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Several pieces of legislation have sprung up in recent years in Florida aiming to restrict public school library books and curricular materials. Notably, this coincides with other state legislative moves to restrict what students read and learn in school with partisan purposes. Library associations have reported that nationally, removed books disproportionately contain LGBTQ and racial minority themes. One law at the heart of these restrictions, Florida HB 1467 (2022), empowers community members to challenge and remove public school books and adds bureaucratic obstacles to the access of previously allowable materials. The vague and broad language of the Florida law leads to erratic application by school districts across the state, resulting in the suppression of protected speech. This article examines a key constitutional tension: Under what circumstances does the students’ right to receive information under the First Amendment outweigh school officials’ authority, and, by extension, parental authority over local education under the Tenth Amendment? The U.S. Supreme Court in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico (1982) offers one answer, holding that political orthodoxy is an unacceptable rationale for removal, but pervasive vulgarity and educational unsuitability are acceptable. These three standards are useful, yet entangle in ways Pico is not fully suited to address. This article argues HB 1467 (2022) is unconstitutional under the political orthodoxy Pico standard, strict scrutiny analysis of content-based regulations, and the vagueness and overbreadth doctrines of the 1st Amendment.

The end of the 19th century corresponds to a period in which different problem areas emerged in the field of physics, characterised as classical or modern physics, which contain different structural features that cannot be explained with the assumptions of Newtonian physics. As a result of the studies carried out to solve these problems, a new type of physics, called "-quantum physics-", emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, based on principles different from those of classical physics. The study of the behaviour of objects in the subatomic universe was the interest of quantum physics. The atom, once regarded as indivisible by Newton, became the object of quantum physics studies, which enabled it to be broken down into smaller parts and thus penetrated. Quantum physics changed the approach of modern physics to the universe, which was based on the assumption that it consisted of fixed and completely isolated fundamental particles, and led to the emergence of the idea that relational processes, not isolation, were dominant among the particles that made up the universe. This physics discovered the existence of new phenomena in the subatomic universe that did not fit the mechanistic-deterministic approach considered characteristic of the macro-universe. The emergence of these discoveries required a radical change in the fundamental concepts of "space", "time", "object", "observer", "measurement", "effect", "locality" and "interaction", which classical physics was based on. This is because the nature of the phenomena that quantum physics draws attention to in the micro-universe does not coincide with the assumptions of classical physics regarding these concepts. This non-overlapping situation is essentially because the phenomena occurring in both fields arise according to different logical schemes. Classical mechanics is based on the fundamental principles of classical logic. However, the phenomena to which quantum physics refers do not conform to the basic principles of classical logic. In this respect, the findings of quantum physics cannot be understood using the structure of thought based on classical logical principles. Today, however, it seems possible to make this interpretation from the perspective of the fuzzy logic paradigm, which puts vagueness, the main focus of quantum physics, on its agenda. Today, the concept of vagueness has been incorporated into the scientific process. Parallel to quantum theory's positioning of vagueness as a principle, fuzzy logic has also integrated vagueness in all knowledge processes and included it in its structure not as a situation to be avoided, but as a situation to be evaluated. In this sense, this study aims to demonstrate that the basic principles of quantum physics, which cannot be adequately described by the classical mode of thought shaped by the principles of classical logic, can instead be depicted from the perspective of fuzzy logic, which has created a significant area of application in the field of engineering, especially in artificial intelligence studies. In this direction, this study first discusses the process that led to the emergence of quantum physics in general and proceeds to present its basic principles based on the views of the Copenhagen School, which has become the standard view of quantum physics. After mentioning that the phenomena outlined by quantum physics cannot be described within the limits of the three basic principles of classical logic, this study presents the fuzzy logic system as it makes such a description possible. Finally, this study attempts to illustrate in which contexts the basic principles of quantum physics can be associated with fuzzy logic theory. As a result of this investigation, this study reiterates that quantum physics can sufficiently be described from the perspective of fuzzy logic. One of the main goals of revealing this relationship is to create an important basis for philosophical activity. Just as Newtonian physics, one of the major developments that determined the paradigm of modern science, was based on classical logic, and in turn, classical logic provided a framework for philosophical ways of thinking influenced by classical physics, revealing the relationship between quantum physics and fuzzy logic will indicate that fuzzy logic can provide a framework for philosophical ways of thinking that will complement quantum physics. In this respect, this study aims to demonstrate that quantum physics and fuzzy logic accompany each other in the scientific realm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal translation competence includes a high number of sub-competences that legal translation trainees need to master. Therefore, trainers may have no time to tackle issues at the very micro level that are challenging not only for legal translation trainees, but sometimes even for professional translators. Although many such issues are identified in legal translation textbooks, the prevailing holistic approach to teaching legal translation may have led to such issues being sidelined in the legal translation classroom. Drawing on the author’s experience as a legal translation trainer, this paper attempts to fill this vacuum and offer a systematic approach to addressing at least some of these phenomena. A selection of tricky terms will be presented, together with practical activities designed to raise trainees’ awareness of such issues and teach them how to approach them confidently when translating from and to English. Four groups of terms are covered: false friends in general and legal language; vague terms such as good and reasonable; non-transparent terms where complex legal meaning is packed into a simple term (constructive, in lieu of), and enantiosemous terms (apparent, qualified). It is believed that when such phenomena are tackled in isolation, trainees may become better equipped to deal with them successfully the next time they encounter them in an English source text or to use them actively when translating into English.

