I Can Parse You: Grammars for Dialogs

Humans and computers increasingly converse via natural language. Those conversations are moving from today\u27s simple question answering and command-and-control to more complex dialogs. Developers must specify those dialogs. This paper explores how to assist developers in this specification. We map out the staggering variety of applications for human-computer dialogs and distill it into a catalog of flow patterns. Based on that, we articulate the requirements for dialog programming models and offer our vision for satisfying these requirements using grammars. If our approach catches on, computers will soon parse you to better assist you in your daily life

Implementation and Assessment of a Comprehensive Model-Based Systems Engineering Methodology with Regard to User Acceptance in Practice

Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is becoming increasingly popular, not only in research but also in industrial companies. However, MBSE approaches (i.e. methods, frameworks, ontologies, and tools) are usually developed at a scientific level, so that they are too generic and formal for a company\u27s internal use leading to acceptance issues in industrial practice. Against this background, this contribution presents a comprehensive user-oriented MBSE methodology tackling this lack of acceptance in industrial practice. Based on ten previously derived fields of action for individual and organizational acceptance of MBSE approaches, a first positive evaluation of the MBSE methodology has been received. In this contribution, a further developed MBSE methodology is presented, which is created in cooperation of partners from research and industry. Assessment of this further developed MBSE methodology with six companies across different industries shows a positive impact on acceptance in comparison to existing MBSE approaches across the identified fields of action. Major improvements are seen regarding the perceived performance and benefit of MBSE, the usability of the modeling tool, and the communication within a development team. Smaller improvements are noted regarding the establishment of a clear target picture and modeling process, as well as in tackling ambiguity when modeling in a development team. In addition, research at one of the industrial partners shows that company-specific tailoring and implementation of the developed MBSE methodology can be performed in a fast and straightforward way

Conflict resolution in the "Wife of Bath's Tale" and in Gower's "Tale of Florent"

Defining the principles that apply to resolving conflicts between individuals in The Wife of Bath 's Tale and comparing them to parallel conflicts in Gower's "Tale of Florent," one discovers that The Wife of Bath 's Tale foregrounds appeals to political, social, religious, and ethical authority -all of which are questioned, discussed, and negotiated. In the "Tale of Florent," on the other hand, conflict tends to be internal rather than between individuals. Florent's conflicts are resolved by himself alone thinking about the obligations he has accepted in his various covenants, and then behaving in such a way that he does not lie or cheat or break his pledge. Conflict resolution in Gower depends upon absolute commitment to principle, the culturally sanctioned rules that govern human behavior. Conflicts in the "Tale of Florent" are not resolved through argument, debate, negotiation with an adversary as in Chaucer's text

Method selection and adaptation for distributed monitoring of infectious diseases for syndromic surveillance

AbstractBackgroundAutomated surveillance systems require statistical methods to recognize increases in visit counts that might indicate an outbreak. In prior work we presented methods to enhance the sensitivity of C2, a commonly used time series method. In this study, we compared the enhanced C2 method with five regression models.MethodsWe used emergency department chief complaint data from US CDC BioSense surveillance system, aggregated by city (total of 206 hospitals, 16 cities) during 5/2008–4/2009. Data for six syndromes (asthma, gastrointestinal, nausea and vomiting, rash, respiratory, and influenza-like illness) was used and was stratified by mean count (1–19, 20–49, ⩾50 per day) into 14 syndrome-count categories. We compared the sensitivity for detecting single-day artificially-added increases in syndrome counts. Four modifications of the C2 time series method, and five regression models (two linear and three Poisson), were tested. A constant alert rate of 1% was used for all methods.ResultsAmong the regression models tested, we found that a Poisson model controlling for the logarithm of total visits (i.e., visits both meeting and not meeting a syndrome definition), day of week, and 14-day time period was best. Among 14 syndrome-count categories, time series and regression methods produced approximately the same sensitivity (<5% difference) in 6; in six categories, the regression method had higher sensitivity (range 6–14% improvement), and in two categories the time series method had higher sensitivity.DiscussionWhen automated data are aggregated to the city level, a Poisson regression model that controls for total visits produces the best overall sensitivity for detecting artificially added visit counts. This improvement was achieved without increasing the alert rate, which was held constant at 1% for all methods. These findings will improve our ability to detect outbreaks in automated surveillance system data

