Controlled language

In the near future, robotic agents might employ persuasion to influence people's behavior or attitudes, just as human agents do in many situations. People can comply with these requests, but, people can also experience psychological reactance, which may lead to the complete opposite of the proposed behavior. In this study we are interested in the social nature of psychological reactance. Social agency theory proposes that more social cues lead to a more social interaction. We argue that this also holds for psychological reactance. Therefore, we expect a positive relationship between the level of social agency of the source of a persuasive message and the amount of psychological reactance the message arouses. In an online experiment, participants read an advice on how to conserve energy when using a washing machine. The advice was either provided as text-only, as text accompanied by a still picture of a robotic agent, or as text accompanied by a short film clip of the same robotic agent. Confirming our expectations, results indicated that participants experienced more psychological reactance when the advice was accompanied by the still picture or when the advice was accompanied by the short film clip as compared to when the advice was provided as text-only. This indicates that stronger social agency of the messenger can lead to more psychological reactance. Furthermore, our results confirmed earlier research about the effects of controlling language on psychological reactance. Implications are discussed.

This article is based on a survey of text-user attitudes. The survey aimed to discover: whether the concept of readability has merit in the field of controlled language; and whether readability is increased by applying controlledlanguage rules to a sample of technical texts. The article attempts to provide much-needed empirical data to a neglected area of controlled-language research, and to examine the concept of readability that appears to be misunderstood, undervalued and misused. In particular, the paper examines issues concerning reader preference, the predictability of readability formulas, and the variables that impact on readability as a whole. Moreover, though the participant samples in the study were too small to be generalised to larger populations, the trends identified here indicate useful directions for future research.

One of the most important methods by which human beings learn is by reading. While in its full generality, the reading task is still too difficult a capability to be implemented in a computer, significant (if partial) approaches to the task are now feasible. Our goal in this ...

Considering definitions as dynamic entities with (i) an underlying structure formed by a set of conceptual properties following categorial templates; (ii) a lexical formalization of such properties on the terminographic definition proper (Garcı´a de Quesada, M., 2002. La defini-cio´n en OntoTerm 1 In: Faber, P., Jime´nez Hurtado, C. (Eds.), 71-90), we are working on the design of a definitional grammar. This controlled language is not based on the most frequent lexemes in a corpus but on predicative structures typical to the conceptual categories of a given domain (Garcı´a de Quesada, M., Montero Martı´nez, S., in press. Hacia una grama´tica de la definicio´n terminogra´fica. In: Actas del II Coloquio Internacional sobre Ensen˜anza de la Terminologı´a, Granada, Spain, 12-14 December 2002). These structures are formalized through polylexical units called terminological phrasemes [Montero-Martı´nez, S., 2003. Estructuracio´n Conceptual y Formalizacio´n Terminogra´fica de Frasemas en el Subdominio de la Oncologı´a, Vol. 19. CSIC/Elies, Madrid. Available from < http://elies.rediris.es/ >; Terminology 7 ]. In our proposal, then, the propositional realization of the most productive relations and attributes of the different categories depends on a restricted group of phrasemes extracted from corpora with different levels of specialization. Hence, both the skeleton of the definition and its wording will vary according to complexity in the communicative setting, since the conceptual dimensions activated and their realizations in more or less semantically transparent/opaque units depend on the receptor's needs and characteristics. #

One of the most important methods by which human beings learn is by reading. While in its full generality, the reading task is still too difficult a capability to be implemented in a computer, significant (if partial) approaches to the task are now feasible. Our goal in this ...

We report on the first, to the best of our knowledge, attempt to define the core linguistic and formatting style specifications for controlled Modern Greek and develop an authoring tool (controlled language checker) in the context of the project "SCHEMATOPOIESIS". The tool is both parametric, in order to accommodate various thematic domains, and extensible, in order to host customised specifications at the level of (formatting) style, terminology and grammar. Two versions of the tool are presented, one operating within a word processing environment (MS-Word) and one operating on the Web. Both versions draw on the same linguistic and style specifications and share the same lexical and grammatical resources. The sublanguage of computational equipment has been used as a case study. The paper presents the design principles of the authoring tool, describes the two implementation versions and presents the first evaluation results as well as our plans for future research.

