Search results for: natural language process

Authors: Hadjer Chellia

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The study explores the phenomenon of second language use in a migratory setting and uses the case of Algerian international students in Scotland, United Kingdom. The linguistic history of Algeria reveals that French language has a high status among the Algerians’ verbal repertoires and Algerian English students consider it as a language of prestige. With mobility of some of these students towards Scotland -in the guise of internationalization of higher education, mobility and exchange programs, the transition was deemed to bring more complexity to their pre-migratory linguistic repertoires and resulted into their French language- being endangered and threatened by a potential shift to English. The study employed semi-structured interviews among six Ph.D. ethnically related students, and the main aim behind that is to explore their current experiences with regards to French language use and to provide an account of the factors which assist in shifting to English as a second language instead. The six participants identified in interviews were further invited to focus group sessions based on an in-group interaction fashion to discuss different topics using heritage languages. This latter was opted for as part of the methodology as a means to observe their real linguistic practice and to investigate the link between behaviors and previous perceptions. The findings detect a variety of social, individual and socio-psychological factors that would contribute in refining the concept of language shift among newly established émigré communities with short stay vis a vis the linguistic outcomes of immigrants with long stay, across generational basis that was –to some extent-the focus of previous research on language shift. The results further reveal a mismatch between students' perceptions and observed behaviors. The research is then largely relevant to international students’ sociolinguistic experience of study abroad.

Keywords: complexity, mobility, potential shift, sociolinguistic experience

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Authors: Stephen L. Green, Alexander N. Gorban, Ivan Y. Tyukin

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Within the past decade, using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN)’s to create Deep Learning systems capable of translating Sign Language into text has been a breakthrough in breaking the communication barrier for deaf-mute people. Conventional research on this subject has been concerned with training the network to recognize the fingerspelling gestures of a given language and produce their corresponding alphanumerics. One of the problems with the current developing technology is that images are scarce, with little variations in the gestures being presented to the recognition program, often skewed towards single skin tones and hand sizes that makes a percentage of the population’s fingerspelling harder to detect. Along with this, current gesture detection programs are only trained on one finger spelling language despite there being one hundred and forty-two known variants so far. All of this presents a limitation for traditional exploitation for the state of current technologies such as CNN’s, due to their large number of required parameters. This work aims to present a technology that aims to resolve this issue by combining a pretrained legacy AI system for a generic object recognition task with a corrector method to uptrain the legacy network. This is a computationally efficient procedure that does not require large volumes of data even when covering a broad range of sign languages such as American Sign Language, British Sign Language and Chinese Sign Language (Pinyin). Implementing recent results on method concentration, namely the stochastic separation theorem, an AI system is supposed as an operate mapping an input present in the set of images u ∈ U to an output that exists in a set of predicted class labels q ∈ Q of the alphanumeric that q represents and the language it comes from. These inputs and outputs, along with the interval variables z ∈ Z represent the system’s current state which implies a mapping that assigns an element x ∈ ℝⁿ to the triple (u, z, q). As all xi are i.i.d vectors drawn from a product mean distribution, over a period of time the AI generates a large set of measurements xi called S that are grouped into two categories: the correct predictions M and the incorrect predictions Y. Once the network has made its predictions, a corrector can then be applied through centering S and Y by subtracting their means. The data is then regularized by applying the Kaiser rule to the resulting eigenmatrix and then whitened before being split into pairwise, positively correlated clusters. Each of these clusters produces a unique hyperplane and if any element x falls outside the region bounded by these lines then it is reported as an error. As a result of this methodology, a self-correcting recognition process is created that can identify fingerspelling from a variety of sign language and successfully identify the corresponding alphanumeric and what language the gesture originates from which no other neural network has been able to replicate.

Keywords: convolutional neural networks, deep learning, shallow correctors, sign language

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Authors: Hadjer Chellia

Abstract:

the present study reports on second language use among Algerian international students in the UK. In Algeria, French has an important status among the Algerian verbal repertoires due to colonial reasons. This has triggered many language conflicts and many debates among policy makers in Algeria. In higher education, Algerian English students’ sociolinguistic profile is characterised by the use of French as a sign of prestige. What may leave room for debate is the effect of crossing borders towards the UK as a result of international mobility programmes, a transition which could add more complexity since French, is not so significant as a language in the UK context. In this respect, the micro-objective is to explore the fate of French use among Ph.D. students in the UK as a newly established group vis-à-vis English. To fulfill the purpose of the present inquiry, the research employs multiple approaches in which semi-structured interview is a primary source of data to know participants’ attitudes about French use, targeting both their pre-migratory experience and current one. Web-based questionnaires are set up to access larger population. Focus group sessions are further procedures of scrutiny in this piece of work to explore the actual linguistic behaviours. Preliminary findings from both interviews and questionnaires reveal that students’ current experience, particularly living in the UK, affects their pre-migratory attitudes towards French language and its use. The overall findings are expected to bring manifold contributions to the field of research among which is setting factors that influence language use among newly established émigrés communities. The research is also relevant to international students’ experience of study abroad in terms of language use in the guise of internationalization of higher education, mobility and exchange programmes. It could contribute to the sociolinguistics of the Algerian diaspora: the dispersed residence of non-native communities - not to mention its significance on the Algerian research field abroad.

