854 research outputs found
Bringing machine learning and compositional semantics together
Abstract Computational semantics has long been seen as a field divided between logical and statistical approaches, but this divide is rapidly eroding, with the development of statistical models that learn compositional semantic theories from corpora and databases. This paper presents a simple discriminative learning framework for defining such models and relating them to logical theories. Within this framework, we discuss the task of learning to map utterances to logical forms (semantic parsing) and the task of learning from denotations with logical forms as latent variables. We also consider models that use distributed (e.g., vector) representations rather than logical ones, showing that these can be seen as part of the same overall framework for understanding meaning and structural complexity
Interactive Technologies for the Public Sphere Toward a Theory of Critical Creative Technology
Digital media cultural practices continue to address the social, cultural and aesthetic
contexts of the global information economy, perhaps better called ecology, by inventing
new methods and genres that encourage interactive engagement, collaboration, exploration
and learning. The theoretical framework for creative critical technology evolved from the
confluence of the arts, human computer interaction, and critical theories of technology.
Molding this nascent theoretical framework from these seemingly disparate disciplines was
a reflexive process where the influence of each component on each other spiraled into the
theory and practice as illustrated through the Constructed Narratives project. Research
that evolves from an arts perspective encourages experimental processes of making as a
method for defining research principles. The traditional reductionist approach to research
requires that all confounding variables are eliminated or silenced using methods of
statistics. However, that noise in the data, those confounding variables provide the rich
context, media, and processes by which creative practices thrive. As research in the arts
gains recognition for its contributions of new knowledge, the traditional reductive practice
in search of general principles will be respectfully joined by methodologies for defining
living principles that celebrate and build from the confounding variables, the data noise.
The movement to develop research methodologies from the noisy edges of human
interaction have been explored in the research and practices of ludic design and ambiguity
(Gaver, 2003); affective gap (Sengers et al., 2005b; 2006); embodied interaction (Dourish,
2001); the felt life (McCarthy & Wright, 2004); and reflective HCI (Dourish, et al., 2004).
The theory of critical creative technology examines the relationships between critical
theories of technology, society and aesthetics, information technologies and contemporary
practices in interaction design and creative digital media. The theory of critical creative
technology is aligned with theories and practices in social navigation (Dourish, 1999) and
community-based interactive systems (Stathis, 1999) in the development of smart
appliances and network systems that support people in engaging in social activities,
promoting communication and enhancing the potential for learning in a community-based
environment. The theory of critical creative technology amends these community-based
and collaborative design theories by emphasizing methods to facilitate face-to-face
dialogical interaction when the exchange of ideas, observations, dreams, concerns, and
celebrations may be silenced by societal norms about how to engage others in public
spaces.
The Constructed Narratives project is an experiment in the design of a critical creative
technology that emphasizes the collaborative construction of new knowledge about one's
lived world through computer-supported collaborative play (CSCP). To construct is to
creatively invent one's world by engaging in creative decision-making, problem solving
and acts of negotiation. The metaphor of construction is used to demonstrate how a simple
artefact - a building block - can provide an interactive platform to support discourse
between collaborating participants. The technical goal for this project was the development
of a software and hardware platform for the design of critical creative technology
applications that can process a dynamic flow of logistical and profile data from multiple
users to be used in applications that facilitate dialogue between people in a real-time
playful interactive experience
Representing information using parametric visual effects on groupware avatars
Parametric visual effects such as texture generation and shape grammars can be controlled to produce visually perceptible variation. This variation can be rendered on avatars in groupware systems in real time to represent user information in online environments. This type of extra information has been shown to enrich recognition and characterization, but has previously been limited to iconic representations. Modern, highly graphical virtual worlds require more naturalistic and stylistically consistent techniques to represent information.
A number of different parametric texture generation techniques are considered and a set of texture characteristics are developed. The variations of these texture characteristics are examined in a study to determine how well users can recognize the visual changes in each. Another study is done to determine how much screen space is required for users to recognize these visual changes in a subset of these texture characteristics.
