Terminology and knowledge engineering conference. New frontiers in the constructive symbiosis of terminology and knowledge engineering

To meet the increasing demands of the complex inter-organizational processes and the demand for continuous innovation and internationalization, it is evident that new forms of organisation are being adopted, fostering more intensive collaboration processes and sharing of resources, in what can be called collaborative networks (Camarinha-Matos, 2006:03). Information and knowledge are crucial resources in collaborative networks, being their management fundamental processes to optimize. Knowledge organisation and collaboration systems are thus important instruments for the success of collaborative networks of organisations having been researched in the last decade in the areas of computer science, information science, management sciences, terminology and linguistics. Nevertheless, research in this area didn’t give much attention to multilingual contexts of collaboration, which pose specific and challenging problems. It is then clear that access to and representation of knowledge will happen more and more on a multilingual setting which implies the overcoming of difficulties inherent to the presence of multiple languages, through the use of processes like localization of ontologies. Although localization, like other processes that involve multilingualism, is a rather well-developed practice and its methodologies and tools fruitfully employed by the language industry in the development and adaptation of multilingual content, it has not yet been sufficiently explored as an element of support to the development of knowledge representations - in particular ontologies - expressed in more than one language. Multilingual knowledge representation is then an open research area calling for cross-contributions from knowledge engineering, terminology, ontology engineering, cognitive sciences, computational linguistics, natural language processing, and management sciences. This workshop joined researchers interested in multilingual knowledge representation, in a multidisciplinary environment to debate the possibilities of cross-fertilization between knowledge engineering, terminology, ontology engineering, cognitive sciences, computational linguistics, natural language processing, and management sciences applied to contexts where multilingualism continuously creates new and demanding challenges to current knowledge representation methods and techniques. In this workshop six papers dealing with different approaches to multilingual knowledge representation are presented, most of them describing tools, approaches and results obtained in the development of ongoing projects. In the first case, Andrés Domínguez Burgos, Koen Kerremansa and Rita Temmerman present a software module that is part of a workbench for terminological and ontological mining, Termontospider, a wiki crawler that aims at optimally traverse Wikipedia in search of domainspecific texts for extracting terminological and ontological information. The crawler is part of a tool suite for automatically developing multilingual termontological databases, i.e. ontologicallyunderpinned multilingual terminological databases. In this paper the authors describe the basic principles behind the crawler and summarized the research setting in which the tool is currently tested. In the second paper, Fumiko Kano presents a work comparing four feature-based similarity measures derived from cognitive sciences. The purpose of the comparative analysis presented by the author is to verify the potentially most effective model that can be applied for mapping independent ontologies in a culturally influenced domain. For that, datasets based on standardized pre-defined feature dimensions and values, which are obtainable from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) have been used for the comparative analysis of the similarity measures. The purpose of the comparison is to verify the similarity measures based on the objectively developed datasets. According to the author the results demonstrate that the Bayesian Model of Generalization provides for the most effective cognitive model for identifying the most similar corresponding concepts existing for a targeted socio-cultural community. In another presentation, Thierry Declerck, Hans-Ulrich Krieger and Dagmar Gromann present an ongoing work and propose an approach to automatic extraction of information from multilingual financial Web resources, to provide candidate terms for building ontology elements or instances of ontology concepts. The authors present a complementary approach to the direct localization/translation of ontology labels, by acquiring terminologies through the access and harvesting of multilingual Web presences of structured information providers in the field of finance, leading to both the detection of candidate terms in various multilingual sources in the financial domain that can be used not only as labels of ontology classes and properties but also for the possible generation of (multilingual) domain ontologies themselves. In the next paper, Manuel Silva, António Lucas Soares and Rute Costa claim that despite the availability of tools, resources and techniques aimed at the construction of ontological artifacts, developing a shared conceptualization of a given reality still raises questions about the principles and methods that support the initial phases of conceptualization. These questions become, according to the authors, more complex when the conceptualization occurs in a multilingual setting. To tackle these issues the authors present a collaborative platform – conceptME - where terminological and knowledge representation processes support domain experts throughout a conceptualization framework, allowing the inclusion of multilingual data as a way to promote knowledge sharing and enhance conceptualization and support a multilingual ontology specification. In another presentation Frieda Steurs and Hendrik J. Kockaert present us TermWise, a large project dealing with legal terminology and phraseology for the Belgian public services, i.e. the translation office of the ministry of justice, a project which aims at developing an advanced tool including expert knowledge in the algorithms that extract specialized language from textual data (legal documents) and whose outcome is a knowledge database including Dutch/French equivalents for legal concepts, enriched with the phraseology related to the terms under discussion. Finally, Deborah Grbac, Luca Losito, Andrea Sada and Paolo Sirito report on the preliminary results of a pilot project currently ongoing at UCSC Central Library, where they propose to adapt to subject librarians, employed in large and multilingual Academic Institutions, the model used by translators working within European Union Institutions. The authors are using User Experience (UX) Analysis in order to provide subject librarians with a visual support, by means of “ontology tables” depicting conceptual linking and connections of words with concepts presented according to their semantic and linguistic meaning. The organizers hope that the selection of papers presented here will be of interest to a broad audience, and will be a starting point for further discussion and cooperation.

