bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Responsive Envelopes: the Fabric of Climatic Islands
Authors: Teyssot Georges
Published: June 2014

En 1967, Warren M. Brodey inventait le concept de « soft architecture » qui supprimait le mur en tant que catégorie. Dans un article de 1971 intitulé « Biotopologie », il écrit : « Imaginez effectuer une recherche approfondie à l’aide d’un media qui vous fournit des informations instantanées et qui par conséquent permet des retours dans le temps, la mémoire, l’énergie, les liens… Les réseaux de télévision n’ont pas de murs… ». Docteur en médecine spécialisé dans la cybernétique et la psychiatrie, Brodey a travaillé pour le Centre de Recherche Électronique (ERC) de la NASA et fut le premier docteur en médecine à être employé par le Laboratoire d’Intelligence Artificielle (CSAIL) du MIT. Pour Gilbert Simondon, la topologie et la chronologie procèdent de l’individuation du vivant : il n’existe pas de formes a priori, mais une dimensionnalité du vivant qui s’établit au cours de son processus d’individuation. C’est ainsi que sont réunies les conditions qui permettent de penser la morphogenèse selon Simondon. En conséquence, ce sont les processus génétiques analysés par Simondon (les briques, les membranes et les cristaux, par exemple) qui permettent de repenser les catégories spatiales. Soudain, l’architecture élémentaire (murs, cloisons, sols et plafonds) voit son sens entrer dans une métamorphose baroque et se transformer en une surface de contact topologique.
Mur-rideau ; la façade en jeu
Authors: Amy Sandrine
Published: June 2014

Pour Benjamin, s’imposait à son époque une double tâche : il s’agissait d’une part, de sortir du cauchemar de la première guerre mondiale et, d’autre part, de sortir du rêve du xixe siècle, dont, du fait même de cette guerre, il n’avait pas été possible de se réveiller. C’est dans l’architecture moderne – particulièrement chez Le Corbusier – qu’il pensait avoir trouvé les preuves d’un renversement dialectique ou révolutionnaire. Seulement, on peut penser qu’elle a plutôt constitué une « fausse délivrance » dont la violence aura masqué un nouveau rêve collectif pourtant déjà en train de se faire.
La « révolution de l’espace » et l’architecture comme « réalisation de la philosophie » dans Écumes de Sloterdijk
Authors: Barthélémy Jean-Hugues
Published: June 2014

La pensée de Sloterdijk revisite l’analytique existentiale heideggérienne à partir de la paléo-anthropologie, afin de montrer que l’« être-au-monde » propre à l’homme résulte d’une genèse « anthropotechnique », laquelle seule peut éclairer l’impact actuel des « médias de la désinhibition ». Cependant, la « sphérologie » de Sloterdijk ne dépasse conjointement – pour les unifier - l’ontologie philosophique et l’anthropologie empirique qu’en se faisant « roman philosophique » ou théorie métaphorique de l’« habiter » comme « domestication », et revisite pour ce faire la thématique phénoménologique de l’intersubjectivité en définissant la « sphère » minimale comme cette relation entre deux êtres par laquelle l’environnement va devenir ce qu’il faudra habiter afin que puisse par là se dessiner un Monde. L’audace suprême de Sloterdijk est alors de soutenir dans Écumes que l’architecture contemporaine, dans sa spécificité de « révolution de l’espace », a valeur de « réalisation de la philosophie »…
La khôra du Timée : Derrida, lecteur de Platon
Authors: Hernandez Marta
Published: June 2014

Dans cet article, nous proposons de suivre l’interprétation de Jacques Derrida de la khôra du Timée afin d’élaborer une problématique de l’espace qui prenne en compte les aspects idéologiques et politiques qui sont à l’œuvre dans la pensée de Platon. Contrairement aux interprétations métaphysiques qui considèrent la khôra comme une entité éminemment passive, Derrida souligne que, dans le Timée, la khôra fonctionne comme un mécanisme de sélection qui, hétérogène à l’ordre de l’intelligible, ne peut être approché que de manière paradoxale et anachronique.
Discours du figural
Authors: Sarikartal Eminé
Published: June 2014

Autour de la question du cheminement de l’art et de son interaction avec la technique, après une lecture de la partie prologue de La fable cinématographique de Jacques Rancière suivant le propre fil de réflexion de l’auteur, ce texte propose la rencontre de cette lecture avec la pensée de Jean-François Lyotard telle qu’il l’expose dans Discours, Figure.
La fragmentation, ce monstrueux
Authors: Delage de Luget Marion
Published: June 2014

Comparer la discipline au fragment, pour l’étude de l’œuvre de David Lynch, c’est poser les enjeux de cet interdisciplinaire caractéristique de la postmodernité : parce que la fragmentation, comme l’inter, induit cette relativité qui se joue de la catégorie de genre, et détache enfin le concept de monstre d’une relation binaire d’avec toute taxinomie.
Perception urbaine, distraction et stratification chez Benjamin, Eisenstein et Vertov
Authors: Rousse Pascal
Published: June 2014

