Using Linguistic Analysis to Translate Arabic Natural Language Queries to SPARQL

The logic-based machine-understandable framework of the Semantic Web often challenges naive users when they try to query ontology-based knowledge bases. Existing research efforts have approached this problem by introducing Natural Language (NL) interfaces to ontologies. These NL interfaces have the ability to construct SPARQL queries based on NL user queries. However, most efforts were restricted to queries expressed in English, and they often benefited from the advancement of English NLP tools. However, little research has been done to support querying the Arabic content on the Semantic Web by using NL queries. This paper presents a domain-independent approach to translate Arabic NL queries to SPARQL by leveraging linguistic analysis. Based on a special consideration on Noun Phrases (NPs), our approach uses a language parser to extract NPs and the relations from Arabic parse trees and match them to the underlying ontology. It then utilizes knowledge in the ontology to group NPs into triple-based representations. A SPARQL query is finally generated by extracting targets and modifiers, and interpreting them into SPARQL. The interpretation of advanced semantic features including negation, conjunctive and disjunctive modifiers is also supported. The approach was evaluated by using two datasets consisting of OWL test data and queries, and the obtained results have confirmed its feasibility to translate Arabic NL queries to SPARQL.Comment: Journal Pape

The Effects of Different Types of Music on Stress Levels

A preliminary correlational research study was conducted to determine the relationship between different genres of music and stress among university students 94 Haigazian University students raging between the ages of 18 to 25 participated in the study 67 were females and 33 were males Two types of questionnaires were administered to them the music scale and the Perceived Stress Scale PSS Unlike mainstream studies the findings of this study conveyed that there is hardly any significant difference between stress and the frequency of listening to classical music Moreover the study indicated that there is no significant correlation between stress and the frequency of listening to other types of music such as Jazz Blues and Rock However the t-test sample revealed that there is a significant difference between the means of male and female on the dependent variable which is the stress This research is based on a random selection of Haigazian University HU students and ought to be extended to include other universities operating in Lebano

Post-colonialism and Political Modernity in the Middle East

For a long time the dominant approach within the study of International Relations IR as an academic discipline has been to regard the Middle East as a separate geopolitical entity -- which is assumed to portray crucial aspects of a distinct regional political system with its major and minor powers core and peripheral states or regions Although rarely manifested and mostly unacknowledged this implied an engagement with some rather complex epistemological and ontological claims which hold a major stake within the philosophy of social sciences in general and the study of politics in particular The rise of regional conceptions of inter-state inter-national relations in the post WWII academic pursuit of IR has undeniably been a development that precipitated some consensus or a middle ground upon which an engagement with a supposedly mechanical anarchical state-system has become possible with the appropriation of an attitude that calls itself realism which has successfully monopolized over linguistic and normative vocabularies in an uncompromising attempt to construct and authorize a specific empirical position as a reification of the real Thus what is primarily at stake in the study of regional systems -- whether as a function of policy-formulation specialized investigation or an academic pursuit -- is this almost absolute conception of the reality of regional systems that seems to prevail overwhelmingly within much of the literatur

KnowledgePuzzle: a browsing tool to adapt the web navigation process to the learner's mental model

This article presents KnowledgePuzzle, a browsing tool for knowledge construction from the web. It aims to adapt the structure of web content to the learner’s information needs regardless of how the web content is originally delivered. Learners are provided with a meta-cognitive space (eg, a concept mapping tool) that enables them to plan navigation paths and visualize the semantic processing of knowledge in their minds. Once the learner’s viewpoint becomes visually represented, it will be transformed to a layer of informative hyperlinks and annotations over previously visited pages. The attached layer causes the web content to be explicitly structured to accommodate the learner’s interests by interlinking and annotating chunks of information that make up the learner’s knowledge. Finally, a hypertext version of the whole knowledge is generated to enable fast and easy reviewing. A discussion about the

Hizbullah's identity construction

The important study offers a revolutionary new perspective on the political phenomenon of Hizbullah whose evolution has frequently confounded scholars and politicians. Drawing on his unparalleled access to primary sources, Alagha has produced a unique work which traces all the shifts in Hizbullah's construction and reconstruction of its identity.Sinds de oprichting, begin van de jaren tachtig, is Hezbollah niet alleen uitgegroeid tot de voornaamste sjiitische organisatie in Libanon en de Arabische wereld, maar ook tot de sterkste schakel in de keten van verzet tegen Israël en pro-westerse krachten. Des te raadselachtiger is het hoe de Hezbollah's zo succesvol blijft in het navigeren door de complexe machtsrelaties van het Midden-Oosten. In dit meeslepende verhaal poogt de auteur de mystiek rond Hezbollah weg te nemen en inzicht te bieden in de ogenschijnlijk tegenstrijdige machtsrelaties in het Midden-Oosten. Joseph Alagha schreef met dit boek de tot nu toe meest uitgebreide en toch zeer toegankelijke beschrijving van de opkomst en machtsconsolidatie van Hezbollah