Phonological development in relation to native language and literacy: Variations on a theme in six alphabetic orthographies

Phonological development was assessed in six alphabetic orthographies (English, French, Greek, Icelandic, Portuguese and Spanish) at the beginning and end of the first year of reading instruction. The aim was to explore contrasting theoretical views regarding: the question of the availability of phonology at the outset of learning to read (Study 1); the influence of orthographic depth on the pace of phonological development during the transition to literacy (Study 2); and the impact of literacy instruction (Study 3). Results from 242 children did not reveal a consistent sequence of development as performance varied according to task demands and language. Phonics instruction appeared more influential than orthographic depth in the emergence of an early meta-phonological capacity to manipulate phonemes, and preliminary indications were that cross-linguistic variation was associated with speech rhythm more than factors such as syllable complexity. The implications of the outcome for current models of phonological development are discussed.

An Approach To Publish a Data Warehouse Content as Linked Data

Mestrado em Engenharia Informática - Área de Especialização em Tecnologias do Conhecimento e Decisão

Expatriates recruitment and selection for long-term international assignments in portuguese companies

Long-term international assignments’ increase requires more attention being paid for the preparation of these foreign assignments, especially on the recruitment and selection process of expatriates. This article explores how the recruitment and selection process of expatriates is developed in Portuguese companies, examining the main criteria on recruitment and selection of expatriates’ decision to send international assignments. The paper is based on qualitative case studies of companies located in Portugal. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews of 42 expatriates and 18 organisational representatives as well from nine Portuguese companies. The findings show that the most important criteria are: (1) trust from managers, (2) years in service, (3) previous technical and language competences, (4) organisational knowledge and, (5) availability. Based on the findings, the article discusses in detail the main theoretical and managerial implications. Suggestions for further research are also presented.

Digital storytelling: an integrated approach to language for the 21st century student

Societal changes have, throughout history, pushed the long-established boundaries of education across all grade levels. Technology and media merge with education in a continuous complex social process with human consequences and effects. We, teachers, can aspire to understand and interpret this volatile context that is being redesigned at the same time society itself is being reshaped as a result of the technological evolution. The language- learning classroom is not impenetrable to these transformations. Rather, it can perhaps be seen as a playground where teachers and students gather to combine the past and the present in an integrated approach. We draw on the results from a previous study and argue that Digital Storytelling as a Process is capable of aggregating and fostering positive student development in general, as well as enhancing interpersonal relationships and self-knowledge while improving digital literacy. Additionally, we establish a link between the four basic language-learning skills and the Digital Storytelling process and demonstrate how these converge into what can be labeled as an integrated language learning approach.

