Minimalist Parsing

Big data analytics (BDA) is an advanced analytic technique used with very large and diverse sets of data from different sources. Natural language processing (NLP) is a technology that interfaces with different fields such as computer science, linguistics, and human-computer interactions. Over the past few years, there is a growing number of firms, which are using different BDA and NLP applications in their businesses. Only a few of the research have investigated different dimensions of NLP and BDA and their impacts on the overall organizational performance. There is a growing interest among researchers and practitioners in understanding the consequences for firms that adopt BDA and NLP applications. In this context, the aim of this article is to determine the factors for the usage of BDA and NLP applications in business. With the help of dynamic capability view theory and existing literature, a theoretical model was developed conceptually. Later, the model was validated using structural equation modeling approach considering 1287 samples from 23 firms, primarily based in Asia and Europe, which use NLP and BDA applications. The article finds that NLP and BDA applications help the firms to improve their operational efficiency, which in turn improves the overall firm performance.

Introduction. Donald Walker: a Remembrance. Section 1: The Task of Natural Language Processing. Natural Language Processing: an Historical Review K. Sparck Jones. On Getting a Computer to Listen J. Robinson. Utterance and Objective: Issues in Natural Language Communication B. Grosz. On the Proper Place of Semantics in Machine Translation M. King. Developing a Natural Language Interface to Complex Data G.G. Hendrix, E.D. Sacerdoti. User-Needs Analysis and Design Methodology for an Automated Document Generator K. Kukich, K. McKeown, J. Shaw, J. Robin, J. Lim, N. Morgan, J. Philips. Section 2: Building Computational Lexicons. Machine-Readable Dictionaries and Computational Linguistics Research B. Boguraev. Research Toward the Development of a Lexical Knowledge Base for Natural Language Processing R.A. Amsler. Discovering Relationships Among Word Senses R.J. Byrd. Machine Readable Dictionary as a Source of Grammatical Information E. Hajicova, A. Rosen. The ITT Lexical Database: Dream and Reality S. Pin-Ngern Conlon. Visions of the Digital Library: Views on Using Computational Linguistics and Semantic Nets in Information Retrieval J.L. Klavans. Anatomy of a Verb Entry: from Linguistic Theory to Lexicographic Practice B.T. Atkins, J. Kegl, B. Levin. Issues for Lexicon Building N. Calzolari. Outline of a Model for Lexical Databases N. Ide, J. le Maitre, J. Veronts. Construction-Based MT Lexicons L. Levin, S. Nirenburg. Dependency-Based Grammatical Information in the Lexicon P. Sgall. Semantics in the Brain's Lexicon -- Some Preliminary Remarks on its Epistemology H. Schnelle. Section 3: The Acquisition and Use of LargeCorpora. The Ecology of Language D.E. Walker. Representativeness in Corpus Design D. Biber. The Text Encoding Initiative C.M. Sperberg-McQueen. Discrimination Decisions for 100,000 Dimensional W.A. Gale, K.W. Church, D. Yarowsky. Acquisition and Exploitation of Textual Resources for NLP S. Armstrong-Warwick. The Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities S. Hockey. Design Principles for Electronic Textual Resources: Investigating Users and Uses of Scholarly Information N.J. Belkin. Section 4: Topics, Methods and Formalisms in Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics. Evaluating English Sentences in a Logical Model J. Friedman, D.B. Moran, D.S. Warren. Recovering Implicit Information M.S. Palmer, D.A. Dahl, R.J. Schiffman, L. Hirschman, M. Linebarger, J. Downing. Flexible Generation: Taking the User into Account C.L. Paris, V.O. Mittal. Two Principles of Parse Preference J.R. Hobbs, J. Bear. UD, yet Another Unification Device R. Johnson, M. Rosner. Varieties of Heuristics in Sentence Parsing M. Nagao. Some Recent Trends in Natural Language Processing A.K. Joshi. Stone Soup and the French Room Y. Wilks.