Traditional subject indexing and classification are considered infeasible in many digital collections. Automated means and social tagging are often suggested as the two possible solutions. Both, however, have disadvantages and, depending on the purpose of use or context, require additional manual input. This study investigates ways of enhancing social tagging via knowledge organization systems, with a view to improving the quality of tags for increased information discovery and retrieval performance. Benefits of using both social tags and controlled terms are also explored, including enriching knowledge organization systems with new concepts.

Abstract: This paper presents a large-scale Greek morphological lexicon, developed by the Software & Knowledge Engineering Laboratory (SKEL) of NCSR &quot;Demokritos&quot;. The paper describes the lexicon architecture, the procedure followed to develop it, as well as the provided ...

In computer-aided and Web-based learning a critical role is played by the methods and frameworks for Information Access. First of all, intelligent methods for retrieval and synthesis of information are crucial for making available timely and correct information during the training process. Moreover, the level of interaction between the target user and the retrieval subsystem constitutes an important quality factor for the learning process. The abstraction supported by the linguistic generalization adopted in the interaction is an inherent component of the student development: the higher is the linguistic level, the faster and more effective is the training. In order to ensure the proper abstraction level, the retrieval component should make use of capabilities for generalization throughout a number of phases: indexing, retrieval, organisation and presentation. All these tasks require thus an underlying concept-oriented approach usually relying on ontological resources. In particular tasks like indexing and presentation are also faced (in both directions of input/recognition and output/production) with linguistic data: source texts and dialogue/interaction sessions, respectively. In both cases, i.e. text understading and natural language generation, a non trivial process of semantic recognition is involved. All the above implies that strong assumptions about the conceptualisation of the underlying knowledge domain are usually made in e-learnig. However, building domain conceptualisations from scratch is a very complex and timeconsuming task. Traditionally, the reuse of available domain resources, although not constituting always the best, has been applied as an accurate and cost effective solution. This paper presents a method to exploit sources of domain knowledge (e.g. a subject reference system as a controlled language for document indexing and classification) used to build a linguistically motivated domain concept hierarchy. Because in the specific perspective of supporting linguistic inference in Information Extraction and Retrieval (IE/IR) for e-learning, the use of domain taxonomies as ontological resources is not straightforward. We discuss here how a method for integrating the taxonomical domain knowledge and a general-purpose lexical knowledge base (like WordNet) can be used for improving the accuracy and flexibility of IE.

In this paper we report on the set of controlled language specifications defined for Modern Greek and the development of the respective style checker. We will focus on the effectiveness and suitability of these specifications by assessing the performance of a commercial machine translation system over controlled texts and will comment on the evaluation results. For our experiments we have used the SYSTRAN MT system (English-into-Greek language pair). We will show that an improvement in translation is feasible, when a text compliant with controlled language specifications enters a MT system. Finally, we will propose a third parameter for setting CL specifications.

As part of an ongoing project, Project Halo, our goal is to build a system capable of answering questions posed by novice users to a formal knowledge base. In our current context, the knowledge base covers selected topics in physics, chemistry, and biology, with AP (advanced highschool) level examination questions. The task is challenging because the original questions are linguistically complex and are often incomplete (assume unstated knowledge), and because the users do not have prior knowledge of the system's ontology. Our solution involves two parts: a controlled language interface, in which users reformulate the original natural language questions in a simplified version of English, and a novel problem solver that can elaborate initially inadequate logical interpretations of a question by using relevant pieces of knowledge in the knowledge base. An extensive evaluation of the work in 2006 showed that this approach is feasible and that complex, multisentence questions can be posed and answered successfully, thus illustrating novel ways of dealing with the knowledge capture impedance between users and a formal knowledge base, while also revealing challenges that still remain.

Lens-Coupled CCD Detector for X-ray Crystallography
Timothy J. Madden, Member, IEEE, William McGuigan, Michael J. Molitsky, Istvan Naday, Alan McArthur, and Edwin M. Westbrook, Member, IEEE

Abstract
An x-ray crystallography detector (Blue-1) has been built based upon a Fairchild 486 back-illuminated CCD and a custom lens system designed by Optics One Inc. The advantages of our Blue-1 lens system over more conventional fiber-optic tapers are: lower noise and higher efficiency; improved point spread function; negligible spatial distortion; and lack of “chicken-wire” patterns. Also, the engineering is simpler because the CCD is not bonded to the fiber-optic taper. A unique mechanical design has been employed to accurately focus the image on the CCD. The detector software is based on MATLAB and takes advantage of its powerful imaging and signal processing libraries. The CCD timing can be updated on the fly by using a “CCD controller language” to specify timing.

