Textual Environments Research Articles

STFGCN: Spatial–temporal fusion graph convolutional network for traffic prediction

Accurate traffic prediction plays a crucial role in improving traffic conditions and optimizing road utilization. Effectively capturing the multi-scale temporal dependencies and dynamic spatial dependencies is crucial for accurate traffic prediction. These features can effectively reflect complex dynamic spatial–temporal processes, which have not been comprehensively addressed in most existing research work. Motivated by this issue, the primary contribution of this paper lies in proposing a novel Spatial–Temporal Fusion Graph Neural Network (STFGCN) for accurate traffic prediction, achieved by extracting multi-scale temporal dependencies from multiple semantic environments and constructing a dynamic adaptive graph to model spatial dependencies based on temporal characteristics. Specifically, to capture the multi-scale dynamic temporal dependencies effectively, a Multi-Scale Fusion Convolution (MSFC) module is designed, in which the temporal dependencies are extracted from multiple textual environments by utilizing multi-scale convolution. In order to model dynamic spatial dependencies, a Spatial Adaptive Fusion Convolution (SAFC) module is designed by combining the recent coherence and periodicity to infer dynamic graphs, which are then fused to model dynamic spatial dependencies. Extensive experimental results on five real-world datasets demonstrate that the proposed STFGCN has superior performance. Specifically, compared with the state-of-the-art baselines, STFGCN reduced 1.2% to 16.4% in RMSE measure.

“Anti-Texture” Agents in the Written English Essays of Students in a Ghanaian University

Texture proves to be a key indicator for measuring the quality of a text but establishing this text quality is a challenge for most English as a Second Language (ESL) students. This challenge has led to an array of studies to find the root cause(s) of this/these writing challenge(s) of ESL students. Despite these numerous studies, there is still paucity of research on “anti-texture” agents in the written English essays of students from the Ghanaian context, especially those at the tertiary level. In filling this gap, this study uses Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) cohesive theory as a framework to explore the types of cohesive errors that serve as “anti-texture” agents in 150 written English essays of students from a Ghanaian university. Because of the highly descriptive nature of this current investigation, it uses the qualitative content analysis as its design. The findings show that challenges like unclear pronoun references, wrong selection of cohesive devices, over usages of one cohesive device within the same textual environments, wider textual distances between references and their referents, the omission of cohesive devices, wrong insertions of cohesive devices and references lacking referents served as barriers to ESL students quest to use cohesive devices as means of creating texture in their texts. The findings further confirmed that the inappropriate use of cohesive devices in the students’ essays disrupted the free flow of information and as such, rendered the essays incoherent. The study has pedagogical implication for ESL academic writing instructors and curriculum developers.

The Basics of General Financial Science by Antun Ferdinand Albely

This paper aims to present interpretations and modifications of the early 19th century legal and economic knowledge within A. F. Albely's The Basics of General Financial Science, a textbook which focuses on the aspect of public finances. Referencing his own work to other authors in this academic field, Albely participated in a disciplinary discourse which served as a hub for circulation of ideas. This paper's primary concern is revealing the sources of Albely's legal and economic knowledge and noticing modifications which occured in ideas between different texts. Digital text analysis, accessed at the web-available platform Voyant tools, will prove to be an important heuristic asset, as it will disclose textual environments of ideas appearing in the analysed texts. This approach will enable new interpretative possibilities in the investigative field of knowledge circulation, as it will employ results of digital text analysis in order to discern Albely's intellectual influences and give insight into an idea modification process.

Strategy for learning microcontroller programming—a graphical or a textual start?