La ville à l’écran est le substrat imaginaire et historique du cinéma. Mais le cinéma, burlesque et soviétique, transforme ce contexte tout en constituant sa mémoire. Walter Benjamin inaugura cette problématique avec la notion de « distraction », liant architecture et cinéma sur le fond du paradigme de la stratification de l’appareil psychique chez Freud.
Palais-Royal (1624-1986)
Authors: Alkenzawi Adil
Published: June 2014

Le présent texte résume les réflexions développées dans ma thèse de doctorat sous la direction des professeurs Jean-Louis Déotte et Jacques Boulet intitulée « L’architecture comme origine, destination et support d’inscription pour la peinture et la sculpture, le Double Plateau de Buren ». La nouveauté et l’originalité du Palais-Royal, dont le Double Plateau de Buren (1985-86) prolonge la fraîcheur et le trait générateur, sont dues à la singularité de son organisation. La genèse du Palais-Royal révèle l’invention d’un mode d’organisation urbaine particulier qu’est le “passage urbain” (W. Benjamin et J.-L. Déotte) appréhendable comme l’invention d’un appareil urbain. Le Palais-Royal est l’expression d’un projet urbain ouvert, continu et inachevé. Il invente un support d’écriture urbaine : le plateau ; lequel en intégrant les plateaux-terrasses de la Seine (schéma n° 1), crée un “lieu-monde” organisé autour d’un jardin habité, un parc des sculptures. Notre analyse des phases de formation du Palais-Royal de J.Lemercier à D.Buren, montre l’ampleur urbaine du Palais et la particularité de son mode d’édification et d’organisation…
L’institutionnalisation des concerts publics
Authors: Ledent David
Published: June 2014

Le « concert public » est une invention récente dans l’histoire de la musique occidentale. En effet, l’idée qu’une représentation musicale, et strictement musicale, fasse l’objet d’un accès public, c’est-à-dire soit en principe ouverte à tous moyennant finance, remonte au xviiie siècle et s’institutionnalise progressivement sous la forme de concerts publics. La conquête de l’espace public dans le domaine de la représentation des œuvres musicales fait époque avec les changements politiques et sociaux qui affectent alors la société française. À un basculement du régime politique répond celui du régime esthétique qui invente de nouvelles institutions et de nouvelles figures. Nous analysons dans cet article la mise en place de ce régime à travers la formation sociale et historique des concerts aux xviiie et xixe siècles.
L’art comme forme symbolique
Authors: Rieber Audrey
Published: June 2014

Penser l’art (musical) comme forme symbolique permet d’insister sur l’activité du compositeur et de son auditoire, c’est-à-dire de refuser la théorie de l’inspiration et de mettre en avant l’idée de configuration. Le propre de la musique est de découvrir les formes pures de l’esprit. Cette thèse conduit à écarter la théorie de l’imitation (et l’une de ses variantes : la théorie de l’expression) ainsi que l’approche moralisante de l’art. Enfin, cette réflexion sur la musique s’inscrit dans une histoire de l’esprit. C’est au stade symbolique pur que la musique devient un chemin vers la liberté.
Le rituel du concert et la question du sacré
Authors: Tarlet Renaud
Published: June 2014

Poser un regard anthropologique sur le concert symphonique amène à le considérer comme un rituel, à savoir comme une pratique collectivement instituée où le groupe s’affirme à lui-même. Ce rituel, l’anthropologie structurale nous a appris à l’appréhender comme la manifestation d’un système symbolique, système de classement inconscient de la réalité porté par la société où il se déroule. Mais si l’appréhension structuraliste offre des outils inestimables pour le replacer dans son contexte social, elle échoue selon nous à pénétrer son sens le plus profond, qui ne saurait se limiter à un acte de classement et d’explication du monde. Ainsi, poser la question de la sacralité dans le concert symphonique nous semble être une piste féconde afin de comprendre que ce rituel, parmi d’autres, permet à la société de projeter ses angoisses dans un en-dehors d’elle même dont elle est créatrice, afin qu’elles lui reviennent porteuses de sens. Dès lors, les modifications du statut de la sacralité dans ce rituel permettraient d’interroger des éléments de crise sociale et de représentations présents aussi, par homologie, dans le discours politique ou dans d’autres sphères de l’activité sociale. Le sacré ne serait donc pas seulement le voile de l’aliénation et de la domination : il serait au contraire indispensable à l’existence de groupes humains. Dès lors, la question de la liberté humaine et de la politique se poserait en termes de régimes plus ou moins critiques, distanciés et réflexifs de la sacralité.
Ce n’est pas une exposition, mais une œuvre d’art. L’exemple des Immatériaux de Jean-François Lyotard
Authors: Gallo Francesca
Published: June 2014

