The 1970s brought a change to the face of the television sitcom, particularly with the works of Norman Lear, as comedy began to shift its focus away from portrayals of the ideal nuclear family to more complicated interactions with the outside world. This thesis focuses on All in the Family and the various ways that the series broke ground in its methods of social discourse. The series’ unique representation of working-class domestic life and its various distancing techniques provided a new challenge for sitcom audiences. With other Lear series and the likes of M*A*S*H and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the 1970s television comedy landscape provided platform for socially conscious discourse. However, this period of progressive entertainment declined toward the end of the decade, as series like Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley sought to look backward rather than forward. From the 1980s to the 2000s, with a few exceptions, the focus of the sitcom reverted back to the preservation of idealized domestic and workplace families with the likes of Family Ties and Friends. However, the 2010s bring the promise of new social relevancy in television with series like Black-ish, which negotiate 1970s relevancy with 2010 narrative and aesthetic style, and streaming, non-network programs like Orange is the New Black and Transparent that experiment with genre in new ways.

‘Relevance theory’ is a linguistic theory offering an alternative to the conventional ‘code model’ of communication, by suggesting that inference, rather than coding and decoding, is the primary driving force motivating interpretation. In this thesis, I consider the implications for literary criticism of the relevance theory account of communication, particularly in relation to metaphor, as an enduring concern of both linguistics and literary studies. The thesis focuses on three temporally disparate authors – Shakespeare, Dickinson and Heaney – whose work, analyzed by linguists as well as literary critics, is abundant in metaphor, but might prompt us to think about literary communication in different ways. The Introduction considers the coincidence of the central terms of relevance theory (context, interpretation, inference, intention) with many of the fundamental concerns of literary criticism. Chapter One examines various accounts of metaphor, historical and recent, by literary critics, philosophers and linguists, before offering a brief introduction to relevance theory’s ‘deflationary’ account of metaphor and its implications for literary critical analysis. Chapter Two looks at plays by Shakespeare that are as much concerned with communication as they are representations of it, and considers how relevance theory’s account of the cognitive process of developing new interpretations on the spot, in context, based on expectations of relevance, challenges any straightforward sense of what textual metaphors ‘mean’. Chapter Three explores the striking prominence of the term ‘inference’, fundamental to the relevance theory account of communication, in Dickinson’s poetry. Whilst Dickinson’s ‘definitional’, ‘X is Y’ metaphors appear to facilitate a bridging of the gap between abstractions and the concrete world linguistically, her dependence on inference exposes the bleak uncertainty of that which can only be inferred, whilst nonetheless forging a communicative bond between the poet writing and her multiple audiences. Chapter Four analyzes different figurative forms in Heaney’s poetry, and looks particularly at the relationship between metaphor and simile in light of the relevance theory account. Critical analyses of Heaney’s work often attribute political significance to what are assumed to be metaphors within his poetry, without considering the role played by (perhaps unconscious) interpretative expectations of the kind relevance theory would predict; taking local linguistic context more thoroughly into account might offer a very different perspective on what Heaney is ‘saying’. In conclusion, I review Lakoff and Johnson’s profoundly influential ‘conceptual metaphor theory’ (CMT), and propose that relevance theory’s linguistically-driven account of metaphor in communication needs elements of ‘conceptual’ accounts such as CMT which describe metaphor as a matter of thought as well as language. Metaphor is a tremendously powerful communicative tool, but one to which literary critical analysis cannot do justice without a functioning theory of communication such as that offered by relevance theory.

