Automatic Annotation of Direct Speech in Written French Narratives

The automatic annotation of direct speech (AADS) in written text has been often used in computational narrative understanding. Methods based on either rules or deep neural networks have been explored, in particular for English or German languages. Yet, for French, our target language, not many works exist. Our goal is to create a unified framework to design and evaluate AADS models in French. For this, we consolidated the largest-to-date French narrative dataset annotated with DS per word; we adapted various baselines for sequence labelling or from AADS in other languages; and we designed and conducted an extensive evaluation focused on generalisation. Results show that the task still requires substantial efforts and emphasise characteristics of each baseline. Although this framework could be improved, it is a step further to encourage more research on the topic.Comment: 9 pages, ACL 202

Explainability in Music Recommender Systems

The most common way to listen to recorded music nowadays is via streaming platforms which provide access to tens of millions of tracks. To assist users in effectively browsing these large catalogs, the integration of Music Recommender Systems (MRSs) has become essential. Current real-world MRSs are often quite complex and optimized for recommendation accuracy. They combine several building blocks based on collaborative filtering and content-based recommendation. This complexity can hinder the ability to explain recommendations to end users, which is particularly important for recommendations perceived as unexpected or inappropriate. While pure recommendation performance often correlates with user satisfaction, explainability has a positive impact on other factors such as trust and forgiveness, which are ultimately essential to maintain user loyalty. In this article, we discuss how explainability can be addressed in the context of MRSs. We provide perspectives on how explainability could improve music recommendation algorithms and enhance user experience. First, we review common dimensions and goals of recommenders' explainability and in general of eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI), and elaborate on the extent to which these apply -- or need to be adapted -- to the specific characteristics of music consumption and recommendation. Then, we show how explainability components can be integrated within a MRS and in what form explanations can be provided. Since the evaluation of explanation quality is decoupled from pure accuracy-based evaluation criteria, we also discuss requirements and strategies for evaluating explanations of music recommendations. Finally, we describe the current challenges for introducing explainability within a large-scale industrial music recommender system and provide research perspectives.Comment: To appear in AI Magazine, Special Topic on Recommender Systems 202

AGRICULTURE 4.0 - THE USE OF SMART TECHNOLOGIES FOR HIGHPERFORMANCE AGRICULTURE

Given that the labor market in Romania has an acute shortage of labor (about 1 million people), in agriculture this lack is felt even more acutely because the population in the villages is declining and aging, thus it is increasingly difficult for Romanian farmers to find labor, let alone skilled labor. One solution can be the digitization of agriculture, ie the introduction of the latest management concepts, sensors, automation, robots, etc. in the modernization of work processes in agriculture, thus reducing the need for labor, while increasing productivity and efficiency in agriculture

RESEARCHES REGARDING THE OBTAINING OF JUICE FROM SUGAR SORGHUM STALK

Sugar sorghum is a technical plant with high energy value due to the high productivity obtained per hectare. By pressing of sugar sorghum strains it can be obtained a juice that can be further used in various forms: alcohol, ethanol, etc

COMPETENCES AND JOB OPPORTUNITIES OF ORGANIC MEDICINAL AND AROMATIC PLANTS DOMAIN DEVELOPED BY HERBAL.MEDNET PROJECT

Herbal.Mednet project aims to design an e-learning training program for advisors and trainers in the field of organic Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (MAPs) in order to equip them with knowledge, competences and skills necessary for providing a support and technical and managerial assistance to producers, processors and traders of organic medicinal and aromatic plants domain. The results showed that more than 65% of the participants are quite familiar with using competences to describe a job profile, hence the overall feedback is of high importance.Almost of all users respond that competences are very useful in the thematic area of organic MAPs.The most of survey participants (over 65%) already are familiar and use the competence to describe job opportunities, and believe that it is a useful tool. From the results, it can be seen that the competence list that is been identified and is being used by the Herbal.Mednet consortium, reflects the needs in the organic MAPs job profiles

CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE VALORIZATION OF THE JUICE OBTAINED FROM SUGAR SORGHUM STALK FROM ALCOHOL

 With a high production per hectare, sugar sorghum is a high value technical plant for farmers because from an average production of 70-80 t/ha, a high quantity of juice can be obtained, which can be used as such in the food industry (natural sweetener) or processed for the purpose of obtaining alcohol. The alcohol has a higher value/liter, can be stored more easily and its uses are multiple: in the food, pharmaceutical, chemical industry, etc

AGRICULTURE 4.0 - A CHALLENGE FOR ROMANIAN AGRICULTURE

Given that the labor market in Romania has an acute shortage of labor (about 1 million people), in agriculture this lack is felt even more acutely because the population in the villages is declining and aging, thus it is increasingly difficult for Romanian farmers to find labor, let alone skilled labor. One solution can be the digitization of agriculture, ie the introduction of the latest management concepts, sensors, automation, robots, etc. in the modernization of work processes in agriculture, thus reducing the need for labor, while increasing productivity and efficiency in agriculture

ASPECTS REGARDING THE CONDITIONING OF HORTICULTURAL PRODUCTS IN FRESH STATE

This paper presents the conditions and equipment underlying the work processes within the flow of conditioning technologies of horticultural products, in order to prolong the life and freshness of fruits, from the time of harvest and storage, to their marketing for consumption