Integral equations PS-3 and moduli of pants

More than a hundred years ago H.Poincare and V.A.Steklov considered a problem for the Laplace equation with spectral parameter in the boundary conditions. Today similar problems for two adjacent domains with the spectral parameter in the conditions on the common boundary of the domains arises in a variety of situations: in justification and optimization of domain decomposition method, simple 2D models of oil extraction, (thermo)conductivity of composite materials. Singular 1D integral Poincare-Steklov equation with spectral parameter naturally emerges after reducing this 2D problem to the common boundary of the domains. We present a constructive representation for the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of this integral equation in terms of moduli of explicitly constructed pants, one of the simplest Riemann surfaces with boundary. Essentially the solution of integral equation is reduced to the solution of three transcendent equations with three unknown numbers, moduli of pants. The discreet spectrum of the equation is related to certain surgery procedure ('grafting') invented by B.Maskit (1969), D.Hejhal (1975) and D.Sullivan- W.Thurston (1983).Comment: 27 pages, 13 figure

Passive and Reflexive Categories in Languages of the Volga Region : An Areal Typological Study

All of the Volga region languages investigated in this study (Mordvin, Mari, and Chuvash) have a rich derivational morphology. In general linguistics terms, they all have a passive classified as a reflexive passive. The relationship between the derivative and the root verb is described using the valence roles of case grammar. The role of the first, or primary, actant is crucial in defining all the different meanings of the derived verbs in question. The main roles used to express the first actants are: AGENTIVE, ACTOR, NEUTRAL, EXPERIENCER, and FORCE. In Mordvin, passive sentences contain a special polyfunctional derivative suffix, -v-, which also renders the automative, reflexive, perfective and unintentional meaning, as well as dynamic modality. Besides the -v-, the rare and almost forgotten -t-, shares most of these meanings. Moreover, in many respects, these suffixes show parallel development. Contemporary speakers use these t-verbs to express unpleasant feelings and negative physiological states. t-derivatives can also be used to describe weather conditions as the only constituent part of a sentence, but this use is marginal. These two usages bring the t-derivatives close to the impersonal in the Indo-European languages. Furthermore, Mari and Chuvash have very similar suffixes, the reflexive-passive -ǝlt- or -Alt-, and the passive -l- and the reflexive -n-, respectively. Their passives do not permit an agent, and automative meanings are common, as are reflexives. My material proves that both Chuvash suffixes can have identical meanings. Interestingly, in all three languages, zero meaning occurs with intransitive root verbs. Finally, meteorological verbs in 14 Uralic languages were studied from a syntactic perspective. Some verbs have zero valence, others display a more or less semantically faded subject, while others feature an object. With causative transitive verbs, the prevailing restriction seems to be that either a subject or an object is possible, but both are not. Earlier, it was assumed that the sentence type V is Uralic, but according to my findings it is absent in some of the Samoyed languages and that the SV or VS type is more widely known. The introduction provides background information on the history of the Volga region and the many alternative ways of expressing passive and related meanings in the Uralic languages. An agent in a passive sentence is rare, and thus special attention is given to its expression. It seems obvious that the agent has been completely absent in passive sentences in the Uralic and Turkic languages. Many of these languages, however, have now developed an agent under the influence of the Indo-European languages. Furthermore, the construction with a dummy subject has started to spread and now occurs in the Saami and Finnic languages.Kaikilla tutkimukseen kuuluvilla Volgan seudun kielillä: mordvalla, marilla ja t uvassilla verbien morfologia on runsas lukuisine johtimineen. Myös niiden kaikkien passiivi on samaa tyyppiä, yleisen kielitieteen termein: refleksiivinen passiivi. Johdosten ja kantaverbien suhdetta on kuvattu sijakieliopin valenssiroolien avulla. Mordvan passiivilauseet muodostetaan v-johtimen avulla. Tällä johtimella on monia muitakin merkityksiä: automatiivinen, refleksiivinen, ei-intentionaalinen ja perfektiivinen, sillä voidaan ilmaista myös dynaamista modaalisuutta. Paitsi v-johdinta on mordvassa toinenkin, harvinainen ja miltei unohtunut -t-, jolla on melkein kaikki samat merkitykset. Monessa suhteessa näiden suffiksien kehitys on ollut rinnakkaista. Nykyiset mordvan kielten puhujat käyttävät t-johdoksia enimmäkseen epämiellyttävien tunteiden ja kielteisten fysiologisten tilojen ilmaisemiseen. t-johdoksia voidaan käyttää myös säätilojen kuvaamiseen jopa lauseen ainoana jäsenenä, mutta tämä on harvinaista. Nämä kaksi funktiota tuovat t-johdokset lähelle indoeurooppalaisten kielten impersonaaleja. Marilla ja t uvassilla on hyvin samanlaiset suffiksit, marin refleksiivis-passiivinen -ǝlt- tai -Alt-, t uvassin passiivinen -l- ja refleksiivinen -n-. Näiden kielten passiiveissa agentti ei ole sallittu, automatiiviset ja refleksiiviset merkitykset ovat yleisiä. Keräämäni aineiston perusteella molemmilla t uvassin johtimilla on samat merkitykset. Kaikista kolmesta kielestä löytyy lisäksi intransitiivisista kantaverbeistä 0-merkitys. Myös 14 uralilaisen kielen meteorologisia verbejä on tutkittu lauseopilliselta kannalta. Joidenkin verbien valenssi on 0, joten ne muodostavat lauseen yksinkin. Joskus subjekti on semanttisesti haalistunut, joskus objekti on läsnä. Usein transitiivisten verbien kanssa näyttää vallitsevan sellainen rajoitus, että vain subjekti (S) tai objekti voi olla läsnä, eivät molemmat. Aiemmin oletettiin, että pelkästä predikaattiverbistä koostuva lause (V) olisi uralilainen, mutta tutkimukseni paljastavat, että sen levinneisyys ei ulotu kaikkiin samojedikieliin. Sen sijaan tyyppi SV tai VS on kaikkialla tunnettu. Johdanto-osio valaisee Volgan seudun historiaa sekä uralilaisten kielten monia tapoja ilmaista passiivia ja muita sentapaisia merkityksiä. Erityistä huomiota kiinnitetään passiivilauseen agentin ilmiasuun. Nykyäänkin agentti on melko harvinainen sekä uralilaisissa että turkkilaisissa kielissä. Moniin niistä sellainen on kehittynyt indoeurooppalaisten kielten vaikutuksesta. Myös muodolliseen subjektiin verrattava vieraaseen vaikutukseen perustuva rakenne on alkanut levitä lännesta, sitä tavataan nyt saamelaisissa ja itämerensuomalaisissa kielissä

