Successes and challenges in developing a hybrid approach to sentiment analysis

This article covers some success and learning experiences attained during the developing of a hybrid approach to Sentiment Analysis (SA) based on a Sentiment Lexicon, Semantic Rules, Negation Handling, Ambiguity Management and Linguistic Variables. The proposed hybrid method is presented and applied to two selected datasets: Movie Review and Sentiment Twitter datasets. The achieved results are compared against those obtained when Naïve Bayes (NB) and Maximum Entropy (ME) supervised machine learning classification methods are used for the same datasets. The proposed hybrid system attained higher accuracy and precision scores than NB and ME, which shows its superiority when applied to the SA problem at the sentence level. Finally, an alternative strategy to calculating the orientation polarity and polarity intensity in one step instead of the two steps method used in the hybrid approach is explored. The analysis of the yielded mixed results achieved with this alternative approach shows its potential as an aid in the computation of semantic orientations and produced some lessons learnt in developing a more effective mechanism to calculating the orientation polarity and polarity intensity

Social Bots: Human-Like by Means of Human Control?

Social bots are currently regarded an influential but also somewhat mysterious factor in public discourse and opinion making. They are considered to be capable of massively distributing propaganda in social and online media and their application is even suspected to be partly responsible for recent election results. Astonishingly, the term `Social Bot' is not well defined and different scientific disciplines use divergent definitions. This work starts with a balanced definition attempt, before providing an overview of how social bots actually work (taking the example of Twitter) and what their current technical limitations are. Despite recent research progress in Deep Learning and Big Data, there are many activities bots cannot handle well. We then discuss how bot capabilities can be extended and controlled by integrating humans into the process and reason that this is currently the most promising way to go in order to realize effective interactions with other humans.Comment: 36 pages, 13 figure

Millions fed: Proven successes in agricultural development

Learning from successes in agricultural development is now more urgent than ever. Progress in feeding the world’s billions has slowed, while the challenge of meeting future food needs remains enormous and is subject to new uncertainties in the global food and agricultural systems. In the late 1950s around a billion people were estimated to go hungry every day. Scientists, policymakers, farmers, and ordinary people initiated a concerted push to boost agricultural production and productivity in developing countries. Great strides were also made in improving the quality of food and the ability of vulnerable people to access food needed for survival. All these efforts have done more than just feed millions. They have also demonstrated that agriculture can be a key driver of growth and development for many of the world’s poorest countries.Developing countries, Food prices, Poverty reduction, Hunger, malnutrition, Agricultural research, Agricultural technology, food security, Agricultural development, Climate change, Agricultural markets, Agricultural policies, Science and technology,

Who is the L3C Entrepreneur? The pioneers of social enterprise's revolutionary new suffix

This paper is not a scientifically valid survey of L3Cs. It is based on qualitative, anecdotal research only. It is not a quantitative analysis and should not substitute for such data. This paper is also not a technical paper or persuasive paper advocating for the L3C. Several individuals who have been entrenched in this movement for many years have articulated the technical merits and flaws very clearly. (For suggestions on detailed legal and technical analysis of the L3C, see Appendix B.) This paper also focuses mostly on L3C entrepreneurs, not its detractors. While several flaws, challenges, issues and concerns over the L3C are raised in this paper, we did not speak to those who have spoken out against the L3C

Heroes and Victims:Fund Manager Sense-making, Self-legitimation and Storytelling

This paper explores how fund managers continue to do their job when on one level they know they cannot all be exceptional. They do this by telling stories, constructing satisfying narratives to explain to themselves, as well as others, why their investments work out and providing equally plausible reasons for when they underperform. Using the story typology of Gabriel (2000. Storytelling in Organizations: Facts, Fictions, and Fantasies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.) – epic, tragic, comic and romantic, we explore two sets of fund manager narratives. First, we analyse the transcripts of interviews with 50 equity fund managers in some of the world's largest investment houses. Second, we examine a similar number of published fund manager reports to their investors. In both cases, we show how storytelling is used by asset managers to make sense of what they do and justify their value to themselves as well their clients and employers. Similar processes are employed in both sets of narratives, one verbal and informal, the other written and formal. Our study serves to highlight how storytelling is an integral part of the work of the professional investor