This article defends Noël Carroll’s incongruity theory of humour from the pressing criticism that his articulation of incongruity is too vague to serve as a key notion of the theory. I first distinguish between two versions of the criticism of vagueness: the claim that Carroll’s notion of incongruity is vacuous, and the claim that it allows for shoehorning. To reject the first claim, I put Carroll’s notion of incongruity to the test by analysing complex comic texts, demonstrating that it is not vacuous as it allows for capturing their similarities and differences. In response to the second claim, I claim that Carroll’s notion of incongruity should be amended adding a pertinence condition, which requires that the elements establishing the incongruity are part of the same context. Finally, I show that the pertinence condition helps Carroll, replying to a set of counterexamples moved to his sufficiency conditions too.

The soft idea has a crucial impact on facing uncertainty, but extending soft, fuzzy soft, and vague soft settings is more comprehensive in expressing the problem ambiguity parameters than the soft set. Despite this advancement, the vague soft set falls short in addressing certain decision-making issues. This occurs when we have some external factors that can impact our final decision. These external factors can be represented in the effective parameter set. So, the objective of the current article is to incorporate the new concept of effectiveness into the concept of vague sets. This approach leads the researchers to create a novel and expanded framework for effective decision-making, surpassing any previously introduced methods in applicability. The article also provides an exploration of the types, concepts, and operations of effective vague soft sets, each illustrated with examples. Furthermore, the study delves into the examination of properties like De Morgan's laws, distributive, commutative, absorption, and associative properties for those new sets. Moreover, the framework of effective vague soft sets is used to develop a decision-making methodology. This technique simplifies the process of determining whether a student meets the requirements for a particular level of education or if a patient has a specific disease, among other applications. Additionally, to clarify the proposed algorithm, a detailed case study representing how to classify students toward specializations is examined in detail. Using matrix processes in this example, in addition to $ Wolfram \; Mathematica^{\circledR} $, not only renders computations simpler and quicker but also results in more precise optimum effective decisions. In the end, a detailed comparison with existing techniques is performed and summed up in a chart to illustrate the difference between them and the present one.

The soft idea has a crucial impact on facing uncertainty, but extending soft, fuzzy soft, and vague soft settings is more comprehensive in expressing the problem ambiguity parameters than the soft set. Despite this advancement, the vague soft set falls short in addressing certain decision-making issues. This occurs when we have some external factors that can impact our final decision. These external factors can be represented in the effective parameter set. So, the objective of the current article is to incorporate the new concept of effectiveness into the concept of vague sets. This approach leads the researchers to create a novel and expanded framework for effective decision-making, surpassing any previously introduced methods in applicability. The article also provides an exploration of the types, concepts, and operations of effective vague soft sets, each illustrated with examples. Furthermore, the study delves into the examination of properties like De Morgan's laws, distributive, commutative, absorption, and associative properties for those new sets. Moreover, the framework of effective vague soft sets is used to develop a decision-making methodology. This technique simplifies the process of determining whether a student meets the requirements for a particular level of education or if a patient has a specific disease, among other applications. Additionally, to clarify the proposed algorithm, a detailed case study representing how to classify students toward specializations is examined in detail. Using matrix processes in this example, in addition to Wol f ram Mathematica®, not only renders computations simpler and quicker but also results in more precise optimum effective decisions. In the end, a detailed comparison with existing techniques is performed and summed up in a chart to illustrate the difference between them and the present one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploration addresses some aspects of Zoroastrianism, examining how the ancient Persian belief system aligns with the dynamic and indeterminate principles of Fuzzy, Neutrosophic, and MultiAlist systems. Zoroastrianism, rooted in the eternal struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, exhibits parallels with Neutrosophy's acknowledgment of indeterminacy, incompleteness, and the dynamic interplay of opposites. The prophet Zarathustra's vision of a neutrosophic God challenges conventional notions of divine attributes, emphasizing a dynamic and evolving universe. Before investigating these vague areas, the concept of unclear conceptual borders is explored, emphasizing the indeterminacy and imprecision inherent in defining opposites or partially opposite concepts. The law of included infinitely-many-middles suggests that between opposites, there exist infinitely many nuances or middle values. Sorites' paradoxes challenge traditional logic by exposing the difficulties in defining vague boundaries. Neutrosophic Interpretation suggests introducing a buffer zone between opposites, resulting in Neutrosophic Sorites Paradoxes. Moreover, this exploration highlights the need for a more flexible and nuanced understanding of conceptual boundaries, acknowledging the dynamic and indeterminate nature of many philosophical and logical constructs. Finally, we delve into the application of neutrosophy to various cultural and philosophical concepts. The legendary figure of Gilgamesh, described as two-thirds god and one-third human, is examined through both traditional and neutrosophic perspectives. Additionally, Hindu concepts of Dharma, Adharma, and Karma are reexamined within the context of neutrosophy. The logic of the Diamond Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism, characterized by paradoxical language and a focus on emptiness, aligns with neutrosophic principles in challenging fixed notions and embracing the interconnected and indeterminate aspects of reality. Despite diverse cultural origins, these examples share a common thread in questioning absolutes and embracing the dynamic nature of existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present manuscript, it is our utmost aim and objective to comprehensively and extensively expound upon two highly innovative and remarkably novel information measures that have been adeptly and appropriately extended to encompass fuzzy sets. These measures have undergone a rigorous and meticulous scrutiny and examination with regard to axiomatic principles, and have evinced numerous and manifold advantageous properties, thus providing a compelling and highly persuasive validation of their reliability, credibility, and overall effectiveness. It is of paramount importance to note that the measures in question have been meticulously and painstakingly designed with the express aim and purpose of effectively quantifying the extent of information that is inextricably embedded and enmeshed within fuzzy sets, and are firmly grounded in the foundational and bedrock principles of information theory, which is an indisputably and irrefutably significant and substantial academic discipline. Our contributions to the field of study are truly and incontestably unparalleled, and offer a fresh, innovative, and unprecedented perspective on the study of fuzzy sets and their associated information content, which is of immense and inestimable value to the overall advancement and progress of the academic discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study discusses the extension of meaning of the word “filter” in its uses in the cyberspace context. Our goal is to analyze its semantic extension by polysemy, considering its use to denote a resource of image manipulation or of entertainment. Methodologically, we analyze the use of “filter” in a news report; the semantic categories studied are vagueness, lexical ambiguity (polysemy) and metaphor. Our investigation shows that: (a) “filter” involves semantic vagueness, both in its accommodation within the context of use, with a relative determinacy, and in its use as a strategic determinacy; (b) “filter” presents characteristics of a logically polysemic expression, verified by the detailing of the telic quale of the word; and (c) the semantic extension of “filter” can also be explained through the metaphorical interpretation and the understanding that we can comprehend one domain of experience in terms of another.