L’article présenté ici porte sur les rapports du parcours d’exposition fragmenté des Immatériaux avec la « dérive » situationniste et sur l’importance de la bande-son de l’exposition qui constitua à elle seule une véritable œuvre d’art.
Badiou, l’art et le cinéma
Authors: Lévy Denis
Published: June 2014

Pour Alain Badiou, l’art est une pensée singulière, productrice de vérités, irréductible à toute autre forme de pensée, et qui ne saurait faire l’objet d’une Esthétique.Le cinéma, art impur, crée des idées dont le propre est d’être mixtes, fugaces et orientées vers le possible. La tâche de la philosophie consiste à exposer les idées-cinéma dans leur apparaître et à saisir les vérités produites par les configurations cinématographiques.
Régimes de duplicité, espaces désesthétisés
Authors: Vollaire Christiane
Published: June 2014

Ce travail s’appuiera sur le concept d’espace tel qu’il se fonde dans l’Esthétique transcendantale chez Kant (comme condition interne au sujet de toute sa relation au monde), pour montrer en quoi les politiques contemporaines de spatialisation constituent un véritable déni infligé aux possibilités élémentaires de représentation de soi. Ainsi des processus de désesthétisation sont-ils liés à cette contradiction radicale : un effacement des frontières dans la globalisation des circuits financiers et des réseaux de communication, dans le temps même d’une intensification des frontières comme obstacles à la circulation des personnes. La modernité des spatialisations économiques s’y affronte à un archaïsme des représentations de l’espace national. Un travail de terrain, effectué dans des centres de réfugiés tchétchènes en Pologne, met en évidence les différents niveaux de ce régime de duplicité, inscrivant le biopolitique non pas seulement dans la perspective classiquement foucaldienne d’un régime de contrôle, mais dans les contradictions internes d’un contrôle accru et d’une dérégulation. Sans cesse, les migrants sont confrontés à cette duplicité juridique et politique qui fait de la « régulation des flux » une pure et simple amorce de la disparition des personnes. Les régimes de duplicité contemporains, en usant du double langage juridique pour euphémiser la réalité de la violence, sont donc au fondement d’une véritable perversion du politique. Et cette duplicité mondialisée s’avère, pour les migrants, véritablement terrorisante : livrant les sujets au double langage de l’abandon et de la protection, elle laisse en suspens au-dessus d’eux une menace, implicite et au sens propre affolante, d’extermination.
E-Learning Tools Applied in Teaching English at the University Level
Authors: Medárová Valéria
Published: June 2014

The chapter gives an overview of the current literature on e-learning goals and theoretical background of design of e-learning courses. Conditions of successful implementation of e-learning include technical, organizational, pedagogical, and psychological conditions. The chapter explains terms such as computer-assisted language learning and digital literacy. The author clarifies some issues related to efficient e-learning course delivery, including the learner and teacher perception. A practical example of an online Business English course in the Moodle system at the university level is analyzed. Student and instructor feedback provides insight into problems and obstacles in learning languages in the online mode. The chapter offers recommendations for online course design and lists issues that need special attention and that will be addressed in future research.
Teachers' Experience as Foreign Language Online Learners
Authors: Wang Congcong
Published: June 2014

Due to the continuing linguistic and cultural diversity among K-12 students in the US and across the English-speaking world and the increasing influence of digital technologies on learning, this qualitative study was conducted to explore pre-service teachers' perceptions of learning a foreign language online, and how such experience influences teaching linguistically, culturally, and technologically diverse students. Participants comprised 35 teacher education students, all of whom took a 9-week online Chinese language/culture course. A variety of surveys with closed and open-ended questions were conducted before, during, and after the course. Data were collected online and then coded and analyzed. The participants' responses suggested that: 1) new forms of online learning were engaging to teacher-learners with diverse learning styles, prior technological experience, needs, and goals; 2) the pre-service teachers perceived that online foreign language learning during their teacher education program enhanced their linguistic, cultural, and technological awareness; and 3) the participants felt that they benefited from being prepared to work with linguistic, cultural, and technological diversity in classrooms. This study has implications for similar contexts around the world.
Leadership and the Function of Discourse on International Political Economy
Authors: Gurel Pinar Altiok , Yilmaz Recep , Cambaz Nevin Ozgur , Yilmaz Nurten
Published: June 2014

This study focuses on the concept of leadership. It aims to explain the relationship between language and leadership. In this theoretical essay, firstly, the concept of leadership is discussed and then the relationship between semiotics, language, and discourse is described. Taking the obtained theoretical frame as a base, the function of language as a sign of leadership is studied within the frame of leadership approaches. The relationship stated in the study provides a theoretical route map for the academicians conducting empirical studies in this field, and this is the reason why this study is authentic and unique. With the effects of globalization rapidly increasing, the considerations of leadership have also changed, and new leadership typologies have emerged to supply the needs of the information age. Both at home and abroad, language skills and good command of language provide a global and competitive advantage for leaders, and this increases the significance of acquiring the skills mentioned.
A Domain-Specific Language for High-Level Parallelization
Authors: Arora Ritu , Bangalore Purushotham , Mernik Marjan
Published: June 2014

