Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Language acquisition – Mathematical models'
To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: Language acquisition – Mathematical models.
Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles
Consult the top 44 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'Language acquisition – Mathematical models.'
Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.
You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.
Browse dissertations / theses on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.
1
Waegner, Nicholas Paul. "Stochastic models for language acquisition." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.309214.
Full text
2
Buttery, P. J. "Computational models for first language acquisition." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.597195.
Full textAbstract:
This work investigates a computational model of first language acquisition; the Categorical Grammar Learner or CGL. The model builds on the work of Villavicenio, who created a parametric Categorical Grammar learner that organises its parameters into an inheritance hierarchy, and also on the work of Buszkowski and Kanazawa, who demonstrated the learnability of a k-valued Classic Categorial Grammar (which uses only the rules of function application) from strings. The CGL is able to learn a k-valued General Categorial Grammar (which uses the rules of function application, function composition and Generalised Weak Permutation). The novel concept of Sentence Objects (simple strings, augmented strings, unlabelled structures and functor-argument structures) are presented as potential points from which learning may commence. Augmented strings (which are stings augmented with some basic syntactic information) are suggested as a sensible input to the CGL as they are cognitively plausible objects and have greater information content than strings alone. Building on the work of Siskind, a method for constructing augmented strings from unordered logic forms is detailed and it is suggested that augmented strings are simply a representation of the constraints placed on the space of possible parses due to a sting’s associated semantic content. The CGL make crucial use of a statistical Memory Module (constructed from a type memory and Word Order Memory) that is used to both constrain hypotheses and handle data which is noisy or parametrically ambiguous. A consequence of the Memory Module is that the CGL learns in an incremental fashion. This echoes real child learning as documented in Brown’s Stages of Language Development and also as alluded to by an included corpus study of child speech. Furthermore, the CGL learns faster when initially presented with simpler linguistic data; a further corpus study of child-directed speech suggests that this echoes the input provided to children. The CGL is demonstrated to learn from real data. It is evaluated against previous parametric learners (the Triggering Learning Algorithm of Gibson and Wexler and the Structural Triggers Learner of Fodor and Sakas) and is found to be more efficient.
3
Rodrigeuz-Sanchez, I. "Matrix models of second language vocabulary acquisition." Thesis, Swansea University, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.638702.
Full textAbstract:
Most of the current research in L2 vocabulary acquisition has been too focused on what it is to learn a word, and has neglected how whole vocabularies grow or decline. In general, it is assumed that vocabulary gains and losses are incremental and follow a linear progression. This thesis postulates a model which considers several discrete stages of knowledge and accounts for the unstable nature of vocabulary knowledge, where words can change from one state to any other. Matrix algebra is a tool capable to operate with such a model and produce long-term forecasts of vocabulary size. Our experimental work describes the retention and the overall growth of the vocabulary of advanced learners of Spanish. These experiments show that forecasts of vocabulary size generated by the matrix model are far more accurate than those generated by a linear model. With data from two self-rating tasks containing a large number of words completed within a given lapse we build matrices which generate forecasts of vocabulary knowledge. These forecasts highly correlate to the actual knowledge measured three and four months later. This methodology is tested with subjects of various groups, using words from different frequency bands, and different measurement scales. In addition, we indicate ways of identifying matrices likely to generate inaccurate predictions. This methodology is considered one step forward towards the establishment of a model for L2 vocabulary acquisition.
4
Rahman, Atiqur. "Technological progress and technology acquisition : models with and without rivalry." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape2/PQDD_0030/NQ64654.pdf.
Full text
5
McCandless, Michael Kyle. "Automatic acquisition of language models for speech recognition." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36462.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1994.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 138-141).
by Michael Kyle McCanless.
M.S.
6
Frank, Stella Christina. "Bayesian models of syntactic category acquisition." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6693.
Full textAbstract:
Discovering a word’s part of speech is an essential step in acquiring the grammar of a language. In this thesis we examine a variety of computational Bayesian models that use linguistic input available to children, in the form of transcribed child directed speech, to learn part of speech categories. Part of speech categories are characterised by contextual (distributional/syntactic) and word-internal (morphological) similarity. In this thesis, we assume language learners will be aware of these types of cues, and investigate exactly how they can make use of them. Firstly, we enrich the context of a standard model (the Bayesian Hidden Markov Model) by adding sentence type to the wider distributional context.We show that children are exposed to a much more diverse set of sentence types than evident in standard corpora used for NLP tasks, and previous work suggests that they are aware of the differences between sentence type as signalled by prosody and pragmatics. Sentence type affects local context distributions, and as such can be informative when relying on local context for categorisation. Adding sentence types to the model improves performance, depending on how it is integrated into our models. We discuss how to incorporate novel features into the model structure we use in a flexible manner, and present a second model type that learns to use sentence type as a distinguishing cue only when it is informative. Secondly, we add a model of morphological segmentation to the part of speech categorisation model, in order to model joint learning of syntactic categories and morphology. These two tasks are closely linked: categorising words into syntactic categories is aided by morphological information, and finding morphological patterns in words is aided by knowing the syntactic categories of those words. In our joint model, we find improved performance vis-a-vis single-task baselines, but the nature of the improvement depends on the morphological typology of the language being modelled. This is the first token-based joint model of unsupervised morphology and part of speech category learning of which we are aware.
7
Ngibe, Ntsikelelo Hector. "An investigation into second language Learners’ proficiency in Mathematical language." Thesis, Walter Sisulu University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11260/845.
Full textAbstract:
The purpose of the study was to investigate second language learner‟s proficiency in mathematical language. The study was conducted using the Grade 12 learners in a senior secondary school in the district of Mthatha, Eastern Cape. The researcher used a case study approach and a questionnaire was used to investigate whether or not learners understood the language rather than to assess their mathematical ability. English was the language in question and used as the medium of instruction (MOI). In this study, aspects of the language used for mathematics are highlighted, the importance of mathematical vocabulary is discussed and reference is made to some recent research concerned with the understanding of mathematical language. The importance of language as a factor in the learning of mathematics is established through a consideration of bilingualism and the writer‟s own research into the understanding of mathematical language. Perhaps the most obvious educational difficulty which students encounter is that of language. Teachers and curriculum planners need to assess whether this is desirable, and to attempt to find ways in which learners in bilingual education programmes can learn mathematics in a meaningful way. Theories on the interaction between language and mathematical thinking, as well as the studies conducted with bilingual students can inform one‟s thinking about this issue. These ideas have important implications for teaching, texts and curriculum development. The study examined some of the above aspects in the context of South African Education.
8
Rajah, Christopher. "Chereme-based recognition of isolated, dynamic gestures from South African sign language with Hidden Markov Models." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2006. http://etd.uwc.ac.za/index.php?module=etd&action=viewtitle&id=gen8Srv25Nme4_4979_1183461652.
Full textAbstract:
Much work has been done in building systems that can recognize gestures, e.g. as a component of sign language recognition systems. These systems typically use whole gestures as the smallest unit for recognition. Although high recognition rates have been reported, these systems do not scale well and are computationally intensive. The reason why these systems generally scale poorly is that they recognize gestures by building individual models for each separate gesture
as the number of gestures grows, so does the required number of models. Beyond a certain threshold number of gestures to be recognized, this approach become infeasible. This work proposed that similarly good recognition rates can be achieved by building models for subcomponents of whole gestures, so-called cheremes. Instead of building models for entire gestures, we build models for cheremes and recognize gestures as sequences of such cheremes. The assumption is that many gestures share cheremes and that the number of cheremes necessary to describe gestures is much smaller than the number of gestures. This small number of cheremes then makes it possible to recognized a large number of gestures with a small number of chereme models. This approach is akin to phoneme-based speech recognition systems where utterances are recognized as phonemes which in turn are combined into words.
