TOPICAL EXPRESSIVITY IN SHORT TEXTS

With each passing minute, online data is growing exponentially. A bulk of such data is generated from short text social media platforms such as Twitter. Such platforms are fundamental in social media knowledge-based applications like recommender systems. Twitter, for example, provides rich real-time streaming information. Extracting knowledge from such short texts without automated support is not feasible due to Twitter\u27s platform streaming nature. Therefore, an automated method for comprehending patterns in such text is a need for many knowledge systems. This paper provides solutions to generate topics from Twitter data. We present several techniques related to topical modelling to identify topics of interest in short texts. Topic modelling is inherently problematic in shorter texts with very sparse vocabulary in addition to the informal language used in their dissemination. Such findings are informative in knowledge extraction for social media-based recommender systems as well as in understanding tweeters over time

Topic Similarity Networks: Visual Analytics for Large Document Sets

We investigate ways in which to improve the interpretability of LDA topic models by better analyzing and visualizing their outputs. We focus on examining what we refer to as topic similarity networks: graphs in which nodes represent latent topics in text collections and links represent similarity among topics. We describe efficient and effective approaches to both building and labeling such networks. Visualizations of topic models based on these networks are shown to be a powerful means of exploring, characterizing, and summarizing large collections of unstructured text documents. They help to "tease out" non-obvious connections among different sets of documents and provide insights into how topics form larger themes. We demonstrate the efficacy and practicality of these approaches through two case studies: 1) NSF grants for basic research spanning a 14 year period and 2) the entire English portion of Wikipedia.Comment: 9 pages; 2014 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (IEEE BigData 2014

On topics today

This article surveys the state of so-called topic theory today. It charts its development through two generations of topic theorists. The first is constructed around three influential texts: Leonard Ratners seminal book that established the discipline in its own right, Classic music: expression, form and style (1980); Wye Allanbrooks. Rhythmic gesture in Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni (1983); and Kofi Agawus. Playing with signs: a semiotic interpretation of classical music (1991). The second comprises significant advances in topic theory essayed through two further pairs of texts: Robert Hattens Musical meaning in Beethoven: markedness, correlation, and interpretation (1994) and Interpreting musical gestures, topics, and tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert (2004); and Raymond Monelles Linguistics and semiotics in music (1992) and The sense of music: semiotic essays (2000). Topic Theory's role as the soft hermeneutic sub-field of music semiotics (relative to the harder, formalist practices of Nattiezs neutral level analysis) is portrayed here as navigating a number of treacherous polemical paths. These wend their way between referential style (expression) and structural syntax (form); historical reconstruction and hermeneutic construction; and heightened sensitivity to social meanings and imposed acts of creative interpretation. This existence of topic theory in a continuous dialogue between structural formalism and the semantics of expressive discourse is held responsible for its marginal position both to the dominant strains of contemporary postmodern musicology and to the dying embers of formalist analysis. The failure of topic theory to strike a fashionable text-context balance thus highlights why musicology continues to view semiotics with scepticism. Ratner presents his thesaurus of style labelssomewhat dubiouslyas the historically authentic ready-to-hand materials (types and styles) of eighteenth-century expressive musical rhetoric. But it is Agawus combination of this universe of topics with a Schenker-influenced beginning-middle-end paradigm that establishes the hallmark of first generation topic theory on which the first half of this paper focuses. Agawus delicate equation between extroversive and introversive semiosis is essayed as a pivotal turning point in topic theorys ability to transcend the mere passive ascription of rhetorical labels. Out of this equation, expressive meanings can ariseas much from the non-congruence, as the congruence, of signs and structure. Hatten's critique of Agawu for neglecting the full interpretative consequences of his signifieds is the springboard for his more hermeneutically replete brand of topic theory and the emergence of the second generation topic theorists. Hattens use of troping (a kind of musical metaphor), is one of many interpretative tools that are responsible for broadening the arena of topic theorysome of his others being: expressive genres, emergent meanings and markedness theory. These are deployed across a variety of musical parameters as Hattens attention increasingly turns to the prototypicality of topics in their euphoric and dysphoric states. Hattens interpretative work is shown to transcend historical reconstruction to comprise creative interpretation built on a much broader definition of expressive gestures, of which topics are only a constituent part. The article concludes with Monelles expos of the dubious historical underpinnings of Ratners topic theory foundations. This does not render this vibrant branch of semiotics redundant but, on the contrary, charts its future direction as one calling out for far deeper historical investigation and cultural criticism. Monelles enlightening forays into the more replete expressive meanings of such topics as the horse and pianto make this point abundantly clear. The future of topics today, if not musicology in general, is one of cultural criticism

Stylization and representation in subtitles: can less be more?

This article considers film dialogues and interlingual subtitles from the point of view of linguistic and cultural representation, and revisits from that perspective the question of loss, as a platform for considering alternative views on the topic and broader theoretical issues. The cross-cultural pragmatics perspective and focus on viewers’ reactions that dealing with representation entails cast the question of loss in a different light and opens up avenues for alternative modes of analysis. They make room for subtitles to be construed as producing their own systems of multimodal textual representation and modes of interpretation, and for their text to be recognised as having a greater expressive and representational potential than face values might suggest. This is the argument, informed by Fowler's Theory of Mode (1991, 2000), that is taken up in the paper, and harnessed to the review of examples or observations from recent studies on subtitles, and complementary evidence from dubbing. The capacity of subtitles to produce insights into the cultures and languages represented is of particular interest, and has wider implications for the culturally instrumental functions of subtitles and translation strategies

La graphologie de Klages est-elle encore d’actualité ?

