Chatbots Language Design: The Influence of Language Variation on User Experience with Tourist Assistant Chatbots

Chatbots are often designed to mimic social roles attributed to humans. However, little is known about the impact of using language that fails to conform to the associated social role. Our research draws on sociolinguistic to investigate how a chatbot’s language choices can adhere to the expected social role the agent performs within a context. We seek to understand whether chatbots design should account for linguistic register. This research analyzes how register differences play a role in shaping the user’s perception of the human-chatbot interaction. We produced parallel corpora of conversations in the tourism domain with similar content and varying register characteristics and evaluated users’ preferences of chatbot’s linguistic choices in terms of appropriateness, credibility, and user experience. Our results show that register characteristics are strong predictors of user’s preferences, which points to the needs of designing chatbots with register-appropriate language to improve acceptance and users’ perceptions of chatbot interactions.

Toward ‘seeing’ critically: a Bayesian analysis of the impacts of a critical pedagogy

Critical reflection supports enactment of the social roles of care, like collaboration and advocacy. We require evidence that links critical teaching approaches to future critically reflective practice. We thus asked: does a theory-informed approach to teaching critical reflection influence what learners talk about (i.e. topics of discussion) and how they talk (i.e. whether they talk in critically reflective ways) during subsequent learning experiences? Pre-clinical students (n = 75) were randomized into control and intervention conditions (8 groups each, of up to 5 interprofessional students). Participants completed an online Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) module, followed by either: a SDoH discussion (control) or critically reflective dialogue (intervention). Participants then experienced a common learning session (homecare curriculum and debrief) as outcome assessment, and another similar session one-week later. Blinded coders coded transcripts for what (topics) was said and how (critically reflective or not). We constructed Bayesian regression models for the probability of meaning units (unique utterances) being coded as particular what codes and as critically reflective or not (how). Groups exposed to the intervention were more likely, in a subsequent learning experience, to talk in a critically reflective manner (how) (0.096 [0.04, 0.15]) about similar content (no meaningful differences in what was said). This difference waned at one-week follow up. We showed experimentally that a particular critical pedagogical approach can make learners’ subsequent talk, ways of seeing, more critically reflective even when talking about similar topics. This study offers the field important new options for studying historically challenging-to-evaluate impacts and supports theoretical assertions about the potential of critical pedagogies.

Hate Speech on Social Media

Based on the content that users prefer to follow, they are presented with similar content, which they may like. Thus, they can interact with individuals whose mindsets are similar to theirs. The users who cannot socialize in real life due to the COVID-19 pandemic and thus consider social media as an escape point think that they can produce unlimited and uncontrolled hatred in a synergistic environment consisting of people who produce similar contents to what they produce. This study focuses on hate speech on social media and analyzes the hate, discriminative, and derogatory speech regarding men within the “dunyaerkeklergunu” hashtag on Twitter based on symbolic interaction theory using the content analysis method. Within the scope of the “dunyaerkeklergunu” hashtag, 500 shares were analyzed. The study aims to raise awareness of the fact that hate speech can be made even on international men's day and that hate speech is not only directed towards women but is also made regarding men.

The New Da’wah Strategy among Millennial Generations through Tiktok During Pandemic