There are several ongoing research efforts in the High Performance Computing (HPC) domain that are employing Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) as the means of augmenting end-user productivity. A discussion on some of the research efforts that can positively impact the end-user productivity without negatively impacting the application performance is presented in this chapter. An overview of the process of developing a DSL for specifying parallel computations, called High-Level Parallelization Language (Hi-PaL), is presented along with the metrics for measuring its impact. A discussion on the future directions in which the DSL-based approaches can be applied in the HPC domain is also included.
Formal Semantics for Metamodel-Based Domain Specific Languages
Authors: Arcaini Paolo , Gargantini Angelo , Riccobene Elvinia , Scandurra Patrizia
Published: June 2014

Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) are often defined in terms of metamodels capturing the abstract syntax of the language. For a complete definition of a DSL, both syntactic and semantic aspects of the language have to be specified. Metamodeling environments support syntactic definition issues, but they do not provide any help in defining the semantics of metamodels, which is usually given in natural language. In this chapter, the authors present an approach to formally define the semantics of metamodel-based languages. It is based on a translational technique that hooks to the language metamodel its precise and executable semantics expressed in terms of the Abstract State Machine formal method. The chapter also shows how different techniques can be used for formal analysis of models (i.e., instance of the language metamodel). The authors exemplify the use of their approach on a language for Petri nets.
Ontology-Supported Design of Domain-Specific Languages
Authors: Dávid István , Gönczy László
Published: June 2014

This chapter introduces a novel approach for design of Domain-Specific Languages (DSL). It is very common in practice that the same problems emerge in different application domains (e.g. the modeling support for complex event processing is desirable in the domain of algorithmic trading, IT security assessment, robust monitoring, etc.). A DSL operates in one single domain, but the above-mentioned cross-domain challenges raise the question: is it possible to automate the design of DSLs which are so closely related? This approach demonstrates how a family of domain-specific languages can be developed for multiple domains from a single generic language metamodel with generative techniques. The basic idea is to refine the targeted domain with separating the problem domain from the context domain. This allows designing a generic language based on the problem and customizing it with the appropriate extensions for arbitrary contexts, thus defining as many DSLs and as many contexts as one extends the generic language for. The authors also present an ontology-based approach for establishing context-specific domain knowledge bases. The results are discussed through a case study, where a language for event processing is designed and extended for multiple context domains.
Linguistic Multi-Attribute Decision Making with a Prioritization Relationship
Authors: Wei Cuiping , Tang Xijin , Wang Xiaojie
Published: June 2014

In this paper we consider linguistic information aggregation problems where a prioritization relationship exists over attributes. The authors define a prioritized 2-tuple ordered weighted averaging (PTOWA) operator to aggregate satisfactions of alternatives under attributes with a linear prioritized ordering. The authors then use the PTOWA and a TOWA operator to aggregate linguistic information where attributes are partitioned into some categories of which prioritization between categories exists. Finally, two illustrative examples are employed to show the feasibility of the proposed method.
Intelligent Business Decision-Making in Global Organizations via Fuzzy Reasoning Systems
Authors: Şen Zekâi
Published: June 2014

Companies, organizations, governmental departments, and universities need to adopt globalization patterns for their generative survival in dynamic productive outputs. Such outputs are possible only after effective, rational, logical, and systematic treatment of all available input knowledge and information. These inputs mostly have imprecision, uncertainty, vagueness, incompleteness, and missing parts, which together provide a fuzzy arena where an expert is confronted with decision making under a set of conflicting and mutually inclusive vague alternatives. Any uncertain ingredient may be considered as a set of linguistic adjectives attached to the input and output variables so as to refine them into meaningful and less uncertain sub-sets. Logical propositions that combine each sub-set of any input variable to suitable sub-sets of other variables through logical ANDing connectives as precedents are related to a specific sub-set of output as consequent, which constitute fundamental logical rule. These are expert reflections towards management problem solving. The combination of such rules with logical ORing connectives presents linguistically the holistic decision structure of any management system. This chapter presents the essential steps required to achieve decision making under uncertainty for effective management via a fuzzy logic inference system. The basis of fuzzy logic modeling is presented which may be used by different business management experts.
Inviting Citizen Designers to Design Digital Interface for the Democratization of Web Online Environments
Authors: Panthee Rajendra Kumar
Published: June 2014