In this paper we present the basic ideas underlying a solution for software application interoperability in a business context. Key elements of our solution are a Reference Ontology, aimed at modelling the key aspects of a business domain, and a Semantic Annotation Language, SMAIL, used to associate semantic expressions, defined in terms of the reference ontology, to business elements.

Abstract. In this paper we present ParaMT, a bilingual/multilingual paraphraser to be applied in machine translation. We select paraphrases of support verb constructions and use the NooJ linguistic environment to formalize and generate translation equivalences through the use of dictionary and local grammars with syntactic and semantic content. Our research shows that linguistic paraphrasal knowledge constitutes a key element in conversion of source language into controlled language text that presents more successful translation results.

Minera Reyna, L. E. (2009). El papel de la motivación y las actitudes en el aprendizaje de ELE en un contexto de enseñanza formal para adultos alemanes. Revista Nebrija de Lingüística Aplicada (2009) 6. RESUMEN En el presente artículo se dan a conocer los resultados de la investigación que tiene como finalidad abordar el papel de las variables afectivas motivación y actitudes en el aprendizaje del español como lengua extranjera (E/LE) en un contexto formal extraescolar. Este estudio se sitúa en el campo de adquisición del español como lengua extranjera con aprendientes adultos alemanes. Se ha optado por una metodología que se adapta a los modelos de tipo descriptivo correlacional para establecer las posibles relaciones entre las variables estudiadas. Para medir estadísticamente las posibles correlaciones entre las variables estudiadas, se ha aplicado el Coeficiente de Correlación de Pearson (r). Se pretende, por un lado, averiguar el tipo o tipos dominantes y el grado de motivación de los informantes para aprender el E/LE, y, por el otro, detectar las actitudes hacia diferentes factores del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje y la posible correlación de las mismas, de los resultados lingüísticos y la perseverancia en el aprendizaje de la LO. Para recoger los datos sobre el grado y el tipo de motivación y las actitudes se ha utilizado como herramienta un cuestionario diseñado para dicho propósito. Los resultados lingüísticos se han controlado a través de la prueba lingüística de nivel realizada por el equipo docente del centro. Finalmente, la perseverancia se ha comprobado por medio de las matrículas de los dos trimestres siguientes.

In computer-aided and Web-based learning a critical role is played by the methods and frameworks for Information Access. First of all, intelligent methods for retrieval and synthesis of information are crucial for making available timely and correct information during the training process. Moreover, the level of interaction between the target user and the retrieval subsystem constitutes an important quality factor

The paper introduces bibliometrics to the research area of knowledge organization -more precisely in relation to construction and maintenance of thesauri. As such, the paper reviews related work that has been of inspiration for the assembly of a semi-automatic, bibliometric-based, approach for construction and maintenance. Similarly, the paper discusses the methodical considerations behind the approach. Eventually, the semi-automatic approach is used to verify the applicability of bibliometric methods as a supplement to construction and maintenance of thesauri. In the context of knowledge organization, the paper outlines two fundamental approaches to knowledge organization, that is, the manual intellectual approach and the automatic algorithmic approach. Bibliometric methods belong to the automatic algorithmic approach, though bibliometrics do have special characteristics that are substantially different from other methods within this approach.

In this paper we present the basic ideas underlying a solution for software application interoperability in a business context. Key elements of our solution are a Reference Ontology, aimed at modelling the key aspects of a business domain, and a Semantic Annotation Language, SMAIL, used to associate semantic expressions, defined in terms of the reference ontology, to business elements.

Purpose -To provide an integrated perspective to similarities and differences between approaches to automated classification in different research communities (machine learning, information retrieval and library science), and point to problems with the approaches and automated classification as such. Design/methodology/approach -A range of works dealing with automated classification of full-text web documents are discussed. Explorations of individual approaches are given in the following sections: special features (description, differences, evaluation), application and characteristics of web pages. Findings -Provides major similarities and differences between the three approaches: document pre-processing and utilization of web-specific document characteristics is common to all the approaches; major differences are in applied algorithms, employment or not of the vector space model and of controlled vocabularies. Problems of automated classification are recognized.