<p><span>This research focuses on the strategy of public figures who develop religious content in order to spread religious values </span><span>among the millennial generation, especially during the pandemic. The rampant use of the TikTok platform during the COVID-19 pandemic was not only deployed as an entertainment medium but was also used by many people to be able to spread propaganda and missions to disseminate religious values </span><span>among the millennial generation. This is due to the popularity of that platform has skyrocketed, making some content creators and public figures develop the marketing of their ideological values </span><span>on social media. By using the theory of social change and the concept of the development of communication, the authors try to analyze the phenomena that in question. This study uses a qualitative descriptive method with the TikTok application observation technique and seeks to explore various information in depth to find various facts that can explain this phenomenon. We also found that millennials who use the TikTok platform often start to look at various religious content and some are even active in filling the content because they are inspired by public figures who spread similar content. Moreover, some lecturers often provide religious information using music or duet features so as to encourage application users to spread religious teachings and share religious knowledge.<strong></strong></span></p><p><em><span lang="IN">Penelitian ini berfokus pada strategi tokoh masyarakat yang mengembangkan konten religi dalam rangka menyebarkan nilai-nilai agama di kalangan generasi milenial, terutama di masa pandemi. Maraknya penggunaan platform TikTok di masa pandemi COVID-19 tidak hanya dijadikan sebagai media hiburan tetapi juga dimanfaatkan oleh banyak orang untuk bisa menyebarkan dakwah dan misi penyebarluasan nilai-nilai agama di kalangan generasi milenial. Hal ini dikarenakan popularitas platform tersebut yang meroket, membuat beberapa content creator dan public figure mengembangkan pemasaran nilai-nilai ideologisnya di media sosial. Dengan menggunakan teori perubahan sosial dan konsep perkembangan komunikasi, peneliti mencoba menganalisis fenomena yang terjadi. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif dengan teknik observasi aplikasi TikTok dan berupaya menggali berbagai informasi secara mendalam sehingga mampu menemukan berbagai fakta yang dapat menjelaskan fenomena tersebut. Kami juga menemukan bahwa generasi milenial yang menggunakan platform TikTok sering mulai melihat berbagai konten religi dan bahkan ada yang aktif mengisi konten tersebut karena terinspirasi oleh tokoh masyarakat yang menyebarkan konten serupa. Apalagi beberapa dosen sering memberikan informasi agama dengan menggunakan fitur musik atau duet sehingga mendorong pengguna aplikasi untuk dapat menjalankan ajaran agama dan membagikan ilmu agama</span></em></p>

Сочинение «Xamuq kilince namančilaqui sudur» («Сутра замаливания всех грехов») из астрологического сборника калмыцкого зурхачи

Introduction. The written heritage of Kalmyk Buddhist lamas has not been sufficiently discussed in scientific literature. Most of written documents from their personal libraries have not been published, hence they remain unavailable to researchers. Importantly, the scholarly publication of such texts contributes to the source database of Buddhist studies. The present article aims to describe, transliterate and translate “The Sutra of Atonement for All Sins” (Oir. Xamuq kilince namančilaxu sudur), which was part of the astrological collection that belonged to a Kalmyk zurkhachi, i. e. to introduce the document for the attention of scholars in the field. Materials. To clarify the translation of some difficult passages in the text of the Oirat Sutra written in “todo bichig” (“Clear Script”), Tibetan texts of similar content were used. One of them, created in the framework of the “terma” tradition, was published in French by E. Schlagintweit. The other text was taken from the collection “Sundui”. Results. The translation of the Oirat Sutra clearly indicates the character of Buddhist astrological collections in terms of their composition: in addition to specific tables, diagrams, and figures, they included the texts of prayers. Also, the textual analysis of the source shows the importance of such issues as the selection of equivalents of Buddhist terms and of the names of the deities of the Buddhist pantheon in translating Buddhist texts, which is directly related to the approaches and principles of translation of Oirat and Kalmyk translators of Tibetan texts.

Scientific and Technological Progress and Economy of the USSR: Theory, Practice, Lessons for the Present

The article is devoted to the main approaches of Soviet economists to the issue of introducing the achievements of scientific and technological progress into production related to the experience of economic development of the USSR. Among the research provisions, general economic planning stands out as a key tool for the balanced dissemination of the elements of scientific and technological revolution in the interests of the entire population. Practice showed the validity of the advantages of socialism noted by researchers in a number of spheres. However, there were also significant imbalances in economic development, which were insufficiently worked out theoretically. The successes were concentrated mainly in the important strategic industries, while the production of consumer goods faced systemic difficulties. Ultimately, these imbalances started growing, and the intensive component of economic growth began declining. This tendency is substantiated by a system of motivations at different management levels, among employees. Public enthusiasm and intangible motives were substantial but limited, while economic incentives were insufficient. Nevertheless, despite the current dominance of an economic system being fundamentally different from the Soviet model, there are prerequisites of the growing relevance of turning to Soviet theories and practices in economic development based on advanced technologies. This is due to a significant degree of similar content of technologies attributed to the fourth industrial revolution, compared with the post-war stage of scientific and technological revolution. The new nature of technologies presupposes greater calculation possibilities in planning, the prospects for widespread automation of production, coupled with the need to form new, non-economic motives of work. Similar problems were widely discussed in the Soviet academic sources.