9
Brook, Sapoty, and mikewood@deakin edu au. "A physical theory of organisation and consequent neural model of spatio-temporal pattern acquisition." Deakin University. School of Architecture and Engineering, 1987. http://tux.lib.deakin.edu.au./adt-VDU/public/adt-VDU20050825.121850.
Full textAbstract:
A neurone model (the FORMON) is proposed which provides a mathematical explanation for a range of psychological phenomena and has potential in Artificial Intelligence applications. A general definition of organisation in terms of entropy and information is formulated. The concept of microcodes is introduced to describe the physical nature of organisation.
Spatio-temporal pattern acquisition and processing functions attributable to individual neurones are reviewed. The criterion for self-organisation in a neurone is determined as the maximisation of mutual organisation. A feedback control system is proposed to satisfy this criterion and provide an integrated long-term memory of spatio-temporal pattern. This pattern acquisition system is shown to be applicable to dendritic pattern recognition and axonal pattern generation. Provision is also made for adaptation, short-term memory and operant learning.
An electro-chemical model of transmission and processing of neural signals is outlined to provide the pattern acquisition functions of the Formon model. A transverse magnetic mode of electrotonic propagation is postulated in addition to the transverse electromagnetic mode.
Configurations of the Formon are categorised in terms of possible pattern processing functions. Connective architectures are proposed as self-organising models of acquisitive semantic and syntactic networks.
10
Orr, Thomas Kevin. "Models of professional writing practices within the field of computer science." Virtual Press, 1995. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1019483.
Full textAbstract:
Twenty-five computer scientists representing thirteen language groups at a highly respected university in Japan were surveyed and interviewed to identify the English writing products and processes characteristic of their professional work. Twenty-two major genres were identified and grouped according to purpose. Fourteen significant contextual factors that affected writing production and, ultimately, success in the field of computer science were also identified. Several models were proposed to provide an overview of the writing practices and products potentially illustrative of writing in the computer science field.In the second research phase, two detailed case studies were conducted involving one native and one non-native speaker of English to identify how English language proficiency affected professional practice. Efficiency was a major concern for both subjects but employed different strategies to make their work as efficient and productive as possible.The native speaker, for example, employed skillful use of the computer to gather, create, and store data that could be efficiently "chunked" and assembled into papers, either for publication or for obtaining valuable feedback from other professionals. The subject also thought a great deal about the expectations of his readers as well as the referees and editors who judged the quality of his work. He also revised his work extensively and recruited other professionals locally and abroad to assist him in refining his texts.The non-native speaker employed many of the same computer strategies for gathering and managing information; however, the added difficulty of functioning professionally in English severely limited his work pace and left too little time before deadlines to revise or solicit the amount of feedback he desired from his peers. His most effective strategy was co-authoring papers with native speakers of English who could handle most of the final editing and revising.In the final chapter, results of the surveys, interviews, and case studies were illustrated graphically in an algorithmic flowchart of professional writing practice, and educational applications for writing instruction as well as recommendations for additional research were also suggestedDepartment of English
11
Kamper, Herman. "Unsupervised neural and Bayesian models for zero-resource speech processing." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/25432.
Full textAbstract:
Zero-resource speech processing is a growing research area which aims to develop methods that can discover linguistic structure and representations directly from unlabelled speech audio. Such unsupervised methods would allow speech technology to be developed in settings where transcriptions, pronunciation dictionaries, and text for language modelling are not available. Similar methods are required for cognitive models of language acquisition in human infants, and for developing robotic applications that are able to automatically learn language in a novel linguistic environment. There are two central problems in zero-resource speech processing: (i) finding frame-level feature representations which make it easier to discriminate between linguistic units (phones or words), and (ii) segmenting and clustering unlabelled speech into meaningful units. The claim of this thesis is that both top-down modelling (using knowledge of higher-level units to to learn, discover and gain insight into their lower-level constituents) as well as bottom-up modelling (piecing together lower-level features to give rise to more complex higher-level structures) are advantageous in tackling these two problems. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part introduces a new autoencoder-like deep neural network for unsupervised frame-level representation learning. This correspondence autoencoder (cAE) uses weak top-down supervision from an unsupervised term discovery system that identifies noisy word-like terms in unlabelled speech data. In an intrinsic evaluation of frame-level representations, the cAE outperforms several state-of-the-art bottom-up and top-down approaches, achieving a relative improvement of more than 60% over the previous best system. This shows that the cAE is particularly effective in using top-down knowledge of longer-spanning patterns in the data; at the same time, we find that the cAE is only able to learn useful representations when it is initialized using bottom-up pretraining on a large set of unlabelled speech. The second part of the thesis presents a novel unsupervised segmental Bayesian model that segments unlabelled speech data and clusters the segments into hypothesized word groupings. The result is a complete unsupervised tokenization of the input speech in terms of discovered word types|the system essentially performs unsupervised speech recognition. In this approach, a potential word segment (of arbitrary length) is embedded in a fixed-dimensional vector space. The model, implemented as a Gibbs sampler, then builds a whole-word acoustic model in this embedding space while jointly performing segmentation. We first evaluate the approach in a small-vocabulary multi-speaker connected digit recognition task, where we report unsupervised word error rates (WER) by mapping the unsupervised decoded output to ground truth transcriptions. The model achieves around 20% WER, outperforming a previous HMM-based system by about 10% absolute. To achieve this performance, the acoustic word embedding function (which maps variable-duration segments to single vectors) is refined in a top-down manner by using terms discovered by the model in an outer loop of segmentation. The third and final part of the study extends the small-vocabulary system in order to handle larger vocabularies in conversational speech data. To our knowledge, this is the first full-coverage segmentation and clustering system that is applied to large-vocabulary multi-speaker data. To improve efficiency, the system incorporates a bottom-up syllable boundary detection method to eliminate unlikely word boundaries. We compare the system on English and Xitsonga datasets to several state-of-the-art baselines. We show that by imposing a consistent top-down segmentation while also using bottom-up knowledge from detected syllable boundaries, both single-speaker and multi-speaker versions of our system outperform a purely bottom-up single-speaker syllable-based approach. We also show that the discovered clusters can be made less speaker- and gender-specific by using features from the cAE (which incorporates both top-down and bottom-up learning). The system's discovered clusters are still less pure than those of two multi-speaker unsupervised term discovery systems, but provide far greater coverage. In summary, the different models and systems presented in this thesis show that both top-down and bottom-up modelling can improve representation learning, segmentation and clustering of unlabelled speech data.
12
Bekmann, Joachim Peter Computer Science & Engineering Faculty of Engineering UNSW. "Rapid development of problem-solvers with HeurEAKA! - a heuristic evolutionary algorithm and incremental knowledge acquisition approach." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Computer Science and Engineering, 2006. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/25748.
