This paper explores the ongoing debate concerning the variables that contribute to the formation of a fully realised narrative text. Two primary perspectives dominate this discussion: one emphasises the role of character psychology and mindreading in narrative creation and comprehension, while the other prioritises the importance of plot and the causal-temporal structure of storytelling. By examining recent developments in these theoretical frameworks, we advocate for an integrated approach that reconciles these elements through the concept of “global coherence”, which aligns closely with Paul Ricœur’s notion of “intelligible totality” in narrative theory.
In an age of fast-paced technological change, patents have evolved into not only legal mechanisms of intellectual property, but also structured storage containers of knowledge full of metadata, categories, and formal innovation. This chapter proposes to reframe patents in the context of information science, by focusing on patents as knowledge artifacts, and by seeing patents as fundamentally tied to the global movement of scientific and technological knowledge. With a focus on three areas, the inventions of AIs, biotech patents, and international competition with patents, this work considers how new technologies are challenging traditional notions of inventorship, access, and moral accountability.The chapter provides a critical analysis of AI's implications for patent authorship and prior art searches, ownership issues arising from proprietary claims in biotechnology to ethical dilemmas, and the problem of using patents for strategic advantage in a global context of innovation competition. In this analysis, the chapter identified the importance of organizing information, creating metadata standards about originality, implementing retrieval systems to access previous works, and ethical contemplation about patenting unseen relationships in innovation ecosystems. Ultimately, the chapter called for a collaborative, transparent, and ethically-based approach in managing knowledge in the patenting environment highlighting the role for information professionals and policy to contribute to access equity in innovation.
In this paper, we propose a Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) agent that maps natural language queries about research topics to precise, machine-interpretable semantic entities. Our approach combines RAG with Socratic dialogue to align a user's intuitive understanding of research topics with established Knowledge Organization Systems (KOSs). The proposed approach will effectively bridge "little semantics" (domain-specific KOS structures) with "big semantics" (broad bibliometric repositories), making complex academic taxonomies more accessible. Such agents have the potential for broad use. We illustrate with a sample application called CollabNext, which is a person-centric knowledge graph connecting people, organizations, and research topics. We further describe how the application design has an intentional focus on HBCUs and emerging researchers to raise visibility of people historically rendered invisible in the current science system.
Esse trabalho propõe uma reflexão acerca da modernidade em suas sinuosidades na América Latina, através das experiências estéticas simbolistas no Brasil e modernistas no México e na Argentina, ao compreendê-las não como seccionadas da modernidade europeia, nem como atrasadas em comparação a “imagens otimizadas” (CANCLINI, 2007) dessa, mas sim como partes integrantes de um todo. Nesse sentido, a partir de algumas revistas literárias latino-americanas, olhamos para as estéticas finisseculares simbolistas brasileiras e modernistas argentina e mexicana a fim de observar uma conservação de ideias estéticas em cenários que, apesar de trazerem especificidades, compartilham experiências. Para tal, recorreremos à imagem da constelação, iluminada por Walter Benjamin (2011), na qual as relações são motivadas não pela proximidade, mas pela possibilidade de significações que seus singulares-extremos lhe conferem.
Epistemology. Theory of knowledge, History (General)
Injustices in text are often subtle since implicit biases or stereotypes frequently operate unconsciously due to the pervasive nature of prejudice in society. This makes automated detection of injustices more challenging which leads to them being often overlooked. We introduce a novel framework that combines knowledge from epistemology to enhance the detection of implicit injustices in text using NLP models to address these complexities and offer explainability. Our empirical study shows how our framework can be applied to effectively detect these injustices. We validate our framework using a human baseline study which mostly agrees with the choice of implicit bias, stereotype, and sentiment. The main feedback from the study was the extended time required to analyze, digest, and decide on each component of our framework. This highlights the importance of our automated framework pipeline that assists users in detecting implicit injustices while offering explainability and reducing time burdens on humans.
