PerSHOP -- A Persian dataset for shopping dialogue systems modeling

Nowadays, dialogue systems are used in many fields of industry and research. There are successful instances of these systems, such as Apple Siri, Google Assistant, and IBM Watson. Task-oriented dialogue system is a category of these, that are used in specific tasks. They can perform tasks such as booking plane tickets or making restaurant reservations. Shopping is one of the most popular areas on these systems. The bot replaces the human salesperson and interacts with the customers by speaking. To train the models behind the scenes of these systems, annotated data is needed. In this paper, we developed a dataset of dialogues in the Persian language through crowd-sourcing. We annotated these dialogues to train a model. This dataset contains nearly 22k utterances in 15 different domains and 1061 dialogues. This is the largest Persian dataset in this field, which is provided freely so that future researchers can use it. Also, we proposed some baseline models for natural language understanding (NLU) tasks. These models perform two tasks for NLU: intent classification and entity extraction. The F-1 score metric obtained for intent classification is around 91% and for entity extraction is around 93%, which can be a baseline for future research

REALIZATION OF REFUSALS IN HABIBURRAHMAN EL SHIRAZY’S AYAT-AYAT CINTA

ABSTRACT Refusal belongs to illocutionary acts of commissive. It occurs in all languages and is formulated differently based on their cultural background. People refuse either directly or indirectly. Beebe and Takahashi (1990) provided a classification of refusal strategy that can be used to analyze the form of refusal utterances. This study aims to discover the refusal strategies used in the novel of Ayat-ayat Cinta by Habiburrahman El Shirazy. The analysis was done to the speech act of refusals (SARs) in response to requests, questions, suggestions, orders, and invitations. The data were analyzed and categorized according to the refusal taxonomy by Beebe et al. The IFIDs are also used to indicate the performative verbs of refusals utterances. The finding showed that the refusers perform different SARs. Indirect SARs of excuse/reason/explanation, statement of principle, and statement of regret were the preferred formula used in refusing. Besides, the power relation of the refusers who were higher, equal, and lower also distinguished the choice of semantic formula. The indirect SAR of flat “no” was not much prefered by the three power relation of the refusers. The performative verbs used in the refusal utterances are “tell, ask, threaten, promise, request, inform, forbid, and beg”. Key words: speech acts of refusals, refusal strategy, directive speech acts xii INTISARI Penolakan merupakan tindak illokusi komisif. Tindak penolakan terjadi dalam semua bahasa dan dirumuskan secara berbeda berdasarkan latar belakang budayanya. Orang-orang melakukan penolakan baik secara langsung maupun tidak langsung. Beebe dan Takahashi (1990) membuat urutan formula semantik yang dapat digunakan untuk menganalisis bentuk strategi penolakan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan formula semantik atau strategi-strategi penolakan yang digunakan dalam novel Ayat-ayat Cinta karangan Habiburrahman El Shirazy. Analisis dilakukan pada pada tindak tutur penolakan (SARs) terhadap tindak tutur permintaan, pertanyaan, saran, perintah, dan undangan. Data dianalisis dan dikelompokkan sesuai dengan taksonomi penolakan oleh Beebe dkk. Untuk melihat kata kerja performatif dalam tuturan-tuturan penolakan digunakan juga Piranti Daya Ilokusi (IFIDs). Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa para penolak melakukan tindak tutur penolakan yang berbeda. Tindak tutur penolakan tidak langsung berupa alasan/keterangan, pernyataan prinsip, dan pernyataan penyesalan merupakan formula yang banyak digunakan dalam menolak. Selain itu, status sosial para penolak juga membedakan pemilihan formula semantik. Tindak tutur tidak langsung no tidak menjadi pilihan penolak dari ketiga status sosial. Kata kerja performatif yang digunakan dalam tuturantuturan penolakan adalah “tell, ask, threaten, promise, request, inform, forbid, and beg”. Kata kunci: tindak tutur penolakan, strategi penolakan, tindak tutur direkti

The Domestic Impact of International Shaming: Evidence from Climate Change and Human Rights

Do international shaming efforts affect citizens’ support for government policies? While it is a frequent claim in the literature that shaming works through domestic politics, we know little about how and when international criticism affects domestic public opinion. We address this question through an originally designed survey experiment in Sweden, which (i) compares the effects of international shaming in two issue areas—human rights and climate change, and (ii) tests whether government responses to criticism moderate the impact of shaming. Our main findings are fourfold. First, we find substantial effects of international shaming on domestic public opinion. These effects hold across both issue areas and irrespective of whether citizens support government parties or not. Second, human rights shaming has a stronger impact on citizens’ support for government policies than climate shaming. Third, shaming is most effective among citizens who are more supportive of climate action, human rights, and international cooperation. Finally, our findings are mixed with respect to the effect of government responses. While government responses do not moderate the effects of human rights shaming, they seem to mitigate the effects of climate shaming

