Avaliação Pós-Ocupação da iluminação natural das salas dos setores de aulas teóricas da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte

The objective of this study is to assess the natural light of the classrooms sectors, at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte. It was applied the Post-Occupation Evaluation technique, by using questionnaires and brightness levels measurements inside the classrooms. In order to check the users satisfaction degree, it was initially done a general approach on the related aspects to natural light: their characteristics, availability, sources, opening systems and evaluating tools. It was also determined the necessary brightness levels for the activities development in the classroom and the Post-Occupation Evaluation technique used in the search analyses. Then, it was made the UFRN Campus` characterization; the models` definition which formed the data collection basis; the detailing of the procedures used in the research, the processing description and the data analysis. Subsequently, the results that clarify the issues raised were shown through quantitative and / or qualitative data analyses. This research notes a high level of satisfaction by the users, despite some problems such as the reflections occurrence on the board, the lack of uniformity and, occasionally, the brightness low levels

Cultural and linguistic context and lexical inferencing in English language learning: A case study

In an increasingly multilingual world, English language has kept a marked predominance as a global language. In many countries, English is the primary choice for foreign language learning. There is a long history of research in English language learning. The same applies for research in reading. A main interest since the 1970s has been the reading strategy defined as inferencing or guessing the meaning of unknown words from context. Inferencing has ben widely researched, however, the results and conclusions seem to be mixed. While some agree that inferencing is a useful strategy, others doubt its usefulness. Nevertheless, most of the research seem to agree that the cultural background affects comprehension and inferencing. While most of these studies have been done with texts and contexts created by the researches, little has been done using natural prose. The present study will attempt to further clarify the process of inferencing and the effects of the text’s cultural context and the linguistic background of the reader using a text that has not been created by the researcher. The participants of the study are 40 international students from Turku, Finland. Their linguistic background was obtained through a questionnaire and proved to be diverse. Think aloud protocols were performed to investigate their inferencing process and find connections between their inferences, comments, the text, and their linguistic background. The results show that: some inferences were made based on the participants’ world knowledge, experience, other languages, and English language knowledge; other inferences and comments were made based on the text, its use of language and vocabulary, and few cues provided by the author. The results from the present study and previous research seem to show that: 1) linguistic background is a source of information for inferencing but is not a major source; 2) the cultural context of the text affected the inferences made by the participants according to their closeness or distance from it.

JCML: A specification language for the runtime verification of Java Card programs

COSTA, Umberto Souza; MOREIRA, Anamaria Martins; MUSICANTE, Matin A.; SOUZA NETO, Plácido A. JCML: A specification language for the runtime verification of Java Card programs. Science of Computer Programming. [S.l]: [s.n], 2010.

On L2 grammar and processing: the case of oblique relative clauses and the Null-Prep phenomenon

This dissertation investigates the acquisition of oblique relative clauses in L2 Spanish by English and Moroccan Arabic speakers in order to understand the role of previous linguistic knowledge and its interaction with Universal Grammar on the one hand, and the relationship between grammatical knowledge and its use in real-time, on the other hand. Three types of tasks were employed: an oral production task, an on-line self-paced grammaticality judgment task, and an on-line self-paced reading comprehension task. Results indicated that the acquisition of oblique relative clauses in Spanish is a problematic area for second language learners of intermediate proficiency in the language, regardless of their native language. In particular, this study has showed that, even when the learners’ native language shares the main properties of the L2, i.e., fronting of the obligatory preposition (Pied-Piping), there is still room for divergence, especially in production and timed grammatical intuitions. On the other hand, reaction time data have shown that L2 learners can and do converge at the level of sentence processing, showing exactly the same real-time effects for oblique relative clauses that native speakers had. Processing results demonstrated that native and non-native speakers alike are able to apply universal processing principles such as the Minimal Chain Principle (De Vincenzi, 1991) even when the L2 learners still have incomplete grammatical representations, a result that contradicts some of the predictions of the Shallow Structure Hypothesis (Clahsen & Felser, 2006). Results further suggest that the L2 processing and comprehension domains may be able to access some type of information that it is not yet available to other grammatical modules, probably because transfer of certain L1 properties occurs asymmetrically across linguistic domains. In addition, this study also explored the Null-Prep phenomenon in L2 Spanish, and proposed that Null-Prep is an interlanguage stage, fully available and accounted within UG, which intermediate L2 as well as first language learners go through in the development of pied-piping oblique relative clauses. It is hypothesized that this intermediate stage is the result of optionality of the obligatory preposition in the derivation, when it is not crucial for the meaning of the sentence, and when the DP is going to be in an A-bar position, so it can get default case. This optionality can be predicted by the Bottleneck Hypothesis (Slabakova, 2009c) if we consider that these prepositions are some sort of functional morphology. This study contributes to the field of SLA and L2 processing in various ways. First, it demonstrates that the grammatical representations may be dissociated from grammatical processing in the sense that L2 learners, unlike native speakers, can present unexpected asymmetries such as a convergent processing but divergent grammatical intuitions or production. This conclusion is only possible under the assumption of a modular language system. Finally, it contributes to the general debate of generative SLA since in argues for a fully UG-constrained interlanguage grammar.