Shlomo Argamon is Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Master of Data Science Program at the Illinois Institute of Technology (USA). In this article, he reflects on the current and potential relationship between register and the field of computational linguistics. He applies his expertise in computational linguistics and machine learning to a variety of problems in natural language processing. These include stylistic variation, forensic linguistics, authorship attribution, and biomedical informatics. He is particularly interested in the linguistic structures used by speakers and writers, including linguistic choices that are influenced by social variables such as age, gender, and register, as well as linguistic choices that are unique or distinctive to the style of individual authors. Argamon has been a pioneer in computational linguistics and NLP research in his efforts to account for and explore register variation. His computational linguistic research on register draws inspiration from Systemic Functional Linguistics, Biber’s multi-dimensional approach to register variation, as well as his own extensive experience accounting for variation within and across text types and authors. Argamon has applied computational methods to text classification and description across registers – including blogs, academic disciplines, and news writing – as well as the interaction between register and other social variables, such as age and gender. His cutting-edge research in these areas is certain to have a lasting impact on the future of computational linguistics and NLP.

The PAP900 dataset centers on the semantic relationship between affective words in Portuguese. It contains 900 word pairs, each annotated by at least 30 human raters for both semantic similarity and semantic relatedness. In addition to the semantic ratings, the dataset includes the word categorization used to build the word pairs and detailed sociodemographic information about annotators, enabling the analysis of the influence of personal factors on the perception of semantic relationships. Furthermore, this article describes in detail the dataset construction process, from word selection to agreement metrics.Data was collected from Portuguese university psychology students, who completed two rounds of questionnaires. In the first round annotators were asked to rate word pairs on either semantic similarity or relatedness. The second round switched the relation type for most annotators, with a small percentage being asked to repeat the same relation. The instructions given emphasized the differences between semantic relatedness and semantic similarity, and provided examples of expected ratings of both.There are few semantic relations datasets in Portuguese, and none focusing on affective words. PAP900 is distributed in distinct formats to be easy to use for both researchers just looking for the final averaged values and for researchers looking to take advantage of the individual ratings, the word categorization and the annotator data. This dataset is a valuable resource for researchers in computational linguistics, natural language processing, psychology, and cognitive science.

Senses are the extensions of language and interrelations between word meanings within language and the basis of flexible language use. Computers are basically made to process symbols. Computational linguistics is to simulate part of, if not all of, the natural language competence. From the perspective of computational linguistics, this paper sheds some light on semantic formalization, and proposes tagging of senses along with tagging weight values when processing word meanings. Also, this paper makes attempts to apply sense weight values to sentence processing in computational linguistics. Keywords-semantics, sense, weight, formalization, computational linguistics I. SEMANTIC KNOWLEDGE IN LANGUAGE PROCESSING According to prototype theory, semantic knowledge is part of human’s cognitive and belief systems. Semantics is also the critical research area since its initiation in 1893 by Michael Breal, and then by Trier and Lakoff who contributes to semantic research from both the descriptive and generative perspective. In linguistic semantics, rules and principles explain how literal meaning is coded in language and how to understand the “senses” of an expression or sense-relations that hold between one word and other expressions within the same language (Ceusters et al, 1999). Language is the carrier of both thoughts and forms. Thoughts are to induce, deduce, infer and judge, while senses are the contents and basis of thoughts. Senses are not the repeated addition of forms, rather a psychological process. Semantics is the mapping of cognitive structure from language expressions. Based on concepts, which are the abstract and general categorization of objects, people can apply semantic principles, situational contexts and encyclopedic knowledge to construct cognitive schema of the outside world. With frequent interactions and cognitive strategies, limited forms can be used to express unlimited connotation of thoughts (Tesser and Leone, 1977). For example, same meanings can be expressed with different semantic forms. a) 他这个人真有意思 (funny); b) 于是人们以为他们有了意思 (wish); c) 你向他意思意思 (express)如何; d) .我根本没有那个意思 (thought); e) 他常说人生真没有意思 (nonsense); f) 你们这么说是什么意思 (intention) These sentences are easy to comprehend. People not only use the grammatical structures but also the sense weights to process the words. The sense weight schema are stored in memory, and activated to represent and distill other sense weights. In this chain activation, sense weights are restructured and created to reflect prototypes. For example, “你好?”, “你好么?”, “好么你?”. Different structures are used in the above examples, but their essential meaning remains the same. So, semantic knowledge is of utmost importance in language comprehension. II. THE STATUS QUO OF COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS Three domains and three corresponding levels of study are involved in building natural language processing systems, i.e. theoretical linguistics and grammar level, computational linguistics and formalization level, computer technology and realization level. Among them, grammar level concerns the innate characteristics of language and paves the way for the latter modules. Realization level focuses on how to control computer operation and provides the efficient development tools and environment. Formalization level is the interface of grammar level and realization level, with the task to readjust the general grammar modules to form grammar modules for convenient computer processing. Computational linguists’ mission is to establish formal grammars (Kaufmann and Pfister, 2012). Computational linguistics is also to establish formalized mathematical modules to analyze and process natural language, and develop computer programs to make it possible that machines can simulate part of, if not all of, human behavior and competence. Computers can only be used to process symbols and all those processed by computers are symbolized with no exception of languages (Yushi, 2003). Meanwhile, there have been breakthroughs in processing Chinese characters and phrases, so sentence level processing has become critical. Basic researches in syntactic, semantic and pragmatic knowledge are the frontier studies in Chinese processing. And how to acquire syntactic and semantic knowledge is the key, while the latter constitutes the major difficulty in processing the word level senses. As aforementioned, semantic formalization can take on many impossible missions in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics, and face challenges at the same time. Thus, the researcher will use semantic field to investigate formalization issues. Semantic fields are the sememe systems, which include the semantemes to represent similarities and differences, and are classified by the subordinates, i.e. degree and number of abstraction of Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computer Science and Electronics Engineering (ICCSEE 2013) Published by Atlantis Press, Paris, France.