Microcontroller programming competencies contribute to the sustainable employability of engineering graduates of both higher and secondary education. To develop the required programming skills, one of the challenges for educators is to determine which programming environments should be implemented in introductory programming courses. Conceptually, graphical (e.g. iconic or diagrammatic) environments appear to be very different from textual environments. Our study focused on a programming course in a mechatronics vocational training programme at the secondary school level in Slovenia. To investigate the expectations of potential employers towards our graduates, we surveyed local companies. Out of 104 respondents, 90 (86.5%) expected graduates to be able to use various programming environments, including upcoming ones. In our study, we divided 114 students into two groups of equal prior knowledge. Group A started the course with a textual programming environment and switched to a graphical one in the second sequence, while group B followed a reverse sequence. Group A achieved better test results after both sequences. Knowledge transfer, as measured by normalised learning gains, was also in favour of group A. We concluded that it is more efficient to start with the textual environment and then continue with the graphical environment. The results of this study open up some challenges for further research to investigate the effectiveness of introductory programming courses based on programmable electronics with students of similar ages. Further research should consider the specific requirements of the different courses but should also the effectiveness of knowledge transfer between different programming environments.

<em>Roblox</em> and Meta Verch

<em>Roblox</em> and Meta Verch

Following the Steps of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ in the Ottoman World. II: ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī and His tashjīr Diagrams of Science

In various places of his extensive production the fifteenth-century littérateur and occultist ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī (d. 858/1454) presents a classification of the sciences in the form of a tree. In this paper we discuss four variants of this ‘tashjīr’ representation from four different works of al-Bisṭāmī as they have come down to us in manuscripts. We compare these diagrams with one another, discuss their respective textual environments, and bring al-Bisṭāmī’s arboreal representations in line with the classification of the sciences of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’, their obvious source. By putting this tashjīr representation side by side with other examples of tree-shaped science classifications inside and outside the Islamic world, we seek to better assess al-Bisṭāmī’s original contribution in turning the Ikhwān’s system of organizing knowledge into a tree-shaped diagram.

The verb-initial independent declarative clauses on which the most complete witnesses to the Old English Bede disagree

ABSTRACT The article examines the verb-initial independent declarative clauses with overt subjects (V1) in the Old English Bede on which the most complete witnesses disagree. It identifies the syntactic and textual environments in which the V1 clauses are altered or omitted and the types of changes they undergo. The article demonstrates that the majority of the alterations and omissions are recorded in the later manuscripts B and Ca. Most of them reflect the change to the V2 and V3 word order and the rise of the þa VS clauses in the V1 textual environments (e.g. reported discourse). Besides these widely attested developments in syntax and textual organisation, the corpus also exhibits the alterations that can be attributed to the individual scribes who modify or omit the V1 clauses to align the Old English translation with the Latin, eliminate asyndetic parataxis, homogenise the style, and streamline the narrative. The variants and scribal interventions uncovered by the present inquiry not only help form a more complete picture of the transmission and uses of the manuscripts of the Old English Bede but also contribute to the diachronic and synchronic study of the Old English language and style.

The development of temporal-spatial meaning in personal recounts of beginning L2 writers of German

Personal recounts represent a core narrative genre that novice L2 learners typically encounter when learning about everyday experiences in the target culture. Expressing a “journey of significance” (Rothery & Stenglin, 1997, p. 248) through a succession of well-defined events, recounts are ideal textual environments for beginning learners to practice verb forms and cohesive devices (e.g., Abdel-Malek, 2019). A key feature of recounts are temporal-spatial circumstantial meanings, often realized lexico-grammatically through adverbial and prepositional phrases that guide movement through a sequence of habitual actions and reported happenings. While circumstances enhance (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004) recounts by providing additional details to situate events, L2 learners sometimes avoid producing these meanings (Gleason, 2014).Adopting an Integrated Performance Assessment (Adair-Hauck, Glisan, & Troyan, 2013) and genre-based approach (Martin, 2009; Martin & Rose, 2008), this study explores how collegiate beginning L2 learners of German develop their ability to write stories of travel experiences. Data come from two second-semester German classes in fall 2019 (n = 10). Pre- and post-tests of learners’ written recounts of their own vacation experiences provide information about learners’ developing facility with the genre, including the ability to produce temporal-spatial meaning discursively. Implications for supporting and evaluating beginning L2 learners’ narrative writing within Integrated Performance Assessments are offered.