The demand for renewable energy has significantly increased over the last decade with increased attention to the preservation of the environment and sustainable, optimal resource management. As traditional sources of energy production are depleting at an alarming rate and causing long-lasting environmental damage, it is essential to explore green and cost-effective methodologies for meeting energy demand. With each country having different geographical, political, social, and natural factors, the problem arises of which renewable energy should be utilized for optimal resource management. This multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) challenge is tackled by applying a dynamic fuzzy hypersoft set-based Method for the evaluation of currently deployed Renewable Energy systems and providing a decision support system for the installation of new ones based on the factors mentioned above for Turkey. As the installation of new renewable energy projects and the evaluation of old ones is significantly influenced by human judgment, it leaves great room for uncertainty primarily because of the psychological factors of the expert. The novel concept of Fuzzy Hypersoft Sets (FHSs) and their Entropy (EN) and TOPSIS-based operations are first discussed with reference to the problem at hand. The presented structure is superior to the ones in the literature by allowing access to data parameters as sub-parametric values while utilizing the versatility of Fuzzy structures to deal with uncertainty. The technique has great potential to serve as a potential decision support system in any setting. For now, hypothetical expert ratings are used to illustrate the working of the dynamic structure along with a sensitivity analysis to investigate the primary criterion weights in sorting. The evaluation of currently deployed renewable energy systems using our methodology revealed an average improvement in system performance compared to traditional methods. Furthermore, the decision support system for the installation of new projects based on geographical, political, social, and natural factors exhibited a potential increase in overall system efficiency. These numeric outcomes highlight the effectiveness and practical applicability of our approach in optimizing resource management and fostering sustainable energy practices.

This study discusses the extension of the meaning of the word "filter" in its uses in the cyberspace context. Our goal is to analyze its semantic extension by polysemy, considering its use to denote a resource of image manipulation or entertainment. Methodologically, we analyze the use of "filter" in a news report; the semantic categories studied are vagueness, lexical ambiguity (polysemy), and metaphor. Our investigation shows that: (a) "filter" involves semantic vagueness, both in its accommodation within the context of use, with a relative determinacy, and in its use as a strategic determinacy; (b) "filter" presents characteristics of a logically polysemic expression, verified by the detailing of the telic quale of the word; and (c) the semantic extension of "filter" can also be explained through the metaphorical interpretation and the understanding that we can comprehend one domain of experience in terms of another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privacy policies are the main method for informing Internet users of how their data are collected and shared. This study aims to analyze the deficiencies of privacy policies in terms of readability, vague statements, and the use of pacifying phrases concerning privacy. This represents the undertaking of a step forward in the literature on this topic through a comprehensive analysis encompassing both time and website coverage. It characterizes trends across website categories, top-level domains, and popularity ranks. Furthermore, studying the development in the context of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) offers insights into the impact of regulations on policy comprehensibility. The findings reveal a concerning trend: privacy policies have grown longer and more ambiguous, making it challenging for users to comprehend them. Notably, there is an increased proportion of vague statements, while clear statements have seen a decrease. Despite this, the study highlights a steady rise in the inclusion of reassuring statements aimed at alleviating readers' privacy concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In philosophical discourse, vagueness is commonly regarded as an undesirable and problematic aspect of human experience. Such standpoints are not unfounded. However, in this article, I argue that vagueness may in certain instances also possess an instrumental role that supports specific modes of human aspiration, including the artistic and the mathematical. In particular, I investigate the ways in which vagueness not only hinders but also fosters the emergence of an aesthetic quality of experience during the imaginative endeavours of fine art and mathematics. The manner in which the benefit from felt vagueness ties into the formation of artistic and mathematical scenarios helps to illuminate deep and often unnoticed relations between these two domains of human ingenuity. In this article, the overall concept of experience and the particular features of human experience, such as the aesthetic and the vague, are examined in the context of John Dewey’s philosophical pragmatism. In Dewey’s philosophical framework, the human mind and culture are understood as natural phenomena. As such, the Deweyan approach fits the paradigm of a twenty-first century scientific understanding of the inherent ontological unity of all modes of human existence and activity.