Reflecting the real world?: How British TV portrayed developing countries in 2005

TV audiences are fed up with how the developing world is portrayed on the small screen, according to a new VSO report published today. Reflecting the real world? How British TV portrayed developing countries in 2005 reveals that television viewers have an overwhelmingly negative view of the developing world and that they hold TV responsible. The report shows that viewers have a real appetite for richer representations of the world outside the UK and calls on broadcasters to invest more money, creativity and talent in bringing the world to UK audiences. The report is based on interviews with TV viewers and leading broadcasters. It shows that despite the high level of developing world coverage on TV over the last year, there has been no sign of a positive shift in public attitude. TV viewers associated the developing world with famine, disaster and corruption and people's initial image was very often of starving babies with flies around their eyes. The research highlights that news coverage and charity campaigns have also contributed to a feeling that the developing world is a hopeless cause. News reporting of the Asian Tsunami and the Pakistan earthquake brought people's attention to poorer countries but reinforced a doom-laden view of them. Even the Make Poverty History campaign and the Live 8 concerts, which enthused millions of people, appear to have inadvertently contrived to confirm a stereotype of Africa as a continent on its knees and added to a sense that nothing has changed over the last 20 years. The research uncovered a very strong sentiment that TV coverage of developing countries is too negative. Viewers expressed a desire to see the positive side of life in the developing world and hear about any progress being made. Crucially, they wanted TV programmes that were positive and transforming, challenged their perceptions, and contained human interest stories, real-life issues and characters they can relate to. Their ideas for new developing world programming tended to reflect their favourite genres and included Jamie's African School Dinners, Life Swap, African Grand Designs, Spooks or 24 in Africa and Africa's Next Top Model

Exploring Teachers' Experiences of Teaching Online During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed Methods Multi-Phase Study

This is a mixed methods multi-phase study that measured teachers’ sense of efficacy for teaching online at the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020. As the pandemic persisted into the 2020-21 school year, the study was expanded to include a second phase that sought to understand teacher efficacy and experience of teaching online one year into the transition to emergency remote online teaching during the pandemic. The aim of this research was to better understand how to best support teachers as they adapted to online teaching and to use the data to build ongoing and professional learning support for effective online teaching. The study examined the impact of prior experience teaching online, experience teaching online during the pandemic, and access to online training on teacher self-efficacy as teachers adapted to online learning in the context of the pandemic. What became clear was that teaching remotely online under emergency measures is different from normal online teaching. The results of the study in the initial phase found correlations between teachers’ sense of efficacy for teaching online with using a learning management system (LMS) before transitioning online. Having had online training and access to virtual tech support were also associated with a higher sense of efficacy. In the second phase, teachers’ collaboration with colleagues to solve issues and learn affected teacher efficacy. The study also found that access to technical and pedagogical support resources impacted teachers’ sense of efficacy and experience teaching online. One outcome of this study is support for the argument distinguishing between emergency remote teaching and learning and online teaching and learning. Further, the findings emerge from this study support recommendations for dedicated teacher professional development that addresses the challenges and opportunities of designing and implementing emergency remote teaching and learning environments

Clear Consensus, Ambiguous Commitment

Americans from every demographic, socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic category identify themselves as concerned about the environment, and most say that they have personally taken steps to reduce pollution or improve environmental quality in some way. One of the most salient cultural and social signatures of the contemporary era in the United States, and throughout much of the world, has been the diffusion of a desire to protect, preserve, and restore features of the natural environment to a greater degree than current practices and policies do. These environmental concerns are not only widely shared, they have been extended to become a wide policy agenda. No longer confined to preserving national parks or eliminating the most noxious forms of smog and the most obvious kinds of water pollution, the environmental agenda has expanded to embrace the preservation of open spaces, critical habitats, wetlands, tropical rain forests, and other natural areas; the reduction of all forms of harmful pollution and emissions; and the reformation of personal habits of consumption and corporate practices of production that underlie the supply and demand of products that directly or indirectly harm the environment. Environmental implications are everywhere and they have seeped into everyone\u27s consciousness