Knowledge Expansion of a Statistical Machine Translation System using Morphological Resources

Translation capability of a Phrase-Based Statistical Machine Translation (PBSMT) system mostly depends on parallel data and phrases that are not present in the training data are not correctly translated. This paper describes a method that efficiently expands the existing knowledge of a PBSMT system without adding more parallel data but using external morphological resources. A set of new phrase associations is added to translation and reordering models; each of them corresponds to a morphological variation of the source/target/both phrases of an existing association. New associations are generated using a string similarity score based on morphosyntactic information. We tested our approach on En-Fr and Fr-En translations and results showed improvements of the performance in terms of automatic scores (BLEU and Meteor) and reduction of out-of-vocabulary (OOV) words. We believe that our knowledge expansion framework is generic and could be used to add different types of information to the model.JRC.G.2-Global security and crisis managemen

Evaluating Tidal Flood Risk on Salt Farming Land Empirical and Methodological Insights from a Case Study in Northern Java

Coastal regions have been threatened by coastal hazards, including tidal flooding, in recent years. Many studies have focused on evaluating flood risks in urban areas because complete data is available. However, tidal flooding in data-poor rural coastal areas has hardly been discussed. In addition, there is still no consensus among academics concerning the development of methods to evaluate flood risk in rural coastal areas with different local set-tings, including agriculture, aquaculture, or even salt farming. Filling the re-search gaps on developing flood risk evaluation on data-sparse regions is cru-cial to support disaster risk reduction policies integrated with local economic resources. This dissertation presents an original approach in integrating a hy-drodynamic model, geospatial data, and a geographic information system (GIS) in the rural coastal area of Cirebon, West Java, Indonesia, with a salt farming setting. The study focuses on answering the central topic: Developing an initial model to evaluate tidal flood risk in a data-scarce region using geo-spatial data. Because limited data is available, the model developed must be able to be implemented in rural coastal areas that are subject to regular tidal flooding. The current thesis evaluates the tidal flood hazard through depth and duration factors. The physical vulnerability from natural science and engineering perspectives have been manifested through the so-called damage function. This study also presents detailed economic loss figures for each par-cel representing the risk level in different stages of production. Moreover, a comparison method has been implemented by multicriteria analysis (MCA) using an Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) to validate the flood risk model. This MCA-AHP process involves experts justifying all selected variables in the hazard, vulnerability, and risk analysis. The results reveal that tidal floods have affected rural coastal regions, especially in the salt farming area of Cirebon. The established hydrodynamic model has successfully identified the magnitude and distribution of tidal flooding for two events of 2016 and 2018 on salt ponds. This finding extends the utilization of the hydrodynamic model to simulate specific tidal flood events for rural coastal settings with restricted datasets. A synthetic approach using local information from farmers has contributed to the measurement of the expected monetary loss for these two former tidal flood events. This method is employed to construct a damage function that portrays a simple form of physical vulnerability of salt farming based on flood depth and dura-tion factors. The two tidal flood events studied represented the pre-production and harvesting periods had minimal economic impacts. Lastly, the multicriteria approach has also portrayed the risk condition of salt farming by using hazard and vulnerability parameters. With limited data available, this approach has successfully identified the tidal flood risk in salt ponds into the maps. The comparison of this parametric approach with the hydrodynamical approach has shown a strong statistical correlation that marks the relation between risk level and expected loss. However, there are some uncertainties from data input in the numerical hydrodynamic model and the subjectivity of the experts in the analytical process. The findings in this thesis can be converted to the advancement of cru-cial policy implications. The thesis has the potential to improve disaster risk reduction, specifically in salt-farming areas. The integration of flood risk maps based on hydrodynamic and multicriteria inputs can support the im-plementation of a targeted disaster risk reduction policy under data-poor conditions. Finally, the risk evaluation analysis can assist government policies targeting the increase of productivity of salt farming, such as the national Indonesian target of salt self-sufficiency, flood risk reduction via structural measures, mangrove conservation and integrated coastal planning policies

The transformation of domesticity as an ideology: Calcutta, 1880-1947.

