An improved method for text summarization using lexical chains

This work is directed toward the creation of a system for automatically sum-marizing documents by extracting selected sentences. Several heuristics including position, cue words, and title words are used in conjunction with lexical chain in-formation to create a salience function that is used to rank sentences for extraction. Compiler technology, including the Flex and Bison tools, is used to create the AutoExtract summarizer that extracts and combines this information from the raw text. The WordNet database is used for the creation of the lexical chains. The AutoExtract summarizer performed better than the Microsoft Word97 AutoSummarize tool and the Sinope commercial summarizer in tests against ideal extracts and in tests judged by humans

Fuel and faith: A spiritual geography of fossil fuels in Western Canada

With the acceleration of climate change, Canada\u27s commitment to action on carbon emissions faces several vital contradictions. These tensions have economic, social, and communicative dimensions. This research seeks to investigate some of these manifestations by looking at how energy is understood and articulated through the lens of faith. Unique to the Canadian cultural/petrol landscape is that the physical geography of extraction and transport often overlaps with the cultural and spiritual geographies of protestant Christian faith. To date, few scholars have tackled this subject through this specific lens. While some scholars and Christian leaders have begun to address the overlapping relations of climate change, fossil fuels, and belief (Marshall, 2020; Dochuk, 2019; Jenkins, Berry, & Kreider, 2018; Hayhoe, 2018; Ghosh, 2017; Taylor, Van Wieren, & Zaleha, 2016; Franics, 2015; McDuff, 2012; Wilkinson, 2012; Peterson, 2010; Yergin, 2008), this has yet to be explored significantly within Canadian communications and energy scholarship. With the third largest proven oil reserves in the world, much of it located and transported through Western Canada’s Christian and Evangelical heartlands, (rural Alberta and the BC Fraser Valley and Okanagan), this research has much to add to a growing conversation around fossil fuels. In particular, it offers novel perspectives on the varied negotiations of labour, care, and identity that surround energy production, consumption, and transition. To do this, the thesis conducts a review of Canadian English language mainstream legacy media coverage of faith-based fossil fuel news stories, from 2016-2018, a period of significant public and discursive contestation over pipelines in Canada. This analysis is then paired with a series of one-on-one interviews and focus group conversations with faith leaders and believers in communities primarily along the Trans Mountain Pipeline route. These conversations explore how lived experiences of faith are constituted by, and also challenge, dominant narratives in Canada’s legacy media. Of particular focus is the way in which high carbon living is reflected in national news discourses of economy, wellbeing, and nation. Importantly, this is not intended to be a work of theology, but rather an examination of the way that particular religious identities and subjectivities mediate understandings of climate change and fossil fuels

Neural models of language use:Studies of language comprehension and production in context

Artificial neural network models of language are mostly known and appreciated today for providing a backbone for formidable AI technologies. This thesis takes a different perspective. Through a series of studies on language comprehension and production, it investigates whether artificial neural networks—beyond being useful in countless AI applications—can serve as accurate computational simulations of human language use, and thus as a new core methodology for the language sciences

The Politics of Social Media Manipulation

Disinformation and so-called fake news are contemporary phenomena with rich histories. Disinformation, or the willful introduction of false information for the purposes of causing harm, recalls infamous foreign interference operations in national media systems. Outcries over fake news, or dubious stories with the trappings of news, have coincided with the introduction of new media technologies that disrupt the publication, distribution and consumption of news -- from the so-called rumour-mongering broadsheets centuries ago to the blogosphere recently. Designating a news organization as fake, or der Lügenpresse, has a darker history, associated with authoritarian regimes or populist bombast diminishing the reputation of 'elite media' and the value of inconvenient truths. In a series of empirical studies, using digital methods and data journalism, the authors inquire into the extent to which social media have enabled the penetration of foreign disinformation operations, the widespread publication and spread of dubious content as well as extreme commentators with considerable followings attacking mainstream media as fake

Authentic Montessori (in a De/colonializing World)

This six-week qualitative action research self-study investigated how critically reflecting upon personal heritage while engaging with decolonial, antiracist perspectives would affect perception and attitudes towards Montessori materials, pedagogical philosophy and methodology. With critical pedagogy as a theoretical framework, the researcher surveyed decolonial scholarship for recommendations. She followed a program revealed by the literature. She took two tests at the beginning and end of the study to establish a baseline of bias. For the first two weeks of the study, she engaged with Indigenous peoples\u27 cultural production. She studied ancestral trauma for the following two weeks. To provoke equal understanding and connectedness to her own ancestry, she also engaged with media concerning her own lineage for two weeks. In accordance with critical pedagogy, these engagements were followed by critical reflections, leading to a more aware state that actively resists colonial (and other) oppressions. During the last two weeks of the study she also read about the struggles of and connected with people in the Palestinian territories towards an engaged praxis of solidarity. While the metrics of spiritual preparedness and critical consciousness remained evasive, the researcher observed deepening understanding throughout the study coding and analyzing journal reflections for themes. Recommendations following the study include: a dialogue-centered approach to Montessori teacher trainings, supplementation that includes decolonial knowledges, critical pedagogy, anti-racism, and trauma informed care. Research is needed to ascertain the effects of decolonial preparation upon guides and environments towards critical consciousness development in Montessori children. Indigenous erasure in classic Montessori materials need be addressed