Web online environments are supposed to create unifying spaces where diverse societies, cultures and linguistics as well as literacies and knowledge associated with them merge together as negotiated in neutral space. However, these online environments are not culturally neutral or innocent communication landscapes. They may alienate the users from marginal/periphery social, cultural, and linguistic background and experience because of their disregard to their social, cultural, and linguistics norms and values in the digital contact zone. Acknowledging the social, cultural, and linguistic limitations of these technologies that aim to provide agency to their users in this chapter, this chapter proposes to invite citizen designers to design the interface of web online environment in general and Learning Management Systems (LMS) in particular because this process can transform online environments into democratic platforms. Citizen designers, who have democratic sentiments for the creation of a just society, are composition students in general and students with periphery cultural and linguistic experience in particular. Doing a cultural usability test of Blackboard 8, the author argues that current web interface design is not democratic and inclusive, and proposes to invite citizen designers to re/design interface of online environments for their democratization so that they would include people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds and enhance writing students' writing powers.
Integrating Technology-Enhanced Student Self-Regulated Tasks into University Chinese Language Course
Authors: An Irene Shidong
Published: June 2014

This paper reports on the implementation of a semester-long task in a university lower intermediate Chinese language course. Web-based podcasting technology, ChinesePod, was utilized to assist this implementation. The first part of this paper focuses on the task design informed by frameworks proposed in the literature. The second half of the paper presents and analyses data collected from an end-of-course questionnaire, semi-structured student interviews, and the written scripts of student self-made plays and videos of their performance of the play. The results reveal that the students differ in their perceptions of the task and the ways they approach it. This in turn leads to a quality difference in their performance of the task. This study highlights the importance of careful task design, recognition of individual learning styles and constant rapport with students, especially when student self-regulated tasks are implemented.
A Customizable Language Learning Support System Using Ontology-Driven Engine
Authors: Wang Jingyun , Mendori Takahiko , Xiong Juan
Published: June 2014

This article proposes a framework for web-based language learning support systems designed to provide customizable pedagogical procedures based on the analysis of characteristics of both learner and course. This framework employs a course-centered ontology and a teaching method ontology as the foundation for the student model, which includes learner knowledge status and learning preferences. A prototype system has been developed based on this framework. The system was evaluated by means of analysis of learner data from the international language department of a Chinese university. The average learning achievement of the students in the experimental group, who studied with the learning support system, was significantly better than that of the control group, who studied with the tradition learning management system while taking the same Japanese course as the experimental group.
LinkedVis an Information Visualisation Toolkit for RDF Data
Authors: Garrote Antonio , García María N. Moreno
Published: June 2014

LinkedVis implements a JavaScript and SVG data visualisation toolkit that can be used to generate a wide range of interactive information visualisations from RDF graphs using a grammar of graphics style syntax extended with operations for structural transformation of the RDF data graph. Additionally, LinkedVis visualisations make it possible to embed meta-data about the visualisation and the way different graphic components from the visualisation are related to the original RDF data. Insertion of meta-data transforms the visualisation into a self-describing piece of information that can be processed by an automatic agent to perform different tasks, like extracting data associated to a visual component, following the associated linked URIs or translate the visualisation to an entirely different underlying graphics system other than SVG.
Comparison between Internal and External DSLs via RubyTL and Gra2MoL
Authors: Cuadrado Jesús Sánchez , Izquierdo Javier Luis Cánovas , Molina Jesús García
Published: June 2014

Domain Specific Languages (DSL) are becoming increasingly more important with the emergence of Model-Driven paradigms. Most literature on DSLs is focused on describing particular languages, and there is still a lack of works that compare different approaches or carry out empirical studies regarding the construction or usage of DSLs. Several design choices must be made when building a DSL, but one important question is whether the DSL will be external or internal, since this affects the other aspects of the language. This chapter aims to provide developers confronting the internal-external dichotomy with guidance, through a comparison of the RubyTL and Gra2MoL model transformations languages, which have been built as an internal DSL and an external DSL, respectively. Both languages will first be introduced, and certain implementation issues will be discussed. The two languages will then be compared, and the advantages and disadvantages of each approach will be shown. Finally, some of the lessons learned will be presented.
Tools for the Automatic Generation of Ontology Documentation
Authors: Peroni Silvio , Shotton David , Vitali Fabio
Published: June 2014

Ontologies are knowledge constructs essential for creation of the Web of Data. Good documentation is required to permit people to understand ontologies and thus employ them correctly, but this is costly to create by tradition authorship methods, and is thus inefficient to create in this way until an ontology has matured into a stable structure. The authors describe three tools, LODE, Parrot and the OWLDoc-based Ontology Browser, that can be used automatically to create documentation from a well-formed OWL ontology at any stage of its development. They contrast their properties and then report on the authors' evaluation of their effectiveness and usability, determined by two task-based user testing sessions.
The French Digital Kitchen
Authors: Seedhouse Paul , Preston Anne , Olivier Patrick , Jackson Dan , Heslop Philip , Plötz Thomas , Balaam Madeline , Ali Saandia
Published: June 2014