Full textAbstract:
A new approach for the development of problem-solvers for combinatorial problems is proposed in this thesis. The approach combines incremental knowledge acquisition and probabilistic search algorithms, such as evolutionary algorithms, to allow a human to rapidly develop problem-solvers in new domains in a framework called HeurEAKA. The approach addresses a known problem, that is, adapting evolutionary algorithms to the search domain by the introduction of domain knowledge. The development of specialised problem-solvers has historically been labour intensive. Implementing a problem-solver from scratch is very time consuming. Another approach is to adapt a general purpose search strategy to the problem domain. This is motivated by the observation that in order to scale an algorithm to solve complex problems, domain knowledge is needed. At present there is no systematic approach allowing one to efficiently engineer a specialpurpose search strategy for a given search problem. This means that, for example, adapting evolutionary algorithms (which are general purpose algorithms) is often very difficult and has lead some people to refer to their use as a ???black art???. In the HeurEAKA approach, domain knowledge is introduced by incrementally building a knowledge base that controls parts of the evolutionary algorithm. For example, the fitness function and the mutation operators in a genetic algorithm. An evolutionary search algorithm ismonitored by a human whomakes recommendations on search strategy based on individual solution candidates. It is assumed that the human has a reasonable intuition of the search problem. The human adds rules to a knowledge base describing how candidate solutions can be improved, or why they are desirable or undesirable in the search for a good solution. The incremental knowledge acquisition approach is inspired by the idea of (Nested) Ripple Down Rules. This approach sees a human provide exception rules to rules already existing in the knowledge base using concrete examples of inappropriate performance of the existing knowledge base. The Nested Ripple Down Rules (NRDR) approach allows humans to compose rules using concepts that are natural and intuitive to them. In HeurEAKA, NRDR are significantly adapted to form part of a probabilistic search algorithm. The probabilistic search algorithms used in the presented system are a genetic algorithm and a hierarchical bayesian optimization algorithm. The success of the HeurEAKA approach is demonstrated in experiments undertaken on industrially relevant domains. Problem-solvers were developed for detailed channel and switchbox routing in VLSI design and traffic light optimisation for urban road networks. The problem-solvers were developed in a short amount of time, in domains where a large amount of effort has gone into developing existing algorithms. Experiments show that chosen benchmark problems are solved as well or better than existing approaches. Particularly in the traffic light optimisation domain excellent results are achieved.
13
Naidoo, Nathan Lyle. "South African sign language recognition using feature vectors and Hidden Markov Models." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2010. http://etd.uwc.ac.za/index.php?module=etd&action=viewtitle&id=gen8Srv25Nme4_8533_1297923615.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis presents a system for performing whole gesture recognition for South African Sign Language. The system uses feature vectors combined with Hidden Markov models. In order to constuct a feature vector, dynamic segmentation must occur to extract the signer&rsquo
s hand movements. Techniques and methods for normalising variations that occur when recording a signer performing a gesture, are investigated. The system has a classification rate of 69%
14
Svirko, Elena. "Individual differences in complex grammar acquisition : causes and consequences." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b0b039d2-5025-4f48-8aa5-546b6bd29090.
Full textAbstract:
A longitudinal study lasting 3.5 years was conducted to investigate complex grammar development, focusing on acquisition of the passive and type 3 conditionals, and its relationship with a number of domain-general, domain-specific and environmental factors. 128 children (M = 5 years 10 months) were tested at the beginning and towards the end of each school year starting from Year 1. The administered measures included established tests of fluid intelligence, short-term and working memory, seriation, grammar, vocabulary, literacy and arithmetic, plus newly-developed tests of passive and conditional sentence acquisition, and arithmetic word problem solving. It was demonstrated that grammar acquisition is not complete even when children start Year 4 of primary school (M = 8 years 7 months), when the current study was completed. At that time, 32% of children have not acquired type 3 conditionals and 89% showed no understanding of centre-embedded sentences. However, only 3% showed no passive sentence acquisition. Fluid intelligence, verbal STM and WM, ability to seriate, vocabulary and parental education level were all found to contribute to individual differences in complex grammar acquisition, independently of age differences and, where relevant, independently of non-verbal ability. There were differences between the passives and the conditionals in their relationship to these variables. Complex grammar development was found to be a significant predictor of reading comprehension, spelling and arithmetic performance, independently of age, non-verbal ability, verbal STM and WM. The findings demonstrate the inter-relatedness of higher cognitive functions, particularly domain-general with domain-specific ones. Modularity in its strictest sense (informational encapsulation, functional isolation) is not present in normally developing brains. Educational applications of the results are discussed.
15
Zhu, Jia Jun. "A language for financial chart patterns and template-based pattern classification." Thesis, University of Macau, 2018. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b3950603.
Full text
16
Rytting, Christopher Anton. "Preserving subsegmental variation in modeling word segmentation (or, the raising of baby Mondegreen)." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1167698589.
Full text
17
Brooks, Clarence A. "Network model of a concentrator solar cell." Virtual Press, 1989. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/562781.
Full textAbstract:
Solar concentrating systems are often used to decrease the cost of solar energy by redirecting the incident sunlight from a relatively large area onto a photovoltaic cell of smaller area. In addition to the convergence characteristics of the concentrator, indices of refraction and reflectivities which are functions of wavelength can result in an illumination which varies both spatially and spectrally on the solar cell. Nonuniformity can also be induced by concentrator tracking error. The effects of such nonuniform illumination on solar cell performance are of interest.In this investigation, a model of a concentrator solar cell consisting of a network of preexisting one-dimensional models has been developed. This model is analyzed for three sample grid configurations for both spot-focusing and line-focusing concentrator applications.Ada computer programs have been created which, together with a few other pieces of readily available software, are capable of simulating the model. Sample simulations have been performed for line-focusing concentrator applications. These results are presented and discussed.Department of Physics and Astronomy
18
Nhongo, Tawuya D. R. "Pricing exotic options using C++." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008373.
Full textAbstract:
This document demonstrates the use of the C++ programming language as a simulation tool in the efficient pricing of exotic European options. Extensions to the basic problem of simulation pricing are undertaken including variance reduction by conditional expectation, control and antithetic variates. Ultimately we were able to produce a modularized, easily extend-able program which effectively makes use of Monte Carlo simulation techniques to price lookback, Asian and barrier exotic options. Theories of variance reduction were validated except in cases where we used control variates in combination with the other variance reduction techniques in which case we observed increased variance. Again, the main aim of this half thesis was to produce a C++ program which would produce stable pricings of exotic options.
19
Cai, Jinghong. "The Influence of Non-English Home Language on Kindergarteners’ Acquisition of Early Mathematical Skills: A Study Based on an Early Childhood Longitudinal Program." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1547124240464993.
Full text
20
Harihara, Ramachandra Sharma. "Modeling of Scheduling Algorithms with Alternative Process Plans in an Optimization Programming Language." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2004. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1108045192.
Full text
21
Uzelac, Lawrence Stevan. "A Multiple Coupled Microstrip Transmission Line Model for High-Speed VLSI Interconnect Simulation." PDXScholar, 1991. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4526.
Full textAbstract:
A model is presented which incorporates the advantages of a mixed mode simulation to characterize transmission line behavior in multiple coupled Transmission line systems. The model is intended for use by digital circuit designers who wish to be able to obtain accurate transmission line behavior for complex digital systems for which continuous time simulation tools such as SPICE would time prohibitive. The model uses a transverse electromagnetic wave approximation to obtain solutions to the basic transmission line equations. A modal analysis technique is used to solve for the attenuation and propagation constants for the transmission lines. Modal analysis done in the frequency domain after a Fast Fourier Transform of the time-domain input signals. Boundary conditions are obtained from the Thevinized transmission line input equivalent circuit and the transmission line output load impedance. The model uses a unique solution queue system that allows n-line coupled transmission lines to be solved without resorting to large order matrix methods or the need to diagonals larger matrices using linear transformations. This solution queue system is based on the method of solution superposition. As a result, the CPU time required for the model is primarily a function of the number of transitions and not the number of lines modeled. Incorporation of the model into event driven circuit simulators such as Network C is discussed. It will be shown that the solution queue methods used in this model make it ideally suited for incorporation into a event-driven simulation network. The model presented in this thesis can be scaled to incorporate direct electromagnetic coupling between first, second, or third lines adjacent to the line transitioning. It is shown that modeling strictly adjacent line coupling is adequate for typical digital technologies. It is shown that the model accurately reproduces the transmission line behavior of systems modeled by previous authors. Example transitions on a 8-line system are reviewed. Finally, future model improvements are discussed.
