Few-Shot and Zero-Shot Learning for Historical Text Normalization

Historical text normalization often relies on small training datasets. Recent work has shown that multi-task learning can lead to significant improvements by exploiting synergies with related datasets, but there has been no systematic study of different multi-task learning architectures. This paper evaluates 63~multi-task learning configurations for sequence-to-sequence-based historical text normalization across ten datasets from eight languages, using autoencoding, grapheme-to-phoneme mapping, and lemmatization as auxiliary tasks. We observe consistent, significant improvements across languages when training data for the target task is limited, but minimal or no improvements when training data is abundant. We also show that zero-shot learning outperforms the simple, but relatively strong, identity baseline.Comment: Accepted at DeepLo-201

Applying the Transformer to Character-level Transduction

The transformer has been shown to outperform recurrent neural network-based sequence-to-sequence models in various word-level NLP tasks. Yet for character-level transduction tasks, e.g. morphological inflection generation and historical text normalization, there are few works that outperform recurrent models using the transformer. In an empirical study, we uncover that, in contrast to recurrent sequence-to-sequence models, the batch size plays a crucial role in the performance of the transformer on character-level tasks, and we show that with a large enough batch size, the transformer does indeed outperform recurrent models. We also introduce a simple technique to handle feature-guided character-level transduction that further improves performance. With these insights, we achieve state-of-the-art performance on morphological inflection and historical text normalization. We also show that the transformer outperforms a strong baseline on two other character-level transduction tasks: grapheme-to-phoneme conversion and transliteration.Comment: EACL 202

Povojni urbanizem ob sporni meji: Nekaj opažanj o Kopru/Capodistria in Trstu/ Trieste

The article presents observations from recent architectural historical research on the post-war construction of Slovene coastal towns. The urban planning concepts that formed the “Slovenian Coast” and followed the migration processes are explored. The solutions for the Slovenian Coast are compared with contemporary urban plans for Trieste, set in a larger historical framework. Certain interventions in “ethnically pure” locations (new settlements called ‘borghi’ on the Karst boundary surrounding Trieste; new construction in the Venetian core of Capodistria) are highlighted, and approaches in the design of new urban areas and two symbolic spaces of representations on both sides of the border are compared.Prispevek predstavlja opažanja iz nedavne arhitekturnozgodovinske raziskave o povojni izgradnji slovenskih obmorskih mest. Osredotoča se na urbanistične koncepte, s katerimi je bila oblikovana »slovenska obala« in ki so spremljali proces migracij. Rešitve na slovenski strani so z ozirom na širši zgodovinski okvir primerjane s sočasnimi urbanističnimi načrti za Trst. Poudarjeni so izbrani posegi v »etnično čiste« lokacije (ezulski borghi na tržaškem kraškem robu; pozidava beneškega Kopra), hkrati pa primerjani pristopi v oblikovanju novih mestnih predelov ter dveh simbolnih prostorov reprezentacij na obeh straneh meje

Varieties of capitalism or variegated state capitalism? East Germany and Yugoslavia in comparative perspective

Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). This essay is a contribution to comparative capitalism studies. We begin with a critique of the ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ school, before presenting the ‘variegated’ alternative. We note difficulties of both schools in characterising statist challengers to the dominant market order. The rise of China has made this a pressing issue, one that raises questions: Is China capitalist, and since when? And how should one analyse the communist world, which has since the 1920s represented a substantial swathe of the global economy? We next present an account of capitalism that explains étatiste variants as the product of late development, and the ‘communist’ economies as a state-capitalist model geared to catch-up industrialisation. This obliges us to consider how to account for their differences. In the second half we take up this challenge, via comparative analysis of two state-capitalist economies: the GDR (representing the orthodox Soviet model) and Yugoslavia (a maverick, market-friendly variant)

Koncept ekonomske ovisnosti prema MOR-u u slovenskom radnom pravu

The objective of this article is to highlight the phenomenon of economic dependence inasmuch as it has been established in various publications of the ILO to be an element of the personal scope of national labour legislation. Following the example of Spain, in Slovenia the concept of economic dependence has been a part of labour legislation since 2013. In addition to providing an outline of the legislation in force, the author identifies various weaknesses of the regulation in practice that have become apparent since the implementation of the institution of economic dependence. The author critically calls attention to the identified weaknesses and offers possible alternatives for consideration. Regardless of the fact that the author in principle agrees that economic dependence is recognised as an element that justifies limited labour law protection of economic dependents, he expresses reservations regarding the idea of the Slovenian legislature to adopt a special act regulating the position of economic dependents.Slovensko tržište rada već dulje karakterizira činjenica da se radi izvršenja osobnog rada sklapaju ugovori građanskog, obveznog prava. To nije samo po sebi protuzakonito, no povlači određene rizike. Ugovor o radu najprikladniji je i u Republici Sloveniji jedini valjani pravni temelj za obavljanje osobnog, ovisnog i dugotrajnog rada. Svaki osobni rad, naravno, nije ovisan te stoga u odsutnosti elementa osobne podređenosti građansko pravo može biti sasvim odgovarajući i zakonit temelj. Jedan od oblika takvog rada je rad u okolnostima tzv. ekonomske ovisnosti. Riječ je o obliku rada koji uređuje Zakon o delovnih razmerjih (Zakon o radnim odnosima) i koji se temelji na građanskopravnom ugovoru. Pritom je bitno obratiti pozornost na pravni položaj ekonomski ovisne osobe u svjetlu standarda MOR-a, koji jasno upozoravaju na mogućnost prekarnog odnosa. Čimbenici koji mogu dovesti do prekarnog odnosa su nesigurnost zaposlenja, nesigurnost prihoda, radno vrijeme, sigurnost i zaštita na radu, nedostatno socijalno osiguranje, obučenost te reprezentativnost. Radi smanjenja rizika od prekarnog rada potrebne su izmjene radnog zakonodavstva. Pritom bi trebalo uzeti u obzir barem sljedeće: a) jasnije definirati pojam ekonomske ovisnosti radi lakšeg i preciznijeg razgraničenja prema radnopravnom odnosu; b) ispitati prikladnost postojećeg modela ekonomske ovisnosti i istražiti moguće alternative; c) eksplicitno propisati stvarnu nadležnost radnopravnih sudova glede ekonomske ovisnosti