Why is German dependency parsing more reliable than constituent parsing?

In recent years, research in parsing has extended in several new directions. One of these directions is concerned with parsing languages other than English. Treebanks have become available for many European languages, but also for Arabic, Chinese, or Japanese. However, it was shown that parsing results on these treebanks depend on the types of treebank annotations used. Another direction in parsing research is the development of dependency parsers. Dependency parsing profits from the non-hierarchical nature of dependency relations, thus lexical information can be included in the parsing process in a much more natural way. Especially machine learning based approaches are very successful (cf. e.g.). The results achieved by these dependency parsers are very competitive although comparisons are difficult because of the differences in annotation. For English, the Penn Treebank has been converted to dependencies. For this version, Nivre et al. report an accuracy rate of 86.3%, as compared to an F-score of 92.1 for Charniaks parser. The Penn Chinese Treebank is also available in a constituent and a dependency representations. The best results reported for parsing experiments with this treebank give an F-score of 81.8 for the constituent version and 79.8% accuracy for the dependency version. The general trend in comparisons between constituent and dependency parsers is that the dependency parser performs slightly worse than the constituent parser. The only exception occurs for German, where F-scores for constituent plus grammatical function parses range between 51.4 and 75.3, depending on the treebank, NEGRA or TüBa-D/Z. The dependency parser based on a converted version of Tüba-D/Z, in contrast, reached an accuracy of 83.4%, i.e. 12 percent points better than the best constituent analysis including grammatical functions

The differences in attitudes about their society between 14 year old pupils with and without an immigration background; a cross-national comparison

In this paper we analyze the attitudes of 14 year old children of first and second generation immigrants and their civic attitudes about (aspects of) the society of destination. We use data from the Civic Education Study conducted by International Educational Association (IAE) in 1999. This Civic Education Study tests civic knowledge, civic attitudes and civic participation of 14 year old students. We have five dependent variables in 11 countries: trust in government related institution positive attitudes towards immigrants, positive attitudes towards one’s nation of residence positive attitudes towards women’s rights and civic participation. 14-year pupils with an immigrant background had stronger positive attitudes towards immigrants, stronger negative attitudes towards women’s political and economic rights, stronger negative attitudes towards the nation of residence and less outspoken lower trust in government related institutions. Second generation pupils do not deviate less than first generation, neither pupils in more inclusive societies differ less.trust; immigrants; 14-year old pupils; cross-national analyses

How Has Religiosity Influenced the Restrictiveness of Marriage Immigration Policy in Serbia, Denmark, and the United States?

The following paper draws attention and investigates the impact of religion, specifically religiosity, on the development of marriage immigration policy in Serbia, Denmark, and the United States. In directly comparing between the three states, significant evidence suggests that religiosity has clearly influenced the restrictiveness of marriage immigration policy altogether. Whether indirectly or indirectly, through a defined politico-religious institution or a call to cultural religious tradition, the fact remains that religion presents a powerful force in influencing the restriction of marriage immigration policy. Whether through its concern for ethnic purity, cultural homogeneity, or sexuality, religiosity remains a powerful factor when discussing marriage migration policy that cannot be denied. The factor of religion places a heavy normative burden that calls for a constrained view of migration, suggesting that imposing restrictions on marriage immigration is the expression of a more weighted approach to the sanctity of the human condition

Influence of ultrasonic melt treatment on microstructure and mechanical properties of AlSi9Cu3 alloy

A novel MMM (Multi-frequency, Multimode, Modulated) ultrasonic (US) technology was used to refine the as cast microstructure and improve the mechanical properties of a AlSi9Cu3 alloy. Ultrasonic vibration was isothermally applied to the melt for 120 seconds at different temperatures slightly above the liquidus temperature of the alloy, using different electric power values, before pouring into a metallic mould. The microstructure of the cast samples was characterized by optical and scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectrometry. Ultrasonic vibration promoted the formation of small -Al globular grains, changed the size and morphology of intermetallic compounds and distributed them uniformly throughout the castings. Ultimate Tensile Strength and Strain were increased to 332 MPa and 2.9% respectively, which are 50% and 480% higher than the values obtained for castings produced without vibration. The microstructure morphology and the alloy mechanical properties were found to depend on the electric power and the melt temperature, and by using a suitable combination of these parameters it is possible to achieve high refinement efficiency by treating the melts in the liquid state

Physical modification of intermetallic phases in Al-Si-Cu alloys

The effect of applying ultrasonic vibration to the melt during cooling on grain structure, type and morphology of intermetallic compounds in AlSi9Cu3(Fe) alloy was studied, as well as their nucleation mechanism. Detailed intermetallics analysis was performed using a combination of SEM/EDS and XRD techniques in order to obtain the most possible reliable information. Results show that without ultrasonic treatment alpha-Al-17(Fe-3.2, Mn-0.8)Si-2, alpha-Al8Fe2Si, beta-Al9Fe2Si2 and Al2Cu are the intermetallic phases present in the as-cast samples. The application of ultrasonic vibration to the melt during cooling proved to be very effective in converting the alpha-intermetallics with Chinese script morphology to polyhedral crystals, suppressing at the same time the formation of the beta-phase. Moreover, the application of this treatment only changes the morphology of alpha-intermetallics since its stoichiometry remains the same (alpha-Al-17(Fe-3.2, Mn-0.8)Si-2). It was also verified that the application of acoustic energy to the melt promotes the change of alpha-Al grains from dendritic to a more globular structure. The ultrasonic treatment is also effective in promoting the fracture of polyhedral crystals of intermetallic phases, reducing their dimensions and causing their homogenous dispersion in the matrix.This research was supported by FEDER/COMPETE funds and by national funds through FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology on the aim of the research project PTDC/EME-TME/119658/2010 and the Post-Doctoral Grant SFRH/BPD/76680/2011.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A new approach to ultrasonic degassing to improve the mechanical properties of aluminum alloys