Language model continual learning (CL) has recently attracted significant interest for its ability to adapt large language models (LLMs) to dynamic real-world scenarios without retraining. A major challenge in this domain is catastrophic forgetting, where models lose previously acquired knowledge upon learning new tasks. Existing approaches commonly utilize multiple parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT) blocks to acquire task-specific knowledge, yet these methods are inefficient and fail to leverage potential knowledge transfer across tasks. In this paper, we introduce a novel CL framework for language models, named Knowledge Identification and Fusion (KIF), which boosts knowledge transfer without depending on memory replay. KIF initially segregates the model into 'skill units' based on parameter dependencies, allowing for more precise control. Subsequently, it employs a novel group-wise knowledge identification technique to ascertain the importance distribution of skill units for a new task. By comparing this importance distribution with those from previous tasks, we implement a fine-grained knowledge fusion strategy that retains task-specific knowledge, thereby preventing forgetting, and updates task-shared knowledge, which facilitates bi-directional knowledge transfer. As a result, KIF achieves an optimal balance between retaining prior knowledge and excelling in new tasks. KIF also demonstrates strong generalizability, making it suitable for various base models and adaptable to PEFT methods like LoRA. Furthermore, it offers notable extensibility, supporting enhancements through integration with memory replay techniques. Comprehensive experiments conducted on two CL benchmarks, involving models ranging from 220M to 7B parameters, affirm the effectiveness of KIF and its variants across different settings.
O investimento público na industrialização por substituição de importações teve seu auge no governo Geisel (março de 1974 a março de 1979). Ao longo de todo o regime militar (1964-1985) ocorreu também o que se chamou de “Grande salto à frente” para a ciência no Brasil, com a incorporação à política econômica dos investimentos públicos em ciência e educação universitária. Neste texto apresento elementos da articulação entre ações de Estado no segmento de ciência e tecnologia durante o governo Geisel e alguns dos interesses econômicos diretamente afetados por tais ações.
To address the issue of rising software maintenance cost due to program comprehension challenges, we propose SMARTKT (Smart Knowledge Transfer), a search framework, which extracts and integrates knowledge related to various aspects of an application in form of a semantic graph. This graph supports syntax and semantic queries and converts the process of program comprehension into a {\em google-like} search problem.
The term life sciences refers to the disciplines that study living organisms and life processes, and include chemistry, biology, medicine, and a range of other related disciplines. Research efforts in life sciences are heavily data-driven, as they produce and consume vast amounts of scientific data, much of which is intrinsically relational and graph-structured. The volume of data and the complexity of scientific concepts and relations referred to therein promote the application of advanced knowledge-driven technologies for managing and interpreting data, with the ultimate aim to advance scientific discovery. In this survey and position paper, we discuss recent developments and advances in the use of graph-based technologies in life sciences and set out a vision for how these technologies will impact these fields into the future. We focus on three broad topics: the construction and management of Knowledge Graphs (KGs), the use of KGs and associated technologies in the discovery of new knowledge, and the use of KGs in artificial intelligence applications to support explanations (explainable AI). We select a few exemplary use cases for each topic, discuss the challenges and open research questions within these topics, and conclude with a perspective and outlook that summarizes the overarching challenges and their potential solutions as a guide for future research.
Waldemar Victor Martins Silva, Eliriane Caroline da Silva, Poliana Flávia Maia
et al.
Este artigo apresenta uma análise da minissérie Chernobyl, em relação aos aspectos de natureza da ciência (NdC) retratados, discutindo a potencialidade dessa obra no ensino sobre ciências. Foi realizada a categorização das áreas e aspectos de NdC à luz do modelo MoCEC v.2, sendo identificadas as seis áreas do conhecimento e 250 aspectos de NdC, destacando a riqueza e o potencial da minissérie para introduzir a discussão desses aspectos no ensino de ciências. Por fim, esse trabalho discute a necessidade de uma alfabetização científica para as mídias na formação dos estudantes e da importância dos conhecimentos de NdC para a compreensão de como um conhecimento científico é desenvolvido e/ou utilizado.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between smart classrooms and learner’s academic performance in public boarding schools in Gicumbi District, Rwanda. The first objective was to assess the relationship between the availability of instructional facilities and learner’s academic performance in Rwandan public boarding schools. The second objective was to explore the relationship between IT-trained staff and learner’s academic performance in Rwandan public boarding schools. The study targeted 12 public boarding schools from Gicumbi District, where 4 public boarding schools were selected. The study population comprised 1334 respondents, while the final sample size was 308, people who had been selected using Yamane sample size determination. Reliability was ensured through a pilot study and by using Cronbach’s Alpha to measure co-efficient of internal consistency, which yielded good results for approving the study, of 85%. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 21. Findings of the study revealed that there is a significant relationship between smart classrooms and learner’s academic performance in Rwandan public boarding schools. All the involved variables had a significant relationship with dependent variables which were the availability of instructional facilities (r=.923 and p-value=0.000), IT-trained staff (r=.949 and p-value=0.000). Researchers recommended that teachers need regular Continuous Professional Development to help them update knowledge on the use of smart classrooms. Parents should be mobilised on how to create a technological atmosphere at home for their children because any academic achievement of students depends on how parents have helped them at home. It would be better if parents were able to afford electronic devices to expose their children to technology. Government should make frequent schools supervision on the use of smart classrooms and make sure that sector education officers and head teachers do not keep those machines in hte store instead of letting learners use them. The implication is that if smart classrooms are increased and monitored in Rwanda, academic achievement will improve in boarding schools.
