Latent semantic analysis for tagging activation states and identifiability in northwestern Mexican news outlets

The present work aims to study the relationship between measures, obtained from Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) and a variant known as SPAN, and activation and identifiability states (Informative States) of referents in noun phrases present in journalistic notes from Northwestern Mexican news outlets written in Spanish. The aim and challenge is to find a strategy to achieve labelling of new / given information in the discourse rooted in a theoretically linguistic stance. The new / given distinction can be defined from different perspectives in which it varies what linguistic forms are taken into account. Thus, the focus in this work is to work with full referential devices (n = 2 388). Pearson’s R correlation tests, analysis of variance, graphical exploration of the clustering of labels, and a classification experiment with random forests are performed. For the experiment, two groups were used: noun phrases labeled with all 10 tags of informative states and a binary labelling, as well as the use of two bags-of-words for each noun phrase: the interior and the exterior. It was found that using LSA in conjunction with the inner bag of words can be used to classify certain informational states. This same measure showed good results for the binary division, detecting which sentences introduce new referents in discourse. In previous work using a similar method in noun phrases in English, 80% accuracy (n = 478) was reached in their classification exercise. Our best test for Spanish reached 79%. No work on Spanish using this method has been done before and this kind of experiment is important because Spanish exhibits a more complex inflectional morphology.

Towards a curatorial continuum or How to fire a gun and time-travel

<p>This thesis questions the ethics of curatorial agency: an issue that has plagued the profession since the influence of institutional critique of the 1960s. The proliferation of the ‘curatorial turn’ during the 1990s developed out of this legacy of institutional critique by grouping a diverse range of alternative practices that aimed to question curatorial agency. Curator Maria Lind defines this shift by making a methodological distinction between ‘curating’ and the ‘curatorial’. This is a binary division that posits curating as conventional practice that maintains hegemonic power structures and the curatorial as progressive and emancipatory. However, critics and curators such as Paul O‘Neill and Nina Möntmann argue that methodologies of the curatorial turn have become compromised by personal, institutional, political and economic motivations. Due to this, it is apparent that a shift in methodology alone is not sufficient to question the ethics of curatorial agency and that Lind's dichotomy of curating and the curatorial requires revision. This study therefore explores how curators practice by studying different methodologies and to understand why curators practice by considering to what extent motivations influence the application of a curator’s methodology. The research specifically addresses these questions in relation to contemporary art curating within the broader framework of museum and heritage studies. To do so, I have put my own curatorial practice under scrutiny, using a range of mixed qualitative methods such as autoethnography, in order to delve deep into the decision-making process. My research consists of six exhibition case studies that pertain to one of three common exhibition forms: group, solo or process-led exhibitions. Through a cross case analysis of these different exhibitions my findings suggest that there is not a distinct division between curating and the curatorial. Instead, I reveal that there is a complex interplay between spectrums of methodology and motivation. From this perspective, I argue for a new philosophy of curating that considers curatorial practice as an emergent spectrum charged with infinite possibilities, what I call the curatorial continuum.</p>

Towards a curatorial continuum or How to fire a gun and time-travel

<p>This thesis questions the ethics of curatorial agency: an issue that has plagued the profession since the influence of institutional critique of the 1960s. The proliferation of the ‘curatorial turn’ during the 1990s developed out of this legacy of institutional critique by grouping a diverse range of alternative practices that aimed to question curatorial agency. Curator Maria Lind defines this shift by making a methodological distinction between ‘curating’ and the ‘curatorial’. This is a binary division that posits curating as conventional practice that maintains hegemonic power structures and the curatorial as progressive and emancipatory. However, critics and curators such as Paul O‘Neill and Nina Möntmann argue that methodologies of the curatorial turn have become compromised by personal, institutional, political and economic motivations. Due to this, it is apparent that a shift in methodology alone is not sufficient to question the ethics of curatorial agency and that Lind's dichotomy of curating and the curatorial requires revision. This study therefore explores how curators practice by studying different methodologies and to understand why curators practice by considering to what extent motivations influence the application of a curator’s methodology. The research specifically addresses these questions in relation to contemporary art curating within the broader framework of museum and heritage studies. To do so, I have put my own curatorial practice under scrutiny, using a range of mixed qualitative methods such as autoethnography, in order to delve deep into the decision-making process. My research consists of six exhibition case studies that pertain to one of three common exhibition forms: group, solo or process-led exhibitions. Through a cross case analysis of these different exhibitions my findings suggest that there is not a distinct division between curating and the curatorial. Instead, I reveal that there is a complex interplay between spectrums of methodology and motivation. From this perspective, I argue for a new philosophy of curating that considers curatorial practice as an emergent spectrum charged with infinite possibilities, what I call the curatorial continuum.</p>