Masses, radii, and orbits of small Kepler planets : The transition from gaseous to rocky planets

We report on the masses, sizes, and orbits of the planets orbiting 22 Kepler stars. There are 49 planet candidates around these stars, including 42 detected through transits and 7 revealed by precise Doppler measurements of the host stars. Based on an analysis of the Kepler brightness measurements, along with high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy, Doppler spectroscopy, and (for 11 stars) asteroseismology, we establish low false-positive probabilities (FPPs) for all of the transiting planets (41 of 42 have an FPP under 1%), and we constrain their sizes and masses. Most of the transiting planets are smaller than three times the size of Earth. For 16 planets, the Doppler signal was securely detected, providing a direct measurement of the planet's mass. For the other 26 planets we provide either marginal mass measurements or upper limits to their masses and densities; in many cases we can rule out a rocky composition. We identify six planets with densities above 5 g cm-3, suggesting a mostly rocky interior for them. Indeed, the only planets that are compatible with a purely rocky composition are smaller than 2 R ⊕. Larger planets evidently contain a larger fraction of low-density material (H, He, and H2O).Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Considerations on Genre and Gender Conventions in Translating from Old English

The Old English poem The Wife's Lament is an extremely conventional and, at the same time, original text. It portrays a female character suffering for the absence of her loved one, through the framework of the so-called 'elegiac' style and a mainly heroic vocabulary. The traditional exile theme is, thus, interwoven with the uncommon motif of love sickness. While this appraisal of the poem is the most widely accepted one, disagreement still remains about the translation of some keywords, strictly related to the exile theme, such as sīþ or wræcsīþ. The aim of this paper is to examine diverging readings and glosses of the above mentioned 'exilic/elegiac' keywords, and to show that an accurate translation should not neglect a thorough appraisal of the text in its complexity and the association with related literary patterns and imagery in other poetic and prose texts

British Romanticism and the Global Climate

As a result of developments in the meteorological and geological sciences, the Romantic period saw the gradual emergence of attempts to understand the climate as a dynamic global system that could potentially be affected by human activity. This chapter examines textual responses to climate disruption cause by the Laki eruption of 1783 and the Tambora eruption of 1815. During the Laki haze, writers such as Horace Walpole, Gilbert White, and William Cowper found in Milton a powerful way of understanding the entanglements of culture and climate at a time of national and global crisis. Apocalyptic discourse continued to resonate during the Tambora crisis, as is evident in eyewitness accounts of the eruption, in the utopian predictions of John Barrow and Eleanor Anne Porden, and in the grim speculations of Byron’s ‘Darkness’. Romantic writing offers a powerful analogue for thinking about climate change in the Anthropocene

Conflict resolution in the "Wife of Bath's Tale" and in Gower's "Tale of Florent"

Defining the principles that apply to resolving conflicts between individuals in The Wife of Bath 's Tale and comparing them to parallel conflicts in Gower's "Tale of Florent," one discovers that The Wife of Bath 's Tale foregrounds appeals to political, social, religious, and ethical authority -all of which are questioned, discussed, and negotiated. In the "Tale of Florent," on the other hand, conflict tends to be internal rather than between individuals. Florent's conflicts are resolved by himself alone thinking about the obligations he has accepted in his various covenants, and then behaving in such a way that he does not lie or cheat or break his pledge. Conflict resolution in Gower depends upon absolute commitment to principle, the culturally sanctioned rules that govern human behavior. Conflicts in the "Tale of Florent" are not resolved through argument, debate, negotiation with an adversary as in Chaucer's text