This paper reports on the French Digital Kitchen, a design-based project which drew on digital sensor technology to take the principles of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) out of the classroom and into the real-world environment of a kitchen. The project aimed to produce a situated language learning environment where learners could learn aspects of French language and cuisine whilst performing a real-world task. The article describes the blend of TBLT, human-computer interaction (HCI) and user-centred design (UCD) principles the authors adopted in constructing and trialling the kitchen, using multiple data sources. An example of a task cycle is then presented to illustrate (by using CA analysis of transcripts) how learners have used the resources of the kitchen to accomplish the task. The authors' findings show how the integration of the pedagogical and technological design enabled learners to notice and manipulate new vocabulary items.
Classifying Consumer Comparison Opinions to Uncover Product Strengths and Weaknesses
Authors: Xu Kaiquan , Wang Wei , Ren Jimmy S. J. , Xu Jin , Liu Long , Liao Stephen S. Y.
Published: June 2014

With the Web 2.0 paradigm, a huge volume of Web content is generated by users at online forums, wikis, blogs, and social networks, among others. These user-contributed contents include numerous user opinions regarding products, services, or political issues. Among these user opinions, certain comparison opinions exist, reflecting customer preferences. Mining comparison opinions is useful as these types of viewpoints can bring more business values than other types of opinion data. Manufacturers can better understand relative product strengths or weaknesses, and accordingly develop better products to meet consumer requirements. Meanwhile, consumers can make purchasing decisions that are more informed by comparing the various features of similar products. In this paper, a novel Support Vector Machine-based method is proposed to automatically identify comparison opinions, extract comparison relations, and display results with the comparison relation maps by mining the volume of consumer opinions posted on the Web. The proposed method is empirically evaluated based on consumer opinions crawled from the Web. The initial experimental results show that the performance of the proposed method is promising and this research opens the door to utilizing these comparison opinions for business intelligence.
A Formal Semantics of Kermeta
Authors: Amrani Moussa
Published: June 2014

This chapter contributes to the formal specification of Kermeta, a popular metamodelling framework useful for the design of DSL structure and semantics. The formal specification is tool-/tool syntax independent; it only uses classical mathematical instruments taught in usual computer science courses. This specification serves as a reference specification from which specialised implementation can be derived for execution, simulation, or formal analysis of DSLs. By providing such a specification, the chapter ensures that each and every DSL written in Kermeta, receives de facto a formal counterpart, making its definition fully formal. This radically contrasts with other approaches that require a new ad hoc semantics defined for every new DSL. The chapter briefly reports on two implementations conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach.
Representing Music as Work in Progress
Authors: Roma Gerard , Herrera Perfecto
Published: June 2014

In this chapter, the authors discuss an approach to music representation that supports collaborative composition given current practices based on digital audio. A music work is represented as a directed graph that encodes sequences and layers of sound samples. The authors discuss graph grammars as a general framework for this representation. From a grammar perspective, they analyze the use of XML for storing production rules, music structures, and references to audio files. The authors describe an example implementation of this approach.
Transnational Preservice Teachers' Literate Lives and Writing Pedagogy in a Digital Era
Authors: López Minda Morren , Brochin Carol
Published: June 2014

This chapter focuses on the experiences of Latin@ transnational preservice teachers as they detail their (bi)literate lives through multimodal texts, specifically digital timelines and literacy narratives. Using qualitative methods, the authors examine the ways in which the production of multimodal texts became the medium through which participants could reflect on their own literacy processes through reflection and sharing. Preservice teachers were also asked to discuss their understandings of writing pedagogy and how they envisioned their future classrooms. Most of the Latin@ participants reported multiple language use and a variety of contexts where they learned about literacies. In addition, the multimodal and digital aspects of the assignments assisted students in recalling memories, widening their views of what counts as literacy, and fostering more inclusive writing pedagogy. Providing future classroom teachers with opportunities for engaging in mulitimodal composing along with critical reflection has the potential to transform and disrupt dominant ideologies towards literacy practices and English language dominance. Understanding the complex literacy practices of preservice teachers may also lead to shaping the future of literacy instruction to better serve an increasingly multilingual, multicultural student population.
Multimodality in Action
Authors: Shanahan Lynn E. , McVee Mary B. , Bailey Nancy M.
Published: June 2014

In this chapter, the authors present two classroom portraits of a 5th and 9th grade classrooms as activity systems where teachers and learners are engaged in multimodal composing. In their analysis, they are most interested in how principles of design, affordances of modes, and multimodality become internalized as psychological tools that shape learning in the context of activity. The authors ask two research questions: What are the mediational artifacts (both ideal and material) in these activity settings? What does this reveal about multimodality as a socially situated process? Conclusions drawn from the two different cases lead the authors to suggest that multimodality must be carefully understood as part of an activity system.
Effects of a Technology-Enriched, Task-Based Language Teaching Curriculum on Chinese Elementary Students' Achievement in English as a Foreign Language
Authors: Li Guofang , Ni Xiaopeng
Published: June 2014