Additionally, an example shape generation system is developed as an example of how shape grammars and L-systems can be used to represent information using a space ship metaphor.
These different parametric visual effects are implemented in an example prototype system using space ships. This prototype is a complete functioning groupware application developed in XNA that utilizes many parametric texture and shape effects
Recommended from our members
Planning multisentential English text using communicative acts
The goal of this research is to develop explanation presentation mechanisms for knowledge based
systems which enable them to define domain terminology and concepts, narrate events, elucidate plans,
processes, or propositions and argue to support a claim or advocate action. This requires the development
of devices which select, structure, order and then linguistically realize explanation content as coherent and
cohesive English text.
With the goal of identifying generic explanation presentation strategies, a wide range of naturally
occurring texts were analyzed with respect to their communicative sttucture, function, content and intended
effects on the reader. This motivated an integrated theory of communicative acts which characterizes text at
the level of rhetorical acts (e.g., describe, define, narrate), illocutionary acts (e.g., inform, request), and
locutionary acts (e.g., ask, command). Taken as a whole, the identified communicative acts characterize
the structure, content and intended effects of four types of text: description, narration, exposition,
argument. These text types have distinct effects such as getting the reader to know about entities, to know
about events, to understand plans, processes, or propositions, or to believe propositions or want to
perform actions. In addition to identifying the communicative function and effect of text at multiple levels
of abstraction, this dissertation details a tripartite theory of focus of attention (discourse focus, temporal
focus, and spatial focus) which constrains the planning and linguistic realization of text.
To test the integrated theory of communicative acts and tripartite theory of focus of attention, a text
generation system TEXPLAN (Textual EXplanation PLANner) was implemented that plans and
linguistically realizes multisentential and multiparagraph explanations from knowledge based systems. The
communicative acts identified during text analysis were formalized as over sixty compositional and (in
some cases) recursive plan operators in the library of a hierarchical planner. Discourse, temporal, and
spatial focus models were implemented to track and use attentional information to guide the organization
and realization of text. Because the plan operators distinguish between the communicative function (e.g.,
argue for a proposition) and the expected effect (e.g., the reader believes the proposition) of communicative
acts, the system is able to construct a discourse model of the structure and function of its textual responses
as well as a user model of the expected effects of its responses on the reader's knowledge, beliefs, and
desires. The system uses both the discourse model and user model to guide subsequent utterances. To test
its generality, the system was interfaced to a variety of domain applications including a neuropsychological
diagnosis system, a mission planning system, and a knowledge based mission simulator. The system
produces descriptions, narrations, expositions, and arguments from these applications, thus exhibiting a
broader range of rhetorical coverage than previous text generation systems
Applied and Computational Linguistics
Розглядається сучасний стан прикладної та комп’ютерної лінгвістики, проаналізовано лінгвістичні теорії 20-го – початку 21-го століть під кутом розмежування різних аспектів мови з метою формалізованого опису у електронних лінгвістичних ресурсах. Запропоновано критичний огляд таких актуальних проблем прикладної (комп’ютерної) лінгвістики як укладання комп’ютерних лексиконів та електронних текстових корпусів, автоматична обробка природної мови, автоматичний синтез та розпізнавання мовлення, машинний переклад, створення інтелектуальних роботів, здатних сприймати інформацію природною мовою. Для студентів та аспірантів гуманітарного профілю, науково-педагогічних працівників вищих навчальних закладів України
Semantic Indexing via Knowledge Organization Systems: Applying the CIDOC-CRM to Archaeological Grey Literature
The volume of archaeological reports being produced since the introduction of PG161
has
significantly increased, as a result of the increased volume of archaeological investigations
conducted by academic and commercial archaeology. It is highly desirable to be able to
search effectively within and across such reports in order to find information that promotes
quality research. A potential dissemination of information via semantic technologies offers
the opportunity to improve archaeological practice, not only by enabling access to
information but also by changing how information is structured and the way research is
conducted.