SEMIOLOGY OF PRELITERATE ASTRAL FIGURES

В течение долгого времени идеограммы и графемы неолитического периода интересовали преимущественно археологов, этнологов, культурологов и историков религии. Однако с развитием и упрочением дисциплинарных позиций археоастрономии они все больше становились предметом внимания историков астрономии. Несомненная ориентированность памятников эпохи бронзы по значимым солнечным и лунным направлениям, связанным с азимутами восхода и / или захода этих светил в экстремальные моменты солнечных и лунных циклов, убедительно свидетельствует о том, что представители бронзового века были неплохими астрономами. А это, в свою очередь, означает, что для полноценного понимания оставленной ими символики (если она действительно являлась таковой) нужно обладать компетенцией астронома, хорошо знакомого с основами хотя бы сферической астрономии. Эпоха бронзы в фазе ее наивысшего развития прекрасно ориентировалась по сторонам горизонта, имела представление о тропическом годе как о цикле повторений положений Солнца относительно горизонта, знала о солнцестояниях и равноденствиях, различала азимуты самой высокой и самой низкой Луны, возвела монументальную архитектуру для регулярных наблюдений за Солнцем и Луной и даже изобрела первое, идеографическое, письмо, хотя и не повсеместно. Очень сложно представить, чтобы столь насыщенная система представлений и действий родилась разом, без эволюционного накопления деталей этого довольно сложного знания и цепочек ярких прозрений, подготовивших итоговое открытие, материализовавшееся в каменных и письменных памятниках бронзового века. Указанное обстоятельство вынуждает нас с максимальной пристальностью всматриваться в символику эпох, предшествовавших бронзовому веку, а именно – в символику неолита и энеолита. Не сохранила ли она в себе каких-то следов формализации первичных астрономических наблюдений, результаты которых были усвоены, усовершенствованы и широко использованы представителями бронзового века? В данном исследовании предпринимается попытка, использовав систему значений неолитических знаков Ариэля Голана и гипотезу стадиального называния знаков зодиака Александра Гурштейна, выявить в комплексе неолитических символов, графем и идеограмм знаки, предположительно употреблявшиеся для обозначения астрономических значений. В ходе семиологического анализа неолитических идеограмм выявлены категории символов и знаков, сложно поддающихся интерпретации с точки зрения данных археологии и этнографии, но имеющих очевидные признаки корреляций с ритмами смены сезонов тропического года. Это так называемые знаки «двух солнц», «Ф-образные знаки» и «четырехчастно-парные символы». Анализ их вероятной семантики позволяет предположить, что появлению концепта «протозодиака» могло предшествовать более простое бинарное членение года, маркируемое оппозицией зимнего и летнего солнцестояний. В связи с этим внесены уточнения в гипотезу Гурштейна, касающиеся семантики и символической значимости первого зодиакального квартета. For a long time, ideograms and graphemes of the Neolithic period were primarily the particular archaeological, ethnological, cultural, and theological interest. However, as archaeoastronomy consolidated its disciplinary positions, they were increasingly becoming a matter of attention for historians of astronomy. Indisputable alignments of archaeological remains toward the points of midsummer and midwinter risings and settings of the sun shows conclusively that people of the Bronze Age were expected to have a still greater knowledge of astronomy. The broad truth of the cyclical movements of the points of rising and setting and their correlation with the cycle of growth in nature was certainly known from very early times. That, in turn, means that the thorough understanding of the oldest symbolism to have come down to us – if it, in fact, was so – is only possible when a researcher is familiar at least with spherical astronomy. At their highest stage of development the Bronze Age people certainly knew the cardinal points of the horizon; they were aware of the tropical year as a cycle of repetition of the position of the sun against the horizon; they knew about solstices and equinoxes; some of them distinguished between azimuth positions of the highest and the lowest moon; they built monumental architecture for regular observations of the sun and the moon, and even invented writing, though not everywhere. It would be hard to imagine that such a complicated system of ideas and actions was created all at once, without an evolutionary accumulation of that rather complex knowledge and a concatenation of insights which came together to make the final discovery embodied in stone monuments of the Bronze Age. The given circumstance forces us to look closely into ideograms of the pre-Bronze Ages, namely the Neolithic and the Aeneolithic ones. Is it possible to find there some traces of formalization of primary astronomical observations which could be assimilated, developed, and widely adopted by representatives of the Bronze Age? This study attempts to identify among the corpus of Neolithic symbols, graphemes, and ideograms those of them that could be supposedly used as denotations for astronomical meanings. The article uses the system of Neolithic meanings developed by Ariel Golan as the reference body. The astronomical part of the study is based on the gradualist concept of the Western Zodiac by Alexander Gurshtein. In the course of a semiological analysis of Neolithic ideograms, categories of symbols and signs have been identified that are difficult to interpret from the point of view of archaeological and ethnographic data. However, they show clear signs of correlation with the rhythms of the seasons. Among these are, for instance: the so-called sign of ‘two suns,’ ‘f-shaped’ signs, and ‘four-part-binary symbols.’ Analysis of their probable semantics suggests that ‘protozodiac’ concept could have been preceded by a simpler binary division of the year indicated by opposition between the winter and summer solstices. In this regard, clarifications, concerning semantics and symbolic meanings of the first zodiacal quartet are included in the hypothesis by Gurshtein.