A relevância da informação contábil está na capacidade de uma informação fazer a diferença na tomada de decisão dos usuários da contabilidade, em razão da alteração de suas expectativas quanto ao desempenho das entidades. Os investidores e credores tomam suas decisões fundamentadas na contabilidade com um objetivo em comum: o provimento de capital. Nesse contexto, as decisões desses usuários são a negociação de ativos ou ações das empresas pelos investidores, refletida nos movimentos do preço das ações, e a concessão de crédito às empresas pelos credores, refletida no financiamento obtido pelas empresas tomadoras de crédito. Os mecanismos de proteção adotados por esses usuários (BURKART; GROMB; PANUZI AL, 1997; STRAHAN, 1999; BEBCHUK; KRAAKMAN; TRIANTIS, 2000; NIKOLAEV, 2010; ARMSTRONG; GUAY; WEBER, 2010) e suas diferentes necessidades informacionais (HEALY; PAPELU, 2001; BALL; ROBIN; SADKA, 2008; PEEK; CUIJPERS; BUIJINK, 2010), assim como a função intrínseca dos modelos de VR (value relevance) e CR (credit relevance) trouxe a premissa de que as informações contábeis utilizadas por esses dois agentes econômicos são diferentes em suas decisões de provimento de capital. Os dados contábeis relevantes são em grande parte evidenciados para os investidores nos estudos de VR (DEVALLE; ONALLI; MAGARINI, 2010; CLARKSON et al., 2011; TSALAVOUTAS; DIONYSIOU, 2014; BARTH et al, 2014; CLOULT; FALTA; WILLETT, 2016). No entanto, há poucas evidências a respeito da relevância contábil para os credores (HOLTHAUSEN; WATTS, 2001; FLOROU; KOSI, 2015), sendo que o mercado de crédito corresponde a uma fonte de recursos substancial para as empresas (BEIRUTH, 2015; BEIRUTH et al., 2017). Os estudos de CR (HANN; LU; SUBRAMANYAM, 2007; KOSI; POPE; FLOROU, 2010; WU; ZHANG, 2014) atestaram que as informações contábeis úteis para a estimativa do risco de crédito são relevantes para os credores e impactam a decisão dos analistas de agências de classificação de risco. Assim, a partir da premissa subjacente de que as informações contábeis para credores e investidores são diferentes, o objetivo geral da pesquisa foi verificar se as informações contábeis relevantes são diferentes para os credores e para os investidores em suas decisões de provimento de capital. Os objetivos específicos foram identificar se as informações contábeis são menos relevantes para os credores por empréstimos na condição de maior risco informacional (menor enforcement) e se são mais relevantes nas situações de maior risco de crédito (maior alavancagem e baixa classificação dos ratings de crédito). A análise contemplou as empresas de 25 países no período de 2010 a 2015, com a aplicação do modelo de VR e do modelo proposto para o credor por empréstimo (VCR). Os resultados indicaram que todas as informações foram relevantes para os investidores, porém nem todas foram relevantes para os credores. Esta evidência significa que os modelos de decisão desses dois grupos de usuários são diferentes entre si. Na decisão do credor para o provimento de capital, as informações contábeis foram menos relevantes na condição de risco informacional, enquanto, nas condições de maior risco de crédito, essas informações foram mais relevantes. / The relevance of accounting information lies in the ability of information affecting the decision-making of accounting users, due to the change of their expectations for the performance of entities. Investors and creditors make their decisions based on accounting with one common goal: the provision of capital. In this context, decisions of these users are the trading of companies\' assets or shares by investors, reflected in the stock price movements, and the granting of credit to the companies by creditors, reflected in the financing obtained by borrowers. Protection mechanisms adopted by these users (BURKART; GROMB; PANUZI AL, 1997; STRAHAN, 1999; BEBCHUK; KRAAKMAN; TRIANTIS, 2000; NIKOLAEV, 2010; ARMSTRONG; GUAY; WEBER, 2010) and their differing informational requirements (HEALY; PAPELU, 2001; BALL; ROBIN; SADKA, 2008; PEEK; CUIJPERS; BUIJINK, 2010), as well as the intrinsic function of VR models (value relevance) and CR models (credit relevance) brought the premise that accounting information used by these two economic agents are different in their decisions of capital provision. The relevant accounting data are largely highlighted for investors in the studies of VR (DEVALLE; ONALLI; MAGARINI, 2010; CLARKSON ET AL, 2011; TSALAVOUTAS; DIONYSIOU, 2014; BARTH et al., 2014; CLOULT; WILLETT, 2016). However, there is little evidence regarding accounting relevance for creditors (HOLTHAUSEN; WATTS, 2001; FLOROU; KOSI, 2015), since the credit market corresponds to a source of substantial resources for businesses (BEIRUTH, 2015; BEIRUTH et al., 2017). CR studies (HANN; LU; SUBRAMANYAM, 2007; KOSI; POPE; FLOROU, 2010; WU; ZHANG, 2014) attested that useful accounting information for the estimation of credit risk are relevant for creditors and impact the decision of the analysts of credit rating agencies. So, from the underlying premise that accounting information to creditors and investors are different, the general objective of this research was to verify if relevant accounting information is different for creditors and investors in their provision of capital decisions. The specific objectives were to identify whether accounting information are less relevant for creditors by loans in higher-risk informational condition (lowest enforcement) and if they are more relevant in situations of higher credit risk (greater leverage and low ranking of credit ratings). The analysis included companies from 25 countries in the period from 2010 to 2015, with the application of the VR model and of the proposed model to the creditor by loan (VCR). The results indicated that all information were relevant for investors, although not all were relevant for creditors. This evidence means that the decision models for these two groups are different from each other. In the creditor\'s decision of credit granting, accounting information were less relevant under informational risk condition, while under higher credit risk this information were more relevant.

