Contributions of formal language theory to the study of dialogues

For more than 30 years, the problem of providing a formal framework for modeling dialogues has been a topic of great interest for the scientific areas of Linguistics, Philosophy, Cognitive Science, Formal Languages, Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence. In the beginning the goal was to develop a "conversational computer", an automated system that could engage in a conversation in the same way as humans do. After studies showed the difficulties of achieving this goal Formal Language Theory and Artificial Intelligence have contributed to Dialogue Theory with the study and simulation of machine to machine and human to machine dialogues inspired by Linguistic studies of human interactions. The aim of our thesis is to propose a formal approach for the study of dialogues. Our work is an interdisciplinary one that connects theories and results in Dialogue Theory mainly from Formal Language Theory, but also from another areas like Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics and Multiprogramming. We contribute to Dialogue Theory by introducing a hierarchy of formal frameworks for the definition of protocols for dialogue interaction. Each framework defines a transition system in which dialogue protocols might be uniformly expressed and compared. The frameworks we propose are based on finite state transition systems and Grammar systems from Formal Language Theory and a multi-agent language for the specification of dialogue protocols from Artificial Intelligence. Grammar System Theory is a subfield of Formal Language Theory that studies how several (a finite number) of language defining devices (language processors or grammars) jointly develop a common symbolic environment (a string or a finite set of strings) by the application of language operations (for instance rewriting rules). For the frameworks we propose we study some of their formal properties, we compare their expressiveness, we investigate their practical application in Dialogue Theory and we analyze their connection with theories of human-like conversation from Linguistics. In addition we contribute to Grammar System Theory by proposing a new approach for the verification and derivation of Grammar systems. We analyze possible advantages of interpreting grammars as multiprograms that are susceptible of verification and derivation using the Owicki-Gries logic, a Hoare-based logic from the Multiprogramming field

Magyar Mesterséges Intelligencia Bibliográfia : Válogatás az 1988-96 között (esetenként korábban) megjelent publikációkból

Tartalom: referált folyóiratokban, konferencia kiadványokban, tanulmánykötetekben megjelent dolgozatok, könyvek, tankönyvek, disszertációk referenciáit, közel 190 magyar szerző/társszerző 400 (tárgyszavazott) dolgozatát tartalmazza. Függelékében az Új ALAPLAP folyóirat Jakab Ágnes által szerkesztett TUDÁSTECHNOLÓGIA c. tematikus MI-sorozat dolgozatainak jegyzéke található. Az anyagok az NJSZT által Budapesten szervezett ECAI’96 konferenciát kísérő kiállításra készültek. A Bibliográfia és a hozzá kapcsolódó Reprint Gyűjtemény az NJSZT standján volt kiállítva, míg az OMIKK adatbázisában való keresést egy oda kihelyezett terminál biztosította. A tárgyszavazást és az adatfelvitelt Kladiva Ottmár (OMIKK) irányította

Realizzazioni testuali ibride in contesto europeo. Lingue dell’UE e lingue nazionali a confronto

The research project Hybrid Texts Types in a European Context, funded by the University of Trieste, was aimed at describing the possible differences between the EU and national varieties of three languages (English, Italian and Spanish) as observed in selected genres and text types. The essays collected in this volume report on studies applying the theoretical tenets of the research. The studies contrast corpora of texts drafted within EU institutions (a multilingual environment) with comparable corpora of texts produced in the relevant member states. The purpose is to characterize the hybrid features emerging in multilingual contexts and the influence they may be exerting on similar texts produced at national level. Many EU texts – particularly those of a regulatory nature – are known to have a direct practical impact on the lives of European citizens; from a linguistic point of view, these texts may be changing their expectations in terms of textual structure and language usage.Il progetto Realizzazioni testuali ibride in contesto europeo, finanziato dall’Università di Trieste, è volto a valutare se e come le varianti “comunitarie” di alcune lingue europee (l’inglese, l’italiano e lo spagnolo) differiscano dall’uso linguistico all’interno dei confini nazionali. I saggi in questo volume sono il risultato della parte più applicativa del progetto e conducono un confronto tra generi testuali comunitari e generi testuali paragonabili prodotti nei Paesi membri. Lo scopo è valutare almeno alcuni aspetti derivanti dall’ibridazione determinata dal contesto multilingue delle istituzioni europee, nella presunzione che questa ibridazione abbia una certa influenza sulle lingue nazionali. Se è infatti certo che molti testi, soprattutto normativi, prodotti dall’UE hanno un impatto diretto sulla vita dei cittadini, è sicuramente ipotizzabile che ne possano influenzare anche le aspettative testuali e le abitudini linguistiche

