Surface Reasoning

Surface reasoning is defined to be deduction conducted in the surface language in terms of certain primitive logical relations. The surface language is a spoken or written natural language (in this paper, English), in contrast to a base language or “deep structure sometimes hypothesized to explain natural language phenomena. The primitive logical relations are inclusion, exclusion and overlap between classes of entities. A calculus for surface reasoning is presented. Then a model for reasoning in this calculus is developed. The model is similar to but more general than syllogistic. In this model, reasoning is represented as construction of fragments (subposets) of lattices. Elements of the lattices are expressions denoting classes of individuals. Strategies to streamline the reasoning process are described. Criteria for strategy selection are proposed

The impact of time spent in natural outdoor spaces on children’s language, communication and social skills : a systematic review protocol

There has been increasing interest over the past decade with regard to the health and wellbeing implications of time spent outdoors in nature for children. Universal systematic reviews of evidence report benefits to physical health, social-emotional mental health and wellbeing, cognition and academic learning. Internationally, there is indicative evidence to suggest outdoor engagement with nature may also impact children’s language and communication skills, skills that are critical to development, education, social relationships and life opportunities. Yet, at present such evidence has not been synthesised. Despite evidence for the benefits of the outdoors, the amount of time children are spending outdoors is in rapid decline, and has been further exacerbated by the COVID- 19 pandemic. Alongside this are increasing numbers of children starting primary education with significant speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) which remain persistent over time. With established wide-reaching benefits of nature to children’s physical and mental health and psychological development, there is a need to further explore the more specific impacts of the natural environment on children’s language, communication and social skills, which could provide a unique opportunity to consider nature as a universal public health intervention for SLCN. The current review will aim to synthesise existing qualitative and quantitative evidence of the impact of time spent in natural outdoor spaces on the language, communication and social skills of 2–11-year-old children. Literature will be searched across seven databases and considered for inclusion against inclusion and exclusion criteria. Potential implications of the review include informing public health practice and policy for child development and education, informing priorities for speech, language, and communication interventions, and providing directions for future international research

E-MIMIC: Empowering Multilingual Inclusive Communication

Preserving diversity and inclusion is becoming a compelling need in both industry and academia. The ability to use appropriate forms of writing, speaking, and gestures is not widespread even in formal communications such as public calls, public announcements, official reports, and legal documents. The improper use of linguistic expressions can foment unacceptable forms of exclusion, stereotypes as well as forms of verbal violence against minorities, including women. Furthermore, existing machine translation tools are not designed to generate inclusive content. The present paper investigates a joint effort of the research communities of linguistics and Deep Learning Natural Language Understanding in fighting against non-inclusive, prejudiced language forms. It presents a methodology aimed at tackling the improper use of language in formal communication, with a particular attention paid to Romanic languages (Italian, in particular). State-of-the-art Deep Language Modeling architectures are exploited to automatically identify non-inclusive text snippets, suggest alternative forms, and produce inclusive text rephrasing. A preliminary evaluation conducted on a benchmark dataset shows promising results, i.e., 85% accuracy in predicting inclusive/non-inclusive communications

Metaphorical language in financial discourse

The aim of this paper is to apply the socio-cognitive approach to metaphorical language in financial discourse according to three levels of metaphorical salience and innovation – the experiential, the cultural, and the topical level. According to the results of the analysis, financial media discourse employs metaphors of these levels in a blended manner and as different mechanisms of legitimization. While a consistency between certain domains of the experiential and the cultural level exists, the topical level is best interpreted in terms of the traditional theory on metaphor. The consistency of the experiential and cultural metaphorical language shows how a metaphorically modelled target domain influences the choice of culture-specific lexicalizations. The mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion as legitimization devices portray finance as an objective and natural discourse of scientific status, while the topical level uses different rhetorical devices to engage the discourse recipients and to guide conceptualization. In summation, the socio-cognitive approach to other discursive genres in general can be fruitful in the classification and the study of the interaction of different metaphorical mappings and the way they integrate to make the discourse legitimate and coherent

Climate Change, Natural Disasters, and Suicide: A Systematic Review

Background.Natural disasters are projected to increase due to climate change. Mental health is not a well-researched area in public health, particularly as it relates to environmental health and in the aftermath of natural disasters. The suicide rate is approximately 13 per 100,000 people in the US, nationally. This already high suicide rate warrants researching this area mental health. Understanding the relation between natural disasters and suicide rates might help alleviate human suffering and potentially save lives in the future, in post-disaster settings. This research will further the knowledge of the association between natural disasters and suicide and provide foundation and reasoning for funding such research, as well as investment in mental health services. Objectives. The objective of this systematic literature review is to explore the relation between natural disasters and suicide rates among the affected population in the aftermath of major natural disasters. Methods. This research was produced thorough a systematic literature review following PRISMA methodology. Four digital databases, PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane, PsycINFO, were utilized to conduct a thorough, systematic literature review. After applying the predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria and reviewing the literature in detail, seven studies were included in the final literature review. Results. Most of the studies (n=5) included in this review found a positive correlation between suicide rates and natural disasters. The suicide rates varied for different natural disasters and some studies found an increase of up to 40% after certain natural disasters such as recurring floods. Natural disasters found to be most associated with increased suicide rates included heatwaves, flooding, and droughts. Other studies exploring tsunamis and hurricanes found no significant increase in suicide rates. Limitations.With only seven articles, it limits confidence in a strong association betweendisasters and suicide rates. Another major limitation is the inclusion of English-Language-Only articles. Conclusion.This literature review found some evidence of an association between natural disasters and suicide. Further research with better study designs is recommended to understand and prepare for increasing natural disasters as a result of climate change and their impact on mental health and suicide. We also recommend funding allocation for mental health services in emergency preparedness plans

