Final – ww in the Late Egyptian Orthography: A Linguistic Assessment

Summary Various words in Late Egyptian texts present a final sequence –ww that is absent in earlier attestations and does not have any obvious etymological justification. No systematic discussion of these –ww, and not explanation for their use, has been offered so far. The present paper aims at filling this gap through a systematic reassessment of the phonological characteristics of a comprehensive corpus of words displaying this marker –ww. The results suggest that this marker is related in function with the so called spacefillers discussed in Kilani 2017; in particular it appears to be added at the end of words characterized by a stressed back vowel adjacent to a labial consonant w, b, p, f or m, and possibly ˓. Some considerations about the possible underlying linguistic reality and the rational for the use of this marker are added at the end of the article. One instance of the marker –ww in a magic spell of P. BM EA 9997 IV, and its possible role in clarifying a potentially ambiguous pronunciation of the associated verb, is discussed in a final Addendum. An appendix with the reconstruction of the vocalization for the words that survive in Coptic is provided here. A second appendix with the whole corpus is provided as online supplement.

Adapting Neural Turing Machines for linguistic assessments aggregation in neural-symbolic decision support systems

Introduction: The construction of integrated neurosymbolic systems is an urgent and challenging task. Building neurosymbolic decision support systems requires new approaches to represent knowledge about a problem situation and to express symbolic reasoning at the subsymbolic level. Purpose: Development of neural network architectures and methods for effective distributed knowledge representation and subsymbolic reasoning in decision support systems in terms of algorithms for aggregation of fuzzy expert evaluations to select alternative solutions. Methods: Representation of fuzzy and uncertain estimators in a distributed form using tensor representations; construction of a trainable neural network architecture for subsymbolic aggregation of linguistic estimators. Results: The study proposes two new methods of representation of linguistic assessments in a distributed form. The first approach is based on the possibility of converting an arbitrary linguistic assessment into a numerical representation and consists in converting this numerical representation into a distributed one by converting the number itself into a bit string and further forming a matrix storing the distributed representation of the whole expression for aggregating the assessments. The second approach to translating linguistic assessments to a distributed representation is based on representing the linguistic assessment as a tree and coding this tree using the method of tensor representations, thus avoiding the step of translating the linguistic assessment into a numerical form and ensuring the transition between symbolic and subsymbolic representations of linguistic assessments without any loss of information. The structural elements of the linguistic assessment are treated as fillers with their respective positional roles. A new subsymbolic method of aggregation of linguistic assessments is proposed, which consists in creating a trainable neural network module in the form of a Neural Turing Machine. Practical relevance: The results of the study demonstrate how a symbolic algorithm for aggregation of linguistic evaluations can be implemented by connectionist (or subsymbolic) mechanisms, which is an essential requirement for building distributed neurosymbolic decision support systems.

Peculiarities of Administrative Cases on Recognition of Information Materials as Extremist and their Examination in terms of Secure Internet Communication

The paper discusses some of the features of administrative cases on the recognition of information materials posted on the Internet as extremist. An analysis of judicial practice in cases of recognition of information materials as extremist (Article 265.8 of the Administrative Procedure Code) highlighted their specifics and problematic aspects associated with expert opinions used to substantiate administrative claims. Presumably, extremist materials are detected by law enforcement agencies during the monitoring of social networks and other Internet resources and are sent for linguistic expertise. If a linguistic expert reveals any signs of extremism, the prosecutor issues a legal opinion and in the interests of the Russian Federation and an indefinite circle of persons applies to a federal court with an administrative claim to recognize information posted on Internet sites as extremist material, i.e. information, the distribution of which is prohibited in the Russian Federation. The paper concludes that to substantiate the arguments of administrative claims, the conclusions of linguistic experts are used, the quality of which determines the validity of the court decisions taken. As the main reason for expert errors, the authors cite the ambiguity of the interpretation of the concept of “extremist materials”, which entails a mixture of information calling for committing an extremist action or justifying or substantiating it, and the actual speech action of calling or justifying or justifying. It seems necessary to change the existing expert approach towards the development of a unified criterion for determining diagnostic complexes of signs necessary and sufficient to substantiate the extremist essence of information materials, taking into account the duality of their legal and linguistic assessment.

Analyzing Assessments Practices for Indigenous Students

The purpose of this article is to review common assessment practices for Indigenous students. We start by presenting positionalities—our personal and professional background identities. Then we explain common terms associated with Indigeneity and Indigenous and Western worldviews. We describe the meaning of document analysis, the chosen qualitative research design, and we explicate the delimitations and limitations of the paper. The review of the literature revealed four main themes. First, assessment is subjugated by a Western worldview. Next, many linguistic assessment practices disadvantage Indigenous students, and language-specific and culture-laden standardized tests are often discriminatory. Last, there is a pervasive focus on cognitive assessment. We discuss how to improve assessment for Indigenous students. For example, school divisions and educators need quality professional development and knowledge about hands-on assessment, multiple intelligences, and Western versus Indigenous assessment inconsistencies. Within the past 20 years, assessment tactics for Indigenous students has remained, more or less, the same. We end with a short discussion addressing this point.

