Survey of the State of the Art in Natural Language Generation: Core tasks, applications and evaluation

This paper surveys the current state of the art in Natural Language Generation (NLG), defined as the task of generating text or speech from non-linguistic input. A survey of NLG is timely in view of the changes that the field has undergone over the past decade or so, especially in relation to new (usually data-driven) methods, as well as new applications of NLG technology. This survey therefore aims to (a) give an up-to-date synthesis of research on the core tasks in NLG and the architectures adopted in which such tasks are organised; (b) highlight a number of relatively recent research topics that have arisen partly as a result of growing synergies between NLG and other areas of artificial intelligence; (c) draw attention to the challenges in NLG evaluation, relating them to similar challenges faced in other areas of Natural Language Processing, with an emphasis on different evaluation methods and the relationships between them.Comment: Published in Journal of AI Research (JAIR), volume 61, pp 75-170. 118 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl

Aspects of openness and specificity in post-minimal music

This commentary discusses my exploration in applying openness to minimalist compositional methods in the forms of inclusivity, democracy, intuition, improvisation and non-teleology. Additionally, I consider methods of balancing such openness with the specificity of virtuosity, idiom and process within my Master of Arts by Research portfolio of compositions. Each section of the thesis details my approach to different aspects of openness and specificity as a post-minimalist composer and how I have considered them in my music, including; contextualising my music within contemporary and historical manifestations of minimalist music and wider discourse; paradigms of role, format and protocol in the musical process; enculturation in the process of musical learning. I have referred to a wide range of academic and informal literature, music and media to substantiate my research interests as relevant to contemporary music and its practitioners, and widespread in popular and vernacular idioms. I conclude to clarify the position of my compositions and their methodologies in a relevant post-minimalist context and their functions as archetypes of a pragmatic system for future compositions

How grammar introduces asymmetry into cognitive structures: compositional semantics, metaphors, and schematological hybrids

This paper presents a preliminary and tentative formulation of a novel empirical generalization governing the relationship between grammar and cognition across a variety of independent domains. Its point of departure is an abstract distinction between two kinds of cognitive structures: symmetric and asymmetric. While in principle any feature whatsoever has the potential for introducing asymmetry, this paper focuses on one specific feature, namely thematic-role assignment. Our main empirical finding concerns the role of language, or, more specifically, grammar, in effecting and maintaining the distinction between symmetric and asymmetric cognitive structures. Specifically, whereas symmetric structures devoid of thematic-role assignment more commonly occur in a non-grammatical and usually also non-verbal medium, asymmetric structures involving thematic-role assignment are more likely to be associated with a grammatical medium. Our work draws together three independent strands of empirical research associated with three diverse phenomenological domains: compositional semantics, metaphors and schematological hybrids. These three domains instantiate conceptual combinations, bringing together two or more subordinate entities into a single superordinate entity. For compositional semantics this consists of a juxtaposition of constituent signs to form a single more complex sign; for metaphors this entails the bringing together of two different concepts in order to produce a comparison; while for schematological hybrids this involves the combination of different entities to form a single new hybrid entity. Our empirical results reveal a remarkable parallelism between the above three domains. Within each domain, symmetric structures tend to be associated with a non-verbal or otherwise non-grammatical medium, while asymmetric structures are more frequently associated with a grammatical medium. Thus, within each domain, grammar introduces asymmetry. More specifically, we find that in all three domains, the asymmetry in question is one that involves the assignment of thematic roles. To capture this effect, we posit two distinct levels, or tiers, of cognition: non-grammatical cognition, more commonly associated with symmetric structures, and grammatical cognition more conducive to asymmetric structures. Within each of the three phenomenological domains, we find the distinction between non-grammatical and grammatical cognition to be manifest in three independent realms, phylogeny, ontogeny, and the architecture of human cognition. Thus, grammar constitutes the driving force behind the transition from symmetric to asymmetric cognitive structures.Introduction Thematic Role Assignment Compositional Semantics Metaphors Schematological Hybrids Conclusio

Teaching addition and subtraction by the method of bidirectional translation: an empirical study

Bidirectional Translation, devised by the author, is a structured approach to the teaching of addition and subtraction which aims to give children greater understanding of arithmetical operations. The approach systematically involves both: the translation of numerical representations into hypothetical, real world contexts; and the extraction of the appropriate numerical operations from hypothetical, real world contexts. It is this emphasis on translation from and to both the numerical representation and realistic contexts which gives rise to the name, Bidirectional Translation. An experimental group of 90 primary one children were taught to add and subtract (within 10) by the method of Bidirectional Translation. Post-test comparison of the experimental subjects' performance with that of a control group showed significantly superior performance on the part of the experimental subjects in terms of the utilizability of addition, the evocability of addition, the utilizability of subtraction and the evocability of subtraction for five different classes of verbal context, namely: Part-Part Whole, Separating, Joining, Equalizing and Comparison contexts. In all instances the probability of the results being chance ones were less than 5% and in most, were less than 1%. In both the experimental and control groups, most children performed better when they were required to utilize concepts than when they were required to evoke concepts. Similarly they performed better when they were required to add than when they were required to subtract. The differences, however, were not always significant. It is suggested that the effectiveness of the methodology of Bidirectional Translation is rooted in a structure which allows the child to make his/her thinking explicit and which allows the teacher to monitor this

