VER: Learning Natural Language Representations for Verbalizing Entities and Relations

Entities and relationships between entities are vital in the real world. Essentially, we understand the world by understanding entities and relations. For instance, to understand a field, e.g., computer science, we need to understand the relevant concepts, e.g., machine learning, and the relationships between concepts, e.g., machine learning and artificial intelligence. To understand a person, we should first know who he/she is and how he/she is related to others. To understand entities and relations, humans may refer to natural language descriptions. For instance, when learning a new scientific term, people usually start by reading its definition in dictionaries or encyclopedias. To know the relationship between two entities, humans tend to create a sentence to connect them. In this paper, we propose VER: A Unified Model for Verbalizing Entities and Relations. Specifically, we attempt to build a system that takes any entity or entity set as input and generates a sentence to represent entities and relations, named ``natural language representation''. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our model can generate high-quality sentences describing entities and entity relationships and facilitate various tasks on entities and relations, including definition modeling, relation modeling, and generative commonsense reasoning

ToCT: A task ontology to manage complex templates

Natural language interfaces are a well-known approach to grant non-experts access to semantic web technologies. A number of such systems use simple templates to achieve that for English and more elab-orate solutions for other languages. They keep being designed from scratch in an ad hoc manner, since there is no shared conceptualisation of simple templates and there is no model that is formalised using a Semantic Web language to apply the techniques to itself. We aim to address this by proposing a general-purpose solution in the form of a novel model for templates, formalised as a task ontology in OWL,calledToCT. We used it to develop an ontology-driven text generator for isiZulu, a morphologically-rich language, to test its capabilities. The generator verbalises the TBox of an ontology as validationq uestions. This evaluation showed that the task ontology is sufficiently expressive for the template design, which was subsequently verified with user evaluations who judged the texts positivel

Educating Educators On Mastery Learning And Spiral Learning

There are many barriers that hinder teachers from educating themselves on effective teaching and learning methods they can use in the classroom. Along with shortness of time and energy, the inaccessibility of reliable information and the time it takes to sift through all of the extensive amount of information all pose as problems. For this project, information and research on two methods of teaching and learning: mastery and spiral learning will be collected and summarized and the advantages and disadvantages of each will be presented in order to help educate teachers and educators on effective methods of teaching

A classification of grammar-infused templates for ontology and model verbalisation

Involving domain-experts in the development, maintenance, and use of knowledge organisation systems can be made easier through the introduction of easy-to-use interfaces that are based on natural language. Well resourced languages make use of natural language generation techniques to provide such interfaces. In particular, they often make use of templates combined with computational grammar rules to generate grammatically complex text. However, there is no model of pairing templates and computational grammar rules to ensure suitability for less-resourced languages. These languages require a modular design that ensures grammar detachability so as to allow grammar re-use across domains and applications. In this paper, we present a model and classification scheme for grammar-infused templates suited for less-resourced languages and classify existing systems that make use of them. We have found that of the 15 systems that pair templates and grammar rules, and their 11 distinct template types, 13 have support for detachable grammars

Fostering Verbal and Play Interactions in Heritage Language: A Naturalistic Intervention Mediated by Siblings for Autistic Children

Research on sibling-mediated interventions (SMIs) suggests that neurotypical siblings may help bolster language and play development in autistic children (Akers et al., 2018; Celiberti & Harris, 1993; Coe et al., 1991; Glugatch & Machalicek, 2021; Oppenheim-Leaf et al., 2012; Spector & Charlop, 2018), though consideration of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) populations is lacking. CALD autistic children often have a heritage language, or home language, other than English that is spoken at home with family members. Evidence suggests that bilingual exposure may be advantageous for language and play of autistic children (Dalmau et al., 2011; Lim & Charlop Seung et al., 2006; Vaughn, 2013). However, studies have not yet explored the role of neurotypical siblings in delivery of heritage language during intervention. The present study examined the effects of a naturalistic intervention mediated by siblings (NIMS) across four sibling dyads. Neurotypical siblings first received training through direct instruction, modeling, and role-play with a bilingual therapist. During intervention, visual prompts were used to encourage neurotypical siblings to deliver instructions, appropriate play phrases, and questions in heritage language during play with the autistic children. Results indicated that appropriate verbalizations of autistic children, social initiations of neurotypical siblings, and interactive play of the sibling dyad increased due to the intervention. Ancillary measures revealed that all dyads reported happiness during the intervention and two dyads improved the quality of the sibling relationship. The implications of the study suggest researchers and practitioners alike should continue to explore neurotypical siblings as change agents for autistic children, particularly when delivering intervention in heritage language

Divergence Between the Human State Assumption and Actual Aircraft System State

Divergence is defined in this thesis as an inconsistency between the human operator’s assumption of the system state and the actual state of the system, which is substantial enough to have consequential effects on the outcome of the situation. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the concept of divergence and develop a framework that can be used to identify the consequential causes of divergence in cases involving human-system interaction. Many recent aircraft accidents involve divergence between the crew state assumption and the actual system state. As aircraft systems and automation become more complex, it’s possible that the consequential effects of divergence, illustrated by these accidents, could become more prevalent due to the correspondingly more complex understanding that may be required by the crew to effectively operate the aircraft. Divergence was explored as a concept by (1) understanding the previous literature related to divergence such as work on human error, human information processing, situation awareness, and mode awareness (2) developing a framework that can be used to understand possible causes of divergence, (3) illustrating use of the framework with accident case studies, and (4) discussing the implications of the findings of the case study analysis of divergence. Human information processing of divergence was developed using the established human information processing literature including Wickens (1992), Endsley (1995), and Reason (1990). The framework highlighted the inputs to the human and represented human processing of this information in relation to formation of a state assumption. The process model was used to identify potential causes of divergence, which were hypothesized as human information processing failures affecting the human state assumption, and to evaluate the effects of those failures on downstream processes and the human state assumption. Eleven accident case studies involving automation mode confusion were conducted to evaluate divergence using the process model of divergence. Eight of the case studies involved auto-throttle mode confusion and the three remaining cases involved divergence in other automation systems that resulted in controlled flight into terrain. The industry implications of the findings of the case studies were then discussed.U.S. Department of Transportation – Federal Aviation Administration through the Joint Universities Program (JUP) FAA 11-G-016 and NASA’s Aeronautics Fellowship Program

Special Theme of Research in Information Systems Analysis and Design-IV Evaluation Criteria for Information Systems Development Methodologies

The evaluation of information systems development methodologies is becoming increasingly important. Some researchers propose their own criteria for conceptual evaluations. But such criteria are often constrained by the limitation of the researcher\u27s view toward and experience with development methodologies. Furthermore, existing evaluation criteria are either not practical for direct measurement or not tested for validity and reliability. The lack of a generally acceptable, practically valid, and reliable set of criteria for evaluation hinders the development of knowledge in this area. Our study is a step toward developing a systematic process to evaluate information systems development methodologies. We captured the opinions of a group of twenty-eight researchers and practitioners who are experienced in information systems development methodologies. Through a systematic content analysis, the authors classified these criteria into three categories: (1) methodology design, (2) methodology use, and (3) methodology deliverables. The three categories of criteria are not totally separate in that they represent the means and goals of information systems development methodologies. Appropriate criteria should be applied depending on the stages when evaluation is performed