Constrained optimisation of divisional load in hierarchically-organised tissues during homeostasis

It has been hypothesised that the structure of tissues and the hierarchy of differentiation from stem cell to terminally-differentiated cell play a significant role in reducing the incidence of cancer in that tissue. One specific mechanism by which this risk can be reduced is by minimising the number of divisions -- and hence the mutational risk -- that cells accumulate as they divide to maintain tissue homeostasis. Here we investigate a mathematical model of cell division in a hierarchical tissue, calculating and minimising the divisional load while constraining parameters such that homeostasis is maintained. We show that the minimal divisional load is achieved by binary division tress with progenitor cells incapable of self-renewal. Contrary to the protection hypothesis, we find that an increased stem cell turnover can lead to lower divisional load. Furthermore, we find that the optimal tissue structure depends on the time horizon of the duration of homeostasis, with faster stem cell division favoured in short-lived organisms and more progenitor compartments favoured in longer-lived organisms.

Differentiated Analysis of the «Insult» Speech Genrebased on Messages from a Social Network Internet Sites

The study of Internet mediated speech communication seems relevant due to the dynamic development of the Internet language, the lack of its codification and legal regulation, duplication of social practices and processes in the virtual environment. The present research is focused on one of the conflicting speech genres (speech acts), which is frequent within Internet communication. Speech actions in the genre of insult in some cases acquire illegal actions and are considered from the standpoint of law enforcement in the practice of forensic linguistics. The novelty of this study lies in the differentiated approach to insults as applied not only to the binary division of its interpretation within the ordinary logic and legal grounds, but also to the study of the distinctive characteristics of this phenomenon in refraction to various legal interpretations (in the criminal, civil, administrative codes). We analyzed written messages of Russian-speaking users of the social network site VKontakte, which were considered through the prism of the provisions of Article 5.61 Insult of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation. In the course of the study, it was revealed that even within a specialized dataset of messages, perceived by the recipients as insulting messages, the share of messages corresponding to the criterion basis of insult (Article 5.61) is negligible.

