Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Emma Betz / This conversation analytic study aims to describe how advice is re-issued in German in an institutional setting. Schank (1979) has shown that conversation during German advice programs consists of five different phases, one of which is the advice-giving phase. For the current study, four conversations from a radio advice program were analyzed. The data show that the advice-giving phase identified by Schank is further characterized by three sub-phases: 1) issuing of initial advice, 2) negotiation of rejected advice through reformulations of the initial advice, and 3) offer to move to the closing phase, done via generalization of the previously-given advice. I focus on the delivery of the second phase, in which the advice, previously rejected by the recipient, is re-issued using a number of discourse strategies on the part of the advice giver. These strategies include a change in recipient, a shift in source of the advice, the selection or change in reference (i.e. du ‘you’ vs. ich ‘I’), a change in advised action, and a change in strength. In selecting one of these identified discourse strategies, the advice giver addresses the reason for the rejection of the advice on which the reformulation is based. Finally, in looking at the third phase, I explain the function of generalizations and their role in situating the interlocutors interactionally within the larger advice-giving phase, thus sequencing the complex action (Schank, 1981).

Este trabalho originou-se da necessidade de elaborar e complementar atividades que promovam o ensino e a aprendizagem do francês com objetivos específicos para o curso de Secretariado Executivo Trilíngue da Universidade Estadual de Maringá-PR. Durante o andamento do curso, percebemos que as tarefas de produção escrita poderiam ser potencializadas se tivessem como origem um texto oral, pois os alunos mobilizariam de forma mais proveitosa suas estratégias de compreensão. Para comprovar nossa hipótese, elaboramos uma tarefa na qual os alunos devessem passar uma mensagem gravada na secretária eletrônica para uma nota de serviço, que são situações de comunicação muito correntes no ofício do secretariado. Nossa previsão era que ao conhecer o formato do texto de destino, o aluno selecionaria com mais agilidade as informações necessárias no texto fonte, comprovando o movimento de reciprocidade entre os saberes profissionais (estrutura do texto, contexto de emprego, etc.) e os saberes linguísticos. De fato, após quase um ano de trabalho, nossos alunos foram capazes de compor a nota de serviço a partir de uma gravação na secretária eletrônica, pois utilizaram estratégias de mediação para ligar a compreensão do texto fonte à produção do texto de destino. O resultado do uso dessas estratégias foi um texto de destino que obedeceu às normas de composição esperadas e cumpriu sua função comunicativa, comprovando o papel das estratégias de mediação na aprendizagem do francês com objetivos específicos para o curso de Secretariado Executivo Trilíngue. / The aim of this work was to develop and supplement activities in order to promote the teaching and learning of French focusing the Trilingual Executive Secretariat Course of Universidade Estadual de Maringá state of Paraná Brazil. It was observed during the classes that the written production tasks could be improved if the oral text were taken into account, since the students would be able to mobilize the comprehension strategies in a more profitable way. To try the hypothesis, a communicative situation task was chosen among the most current of Secretariat work. For the elaborated task students should deliver a recorded message from an electronic machine into a memo. Our assumption was that students should select more accurately the necessary information of the source text, once they knew the format of the target text, confirming thus the exchange movement between their professional knowledge (text structure, job context, etc) and their linguistic knowledge. In fact, after almost one year of work, students were able to build up the memo, based in an electronic machine recording, by using mediation strategies to link the source text comprehension to the target text production. The use of such strategies showed that the target text followed the composition rules and accomplished its communicative function, proving the role of the mediation strategies in the learning of specific purpose French for the Executive Secretariat Course.

