Modeling Business Negotiations for Electronic Commerce

E-commerce "localizes global markets" by opening remote markets to retail and to small companies. Newly developed E-commerce tools allow individual and organizational buyers to search for suppliers anywhere and make deals electronically. We propose a software agent that interacts with a buyer and elicits information about the criteria, preferences, and limitations, and that conducts business negotiation on behalf of the buyer. The agent has been implemented and tested in Negoplan, a software system that supports the simulation of decision processes. Results of several negotiation simulations are presented

The System of Register Labels in plWordNet

The System of Register Labels in plWordNet Stylistic registers influence word usage. Both traditional dictionaries and wordnets assign lexical units to registers, and there is a wide range of solutions. A system of register labels can be flat or hierarchical, with few labels or many, homogeneous or decomposed into sets of elementary features. We review the register label systems in lexicography, and then discuss our model, designed for plWordNet, a large wordnet for Polish. There follows a detailed comparative analysis of several register systems in Polish lexical resources. We also present the practical effect of the adoption of our flat, small and homogeneous system: a relatively high consistency of register assignment in plWordNet, as measured by inter-annotator agreement on a manageable sample. Large-scale conclusions for the whole plWordNet remain to be made once the annotation has been completed, but the experience half-way through this labour-intensive exercise is very encouraging

Symbolic assessment of free text answers in a second-language tutoring system

We present an approach to Computer-Assisted Assessment of free-text material based on symbolic analysis of student input. The theory that underlies this approach arises from previous work on DidaLect, a tutoring system for second-language reading skill enhancement. The theory enables the processing of free-text segments for assessment to operate without preencoded reference material. A study based on a corpus of 48 student answers to several types of questions has justified our approach, helped define a methodology and design a prototype

Problematising engagement with technologies in transitions of young people identified as Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) in Scotland

Dominant debates and digital upskilling strategies in Scotland have been long underpinned by the notion that engagement with technologies can transform young people’s lives. This paper offers a critique of such dominant understandings and contributes to the scarce research on the impact of technologies on disadvantaged young people’s life chances. It reports on qualitative fieldwork exploring everyday lives, transitions and technology use amongst 22 NEET-identified Scottish young people aged 16–24, drawing on thinking tools from Bourdieu. Findings show that participants followed ‘accelerated’ transitions towards vocational pathways, whilst technologies played a liminal role in making occupational choices. Furthermore, processes underpinning the post-16 transitions policy field were found to strongly shape the young people’s trajectories, directing them towards the least valuable options in terms of work and training. Concurrently, uncertainties about how to navigate the realm of work and perform the self in relation to the labour force constituted a common feature of participants labouring subjectivities and these were reflected in the ways they used technologies while looking for opportunities. However, even when the young people acquired digital employability skills, these had little impact on their transitions as the old social divisions were a much stronger influence