•A cognitive assistant for e-learning is proposed.•The architecture has been evaluated with a prototype for students learning Java.•The developed agent is compared with a classical QA agent.•The ...evaluation has been carried out with balanced groups.
The application of natural language to improve the interaction of human users with information systems is a growing trend in the recent years. Advances in cognitive computing enable a new way of interaction that accelerates insight from existing information sources. In this paper, we propose a modular cognitive agent architecture for question answering featuring social dialogue improved for a specific knowledge domain. The proposed system has been implemented as a personal agent to assist students learning Java programming language. The developed prototype has been evaluated to analyze how users perceive the interaction with the system. We claim that including social dialogue in QA systems increases users satisfaction and makes them easily engage with the system. Finally, we present the evaluation results that support our hypotheses.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Conditionality, among other aspects, determines that the regulatory development of the countries that make up the European Union can be carried out, as is usual in the social sphere, without the ...intervention, or at least minimally, of the workers’ representatives and entrepreneurs, and also from other political formations in the legislative field. Logically, this absence of social or political participation can promote response actions against them, either traditional (strikes, demonstrations, withdrawal of parliamentary support in adoption of legislative measures etc.), or new types (spontaneous concentrations in public places, general assemblies of citizens without a defined convener, appearance of social and political formations of less visible typology, or other similar ones). The financial crisis unleashed at the end of 2007 and the one derived from the health emergency situation due to the global spread of Covid-19, at the beginning of 2020, have precisely encouraged the use of conditionality in the European Union space. However, the way in which conditionality has been developed in one and another crisis in the Spanish State can be said that it has not been identical. Neither have been the reactions of social and political subjects, because if in the first crisis these subjects have experienced a reduction in their functions of participation or intervention in legislative action and in the proposal of political actions, in the second the possibilities of action have been much more significant, and also their contribution to efforts to overcome the crisis situation.
In this contribution, we empirically investigated the effect of small talk on the users' non-verbal behaviors and emotions when users interacted with a crowd of virtual humans (VHs) with positive ...behavioral dispositions. Users were tasked with collecting items in a virtual marketplace via natural speech-based dialogue with a crowd of virtual pedestrians and vendors. The users were able to engage in natural speech-based conversation in a predefined corpus of small talk content that covered various commonplace small talk topics such as conversations about the weather, general concerns, and entertainment based on similar real-life situations. For instance, the VHs with the small talk ability would ask the users some simple questions to make small talk or remind the users of their belongings. We conducted a between-subjects empirical evaluation to investigate whether the user behaviors and emotions were different between a small talk condition and a non-small talk condition, and examined gender effects of the participants. We collected objective and subjective measures of the users to analyze users' emotions and social interaction behaviors, when in conversation with VHs that either possessed small-talk capability or not, besides task or goal oriented dialogue capabilities. Our result revealed that the VHs with small talk capability could alter the emotions and non-verbal behaviors of the users. Furthermore, the non-verbal behaviors between female and male participants differed greatly in the presence or absence of small talk.
The article deals with the collective agreement of the 15th of September 2021, signed by Amazon Logistica Italia and Amazon Transport Italia with the Italian trade unions Filt-Cgil, Fit-Cisl, ...Uiltrasporti (transport sector) and Nidil-Cgil, Felsa-Cisl, Uiltemp (temporary and precarious employment sector). The collective agreement was signed in Rome in the presence of the Minister of labour, whose role was key to its very closing. The public authority is not part of the agreement, and, hence, the latter cannot be considered a “tripartite” agreement. However, the article takes into consideration the possibility that the intervention of the Minister of labour in the industrial relations may be regarded as a “new” form of (tripartite) social dialogue.
The article describes the features of the 4.0 economy which are linked to the so-called ‘cancer stage capitalism’, and which influence the directions of development of European industrial relations. ...This extensive research area has been reduced to those elements of transformations associated with the progress of the 4.0 economy that undermine or invalidate the existing ‘regimes’, developed so far in the framework of certain ‘matters’, including public affairs, industrial relations and social dialogue.
