Conversational interfaces have received much attention as a promising natural communication channel between humans and computers. A typical conversational interface consists of three major systems: speech understanding, dialog management and spoken language generation. In such a conversational interface, speech recognition…

Computers have dramatically changed the nature of structural engineering practice by shifting work from process-oriented tasks, such as performing hand calculations and drafting, to structural modeling and interpretation of computer results. To perform these new functions, engineers need to have…

The Semantic Web attempts to reach a state in the future where everything on the Web will no longer be only machine-readable, but also machine-understandable. An ontology is an explicit specification of a conceptualization. A conceptualization is an abstract, simplified…

The chemical effects of acoustic cavitation are obtained in sono-reactors built-up from a vessel and an ultrasonic
source. In this paper, simulations of an existing sono-reactor are carried out, using a linear acoustics model, accounting
for the vibrations of the…

This paper presents a proposal for an architecture that integrates knowledge discovery systems (automatic acquisition) and knowledge based systems (experts systems). This work formulates considerations over the viability of the implementation of this architecture according to the advance of the…

Content vocabulary may have different connotative values and different denotational meanings in different languages according to cultural idiosyncracy, manifested in culture-specific "key" meanings and culture-related scripts. Our claim here is that, even in all these cases involving the use of…

In recent research, it is claimed that deviant features of interlanguage grammars arise only
from the users' knowledge of the rule system of the target language. This paper examines
the relative contribution of the rule system of each of the…

This paper presents the main
characteristics of an Agent-based Architecture
for the design and implementation
of a Spoken Dialogue System. From
a theoretical point of view, the system is
based on the Information State Update
approach, in particular, the system…

The supervision of postgraduate Master's Degree dissertations has attracted little attention in the
academic literature and is an under researched area of supervisory activity. This research was a
response to generate new knowledge concerning the praxis of supervisors who supervise…

This article explores the stylistic devices and narrative techniques that the late 19th-century
great American satirist employed to subvert and ridicule his contemporaries'
understanding of language and of its relationship to reality. According to Bierce, language
is not merely a…