Keywords: Algerian diaspora, French language, language maintenance, language shift, mobility

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Authors: Yanping He-Ulbricht, Marc Oliver Rieger

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Based on survey data collected from people with Chinese roots living in Germany, this paper examines the impact of assimilation degree and language priming (Chinese or German) on individuals’ perceived fairness of economic and social differences and their attitude towards these. The results show that both the language used and the length of time spent in a foreign culture have a significant impact. Subjects who had spent less than 10 years in Germany demonstrated a higher readiness to accept government intervention in markets with price limits than those who had lived there longer. Subjects who were asked and answered in German perceived the current economic situation as less fair and were also less inclined to accept inequality, even when it leads to a Pareto improvement. While the difference in fairness perception of inequality was a cultural effect, the difference in attitudes towards government intervention was rather a result of learning process. The findings imply that both learning processes of individuals and culture play an important role in perception and preferences regarding social and economic differences.

Keywords: assimilation, bilingualism, cross-cultural comparison, income inequality, language priming, price fairness

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Authors: Heba Mustafa Abdullah

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The research aimed at examining the effect of a using a quest based learning strategy on developing EFL Pre-Master Students. The study adopted the quasi-experimental design. The sample of the research consists of a group of 30 students enrolled in Pre-Master program, Curriculum and EFL Instruction Department, Faculty of Graduate Studies in Education Tools of the study included a EFL research skills checklist and EFL research skills test. Results revealed that there were statistically significant differences at 0.01 levels with regard to some research skills. Results were discussed in relation to several factors that affected the language learning process. Finally, the research provided beneficial contributions in relation to manipulating e-learning technologies in general and Quest based learning strategy in particular with respect to EFL research skills.

Keywords: English as foreign language, e-Learning, research skills, quest based learning

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Authors: Jonathan Bolduc

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Studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of music training approaches to help children with language disabilities. Because music is closely associated with a number of cognitive functions, including language, it has been hypothesized that musical skills transfer to other domains. Research suggests that music training strengthens basic auditory processing skills in dyslexic children and may ameliorate phonological deficits. Furthermore, music instruction has the particular advantage of being non-literacy-based, thus removing the frustrations that can be associated with reading and writing activities among children with specific learning disabilities. In this study, we assessed the effect of implementing an intensive music program on the development of language skills (phonological and reading) in 4- to 9-year-old children. Seventeen children (N=17) participated in the study. The experiment took place over 6 weeks in a controlled environment. Eighteen lessons of 40 minutes were offered during this period by two music specialists. The Dalcroze, Orff, and Kodaly approaches were used. A series of qualitative measures were implemented to document the contribution of music training to this population. Currently, the data is being analyzed. The first results show that learning music seems to significantly improve verbal memory. We already know that language disabilities are considered one of the main causes of school dropout as well as later professional and social failure. We aim to corroborate that an integrated music education program can provide children with language disabilities with the same opportunities to develop and succeed in school as their classmates. Scientifically, the results will contribute to advance the knowledge by identifying the more effective music education strategies to improve the overall development of children worldwide.

Keywords: music education, music, art education, language diasabilities

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Authors: Abdulmalik Adamu

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This study is premised on the assumption that language, particularly, English plays a significant role in the acquisition of power in Nigeria. This is against the backdrop of the fact that for the first time in the political history of Nigeria, an opposition party succeeded in dethroning an incumbent President and ruling political party in an election. Therefore the main objective was to investigate the role of language, particularly English in the acquisition of political power in Nigeria. The corpus generated for this study consisted of excerpts from the media exchange between the spokespersons of the two dominant political parties at the time of the elections in 2015; Olisa Metuh of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Lai Mohammed of the All Progressive Party (APC). The excerpts were analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a research tool. The findings revealed the acceptance of the first proposition that English facilitates the acquisition of political power in Nigeria and the rejection of the second proposition that English is an instrument for the exclusion of the populist from political events in Nigeria. The study, therefore, concluded that language, particularly English played a significant role in the acquisition of political power in Nigeria.

Keywords: language, power, politics, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

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Authors: Veerapat Kitsawat, Muenduen Phisalaphong

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Green natural rubber (NR) composites reinforced with synthetic graphite, using alginate as thickening and dispersing agent, were developed to improve mechanical properties and electrical conductivity. The film fabrication was performed using a latex aqueous microdispersion process. The research found that up to 60 parts per hundred rubbers (phr) of graphite could be successfully integrated into the NR matrix without causing agglomeration and phase separation. Accordingly, the mechanical properties, in terms of tensile strength and Young’s modulus of the composite films, were significantly increased, while the elongation at break decreased with higher graphite loading. The reinforcement strongly improved the hydrophilicity of the composite films, resulting in a higher water absorption rate compared to the neat NR film. Moreover, the incorporation of synthetic graphite significantly improved the chemical resistance of the composite films when exposed to toluene. It is demonstrated that the electrical conductivity of the composite films was considerably enhanced with graphite loading. According to the obtained properties, the developed composites offer potential for further development as conductive substrate for electronic applications.