Incremental Recomputation of Pig Latin’s Nest and Unnest Operators

This master’s thesis addresses the maintenance of pre-computed structures, which store a frequent or expensive query, for the nested bag data type in the high level work-flow language Pig Latin. This thesis defines a model suitable to accommodate incremental expressions over nested bags on Pig Latin. Afterwards, the partitioned normal form for sets is extended with further restrictions, in order to accommodate the nested bag model, allow the Pig Latin nest and unnest operators revert each other, and create a suitable environment to the incremental computations. Subsequently, the extended operators – extended union and extended difference – are defined for the nested bag data model with the partitioned normal form for bags (PNF Bag) restriction, and semantics for the extended operators are given. Finally, incremental data propagation expressions are proposed for the nest and unnest operators on the data model proposed with the PNF Bag restriction, and the proof of correctness is given.

Os efeitos da intervenção no reconto e nas narrativas de experiência pessoal em crianças de idade pré-escolar

As competências narrativas emergem desde cedo, e vão sendo adquiridas ao longo do desenvolvimento da criança. No entanto não significa que se desenrolam do mesmo modo em todos as crianças pois crianças com dificuldades na produção narrativa poderão ter necessidade de um ensino específico e estruturado. Sendo a narrativa um aspeto importante da linguagem, é fundamental agir o mais cedo possível para prevenir futuros problemas, tanto no percurso académico como social. Tendo por base as questões em torno da produção narrativa, o presente estudo tem como objetivo compreender a influência da intervenção narrativa no reconto e nas narrativas de experiência pessoal em oito crianças do pré-escolar (5/6 anos), estando um dos participantes diagnosticado com uma condição do espetro do autismo. Ao longo do estudo, todos os participantes foram sendo avaliados pela escala Narrative Language Measures durante 10 sessões e quanto à intervenção narrativa denominada Campeões de histórias consistiu em 21 sessões com duração média de 25 minutos. Neste estudo recorremos ao delineamento experimental de linha de base múltipla, o que nos permitiu analisar o desempenho de cada participante ao longo do tempo. Os resultados revelaram que através da intervenção narrativa houve um aumento na cotação dos testes da escala em todos os participantes, inclusive na criança com condição do espetro autista, e que esses se mantiveram sempre acima dos níveis basais após um período de duas semanas sem intervenção. Deste modo, podemos concluir que a intervenção narrativa produziu efeitos relevantes quer no reconto, quer nas narrativas de experiência pessoal dos participantes e que se apresenta como uma intervenção económica, rápida e eficaz.

Aumentar as oportunidades de comunicação nos momentos de brincadeira - descrição de um programa de intervenção

Objetivo: Partindo da análise da literatura realizada, em que é salientada a ideia de que o desenvolvimento e aprendizagem ocorrem a partir das experiências e influência dos contextos em que as crianças estão incluídas e a partir das interações que estabelecem nesses mesmos contextos, pretende-se compreender, neste estudo, se partindo do contexto natural, com diferentes materiais e atores, é possível aumentar as oportunidades de comunicação e participação de uma criança com restrições ao nível da linguagem, nos momentos de jogo. Método: Foi delineado e implementado um programa de intervenção, num estabelecimento de ensino, na valência de pré-escolar, onde estiveram envolvidas uma criança de 4 anos com restrições ao nível da linguagem oral, o grupo de crianças em que estava incluída e a educadora do grupo. Para monitorização do programa e avaliação da sua eficácia realizou-se um pré e pós teste, onde foi definida a linha de base da criança. Ao longo do programa foram registados, a partir de uma grelha de observação da frequência dos atos comunicativos da criança, nas situações de jogo planificadas. Os comportamentos e modelagem realizada por parte educador, foram igualmente registados e analisados. Recorreu-se a realização de entrevistas semiestruturadas para a recolha de dados relativos à criança e perceção do educador. Resultados/Discussão: Os dados recolhidos demonstram um aumento significativo das tomadas de iniciativa verbal e alternância entre turnos, ao longo da intervenção por parte da criança alvo. A presença do adulto e dos pares parecem revelar-se como facilitador dos atos comunicativos da criança com restrições ao nível da linguagem

Formal Contracts for Runtime Verification Support in the Ada Programming Language

Poster presented in The 28th GI/ITG International Conference on Architecture of Computing Systems (ARCS 2015). 24 to 26, Mar, 2015. Porto, Portugal.

