Distinctive Semantic Features Research Articles

Detecting sun glint in UAV RGB images at different times using a deep learning algorithm

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing has played a crucial role in water quality monitoring. However, the presence of water sun glint, resulting from specular reflection on the water surface, poses an inevitable challenge in UAV-acquired images. These excessively bright pixels disrupt the original images' spectral and textural characteristics, significantly diminishing their usability. This disruption has repercussions on subsequent tasks, such as target object classification and water quality parameter inversion. Precise detection of sun glint is a prerequisite for removing them, but current methods suffer from missed and false detections. In this study, we collected images by UAV to construct a specialized dataset for water surface sun glint, namely water sun glint detection (WSGD) dataset, laying the groundwork for further research endeavors. We proposed the Res_AUNet network by enhancing the UNet convolutional neural network. The Convolutional Block Attention Module was integrated into the encoding-decoding skip connections of the network, we also refined the convolutional blocks to better capture the distinctive semantic features associated with water sun glint. To mitigate overfitting, the residual structures were incorporated and the number of convolutional kernels within each block was reduced. The Res_AUNet network was trained and evaluated using the WSGD dataset, achieving metrics with an Accuracy of 98.02%, an F1-score of 83.67%, and an IOU of 74.73%. These results underscore the precision of our proposed method for water sun glint detection in UAV water images, offering valuable insights for effectively eliminating water sun glint and determining the optimal timing for UAV water image acquisition.

ESA: Excitation-Switchable Attention for convolutional neural networks

Although various attention mechanisms can boost the representational power of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and improve their performance, selecting an appropriate attention module becomes challenging when backbones or datasets change. Besides, as different CNN layers can learn distinct semantic features, applying the same attention module across all layers may not yield optimal results for enhancing the performance of a deep neural network. To address the above issues, we propose a novel excitation-switchable attention (ESA) to automatically select and integrate different excitation modules to compute attention maps, enabling a DNN to apply different attention modules in different layers for better feature learning and performance improvement. Extensive experiments on three widely-used image classification benchmarks demonstrate the superiority of our ESA over several well-known and widely-adopted attention modules.

Peculiarities of the figurative meanings of the nouns denoting good in modern Ukrainian

The paper deals with the study of the nouns’ denoting good figurative meanings in modern Ukrainian. The research has been carried out with the help of the formalized lexical semantics analysis and a thorough analysis of the “Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language” in 11 volumes. The conducted study enables the classification of the lexical units denoting good, disclosing their common and distinctive semantic features in the language under study. The shared peculiarity of the nouns denoting good in modern Ukrainian is their figurative meanings. The lexis under study characterized by figurative meanings takes a special place in the Ukrainian lexico-semantic system. The former reflects universal values of the world community and nationally-specific features of Ukrainian ethnoculture. The lexico-semantic analysis of the nouns’ figurative meanings denoting good in modern Ukrainian has shown that figurativeness is typical of polysemantic lexical units. In contrast, monosemantic words are devoid of the assigned property. Furthermore, the words in question not only complement the aspects of good realization expressed by direct meanings but extend their semantics by additional shades of meaning. Figurative meanings verbalize good as an anthropocentric and socio-pragmatic notion in modern Ukrainian. Thus, the groups denoting a person as a good-doer, his/her inner world, character traits, wishes and desires, personal achievements and success, social recognition, deeds for the sake of others, benefits and advantages, comfortable living conditions, and material values have been singled out. The lexical units under study establish diverse paradigmatic relations with both the words within the lexico-semantic group “good” in Ukrainian and another related lexis.

Predicting the Easiness and Complexity of English Health Materials for International Tertiary Students With Linguistically Enhanced Machine Learning Algorithms: Development and Validation Study.