In query expansion (QE) terms are added to an initial query in order to improve retrieval effectiveness. In this thesis we use QE in the sense that a reformulation of the query is done by deleting the terms in the initial query and instead replacing them with terms from the documents retrieved in the initial run. The aim of this thesis is to, in a experimental full text invironment, study and compare the retrieval result of two different query expansion strategies in relation to each other. The following questions are addressed by the study: How do the two strategies perform in relation to each other regarding recall?What may be causing the result?Are the two strategies retrieving the same relevant documents?Two strategies are designed to simulate a searcher using automatic query expansion (AQE) either with or without relevance feedback. Strategy I is simulating AQE without relevance feedback by taking the top five documents that are retrieved in the initial run and then extracting the top ten most frequently occurring terms in these to create a new query. Correspondingly the Strategy II, is simulating AQE with relevance feedback by taking the top five relevant documents and extracting the top ten terms in these to create a new query. It is concluded that both of the strategies’ retrieval performance was improved for most of the topics. In average Strategy II did achieve 54.63 percent recall compared to Strategy I which did achieve 45.59 percent recall. The two strategies did retrieve different relevant documents for majority of the topics. Hence, it would be reasonable to base a system on both of them. / Uppsatsnivå: D

Obesity is an urgent health problem with restaurants accounting for about half of all food expenditure in the U.S. Understanding consumer’s preferences for low-calorie food could help interested restaurants in the foodservice industry facilitate consumers’ low-calorie choices in a positive way without compromising their ability to efficiently meet consumers’ preferences. The purpose of this study was to (1) investigate consumers’ preferences among four forms of low-calorie food alternatives: reformulation, elimination, resizing, and substitution; and (2) to explore which consumers are likely to choose low-calorie menu items and understand what motivates them to make healthy choices using the theory of planned behavior. Results showed that consumers have a clear preference towards elimination and substitution, rather than resizing and reformulation. The trend that high-calorie ingredients were often eliminated or substituted with healthier ingredients highlighted the importance and effectiveness of menu calorie labeling as consumers may adjust their food choices based on calorie information. Moreover, consumers showed high taste expectations for traditional favorite foods such as pizza and burger. Therefore, the entrée type of menu items is more feasible and amenable to be modified to decrease the calorie content. Marketing practices could be used to educate consumers about new low-calorie alternatives to create the demand and promote these items. Lastly, food choice motives were found to influence consumers’ behavioral intention, indicating that they were meaningful additions to the TPB model.

In this project, we design a search query optimization system based on the user’s relevance feedback by generating customized query strings for existing patent alerts. Firstly, the Rocchio algorithm is used to generate a search string by analyzing the characteristics of related patents and unrelated patents. Then the collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm is used to rank the query results, which considering the previous relevance feedback and patent features, instead of only considering the similarity between query and patents as the traditional method. In order to further explore the performance of the optimization system, we design and conduct a series of evaluation experiments regarding TF-IDF as a baseline method. Experiments show that, with the use of generated search strings, the proportion of unrelated patents in search results is significantly reduced over time. In 4 months, the precision of the retrieved results is optimized from 53.5% to 72%. What’s more, the rank performance of the method we proposed is better than the baseline method. In terms of precision, top10 of recommendation algorithm is about 5 percentage points higher than the baseline method, and top20 is about 7.5% higher. It can be concluded that the approach we proposed can effectively optimize patent search results by learning relevance feedback.