This thesis presents a method for automatic semantic indexing of archaeological greyliterature
reports using rule-based Information Extraction techniques in combination with
domain-specific ontological and terminological resources. This semantic annotation of
contextual abstractions from archaeological grey-literature is driven by Natural Language
Processing (NLP) techniques which are used to identify “rich” meaningful pieces of text,
thus overcoming barriers in document indexing and retrieval imposed by the use of natural
language. The semantic annotation system (OPTIMA) performs the NLP tasks of Named
Entity Recognition, Relation Extraction, Negation Detection and Word Sense
disambiguation using hand-crafted rules and terminological resources for associating
contextual abstractions with classes of the ISO Standard (ISO 21127:2006) CIDOC
Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) for cultural heritage and its archaeological extension,
CRM-EH, together with concepts from English Heritage thesauri and glossaries.
The results demonstrate that the techniques can deliver semantic annotations of
archaeological grey literature documents with respect to the domain conceptual models.
Such semantic annotations have proven capable of supporting semantic query, document
study and cross-searching via web based applications. The research outcomes have
provided semantic annotations for the Semantic Technologies for Archaeological
Resources (STAR) project, which explored the potential of semantic technologies in the
integration of archaeological digital resources. The thesis represents the first discussion on
the employment of CIDOC CRM and CRM-EH in semantic annotation of grey-literature
documents using rule-based Information Extraction techniques driven by a supplementary
exploitation of domain-specific ontological and terminological resources. It is anticipated
that the methods can be generalised in the future to the broader field of Digital Humanities
Exocentric Noun Phrases in English
The term ‘exocentric noun phrase’ (ENP) refers to a noun phrase without a head noun. The category of ENPs contains a range of nominal constructions including phrasal ones (e.g. the rich, the dead, whose head nouns denoting human references are missing) and clausal ones (e.g. I’ll eat what you give me, in which there seems to be a missing nominal antecedent). Although these constructions have been studied before, there has been very little comprehensive research on ENPs as a category. This thesis has two aims to accomplish: first, it fully examines ENPs with the support of contemporary and historical corpus data; secondly, based on this direct syntactic examination of ENPs, it critically evaluates the possibility of a unified theory. The first aim is addressed in Chapters 3 to 8, in which I conduct systematic reviews of four representative kinds of ENPs in English, i.e. Generic Constructions (ENPs with a pattern of ‘determinative + adjective’ such as the rich or the sublime), referential metonymy (e.g. Shakespeare is on the bookshelf, where Shakespeare refers to his works), compound pronouns (indefinite pronouns with compounding morphology such as someone or anything) and free relatives (relative clauses without explicit antecedents, e.g. She is who I refer to). Syntactic explanations are proposed for each of these ENPs. The second aim is addressed in Chapter 9, based on the proposals of the previous chapters. I argue, contra Huddleston & Pullum et al. (2002) and Payne et al. (2007), that there cannot be a unified solution for all ENPs, including their ‘fusion of functions’ theory (FFT): although ENPs share a superficially similar syntactic structure characterised by the lack of head nouns, the forms of the missing head nouns and the mechanisms underlying the absence of these head nouns vary (historical ellipsis, compounding, conjunction of clauses, etc.). As a result, each kind of ENP needs an individual, more specific account that takes into consideration its own syntactic behaviour and historical development
Chomskyan (R)evolutions
It is not unusual for contemporary linguists to claim that “Modern Linguistics began in 1957” (with the publication of Noam Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures). Some of the essays in Chomskyan (R)evolutions examine the sources, the nature and the extent of the theoretical changes Chomsky introduced in the 1950s. Other contributions explore the key concepts and disciplinary alliances that have evolved considerably over the past sixty years, such as the meanings given for “Universal Grammar”, the relationship of Chomskyan linguistics to other disciplines (Cognitive Science, Psychology, Evolutionary Biology), and the interactions between mainstream Chomskyan linguistics and other linguistic theories active in the late 20th century: Functionalism, Generative Semantics and Relational Grammar. The broad understanding of the recent history of linguistics points the way towards new directions and methods that linguistics can pursue in the future
- …