as plutonic xenoliths, to the surface, which can be used to study the influence of crustal processes on arc magma chemical compositions. This thesis investigates plutonic xenoliths from the islands of Martinique and St Vincent in the active intra-oceanic Lesser Antilles arc. These samples are used to determine whether the majority of the trace element and isotopic variation in Lesser Antilles arc lavas can be produced by crustal processes. Strontium isotopic compositions of plagioclase, in plutonic xenoliths derived from different crustal depths, are used to demonstrate that isotopic variation and highly radiogenic isotopic compositions observed in Martinique lavas are acquired via assimilation of upper crustal sediments. Textural features and mineral trace element compositions in St Vincent plutonic xenoliths record polybaric fractional crystallization and melt-mush reaction processes. These two processes control magma chemical evolution in mushes beneath the island and consequently influence the trace element compositions of St Vincent lavas. These findings suggest that majority of trace element and radiogenic isotopic variation in Lesser Antilles arc lavas is generated within mushy magma plumbing systems in the arc crust. An important wider implication is that contributions from crustal processes must be well constrained before using trace element and isotopic compositions of arc lavas to assess subduction recycling processes and mantle source heterogeneity

    Endogenous measures for contextualising large-scale social phenomena: a corpus-based method for mediated public discourse

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    This work presents an interdisciplinary methodology for developing endogenous measures of group membership through analysis of pervasive linguistic patterns in public discourse. Focusing on political discourse, this work critiques the conventional approach to the study of political participation, which is premised on decontextualised, exogenous measures to characterise groups. Considering the theoretical and empirical weaknesses of decontextualised approaches to large-scale social phenomena, this work suggests that contextualisation using endogenous measures might provide a complementary perspective to mitigate such weaknesses. This work develops a sociomaterial perspective on political participation in mediated discourse as affiliatory action performed through language. While the affiliatory function of language is often performed consciously (such as statements of identity), this work is concerned with unconscious features (such as patterns in lexis and grammar). This work argues that pervasive patterns in such features that emerge through socialisation are resistant to change and manipulation, and thus might serve as endogenous measures of sociopolitical contexts, and thus of groups. In terms of method, the work takes a corpus-based approach to the analysis of data from the Twitter messaging service whereby patterns in users’ speech are examined statistically in order to trace potential community membership. The method is applied in the US state of Michigan during the second half of 2018—6 November having been the date of midterm (i.e. non-Presidential) elections in the United States. The corpus is assembled from the original posts of 5,889 users, who are nominally geolocalised to 417 municipalities. These users are clustered according to pervasive language features. Comparing the linguistic clusters according to the municipalities they represent finds that there are regular sociodemographic differentials across clusters. This is understood as an indication of social structure, suggesting that endogenous measures derived from pervasive patterns in language may indeed offer a complementary, contextualised perspective on large-scale social phenomena

    Describing Faces for Identification: Getting the Message, But Not The Picture

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    Although humans rely on faces and language for social communication, the role of language in communicating about faces is poorly understood. Describing faces and identifying faces from verbal descriptions are important tasks in social and criminal justice settings. Prior research indicates that people have difficulty relaying face identity to others via verbal description, however little is known about the process, correlates, or content of communication about faces (hereafter ‘face communication’). In Chapter Two, I investigated face communication accuracy and its relationship with an individual’s perceptual face skill. I also examined the efficacy of a brief training intervention for improving face description ability. I found that individuals could complete face communication tasks with above chance levels of accuracy, in both interactive and non-interactive conditions, and that abilities in describing faces and using face descriptions for identification were related to an individual’s perceptual face skill. However, training was not effective for improving face description ability. In Chapter Three, I investigated qualitative attributes of face descriptions. I found no evidence of qualitative differences in face descriptions as a function of the describer’s perceptual skill with faces, the identification utility of descriptions, or the describer’s familiarity with the face. In Chapters Two and Three, the reliability of measures may have limited the ability to detect relationships between face communication accuracy and potential correlates of performance. Consequently, in Chapter Four, I examined face communication accuracy when using constrained face descriptions, derived using a rating scale, and the relationship between the identification utility of such descriptions and their reliability (test-retest and multi-rater). I found that constrained face descriptions were less useful for identification than free descriptions and the reliability of a description was unrelated to its identification utility. Together, findings in this thesis indicate that face communication is very challenging – both for individuals undertaking the task, and for researchers seeking to measure performance reliably. Given the mechanisms contributing to variance in face communication accuracy remain largely elusive, legal stakeholders would be wise to use caution when relying on evidence involving face description

    Operatic Pasticcios in 18th-Century Europe

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    In Early Modern times, techniques of assembling, compiling and arranging pre-existing material were part of the established working methods in many arts. In the world of 18th-century opera, such practices ensured that operas could become a commercial success because the substitution or compilation of arias fitting the singer's abilities proved the best recipe for fulfilling the expectations of audiences. Known as »pasticcios« since the 18th-century, these operas have long been considered inferior patchwork. The volume collects essays that reconsider the pasticcio, contextualize it, define its preconditions, look at its material aspects and uncover its aesthetical principles

    The automatic processing of multiword expressions in Irish

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    It is well-documented that Multiword Expressions (MWEs) pose a unique challenge to a variety of NLP tasks such as machine translation, parsing, information retrieval, and more. For low-resource languages such as Irish, these challenges can be exacerbated by the scarcity of data, and a lack of research in this topic. In order to improve handling of MWEs in various NLP tasks for Irish, this thesis will address both the lack of resources specifically targeting MWEs in Irish, and examine how these resources can be applied to said NLP tasks. We report on the creation and analysis of a number of lexical resources as part of this PhD research. Ilfhocail, a lexicon of Irish MWEs, is created through extract- ing MWEs from other lexical resources such as dictionaries. A corpus annotated with verbal MWEs in Irish is created for the inclusion of Irish in the PARSEME Shared Task 1.2. Additionally, MWEs were tagged in a bilingual EN-GA corpus for inclusion in experiments in machine translation. For the purposes of annotation, a categorisation scheme for nine categories of MWEs in Irish is created, based on combining linguistic analysis on these types of constructions and cross-lingual frameworks for defining MWEs. A case study in applying MWEs to NLP tasks is undertaken, with the exploration of incorporating MWE information while training Neural Machine Translation systems. Finally, the topic of automatic identification of Irish MWEs is explored, documenting the training of a system capable of automatically identifying Irish MWEs from a variety of categories, and the challenges associated with developing such a system. This research contributes towards a greater understanding of Irish MWEs and their applications in NLP, and provides a foundation for future work in exploring other methods for the automatic discovery and identification of Irish MWEs, and further developing the MWE resources described above
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