Keywords: alginate, composite, graphite, natural rubber

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Authors: Abdul Rahim Razalli, Nordin Mamat, Lee Kean Low

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The objective of the study is to examine the acquisition of Bahasa Melayu hand coded and Malaysian Sign Language of hearing impaired children and the factors that influencing the acquisition of Malay language at early intervention. A qualitative research design was chosen to answer two research questions. Two sets of instruments have been used to obtain information of proficiency and factors that influence it. Five children with hearing problems, four teachers and three parents were selected as the respondents through purposive sampling technique. The findings show that pupils with hearing problems who mastered Bahasa Melayu hand coded have better acquisition of Bahasa Melayu as compared to those who acquired Malaysian Sign Language. The study also found that the parents, pupils, teachers and environmental factors have an impact on the acquisition of Bahasa Melayu hand coded. The implications of this study show that early intervention of Bahasa Melayu hand coded and the parents, pupils, teachers and environmental factors do help in the language proficiency of children with hearing problems. A more comprehensive study should be undertaken at a higher level to see the impact on an early intervention program for Malay language acquisition of hearing impaired children.

Keywords: Bahasa Melayu hand coded, Malaysian sign Language, hearing impaired children, early intervention

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Authors: S. Ahmed John

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Marine forms-bacteria, actinobacteria, cynobacteria, fungi, microalgae, seaweeds mangroves and other halophytes an extremely important oceanic resources and constituting over 90% of the oceanic biomass. The marine natural products have lead to the discovery of many compounds considered worthy for clinical applications. The marine sources have the highest probability of yielding natural products. Natural derivatives play an important role to prevent the cancer incidences as synthetic drug transformation in mangrove. 28.12% of anticancer compound extracted from the mangroves. Exchocaria agollocha has the anti cancer compounds. The present investigation reveals the potential of the Exchocaria agollocha with biotechnological applications for anti cancer, antimicrobial drug discovery, environmental remediation, and developing new resources for the industrial process. The anti-cancer activity of Exchocaria agollocha was screened from 3.906 to 1000 µg/ml of concentration with the dilution leads to 1:1 to 1:128 following methanol and chloroform extracts. The cell viability in the Exchocaria agollocha was maximum at the lower concentration where as low at the higher concentration of methanol and chloroform extracts when compare to control. At 3.906 concentration, 85.32 and 81.96 of cell viability was found at 1:128 dilution of methanol and chloroform extracts respectively. At the concentration of 31.25 following 1:16 dilution, the cell viability was 65.55 in methanol and 45.55 in chloroform extracts. However, at the higher concentration, the cell viability 22.35 and 8.12 was recorded in the extracts of methanol and chloroform. The cell viability was more in methanol when compare to chloroform extracts at lower concentration. The present findings gives current trends in screening and the activity analysis of metabolites from mangrove resources and to expose the models to bring a new sustain for tackling cancer. Bioactive compounds of Exchocaria agollocha have extensive use in treatment of many diseases and serve as a compound and templates for synthetic modification.

Keywords: bio-active product, compounds, natural products and microalgae

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Authors: Aleksandra Jonas, Aleksandra Gronowska, Maciej Ścigacz, Szymon Jadczak

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Exact Data is a smart tool which helps with meaningful marketing content creation. It helps marketers achieve this by analyzing the text of an advertisement before and after its publication on social media sites like Facebook or Instagram. In our research we focus on four areas of natural language processing (NLP): grammar correction, sentiment analysis, irony detection and advertisement interpretation. Our research has identified a considerable lack of NLP tools for the Polish language, which specifically aid online marketers. In light of this, our research team has set out to create a robust and versatile NLP tool for the Polish language. The primary objective of our research is to develop a tool that can perform a range of language processing tasks in this language, such as sentiment analysis, text classification, text correction and text interpretation. Our team has been working diligently to create a tool that is accurate, reliable, and adaptable to the specific linguistic features of Polish, and that can provide valuable insights for a wide range of marketers needs. In addition to the Polish language version, we are also developing an English version of the tool, which will enable us to expand the reach and impact of our research to a wider audience. Another area of focus in our research involves tackling the challenge of the limited availability of linguistically diverse corpora for non-English languages, which presents a significant barrier in the development of NLP applications. One approach we have been pursuing is the translation of existing English corpora, which would enable us to use the wealth of linguistic resources available in English for other languages. Furthermore, we are looking into other methods, such as gathering language samples from social media platforms. By analyzing the language used in social media posts, we can collect a wide range of data that reflects the unique linguistic characteristics of specific regions and communities, which can then be used to enhance the accuracy and performance of NLP algorithms for non-English languages. In doing so, we hope to broaden the scope and capabilities of NLP applications. Our research focuses on several key NLP techniques including sentiment analysis, text classification, text interpretation and text correction. To ensure that we can achieve the best possible performance for these techniques, we are evaluating and comparing different approaches and strategies for implementing them. We are exploring a range of different methods, including transformers and convolutional neural networks (CNNs), to determine which ones are most effective for different types of NLP tasks. By analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, we can identify the most effective techniques for specific use cases, and further enhance the performance of our tool. Our research aims to create a tool, which can provide a comprehensive analysis of advertising effectiveness, allowing marketers to identify areas for improvement and optimize their advertising strategies. The results of this study suggest that a smart tool for advertisement analysis can provide valuable insights for businesses seeking to create effective advertising campaigns.

