Process-To-Text: A Framework for the Quantitative Description of Processes in Natural Language

Numerical descriptions furnish us with an apparently precise and objective way of summarising complex datasets. In practice, the issue is less clear-cut, partly because the use of numerical expressions in natural language invites inferences that go beyond their mathematical meaning, and consequently quantitative descriptions can be true but misleading. This raises important practical questions for the hearer: how should they interpret a quantitative description that is being used to further a particular argumentative agenda, and to what extent should they treat it as a good argument for a particular conclusion? In this paper, we discuss this issue with reference to notions of argumentative strength, and consider the strategy that a rational hearer should adopt in interpreting quantitative information that is being used argumentatively by the speaker. We exemplify this with reference to United Kingdom universities’ reporting of their REF 2014 evaluations. We argue that this reporting is typical of argumentative discourse involving quantitative information in two important respects. Firstly, a hearer must take into account the speaker’s agenda in order not to be misled by the information provided; but secondly, the speaker’s choice of utterance is typically suboptimal in its argumentative strength, and this creates a considerable challenge for accurate interpretation.

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High-resolution observations of metastable γ’ precipitation in Al-15at.%Ag

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100167482 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 54 ◽

pp. 1004-1005

Author(s):

N. V. Larcher ◽

I. G. Solorzano

Keyword(s):

Discontinuous Precipitation ◽

Equilibrium Phase ◽

Quantitative Description ◽

Present Contribution ◽

Α Phase ◽

The Matrix ◽

Aging Sequence ◽

Matrix Precipitation ◽

Considerable Detail ◽

Kinetics Of

It is currently well established that, for an Al-Ag alloy quenched from the α phase and aged within the metastable solvus, the aging sequence is: supersaturated α → GP zones → γ’ → γ (Ag2Al). While GP zones and plate-shaped γ’ are metastable phases, continuously distributed in the matrix, formation of the equilibrium phase γ takes place at grain boundaries by discontinuous precipitation (DP). The crystal structure of both γ’ and γ is hep with the following orientation relationship with respect to the fee α matrix: {0001}γ′,γ // {111}α, <1120>γ′,γ, // <110>α.The mechanisms and kinetics of continuous matrix precipitation (CMP) in dilute Al-Ag alloys have been studied in considerable detail. The quantitative description of DP kinetics, however, has received less attention. The present contribution reports the microstructural evolution resulting from aging an Al-Ag alloy with Ag content higher than those previously reported in the literature, focusing the observations of γ' plate-shaped metastable precipitates.

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