22
Petkova, Mariana M. "Classroom discourse and Teacher talk influences on English language learner students' mathematics experiences." [Tampa, Fla] : University of South Florida, 2009. http://purl.fcla.edu/usf/dc/et/SFE0002912.
Full text
23
Lindqvist, Christina. "L'influence translinguistique dans l'interlangue française : Étude de la production orale d'apprenants plurilingues." Doctoral thesis, Stockholm University, Department of French, Italian and Classical Languages, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-1294.
Full textAbstract:
The present study concerns cross-linguistic influence in the spoken French of multilingual learners. The main purpose is to investigate to what degree, and in what manner, previously acquired languages (L1, L2(s)) influence the target language, L3. Given the fact that the study only concerns spoken interlanguage, it makes use of a psycholinguistic perspective, which takes models of oral production into account.
The analysis is divided into two main parts. The first concerns the oral production of 30 Swedish learners of French, who fall into three groups according to their previous exposure to French: beginners, secondary school students and university students. The results show that proficiency in the L3 is crucial in at least two ways. First, there is a correlation between the level of proficiency in the L3 and the number of instances of cross-linguistic influence in that the least advanced learners produce the highest number of cross-linguistic lexemes, whereas the most advanced learners produce the lowest number. Second, the level of proficiency in the L3 is decisive for the number of background languages (L1, L2) used during oral production in L3: the lower the proficiency in the L3, the more background languages are used, and vice versa.
The second part of the analysis contains six case studies of learners with partly different L1s and L2s. It focuses on the roles of the background languages during conversation in L3 and on the factors contributing to the attribution of these roles. The results point at both similarities and differences between the learners with respect to the roles of the background languages. A result common to all the learners is the use of Swedish L1/L2 and English L1 as an instrumental language, i.e. a language used rather strategically with a communicative purpose. The use of these languages in this function seems to be due to the fact that Swedish and English are shared languages between the learner and the interlocutor.
24
陸穎剛 and Wing-kong Luk. "Concept space approach for cross-lingual information retrieval." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2000. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B30147724.
Full text
25
Nefdt, Ryan Mark. "The foundations of linguistics : mathematics, models, and structures." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/9584.
Full textAbstract:
The philosophy of linguistics is a rich philosophical domain which encompasses various disciplines. One of the aims of this thesis is to unite theoretical linguistics, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of science (particularly mathematics and modelling) and the ontology of language. Each part of the research presented here targets separate but related goals with the unified aim of bringing greater clarity to the foundations of linguistics from a philosophical perspective. Part I is devoted to the methodology of linguistics in terms of scientific modelling. I argue against both the Conceptualist and Platonist (as well as Pluralist) interpretations of linguistic theory by means of three grades of mathematical involvement for linguistic grammars. Part II explores the specific models of syntactic and semantics by an analogy with the harder sciences. In Part III, I develop a novel account of linguistic ontology and in the process comment on the type-token distinction, the role and connection with mathematics and the nature of linguistic objects. In this research, I offer a structural realist interpretation of linguistic methodology with a nuanced structuralist picture for its ontology. This proposal is informed by historical and current work in theoretical linguistics as well as philosophical views on ontology, scientific modelling and mathematics.
26
Hassell, Thomasine Campbell. "Influence of Two Instructional Models on Reading Achievement of ESL Middle School Students." ScholarWorks, 2019. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/6575.
Full textAbstract:
English as second language (ESL) students are not meeting reading proficiency standards
compared to their native English-speaking middle school peers. To address the low achievement
scores among ESL students, the study site implemented an instructional hub in which trained
ESL resource teachers used the sheltered instruction observation protocol (SIOP) model. The
purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine the difference in reading achievement
scores between ESL students who participated in the instructional hub and those who
participated in traditional instruction. Krashen's second language acquisition theory and Terrell's
natural approach theory provided the framework for the study. Archival data from a sample of 70
ESL students were used for data analysis. A paired-samples t test was used to determine whether
the groups reading mean scores (SIOP and traditional) significantly differed from pretest to post
test. The results showed that the SIOP group significantly improved or changed their reading
scores from pre to post scores, while students who were in traditional group did not. Findings
may be used by school district administrators to help teachers use the SIOP model to help ESL
students meet reading proficiency standards and graduate from school.
27
Goff, Deborah, and debannegoff@yahoo co uk. "The relationship between children's reading comprehension, word reading, language skills and memory in a normal sample." La Trobe University. School of Psychological Science, 2004. http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au./thesis/public/adt-LTU20060626.103641.
Full textAbstract:
The current study aimed to develop a model of reading comprehension for children in middle primary school. As part of this overall aim there was a particular focus on the contribution of different types of memory to reading comprehension. The variables selected for consideration were identified from the child and adult literature and were of three types: word reading, language, and memory. The sample comprised 180 primary school children in grades 3-5 recruited from two primary schools. Their ages ranged from 8 years 7 months to 11 years 11 months. The reading comprehension measure was in a multiple-choice format with the text available when answering the questions. The five word reading measures were phonological recoding, orthographic processing, text reading accuracy, text reading speed, and a measure of exposure to print and reading experience. It is recognised that, although exposure to print is closely associated with word reading skills, it is not a direct measure of word reading. The language measures were oral comprehension, receptive vocabulary and receptive grammatical skills. The memory measures included measures of verbal and visuospatial short-term memory, measures of verbal and visuospatial working memory, a measure of the ability to inhibit irrelevant information from working memory and a measure of longer term verbal learning and retrieval. Correlational and hierachical multiple regression analyses were used to extrapolate the relationships between and among these variables.
The results revealed that, after controlling for age and general intellectual ability, the word reading and the language variables had a much stronger relationship with reading comprehension than the memory variables. The strongest independent predictors of reading comprehension were orthographic processing and oral comprehension. An additive combination of these two variables provided a more parsimonious model of reading comprehension than other models under consideration. It was concluded that for the age range in this study, language and word reading skills are the main predictors of reading comprehension and that the different types of memory do not make major contributions to reading comprehension.
28
Bellanger, Cindy. "Mémorisation et reconnaissance de séquences multimots chez l'enfant et l'adulte : effets de la fréquence et de la variabilité interne." Thesis, Université Grenoble Alpes (ComUE), 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017GREAS047/document.