Keywords: NLP, AI, IT, language, marketing, analysis

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Authors: Martina Katalin Szabó, Bernadett Lipóczi, Csenge Guba, István Uveges

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In this study, an exhaustive analysis was carried out about the historical development of negative emotive intensifiers in the Hungarian language via NLP methods. Intensifiers are linguistic elements which modify or reinforce a variable character in the lexical unit they apply to. Therefore, intensifiers appear with other lexical items, such as adverbs, adjectives, verbs, infrequently with nouns. Due to the complexity of this phenomenon (set of sociolinguistic, semantic, and historical aspects), there are many lexical items which can operate as intensifiers. The group of intensifiers are admittedly one of the most rapidly changing elements in the language. From a linguistic point of view, particularly interesting are a special group of intensifiers, the so-called negative emotive intensifiers, that, on their own, without context, have semantic content that can be associated with negative emotion, but in particular cases, they may function as intensifiers (e.g.borzasztóanjó ’awfully good’, which means ’excellent’). Despite their special semantic features, negative emotive intensifiers are scarcely examined in literature based on large Historical corpora via NLP methods. In order to become better acquainted with trends over time concerning the intensifiers, The exhaustively analysed a specific historical corpus, namely the Magyar TörténetiSzövegtár (Hungarian Historical Corpus). This corpus (containing 3 millions text words) is a collection of texts of various genres and styles, produced between 1772 and 2010. Since the corpus consists of raw texts and does not contain any additional information about the language features of the data (such as stemming or morphological analysis), a large amount of manual work was required to process the data. Thus, based on a lexicon of negative emotive intensifiers compiled in a previous phase of the research, every occurrence of each intensifier was queried, and the results were stored in a separate data frame. Then, basic linguistic processing (POS-tagging, lemmatization etc.) was carried out automatically with the ‘magyarlanc’ NLP-toolkit. Finally, the frequency and collocation features of all the negative emotive words were automatically analyzed in the corpus. Outcomes of the research revealed in detail how these words have proceeded through grammaticalization over time, i.e., they change from lexical elements to grammatical ones, and they slowly go through a delexicalization process (their negative content diminishes over time). What is more, it was also pointed out which negative emotive intensifiers are at the same stage in this process in the same time period. Giving a closer look to the different domains of the analysed corpus, it also became certain that during this process, the pragmatic role’s importance increases: the newer use expresses the speaker's subjective, evaluative opinion at a certain level.

Keywords: historical corpus analysis, historical linguistics, negative emotive intensifiers, semantic changes over time

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Authors: Nils Mueller, Gregor Herz, Erik Reichelt, Matthias Jahn

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In the context of climate change, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in all economic sectors is considered to be an important factor in order to meet the demands of a sustainable energy system. The steel industry as one of the large industrial CO₂ emitters is currently highly dependent on fossil resources. In order to reduce coke consumption and thereby CO₂ emissions while still being able to further utilize existing blast furnaces, the possibility of including a direct reduction process (DRP) into a fully integrated steel mill was investigated. Therefore, a blast furnace model, derived from literature data and implemented in Aspen Plus, was used to analyze the impact of DRI in the blast furnace process. Furthermore, a state-of-the-art DRP was modeled to investigate the possibility of substituting the reducing agent natural gas with hydrogen. A sensitivity analysis was carried out in order to find the boundary percentage of hydrogen as a reducing agent without penalty to the DRI quality. Lastly, the two modeled process steps were combined to form a route of producing pig iron. By varying boundary conditions of the DRP while recording the CO₂ emissions of the two process steps, the overall potential for the reduction of CO₂ emissions was estimated. Within the simulated range, a maximum reduction of CO₂ emissions of 23.5% relative to typical emissions of a blast furnace could be determined.

Keywords: blast furnace, CO₂ mitigation, DRI, hydrogen

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Authors: Adel Ben Mohamed

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The widespread use of the English language around the world has pushed many countries to consider such a language as a top priority in their educational system. One of these countries is the Sultanate of Oman. In this frame, the Omani government has allocated huge budgets as well as resources in order to implement the English language in its education system. The importance of English is prevalent in Oman. This is clearly noticeable through remarkable signs. For instance, most of the official documents in Oman are in both Arabic (the mother tongue) or English. In addition to that, there is a mushroom of English language institutes all over the country. In 2020, there are over fourteen English language institutes and centers in Oman (esl base, 2020). Moreover, these days most of the Omani parents are sending their children for tuition to learn the English language. Hence, it is apparent that the Sultanate of Oman is giving a great value to the importance of English in attaining various goals. However, in the world of work, what is more, important today is fluency rather than accuracy. Therefore, many people go for communication English rather than technical English. For example, Oman Daily Observer newspaper published a job advertisement of a sale assistant on 23rd of November 2020, recommended that speaking very well English is a must to be hired for the position (Oman Observer, 2020). In line with this and because of the great importance of the English language in Oman, the ministry of higher education has placed much emphasis on this official foreign language. Therefore, in the Omani educational system, all post -secondary students must sit for one year in one of the higher education institutions as a General Foundation Programmes (GFP) prior to moving to their respective majors in diploma level. Accordingly, the implementation of any teaching approach is determined by different factors: some are directly linked to teachers while others are related to organizational variables.

