Markup Language

A markup language is a way of codifying a document which, along with the text, incorporates tags or marks which contain additional information about the structure of the text or its presentation.  The most extended markup language is the HTML, World Wide Web’s base. But apart from that one, there are also others which are important to mention: GenCode, TeX, Scribe, GML, SGML, XML and XHTML. Markup languages are often muddled up with programming languages. However, the latter, has arithmetical functions. Historically, the markup was used in the industry of editorial and communication, as well as among authors, editors and printers.

Otherwise, we can find different types of markup: presentational, procedural, descriptive, referential, metamarkup and punctuational.

DIGITAL LIBRARIES

 

There are many digital libraries all around the world. They all are very well known but in this article I’m going to mention only on two of them:  on the one hand, The British Library (BL) and on the other hand, the Darlington Digital Library; in which I’m going to center the most.

The British Library (BL): the national library of the United Kingdom

The British Library is one of the biggest research libraries in the world. It is situated in the city of London. It possesses over 150 million articles which are in different languages and formats (books, journals, newspapers, sound and music recordings, magazines, maps, etc.).

The Darlington Digital Library

As it is said in its web: “The Darlington Digital Library was created from the first major collection of books, manuscripts, atlases, and maps donated to the University of Pittsburgh. Most of the credit for assembling the Darlington Collection rightly goes to William M. Darlington, an attorney by profession who was born in Pittsburgh in 1815”.

THE E-BOOK

What is an e-book?

On the one hand, the e-book is the electronic or digital version of a book. They are generally read on personal computers, on smart phones, on e-Readers and on e-book devices. There are also some mobile phones which can be used to read e-books.

But on the other hand, the e-book is also considered a device which is used to read this digital version of a book. In this case, any device that posses memory and a screen can be used as a electronic book.

 

The main differences between an e-book and a printed book:

Firstly, I want to point out that he printed book or the traditional book, is easier to use than the electronic book; taking into account that the last one has certain limitations due to the screen whereby we read the text. In addition, it’s important to bear in mind that the electronic book promotes the hipertextuality. Owing to this fact, we can carry out a more interesting and entertaining reading of a book. Through the phenomenon of the hypertext, we can go by from one text to another without any limit. Besides,the digital book can be used to carry through investigations and achieve different information.

Another divergence between these different types of book, is that the traditional book is static and passive (it doesn’t operate on cognitive processes) whereas the printed one is dynamic (it updates and adapts the reader’s profile) and also intelligent (it processes, elaborates, selects, translates…).

 

El Siglo XVIII

La Enciclopedia Francesa:

 La enciclopedia es el conjunto de 17 volúmenes que se editaron en París, en 1751-1772. Esto fue llevado a cabo gracias a Denis Diderot y Jean Le Rond d’Alambert. El objetivo era divulgar las ideas de la Ilustración francesa.  Las ideas de la Ilustración francesa, defienden la crítica y el uso de la razón ante todos los campos del saber.

 En la enciclopedia francesa entre muchas otras cosas, se manifestaba: la crítica y la acometida contra los prejuicios, la ignorancia y el error, el cuidado al hora de definir y fijar de forma adecuada los conceptos; la defensa de las libertades (como la libertad de expresión); el escepticismo y el empirismo.

 Por otra parte, tenemos que tener en cuenta que la historia ha considerado la enciclopedia  como: el escaparate de las ideas de la ilustración francesa y también como una de las obras más libres del pensamiento.

 La prensa: The Tatler and The Spectator

TIM BERNERS-LEE

 Son of prototypical computer geeks, Tim Berners-Lee was born in 1955, in the United Kingdom, concretely in the city of London. He studied at The Queen’s College. There, he was given a first-class degree in Physics.

Furthermore, it’s important to bear in mind that he is considered as the father of the web, so it’s clear that he inherited the interest that his parents had in computer technology. We can clearly see reflected this interest in the words that once said: “Anyone who has lost track of time when using a computer knows the propensity to dream, the urge to make dreams come true and the tendency to miss lunch.”