This study of the ideology of domesticity among the Bengali Hindu middle-class of Calcutta between 1880 and 1947 problematises the relation between anti-colonial nationalism and domesticity by contextualising it in a social history perspective. The thesis argues that the nationalist domestic ideology of the class was not a mere counter-discursive derivative of colonial power/knowledge. Its development was a dialectical process; in it the agency of the live experience of domesticity, as the primary level of this group's reproduction of its class identity, material anxieties, status, and gender ideology, interacted with nationalist counter- discursive abstractions. This dialectic, the thesis argues, made the domestic ideology of the colonial middle class a transforming entity. Indeed, because of this dynamism, early nationalist essentialisations regarding domesticity disintegrated during the late colonial period (1920-1947). Anti-colonial nationalism, crystallised by the late 19th century, spiritualised domesticity as a part of an essential 'inner-domain' that was upheld in order to culturally exteriorise the 'materialist' colonial sphere. But this interiorisation and spiritualisation was not a one-way process in which lived domesticity was passively inscribed from above by a preconceived nation. While nationalist abstractions sought to 'recast' the home, the lived domesticity of the class, in its turn, inscribed its agency on nationalism by acting as the fundamental lived unit which was paradigmatically extended to imagine and order the middle- class-led nation. Given this dialectic, there was the possibility of the nationalist idealisation of the home changing if the lived situation of the class became substantially transformed. Contesting the ahistoricity of recent studies on nationalist domesticity, this thesis argues that such a transformation actually did come about in the period after the First World War. Under its impact, the dominant perception of domesticity changed, creating a discursive transformation that sidelined the ideology formulated in the late 19th-century. The spiritualist rhetoric disintegrated. So did the binary division that had projected the colonial sphere as the only 'outside' as against a harmonious 'inside' in which domesticity, community and the nation existed in an idealised continuum. Thus, a domestic ideology, that anti-colonial consciousness had deeply integrated with the class's self-justification and claim to 'natural leadership', disintegrated largely under pressure. Consequently, it left behind the deep imprint of some of its expectations in the middle-class consciousness. The disintegration thus generated a sense of disorientation rather than a liberating feeling for the middle-class majority on the eve of political independence

More or Less Refugee?: Bengal Partition in Literature and Cinema

In this thesis, I problematize the dominance of East Bengali bhadralok immigrant’s memory in the context of literary-cultural discourses on the Partition of Bengal (1947). By studying post-Partition Bengali literature and cinema produced by upper-caste upper/middle-class East Bengali immigrant artists, such as Jyotirmoyee Devi’s novel The River Churning (Epar Ganga Opar Ganga 1967, Bengali) and Ritwik Ghatak’s film The Cloud-Capped Star (Meghe Dhaka Tara 1960, Bengali), I show how canonical artworks have propounded elitist truisms to the detriment of the non-bhadra refugees’ representations. To challenge these works, I compare them with perspectives available in Other refugee writers’ texts. These include Dalit first-generation literates’ experiences, as described in Adhir Biswas’ memoirs Deshbhager Smriti (Memory of Partition 2010, Bengali), Allar Jomite Paa (Stepping on the Land of Allah 2012, Bengali), and Manoranjan Byapari’s autobiography Itibritte Chandal Jibon (Memoir of Chandal Life 2012, Bengali). As well, I examine the alternative bhadramahila’s ethos, as portrayed in Sunanda Sikdar’s memoir Doyamoyeer Katha (Doyamoyee’s Tale 2008, Bengali). This examination expands the knowledge of Bengali refugee identity in India beyond fixed bhadralok immigrant-produced stereotypes, in the interest of a more egalitarian and complex understanding. To develop this thesis, I consult literary, historical, filmic and sociological documents on the Partition, feminist theories, theory of affect and theories of trauma and memory. I situate my readings of bhadra and non-bhadra refugees’ artistic representations within major historical contexts – India’s Partition (1947), the Indo-Pakistan War (1965), the Liberation War of Bangladesh (1971), and the Left Front’s forming government in West Bengal (1977). Placed against these moments, the texts in hand record Bengali refugees’ migration to India in different phases, and their dissimilar post-Partition experiences. The Introduction outlines the origins of identity-markers bhadralok, chhotolok/Dalit and bhadramahila, observing the role bhadralok play in Bengal’s Partition, the exploitation of Dalits in communal conflicts and the East Bengali bhadralok’s resettlement in West Bengal. Chapters 1 and 2 analyse memoirs on Bengal Parition written from non-bhadra perspectives. Chapters 3 and 4 study mainstream oeuvres and identify their allegiance to bhadralok ideology. My research, thus, revisits and compares the affective accounts of refugee bhadralok with alternative texts

Early Bengali prose: Carey to Vidyasager.