Implicit learning of recursive context-free grammars

Context-free grammars are fundamental for the description of linguistic syntax. However, most artificial grammar learning experiments have explored learning of simpler finite-state grammars, while studies exploring context-free grammars have not assessed awareness and implicitness. This paper explores the implicit learning of context-free grammars employing features of hierarchical organization, recursive embedding and long-distance dependencies. The grammars also featured the distinction between left- and right-branching structures, as well as between centre- and tail-embedding, both distinctions found in natural languages. People acquired unconscious knowledge of relations between grammatical classes even for dependencies over long distances, in ways that went beyond learning simpler relations (e.g. n-grams) between individual words. The structural distinctions drawn from linguistics also proved important as performance was greater for tail-embedding than centre-embedding structures. The results suggest the plausibility of implicit learning of complex context-free structures, which model some features of natural languages. They support the relevance of artificial grammar learning for probing mechanisms of language learning and challenge existing theories and computational models of implicit learning

Capturing k-ary Existential Second Order Logic with k-ary Inclusion-Exclusion Logic

In this paper we analyze k-ary inclusion-exclusion logic, INEX[k], which is obtained by extending first order logic with k-ary inclusion and exclusion atoms. We show that every formula of INEX[k] can be expressed with a formula of k-ary existential second order logic, ESO[k]. Conversely, every formula of ESO[k] with at most k-ary free relation variables can be expressed with a formula of INEX[k]. From this it follows that, on the level of sentences, INEX[k] captures the expressive power of ESO[k]. We also introduce several useful operators that can be expressed in INEX[k]. In particular, we define inclusion and exclusion quantifiers and so-called term value preserving disjunction which is essential for the proofs of the main results in this paper. Furthermore, we present a novel method of relativization for team semantics and analyze the duality of inclusion and exclusion atoms.Comment: Extended version of a paper published in Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 169 (3), 177-21

Current Social Perception of and Value Attached to Nursing Professionals’ Competences: An Integrative Review

In order to develop nurses’ identities properly, they need to publicise their professional competences and make society aware of them. For that, this study was conducted to describe the competences that society currently attributes to nursing professionals and how nursing is valued in society. This review was based on the conceptual framework by Whittemore and Knafl. The literature search was conducted using PubMed, WOS, and CINAHL databases, and the search strategy was based on a combination of natural language and standardised keywords, with limits and criteria for inclusion, exclusion, and quality. The results of the studies were classified and coded in accordance with the competence groups of the professional profile described in the Tuning Educational Structures in Europe programme. Fourteen studies were selected. The most commonly reported competence groups were as follows: nursing practice and clinical decision making; and communication and interpersonal competences. Nursing is perceived as a healthcare profession dedicated to caring for individuals. Its other areas of competence and its capacity for leadership are not well known. In order to develop a professional identity, it is essential to raise awareness of the competences that make up this professional profile

Inclusion and Exclusion Dependencies in Team Semantics: On Some Logics of Imperfect Information

We introduce some new logics of imperfect information by adding atomic formulas corresponding to inclusion and exclusion dependencies to the language of first order logic. The properties of these logics and their relationships with other logics of imperfect information are then studied. Furthermore, a game theoretic semantics for these logics is developed. As a corollary of these results, we characterize the expressive power of independence logic, thus answering an open problem posed in (Gr\"adel and V\"a\"an\"anen, 2010)

The Expressive Power of k-ary Exclusion Logic

In this paper we study the expressive power of k-ary exclusion logic, EXC[k], that is obtained by extending first order logic with k-ary exclusion atoms. It is known that without arity bounds exclusion logic is equivalent with dependence logic. By observing the translations, we see that the expressive power of EXC[k] lies in between k-ary and (k+1)-ary dependence logics. We will show that, at least in the case of k=1, the both of these inclusions are proper. In a recent work by the author it was shown that k-ary inclusion-exclusion logic is equivalent with k-ary existential second order logic, ESO[k]. We will show that, on the level of sentences, it is possible to simulate inclusion atoms with exclusion atoms, and this way express ESO[k]-sentences by using only k-ary exclusion atoms. For this translation we also need to introduce a novel method for "unifying" the values of certain variables in a team. As a consequence, EXC[k] captures ESO[k] on the level of sentences, and we get a strict arity hierarchy for exclusion logic. It also follows that k-ary inclusion logic is strictly weaker than EXC[k]. Finally we will use similar techniques to formulate a translation from ESO[k] to k-ary inclusion logic with strict semantics. Consequently, for any arity fragment of inclusion logic, strict semantics is more expressive than lax semantics.Comment: Preprint of a paper in the special issue of WoLLIC2016 in Annals of Pure and Applied Logic, 170(9):1070-1099, 201