Despite the great potential technologies bring to TBLT, few studies have examined the effects of technology-enhanced TBLT curriculum on students' language development, especially among young learners. This paper addresses this need by reporting the impact of a technology-enhanced TBLT curriculum on Chinese elementary students' English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning using a Non-equivalent Groups Design. A total of 471 fourth grade students from 4 low-SES schools outside Beijing participated in the study. Students' growth in their English achievement was assessed using pre and post-tests before and after the intervention. A descriptive analysis was first conducted after completion of data collection, and then a t-test was conducted to determine the effect of the intervention. Results indicate that students who received the intervention progressed much more quickly in overall language proficiency than those who did not receive the treatment. The study points to the great potential of implementing comprehensive technology-enhanced TBLT at the curricular level.
A Generic Approach for the Semantic Annotation of Conceptual Models Using a Service-Oriented Architecture
Authors: Fill Hans-Georg , Schremser Daniela , Karagiannis Dimitris
Published: June 2014

In this paper a generic service oriented architecture for the semantic annotation of conceptual models is described. It allows to annotate elements of conceptual models with concepts from formal semantic schemata. Thereby, additional semantic functionalities for models can be realized. Due to the integration of aspects of service orientation, the platform can be easily extended to support different modeling and semantic schema languages. Furthermore, it can act as an integration platform for other tools working on models and ontologies.
Integrating Chinese Community into Canadian Society
Authors: Mao Yuping , Guardado Martin , Meyer Kevin R.
Published: June 2014

The use of podcasting technology in language learning presents a unique set of challenges and holds a great deal of promise for digital natives as well as for newcomers to technology. The literature on podcasts in learning mainly focuses on student experiences in formal educational settings, while questions related to nontraditional students in freely-available language programs provided by non-profit organizations remain unexplored. Taking a case study approach, this research examines how podcasting enhances the English learning experiences of students in an English as a Second Language (ESL) course offered by a non-profit organization that provides community services to immigrants in Canada. This chapter discusses instructional and organizational benefits as well as the challenges of applying podcasts in language training. By triangulating the experiences of the students, instructor, and program coordinators, we are able to examine the effectiveness of such a program and offer recommendations for similar programs in the future.
Learning Words by Imitating
Authors: Cederborg Thomas , Oudeyer Pierre-Yves
Published: June 2014

This chapter proposes a single imitation-learning algorithm capable of simultaneously learning linguistic as well as nonlinguistic tasks, without demonstrations being labeled. A human demonstrator responds to an environment that includes the behavior of another human, called the interactant, and the algorithm must learn to imitate this response without being told what the demonstrator was responding to (for example, the position of an object or a speech utterance of the interactant). Since there is no separate symbolic language system, the symbol grounding problem can be avoided/dissolved. The types of linguistic behavior explored are action responses, which includes verb learning but where actions are generalized to include such things as communicative behaviors or internal cognitive operations. Action responses to object positions are learnt in the same way as action responses to speech utterances of an interactant. Three experiments are used to validate the proposed algorithm.
Founding a Field Theory of Work
Authors: Bruce Raymon R.
Published: June 2014

This chapter traces the origin of the concept of work in five staged sections. The first section examines the question, what is work? Work originally referred to “doing,” that is, work organization, synergy, and energy. The second section develops the Greek word family for work into a dynamic model of doing. The third section shows how nature guides working change through energy exchange. It examines how a work as re-organization model would function in nature's jurisdictional domain of guiding energy exchanges. Nature's laws provide guidance for self-governing latitude to energy jurisdictional domains' evolutionary change. The fourth section examines policymaking as human guidance imitating nature. Policymaking limits individual self-governance to guide a specified social community of people (polis) doing work. Policymaking is explored to see how humans use policymaking to govern themselves and their cultural social groups including governments by using nature's use of laws as guidance. Policymaking is also a form of laying down basic parameters of work as re-organization through energy exchanges in the ambient environment. Policies are human artifacts designed help a social group work well together. Part five presents an issue analysis as an invited Organization Development consultant to help find ways for the Sri Lankan government, the University of Moratuwa, and the apparel and textile industry to work together in their extreme makeover of human resource development of their apparel and textile industry. Action training and research, stakeholder management, and wicked problem issue analysis are the organization development methods used to demonstrate this field theory of work re-organization through energy exchange.
Context Inference Engine (CiE)
Authors: Mahmud Umar , Javed Muhammad Younus
Published: June 2014

Context Awareness is the ability of systems and applications to sense the environment and infer the activity going on in the environment. Context encompasses all knowledge bounded within an environment and includes attributes of both machines and users. A context-aware system is composed of context gathering and context inference modules. This chapter proposes a Context Inference Engine (CiE) that classifies the current context as one of several known context activities. This engine follows a Minkowski distance-based classification approach with standard deviation-based ranks to identify likeliness of classified activity of the current context. Empirical results on different data sets show that the proposed algorithm performs closer to Support Vector Machines (SVM) while it is better than probabilistic reasoning methods where the performance is quantified as success in classification.
Neural Network-Based Spatial Modeling of Natural Phenomena and Events
Authors: Barth Andreas , Knobloch Andreas , Noack Silke , Schmidt Frank
Published: June 2014

Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) are used for statistical modeling of spatial events in geosciences. The advantage of this method is the ability of neural networks to represent complex interrelations and to be “able to learn” from known (spatial) events. The software advangeo® was developed to enable GIS users to apply neural network methods on raster geodata. The statistic modeling results can be developed and displayed in a user-friendly way within the Esri ArcGIS environment. The complete workflow is documented by the software. This chapter presents five case studies to illustrate the current possibilities and limitations of spatial predictions with the use of artificial neural networks, which describe influencing factors and the selection of known events of the phenomenon to be modeled. These applications include: (1) the prognosis of soil erosion patterns, (2) the country-wide prediction of mineral resources, (3) the vulnerability analysis for forest pests, (4) the spatial distribution of bird species, and (5) the spatial prediction of manganese nodules on the sea bottom.
Power Quality Improvement using Improved Approximated Fuzzy Logic Controller for Shunt Active Power Filter
Authors: Singh Asheesh K. , Singh Rambir
Published: June 2014

This chapter presents the design approach of an Improved Approximated Simplest Fuzzy Logic Controller (IASFLC). A cascade combination of simplest 4-rule Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) and an nth degree polynomial is proposed as an IASFLC to approximate the control characteristics of a 49-rule FLC. The approximation scheme is based on minimizing the sum of square errors between the control outputs of a 49-rule FLC and a simplest 4-rule FLC in the entire range of Universe Of Discourse (UOD). The coefficients of compensating polynomial are evaluated by solving instantaneous square error equations at various test points in the entire UOD. This IASFLC maps the output of a 49-rule FLC with absolute deviation of less than 5%. The proposed IASFLC is used to control the dc link voltage of a three-phase shunt Active Power Filter (APF). A detailed analysis is performed during transient and steady state conditions to check Power Quality (PQ) and dynamic performance indices under randomly varying balanced and unbalanced loading conditions. The performance of proposed IASFLC is compared with a 49-rule FLC and Approximated Simplest Fuzzy Logic Controller (ASFLC) based on minimization of the deviation at central values of Membership Functions (MFs). It is found comparatively better for harmonic and reactive compensation with a comparable dynamic response. The memory requirement and computational time of proposed IASFLC are even lesser than the ASFLC.
Machine Learning and Cognitive Algorithms for Engineering Applications
Authors: Perlovsky Leonid , Kuvich Gary
Published: June 2014

Mind is based on intelligent cognitive processes, which are not limited by language and logic only. The thought is a set of informational processes in the brain, and such processes have the same rationale as any other systematic informational processes. Their specifics are determined by the ways of how brain stores, structures, and process this information. Systematic approach allows representing them in a diagrammatic form that can be formalized. Semiotic approach allows for the universal representation of such diagrams. In that approach, logic is a way of synthesis of such structures, which is a small but clearly visible top of the iceberg. The most efforts were traditionally put into logics without paying much attention to the rest of the mechanisms that make the entire thought system working autonomously. Dynamic fuzzy logic is reviewed and its connections with semiotics are established. Dynamic fuzzy logic extends fuzzy logic in the direction of logic-processes, which include processes of fuzzification and defuzzification as parts of logic. The paper reviews basic cognitive mechanisms, including instinctual drives, emotional and conceptual mechanisms, perception, cognition, language, a model of interaction between language and cognition upon the new semiotic models. The model of interacting cognition and language is organized in an approximate hierarchy of mental representations from sensory percepts at the “bottom” to objects, contexts, situations, abstract concepts-representations, and to the most general representations at the “top” of mental hierarchy. Knowledge Instinct and emotions are driving feedbacks for these representations. Interactions of bottom-up and top-down processes in such hierarchical semiotic representation are essential for modeling cognition. Dynamic fuzzy logic is analyzed as a fundamental mechanism of these processes. Future research directions are discussed.
Speaking Truth to Power
Authors: Clavel Pierre
Published: June 2014

City planners (including e-planners) have at times sought to “speak truth to power,” as when the interests of poor neighborhoods' needs to preserve jobs and housing confront real estate developers promoting urban renewal schemes to replace existing homes and factories with upscale appartments and shopping malls. The planners have tools – writing, speaking, and the array of ICT devices they can employ. But they face powerful forces – not only developers, but builders, investors, professionals, city officials and media. This article – set in 1980s and 1990s Chicago -- presents the story of an alternative approach – an organizer who built a coalition of neighborhoods and employers that prevailed over a period of years. It may be a metaphor for more contemporary times. Can e-planners learn from such an example?