A carne exerce um papel crucial na evolução humana e é um componente importante em dietas saudáveis e balanceadas, uma vez que apresenta propriedades nutricionais, é fonte de proteína de alto valor biológico e de algumas vitaminas e minerais. No entanto, estudos recentes têm estabelecido uma relação direta entre o consumo de produtos cárneos e o aumento no risco de distúrbios graves de saúde, como câncer colo retal e doenças cardíacas. Assim, o desenvolvimento de produtos cárneos com níveis reduzidos de gordura, que sejam similares aos produtos tradicionais, apresentando boa aceitabilidade pelos consumidores, é essencial para a melhoria da saúde humana. No entanto, poucos trabalhos da literatura tem estudado a incorporação de pré-emulsões como substituto da gordura animal, especialmente em relação às caracteristicas sensoriais. O presente trabalho estudou o efeito da substituição de gordura animal por óleos vegetais e marinhos sobre as propriedades físicas, químicas e sensoriais de mortadela formulada com diferentes hidrocóloides. Na primeira parte do trabalho avaliaram-se as propriedades físicas, químicas e sensoriais da mortadela reformulada usando gordura vegetal hidrogenada como substituto de gordura animal, e foi verificado que o uso da gordura vegetal hidrogenada não é adequado como substituto da gordura animal devido à redução da qualidade nutricional, especificamente do perfil lipídico, e da qualidade sensorial, especificamente da dureza. Após isto, estudou-se a microestrutura, a textura sensorial descritiva e o perfil instrumental de textura da mortadela tradicional e light e, através dos resultados, os parâmetros de dureza e elasticidade foram considerados como referências na seguinte etapa da reformulação. Em seguida, otimizou-se o perfil lipídico e, através de uma estratégia sequencial de planejamento experimental, as proporções adequadas de óleos em préemulsões foram obtidas, assim como a dureza e a elasticidade foram otimizadas, em função da composição da pré-emulsão composta de alginato de sódio, goma guar e isolado proteico de leite. Avaliaram-se, então, as características sensoriais da mortadela e sua relação com a aceitação do consumidor. O atributo direcionador da preferêcia, segundo a correlação entre as respostas da análise descritiva e do teste de aceitação, foi a textura \"borrachenta\", confirmando-se assim que mesmo adicionando um hidrocolóide para diminuir a dureza, esta diminuição resultou em um novo atributo negativo. As perguntas Check- all-that-apply (CATA) juntamente com a Análise de Penalização e a PLSR de variáveis fictícias com a aceitação ajudaram a identificar o \"sabor estranho\", \"sabor caracteristico\", \"textura gelatinosa\" e \"textura firme\" como os principais atributos a serem modificados numa reformulação posterior. Dessa forma, conclui-se que através da estratégia de reformulação planejada, pode-se elaborar uma mortadela com um perfil lipídico em consonância com as recomendações de uma dieta saudável, levando em consideração a opinião do consumidor. / Meat plays a crucial role in human evolution and it is an important component in healthy and balanced diets, since it presents nutritional properties, it is source of proteins of high biological value, and some vitamins, and minerals. However, recent studies have established a direct relationship between the consumption of meat products and the increased risk of serious health disorders, such as colorectal cancer and coronary-heart diseases. Thus, the development of meat products with reduced fat levels that are similar to traditional products and with good consumer acceptability is essential for the improvement of the human health. However, few studies in the literature have studied the incorporation of pre-emulsion as animal fat substitute, especially regarding the sensory characteristics. The present study evaluated the effect of the animal fat substitution by vegetable and marine oils on the physical, chemical, and sensory properties of mortadella formulated with different hydrocolloids. In the first part of the study, the physical, chemical and sensory properties of reformulated mortadella using hydrogenated vegetable fat as animal fat replacer were evaluated and it was verified that the use of hydrogenated fat is not suitable as animal fat replacer due to a reduction in the nutritional quality, specifically regarding the lipid profile, and in the sensory quality, specifically regarding hardness. After this, the microstructure, the descriptive sensory texture and the instrumental profile of the traditional and light mortadella were studied and, through the results, the parameters of hardness and elasticity were considered as references to the next step of the reformulation. Then, the lipid profile was optimized and, through a sequential strategy of experimental design, the appropriate proportions of oils in preemulsions were obtained, as well as the hardness and elasticity were optimized according to the pre-emulsion composition composed of sodium alginate, guar gum and isolated milk protein. The sensory characteristics of the mortadella and their relationship with the consumer acceptance were then evaluated. According to the correlation between the answers of the descriptive analysis and the acceptance test, the driver of liking was the \"rubbery\" texture, thus confirming that, even by adding a hydrocolloid to reduce the hardness, this decrease resulted in a \"new negative attribute\". The questions Check-all-that-apply (CATA), along with the Penalty Analysis and the PLSR of dummy variables with the acceptance helped to identify the \"strange flavor\", \"characteristic flavor,\" \"gelatinous texture\" and \"firm texture\" as the key attributes to be modified at a later reformulation. Thus, it is concluded that, through the planned reformulation strategy, it was possible to develop a mortadella with a lipid profile in agreement with the recommendations of a healthy diet, taking into account the consumer\'s opinion.