Multi-criteria analysis of social isolation barriers amid COVID-19 using fuzzy AHP

Purpose The purpose of current analytical work is to identify the critical barriers in social isolation in India amid Coronavirus infection disease (COVID) outbreak using the fuzzy-analytical hierarchical process (AHP) method. Design/methodology/approach The conventional AHP is insufficient for tackling the vague nature of linguistic assessment. Fuzzy AHP had been developed to resolve the hierarchical fuzzy problems, avoiding its risks on performance. In AHP, all comparisons are not included; thus, to find the priority of one decision variable over other, triangular fuzzy numbers are used. Findings A total of eight critical barriers in social distancing in India during COVID-19 have been compared and ranked. Dense population has emerged as the most culpable barrier in social isolation in India amid COVID outbreak followed by compulsion for pecuniary earning and general incautiousness. A total of eight critical barriers in social distancing in India during COVID-19 in four categories (societal barriers, insufficient facilitation barriers, growth-related barriers and population related barriers) have been compared and ranked. Originality/value On the basis of the numeral values, “growth-related barriers” attained top position followed by “population-related barriers” and “insufficient facilitation barriers.” The current work has explored the possible factors which can become key game changers to control the pace of spread of the pandemic.

Application of fuzzy TOPSIS framework for selecting complex project in a case company

Purpose This study aims to propose a method known as the fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (fuzzy TOPSIS) for complex project selection in organizations. To fulfill study objectives, the factors responsible for making a project complex are collected through literature review, which is then analyzed by fuzzy TOPSIS, based on three decision-makers’ opinions. Design/methodology/approach The selection of complex projects is a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) process for global organizations. Traditional procedures for selecting complex projects are not adequate due to the limitations of linguistic assessment. To crossover such limitation, this study proposes the fuzzy MCDM method to select complex projects in organizations. Findings A large-scale engine manufacturing company, engaged in the energy business, is studied to validate the suitability of the fuzzy TOPSIS method and rank eight projects of the case company based on project complexity. Out of these eight projects, the closeness coefficient of the most complex project is found to be 0.817 and that of the least complex project is found to be 0.274. Finally, study outcomes are concluded in the conclusion section, along with study limitations and future works. Research limitations/implications The outcomes from this research may not be generalized sufficiently due to the subjectivity of the interviewers. The study outcomes support project managers to optimize their project selection processes, especially to select complex projects. The presented methodology can be used extensively used by the project planners/managers to find the driving factors related to project complexity. Originality/value The presented study deliberately explained how complex projects in an organization could be select efficiently. This selection methodology supports top management to maintain their proposed projects with optimum resource allocations and maximum productivity.

Optimization of morpheme length: a cross-linguistic assessment of Zipf’s and Menzerath’s laws

Zipf’s Law of Abbreviation and Menzerath’s Law both make predictions about the length of linguistic units, based on corpus frequency and the length of the carrier unit. Each contributes to the efficiency of languages: for Zipf, units are more likely to be reduced when they are highly predictable, due to their frequency; for Menzerath, units are more likely to be reduced when there are more sub-units to contribute to the structural information of the carrier unit. However, it remains unclear how the two laws work together in determining unit length at a given level of linguistic structure. We examine this question regarding the length of morphemes in spoken corpora of nine typologically diverse languages drawn from the DoReCo corpus, showing that Zipf’s Law is a stronger predictor, but that the two laws interact with one another. We also explore how this is affected by specific typological characteristics, such as morphological complexity.

Analyzing interrelated enablers of industry 4.0 for implementation in present industrial scenario

Purpose The paper aims to present a systematic literature review to analyze interrelated enablers of Industry 4.0 for implementation. Industry 4.0 is an integrated manufacturing strategy embedded with disruptive technologies. Adapting these technologies with the present industrial scenario is dependent on understanding the dynamics of various critical enablers in the existing literature. In this paper, an effort has been taken to validate and reinforce these enablers by experts in the field of Industry 4.0 for implementation. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-methodology is designed in this paper. A text mining approach with an expert’s linguistic assessment method is planned to discover the enablers from literature 2010 to 2019. The most critical enablers and their dependencies on other enablers are studied by using correlation analysis. Findings The research explores the power driving enablers in three groups: technology, features and requirements for implementing Industry 4.0 in the existing factory. In each group, a high degree of associated and dependent enablers is fragmented in detail. Practical implications This paper will benefit the research communities and practitioners to understand the significance of an integrated ecosystem of Industry 4.0 technologies, features and requirements for implementation. Originality/value The text mining approach integrated with expert’s linguistic assessment to explore the pairwise relationship among the enablers using word correlation is a novel approach in this paper. Moreover, to best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first-ever attempt to conduct a structured literature review combined with text analysis and linguistic assessment to identify the enablers of Industry 4.0 for implementation.

Mending “the injurie of oblivion”: “Englishing” Chaucer and Barbour in early printed editions

This article examines the editorial choices made in Edinburgh printer Andro Hart’s 1616 edition of John Barbour’s Brus. Comparison of the 1616 Hart edition with Thomas Speght’s 1602 Chaucer edition displays similar concerns with preserving accessibility to historical texts despite significant language changes in both Older Scots and English, noting shared employment of assistive paratextual apparati. Linguistic assessment comparing Hart and Speght’s editions to their parent texts demonstrates how both editors modernize language to improve reader accessibility while preserving archaic qualities and metricality. Contextualization of the declining prestige of Older Scots during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries further clarifies this assessment. Hart’s edition portrays both a genesis of mutual intelligibility between Scots and English, and a coda for Older Scots as a literary prestige tongue.