A Comparison of Online Slavic Valency Dictionaries

U radu se prikazuje pet mrežnih rječnika nastalih u svrhu opisa (glagolske) valentnosti u slavenskim jezicima. Uspoređuju se lingvistički i leksikografski opisi valentnosti te se ne razmatra njihova računalna osnova. Četiri mrežna valencijska rječnika (ruski FrameBank, češki VALLEX, hrvatski CROVALLEX i poljski Walenty) detaljno se uspoređuju s e-Glavom, mrežnim valencijskim rječnikom hrvatskoga jezika koji se izrađuje u Institutu za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje. Na kraju rada opisuju se slična i različita svojstva svih spomenutih rječnika. Rječnici se razlikuju odnosom prema svršenim i nesvršenim te povratnim glagolima, odnosom prema adjunktima (dodatcima), polaznom točkom u shvaćanju valentnosti (semantička ili sintaktička) te bilježenjem uže (obvezne, neobvezne dopune i dodatci) ili šire valentnosti (sintaktičke preoblike poput pasiva, recipročnosti ili bezličnosti).The aim of the paper is to compare the representation of valency in five online valency dictionaries of Slavic languages (the Russian FrameBank, the Czech VALLEX, the Polish Walenty, and two online valency dictionaries of Croatian, Crovallex and e-Glava). FrameBank, VALLEX, Walenty, and CROVALLEX are compared in detail with e-Glava and at the end all five online resources are correlated. The five dictionaries are based on various linguistic traditions, but despite that, some parts of their description are similar due to common features of slavic languages. Due to rich case systems, the morphological description is indispensable in these valency dictionaries