Controlled languages are specially defined subsets of natural language which help to create clear and concise documents, and thus insure coherent communication. In this paper we approach controlled language through the definitions of specialized terms with a view to establishing a metalanguage for the basic format of definitions. Our research focuses on a corpus of specialized terms related to tides, extracted from the Glossary of Coastal Terminology elaborated by the NOAA Coastal Services Center.

The paper investigates the effect on indexing and retrieval when using only social tagging versus when using social tagging in combination with suggestions from a knowledge organization system. The specific context is that of tagging by Web document readers, using Dewey Decimal Classification, its captions, Relative Index Terms and Library of Congress Subject Headings mapped to the captions. The results showed the importance of knowledge organization system suggestions for both indexing and retrieval: to help produce ideas of tags to use, to make it easier to find focus for the tagging, as well as to ensure consistency and increase the number of access points in retrieval.

One key to the success of EBMT is the removal of the boundaries limiting the potential of translation memories (TMs). We discuss a linguistically enhanced TM system, a Phrasal Lexicon (PL), which takes advantage of the huge, underused resources available in existing translation aids. We claim that PL and EBMT systems can only provide valuable translation solutions for restricted domains, especially where controlled language restrictions are imposed. When integrated into a hybrid and/or multi-engine MT environment, the PL will yield significant improvements in translation quality. We establish a future model of translation 1.

This paper presents an extended, harmonised account of our previous work on integrating controlled language data in an Example-based Machine Translation system. Gough and Way in MT Summit pp. 133–140 (2003) focused on controlling the output text in a novel manner, while Gough and Way (9th Workshop of the EAMT, (2004a), pp. 73–81) sought to constrain the input strings according to controlled language specifications. Our original sub-sentential alignment algorithm could deal only with 1:1 matches, but subsequent refinements enabled n:m alignments to be captured. A direct consequence was that we were able to populate the system’s databases with more than six times as many potentially useful fragments. Together with two simple novel improvements – correcting a small number of mistranslations in the lexicon, and allowing multiple translations in the lexicon – translation quality improves considerably. We provide detailed automatic and human evaluations of a number of experiments carried out to test the quality of the system. We observe that our system outperforms the rule-based on-line system Logomedia on a range of automatic evaluation metrics, and that the ‘best’ translation candidate is consistently highly ranked by our system. Finally, we note in a number of tests that the BLEU metric gives objectively different results than other automatic evaluation metrics and a manual evaluation. Despite these conflicting results, we observe a preference for controlling the source data rather than the target translations.

The tutorial first addresses requirements and semantic problems to integrate digital information into large scale, meaningful networks of knowledge that support not only access to source documents but also use and reuse of integrated information. The pros and cons of developing global ontologies are discussed. It is argued that core ontologies of relationships are fundamental to schema integration and play a completely different role to that of specialist terminologies in practical knowledge management. The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) is presented as an example of such a global model. It is a core ontology and new ISO standard (ISO 21127, accepted September 2006), originally designed for the semantic integration of information from museums, libraries, and archives. It is a product of re-engineering the dominant underlying common concepts from representative data structures. It is not prescriptive, but provides a controlled language to describe common high-level semantics ...

We report on the first, to the best of our knowledge, attempt to define the core linguistic and formatting style specifications for controlled Modern Greek and develop an authoring tool (controlled language checker) in the context of the project "SCHEMATOPOIESIS". The tool is both parametric, in order to accommodate various thematic domains, and extensible, in order to host customised specifications at the level of (formatting) style, terminology and grammar. Two versions of the tool are presented, one operating within a word processing environment (MS-Word) and one operating on the Web. Both versions draw on the same linguistic and style specifications and share the same lexical and grammatical resources. The sublanguage of computational equipment has been used as a case study. The paper presents the design principles of the authoring tool, describes the two implementation versions and presents the first evaluation results as well as our plans for future research.

This paper presents a large-scale Greek morphological lexicon, developed at the Software & Knowledge Engineering Laboratory (SKEL) of NCSR "Demokritos". The paper describes the lexicon architecture and the procedure to develop and update it. The morphological lexicon was used to develop a lemmatiser and a morphological analyser that were exploited in various natural language processing applications for Greek. The paper presents these applications (controlled language checker, information extraction, information filtering) and discusses further research issues and how we plan to address them.