BackgroundThere is an increasing body of research on the development of machine learning algorithms in the evaluation of online health educational resources for specific readerships. Machine learning algorithms are known for their lack of interpretability compared with statistics. Given their high predictive precision, improving the interpretability of these algorithms can help increase their applicability and replicability in health educational research and applied linguistics, as well as in the development and review of new health education resources for effective and accessible health education.ObjectiveOur study aimed to develop a linguistically enriched machine learning model to predict binary outcomes of online English health educational resources in terms of their easiness and complexity for international tertiary students.MethodsLogistic regression emerged as the best performing algorithm compared with support vector machine (SVM) (linear), SVM (radial basis function), random forest, and extreme gradient boosting on the transformed data set using L2 normalization. We applied recursive feature elimination with SVM to perform automatic feature selection. The automatically selected features (n=67) were then further streamlined through expert review. The finalized feature set of 22 semantic features achieved a similar area under the curve, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy compared with the initial (n=115) and automatically selected feature sets (n=67). Logistic regression with the linguistically enhanced feature set (n=22) exhibited important stability and robustness on the training data of different sizes (20%, 40%, 60%, and 80%), and showed consistently high performance when compared with the other 4 algorithms (SVM [linear], SVM [radial basis function], random forest, and extreme gradient boosting).ResultsWe identified semantic features (with positive regression coefficients) contributing to the prediction of easy-to-understand online health texts and semantic features (with negative regression coefficients) contributing to the prediction of hard-to-understand health materials for readers with nonnative English backgrounds. Language complexity was explained by lexical difficulty (rarity and medical terminology), verbs typical of medical discourse, and syntactic complexity. Language easiness of online health materials was associated with features such as common speech act verbs, personal pronouns, and familiar reasoning verbs. Successive permutation of features illustrated the interaction between these features and their impact on key performance indicators of the machine learning algorithms.ConclusionsThe new logistic regression model developed exhibited consistency, scalability, and, more importantly, interpretability based on existing health and linguistic research. It was found that low and high linguistic accessibilities of online health materials were explained by 2 sets of distinct semantic features. This revealed the inherent complexity of effective health communication beyond current readability analyses, which were limited to syntactic complexity and lexical difficulty.

The functions of the dative in the Jewish Arabic dialect of Baghdad

Abstract Like in Classical Arabic and other modern Arabic dialects, the preposition l- marks the dative also in the Jewish Arabic dialect of Baghdad (JB). Under the scope of the syntactic category of dative, one finds different semantic roles like recipients, benefactives, possessors, experiencers, and others. Moreover, some datives operate on the pragmatic rather than the semantic level of the clause. This paper defines and exemplifies seven different dative roles in JB based on their interpretive properties and accounts for their distinctive syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic features.

The effect of grammatical rules in highlighting linguistic differences: descriptive study

Determining the semantic differences between the words of the language requires specific scientific criteria. These criteria must be consistent with the characteristics of our Arabic language, and derived from its rules, so that by following them we can identify the distinctive semantic features of each word. Arab linguists have used grammatical rules to highlight the semantic differences between convergent words. Meaning, how accurate and comprehensive is the grammatical standard? What are the difficulties we face when applying this standard? The research in our hands provides a semantic description and analysis of those grammatical criteria in order to answer these questions, and the research has resulted in the strengths and weaknesses in the grammatical criteria criteria used to show the linguistic differences between words of close meaning, and identify the problems that stand in the absence of the effectiveness of these criteria when The application, and ended with practical recommendations for the optimal investment of grammar standards.

STYLISTICALLY MARKED VERBS FROM THE DOMAIN OF HUMAN SPEAKING ACTIVITY IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN AND SERBIAN

the paper we present negatively marked verbs denoting speech based on material from Russian and Serbian languages. The verbs were excerpted from various descriptive and specialized dictionaries and illustrative examples of their use in context were taken mostly from Russian and Serbian electronic corpora. A general characteristic of the verbs discussed is the denotation of the speaking activity of human beings. However, speaking activity does not need to be their primary meaning because verbs have the ability to transpose their semantics into the analyzed domain. It is thereason why we divided the excerpted material into four groups, according to its dominant distinctive semantic features: (1) verbs that have (primarily) negative meaning of speaking activity, (2) verbs that primarily denote animal and/or onomatopoetic sounds, (3) verbs that denote physical change of the objects and (4) the others (with unclear etymology). Theconducted analysis has shown that the list of the verbs observed grows constantly and that it is impossible to give strict numbers of its components. Their main pragmatic characteristics, however, are the usage in the second or the third person of the singular or plural, because the speaker in most cases has the tendency to assess negatively the speech of other people but not his/her own.