Charles S. Pierce’s Pragmatic Maxim. Some epistemological issues
In this paper, my aims to think over Misak’s opinion on Peirce’s pragmatic maxim. Firstly, I introduce the 1878 formulation of the pragmatic maxim in order to show its verificationist character. Secondly, I present the 1905 expression of the pragmatic maxim so as to exhibit its non-empiricist nature. Thirdly, I argue that Misak barks up the wrong tree deeming that the second formulation of the pragmatic maxim is so weak that it cannot balance the detriments of the verificationist formulation. Finally, I claim that the 1905 expression of the pragmatic maxim is neither so loose that it is useless nor so strict that it rules out meaningful statements.
Knowledge Bases (KBs) contain a wealth of structured information about entities and predicates. This paper focuses on set-valued predicates, i.e., the relationship between an entity and a set of entities. In KBs, this information is often represented in two formats: (i) via counting predicates such as numberOfChildren and staffSize, that store aggregated integers, and (ii) via enumerating predicates such as parentOf and worksFor, that store individual set memberships. Both formats are typically complementary: unlike enumerating predicates, counting predicates do not give away individuals, but are more likely informative towards the true set size, thus this coexistence could enable interesting applications in question answering and KB curation. In this paper we aim at uncovering this hidden knowledge. We proceed in two steps. (i) We identify set-valued predicates from a given KB predicates via statistical and embedding-based features. (ii) We link counting predicates and enumerating predicates by a combination of co-occurrence, correlation and textual relatedness metrics. We analyze the prevalence of count information in four prominent knowledge bases, and show that our linking method achieves up to 0.55 F1 score in set predicate identification versus 0.40 F1 score of a random selection, and normalized discounted gains of up to 0.84 at position 1 and 0.75 at position 3 in relevant predicate alignments. Our predicate alignments are showcased in a demonstration system available at https://counqer.mpi-inf.mpg.de/spo.
Educational Data Mining (EDM) shows interesting scientific results lately. However, little has been discussed about philosophical questions regarding the type of knowledge produced in this area. This paper aims to present two epistemological issues in EDM: (i) a question of ontological nature about the content of the knowledge obtained; and (ii) a question of deontological nature, about the guidelines and principles adopted by the researcher in education, to the detriment of the results of his own research. In the end, some considerations and guidelines are outlined as a result of the discussion of the issues raised.
The paper contrasts the enlightenment and reflective educational paradigms on the basis of studying their underlying logic. The author argues that the enlightenment paradigm, developed by J.A. Comenius, is designed in accordance with inductive logic, which can be understood through actualization of J. Locke`s sensual epistemology and theory of a person as a reflective self-identity over time. In this paradigm, the emphasis is done on the teacher's activity in transferring knowledge to the pupil and shaping his personality. The author claims that the enlightenment paradigm of education is out of date and is not relevant to requirements of contemporary information society. Belief about cognition as passive reception of information by the senses and processing of this information by the mind disagrees with the conclusions made on the basis of research in cognitive science. And belief about a person as a thinking intelligent being, who is able to realize his or her identity over time and expand his or her experience, does not characterize it as an autonomous being capable of self-improvement. The paper proves that the transformation of educational paradigms is possible by changing views concerning the essence of cognitive process and the content of the concept of person. The deductive logic of reflective educational paradigms reveals through the actualization of I. Kant`s transcendental theory of knowledge and the normative theory of personhood. The author concludes that Kant's idea of the autonomy of reason in its theoretical and practical application should become the fundamental principle of the new education paradigm, within the scope of which the primary subject of the educational process is the pupil as representative of the humankind, endowed by nature with certain makings that need to be cultivated, that is to output to a higher level. The main difference between the reflective and the enlightenment paradigms, in the author's opinion, lies in the fact that within the first one the pupil is viewed as an active subject, having autonomy and capable of self-activity. In accordance with this, the entire educational process must be built on the horizontal-democratic principle.