Logical form is thought to be discovered by keeping fixed the logical constants and allowing the non-logical content in the sentence to vary. The problem of logical constants is the problem of defining what counts as a logical constant. In this paper, I will argue that the concept ’logical constant’ is vague. I demonstrate the vagueness of logical constancy by providing a sorites argument, thereby showing the sorites-susceptibility of the concept. Many prior papers in the literature on logical constants hint at this vagueness, but do not explore how theories of vagueness apply to logical constants. In the second half of this paper, I do just this. I consider approaches to logical constants that resemble nihilism about vagueness and more recent theories that relativize truth to precisifications. Finally, I argue that approaches that accept the potential indeterminate status of putative logical constants are preferable to nihilism or relativism about logical constancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

يتناول هذا البحث مفهوم قيمة الصدق وطبيعته وتطوره في الأنساق المنطقية المعاصرة، وهو أحد أهم المفاهيم المركزية في المنطق الحديث، إذ تعد قيمة الصدق أداة فعالة للتحليل المنطقي والسيمانطيقي للغة وتمثيلا للعلاقات المختلفة التي يمكن أن تٌعقد بين اللغة والعالم. واستجابة لمتغيرات العصر وطبيعة العلم المتنامية المتطورة التي أدت إلى التشكيك في يقين العلم والرياضيات واهتزاز الثقة فى المنطق الكلاسيكي ثنائي القيم، شرع العلماء والمناطقة في إعادة التفكير فى العلم والرياضيات ومحاولة الخروج من ثنائية قيم الصدق الكلاسيكية. ومن ثم تغيرت صورة قيمة الصدق المنطقي وأخذت أشكالا جديدة مخالفة تماما للتصور الثنائي الكلاسيكي وفق ما يتلاءم مع منطق العلم الحديث ومستجدات الواقع المليء بالغموض والمتناقضات. ولقد أدى تطور مفهوم قيم الصدق إلى الانتقال من التصور الثنائي الأقرب للمثالية إلى التصور الواقعي الذي يتلاءم مع التغير العلمي ويواكب منطق التنوع والاختلاف والكثرة والتغير الذي يميز الواقع الفعلي للفكر الإنساني. ومن ثم لم يكن تطور مفهوم قيمة الصدق في الأنساق المنطقية المعاصرة إلا انعطافا نقديا لأسس التصور الأرسطي (الثنائي) لقيمة الصدق يرمي إلى التوسيع من مجالها من جهة، والقضاء على استاتيكيتها وضيقها وجمودها من جهة ثانية.AbstractThis research deals with the concept of the truth value, its nature and development in contemporary logical systems. It is one of the most central concepts in modern logic. The truth value is an effective tool for the logical and semantic analysis of language and a representation of the different relationships that can be held between language and the world. In response to the changes of the times and the growing nature of science that led to questioning the certainty of science and mathematics and the shaking of confidence in the classical two-valued logic, scholars and logicians began to rethink science and mathematics and try to get out of the bivalence of truth values. Hence, the image of the logical truth value changed and took new forms that are contrary to the classical binary perception, according to what is compatible with the logic of modern science and developments in reality full of contradictions. The development of the concept of truth values has led to a transition from the binary conception closest to idealism to the realistic conception that is compatible with scientific change and keeping pace with the logic of diversity, difference, multiplicity and change that characterizes the actual reality of human thought. Hence, the development of the concept of the truth value was nothing but a critical turn to the foundations of the Aristotelian conception of the truth value aimed at expanding its scope on the one hand, and eliminating its static, narrowness and stagnation on the other hand.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) plays a crucial role in maintaining and enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. To effectively manage customer relationships, organizations require decision support systems that can provide valuable insights and assist in making informed decisions. In this context, Rough Sets-Based Decision Support Systems (RS-DSS) have emerged as a promising approach. RS-DSS utilizes the principles of rough set theory to handle uncertainty and vagueness in customer data, enabling the discovery of hidden patterns and knowledge for effective CRM. This paper provides an overview of the application of RS-DSS in CRM, highlighting its benefits and challenges. The study also discusses various components of RS-DSS, including attribute reduction, rule extraction, and decisionmaking. Furthermore, the paper presents a case study to illustrate the practical implementation and potential outcomes of RS-DSS in CRM. Overall, RS-DSS holds significant potential in enhancing customer relationship management by leveraging rough set theory for decision support and improving organizational performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privacy policies are critical for helping individuals make decisions on the usage of information systems. However, as a common language phenomenon, ambiguity occurs pervasively in privacy policies and largely impedes their usefulness. The existing research focuses on the identification of individual vague words or sentences, without considering the context of documents, which may cause a significant amount of false vagueness. Our goal is to automatically detect the potential false vagueness and the related supporting evidence, which illustrates or explains the vagueness, and therefore probably assist in alleviating the vagueness. We firstly analyze the public manual annotations and define four common patterns of false vagueness and three types of supporting evidence. Then we propose the approach of the F·vague-Detector to automatically detect the supporting evidence and then locate the corresponding potential false vagueness. According to our analysis, about 