Blowing the Morte: The Rites of Manhood in William Rayner\u27s \u3ci\u3eStag Boy\u3c/i\u3e

William Rayner’s young adult novel Stag Boy (1972) is often discussed in surveys of children’s literature as a classic title, but it has received little probing critical attention. This article argues that the novel uses its narrative of a boy’s psychic association with a giant stag as an allegory for the transition from boyhood into manhood. In a detailed close reading of the novel, and following the model of the love chase of medieval romance, it is shown how the author borrows key elements from folklore (the shaming ritual of the stag hunt), myth (Herne the Hunter), and quest romances (the motif of the joust) to develop a highly symbolic tale of mental growth and triumph over limitations. This makes Stag Boy a key text in the literary tradition that uses the theme of animal metamorphosis as a trope for addressing the conflicts of male adolescence

ON SOME LEPIDOPTERA FROM THE RIOUW-ARCHIPELAGO

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FAUNA BURUANA. LEPIDOPTERA RHOPALOCERA.

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Construction Grammar and Artificial Intelligence

In this chapter, we argue that it is highly beneficial for the contemporary construction grammarian to have a thorough understanding of the strong relationship between the research fields of construction grammar and artificial intelligence. We start by unravelling the historical links between the two fields, showing that their relationship is rooted in a common attitude towards human communication and language. We then discuss the first direction of influence, focussing in particular on how insights and techniques from the field of artificial intelligence play an important role in operationalising, validating and scaling constructionist approaches to language. We then proceed to the second direction of influence, highlighting the relevance of construction grammar insights and analyses to the artificial intelligence endeavour of building truly intelligent agents. We support our case with a variety of illustrative examples and conclude that the further elaboration of this relationship will play a key role in shaping the future of the field of construction grammar.Comment: Peer-reviewed author's draft of a chapter to appear in the Cambridge Handbook of Construction Grammar (2024 - edited by Mirjam Fried and Kiki Nikiforidou

Standardization in the European Information and Technology Sector: Official Procedures on the Verge of Being Overhauled

As the European Commission pushes for a reform of traditional procedures in the Information and Communications Technology (“ICT”) sector, the standardization process is intensely debated on the European Union level. This Article provides a concise overview of the past and future European Union policies on ICT standardization and the issues such policies raise

Re-conceptualising the Language Game Paradigm in the Framework of Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

In this paper, we formulate the challenge of re-conceptualising the language game experimental paradigm in the framework of multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL). If successful, future language game experiments will benefit from the rapid and promising methodological advances in the MARL community, while future MARL experiments on learning emergent communication will benefit from the insights and results gained from language game experiments. We strongly believe that this cross-pollination has the potential to lead to major breakthroughs in the modelling of how human-like languages can emerge and evolve in multi-agent systems.Comment: This paper was accepted for presentation at the 2020 AAAI Spring Symposium `Challenges and Opportunities for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning' after a double-blind reviewing proces