4. Exploitation

Reality checker: How to cut nonsense from the net shows an interesting application field where advanced language technologies could be applied.

Read the full article Reality checker: How to cut nonsense from the net - tech - 19 September 2012 - New Scientist.

I was about to hand wash my fancy dress with metal fiber fabric so I decided to check the washing instructions.

It is surprising to note that the Spanish has a negative description, mentioning a compound that should be avoided, while the others just say what to use. Hard to imagine what is the abstract grammar for that, my guess is that it needs quite a bit of context to work. AceWiki? :)

BTW, I would love to know if you spot similar examples in those fancy new sportswear fabrics.

I have been looking at ways of extracting marked up text and mathematics from scans of old mathematics books, in particular from A synopsis of elementary results in pure mathematics: containing propositions, formulæ, and methods of analysis, with abridged demonstrations. Supplemented by an index to the papers on pure mathematics which are to be found in the principal journals and transactions of learned societies, both English and foreign, of the present century (1886) available at http://archive.org/details/synopsisofelemen00carrrich.

When I try a simple cut&paste from the PDF of the book (the DjVu version still to be downloaded), say of page 27, I get:

INDEX TO TROPOSITIONS OF EUCLID REFERRED TO IX THIS WORK.
Tho references to Euclid are made in Koinan and ^Vrabic numerals ; e.g. (VI. 19).
BOOK T.
I. 4.—Triaui^'los arc equal and similar if two sides and the included an<^le of each are equal each to each.
I. 5.—The angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal.
1. 0.—The converse of 5.
I. 8.—Triangles are equal and similar if tlie tliroe sides of eacli arc
ecjual each to each.
I. IT). —The exterior angle of a triangle is grojiter than the interior
and opposite.
I. 20.—Twosidesofatrianglearegreaterthanthethird.
I. 26.—Triangles are equal and similar if two angles and one corres-
ponding side of each are equal each to each.
I. 27.—Two straight lines are parallel if tlicy make equal alternate
angles with a third line. I. 29.—Theconverseof27.

I wonder how much of this could be corrected automatically.

I just installed the German Austrian dictionary for Firefox. It spells check what I type, e.g. as a comment in Facebook.

Along the same lines, shouldn't we able to do some predictive typing plugin too?

https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Firefox_addons_dev_guide see Chapter 5.

As it happened now, in a private correspondence between Jordi and myself, I was pointing out the word problem mentioned in the Wikipedia page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmagupta,

In chapter twelve of his Brahmasphutasiddhanta, Brahmagupta finds Pythagorean triples,

    12.39. The height of a mountain multiplied by a given multiplier 
    is the distance to a city; it is not erased. When it is divided 
    by the multiplier increased by two it is the leap of one of the 
    two who make the same journey.[9]

or in other words, for a given length m and an arbitrary multiplier x, 
let a = mx and b = m + mx/(x + 2). 
Then m, a, and b form a Pythagorean triple.[9]

and Jordi noticed that m=3, x=1, then a = 3, b = 3 + 3/3 = 4, but (1,3,4) is not a Pythagorean triple.

Symbolic transliteration from the English (we assume) is incorrect. Will it ever be possible to automatically setup such a system of equations? How was the original? Is it easier to comprehend and convert to a system of equations?

Asked Shafqat and Prasad to try to find the original.

Would that be possible?

eScience user group, eLearning.

See more at

http://www.wolfram.com/training/special-event/wolfram-cdf-virtual-worksh...

I believe it would be easy to use GF grammars to generate flashcards, the kind used by students to review a subject area, or a language, or definitions in a subject. I can imagine also using the KRI to make more complicated flash cards just by enumerating the questions, printing them on one side, and printing the answers on the reverse side.

Mobile apps must be available that take some standard input format for flashcards.

Also, device like game consoles (I am thinking Nintendo DS and similar ones that already have language learning applications, see e.g. My Coach series).