A Language for Agent-based Discrete-event Modeling and Simulation of Linked Lives

In agent-based modeling and simulation, discrete-time methods prevail. While there is a need to cover the agents’ dynamics in continuous time, commonly used agent-based modeling frameworks offer little support for discrete-event simulation. Here, we present a formal syntax and semantics of the language ML3 (Modeling Language for Linked Lives) for modeling and simulating multi-agent systems as discrete-event systems. The language focuses on applications in demography, such as migration processes, and considers this discipline’s specific requirements. These include the importance of life courses being linked and the age-dependency of activities and events. The developed abstract syntax of the language combines the metaphor of agents with guarded commands. Its semantics is defined in terms of Generalized Semi-Markov Processes. The concrete language has been realized as an external domain-specific language. We discuss implications for efficient simulation algorithms and elucidate benefits of formally defining domain-specific languages for modeling and simulation.

Evaluating the effectiveness of machine translation of audio description: the results of two pilot studies in the English-Dutch language pair

The field of translation is undergoing various profound changes. On the one hand it is being thoroughly reshaped by the advent and constant improvement of new technologies. On the other hand, new forms of translation are starting to see the light of day in the wake of social and legal developments that require that products and content that are created, are accessible for everybody. One of these new forms of translation, is audio description (AD), a service that is aimed at making audiovisual content accessible to people with sight loss. New legislation requires that this content is accessible by 2025, which constitutes a tremendous task given the limited number of people that are at present trained as audio describers. A possible solution would be to use machine translation to translate existing audio descriptions into different languages. Since AD is characterized by short sentences and simple, concrete language, it could be a good candidate for machine translation. In the present study, we want to test this hypothesis for the English-Dutch language pair. Three 30 minute AD excerpts of different Dutch movies that were originally audio described in English, were translated into Dutch using DeepL. The translations were analysed using the harmonized DQF-MQM error typology and taking into account the specific multimodal nature of the source text and the intersemiotic dimension of the original audio description process. The analysis showed that the MT output had a relatively high error rate, particularly in the categories of Accuracy – mistranslation and Fluency – grammar. This seems to indicate that extensive post-editing will be needed, before the text can be used in a professional context.

The Struggle of Belitung Malay Women and Pragmatic Stilistics in Novel Titled Dwilogy Moon Light (Dwilogi Padang Bulan)" By Andrea Hirata

The aim of this study is to describe the reality of fiction, the author's social and global ideas, the shape of the fight of Malay Belitung women, and to examine the novel Dwilogy Moon Light (Dwilogi Padang Bulan) by Hirata's use of pragmatic stylistics. Genetic structuralist theory, liberal feminism, and pragmatic stilistics were all utilised in this work. The genetic structuralism hypothesis is used to assess the truth of fiction, its social context, and the author's point of view. Liberal feminist theory is used to evaluate the forms and elements that contribute to the struggle for Malay Belitung women, while pragmatic stilistics is used to analyze innovative diction, language style, and speech acts. The descriptive qualitative method of analysis is used in this study, along with a heuristic and hermeneutic reading approach. The technique is then applied, with the goal of carefully and thoroughly listening to the contents of the story and then recording complete data in accordance with the formulation of research problems. The findings of this study reveal that (1) fiction is true in terms of themes, characters, and occurrences, grooves, backgrounds, and point of view. Social reality is manifested in the following ways: social processes, social change, social issues, and social structures. The author's world view takes the shape of a relationship between the novel's social setting and the social context of real life, as well as the author's cultural social background and literary work. (2) The Malay Belitung women's struggle takes the shape of a conflict in the fields of honor, economy, and education, and this is the driving force behind the struggle of Malay Belitung women. In novel, gender injustice manifests as marginalization, subjugation, stereotyping, violence, and workload, whereas gender equality manifests as access, participation, and control. (3) Pragmatic Stilistics takes the form of the use of concrete language styles such as special, greeting, connotative, and foreign. Based on the structure of the sentence, including climax, anticlimax, antithesis, and recurrence. Based on the simplest kind of meaning: Litotes, Policyendon, Hiperbola, Metaphor, Allegory, Personification, and Irony. Employing illocutorial speech acts such as aggressive, commanding, expressive, commissioning, and declaring.

Anthroponyms from the pragmatic and communication perspective

The aim of this paper is to extend the model theory and the modeling of onymic signs by V. Blanár by a new pragmatic-communicative dimension. The central motive of the paper is the possibilities and limits of use of personal names in dialogic communication from the perspective of the speaker, and taking into account the addressee who, being a semantic-pragmatic and communication partner/interlocutor of the speaker, receives the locutionary and illocutionary components of discourse, addresses the meaning the speaker attributed to the generated oral discourse, and analyzes the pragmatically charged knowledge that has been transmitted/received during the interaction processes. The author will focus on the functional availability of anthroponyms in the locutionary and non-locutionary intersubjectivity. Both happen on the speaker – addressee axis, with the anthroponyms (i) identifying the speaker and/or (ii) identifying or contacting the addressee in the locutionary intersubjectivity, and indicating another bearer in the non-locutionary intersubjectivity. The identity of the bearer is either confirmed or contradicted by the speaker. Through the using of his/her proper name, the speaker also signals whether or not the bearer of the name belongs to his/her personal sphere. Using concrete language material, the author intends to verify the applicability of anthroponyms with regard to the communication flexibility of the speaker, respect for the rules of cultural partnership in communication and some leeway in the knowledge requirements and expectations toward the addressee, since cooperation and courtesy involving empathy, respect, tactfulness and solidarity are the presumed components of verbal behaviour of both interlocutors.

