SupWSD: a flexible toolkit for supervised word sense disambiguation

In this demonstration we present SupWSD, a Java API for supervised Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD). This toolkit includes the implementation of a state-of-the-art supervised WSD system, together with a Natural Language Processing pipeline for preprocessing and feature extraction. Our aim is to provide an easy-to-use tool for the research community, designed to be modular, fast and scalable for training and testing on large datasets. The source code of SupWSD is available at http://github.com/SI3P/SupWSD

Italy in the Australian news media, 2005-2012

Presents a systematic analysis of the coverage of Italian matters in the Australian news media in the period 2005-2012. Executive summary The study presents a systematic analysis of the coverage of Italian matters in the Australian news media in the period 2005-2012. As far as the authors are aware it is largest study of the representation of Italy in the news media of a foreign country ever undertaken.   The study was undertaken by the University of Canberra’s News and Media Research Centre (N&MRC) in association with the On. Marco Fedi, who commissioned research on coverage of Italian politics in selected Australian newspapers.   During the period covered by the study there was more than usual interest in Italian political developments in Australia, both because of their inherent newsworthiness and because of the newly-acquired right of direct participation of expatriate Italians in Australia in the 2006 and 2008 Italian general elections.   To obtain as wide a view of Italy in the Australian news as practicable both the press and television were included in the study.   Three well -known and respected newspapers, namely The Australian, the major national newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) published in Sydney and The Age published in Melbourne were selected for the study. All editorial matter in all issues of these newspapers for the years 2005-2012 was searched using ‘Factiva’– a business information and research tool owned by Dow Jones & Company. The initial search for relevant news in the press generated a very large number of items (around 10,000) which were then assessed individually for relevance and eligibility for inclusion in the analysis. This process generated a data set of 5325 news items

The Late Night Snacking Scene at the University of New Hampshire: Promoting Healthier Options and Winning Back Market Share

This thesis takes a look at how late night snacking at UNH can be improved toward a healthier way, while at the same time winning back market share for the UNH-operated food stores. After conducting segmentation and positioning analyses, I found that the problem lies in the fact the UNH food stores, Pita Pit in particular, are not being promoted effectively

Deregulation and concentration in electronic media

This paper presents an analysis of trends in concentration of electronic media industries in Australia over the past two decades. The industries examined include Broadcast television and Radio, Pay Television, Film and Video Production, ISPS and Search Engines. The related research is a component of the International Media Concentration Research Project headed by the Columbia Institute of Tele-Information and involving participants from over 30 countries (for details, see: http://internationalmedia.pbworks.com/). The goal of the project is to go beyond the rhetoric to an academic, empirical, dispassionate, and data-driven analysis of industry concentration trends and their drivers. The project has no agenda beyond understanding what is happening and why

The Missing Marketplace of Ideas Theory

One hundred years ago, Justice Holmes embraced the marketplace of ideas in his dissenting opinion in Abrams v. United States. The same year as this centennial anniversary, Justice Kennedy, one of the most ardent adherents to this theory, retired from the Supreme Court. The dovetailing of these two events offers the perfect excuse to evaluate the marketplace of ideas in the Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence today. The marketplace of ideas drives many of the Court’s First Amendment decisions, from the public forum doctrine to restrictions on offensive expression to campaign finance. Although the theory is not perfect, this Article contends Kennedy should have embraced the lessons from this dissent more—not less—in some of his First Amendment opinions. In particular, Kennedy often failed to use the marketplace of ideas theory to guide his thinking on public school students and government employees as well as in cases involving the government speech doctrine. Furthermore, in these cases where the Court—often but not always led by Kennedy—has abandoned the marketplace of ideas as a guiding principle, it has frequently embraced ad hoc balancing tests. Although such tests may be appealing because they permit courts to take into account a range of factors excluded from traditional First Amendment analysis—such as the value of the speech, various types of harms it causes, and alternative restrictions—they also give the government far too much discretion to censor and punish speech that it does not like and favor speech that it does. The Court’s decisions involving public school students, government employees, and the government speech doctrine illustrate this problem all too well. Part I outlines the general principles of the marketplace of ideas theory of expression. Part II explores the Court’s application of this theory with a focus on Kennedy’s opinions. Part III argues that in cases involving public school students, government employees, and the government speech doctrine, the Court and Kennedy frequently lost sight of the marketplace of ideas theory. Kennedy’s approach allows the government to manipulate the marketplace of ideas in these contexts by giving the government wide authority to make content-based and even viewpoint-based speech restrictions