Transfer of conflict and cooperation from experienced games to new games: A connectionist model of learning

The question of whether, and if so how, learning can be transfered from previously experienced games to novel games has recently attracted the attention of the experimental game theory literature. Existing research presumes that learning operates over actions, beliefs or decision rules. This study instead uses a connectionist approach that learns a direct mapping from game payoffs to a probability distribution over own actions. Learning is operationalized as a backpropagation rule that adjusts the weights of feedforward neural networks in the direction of increasing the probability of an agent playing a myopic best response to the last game played. One advantage of this approach is that it expands the scope of the model to any possible nxn normal-form game allowing for a comprehensive model of transfer of learning. Agents are exposed to games drawn from one of seven classes of games with significantly different strategic characteristics and then forced to play games from previously unseen classes. I find significant transfer of learning, i.e., behavior that is path-dependent, or conditional on the previously seen games. Cooperation is more pronounced in new games when agents are previously exposed to games where the incentive to cooperate is stronger than the incentive to compete, i.e., when individual incentives are aligned. Prior exposure to Prisoner's dilemma, zero-sum and discoordination games led to a significant decrease in realized payoffs for all the game classes under investigation. A distinction is made between superficial and deep transfer of learning both---the former is driven by superficial payoff similarities between games, the latter by differences in the incentive structures or strategic implications of the games. I examine whether agents learn to play the Nash equilibria of games, how they select amongst multiple equilibria, and whether they transfer Nash equilibrium behavior to unseen games. Sufficient exposure to a strategically h

Development of the DORI-TBI: An Investigation to Develop a New Screening Measure to Determine Consultation with a School-Based Brain Injury Resource Team

Brain injury is the leading cause of disability and death in children in the United States. Student re-entry into the school setting following a traumatic brain injury is crucial to student success. Multidisciplinary teams within the school district comprised of individuals with expertise in brain injury are ideal in implementing student specific treatment plans given their specialized training and wide range of expertise addressing student needs. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop and initially validate a quantitative instrument that school personnel can use to determine if a student, identified as having a traumatic brain injury, will benefit from district-level consultation from a brain injury team. Three studies were designed to investigate the research questions. In study one, the planning and construction of the DORI-TBI was completed. Study two addressed the content validity of the DORI-TBI through a comparison analysis with other referral forms, content review with experts in the field of TBI, and cognitive interviews with professionals to test the usability of the new screening tool. In study three, a field administration was conducted using vignettes to measure construct validity. Results produced a valid and reliable new screening instrument that can aid school-based teams to more efficiently utilize district level consultation with a brain injury support team

Using a birth ball in the latent phase of labour to reduce pain perception; a randomised controlled trial.

Hospital admission in the latent phase of labour is associated with higher rates of obstetric intervention, with increased maternal and fetal morbidity. Women sent home from hospital in the latent phase to 'await events' feel anxious and cite pain as their main drive to seeking hospital admission. Using a birth ball to assume upright positions and remain mobile in the latent phase of labour in hospital is associated with less pain and anxiety. However, no research has examined the effect of using birth balls at home in the latent phase on pain perception, hospital admission or obstetric intervention. An animated infomercial was developed to promote birth ball use at home in the latent phase of labour to enhance women's self-efficacy, in order to reduce their pain perception. As a pragmatic randomised controlled single centre trial, 294 low risk women were randomly allocated to two groups. At 36 weeks’ gestation the Intervention Arm accessed the infomercial online and completed a modified Childbirth Self- Efficacy Inventory before and after viewing. They were also offered the loan of a birth ball to use at home. The Control Arm received standard care. On admission to hospital in spontaneous labour, all participants were asked to provide a Visual Analogue Scale score. Both groups were followed up six weeks postpartum with an online questionnaire. Data were analysed on an Intention To Treat basis. A significant increase was found in Outcome Expectancy and Self-efficacy Expectancy after accessing the infomercial and Intervention Arm participants were more likely to be admitted in active labour. No significant differences were found between the VAS scores, or intervention rates. Most respondents (89.2%) described the birth ball as helpful and reported high satisfaction, with comfort, empowerment and progress. The birth ball is a promising intervention to support women in the latent phase. Further research should consider a randomised cluster design