Bringing Children Together with Hadiths: An Evaluation of 40 Hadis Düşler Adasi (40 Hadiths Island of Dreams)

In this study, the suitability of the hadiths in the story book called 40 Hadis Düşler Adası (40 Hadiths Island of Dreams), prepared by Publications of the Presidency of Religious Affairs for children aged 5 and over, for the development of children in terms of suitability for child principle is discussed. In this study, which was designed with a qualitative research model, the document review method was used. In the research, the problem of the suitability of the hadiths in the aforementioned book with the religious development characteristics of 5–7-year-old children in terms of suitability for child principle is focused on. It was thought that mentioned suitability is important in terms of the correct development of the children’s imagination of religion, God and the prophet, and the importance of this study was decided. In the study, first of all, examples from the life of the Prophet for child education were given, then the basic principles for the religious education of 5–7-year-old children were mentioned briefly. Finally, the hadiths in the subject book were examined in terms of hadiths suitability for children. After the examination, it was concluded that twenty-six hadiths are suitable for children and fourteen hadiths are not. Alternative hadiths were suggested instead of the hadiths that were thought to be unsuitable for children. The study has been completed with some suggestions for other studies that will be prepared with similar content and purpose.

Three Filmmaking Practices That Guide Our Attention to Popular Cinema

Popular movies are constructed to control our attention and guide our eye movements across the screen. Estimates of fixation locations were made by manually moving a cursor and clicking over frames at the beginnings and ends of more than 30,000 shots in 24 English-language movies. Results provide evidence for three general filmmaking practices in screen composition. The first and overriding practice is that filmmakers generally put the most import content ‒ usually the center of a character’s face ‒ slightly above the center of the screen. The second concerns two-person conversations, which account for about half of popular movie content. Dialogue shots alternate views of the speakers involved, and filmmakers generally place the conversants slightly to opposite sides of the midline. The third concerns all other shots. For those, filmmakers generally follow important content in one shot by similar content in the next shot on the same side of the vertical midline. The horizontal aspect of the first practice seems to follow from the nature of our field of view and vertical aspect from the relationship of heads to bodies depicted. The second practice derives from social norms and an image composition norm called nose room, and the third from the consideration of continuity and the speed of re-engaging attention.

Fluency development in an EFL setting: A one-semester study

Language learning activities involving time-pressured repetition of similar content have been shown to facilitate improvements in fluency. However, concerns have been voiced about whether these gains might be offset by reduced levels of grammatical accuracy. This descriptive study tracked the oral proficiency of 32 Japanese university students enrolled in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes over one academic semester during which they regularly completed 3/2/1 fluency development activities. Measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) were analysed to investigate whether any developmental patterns could be identified. The results indicated that over the semester, the students made small, but significant gains in two fluency measures, the mean length of pause and the phonation/time ratio. Despite the relatively small size of the gains, expert ratings of perceived fluency suggested that these fluency improvements were detectable to the human ear. Furthermore, a significant relationship emerged between three of the four CAF measures over the semester. These results suggest that the activities moderately impacted students’ speaking fluency without negatively affecting accuracy or complexity levels; however, further longitudinal research is needed to determine which factors might influence this development, as class performance measures did not account for any of the variation detected.

Coordinated Effect of Ascorbate Biosynthesis and Recycling in Maize Seed Germination and Seedling Establishment under Low Temperature

The impacts of low temperature occasionally encountered at higher latitude regions on maize seed germination present significant threats to yield and cultivation. Exploring the association of antioxidant system with low temperature (LT) germination could support the breeding strategies for better responding to LT disturbance. In this study, we have examined the germination rate and growth potential of a set of elite maize inbred accessions under LT and normal temperature (NT) conditions in the field. These accessions were found to have variable germination rate and growth potential when grown at LT, whereas the difference is not significant under NT. Physiological study revealed lower hydrogen peroxide content in LT tolerant accessions when compared with sensitive ones. LT-tolerant and LT-sensitive lines maintained similar content of ascorbate (AsA) and glutathione (GSH), whereas the reduced substrate content of which were significantly higher in LT-tolerant accessions. Consistently, activities of ascorbate peroxidase and dehydroascorbate reductase, the enzyme components that responsible for the AsA-GSH recycling, were much higher in LT-tolerant lines. Transcription profile revealed the increased expression of ZmVTC2 gene in LT-tolerant inbred line, which was rate limited step in AsA biosynthesis. These data indicates that the coordinated improvement of AsA biosynthesis and AsA-GSH recycling increase the pool size of the total antioxidants, which ameliorate LT-induced oxidative stress during maize seed germination.