Componential analysis of the divine names in scripture translation

ABSTRACT The main aim of this paper is use Componential Analysis to identify the basic components of a number of divine names to understand their meanings in the heavenly scriptures to render their meanings accurately. The divine names selected for this study are either of similar phonological structure or semantic components in the three faiths. However, they may be understood and/or translated differently as evident in the various translations of the Bible and the Qur’an. The distinctive semantic features of each divine name in each scripture are identified using Componential Analysis techniques. Then, they are compared to highlight any lexical gap as well as all similar/dissimilar semantic constituents of each name in order to find a robust method of translating very important fundamental elements in all religions, God’s names.

인지문법에 근거한 스페인어 중성어 lo의 변별적 의미 자질 분석

인지문법에 근거한 스페인어 중성어 lo의 변별적 의미 자질 분석

English Stative Verbs in Context of Aspectual Choice

This paper aims at identifying interrelationship between a semantic feature of stativity with verbal aspectual opposition progressive/non-progressive in English. Beside telicity and duration, stativity is one of the three distinctive semantic features and expresses the existance of some quality in time without investing any energy, therefore it represents situations without dynamic segments. The procedure of creating aspectual verbal possibilities in English is based both on semantic and syntactic grounds so this paper also applies selectional restrictions that stative verbs impose when choosing aspectual form. Therefore, this paper establishes and analyses the correlation between stativity and aspectual verbal opposition on the corpus excerpted from the modern English novel.

Підготовленість фахівця до професійної рефлексії у діяльності як параметр його конкурентоздатності

The article draws special attention to some aspects of the phenomenology of professional reflection in compliance with the personality-centred professional target of the teacher in modern society. It is noted that professional reflection, as a psychological and pedagogical phenomenon, is in the focus of scientists’ explorative search, which caused the appearance of diverse interpretations and approaches to its definition and study. The expediency of comprehending a student’s capability for professional reflection as a system-forming factor of competitiveness within the personality-centred professional dimension has been substantiated. Some common and distinct semantic features of the concepts “competitiveness” and “competitiveness” have been emphasized. Some markers, in the aspect of which, in the researcher’s opinion, it is expedient to comprehend the influence of professional reflection on the competitiveness of the teacher representing a new generation (intersection with the phenomenon “pedagogical abilities”; functional purpose in the construct “pedagogical professionalism”; a natural property for double “mutual mirror reflection”) have been substantiated. The exclusive role of the educational process in the modern higher school dealing with the formation of reflection as a student’s personality-centred professional quality has been highlighted. The relevance of the implementation of innovative foreign practices into the native educational sphere has been noted; in particular, according to the parameters allowing the creation of the innovation and educational environment, the online platform for education and career development of higher education applicants, organizational-methodical prerequisites aimed at stimulating self-development of students’ professional reflection. Keywords: reflection, professional reflection, future specialist, competitiveness.

Would a bird by any other name sing as sweet?

Ample material for a lexicological and terminological study is provided by over ten thousand species of birds, many with multiple local names. Some of them follow the scientific name, while more creative ones put forward different characteristics of a bird, e.g. Sylvia melanocephala ‘black-headed wood-dweller’ vs fauvette mélanocéphale ‘black-headed warbler’ vs pěnice bělohrdlá ‘white-throated warbler’ vs occhiocotto ‘cooked eye’ vs Sardinian warbler, etc. This onomasiological diversity makes one wonder how bird names are created in different languages, what morphological structures are resorted to, and what semantic features are included in different names of the same bird. Such questions have already been discussed in terminology as far as concepts or artefacts are concerned. This paper compares the names for Sylvia atricapilla and Sylvia melanocephala in some thirty languages, using a combination of intra- and cross-linguistic methods and assembling the two “arch-concepts”. The study points out the specificity of bird names, between linguistic signs, scientific terms and proper nouns or nicknames. The underlying denomination principle consists in selecting a limited number of salient but distinctive semantic features, i.e. characteristics of the bird, and attributing them the corresponding lexical items: nouns, adjectives, suffixes or combining forms.

Learning in complex, multi-component cognitive systems: Different learning challenges within the same system.