29–39% of individual vague sentences have at least one clarifying sentence in the documents, and experiments show good performance of our approach, with recall of 66.98–67.95%, precision of 70.59–94.85%, and F 1 of 69.24–78.51% on the potential false vagueness detection. Detecting the vagueness of isolated sentences without considering their context within the whole document would bring about one-third potential false vagueness, and our approach can detect this potential false vagueness and the alleviating evidence effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a Fuzzy Property Grammar System (FPGS), a formalism that integrates a Fuzzy Property Grammar into a linguistic grammar system to formally characterize metaphorical evaluative expressions. The main scope of this paper is to present the formalism of FPGS and to show how it might provide a formal characterization of hate speech linguistic evaluative expressions with metaphors (as fuzzy concepts), together with evaluating their degree of linguistic violence. Linguistic metaphors are full of semantic coercions. It is necessary to formally characterize the context of the communication to acknowledge the extralinguistic constraints of the pragmatic domain, which establishes whether an utterance is violent. To show the applicability of our formalism, we present a proof of concept. By compiling and tagging a 3000-tweet corpus, we have extracted a lexicon of hate speech metaphors. Furthermore, we show how FPGS architecture can deal with different types of hate speech and can identify implicit violent figurative evaluative expressions by context and type. Although we are still in the experimental phase of our project and cannot present conclusive results at the computational level, the proof-of-concept results show that our formalism can achieve the desired outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Al-Adab / Al-ādāb is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, we broaden the existing notion of vagueness to account for linguistic ambiguity that results from context-dependent use of language. This broadened notion, termed literal vagueness, necessarily arises in optimal equilibria in many standard conversational situations. In controlled laboratory experiments, we find that, despite the strategic complexity in its usage, people can indeed use literally vague language to effectively transmit information. Based on the theory and the experimental evidence, we conclude that context dependence is an appealing explanation for why language is vague. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a new grammatical framework, Fuzzy Property Grammars (FPGr). This is a model based on Property Grammars and Fuzzy Natural Logic. Such grammatical framework is constraint-based and provides a new way to formally characterize gradience by representing grammaticality degrees regarding linguistic competence (without involving speakers judgments). The paper provides a formal-logical characterization of FPGr. A test of the framework is presented by implementing an FPGr for Spanish. FPGr is a formal theory that may serve linguists, computing scientists, and mathematicians since it can capture infinite grammatical structures within the variability of a language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When communicating, people adapt their linguistic representations to those of their interlocutors. Previous studies have shown that this also occurs at the semantic level for vague and context‐dependent terms such as quantifiers and uncertainty expressions. However, work to date has mostly focused on passive exposure to a given speaker's interpretation, without considering the possible role of active linguistic interaction. In this study, we focus on gradable adjectives big and small and develop a novel experimental paradigm that allows participants to ask clarification questions to figure out their interlocutor's interpretation. We find that, when in doubt, speakers do resort to this strategy, despite its inherent cognitive cost, and that doing so results in higher semantic alignment measured in terms of communicative success. While not all question–answer pairs are equally informative, we show that speakers become better questioners as the interaction progresses. Yet, the higher semantic alignment observed when speakers are able to ask questions does not increase over time. This suggests that conversational interaction's key advantage may be to boost coordination without committing to long‐term semantic updates. Our findings shed new light on the mechanisms used by speakers to achieve semantic alignment and on how language is shaped by communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privacy policies are the main method for informing Internet users of how their data are collected and shared. This study aims to analyze the deficiencies of privacy policies in terms of readability, vague statements, and the use of pacifying phrases concerning privacy. This represents the undertaking of a step forward in the literature on this topic through a comprehensive analysis encompassing both time and website coverage. It characterizes trends across website categories, top-level domains, and popularity ranks. Furthermore, studying the development in the context of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) offers insights into the impact of regulations on policy comprehensibility. The findings reveal a concerning trend: privacy policies have grown longer and more ambiguous, making it challenging for users to comprehend them. Notably, there is an increased proportion of vague statements, while clear statements have seen a decrease. Despite this, the study highlights a steady rise in the inclusion of reassuring statements aimed at alleviating readers’ privacy concerns.