He had the necessity to give out and exchange information about his researches in a more effective way, so he developed the ideas which are part of the web. Tim, along with his team created the HTML Language (HyperText Markup Lanugage), the HTTP protocol (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and the URL (Uniform Resource Locator).

HUMAN LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGIES

Human language techonology or HLT, it’s not only composed of computational linguistics, but also of speech technology. It’s important also to bear in mind, that Human Language Technology or Language technology is connected to both, computer science and general linguistics.

According to Hans Uszkoreit : “human language technology comprises computational methods, computer programs and electronic devices that are specialized for analyzing, producing or modifying texts and speech.” Apart from that, he also points out that we have to take into account that: “these systems must be based on some knowledge of human language. Therefore language technology defines the engineering branch of computational linguistics.”

Kaiola ertzetik begiratzen dut

Gustoko nuen bizi hura, gustoko nuen benetan aire garbian bidaiatzen genueneko garai haiek, gogoko nituen benetan kezkarik gabeko une haiek eta biziki gogoko nituen bai, aske eta libre nintzeneko momentu zoragarri zein liluragarri haiek.

Ni beti izan naiz izaera lasai eta trankilekoa, orain berriz egunak joan egunak etorri, nire lasaitasun haren tokia etorri berri den urduritasunezko sentimendu batek bereganatu du; lehoiak, bere presa, bere atzamar handi eta indartsuen bitartez harrapatzen duen moduan. Horrela jokatu du demoniozko urduritasun honek ere; gupidarik gabe alegia. Baina bisita egitera etorri zitzaidan etsai bakarra ez da urduritasun desatsegin hau izan, ez jauna! Urduritasuna etorri eta hurrengo egunean, tristura etorri zen bihotz joka. Bisitari honek ezustean harrapatu ninduen eta arrapaladan sartu zen barrura, prisa izango balu bezala. Joateko aldiz, ez zuen inolako prisarik izango, alderantziz baizik; gustura sentitzen zela eta nirekin geldituko zen luzaroan, betirako ez esateagatik. Baina, ez da hau guztia, beste hainbat bisitari ere izan bainituen, denak nirekin gelditzeko nolabaiteko esperantza zutelarik: atsekabea, estresa, goibeltasuna, mina, depresioa, ahuldura eta azkenik heriotza.

QUESTION ANSWERING SYSTEMS (Questionnaire 3)

On the web we could find answers to a huge range of questions. This is possible because of the extraordinary quantity of information which is obtainable online.

Question answering, well known as QA, is the assignment of answering a question which is presented in natural language. The QA computer have to answer to the posed question; for that matter, the QA computer program will use a pre-structured database or a collection of natural language documents. Both options are possible.

Question answering research makes a shot at dealing with an ample coverage of question types including fact, list, definition, how, why, hypothetical, semantically-constrained, and cross-lingual questions.

Machine Translation (Questionnaire 3)

Machine Translation is the utilization of computers to the assignment of translating a text from a natural language, to another one. MT is one of the earliest researches in computer science. It has demonstrated to be a fleeting goal. Nowadays there are many systems which produce results with enough quality to be useful in so many specific fields.

At its simple grade, Machine translation makes simple exchanges of words in a natural language for word in another. Otherwise, with corpus techniques, the translation will be more complex.

Definition from the European Association for Machine Translation: “an organization that serves the growing community of people interested in MT and translation tools, including users, developers, and researchers of this increasingly viable technology”.

Word-Sense Disambiguation (Questionnaire 2)

Word sense disambiguation (well known as WSD) have place in software programs which are designed to interpret the language. There are many ambiguous words and sentences which have more than one sense and can be understood in many different ways although only one sense in pretended. The main goal of disambiguation is to figure out the pretended or intended meaning.

This is a clear example of a written word which has two distinct senses or meanings:

For example, the written word “bass” has those two senses:

1. bass = a kind of fish
2. bass = tones of low frequency