We introduce the first open-domain dataset, called QuaRTz, for reasoning about textual qualitative relationships. QuaRTz contains general qualitative statements, e.g., "A sunscreen with a higher SPF protects the skin longer.", twinned with 3864 crowdsourced situated questions, e.g., "Billy is wearing sunscreen with a lower SPF than Lucy. Who will be best protected from the sun?", plus annotations of the properties being compared. Unlike previous datasets, the general knowledge is textual and not tied to a fixed set of relationships, and tests a system's ability to comprehend and apply textual qualitative knowledge in a novel setting. We find state-of-the-art results are substantially (20%) below human performance, presenting an open challenge to the NLP community.

Although there are designers who claim design is a mysterious activity not amenable to scientific examination, research into design continues Although there are publications by designers on how to design dating back to Roman times, notably by Vitruvius, the nineteenthcentury design thinkers actually began work on articulating design as a process (Durand 1802). However, it was not until the 1960s that major research programs were initiated. These programs were originally founded on the systems view and used concepts from operations research (Jones and Thornley 1963). More recently, information-processing models founded on AI concepts have provided an impetus for renewed research into design in its various aspects (Simon 1969; Coyne et al. 1990). Many foundational ideas in AI are proving to be useful in developing formal models of design as an activity.