We will argue that this construction combines semantic and syntactic quirks that necessitate a constructional analysis. Further, we will show that specifying the pragmatic properties of the construction (and in particular the presuppositions that introduces) allows for a particularly elegant account of the construction’s distribution. This, in turn, provides further support for the sign-based v...

Due to the proliferation of location-based information services, there is abundant urban information which makes us difficult to catch up with the characteristics and dynamics of our living space. However, nowadays, crowd lifelogs shared over social network sites are attracting a great deal of attention as a novel source to search for local information from the massive voices and lifelogs of cr...

The term “believability” is often used to describe the expectations concerning virtual agents. In this paper we analyze which factors influence the believability of the agent acting as software assistant. We consider several factors such as embodiment, communicative behavior, as well as emotional capabilities. We conduct a perceptive study where we analyze the role of plausible and/or appropria...

mainstream sociology under positivism has sought to provide universal theory, in one hand, and the historiography has attempted to narrative description of events, in the other hand. pathological studies show that both are suffering from extremism; so that mainstream sociology have neglected to study of special affairs and historiography  has not been able to build and provide theoretical gener...

Designing and supporting learning interactions that are genuinely engaging, meaningful and conceptually stimulating within online learning contexts remains a significant challenge in contemporary education. One currently popular approach which aims to address some key aspects of this problem, and motivational issues in particular, involves articulating interaction as a game. This Chapter, whils...

Decades of research have proven that many misconceptions of scientific notions are difficult to uproot even after intensive instructional interventions. In this paper we examine the role of argumentation and of explanation development in dyadic dialogues and their relation to consequential individual conceptual change. Two quantitative dialogue coding schemes were developed with different granu...

Received: 14 September 2009 Revised: 12 June 2010 2nd Revision: 12 January 2011 3rd Revision: 30 April 2011 Accepted: 11 May 2011 Abstract Information systems (IS) research has drawn heavily on social and cognitive psychology to explain technology adoption. Indeed, the many variations of the technology acceptance model all share these same theoretical foundations. Focusing exclusively on the so...