Top-K Query Processing in Edge-Labeled Graph Data

Edge-labeled graphs have proliferated rapidly over the last decade due to the increased popularity of social networks and the Semantic Web. In social networks, relationships between people are represented by edges and each edge is labeled with a semantic annotation. Hence, a huge single graph can express many different relationships between entities. The Semantic Web represents each single fragment of knowledge as a triple (subject, predicate, object), which is conceptually identical to an edge from subject to object labeled with predicates. A set of triples constitutes an edge-labeled graph on which knowledge inference is performed. Subgraph matching has been extensively used as a query language for patterns in the context of edge-labeled graphs. For example, in social networks, users can specify a subgraph matching query to find all people that have certain neighborhood relationships. Heavily used fragments of the SPARQL query language for the Semantic Web and graph queries of other graph DBMS can also be viewed as subgraph matching over large graphs. Though subgraph matching has been extensively studied as a query paradigm in the Semantic Web and in social networks, a user can get a large number of answers in response to a query. These answers can be shown to the user in accordance with an importance ranking. In this thesis proposal, we present four different scoring models along with scalable algorithms to find the top-k answers via a suite of intelligent pruning techniques. The suggested models consist of a practically important subset of the SPARQL query language augmented with some additional useful features. The first model called Substitution Importance Query (SIQ) identifies the top-k answers whose scores are calculated from matched vertices' properties in each answer in accordance with a user-specified notion of importance. The second model called Vertex Importance Query (VIQ) identifies important vertices in accordance with a user-defined scoring method that builds on top of various subgraphs articulated by the user. Approximate Importance Query (AIQ), our third model, allows partial and inexact matchings and returns top-k of them with a user-specified approximation terms and scoring functions. In the fourth model called Probabilistic Importance Query (PIQ), a query consists of several sub-blocks: one mandatory block that must be mapped and other blocks that can be opportunistically mapped. The probability is calculated from various aspects of answers such as the number of mapped blocks, vertices' properties in each block and so on and the most top-k probable answers are returned. An important distinguishing feature of our work is that we allow the user a huge amount of freedom in specifying: (i) what pattern and approximation he considers important, (ii) how to score answers - irrespective of whether they are vertices or substitution, and (iii) how to combine and aggregate scores generated by multiple patterns and/or multiple substitutions. Because so much power is given to the user, indexing is more challenging than in situations where additional restrictions are imposed on the queries the user can ask. The proposed algorithms for the first model can also be used for answering SPARQL queries with ORDER BY and LIMIT, and the method for the second model also works for SPARQL queries with GROUP BY, ORDER BY and LIMIT. We test our algorithms on multiple real-world graph databases, showing that our algorithms are far more efficient than popular triple stores.

Processing of hierarchical syntactic strusture in music

Hierarchical structure with nested nonlocal dependencies is a key feature of human language and can be identified theoretically in most pieces of tonal music. However, previous studies have argued against the perception of such structures in music. Here, we show processing of nonlocal dependencies in music. We presented chorales by J. S. Bach and modified versions inwhich the hierarchical structure was rendered irregular whereas the local structure was kept intact. Brain electric responses differed between regular and irregular hierarchical structures, in both musicians and nonmusicians. This finding indicates that, when listening to music, humans apply cognitive processes that are capable of dealing with longdistance dependencies resulting from hierarchically organized syntactic structures. Our results reveal that a brain mechanism fundamental for syntactic processing is engaged during the perception of music, indicating that processing of hierarchical structure with nested nonlocal dependencies is not just a key component of human language, but a multidomain capacity of human cognition.