Precise prediction of risk for dyslexia among children’s in earlier stages is a significant long-term aim in the field of cognitive computing. Producing such accurate results for detection of dyslexia from a dataset which consist of low-quality dataset and the presence of vague information is the toughest challenge among researchers. This paper aims at developing an evolving model to handle the impreciseness in the detection of dyslexia more intelligently. In this work, each instance is described in a neutrosophic domain by defining a membership degree of truthiness, indeterminacy, and falsity. These instances are neutrosophically clustered by applying Neutrosophic C-Means clustering (NCM) which forms four different clusters namely dyslexia, no dyslexia, control/revision and hyperactivity or other issues. The outlier and noise are the special categories of indeterminacy which often occurs in real datasets are promptly discovered and clustered. NCM is optimized by introducing Artificial Bacterial Foraging (ABF), especially when there is vagueness or imprecision in the selection of cluster centroids. With the merits of global searching, ABF selects more promising clustering during cluster re-computation. The interpreted results confirm that the role played by proposed ONCMC-ABF algorithm produces better results in the prediction of dyslexia with the low-quality dataset.

Epistemicism associates vagueness with ignorance produced by semantic plasticity: the shiftiness of intensions in our language resulting from small changes in usage. The recent literature (Caie 2012; Magidor 2018; Yli-Vakkuri 2016) points to a missing piece in the epistemicist theory of vagueness, namely a clear account of the semantics of the definiteness operator Δ. The fundamentals of the epistemicist theory are well understood. However, the technical work of defining the definiteness operator has proven difficult. There are several desiderata that we would like Δ to satisfy. For instance, we would like the epistemicist notion of 'definiteness' to interact well with modal operators and validate intuitive principles like 'necessarily, if φ is definitely true, then φ is true'. Providing an account that would meet all such desiderata has eluded the epistemicists so far. In this paper, I present a novel version of a multidimensional model inspired by the work of Robert Stalnaker and David Kaplan. Using this model, I provide an account of epistemicist definiteness that meets our desiderata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cognitio - Revista de Filosofia is the property of Cognitio - Revista de Filosofia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores the role played by nominalization in enhancing the persuasive potential of texts by allowing a larger and more effective use of linguistic implicit strategies. The analysis starts from the premise that linguistic implicitness has been proven to help persuade addressees, and adopts the taxonomy of linguistic implicitness proposed in Lombardi Vallauri (2019), including four categories of implicit strategies (presupposition, topicalization, implicature, and vagueness). Data are extracted from the IMPAQTS corpus of Italian political discourse and qualitatively analyzed. The analysis shows that nominalized forms, quite frequent in political discourse, ease the presence of three different implicit strategies: presupposition, obtained through the packaging of nominalized forms as definite descriptions; vagueness, obtained through the omission of one of the participants in the action, typically the agent; topicalization, obtained through syntactic and prosodic means. All in all, nominalized forms seem to be able to increase the manipulative power of texts in political discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the semiotic and metaphysical framework within which Peirce elaborated a symbolical and dynamical conception of personhood. It exhibits the centrality of Peirce’s early conception of the “unity of consistency” along with its decentering advantages. It describes how this gave rise to a metaphysics of personhood that questions the singularity of individuals. It then conducts a semiotic study of the evolutive process across which something indeterminate evolves into something determinate that increasingly personifies itself following the logic of symbolization, taking into account two major types of indetermination: generality and vagueness. It then considers the kind of teleology at work within personification. It concludes that personhood so conceived is not restricted to only individual human beings, for the process of symbolization at work is not confined to a particular species-specific application.

Abstract Introduction Currently, one of the commonly used methods for disseminating electronic health record (EHR)-based phenotype algorithms is providing a narrative description of the algorithm logic, often accompanied by flowcharts. A challenge with this mode of dissemination is the potential for under-specification in the algorithm definition, which leads to ambiguity and vagueness. Methods This study examines incidents of under-specification that occurred during the implementation of 34 narrative phenotyping algorithms in the electronic Medical Record and Genomics (eMERGE) network. We reviewed the online communication history between algorithm developers and implementers within the Phenotype Knowledge Base (PheKB) platform, where questions could be raised and answered regarding the intended implementation of a phenotype algorithm. Results We developed a taxonomy of under-specification categories via an iterative review process between two groups of annotators. Under-specifications that lead to ambiguity and vagueness were consistently found across narrative phenotype algorithms developed by all involved eMERGE sites. Discussion and conclusion Our findings highlight that under-specification is an impediment to the accuracy and efficiency of the implementation of current narrative phenotyping algorithms, and we propose approaches for mitigating these issues and improved methods for disseminating EHR phenotyping algorithms.

A common dependent measure used in visual-world eye-tracking experiments is the proportion of looks to a visuallydepicted object in a certain time window after the onset of thecritical stimulus. When interpreting such data, a common as-sumption is that looks to the object reflect the listener’s beliefthat the object is the intended target referent. While this isintuitively plausible (at least for paradigms in which the taskrequires selecting a referent), relatively little is known abouthow exactly the proportion of looks to an object is related toa listener’s current belief about that object. Here, we test asimple, explicit linking hypothesis: the proportion of looks toan object correlates with the probability that the listener as-signs to the object being the target. To test this hypothesis,we supplement the eye-tracking data from Leffel, Xiang, andKennedy (2016) with an offline incremental decision task tomeasure participants’ beliefs about the intended referent at var-ious points in the unfolding sentence, and assess the extent towhich these beliefs predict the eye-tracking data. The resultssuggest that the degree to which an object is believed to be thereferent is only one factor that affects eye movements in ref-erential tasks. Preliminary free production data we have col-lected for the scenes suggests that utterance expectations alsoplay a role. We discuss methodological implications of theseresults for experimental linguistics.

En els darrers anys, s’ha produït un debat jurídic, filosòfic i doctrinal sobre la taxonomia de la vulnerabilitat des de l’angle ontològic i el del "plantejament col·lectiu", així com des de les perspectives crítica, relacional i interseccional. Això no obstant, aquesta àmplia reflexió teòrica no ha aconseguit incorporar completament la tan necessària revisió semàntica dels conceptes de vulnerabilitat i migrant, sobretot pel que fa a la interpretació jurídica d’una de les col·locacions que més s’està veient últimament: vulnerabilitat de les persones migrants. En concret, les definicions que se n’han fet fins ara han provocat problemes d’interpretació jurídica, incloent-hi ambigüitats i vaguetats. També han portat a elaborar arguments basats en fal·làcies o hipòtesis sobre com s’identifica les persones vulnerables o no vulnerables en els contextos migratoris. En aquest article s’analitzen aquests problemes conceptuals i s’exploren les limitacions de la interpretació jurídica de l’expressió vulnerabilitat de les persones migrants. L’objectiu és demostrar que l’ambigüitat i la vaguetat conceptuals tenen conseqüències jurídiques i polítiques pel que fa a l’ús de categories exclusives per identificar les persones vulnerables en el sistema europeu d’immigració i asil.