Directors' remuneration has long attracted a great deal of attention from financial economists and academics due to its strategic role as a remedy to control agency problems. The key issue is the conflict between directors and shareholders on whether the remuneration is designed to maximise shareholders' value or to favour directors, who run the company on behalf of the investors. However, the conflict can never be detected when the disclosure of remuneration is not transparent. The study was conducted in Malaysia which provides a distinctive research setting different from other developing countries because Malaysia has a disclosure exercise that is still far below best practice as well as a unique Malaysian cultural and institutional environment. Thus, the unusual combination of politics (government) dominated by Malays and business dominated by the minority Chinese provides an interesting background to explore the determinants and consequences of directors' remuneration disclosure. This study's novelty stands on the exploration of ownership structure and board diversity in determining directors' remuneration disclosure, as well as the impact of disclosure towards firm value. The first chapter investigates the association between ownership structure and directors' remuneration disclosure. A significant and negative association is noted between family ownership and remuneration disclosure, suggesting that the traditional family control in Malaysia continue to be dominating outweighing the necessity of public disclosure. Moreover, this study encountered a non-linear relationship between government ownership and remuneration disclosure, indicating that the disclosure of directors' remuneration is positive up to a certain level of government ownership but reduces as government ownership increases. Evidently, directors in government-owned companies are being extra vigilant in disclosing their remuneration due to the political and personal security reasons, particularly post the 12th general election of Malaysia in 2008 that witnessed the government lose its two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time after 40 years. The second chapter examines how board diversity influences disclosure. The study found that only age diversity is significantly and negatively associated with directors' remuneration disclosure, supporting the age stereotype that characterised old directors who are wise and wisdom. Hence, the adverse disclosure behaviour can be explained by their ability to credibly withhold voluntary information and strategically disclose mandatory information on remuneration. Contrary to prior studies, this study found that ethnic diversity does not have a significant influence on directors' remuneration disclosure possibly due to the equal number of Malay and non-Malay directors on board throughout the period under review. Interestingly, cultural convergence is also known to be a contributing factor as both ethnics exercise their belief in determining the level of strategic remuneration disclosure. In line with upper echelon theory, the presence of female directors is found to be an insignificant determinant of remuneration disclosure possibly due to their risk-averse personality in the high-risk disclosure area. The third chapter aims to assess the extent to which directors' remuneration disclosure reflects information that is relevant to firm value. By using Tobin's Q, this chapter shows that directors' remuneration disclosure is value relevant in both financial and non-financial sectors among the FTSE30 companies. The finding implies that the market highly values directors' remuneration disclosure as it signals board transparency and provides a window to overall governance quality of an organisation. This chapter proposes that commitment to directors' remuneration disclosure has potential benefits that outweigh the risk of disclosing within the Malaysian context. Furthermore, this chapter explicitly addresses and justifies the potential endogeneity problem that has been ignored by typical accounting studies. Using the two-stage least squares (2SLS) technique to control for the endogeneity of voluntary remuneration disclosure in assessing its impact on firm value, findings from the robustness analysis carried out suggest that the empirical results reported are robust to potential endogeneity problems. Finally, this study provides two practical implications. First, it provides a disclosure incentive for directors to make better remuneration disclosure in the annual report. Despite that there is evidence of hesitancy to disclose due to the political volatility in Malaysia subsequent to the 12th general election in 2008, the market significantly values directors' remuneration disclosure as it signals good governance practice by the company as well as great reputation portrayed by the board members. More specifically, this study encourages disclosure on directors' remuneration as it positively affects firm value, in both financial and non-financial sectors. Secondly, this study offers essential guidelines for companies in determining the board composition. It suggests that a distinctive personality of each director can be a competitive advantage of a firm when it is properly transformed to make it congruent with the firm's objective, in achieving maximum efficiency of decision-making. While age diversity is found to be significantly associated with directors' remuneration disclosure, the remaining board diversity dimensions such as gender, and ethnicity are also significant in a condition when it is critically analysed using the upper echelon theory within the context of Malaysia. Overall, the study indicates the need to incorporate a diversified composition of the top decision-makers in deciding a strategic remuneration disclosure.