Law and Social Policy in the Global South

The book is an in-depth study of the origins and the trajectories of the law governing social policies in Brazil, China, India, and South Africa, four middle-income countries in the global South with a history in social policy making that starts in the 1920s. The policies of these countries affect almost half of the world’s population. The book takes the legal framework of the policies as a starting point, but the main interest lies behind the letter of the law: What were the objectives and goals of social policy over the course of the last 100 years? What were the ideas, ideologies, and values pursued by relevant actors? The book comprises four country studies and a comparative study. The country studies concentrate on the political and social context of social policy making in Brazil, China, India, and South Africa as well as on the ideas, ideologies, and values underpinning the constitution, statutory laws, and case law that frame and shape social policy at the national level. The country studies are complemented by a comparative study exploring and describing the commonalities and differences in the ideational approaches to social policies across the four countries, nationally and – in the formative decades – internationally. The comparative study also identifies the characteristics that make Brazilian, Chinese, Indian, and South African social policies distinct from European social policies. With its emphasis on law and drawing on legal scholarship, the book adds a new dimension to the existing accounts on welfare state building, which, so far, are dominated by European narratives and by scholars with a background in sociology, political science, and development studies. This book is relevant to specialists and peers and will be invaluable to those individuals interested in the fields of comparative and international social security law, human rights law, comparative constitutional law, constitutional history, law and development studies, comparative social policies, global social policies, social work, and welfare state theory. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Discursive Approaches to Politics in Malaysia

This open access book examines Malaysian politics using a linguistic perspective. It explores how language serves to (de)legitimise governance, and its subsequent policies and activities in Malaysia. Grounded in discourse studies, this edited volume presents research on the discourses produced by and on Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional from 2008 to 2020, studying how political actors (de)legitimise their governance through discursive means. The thirteen original chapters select spoken, print and digital texts in English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil, and deploy varied theoretical and methodological approaches. Their linguistic analysis unearths the language features and strategies that facilitate (de)legitimation. It shows how political actors shape the discursive representation and evaluation of multiple concerns in Malaysia. Consequently, Discursive Approaches to Politics in Malaysia: Legitimising Governance improves our understanding of contemporary Malaysian political discourse. It is of interest to graduates and researchers in the field of discourse studies, seeking to understand the discursive contours of politics in this developing Asian country. ; This open access book examines Malaysian politics using a linguistic perspective. It explores how language serves to (de)legitimise governance, and its subsequent policies and activities in Malaysia. Grounded in discourse studies, this edited volume presents research on the discourses produced by and on Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional from 2008 to 2020, studying how political actors (de)legitimise their governance through discursive means. The thirteen original chapters select spoken, print and digital texts in English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil, and deploy varied theoretical and methodological approaches. Their linguistic analysis unearths the language features and strategies that facilitate (de)legitimation. It shows how political actors shape the discursive representation and evaluation of multiple concerns in Malaysia. Consequently, Discursive Approaches to Politics in Malaysia: Legitimising Governance improves our understanding of contemporary Malaysian political discourse. It is of interest to graduates and researchers in the field of discourse studies, seeking to understand the discursive contours of politics in this developing Asian country

Behavioral Economics - Enhanced: Machine Learning and Decision Making

In this thesis, I investigate decision-making in the fields of behavioral economics, experimental economics, and law and economics. The research questions I ask are: Can we nudge people towards being more honest? Can we use language to find out who lies? Which factors influence a judge’s decision, and how do people cooperate? Specifically, I investigate contributions in a public goods game, (dis-)honest decision-making in a die-in-the-cup and tax compliance game. Furthermore, I investigate the bounds of rational decision-making in the context of the law. To answer the posed questions, I apply – alongside traditional econometrics – machine learning methods: I use natural language classification to predict decisions based on text data. Furthermore, I use time-series clustering to reduce complexity and thereby enable theory building and interpretation