A controlled language like Attempto Controlled English (ACE) together with knowledge assimilation is an useful tool for many applications, e.g. writing correct specifications. In practice, knowledge assimilation must be implemented efficiently because the amount of data can grow very large. The incremental approach to model generation described in this report reduces computations by memorizing the results already computed. Further searches use these results by continuing at the end of the last search and not by restarting at the beginning. This proceeding obviously avoids computing same things repeatedly.

This paper presents a framework for rule extraction from unstructured web documents. To do so, we adopted the controlled language technique to reduce the burden as well as error of a domain expert and suggest a rule extraction framework that uses ontology, to solve the problem of missing variable and value that may be caused by incomplete natural language. Here, it is referred to as NEXUCE (New rule EXtraction Using ontology and Controlled natural languagE). To evaluate the performance of the NEXUCE framework, the natural language statements were collected from the websites of Internet bookstores and the rule extraction capability was analyzed. As a result, it was proven that NEXUCE can have more than 70% of rule extraction from unstructured web documents.

Purpose-Seeks to share with digital library practitioners the development process of an online image collection that integrates the syndetic structure of a controlled vocabulary to improve end-user search and browse functionality. Design/methodology/approach-Surveys controlled vocabulary structures and their utility for catalogers and end-users. Reviews research literature and usability findings that informed the specifications for integration of the controlled vocabulary structure into search and browse functionality. Discusses database functions facilitating query expansion using a controlled vocabulary structure, and web application handling of user queries and results display. Concludes with a discussion of open-source alternatives and reuse of database and application components in other environments. Findings-Affirms that structured forms of browse and search can be successfully integrated into digital collections to significantly improve the user's discovery experience. Establishes ways in which the technologies used in implementing enhanced search and browse functionality can be abstracted to work in other digital collection environments. Originality/value-Significant amounts of research on integrating thesauri structures into search and browse functionalities exist, but examples of online resources that have implemented this approach are few in comparison. The online image collection surveyed in this paper can serve as a model to other designers of digital library resources for integrating controlled vocabularies and metadata structures into more dynamic search and browse functionality for end-users.

In an ongoing effort to better understand the process of creating conceptual models (in particular formal ones), we present a fundamental view of the process of modeling. We base this view on the idea that participants in such a process are involved in a deliberate and goal-driven effort to share and reconcile representations of their personal conceptions of (parts of) the world. This effort takes the shape of a modeling dialogue, involving the use of controlled language. We thus take a fundamental approach to subjective aspects of modeling, as opposed to traditional approaches which essentially consider models as objective entities. We position and present our initial theory of modeling, and briefly discuss how we intend to validate and further develop it.

This paper is concerned with resources for controlled languages for alert messages and protocols in the European perspective. These resources have been produced as the outcome of a project (Alert Messages and Protocols: MESSAGE) which has been funded with the support of the European Commission -Directorate-General Justice, Freedom and Security, and with the specific objective of 'promoting and supporting the development of security standards, and an exchange of know-how and experience on protection of people'. The MESSAGE project involved the development and transfer of a methodology for writing safe and safely translatable alert messages and protocols created by Centre Tesnière in collaboration with the aircraft industry, the health profession, and emergency services by means of a consortium of four partners to their four European member states in their languages (ES, FR (Coordinator), GB, PL). The paper describes alert messages and protocols, controlled languages for safety and security, the target groups involved, controlled language evaluation, dissemination, the resources that are available, both "Freely available" and "From Owner", together with illustrations of the resources, and the potential transferability to other sectors and users.

Controlled Language (CL) for Ontology Editing tools offer an attractive alternative for naive users wishing to create ontologies, but they are still required to spend time learning the correct syntactic structures and vocabulary in order to use the Controlled Language properly. This paper extends previous work (CLOnE) which uses standard NLP tools to process the language and manipulate an ontology. Here we also generate text in the CL from an existing ontology using template-based (or shallow) Natural Language Generation (NLG). The text generator and the CLOnE authoring process combine to form a RoundTrip Ontology Authoring environment: one can start with an existing imported ontology or one originally produced using CLOnE, (re)produce the Controlled Language, modify or edit the text as required and then turn the text back into the ontology in the CLOnE environment. Building on previous methodology we undertook an evaluation, comparing the RoundTrip Ontology Authoring process with a well-known ontology editor; where previous work required a CL reference manual with several examples in order to use the controlled language, the use of NLG reduces this learning curve for users and improves on existing results for basic ontology editing tasks.

