RESUMO
Human communication often combines imagery and text into integrated presentations, especially online. In this paper, we show how image-text coherence relations can be used to model the pragmatics of image-text presentations in AI systems. In contrast to alternative frameworks that characterize image-text presentations in terms of the priority, relevance, or overlap of information across modalities, coherence theory postulates that each unit of a discourse stands in specific pragmatic relations to other parts of the discourse, with each relation involving its own information goals and inferential connections. Text accompanying an image may, for example, characterize what's visible in the image, explain how the image was obtained, offer the author's appraisal of or reaction to the depicted situation, and so forth. The advantage of coherence theory is that it provides a simple, robust, and effective abstraction of communicative goals for practical applications. To argue this, we review case studies describing coherence in image-text data sets, predicting coherence from few-shot annotations, and coherence models of image-text tasks such as caption generation and caption evaluation.
RESUMO
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Hillman Cancer Center Academy (Hillman Academy) has the primary goal of reaching high school students from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds and guiding them through a cutting-edge research and professional development experience that positions them for success in STEM. With this focus, the Hillman Academy has provided nearly 300 authentic mentored research internship opportunities to 239 students from diverse backgrounds over the past 13 years most of whom matriculated into STEM majors in higher education. These efforts have helped shape a more diverse generation of future scientists and clinicians, who will enrich these fields with their unique perspectives and lived experiences. In this paper, we describe our program and the strategies that led to its growth into a National Institutes of Health Youth Enjoy Science-funded program including our unique multi-site structure, tiered mentoring platform, multifaceted recruitment approach, professional and academic development activities, and a special highlight of a set of projects with Deaf and Hard of Hearing students. We also share student survey data from the past six years that indicate satisfaction with the program, self-perceived gains in key areas of scientific development, awareness of careers in STEM, and an increased desire to pursue advanced degrees in STEM.