Apple Varietal Names as Culturemes: Translation Issues in Scientific Textual Environments

Abstract In this study, our purpose is to establish a link between the concept of cultureme and a very intriguing type of specialized discourse: scientific texts belonging to the field of pomology (horticultural sciences). At least a segment of apple (and other fruit) varietal or cultivar names (especially those restricted to a certain geographical and cultural area or region) can be considered from a linguistic and translational viewpoint lexemes which carry cultural meaning. In our research, we focus on the apple varietal names which are specific to the region of Transylvania. We intend to see the way Romanian specialized literature observes or flouts the mentioning of Hungarian terms related to pomology (i.e. apple varietal names which are culturemes) as synonyms of the currently promoted Romanian versions. We also examine whether Hungarian specialists tend to mention the Romanian versions of Hungarian apple varietal names in their works. In fact, this research is, to a certain degree, an analysis of the attitude specialists display with regard to the scientific terminology and the long-established terms of the proximal culture.

A Turn in the Road of Media Studies

Abstract Whether in the form of Google searches, interactive games, or responsive textual environments, the reassuring subject-object binary so fundamental to the modern era's representation systems is fast slipping away. In its place, a recursive epistemological order that actively parses the subject and shapes the textual world is fast emerging, posing challenges to established notions of agency and to narrative as a cultural operating system. Assessments of the terms and implications of this shift will benefit from the distinctive analytic perspective that distinguishes the Nordic from many of its Anglo-American and European peers.

Augmented Reality in the Integrative Internet of Things (AR-IoT): Application for Precision Farming

Benefitted by the Internet of Things (IoT), visualization capabilities facilitate the improvement of precision farming, especially in dynamic indoor planting. However, conventional IoT data visualization is usually carried out in offsite and textual environments, i.e., text and number, which do not promote a user’s sensorial perception and interaction. This paper introduces the use of augmented reality (AR) as a support to IoT data visualization, called AR-IoT. The AR-IoT system superimposes IoT data directly onto real-world objects and enhances object interaction. As a case study, this system is applied to crop monitoring. Multi-camera, a non-destructive and low-cost imaging platform of the IoT, is connected to the internet and integrated into the system to measure the three-dimensional (3D) coordinates of objects. The relationships among accuracy, object coordinates, augmented information (e.g., virtual objects), and object interaction are investigated. The proposed system shows a great potential to integrate IoT data with AR resolution, which will effectively contribute to updating precision agricultural techniques in an environmentally sustainable manner.

News events prediction using Markov logic networks

Predicting future events from text data has been a controversial and much disputed topic in the field of text analytics. However, far too little attention has been paid to efficient prediction in textual environments. This study has aimed to develop a novel and efficient method for news event prediction. The proposed method is based on Markov logic networks (MLNs) framework, which enables us to concisely represent complex events by full expressivity of first-order logic (FOL), as well as to reason uncertain event with probabilities. In our framework, we first extract text news events via an event representation model at a semantic level and then transform them into web ontology language (OWL) as a posteriori knowledge. A set of domain-specific causal rules in FOL associated with weights were also fed into the system as a priori (common-sense) knowledge. Additionally, several large-scale ontologies including DBpedia, VerbNet and WordNet were used to model common-sense logic rules as contextual knowledge. Finally, all types of such knowledge were integrated into OWL for performing causal inference. The resulted OWL knowledge base is augmented by MLN, which uses weighted first-order formulas to represent probabilistic knowledge. Empirical evaluation of real news showed that our method of news event prediction was better than the baselines in terms of precision, coverage and diversity.

The effects of textual environment on reading comprehension: Implications for searching as learning

This paper reports on a study of digital reading that investigates the effects of different textual environments on information interaction and comprehension outcomes. While there is a large body of literature that compares print and digital reading, research that compares differently designed digital reading environments is limited. Such work can inform the design of information and search systems intended to support learning. This study investigated the effects of two design dimensions: Text Presentation (Plain Text vs In-Context) and Interactivity (availability of Reading Tools). Results show that the simplest textual environment (Plain Text presentation with no Interactivity) was associated with the highest comprehension outcomes, but that Interactivity mitigated the negative effects of texts presented In-Context. Both time spent reading and certain reading behaviours varied to some extent by condition and may be associated with comprehension; however, personal characteristics of the readers played little to no role in determining outcomes.