This paper deals with the links between the development of stochastic methods in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and the attempts of refounding a linguistics based on corpora. First, we define robust NLP, in opposition to “theoretical” Computational Linguistics, by specifying its criteria and methods. Stochastic methods can be defined as probabilistic methods using statistics on corpora. Second, we note that the users of these methods tend to confuse NLP models and models of language representation, in other words they tend to confuse NLP and research in linguistics. Finally, we show that this stand is close to “instrumentalism”, to which Popper was opposed.

This paper describes a new discipline in applied linguistics studies, computational linguistics. It’s a new model of applied linguistics which is influenced by computer technology. Computational linguistics is a discipline straddling applied linguistics and computer science that is concerned with the computer processing of natural languages on all levels of linguistic description. Traditionally, computational linguistics was usually performed by computer scientists who had specialized in the application of computers to the processing of a natural language. Computational linguists often work as members of interdisciplinary teams, including linguists (specifically trained in linguistics), language experts (persons with some level of ability in the languages relevant to a given project), and computer scientists. The several areas of computational linguistics study encompasses such practical applications as speech recognition systems, speech synthesis, automated voice response systems, web search engines, text editors, grammar checking, text to speech, corpus linguistics, machine translation, text data mining, and others. This paper presents the definition of computational linguistics, relation between language and computer, and area of computational linguistics studies.

Given that context-free grammars (CFG) cannot adequately describe natural languages, grammar formalisms beyond CFG that are still computationally tractable are of central interest for computational linguists. This book provides an extensive overview of the formal language landscape between CFG and PTIME, moving from Tree Adjoining Grammars to Multiple Context-Free Grammars and then to Range Concatenation Grammars while explaining available parsing techniques for these formalisms. Although familiarity with the basic notions of parsing and formal languages is helpful when reading this book, it is not a strict requirement. The presentation is supported with many illustrations and examples relating to the different formalisms and algorithms, and chapter summaries, problems and solutions. The book will be useful for students and researchers in computational linguistics and in formal language theory.

