Natural language processing is a difficult problem and is currently a technical barrier in building personal assistant agents that aim to interact with humans in natural language. One possible solution is to rely on humans to restrict or adapt their language into more computer friendly ways. We study the feasibility of this approach in the context of a personal assistant agent that parses email...

It is shown that there is a function g on the natural numbers such that a partial Steiner triple system U on u points can be embedded in a Steiner triple system V on v points, in such a way that all automorphisms of U can be extended to V , for every admissible v satisfying v > g(u). We find exponential upper and lower bounds for g.

M any of us envy and even view with awe the ease with which others write. Program directors and faculty educators often find writing to be uncomfortable, slow, and readily postponed. Yet with a dearth of useful information regarding successful, feasible, and affordable strategies to teach the next generation of physicians, educators must contribute to the national and international discussion. ...