Grouping Synonyms by Definitions

We present a method for grouping the synonyms of a lemma according to its dictionary senses. The senses are defined by a large machine readable dictionary for French, the TLFi (Tr\'esor de la langue fran\c{c}aise informatis\'e) and the synonyms are given by 5 synonym dictionaries (also for French). To evaluate the proposed method, we manually constructed a gold standard where for each (word, definition) pair and given the set of synonyms defined for that word by the 5 synonym dictionaries, 4 lexicographers specified the set of synonyms they judge adequate. While inter-annotator agreement ranges on that task from 67% to at best 88% depending on the annotator pair and on the synonym dictionary being considered, the automatic procedure we propose scores a precision of 67% and a recall of 71%. The proposed method is compared with related work namely, word sense disambiguation, synonym lexicon acquisition and WordNet construction

Dual Inflation Under the Currency Board: The Challenges of Bulgarian EU Accession

The importance of analysing inflation sources and dynamics in Bulgaria is imposed by (i) the long run process of price and inflation convergence to the Euro area and (ii) by the Currency Board operating in the country. In this study we make an attempt to estimate Balassa - Samuelson (BS) effect in Bulgaria (after the introduction of the Currency Board). The BS explanation of inflation (or dual inflation) has acquired both academic recognition and popularity in practice in the recent years. The results of our empirical estimation do not provide a robust verification of the existence of BS effect in spite of the observed prerequisites and the accompanying economic indicators interrelations. Actually there are several factors that interfere with the BS effect lying in the wage convergence process in both sectors and others that influence productivity developments in the sectors. This prompts that the price movement in the country has other driving motions – above all wage setting and incomplete price liberalization, other factors productivity, imported inflation (pass trough) and inflation generated by the temporary gaps between money demand and money supply.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39872/3/wp487.pd

Do Government Policies Foster Environmental Performance of Enterprises from CEE Region?

In recent years, EU countries, including these from the Central Eastern European (CEE) region has recognised, that eco-innovation should be treated as strategic priority of their economies. The aim of this paper is to present a cross-country analysis of the connection between eco-innovation and its main drivers within firms from selected CEE countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania) and Germany. The empirical part is based on micro-data for Community Innovation Survey (CIS) 2006-2008. Based on the results of stepwise regression between main policy actions sustaining innovation activity and eco-innovation performance we can conclude, that financial support for innovation activities has a rather limited role in promoting eco-innovation. At the same time enterprises from the CEE region regard environmental regulations as the most important drivers of eco-innovation. In Germany, a country ranked in the highest category in the Eco-Innovation Scoreboard, the variety of forces that influence eco-innovation is much more wide-ranging. This indicates that government actions should take a broader look and lay the more general bases fostering the model of a green growth

Identifying Syntactic Patterns in Croatian WordNet Synset Definitions

The paper presents syntactic pattern definitions designed for Croatian WordNet in order to create unambiguous and consistent synset definitions. The rules are implemented in form of finite-state transducers and tested on already existing version of Croatian WordNet. Results are presented using standard evaluation measures

The influence of Sofia's destination image on satisfaction, intention to recommend, and post-visit intentions towards Bulgarian products: Does unique image matter?

This thesis is studying the destination image of an emerging tourist destination – Sofia, Bulgaria. The city’s number of foreign tourists has increased with 18 per cent in 2017. As destination image has been proven to be an important factor influencing significantly both pre-visit and post-visit intentions, the city is in pressing need to create a strong image in tourists’ minds. Based on previous literature, a conceptual model investigating the relationships between the different components of destination image, tourism satisfaction, intention to recommend, and post-visit intentions towards Bulgarian products was proposed and tested. Destination image was studied with three components – cognitive, affective, and unique. The latter has been often overlooked in previous studies and there is not much clarity about its conceptualization and measurement. This study provides more information about the concept but it also proposes a new method of measuring it through text-mining of user-generated blog posts. A questionnaire was distributed to 314 foreign visitors of Sofia. The data analysis methods included descriptive statistics, principal component analysis, and multiple linear regressions. The results reveal that the unique image has a significant influence on all constructs, however, it is the affective which has the strongest impact. Moreover, the traditional affective image has the strongest influence on overall image and tourism satisfaction, which in turns has the strongest impact on traditional word-of-mouth. Cognitive image has influence on all constructs except on electronic word-of-mouth. Finally, post-visit intentions towards Bulgarian products are influenced by all variables, with the exception of tourism satisfaction.Esta tese tem como objetivo estudar a imagem de um destino turístico emergente - Sofia, Bulgária. Dado que o número de turistas estrangeiros na cidade aumentou 18% em 2017 e sendo a imagem de um destino considerada um fator importante na influência das intenções de pré-visita e pós-visita, Sofia necessita de criar uma imagem forte na mente dos turistas. Um modelo conceptual, que investiga as relações entre as diferentes componentes da imagem, a satisfação do turista, a intenção de recomendar e as intenções pós-visita face aos produtos búlgaros, foi proposto e testado. A imagem do destino foi estudada com três componentes - cognitiva, afetiva e única. Esta última tem sido muitas vezes ignorada na literatura e não há muita clareza sobre a sua conceptualização e medição. Este tese fornece mais informações sobre este construto, mas também propõe um método para a sua medição através da extração de textos de posts gerados por utilizadores de blogs. Aplicou-se um questionário a 314 turistas de Sofia. Os métodos de análise centraram-se em análises de componentes principais e regressões lineares múltiplas. Os resultados revelam que a imagem única influencia todos os construtos, no entanto, é a afetiva que tem o impacto mais forte. Além disso, a imagem afetiva tradicional tem a maior influência na imagem geral e na satisfação, o que, por sua vez, tem o impacto mais forte na WOM. A imagem cognitiva influencia todos os construtos, exceto eWOM. Finalmente, as intenções pós-visita aos produtos búlgaros são influenciadas por todas as variáveis, com exceção da satisfação