The Amsterdam Toolkit for Language Archaeology

AbstractGRK — the Grammar Recovery Kit — illustrates options for automation and corresponding tool support in the context of developing quality language references that readily cater for the derivation of parsers.GRK provides the proof-of-concept for two notions: (i) semi-automatic grammar recovery; (ii) language-reference re-engineering. GRK's support for semi-automatic grammar recovery means that GRK can be used to obtain a relatively correct and complete as well as implementable grammar from a language reference. GRK's support for language-reference re-engineering means that GRK can be used to update the original language reference such that it reflects the completed and corrected grammar knowledge.As of today, GRK is particularly fit for Cobol archaeology, more specifically for IBM's VS Cobol II. That is, GRK offers a fully mechanised process, where IBM's reference is used as an input, and the output is a transformed language reference whose grammar portions are correct and complete. (The recovery required several hundreds of simple transformation steps in order to deliver a grammar that is fit for parser derivation.) As a byproduct, GRK also generates a slow, Prolog-based parser. Via export to GRK's sibling, GDK (the Grammar Deployment Kit), a reasonably fast, btyacc-based parser can be generated as well. Both parsers accept all of the VS Cobol II code that is at our avail (several millions of lines of code)

Interpretation at the controller's edge: designing graphical user interfaces for the digital publication of the excavations at Gabii (Italy)

This paper discusses the authors’ approach to designing an interface for the Gabii Project’s digital volumes that attempts to fuse elements of traditional synthetic publications and site reports with rich digital datasets. Archaeology, and classical archaeology in particular, has long engaged with questions of the formation and lived experience of towns and cities. Such studies might draw on evidence of local topography, the arrangement of the built environment, and the placement of architectural details, monuments and inscriptions (e.g. Johnson and Millett 2012). Fundamental to the continued development of these studies is the growing body of evidence emerging from new excavations. Digital techniques for recording evidence “on the ground,” notably SFM (structure from motion aka close range photogrammetry) for the creation of detailed 3D models and for scene-level modeling in 3D have advanced rapidly in recent years. These parallel developments have opened the door for approaches to the study of the creation and experience of urban space driven by a combination of scene-level reconstruction models (van Roode et al. 2012, Paliou et al. 2011, Paliou 2013) explicitly combined with detailed SFM or scanning based 3D models representing stratigraphic evidence. It is essential to understand the subtle but crucial impact of the design of the user interface on the interpretation of these models. In this paper we focus on the impact of design choices for the user interface, and make connections between design choices and the broader discourse in archaeological theory surrounding the practice of the creation and consumption of archaeological knowledge. As a case in point we take the prototype interface being developed within the Gabii Project for the publication of the Tincu House. In discussing our own evolving practices in engagement with the archaeological record created at Gabii, we highlight some of the challenges of undertaking theoretically-situated user interface design, and their implications for the publication and study of archaeological materials

Discourse Analysis

This chapter (a) presents discourse analysis as both epistemology and methodology; (b) suggests a sociolinguistic toolkit that could be used as one type of approach to conducting discourse analysis; (c) reviews and points to literature in music education and music therapy that have used such epistemological and methodological tools; and (d) suggests that, by engaging with discourse analysis, we can begin to ask questions about participants and their interactions within environments where music therapists operate and analyze prevailing discourses within structures and systems of music therapy. [excerpt

Overview on agent-based social modelling and the use of formal languages

Transdisciplinary Models and Applications investigates a variety of programming languages used in validating and verifying models in order to assist in their eventual implementation. This book will explore different methods of evaluating and formalizing simulation models, enabling computer and industrial engineers, mathematicians, and students working with computer simulations to thoroughly understand the progression from simulation to product, improving the overall effectiveness of modeling systems.Postprint (author's final draft

What can GIS + 3D mean for landscape archaeology?

Until recently Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have held center stage in the archaeologist\u27s geospatial toolkit, and there is no doubt that archaeologists have moved beyond the mapdbut into what? In the early years, criticisms voicing GIS as environmentally-deterministic were abundant. What methods and tool have archaeologists used to overcome these criticisms? New geospatial technologies such as airborne lidar and aerial photogrammetry are allowing us to acquire inordinate amounts of georeferenced 3D datad but do these 3D technologies help overcome criticisms of environmental determinism? TogetherdGIS þ 3Dd can link georeferenced 3D models to underlying data adding a ground-based humanistic perspective lacking in the bird\u27s eye view of traditional GIS. This paper situates GIS and 3D within a semiotic framework to offer some ideas on using 3DGIS to intertwine environmental and cultural factors to work toward new approaches for landscape archaeology

The Faculty Notebook, September 2017

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost

The acheulean handaxe : More like a bird's song than a beatles' tune?

© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. KV is supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. MC is supported by the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund, and Simon Fraser UniversityPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Value and doubt: the persuasive power of 'authenticity' in the antiquities market

No abstract available

Automatic Process Model Discovery from Textual Methodologies: An Archaeology Case Study

International audience— Process mining has been successfully used in automatic knowledge discovery and in providing guidance or support. The known process mining approaches rely on processes being executed with the help of information systems thus enabling the automatic capture of process traces as event logs. However, there are many other fields such as Humanities, Social Sciences and Medicine where workers follow processes and log their execution manually in textual forms instead. The problem we tackle in this paper is mining process instance models from unstructured, text-based process traces. Using natural language processing with a focus on the verb semantics, we created a novel unsupervised technique TextProcessMiner that discovers process instance models in two steps: 1.ActivityMiner mines the process activities; 2.ActivityRelationshipMiner mines the sequence, parallelism and mutual exclusion relationships between activities. We employed technical action research through which we validated and preliminarily evaluated our proposed technique in an Archaeology case. The results are very satisfactory with 88% correctly discovered activities in the log and a process instance model that adequately reflected the original process. Moreover, the technique we created emerged as domain independent