Using word learning as an example of a complex system, we investigated how differences in the structure of the subcomponents in which learning occurs can have significant consequences for the challenge of integrating new information within such systems. Learning a new word involves integrating information into the two key stages/subcomponents of processing within the word production system. In the first stage, multiple semantic features are mapped onto a single word. Conversely, in the second stage, a single word is mapped onto multiple segmental features. We tested whether the unitary goal of word learning leads to different local outcomes in these two stages because of their reversed mapping patterns. Neurotypical individuals (N = 17) learned names and semantic features for pictures of unfamiliar objects presented in semantically related, segmentally related and unrelated blocks. Both similarity types interfered with word learning. However, feature learning was differentially affected within the two subcomponents of word production. Semantic similarity facilitated learning distinctive semantic features (i.e., features unique to each item), whereas segmental similarity facilitated learning shared segmental features (i.e., features common to several items in a block). These results are compatible with an incremental learning model in which learning not only strengthens certain associations but also weakens others according to the local goals of each subcomponent. More generally, they demonstrate that the same overall learning goal can lead to opposite learning outcomes in the subcomponents of a complex system. The general principles uncovered may extend beyond word learning to other complex systems with multiple subcomponents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Modified semantic feature analysis for anomia: a single case study

ABSTRACTSemantic feature analysis (SFA) is a treatment approach designed for patients with lexical retrieval difficulty caused by semantic deficits. During training, a structured framework (e.g. requiring the patient to name the category, function, and colour of the target items) is usually provided to facilitate the patient in thinking of the semantic features of the target items. Nevertheless, the use of a structured framework potentially limits the variety of semantic features activated for lexical retrieval. This study investigated the effectiveness of modified SFA training to address this potential limitation. An odd-man-out task was carried out in the modified SFA training with an anomic patient with impaired access to the phonological output lexicon. The task aimed to encourage a detailed comparison of semantic features among items in the same category. It is hypothesized that activations of more distinctive semantic features belonging to the target items will result in greater extent of generalizations in the lexical processing. The patient’s abilities in naming semantic features at the beginning and at the end of each treatment session were compared. Besides, accuracy and error patterns in oral and written naming in the initial and post-treatment assessment were also compared. The results showed a significant increase in the number of semantic features retrieved within treatment sessions. Moreover, a significant improvement in oral picture naming was also observed subsequent to the modified SFA training. Finally, the results of the error analyses further supported that the modified SFA was effective in promoting overall lexical processing. The findings indicated that both quantity and distinctiveness of concepts activated in the semantic system are essential to effective lexical retrieval. Theoretical and clinical implications were also discussed.

The Neural Representations of Movement across Semantic Categories.

Previous evidence from neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies suggests functional specialization for tools and related semantic knowledge in a left frontoparietal network. It is still debated whether these areas are involved in the representation of rudimentary movement-relevant knowledge regardless of semantic domains (animate vs. inanimate) or categories (tools vs. nontool objects). Here, we used fMRI to record brain activity while 13 volunteers performed two semantic judgment tasks on visually presented items from three different categories: animals, tools, and nontool objects. Participants had to judge two distinct semantic features: whether two items typically move in a similar way (e.g., a fan and a windmill move in circular motion) or whether they are usually found in the same environment (e.g., a seesaw and a swing are found in a playground). We investigated differences in overall activation (which areas are involved) as well as representational content (which information is encoded) across semantic features and categories. Results of voxel-wise mass univariate analysis showed that, regardless of semantic category, a dissociation emerges between processing information on prototypical location (involving the anterior temporal cortex and the angular gyrus) and movement (linked to left inferior parietal and frontal activation). Multivoxel pattern correlation analyses confirmed the representational segregation of networks encoding task- and category-related aspects of semantic processing. Taken together, these findings suggest that the left frontoparietal network is recruited to process movement properties of items (including both biological and nonbiological motion) regardless of their semantic category.