This paper describes how mature NLP that has been successfully applied in the area of controlled language checking can be used to deliver intelligent CALL applications1. It describe how an autonomous, long-distance second-language learning system for advanced learners2 ...

This paper introduces the \Gendercheck Editor&quot;, a tool to check German texts for gender discriminatory formulations. It re- lays on shallow rule-based techniques as used in the Controlled Language Author- ing Technology (CLAT). The paper outlines major sources of gender imbalances in Ger- man texts. It gives a background on the underlying CLAT technology and describes the marking and annotation

One key to the success of EBMT is the removal of the boundaries limiting the potential of translation memories (TMs). We discuss a linguistically enhanced TM system, a Phrasal Lexicon (PL), which takes advantage of the huge, underused resources available in existing translation aids. We claim that PL and EBMT systems can only provide valuable translation solutions for restricted domains, especially where controlled language restrictions are imposed. When integrated into a hybrid and/or multi-engine MT environment, the PL will yield significant improvements in translation quality. We establish a future model of translation 1.

Controlled Language for Geographical Information System Queries Sela Mador-Haim, Yoad Winter, and Anthony Braun Technion IIT selam@ cs. ... λxe.(n (x) AND (x. heighter= max (rt) r (λrr.∃ ye.(n (y) AND r= y. heighter)))) Category R in the above table corresponds to type r and ...

This paper is concerned with resources for controlled languages for alert messages and protocols in the European perspective. These resources have been produced as the outcome of a project (Alert Messages and Protocols: MESSAGE) which has been funded with the support of the European Commission- Directorate-General Justice, Freedom and Security, and with the specific objective of &apos;promoting and supporting the development of security standards, and an exchange of know-how and experience on protection of people&apos;. The MESSAGE project involved the development and transfer of a methodology for writing safe and safely translatable alert messages and protocols created by Centre Tesnière in collaboration with the aircraft industry, the health profession, and emergency services by means of a consortium of four partners to their four European member states in their languages (ES, FR (Coordinator), GB, PL). The paper describes alert messages and protocols, controlled languages for saf...

PurposeTraditional subject indexing and classification are considered infeasible in many digital collections. This paper seeks to investigate ways of enhancing social tagging via knowledge organization systems, with a view to improving the quality of tags for increased information discovery and retrieval performance.Design/methodology/approachEnhanced tagging interfaces were developed for exemplar online repositories, and trials were undertaken with author and reader groups to evaluate the effectiveness of tagging augmented with control vocabulary for subject indexing of papers in online repositories.FindingsThe results showed that using a knowledge organisation system to augment tagging does appear to increase the effectiveness of non‐specialist users (that is, without information science training) in subject indexing.Research limitations/implicationsWhile limited by the size and scope of the trials undertaken, these results do point to the usefulness of a mixed approach in support...

We report on the first, to the best of our knowledge, attempt to define the core linguistic and formatting style specifications for controlled Modern Greek and develop an authoring tool (controlled language checker) in the context of the project "SCHEMATOPOIESIS". The tool is both parametric, in order to accommodate various thematic domains, and extensible, in order to host customised specifications at the level of (formatting) style, terminology and grammar. Two versions of the tool are presented, one operating within a word processing environment (MS-Word) and one operating on the Web. Both versions draw on the same linguistic and style specifications and share the same lexical and grammatical resources. The sublanguage of computational equipment has been used as a case study. The paper presents the design principles of the authoring tool, describes the two implementation versions and presents the first evaluation results as well as our plans for future research.

Due to the appearance of uncontrollable events in discrete event systems, one may wish to replace the behavior leading to the uncontrollability of pre-specified language by some quite similar one. To capture this similarity, we introduce metric to traditional supervisory control theory and generalize the concept of original controllability to λ-controllability, where λ indicates the similarity degree of two languages. A necessary and sufficient condition for a language to be λ-controllable is provided. We then examine some properties of λ-controllable languages and present an approach to optimizing a realization.