The present thesis examines the growth of Bengali prose from its experimental beginnings with Carey to its growth into full literary stature in the hands of Vidyasagar. The subject is presented chronologically and covers roughly the first half of the 19th century. Prior to the 19th century there was no literary prose in Bengali. The period falls into certain clearly definable phases, the first phase begins in 1801. It seeds the cultivation of prose for the purpose of writing text-books and translations including the Biblical translations. This phase is associated with Serampore which was the headquarter of the Baptist Missionaries at the time and Fort William College where Carey worked as a teacher of Bengali and Sanskrit. The third and fourth phases belong to the newspaper which came into being in 1818 but there is an intervening phase which overlaps with the first and third and deals with the work of only one author, Rammohan Ray. The newspaper phases are divided into two because the first phase concerns the journalistic activities of many writers who are today unknown. Whereas the second phase of newspaper treats of journalists who are also writers of quality in their own right. The whole period from 1800 to roughly 1856 is the period of text books and of newspaper writing. Some authors wrote text books only, others were journalists but a number including the last and greatest Vidyasagar was both. The divisions into Chapters follows the phase framework outlined above. The first chapter sketches the history of Bengali literature prior to 1757, the social and literary conditions prevailing in Bengal during the 18th century, and the linguistic situation in Calcutta at the time the first experiments were being made in literary prose. It also presents a few specimens of the rudimentary prose prior to 19th century. The second chapter outlines the linguistic problems which confronted Carey and his colleagues. This chapter introduces the method of analysis which is applied to the work of individual authors in the later part of the thesis. The third, fourth and fifth chapters contain an analysis of the prose works produced by Carey, Ramram Basu, Mrityunjay respectively. The sixth chapter is devoted to Rammohan's contribution to the development of Bengali prose. The chapter seven treats of the beginnings of the newspaper and examines journalistic prose produced up to about 1830. The eighth chapter is devoted to the Sambad Prabhakar (1830) and treats particularly of the work of its editor Isvarcandra Gupta. The ninth chapter deals with the Tattvabodhini Patrika (1843). The works of its editor Aksay kumar Datta and of Debendranath, father of Rabindranath Tagore are examined in details. The final Chapter deals with the works of Isvarcandra Bandyopadhyay (popularly known as Vidyasagar) only. Contemporaries of Vidyasagar whose works belong to a later phase in the history of Bengali prose are omitted from the present examination. The analysis of prose presented in Chapters II to X treats of both their linguistic form and literary quality. The criteria adopted in the analysis are defined chapter by chapter as their application becomes relevant

The Digital Turn in Indian Film Sound: Ontologies and Aesthetics

My project maps film sound practices in India against the backdrop of the digital turn. It is a critical-historical account of the transitional era, roughly from 1998 to 2018, and examines practices and decisions taken ‘on the ground’ by film sound recordists, editors, designers and mixers. My work explores the histories and genealogies of the transition by analysing the individual, as well as collective, aesthetic concerns of film workers migrating from the celluloid to the digital age. My inquiry aimed to explore linkages between the digital turn and shifts in production practices, notably sound recording, sound design and sound mixing. The study probes the various ways in which these shifts shaped the aesthetics, styles, genre conventions, and norms of image-sound relationships in Indian cinema in comparison with similar practices from Euro-American film industries. I analysed nearly 60 hours of interviews I conducted with sound practitioners in India, examined trade magazines, online journals, the personal blogs of practitioners, technological literature from corporations like Dolby and Barco, and, as case studies, analysed the soundtrack of key Indian films from both the analogue and the digital eras. While my research clearly indicated significant shifts from the analogue to the digital era in India – increased stratification of sound recording and editing processes, aggressive adoption of multichannel sounds, wider acceptance of sync sound, the increasing dominance of the sound designer – it also revealed that many of the analogue era practices remain deeply embedded within digital era conventions. Moreover, technologies and practices from the Euro-American context have undergone substantial ‘Indianisation’ during the process of their adoption. I argue that digital technology, while reshaping deeply institutionalized practices of the analogue era, contributed to particularly radical changes in the practices of sound recording and editing in the digital era in India. While this dissertation is an ethnographic investigation of ‘living history’, it is largely informed by film sound theory, and seeks to achieve a balance between empirically grounded historical research and film theory