Full textAbstract:
Les modèles de la perception du langage écrit et du langage oral mettent au premier plan l’importance du lexique mental. En effet, parmi les nombreux indices hiérarchisés et guidant la segmentation du flux continu de parole chez l’adulte et l’enfant, les indices lexicaux ont une place prépondérante. Tout au long de ce travail, nous nous intéressons aux spécificités du stockage des séquences multimots dans le lexique mental et à l’hypothèse d’une mémorisation de ces séquences en une seule unité.Ce travail se divise en deux parties, chacune composée d’une série d’expériences. La première partie interroge en premier lieu les indices impliqués dans les effets facilitateurs de la reconnaissance des noms au sein du groupe nominal. Pour cela, sont mis en perspective l’effet du genre grammatical porté par les déterminants et l’effet de fréquence de co-occurrence des séquences déterminant-nom sur le traitement du nom. C’est ensuite l’effet de la cohésion des séquences multimots sur leur reconnaissance qui est examiné.La seconde partie aborde l’influence de la variabilité interne des combinaisons déterminant-nom dans l’acquisition de la structure du groupe nominal chez l’enfant de deux ans à deux ans et demi. Au travers d’une étude longitudinale, nous opposons deux grandes conceptions de l’acquisition du langage chez le jeune enfant: la Grammaire Universelle et les approches Basées sur l’UsageThe mental lexicon is usually assumed as the main foundation of written and spoken-language perception. Numerous and hierarchically-organized cues drive speech segmentation in adults and infants but lexical cues appear as overriding. Throughout this work, we question multiword-sequence storage idiosyncrasy and multiword-sequence memorizing as one unit in the mental lexicon.This work splits into two parts, each composed of a set of experiments. The first one assesses the cues involved in recognition facilitation of nouns in noun phrases. For that purpose, we disentangled grammatical-gender effects and co-occurrence frequency effects on the processing of determiner-noun sequences. Then, we tested the cohesiveness effect on three-word sequences’ recognition.The second set of experiments is about the influence of determiner-noun sequences’ internal variability in noun-phrase’s structure aquisition in 2 to 2,5 year-old children. In a three-month longitudinal study, we contrast two main conceptions of first-language acquisition: Universal Grammar and Usage-Based approaches
29
Aravena, Sandra. "Dynamics of language induced cortical motor activity : determining the linguistic contexts that trigger motor activation during lexical semantic processing." Thesis, Lyon 2, 2014. http://www.theses.fr/2014LYO20010/document.
Full textAbstract:
Cette thèse se propose de spécifier la relation entre les structures motrices et celles du langage en tant que systèmes coopératifs dans la construction du sens. Bien qu'un grand nombre d'études aient mis en évidence que les structures motrices sont impliquées dans le traitement du langage, il est encore difficile de déterminer le rôle de ces structures dans la compréhension. Les théories dites «incarnées» et «désincarnées» débattent de la nature de la représentation du sens des mots en termes de la nécessité des structures motrices pour le langage, en négligeant le fait que les conditions de leur activation n’ont pas été décrites. Des recherches récentes soulignent l’importance de la prise en compte des contextes dans lesquels le langage recrute l'activité motrice. Néanmoins, cette tendance est en contradiction avec les présomptions implicites dans la recherche sur l’interaction langage-motricité, qui se basent sur le modèle «deux-étapes» du traitement sémantique et sur la perspective du «dictionnaire» de la représentation du sens lexical. Dans ce cadre, le traitement du sens des mots est pris comme un processus modulaire. Ce n'est qu'une fois ce processus accompli que le contexte peut influencer la signification. Ces présomptions ont biaisé le débat sur le rôle de l'activité motrice induite par le langage, qui se réduirait à la question de savoir si l'activation motrice doit être considérée comme faisant partie de l'accès lexico-sémantique ou comme résultat de la construction d’un modèle de situation. Or, un grand nombre de travaux ont mis en évidence que le traitement lexico-sémantique et le contexte sont interdépendants. Cette connaissance provenant de la psycholinguistique doit être explicitement intégrée à la recherche sur le rôle de l'activité motrice induite par le langage. Dans un effort pour porter le débat hors de la discussion «lexical vs. post-lexical», cette thèse vise à déterminer les conditions sous lesquelles les contextes linguistiques déclenchent l'activité motrice. Pour ce faire, nous avons testé un nouvel outil qui analyse en ligne les modulations de la force de préhension pendant que les participants écoutaient des mots cibles intégrés dans différents contextes. Nos résultats montrent que quand le mot cible était un verbe d'action de la main et que la phrase focalisait l'action (« John signe le contrat»), une augmentation de la force de préhension était observée dans la fenêtre temporelle associée à la récupération lexico-sémantique. Aucune augmentation de la force de préhension comparable n’a été détectée lorsque le même mot d'action était intégré dans des phrases négatives («John ne signe pas le contrat») ou dans des phrases dont le focus avait été déplacé vers l'état mental de l'agent («John veut signer le contrat»)The present dissertation was conducted in order to specify the relationship between motor and language structures as cooperative systems in lexical meaning construction. Specifically, this thesis aimed at deepening our understanding of how the linguistic context coordinates the recruitment of motor structures during lexical semantic processing. Although the involvement of motor activity in action-related language comprehension is now sufficiently documented, the specific role that motor structures play in action language processing is still unclear. “Embodied” and “disembodied” theories debate the nature of meaning representation in terms of the necessity of motor structures, neglecting the fact that the conditions of their activation during language processing are not well-described. Very recent research has begun to note the necessity of exploring the context under which words trigger modality-specific cortical activity. However, this trend is at odds with implicit theoretical assumptions that have been made in research on motor-language crosstalk, which are based on the “two-step” model of semantic processing and the “dictionary-like” view of lexical meaning representation. Within such framework, word meaning recognition is taken to proceed in a modular fashion. Only after this process has concluded is the context thought to exert its effects. These assumptions have biased the debate on the role of language induced motor activity. The discussion has been centered on whether motor activation should be considered an integral part of the lexical access process or taken as the result of an ensuing “higher order” operation (i.e., situation model construction). A large body of work evidences that lexical semantic processing and semantic context are far more integrated and interdependent. It seems crucial to integrate this knowledge gained from psycholinguistics into the research on the role of language induced motor activity. In an effort to liberate the debate from the “lexical vs. post-lexical” discussion, this thesis aimed at determining the conditions under which language triggers motor activity. To accomplish these objectives, we introduced a novel tool that analyzes on-line modulations of grip-force while participants listened to specific target words embedded within different types of contexts. Our results show that when the target word was a hand action verb and the sentence focus centered on that action (“John signs the contract”), an increase of grip force was observed in the temporal window classically associated with lexical semantic processing. No comparable increase in grip force was detected when the same action word was embedded in negative sentences (“John doesn’t sign the contract”) or in sentences which focus was shifted towards the agent’s mental state (“John wants to sign the contract”). Our results suggest that the presence of an action word in an
30
Allen, Brandon. "Identifying the Effectiveness of Pre-Listening Activities for Students of Chinese Mandarin." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2011. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/2666.
Full textAbstract:
Listening has proved to be a difficult skill to teach in the language classroom. Research has shown that pre-listening activities, or those activities done with students prior to listening, can have an effect on listening comprehension outcomes. This research addressed the effectiveness of two types of pre-listening activities: top-down and bottom-up. Volunteers from intermediate level courses taught at Brigham Young University were divided into two treatment groups and a control group. The treatment groups followed a mixed models design by each going through a top-down and bottom-up pre-listening activity, followed by listening to a passage in Mandarin Chinese and taking a multiple-choice test. The bottom-up activity chosen for this research was a vocabulary preview activity, with an advance organizer being chosen for the top-down activity. Results showed both treatment groups significantly outperformed the control group for both the top-down and bottom-up activities (p=0.0123 and p=0.0181 respectively). No significant difference existed in scores between top-down and bottom-up activities (p=0.9456). It was determined that both the vocabulary activity and the advance organizer helped to increase the listening comprehension of intermediate level students of Mandarin Chinese.
31
Kong, Kang-Chuen. "Real time simulations of EMTP results." Thesis, This resource online, 1993. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-07292009-090324/.
Full text
32
Campbell, Megan Michelle. "The adaptation of the 'Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure' (CORE-OM) from English into a valid Xhosa measure of distress." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001538.