Jeffrey Todd Knight Bound to Read: Compilations, Collections, and the Making of Renaissance LiteratureBound to Read: Compilations, Collections, and the Making of Renaissance Literature. Jeffrey Todd Knight. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. Pp. viii+279.

Bound to Read takes collecting itself as a primary focus, positing the interpretative value of the motives for assembling texts in the Renaissance and for preserving early printed books today. For Knight, the material text is, first and foremost, a fluid archive: a record of the complex mingling of textual production and consumption that resists a straightforward teleology. His five ample chapters therefore proceed conceptually rather than chronologically. The first part of the book, on readers, consists of two capacious surveys of Sammelbände and their reception. Chapter 1 explores the slippage between making books and archiving them in case studies of the beginnings of a modern rebinding campaign at Cambridge University Library in the 1790s and of Archbishop Matthew Parker’s library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where original bindings were left largely intact. While the sweep of this chapter is broad, its focus is admirably precise; it uses evidence of idiosyncratic compilations to tease out a history of the book that will startle modern readers with its often digressive, unwieldy, and occasionally destructive textual gatherings. Shakespeare is the more particular subject of chapter 2, in which we encounter the wide-ranging compilations—generic, topical, thematic, authorial, commercial, pragmatic—through which Renaissance readers situated Shakespeare in the context of his own work and that of his contemporaries. Knight here captures the fascinating history of binding both the narrative poems and many plays, offering a breadth that might make scholars yearn, perhaps, for slightly thicker readings of these diverse textual environments, if only to link this compiled Shakespeare to a longer interpretive history.

Donald Barthelme and the Emergence of the Dynamic Page

The dynamic page has emerged as the basis for contemporary reading in an electronic environment. Donald Barthelme's fiction explores many of the narrative issues raised by the dynamic page even before the widespread adoption of electronic textuality and graphical user interfaces, and can help to resolve debates about the agency of writer and reader in electronic textual environments.

JENNI NUTTALL, The Creation of Lancastrian Kingship: Literature, Language, and Politics in Late Medieval England.

THE CREATION OF LANCASTRIAN KINGSHIP is about political language; drawing heavily on the work of J. G. A. Pocock, it focuses on reconstructing ‘textual environments’ of the early fifteenth century. Jenni Nuttall suggests that political languages and paradigms can structure how people think, taking the years following the deposition of Richard II as her case study. Focusing on two aspects of the retrospective depiction of Richard’s reign, she argues that these two paradigms structured texts and discourse in the early years of Lancastrian rule. The two aspects of the portrayal of Richard (in the articles of deposition and elsewhere) in which she is interested are the idea that his household was youthful, tyrannical, and anti-truth-telling, and the claim that his finances were fraudulent and non-reciprocal. The book is divided into two sections which deal with these two aspects: ‘Household Narratives’, and ‘Credit and Love’. Nuttall’s work is deeply interdisciplinary, moving easily between the Parliament Roll, chronicles, and poetry. Texts which are given particular attention include poems such as Richard the Redeless, The Crowned King, Mum and the Sothsegger, and Hoccleve’s writings, and chronicle writing such as Adam Usk’s and the Vita Ricardi Secundi. There are some persuasive and controlled close readings, particularly of Hoccleve’s poetry. Nuttall is an accomplished literary critic and does not attempt to flatten out the differences between diverse kinds of texts. Her argument that the influence of discourses about politics is seen in personal narratives—for example that Hoccleve’s discussion of his own financial mismanagement is indebted to discussions of financial mismanagement which have their root in critiques of Richard’s fraudulent financial practices—are intriguing and well-documented, if ultimately speculative. Nuttall’s analysis tends to be both imaginative in its insights and scholarly in its use of source and context. She shows an understanding of texts in synchronic and in diachronic terms, exploring how an idea functions at its particular historical moment and how ideas develop across time. Nuttall suggests that discourses about Richard are initially used as an explanation of what happened—Henry’s usurpation—but then become narratives of expectation: what the Lancastrian kings should do instead. They thus become ways of holding Henry to account—and indeed of criticizing him, as the discourses initially harnessed by Lancastrian apologists slip out of their control. Nuttall’s understanding of discourse as fluid and ultimately resistant to totalizing tendencies is finely honed and compelling.