Memórias de infância num contexto de diversidade cultural

Portugal, nas últimas décadas, como efeito da globalização, adjetivou-se de multicultural, fazendo verdadeiramente valer a sua função de país de acolhimento. É natural, portanto, a existência de uma certa heterogeneidade sociocultural e diversidade linguística nas escolas portuguesas. Ora, a Escola Básica de 2.º e 3.º Ciclos, onde implementámos o nosso estudo, não constituiu em si a exceção. Porém, constatámos que a diversidade nela existente, embora respeitada, não era devidamente valorizada. Perante tal situação, traçámos como finalidade do estudo o desenvolvimento de uma investigação que nos concedesse um instrumento, a ser trabalhado numa aula de Português, que incide sobre a partilha de memórias de infância caminhando para a valorização e tomada de consciência do Outro linguística e culturalmente diferente. Consequentemente, esperamos contribuir para a melhor integração dos alunos provenientes de outras culturas e para a não existência de eventuais mecanismos de discriminação. Os nossos dados foram, essencialmente, recolhidos através da análise das memórias escritas dos alunos e de uma entrevista a uma aluna cabo-verdiana, constituindo esta a sua biografia linguística. No tratamento da informação recorremos a uma metodologia qualitativa com análise de conteúdo em que foram determinadas as categorias a conhecer: Brincadeiras de infância, Locais preferidos, Encontros interculturais e Momento da infância mais saudoso. A Declaração de Princípios sobre a Tolerância (1995) afirma que a diversidade deve ser reconhecida como uma riqueza a aceitar e a desenvolver. “A tolerância (…) é a harmonia na diferença.” (Artigo 1.º, 1.1). Como tal, através dos resultados do nosso projeto, acreditamos que com o trabalho em torno das memórias de infância é possível fomentar uma educação intercultural que potencie a referida tolerância e forme alunos capazes de dar resposta aos novos desafios desta nossa sociedade mutável que se conjetura cada vez mais multicultural e multilingue.

A Fuzzy Decision Strategy for Topic Identification and Dynamic Selection of Language Models

International audience

The acquisition of adjunct control: grammar and processing

This dissertation uses children’s acquisition of adjunct control as a case study to investigate grammatical and performance accounts of language acquisition. In previous research, children have consistently exhibited non-adultlike behavior for sentences with adjunct control. To explain children’s behavior, several different grammatical accounts have been proposed, but evidence for these accounts has been inconclusive. In this dissertation, I take two approaches to account for children’s errors. First, I spell out the predictions of previous grammatical accounts, and test these predictions after accounting for some methodological concerns that might have influenced children’s behavior in previous studies. While I reproduce the non-adultlike behavior observed in previous studies, the predictions of previous grammatical accounts are not borne out, suggesting that extragrammatical factors are needed to explain children’s behavior. Next, I consider the role of two different types of extragrammatical factors in predicting children’s non-adultlike behavior. With a new task designed to address the task demands in previous studies, children exhibit significantly higher accuracy than with previous tasks. This suggests that children’s behavior has been influenced by task- specific processing factors. In addition to the task, I also test the predictions of a similarity-based interference account, which links children’s errors to the same memory mechanisms involved in sentence processing difficulties observed in adults. These predictions are borne out, supporting a more continuous developmental trajectory as children’s processing mechanisms become more resistant to interference. Finally, I consider how children’s errors might influence their acquisition of adjunct control, given the distribution in the linguistic input. I discuss the results of a corpus analysis, including the possibility that adjunct control could be learned from the input. The kinds of information that could be useful to a learner become much more limited, however, after considering the processing limitations that would interfere with the representations available to the learner.

Asymmetrical processing of olfactory input in the piriform cortex mediates "activation" of the avian navigation circuitry

The role of odors in the long-distance navigation of birds has elicited intense debate for more than half a century. Failure to resolve many of the issues fueling this debate is due at least in part to the absence of controls for a variety of non-specific effects that odors have on the navigational process. The present experiments were carried out to investigate whether the olfactory inputs are involved only in “activation” of neuronal circuitry involved in navigation or are also playing a role in providing directional information. Experienced adult pigeons were exposed to controlled olfactory stimuli during different segments of the journey (release site vs. displacement + release site). Protein levels of IEGs (immediate early genes used to mark synaptic activity) were analyzed in areas within the olfactory/navigation avian circuitry. The results indicate that 1) exposure to natural odors at the release site (and not before) elicit greater activation across brain regions than exposure to filtered air, artificial odors, and natural odors along the entire outward journey (from home to the release site, inclusive); 2) activation of the piriform cortex in terms of odor discrimination is lateralized; 3) activation of the navigation circuitry is achieved by means of lateralized activation of piriform cortex neurons. Altogether, the findings provide the first direct evidence that activation of the avian navigation circuitry is mediated by asymmetrical processing of olfactory input occurring in the right piriform cortex.

