End-to-end dialog systems, in which all components are learnt simultaneously,
have recently obtained encouraging successes. However these were mostly on
conversations related to chit-chat with no clear objective and for which
evaluation is difficult. This paper proposes a set of tasks to test the
capabilities of such systems on goal-oriented dialogs, where goal completion
ensures a well-defined measure of performance. Built in the context of
restaurant reservation, our tasks require to manipulate sentences and symbols,
in order to properly conduct conversations, issue API calls and use the outputs
of such calls. We show that an end-to-end dialog system based on Memory
Networks can reach promising, yet imperfect, performance and learn to perform
non-trivial operations. We confirm those results by comparing our system to a
hand-crafted slot-filling baseline on data from the second Dialog State
Tracking Challenge (Henderson et al., 2014a).

Source: http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.07683v2

There’s adversity and there’s the near-surreal run of misfortune the American freestyle skier has survived to make it back to the OlympicsTorin Yater-Wallace persevered through family tragedy, life-threatening illness and devastating injury to earn a spot on the US men’s ski halfpipe team in Pyeongchang, where he will make his second Olympic appearance starting with Tuesday afternoon’s qualifying runs (Monday night in the United States). In many ways, his life resembles the countless heart-wrenching but ultimately uplifting narratives that crop up around each Games. These poignant stories, which give mainstream audiences a sense of personal investment in sports they watch once every four years, typically follow the same formula: it starts with a dream, then talent and hard work are added to the mix before a heaping amount of adversity is introduced to heighten the drama. It’s an effective emotional hook, conditioning viewers to reach for the tissues with Pavlovian regularity each time those bellowing trumpets lean into John Williams’ familiar Olympic anthem. Related: Winter Olympics 2018: day 10 from Pyeongchang – live! Continue reading…

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/feb/19/torin-yater-wallace-freestyle-skiing

Ice dance, snowboarding, martial arts and a coach up a tree feature in our pick of the best pictures from today’s Winter Olympics action in Pyeongchang See the best photography from previous days Continue reading…

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2018/feb/19/winter-olympics-day-10-in-pictures

A Portuguese immigrant feels at home in New Jersey, but the fear of deportation and being separated from her children is paralyzingMaria, 39, recalls doing groceries on a frosty, northeastern afternoon in early December with her 12-year-old son. He stopped her as they walked through their neighborhood and asked: “Mommy, why can’t you get a car?” Continue reading…

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/19/undocumented-mother

‘This right now is the biggest issue in our country,’ said a student who survived the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shootingOne week ago they were high schoolers like anywhere in the country, studying for their end-of-year exams, preparing for baseball practice, for drama club, and the myriad other activities that typical teenagers like to embrace. Continue reading…

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/19/florida-shooting-students-push-gun-control

Tech Pitch: giftwaffles.com

Like crowdfunding but for presents, this clever online platform enables friends, family and colleagues to collaborate, contribute money and order gift cards…In Tech Pitch

Source: https://startups.co.uk/tech-pitch-giftwaffles-com/

Have you seen…
…the segment Amber Says What on Late Night with Seth Meyers? My friend Erin just introduced me to the hilarious Amber Ruffin, who recaps the week’s news and then adds “what?!” in different intonations.… Read more
The post Comedian Amber Ruffin Is Nailing It appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

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Next up in our best reader comments series, we’re happy to share 12 funny, wise thoughts on raising a family (including a grocery store hack)…
On pregnancy:
“We had two wonderful surprises, a girl and a boy.… Read more
The post 12 Great Reader Comments on Parenting appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

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