“trobled wth a tedious discours”

This study provides close, pragmatically-orientated readings of epistolary manifestations of sincerity, sarcasm and seriousness as expressed in the letters of Maria Thynne to her mother-in-law and to her husband, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. By examining how each mode of expression arose from, and interacted with, its familial and textual environments, these readings discuss the social functions and linguistic implications of Maria’s stylistic repertoire. The study concludes with the suggestion that the letters provide preliminary evidence for the claim that, along with that of sincerity, the Early Modern period may also have been of some significance for the development of sarcasm in English.

Filling the gap in programming instruction

To address the unique demands and challenges of educational computing, various kinds of environments, including graphics-rich and textual environments, have been proposed for use in introductory courses to provide students with a rich and interesting learning environment. In our experience, students in Grade 7 and younger respond best to the graphics environments while senior high school students prefer a conventional textual programming environment. Clearly, this leaves a gap at Grade 11-13, with students often on the one hand finding the graphics-based environments too limited and on the other finding the textual environments too difficult. In this paper, we propose a text-enhanced graphical programming environment which is innovative and interactive, and designed for junior high students with no programming experience. This environment allows students to design their own creative stories or programs. They build their programs using drag-and-drop iconic blocks, but unlike other, similar icon-based programming languages, they are also presented with the syntax of the actual program they are constructing in real-time. Once a particular icon block has been dropped in the programming area, the syntax statements corresponding to that block is immediately generated and presented to the user. The environment also allows them to modify the code without any limitations. Our results show that our textual-graphical hybrid environment has a positive impact on the learning experience of the students.

Computer-Supported Scaffolding of Literacy Development

This study examined the relative efficacy of electronic versus hard-copy textual environments in supporting students' acquisition of vocabulary. Forty-six Grade 5 students were randomly assigned to 4 Aesop's Fables that had been equated in terms of difficulty, with the constraint that each student would read 2 texts in each condition. Scaffolding in the electronic condition was provided by an online monolingual English dictionary while a dictionary from the school library was used in the hard-copy condition. In the electronic condition students could carry out practice exercises (based on cloze procedures) focused on the words they did not know while in the hard-copy condition, students simply wrote down the unknown words and tried to remember their meaning. The 2 conditions were equally effective in supporting students' acquisition of new vocabulary, both with respect to immediate and delayed retention. It is suggested that computer-supported approaches to academic language learning might benefit from a multimodal approach that included paper-and-pencil activities, such as keeping a notebook log of new vocabulary, in addition to any practice exercises carried out on the computer.

Impersonators in the Market: Merchants and the Premodern Nation in the Croxton Play of the Sacrament

This article historicizes the Croxton Play of the Sacrament by investigating its representation of overseas trade as a force deracinating the identities of two merchants, Aristorius and Jonathas. In the fifteenth century, the English economy began transforming from one based primarily on homegrown exports to one based increasingly on exotic imports, spurring overseas merchants to invest in "Englishness" as a reaction to working within this culturally diverse market. Two fifteenth-century texts, The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye and The Commodyties of England, articulate a premodern English nationalism in response to such overseas trafficking. Locating the play within these historical and textual environments uncovers how the bishop's disciplining of both merchants at the play's end expresses a desire to stabilize identity through geographic placement, a desire that idealistically seeks to contain the effects of a market that insistently intermingles native and foreign.