Keywords: teaching approaches, communicative, ability, investigating

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Authors: Sungho Kim, Dae Shik Kim, Jong Min Lee

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Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) process is one of the most important process in modern refinery industry. This paper focuses on the fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) process. As the FCC process is difficult to model well, due to its non linearities and various interactions between its process variables, rigorous process modeling of whole FCC plant is demanded for control and plant-wide optimization of the plant. In this study, a process design for the FCC plant includes riser reactor, main fractionator, and gas processing unit was developed. A reactor model was described based on four-lumped kinetic scheme. Main fractionator, gas processing unit and other process units are designed to simulate real plant data, using a process flow sheet simulator, Aspen PLUS. The custom reactor model was integrated with the process flow sheet simulator to develop an integrated process model.

Keywords: fluid catalytic cracking, simulation, plant data, process design

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Authors: Ririn Lestari Sri Rahayu, Mustofa Ahda

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The use of synthetic antioxidants often causes a negative effect on health and increases the incidence of carcinogenesis. Development of the natural antioxidants should be investigated. However, natural antioxidants have a low toxicity and are safe for human consumption. Ethanol extract of mangosteen rind (Garcinia mangostana) contains natural antioxidant compounds that have various pharmacological activities. Antioxidants from the ethanol extract of mangosteen rind have free radicals scavenging activities. The scavenging activity of ethanol extract of mangosteen rind was determined by DPPH method. The phenolic compound from the ethanol extract of mangosteen rind is determined with Folin-Ciocalteu method. The results showed that the absolute ethanol extract of mangosteen rind has IC₅₀ of 40.072 ug/mL. The correlation of total phenols content with free radical scavenging activity has an equation y: 5.207x + 205.51 and determination value (R²) of 0.9329. Total phenols content from the ethanol extract of mangosteen rind has a good correlation with free radicals scavenging activity of DPPH.

Keywords: Antioxidant, Garcinia mangostana, Inhibition concentration 50%, Phenolic.

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Authors: Remzi Saltoglu, Nazmia Humaira, Gokhan Inalhan

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During aircraft maintenance scheduling, operator calculates the budget of the maintenance. Usually, this calculation includes only the costs that are directly related to the maintenance process such as cost of labor, material, and equipment. In some cases, overhead cost is also included. However, in some of those, downtime cost is neglected claiming that grounding is a natural fact of maintenance; therefore, it is not considered as part of the analytical decision-making process. Based on the normalized data, we introduce downtime cost with its monetary value and add its seasonal character. We envision that the rest of the model, which works together with the downtime cost, could be checked with the real life cases, through the review of MRO cost and airline spending in the particular and scheduled maintenance events.

Keywords: aircraft maintenance, downtime, downtime cost, maintenance cost

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Authors: Ammar Neshati, Elham Hamidi Shishavan

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Background and Aim: Enamel wear is among the main disadvantages of ceramic restorations. Recently, use of full zirconia crowns without dental porcelain has been suggested. The aim of this study was to compare the effect of feldspathic porcelain and zirconia on the wear of natural teeth. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, 22 zirconia specimens were fabricated; out of which, 11 specimens were polished and used as zirconia specimens while the remaining 11 were used to fabricate porcelain specimens. A total of 22 natural human teeth were also collected. The natural teeth were photographed by a stereomicroscope in a fixed position and the distance from the cusp tip to a reference point was measured. Next, 11 teeth opposed zirconia and the remaining 11 opposed porcelain specimens in a chewing simulator and subjected to 120,000 masticatory cycles. The teeth were photographed again and the greatest difference between the before and after values was recorded. Results: The mean (± standard deviation) wear rate was 153.8±95.68 and 306.3±127.74, in the zirconia and porcelain groups, respectively; and the two groups had a statistically significant difference in this respect (P=0.007). Conclusion: The mean wear was significantly lower in teeth opposing zirconia than in those opposing feldspathic porcelain.

Keywords: natural tooth wear, feldspathic porcelain, zirconia, effect

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Authors: Mable Chan

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The present study about the acquisition of tense and aspect by Cantonese and Mandarin ESL learners aims to investigate the relationship between knowledge, the role that classroom input plays in the development of that knowledge, and learners' use of the L2 knowledge they acquire (i.e. their performance). Chinese has been argued as a tenseless language and Chinese ESL learners have to acquire the property from scratch. The study of acquisition of tense and aspect is a very fruitful research area in second language acquisition for a number of reasons. First, tense and aspect are notorious for being difficult for Chinese ESL learners. Second, to our knowledge, no studies have been done to compare Cantonese and Mandarin ESL learners and age effects in one single study. Data are now being collected and the findings from this comparison study of tense-aspect acquisition will shed light on both theoretical and pedagogical issues in second language acquisition, and contribute to a better understanding of both theoretical aspect concerning L2 acquisition of tense and aspect, and pedagogy of tense for L2 Chinese ESL learners.