Reproducibility of the dynamics of facial expressions in unilateral facial palsy

The aim of this study was to assess the reproducibility of non-verbal facial expressions in unilateral facial paralysis using dynamic four-dimensional (4D) imaging. The Di4D system was used to record five facial expressions of 20 adult patients. The system captured 60 three-dimensional (3D) images per second; each facial expression took 3–4 seconds which was recorded in real time. Thus a set of 180 3D facial images was generated for each expression. The procedure was repeated after 30 min to assess the reproducibility of the expressions. A mathematical facial mesh consisting of thousands of quasi-point ‘vertices’ was conformed to the face in order to determine the morphological characteristics in a comprehensive manner. The vertices were tracked throughout the sequence of the 180 images. Five key 3D facial frames from each sequence of images were analyzed. Comparisons were made between the first and second capture of each facial expression to assess the reproducibility of facial movements. Corresponding images were aligned using partial Procrustes analysis, and the root mean square distance between them was calculated and analyzed statistically (paired Student ttest, P < 0.05). Facial expressions of lip purse, cheek puff, and raising of eyebrows were reproducible. Facial expressions of maximum smile and forceful eye closure were not reproducible. The limited coordination of various groups of facial muscles contributed to the lack of reproducibility of these facial expressions. 4D imaging is a useful clinical tool for the assessment of facial expressions

Theoretical Perspectives on Media and Modernity

My line of argument is informed by Husserl s phenomenological approach that distinguishes between life worlds and theoretical worlds and Victor Turner s approach that makes the distinction between analytical and metaphorical constructs The bottom line of both arguments is that an analytical concept or a life world such as law can be defined analyzed and expanded while a metaphorical one or a theoretical word like modernity cannot be The former is dissociated from the intellectual interpretation of the world while the latter is build into i

Israeli, R. From Arab Spring to Islamic Winter. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2013.

Book review

Improving the Spectral Efficiency of Nonlinear Satellite Systems through Time-Frequency Packing and Advanced Processing

We consider realistic satellite communications systems for broadband and broadcasting applications, based on frequency-division-multiplexed linear modulations, where spectral efficiency is one of the main figures of merit. For these systems, we investigate their ultimate performance limits by using a framework to compute the spectral efficiency when suboptimal receivers are adopted and evaluating the performance improvements that can be obtained through the adoption of the time-frequency packing technique. Our analysis reveals that introducing controlled interference can significantly increase the efficiency of these systems. Moreover, if a receiver which is able to account for the interference and the nonlinear impairments is adopted, rather than a classical predistorter at the transmitter coupled with a simpler receiver, the benefits in terms of spectral efficiency can be even larger. Finally, we consider practical coded schemes and show the potential advantages of the optimized signaling formats when combined with iterative detection/decoding.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure

Technologies to enhance self-directed learning from hypertext

With the growing popularity of the World Wide Web, materials presented to learners in the form of hypertext have become a major instructional resource. Despite the potential of hypertext to facilitate access to learning materials, self-directed learning from hypertext is often associated with many concerns. Self-directed learners, due to their different viewpoints, may follow different navigation paths, and thus they will have different interactions with knowledge. Therefore, learners can end up being disoriented or cognitively-overloaded due to the potential gap between what they need and what actually exists on the Web. In addition, while a lot of research has gone into supporting the task of finding web resources, less attention has been paid to the task of supporting the interpretation of Web pages. The inability to interpret the content of pages leads learners to interrupt their current browsing activities to seek help from other human resources or explanatory learning materials. Such activity can weaken learner engagement and lower their motivation to learn. This thesis aims to promote self-directed learning from hypertext resources by proposing solutions to the above problems. It first presents Knowledge Puzzle, a tool that proposes a constructivist approach to learn from the Web. Its main contribution to Web-based learning is that self-directed learners will be able to adapt the path of instruction and the structure of hypertext to their way of thinking, regardless of how the Web content is delivered. This can effectively reduce the gap between what they need and what exists on the Web. SWLinker is another system proposed in this thesis with the aim of supporting the interpretation of Web pages using ontology based semantic annotation. It is an extension to the Internet Explorer Web browser that automatically creates a semantic layer of explanatory information and instructional guidance over Web pages. It also aims to break the conventional view of Web browsing as an individual activity by leveraging the notion of ontology-based collaborative browsing. Both of the tools presented in this thesis were evaluated by students within the context of particular learning tasks. The results show that they effectively fulfilled the intended goals by facilitating learning from hypertext without introducing high overheads in terms of usability or browsing efforts