scholarly journals Modelling Structures for Situated Discourse

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-121
Author(s):  
Nicholas Asher ◽  
Julie Hunter ◽  
Kate Thompson

This paper describes a corpus of situated multiparty chats developed for the STAC project (Strategic Conversation, ERC grant n. 269427). and annotated for discourse structure in the style of Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT; Asher & Lascarides,2003).  The STAC corpus is not only a rich source of data on strategic conversation, but also the first corpus that we are aware of that provides discourse structures for multiparty dialogues situated within a virtual environment.  The corpus was annotated in two stages: we initially annotated the chat moves only, but later decided to annotate interactions between the chat moves and non-linguistic events from the virtual environment. This two-step procedure  has allowed us quantify various ways in which adding information from the nonlinguistic context affects dialogue structure.  In this paper, we  look at how annotations based only on linguistic information were preserved once the nonlinguistic context was factored in.  We explain that while the preservation of relation instances is relatively high when we move from one corpus to the other, there is little preservation of higher order structures that capture "the main point" of a dialogue and distinguish it from peripheral information.

2000 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 173-207
Author(s):  
Michael Grabski

The paper starts with a semantic differentiation between the notions of sentence topic and discourse topic. Sentence topic is conceived of as part of a semantic predication in the sense of Y. Kim's work. Discourse topic is defined, as in N. Asher's Segmented Discourse Representation Theory, as a discourse constituent that comprises the content of (part of) the larger discourse. The main body of the paper serves to investigate the intricate connection between the two types of topic. For restricting the context of investigation, a specific relation between discourse constituents, Elaboration, is chosen. If Elaboration holds between two discourse constituents, one of them can be identified as the explicit discourse topic with respect to the other one. Whereas an elaborating sentence - with or without a sentence topic - is used to infer a 'dimension' for extending the discourse topic, the role of the sentence topic if it occurs is to mark an 'index' for predication along that dimension. The interaction of elaborating sentences and their topics is modelled by means of channel theoretic devices.'  


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jupriaman Jupriaman ◽  
Sri Minda Murni

The objectives of this study were to describe the classroom discourse structure, to describe how the classroom discourse is realized by teacher and students and the reasons for the realizations of the ways they are. The source of the data was English teacher and the students while the data are verbal and non verbal utterances of students and teachers. The instruments for collecting data were video tape recorder and researcher’s field note. The data were collected by observing and recording the utterances uttered by the teacher and students. The findings showed that the classroom discourse structures were dominantly realized by Initiation and Response (IR) structure. It was reflected in teacher direct, elicit and information exchanges was found that the classroom discourse structures. The other exchanges occur are boundary (framing and focusing move), directive, informing, check, accept, react, reply, nomination, marker, bid and conclusion acts. The reasons why the realization as the ways they are (1) teacher as a centre of interaction, (2) teacher gives some questions without any caring to the evaluation, appreciation and feedback without any feedback to make dialogue, (3) students have been disciplined not to speak in classes without a teacher’s direction, and most of them are unwilling to speak English.   Keywords: Classroom Discourse Structures, Initiation and Response, Sinclair and Coulthard Theory


Author(s):  
Davorin Cimermančič ◽  
Janez Kušar ◽  
Tomaž Berlec

AbstractChanging a traditional company into a lean one is a very complex and time-consuming process that needs to be addressed in an appropriate way, otherwise the project of introduction of leanness into a company may fail on the one hand and even have a negative impact on business operations of the company on the other. When introducing a change, a step-by-step procedure leading to a progress may be of great help. The paper outlines a general procedure of leanness, an important part of which is a lean agent. A portfolio analysis is also used as a measure of leanness or as an indicator of the desired direction. The applied working methods were mainly active workshops and interviews with employees. The procedure has been tested on an example of a Slovene company; first, the existing situation is outlined, then the leanness steps taken according to the procedure and the final result after the first transition of the procedure.


Catalysts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 552
Author(s):  
Dominika Kozicka ◽  
Paulina Zieleźny ◽  
Karol Erfurt ◽  
Jakub Adamek

Herein we describe the development and optimization of a two-step procedure for the synthesis of N-protected 1-aminomethylphosphonium salts from imides, amides, carbamates, or lactams. Our “step-by-step” methodology involves the transformation of amide-type substrates to the corresponding hydroxymethyl derivatives, followed by the substitution of the hydroxyl group with a phosphonium moiety. The first step of the described synthesis was conducted based on well-known protocols for hydroxymethylation with formaldehyde or paraformaldehyde. In turn, the second (substitution) stage required optimization studies. In general, reactions of amide, carbamate, and lactam derivatives occurred at a temperature of 70 °C in a relatively short time (1 h). On the other hand, N-hydroxymethylimides reacted with triarylphosphonium salts at a much higher temperature (135 °C) and over longer reaction times (as much as 30 h). However, the proposed strategy is very efficient, especially when NaBr is used as a catalyst. Moreover, a simple work-up procedure involving only crystallization afforded good to excellent yields (up to 99%).