Speech recognition and text summarization, plagiarism detection, machine translation, chatbots, sentiment analysis (SA), question answering (QA), and dialogue systems are all products of natural language processing (NLP), a branch of AI concerned with modeling natural languages for the purpose of developing relevant applications. NLP draws on several disciplines, not only computer science and linguistics, for its research and development. These include cognitive science, psychology, mathematics, and more. More than 1.5 billion Muslims throughout the world depend on the Arabic language for their daily five-times-prayer practice, and Arabic is one of six official languages used by more than 422 million people in the Arab world, according to UNESCO. Dialectal Arabic is the slang language spoken informally in everyday life and varies from country to country; Classical Arabic is a reflection of the language spoken by the Arabs more than fourteen centuries ago. Modern Standard Arabic is an evolving variety of Arabic that borrows and innovates regularly to meet the changing needs of its speakers. Complexity is added to the Arabic language by the fact that it encompasses not one but three different varieties of spoken language: classical, contemporary, and colloquial. However, Arabic language processing on computers remains difficult for a variety of reasons. Because of the extensive inflection and derivational processes that occur in Arabic, a single lemma may be utilized to produce several words with distinct meanings.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a revolutionary discipline that resides at the crossroads of computer science and linguistics, with its primary emphasis on the interaction between computers and human language. With roots in artificial intelligence, NLP seeks to equip machines with the ability to comprehend, interpret, and respond to natural language, enabling more intuitive and meaningful communication between humans and computers. This multidisciplinary domain leverages advanced algorithms and models to tackle a range of linguistic challenges, from language translation and sentiment analysis to speech recognition. Recent breakthroughs, particularly in deep learning and neural networks, have propelled NLP to new heights, with applications spanning diverse sectors such as healthcare, finance, and education. As NLP continues to advance, its potential impact on enhancing human-machine interaction and information processing is increasingly evident, promising a future where technology seamlessly integrates with our natural modes of communication. The significance of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in research lies in its capacity to revolutionize human-computer interaction. NLP empowers machines to understand and generate human language, enabling advancements in sentiment analysis, language translation, and conversational AI. This transformative capability has profound implications across various industries, including healthcare, finance, and education. NLP research not only enhances the efficiency of information retrieval and processing but also holds the key to developing more intuitive and user-friendly technologies. As the frontier of NLP research expands, its potential to bridge the communication gap between humans and machines continues to shape the future of technology and information access. VIKOR functions as a multi-criteria decision-making technique that determines the best option by comparing it to the ideal option. The ranking procedure comprises determining distances concerning the optimal solution. VIKOR uses linear normalization to get the best possible outcomes. This technique was first presented by Opricovic in 1998 and was intended to optimize multi-attribute complex systems. Its main focus is on ranking lists that allow for flexibility in the strategy weight interval and incorporate compromise alternatives to obtain desired results. Alternative taken as Open AI GPT-4, Google BERT, Microsoft Azure Text Analytics, IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding, spaCy, NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit), Amazon Comprehend. Evaluation Parameter taken as Sentiment Analysis (F1 Score), NER Performance, Language Support, Processing Speed (Response Time) (ms), Translation Accuracy (BLEU Score), Data Privacy. The result it is seen that Amazon Comprehend is got the first rank where as is the IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding is having the lowest rank.

Differential time course of brain activation during electroacupuncture

We studied an auditory continuous performance task with positron emission tomography(PET) and EEG-derived current density reconstructions (CDRs) to define the spatial and temporal aspects of auditory attention. The CDRs were employed to segregate responses to targets and non-targets at sites identified by PET. We then studied the time course of brain activity using statistical parametric mapping (SPM) of the CDR data. In contrast to target EEG activity, non-targets did not produce significant peaks after 300 ms. Pre-300 ms biphasic activation of auditory, left posterior frontal, left supplemental,and primary motor cortices and the anterior cingulate (AC) and biphasic suppression of posterior cingulate and occipital cortex were identical for targets and non-targets and may mediate the target non-target decision. SPM analysis of post-300 ms CDRs showed cingulate cortices were the first to be reactivated, remained active through 672 ms, and were accompanied by reactivation and deactivation of the same sites observed in the pre-P300 responses. The cingulate may play an important role in post-decisional activity and control activity at other sites involved in post-decisional cognitive processing.

