Algorithms for Analysing the Temporal Structure of Discourse

We describe a method for analysing the temporal structure of a discourse which takes into account the effects of tense, aspect, temporal adverbials and rhetorical structure and which minimises unnecessary ambiguity in the temporal structure. It is part of a discourse grammar implemented in Carpenter's ALE formalism. The method for building up the temporal structure of the discourse combines constraints and preferences: we use constraints to reduce the number of possible structures, exploiting the HPSG type hierarchy and unification for this purpose; and we apply preferences to choose between the remaining options using a temporal centering mechanism. We end by recommending that an underspecified representation of the structure using these techniques be used to avoid generating the temporal/rhetorical structure until higher-level information can be used to disambiguate.Comment: EACL '95, 8 pages, 1 eps picture, tar-ed, compressed, uuencoded, uses eaclap.sty, a4wide.sty, epsf.te

Text Type and the Position of a Temporal Adverbial within the Sentence

A sentence with a certain type of temporal adverbial is ambiguous, and one reading is lost when the adverbial appears in sentence-initial position. Sentence (1a), for example, has a reading in which there was some three-hear period in the past during which Mary lived in Amsterdam and a reading in which Mary has lived in Amsterdam for the three years preceding speech time: (1) a. Mary has lived in Amsterdam for three years. b. For three years Mary has lived in Amsterdam. Sentence (1b) has only the reading in which Mary lives in Amsterdam at speech time and has done so for the preceding three years. The reading that remains when the adverbial is in sentence-initial position is more specific about the time at which the event occurs, and therefore one would expect to see more initial-position adverbials in a narrative text, where the order of events is important. In testing this hypothesis on the ECI corpus, it was found that it is not the narrative/non-narrative distinction that results in a significant difference in initial-position adverbial usage; Instead, narratives with a large amount of flashback material have significantly more initial position adverbials, indicating that in order to accurately predict adverbial position a subclassification of the category "narrative" based on the amount of flashback material is needed

In the Arena: Deep South Racial Threat and Contact

Political Science offers one overarching paradigm of racial attitude formation and development for the South: group conflict and racial threat (Key 1949, Blumer 1958). In contrast, the theory of intergroup contact (Allport 1954) offers an interactionist prescription for alleviating prejudice formation, regardless of cause or nature. Within and outside the South, existing political research has largely discounted or ignored intergroup contact as a viable theoretical contribution. Additionally, the distinctions between prejudices (thoughts) and discrimination (behaviors) have been articulated unartfully. I develop a new structural theory of modern Southern white racism that clearly identifies the key individual-level pillars on which the institution of racism is supported. Furthermore, a secondary model also describes the central modern process of racial attitude formation as well as the process for affecting calculated behavior between races. I use data from the 2007 Racial Attitudes in America Survey as well as data from an original 2016 Dictator Game Survey Experiment to empirically test major propositions implied by the models

Aspect and Adverbials

No abstract

Long Distance Pronominalisation and Global Focus

Our corpus of descriptive text contains a significant number of long-distance pronominal references(8.4% of the total). In order to account for howthese pronouns are interpreted, we re-examine Grosz and Sidner’s theory of the attentional state, and in particular the use of the global focus to supplement centering theory. Our corpus evidence concerning these long-distance pronominal references, as well as studies of the use of descriptions, proper names and ambiguous uses of pronouns, lead us to conclude that a discourse focus stack mechanism of the type proposed by Sidner is essential to account for the use of these referring expressions. We suggest revising the Grosz & Sidner framework by allowing for the possibility that an entity in a focus space may have special status

Principles of Nutrition Textbook, Second Edition

Update: The team has updated this course with a Round Twelve Mini-Grant for Ancillary Materials and Revisions, leading to a new twenty-chapter remix featuring content from a Kansas State University open textbook. Due to accessibility issues in the repository, a second copy of the PDF without a cover page is included in Additional Files. This file should retain all bookmarks and tags. First edition description: This Open Textbook for Principles of Nutrition was created under a Round Nine ALG Textbook Transformation Grant. Topics covered: Chapter 1: Nutrition Basics Chapter 2: Macronutrient Structures Chapter 3: Macronutrient Digestion Chapter 4: Macronutrient Uptake, Absorption, & Transport Chapter 5: Common Digestive Problems Chapter 6: Macronutrient Metabolism Chapter 7: Integration of Macronutrient Metabolism Chapter 8: Micronutrients Overview & Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) Chapter 9: Antioxidant Micronutrients Chapter 10: Macronutrient Metabolism Micronutrients Chapter 11: Carbon Metabolism Micronutrients Chapter 12: Blood, Bones & Teeth Micronutrients Chapter 13: Electrolyte Micronutrients Chapter 14: Achieving a Healthy Diet Chapter 15: Diet and Health- Chronic Disease Prevention Chapter 16: Pregnancy and Lactation Chapter 17: Nutrition Infancy through Adolescence Chapter 18: Adulthood and the Later Years Chapter 19: Nutrition and Fitness/Athletes Chapter 20: Nutrition and Society The original chapters are also available on a Georgia Highlands College LibGuide.https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/health-textbooks/1006/thumbnail.jp