Keywords: aspect, second language acquisition, tense, universal grammar

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Authors: Imen Ben Abda

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Languages have been classified into different rhythm classes. 'Stress-timed' languages are exemplified by English, 'syllable-timed' languages by French and 'mora-timed' languages by Japanese. However, to our best knowledge, acoustic studies have not been unanimous in strictly establishing which rhythm category a given language belongs to and failed to show empirical evidence for isochrony. Perception seems to be a good approach to categorize languages into different rhythm classes. This study, within the scope of experimental phonetics, includes an account of different perceptual experiments using cues from natural and inverted speech, as well as pitch extracted from speech data. It is an attempt to categorize speech rhythm over a large set of Arabic (Tunisian, Algerian, Lebanese and Moroccan) and English dialects (Welsh, Irish, Scottish and Texan) as well as other languages such as Chinese, Japanese, French, and German. Listeners managed to classify the different languages and dialects into different rhythm classes using suprasegmental cues mainly rhythm and pitch (F0). They also perceived rhythmic differences even among languages and dialects belonging to the same rhythm class. This may show that there are different subclasses within very broad rhythmic typologies.

Keywords: F0, inverted speech, mora-timing, rhythm variation, stress-timing, syllable-timing

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Authors: Viet-Hung Truong, Seung-Eock Kim

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This paper presents a robust software package for practical advanced analysis of space steel framed structures. The pre- and post-processors of the presented software package are coded in the C++ programming language while the solver is written by using the FORTRAN programming language. A user-friendly graphical interface of the presented software is developed to facilitate the modeling process and result interpretation of the problem. The solver employs the stability functions for capturing the second-order effects to minimize modeling and computational time. Both the plastic-hinge and fiber-hinge beam-column elements are available in the presented software. The generalized displacement control method is adopted to solve the nonlinear equilibrium equations.

Keywords: advanced analysis, beam-column, fiber-hinge, plastic hinge, steel frame

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Authors: Sepinoud Hamedi

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Over the past few decades, companies have appeared developing concerns in connection to the natural affect of their fabricating exercises. Green supply chain administration has been considered by the producers as a attainable choice to decrease the natural affect of operations whereas at the same time moving forward their operational execution. Contemporaneously the coming of digitalization and globalization within the supply chain space has driven to a developing acknowledgment of the importance of data preparing methodologies, such as enormous information analytics and fake insights innovations, in improving and optimizing supply chain execution. Also, supply chain collaboration in part intervenes the relationship between manufactured innovation and supply chain execution Ponders appear that the use of BDA-AI advances includes a significant impact on natural handle integration and green supply chain collaboration conjointly underlines that both natural handle integration and green supply chain collaboration have a critical affect on natural execution. Correspondingly savvy supply chain contributes to green execution through overseeing green connections and setting up green operations.

Keywords: green supply chain, artificial intelligence, manufacturers, technology, environmental

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Authors: Sonia Arradaza-Pajaron

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English as a second language is widely spoken in the Philippines. In fact, it is used as a medium of instruction in school. However, Filipino students, in general, are still not proficient in the use of the language. Since it plays a very crucial role in the learning and comprehension of some subjects in the school where important key concepts and in English, it is imperative to look into other factors that may affect such concern. This study may post an answer to the said concern because it aimed to investigate the association between a psychological construct, known as emotional intelligence, and the English language performance of the 55 senior high school students. The study utilized a descriptive correlational method to determine the significant relationship of variables with preliminary data, like GPA in English subject as baseline information of their performance. Results revealed that the respondents had an average GPA in the English subject; however, improving from their first-year high school level to the fourth year. Their English performance resulted to an above average level with a notable higher performance in the speaking test than in the written. Further, a strong correlation between English performance and emotional intelligence was manifested. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that students with higher emotional intelligence their English language performance is expected to be the same. It can be said further that when students’ emotional intelligence (EI components) is facilitated well through various classroom activities, a better English performance would just be spontaneous among them.

Keywords: English language performance, emotional intelligence, EI components, emotional literacy, emotional quotient competence, emotional quotient outcomes, values and beliefs

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Authors: Siyao Zhu, Yifang Xu

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After natural and man-made disasters, robots can bypass the danger, expedite the search, and acquire unprecedented situational awareness to design rescue plans. The hands-free requirement from the first responders excludes the use of tedious manual control and operation. In unknown, unstructured, and obstructed environments, natural-language-based supervision is not amenable for first responders to formulate, and is difficult for robots to understand. Brain-computer interface is a promising option to overcome the limitations. This study aims to test the feasibility of using electroencephalography (EEG) signals to decode human intentions and detect the level of consensus on robot-provided information. EEG signals were classified using machine-learning and deep-learning methods to discriminate search intentions and agreement perceptions. The results show that the average classification accuracy for intention recognition and consensus assessment is 67% and 72%, respectively, proving the potential of incorporating recognizable users’ bioelectrical responses into advanced robot-assisted systems for emergency response.

Keywords: consensus assessment, electroencephalogram, emergency response, human-robot collaboration, intention recognition, search and rescue

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Authors: Edith Podhovnik

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Cultures play a role in business communication and in research. At the example of language in international business, this paper addresses the issue of how the research cultures of management research and linguistics as well as cultures as such can be linked. After looking at existing research on language in international business, this paper approaches communication in international business from a linguistic angle and attempts to explain communication issues in businesses based on linguistic research. Thus, the paper makes a step into cross-disciplinary research combining management research with linguistics.