Chinese bilinguals performed a delayed naming task, reading both Chinese characters and English words, while EEGs were recorded by a 128-channel system. Principle component analysis (PCA) of Event Related Potentials (ERP) from the onset of the stimulus suggested a temporal unfolding of graphic, phonological, and semantic processing that depended on both language and word frequency. At 150 msec, Chinese produced an earlier and higher amplitude shift (N150) than English. At 250 msec, frequency effects were significant for both Chinese and English, but at 450 msec, only the English frequency effect was reliable. Source localization analysis by Low Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography (LORETA) showed bilateral occipital (left BA 17, right BA 18) visual processing of Chinese characters with left occipital only (left BA 17) for English high-frequency words. Low-frequency English words showed activation bilaterally, but with a more diffused and extended temporal pattern. Right prefrontal area (BA 10) was found to be strongly activated in the mid latency (300-400 msec) period of Chinese character naming, whereas English word naming showed more medial frontal (BA 8, and 10) activation. A post 450-msec visual verification was found to be general for both writing systems.

While supervised corpus-based methods are highly accurate for different NLP tasks, including morphological tagging, they are difficult to port to other languages because they require resources that are expensive to create. As a result, many languages have no realistic prospect for morpho-syntactic annotation in the foreseeable future. The method presented in this book aims to overcome this problem by significantly limiting the necessary data and instead extrapolating the relevant information from another, related language. The approach has been tested on Catalan, Portuguese, and Russian. Although these languages are only relatively resource-poor, the same method can be in principle applied to any inflected language, as long as there is an annotated corpus of a related language available. Time needed for adjusting the system to a new language constitutes a fraction of the time needed for systems with extensive, manually created resources: days instead of years. This book touches upon a number of topics: typology, morphology, corpus linguistics, contrastive linguistics, linguistic annotation, computational linguistics and Natural Language Processing (NLP). Researchers and students who are interested in these scientific areas as well as in cross-lingual studies and applications will greatly benefit from this work. Scholars and practitioners in computer science and linguistics are the prospective readers of this book.

Previous studies have shown that epithelial Na+ channels (ENaCs) are activated by laminar shear stress (LSS). ENaCs with a high intrinsic open probability because of a mutation (betaS518K) or covalent modification of an introduced Cys residue (alphaS580C) in the pre-second transmembrane domain (pre-M2) were not activated by LSS, suggesting that the pre-M2 region participates in conformational rearrangements during channel activation. We examined the role of the pore region of the alpha-subunit in channel gating by studying the kinetics of activation by LSS of wild-type ENaC and channels with Cys mutations in the tract Ser576-Ser592. Whole cell Na+ currents were monitored in oocytes expressing wild-type or mutant ENaCs prior to and following application of LSS. Following a 2.2-s delay, a monoexponential increase in Na+ currents was observed with a time constant (tau) of 8.1 s in oocytes expressing wild-type ENaC. Cys substitutions within the alpha-subunit in the tract Ser580-Ser589 resulted in: (i) a reduction (Ser580-Trp585, Gly587) or increase (Ser589) in delay times preceding channel activation by LSS, (ii) an increase (Gln581, Leu584, Trp585, Phe586, Ser588) or decrease (Ser589) in the rate of channel activation, or (iii) a decrease in the magnitude of the response (Ser583, Gly587, Leu584). Cys substitutions at a putative amiloride-binding site (alphaSer583 or betaGly525) or within the selectivity filter (alphaGly587) resulted in a reduction in the LSS response, and exhibited a multiexponential time course of activation. The corresponding gamma-subunit mutant (alphabetagammaG542C) had a minimal response to LSS and exhibited a high intrinsic open probability. These data suggest that residues in the pore region participate in the sensing and/or transduction of the mechanical stimulus that results in channel activation and are consistent with the hypothesis that the ENaC pore region has a key role in modulating channel gating.