Full textAbstract:
In South Africa access to mental healthcare resources is restricted for a number of reasons including language barriers that prevent suitable communication between mental healthcare professionals and African language speaking South Africans. The translation of psychometric tools into African languages has been identified as one method in improving access to psychological services for African language speakers. The Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation - Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) has demonstrated its clinical utility within the United Kingdom (UK) National Healthcare Service (NHS) as a standardised psychotherapy outcome measure that evaluates the degree of psychological distress individuals present with at the start of psychotherapy treatment, and the degree of change that has been effected at the termination of therapy. A measure like the CORE-OM holds valuable clinical utility for the South African context. This thesis argues that the availability of a valid Xhosa version of the CORE-OM would allow for improved access to psychotherapy resources for Xhosa speaking individuals, and allow for the evaluation of the effectiveness of psychotherapy interventions conducted in Xhosa. The CORE-OM developers have provided a translation design and set of guidelines to standardise the translation of the CORE-OM into different languages. However this thesis argues that these guidelines are incomplete. Instead International Test Commission (ITC) guidelines are recommended as a culturally sensitive method to supplement current CORE-OM translation guidelines, in order to generate a valid Xhosa measure of distress. A mixed methods approach is applied which first investigates the construct equivalence and bias of the CORE-OM English version within a South African student population sample, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in order to establish the degree of adaptation required to generate a valid Xhosa version of distress. Next the CORE-OM English version is translated into Xhosa using the five-stage translation design prescribed by the CORE System Trust, supplemented by ITC guidelines. All changes made to the CORE-OM during translation into Xhosa are documented. The CORE-OM Xhosa version is then investigated for reliability and validity. This investigation reveals low internal reliability within the subjective wellbeing domain indicating that these items are less meaningful as depictions of distress within the Xhosa language. A reduced version of the CORE-OM demonstrates strong psychometric properties as a valid Xhosa measure of distress.
33
Benabbou, Azzeddine. "Génération dynamique de situations critiques en environnements virtuels : dilemme et ambiguïté." Thesis, Compiègne, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018COMP2432.
Full textAbstract:
Nos travaux traitent de la génération dynamique de situations critiques en environnements virtuels. Parmi les dimensions qui caractérisent les situations critiques, nous nous intéressons particulièrement aux dilemmes et aux situations ambiguës. L’enjeu informatique de nos travaux consiste à générer automatiquement des dilemmes et des situations ambiguës à partir de modèles qui ne sont pas destinés, à priori, pour décrire ces deux types de situations. Un dilemme est souvent défini comme étant une situation à choix difficile, où l’individu doit choisir entre deux options, ou plus, qui présentent toutes des inconvénients. L’ambiguïté quant à elle, se réfère aux situations qui sont sujettes à plusieurs interprétations. Dans le cadre de nos travaux, nous proposons tout d’abord un modèle formel de ces deux notions en se reposant sur des théories issues des sciences humaines et sociales. A partir de cette formalisation, nous proposons un ensemble d’algorithmes et de techniques de génération qui raisonnent sur des modèles de connaissances—manipulés par les experts du domaine — qui ne sont pas destinés, à priori, pour la description des dilemmes ou des situations ambiguës. Le raisonnement sur ces modèles sémantiques permet d’inférer de nouvelles connaissances. Elles permettent d’identifier les entités (e.g. actions, événements, objets) susceptibles de créer, si combinées ensemble, des situations qui vérifient les propriétés énoncées dans la formalisation des dilemmes et de l’ambiguïtéOur work is related to dynamic generation of critical situations in virtual environments. We focus on two particular types of critical situations: dilemmas and ambiguous situations. The challenge of this work is to generate automatically these situations using models that are not intended to describe dilemmas and ambiguous situations. A dilemma is defined as a situation that includes a difficult choice. It refers to a situation where individuals have to choose between two, or more, inconvenient options. Ambiguity refers to situations that can be interpreted in different ways. In the context of this thesis, we propose a formal model for the two notions that is inspired by humanities and social sciences. Using this formalization, we propose a set of algorithms and generation technics that use knowledge models — manipulated by domain experts — that are not intended to describe dilemmas and ambiguous situations. The use of these models enables the generation engine to infer new knowledge used to extract the entities (e.g. actions, events, objects) that can potentially produce situations that meet the properties defined in the dilemma and ambiguity formalization. In order to propose a content adapted to each learner, it is necessary to take into consideration the value system of each person in the dilemma generation process. Thus, we propose to operationalize the theory of universal values of Schwartz. Concerning the ambiguity, it is necessary to take into account the level of knowledge of the learner regarding the world variables. Thus, we propose to model the mental representation of the learner. In order to consider the uncertainties in this representation, we propose to use the belief functions theory that is well-suited for this matter
34
Dresch, Andrea Alves Guimarães. "Método para reconhecimento de vogais e extração de parâmetros acústicos para analises forenses." Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná, 2015. http://repositorio.utfpr.edu.br/jspui/handle/1/1799.
Full textAbstract:
Exames de Comparação Forense de Locutores apresentam características complexas, demandando análises demoradas quando realizadas manualmente. Propõe-se um método para reconhecimento automático de vogais com extração de características para análises acústicas, objetivando-se contribuir com uma ferramenta de apoio nesses exames. A proposta baseia-se na medição dos formantes através de LPC (Linear Predictive Coding), seletivamente por detecção da frequência fundamental, taxa de passagem por zero, largura de banda e continuidade, sendo o agrupamento das amostras realizado por meio do método k-means. Experimentos realizados com amostras de três diferentes bases de dados trouxeram resultados promissores, com localização das regiões correspondentes a cinco das vogais do Português Brasileiro, propiciando a visualização do comportamento do trato vocal de um falante, assim como detecção de trechos correspondentes as vogais-alvo.Forensic speaker comparison exams have complex characteristics, demanding a long time for manual analysis. A method for automatic recognition of vowels, providing feature extraction for acoustic analysis is proposed, aiming to contribute as a support tool in these exams. The proposal is based in formant measurements by LPC (Linear Predictive Coding), selectively by fundamental frequency detection, zero crossing rate, bandwidth and continuity, with the clustering being done by the k-means method. Experiments using samples from three different databases have shown promising results, in which the regions corresponding to five of the Brasilian Portuguese vowels were successfully located, providing visualization of a speaker’s vocal tract behavior, as well as the detection of segments corresponding to target vowels.
35
Prost, Jean-Philippe. "Modelling Syntactic Gradience with Loose Constraint-based Parsing." Phd thesis, Université de Provence - Aix-Marseille I, 2008. http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00352828.
Full textAbstract:
La grammaticalité d'une phrase est habituellement conçue comme une notion binaire : une phrase est soit grammaticale, soit agrammaticale. Cependant, bon nombre de travaux se penchent de plus en plus sur l'étude de degrés d'acceptabilité intermédiaires, auxquels le terme de gradience fait parfois référence. À ce jour, la majorité de ces travaux s'est concentrée sur l'étude de l'évaluation humaine de la gradience syntaxique. Cette étude explore la possibilité de construire un modèle robuste qui s'accorde avec ces jugements humains.Nous suggérons d'élargir au langage mal formé les concepts de Gradience Intersective et de Gradience Subsective, proposés par Aarts pour la modélisation de jugements graduels. Selon ce nouveau modèle, le problème que soulève la gradience concerne la classification d'un énoncé dans une catégorie particulière, selon des critères basés sur les caractéristiques syntaxiques de l'énoncé. Nous nous attachons à étendre la notion de Gradience Intersective (GI) afin qu'elle concerne le choix de la meilleure solution parmi un ensemble de candidats, et celle de Gradience Subsective (GS) pour qu'elle concerne le calcul du degré de typicité de cette structure au sein de sa catégorie. La GI est alors modélisée à l'aide d'un critère d'optimalité, tandis que la GS est modélisée par le calcul d'un degré d'acceptabilité grammaticale. Quant aux caractéristiques syntaxiques requises pour permettre de classer un énoncé, notre étude de différents cadres de représentation pour la syntaxe du langage naturel montre qu'elles peuvent aisément être représentées dans un cadre de syntaxe modèle-théorique (Model-Theoretic Syntax). Nous optons pour l'utilisation des Grammaires de Propriétés (GP), qui offrent, précisément, la possibilité de modéliser la caractérisation d'un énoncé. Nous présentons ici une solution entièrement automatisée pour la modélisation de la gradience syntaxique, qui procède de la caractérisation d'une phrase bien ou mal formée, de la génération d'un arbre syntaxique optimal, et du calcul d'un degré d'acceptabilité grammaticale pour l'énoncé.