Abstract One of the few points of agreement between most theists and non-theists working on the problem of evil is that the existence of a perfect God is incompatible with the existence of pointless evil. In a series of influential papers, however, Peter van Inwagen has argued that careful attention to the reasoning behind this claim reveals fatal difficulties related to the Sorites Paradox. In this paper, I explain van Inwagen’s appeal to sorites reasoning, distinguish between two different arguments in his work, and argue that they both commit the same so-far-unnoticed mistake.

Uncut is a book about two kinds of paradoxes: paradoxes involving truth and its relatives, like the liar paradox, and paradoxes involving vagueness. There are lots of ways to look at these paradoxes, and lots of puzzles generated by them, and Uncut ignores most of this variety to focus on a single issue. That issue: do our words mean what they seem to mean, and if so, how can this be? I claim that our words do mean what they seem to, and yet our language is not undermined by paradox. By developing a distinctive theory of meaning, I show how this can be.

These are the responses!

I experimentally investigate how vague language changes the nature of communication in a biased strategic information transmission game. Counterintuitively, when both precise and imprecise messages can be sent, in aggregate, senders are more accurate, and receivers trust them more than when only precise messages can be sent. I also develop and structurally estimate a model showing that vague messages increase communication between boundedly rational players, especially if some senders are moderately honest. Moderately honest senders avoid stating an outright lie by using vague messages to hedge them. Then, precise messages are more informative because there are fewer precise lies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulations on narcotics crimes themselves have been regulated in the Narcotics Law number 35 of 2009 but still the number of narcotics abuse in Indonesia continues to increase. Although there are regulations that regulate the prohibition of drug abuse, the author is interested in researching the number of users who are sentenced to prison terms, why is rehabilitation not carried out, but more are sentenced to prison. There are several articles in the law, there is a vagueness that can be interpreted as a vagueness of different interpretations from law enforcers who have the power to impose punishment on law breakers, with the existence of this vagueness, the giving of the law is different even though in the case of which have the same resemblance. The research uses normative legal research methods. In the technique of collecting data in solving this problem, it is carried out using library research techniques, which are then analyzed qualitatively. With the form of the sound of the articles in the Narcotics Law, it can have an impact that can have a full or overcrowded impact, which is the current condition in prisons and detention centers, and results in the implementation of coaching not going well. With the updated legal form, it will provide a parser from the complexities of enforcement and enforcement of narcotics abusers.

Privacy policies are critical for helping individuals make decisions on the usage of information systems. However, as a common language phenomenon, ambiguity occurs pervasively in privacy policies and largely impedes their usefulness. The existing research focuses on the identification of individual vague words or sentences, without considering the context of documents, which may cause a significant amount of false vagueness. Our goal is to automatically detect the potential false vagueness and the related supporting evidence, which illustrates or explains the vagueness, and therefore probably assist in alleviating the vagueness. We firstly analyze the public manual annotations and define four common patterns of false vagueness and three types of supporting evidence. Then we propose the approach of the F·vague-Detector to automatically detect the supporting evidence and then locate the corresponding potential false vagueness. According to our analysis, about 29–39% of individual vague sentences have at least one clarifying sentence in the documents, and experiments show good performance of our approach, with recall of 66.98–67.95%, precision of 70.59–94.85%, and F1 of 69.24–78.51% on the potential false vagueness detection. Detecting the vagueness of isolated sentences without considering their context within the whole document would bring about one-third potential false vagueness, and our approach can detect this potential false vagueness and the alleviating evidence effectively.

We introduce a Fuzzy Property Grammar System (FPGS), a formalism that integrates a Fuzzy Property Grammar into a linguistic grammar system to formally characterize metaphorical evaluative expressions. The main scope of this paper is to present the formalism of FPGS and to show how it might provide a formal characterization of hate speech linguistic evaluative expressions with metaphors (as fuzzy concepts), together with evaluating their degree of linguistic violence. Linguistic metaphors are full of semantic coercions. It is necessary to formally characterize the context of the communication to acknowledge the extralinguistic constraints of the pragmatic domain, which establishes whether an utterance is violent. To show the applicability of our formalism, we present a proof of concept. By compiling and tagging a 3000-tweet corpus, we have extracted a lexicon of hate speech metaphors. Furthermore, we show how FPGS architecture can deal with different types of hate speech and can identify implicit violent figurative evaluative expressions by context and type. Although we are still in the experimental phase of our project and cannot present conclusive results at the computational level, the proof-of-concept results show that our formalism can achieve the desired outcome.

