TwistBytes - identification of Cuneiform languages and German dialects at VarDial 2019

We describe our approaches for the German Dialect Identification (GDI) and the Cuneiform Language Identification (CLI) tasks at the VarDial Evaluation Campaign 2019. The goal was to identify dialects of Swiss German in GDI and Sumerian and Akkadian in CLI. In GDI, the system should distinguish four dialects from the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Our system for GDI achieved third place out of 6 teams, with a macro averaged F-1 of 74.6%. In CLI, the system should distinguish seven languages written in cuneiform script. Our system achieved third place out of 8 teams, with a macro averaged F-1 of 74.7%

Engendering Human Development: A Critique of the UNDP’s Gender-Related Development Index

This article reviews the literature critiquing the United Nations Development Programme’s Gender-related Development Index (GDI), which is a measure of human development penalized for the extent of gender inequality in each country; presents several original critiques of GDI; and presents proposed corrections to the GDI in response to both received and original critiques. Elizabeth Stanton is a researcher at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University.Gender-related Development Index; GDI; human development; gender disparities

News, Noise, and Estimates of the "True" Unobserved State of the Economy

Which provides a better estimates of the growth rate of “true” U.S. output, gross domestic product (GDP) or gross domestic income (GDI)? Past work has assumed the idiosyncratic variation in each estimate is pure noise, taking greater variability to imply lower reliability. We develop models that relax this assumption, allowing the idiosyncratic variation in the estimates to be partly or pure news; then greater variability may imply higher information content and greater reliability. Based on evidence from revisions, we reject the pure noise assumption for GDI growth, and our results favor placing sizable weight on GDI growth because of its relatively large idiosyncratic variability. This calls into question the suitability of the pure noise assumption in other contexts, including dynamic factor models.

Reforming the Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM): Some Specific Proposals

In 2005 and 2006, the Human Development Report Office undertook a review of UNDP’s gender-related indicators, particularly the Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). Background papers as well as the results of the process were published in 2006 (e.g. Klasen 2006a), and summarized in the Human Development Report 2006. Here we extend this work by adjusting and extending some of the recommendations made there, by making concrete proposals for the two gender-related indicators and by presenting illustrative results for these proposed measures. The most important proposals include the calculation of a male and female HDI, as well as a gender gap index GGI to replace the GDI, that can be interpreted more directly as a measure of gender inequality. Regarding the GEM, the most important changes are different ways to deal with the earned income component and also to replace it with a more straight-forward procedure to calculate the measure. As shown below, the ranking of countries are very different for the new measures proposed here, compared to the current GDI and GEM.Gender inequality measures, GDI, GEM, UNDP

Goal Driven Interaction (GDI) vs. Direct Manipulation (MD), an empirical comparison

Interacción'15, September 07-09, 2015, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain ACM 978-1-4503-3463-1/15/09. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2829875.2829892This paper presents a work in process about Goal Driven Interaction (GDI), a style of interaction intended for inexperienced, infrequent and occasional users, whose main priorities are to use a system and achieve their goals without cost in terms of time or effort. GDI basic philosophy is to guide the user about the "what" to do and the "how" to do it in each moment of the interaction process, without requiring from the user a previous knowledge to use the interface. This interaction style was introduced in previous work, where a description of its characteristics and the most appropriate user interface for it, were described. Those works included a methodology for the analysis and synthesis of the whole interactive process through a language of specification. This paper presents partial results we are collecting in real user testing, with the main aim of comparing GDI with direct manipulation interfaces (MD), nevertheless the most extended and commonly regarded as the most suitable for novice and experienced users.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Lack of peaceful resolution with Israel: economic cost for Palestinians

We propose to estimate the economic cost for Palestine and for Palestinian residents due to the lack of peaceful resolution with Israel. Thereto we make use of the consensus estimates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) of real growth rates of economic variables and of the nominal national accounts for Palestine over the period 1994-2006. We identify four periods: 1994-1999 with high real growth rates of gross domestic product (GDP) and of gross national income (GNI); 2000-2002 with a strong decline; 2003-2005 with a modest growth; and 2006 with a renewed decline. We derive the real national accounts (prices1999) for the end years: 1999, 2002 and 2005. It follows that over 2000-2002 the real GDP declined by 27.5%; GNI by almost one third; but that real gross disposable income (GDI) “only†declined by 11.3%; and that over 2000-2005 the declines were 13.8% (GDP) ; about 20%(GNI); and 2.9% (GDI), respectively. Consequently, in 2005, the year preceding the renewed isolation of Palestine, real GDP, GNI and GDI were still below their 1999 level. Based on the modest growth scenario of IMF and WB (3% real growth and 3% price increase) we estimate that over the period 2000-2002 the cost for Palestine, measured in terms of nominal GNI, was equal to the GNI of 1999 (5.5 billion US$), and over 2000-2005 to two-and-a-half times the 1999 GNI. Based on the same growth scenario, we estimate the loss for a Palestinian resident, measured in terms of nominal GDI per capita, to be 30% of the 1999 level by the end of 2002 and 25% by the end of 2005.Palestine;macro-economic indicators;economic cost