Esta dissertação consiste em um estudo sobre os efeitos de sentido causados pelas obras literárias sob a ótica da semiótica greimasiana. O corpus analisado mais detidamente é a obra Anatomia de um romance, de Javier Cercas; também são analisados para comparação parte das obras 23-F: El golpe del Cesid, de Jesús Palacios, e Os três mosqueteiros, de Alexandre Dumas. Começando por uma reflexão sobre o objeto literário a partir do ponto de vista de uma metalinguagem não-científica, criou-se uma ponte entre a metalinguagem nãocientífica e a metalinguagem científica da semiótica greimasiana, tendo como base os conceitos desenvolvidos nos dois dicionários de semiótica. Os conceitos foram complementados pelo desenvolvimento de uma linha recente da semiótica, os níveis de pertinência. O corpus foi analisado conforme os níveis de pertinência, principalmente os níveis do texto enunciado, objeto, prática e estratégia. O efeito de sentido literário será considerado como dependente de diferentes níveis de pertinência e de forma gradual, podendo uma obra se estabelecer como mais ou menos literária dentro de um continuum. / This dissertation is a study on the effects of meaning caused by literary works from the perspective of greimasian semiotics. The corpus analyzed more closely Anatomia de um instante by Javier Cercas; They are also analyzed for comparison of the works 23-F: El golpe del CESID, Jesús Palacios, and The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. Starting with a reflection on the literary object from the point of view of an unscientific meta-language, it created a bridge between the non-scientific metalanguage and the scientific metalanguage of greimasian semiotics, based on the concepts developed in the two dictionaries semiotics. The concepts were complemented by the development of a new line of semiotics, the relevance levels. The corpus was analyzed according to the relevance levels, especially text, object, practice and strategy. The literary meaning effect will be considered as dependent on different levels of relevance and gradually, can a work be established as more or less literary within a continuum.