Time and Space in Digital Game Storytelling

The design and representation of time and space are important in any narrative form. Not surprisingly there is an extensive literature on specific considerations of space or time in game design. However, there is less attention to more systematic analyses that examine both of these key factors—including their dynamic interrelationship within game storytelling. This paper adapts critical frameworks of narrative space and narrative time drawn from other media and demonstrates their application in the understanding of game narratives. In order to do this we incorporate fundamental concepts from the field of game studies to build a game-specific framework for analyzing the design of narrative time and narrative space. The paper applies this framework against a case analysis in order to demonstrate its operation and utility. This process grounds the understanding of game narrative space and narrative time in broader traditions of narrative discourse and analysis

Introduction

First paragraph: In the Mexican film Cronos (1993), a mysterious device designed to provide its owner with eternal life resurfaces after four hundred years, leaving a trail of destruction in its path. When opened, the device stabs the handler and the incision stimulates youthful vigour and a vampire’s need for blood. Directed by Guillermo del Toro, who would go on to make the Gothic horror films Devil’s Backbone (2001), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and the American mainstream vampire superhero action movie Blade II (2002), Cronos is part of a tradition of vampire narratives in the American tropics that stretches from the civatateo of Aztec mythology to the tale of the azeman in Surinam to the oral stories of the peuchen in Chile to the lobisomem of Brazilian folklore to the soucouyant and volant in the Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean. But Cronos is also part of a significant Gothic cinematic tradition in the tropics of the Americas that includes, among many others, vampire films such as Vampiros (2004) by the Puerto Rican director Eduardo Ortíz, Sangre eternal (Eternal Blood, 2002) by Jorge Olguin from Chile, as well as the Columbian films Pura sangre (Pure Blood, 1982) by Luis Ospina and Carne de tu carne (Flesh of Your Flesh, 1983) by Carlos Mayolo. In fact, Mayolo refers to his vampire movie and his haunting work La mansión de Araucaíma (The Manor of Araucaíma 1986) as ‘Gótico tropical’ (tropical Gothic) films that revolve around ‘la estructura del gótico’, a gothic structure in a tropical setting (9)

Police Stories

As lawyers and judges know, the facts, and the stories created with those facts, make the law: “[A] case well stated is more than half argued.” The police narrative is one of the most common narratives in legal writing, simply because there are so many criminal cases, as well as numerous civil cases, involving police. For the most part, these narratives tell the familiar story of the hardworking, careful police officer in a challenging situation with dangerous criminals. These narratives do much of the work of an appellate argument, just as Chief Justice Robert’s story about Officer Devlin makes the case that an experienced officer’s conclusion that he has just seen a drug transaction deserves the Court’s deference. The story drives the law. Should we therefore be suspicious of these police narratives? No more than we should read any legal narrative carefully, alert to what is being emphasized and what is left out. But especially when a narrative taps into common cultural stories, it can be difficult to imagine a different version, let alone a different ending. The general shocked reaction of many white Americans to the 2014 and 2015 videos of police shootings of unarmed black men illustrates the strength of these cultural narratives, and the need to question them. The videos suggested and gave credence to a counternarrative, in a way that verbal eyewitness testimony could not. What is true for the public at large is also true for legal writers and readers. Recent video recordings of police encounters with the public are not the only reason to consider the power of the police narrative in judicial writing. The exonerations of numerous wrongly convicted people over the past several decades have also revealed the fallibility of the justice system, and the danger of relying too readily upon police stories. As of this writing, over 1,859 people have been exonerated since 1989. In many of these cases, police accounts of the events turned out to be incomplete or even untruthful. My purpose in this essay, then, is to show how particular police narratives are retold in appellate decisions, and to demonstrate also the less common alternative narratives. The essay proceeds as follows: I will first describe briefly the police narrative we are familiar with from popular culture—in particular, television dramas. Next, I will examine the police narrative in appellate opinions. My review is anecdotal—I make no attempt to quantify or exhaustively survey all opinions involving police. Finally, I discuss examples of counter-narratives in judicial opinions, where people who come in contact with police are humanized or where additional context is introduced. I conclude that there is nothing wrong with telling the police story, but trouble results when the telling is automatic or not justified. Understanding the dominance of the popular heroic police narrative can perhaps weaken its grip on the writer and reader’s imagination, and make us less likely to automatically fit new facts into familiar patterns.Hele