Learning narrative structure from annotated folktales

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-100).Narrative structure is an ubiquitous and intriguing phenomenon. By virtue of structure we recognize the presence of Villainy or Revenge in a story, even if that word is not actually present in the text. Narrative structure is an anvil for forging new artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, and is a window into abstraction and conceptual learning as well as into culture and its in influence on cognition. I advance our understanding of narrative structure by describing Analogical Story Merging (ASM), a new machine learning algorithm that can extract culturally-relevant plot patterns from sets of folktales. I demonstrate that ASM can learn a substantive portion of Vladimir Propp's in influential theory of the structure of folktale plots. The challenge was to take descriptions at one semantic level, namely, an event timeline as described in folktales, and abstract to the next higher level: structures such as Villainy, Stuggle- Victory, and Reward. ASM is based on Bayesian Model Merging, a technique for learning regular grammars. I demonstrate that, despite ASM's large search space, a carefully-tuned prior allows the algorithm to converge, and furthermore it reproduces Propp's categories with a chance-adjusted Rand index of 0.511 to 0.714. Three important categories are identied with F-measures above 0.8. The data are 15 Russian folktales, comprising 18,862 words, a subset of Propp's original tales. This subset was annotated for 18 aspects of meaning by 12 annotators using the Story Workbench, a general text-annotation tool I developed for this work. Each aspect was doubly-annotated and adjudicated at inter-annotator F-measures that cluster around 0.7 to 0.8. It is the largest, most deeply-annotated narrative corpus assembled to date. The work has significance far beyond folktales. First, it points the way toward important applications in many domains, including information retrieval, persuasion and negotiation, natural language understanding and generation, and computational creativity. Second, abstraction from natural language semantics is a skill that underlies many cognitive tasks, and so this work provides insight into those processes. Finally, the work opens the door to a computational understanding of cultural in influences on cognition and understanding cultural differences as captured in stories.by Mark Alan Finlayson.Ph.D

Knowledge-Driven Event Extraction in Russian: Corpus-Based Linguistic Resources

Automatic event extraction form text is an important step in knowledge acquisition and knowledge base population. Manual work in development of extraction system is indispensable either in corpus annotation or in vocabularies and pattern creation for a knowledge-based system. Recent works have been focused on adaptation of existing system (for extraction from English texts) to new domains. Event extraction in other languages was not studied due to the lack of resources and algorithms necessary for natural language processing. In this paper we define a set of linguistic resources that are necessary in development of a knowledge-based event extraction system in Russian: a vocabulary of subordination models, a vocabulary of event triggers, and a vocabulary of Frame Elements that are basic building blocks for semantic patterns. We propose a set of methods for creation of such vocabularies in Russian and other languages using Google Books NGram Corpus. The methods are evaluated in development of event extraction system for Russian

A Systems-Psychodynamic Exploration into GP Experiences of Current Changes in Healthcare Delivery

My research uses a psychosocial approach to undertake an exploration into general practitioners’ (GPs) experiences of current changes in healthcare delivery. Under the impact of the neoliberal paradigm and the challenges of running a general practice, GPs appear to have been retiring early, and it has been hard to recruit GPs for some years. At this time, when we are seeing an ageing population, increasing incidence of chronic comorbidities, and the development of clinical technologies, the biopsychosocial model of medicine has to contend with much complexity. Moreover, the nature of primary care is such that the business of general practice is also being challenged by the processes of commissioning, bidding and contracting required to sustain income and viability, with some practices joining together to form primary care networks in order to survive. All of these varying elements beg the question: what defines GPs’ primary tasks, roles and systems, and how might their motivation and identity be affected by this situation of clinical complexity and financial challenge in the healthcare context? Bringing in concepts from systems psychodynamics and organisational consultancy, this thesis considers both the doctor- and organisation-in-the-mind. Using a qualitative approach to explore these dynamics, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 12 GPs at different stages of their career, with different interests and responsibilities. Ten themes were identified as pertinent to the sample, to varying degrees: 1) the long-term patient relationships – dependency and intimacy; 2) identification with the role, and the GP surgery as a second home; 3) underpinning ethical value systems; 4) satisfaction in one’s role as a clinical GP; 5) the systemic leadership role; 6) being overwhelmed by the context; 7) a business-minded approach to the financial state of the surgery and context; 8) determining one’s own timetable; 9) one’s own family or illness as a motivator; 10) family aspiration as a motivator.Three major clusters of responses were identified, revealing three GP types with varying social defences and valencies for individual and group functioning. The neoliberal paradigm, together with managerialism, changes in funding methodology, the erosion of social support systems, an ageing population, advanced medical technologies and other issues, appear to have disrupted GPs status as the family-doctor-in-the-mind committed to caring for patients from cradle to grave. An increasing ambivalence about meeting the demands of patient dependency, and a turning away from the responsibilities of full-time partnerships in general practice, is an identifiable trend. In addition, my research identifies the alternative allure of entrepreneurial activity and engagement with both organisational demands and novel clinical pathways in the wider system of healthcare. Through the application of the metaphor of the periodic table, a hypothetical model is tentatively offered comprising the three GP types in order to consider not only the effect on individual GPs but also the possible impact on general practice as an institution