Adolescents with Developmental Language Disorders (DLD) have more difficulties in social emotional functioning than their typically developing peers (TD), such as shyness and anxiety in social ...situations, fewer peer relations, greater risk of victimization, social isolation and depression. In addition, they are more likely to report higher levels of hyperactivity and conduct problems. These problems derive from a complex interplay between difficulties in language, social communication, underlying cognitive deficits in Theory of Mind (ToM), Executive Functioning (EF) and self-directed speech (SDS). The aim of this mini review is to provide an overview of studies examining the effectiveness of interventions targeting the factors underlying social emotional functioning of school-aged children and adolescents with DLD. We found that studies dedicated to social emotional functioning in school-aged children and adolescents with DLD were relatively scarce. Based on this overview, we give suggestions to improve social emotional functioning in adolescents with DLD. We propose that intervention programs should target the social, linguistic and cognitive functions underlying social emotional functioning and create opportunities to practice these skills in daily, real-life situations with peers.
In 2019, South Africa implemented a national minimum wage (NMW) for the first time. This is an important intervention, given that the South African labour market continues to generate some of the ...highest levels of income and wealth inequality in the world. The minimum wage is intended as a structural intervention to transform the labour market by setting a wage floor, while highlighting larger issues that continue to reproduce inequality in the labour market. The process raises interesting questions about the role of social dialogue in the policy making process, especially at a time when the roles of experts and evidence are contested in political economy. This article reviews the national minimum wage process from two angles: assessing the economic evidence and examining the political economy of minimum wages in South Africa. We take this approach in order to better understand the roles of evidence and politics in the policy making process. While both processes were contested, important differences emerge from the analysis: the economic lens highlights the intersection of evidence and ideology, while a political economy review identifies important lines of contestation in the policy making process itself. The national minimum wage process shows that institutionalised social dialogue continues to be a central part of the policy making process, but that it cannot be taken for granted: the particular configuration of the social dialogue process and the roles assigned to each player matter.
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This contribution critically discusses the EPSU case of the Court of Justice of the European Union, delivered on 2 September 2021. It deals with the question of how to interpret Article 155 of the ...TFEU in relation to the scope of Article 155(2) TFEU, concluding that the European Commission has no obligation to propose a Directive to the Council implementing a collective agreement reached at European level.
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The China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) is presently the largest player in the global rolling stock industry and has increasingly expanded to mature markets. In 2019, CRRC acquired a ...German locomotive company, establishing a manufacturing foothold in the EU. This paper presents the findings of extensive field research on the impact of CRRC’s investment on industrial relations. Drawing on comparative capitalisms research and recent debates on the German model of industrial relations, we discuss key developments in the post-merger process. Our study reveals a continuity in industrial relations at the shop-floor level, characterized by stable co-determination practices. Nevertheless, the acquisition of the locomotive manufacturer has contributed to a new form of ‘China-threat-corporatism’, wherein trade unions and business associations have collaborated to advocate successfully for measures to protect the local rolling stock industry from Chinese competition.
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The aim of the paper is to present potential legal consequences of the reception of the future directive on adequate minimum wages in Poland as well as the social, economic and political context of ...this process. The adoption and implementation of the future directive would require changes in Polish law. First of all, the mechanism of setting the statutory minimum wage, especially the reference criteria, would have to be amended. The necessary amendments include also the establishment of an advisory body. Finally, the directive can be seen as an impulse to revive social dialogue, which is undergoing a deep crisis. Due to the complexity of the regulations, it is difficult to clearly assess whether any modifications will be needed as regards the protection of minimum wages. Although the directive could be a chance to improve working and living conditions in Poland, there is no enthusiasm about the draft. The government raises doubts about the EU’s treaty competences to issue the directive and is also very sceptical about the need and possibility to increase the scale of collective bargaining in Poland. Not surprisingly, the approach of the social partners is varied: rather negative in the case of employers and more positive as far as trade unions are concerned. Nonetheless, it would be unrealistic to expect widespread support for the proposed solutions.
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