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) issued International Financial Reporting Standard No. 7 (IFRS 7) “Financial Instruments: Disclosure” in June 2006 as part of its ongoing refinement of existing financial instruments accounting standards. The new standard became effective for periods beginning on or after January 1st 2007 (IASB, 2006). IFRS 7 supersedes the previous International Accounting Standards (IASs): IAS 30/32. IFRS 7 states that information about Financial Instruments (FI) should be prepared in accordance with the management approach. In addition, the standard clarifies the disclosure requirements about FIs across all industries. In particular, the new standard consists of two main types of disclosures, namely: (i) discussion of the significance of FIs for an entity’s financial position and performance; and (ii) the provision of qualitative and quantitative information about exposure to risks arising from FIs based on information provided internally to the entity’s key management personnel. The current thesis uses a decision usefulness theoretical framework to examine the impact of IFRS 7’s adoption on FI disclosure practices and firm value. In particular, the current study has two primary objectives: (i) to assess the impact of IFRS 7 on the FI disclosure policies of Jordanian listed firms in their annual reports for 2007 when the standard became effective; and (ii) to examine the value relevance of FI disclosures. For these objectives, two pieces of empirical work were conducted respectively; a disclosure index technique was constructed and a valuation analysis was performed. A disclosure index analysis was undertaken for a sample of Jordanian listed companies’ annual reports pre- and post- the implementation of IFRS 7. The extant literature and the findings from the disclosure index analysis informed the second part of the empirical work: the valuation analysis. Value relevance analysis was employed in order to assess the usefulness of FI disclosures provided in the companies’ financial statements; indeed, the association between the level of information supplied and firms’ market values was examined. The main findings indicate that the implementation of IFRS 7 had a significant and sizeable impact on the FI disclosure practices of Jordanian companies in 2007 as compared to that provided under International Accounting Standard No. 30 (IAS 30): Disclosures in Financial Statements of Banks and Similar Financial Institutions and International Accounting Standard No. 32 (IAS 32): FIs: Presentation. In particular, the results revealed that the number of companies disclosing information about FIs as well as the level of FI information provided significantly increased after IFRS 7 was implemented. In addition, the analysis of FI disclosure by industry revealed that comparability of financial statement data within and across the sectors examined has improved. In particular, an analysis of Balance Sheet and Fair Value information about FIs revealed no significant differences within and across industries after IFRS 7 became effective. The findings from the valuation analysis revealed that FI disclosure was value relevant over the two periods. However, the regression analysis showed that the FI disclosure provided under IFRS 7 was more value relevant as compared to that supplied under the previous standards. The principal components analysis revealed that some categories of FI information were more influential than others. In particular, Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Fair Value and Risk information about FIs were valued differently as compared to other components of FI disclosures. Indeed, the evidence provided indicates that investors value FI disclosure when making investment decisions. In general, the findings support the decision usefulness approach underpinning the current FI disclosures for Jordanian listed companies. Specifically, In particular, the test of differences in FI disclosure within and across sectors revealed that the implementation of IFRS 7 has enhanced the comparability of the financial statements; no significant differences were noted in FI disclosure (balance sheet and fair value) post-IFRS 7, while this was not the case pre-IFRS 7. In addition, the issue of relevance has been investiagted by testing the association between FI disclosure and firm value. These findings provide a great deal of insight for accounting regulatory bodies (e.g. the IASB) about the current theoretical framework that underpins financial reporting standards. In addition, they provide valuable insights to Jordanian policy makers (JSC and ASE) about the relevance of such standards for Jordanian companies.

Este estudo investiga a relevância das informações contábeis antes e depois do início do processo de convergência para as normas internacionais de contabilidade no Brasil. Foram analisadas 2.277 observações trimestrais de todas as empresas que compuseram a carteira teórica do Ibovespa durante um período de 15 anos, entre 1995 e 2009. Especificamente, pretendeu-se analisar essa questão sobre três perspectivas distintas. A primeira perspectiva, com um enfoque de curto prazo, analisa a reação do mercado de capitais brasileiro associada à divulgação das demonstrações contábeis em três diferentes momentos: antes, durante e após a transição do padrão contábil brasileiro (BR_GAAP) para o padrão híbrido (BR_GAAP/IFRS). A metodologia utilizada para essa perspectiva foi o estudo de eventos. Adicionalmente, o estudo objetiva tratar as empresas analisadas de maneira heterogênea, conforme sugerido por Holthausen (2003) e Lopes e Walker (2008). Assim sendo, nessa primeira perspectiva ocorre a segmentação da amostra da pesquisa de acordo com alguns sinalizadores que indicam maior propensão das empresas em fornecer informações contábeis de maior qualidade, independentemente do regramento contábil do Brasil. Ou seja, intentou-se relacionar se os incentivos que as empresas têm para serem mais informativas mitiga o impacto da adoção de um padrão contábil de maior qualidade (IFRS). Os resultados encontrados indicam que: as demonstrações contábeis possuem conteúdo informacional, isto é, oferecem novas informações que são incorporadas aos preços; para a amostra de empresas que possuem os incentivos para serem mais informativas (ADR), não foram constatadas diferenças em seu conteúdo informacional antes e depois do início do processo de migração para as normas IFRS; para as empresas da amostra cujas boas práticas de governança corporativa foram mensuradas através do Brazilian Corporate Governance Index (BCGI), os resultados mostraram-se inconclusivos. A segunda perspectiva contemplada na pesquisa volta-se a uma análise de longo prazo entre a associação de variáveis contábeis e variáveis de mercado. Essa análise ocorreu de duas formas distintas, porém complementares. Através da investigação da associação entre as informações contábeis (lucro e patrimônio líquido) e o preço, pretendeu-se identificar se a adoção de um padrão contábil de maior qualidade no Brasil (IFRS), mesmo em se tratando de uma adoção considerada parcial, aumenta o nível de associação entre essas variáveis contábeis e o preço. De modo complementar, também foi analisada a relevância da informação contábil, mas com uma modelagem econométrica diferente. Trata-se do modelo de retorno ou timeliness. Nessa segunda perspectiva, os resultados indicam que a relevância da informação contábil, mensurada através dos modelos de preço e retorno, aumentou após a adoção parcial das normas IFRS no Brasil. Esses resultados foram obtidos por meio de dados anuais e trimestrais. Por fim, a terceira perspectiva inspirou-se na análise da relevância dos números contábeis em um momento específico, que é a divulgação dos ajustes de reconciliação do lucro e do patrimônio líquido nas demonstrações contábeis no período de transição entre o padrão contábil brasileiro e as normas IFRS. Salienta-se que os modelos econométricos para verificar essa associação são similares aos adotados na segunda perspectiva (relevância e timeliness). Nessa perspectiva, as evidências indicam que os ajustes de reconciliação do lucro líquido e do patrimônio líquido são relevantes para o mercado de capitais brasileiro. Isso significa que os mesmos eventos econômicos, quando mensurados por diferentes normas contábeis, alteram as expectativas dos investidores acerca dos lucros futuros da empresa e, por conseguinte, modificam os preços. / This study investigates the value-relevance of accounting information before and after the initial convergence process towards international accounting standards in Brazil. A total of 2,277 quarterly observations of all the companies that composed the theoretical portfolio of Ibovespa during a 15-year period, from 1955 to 2009, have been analyzed. The study aims at analyzing this issue from three different perspectives. The first one has a short-term focus, and analyzes the reaction of the Brazilian capital market to the disclosure of financial statements at three different moments: before, during and after the transition from the Brazilian accounting standard (BR_GAAP) to the hybrid standard (BR_GAAP/IFRS). The methodology used in this perspective is the event study. Additionally, the study aims at approaching the companies analyzed in a heterogeneous way, as suggested by Holthausen (2003) and Lopes & Walker (2008). Thus, in the first perspective, there is a segmentation of the research sample according to some markers signing that companies are more likely to provide higher quality accounting information, regardless the accounting rules in Brazil. The aim was to find out whether incentives the companies have to become more informative smooth the impact of adopting a higher quality accounting standard (IFRS). Results have shown that: financial statements have informational content, i.e. they provide new information that is then incorporated into prices; as to the companies from the sample that count on incentives to be more informative (ADR), no differences have been found in their informational content either before or after the beginning of the process of migration to IFRS norms; as to companies from the sample whose good corporate governance practices were measured through the Brazilian Corporate Governance Index (BCGI), results have been inconclusive. The second perspective has turned to a long-term analysis of the association between accounting variables and market variables. This analysis has been carried out in two different, but complementary manners. Through the investigation of the association between accounting information (earnings and equity) and price, the purpose is to identify whether the adoption of a higher quality accounting standard in Brazil (IFRS), despite being partial, increases the level of association between those accounting variables and price. In a complementary way, the value-relevance of the accounting information has also been analyzed, but with a different econometric model: the return model or timeliness. In the second perspective, the results have shown that the value-relevance of the accounting information, as measured through the return and price models, has increased after the partial adoption of IFRS norms in Brazil. These results have been obtained from annual and quarterly data. Finally, the third perspective has been inspired in the analysis of value-relevance of accounting figures at a specific moment, which is the disclosure of adjustments of equity and earnings reconciliation in financial statements along the period of transition from the Brazilian accounting standard to IFRS. We should highlight that the econometric models to check such association are similar to those adopted in the second perspective (value-relevance and timeliness). In this perspective, evidences have shown that the adjustments of earnings and equity reconciliation are value-relevant to the Brazilian capital market. This means that the same economical events, when measured through different accounting norms, both change investors\' expectations as to the future earnings of a company and, consequently, modify prices.