This paper investigates the use of kati "some" by Greek Heritage Speakers (HSs) in comparison to monolinguals. While all Greek determiners are marked for gender, case, and number, and agree with their nominal complement, kati is an exception, as it lacks agreement and combines only with plural nouns. Building on the existing literature, we show that its function is to remain vague about the number of individuals/entities denoted. Our hypothesis is that vague language (VL) is a feature of informal conversations and of the spoken language. To this end, we conducted a study in which Heritage Speakers of Greek and monolingual speakers of Greek participated in a production task held in two distinct settings and modalities. In addition, we performed corpus searches to see how both monolingual and Heritage Speakers use kati. The results show that monolingual speakers do indeed prefer kati in the informal register, while Heritage Speakers overgeneralize its use across registers. Our findings confirm the use of vague language in informal registers and oral modality and support claims in the literature on register levelling by Heritage Speakers. Focusing on monolinguals' repertoire, a judgment task with different levels of formality was additionally performed. These results in principle align with our hypothesis and signal that neither frequency nor other informality contexts trigger a higher rate for kati. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While comparability across firms and consistency over time are generally held to be fundamental goals of financial reporting, I provide an analytic representation of a concept that explains why concepts‐based accounting standards cannot assure comparability and why their induced consistency may not always be desirable. While the term 'concepts‐based accounting standards' has not caught on in the academic and professional literatures, its use here emphasizes the foundational role that language‐based concepts play in constructing accounting standards. I appeal to the academic literature in machine learning, neural networks, and especially cognitive science—all of which may represent concepts by S‐curve (sigmoid) signatures. I then show how S‐curves can explain an accounting standard's (1) precision, (2) comparability across firms, (3) demands placed on judgement, and (4) consistency across time. Accordingly, an S‐curve formulation may guide both analytical modelling of accounting standards and add structure to empirical research designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precise prediction of risk for dyslexia among children's in earlier stages is a significant long-term aim in the field of cognitive computing. Producing such accurate results for detection of dyslexia from a dataset which consist of low-quality dataset and the presence of vague information is the toughest challenge among researchers. This paper aims at developing an evolving model to handle the impreciseness in the detection of dyslexia more intelligently. In this work, each instance is described in a neutrosophic domain by defining a membership degree of truthiness, indeterminacy, and falsity. These instances are neutrosophically clustered by applying Neutrosophic C-Means clustering (NCM) which forms four different clusters namely dyslexia, no dyslexia, control/revision and hyperactivity or other issues. The outlier and noise are the special categories of indeterminacy which often occurs in real datasets are promptly discovered and clustered. NCM is optimized by introducing Artificial Bacterial Foraging (ABF), especially when there is vagueness or imprecision in the selection of cluster centroids. With the merits of global searching, ABF selects more promising clustering during cluster re-computation. The interpreted results confirm that the role played by proposed ONCMC-ABF algorithm produces better results in the prediction of dyslexia with the low-quality dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important part of explaining how people communicate isto understand how people relate language to entities in theworld. In describing measurements, people prefer to use quali-tative words like ‘tall’ without precise applicability conditions,also known as vague words. The use of vague language varieswidely across contexts, individuals, and tasks (single referencevs. comparisons between targets), but despite this variabil-ity, is used quite successfully. A potential strategy for usingvague language is to leverage the set of alternative descrip-tors to settle on the best option. To determine whether peopleuse this strategy, we conducted an experiment where partici-pants picked vague words from sets of alternatives to describeeither probability or color values. We varied the set of alter-natives from which participants could choose. Empirical evi-dence supports the hypothesis that people use the set of avail-able options to pick vague descriptors. The theoretical impli-cations of this work are discussed.

This paper sets out to explore the expression of vagueness in eighteenth and nineteenth century scientific writing, specifically in the Corpus of English Life Sciences Texts. Following Zhang’s (2015) pragmatic-oriented approach to vague language, vague expressions are viewed through the lenses of elasticity. This notion applies to the strategic use of vagueness insofar as it provides a space for the negotiation of pragmatic meanings in writer-reader interaction. The exploration of elastic language involves four lexical categories: (i) approximate stretchers, i.e., approximators and vague quantifiers, (ii) general stretchers, i.e., general terms, placeholders and vague category markers, (iii) scalar stretchers, i.e., intensifiers and softeners, and (iv) epistemic stretchers. The Coruña Corpus Tool has been used to elicit data, but classification and contextualised interpretations have necessarily relied on manual analysis. Findings reveal that elastic language fulfils a variety of relational functions in scientific writing, including making generalisations when the information is either not available or relevant for the purposes of communication, marking shared knowledge and group membership, or self-protection.

Archaeology is currently bound to a series of metaphysical principles, one of which claims that reality is composed of a series of discrete objects. These discrete objects are fundamental metaphysical entities in archaeological science and posthumanist/New Materialist approaches and can be posited, assembled, counted, and consequently included in quantitative models (e.g. Big Data, Bayesian models) or network models (e.g. Actor-Network Theory). The work by Sørensen and Marila shows that archaeological reality is not that discrete, that some objects cannot be easily identified, and that perhaps reality is not always necessarily composed of discrete objects. The aim of this article is to take Sørensen and Marila’s arguments to their ultimate logical consequences: most archaeological theory today operates under the illusion of a general metaphysics. This illusion dictates not only that all of reality is composed of discrete objects, but that since reality manifests in a certain way, there has to be a methodology that accurately represents that reality. A brief discussion on the notion of “conjecture,” as conceived in certain historical theories, is also presented.

This paper introduces a new grammatical framework, Fuzzy Property Grammars (FPGr). This is a model based on Property Grammars and Fuzzy Natural Logic. Such grammatical framework is constraint-based and provides a new way to formally characterize gradience by representing grammaticality degrees regarding linguistic competence (without involving speakers judgments). The paper provides a formal-logical characterization of FPGr. A test of the framework is presented by implementing an FPGr for Spanish. FPGr is a formal theory that may serve linguists, computing scientists, and mathematicians since it can capture infinite grammatical structures within the variability of a language.