It is all too common for systems processing natural language, whether for input (automatic speech recognition, text queries, dialogue etc.) or output (text-to-speech), to ignore or strip out punctuation. The effect of prosodic factors, such as intonation and pausing, on language processing remains controversial. While there is an obvious relationship between punctuation and prosody it cannot be...

While the scientific evidence for climate change grows, the policy responses have so far had little or no impact on the build-up of emissions. Current trends in emissions are adverse. The paper considers why the disconnect between science and policy exists and, in particular, why the Kyoto Protocol has achieved so little. Some contributing factors considered are: the focus on carbon production ...