On embedded implicatures

The Gricean approach explains implicatures by assumptions about the pragmatics of entire utterances. The phenomenon of embedded implicatures remains a challenge for this approach since in such cases apparently implicatures contribute to the truth-conditional content of constituents smaller than utterances. In this paper, I investigate three areas where embedded implicatures seem to differ from implicatures at the utterance level: optionality, epistemic status, and implicated presuppositions. I conclude that the differences between the two kinds of implicatures justify an approach that maintains Gricean assumptions at the utterance level, and assumes a special operator for embedded implicatures

Using COTS Search Engines and Custom Query Strategies at CLEF

This paper presents a system for bilingual information retrieval using commercial off-the-shelf search engines (COTS). Several custom query construction, expansion and translation strategies are compared. We present the experiments and the corresponding results for the CLEF 2004 event

Constrained Query Answering

Traditional answering methods evaluate queries only against positive and definite knowledge expressed by means of facts and deduction rules. They do not make use of negative, disjunctive or existential information. Negative or indefinite knowledge is however often available in knowledge base systems, either as design requirements, or as observed properties. Such knowledge can serve to rule out unproductive subexpressions during query answering. In this article, we propose an approach for constraining any conventional query answering procedure with general, possibly negative or indefinite formulas, so as to discard impossible cases and to avoid redundant evaluations. This approach does not impose additional conditions on the positive and definite knowledge, nor does it assume any particular semantics for negation. It adopts that of the conventional query answering procedure it constrains. This is achieved by relying on meta-interpretation for specifying the constraining process. The soundness, completeness, and termination of the underlying query answering procedure are not compromised. Constrained query answering can be applied for answering queries more efficiently as well as for generating more informative, intensional answers

A Stronger Bell Argument for Quantum Non-Locality

It is widely accepted that the violation of Bell inequalities excludes local theories of the quantum realm. This paper presents a stronger Bell argument which even forbids certain non-local theories. The remaining non-local theories, which can violate Bell inequalities, are characterised by the fact that at least one of the outcomes in some sense probabilistically depends both on its distant as well as on its local parameter. While this is not to say that parameter dependence in the usual sense necessarily holds, it shows that the received analysis of quantum non-locality as “outcome dependence or parameter dependence” is deeply misleading about what the violation of Bell inequalities implies

Phylogeny and historical biogeography of Lauraceae

Phylogenetic relationships among 122 species of Lauraceae representing 44 of the 55 currently recognized genera are inferred from sequence variation in the chloroplast and nuclear genomes. The trnL-trnF, trnT-trnL, psbA-trnH, and rpll6 regions of cpDNA, and the 5' end of 26S rDNA resolved major lineages, while the ITS/5.8S region of rDNA resolved a large terminal lade. The phylogenetic estimate is used to assess morphology-based views of relationships and, with a temporal dimension added, to reconstruct the biogeographic history of the family. Results suggest Lauraceae radiated when trans-Tethyean migration was relatively easy, and basal lineages are established on either Gondwanan or Laurasian terrains by the Late Cretaceous. Most genera with Gondwanan histories place in Cryptocaryeae, but a small group of South American genera, the Chlorocardium-Mezilauruls lade, represent a separate Gondwanan lineage. Caryodaphnopsis and Neocinnamomum may be the only extant representatives of the ancient Lauraceae flora docu- mented in Mid- to Late Cretaceous Laurasian strata. Remaining genera place in a terminal Perseeae-Laureae lade that radiated in Early Eocene Laurasia. Therein, non-cupulate genera associate as the Persea group, and cupuliferous genera sort to Laureae of most classifications or Cinnamomeae sensu Kostermans. Laureae are Laurasian relicts in Asia. The Persea group and Cinnamomum group (of Cinnamomeae) show tropical amphi-Pacific disjunctions here credited to disruption of boreotropical ranges by Eocene-Oligocene climatic cooling. The Ocotea complex accommodates re- maining Cinnamomeae and shows a trans-Atlantic disjunction possibly derived from a Madrean-Tethyan ancestral distribution. These findings support Laurasian ancestry for most extant Lauraceae, with their considerable neotropical representation primarily derived from Early Miocene radiation of the Ocotea complex upon reaching South America

Psychological 'Conflict Mapping' in Bosnia & Hercegovina: Case Study, Critique and the Renegotiation Theory

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