À travers le développement de ce nouveau modèle, la contribution de ce travail comporte trois volets.
Premièrement, nous spécifions un système logique pour les GP qui permet la révision de sa formalisation sous l'angle de la théorie des modèles. Il s'attache notamment à formaliser les mécanismes de satisfaction et de relâche de contraintes mis en oeuvre dans les GP, ainsi que la façon dont ils permettent la projection d'une catégorie lors du processus d'analyse. Ce nouveau système introduit la notion de satisfaction relâchée, et une formulation en logique du premier ordre permettant de raisonner au sujet d'un énoncé.
Deuxièmement, nous présentons notre implantation du processus d'analyse syntaxique relâchée à base de contraintes (Loose Satisfaction Chart Parsing, ou LSCP), dont nous prouvons qu'elle génère toujours une analyse syntaxique complète et optimale. Cette approche est basée sur une technique de programmation dynamique (dynamic programming), ainsi que sur les mécanismes décrits ci-dessus. Bien que d'une complexité élevée, cette solution algorithmique présente des performances suffisantes pour nous permettre d'expérimenter notre modèle de gradience.
Et troisièmement, après avoir postulé que la prédiction de jugements humains d'acceptabilité peut se baser sur des facteurs dérivés de la LSCP, nous présentons un modèle numérique pour l'estimation du degré d'acceptabilité grammaticale d'un énoncé. Nous mesurons une bonne corrélation de ces scores avec des jugements humains d'acceptabilité grammaticale. Qui plus est, notre modèle s'avère obtenir de meilleures performances que celles obtenues par un modèle préexistant que nous utilisons comme référence, et qui, quant à lui, a été expérimenté à l'aide d'analyses syntaxiques générées manuellement.
36
Bodnarova, Adriana. "Texture analysis for automatic visual inspection and flaw detection in textiles." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2000.
Find full text
37
Mialon, Hugo Marc. "Three essays in the economics of law and language." Thesis, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/2092.
Full text
38
Nakhleh, Luay. "Phylogenetic networks." Thesis, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/2126.
Full text
39
Parisien, Christopher. "Hierarchical Bayesian Models of Verb Learning in Children." Thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1807/31891.
Full textAbstract:
The productivity of language lies in the ability to generalize linguistic knowledge to new situations. To understand how children can learn to use language in novel, productive ways, we must investigate how children can find the right abstractions over their input, and how these abstractions can actually guide generalization. In this thesis, I present a series of hierarchical Bayesian models that provide an explicit computational account of how children can acquire and generalize highly abstract knowledge of the verb lexicon from the language around them. By applying the models to large, naturalistic corpora of child-directed speech, I show that these models capture key behaviours in child language development. These models offer the power to investigate developmental phenomena with a degree of breadth and realism unavailable in existing computational accounts of verb learning.
By most accounts, children rely on strong regularities between form and meaning to help them acquire abstract verb knowledge. Using a token-level clustering model, I show that by attending to simple syntactic features of potential verb arguments in the input, children can acquire abstract representations of verb argument structure that can reasonably distinguish the senses of a highly polysemous verb.
I develop a novel hierarchical model that acquires probabilistic representations of verb argument structure, while also acquiring classes of verbs with similar overall patterns of usage. In a simulation of verb learning within a broad, naturalistic context, I show how this abstract, probabilistic knowledge of alternations can be generalized to new verbs to support learning.
I augment this verb class model to acquire associations between form and meaning in verb argument structure, and to generalize this knowledge appropriately via the syntactic and semantic aspects of verb alternations. The model captures children's ability to use the alternation pattern of a novel verb to infer aspects of the verb's meaning, and to use the meaning of a novel verb to predict the range of syntactic forms in which the verb may participate. These simulations also provide new predictions of children's linguistic development, emphasizing the value of this model as a useful framework to investigate verb learning in a complex linguistic environment.
40
Yamamoto, Hirofumi Hilo. "A mathematical analysis of the connotations of classical Japanese poetic vocabulary." Phd thesis, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/151572.
Full text
41
Du, Lan. "Non-parametric bayesian methods for structured topic models." Phd thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/149800.
Full textAbstract:
The proliferation of large electronic document archives requires new techniques for automatically analysing large collections, which has posed several new and interesting research challenges. Topic modelling, as a promising statistical technique, has gained significant momentum in recent years in information retrieval, sentiment analysis, images processing, etc. Besides existing topic models, the field of topic modelling still needs to be further explored using more powerful tools. One potentially useful area is to directly consider the document structure ranging from semantically high-level segments (e.g., chapters, sections, or paragraphs) to low-level segments (e.g., sentences or words) in topic modeling. This thesis introduces a family of structured topic models for statistically modeling text documents together with their intrinsic document structures. These models take advantage of non-parametric Bayesian techniques (e.g., the two-parameter Poisson-Dirichlet process (PDP)) and Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. Two preliminary contributions of this thesis are 1. The Compound Poisson-Dirichlet process (CPDP): it is an extension of the PDP that can be applied to multiple input distributions. 2. Two Gibbs sampling algorithms for the PDP in a finite state space: these two samplers are based on the Chinese restaurant process that provides an elegant analogy of incremental sampling for the PDP. The first, a two-stage Gibbs sampler, arises from a table multiplicity representation for the PDP. The second is built on top of a table indicator representation. In a simply controlled environment of multinomial sampling, the two new samplers have fast convergence speed. These support the major contribution of this thesis, which is a set of structured topic models: Segmented Topic Model (STM) which models a simple document structure with a four-level hierarchy by mapping the document layout to a hierarchical subject structure. It performs significantly better than the latent Dirichlet allocation model and other segmented models at predicting unseen words. Sequential Latent Dirichlet Allocation (SeqLDA) which is motivated by topical correlations among adjacent segments (i.e., the sequential document structure). This new model uses the PDP and a simple first-order Markov chain to link a set of LDAs together. It provides a novel approach for exploring the topic evolution within each individual document. Adaptive Topic Model (AdaTM) which embeds the CPDP in a simple directed acyclic graph to jointly model both hierarchical and sequential document structures. This new model demonstrates in terms of per-word predictive accuracy and topic distribution profile analysis that it is beneficial to consider both forms of structures in topic modelling. - provided by Candidate.
42
Sawalhi, Nader Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering Faculty of Engineering UNSW. "Diagnostics, prognostics and fault simulation for rolling element bearings." 2007. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/40544.