The Publication of National Security Information in the Digital Age

From the Introduction: In one of her speeches on Internet freedom, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that “[t]he fact that WikiLeaks used the internet is not the reason we criticized its actions.” Although Clinton is correct that it is essential to separate the technology WikiLeaks uses from its actions, the digital age has raised new concerns about the unauthorized dissemination of sensitive national security information. New technology has made it much easier to leak and otherwise disseminate national security information. At the same time, leaks continue to play an essential role in checking governmental power and often make invaluable contributions to our public debate. WikiLeaks has prompted renewed debate concerning when the disclosure of national security information by nongovernmental actors should be protected, both as a policy matter and as a matter of constitutional law. One dominant theme in the discussion of how to strike the balance between an informed public and the need to protect legitimate national security secrets is whether new media entities like WikiLeaks are part of “the press” and whether Julian Assange and his cohorts are engaging in “journalism.” As the gathering and distribution of news and information becomes more widely dispersed, and the act of informing the public more participatory and collaborative, however, determining who is engaging in journalism and what constitutes the press has become increasingly difficult. It is not possible to draw lines based on the medium of communication, the journalistic background of the publisher, the editing process, the size of the audience, or the methods used to obtain the information. Rather than attempt to define who is a journalist or what is the press, Congress and courts should give careful consideration to the relevant scienter requirements that would apply in cases involving nongovernmental actors. In such cases, the relevant laws should require that the offender acted with a subjective intent to harm the United States or with reckless indifference to any such harm. Such a test provides a means of protecting those who disseminate national security information responsibly and with a good-faith purpose to inform the public debate. This intent requirement would be in addition to proof of imminent and serious harm to U.S. interests

National Security Information Disclosures and the Role of Intent

In the public discourse, the perceived intent of those who disclose national security information without authorization plays an important role in whether they are labeled as heroes or traitors. Should it matter whether Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning leaked government information to WikiLeaks knowing that our enemies might benefit from the information? Is it relevant that Edward Snowden believed—or that a reasonable person would believe—that the topsecret government surveillance programs he revealed were illegal, or that the public value in knowing about these programs outweighed any risk of harm to national security? This Article examines whether intent—and what kind of intent— should matter in defining crimes related to the disclosure of national security information and concludes that it should, both as a matter of public policy and as a matter of constitutional law

The Government Brand

In Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court held that Texas could deny the Sons of Confederate Veterans a specialty license plate because the public found the group’s Confederate flag logo offensive. The Court did not reach this conclusion because it deemed the Confederate flag to fall within a category of unprotected speech, such as true threats, incitement, or fighting words; because it revisited its determination in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul that restrictions on hate speech are unconstitutional; because travelers who see the license plates are a “captive audience”; or because Texas had a compelling interest in disassociating itself from a symbol that it regarded as promoting racial discrimination. Instead, the Court held that Texas was entitled to ban Confederate flags because all speech appearing on specialty license plates constitutes government speech immune to the usual restrictions of the First Amendment. This Article dissects Walker and its larger significance for the government speech doctrine. This case takes the Court’s growing deference to institutional government actors and puts it on steroids. Relying heavily on a “reasonable person” inquiry, Walker suggests that it will frequently be “reasonable” for people to believe that the government has endorsed private speech appearing on public property or spoken by a public employee or student. But under well-established First Amendment principles, the government’s tolerance of private expression is not the same as endorsement. The Article examines the dangerous implications of Walker in a wide variety of contexts, from the speech rights of public school students and government employees, to advertisements on public transportation, and to new means of communication