Of Myths and Modernities: Literature by the Christian Converts of Nineteenth-Century Bengal

Conversion to Christianity has never easily lent itself to visions of the Indian nation. Christianity in Bengal has been habitually read as an external stimulus which fostered the Bengal Renaissance, but ironically had negligible contributions in the internal struggles of the colonial public. Reading into the silences of this assessment has been used as an incentive in this dissertation. To this end, the literary production of the Hindu upper caste converts to Christianity has served as a case in point. The complicated socio-political location of theChristian converts—ostracized socially by the Hindu majority but privileged in terms of education and class/caste—in an age of political turmoil and vigorous social reform allows a unique entry point into the literary culture of colonial Bengal. Examining the English and the Bengali writings of the convert authors, this work makes a strong case for re-introducing the religious as a crucial axis of enquiry for studying entangled literary cultures

Proceedings of the SUPTM 2022 conference

This book includes the proceedings of the 1st international Conference on Future Challenges in Sustainable Urban Planning & Territorial Management celebrated on January 17-19, 2022. Urban planning is an essential tool in our global society's journey towards sustainability. This tool is as important as the territorial management to execute the plans. Both, planning and management, must be efficient to achieve the goal of sustainability inside the general framework of Sustainable Development Goals of United Nations. It does not exist any B planet so, identify urban & territorial challenges in our territories such reaching sustainable mobility, diagnose natural hazards and control land resource consumption is mandatory for our XXI century generation. Planning land uses compatibles with the ecosystem services of territory and manage them by public-private cooperation systems is a greatly challenge for our global society. Human activities do not have very frequently among their objectives to maintain ecosystem services of territory. Therefore, this field of research must help to guarantee the maintenance of natural resources, also called Natural Capital, necessary for social and economic activities of our global society. This conference aims to be a space to share research works, ideas, experiences, projects, etc. in this field of knowledge. We want to put in value that planning and management are subjects that include technological and social matters and their own methodologies. Laws, rules and cultures of different countries around the world are or can be very diverse. But the planet is only one. Technologies are shared, methodologies to analyze territories are also communal to share experiences about the global goal of sustainability, so these events are a necessary way to build our joint future. We trust that the success of this first edition of the SUPTM conference (which has been attended by more than 200 researchers from the five continents) will be an opening step towards international collaboration and the dissemination of knowledge that is so important in this field of urban planning and territorial management

Global Determinants of the International Movement of Production Factors: Economic-legal and Institutional Context

Scientific research is devoted to current problems of the influence of globalization on changes in the international movement of production factors in the 21st century. Considerable attention is focused on the economic, legal and institutional aspects of the transformation of the international movement of capital and labor in modern conditions, taking into account the need to apply an integrated interdisciplinary approach to identify new phenomena and processes that occur in the global economic environment The state and trends of development in the organization of global production, investment and marketing in the context of destabilizing phenomena in the global economy, the strengthening of non-protectionist appeals in the world avant-garde countries to return production to the national territory and the exacerbation of social and economic problems caused by international migration are revealed. The authors are looking for answers to difficult questions about the opportunities for small open economies to be attracted to global value chains through the format of investment and contractual relations, to increase the level of localization of international and national production through import substitution, to optimize the taxation of entrepreneurial activities in a liberalized international capital transfer, transform the national regulatory policy as a mechanism that ensures the possibility of taking into account the imperatives of globalization and contributes to the protection of national economic interests, ensure the development of fair competition as a prerequisite for the country’s integration into world economic processes