Automated Adaptation Between Kiranti Languages

McCloy, Daniel, M.A., December 2006 Linguistics Automated Adaptation Between Kiranti Languages Chairperson: Dr. Anthony Mattina Minority language communities that are seeking to develop their language may be hampered by a lack of vernacular materials. Large volumes of such materials may be available in a related language. Automated adaptation holds potential to enable these large volumes of materials to be efficiently translated into the resource-scarce language. I describe a project to assess the feasibility of automatically adapting text between Limbu and Yamphu, two languages in Nepal’s Kiranti grouping. The approaches taken—essentially a transfer-based system partially hybridized with a Kiranti-specific interlingua—are placed in the context of machine translation efforts world-wide. A key principle embodied in this strategy is that adaptation can transcend the structural obstacles by taking advantage of functional commonalities. That is, what matters most for successful adaptation is that the languages “care about the same kinds of things.” I examine various typological phenomena of these languages to assess this degree of functional commonality. I look at the types of features marked on the finite verb, case-marking systems, the encoding of vertical deixis, object-incorporated verbs, and nominalization issues. As this Kiranti adaptation goal involves adaptation into multiple target languages, I also present a disambiguation strategy that ensures that the manual disambiguation performed for one target language is fed back into the system, such that the same disambiguation will not need to be performed again for other target languages

Anglické nepředložkové protějšky českých předložkových frází s předložkami "v/ve" a "z/ze"

Diplomová práce se zabývá anglickými nepředložkovými ekvivalenty českých předložkových frází s předložkami v/ve a z/ze. Tento typ ekvivalentu se vyskytuje zhruba ve 20% případů (Klégr a kol., 2011). Práce ukazuje, že některé z divergentních protějšků jsou podmíněny lexikálně (rozdílná valence českého a anglického slovesa), zatímco jiné, systematické, souvisejí s odlišnou typologií češtiny a angličtiny. Systematické protějšky zahrnují především anglický lokativní předmět v iniciální pozici, který odpovídá českému příslovečnému určení, a anglickou premodifikaci substantivem proti české postmodifikaci předložkovou frází. Materiál pro analytickou část byl excerpován z českých beletristických textů paralelního korpusu InterCorp a jejich anglických překladových protějšků. Celkem bylo získáno přes 200 nepředložkových dokladů obou předložkových frází.The present diploma thesis is concerned with English non-prepositional equivalents of the Czech v/ve and z/ze prepositional phrases. This type of equivalent is found in approximately 20% of cases (Klégr et al., 2011). The thesis shows that some of the divergent equivalents are conditioned lexically (different valency of the Czech and English verb), while others, being of systemic nature, are related to typological differences between Czech and English. Among the systemic counterparts are particularly English locative subjects in sentence-initial position correspoding to Czech adverbials, and English premodification by a noun translated into Czech as postmodification by a prepositional phrase. Material for the analytical part was extracted from the "Core" of the parallel corpus InterCorp, consisting of original Czech fiction texts and their English translations. A total of more than 200 divergent counterparts of both Czech prepositional phrases was collected.Department of the English Language and ELT MethodologyÚstav anglického jazyka a didaktikyFilozofická fakultaFaculty of Art