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-97
Author(s):  
Siaw-Fong Chung

The analysis in this paper was based on five Malay narratives of the “frog story”. In these narratives, the types of lexical arguments and their relations with information flow and topic continuity were analyzed. It was found that most narrators used one lexical argument in telling the frog story (e.g., sarang itu jatuh “the nest fell”). About 60% of the verbs in the narratives contained one lexical argument only. Some transitive verbs that usually require the presence of both lexical arguments were used with one lexical argument only when produced in speech (e.g., dia mencari ø di merata tempat “he searched (for) ø everywhere”). Objects were sometimes omitted, as their meanings could be predicted from previous context. Despite the omission of objects, transitive constructions still prevailed in the stories. The most frequently occurring lexical arguments were objects (O) (37%), followed by intransitive subjects (S) (29%) and transitive subjects (A) (27%). In addition, our results showed that new information in Malay was usually allocated to the core argument of the object and to locative expressions, indicating that most of the new information appeared at the end of a clause. On the other hand, topic continuity was held between the subjects in two continuous intonation units. This clear-cut division of discourse functions in the heads and tails of constructions was consistently found in the five pieces of narration. This observation not only showed how ideas could be continued in Malay oral narratives, but also contributes to the study of discourse structure in Malay.


2021 ◽  
pp. medethics-2020-107144
Author(s):  
Abeezar I Sarela

Cox and Fritz state the central problem as the absence of a framework for healthcare policy decisions; but, they overlook the theoretical underpinnings of public law. In response, they propose a two-step procedure to guide fair decision-making. The first step relies on Thomas Scanlon’s ‘contractualism’ for stakeholders to consider whether, or not, they could reasonably reject policy proposals made by others; then in the second step, John Rawls’s principles of justice are applied to these proposals; a fair policy requires to pass both steps. I argue that Cox and Fritz misinterpret Rawls. His theory has two stages: first, public reason is used to generate principles of justice; second, public reason is used to interpret and apply these principles. The second stage requires that proposals are based on the principles of justice from the first stage, and these proposals have to be acceptable to reasonable persons. Thus, Rawls’s theory does not need Scanlonian supplementation. Moreover, the application of Rawls’s theory in Cox and Fritz’s model is confusing. In any case, the problems with applying Rawlsian justice to healthcare can be located elsewhere. First, Rawls’s theory would treat healthcare simply as a ‘primary good’ or resource. Social justice ought to, instead, consider healthcare as an opportunity, in the manner conceived by Amartya Sen. Second, Rawlsian justice rests, ultimately, on the conception of a reasonable person; until and unless the characteristics of reasonable stakeholders are clarified, any model of health justice will remain hostage to the unreasonable.


2003 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 147-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Aparecido Cury ◽  
Aline Soler Marques ◽  
Cíntia Pereira Machado Tabchoury ◽  
Altair Antoninha Del Bel Cury

Since dental plaque reservoirs of fluoride (F), calcium (Ca) and inorganic phosphorus (Pi) are susceptible to decreases in pH, this in situ crossover study was conducted to test the hypothesis that the low concentration of these ions in plaque, formed in the presence of sucrose, could be attributed merely to the fermentation of this sugar. Eleven volunteers wore palatal appliances containing 6 human enamel blocks during two stages. In each stage, the treatments were either 20% sucrose solution or distilled deionized water, which were dripped onto the blocks 8 times a day. After 28 days, in each stage, the dental plaque formed on two blocks was collected, the treatment was inverted and after a further 24 and 48 h, the biofilm formed was collected from the other blocks. The concentration of acid-soluble F, Ca and Pi, and the concentration of insoluble polysaccharide (IP) were determined in the dental plaque. Statistically lower concentrations of F, Ca and Pi, and a higher concentration of IP were found in the 28-day biofilm formed in the presence of sucrose than in its absence; after the treatment inversion the change in F, Ca and Pi was not statistically significant, but the IP concentration changed significantly. The hypothesis was rejected because change in concentration of F, Ca and Pi is not due to fermentation of the sucrose.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dewi Rawani ◽  
Ratu Ilma Indra Putri ◽  
Hapizah Hapizah

This research aims to produce a valid, practical, and having potential effects PISA-like mathematics problems using taekwondo context in Asian Games. The subjects were MIA 3 student of SMA 10 Palembang. This study was design research of development study in which had two stages: the preliminary and formative evaluation. The formative evaluation includes self-evaluation, one-to-one and expert review, small group, and field test. The context is used to have the students estimate maximum numbers of exercising athletes in a hall with a specific size. The result of the analysis shows that the problems which were reviewed by three expert reviews are valid qualitatively based on the PISA framework; it is also practical and easy to understand the problem. Based on the analysis of students’ answer, the developed problems display potential effects on student’s diverse basic mathematical abilities on the various process of answering the problems. The basic mathematics abilities emerging among which are reasoning and argument ability. It appears that students can develop and solve the problem by modeling using their assumptions. Also, the other ability is designing strategies to solve problems in which students use various procedures in solving problems leading the conclusion.


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