Direito à educação linguística de alunos migrantes e refugiados: Reflexões sociopolíticas, sociolinguísticas e educativas em torno dos casos Brasileiro e Alemão

In this contribution, we reflect upon migrants’ right to linguistic education as a specific dimension of their right to education. Based on the Linguistic Human Rights approach (Skutnab-Kangas Phillipson, 1995; also Hamel, 1995; Oliveira, 2003), we will argue that migrant and refugee students should see their right to linguistic education acknowledged in parallel to their right to education. Based on bibliographic and documentary research, we use the deductive and, mainly, the comparative method, in order to analyze the similarities and differences between individuals, phenomena and facts involved. Since the migrant and refugee school population is extremely heterogeneous, from a linguistic and cultural perspective, we will reflect upon concrete language policies and practices that can be developed in the Brazilian and German contexts in order to ensure the right to linguistic education. We argue that the implementation of pluralistic approaches to language learning and teaching might be a pedagogical tool to assure that right.

Haroldo de Campos: um caso concreto-barroco

This research aims to analyze the poetic writing of Haroldo de Campos, which brings a baroque language closer to a concrete language, exemplifying this supposed paradox through the poem A Máquina do Mundo Repensada. Augusto de Campos, his brother, defined him as a kind of “concrete-baroque”, capable of bringing together these two apparently contradictory facets in his production. The defense of the inclusion of the Brazilian baroque in the formation of national literature made by Haroldo also reverberated in his work, leaving baroque traces in his writings, as will be shown below. Finally, the analyzes made in this article will lead us to an analog and iconic reading gesture, prioritizing the similarities brought by the analogies, which will allow us to conceive the existence of opposite paths shared in the same text.

Man And Redemption

What conclusions of the Pope’s doctrine are significant for our way of teachingthe treaty on Redemption?/) e lecture should include an analysis of the concrete existential situationof today’s individual, our nation and all modern humanity. Awarenessof the contemporary existential situation and contemporary conditions shouldbe both a starting point in the considerations on the Redemption, their relevanceand indispensability, as does political theology or liberation theology in theirown way, and the basis which makes it possible that lectures on Redemptionwould demonstrate its significance for today’s man and teach people effectiveconcern for specific matters of existence of Others. When talking about theeffects of Redemption, one should ask what is its significance today for human existence, for example in the burning matter of human dignity and rights, orin the field of the Church’s tasks in the world. us, both the starting point andeffects of the Redemption should be presented in a concrete way, in relationto the current socio-historical situation, based on current experience.() All teaching on the Redemption should be based on biblical sources,obviously interpreted in light of the last Council and entire Christian Tradition.Referring – to a greater extent – to the content and statements presentedin the Bible, may help to overcome the abstractness and the one-sidednessof traditional soteriological treaties, which consider Redemption only in termsof substitute compensation, the most perfect sacrifice and individualistic andethical participation in the atonement and merits of Christ.X) It is necessary to harmoniously combine – as the Pope does in his Encyclical– various aspects of the doctrine of the Redemption, o6en interpreted separatelyin earlier theological treaties. In the spirit of such a harmonious synthesis,it is necessary to demonstrate the relationship between the work of Redemptionand the work of creation, between the Incarnation and the Passover of Christ,between man’s Redemption and the Redemption of the whole world, betweenmoral liberation from sin and social liberation from all forms of oppression,the concern for eternal salvation and for authentic humanism in earthy life.Z) Among many biblical categories that provide a closer view on the mysteryof Redemption, it is especially important to present the category of love, notonly in order to overcome the narrow, legal and social approach to Redemptionin terms of satisfaction and merit, but above all because love is a preeminentcategory in the theory of Christian revelation, the attitude and action mostappropriate for God and for every human being, and the source or bond of trueand full communion between people and God.9) One should teach about the Redemption using a concrete language,and not the abstract one. When analyzing the biblical texts it is necessary to explainthat the revelation of the mystery of the Redemption took place gradually,within the framework of history, in the context of certain cultural categories,that people were redeemed from the situation of sin through concrete events,carried out by God throughout history, especially through life, death and resurrectionof Christ.e Christ who lived in a certain place and in a certain time carried outthe Redemption by restoring the broken covenant of mankind with God, andtoday He allows us to enjoy the effects of the Redemption. rough meetingand uniting with Him in faith and love, confirmed and strengthened in thesacraments, each person regains the highest dignity and the possibility of fulldevelopment. us, the teaching on Redemption using a concrete language will be thus also tantamount to emphasizing the historical, Christocentric andpersonalist character of Redemption.Y) Finally, following the biblical approach, one should refrain from confiningoneself to recognize the mystery of the Redemption in a purely objectiveand essentializing manner – which was common in earlier textbooks – fromcarrying out considerations about its essence in isolation from man and hissituation, but instead one should try to recognize this mystery in terms of itsrole in human life and humanity, its significance for specific human history, itsinfluence on human activity and human culture.

From Trees to Barcodes and Back Again: Theoretical and Statistical Perspectives

Methods of topological data analysis have been successfully applied in a wide range of fields to provide useful summaries of the structure of complex data sets in terms of topological descriptors, such as persistence diagrams. While there are many powerful techniques for computing topological descriptors, the inverse problem, i.e., recovering the input data from topological descriptors, has proved to be challenging. In this article, we study in detail the Topological Morphology Descriptor (TMD), which assigns a persistence diagram to any tree embedded in Euclidean space, and a sort of stochastic inverse to the TMD, the Topological Neuron Synthesis (TNS) algorithm, gaining both theoretical and computational insights into the relation between the two. We propose a new approach to classify barcodes using symmetric groups, which provides a concrete language to formulate our results. We investigate to what extent the TNS recovers a geometric tree from its TMD and describe the effect of different types of noise on the process of tree generation from persistence diagrams. We prove moreover that the TNS algorithm is stable with respect to specific types of noise.