Full textAbstract:
Vibration signals generated from spalled elements in rolling element bearings (REBs) are investigated in this thesis. A novel signal-processing algorithm to diagnose localized faults in rolling element bearings has been developed and tested on a variety of signals. The algorithm is based on Spectral Kurtosis (SK), which has special qualities for detecting REBs faults. The algorithm includes three steps. It starts by pre-whitening the signal's power spectral density using an autoregressive (AR) model. The impulses, which are contained in the residual of the AR model, are then enhanced using the minimum entropy deconvolution (MED) technique, which effectively deconvolves the effect of the transmission path and clarifies the impulses. Finally the output of the MED filter is decomposed using complex Morlet wavelets and the SK is calculated to select the best filter for the envelope analysis. Results show the superiority of the developed algorithm and its effectiveness in extracting fault features from the raw vibration signal. The problem of modelling the vibration signals from a spalled bearing in a gearbox environment is discussed. This problem has been addressed through the incorporation of a time varying, non-linear stiffness bearing model into a previously developed gear model. It has the new capacity of modeling localized faults and extended faults in the different components of the bearing. The simulated signals were found to have the same basic characteristics as measured signals, and moreover were found to have a characteristic seen in the measured signals, and also referred to in the literature, of double pulses corresponding to entry into and exit from a localized fault, which could be made more evident by the MED technique. The simulation model is useful for producing typical fault signals from gearboxes to test new diagnostic algorithms, and also prognostic algorithms. The thesis provides two main tools (SK algorithm and the gear bearing simulation model), which could be effectively employed to develop a successful prognostic model.
43
Sithole, Maureen Phathisiwe. "An investigation of how language affects the teaching and learning of mathematics for English second learners in five FET schools within Mtubatuba district, in Northern KwaZulu-Natal: a particular focus on word problems." Thesis, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/9408.
Full textAbstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate how language affected the teaching and learning of mathematics for English second language (ESL) learners in five Further Education and Training (FET) schools in Northern KwaZulu-Natal, with a particular focus on word problems (WPs).
In 2010, fifteen learners (nine boys and six girls) doing mathematics grade 11 from five different FET schools from Mtubatuba District in Northern Kwazulu-Natal participated in the study. Five teachers teaching the same learners from these five schools were also the participants in this study. The researcher’s teaching experience of eleven years as an FET mathematics teacher had taught her that many English second language learners were not able to correctly translate word problems into mathematical equation. This was what motivated the researcher to conduct a study on the impact of English to the teaching and learning of mathematics, especially Word Problems.
The study was mostly framed around theory of Social Constructivism. The research instruments used in the study were: learner worksheets, learner interviews (individual and group interviews), teacher questionnaires and lesson observations.
Some common challenges in the teaching of WPs were drawn from the analysis of the teachers’ responses:
Many learners are unable to translate English statements into mathematical equations.
The manner in which WPs are phrased generally pose some problems for many learners.
There is lack of mathematics vocabulary such as ‘consecutive’, ‘twice as much as’, ‘doubled and then added to’, ‘squared’.
From the learners’ responses, the following could be deduced as challenges in learning WPs:
There is very little exposure of learners to word problems.
Failure to write English statements mathematically.
Less exposure to English due to teachers accepting the use of isiZulu more than English during teaching and learning.
Too much wording in the WPs which ends up confusing.
Little exposure to mathematical terms such as ‘consecutive’, ‘integers’.
Both teachers and learners gave some strategies that they thought could help in the teaching of WPs, namely:
Giving more time for learners to construct mathematical statements on their own.
Engaging in one-on-one teaching with some struggling learners.
Code-switching from English to isiZulu when necessary.
Letting learners work through the worked examples first for proper understanding.
Rephrasing the problem and breaking it into sections.
Use of diagrams and illustrations.
Giving learners more activities on WPs.Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.
44
Ly, Amadú. "Behavioral finance approach to resource allocation." Doctoral thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10071/18747.
Full textAbstract:
The three essays that comprise this thesis address the behavioral factors that impact resource allocation, more specifically trade and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), around the globe.
The first essay analyses the impact of language similarity on trade, measuring the effect on specific types of products. It extends earlier research on common language network externalities by measuring language similarity effect on bilateral trade from the point of view of the 10 most influential global languages. The findings provide evidence that the impact of language similarity is greater than that of language commonality, and both have a significant impact on bilateral trade. The results also show that language effect on trade varies within the 10 languages, and that this impact is product-specific: culturally sensitive products benefit from a greater language effect.
The second essay is a macro level study of foreign direct investment (FDI). It uses an extended gravity model, data spanning 12 years (2000–2012), to shed new light on the impact on FDI of linguistic and technological similarities between countries. The model includes technological commonality, as measured by the aggregate production of intellectual property, at the country level. An analysis of 71 309 pairs of FDI relationships showed that language is positively associated with a high level of FDI. Technological differences do impede the flow of FDI between countries, and information flow is crucial for large flows of FDI. Information flow diminishes the negative impact of distance. The results also show different attitudes toward investment among high income and low income countries’ multinational corporations (MNCs).
The third essay address Chief Executive Officer’s (CEO’s) demographic characteristics (e.g. age, education) which impact greenfield investment location decisions. Using a hierarchical model (e.g. binomial and linear), data spanning 10 years (2003–2012), the analysis of 49 138 global firm-level greenfield investments shows that CEO’s level of education is crucial to the decision of which country to select and the amount invested. The more educated a CEO is the more likely to invest in developing countries. The results also show that CEOs from developing and emerging countries (DECs) are more risk-prone than their peers from developed countries. They are also more likely to invest in countries considered risky. In addition, the results show that CEOs’ power is associated with less risky choices, that is, the more powerful a CEOs the more likely to invest in developed markets.Os três artigos que compõem esta tese analisam os factores “comportamentais” que influenciam a alocação de recursos (e.g., comércio e investimento directo estrangeiro (IDE)) a nível global. O primeiro artigo analisa o efeito da similaridade linguística no comércio mundial e em particular em certos produtos. Esta análise é feita do ponto de vista das 10 línguas mais influentes a nível global. Os resultados desta análise oferecem uma interpretação inequívoca sobre o positivo efeito da língua no comércio. E ainda nos permitiu aferir da superioridade da similaridade linguística sobre a língua comum. Os resultados também demonstram que o efeito da língua é diferenciado entre as 10 línguas globalmente mais influentes e que este impacto é específico a certos produtos. Também verificamos que os produtos “culturais” são mais sensíveis ao efeito da língua. O segundo artigo é uma análise a nível macro do IDE. Para a análise referida utilizamos o modelo gravitacional, dados de 2000 – 2012 para analisar o efeito da assimetria de informação, similaridade linguística e tecnológica. Para índice de similaridade tecnológica utilizamos dados de propriedade intelectual a nível do país. A análise de 71309 pares de IDE entre países revelou o efeito positivo da língua sobre IDE. Verificamos que a diferença tecnológica impede o elevado fluxo de IDE e que o fluxo de informação é crucial para um elevado nível de IDE. Mais, verificamos que elevado fluxo de informação diminui o efeito negativo da distância. Ainda verificamos que a atitude em relação ao investimento varia consoante o nível de recursos dos países de origem. O terceiro artigo analisa o impacto das características demográficas dos gestores sob a decisão de IDE (i.e. greenfield). Usando modelos hierárquicos, dados de 2003 – 2012, a análise de 49138 dados de greenfield empresarial revela que o nível de educação dos gestores determina a escolha do país e o montante a investir. Também verificamos que quanto mais educado o gestor mais provável é investimentos nos países emergentes e em vias de desenvolvimento. Mais, também verificamos que os gestores originários dos países emergentes e em vias de desenvolvimento assumem mais riscos, i.e., é mais provável investirem em países emergentes ou em vias de desenvolvimento. Também verificamos que os gestores mais poderosos tendem a ter uma atitude mais conservador e assumir menos riscos.