Ultrasonic degassing of liquid metals has been studied over the last years, but it has been limited to laboratorial scale experiments of low volumes of melt. In this work, the combined effect of acoustic cavitation with metal agitation induced by the mechanical vibration of the ultrasonic radiator itself was studied, using a specially designed low frequency mechanical vibrator coupled to the ultrasonic degassing unit. Liquid motion in water was characterized by high speed digital Photron-FastCam APX RS video camera and Laser Doppler Anemometry to select the most favorable US and mechanical vibrator frequencies to induce suitable water stirring. Selected parameters were used to degas 10 L of AlSi9Cu3(Fe) alloy. A suitable piezoelectric sensor was used to measure sound pressure at different distances from the sonotrode to identify the zone of higher acoustic activity. Results have shown that melt stirring significantly improves US degassing efficiency (since it is possible to achieve almost the aluminum alloy theoretical density after 3 min processing time) which contributed to increase the tensile properties of the alloy.This research was supported by FEDER/COMPETE funds and by national funds through FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and was developed on the aim of the research Project PTDC/EME-TME/119658/2010 and the Post-Doctoral Grant SFRH/BPD/76680/2011. Acknowledgements also to the University of Minho, for the provision of research facilities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Applying the Levenshtein Distance to Catalan dialects: A brief comparison of two dialectometric approaches 1

Abstract. In recent years, dialectometry has gained interest among Catalan dialectologists. As a consequence, a specific dialectometric approach has been developed at the University of Barcelona, which aims at increasing the accuracy of final groupings by means of discriminating the predictable components of the language from its unpredictable ones. Another popular method to obtain dialect distances is the Levenshtein Distance (LD) which has never been applied to a Catalan corpus so far. The goal of this paper is to present the results of applying the LD to a corpus of Catalan linguistic data, and to compare the results from this analysis both with the results from Barcelona and the traditional classifications of Catalan dialectology. 1

Influence of indirect ultrasonic vibration on the microstructure and mechanical behavior of Al-Si-Cu alloy

The influence of high intensity ultrasound (US) propagating through a steel mold on the microstructure and mechanical properties of die-cast AlSi9Cu3, for different levels of electric power and at different distances to the waveguide/mold interface. The influence of those parameters on the morphology of -Al and eutectic Si and on the volume of porosity were investigated and characterized. The morphological characterization revealed that the high intensity vibration not only promoted the formation of small -Al globular grains but also modify the eutectic silicon, as well as decreased the volume of porosity. Besides microstructure modification, US treatment improved the alloy mechanical properties, namely UTS and strain, which maximum values were 339 MPa and 2.9% respectively by comparison to the values obtained for castings produced without US vibration. A mechanism of eutectic Si modification based on theoretical-experimental analysis is proposedFCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologi

Josephson Coupling through a Quantum Dot

We derive, via fourth order perturbation theory, an expression for the Josephson current through a gated interacting quantum dot. We analyze our expression for two different models of the superconductor-dot-superconductor (SDS) system. When the matrix elements connecting dot and leads are featureless constants, we compute the Josephson coupling J_c as a function of the gate voltage and Coulomb interaction. In the diffusive dot limit, we compute the probability distribution P(J_c) of Josephson couplings. In both cases, pi junction behavior (J_c < 0) is possible, and is not simply dependent on the parity of the dot occupancy.Comment: 9 pages; 3 encapsulated PostScript figure

Post, Like, Share, Submit: Visual Control and the Digital Image (13 Theses)

Deleuze’s short essay on the societies of control has, one could say, infected thought on the present. Few serious reflections on today’s media society seem immune against the plausibility and evidence of Deleuze’s deliberations, not least because they use the force of abstraction to draw theoretical concepts from empirical facts, allowing for an anticipation of future developments without getting lost in details. Deleuze argues that a society whose media and technologies provide an apparatus of seamless connectivity and global scope has irreversible effects on the way we perceive, think, and create order. At the same time, the naturalization of these effects progresses via retroaction – making us forget it has ever been different. With his text, Deleuze stands in the midst of this naturalization and neutralization process: This may be why it is inevitably a “postscript” to the societies of control – it takes the artificial position of the “post” in order to be able to look at one’s own contemporary culture from an alienating distance, as Foucault once demanded for every description of the present (1999: 91). This “post,” then, by no means signals a retrospective look at a process already completed; instead, Deleuze gives an exaggerated account of the early digitization age from an artificial retrospective standpoint, which, ironically, will also have been one “after” writing