This paper examines Ludwig Klages’ graphology. First, we discuss the status of graphology in his philosophy. Then, we will present Klages’ attempt to develop graphology and establish it as a psychological interpretation of handwriting. In addition to these fundamental considerations, we will address the question of the status of handwriting in the present. The result of the analysis will show that Klages’ teaching on the psychology of handwriting must be placed in the context of new global technological trends.U ovom radu se razmatra grafologija Ludwiga Klagesa. Najprije ćemo govoriti o statusu grafologije u njegovoj filozofiji. Zatim ćemo predstaviti Klagesov pokušaj da se grafologija razvije i utemelji kao psihološka interpretacija rukopisa. Pored ovih načelnih razmatranja dotičemo se pitanja statusa rukopisa u suvremenom dobu. Rezultat analize pokazat će da Klagesovo učenje o psihologiji rukopisa mora biti stavljeno u kontekst novih globalnih tehnoloških trendova.Diese Arbeit setzt sich mit der Graphologie von Ludwig Klages auseinander. Zunächst wird über den Status der Graphologie in seiner Philosophie gesprochen. Danach werden wir Klages’ Versuch, die Graphologie zu entwickeln und als psychologische Interpretation der Handschrift zu etablieren, präsentieren. Zusätzlich zu diesen grundlegenden Überlegungen werden wir uns mit der Frage des Statuses der Handschrift in der Gegenwart befassen. Das Resultat der Analyse wird zeigen, dass Klages’ Lehre von der Psychologie der Handschrift in den Kontext der neuen globalen technologischen Trends gestellt werden muss.Le présent article examine la graphologie de Klages. D’abord, nous discutons du statut de la graphologie dans sa philosophie. Ensuite, nous présentons sa tentative de développer la graphologie et de l’établir en tant qu’interprétation psychologique de l’écriture. Outre ces considérations fondamentales, nous abordons la question du statut de l’écriture à l’époque contemporaine. Les résultats de notre analyse montrent que l’enseignement de Klages sur la psychologie de l’écriture doivent être situés dans le contexte des nouvelles tendances technologique mondiales

Comprehensive Review of Opinion Summarization

The abundance of opinions on the web has kindled the study of opinion summarization over the last few years. People have introduced various techniques and paradigms to solving this special task. This survey attempts to systematically investigate the different techniques and approaches used in opinion summarization. We provide a multi-perspective classification of the approaches used and highlight some of the key weaknesses of these approaches. This survey also covers evaluation techniques and data sets used in studying the opinion summarization problem. Finally, we provide insights into some of the challenges that are left to be addressed as this will help set the trend for future research in this area.unpublishednot peer reviewe

SEMIOTIC AND NARRATIVE ELEMENTS IN FRANZ LISZT’S VALLÉE D’OBERMANN

Liszt’s Vallée d’Obermann, like many piano works from his Années de Pèlerinage, is explicitly linked to extramusical sources. In this case the inspiration is ostensibly Étienne Pivert de Senancour’s novel Obermann, from which Liszt includes excerpts in the piece’s epigraph. However, epigraphs and perceived extramusical inspirations are not always reliable in understanding musical narrative. Given the uncertain nature of to what extent the narrative content of Obermann influenced Liszt’s composition, this document explores an underlying level of narrative using the analytical model set forth by Byron Almén in A Theory of Musical Narrative (2008). The analysis examines semiotic and narratological elements including the interactions of topics, temporality, narrative implications rooted in harmony, and the expressive function of these elements within Sonata form. Ultimately, the results of these discursive interactions are expressed through the assignation of a narrative archetype based on Northtrop Frye’s “cycle of mythoi.

From image to text to speech : The effects of speech prosody on information sequencing in audio description

Given the extensive body of research in audio description – the verbal-vocal description of visual or audiovisual content for visually impaired audiences – it is striking how little attention has been paid thus far to the spoken dimension of audio description and its para-linguistic, prosodic aspects. This article complements the previous research into how audio description speech is received by the partially sighted audiences by analyzing how it is performed vocally. We study the audio description of pictorial art, and one aspect of prosody is examined in detail: pitch, and the segmentation of information in relation to it. We analyze this relation in a corpus of audio described pictorial art in Finnish by combining phonetic measurements of the pitch with discourse analysis of the information segmentation. Previous studies have already shown that a sentence-initial high pitch acts as a discourse-structuring device in interpreting. Our study shows that the same applies to audio description. In addition, our study suggests that there is a relationship between the scale in the rise of pitch and the scale of the topical transition. That is, when the topical transition is clear, the rise of pitch level between the beginnings of two consecutive spoken sentences is large. Analogically, when the topical transition is small, the change of the sentence-initial pitch level is also rather small.Given the extensive body of research in audio description – the verbal-vocal description of visual or audiovisual content for visually impaired audiences – it is striking how little attention has been paid thus far to the spoken dimension of audio description and its para-linguistic, prosodic aspects. This article complements the previous research into how audio description speech is received by the partially sighted audiences by analyzing how it is performed vocally. We study the audio description of pictorial art, and one aspect of prosody is examined in detail: pitch, and the segmentation of information in relation to it. We analyze this relation in a corpus of audio described pictorial art in Finnish by combining phonetic measurements of the pitch with discourse analysis of the information segmentation. Previous studies have already shown that a sentence-initial high pitch acts as a discourse-structuring device in interpreting. Our study shows that the same applies to audio description. In addition, our study suggests that there is a relationship between the scale in the rise of pitch and the scale of the topical transition. That is, when the topical transition is clear, the rise of pitch level between the beginnings of two consecutive spoken sentences is large. Analogically, when the topical transition is small, the change of the sentence-initial pitch level is also rather small.Peer reviewe