Keywords: language in international business, sociolinguistics, ethnopragmatics, cultural scripts

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Authors: Ali Akbar Jabbari

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The present study assessed the acquisition of L3 French direct objects by Persian speakers who had already learned English as their L2. The ultimate goal of this paper is to extend the current knowledge about the CLI phenomenon in the realm of third language acquisition by examining the role of Persian and English as background languages and learners’ English level of proficiency in their performance on French direct object. To fulfill this, the assumptions of three L3 hypotheses, namely L1 Transfer, L2 Status Factor, and Cumulative Enhancement Model, were examined. The research sample was comprised of 40 undergraduate students in the fields of English language and literature and translation studies at Birjand University in Iran. According to the English proficiency level of learners revealed by the Quick Oxford English Placement test, the participants were grouped as upper intermediate and lower intermediate. A grammaticality judgment and a translation test were administered to gather the required data on learners' comprehension and production of the desired structure in French. It was demonstrated that the rate of positive transfer from previously learned languages was more potent than the rate of negative transfer. A Comparison of groups' performances revealed a significant difference between upper and lower intermediate groups in positing French direct objects correctly. However, the upper intermediate group did not significantly differ from the lower intermediate group in negative transfer. It can be said that by increasing the L2 proficiency of the learners, they could use their previous linguistic knowledge more efficiently. Although further examinations are needed, the current study contributed to a better characterization of cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition. The findings help French teachers and learners to positively exploit the prior knowledge of Persian and English and apply it in in the multilingual context of French direct object's teaching and learning process.

Keywords: Cross-Linguistic Influence, Persian, French & English Direct Object, Third Language Acquisition, Language Transfer

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Authors: Antigoni Parmaxi, Anna Nicolaou, Salomi Papadima-Sophocleous, Dimitrios Boglou

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This study provides an overview of the socio linguistic situation of an under-researched city, Limassol, Cyprus, with regard to multilingualism and plurilingualism. More specifically, it explores issues pertaining to multilingualism and plurilingualism in education, the public sphere, economic life, the private sphere, and urban spaces. Through an examination of Limassol’s history of language diversity, as well as through an analysis of the city from a contemporary point of view, the study attempts to portray the multilingual Limassol of yesterday and of today. Findings demonstrate several aspects of multilingualism, such as how communication is achieved among the citizens, how the city encourages multilingualism, as well as what policies and practices are implemented in the various spheres in order to promote intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding. As a result of the findings, suggestions for best practices, introduction or improvement of policies and visions of the city are put forward.

Keywords: language diversity, social inclusion, multilingualism, language visibility, language policy

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Authors: M. Testa, L. Peotta, S. Giusiano, B. Lazzolino, U. Manera, A. Canosa, M. Grassano, F. Palumbo, A. Bombaci, S. Cabras, F. Di Pede, L. Solero, E. Matteoni, C. Moglia, A. Calvo, A. Chio

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Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease of adulthood, which primarily affects the central nervous system and is characterized by progressive bilateral degeneration of motor neurons. The degeneration processes in ALS extend far beyond the neurons of the motor system, and affects cognition, behaviour and language. To outline the prevalence of language deficits in an ALS cohort and explore their profile along with demographic and neuropsychological data. A full neuropsychological battery and language assessment was administered to 56 ALS patients. Neuropsychological assessment included tests of executive functioning, verbal fluency, social cognition and memory. Language was assessed using tests for verbal comprehension, production and pragmatics. Patients were cognitively classified following the Revised Consensus Criteria and divided in three groups showing different levels of language deficits: group 1 - no language deficit; group 2 - one language deficit; group 3 - two or more language deficits. Chi-square for independence and non-parametric measures to compare groups were applied. Nearly half of ALS-CN patients (48%) reported one language test under the clinical cut-off, and only 13% of patents classified as ALS-CI showed no language deficits, while the rest 87% of ALS-CI reported two or more language deficits. ALS-BI and ALS-CBI cases all reported two or more language deficits. Deficits in production and in comprehension appeared more frequent in ALS-CI patients (p=0.011, p=0.003 respectively), with a higher percentage of comprehension deficits (83%). Nearly all ALS-CI reported at least one deficit in pragmatic abilities (96%) and all ALS-BI and ALS-CBI patients showed pragmatic deficits. Males showed higher percentage of pragmatic deficits (97%, p=0.007). No significant differences in language deficits have been found between bulbar and spinal onset. Months from onset and level of impairment at testing (ALS-FRS total score) were not significantly different between levels and type of language impairment. Age and education were significantly higher for cases showing no deficits in comprehension and pragmatics and in the group showing no language deficits. Comparing performances at neuropsychological tests among the three levels of language deficits, no significant differences in neuropsychological performances were found between group 1 and 2; compared to group 1, group 3 appeared to decay specifically on executive testing, verbal/visuospatial learning, and social cognition. Compared to group 2, group 3 showed worse performances specifically in tests of working memory and attention. Language deficits have found to be spread in our sample, encompassing verbal comprehension, production and pragmatics. Our study reveals that also cognitive intact patients (ALS-CN) showed at least one language deficit in 48% of cases. Pragmatic domain is the most compromised (84% of the total sample), present in nearly all ALS-CI (96%), likely due to the influence of executive impairment. Lower age and higher education seem to preserve comprehension, pragmatics and presence of language deficits. Finally, executive functions, verbal/visuospatial learning and social cognition differentiate the group with no language deficits from the group with a clinical language impairment (group 3), while attention and working memory differentiate the group with one language deficit from the clinical impaired group.