“Dollars and Nicotine”—Construction Mechanism of Evaluative Meaning in Political Speeches

Objectives: Economy and health are the most basic guarantee for a country’s stable development, they are also mandatory themes in every US President’s State of the Union Address. These two issues will directly determine the Congress and people’s evaluation towards the president’s governing capacity. Based on the binary division of explicit and implicit evaluation, taking the economic (employment and tax reform) and health (nicotine and drug addiction) of Trump’s State of the Union Address as data, this study has carried out a comparative analysis on the construction of evaluation meaning, attempting to build the evaluation model. We found that, Trump shows a very strong preference for implicit or indirect evaluation, which includes various graduation resources, infused process of AMOUNT and QUALITY, shared knowledge, specific numerals and verb tense. A closer analysis indicates that, under different themes, different constructing mechanisms have been utilized to form or strengthen the evaluation implication. To be specific: (1) both explicit and implicit resource are applied in constructing the evaluative meaning; (2) at different stages under the same theme, the constructing model shows difference, with the explicit resources being more prominent at the beginning or ending stage. In the body part, both explicit and implicit resources are of prominence, which tend to cooperate with each other, evoking or strengthening the established evaluative meaning. It proves that different types of evaluative resources show different degrees of prominence across stages within same theme.

Regulation of the Actin Cytoskeleton via Rho GTPase Signalling in Dictyostelium and Mammalian Cells: A Parallel Slalom

Both Dictyostelium amoebae and mammalian cells are endowed with an elaborate actin cytoskeleton that enables them to perform a multitude of tasks essential for survival. Although these organisms diverged more than a billion years ago, their cells share the capability of chemotactic migration, large-scale endocytosis, binary division effected by actomyosin contraction, and various types of adhesions to other cells and to the extracellular environment. The composition and dynamics of the transient actin-based structures that are engaged in these processes are also astonishingly similar in these evolutionary distant organisms. The question arises whether this remarkable resemblance in the cellular motility hardware is accompanied by a similar correspondence in matching software, the signalling networks that govern the assembly of the actin cytoskeleton. Small GTPases from the Rho family play pivotal roles in the control of the actin cytoskeleton dynamics. Indicatively, Dictyostelium matches mammals in the number of these proteins. We give an overview of the Rho signalling pathways that regulate the actin dynamics in Dictyostelium and compare them with similar signalling networks in mammals. We also provide a phylogeny of Rho GTPases in Amoebozoa, which shows a variability of the Rho inventories across different clades found also in Metazoa.

Positional competition in a binary system: the case of Finnish higher education

Positional competition in the labour market entails graduate opportunities that depend not only on graduates’ skills, experience and abilities, but also on how their educational credentials compare to those of others. In this study, we examined the positional competition in the Finnish labour market and compared the influence of different ‘degree types’ on the probability of obtaining high-paid, high-status jobs. We used a register-based 5% sample of 25–45-year-old Finnish higher education (HE) graduates from 2010 to 2012 (N = 63 486). It was expected that the relative position of graduates would be affected by the degree level as well as the educational field and the binary division (university vs. non-university) of HE. Therefore, master’s and bachelor’s degree levels in all educational fields from universities versus universities of applied sciences (UASs) were included. The method of analysis was logistic regression. According to our results, the binary divide structured the opportunities to enter high-paid, high-status jobs within different fields of education. The university master’s degree graduates had the highest probability of succeeding in the Finnish labour market, and their status/rank elevated them above the competition by regulating access to certain professions or occupations through specific qualification requirements (i.e., credential social closure). Moreover, our results demonstrated how the degree rankings and the relative distance between university and UAS degrees vary in different fields. The Finnish case offers a valuable point of comparison to other HE systems with a binary structure.

“You’re One or the Other”

A central defining feature of deeply divided societies is binary division: two contrasting segments of a population that represent a cleavage significant enough to impact a wide range of issues. Deeply divided societies, delineated by difference from the “other,” can be seen as intractable identity conflicts. To reduce our understanding of social identities in Northern Ireland to religion—Protestant or Catholic—is dangerously misleading. In reality, the issue is one of national identity, where Protestant becomes shorthand for unionist (those supporting Northern Ireland’s constitutional status within the United Kingdom and opposing the involvement of the Irish Republic in Northern Ireland) and Catholic for nationalist (those believing that Northern Ireland is part of the Irish nation and opposing the imposition of British rule that prevents a united Ireland). To the Protestant-unionist and Catholic-nationalist identities are often added a third identity category—loyalist or republican.