We introduce a reshuffled approach to empirical analyze signs’ organization in real directed signed social networks of Epinions and Slashdots from the global viewpoint. In the reshuffled approach, each negative link has probability prs to exchange its sign with another positive link chosen randomly. Through calculating the entropies of social status (Sin and Sout) of and mimicking opinion forma...

A marked graph is a graph with a + or − sign on each vertex and is called consistent if each cycle has an even number of − signs. This concept is motivated by problems of communication networks and social networks. We present some new characterizations/recognition algorithms for consistent marked graphs.

This work presents a computational model (XML) of the Brazilian Sign Language (Libras), based on its phonology. The model was used to create a sample of representative signs to aid the recording of a base of videos whose aim is to support the development of tools to support genuine social inclusion of the deaf.

The French Sign Language (LSF) was banned in 1880 from all teaching institutions. From then on, it continued expanding in an uncoordinated way throughout special schools. In 1991, a new French law allowed deaf people to choose a bilingual education (French and sign language), and since February 2005 each school is required to integrate every devoted child who wishes it, no matter his handicap ....

The notion of subject in human language has a privileged status relative to other arguments. This special status is manifested in the behavior of subjects at the morphological, syntactic, semantic and discourse levels. Here we bring evidence that subjects have privileged status at the lexical level as well, by analyzing lexicalization patterns of verbs in three different sign languages. Our ana...

Article history: Received 1 August 2007 Received in revised form 22 May 2009 Accepted 26 May 2009

Complexity has been linked to ease of learning. This article explores the roles of two measures of complexity – feature economy and logical complexity – in the acquisition of sets of signs, taken from a small sign language that serves as an analogue of plosive inventories in spoken language. In a learning experiment, participants acquired data sets that varied in feature economy and logical com...