Cette recherche vise à étudier deux procédés textuels : la reprise anaphorique et la reformulation textuelle, dans des écrits en FLE, produits par des étudiants Malaisiens à l'Institut de formation des formateurs de langues étrangères ou connu comme IPG KBA à Kuala Lumpur, Malaisie. La problématique générale s'inscrit dans le cadre de la didactique du texte écrit, relevant d'une linguistique textuelle qui permet de mieux comprendre la qualité du texte. Il s‟agit à la fois des caractéristiques observables à la surface du texte et des choix opérés pour construire et organiser la matière textuelle. La question fondamentale que nous nous sommes posée est de savoir comment aider les apprenants en FLE à se rendre compte de l'importance de l'articulation des deux niveaux local et global de l'organisation du texte, de sorte qu'ils arrivent à comprendre où se situent les dysfonctionnements dans leurs textes, de quels types de dysfonctionnements il s‟agit et de quelle manière ils peuvent y remédier. La méthodologie de recherche est basée sur une expérimentation auprès du public visé, conjuguant de facteurs textuels et extratextuels. L'analyse des textes d'apprenants a pour objectif de repérer, classer et interpréter les difficultés non seulement en fonction d'un cadre théorique d'analyse de textes mais en fonction d'une démarche comparative entre écrits d'un public en milieu d'apprentissage exolingue et celui d'endolingue. Les résultats atteints montrent que la sensibilisation des apprenants et le travail de réflexion avec eux, sur desf acteurs extratextuels, peuvent les aider à améliorer la qualité de leur production écrite. Il est aussi démontré qu‟en matière de connaissances textuelles, tout ce qui est intériorisé et maîtrisé en langue maternelle (langue première) et en anglais pourrait être exploitable de façon positive en français. Mais le français et l'anglais, deux langues étrangères, ne peuvent pas non plus être mises sur pied d'égalité, en ce qui concerne les difficultés rencontrées par les apprenants Malaisiens, du simple fait de leur « étrangeté ». Les propositions didactiques que nous avons suggérées s'inspirent de notre méthode d'analyse et reposent sur le souci d'améliorer la qualité de la production écrite en français chez le public allophone Malaisien. / This research aims at the study of two textual procedures notably the anaphoric rephrasing and the textual reformulation in the written texts in French as a Foreign Language, produced by the Malaysian students in the Institute of Teacher Training, International Languages Campus, Kuala Lumpur. The overall issue is embedded in the framework of the teaching of writing within the domain of textural linguistics. The latter enables us to understand better the quality of the text. This study deals with the observation of characteristics at the surface level as well as the choice of operations to construct and organise the textual matter. The fundamental question which confonts us is to know how to help foreign learners in French to be conscious of the importance of the global and local articulation of organising a text, leading to a better comprehension of where the textual defauts are situated. It's also more crucial to identify the types of defauts or textural disfonctionnings concerned and the remedial methods to these problems. The research methodology is based on an experiment conducted on a group of learners targetted, on a topic governed by the textual and extratextual factors. Analysis of the learners' written productions is for the objective of retrieving, regrouping and interpreting the difficulties from not only the theorical point of view but also responding to a comparative study between the written productions of a public in an exolingual and endolingual learning situations. The results achieved show that the consequences of writing on a topic bound byt he extratextual factors on the learners and the post-period of reflexion with them could help them in improving the quality of their written production. It attested also that the textual content knowledge and all that is interiorised and acquired in the first language as well as in English could be exploited in a positive way in French. However, French and English, two foreign languages cannot be put a long side equally when it comes to difficulties confronting the Malaysian learners, from the simple factual reason of their « alienicity ». The didactic propositions, which are suggested, are inspired by our method of analysis with the sole aim of improving the quality of written production in French among the Malaysian foreign learners of French.