Avaliação Pós-Ocupação da iluminação natural das salas dos setores de aulas teóricas da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte

The objective of this study is to assess the natural light of the classrooms sectors, at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte. It was applied the Post-Occupation Evaluation technique, by using questionnaires and brightness levels measurements inside the classrooms. In order to check the users satisfaction degree, it was initially done a general approach on the related aspects to natural light: their characteristics, availability, sources, opening systems and evaluating tools. It was also determined the necessary brightness levels for the activities development in the classroom and the Post-Occupation Evaluation technique used in the search analyses. Then, it was made the UFRN Campus` characterization; the models` definition which formed the data collection basis; the detailing of the procedures used in the research, the processing description and the data analysis. Subsequently, the results that clarify the issues raised were shown through quantitative and / or qualitative data analyses. This research notes a high level of satisfaction by the users, despite some problems such as the reflections occurrence on the board, the lack of uniformity and, occasionally, the brightness low levels

EFFECTIVE FUNCTION CHOICE IN THE R SCRIPTING LANGUAGE

This project examines the current available work on the explicit and implicit parallelization of the R scripting language and reports on experimental findings for the development of a model for predicting effective points for automatic parallelization to be performed, based upon input data sizes and function complexity. After finding or creating a series of custom benchmarks, an interval based on data size and time complexity where replacement becomes a viable option was found; specifically between O(N) and O(N3) exclusive. As data size increases, the benefits of parallel processing become more apparent and a point is reached where those benefits outweigh the costs in memory transfer time. Based on our observations, this point can be predicted with a fair amount of accuracy using regression on a sample of approximately ten data sizes spread evenly between a system determined minimum and maximum size.

Funtional Near Infrared Spectroscopy Study of Language, Joint Attention and Motor Skills

Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is an emerging non-invasive optical neuro imaging technique that monitors the hemodynamic response to brain activation with ms-scale temporal resolution and sub-cm spatial resolution. The overall goal of my dissertation was to develop and apply NIRS towards investigation of neurological response to language, joint attention and planning and execution of motor skills in healthy adults. Language studies were performed to investigate the hemodynamic response, synchrony and dominance feature of the frontal and fronto-temporal cortex of healthy adults in response to language reception and expression. The mathematical model developed based on granger causality explicated the directional flow of information during the processing of language stimuli by the fronto-temporal cortex. Joint attention and planning/ execution of motor skill studies were performed to investigate the hemodynamic response, synchrony and dominance feature of the frontal cortex of healthy adults and in children (5-8 years old) with autism (for joint attention studies) and individuals with cerebral palsy (for planning/execution of motor skills studies). The joint attention studies on healthy adults showed differences in activation as well as intensity and phase dependent connectivity in the frontal cortex during joint attention in comparison to rest. The joint attention studies on typically developing children showed differences in frontal cortical activation in comparison to that in children with autism. The planning and execution of motor skills studies on healthy adults and individuals with cerebral palsy (CP) showed difference in the frontal cortical dominance, that is, bilateral and ipsilateral dominance, respectively. The planning and execution of motor skills studies also demonstrated the plastic and learning behavior of brain wherein correlation was found between the relative change in total hemoglobin in the frontal cortex and the kinematics of the activity performed by the participants. Thus, during my dissertation the NIRS neuroimaging technique was successfully implemented to investigate the neurological response of language, joint attention and planning and execution of motor skills in healthy adults as well as preliminarily on children with autism and individuals with cerebral palsy. These NIRS studies have long-term potential for the design of early stage interventions in children with autism and customized rehabilitation in individuals with cerebral palsy.

A literary approach to teaching english language in a multicultural classroom

Literature is not generally considered as a coherent branch of the curriculum in relation to language development in either native or foreign language teaching. As teachers of English in multicultural Indian classrooms, we come across students with varying degrees of competence in English language learning. Although language learning is a natural process for natives, students of other languages put in colossal efforts to learn it. Despite their sincere efforts, they face challenges regarding pronunciation, spelling, and vocabulary. Indian classrooms are a microcosm of the larger society, so teaching English language in a manner that equips the students to face the cutthroat competition has become a necessity and a challenge for English language teachers. English today has become the key determinant for being successful in their careers. The hackneyed and stereotypical methods of teaching are not acceptable now. Teachers are no longer arbitrary dispensers of knowledge, but they are playing the role of a guide and facilitator for the students. Teachers of English are using innovative ideas to make English language teaching and learning interesting and simple. Teachers have started using literary texts and their analyses to explore and ignite the imagination and creative skills of the students. One needs to think and rethink the contribution of literature to intelligent thinking as well as its role in the process of teaching/learning. This article is, therefore, an attempt at exploring the nature of the literary experience in the present-day classrooms and the broader role of literature in life.

Using syntactic and semantic features for classifying mo- dal values in the portuguese language

This paper presents a study made in a field poorly explored in the Portuguese language – modality and its automatic tagging. Our main goal was to find a set of attributes for the creation of automatic tag- gers with improved performance over the bag-of-words (bow) approach. The performance was measured using precision, recall and F1. Because it is a relatively unexplored field, the study covers the creation of the corpus (composed by eleven verbs), the use of a parser to extract syntac- tic and semantic information from the sentences and a machine learning approach to identify modality values. Based on three different sets of attributes – from trigger itself and the trigger’s path (from the parse tree) and context – the system creates a tagger for each verb achiev- ing (in almost every verb) an improvement in F1 when compared to the traditional bow approach.