Значение и употребление слов доброволец и волонтер в русском языке (по данным Национального корпуса русского языка)

The observations on the meaning and use of the words dobrovolets and volunteer in the Russian language in different historical periods in legal and non-legal contexts are presented in the article. It is shown that if in the language of documents these words act today as absolute synonyms, then in a non-terminological context they differ from each other by the components of lexical meanings, which must be determined to clarify the use of these lexical units in speech. The relevance of addressing the stated pair of words is due to a question that arises, for example, to reporters: in which case it is better to use the word dobrovolets , and in which - volunteer . To solve this problem, an attempt was made to highlight the history of the formation and development of the semantic structure of the words dobrovolets and volunteer, as well as to identify and describe the distinctive semantic features of the considered lexemes in modern Russian language. The study is carried out mainly on the basis of the Russian National Corpus. Using frequency diagrams of the use of words at different time intervals, on the thematic sections of the texts in which they are found, according to their compatibility with adjectives, the author describes the semantic differences of the lexical units of dobrovolets and volunteer .

Distinctive semantic features in the healthy adult brain.

The role of semantic features, which are distinctive (e.g., a zebra's stripes) or shared (e.g. has four legs) for accessing a concept, has been studied in detail in early neurodegenerative disease such as semantic dementia (SD). However, potential neural underpinnings of such processing have not been studied in healthy adults. The current study examines neural activation patterns using fMRI while participants completed a feature verification task, in which they identified shared or distinctive semantic features for a set of natural kinds and man-made artifacts. The results showed that the anterior temporal lobe bilaterally is an important area for processing distinctive features, and that this effect is stronger within natural kinds than man-made artifacts. These findings provide converging evidence from healthy adults that is consistent with SD research, and support a model of semantic memory in which patterns of specificity of semantic information can partially explain differences in neural activation between categories.

Семантические характеристики речевых формул извинения в английском языке

The semantic characteristics of speech formulas of apology in the English language are considered. The article presents the results of seme analysis, with the help of which dictionary entries of verbs and adjectives, which form the basis of verbal formulas of apology, are investigated. Distinctive semantic features of each speech formula are established. The research urgency is caused by necessity of revealing the semantic framework in the study of linguistic and semiotic characteristics of the considered speech formulas of apology. The novelty of the study is seen in the fact that by the date, a detailed analysis of the semantic characteristics of these speech formulas has not been carried out. There are differences in the semantics of the verbal formulas of apology in the English language: an apology with the word sorry is neutral, and it is the main way of expressing apology; the apology with the verb to excuse is given for the negative action; the apology from the verb to forgive is given for the negative state; the apology with the verb to apologise/ze additionally includes such semes as ‘official’ and ‘emphatic’; the apology with the verb regret includes semes of ‘regret’ and ‘formality’; the apology with the speech formula of I’m afraid includes seme ‘courtesy’ and is used to mitigate the subsequent unfavourable message. Functions in which the studied formulas can be used are revealed.

“Subject-predicate predicate sentences” in modern Mandarin Chinese: A Cardiff Grammar approach

AbstractThis study investigates “subject-predicate predicate sentences” (“S-P P sentences”) in modern Mandarin Chinese from a Cardiff Grammar approach with the aim of answering three main questions: (i) What is/are the functional syntactic structure(s) of the sentences to be considered in the study? (ii) What is/are the semantic motivation(s) for the structure(s)? (iii) What is/are the contextual constraints on the structure(s)? The study is guided by three basic principles: (a) language is multifunctional; (b) meaning is primary while form is the realization of meaning; and (c) different strands of meaning are realized by a single syntactic structure. Further, the study utilizes the concepts of Theme and Subject within the Cardiff Grammar in order to analyze and discuss the generally acknowledged seven types of “S-P P sentences”. The results show that only one type is truly S-P P and another type only in one sense, whereas no other types can be categorized as such. All the syntactic structures are conditioned by a different set of distinctive semantic features and contextual factors.

Bewertung durch Adjektive. Ansätze einer korpusgestützten Untersuchung zur Synonymie

This paper discusses issues of lexical synonymy. Two German adjectives with the core meaning ›very good‹ are in focus: vorzuglich and vortrefflich. Our empirical data is taken from the Leipzig Corpora Collection. According to the »classical« view, near-synonyms differ from each other semantically. Hence the aim of synonym analysis is to arrive at definitions by finding out distinctive semantic features. We show that near-synonyms can possess individual combinatorial properties without clear semantic distinctions. Combinatorial preferences or restrictions often go back to usage based co-occurrences. The semantic class of co-occurrence partners is also an important factor. Furthermore, combinatorial preferences can go back to affinity with certain thematic domains, discursive practices, stylistic registers etc.