Structured Light System Calibration for Perception in Underwater Tanks

The process of visually exploring underwater environments is still a complex problem. Underwater vision systems require complementary means of sensor information to help overcome water disturbances. This work proposes the development of calibration methods for a structured light based system consisting on a camera and a laser with a line beam. Two different calibration procedures that require only two images from different viewpoints were developed and tested in dry and underwater environments. Results obtained show, an accurate calibration for the camera/projector pair with errors close to 1 mm even in the presence of a small stereos baseline.

Structured Light System for Underwater Inspection Operations

In this work we propose the development of a stereo SLS system for underwater inspection operations. We demonstrate how to perform a SLS calibration both in dry and underwater environments using two different methods. The proposed methodology is able to achieve quite accurate results, lower than 1 mm in dry environments. We also display a 3D underwater scan of a known object size, a sea scallop, where the system is able to perform a scan with a global error lower than 2% of the object size.

Simulação de Robôs Quadrúpedes Utilizando o SimMechanics

Desde sempre o Homem procurou automatizar tarefas repetitivas. Tanto na indústria como no sector doméstico ou de comércio estão constantemente a surgir novos equipamentos procurando aumentar o nível de automação de diversas tarefas. A necessidade de empresas criadoras de produtos inovadores se manterem concorrenciais obrigou à adopção de métodos de projecto e planeamento mais estruturados e eficientes que eliminem os desperdícios tanto de material como de tempo. Diversas construções em termos orçamentais e o aumento da procura de produtos de alta qualidade a baixo custo deu origem a um novo tipo de programas, os programas de simulação virtual. Tal como na indústria, também na investigação nas Instituições de Ensino Superior se procuram adoptar os métodos de trabalho mais eficientes possíveis. Uma parte dos programas de simulação robótica utilizados hoje em dia na investigação no Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto estão concebidos em linguagem C. Embora esta linguagem seja extremamente capaz, existem métodos mais adequados de simulação que aceleram o processo de modelação permitindo a visualização do movimento e simulação de diversas situações potencialmente criticas sem existir a necessidade de construção de um protótipo funcional do robô. Durante o último ano, este projecto permitiu construir um modelo de um robô quadrúpede num programa de simulação virtual chamado Simmechanics™. Embora haja já algum trabalho desenvolvido nesta área, constatou-se que a informação existente possuía algumas lacunas. Com o trabalho desenvolvido preparou-se esta dissertação que pretende clarificar algumas questões que surgem na modelação de um robô. Neste documento explica-se como modelar um robô de corpo flexível, modelar as pernas e as respectivas juntas da anca e do joelho assim como também se apresenta a modelação de um contacto com o solo recorrendo a um modelo descrito na literatura. Este documento foi escrito a pensar no leitor, procurando-se explicar de forma simples mas concisa os diversos passos necessários para construir um modelo virtual de um robô. O autor espera, desta forma, ajudar futuros colegas que pretendam trabalhar com o Simmechanics™ a mais facilmente se integrarem com o programa aumentando desta forma o declive da curva de aprendizagem e permitindo um maior aproveitamento desta ferramenta.

A Methodology for Creating an Adapted Command Language for Driving an Intelligent Wheelchair

Intelligent wheelchairs (IW) are technologies that can increase the autonomy and independence of elderly people and patients suffering from some kind of disability. Nowadays the intelligent wheelchairs and the human-machine studies are very active research areas. This paper presents a methodology and a Data Analysis System (DAS) that provides an adapted command language to an user of the IW. This command language is a set of input sequences that can be created using inputs from an input device or a combination of the inputs available in a multimodal interface. The results show that there are statistical evidences to affirm that the mean of the evaluation of the DAS generated command language is higher than the mean of the evaluation of the command language recommended by the health specialist (p value = 0.002) with a sample of 11 cerebral palsy users. This work demonstrates that it is possible to adapt an intelligent wheelchair interface to the user even when the users present heterogeneous and severe physical constraints.