Centering in-the-large: Computing referential discourse segments

We specify an algorithm that builds up a hierarchy of referential discourse segments from local centering data. The spatial extension and nesting of these discourse segments constrain the reachability of potential antecedents of an anaphoric expression beyond the local level of adjacent center pairs. Thus, the centering model is scaled up to the level of the global referential structure of discourse. An empirical evaluation of the algorithm is supplied.Comment: LaTeX, 8 page

Enlargement: The Challenge of Migration from the New Member States

Wirtschaftsintegration, EU-Erweiterung, Wirtschaftspolitik, Mobilität, Europäische Wirtschafts- und Währungsunion, Economic integration, EU enlargement, Economic policy, Mobility, European Economic and Monetary Union

Use Generalized Representations, But Do Not Forget Surface Features

Only a year ago, all state-of-the-art coreference resolvers were using an extensive amount of surface features. Recently, there was a paradigm shift towards using word embeddings and deep neural networks, where the use of surface features is very limited. In this paper, we show that a simple SVM model with surface features outperforms more complex neural models for detecting anaphoric mentions. Our analysis suggests that using generalized representations and surface features have different strength that should be both taken into account for improving coreference resolution.Comment: CORBON workshop@EACL 201

Lexical Features in Coreference Resolution: To be Used With Caution

Lexical features are a major source of information in state-of-the-art coreference resolvers. Lexical features implicitly model some of the linguistic phenomena at a fine granularity level. They are especially useful for representing the context of mentions. In this paper we investigate a drawback of using many lexical features in state-of-the-art coreference resolvers. We show that if coreference resolvers mainly rely on lexical features, they can hardly generalize to unseen domains. Furthermore, we show that the current coreference resolution evaluation is clearly flawed by only evaluating on a specific split of a specific dataset in which there is a notable overlap between the training, development and test sets.Comment: 6 pages, ACL 201

Complementarity of Innovation Policies in the Brazilian Industry: An Econometric Study

The paper aims at assessing discrete complementarities in innovation policies in the context of the Brazilian industry in 2003. The paper considers the approach advanced by Mohnen and and Röller [European Economic Review, 2005] that focuses on supermodularity and submodularity tests for obstacles to innovation (in the present application: lack of finance sources, lack of skilled personnel, lack of cooperation opportunities and lack of information on technology or markets). The application avoids micro-aggregation of the data and explicitly considers sampling weights in the econometric estimation. The analysis highlights the two phases of the innovation process in terms of the propensity and intensity of innovation. The evidence, unlike previous evidence, is not totally clear cut in terms of contrasts of the two phases. Nevertheless one can detect some substitutability and complementarity for specific pairs of obstacles in analysing the propensity to innovate, and strong evidence of complementarities in obstacles when considering the intensity of innovation. In the latter case, therefore, the evidence is suggestive and favours the adoption of more targeted incentive policies.supermodularity, complementarities, innovation

Light Higgs Studies for the CLIC CDR

The Higgs boson is the most anticipated discovery at the LHC, which can only partially explore its true nature. Thus one of the most compelling arguments to build a future linear collider is to investigate properties of the Higgs boson, especially to test the predicted linear dependence of the branching ratios on the mass of the final state. At a 3TeV CLIC machine the Higgs boson production cross section is relatively large and allows for a precision measurement of the Higgs branching ratio to pairs of b and c quarks, and even to muons. The cross section times branching ratio of the decays $H\rightarrow b\bar{b}$, $H\rightarrow c\bar{c}$ and $H\rightarrow \mu^{+}\mu^{-}$ can be measured with a statistical uncertainty of approximately 0.22%, 3.2% and 15%, respectively

G20: dealing with too-big-to-fail banks, corporate tax avoidance, and development

Overview: This issue of the G20 Monitor addresses the ‘too big to fail’ dilemma of major financial institutions, combating tax evasion and avoidance through ‘base erosion and profit shifting’ (BEPS), and a report from the ‘G20 and Development’ conference hosted by the G20 Studies Centre and Griffith University. Key findings Systemic banking crises are rare, and their cost fades from memory, not least for policy-makers. The challenge is to establish a sensible trade-off between reducing the ex-post cost of TBTF, while minimising the ex-ante costs of doing so. A number of contradictions have emerged within the OECD-led push against Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) - the result of creative company tax strategies. These include: whether tax avoidance and evasion via international profit shifting and the use of tax havens is really all that new, how big the problem actually is, and what can meaningfully be done about it. The biggest contribution that the G20 can make to progressing the BEPS agenda may be in pushing for the ‘power of transparency in minimising aggressive tax planning strategies’

BPEmb: Tokenization-free Pre-trained Subword Embeddings in 275 Languages

We present BPEmb, a collection of pre-trained subword unit embeddings in 275 languages, based on Byte-Pair Encoding (BPE). In an evaluation using fine-grained entity typing as testbed, BPEmb performs competitively, and for some languages bet- ter than alternative subword approaches, while requiring vastly fewer resources and no tokenization. BPEmb is available at https://github.com/bheinzerling/bpem