Keywords: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, language assessment, neuropsychological assessment, language deficit

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Authors: Mona Kamel Hassan

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Teaching a class of diverse learners poses a great challenge not only for foreign and second language teachers, but also for teachers in different disciplines as well as for curriculum designers. Thus, to contribute to previous research tackling language diversity, the current paper shares the experience of teaching a reading, writing and vocabulary building course to diverse Arabic as a Foreign Language learners in their advanced language proficiency level. Diversity is represented in students’ motivation, their prior knowledge, their various needs and interests, their level of anxiety, and their different learning styles and skills. While teaching this course the researcher adopted the universal design for learning (UDL) framework, which is a means to meet the various needs of diverse learners. UDL stresses the importance of enabling the entire diverse students to gain skills, knowledge, and enthusiasm to learn through the employment of teaching methods that respond to students' individual differences. Accordingly, the educational curriculum developed for this course and the teaching methods employed is modified. First, the researcher made the language curriculum vivid and attractive to inspire students' learning and to keep them engaged in their learning process. The researcher encouraged the entire students, from the first day, to suggest topics of their interest; political, social, cultural, etc. The authentic Arabic texts chosen are those that best meet students’ needs, interests, lives, and sociolinguistic issues, together with the linguistic and cultural components. In class and under the researcher’s guidance, students dig into these topics to find solutions for the tackled issues while working with their peers. Second, to gain equal opportunities to demonstrate learning, role-playing was encouraged to give students the opportunity to perform different linguistic tasks, to reflect and share their diverse interests and cultural backgrounds with their peers. Third, to bring the UDL into the classroom, students were encouraged to work on interactive, collaborative activities through technology to improve their reading and writing skills and reinforce their mastery of the accumulated vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, and collocations. These interactive, collaborative activities help to facilitate student-student communication and student-teacher communication and to increase comfort in this class of diverse learners. Detailed samples of the educational curriculum and interactive, collaborative activities developed, accompanied by methods of teaching employed to teach these diverse learners, are presented for illustration. Results revealed that students are responsive to the educational materials which are developed for this course. Therefore, they engaged in the learning process and classroom activities and discussions effectively. They also appreciated their instructor’s willingness to differentiate the teaching methods to suit students of diverse background knowledge, learning styles, level of anxiety, etc. Finally, the researcher believes that sharing this experience in teaching diverse learners will help both language teachers and teachers in other disciplines to develop a better understanding to meet their students' diverse needs. Results will also pave the way for curriculum designers to develop educational material that meets the needs of diverse learners.

Keywords: teaching, language, diverse, learners

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Authors: Teresa Naves, Katy Pallas, Carme Florit, Cristina Anton, Joan Collado, Diana Millan

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Although gender-fair language is relatively novel in Spain, in Catalonia, the Department of Education, as well as LGBT Associations, have been promoting several innovative programmes aimed at implementing gender-inclusive schools. These Rainbow School communities are ideal for looking at how these programmes affect the use of gender-fair language and the balanced representation of gender. The students' and teachers' perceptions and attitudes have been compared to those analysed in schools that have never implemented such programmes in primary or secondary education. Spanish and Catalan, unlike English, are gendered languages in which masculine forms have traditionally been used as the unmarked gender and have been claimed to be inclusive of all genders. While the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) rejects the use of inclusive language and thus deems all variables of inclusion of double gender as unnecessary, the vast majority of universities are promoting not only inclusive language but also gender-inclusive curricula. Adopting gender-fair language policies and including gender perspective in the curricula is an innovative trend at university level and in primary and secondary school education. Inclusion in education is a basic human right and the foundation for a more just and equal society. Educators can facilitate the process of welcoming by ensuring handbooks, forms, and other communications are inclusive of all family structures and gender identities. Using gendered language such as 'girls and boys' can be alienating for gender non-conforming and gender diverse students; on the other hand, non-gendered words like 'students' are regarded as inclusive of all identities. The paper discusses the results of mixed method research (survey, interviews, and experiment) conducted in Rainbow and non-Rainbow schools in Alacant and Barcelona (Spain). The experiment aimed at checking the role of gender-fair language in learners' perception of gender balance. It was conducted in Spanish, Catalan, and English. Students aged 10 to 16 (N > 600) were asked to draw pictures of people using specific prompts. The prompts in Spanish and Catalan were written using the generic masculine, 'los presidentes' 'els presidents' (presidents); using double gendered language such as 'ninos y ninas', 'nens i nenes' (boys and girls); and using non-gendered words like 'alumnado' 'alumnat' (students). The prompts were subdivided into people in school contexts participants could identify with, such as students and teachers; occupations mostly associated with men, such as pilots and firefighters; and occupations associated with women, such as ballet dancers and nurses. As could be expected, the participants only drew approximately the same percentage of female and male characters when double-gendered language or non-gendered words such as 'students' or 'teachers' were used, regardless of the language used in the experiment. When they were asked to draw people using the so-called generic masculine in Spanish or Catalan, 'los estudiantes' 'els estudiants' (students), less than 35% of the drawings contained female characters. The differences between the results for Rainbow and Non-Rainbow schools will be discussed in the light of the innovative coeducation programmes and learners' perceptions on gender-fair language gathered in the surveys and interviews.

Keywords: gender-fair language, gender-inclusive schools, learners’ and teachers’ perceptions and attitudes, rainbow coeducation programmes

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