Creating systems that can operate autonomously in complex environments is a challenge for contemporary engineering techniques. Automatic design methods offer a promising alternative, but so far they have not been able to produce agents that outperform manual designs. One such method is evolutionary robotics. It has been shown to be a robust and versatile tool for designing robots to perform simple tasks, but more challenging tasks at present remain out of reach of the method. In this thesis I discuss and attack some problems underlying the scalability issues associated with the method. I present a new technique for evolving modular networks. I show that the performance of modularity-biased evolution depends heavily on the morphology of the robot’s body and present a new method for co-evolving morphology and modular control. To be able to reason about the new technique I develop reformulation framework: a general way to describe and reason about metaoptimization approaches. Within this framework I describe a new heuristic for developing metaoptimization approaches that is based on the technique for co-evolving morphology and modularity. I validate the framework by applying it to a practical task of zero-g autonomous assembly of structures with a fleet of small robots. Although this work focuses on the evolutionary robotics, methods and approaches developed within it can be applied to optimization problems in any domain.

Cette thèse contient deux parties. La première est orientée vers l'étude de l'état de l'art sur la personnalisation et la définition d'un modèle de profil utilisateur. La seconde partie se focalise sur la reformulation de requêtes guidée par le profil utilisateur. La personnalisation a pour objectif de faciliter l'expression du besoin utilisateur et de rendre l'information sélectionnée intelligible à l'usager et exploitable. Elle se définit, entre autres, par un ensemble de préférences individuelles représentées par des couples (attribut, valeur), par des ordonnancements de critères ou par des règles sémantiques spécifiques à chaque utilisateur ou communauté d'utilisateurs. Ces modes de spécification servent à décrire le centre d'intérêt de l'utilisateur, le niveau de qualité des données qu'il désire ou des modalités de présentation de ces données. L'ensemble de ces informations est représenté dans un modèle d'utilisateur appelé souvent profil. Le premier travail de cette thèse est de proposer un modèle ouvert de profil capable d'acquérir toutes les informations décrivant l'utilisateur. La personnalisation de l'information intervient à toutes les étapes du cycle de vie d'une requête. La seconde contribution de cette thèse est l'étude de deux approches de reformulation de requêtes basées sur des techniques de réécriture et d'enrichissement existants et la proposition d'une approche de reformulation avancée qui alterne des étapes d'enrichissement et de réécriture. Les trois approches sont évaluées sur un benchmark défini dans la thèse.

<p>Quite often modelers with constraint programming (CP) use the same modelling patterns for different problems, possibly from different domains. This results in recurring idioms in constraint programs. Our approach can be seen as a three-step approach. First, we identify some of these recurring patterns in constraint programs. Second, we propose a general way of describing these patterns by introducing proper constructs that would cover a wide range of applications. Third, we propose automating the process of reproducing these idioms from these higher-level descriptions. The whole process can be seen as a way of encapsulating some of the expertise and knowledge often used by CP modelers and making it available in much simpler forms. Doing so, we are able to extend current CP languages with high-level abstractions that open doors for automation of some of the modelling processes.</p><p>In particular, we introduce function variables and allow the statement of constraints on these variables using function operations. A <i>function variable</i> is a decision variable that can take a value from a set of functions as opposed to an <i>integer variable</i> that ranges over integers, or a <i>set variable</i> that ranges over a set of sets. We show that a function variable can be mapped into different representations in terms of integer and set variables, and illustrate how to map constraints stated on a function variable into constraints on integer and set variables. As a result, a function model expressed using function variables opens doors to the automatic generation of alternate CP models. These alternate models either use a different variable representation, or have extra implied constraints, or employ different constraint formulation, or combine different models that are linked using channelling constraints. A number of heuristics are also developed that allow the comparison of different constraint formulations. Furthermore, we present an extensive theoretical comparison of models of injection problems supported by asymptotic and empirical studies. Finally, a practical modelling tool that is built based on a high-level language that allows function variables is presented and evaluated. The tool helps users explore different alternate CP models starting from a function model that is easier to develop, understand, and maintain.</p>