The majority of current multi-label classification research focuses on learning dependency structures among output labels. This paper provides a novel theoretical view on the purported assumption that effective multi-label classification models must exploit output dependencies. We submit that the flurry of recent dependency-exploiting, multi-label algorithms may stem from the deficiencies in existing datasets, rather than an inherent need to better model dependencies. We introduce a novel categorization of multi-label metrics, namely, evenly and unevenly weighted label metrics. We explore specific features that predispose datasets to improved classification by methods that model label dependence. Additionally, we provide an empirical analysis of 15 benchmark datasets, 1 real-life dataset, and a variety of synthetic datasets. We assert that binary relevance (BR) yields similar, if not better, results than dependency-exploiting models for metrics with evenly weighted label contributions. We qualify this claim with discussions on specific characteristics of datasets and models that render negligible the differences between BR and dependency-learning models.

This study attempted to create experimentally the Hawthorne effect in a freshman general psychology class at Utah State University during tall quarter of 1967. It also attempted to discover the differential effect of cueing, sex, and relevance on the experimental creation of the Hawthorne effect as measured by six general psychology criterion tests. The design of this study included a control group and three experimental groups. The following five hypotheses were postulated: The experimental groups will show greater influence from the Hawthorne effect than the control group. Within the three experimental groups there will be an increasing Hawthorne effect with the least effect in the subject-object cue group and the greatest effect in the subject-object-observer group as compared to the control group. The females in all experimental groups will show significantly greater Hawthorne effect than males within the same groups. The group rating high on the Relevance scale will show significantly greater Hawthorne effect than the groups rating low in relevance. There will be sufficient interactive effects between factors to the extent that some will reach significance. The hypotheses were tested by means of analysis of covariance with ACT predicted grade point average as the covariate. None of the differences were significant at the .05 level. It was concluded that the Hawthorne effect does not exist as a potent enough variable to distort the influence of the independent variable on the dependent variable in educational and psychological investigations of short duration involving freshman university students. It was also concluded that the variables of Cueing, Sex, and Relevance are not functionally related to the creation of the Hawthorne effect and, therefore, need not be controlled.

Hundreds of millions of users each day search the web and other repositories to meet their information needs. However, queries can fail to find documents due to a mismatch in terminology. Query expansion seeks to address this problem by automatically adding terms from highly ranked documents to the query. While query expansion has been shown to be effective at improving query performance, the gain in effectiveness comes at a cost: expansion is slow and resource-intensive. Current techniques for query expansion use fixed values for key parameters, determined by tuning on test collections. We show that these parameters may not be generally applicable, and, more significantly, that the assumption that the same parameter settings can be used for all queries is invalid. Using detailed experiments, we demonstrate that new methods for choosing parameters must be found. In conventional approaches to query expansion, the additional terms are selected from highly ranked documents returned from an initial retrieval run. We demonstrate a new method of obtaining expansion terms, based on past user queries that are associated with documents in the collection. The most effective query expansion methods rely on costly retrieval and processing of feedback documents. We explore alternative methods for reducing query-evaluation costs, and propose a new method based on keeping a brief summary of each document in memory. This method allows query expansion to proceed three times faster than previously, while approximating the effectiveness of standard expansion. We investigate the use of document expansion, in which documents are augmented with related terms extracted from the corpus during indexing, as an alternative to query expansion. The overheads at query time are small. We propose and explore a range of corpus-based document expansion techniques and compare them to corpus-based query expansion on TREC data. These experiments show that document expansion delivers at best limited benefits, while query expansion � including standard techniques and efficient approaches described in recent work � usually delivers good gains. We conclude that document expansion is unpromising, but it is likely that the efficiency of query expansion can be further improved.