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A common challenge faced by students is that they often have questions about course material that they cannot ask during lecture time. There are many ways for students to have these questions answered, such as office hours and online discussion boards. However, office hours may be at inconvenient times or locations, and online discussion boards are difficult to navigate and may be inactive. The purpose of this project was to create an Alexa skill that allows users to ask their Alexa-equipped device a question concerning their course material and to receive an answer retrieved from discussion board data. User questions are mapped to discussion board posts by use of the cosine similarity algorithm. In this algorithm, posts from the discussion board and the user’s question are converted into mathematical vectors, with each term in the vector corresponding to a word. The values of these terms are computed based on the word’s frequency within the vector’s corresponding document, the frequency of that word within all the documents, and the length of the document. After the question and candidate posts are converted into vectors, the algorithm determines the post most similar to the user’s question by computing the angle between the vectors. With the most similar discussion board post determined, the user receives the replies to the post, if any, as their answer. Users are able to indicate to their Alexa device whether they were satisfied by the answer, and if they were unsatisfied then they are given the opportunity to either rephrase their question or to have the question sent to a database of unanswered questions. The professor can view and answer the questions in this database on a website hosted by use of Amazon’s Simple Storage Service. The Alexa skill does well at answering questions that have already been asked in the discussion board. However, the skill depends heavily on the user’s word choice. Two questions that are semantically identical but different in phrasing are often given different answers. This is because the cosine algorithm measures similarity on the basis of word overlap, not semantic meaning, and thus the application never truly “understands” what type of answer the user desires. Improving the performance of this Alexa skill will require a more advanced question answering algorithm, but the limitations of Amazon Web Services as a development platform make implementing such an algorithm difficult. Nevertheless, this project has created the basis of a question answering Alexa skill by demonstrating a feasible way that the resources offered by Amazon can be utilized in order to build such an application.
ContributorsBaker, Matthew Elias (Author) / Chen, Yinong (Thesis director) / Balasooriya, Janaka (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Jane Austen’s depictions of musical performers and listeners in her novels suggest her belief that musical performances should strengthen intimacy between people, both between listeners and performers as well as among listeners. Austen commends music for its power to increase intimacy through honest expressions of taste, which more often arise in private performances, but she warns against its power to decrease intimacy through pretentious displays of taste, which more often arise in public performances. Austen’s belief that music allows for this healthy intimacy indicates that music has great significance in society. Austen suggests that music has a greater importance to everyday life than many may originally suppose, as it is a universal connection between people. Ultimately, Jane Austen’s perspective of music’s great power both to expose pretentiousness and to cultivate intimacy should lead all of her readers to recognize and respect music’s true power and to consider seriously the importance and role of music in their own lives.
ContributorsColliat, Chelsea Elyse (Author) / Tait, Dana (Thesis director) / Schildkret, David (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Sch (Contributor) / School of Music, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
I will demonstrate through analysis that the effectiveness of music in social movements relies in large part on two unique elements: authenticity and collective action. I will then argue that these elements are antithetic to the actual conditions of music production as the 21st century progresses in America. While this paper does not explore the possible effectiveness of movements without music, I emphasize the well documented ((Futrell, et. al. (2006), (Roy, 2010), (Dyck, 2017)) link between music and social movements, and conclude that this relationship between music and social movements is in danger.
ContributorsCochlin, Fallon Julia (Author) / Fette, Don (Thesis director) / Lauderdale, Pat (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Music both created and consumed by Soviet soldiers during the war in Afghanistan provides an insight into their opinions and criticisms of the war. Music allowed soldiers to vent, to give voice to their experiences, as well as to rationalize their participation in the conflict, enabling them to inject their personal opinions and perceptions of the war into memorable and poetic forms. Through analyzing the Soviet songs about the of Afghan war, we can create a chronological timeline charting the development of resentment and disillusionment among Soviet soldiers: the initial patriotic songs borrowed from prior conflicts soon declined in popularity, replaced with mournful songs reflecting soldiers’ nostalgia for home and fear of death in their daily lives. Their lyrics reveal feelings of anxiety, disenfranchisement and abandonment, all resulting from the Soviet state’s ineffective handling of the war. In addition to songs produced by soldiers themselves, bands within Soviet borders such as Kino also wrote songs about the conflict, using their star power to draw attention to the conflict in their own fashion. By tracking both the creation and spread of these songs about the Soviet-Afghan war (referred to in this essay as either the “Soviet-Afghan War” or, more simply, the “Afghan War” as it is known in Russian), we can find vital, overlooked expressions of if not protest then discontent - among the many bubbling to the surface during the last decade of the USSR. This thesis therefore presents a chronological analysis of representative songs from the Soviet-Afghan war that also takes their popularity and methods of propagation -- the material technologies that allowed for this music to be spread -- into account, plotted alongside the major turning points of the war. It uncovers an otherwise forgotten form of discourse between soldiers about both the war itself, as well as the Soviet government, exploring the political implications of the war’s musical memorialization.
ContributorsBellard, Alex (Author) / Schmelz, Peter (Thesis director) / Stoff, Laurie (Thesis director, Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05